Jonathan Rabb - The Book of Q

But only for a time. Once on the outside, he began to run into even greater confusion, especially in the role of priest: too much responsibility ceded by a willing congregation; too easy a reliance on detached hierarchy. Church dogma had a way of clouding everything. And what had been so pure, so personal at the seminary came to resemble that arm’s-length quality he had seen with his parents. Genuine connection no longer made sense. There was too much standing between believer and Christ to allow for it.

Not surprisingly, the emptiness from Bosnia slipped back in, threatening everything he had built for himself. He knew he needed to find another venue for his devotion, one more isolated, safer, where church structure couldn’t undermine his ever-tenuous belief. And where he wouldn’t allow Petra to find her way back in as a different kind of answer.

Walking alone one afternoon near Copley Square, it had suddenly dawned on him where he might find it. Or at least how. Everything had become a little too dark; he needed to lighten things up. So he’d gone back to the games, the fun of fragments and puzzles. This time, though, it wasn’t Paul, whose approach had always seemed colored by a Pharisaic past, nor the writers of the Gospels, each too caught up in his own agenda, but Augustine, where the insights remained acutely personal and therefore somehow less limiting-the fun and wonder reclaimed all at once.

And so, in an act of self-salvation, he’d dived in. He found himself consumed by it, simple translations leading to the more complex world of liturgical analysis. Somewhere along the way, he even began to make a name for himself-conferences beyond the walls of the church, papers beyond the scope of personal faith-a scholar of language, everyone so surprised, no one more so than himself. Except, of course, for John J. He’d known all along. The onetime Bosnian freedom fighter caught up in a world of minutiae, intricacies of meanings-energy focused on the subtleties of belief rather than on belief itself.

So much easier to “take it and read” than to take it and know.

He was, after all, his parents’ son.

Unwilling to admit that he was falling into that same trap, he’d pressed on, back to Ambrose, Augustine’s mentor, inspiration for the most brilliant mind the church had ever known. The most reasoned faith it had ever known. Find clarity in that wisdom.

So, when the opportunity to sift through a sixth-century palimpsest of the letters of Saint Ambrose at the Vatican had presented itself, he’d jumped at the chance. Not just for the scholarship but also for the place itself. Maybe in Rome he’d be able to reconnect with the purity he’d somehow lost along the way. The certainty.

It had been two years since then. Two years in which to find other projects so as to keep himself busy, keep him in Rome, insulated in a world of abstract piety. The answers might not have been any easier, but at least the questions were once again more distant.

The congregation rose, Pearse with them. Communion. He moved out to take his place in the line, when he noticed a familiar face some thirty feet ahead of him, the man looking back, trying to catch his attention. Dante Cesare, brother of the monastery at San Clemente-and an avid digger in the church’s storied foundations-stood by one of the half dozen vaulted archways that stretched the length of both sides of the nave. One of its few non-Irishmen, Cesare stood almost six foot five. And at no more than 180 pounds, he virtually disappeared into his robes, all thoughts of a torso lost, only scaly hands and feet protruding from the outfit. His equally elongated head bobbed above, aquiline nose stretching the skin taut around his cheekbones. An El Greco come to life.

They’d met just over a year ago in the Villa Doria Pamphili, a park just south of the Vatican, and the best place to find a pickup game on weekends. Pearse had gotten into the habit of taking a handful of kids from the American school out on Saturdays, play a couple of innings, keep himself in shape. Cesare had appeared from behind a tree one afternoon, keeping his distance, but clearly fascinated by it all. When a stray ball had rolled past him, he’d gone after it with the enthusiasm of a five-year-old. The image of those skeletal arms and legs thrashing around still brought a smile to Pearse’s face. It turned out that what the monk lacked in physical ability, he more than made up for in his understanding of the game. Cesare had been a rabid Yankee fan for years, knew all the statistics, the stories. The kids loved him. Pearse handled the drills; Cesare handled everything else.

Once a week, priest and monk, two topics off-limits: Thomas Aquinas’s thoughts on eternal law and Bucky Dent’s affinity for the Green Monster.

The relationship had blossomed.

The Cesare who now waited beneath the archway was hardly the man Pearse had come to know over the last year. The chiseled face looked even more gaunt than usual, not all that surprising, given how close he had been to the late monsignor. Still, Pearse saw more apprehension than grief in the eyes as the monk nodded to his left-an open area just beyond the archway, frescoes and mosaics adorning the high walls. Cesare moved off, Pearse behind him.

No one seemed to notice as the two men slipped away.

“We’re missing the best part,” whispered Pearse.

Cesare ignored him and continued to walk. He came to a large wrought-iron gate, a key already in hand, the stairs to the lower levels of the church beyond. Without any explanation, he slid the key into the lock and pulled it open, the sound of squealing hinges drowned out by the Mass going on behind them. Cesare quickly glanced over his shoulder as he hurried Pearse through, no time for any questions. He pulled the gate shut and locked it, then moved past him to the stairs.

Pearse had ventured down only once before with his friend. Then, it had been to see a small statuette Cesare had unearthed: a fertility relic from the second-century temple of Mithras some two or three levels below-he couldn’t quite remember which-one more piece in the ever-growing celebrity of San Clemente. Like so many of its counterparts around the city, the church boasted a healthy cache of archaeological finds dating back to the ancient Romans. Unlike any other, though, its lineage could be traced by descending from one floor to the next, from one church to the next-the twelfth century, the fourth, the second, each preserved in almost perfect condition. It was what made it so popular with the tourists. And why Pearse had always felt somewhat unnerved by the place. Too similar to another church. Another time.

Never quite relegated to the past.

Cesare had chosen an entrance reserved only for those involved with the excavations. He picked up a small lantern, turned it on, and handed it to Pearse; he then took one for himself and began to make his way down, still without a word. At the first landing, he again looked over his shoulder. Not knowing why, Pearse did the same; the stairwell was empty. The two continued down. Twice, Pearse tried to ask what they were doing, and twice, Cesare rebuffed him with a hand to the air.

After maneuvering their way through a series of circuitous tunnels-the sound of running water all around them-they finally arrived at the sixth-century catacombs, ragged stones hovering over narrow passageways. Cesare stopped and bent over as he turned into a small enclosure, its ceiling no more than five feet high. Pearse followed.

“This is the one,” said the Italian, his words clipped. He stood hunched over in a room perhaps seven feet wide, ten feet long, the texture of the walls reminding Pearse of late-summer sandcastles on a Cape Cod beach, wet sand dripping from above, each drop threatening to undermine the entire structure. Even now, he couldn’t be sure how long they both had before the brittle walls would come crumbling down.