And yes indeed, a gleaming track of moisture was running from the painting’s eye.
“The tears appear every day, Monsignor,” O’Halloran said, twisting his cloth cap in his bony hands as if there were moisture to be wrung from it.
“I can confirm that,” Father Sullivan said, his ample red cheeks aglow. “I’ve been watching for weeks now.”
As Vincenzo continued staring at the wall, noting the fine meshwork of cracks in the stucco finish, the chips here and there that revealed the stonework beneath, the crowd grew silent around him.
He stepped closer and touched his finger to the trickle, then touched the finger to his tongue. Water. A mineral flavor, but not salty. Not tears.
“Would someone bring me a ladder, please. One long enough to reach the roof.”
Three men ran off immediately, and five minutes later he was climbing to the top of the gable over the Weeping Virgin’s wall. He found wet and rotted cedar shakes at the point. At his request a pry bar was brought and, with O’Halloran’s permission, he knocked away some of the soft wood.
Vincenzo’s heart sank when he saw it. A cup-like depression in the stones near the top of the gable, half filled with clear liquid. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that water collected there on rainy days—rarely was there a week, even in the summer, without at least one or two rainy days—and percolated through the stones and grout of the wall to emerge as a trickle by the painting’s eye.
The folk of Cashelbanagh were anything but receptive to this rational explanation of their miracle.
“There may be water up there,” O’Halloran said, his huge Adam’s apple bobbing angrily, “but who’s to say that’s where the tears come from? You’ve no proof. Prove it, Monsignor. Prove those aren’t the tears of the Blessed Virgin.”
He’d hoped it wouldn’t turn out like this. He’d hoped discovery of the puddle would be enough, but obviously it wasn’t. And he couldn’t leave these people to go on making a shrine out of a leaky wall.
“Can someone get me a bottle of red wine?” Vincenzo said.
“This may be Ireland, Monsignor,” Father Sullivan said, “but I hardly think this is time for a drink.”
Amid the laughter Vincenzo said, “I’ll use it to prove my theory. But it must be red.”
While someone ran to Blaney’s pub for a bottle, Vincenzo climbed the ladder again and splashed all the water out of the depression. Then he refilled it with the wine.
By evening, when the Virgin’s tears turned red, Vincenzo felt no sense of victory. His heart went out to these crestfallen people. He saw his driver standing nearby, looking as dejected as the rest of them.
“Shall I call a taxi, Michael?”
“No, Monsignor,” Michael sighed. “That’s all right. I’ll be taking you back to Shannon whenever you want.”
But the airport was not where Vincenzo needed to go. He hadn’t figured on this quick a resolution to the question of the Weeping Virgin of Cashelbanagh. His flight out wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow night.
“Can you find me a hotel?”
“Sure, Monsignor. There’s a lot of good ones in Cork City.”
They passed Blaney’s pub again on the way out of town. The picnic tables were set and waiting. Empty. The fading sunlight glinted off the polished flatware, the white linen tablecloths flapped gently in the breeze.
If only he could have told them how he shared their disappointment, how deeply he longed for one of these “miracles” he investigated to pan out, how much he needed a miracle for himself.
Cork Harbor, Ireland
Carrie’s heart leapt as she recognized the crate on the pallet being lifted from the aft hold of the freighter.
“There it is, Dan!” she whispered, pointing.
“You sure?” He squinted through the dusky light. “Looks like any of a couple of dozen other crates that’ve come out already.”
She wondered how Dan could have any doubt. She’d known it the instant it cleared the hold.
“That’s the one. No question about it.”
She locked her gaze on the crate and didn’t let it out of her sight until Bernard Kaplan’s man cleared it through Irish customs and wheeled it over to them on a dolly.
“Are you quite sure you’ll be wanting to take it from here yourself?” He was a plump little fellow with curly brown hair, a handlebar mustache, and a Barry Fitzgerald brogue.
