The Pigeon Project (20 page)

“Because there was not much to report. Bruno has arranged a meeting that is crucial to our chances. We’ll know in a few days.”

“Unless we know something else tonight.”

“I can’t imagine what Don Pietro has in mind.”

She continued to watch him sip and spoon his soda, and her face softened. “You’re really very nice,” she said.

“Oh?”

“To do what you’ve done and are doing. I know I’ve said it before. But I can’t say it enough times. I don’t know another person who’d give up his work and at great risk devote himself to helping a pair of strangers.”

“Don’t be fooled. I’m not all that nice and decent. I’m doing it mostly for myself.”

“Yes, you’ve said that before, but I don’t believe it.”

He smiled, pushing aside his soda and fumbling for his pipe. “You don’t know me, Alison. You don’t know a thing about me.”

“I realize that. It’s shocking. We’ve lived so intensely together in the last seventy hours, so closely, yet we know hardly a thing about each other.”

“Let’s start now,” he said. “With you.”

“I’m not very good at autobiography. It seems I’ve done nothing but go to school and work in libraries and laboratories. My background doesn’t seem interesting.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Pretty young for the likes of me.”

“How old are you?”

“By the calendar? Thirty-eight. By the emotional age clock? Ninety-eight.”

“Well, you appear young, and you are young.”

“Only since I met you. MacDonald isn’t the only one who can arrest aging. You do well enough. Or do you still dislike this kind of talk?”

“I’m afraid of it, but I like it fine, if you mean it.”

“I do mean it. I’m not an artful liar or seducer. But why are you afraid of intimate talk, compliments?”

“Because I might believe it, and give myself. When you give yourself, you are disarmed, vulnerable to disappointment, hurt, rejection. That scares me. So I try to remain remote—and safe.”

“Have you been much involved with men?”

“Not much. But enough to know what I want. I want devotion, security, the safety of knowing I can give myself totally. Until now it has all been Grade B. The usual student mismatchings in Boston, in Berkeley, and two unsatisfactory affairs in New York. In the last three years, abstinence, dedication to work, to Professor MacDonald’s work.”

“I should imagine men are after you constantly.”

“They are.”

“And you avoid them.”

“Yes.”

“For the same reason you want to avoid me?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” said Jordan, “I can understand that. It gives me some insight into you.”

She was studying him. “You haven’t been exactly spilling over about yourself. Why is your emotional age ninety-eight?”

“I’ve been through hell,” he said, “and it is unpretty. In fact, it’s rotten. I was married, you know.”

“I didn’t know. What happened?”

“I loved her and she was killed. Like that, killed, wasted. On a street corner in Chicago—a car gone out of control. It was all over.”

Alison reached out and touched his hand. “I’m really sorry. How long has it been since, Tim?”

“Just under four years. Almost two of them here in Venice. I was an engineer. It bored me. I turned to writing. Better. I was offered a job to come to Venice and work for the people who are trying to save the city from going under. They’ve installed a mammoth inflatable underwater dam to keep the tides from flooding the city. I’m supposed to promote the effort.”

“Has there been anyone since your wife?”

“No, he said flatly. “I’m not counting sexual gymnastics. You mean if I loved anyone, even a little? No. Except…” He hesitated. “I have someone here in Venice. A young woman. Venetian. She’s my assistant. It’s not serious. It’s companionship. We both know it.” He took out his wallet and put down some lire. “There you have Jordan in a nutshell. Not too edifying a saga. Surely not the story of a person who wants to live 150 years. But suddenly, I want to live 150 years.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I can only say I got the feeling right here, today, in the Piazza San Marco, talking to you.” He sat back, examining it. He had not had this feeling, this desire to live and use life well, since the hour of Claire’s death. Yet he had it now, and he suspected that it had to do with his being attracted by Alison Edwards. He was interested in her—even excited by her, if he allowed it—the first woman to interest and excite him since Claire. The idea of feeling for someone would have been impossible a week ago. Now it was a reality.

Abruptly, he stood up. “Let’s take you shopping,” he said. “You can leave things to be mailed after the city is opened again. This may be your last day in Venice—if Don Pietro delivers his miracle tonight. Let’s shop and let’s wait for word from the Lord.”

