Road to Rome

The wood cracked and crackled in the fire.

Marco sits cross-legged in front of the fireplace, where darkness meets firelight.The lights-out time has passed long ago, and there is only this pile of burning pine logs left in the hall.The light cannot reach the high ceiling, and there is complete darkness about two meters away. Marco imagines himself hiding in a cave, the high window on the left wall is the opening, a rectangular dark blue night sky, with snow floating.

There were footsteps in the distance.Marco crawled behind the armchair on all fours and hid in the shadows.The heavy wooden door of the hall opened a crack, and a thin light cut through the darkness. Someone poked his head in, looked around for a while, and then closed the door again.

The fire continued to crackle and burn.

Most students don't know that the Great Hall is the best place to hide. At night, it is full of shadows, and even the lights can't illuminate all corners.It is not the first time that Marco sneaked out of the dormitory in the middle of the night. To be precise, during the six months he was locked up in this terrible school, he wandered around late at night a total of eleven times and was caught three times. Marco made sure that he was not in the hall three times. Lest the priests know his best hiding place.

He wasn't going to hang out tonight, he was going to run away.

It is cold outside.Because students generally don't go out, raincoats, snowshoes and thick coats are stored in a small room on the right side of the hall. The room is not locked, so it is convenient for students to use during outdoor activities.This Catholic boarding school is actually part of the seminary, but they are not connected to each other.Very occasionally, when a teacher was on sick leave, one or two monks would come over to watch over the students, buzzing like flies explaining the Catechism.If one day is very lucky and meets Brother Benjamin, the students can escape the classroom and go to the greenhouse with the monk to see the plants.Marco likes Brother Benjamin, but after all Benjamin is just an occasional miracle in the endless torment of this school, which cannot be replicated or sustained.

He successfully got the coat, hesitated for a while on the snowshoes, put his nose on the small transom, and observed the snow conditions.The snow hadn't accumulated at all, the dead lawn was still pitch black, and the chandelier above the gate showed the ruts in the mud, with a small amount of crushed ice on the edge.Marco zipped up his thick coat, took off the key hanging on the wall, opened the door and went out, hiding from the light, clinging to the shadows at the base of the wall.

It takes about 10 minutes to walk from the monastery to the nearest road, passing through a small forest on the way.Marco didn't think about where he was going, but he couldn't go back to New York anyway, and his father would only take him back to this prison again.Maybe he could hitchhike to Connecticut, or even to California, and become a postman, or a railway boiler worker, or a fisherman if that was not an option.He's 15 years old, there's no reason why he can't work and support himself, and his father's restaurant employs even younger cooks[*1].

Xiaoxue kept falling on his shoulders and hair, and it was only then that Marco thought that he should put on a woolen cap.In less than 5 minutes outside, he was on the verge of losing consciousness in his hands and face.But he didn't think it mattered, as long as he kept going and kept his speed, he would warm up soon.He found the broken part of the wall with ease, stepped on the bricks, and—

The sharp whistle sounded, and Marco slipped in fright and almost fell to the ground.The light of the flashlight fell on him, more than one flashlight.Dogs barked at their feet, and the gatekeeper kept two black and gray mongrel dogs, one called Miner and the other Pepper, and Marco didn't know which one it was.He continued to climb, putting his hands on the edge of the fence.

A hand grabbed his right foot and pulled him down.Marco fell heavily on the frozen mud, with three flashlights pointed at his face, he couldn't see anything except the white light.The dog leaned over and rubbed its wet and cold nose against Marco's cheek, sniffing around.

Then there is routine.The headmaster was woken up, and came to the office in his nightgown, with a dark face, listening to the gatekeeper and two monks recounting Marco Costa's late-night adventures, finally nodded, and turned to the 15-year-old boy who bowed his head in the armchair, Ask him if he has anything to explain.

Marco shook his head.

"Stand up and hold out your hand, Mr. Costa."

He stood up, raised his hands flat, palms up.The headmaster took down the short whip hanging from the wall—a dreadful thing specially designed for troublesome students—raised his arm high, and the whip dangled like a snake's tail, and then fell.

Marco woke up suddenly, his whole body twitched on the bed, kicked against the wall, and felt a dull pain.The glass window hangs high on the left wall, like a painting. There is no snow, only a dull night sky, cut into small irregular pieces by the branches.The glass reflected the faint light of the fire, and he clearly heard the sound of burning wood. Turning his head, he saw Antonio sleeping next to him.

