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PUTTING THE VATICAN behind him and the voice that called out, “Padre, attesa,” Dominic took the corner quickly, turning off of the wide street into a narrow alley. Still running, he barely missed colliding into a young woman walking several small dogs. Yorkies, he thought, as he stepped, then skipped around the trio of ankle biting pups.
“Hey, scatto. Faccia attenzione,” The young woman yelled after Dominic.
“I’m sorry. Sorry,” Dominic said, then noted the confused look on the young woman’s face. “Spiacente. Scusilo.” He sucked in a gasp of air, nearly exhausted. He sprinted to the doorway of a store and dodged inside the shop.
The Deposito Del Libro was dark and dusty. He didn’t mind the dark, but breathing hard from the long run, the dust collected in his nostrils and he sneezed several times in a row. Not the best move for someone trying to hide, he thought, looking around the shop quickly, then sneezing again. He glanced up from his cupped hand and noticed that he was the only person in the shop, other than a lady working a stack of books. He smiled at her.
The woman took a close look at him from behind books stacked so high that it looked as though they were about to fall to the floor at any moment. Apparently, she didn’t consider Dominic to be of any concern or a likely sale; she turned her back to him and continued with whatever important matter she had been dealing with before he had entered the shop.
Dominic pushed the sweat soaked hair back from his face and bit into his lip. He was relatively sure he had not been followed. His zigzagging run even confused himself. He needed time to figure out where the hell he was and what the hell he was going to do next.
The woman, whom Dominic assumed was the shopkeeper, glanced at him again. He managed to smile back, picking up a book and examining the cover, feigning great interest. Then he slowly began to make his way to the back of the small shop, keeping a watch on the door the entire time.
A smallish man with a young boy in tow stepped into the doorway of the shop.
Dominic froze. Then relaxed.
“No. Nonno, non qui. L'altro deposito.” The young boy pulled at his grandfather’s arm as they stepped out of the store, the grandfather muttering something to the boy about not always doing what the boy wanted to do.
Dominic’s breath was returning and he felt himself relax even more as the older man and the boy moved down the street. He flipped the pages of the book he’d picked up and paused on a page for a moment as if he were reading. Then he turned a few more pages and paused again. His mind wandered from the words printed on the worn browning page of the book back to the stairway and the voice calling out to him. Who had called to him? He chastised himself out loud, “What a fool.”
The store clerk popped her head up over the same stack of books that she apparently hid behind throughout the day and glared at him. Dominic held up the book and smiled. “This is good.” The shopkeeper ducked once again behind the leaning tower of books and disappeared.
Dominic shook his head recalling with embarrassment, his actions while at Bramante’s Stairway. He could not believe how idiotic he had been, and that he didn’t bother to turn around to see who had been calling to him. Why did he run? What if it had been someone he had known? What if? He decided to stop with the ‘what ifs,’ since they could and would go for quite some time. Now, there’s a thought. He had been reacting without thought. Reacting to pure animal instinct. Fight or flight. Even though he didn’t see who had been calling to him, his instincts told him that it wasn’t safe. Instinct urged him to run.
Yeah, where was that instinct when a man bleeding all over your apartment was hiding in your kitchen? Maybe, he was learning? He considered that. Maybe he was just like the young predator that has to learn to kill and the young prey that needs to learn how to hide and outwit the predator? Could be? But that brought to mind a new question that needed to be answered: was he the prey or the predator?
After twenty minutes in the book store, browsing through several books—that he would have actually liked to buy—he felt confident enough that he wasn’t being followed and placed the small stack of books down onto a stack of other books, being careful not to knock the whole pile tumbling to the floor. He couldn’t buy the books now. He had figured out where he was, but he didn’t know what he was doing. He couldn’t be hampered by a bag of books, should he need to bolt again. The thought stopped him. Wasn’t that thinking like prey?