* * *

At five minutes after eight in the evening, Jordan and Alison arrived at the rectory door beside the Church of San Vincenzo and were met by Lucia, Don Pietro’s mother.

“I am sorry, but Pietro is not back yet,” she said in Italian. “But he was expecting you. He reminded me you would be here for dinner. Come, wait in his study. Professor MacDonald is already there.”

The elderly woman led them up the stairs and showed them the way to her son’s cramped study, adjacent to his bedroom. Professor MacDonald was seated beside the priest’s desk, turning a page of a worn leather-bound English-language Bible.

The professor welcomed them as Lucia went to fetch another chair. When the chair was brought in, and they were all seated, the professor tapped the Bible. “I was just reading up on Methuselah,” he said. “Old Testament, Genesis. He lived to the age of 969 and died in the year of the Flood. Allowing for legend and exaggeration, he still must have lived a very long time to have his age noted at all. I was speculating to myself whether those ancient Israelites could have discovered or created some form of C-98, which was then lost in the Flood and lost to history until I rediscovered it.”

“Anything is possible,” said Jordan.

“Is the search for me going on as intensely as ever?”

“I’m afraid so, Professor.” His hand took in the room. “But you’re safe enough here, at least for the time.

“For the time,” the professor echoed skeptically.

“It won’t be long,” Jordan assured him. “I went to see my photographer friend this afternoon, the one who is going to try to pay off the police guard.”

“Any news?”

“Not much, but some. The photographer, Bruno, has arranged a quiet meeting with the captain. He will feel him out and then make the offer. We may know something by tomorrow. Meanwhile, Don Pietro may have something else. I—”

“I have, I have something else,” said the cheerful voice from the doorway. It was Don Pietro, waddling toward his desk, offering an incongruous sight. Gone was his black cassock. In its place he wore the clerical dog collar with a short-sleeved shirt and baggy brown slacks. “Buon giorno, Signorina Edwards. Buon giorno, Signor Jordan.” He plopped down behind his desk, beaming at all of them and fixing finally on MacDonald. “For you, Professor, I have news. The small miracle has happened. You may be traveling tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” said MacDonald excitedly. “You’ve arranged something?”

“I’ve arranged something,” said Don Pietro, pleased with himself. “It needs only the stamp of approval of the highest local authority.”

“Well, tell us,” Jordan urged him.

Don Pietro held up a plump hand, as if to slow him down. “You recall, my friends, that when I spoke to you this morning of a trip I must make tomorrow, I told you I would have to be gone for five days. The fact is, a party of six of us, Bishop Uberti and five parish, priests of Venice, myself one of them, have been summoned to Rome to meet with an eminent cardinal on important matters concerning change within the Church. This summons came about quite suddenly, hours after the emergency had been imposed upon the city. Bishop Uberti applied to Mayor Accardi for special dispensation, special permits for each of us to leave Venice for Rome by train tomorrow, the only train leaving here. Since Mayor Accardi knows each of us personally, and furthermore, since he is eager to soften any hard-line Communist image by accommodating the Catholic Church when he can, he readily gave us our special departure permits. Our party leaves from the railroad station at noon tomorrow. But with one change. I am not going to Rome.” He wagged a fat forefinger at MacDonald. “You, Professor, are going to Rome in my stead.”

Alison could not conceal her joy. “That’s wonderful!” She jumped up and hugged MacDonald. “Oh, Davis, I’m so happy. You’re going to be free. The world’s going to have your discovery.”

“Thank you, Alison.” The professor pulled free of her and pressed closer to the desk. “Can this really be done? Will it be safe?”

“How safe?” added Jordan to the priest. “How are you going to pull it off?”

“There is nothing to ‘pull off,’ as you put it,” said Don Pietro. “Each of us has a special signed travel or exit permit from Mayor Accardi. The guards are expecting the bishop and five priests at eleven-thirty tomorrow morning and will pass us right through to the train. We will be the only passengers from Venice on the train. Among the five priests will be Professor MacDonald, instead of myself. It is as uncomplicated as that.”

“The guards won’t have your name or picture?” asked Jordan.

