The Book of Q

by Jonathan Rabb

  Pearse turned, needing a moment to refocus his attention. Unsure what he had just heard, he shook his head.

  In a slow, deliberate English—the accent pure Brit—the soldier repeated, “Your identification, Father.”

  “You’re English,” Pearse answered, pulling out the worn Vatican passport and handing it to the man.

  “Yes,” he replied, scrutinizing the papers. “And you’re not Italian.” After a few moments, he handed back the passport, a taut smile on his lips. “An American Vatican priest. Rather interesting. And what exactly are you doing here, Father?”

  Pearse tried to return the smile. He needed something that sounded convincing. “I was supposed to join a relief group in Skopje, but my plane was delayed. They told me to come here. I managed to get a lift to St. Nikita.”

  “A relief group?” The soldier’s smile widened. “We’ve plenty of those, Father. I’m afraid you’ll have to be a bit more specific.”

  With only a momentary pause, he answered, “The International Catholic Migration Committee.” It was the first thing he could think of, a dim recollection from a recent edition of L’Osservatore Romano that the ICMC was somewhere in Macedonia tending to the refugees. Pearse had to hope the Holy Mother was still by his side.

  The soldier sized up the priest. “You’re traveling rather light for a man on a relief mission.”

  “My bags are with the group,” he answered, once again allowing the words to spill out on their own. “My itinerary, my contacts. All I’ve got is my Vatican passport.”

  “I see.” A voice over a radio suddenly broke through, the soldier quick to respond. As he talked, he moved out of earshot, his eyes, though, never straying from Pearse. After several minutes, he returned.

  “May I ask what you have in the pack, Father?”

  Pearse shrugged. “A change of clothing. A few books.”

  The soldier reached out his hand. “May I? Security. I’m sure you understand.”

  Pearse nodded and handed the man the pack. He watched as the soldier tossed through it. He nearly flinched when the man pulled out the Ribadeneyra. He began to flip through its pages.

  “It’s … Orthodox prayers,” Pearse said. “I thought, perhaps, being in this region—”

  “Certainly, Father. I just have to check for anything concealed.”

  Pearse nodded again. The soldier moved on to his Bible. Again, a quick flip through. He then placed it inside, rezipped the pack, and handed it back to Pearse.

  “Terribly sorry about that, Father, but we’ve had a bit of a problem with … people trying to get inside.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “Yes.” The soldier smiled. “The ICMC. Nice chaps.” Again, he waited, then said,“Well, we can’t settle it out here. Hop in. We’ll see if we can’t find someone inside to straighten this out.”

  Grazie, Madonna.

  Fifteen minutes later, Pearse sat inside a Red Cross tent, awaiting the attention of a harried young woman behind a makeshift desk. It became readily apparent that a lost priest didn’t rate as a priority amid the constant flurry of activity. Pearse was more than happy to be viewed as an inconvenience, something to be shuffled along without too many questions.

  As he waited, his gaze settled on a mother and her two sons sitting on the ground, boys of about ten and twelve, the younger held close to her chest, the other long and lanky, his chin resting on two propped fists, a worn leather satchel in his lap. The mother had somehow retained her impressive bulk, her boys not so fortunate, the older with a face well beyond his years. He was at that age when the nose grew too full, the ears too wide, a man’s features on a boy’s face. Awkward for most, it seemed sadly fitting here. The boy caught sight of Pearse, stared for a moment at his collar, then at his boots. He then looked directly at him.

  “Koje ste religije?” asked the boy.

  Pearse was surprised to hear Serbo-Croatian. “I’m a Catholic,” he answered in kind.

  The boy nodded, then pointed to the boots. “Those are good for walking.”

  Pearse looked at his boots, then at the boy. “Yes. You don’t come from Kosovo, do you?”

  “Yeah, Kosovo. Medveda. In the north.”

  “Your Serbo-Croatian is very good.”

  A hint of a smile. “It’s a good language to speak now.”

