Yesterday (Part Two - Chapters 21 & 22) (Patreon)

SECOND PART

“The cosmos is but a great man, and you are like a small cosmos.”

“Letters from a Sufi master” - Shaykh Al-'arabi ad-Darqâwi

CHAPTER 21

Father Aminarti was resting on the medical bed that had been set up for him in the spacious room. He could see, between the bars of the window on his right, the greenish vine wall that separated the vicarage from the house that the Congregation had in Nice. He was not to make any effort, the doctor advised him after examining him and performing several tests. He had just left the room, and when he looked back at the heavy wooden door, his memories assailed him.

He was yet again carried away by a recurrent thought in those last days: It was common sense to expect that it would happen but, not because it was expected, he found less incredible the many changes that the world had undergone in little less than thirty years. He had had to pull a few strings since Jonah's disappearance, and with just a few phone calls he realized that he had become a relic, a dinosaur facing extinction. That world he had enthusiastically signed up for in his youth no longer existed, and the present one was choking him every time he had to face it. He wondered again where the architects of all this were hiding, all those moguls and politicians imbued with ambitious delusions of grandeur with whom he once mingled in the sixties and seventies during his endless diplomatic journeys for the Prelature and the Vatican. At that time, he repeated himself with nostalgia, at least one could have an open and creative conversation with any of those. The misnamed "political correctness" ended up by turning against everyone and had produced a whole generation of useless and pusillanimous people.

But he did not experience that transformation, for he voluntarily isolated himself from everything when he took Jonah from his father.

Since then the years passed more and more quickly. He let go of the world by believing he was a pioneer, advancing at his own risk in a constant pilgrimage through the soul of that fascinating child, who became his only companion.

“Oh! the betrayal, how sweet and cruel it becomes when the one providing it is a loved one”.

He was incapable of being angry at Jonah. When his thoughts returned to this point he would try, knowing that it would have been the most rational thing to do, but his love for him, now of bitter taste, did not allow him to feel resentment, only pity, a grief that consumed him physically and mentally since the boy escaped.

And also fear. To top it all off, in his almost seventy-six years, Jonah had made him discover fear. That feeling of constant uneasiness that disturbed his previously proverbial serenity. He spent hours waiting for the door to his room to open and for any kind of outrage to be announced. He knew that he was an accomplice, responsible for the disruptions that Jonah would be causing, and would not stop praying, consumed by guilt.

But the vicar of the house, Alfredo Fonseca, an old acquaintance of his, had again become very clear after that morning's confession: he should not interfere any more in that matter. He had to let the family take over. Times had changed and the Prelature could not be mixed up in something like that.

These are very sensitive times for the Church, he told him laconically.

And Father Aminarti could not help but remember those conferences he was commanded to attend in the late seventies. "The world has changed", daring voices proclaimed in exclusive forums, "Hitler put on the table mass manipulation on a large scale; it is our duty to study the human mind, discover its springs and take it to the limit to avoid such evils to occur again". That always felt like a hoax, a dialectical ruse in order to shield oneself from new atrocities. They believed they were so superior…

But his boy was more so.

Where will he be?

He asked himself this question constantly. Jonah escaped him almost two weeks ago. They had always been together. Would he be able to manage by himself? He doubted it, he was terribly dependent, or so he wanted to believe.

Damn the Internet. Some people had very little shame.

Why did he allow him to buy that tablet? What was he thinking?

Jonah begged and begged until he was granted permission. After years of isolation and training he was convinced that he had managed to forge a unique man. Someone who would be above the worldly, but who would still be generously human and sensitive to the problems of others, and to the true love of Christ.

King of kings.

He stopped wandering and resumed his prayer, caressing one by one the beads of his small circular silver rosary. Praying kept him away from the abyss and stopped that mare magnum of reproaches that harassed him when he gave free rein to his melancholy. Pain also kept him alert, but he intimately knew that he had stopped using it as a means to strengthen his faith. Now it served him first and foremost as a defense against Jonah. And as penance for his weakness.

He was convinced that Jonah had somehow manipulated his mind before he escaped. He did not know for sure what he might have altered within himself, for he regularly made an inventory of his memories and thoughts and everything seemed to be in place. But he suspected that there was something out of place in his head, for he felt an absence.

