Of Love and Evil Read online

  Without ever opening his eyes, he raised his hand and gave me the absolution.

  “Penance, Father?” I asked.

  “Do what this spiritual director tells you,” he said.

  He opened his eyes, took off the stole, folded it and put it back in his pocket. He was about to leave without ever once looking at me.

  I took an envelope out of my pocket. It was stuffed with big bills, all of which had been wiped completely clean of prints. I gave it to him.

  “For you or for the church or whatever you want, my donation,” I said.

  “Not required, young man, you know that,” he said. He glanced at me once with large watery eyes and then away.

  “I know that, Father. I want to give you this donation.”

  He took the envelope and he left the room.

  I walked outside, felt the spring air warm around me and caressing and soothing, and then I started to walk back towards my hotel. The light was sweet and gentle, and I felt an overwhelming love for the many random people I passed. Even the cacophony of the city comforted me, the roar and clatter of the traffic like the breath of a being, or the beat of a heart.

  When I came to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I went in and sat down in a pew and waited until the evening Mass.

  This vast beautiful space was as comforting to me as it had ever been. I’d come here often both before and after I’d begun my life for The Right Man. I’d often stared at the distant high altar for hours, or walked up and down the side aisles of the church inspecting the magnificent art, and the various shrines. This for me was the quintessential Catholic church, with its soaring arches and its unapologetic grandeur. I was painfully glad that I was here now, painfully glad of all that had recently happened to me.

  A good crowd gathered just as it was getting dusk outside. I went up closer to the altar. I wanted to hear the Mass and to see it. At the moment of the Consecration of the bread and wine, I bowed my head and I wept. I didn’t care who noticed this. Didn’t matter. When we stood to say the Lord’s Prayer, I took off my gloves and reached out to those on either side of me as we said the words.

  When I went to Communion, I could not disguise the tears. But it didn’t matter. If anybody noticed, I did not notice that person. I was as alone as I’d ever been, comfortable in my anonymity and in this ritual. And yet I was connected with all here, I was part of this place and this moment, and this felt very simply glorious.

  And you can perfectly well cry when you go to Communion in a Catholic church.

  There was a moment afterwards when I knelt in the pew with my head bowed, thinking about how the world, the great real world about me, might view what I was doing here. The modern world so detests rituals.

  What did rituals mean to me? Everything, because they were the patterns that reflected my deepest feelings and commitments.

  I had been visited by angels. I had followed their loving advice. But that was one miracle. And this, the Miracle of the True Presence of Our Blessed Lord in the bread and the wine, was another. And this miracle is what mattered to me now.

  I didn’t care what the great world thought. I didn’t care about points of theology or logic. Yes, God is everywhere, yes, God pervades everything in the universe, and God is also here. God is here now in this way, within me. This ritual has brought me to God and God to me. I let my understanding of this pass out of words and into a silent acceptance.

  “God, please protect Liona and Toby from Lucky the Fox and all that he has done, please. Let me live to serve Malchiah; let me live for Liona and my son.”

  I said many other prayers—I prayed for my family; I prayed for each and every soul whom I had ushered into eternity; I prayed for Lodovico; I prayed for The Right Man; I prayed for the nameless and the innumerable whose lives had been disrupted by the evils I had done. And then I gave way to the Prayer of Quiet, only listening for the voice of God.

  Mass had been over for about half an hour. I left the pew, genuflecting as in the old days, and went down the aisle, feeling a marvelous sense of peace and pure happiness.

  As I reached the back of the church, I saw that the side door on the left was open, but not the main doors, so I went that way towards the street.

  There was a man standing just inside the door with his back to the light and something struck me about him, which caused me to glance at him directly.

  It was the young man from the Mission Inn. He wore the same brown corduroy jacket, with a white shirt open at the neck under a sweater vest. He stared right at me. He looked emotional, as if he was about to speak. But he didn’t.

  My heart thudded in my ears. What the Hell was he doing here? I walked past him and outside and started down the street away from my hotel. I was trembling. I tried to run through all the possibilities that might explain this strange sighting but in truth there weren’t very many. Either this was a coincidence or he was following me. And if he was following me then he might have seen me go to the garage in Los Angeles and the garage in New York! This was absolutely insupportable.

  Never in all my years as Lucky the Fox had I ever been aware of anyone following me. Again, I cursed the day I’d told The Right Man my real name, but I couldn’t fit this strangely vulnerable-looking young man into any scenario involving The Right Man. So who was he?

