Kellerman, Jonathan - The Theatre

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.

Bernardo introduced them in English, and when Roselli said "Good afternoon, Chief Inspector," it was with an American accent. Unusual-most of the Franciscans came from Europe.

Roselli listened as Bernardo summarized his conversation with Daniel. The priest ended with: "The chief inspector isn't at liberty to say what's happened to her, but I'm afraid we can assume the worst, Joseph."

Roselli said nothing, but his head dipped a little lower and he turned away. Daniel heard a sharp intake of breath, then nothing.

"My son," said Bernardo, and placed a hand on Roselli's shoulder.

"Thank you, Father. I'm all right."

The Franciscans stood in silence for a moment and Daniel found himself reading the wooden tags: cornichon de

BOURBON, BIG GIRL HYBRID, AQUADULCE CLAUDIA (WHITE SEEDED), TRUE GHERKIN

Bernardo whispered something to Roselli in what sounded like Latin, patted his shoulder again, and said to Daniel: "The two of you speak. I've chores to attend to. If there's anything else you need, Daniel, I'll be across the way, at the College."

Daniel thanked him and Bernardo shuffled off.

Alone with Roselli, Daniel smiled at the monk, who responded by looking down at his hands, then at the watering can.

"Feel free to continue watering," Daniel told him. "We can talk while you work."

"No, that's all right. What do you need to know?"

"Tell me about the first time you saw Fatma-the night you took her in."

"They're not the same, Inspector," said Roselli quietly, as if admitting a transgression. His eyes looked everywhere but at Daniel.

"Oh?"

"The first time I saw her was three or four days before we took her in. On the Via Dolorosa, near the Sixth Station of the Cross."

"Near the Greek Chapel?"

"Just past it."

"What was she doing there?"

"Nothing. Which was why I noticed her. The tourists were milling around, along with their guides, but she was off to the side, not trying to beg or sell anything-simply standing there. I thought it was unusual for an Arab girl of that age to be out by herself." Roselli hid the lower part of his face behind his hand. It seemed a defensive gesture, almost guilty.

"Was she soliciting for prostitution?"

Roselli looked pained. "I wouldn't know."

"Do you remember anything else about her?"

"No, it… I was on a… meditative walk, Inspector. Father Bernardo has instructed me to walk regularly, in order to cut myself off from external stimuli, to get closer to my… spiritual core. But my attention wandered and I saw her."

Another confession.

Roselli stopped talking, eyed the casks, and said, "Some of these are getting wilted. I think I will water." Lifting the watering can, he began walking along the row, probing, sprinkling.

The Catholics, thought Daniel, tagging along. Always baring their souls. The result, he supposed, of living totally in the head-faith is everything, thoughts equivalent to actions. Peek at a pretty girl and it's as bad as if you slept with her. Which could make for plenty of sleepless nights. He looked at Roselli's profile, as grim and humorless as that of a cave-dwelling prophet. A prophet of doom, perhaps? Tormented by his own fallibility?

Or did the torment result from something more serious than lust?

"Did the two of you talk, Brother Roselli?"

"No," came the too-quick answer. Roselli pinched off a brown tomato leaf, turned over several others, searching for parasites. "She seemed to be staring at me-I may have been staring myself. She looked disheveled and I wondered what had caused a young girl to end up like that. It's an occupational hazard, wondering about misfortune. I was once a social worker."

A zealous one, no doubt.

"Then what?"

Roselli looked puzzled.

"What did you do after you exchanged stares, Brother Roselli?"

"I returned to Saint Saviour's."

"And the next time you saw her was when?"

"As I said, three or four days later. I was returning from late Mass, heard sobs from the Bab el Jadid side, went to take a look, and saw her sitting in the gutter, crying. I asked her what the matter was-in English. I don't speak Arabic. But she just continued to sob. I didn't know if she understood me, so I tried in Hebrew-my Hebrew's broken but it's better than my Arabic. Still no answer. Then I noticed that she looked thinner than the first time I'd seen her-it was dark, but even in the moonlight the difference was pronounced. Which made me suspect she hadn't eaten for days. I asked her if she wanted food, pantomimed eating, and she stopped crying and nodded. So I gestured for her to wait, woke up Father Bernardo, and he told me to bring her in. The next morning she was up working, and Father Bernardo agreed to let her stay on until we found her more suitable lodgings."

"What led her to drift through the Old City?"

"I don't know," said Roselli. He stopped watering, examining the dirt beneath his fingernails, then lowered the can again.

"Did you ask her about it?"

"No. The language barrier." Roselli flushed, shielded his face with his hand again, and looked at the vegetables.

More to it than that, thought Daniel. The girl had affected him, maybe sexually, and he wasn't equipped to deal with it.

Or perhaps he'd dealt with it in an unhealthy way.

Nodding reassuringly, Daniel said, "Father Bernardo said she was frightened about having her family contacted. Do you know why?"

"I assumed there'd been some sort of abuse."

"Why's that?"

"Sociologically it made sense-an Arab girl cut off from her family like that. And she reminded me of the kids I used to counsel-nervous, a little too eager to please. Afraid to be spontaneous or step out of bounds, as if doing or saying the wrong thing would get them punished. There's a look they all have-maybe you've seen it. Weary and bruised."

Daniel remembered the girl's body. Smooth and unblemished except for the butchery.

"Where was she bruised?" he asked.

"Not literal bruises," said Roselli. "I meant it in a psychological sense. She had frightened eyes, like a wounded animal."

The same phrase Bernardo had used-Fatma had been a subject of discussion between the two Franciscans.

"How long were you a social worker?" Daniel asked.

"Seventeen years."

"In America?"

The monk nodded. "Seattle, Washington."

"Puget Sound," said Daniel.

"You've been there?" Roselli was surprised.

Daniel smiled, shook his head.

"My wife's an artist. She did a painting last summer, using photographs from a calendar. Puget Sound-big boats, silver water. A beautiful place."

"Plenty of ugliness," said Roselli, "if you know where to look." He extended his arm over the rim of the roof, pointed down at the jumble of alleys and courtyards. "That," he said, "is beauty. Sacred beauty. The core of civilization."

"True," said Daniel, but he thought the comment naive, the sweetened perception of the born-again. The core, as the monk called it, had been consecrated in blood for thirty centuries. Wave after wave of pillage and massacre, all in the name of something sacred.