“Please, sit, but we will have to keep our voices very low. We’re actually supposed to work in complete silence.”
“Okay,” McCauley whispered. “But I’m curious. How do you square your religious beliefs with your research?”
Father Eccleston grimaced. “That has the sting of a no-win declaration from a cardinal. And I would describe my beliefs as faith.”
“I’m sorry,” McCauley said, “but it’s important.”
“May I ask why?”
“You can see why.” The professor cocked his head to Alpert. “Katrina.”
Alpert picked up the backpack she’d been clutching and removed a manila envelope. She slid it across the table to Eccleston.
The priest opened it and saw the copies Kritz printed in London. Katrina waited for him to review the content. “They’re pages from a book we found,” she said. “An old priest’s book written 150-plus years ago in…”
“In Denisova,” Eccleston volunteered. “St. Denis’ cave. I heard such a memoir exists. However, I’ve never seen it. Where did you find it?”
“Wait,” McCauley said. He held up two fingers. Time for the second envelope. “Here are the translations of those pages.”
The priest read them with great interest; his engagement growing with every paragraph. “Remarkable,” he whispered. “Tell me where…”
“We have a friend in London to thank,” Katrina said. “At Oxford.”
“The Bod?”
“Yes,” she added.
“That’s odd. It should have come up on Google Book Search. The Oxford Library is part of their resource community.”
“I can explain,” McCauley replied. “After locating the book, quite by accident, I checked the catalog. It wasn’t in the system. So officially, it didn’t exist and as a result — full confession Father — I felt I didn’t have to sign it out.”
“You realize this could very well be the only edition around.”
“We’re checking on that.”
“Perhaps the fact that it was on the shelves was an oversight. Maybe it was supposed to be removed or someone thought it had been. Doesn’t that raise interesting possibilities?” Eccleston offered.
“Perhaps. How did you know about the book?” McCauley inquired.
“Rumors in the seminary that were told in the dark. Old tales that never went away. The things that priests whisper, mostly to scare young students. The kind of stories that you hope aren’t true.”
At that point, Katrina carefully removed the precious book from her backpack and handed it to Eccelston.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Is this…?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe it. May I?”
“Of course.”
He held it with genuine reverence. “Father Mykhailo Emilianov’s actual memoir.” He slowly turned the pages, and though he couldn’t read it, he felt like he was absorbing the meaning.
He stopped on the page depicting Emilianov’s sketch of the cavern interior and the deep black wall. “What is this?”
McCauley removed an envelope from his sports jacket. “The same as this photo I shot.” He handed Eccleston a photograph.
“You’ve been there,” he predictably replied.
“No, as a matter of fact.” McCauley smiled. “Interested in talking more?”
They shared a taxi for the three kilometer ride from the Vatican to Eccleston’s neighborhood restaurant on Via Antonio Salandra.
“You’ll like the food,” he said pointing out the chalkboard menu of the day posted to the left of the door. The choices did look delicious. Pasta e Lenticchie, Polenta con Salsicce, Fettuccine Agnolotti, Filetto o Lombata, and more. Inside, they took a corner seat with Eccleston intentionally placing himself with his back to the wall so he could see everyone who entered and where they sat.
A young waiter automatically placed a bottle of the house wine at the table.
“Perfecto,” he said in thanks. “Grazie.”
It felt like a warm, welcoming, inviting family restaurant with wood-lined walls that were adorned with candlesticks, plates, photographs, and paintings; all likely meaningful to the owners.
“We’ll order, then talk. Trust me, you’ll be well fed.”
McCauley and Katrina decided to share the tagliolini cacio e pepe, a pasta with pecorino cheese and black pepper. Fr. Eccleston chose the filet.
A few bites into the meal, Eccleston returned to their earlier discussion.
“The book is a treasure. But the old priest’s sketch of the interior confused me. Much clearer in your photographs, but still…”
“Father, the pictures aren’t from Denisova. We took them in Montana, in a cave we discovered while exploring for fossils, a half a world away and more than a century apart.”
Eccleston struggled for the right response. It finally came to him. “This isn’t natural.”
“No, it’s not,” McCauley replied. “We thought you might have some sort of theory.”
“We’d also like to see if you can find out anything about Father Emilianov,” Katrina added.
“Like what?”
“Anything. Everything.”
“Well, in the old days the kind of theory I’m working on would have seen me burned at the stake. Fortunately, no one does that anymore.”
McCauley thought back on Bakersfield. “I’m not so sure.”
For the next thirty minutes, Quinn and Katrina recounted their experiences and how they came to get in touch with Eccleston. It led the priest to what at first seemed like an intellectual discourse.
“Throughout history holy wars have been fought in the name of multiple deities and others justified by a leader proclaiming the word of a single god. Faith has been used as a tool by religious groups, not necessarily under the auspices of the religion itself. And rogue governments have equally persecuted believers they quite simply considered too dangerous to live. Territories have been claimed in the name of trade, where the spoils were measured in gold or a slave’s worth. And to protect their bounty, to hold their borders and to insure their power, churches and institutions alike have relied on fear, lies, hatred, patriotism and fundamentalist principles.”
“It’s as true today as ever,” Katrina stated.
“But with greater fragility,” McCauley added. “News spreads so quickly through social media. Information is so accessible virtually anywhere in the world that words and thoughts, multiplied and amplified by hitting send on a cellphone can topple a regime. We’ve seen it in the Middle East. I’m not so sure it couldn’t happen elsewhere.”
“I’m afraid you’re right. We tread on the thin ice of critical beliefs,” Eccleston replied. “The weight of any social, political, or moral argument can do us in.”
McCauley considered the issues, not just in America, but in an increasingly polarizing world. Each side espouses its positions as God-given rights, whether for or against. Without even realizing it, he started listing the extremes that fuel heated debates on any given day. “Reproduction, guns, immigration, medical insurance, gay rights, food stamps, welfare. It’s all just up or down,” McCauley said. “You’re part of the solution or part of the problem.”
And then he thought of another volatile subject, debated for centuries, more contentious than ever.
“Evolution.”
“Yes,” the priest agreed. He rested his hand on the envelope containing McCauley’s photographs. “It’s still on the table, isn’t it?”
Seventy
“Have you ever heard of “Gap Theory?” Fr. Eccleston asked.