Two days earlier, desperate for results, he traveled to Nice in search of Professor Hebert. He had tried to contact him by phone from Castello Bianca but it had proved impossible; he dialed several times the professor’s personal number which he always kept with him but nobody real answered on the other end, only an answering machine which he refused to share information with. He arrived at Sophia Antipolis University mid-morning and from the moment he set foot on campus he began to feel unwell.

He was short of breath, and could barely cover the distance from the cab at the entrance of the Grand Château Valrose, the aristocratic main building of the University. Two young students who passed by helped him sit on a bench by the entrance and sought help. Soon after, a janitor appeared and informed him that the professor was absent for a lecture tour in the United States. Father handed the young man a card with the number of the center that the Congregation had in Nice and ten minutes later he was picked up and taken to the Pasteur Hospital, which was not far from there.

He was injected with corticoids and a bronchodilator in the ER, put on an oxygen mask and told that he had suffered an allergic reaction, probably due to the large pine forest surrounding that area of Nice, and a respiratory crisis, perhaps caused by the accumulated anxiety of the last few days, he assumed to himself. Apparently, at his age it was common to spontaneously develop such allergies, the problem was that his lungs were very weak, so the doctor imposed absolute rest on him.

The next day he was able to convince the vicar to move him to the house that the Congregation had in the city. He needed to calm down and feel safe and secure to come up with some kind of plan.

The first thing on his list was to get a phone, but for that he would have to convince his superior.

CHAPTER 22

Oscar left the family house in disgust. He needed to come to his office but was worried about getting away from his daughters. He glanced sideways at the façade before closing the door of the black sedan that was waiting for him at the entrance and saw light in the living room. Laura must still be sitting there, he thought. It hurt him that he had been forced to have that conversation on that horrible day, but he was running out of options. If anyone was left who could help her at that point, it was Laura.

She wasn't aware of it yet, but Oscar was confident that with a little encouragement she would most likely be able to locate and neutralize Jonas. That was what Hebert had implied during one of their chats. The two twins were supposed to have a subtle mental connection. At the very least she would be able to calm him down, Oscar would repeatedly say to himself in justification.

Anguish and anger took turns to plague his soul, but he promised himself that he would persevere until the disaster was over. Martha's death had been a hard and cruel blow, and when he found out, he immediately associated it to Adrian's coma. It was instantaneous, his subconscious brought him back to Jonah and he was sure, not knowing how, that his son had something to do with it. And he wasn't going to let him get away with it. He wasn't going to let him destroy what was left of his family.

* * *

He had spent all morning unsuccessfully trying to locate Father Aminarti, learning that Professor Hebert had just arrived at the University of Berkeley in the US to give a series of lectures.

He was alone, but still had Laura on his side. All that remained was for her to overcome the circumstances and understand her role. And to do that, he knew he would have to show her some evidence. Facing her with something tangible would activate her, according to Herbert.

He was aware of the sensory abilities his daughter was born with, but these had flourished much more slowly than Jonah’s, perhaps because of her illness and subsequent treatment.

He tried his best over the years to make sure that Laura did not suspect he knew about the special abilities she had developed. He still remembered the surprise when, while still a teenager, she approached him to ask about her brother. He handled the situation as best he could and followed Professor Hebert's instructions to the letter. He stood firm and repeated the phrases that the professor had made him memorize years earlier when they anticipated that conversation.

Hebert was very clear about this: it was very likely that with the upcoming adolescence the two brothers would eventually recover part of their psychological bond, and that they would later experience several episodes dominated by feelings of loss (empty nest syndrome was the term he used, something apparently usual among twins). From that moment on it would be crucial to scrupulously calibrate the information to be provided to each of them, particularly in the special case of Jonah.

Special.

In the wake of the sinister family incident, Jonah only communicated with Father Aminarti. When he was rushed to Nice, he recognized Professor Hebert from their previous meetings, but showed no interest in anything or anyone until he was introduced to the priest. From then on, Jonah's follow-up was conducted through Aminarti. Whenever the professor had to perform tests on him, they would meet in a facility that the Congregation had in Ireland, that had a specially designed wing for dealing with children with special needs.

When the time came for tests, the child would be taken to what at first sight resembled a playroom or a teacher's office, unsuspecting that behind a mirror or any similar device he would be carefully studied, even by recording his reactions. It was Father Aminarti himself who performed the tests on him on most occasions. With this ruse, the aim was to interfere as little as possible in the results of that kind of patient, and Jonah never seemed to care about the deception. Or perhaps he didn't notice.