He exited the store to the sound of the shopkeeper’s “Tsk-tsk,” but didn’t turn around to acknowledge her. Turning left out of the shop, he made his way down the narrow alley, walking slowly, until he reached a main thoroughfare. He needed to find his way home. He needed time to think. And he needed to call Tonita and explain everything. The trouble was—he didn’t know how to explain. Not since his days at Saint John Fisher’s seminary, had he felt this confused. And it wasn’t just about the last twenty-four hours, but about every day for the last four or five months.
Four or five months? He wasn’t even sure how long it had been. He tried to think back to the last sermon. After a moment it came back to him, with a blast to his brain. The sermon was so apropos that it was almost as though the moment had chosen Dominic, rather than Dominic choosing the moment.
He had just finished speaking from Deuteronomy of all the blessings the Lord will grant to those who are faithful and follow His commandments. He quoted, ‘If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands, I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God.’
Dominic had gone on that day, recounting to the congregation all the blessings that the Lord will allow to those that obey and follow him. He had paused in his speech, sweeping the church with his eyes, and allowed a stern frown to form on his face. Then he began to speak of those who do not obey the Lord.
“What will become of those who do not follow the Lord?” he had asked the congregation in animated English and in Italian, his voice echoing through the small church. He hadn’t expected anyone to actually reply and offer a suggestion, and so he was completely caught by surprise when a small voice from the back of the church spoke up.
“The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind,” a man in the back of the church shouted.
“That is right,” Dominic said. “That is indeed included with the curses in Deuteronomy.” He stepped around the altar table and called out to the man hidden in the shadows of the balcony. “Why don’t you come forward so that we may speak?”
“The Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life,” the voice from the balcony boomed at Dominic and the others in the church. “You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread.” the command was punctuated by the slamming of a door.
Dominic hurried down the aisle to the back of the church. Whoever had been in the balcony, had made his way down the curving stairs and out the church door before Dominic could reach him.
Dominic opened the door to the church, looked in both directions and saw no one. He turned to make his way back up to the nave of the church and stopped. All eyes of the congregation were on him. They followed him like the lenses of the cameras held by a throng of paparazzi. He tried to remain calm, taking in a deep breath and forcing a smile to go with the nods of the head he was giving the congregants. Then something out of place caught his attention. He stopped.
A book had been laid out on top of the offering candles set in tiered rows near the back of the church and off to the side of the doorway. And it was smoldering. Smoke wafted up from a corner of the binding that was about to burst into flames. Dominic grabbed for the book. Picking it up he blew on the corner, putting out the small flame that had grown there.
He didn’t need to turn to the title to know what the words imprinted into the old leather cover were. His mind had registered the book as The Bible, long before his conscious thoughts.
Dominic looked to the scorched pages, The Bible had been left open to Deuteronomy or more precisely to the Curses for Disobedience. The same passage of his sermon. He slammed the book closed, dowsed it into the vessel of Holy Water and walked out the front door of the church, leaving behind the congregation, the mass and his faith.
Now, just a few streets from his apartment and an hour and a half’s walk from the small bookshop, Dominic came to an abrupt halt, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, forcing others to walk around him, most with typical Italian commentary at the inconvenience.
The realization came to him so suddenly; it was as if he had just walked head on into a brick wall. No one was following him. There hadn’t been anyone following him all day. He was certain of it.
He had been trying to answer this one question all along, giving it long moments and many city blocks of thought. Why would anyone go through such elaborate theatrics as to have black cars with silent drivers and a cryptic torn piece of a telephone book, and then not bother to follow him?
The answer was simple and clear. It was the perfect predator and prey scenario. No one followed because they were waiting for him at the destination. No need for the predator to follow along on the journey, when it would be so much easier to catch the prey at the destination. They were waiting for him where he would feel the most secure.
With his apartment building in view, Dominic turned around and walked in the direction that he had just come, abandoning the long trek that he had just taken.
There was only one place that he could go now. A place where he would be safe and a place where he would find help.
And he knew for certain that she would be there.