Dan glanced at her. “Well …”
“Quite sure, Mr. Cassidy.” Carrie extended her hand. “Thank you for your assistance.”
“Not at all, Mrs. Ferris. Just remember, your crate’s got to be at Dublin harbor the morning after tomorrow, six sharp or, believe me youse, she’ll miss the loading and then God knows when she’ll get to New York.”
“We’ll be there.”
“I hope so, ‘cause I’m washing me hands of it now.” He glanced at his watch. “You’ve got turty-four hours. Plenty of time. Just don’t you be getting yourself lost along the way.”
He waved and walked off.
“Now that we’ve got her,” Dan said, tapping the top of the crate, “what do we do with her? We’ve got to find a place to store her overnight.”
“Store her? We’re not sticking her in some smelly old warehouse full of rats.”
“What do you think crawls around the hold of the Greenbriar, my dear?”
She caught an edge on his voice. Not sharp enough to cut, but enough for Carrie to notice.
Things hadn’t been quite the same between them since finding the Virgin. They’d had some moments of closeness on the plane to Heathrow after out-foxing that Israeli intelligence man, or whoever he was, and some of that had lingered during the whirl of booking the shuttle to Shannon and finding a hotel room in Cork City. But once they were settled in, a distance began to open between them.
It’s me, she thought. I know it’s me.
She couldn’t help it. All she could think about since they’d set their bags down in the Drury Hotel was that crate and its precious contents. They’d had days to kill and Dan wanted to see some of the countryside. Carrie had gone along, but she hadn’t been much company. One day they drove north through the rocky and forbidding Burren to Galway Bay; on another he took her down to Kinsale, but the quaint little harbor there only made her think about the Greenbriar and worry about its voyage. She fought visions of rough seas capsizing her, of her running aground and tearing open her hull, seawater gushing into the cargo hold and submerging the Virgin’s crate, the Mediterranean swallowing the Greenbriar and everything aboard. She spent every spare minute hovering over the radio, dissecting every weather report from the Mediterranean.
Obsessed.
She knew that. And she knew her obsession was coming between her and Dan. But as much as she valued their love, it had to take a back seat for now. Just for a while. Until they got to New York.
After all, what could be more important than seeing the Blessed Virgin safely to her new Resting Place—wherever that may be?
They hadn’t made love since finding the Virgin, and she sensed that was what was bothering Dan the most. In New York they suffered through much, much longer intervals without so much as touching hands, but that was different. Here they’d been sleeping in the same bed every night and Carrie had put him off again and again. She wasn’t sure why.
After they were resettled in New York, Carrie was sure things would get back to normal. At least she hoped so. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she didn’t feel quite the same about Dan. She still loved him fiercely, but she didn’t want him as she had two weeks ago when they’d left New York for Israel.
Because right now, it just didn’t seem … right.
“We’re taking her back to the hotel with us.”
“What?” She could see his body stiffening with tension. “You can’t do that.”
br />
“Why not? We’re paying for the room and there’s nothing that says we can’t keep a crate in it. Besides, it’s only for two nights.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
She gave him a long, level look. “I assure you, Dan, I am not kidding.”
Dan slipped his arms around her waist from behind and nuzzled her neck. Carrie felt her whole left arm break out in gooseflesh.
“Not now, Dan,” she said, pulling free and stepping away from him. She pointed to the crate. Her voiced lowered to a whisper of its own accord. “Not with her here.”
Two bellmen had lugged the Virgin’s crate up to their second-floor room and left it on the floor by the window. Beyond the window the River Lee made its sluggish way to the sea.
Dan returned her whisper, Elmer Fudd style. “We’ll be vewy, vewy quiet. She’ll never know.”
Carrie had to laugh. “Oh, Dan. I love you, I do, but please understand. It just wouldn’t be right.”
He stared at her a moment. Was that hurt in his eyes? But he seemed to understand. She prayed he did.