  Pearse recalled the few encounters he’d had with Albanians eight years ago. All of them had spoken a second language. Often Serbo-Croatian. Sometimes German. Never English. “Are you a Catholic?” he asked.

  “No. Muslim.”

  “Then why did you want to know my religion?”

  The boy straightened up. “When the Protestant priests came to our village to tell us about Jesus, they had lots of money, drove nice cars. The Catholic ones were poor, told us that that was the way they were supposed to be.” Again he looked at the boots.

  Pearse understood. He glanced at the boy’s feet, roughly the same size as his own, his shoes with little life left in them. Pearse reached down, untied his laces, and tossed the boots across. “How about a trade?”

  Again, the hint of a smile.

  The shoes were a remarkably good fit, the patches of ventilation something he would get used to. “Do you know how long you’re going to be here?” Pearse asked.

  The boy shrugged as he rubbed at a scratch along the toe of his new boots. “We can’t go back to Medveda—at least that’s what they say. Wherever they send us, they want the whole family together. My grandmother and sisters were sent somewhere in Turkey. They’re not sure if they’ve come through here or not. And I don’t know where my father and older brother are.” He looked up. “Are you here to save people?”

  The question, laced with as much cynicism as a twelve-year-old could muster, stunned Pearse. He stared at the boy.

  For the first time since leaving Rome, he had no choice but to confront his own hypocrisy, a priest using his clericals as a means of deception. The boy, of course, had meant something entirely different. His was a disdain for the words meant to soothe a people trapped in a reality with no place for such gestures. Either way, the remark had the desired effect, Pearse forced to reevaluate his own intentions. People were dying here; worlds were being torn apart. Here. Where a priest should be. Yet the Manichaeans were forcing him to ignore that, disregard the one aspect of his calling he’d never questioned.

  “I don’t know,” he finally answered.

  From his expression, the boy hadn’t expected that response from a priest. It took him a moment to answer. “Thanks for the boots, Father,” he said, then nodded toward the desk. Pearse turned, to see the woman calling him over.

  He turned back to thank the boy, but the boots had already reclaimed his attention. More buffing. Something far more useful than a priest.

  Pearse stood and made his way across.

  At the desk, he realized the woman was still in the midst of countless other tasks. She pointed for him to take a seat. Another few minutes, and she finally turned to him. “You’ve been very kind to wait so patiently, Father.” Her English was tinged with a French accent, her tone genuinely apologetic. “Somehow, we’ve misplaced you, is that it?”

  “Actually, I’ve misplaced myself,” he said. “I’m supposed to be with the ICMC.”

  “Ah.” She turned to a pile of papers on the desk, then brought up a new screen on her laptop. As she sorted through it all, Pearse looked back at the boy. He had nestled himself into his mother’s side, eyes shut. Pearse watched, hoping to see even a hint of innocence slip across the face. None.

  “You’ve missed them by three days,” she said as Pearse turned back. She held a small folder in her hand, several stapled sheets within, her eyes fixed on the screen. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you where they might be with any accuracy right now.” She turned to him. “Is there someone we should contact, Father?”

  “Then where would I be the most useful?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Kosovo, Albania? Where woul
d I be able to help?”

  Her expression told him she wasn’t prepared to deal with an overly eager priest. “Help? Father … it’s not really a question of where—”

  “I’m sure one more pair of experienced hands, not to mention a priest’s presence, would be welcome somewhere,” he said, his tone firm, though not aggressive. “I was in Bosnia during the war. I know the region, the language, the people. There must be someplace where they could use me.”

  The woman continued to look at him. Two of her coworkers suddenly descended, each one spewing rapid-fire French, the woman drawn into the exchange, her frustration more and more apparent as the debate went on. When they finally moved off, she turned back to him, her focus elsewhere. “You want to go someplace you can help,” she said offhandedly. “Right.” She placed her hands on the desk. “Look, Father, it’s not our usual policy—”

  “I don’t imagine too much that’s ‘usual policy’ is going on these days. I don’t think I’m a threat to anyone.”

