Chapter 56: Oh, Tiber!
"Well, I don't know, I really don't know ... " he said. Helen said not a word to help him decide.
"We don't do this kind of thing very often." Lilian Kelly was trying to be persuasive.
"Martin, I insist." Maura seemed eager too. "Come on now, it'd be my treat, all of you. Let me do this - I'd love it." She beamed at them all.
"Helen, what do you think?" He was as eager as a boy. "Will we be devils?" Lilian and Maura almost clapped their hands with enthusiasm.
"You go, Martin, please. I can't I'm afraif. I have to go ... " Helen waved her hand vaguely in a direction that could have meant anywhere. Nobody questioned why she wouldn't come, or where she was going.
The Brothers had a half day on Wedneday, the convent did not. Emmet McMahon went to see Sister Madeleine and read the Lays of Ancient Rome with her; over and over he told the story about how Horatius kept the bridge.
She closed her eyes and said she could see it all: those brave young men fighting off the enemy horde, just three of them, and then being flung into the Tiber. Emmet began to see it too, and he spoke it with great confidence.
" ' Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber! To whom the Romans pray' ". He interrupted himself. " 'Why did the Romans pray to a river?' "
"They thought it was a God."
"They must have been mad."
"I don't know." Sister Madeleine speculated. "It was a very powerful river, rushing and foaming, and it was their livelihood in many ways ... a bit like God to them I suppose." Sister Madeleine found nothing surprising.
"Can you show me the little fox you showed Kit?" he asked.
"Certainly, but tell me more about those brave Romans first. I love to hear about them."
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