He sighed. “All right, then, how about we go down to the lounge and see Hal Roach? He’s only down from Dublin for one night.”
“I don’t think so.” She wasn’t really in the mood for Ireland’s answer to Henny Youngman.
“How about we just go for a walk?”
Carrie shook her head. “I think I’d rather just stay here.”
Dan’s expression tightened. “Watching over her, I suppose.”
She nodded. “In a way, yes.”
“Don’t you think you might be getting just a little carried away with this, Carrie?”
Yes, she thought. Yes, I might.
But the Virgin was here, and so here is where Carrie wanted to be. Simple. She’d waited all this time on tenter hooks for the Virgin’s arrival from Haifa, and she wasn’t about to let her out of her sight until her crate was safely on board the ship in Dublin Harbor.
“I just want to stay here with her, Dan. Is that so bad?”
“Bad? No. I can’t say it’s bad. But I don’t think it’s healthy.”
He stared again, then shrugged resignedly. “All right. This is your show. We’ll do it your way.” He stepped closer and kissed her forehead. “But I do need to get out of this room … stretch my legs … maybe cross the river and grab a pint. I’ll be back soon.”
Before Carrie could think of anything to say, he was out the door and she was alone in the room.
Well, not completely alone. The Virgin was here. She knelt beside the crate and rested her head on its lid. For one shocking, nerve-rattling moment she thought she heard a heartbeat, then she realized it was her own.
“Don’t worry, Mother Mary,” she whispered to the crate. “I won’t leave you alone here. You’ve given me comfort through the years when I needed it, now I’ll stand by you.” She patted the lid of the crate. “Till death do us part.”
The Judean Wilderness
“Why?”
Kesev stood atop the tav rock with the thieves’ rope knotted around his neck and screamed out at the clear, pitiless night sky. “Why do You torment me like this? When will You be satisfied? Have I not been punished enough?”
But no reply came from on high, just Sharav’s ceaseless susurrance, whispering in his ears. Not that he’d expected an answer. All his countless entreaties down through the years had been ignored. Why should this one be any different?
The Lord tormented him. Kesev was not cut out to be a Job. He was a fighter, not a victim. And so the Lord took extra pains to beleaguer him. Not that he was without fault in this. If he had been at his post when the errant SCUD had crashed below, he could have chased off the Bedouin boys when they wandered into the canyon, and hidden the scrolls before the government investigative teams arrived.
And then the Mother would still be safely tucked away in the Resting Place instead of … where?
Where was she?
Gone. Gone from Israel. Kesev had exhausted all his contacts and what limited use he dared make of his Shin Bet resources, but she had slipped through his fingers. He’d sensed the Mother’s slow withdrawal from their homeland. He didn’t know how, or in which direction she’d been taken, but he knew in the core of his being that she was gone.
He also knew it was inevitable that soon she would be revealed to the world and made a spectacle of, a sensational object of scientific research and religious controversy. Why else would someone steal her away?
The Lord would not stand for that. The Lord would rain his wrath down upon the Earth.
Perhaps that was the meaning behind all this. Perhaps the theft of the Mother was the event that would precipitate the Final Days. Perhaps …
Kesev sighed. It didn’t matter. He’d failed in his task and now he could see no need to prolong further the agony of this life. Since his usefulness on Earth was at an end, surely the Lord would let him end his time on earth as well. He would not see the Final Days, and certainly he did not deserve to see the Second Coming. He did not even deserve to see tomorrow.
He checked once more to make sure the rope was securely tied around the half-sunk boulder about thirty feet back. Then he stepped to the edge of the tav and looked down at his Jeep parked below. He’d left plenty of slack, enough to allow him to fall within a dozen feet of the ground. The end would be quick, painless. If he was especially lucky, the force of the final jolt might even decapitate him.
Without a prayer, without a good bye, without a single regret, Kesev stepped off the edge and into space.
He kept his eyes open and made no sound as he hurtled feet first toward the ground. He had no fear, only grim anticipation and … hope.