  The longer I walked up Fifth Avenue, the more certain I was that this guy was right behind me. I could feel him. We were approaching Central Park. The traffic moving downtown was thick and noisy, the harsh sound of the car horns striking at my nerves, the exhaust fumes making my eyes water. Yet I was thankful we were here, in New York, amid the early evening crowds, with people on all sides of us.

  But what the Hell was I going to do about this guy? What could I do? And it occurred to me with utter finality that I absolutely couldn’t do what Lucky the Fox might have done. I couldn’t do him violence. No matter what he knew that was no longer an option. I was suddenly maddened by that fact. I felt trapped by it.

  I wanted to look back to see if I could spot him and as I stepped off the curb to cross the street I glanced uneasily over my shoulder.

  Suddenly two firm hands grabbed me by the arms and pulled me sharply back. My ankle caught on the curb. I stumbled but I stumbled backwards. A taxicab roared past me and across Fifth, against the light, inciting shouts from all sides. The cab had almost run me down.

  I was badly shaken.

  Of course I thought it was Malchiah or Shmarya who had saved me from this. But when I turned to see who it was, there was the young man standing there, inches from me.

  “That car could have killed you,” he said. He backed up. His voice was an educated voice, in no way familiar to me.

  The taxicab slammed into something or someone on the other side of Fifth. The noise was horrific.

  People were going around us now and letting us know in no uncertain terms that we were blocking the sidewalk.

  But I wanted a good look at this person, so I didn’t move, and he stood just a few feet from me looking into my eyes in much the same way that he had in the cathedral.

  He really was young, early twenties at most. He seemed somehow to be imploring me.

  I turned and walked over to the nearest wall and stood there. He came with me. This was exactly what I expected. I was bristling with hostility. I was angry, angry that he’d followed me, angry that he’d saved me from the cab. I was angry he wasn’t more afraid of me, that he dared come this close to me, that he had let himself be seen so fearlessly.

  I was in a perfect fury.

  “How long have you been following me?” I demanded. I was trying not to grit my teeth, I was so angry.

  He didn’t respond. He was badly shaken himself. I could see all the little signals in his face, the way his lips moved without forming words, the way his pupils danced as he looked at me.

  “What do you want from me?” I demanded.

  “Lucky the Fox,” he said in a low intimate voice. “I want you to talk to me. I want you to tell m
e who sent you to kill my father.”

  The End

  January 29, 2010

  Author’s Note

  SONGS OF THE SERAPHIM ARE WORKS OF FICTION. HOWEVER, real events and real persons inspire some of what takes place in these books. And every effort has been made to present the historical milieu of the novels with full accuracy.

  The tragic maiming and subsequent mutilation of a Jewish boy in Florence in 1493 is described in detail in Public Life in Renaissance Florence by Richard G. Trexler, published by Cornell University Press. However, nothing is noted in any source that I found as to the identity of the young man, his relatives or his ultimate fate. I have used these sources to create a fictional version of the incident in this novel.

  The flower called “the Purple Death” is fictional. For obvious reasons I did not want to include details regarding a real poison in this book.

  My principal sources for this novel were two books by Cecil Roth, one very large work entitled The History of the Jews of Italy and a shorter but no less informative work, The Jews of the Renaissance, both published by the Jewish Publication Society of America. Also of tremendous help was part of Jewish Community Series and translated by Moses Hadas and also published by the Jewish Publication Society of America. I was also helped by Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy by Robert Bonfil, translated by Anthony Oldcorn and published by the University of Chicago Press. The Renaissance Popes by Gerard Noel was also helpful, and I am indebted to Noel for the fact that Pope Julius II dined on caviar every day at lunch.

  I consulted many other books on Rome, on Italy, on the Jews throughout the world during this period of history, and these books are far too numerous to name here. Any student interested in further study will find abundant resources at his or her fingertips.

  Once again, I want to acknowledge Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.

  With regard to the Renaissance lute, I listened to a good deal of music while writing this book, but was singularly inspired by a compact disc called The Renaissance Lute by Ronn McFarlane. Let me recommend to the listener selection No. 7, entitled only “Pessemeze.” This piece of music proved particularly haunting, and I imagine my hero, Toby, playing it during his concluding hours in Renaissance Italy.

  Once again let me acknowledge the existence and the beauty of the Mission Inn in Riverside, California, and the beautiful Mission of San Juan Capistrano.

  And let me thank again with special fervor and gratitude the Jewish Publication Society of America for all they have done for research in the field of Jewish history.