The Deliverance of Evil Read Online Free PDF

rented Building B. As we were passing through the gate, he introduced me to Gina Giansanti, the concierge.
    “Next time, finish smoking before you come in,” she said. I wasn’t sure whether that was a rebuke or a gesture of solidarity.
    At the gate, I turned around and gave a little wave to the binoculars reflected on the balcony. Bye-bye, Manfredi .
    . . . .
    The church of San Valente was fifteen minutes from the complex along the Via Aurelia Antica. The Saturday traffic was calm. Many stores were closed, and Romans were having lunch at home or picnicking in one of the parks. We drove down a small lane and I parked on a patch of unkempt grass between overgrown shrubs and hedges. Everything was tumbledown, left to its own devices. The church was small, very simple. Its walls were peeling from decades of exposure to the sun. On the opposite side of the grass stood a small white house. Next to it was a single tree that had been planted recently.
    A dozen children between ten and thirteen were playing football and a blond girl of about twenty was acting as referee. Another girl was clearing a long table set outside, directly under the tree.
    We went around to the house. Disorder ruled everywhere; the place needed a great deal of work. The lanky Father Paul, sweating copiously in his cassock, was loading sleeping bags into an old Volkswagen Beetle.
    “Angelo!” he called. “And Angelo’s friend, the soon-to-be priest.”
    This time I smiled at him—his desire to reach out was almost painful. We helped him to load the car.
    “Eat with noi ?” said Paul finally, in his mixture of English and Italian, as we washed our hands in a simple bathroom with a chipped basin.
    “Would you like to eat something?” Paul asked.
    We sat outside, and the blond woman brought us plastic cutlery and some lukewarm soup. Then she said she was going to wash the dishes.
    “Don’t the children help?” asked Angelo. I knew that as a child he’d cooked, cleared the table, and washed his own dishes.
    “ Difficile , only at start,” explained Paul. “Would you like to speak to a bambino ?”
    “Thanks, maybe next time,” I said. “I have to be back at the station. I’ve only got time for a cigarette, assuming we can smoke here.”
    Paul burst out laughing. “I don’t smoke myself, but I’m not crazy about it like the count. You’re free to kill yourself.”
    I opened my second pack of the day and went to light a cigarette. Angelo signaled to me not to.
    “Long time in Rome?” I asked Paul. I was consciously omitting verbs, as if this would help him understand better.
    “Almost one year. I’m taking some classes and working with Cardinal Alessandrini. When I’m finished I’m going to open an orphanage like this in Africa. If you hurry and become a priest, you can come with me.”
    Then Paul grew serious.
    “How old were you when you knew police work was your vocation?” That’s the word he used: vocation.
    “I don’t know whether it’s my vocation, but I became a policeman two years ago.”
    I saw him make a quick calculation about my age. He came to the conclusion that he still had some years to go in order to be certain of his own vocation. I imagined that, in the years to come, several of his firmest convictions would be strenuously put to the test.

Sunday, July 11, 1982
    I HADN’T SHUT MY EYES for almost two weeks. The World Cup coming to an end in Spain had disrupted Italian life. After an uncertain start, Italy had beaten Argentina, Brazil, and Poland. Those were evenings of unforgettable excitement that segued into poker with Angelo, Alberto, and other friends and, for me, often ended in bed, each time with a different woman.
    On the day of the final against Germany, Rome was in the grip of a creeping sense of triumph that was ready to explode into ecstasy. Shops selling national flags had sold out. Those unable to buy one in time had hung out three colored towels to simulate the national tricolor. Then even