He’d been friendly enough, not peremptory or arrogant or overly familiar, as priests could be. In fact, there was an unusual quality to this priest – a kind of depth, a seriousness that Marco was unused to. It was almost un-nerving.
“These are your children?” the priest had asked, a typical enough question. But the American had taken note of the pain in Marco’s eyes when he’d attempted to answer jovially in the affirmative.
Not that he’d said anything untoward. But Marco saw that the priest perceived his pain, which was both embarrassing and oddly infuriating. Feeling suddenly defensive, he found himself, to his great annoyance, talking about his divorce.
How angry he was, how little control he had. How he was alone at Christmas, because that bitch – sorry Padre, but you know what I mean – refused him access to his own children. All of this, mind you, before his espresso.
What he didn’t say, of course, because it was none of the priest’s business, was that the divorce had come because of his affair with Flaminia, the personal trainer at his gym, who’d left him with an empty wallet and a sexually transmitted disease which he had neglected to mention to any of his subsequent lovers.
He declined to mention his online porn habit, or that he was keeping three sets of books at the shop – one for the tax man, one for his greedy ex-wife and the real one, for him alone.
Marco didn’t go into the fact that when his son no longer wanted to see him or even speak with him by phone, he began to hate everyone and everything. That the Devil had bitten deeply into Marco and was steering his life was something that Marco didn’t see.
But the strange priest did. For, unbeknownst to Marco, who sat watching the retreating figure of the priest making his way up the busy street, Father Paul Corinth was not a typical cleric.
Indeed, Father Paul had a highly unusual job. He was the Pope’s exorcist, newly arrived back in Rome. And that morning he was on his way to start his new job, one that he wasn’t at all sure he was capable
of handling.
CHAPTER 2
Gina Pirisi looked at her reflection critically in the mirror. Her thick, long hair had once been smooth -- a dark, chocolate brown. Today its luxurious Italian length was streaked with permanent chemicals, the frazzled ends bearing a strong resemblance to straw.
Gina’s hair was just one casualty of the days she had been with Marco. Gina often thought that he fancied himself to be living the life of the MTV he watched obsessively, where American mega-stars and Italian crooners took turns singing the virtues of hedonism and passion on flat screen TVs mounted a few
inches from the noses of his
neighborhood clientele.
REGINA | 73
He’d been friendly enough, not peremptory or arrogant or overly familiar, as priests could be. In fact, there was an unusual quality to this priest – a kind of depth, a seriousness that Marco was unused to. It was almost un-nerving.
“These are your children?” the priest had asked, a typical enough question. But the American had taken note of the pain in Marco’s eyes when he’d attempted to answer jovially in the affirmative.
Not that he’d said anything untoward. But Marco saw that the priest perceived his pain, which was both embarrassing and oddly infuriating. Feeling suddenly defensive, he found himself, to his great annoyance, talking about his divorce.
How angry he was, how little control he had. How he was alone at Christmas, because that bitch – sorry Padre, but you know what I mean – refused him access to his own children. All of this, mind you, before his espresso.
What he didn’t say, of course, because it was none of the priest’s business, was that the divorce had come because of his affair with Flaminia, the personal trainer at his gym, who’d left him with an empty wallet and a sexually transmitted disease which he had neglected to mention to any of his subsequent lovers.
He declined to mention his online porn habit, or that he was keeping three sets of books at the shop – one for the tax man, one for his greedy ex-wife and the real one, for him alone.
Marco didn’t go into the fact that when his son no longer wanted to see him or even speak with him by
phone, he began to hate everyone and everything. That the Devil had bitten deeply into Marco and was steering his life was something that Marco didn’t see.
But the strange priest did. For, unbeknownst to Marco, who sat watching the retreating figure of the priest making his way up the busy street, Father Paul Corinth was not a typical cleric.
Indeed, Father Paul had a highly unusual job. He was the Pope’s exorcist, newly arrived back in Rome. And that morning he was on his way to start his new job, one that he
wasn’t at all sure he was capable
of handling.
CHAPTER 2
Gina Pirisi looked at her reflection critically in the mirror. Her thick, long hair had once been smooth -- a dark, chocolate brown. Today its luxurious Italian length was streaked with permanent chemicals, the frazzled ends bearing a strong resemblance to straw.
Gina’s hair was just one casualty of the days she had been with Marco. Gina often thought that he fancied himself to be living the life of the MTV he watched obsessively, where American mega-stars and Italian crooners took turns singing the virtues of hedonism and passion on flat screen TVs mounted a few
inches from the noses of his
neighborhood clientele.