ROME
The sudden braking threw everyone forward. The woman sitting in the back seat hit the back of her neck against the seat back, and in a dark trickle that opened on her skin, blood began to flow from her left nostril as if from some underground river. She fell to the side, her eyes closed, her breathing becoming shallow until it gave way to the thud of her inert body on the upholstery.
The car skidded slightly, the engine creaked, and the smell of burnt rubber mixed with the metallic odor of blood.
— Damn it! — exploded Fabrizzio, the driver, pulling the handbrake with his trembling hand. The sound of his voice was rough, full of haste and fear.
— Careful or you'll be punished by Father Raphaniè — yelled Tito, who occupied the front seat and observed the scene. There was a programmed tension in his shoulders, as if he were awaiting orders on a mission that could always go wrong.
— To hell with you and that damned priest. — Fabrizzio spat the words out like someone stripping away a last vestige of authority that doesn't exist.
Anger tried to cover the panic, but his accent betrayed his vulnerability.
— Watch how you speak, Fabrizzio. — Tito suppressed his voice, but the reprimand had a hint of bitter humor regarding each other's history.
— Do you want me to spell it out? — Fabrizzio replied sarcastically, his mouth curving into a short laugh.
The priest snorted, offended and impatient.
— You really are a lost cause... — said Tito, and in the sound of his voice there was less affection than disapproval.
Ahead, like a stone sentinel against the heavy sky, stood the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Spotlights mounted in the square bit into the facade and projected shadows that looked like long fingers. The church shimmered, imposing, like a beacon of morality in a neighborhood where morality had already grown weary. In the priest's mind, that vision always transformed into a metaphor: A sign from God in a world plunged into darkness. Words he repeated in homilies, certain that they could become precepts.
— What are we going to do with her? — Fabrizzio asked, using the question to disguise the trembling in his hands.
— We have to leave her at the church. Father Raphaniè Marin will know what to do — Tito said as if repeating protocol.
His voice was practical, trained to follow orders and silence doubts.
— No fucking way am I going to carry that bitch up all those steps. It was already a hell of a job getting her into the car, and now you want me to climb the fucking basilica? — Fabrizzio gestured, pointing to the sky as if defying the very architecture.
— You get paid for this. Now shut your damn mouth and help me. — Tito opened the door with a decisive movement.
On his face, patience was a fraying thread.
Fabrizzio reflexively remembered what his father used to say in bar conversations:
— A pen is lighter than a hoe...
It was a fatalism that burned in his ears: studying weighed less than working until he dropped.
I should have listened to the old man and studied… — he thought, in a lament that no one wanted to hear.
— Let's just finish this whole mess quickly. — he concluded, as if speed could cleanse the dust of the past.
The woman was a mixture of contradiction and cruelty: her protruding breasts insinuated themselves into the neckline of her white t-shirt, her black miniskirt rode up almost in defiance of prudence, and her high heels were crooked like a sign of life refusing to cooperate. The heavy makeup, now smudged, shared space with bruises and cuts. Her nose, fleshy and inclined, showed swelling — a consequence of the sudden braking, the hours of aggression that preceded it, or both. Her straight hair fell to her shoulders: almost full blonde, with ingrown roots that betrayed nights of fortune-seeking abstinence. Despite being thin, light, and short, she weighed like a secret for Tito and Fabrizzio—and for their consciences, which dragged the guilt along like a sack of stones.
Tito tugged at a strap of her dress, trying to lift her arm; Fabrizzio, taller, approached with a sigh:
— Needless to say, I need help.
— They don't make priests like they used to... — Fabrizzio murmured, recalling his lessons on the Knights Templar and their exploits, and comparing, with bitter irony, those warriors of yesteryear with the weak shoulders of today.
— Leave it to me — Fabrizzio stepped forward, leaned over, slid the woman over his shoulder, and held her firmly, like someone holding a torn package.
Lack of ceremony was the only language left.
— Can I spend a few minutes with her first? — Tito asked in a tone that tried to be gentle, but the question sounded like a dangerous proposition.
