Dimiter by William Peter Blatty - Dimiter

Author:William Peter Blatty - Dimiter [Blatty, William Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Albania, Intelligence Officers, Fiction, United States, Americans, Thrillers, Suspense, Jerusalem, Espionage
ISBN: 9780765364333
Google: ROzZNdo0F-AC
Amazon: B0046LUOVY
Barnesnoble: B0046LUOVY
Publisher: Forge Books
Published: 2009-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

The genial and diminutive Armenian prelate’s wily little eyes held a mischievous glitter. “Yes, water from the Jordan River, Mister Parker! Little bottles of it! Blessed! Do you think it would go over in the States? Would it sell? And, oh, Sergeant, would you pass the risotto?”

The high vaulted ceiling of the Casa Nova dining room magnified the chatter of the Catholic pilgrims and the scrape of metal cutlery on plates as they fed at communal refectory tables joined tightly together on both sides of the room. It gave Meral almost all of the little comfort he was capable of receiving: a vivid human contact that could ease his inner loneliness without the need for him to fully engage, to grow fond, to attach and risk pain. And there were sometimes those momentary leaps of the heart when emanations of the confident joy and excitement of so many believers crowded together would float up from their tables to create a penumbra of faith that would sometimes descend upon Meral and, if only for the briefest of moments, enfold him. But more enduringly helpful at these nightly dinners, like the breadcrumbs on the table the Italian Franciscan serving nuns swept into their hands at the end of the meal, were those stray bits of hope that Meral sometimes gleaned from the comments of the priests who led the pilgrims on their tours, though their balm was always brief. Over coffee during Easter week the year before, a former United States Army chaplain, after noting how so many of Christ’s disciples had chosen to die rather than to deny that they had really seen the risen Christ, ended wryly, “Call me nuts, but I tend to believe a man’s deathbed confession.” On hearing this, Meral had felt a slight warming elation, but by the time the osso bucco and the salad had been served, he had lapsed back into the dryness of doubt and that night, as he did on every other, he knelt down in the hostel’s chapel to pray to a God he wasn’t sure existed that his little boy somehow, somewhere, did.

“Some more San Salvatore? Shall I fill it?”

A freckle-faced young Italian nun, a black apron worn over her all-white garb, stood holding up an empty decanter of the pure and strong red wine.

“Oh, yes, please,” the Armenian bishop answered avidly. He then turned back to the American couple sitting opposite him. “And so what do you think?” he asked. “Tell me really.”

“To be honest, I don’t know,” said the husband. He looked doubtful.

“Oh, well, I think it would do very well,” said the wife. “I mean, come on! Holy water from the River Jordan? I think it would do wonderfully well!”

Waiting for his first course plate to be cleared, Meral lowered a dull and disappointed gaze to the table’s little decorative clutch of pink cyclamen. This was not to be a night of uplifting insights. Although later, when the oranges and bananas had arrived at the table for dessert, for a moment Meral thought that events might turn.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.