Chapter 38: Where He Has Been on His Knees

The church of San Marco had never held so many people who were not praying.

Dante stood at the front, by the rail, in a dark suit Maria had fitted herself.

He had not knelt once since he arrived.

The old priest, the one who had stopped asking him to go home, caught his eye and smiled from the side aisle.

"You are standing up," the priest murmured.

"I'm told it's required."

"It is only the second time I have seen you do it."

Daniel stood at Dante's shoulder in a rented waistcoat, holding the rings and sniffing every few seconds.

"If you cry before it starts," Dante said, "I'll have you removed."

"I'm a neurologist. I cry on principle."

The pews held half the harbor.

Sixty men of the Rossi family sat on the left in black, and not one of them wore a gun.

On the right sat nurses and dockworkers, and the fisherman's wife with her toddler.

The dean sat there in his best robe, beside the warden in a tie that was too tight.

In the front row on the left, in a gray coat that did not fit her, sat Maria.

She had come back from the coast house that morning with a tan.

Beside her sat the old elder, very upright, with a cane across his knees.

A hospital band was still on his wrist.

He had insisted on coming.

He had also insisted on the aisle seat, so that he could be near the door "in case a doctor is needed."

The organ started.

Dante had been told the groom would wait at the front, and he waited.

He did not look back until the doors opened.

Javier stood alone in the doorway.

Nobody had walked him in, and nobody had been asked to.

He wore a plain white suit, and his glasses, and the gold amulet outside his collar on its chain.

His hair had been combed flat and was already coming loose.

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