— Only if you're not afraid of being chewed up by the devil, you imbecile! — Tito yelled back, in a warning that mixed threat and concern.
— It's a risk I'm willing to take. — Fabrizzio couldn't hide a glint in his eye. Something about that seemingly broken woman also stirred a petty affection, a mixture of desire and pity.
— Shut up and bring her outside. Father Raphaniè is waiting for us.
Tito slammed the door, the sound echoing like a
Urgent marker. Despair hung over the night.
— We only get screwed in this damn life... — he murmured, and the phrase hung between the steps.
FABRIZZIO CLIMBED THE STAIRS as if carrying a burden smaller than his heart. Step after step, the woman's weight crushed his spine; his public habit of feigning indifference gained momentum. He stepped onto the cold marble, felt the friction of his shoes, his short breath.
As if he were a package weighing only a few kilos, he moved forward. And then, in Tito's jacket pocket, the cell phone vibrated, cutting through the silence like a razor.
— Yes, Father, it's us. Do you want us to leave the woman here at the entrance? — Tito spoke quickly, the words leaping as if trying to hasten fate.
"...Obviously not, you imbecile..." — the answer didn't come in voice, only in silence and understanding; Tito smiled forcedly.
— Alright," he nodded.
"...You can bring her in through the side door..." — the order came like a surgical instruction. Tito doubled his attention.
— What's he going to do with her? — Fabrizzio asked, displaying a malicious smile that never seemed completely sincere.
— He's responsible for what he does — Tito replied dryly. There was a fearful reverence in that "responsible" that ignored curiosity.
— Does he want us to join in the fun? — Fabrizzio provoked, his voice a thread of morbid expectation.
— Shut up, man. Are you sick or something? — Tito retorted, and the tension grew between the three like a heavy cloud.
THE SIDE DOOR CREAKED AND OPENED. In the flashlight light, a tall, thin man emerged in the opening, his neatly trimmed hair and beard tinged silver, the scar on his forehead like a map of a life of hard chapters. He wore a black habit with a silver crucifix that hung on his chest and gleamed like a promise. The smile vanished from his face when he saw the unconscious woman. His expression changed from curious to alarmed.
— What the hell happened to her? — Father Raphaniè Marin asked sharply, his tone harsh without the usual preaching. Something about the scene threw him off his clerical composure and made him human.
— She was hysterical, Father — Tito explained in a practical voice, the preemptive defense of someone who needs to justify violence.
— There was no other way to bring her in except by force — Fabrizzio admitted, his tone half justifying, half ashamed.
Raphaniè snorted, and in the priest's nostrils there was indignation mixed with contempt.
— And aggressive, look at the mess she made of me, she scratched my whole face. — Fabrizzio stretched his hand to the priest's face, as if proving a sin that wasn't his.
— For me, she performed a miracle by improving that ugly face of yours. — The priest murmured, more to himself than to the others, and there was something subtle in the barb: cruelty sailing in sanctity.
Fabrizio made a face of displeasure, stung by the response:
— We had to sedate her with that tranquilizer injection you arranged for us. — he added, revealing the invisible hand that moved the operation.
— Come with me and no questions. — ordered Father Raphaniè Marin, closing the church door with the same firmness with which one closes a sentence.
He walked down the side aisle carrying the lantern as a staff. The narrow corridor opened in shadows, and behind him, the figures of Tito and Fabrizzio followed, carrying secrets that began to smell of confessional.
In the corridor, the candles flickered and the air was thick with incense. The sound of footsteps echoed, a courtroom rhythm. The silence of the basilica promised decisions that were not solely up to God. As they descended the narrow corridor that led to a windowless side room, Tito looked at Fabrizzio with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
— This is where the truth will come out — Tito whispered, and the phrase didn't know if it meant hope or a threat.
The woman, still motionless on Fabrizzio's shoulder, breathed a thread, a minimal sign of life. And at that instant, on the threshold between faith and violence, between the confessor and the confessed, the world seemed like a scale ready to tip either way—so much so that a breath, a word, an order—was enough to shatter everything.