“Is there anything else you want?”
The little one looked up, helpless. He tried to wet his lips with his tongue.
“A father,” he said.
“You want a priest? Didn’t you receive the sacrament this morning?”
The little one shook his head. He wanted something else.
“A father,” he said. “One who can speak Greek like you.”
Shooter-Frans thought. It was difficult. Father Athanasius was gone away. The other chaplains were all Frenchmen and Italians. It used to not mean anything. They could still all give absolutions, the sacrament, and extreme unction.
He brooded. The little guy looked at him pleadingly.
“A father, a real one. Like home . . . ”
Shooter-Frans nodded.
“I’ll try.”
He went out through the archway, down the wide stairs, out through the door and stood there perplexed. So he started down toward the city. Was this really important? What if the chaplains got mad? But then he remembered the boy had dysentery. That was enough evil. It was clear that they should go to those who had dysentery too just as they went to those who had pocks or the plague. But they would still be glad to escape having to do it.
He went at random to the Greek Cathedral; he could always meet someone there. But it was empty in there. There were only a few women praying before an icon of Hagios Fanurios. But just then a real priest came down the lateral isle. Shooter-Frans limped along and stammered some words, just as the priest would have disappeared behind the iconostasis. When he heard the Frank speak Greek like a native, he was friendly at last and listened a little longer. Yes—he would come. So he gathered up his things and followed. It turned out that he really should have been going to a baptism, but a dying man needed to come first. Shooter-Frans was starting to feel a little anxious. What if he had misdiagnosed the little Greek? Was it really so urgent?
But the Greek priest did not seem to be mad about anything. He had small shoulders and sad eyes. His name was Gennaios, he said and that he too was from the islands. He had heard of the sick boy. The little Shooter-Frans now began to speak and chat about himself.
When they got there, the priest went into the dysentery room right away and shut himself in. Shooter-Frans went away to the cafeteria, but it was already empty. He learned that the infirmary asked about him and was now looking for him. It was a very painful examination. Where had he been? What had he done in the city? Why didn’t he go to dinner? Who was the priest he took into the Hospitallers’ territory? Was it really one of the Catholic Greeks that recognized the Pope and not one of the schismatics? Shooter-Frans stammered, bowed, turned red, and stared helplessly before him, unhappy because he always did everything wrong. Then he finally got the order to fetch the Greek priest.
That troubled him too. He did not want to disturb the priest, but Father Gennaios stayed in there a long time. But when he finally came out, Shooter-Frans was comforted, knowing that the priest was thankful for being called. He had been needed in there, he said. Then he went to see the infirmary, and they spoke for an hour, at first very loudly then calmly. When the Greek went on his way, the infirmary looked very respectful. He didn’t say anything else about the matter to Shooter-Frans.
In the evening, the little Greek died. In its own way, this comforted brother Frans too. At least, he hadn’t called the priest unnecessarily.
The Unfathomable
Chancellor d’Amaral sat alongside a path in the garden and warmed his frozen bones under the beautiful February sun. It had been a cold morning in the cool council hall, and the negotiations certainly hadn’t done anything to warm his heart or feet. Everything was going wrong, just as he had predicted. Naturally, they had immediately sent delegates to Rome and Marseille to inform them of the election results. Now, the new Grand Master found himself in France as an ambassador, visitor, and corrector with extraordinary powers to negotiate for more troops, more boats, and new cannons. He was also able to collect outstanding debts, outstanding leases, and regular responses from the order’s property, extra war tributes and as much he could press out of advances and loans. That fit him.
Then they chose an acting deputy, and—naturally!—it was a Frenchman, this round stomached, pink-skinned, reddish-blond bearded, smiling and wasteful Gabriel de Pomerolx. It fit them.
The larger political picture also looked dark. Naturally, things had gone like he thought they would. The rebellious Gazali had been defeated. He was thrown out during the siege of Haleb. Then he was overcome by Suleiman’s Janissaries, who fell upon him just outside of Damascus after an unbelievable day’s march. Some said that he attempted to flee disguised as a dervish, but had been betrayed by his own men. In any case his severed head was now on the way to Constantinople in a courier’s bag. And all the cannons that Old Carretto had so generously contributed were now in Turkish hands. The councilors and instructors he had sent with the cannons had escaped home by sea, mostly thanks to a strong January storm that made even the best Turkish captains seek peaceful harbors.
The Chancellor sat and looked at Ibrahim, the garden slave, who slowly and methodically stacked stones around a new terrace along the top of the garden. What was he really thinking about? Turks were the best people a person could want as rowers and assistants. They never caused a disturbance. They worked quietly and diligently.
“Ibrahim?”
“Yes, Lord?”
The Turk looked up a little bewildered.
“Come here a minute. Don’t work. What are you really thinking about?”
Something came to life in the Turk as if he had made a decision. So he said:
“About paradise, Lord.”
The Chancellor looked surprised at first, but it faded.
“And you believe that you will go there?”
“Naturally, Lord, because I have a better faith.”
“Better? Better than what?”
Again something lit up behind his dark velvet-brown eyes.
“Than yours, Lord.”
“You will have to explain what you mean by that.”
The slave hesitated.
“May one speak from his heart?”
“You may, Ibrahim.”
“God is one.”
“True, Ibrahim.”
“He is exalted, higher than the heavens, unimaginable, glorious beyond all understanding. It is impossible to conceptualize him.”
More than one would want, the Chancellor thought, but he didn’t say it.
“If we could conceptualize him, he would no longer be God.”
“That is true, Ibrahim.”
“Neither could he be God, if he were like we are.”
The Chancellor remained quiet. He should have contradicted him here, but he wanted to hear more. He looked encouragingly at the Turk, who stood there and stretched the waistband of his pants, wondering how much he could say without landing on the rower’s bench again.
“Lord, we would never venture to say that the infinitely exalted would have a son with a woman. That the glorious and divine, the blessed and unspeakable, whom we cannot find a word for—that he could be found in a wretched, sweaty human body that is susceptible to sores and colic, has to stuff itself with porridge and go to the bathroom like we do. Lord, it is blasphemy. Therefore God has given us victory. See for yourself, Lord: Egypt, Syria, Africa, Byzantium, and Bulgaria—all are liberated. God restores his glory everywhere again through us his unworthy servants. How would we have been able to do it, if God were not with us?”
That