Day Of Confession

30

Friday, July 10, 1:00 a.m.

A hand touched Harry's face, and he groaned, shivering. The hand retreated, a moment later to return with a damp cloth to wipe his face and again clean the wound on his forehead. Then moving a little to scrub gently the dried blood that matted his hair.

Somewhere far off came a vague rumbling and the ground shook, and then both sound and movement stopped. Then he felt a tugging at his shoulders and he opened his eyes, or rather the one eye that could see. When he did, he started. An oversized head stared down at him, the eyes glistening in the dim light.

'Parla Italiano?' A man was sitting on the ground beside Harry, his voice high-pitched and accented in a strange, singsong way.

Harry turned his head slowly to look at him.

'Inglese?'

'Yes…' Harry whispered.

'American?'

'Yes…' Harry whispered again.

'Me, too, once. Pittsburgh. I came to Rome to be in a Fellini movie. I never was. And I never left.'

Harry could hear the sound of his own breathing. 'Where am I…?'

The face smiled. 'With Hercules.'

Suddenly another face appeared, looking down at him, too. It was that of a woman. Dark skinned, maybe forty, her hair turned up in a bright bandana. Kneeling down, she touched his head, then reached across and lifted his left hand. It was bandaged heavily. Her eyes went to the man with the enlarged head, and she said something in a language Harry had never heard. The man nodded. The woman glanced back at Harry, then stood abruptly and left. After a moment there was a sound like a heavy door opening and then closing.

'You have the use of only one eye… But soon the other will come back. She has said so.' Hercules smiled again. 'I am to wash your wounds twice every day and to change the bandage on your hand tomorrow. The one on your head can remain for a time… She has told me that, too.'

Again came the rumbling and again the ground shook.

'This my house. Where I live,' Hercules said. 'A boarded-up part of the Metro, an old work tunnel. I have existed here for five years – and no one knows. Well, except for a few such as her… Pretty good, eh?' He laughed and then reached out and pulled himself up with an aluminum crutch. 'I have no use of my legs. But my shoulders are huge and I am very strong.'

Hercules was a dwarf. Three and a half feet, four feet tall at most. His head was large, almost egg shaped. And his shoulders were huge, as were his arms. But that was most all of him. His waist was tiny, his legs little more than spindles.

Limping to a darkened wall behind him, Hercules plucked something from it. When he turned back, he had a second crutch.

'You were shot…'

Harry stared blankly. He remembered none of it.

'Very lucky. The gun was small caliber. The bullet hit your hand and bounced off your head… You were in the sewer. I fished you out.'

Harry stared at him with his one good eye, uncomprehending, his mind straining to adjust, as if fighting to come out of a deep sleep, to move from an endless dream to reality. For some reason his thoughts went to Madeline, and he saw her, arms and legs askew, her hair floating out from her head in the black water under the ice, and he wondered if this was what it had been like for her – moving from some kind of terrifying reality to a dreamlike state, shifting back and forth between one and the other until she went finally into her last deep sleep.

'You do not feel pain?'

'No…'

Hercules grinned. 'Because of her medicine. She is a Gypsy who knows healing. I am not Gypsy, but I get along with them. They give me things, I give them things. We do favors. That way we respect and do not steal from each other…' A giggle erupted, and he let it run, then became serious again. 'Nor I from you, Father.'

'Father…?' Harry looked at him blankly.

'Your papers were in your jacket, Father Addison…' Hercules leaned on his crutches and swept his hand to the side.

Nearby, Harry's clothes hung on a makeshift rack to dry. On the ground next to them, carefully laid out to dry as well, was the envelope Gasparri had given him. Next to it were Danny's personal effects – his scorched watch, his broken glasses, his charred Vatican identification, and his passport.

Like an acrobat Hercules suddenly dropped the length of his crutches to sit on the ground next to Harry, face-to-face as before. As if he had abruptly pulled up a chair.

'We have a problem, Father. Decidedly you would want me to tell someone of your condition. Most probably the police. But you are not ready to walk, and I can tell no one you are here because then my home would be found out. Understand?'

'Yes…'

'Best you rest anyway. With good fortune, as early as tomorrow you will be able to stand and then go where you wish.'

Suddenly Hercules reversed his earlier motion and abruptly pulled himself up on his crutches.

'I am leaving for a time. Sleep without fear. You will be safe.'

With that he swung off and disappeared in the darkness, the sound of him echoing until there was the creak of wood, the same as when the woman left – a heavy door opening and closing.

Harry lay back and for the first time was aware of a pillow under his head and a blanket covering him. 'Thank you,' he whispered. Again he heard the vague rumbling and felt the ground shake as a Metro train passed in the distance. Then exhaustion overtook him and he closed his eyes and thoughts of Hercules and everything else faded away.