None of Cashman’s dozen or so patrons paid him any attention. And why should they? He wasn’t wearing his collar. He’d left that and his cassock back in his hotel room; he was now a thin, sallow, balding, gray-haired man in his fifties dressed in a white shirt and black trousers. Nothing at all priestly about him.
He turned to the solitary drinker to his left, a plump, red-faced fellow in a tour bus driver’s outfit, sipping from a glass of rich dark liquid.
“May I ask what you’re drinking, sir?”
The fellow stared at him a moment, as if to be sure this stranger with the funny accent was really speaking to him, then cleared his throat.
“‘Tis stout. Murphy’s stout. Made right here in Cork City.”
“Oh, yes. I passed the brewery on the way in.”
Michael had driven him through the gauntlet of huge gleaming silver tanks towering over both sides of the road on the north end of town, and he remembered wondering who in the world drank all that brew.
Vincenzo said, “I tried a bottle of Guinness once, but didn’t care for it very much.”
The driver made a face. “What? From a bottle? You’ve never had stout till you’ve drunk it straight from the tap as God intended.”
“Which would you recommend for a beginner, then?”
“I like Murphy’s.”
“What about Guinness?”
“It’s good, but it’s got a bit more bite. Start with a Murph.”
Vincenzo slapped his hand on the bar. “Murphy’s it is!” He signaled the barkeep. “A pint of Murphy’s, if you would be so kind, and another for my advisor here.”
When the pints arrived, Vincenzo brushed off the driver’s thanks and turned to find a seat.
“Stout’s food, you know,” the driver called after him as Vincenzo carried his glass to a corner table. “A couple of those and you can skip a meal.
Good, he thought. I can use a little extra nourishment.
He’d lost another two pounds this week. The tumors in his liver must be working overtime.
“Good for what ails you too,” the driver added. “Cures all ills.”
“Does it now? I’ll hold you to that, my good man.”
He took a sip of the Murphy’s and liked it. Liked it a lot. Rich and malty, with a pleasant aftertaste. Much better than that bottle of Guinness he’d once had in Rome. One could almost believe it might cure all ills.
Vincenzo smiled to himself. Now wouldn’t that be a miracle.
He looked at the faces around Jim Cashman’s and they reminded him of the faces he’d seen in Cashelbanagh, only these weren’t stricken with the bitter disappointment and accusation he’d left there.
It’s not my fault your miracle was nothing more than a leaky roof.
A young sandy-haired fellow came in and ordered a pint of Smithwick’s ale, then sat alone at the table next to Vincenzo’s and stared disconsolately at the rugby game. He looked about as cheerful as the people Vincenzo had left at Cashelbanagh.
“Is your team losing?” Vincenzo said.
The man turned and offered a wan smile. “I’m American. Don’t know the first thing about rugby.” He extended his hand. “Dan Fitzpatrick. And I can guess by your accent that you’re about as far from home as I am.”
Vincenzo shook it and offered his own name—sans the religious title. No sense in putting the fellow off. “I happen to be on my way to America. I’m leaving for New York tomorrow.”
“Really? That’s where my...home is. Business or pleasure?”
“Neither, really.” Vincenzo didn’t want to get into his medical history so he shifted the subject. “I guess something other than rugby must be giving you such a long face.”
He wanted to kick himself for saying that. It sounded too much like prying. But Dan seemed eager to talk.
“You could say that.” He flashed a disarming grin. “Woman trouble.”
“Ah.”
Vincenzo left it at that. What did he know about women?
“A unique and wonderful woman,” Dan went on, sipping his ale, “with a unique and wonderful problem.”
“Oh?” Through decades of hearing confessions, Vincenzo had become the Michelangelo of the monosyllable.
“Yeah. The woman I love is looking for a miracle.”
“Aren’t we all?” Myself most of all.
“Not all of us. Trouble is, mine really thinks she’s going to find one, and she seems to be forgetting the real world while she’s looking for it.”
“And you don’t think she’ll find it?”
“Miracles are sucker bait.”
Vincenzo sighed. “As much as I hate to say it. I fear there is some truth in that. Although I prefer to think of the believers not as suckers, but as seekers. I saw a village full of seekers today.”
Vincenzo went on to relate an abbreviated version of his stop in Cashelbanagh earlier today. When he finished he found the younger man staring at him in shock.
“You’re a priest?”
“Why, yes. A monsignor, to be exact.”
“That’s great!” he snapped, quaffing the rest of his ale. “And you’re going to New York? Just great! That really caps my day! No offense, but I hope we don’t run into each other.”
Without another word he rose and strode from Jim Cashman’s pub, leaving Vincenzo Riccio to wonder what he had said or done to precipitate such a hasty departure.
Perhaps Dan Fitzpatrick was an atheist.
‡
After a second pint of Murphy’s Vincenzo decided he’d brooded enough about miracles and unfriendly Americans. He pushed himself to his feet and ambled into the night.
A thick cold fog had rolled up from the sea along the River Lee, only a block away, and was infiltrating the city. Vincenzo was about to turn toward St. Patrick Street and make his way back to his hotel when he saw her.
She stood not two dozen feet away, staring at him. At least he thought she was staring at him. He couldn’t tell for sure because the cowled robe she wore pulled up around her head cast her face in shadow, but he could feel her eyes upon him.
His first thought was that she might be a prostitute, but he immediately dismissed that because there was nothing the least bit provocative about her manner, and that robe was anything but erotic.
He wanted to turn away but he could not take his eyes off her. And then it was she who turned and began to walk away.
Vincenzo was compelled to follow her through the swirling fog that filled the open plaza leading to the river. Strange... the lights that lined the quay silhouetted her figure ahead of him but didn’t cast her shadow. Who was she? And how did she move so smoothly? She seemed to glide through the fog...toward the river...to its edge...
Vincenzo shouted as he saw her step off the bulkhead, but the cry died in his throat when he saw her continue walking with an unbroken stride...upon the fog. He stood gaping on the edge as she canted her path to the right and continued walking downstream. He watched until the fog swallowed her, then he lurched about, searching for someone, anybody to confirm what he had just seen.
But the quay was deserted. The only witnesses were the fog and the River Lee.
Vincenzo rubbed his eyes and stumbled back toward the pub. The doctors had told him to stay away from alcohol, that his liver couldn’t handle it. He should have listened. He must be drunk. That was the only explanation.
Otherwise he could have sworn he’d just seen the Virgin Mary.
‡
The Judean Wilderness
Kesev sobbed.
He was still alive.
When will this END?
He’d tried numerous times before to kill himself but had not been allowed to die. He’d hoped that this time it would work, that his miserable failure to guard the Resting Place would cause the Lord to finally despair of him and let him die. But that was not to be. So here was yet another failure—one more in a too-long list.
The jolt from the sudden shortening of the rope had knocked him unconscious but had left his vertebrae and spinal cord intact. Its constriction around his throat had failed to strangle him. So now he’d regained consciousness to find himself swinging gently in Sharav a dozen feet above the ground.