The Long Easter (9)

On Gotham’s windless, frigid night, the air around the cathedral seemed to have frozen into a sheet of transparent ice. Cold moonlight streamed through the high windows onto the Jesus statue, dragging a long cross-shaped shadow across the cool-toned tiles.

At the center of the cross was a huge crack in the old cathedral floor. It was like an Abyss, splitting apart the shadow of the suffering Jesus.

A faint glow seeped from the crack, as though something were drifting beneath it. At the two ends of the cross on the floor stood two different figures.

Batman stood on the left, his expression stern and his muscles taut. Though he remained perfectly upright, it was obvious that he was ready to spring into action.

Evans stood opposite him, half-kneeling on the ground with his head lowered. In the dim moonlight, his expression could not be seen clearly.

Thin, gauze-like clouds drifted across the moon overhead. The moonlight shining through the windows became like plucked strings, flickering between brightness and darkness.

A shadow fell over Batman. In the eyes exposed beneath his cowl, the patterns in his blue irises became hands of unequal length. As the moonlight dimmed once more, the hour hand turned back more than half a circle, and everything returned to ten hours earlier.

Cobblepot stood before a cabinet in the old house, watching his mother pull out a pile of dusty old belongings. He walked over, intending to take her arm and help her stand.

Mrs. Cobblepot waved him away. Cobblepot sighed helplessly and asked, "Mom, what exactly are you looking for? We’ve already turned over every cabinet in the house."

The floor behind him was littered with clutter. Not only was the center of the living room a mess, but all sorts of junk had even piled up in front of the bedroom door.

"I need to find an umbrella, an umbrella! It’s raining, I need an umbrella…"

Cobblepot picked up the umbrella from the chair beside him and handed it to his mother, but Mrs. Cobblepot acted as though she had not seen it. She continued burrowing into the bottom cabinet and rummaging through things.

She searched from nightfall until dawn, then from dawn until nightfall again. Only after Mrs. Cobblepot had exhausted herself and gone to rest did Cobblepot have time to put the old things away.

Mrs. Cobblepot’s condition had improved somewhat over the past few days. She was no longer so aggressive, but in exchange, she had become increasingly strange. Every day, she would pull all the clutter out of the house. Cobblepot could not stop her and could only clean up after her.

He half-knelt on the floor, supporting himself on one knee as he picked up the scattered items and put them back into the cabinet.

Most of the things in the cabinet beneath the bookshelf were Old Man Cobblepot’s collectibles, such as picture frames and candlesticks. They were not valuable, but whenever Mrs. Cobblepot was lucid, she would take them out and polish them to remember Cobblepot’s father.

Cobblepot tried to place the last picture frame on the upper shelf, but something inside blocked it from sliding all the way in, leaving the cabinet door unable to close.

He assumed the things inside had not been arranged properly, so he reached in to straighten them. Instead, he discovered something resembling an envelope deep inside the cabinet.

Cobblepot took out the envelope and found that its back was covered in dust. Under the weak living room light, he wiped the dust away with his finger and found a line of elegant cursive: "To Cobblepot…"

Cobblepot frowned. He was certain he had never received a letter like this, nor would anyone send such a formal letter to a down-and-out poor boy.

The envelope was made of exceptionally fine vellum paper. The English handwriting was crisp, without the slightest trace of ink bleeding.

Cobblepot turned the envelope over and found that its wax seal had already been broken. The emblem stamped into it looked familiar.

When he opened the envelope and took out the letter inside, he saw a familiar signature: "Carmine Falcone."

It was an invitation from the Old Godfather.

The message was brief. It invited Cobblepot to a funeral. The writer was Carmine Falcone, and the funeral would be held at Gotham Cathedral.

Cobblepot scanned the invitation from top to bottom. It was indeed the Old Godfather’s handwriting, but beneath the main text of the funeral invitation was an additional line in small print: "You must attend, or I will personally come to greet you."

Cobblepot narrowed his eyes. He had not forgotten that his father had died after attending the Godfather’s eldest son’s funeral in the rain.

But this invitation felt deeply strange to him.

Few people wrote such formal invitations for funerals, much less when the writer was the deceased’s biological father.

Cobblepot had seen the Old Godfather’s handwriting before. He could tell that Falcone’s writing on this invitation was steady and fluid, not at all like that of an old man who had just lost his eldest son.

And that line in small print was even more perplexing. It was plainly a threat. Who forced someone to attend a funeral?

Cobblepot vaguely remembered that on the day after his father returned from the funeral, he had come down with a raging fever. His entire body had burned, and he had lain dazed in bed, unable to utter even a complete sentence.

