The Theatre - Kellerman, Jonathan

"Infirmary," said the tallest of the three, a blue-chinned youth with hot dark eyes and the cautious demeanor of a diplomat. From the sound of his accent, a Spaniard or Portuguese.

"Is he ill?" asked Daniel, aware now of his own accent. A Babel of a conversation

"No," said the monk. "He is not. He is… caring for those who are the ill." He paused, spoke to his comrades in Spanish, then turned back to Daniel. "I take you to him."

The infirmary was a bright, clean room smelling of fresh paint and containing a dozen narrow iron beds, half of them occupied by inert old men. Large wood-framed windows afforded a view of Old City rooftops: clay domes, centuries old, crowned by TV antennas-the steeples of a new religion. The windows were cranked wide open and from the alleys below came a clucking of pigeons.

Daniel waited by the doorway and watched Father Bernardo tend to an ancient monk. Only the monk's head was visible above the covers, the skull hairless and veined with blue, the face sunken, near-translucent, the body so withered it was barely discernible beneath the sheets. On the nightstand next to the bed were a set of false teeth in a glass and a large, leather-bound Bible. On the wall above the headboard Jesus writhed on a polished metal crucifix.

Father Bernardo bent at the waist, wet a towel with water, and used it to moisten the monk's lips. Talking softly, he rearranged the pillows so that the monk could recline more comfortably. The monk's eyes closed, and Bernardo watched him sleep for several minutes before turning and noticing the detective. Smiling, he walked forward, bouncing silently on sandaled feet, the crucifix around his neck swinging in counterpoint.

"Pakad Sharavi," he said in Hebrew, and smiled. "It's been a long time."

Bernardo's waist had thickened since they'd last met. Otherwise he looked the same. The fleshy pink face of a prosperous Tuscan merchant, inquisitive gray eyes, large, rosy, shell-like ears. Snowy puffs of white hair covered a strong, broad head, the snowfall repeating itself below-in eyebrows, mustache, and Vandyke beard.

"Two years," said Daniel. "Two Easters."

"Two Passovers," Bernardo said with a smile, ushering him out of the infirmary into a dim, quiet corridor. "You're in Major Crimes now-I read about you. How have you been?"

"Very well. And you, Father?"

The priest patted his paunch and smiled. "A little too well, I'm afraid. What brings you here on a Shabbat?"

"The girl," said Daniel, showing him the photo. "I've been told she worked here."

Bernardo took the picture and examined it.

"This is little Fatma! What's happened to her!"

"I'm sorry, I can't discuss that, Father," said Daniel. But the priest heard the unspoken message and his thick fingers closed around the crucifix.

"Oh, no, Daniel."

"When's the last time you saw her, Father?" asked Daniel gently.

The fingers left the crucifix, floated upward, and began twisting white strands of beard.

"Not long ago, at all-last Wednesday afternoon. She didn't show up for breakfast Thursday morning and that's the last we saw of her."

A day and a half before the body had been found.

"When did you hire her?"

"We didn't, Daniel. One night, about three weeks ago, Brother Roselli found her crying, sitting in the gutter just inside the New Gate, on Bab el Jadid Road. It must have been in the early morning hours, actually, because he'd attended midnight mass at the Chapel of the Flagellatioft and was returning home. She was unwashed, hungry, generally knocked about, and sobbing. We took her in and fed her, let her sleep in an empty room at the hospice. The next morning she was up early, before sunrise, -scrubbing the floors, insisting that she wanted to earn her keep."

Bernardo paused, looking uncomfortable.

"It's not our practice to bring in children, Daniel, but she seemed like such a sad little thing that we allowed her to stay, temporarily, taking meals and doing little jobs so that she wouldn't feel like a beggar. We wanted to contact her family but any mention of it terrified her-she'd break out into heart-rending sobs and beg us not to. Perhaps some of it was adolescent drama, but I'm certain that a good deal of it was real. She looked like a wounded animal and we were afraid she'd run away and end up in some Godless place. But we knew she couldn't stay with us indefinitely and Brother Roselli and I had discussed transferring her to the Franciscan Sisters' Convent." The priest shook his head. "She left before we had a chance to bring it up."

"Did she tell you why she was afraid of her family?"

"She said nothing to me, but my feeling was that some kind of abuse had taken place. If she told anyone, it would have been Brother Roselli. However, he never mentioned anything to me."

"So she stayed with you a total of two and a half weeks."

"Yes."

"Did you ever see her with anyone else, Father?"

"No, but as I said, my contact with her was minimal, other than to say hello in the hallway, or suggest that she take a break-she was a hard worker, ready to scour and scrub all day."

"What was she wearing the day before she left, Father?"

Bernardo laced his fingers over his paunch and thought.

"Some sort of dress, I really don't know."

"Did she wear any jewelry?"

"Such a poor child? I wouldn't think so."

"Earrings, perhaps?"

"Perhaps-I'm not sure. Sorry, Daniel. I'm not good at noticing that kind of thing."

"Is there anything else you can tell me, Father? Anything that could help me understand what happened toher?"

"Nothing, Daniel. She passed through and was gone."

"Brother Roselli-have I met him?"

"No. He's new, been with us for six months."

"I'd like to speak to him. Do you know where he is?"

"Up on the roof, communicating with his cucumbers."

They climbed a stone stairway, Daniel sprinting, light-footed and energetic despite the fact that he hadn't had a real meal all day. When he noticed that Bernardo was huffing and pausing to catch his breath, he slowed his pace until it matched that of the priest.

A door at the top of the stairs opened to a flat area on the northeast quadrant of the monastery roof. Below was an Old City quilt of houses, churches, and vest-pocket courtyards. Just beyond the melange rose the plateau of Moriah, where Abraham had bound Isaac and where two Jewish temples had been built and destroyed, now called the Haram esh-Sharif and subjugated by the Mosque of the Rock.

Daniel looked out past the mosque's gold-leaf dome, toward the eastern city walls. From up here everything looked primitive, so vulnerable, and he was stabbed by a cruel, fleeting memory-of passing under those walls, through the Dung Gate. A walk of death, maddeningly endless-though the shock from his wounds provided a kind of sedation-as those in front of him and to his back fell under sniper fire, crumpling soundlessly, corsages of scarlet bursting through the olive-drab of battle-rancid uniforms. Now, tourists strolled along the ramparts, carefree, enjoying the view, the freedom

He and Bernardo walked toward the corner of the roof, where wine casks had been filled with planter's soil and set down in a long row within the inner angle of the rim. Some were empty; from others the first sprouts of summer vegetables nudged their way upward through the dirt: cucumbers, tomatoes, egg plant, beans, marrow. A monk held a large tin watering can and sprinkled one of the most productive casks, a large-leafed cucumber plant coiled around a stake, already abloom with yellow flowers and heavy with fuzzy fingers of infant vegetable.

Bernardo called out a greeting and the monk turned. He was in his forties, tan and freckled, with a tense foxlike face, pale-brown eyes, thin pinkish hair, and a lied beard cropped short and carelessly trimmed. When he saw Bernardo he put down the watering can and assumed a position of deference, head slightly lowered, hands clasped in front of him. Daniel's presence didn't seem to register.