9. Servi
awoke to a clinical probing of his abdomen.
Doctor Tedesco was leaning over him, tapping about his torso. When the doctor saw Servi’s eyes, he smiled
reassuringly.
“I
am still working on getting you those tests, Senore Servi. I am pulling every string in the national
health system. But some of them are a
little threadbare, if you get my meaning.”
“Why
should I be tested?” Servi asked with a noticeable slur, as if his sluggish
tongue had been dipped in tar. “What is
wrong with me?”
“That’s
just it,” the doctor answered, pulling Servi’s shirt down and paternally
patting his head. “I can’t find anything
wrong with you.”
“I
don’t have money for tests, or for these drugs.”
“Courtesy
of the Italian government,” the doctor smiled.
“I’ve made you an Italian citizen in our paperwork. A little formal lie is all, for with the name
Servi, it’s easy.”
Servi
considered: one day he was American, the next Canadian, and today, Italian. In the grand sweep of his short life, Servi
had drawn the low card of identity. He
did not belong anywhere.
“Doctor,”
Servi asked, his slur more pronounced. “What is the Lazarus Society?”
“What?”
the doctor asked, and Servi asked it again, elongating the syllables until they
strained to snap.
“Oh,”
the doctor answered, nodding. “That is the organization that the American,
LaOmbra, works with… they are part of a religious order. They send people to work in poor
neighborhoods, with the sick or dying, in preparation to become priests.”
“Priests?”
Servi asked, trying to raise his head.
“Tony LaOmbra is studying to become a priest?”
“Yes,”
the doctor answered, but seeing Servi’s agitated state, he ordered him to be
silent. But they were wasted words, for Servi’s
eyes sealed like twin doors on a tomb, and he fell into a sleep so black it was
death’s fraternal twin.
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