Brother Odd

spilling into the hood had found nothing there to reflect it, only a terrible black emptiness.

CHAPTER 23
        
        MY IMMEDIATE REACTION TO HAVING SEEN Death himself was to get something to eat.
        I had skipped breakfast. If Death had taken me before I'd had something tasty for lunch, I would have been really, really angry with myself.
        Besides, I couldn't function properly on an empty stomach. My thinking was probably clouded by plunging blood sugar. Had I eaten breakfast, perhaps Jacob would have made more sense to me.
        The convent kitchen is large and institutional. Nevertheless, it's a cozy space, most likely because it is always saturated with mouthwatering aromas.
        When I entered, the air was redolent of cinnamon, brown sugar, baked pork chops simmering with sliced apples, and a host of other delicious smells that made me weak in the knees.
        The eight sisters on the culinary detail, all with shining faces and smiles, a few with flour smudges on their cheeks, some with their tunic sleeves rolled back a turn or two, all wearing blue aprons over their white habits, were busy at many tasks. Two were singing, and their lilting voices made the most of a charming melody.
        I felt as if I had wandered into an old movie and that Julie Andrews, as a nun, might sweep into the room, singing to a sweet little church mouse perched on the back of her hand.
        When I asked Sister Regina Marie if I could make a sandwich, she insisted on preparing it for me. Wielding a knife with a dexterity and pleasure almost unseemly for a nun, she sliced two slabs of bread from a plump loaf, carved a stack of thin slices of beef from a cold roast, lathered one piece of bread with mustard, the other with mayonnaise. She assembled beef, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, chopped olives, and bread into a teetering marvel, pressed it flatter with one hand, quartered it, plated it, added a pickle, and presented it to me in the time it took me to wash my hands at the pot sink.
        The kitchen offers stools here and there at counters, where you can have a cup of coffee or eat without being underfoot. I sought one of these-and came across Rodion Romanovich.
        The bearish Russian was working at a long counter on which stood ten sheet cakes in long pans. He was icing them.
        Near him on the granite counter lay the volume about poisons and famous poisoners in history. I noticed a bookmark inserted at about page fifty.
        When he saw me, he glowered and indicated a stool near him.
        Because I'm an amiable fellow and loath to insult anyone, I find it awkward to decline an invitation, even if it comes from a possibly homicidal Russian with too much curiosity about my reasons for being a guest of the abbey.
        "How is your spiritual revitalization proceeding?" Romanovich asked.
        "Slow but sure."
        "Since we do not have cactuses here in the Sierra, Mr. Thomas, what will you be shooting?"
        "Not all fry cooks meditate to gunfire, sir." I took a bite of the sandwich. Fabulous. "Some prefer to bludgeon things."
        With his attention devoted to the application of icing to the first of the ten cakes, he said, "I myself find that baking calms the mind and allows for contemplation."
        "So you made the cakes, not just the icing?"
        "That is correct. This is my best recipe… orange-and-almond cake with dark-chocolate frosting."
        "Sounds delicious. So to date, how many people have you killed with it?"
        "I long ago lost count, Mr. Thomas. But they all died happy."
        Sister Regina Marie brought a glass of Coca-Cola for me, and I thanked her, and she said she had added two drops of vanilla to the Coke because she knew I preferred it that way.
        When the sister departed, Romanovich said, "You are universally liked."
        "No, not really, sir. They're nuns. They have to be nice to everyone."
        Romanovich's brow seemed to include a hydraulic mechanism that allowed it to beetle farther over his deep-set eyes when his mood darkened. "I am usually suspicious of people who are universally liked."
        "In addition to being an imposing figure," I said, "you're surprisingly solemn for a Hoosier."
        "I am a Russian by birth. We are sometimes a solemn people."
        "I keep forgetting your Russian background. You've lost so much of your accent, people might think you're