September 2060
IT HAD TAKEN HOURS TO CALM DOWN AFTER THE POPE’S VISIT, AND Emilio Sandoz had only just fallen asleep when the knocking startled him half out of his bed. "God! What now?" he cried, falling back against the pillow again. Prone and exhausted, he shut his eyes resolutely and shouted, "Go away!"
"I hope you’re talking to God," a familiar voice called, "because I’m not going back to Chicago."
"John?" Sandoz bolted out of bed and pushed open the tall wooden shutters with his elbows. "Candotti!" he said, astonished, head stuck out the dormer window. "I thought they sent you home after the hearings!"
"They did. Now they’ve sent me back." Grinning up at him, John Candotti stood on the driveway, long bony arms wrapped around a paperplast box, Roman nose making a sundial of his half-bald head in the late afternoon light. "What is this? I gotta be the Pope to get invited in?"
Sandoz slumped over the windowsill, elbows on the wood, nerveless fingers dangling like stems of sta’aka ivy from his wrists. "Come on up," he sighed with theatrical resignation. "The door’s open."
"So! El Cahuna Grande tells me you just interviewed the Holy Father for a research assistantship," John called, trudging up the stairs and ducking under a doorway that Emilio—head and shoulders shorter—had never noticed was low. "Nice play, Sandoz. Very slick."
"Thank you so much for pointing that out," Emilio said, his English suddenly more Long Island than Puerto Rico. He was bent over the little table, putting the braces on. "Now why don’t you give me a nice paper cut and pour some lemon juice in it?"
"Billy Crystal. Princess Bride," John said promptly, putting the box down in a corner. "You need some new material, man. Did you watch any of those comedies I suggested?"
"Yeah. I liked that Dutch one, East of Edam, best. No Sign of Life was good, too. I don’t get the jokes in the newer stuff. Anyway," he cried, indignant now, "how was I supposed to know who the Pope was? Some old guy shows up at my doorstep—"
"If you’d taken my advice," John said with the thin patience of an exasperated seminary admonitor, "you would have gotten the jokes. And you would have recognized the effing Pope when he came to meet you!" Sandoz ignored him, as he had ignored the forty-year hole in his awareness of recent history, too sick to care at first and now simply refusing to acknowledge it. "Do you have any idea how important it was that Gelasius came to us? I told you—it’s time for you to catch up on things! But do you ever listen to me? No!"
And you aren’t listening now, John realized, watching him. Emilio had gotten better at putting the braces on by himself in the past two months, but the procedure still took a fair amount of concentration.
"— and Giuliani just stands there, letting me dig the hole!" Sandoz was muttering as he pulled each hand into an open brace and then rocked the atrophied forearms outward to toggle the switches. There was a quiet whirring noise as the flat straps and electronic hardware closed over his fingers, wrists and forearms. He straightened. "One of these days, John, I would really love to sandbag that sonofabitch."
"Good luck," John said. "Personally, I think the Cubs have a better chance at winning the World Series."
They sat at the table, Sandoz slouching into the chair nearest the kitchen and John taking the Pope’s seat opposite him. Glancing around the room as they traded lines from East of Edam and Back Streets and a couple of old Mimi Jensen flicks, John took in the bed, the socks on the floor, the dishes in the sink, and then stared suspiciously at Emilio, rumpled and unshaven. Sandoz was ordinarily meticulous, the black-and-silver hair brushed, the conquistador beard closely trimmed, his clothes spotless. John had expected the apartment to be immaculate. "All spiritual enlightenment begins with a neatly made bed," Candotti intoned, waving broadly at the mess. He frowned at Emilio. "You look like shit. When’s the last time you got any sleep?"
"About fifteen minutes ago. Then some pain-in-the-ass old friend came by and woke me up. You want coffee or something?" Emilio rose and went to the tiny kitchen, where he opened the cupboard and pulled out the beans, making himself busy with his back to Candotti.
"No. Sit down. Don’t change the subject. When did you sleep before that?"
"Memory fails." Sandoz put the coffee back, banging the cupboard door, and sank into the chair across the table again. "Don’t mother me, John. I hate it."
"Giuliani said your hands were giving you hell," John persisted. "I don’t get this. They’re healed!" he cried, gesturing at them accusingly. "Why do they still hurt?"
"Dead nerves, I am reliably informed, confuse the central nervous system," Sandoz said with a sudden acid vivacity. "My brain becomes alarmed because it hasn’t heard from my hands in a long time. It thinks they might be in some kind of trouble so, like a pain-in-the-ass old friend, it calls attention to the situation by giving me a lot of crap!" Sandoz stared out the window for a moment, getting a grip on himself, and then glanced at John, who sat impassively, a veteran of these outbursts. "I’m sorry. The pain wears me out, okay? It comes and it goes, but sometimes…"
John waited a moment, and then finished the sentence for him. "Sometimes when it comes, you’re afraid it will never go."
Emilio didn’t agree, but he didn’t deny it either. "The redemptive power of suffering is, in my experience at least, vastly overrated."
"Too Franciscan for me," John agreed. Emilio laughed, and John knew if you could get Sandoz to laugh, you were halfway home. "How long this time?" he asked.
Sandoz shrugged the question off, eyes sliding away. "It’s better if I’m working. Concentrating on something usually helps." He glanced at John. "I’m okay now."
"But beat down to your feet. Right," John said, "I’ll let you get some rest." He slapped his hands on his thighs and stood, but rather than leave, he went to the sound-analysis gear along the gable wall opposite the stairway. Curious, he looked it over and then spoke casually. "I just wanted to check in with my new boss—unless, of course, you already hired the Pope."
Sandoz closed his eyes and twisted in the chair so he could stare over his shoulder at John. "Excuse me?"
John turned, grinning, but his smile disappeared when he saw Emilio’s face. "You said you wanted someone who spoke Magyar. And English or Latin or Spanish. My Latin is pretty feeble," John admitted, faltering under the chilly gaze. "Even so, I’m four for four. And I’m all yours. If you want me."
"You’re joking," Emilio said flatly. "Don’t fuck with me, John."
"Sixteen languages to choose from and that’s the kind you use? Listen, I’m not a linguist, but I know my way around systems and I’m educable," John said defensively. "My mom’s parents were from Budapest. Gramma Toth took care of me after school. My Magyar is actually nicer than my English. Gram was a poet in the old country and—"
Sandoz, by this time, was shaking his head, not sure whether to laugh or to cry. "John, John. You don’t have to convince me. It’s only—" Only that he had missed Candotti. Only that he needed help but hated asking for it, needed colleagues but dreaded breaking in someone new. Father John Candotti, whose great gift as a priest was to forgive, had heard everything—and still, somehow, failed to despise or pity him. Emilio’s voice was mercifully steady when he found it. "It’s only that I thought there had to be a catch. I haven’t had much practice at receiving good news lately."
"No catch," John declared confidently, for his life had not taught him to brace for the unexpected blow. He headed toward the stairway down to the garage level. "When can I start?"
"Right away, as far as I’m concerned. But use the library system, okay? I am going to bed," Sandoz announced as firmly as he could around a huge yawn. "If I am still sleeping in October, as I devoutly hope I shall be, you have my permission to wake me up. In the meantime, you can begin with the instructional program for Ruanja — Giuliani’s got the lock codes. But wait until I can help you with the K’San files. It’s a bitch of a language, John." He put his left hand on the tabletop, rocking the arm outward to unhinge the braces, then froze, struck by a thought. "Jesus," he said. "Is Giuliani sending you out with the next bunch?"