  “Of course not, Father. That’s not the point.”

  “And I was supposed to be with the ICMC.” He was actually beginning to believe it himself. “Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “It’s just that we can’t take responsibility—”

  “I’m not asking you to. I’ll be responsible for myself. I’m just asking where you think I could do the most good.” He could see she was beginning to teeter. “Or,” he added, “I could continue to pester you for the next few days or weeks or months, until you give in and let a priest do his job.”

  “I see.” A resigned smile inched across her lips. “Months.”

  “Months.”

  Her eyes narrowed; she began to sift through a pile of folders on her desk. “It’s only because I’m a Catholic, Father.” A moment later, she held up a single sheet in her hands. “There’s a transport of medical equipment going out to Kukes in an hour. They’re short one person.” He couldn’t be sure if her willingness to accommodate him had as much to do with his pleas as it did with the harangue from her fellow workers; he didn’t really care. Again, she looked up at him. “You’re sure you’re comfortable with this, Father? Kukes is—”

  “Far tamer than Omarska ever was.” The mention of the former Serbian camp stopped her short, a newfound respect in her eyes. “I was there in ’92. I think I’ll be able to handle Kukes.”

  She pulled out another file, asked him to sign at several places, then handed him a laminated card. “The truck will be at the west gate in an hour.” Before he could thank her, her two friends were back, more of the bluster. Pearse turned to go, the woman’s voice quick to stop him.

  “Father,” she said, now standing, leaning into him as she spoke. “I was wondering … I … haven’t taken confession since I got here….”

  Pearse smiled, aware of how long it had been since he had given it. “Of course. I’ll be outside.”

  He would do what he could in Kukes. Spend a day. Token assistance. But the recollection of Angeli’s voice told him it would be all he could afford.

  Two hours later, he sat across from a Red Cross official in the back of a truck, a young Indian doctor at his side. No one bothered to talk. The ruts in the road were seeing to that.

  Somehow, they even managed to dampen the sound of the exploding mine.

  “When?”

  Blaney stared at the paintings on the wall across from his desk. He hardly noticed them, his focus so completely trained on the voice on the other end of the phone line.

  “Yesterday. Around noon.”

  “And I’m only finding this out now?”

  “They thought they’d be able to pick him up again before—”

  “Before I found out that they’d lost him?”

  Silence on the other end.

  “We believe he made his way to Athos and—”

  “Of course he made his way to Athos,” said Blaney. “Even the cardinal knows that. The calls have been coming in since five this morning. And you’re sure he wasn’t hurt at the station in Kalambáka?”

  “Yes…. I was told he got up at once. No injuries. But, as I said—”

  “I know. No one was close enough to him at that point to be sure.” Blaney took a deep breath. He couldn’t let anger get in his way. “All right. We’ll assume he’s heading west. My guess is he’ll try for Bosnia, maybe Albania. He obviously knows the region. And he knows he can get lost in there. We just have to hope he makes a mistake.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “And I want you to get in touch with me the moment you make contact. No one else, this time. And no delays. Are we clear on this?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Good.” Blaney waited. “Then go in peace, my son.” He hung up the phone and turned to the woman standing by the door. “You say he sounded well, Gianetta?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “But you didn’t see him?”

  “No, not really, Father. Only from the window as he walked off.”

  “And he didn’t say why he wanted to see me? He didn’t mention a … something he wanted to show me?”

  “No, Father.”

  “All right,” he said. “Thank you, Gianetta. You may go.”

  She nodded, then left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Again, Blaney stared at the pictures. No injuries. At least there was some good news in that.

  Pearse had been lucky, a few bruised ribs, some lacerations, a twisted shoulder. The worst of it was the concussion. At least four or five days before the doctors at Kukes would let him go.

