John Domini - Earthquake I.D.

Out over the piazza, the sun surprised her, still noon-bright. The wife had to squint, and though she made nice, though she tried to sound trouble-free, her act was out of synch with Jay’s. When the Jaybird said the call was a big mistake, false alarm, she shook her head, and when he asked her whether anyone was hurt she nodded. Below, a camera or two went off, with a scratch and fizz like faulty matches. Against the high railing, the s-curved childproof bars, Barb realized she was the wrong person for this job; she was still too raw from thrashing things out with Aurora. She hadn’t gotten back on her feet, or gotten her head back on its feet. Then there were “the symptoms that generally follow the healing event,” according to Nettie’s recommended reading. Fatigue, disorientation — pretty ordinary symptoms, when you thought about it. In any case Barbara wasn’t much help. She frowned, reminding herself why she’d come back home in the first place; she still needed to sit down with Chris and JJ. But when she waved to the cluster of folks below, she felt like she was doing a high-school version of Evita . She was Evita next to Mussolini, and the act didn’t appear to be working. Down on the spirals of paving-stones, the police and the medics wouldn’t leave. The lights on both vehicles kept flashing, and now they’d attracted additional onlookers, maybe as many as twenty-five. The biggest crowd for the family in days.

Then Cesare joined them, back in uniform. Out in the volcanic breeze, with the Bay visible behind him, the man’s collar suggested some fresh-scrubbed temple on the horizon. He hadn’t yet pulled on his shoes, but the people in the piazza couldn’t see that, and when he spoke he came across in terrific voice. A voice Barbara had never heard from him, it turned out: the local accent and slang. She couldn’t translate the bawling, the abbreviations, but neither of the American’s could miss the old Jesuit’s point.

“O ’ cane arragia ‘ ne reste ‘ e pille !”

Cesare put a lot across without a word, with body-Neapolitan, the shaping hands and shifting hips. He quickly had the cops and medics grinning.

“O ’ puorco !” Cesare shrugged, whole-body. “‘ Na sbaglia !”

Before the men in whites and blues headed back to their vehicles, the priest even threw in an exhortation that they come to Mass.

How long ‘ s it been, homeys ? Words to that effect, anyway.

“Cesare,” Jay put in quietly. “I owe you one.”

The rest of the crowd dispersed while the ambulance and the police car were still circling the piazza, but the old man carried on until the last one had found some shade. He turned a last head or two, bellowing in more straightforward Italian that he held a service every evening. Meantime the cops paused again, at the edge of the piazza, pulling up beside a couple of tobacco-brown beggars. The police asked to see I.D.

“Okay,” Jay said. “Party’s over.”

He brushed past the priest and headed inside. While the others followed, he spoke up again. “Father, Cesare, thanks. Thanks, okay? Okay. But now, it is over .”

Barbara hoped her husband wasn’t about to launch into the same thing she’d gone through with Aurora, this time with testosterone flavor. The mother looked for Paul. In the absence of the other adults, it turned out, the grandmother had gotten the boy to help straighten up the room. Now the two of them were bent over either end of the coffee table, lining it up in front of the sofa. The blanket was folded and lamp and chairs were back in their places.

“Enough,” Jay went on. “Know what I mean?”

From down the hallway came a cry, one of the girls: That ‘ s it ! The priest nodded and reverted to schoolbook English, saying he understood.

“Time for you to leave my family alone. You know?”

“John!” Aurora straightened up.

“I’m talking Barb, me, and the kids. My family. What you do with my mother, that’s your business. Hey, been there. Been there, and good luck. But so far as the rest of us are concerned, it’s got to be on a different basis.”

“John, honestly. What on earth makes you think you’ve got the right—”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Cesare said.

“This isn’t about you and the Church, either. Like I say, that’s your business.”

“Well, the Church and I, as for that. I’d say the worst strain on my relationship with the church is the harm that I’ve done your family.”

Paul settled on the sofa, one stovepipe leg over the other, and Barb sat beside him. From that angle, looking up, she noticed the two men stood eye-to-eye. Jay cocked his head, and after a moment Cesare went on.

“I’ve done worse than you know, signore. I stand before you the worst of all.”

“Oh, now, really.” Aurora might’ve put an elbow into Jay’s ribs, though gently, as she stepped between him and the priest. “Chezzo, we’ve been through this a hundred times. Nowhere in the Gospels does Christ suggest that it’s a sin to have sex.”

Cesare backed away from her, glaring. “You dare speak for Christ, woman?”

“Wo-man?” Aurora put a hand to her neck, so slowly the arm might’ve been developing an exoskeleton as it moved.

“You know,” she said, “what Our Savior condemns, actually, is hypocrisy .”

The old man’s look lost something.

“Really, Chez-zo. You ought to look at yourself, you absolutely ought to see the torment in you face. Now, dear man. Talk to me.”

He managed a sputter. Jay too backed off a step, glancing at Barbara and Paul.

“Your Aura, you called me — less than an hour ago, was it? Then tell me, do. What madness are you proposing now?”

“Cesso ,” the priest said finally, shaking his head. “Cesso . Woman, do you know what this pet name of yours means, in this country?”

Aurora’s smile had become a spiked extension of her vivid nails. “I hope this isn’t another of your lectures, Chezzo. I cannot abide a man who lectures.”

“It means ‘toilet,’ this name. You call me your toilet.”

“What’s this,” Jay said, “Round Two? No way, guys.”

Barbara figured her job was the eleven-year-old. She bent to Paul’s ear and whispered that she’d like him to join the other kids. The boy narrowed his thick-lashed eyes, about to make some objection, but then Cesare swept round to face him. Swept round, his robes lifting, and Barbara figured that only she and Aurora noticed the exaggeration in the move, the message for the grandmother in the way he turned his back.

“Miracolino.” The priest spread a hand across his chest, lowering his head.

“Hey,” Jay said. “We had a deal. Enough with this.”

“Holy child, I thank you. I must thank you. You’ve ripped me out of…”

For the next long moment, as Barbara took in the transformation of her guerilla priest — Cesare seemed about to prostrate himself across the coffee table — mostly she went on thinking about Aurora. Now the old playgirl rolled her eyes, now she looked sympathetic and called his actual name, in good accent: “Oh, Cesare .” As for Jay, he’d gone slack; his mother had just gottenjilted: his mother. Barbara in fact had half a mind to snatch the blanket off the sofa and fling it once more over the old Dominican’s face. But that face appeared ecstatic, nothing less, like something off the family website. Then too, she recalled her own recent convulsions, regarding this same mother-in-law.

“Cesare, come on.” She kept her voice level. “What were we just saying?”

“My daughter-in-law’s right.” Aurora found a chair. “She’s entirely right.”