“They know only that the bishop and five priests will be coming through. Professor MacDonald will be dressed in a hat and cassock on loan from my vicario, the one who assists me, who is approximately of Professor MacDonald’s size and bulk. The professor will go through the guard line with the others unnoticed. There is no element of danger. By evening, he will be safely in Rome. There is the miracle I promised.”

“I don’t know how to thank you enough,” said Jordan with relief.

“Your thanks are premature. Bishop Uberti and I must go to the patriarch of Venice tonight and request his approval. It is only a formality. He will approve, of course. But even then, there is no reason for thanks. We all serve a common cause and command. To outwit the atheistic Communists. To give to the world a benefit that the Almighty in heaven above has bestowed on mankind.” He stood up. “Dinner is waiting, and our best wine. We celebrate the miracle to tomorrow.”

* * *

All through the night, before sleep, and again upon awakening in the morning, Jordan suffered one emotion: a sense of loss.

Alison had elected to remain behind at Don Pietro’s after dinner, in order to see Professor MacDonald off in the morning, and Jordan had gone by himself to the Piazza San Marco and listened to the music until it was closing time.

He could see the scenario of his immediate future clearly. After reaching Paris, the professor would turn the world upside down with the announcement of his discovery. The Communists in Venice, seeing that they had lost, would lift the blockade on the city. Alison, free to go, would leave to return to Paris and then New York. And Jordan would once more be left alone, rudderless.

In victory—loss.

Now, midmorning, hastening over the bridge to the Church of San Vincenzo to say his farewell to the professor, he sighted Alison in the square waiting for him.

“I’m sorry, Tim,” was the first thing she said, “but you missed him by just a couple of minutes.”

Jordan looked at his watch. “They weren’t supposed to leave until ten-thirty. It’s only twenty after.”

“I guess they left early. Don Pietro is walking him over to the bishop’s house. It is nearby here. The whole party will leave together for the railroad station.”

“Well, as long as he’s safely on his way.”

“Thanks to you.”

“I think Don Pietro would take another view of it. He would say thank God.”

“You should have seen him, Tim, outfitted in a cassock. You’d have sworn the professor had been a priest all his life. He’ll have no trouble getting by.” She pointed off. “Look, Tim, there’s Don Pietro returning…”

Don Pietro was applying a large handkerchief to his forehead. “Hot, too hot in the sun. Come on inside. I’ll treat you both to iced tea.”

He continued toward the rectory, and Jordan and Alison caught up with him in the cool hallway.

“How did it go?” Jordan asked.

“He was just stepping into the gondola to join the others when I left,” said Don Pietro. “There will be no problem.”

“What time does he get to Rome?”

“About seven o’clock this evening.”

Jordan turned to Alison. “Probably too late to catch a flight to Paris. He’ll take a morning flight, be in Paris by noon. Do you know where hell be staying?”

“He’ll be taking my room at the Plaza Athénée,” said Alison.

“Let’s call him in Paris at noon tomorrow,” said Jordan, “just to make sure everything’s all right. We won’t have to worry about our call being monitored.”

“We’ll call him—Paris—tomorrow,” agreed Alison.

Don Pietro cleared his throat, as if to get their attention. He appeared strangely uncomfortable. He said hesitantly, “Uh, I should tell you, it will be no use to call him in Paris tomorrow. He will not be there.”

“I don’t get it,” said Jordan. “Where will he be?”

“Uh, in Vatican City. He will be detained for a short time in the Vatican so that one of our superiors can speak with him.”

“What are you talking about, Don Pietro? I don’t understand.”

“It was the patriarch’s decision last night, when the bishop and I went to see him for his approval. The patriarch felt that in helping MacDonald leave the city, the Church was taking a great risk. In return for the risk, the patriarch thought it only proper that MacDonald have an opportunity to hear of the Holy See’s interest in his discovery.”

“I still don’t understand,” Jordan said. “What interest does the Church have in the professor’s discovery? You’re not being very lucid.”

Don Pietro was distinctly more uncomfortable. He squirmed inside his cassock. “I-I will try to explain. It was felt that once the Holy Father learned of this momentous discovery, he would want the Church to convince Professor MacDonald that the Vatican is the proper medium through which to dispense his C-98 to the entire world. After all, the Vatican is neutral, serves all of mankind—”