The Fifth Gospel Read Online Free Page B

feels it out with his fingers. In a faint voice he says, “Where’s my pack of cigarettes?”
    â€œI threw it away.”
    The screen of my mobile phone says Sister Helena has called twice. Peter must be frantic with worry. But there isn’t enough service here to get a connection.
    Simon scratches his neck needfully.
    â€œWe’ll get you some when we get back,” I tell him. “What happened back there?”
    He breathes out the corner of his mouth, a plume of invisible smoke. I notice his right hand squeezing the top of his right thigh.
    â€œAre you hurt?” I ask.
    He shakes his head but readjusts himself to make that leg more comfortable. His left hand reaches into the other sleeve of his cassock, dipping into the French cuffs that priests use like pockets. He’s looking for cigarettes again.
    I turn the key. When the Fiat comes to life, I lean forward and kiss the rosary Mona hung from the rearview mirror long ago. “We’ll be home soon,” I say. “When you’re ready to talk, let me know.”
    He nods but doesn’t speak. Drumming his fingers against his lips, he stares toward the clearing where Ugo lost his life.
----
    WE COULD GET TO Rome faster driving elephants over the Alps. My father’s old Fiat is on its last cylinder, down from the original two. There are lawn mowers with more horsepower these days. The dial of the car stereo has rusted in place at 105 FM, Vatican Radio, which is broadcasting the rosary. Simon takes the string of beads off the mirror and begins to finger it. The voice on the radio says: Pontius Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, had Jesus scourged and handed him over to be crucified . Thosewords cue the usual prayers—an Our Father, ten Hail Marys, a Glory Be—and the prayers plunge Simon into faraway contemplation.
    â€œWhy would anyone rob him?” I ask, unable to bear the silence.
    Ugo had almost nothing worth taking. He wore a cheap wristwatch. Carried a wallet whose contents would barely have covered the train fare back to Rome.
    â€œI don’t know,” Simon says.
    The only time I ever saw Ugo with a wad of cash was after he’d traded money at the airport following a business trip.
    â€œWere you on the same plane home?” I ask.
    They’ve both been working in Turkey.
    â€œNo,” Simon says distantly. “He got in two nights ago.”
    â€œWhat was he doing here?”
    My brother glances at me, as if trying to sift meaning from gibberish.
    â€œPreparing his exhibit,” Simon says.
    â€œWhy would he have gone walking in the gardens?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    There are a handful of museums and archaeological sites among these hills, in the Italian territory surrounding the pope’s property. Ugo could’ve been doing research there, or meeting with another curator. But the outdoor sites would’ve closed when the storm came through, and Ugo would’ve been forced to find shelter.
    â€œThe villa in the gardens,” I say. “Maybe that’s where he was headed.”
    Simon nods. The voice on the radio says, Weaving a crown out of thorns, they placed it on Jesus’ head, and a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” The next round of prayers starts, and Simon follows it, leaving chips of dirt on the beads as they move under his thumb. He’s never been a fastidious priest, but he’s always been trim and tidy. As the mud dries on his skin, he stares at the spiderwebs of cracks forming in it, and at the flakes of dust stripped off by the rosary.
    I remember the two of us sitting just like this, shortly after Peter’s birth, on the night I drove Simon to the airport for his first posting overseas. We listened to the radio, watching planes swim into the air overhead, leaving contrails like angels. My brother believed that diplomacy was God’s work, that