above his clerical collar. Father Tomasz was wiry, and balding, with a dark complexion and the perennial shadow of a beard. Both of them had thinner, higher voices than the Italian—clearly the eldest.
"We've just finished a very animated seminar discussion." Father Giovanni unlocked his office door. "All about how narrow or broad our cultural identity should be. And for that matter, how narrowly or broadly conceived our Church should be. All our phases of openness and innovation regarding society alternating with periods of conservatism and narrow orthodoxy. Please, do come in."
As she followed him into the vibrant yellow office, with was full of books stacked in book cases and on the floor in a disarray that her mother would never have tolerated, Angie glanced at the other two, Tomasz with alarmed eyebrows and Kevin with a tolerant smile, immobile in the doorway.
Paying them no mind, Father Giovanni opened the slats on his Venetian blinds. "My last point," he continued to explain to Angie, "was about how while in the past the Papacy controlled certain political states, it still today competes with the authority of other States as regards issues of war and peace or things like abortion rights, euthanasia, or gay marriages. But is that what Catholicism is all about? Father Kevin doesn't think so. He thinks that the priests in the front line really out there helping people end up following only the fundamental doctrine and ignoring the, well, accessory rules. Father Tomasz, on the other hand, thinks that precisely because we are humble troops in the army of Goodness, priests must always obey orders from above. Did I do a good job at summing that up, my friends?"
Silence. It seemed to Angie that there was some other, personal issue between these men.
"Certainly our head is the Pope, and certainly we have to have our rules," Father Giovanni continued. "The tricky thing for the Church is that whereas sin in the past had quite an individualistic dimension—as in 'am I going to Hell or am I going to be saved?'—today we acknowledge that the most truly horrible sin is social. But it's hard for us to feel as strongly about our collective guilt…"
"Which is why other religions conveniently disregard it," said Father Tomasz sharply.Father Kevin raised his eyebrows as if to say he'd been expecting this comment to come.
Sighing, Father Giovanni sank into his desk chair and gestured to Angie to take the one opposite.
"This young lady has an old—possibly ancient—medallion to show us. Inherited from her great-great-great Italian grandfather, isn't it?"
"That's right." Relieved to be getting to the point of her visit, Angie pulled it from her purse. The other two priests moved closer for a look.
"The symbol's Mithraic," Father Giovanni said as soon as he had it in his palm.
"So... Egyptian?"
"No, Persian."
He offered it like a gold host to the others. Only Kevin seemed truly interested, however. "We're talking about a mystery religion dedicated to Mithras, the invincible sun god, which came out of ancient Persia. It predated Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, took on aspects of Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism, seemed to penetrate into the writings of certain philosophers in Ancient Greece, and then was revived by—or spread to—the Roman Empire. It's quite fascinating to think that Mithraism was the last state pagan religion in Europe. With its masculine orientation, emphasis on discipline, valour and physical agility, it attracted many followers among the Roman soldiers and tax collectors posted at the edges of the Empire, who were introduced to these rites by the Persian soldiers, their enemies."
"It influenced the Christianity that was to follow," Father Kevin elaborated, giving it back to Father Giovanni, while Father Tomasz, stony-faced, drew his cell phone from his pocket and checked the screen. "The veneration of Saints fit nicely over the veneration of pagan deities, who had worked similar miracles, and in place of the principle twelve gods of ancient Rome there were the cults of the twelve apostles. There was the same Virgin birth, both for Christ and Mithras—or the Sol Invictus, the invincible sun. Of course Mithras was born out of a rock and new life and salvation comes from his killing a bull, and this is very different from Christianity, but the parallelisms are numerous."
"That's right," Father Giovanni agreed. "Traces remain of the cult today—there are mithraeums in Rome, caves they were—Kevin is an expert on them, over which Christians put their first churches. There are others at the edges of the Empire as I mentioned—like Hadrian's Wall between England and Scotland."
By now Angie was hankering for some paper and a pen. It felt just like being back in a lecture hall. But what was her family doing with something this old?
Guessing her thoughts, Father Giovanni said, "So, I confirm. Your medallion is Ancient Roman, pagan, and gold. On the back side there seems to be some kind of magical landscape. And on the front, as I said, a leontocephalus. This fire-breathing lion-headed figure found in the mithraeums was special because it was believed to straddle the cosmos and the hyper-cosmos, the natural and the supernatural worlds. If you want a western analogy, it's rather on the order of Plato's World Soul."
She'd read a book by Plato—well, part of a book—her first semester in college.
He handed the medallion back to her.
"I'm going to Rome in two weeks' time to do research," Father Kevin interjected.
"Unfortunately without the best student from the past that we ever had," returned Father Giovanni. "He is specialized in the transition phase going from Mithraism to the Sol Invictus cult backed by such Roman emperors as Aurelian and then on to Christianity."
It was then that Father Tomasz's cell phone came alive. As he glanced at the caller's name, his face instantly became more amenable, and he stepped towards the hall, saying "Hello, Mr. Brandeau."
Brandeau?
"Marc-Alexandre Brandeau is one of our biggest donors," Father Giovanni said quietly.
Somehow she was prepared for this.
Delia was in the Wal-Mart parking lot at the Giant supermarket struggling to fit the rented rug steamer diagonally across the back seat of her car. She had to return it in three hours, which wasn't much time to get the carpeting in the living room and dining room cleaned, but she'd manage somehow. If she wasn't too tired after that, she wanted to use the rest of her day off to cut the lawn, hoping it wouldn't be so awfully hot by three o'clock; there was some hope of that, seeing that it was getting cloudier. She drove the two miles home in air-conditioned comfort, listening to Aida, and heaved a sigh when she had to turn all that off and lug the steamer up the front steps. This house didn't have a garage door leading conveniently into the kitchen, like the one in Memphis had had. She had been foolish not to notice this design flaw, but she'd been in a benumbed trance when she bought this house; all she wanted was to be far away from Memphis, from that view of the street running past their house, and from the sight of their mailbox opposite, which Bill had been heading for that day. She stood up from the steamer, feeling that the backs of her knees were damp with sweat—a sensation she didn't like, and inserted her key in the door lock. Now damn, why doesn't it turn? It had never got stuck from the heat before. She forced it three or four times more. Nothing. She looked in the keyhole. Had that metal piece always been there? Leaving the steamer on its side on the porch, she went around to the back and with another key opened the kitchen door without problem. Everything seemed all right. She passed into the living room. Fine here too, except the potted ficus tree, which was tipped forty-five degrees askew but still rooted in its dirt. How had that happened? And what was this? She saw that behind the plant began a floor collection of clothing and underwear, once in her chest of drawers, which now marked a trail for some giant-sized Hansel or Gretel in the direction of her bedroom. From the doorway she saw that her mattress was folded in two and the closet was open, all its hangers without dresses. She went to her vanity table and with trembling fingers opened all the little boxes in the drawer where she kept her jewelry and in the past her cash—though no cash these days, she was strapped with too many bills. Anyway, nothing was missing. She backed away and ran towards Angie's bedroom. It was less of a mess. The old family suitcase was open on the bed, its contents strewn on the floor: the old yellow letters, the pictures, the lockets, the war bullets and medals, even the Garibaldi