  The Red Cross man and the young Indian had also escaped relatively unscathed. The driver, however, hadn’t fared so well. He lay next to Pearse, a battery of tubes hooked up to his arms, little sign of life save for the slight rising and falling of his chest. The heat inside the tent wasn’t helping.

  It had been a day and half since the accident, Pearse only now able to focus his thoughts and prayers on the man for more than a few minutes at a time. Still, it was an improvement. It was also enough to get him out of his own cot; he stood. With his head pounding, he walked to the flap of the tent and stepped outside.

  What he saw made Blace look like a resort. Pearse could almost taste the stench with each intake of air, thousands upon thousands of bodies more animal than human everywhere he looked. During the war in Bosnia, he’d visited two or three such camps, nothing to compare with the sprawl he now encountered. Hundreds of small tents dotted the mud-filled pastures, patches of gravel here and there where ICRC engineers had tried to stem the drainage problems. The toilets stood in a row along a steep slope, gravity their best hope against blockage. Everywhere, webs of rope line stretched from tent to tent, clothes hanging from them, an open-air tenement at eye level. Pearse knew the drill. Nothing to wash with, save the rainwater.

  The town itself—bombed beyond recognition even a year after the official cease-fire—blended into the morass of canvas landscaping, the few remaining buildings given over to medical facilities. Even so, he was told that the spillover into the camp was beginning to take its toll, especially with the hot weather. Humidity meant flies; flies meant the threat of epidemic. A section of the camp had been isolated for several weeks, though never quarantined, family members insisting they be kept together. There was little any of the relief organizations could do to dissuade them.

  An hour walking. It was all he could handle his first time out.

  As much as knew he needed to get moving—Angeli’s voice never far from him—he also knew the doctors were right. He needed to take the time to recover. What they probably didn’t realize, however, was how much more they had given him.

  For three more days, as his head cleared, he did what he could, “Baba Pearsic” allowed again to act the priest. Women, children, old men—the latter in the familiar flat hats, wool jackets, and countless layers of clothing—all seemed strangely comforted by him, those who knew they wouldn’t survive the camp eager to talk with him. Not about God
or faith, but simply to talk. There were plenty of village hohxas wandering about, holy men to handle the more elaborate Muslim rites.

  At night, he managed what little sleep he could, trying to ignore the occasional screams within the camp, depravity, like a virus, having spread even to the hunted. It only sharpened his memories. No one ever talked of rape, he remembered. Not because it was a sin, or because it might be too painful for the women involved, but because husbands and fathers thought of its victims as abominations, forever unclean, no matter what the circumstances or who the perpetrator. Proof that barbarism played no favorites.

  It wasn’t all that difficult for the “Hodoporia” to slip to the back of his mind.

  On the fifth morning, he was in the medical tent, the driver still stretched out on a bare mattress. Pearse had been with him through the latest surgery and half the night. When the most recent dose of morphine began to kick in, Pearse stood and started for the next mattress.

  A voice from behind broke in: “I told you you could give absolution.”

  The words in English stopped Pearse in his tracks. Not sure if he had heard correctly, he turned. The face he saw nearly knocked him to the floor.

  “Salko?” Mendravic was already sidestepping his way through the mattresses, the same immense figure he had known a lifetime ago, his embrace as suffocating as the last one they had shared.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Ian,” Mendravic whispered in his ear. He then stepped back, the familiar grin etched across his face. “Father, I mean.”

  It took Pearse several seconds to recover. “Salko. What are you—”

  “The priest’s outfit suits you.”

  Still dazed, he asked again, “What are you doing here?”

  “That’s all you have to say?” He laughed.

  “No, I’m …” Pearse could only shake his head. Without warning, he pulled Mendravic in and embraced him again. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “You, too. You, too.”

  When Pearse finally let go, he was no less confused. “I still don’t understand—”

  “Fighting the Serbs. I’ve been smuggling people in from Priˇstina for the last few months. Mainly through Montenegro.”