‡
Cork City, Ireland
Monsignor Vincenzo Riccio wandered through the thick, humid air near Cork City’s waterfront. He’d turned off St. Patrick’s Street and was looking for a place to have a drink. His doctors had all warned him against alcohol but right now he didn’t care. He’d had a long hard day of crushing people’s hopes and fervor, and he needed something. Something Holy Mother Church could not provide. He needed a different kind of communion.
All the pubs on St. Patrick were crowded and he didn’t feel like standing. He wanted a place to rest his feet. He spotted a pair of lighted windows set in dark green wood. “Jim Cashman’s” read the sign, and there was a Guinness harp over the slate where the dinner menu was scrawled in chalk.
Vincenzo peeked through the open door and saw empty seats.
Bono! He’d found his place.
He made his way to the bar and squeezed into a space between two of the drinkers—a space that would have been too narrow for him just a year ago.
Amazing what cancer can do for the figure.
The bartender was pouring for someone else so Vincenzo took a look around. A small place, this Jim Cashman’s—hardwood floor and paneling, a small bar tucked in the corner, half a dozen tables arrayed about the perimeter, a cold fireplace, and two TVs playing the same rugby match.
None of Cashman’s dozen or so patrons paid him any attention. And why should they? He wasn’t wearing his collar. He’d left that and his cassock back in his hotel room; he was now a thin, sallow, balding, gray-haired man in his fifties dressed in a white shirt and black trousers. Nothing at all priestly about him.
He turned to the solitary drinker to his left, a plump, red-faced fellow in a tour bus driver’s outfit, sipping from a glass of rich dark liquid.
“May I ask what you’re drinking, sir?”
The fellow stared at him a moment, as if to be sure this stranger with the funny accent was really speaking to him, then cleared his throat.
“‘Tis stout. Murphy’s stout. Made right here in Cork City.”
“Oh, yes. I passed the brewery on the way in.”
Michael had dr
iven him through the gauntlet of huge gleaming silver tanks towering over both sides of the road on the north end of town, and he remembered wondering who in the world drank all that brew.
Vincenzo said, “I tried a bottle of Guinness once, but didn’t care for it very much.”
The driver made a face. “What? From a bottle? You’ve never had stout till you’ve drunk it straight from the tap as God intended.”
“Which would you recommend for a beginner, then?”
“I like Murphy’s.”
“What about Guinness?”
“It’s good, but it’s got a bit more bite. Start with a Murph.”
Vincenzo slapped his hand on the bar. “Murphy’s it is!” He signaled the barkeep. “A pint of Murphy’s, if you would be so kind, and another for my advisor here.”
When the pints arrived, Vincenzo brushed off the driver’s thanks and turned to find a seat.
“Stout’s food, you know,” the driver called after him as Vincenzo carried his glass to a corner table. “A couple of those and you can skip a meal.
Good, he thought. I can use a little extra nourishment.
He’d lost another two pounds this week. The tumors in his liver must be working overtime.
“Good for what ails you too,” the driver added. “Cures all ills.”
“Does it now? I’ll hold you to that, my good man.”
He took a sip of the Murphy’s and liked it. Liked it a lot. Rich and malty, with a pleasant aftertaste. Much better than that bottle of Guinness he’d once had in Rome. One could almost believe it might cure all ills.
Vincenzo smiled to himself. Now wouldn’t that be a miracle.
He looked at the faces around Jim Cashman’s and they reminded him of the faces he’d seen in Cashelbanagh, only these weren’t stricken with the bitter disappointment and accusation he’d left there.
It’s not my fault your miracle was nothing more than a leaky roof.
A young sandy-haired fellow came in and ordered a pint of Smithwick’s ale, then sat alone at the table next to Vincenzo’s and stared disconsolately at the rugby game. He looked about as cheerful as the people Vincenzo had left at Cashelbanagh.