The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [59]
“Faith O’Connor,” he said, copying slowly. “I will find her books.”
The train was not due for twenty minutes, so Phoebe and Pietro ordered croque-monsieurs at a bar and ate them outside on the warm concrete steps. They must have looked like traveling companions, Phoebe thought, possibly even a couple. She noticed her voice leaning into laughter, how she tossed her head, each tiny gesture like the sweet ache of a muscle craving exercise.
“Why did you come to Reims?” she asked teasingly. “For the champagne?”
Pietro smiled, apparently not understanding. “I gave to you, eh? The champagne,” he said. “No, I come for the cathedral.”
“Cathedral?”
Pietro looked shocked. “The Cathedral of Reims? Is extraordinary, most beautiful in Europe.”
“I just got here,” Phoebe said, abashed.
Somewhere in the town a bell began to ring. Pietro’s eyes were filled with a gentleness she found difficult to look at. “So, you are here—because why?” he asked.
“My sister told me to come,” she said. “She loved Reims.”
Pietro smiled. “Your sister,” he said. “I think she has seen the cathedral.”
On the train they sat side by side, passing soft fields that leaned and shook as if water were pouring across them. Where the grain had been cut a sharp stubble remained, glinting like broken glass in the sunlight. Pietro’s clothes were clean but smudged, as if he owned few outfits and wore them often. Despite his physical slightness, there was a strength about him.
“You seem older than college,” Phoebe said.
Pietro cocked his head. She repeated the question more carefully.
“Ah. Yes,” he said. “For some years I did not study. Now I have returned, but yes, I am older now.”
Phoebe asked why he’d stopped. Pietro hesitated, and she worried she’d been nosy.
“I had some creases,” he finally said.
Phoebe frowned. “Creases?”
“Crisi? Crisis? You know this?”
“Oh, crisis,” Phoebe said. “Sure.”
“Crisis,” Pietro said slowly. He tapped his head with one finger. “Crisis.”
“A crisis in your head? In your brain?” Phoebe could not keep the eagerness from her voice.
“Sì,” Pietro said, then seemed to reflect. “No, I am wrong. Not head. In my so-well. You understand?”
“Your soul,” Phoebe said. She could not believe what she was hearing. “But you seem okay now,” she said carefully. “I mean, you seem stable.”
“Now I am well,” Pietro said.
Phoebe longed to ask more, but her own fragility felt so obvious, burdening every word. Yet she no longer feared prying. There was something indefinably public about Pietro, as if the events of his life were there for the taking. “How did you do that?” she asked. “I mean, get well.”
Pietro placed a fist against his heart. “Jesu Christ,” he said. “I found Him and I am saved.”
Phoebe stared at him. “Are you a priest?”
“Missionary,” he said. “I am just beginning, in Madrid.”
Phoebe wanted to tell Pietro that she was a Catholic, but was ashamed of not having been to church in so long. “How—how did you find Him?” she asked.
“He came,” Pietro said. “He came to me.”
“You mean you saw Him?” Phoebe’s voice was hushed.
“Non ‘saw,’” Pietro said, putting one hand on each eye. “Saw.” And placing both hands flat on his chest, he flipped them open like two doors making room for something to enter him.
“Were you afraid?”
He smiled. “When I don’t see Him, then I am afraid.” After a moment he added, “Still I am afraid, sì, but no I am alone. I am not alone,” he corrected himself.
Phoebe looked out the window. Beneath a layer of thin, frayed clouds the sky was pure blue. “My sister used to be religious,” she said.
“Your sister. A Roma.”
Phoebe felt as if by lying about Faith she’d soiled Pietro without his knowing it. “Yes,” she said, anxious now to be truthful. “Our father was very sick and my sister began to study for her Confirmation.” She was aware of speaking slowly, formally for Pietro’s benefit, and this gave her descriptions the distilled, monumental quality of events she’d read about. “We went to Mass every day,” she said.
“You also—you accompanied her?”
“Yes.”
Jesus on the cross, his ribs like a pair of folded wings. Phoebe