The Doctor had said it was pneumonia, but before he could be taken to the hospital, he died. Cobblepot received no last words from his father and naturally knew nothing about the funeral he had attended.

But this invitation filled Cobblepot with suspicion.

He recalled his conversations with Evans. Cobblepot was exceptionally skilled at moving people with words and extracting information from them. During his talks with Evans, he had subtly probed for information about the Godfather’s mysterious eldest son, but had gained nothing useful.

Squatting before the cabinet, Cobblepot began to reason it out. Based on the information he had, Evans should already have been born before Albertos died. Though the age gap between them was still unclear, Alberto and Evans should have lived together for some time.

Yet what puzzled Cobblepot was that Evans’s descriptions of his own brother were always highly abstract, and many details contradicted each other. For example, he had said that Alberto was hardworking and ambitious, a brilliantly gifted genius and a natural heir. Yet he also often said that Alberto had been depressed because he could not complete the Godfather’s tasks. In Evans’s accounts, what came up most often were Alberto’s arguments with the Godfather.

The invitation he had found by chance at home rekindled Cobblepot’s doubts about his father’s death. Carrying those doubts, when he returned to his room at Arkham Asylum, he began guiding Evans to recall more information during their usual chats.

"Last time, you said you wanted to join your university’s basketball team. You must have known how to play since you were little, right? Honestly…"

Cobblepot lay on the hospital bed and shifted positions. His tone was full of longing as he said, "I envy families with lots of children like yours. Brothers are natural playmates. The pair of brothers living on the corner of my street are like that—I often see them playing soccer in the alley. Your brother must have played basketball with you too, right?"

"He…" Evans instinctively started to answer, but it was as though the words caught in his throat. He sat frozen at the bedside. Cobblepot asked, "What’s wrong?"

"No, nothing…" Evans shook his head. "I just can’t remember very clearly. I distinctly remember that my brother and I were close. We should have played together, but when I really think about it, I can’t remember anything."

"I’m sorry, that was a little presumptuous. Yesterday, I found an invitation at home. The Godfather invited my father to attend your brother’s funeral. You attended your brother’s funeral too, didn’t you?"

"The funeral?" Evans repeated the word, then sat at the bedside in a daze without replying. After a long while, he finally said, "I think… I’m sorry, but my childhood memories aren’t very clear. I don’t remember what happened at all."

Evans sighed. "My mood has been terrible lately. I’ve been dreaming a lot, and maybe that has affected my memory too."

"Gotham’s cathedral can’t be entered for the time being, so I can’t go pray. It makes me restless. I also haven’t seen that Old Priest in a long time. I used to enjoy confiding in him."

Evans looked very upset. Cobblepot told him, "Why don’t you try writing him a letter?"

Evans shook his head. "Gotham Cathedral was badly damaged. A huge hole opened in the floor, and repairs will take a long time. The construction is also somewhat dangerous. The Old Priest moved away, and I don’t know where he lives now."

"But you’re the Godfather’s son. If you had someone ask around, you should be able to find out, shouldn’t you?"

Evans thought for a moment. "Actually, I don’t really want to disturb the priest. He rarely gets a vacation."

"But Easter is such an important holiday. He can’t preach to his congregation at the cathedral, so he must feel lonely too, right? If you two used to get along well, why not keep him company?"

After considering it, Evans said, "You have a point. I’ll have someone look for him. If they can find him, I can invite him to Falcone Estate for Easter."

"Your relationship with the Godfather…"

"It isn’t as bad as you all imagine." Evans sighed softly again. "The Godfather isn’t worried about my ambition. He’s more worried that I have no ambition."

"But for some reason, whenever I’m with him, especially when we’re seriously discussing something, I always feel impatient. It’s like I desperately want to tell him something, but I can’t say it."

"When I’m around him, I always act so extreme. Even though I’m not like that when I’m with my classmates or teachers."

"Before I was admitted here, it kept getting worse. Several times, we nearly got into an argument. I suspected that I might have psychological problems, so I went to see Professor Schiller."

"So that’s why you came here?"

Evans nodded, then said, "Looking at it now, I might not be sick. I just think too much and have poor emotional control."

"If medical methods can’t ease your emotions, you could try turning to faith." Cobblepot told Evans, "I don’t believe in God, but if you’re a devout believer, then perhaps everything will get better on Easter?"

"I hope so."

As the moonlight outside the window deepened, Cobblepot heard Evans praying softly. The sound echoed endlessly through the empty hospital room, making him drowsy.