The priest was lying on the edge of the bed, on top of a blanket, covered with a coat, with his head turned towards the fireplace, as if trying to keep the distance from Marco as far as possible.It was only then that Marco realized that he was holding the priest's wrist tightly, and it was likely to leave a circle of bruises, which was a side effect of a nightmare.He immediately let go and apologized quietly, but Antonio did not wake up.

Marco wanted to go somewhere near the fire.But this idea only flashed in his mind, and was submerged in the tiredness that surged up again.The light of the fire faded slowly, and he listened to Antonio's breathing. Far away, in his dream, a train rumbled forward in the snowy night, heading towards the Pacific Ocean.

-

He woke up once during the day, drank the water Antonio gave him, and fell asleep again.The sun was still bright when I opened my eyes again, maybe it was the same afternoon, or it could have been several days.This time Marco was able to eat a little canned tomato with soup, stared at the fire for ten minutes awake, and fell asleep again unknowingly when Antonio wiped his face with a cold towel.

Antonio seemed to have talked with him, but Marco couldn't remember the content, only remembered the priest's tone, gentle and patient, and absent-minded at the same time, as if the interlocutor was a creature that could not understand human language, such as a puppy in a car accident, or a person with a broken hind leg moose.Marco woke up early in the morning, and the priest slept next to him again, with his back to Marco, wrapped in a blanket that he had never seen before.Marco reached out and touched the argyle pattern of the blanket, observing the way the yarn was twisted.Antonio turned around, gently pushed his hand away, and asked if he felt better.

"I don't know." Marco answered honestly, and suddenly thought of an unrelated question, which seemed very important to his chaotic brain, "Why are there so many tomato soups?"

The priest laughed softly, maybe because of the close distance, or the ambiguous light of the early morning, his eyes are now aqua blue.Marco was curious about the touch of the other party's messy hair, and stretched out his hand. Antonio grabbed his wrist again and pushed it away. It was not rough, but the meaning of rejection was very obvious.

"There's either canned tomato soup or canned beans in the pantry, unbelievable. I found some canned pineapple, but I plan to save it for later in case we need to be here for a long time."

"Okay." Marco closed his eyes, he didn't plan to sleep, he just needed to relieve the dry feeling a little, "How long have we been here?"

He fell asleep without hearing Antonio's answer.

The lethargy and the fever left him sometime in the evening, so suddenly it was like a locked cell door slamming open.Marco sat up and waited a little while, in case the headache returned, and it didn't.He looked at his hands, at the glass medicine bottles, empty cans, towels and spoons scattered on the floor, at the burning fire and the messy pine logs for a while, and slowly realized that Antonio was missing. trace.

Marco got out of bed under the blanket, pushed open the door of the wooden house, and the smell of the woods flooded in, a mixture of moss, soil, turpentine and decayed leaves.Antonio sat on the top step, also wrapped in a blanket, with a steaming cup in his hand.

"coffee?"

Antonio was taken aback, turned around, looked Marco up and down several times before saying: "It's tea, I found it in the storage room today."

"I need a cup too."

"The teapot is inside."

Marco sat down on the steps, took the cup from the priest, took a sip to test the temperature, and then took a long gulp.The tea was warm and strong, a little too bitter, but you couldn't ask for more in the wilderness.Marco returned the teacup to the priest, who shook his head and refused, letting him finish the rest by himself.

"What are you doing out there?"

"I want to see red-tailed falcons. You said there are red-tailed falcons around here."

Marco has no impression of this: "Really? I said it?"

The priest stared at him sideways, frowned, didn't seem to believe that Marco was telling the truth, and finally dropped the subject: "I'll make dinner and come help, if you're sure you won't pass out again in a short time."

"Tomato soup again?"

Antonio smiled at him and went back to the cabin without answering.Marco continued to sit outside for a while, watching the sun go down, foot by foot the shadows engulfed the brilliant red light that had previously shone on the glade.He drank the rapidly cooling tea and returned to the protection of the four walls.

Dinner was, of course, tinned tomato soup and peas, but they opened a can of pineapple compote to celebrate.Marco hates canned pineapple, but it's delicious in tomato soup.There was no dining table in the cabin, and the two sat in front of the fireplace, putting food on top of an upside-down canning box.Marco tried to chat, but the priest became more and more silent and didn't appreciate his jokes, as if he didn't know how to get along with a sober Marco, so he dived desperately and hid under the stones at the bottom of the river.

Marco was determined to grab his tail.

"A little favor, Father." He stood up holding the wooden box, took off his jacket and then his pants under Antonio's puzzled gaze, "I need to take a shower."

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Note:

[1] The United States gradually revised laws to limit child labor between 1924 and 1938, and the speed of implementation of the new laws varied from state to state. Therefore, child labor was still very common in Marco's youth.