Oscar was not sure.

His driver opened the door, they had arrived at his office. Oscar put his phone headset on and dialed once again the number of Father Aminarti's apartment in Castello Bianca as he made his way to the private elevator of the modern building.

Answering machine again, how nerve-wracking. He didn't consider leaving a message, he knew from previous experience that Aminarti wouldn't bother listening to it.

His spacious, minimalist office was in the dark. As every Saturday, the office floor was deserted and services were minimal. He approached his desk table and loosened his left shirt cuff. He unbuttoned the golden cuff link that connected the buttonholes and lifted it between his fingers and turned it in on itself. The cufflink became a tiny key with which he used to open a discreet compartment hidden in one of the heavy desk legs. He needed the coded card that opened his private safe.

He then heard a metallic click at the back of the office.

—Hi, Dad—. Jonah said calmly, breaking the silence. He was sitting cross-legged in a chair at the meeting table, his silhouette cut out against the city buildings.

—How did you get in here? ––. Oscar recognized him in shock. He discreetly approached the phone.

—Don't even bother. You know I can do what I want and much more. I need money.

—How dare you come to me and ask me for anything? Do you think I don't know that you're behind what has happened to your mother?

—That woman wasn't my mother — Jonah dismissed disparagingly — and while we're at it, you're not my biological father either, although you do have an obligation to me, remember? You legally adopted me.

—How could you do something like that? — Oscar tried to buy time and think of something.

—Enough! you don't get it —. Jonah said as he stood up. He was taller than he had guessed from the pictures the priest had sent him periodically, and he had grown his hair long. — Do not make me waste any more time. Give me the money and do it now —, he said, placing a finger on the oval glass table.

Oscar tried to hold his gaze but had to give up. Those deep eyes were an abyss of blackness. He made a new effort to keep repeating mentally the lyrics of an old song, something he had been doing since he noticed Jonah's presence in the office.

Professor Hebert had prepared him and Father Aminarti for years to resist mind control, and one of the methods was to stop the superficial line of thought with any kind of recurring text or image. It served as a protection against their influence. All he had to do was repeat it over and over again until Jonah disappeared from his sight.

—What if I don't give it to you? ––. Oscar tried to resist.

—Oh, if you don't give it to me, I'll fuck up your other daughter—, Jonah replied, smiling maliciously and not taking his intense eyes off him.

—Don't bring Eva into this! Don't even think about it! —Oscar burst out in anger for a moment before he managed to pull himself together again. —Just give me a moment.

He opened the safe while still mentally repeating the lyrics of the song, took four 500 Euro packs and threw them across his table. He stood motionless and focused while Jonas approached and picked up the money with a cynical smile on his lips.

— Good try daddy— said Jonás getting very close to Oscar as he turned his gaze away paralyzed —but I know what you're up to with Laura, and I'm sorry to tell you that it's not going to do you any good, nothing— he stressed lowering his voice —I’m going to let you show her all that you have there, she deserves to know the truth, but I assure you that when all is said and done, she will come with me.

—Not a chance.

Jonah broke out into a short, sharp laugh.

—There is so little you know. You're so naive… You should hang out with Pater more often, you'd get along great.

Oscar couldn't for a moment resist the temptation to use the gun he kept in his safe. He gently felt the bottom of the safe with his hand.

—Don't even think about it, Dad — Jonah interrupted him vigorously, waving a finger at him. —Do you really think I would come here without proper protection?

—What are you talking about? ––. Oscar replied with a frown.

—You better hope nothing happens to me before I'm far away from here or your miseries had just begun.

And Jonas calmly walked out of the office while Oscar followed him squinting.

Jonah left the building with a steady but calm pace. He knew he had nothing to fear from that man. He made a subtle gesture with his hand and the traffic light turned green causing a little chaos at the zebra crossing.

He loved those little things. He felt the world shaping up in his hands. He was going to become someone important, that he had decided. He would seek the affection of the masses, the respect of the powerful. And he would do it without stealing, unlike all those who had ruined his and his sister's lives. It would not be necessary. He would only have to pluck the old man as he needed money in his ascent to power. And finally, after finishing with the others, everyone would be indebted to him, and they would adore him.