"Desultory?"

He shrugged. "The basilica did not open until 1951. I thought it might please you to see our old station, which is something of an attraction for tourists. I hope I have done right; if you wish I can order a cab to carry us to the basilica at once."

He started to fish under his jersey, presumably for a cell phone. Annja stopped him.

"That's okay. I love ancient cathedrals, or I wouldn't have my specialty. But 1951 isn't ancient to anyone. And what I really wanted was to get as much of a feel for the origins of the story as I could."

"Regrettably," the little man with the big, bald head said, "very little indeed remains of the thirteenth-century village of Atocha within twenty-first-century Madrid."

She smiled at him. "Perhaps you'd at least fill me in on the story of the Holy Child."

"It would be my pleasure. You must first understand that the Santo Niño enjoys no great popularity in Spain today. His worship is far more prevalent in the colonies, Cebu, Mexico, Chimayó. Indeed, it appears to be the case that the earliest known image of the Holy Child as we know him today was the one sent as a present to the Mexican town of Plateros in the sixteenth century. In the thirteenth century the Moors, it is said, held the little village of Atocha, then well outside the walls of Madrid. Prisoners captured in the continuing war for freedom from the occupiers were kept in most deplorable conditions in a building in the town. The Moors refused to feed them, insisting that the local townsfolk should provide, which was not an uncommon arrangement for the time, however harsh. In time, suspecting the Christian villagers were all sympathizers with the insurgency – as no doubt they were – the local ruler forbade anyone to visit the prisoners except children under the age of twelve.

"Then lo! A child appeared, dressed as a pilgrim of the day, in robe and cape, sandals and hat with plume. He carried a staff with a water gourd suspended from it, and a basket of bread. The guards permitted him to enter. One story has it that no matter how much bread and water he distributed to the captives, neither his bread basket nor water gourd ever ran out – a clear linkage to the biblical miracle of loaves and fishes."

He raised his right leg behind him, grasped his instep, pulled. "Please forgive me. I have a tendency to cramp. A consequence of adult-onset diabetes, I fear. Another, even more miraculous version of the story has important resonances for these apparitions of the Holy Child you're having in the New World.

"In this rendition the jailers did not permit the Holy Child to visit the prisoners. But they could not keep him out. They would hear talking from within the cells, rush in, find the captives just swallowing the last of their bread and water. But never a sign of the Holy Child."

"He vanished," Annja said, "just the way he supposedly vanishes from the backs of people's cars in New Mexico."

"Precisely! Moreover, when the women of Atocha went to give thanks to the image of the Santo Niño – in this account, Christ as a child in pilgrim's garb rather than the miraculous figure who brought succor to the Christian prisoners of Atocha – they found his shoes soiled and worn out. Leading to the charming custom in Chimayó of taking baby shoes to the image of the Santo Niño in the chapel there, I understand."

"So in that story we have the origins of the vanishing-hitchhiker elements of the Santo Niño," Annja said.

Bobadilla laughed. "I had not heard that connection drawn before. But yes, it is apt. Especially in view of these American sightings. And also of the tradition of the Holy Child succoring travelers in need or peril, which I also understand plays a role in these modern encounters."

"Yes." She hesitated. "What truth, if any, do you assign to the story?"

"I am not a particularly observant Catholic. I consider myself a man of reason. So naturally I will tend, at least intellectually, to discount the miraculous elements of the story. As for an unknown child appearing, dressed as a pilgrim, and bringing food to the suffering captives, I personally believe it almost certainly happened."

"Really?"

"Quite so. It makes sense. It did, after all, cleverly skirt the prohibition on adult visitors. And the pilgrim garb may be explained by the fact that Muslims then as now hold pilgrims in particular regard, even infidels. After all, while the Christians were undoubtedly subject to varying degrees of oppression, their religion was not forbidden.

"Moreover even the apparently inexhaustible supply of bread and water might have a factual basis – in extra baskets and gourds concealed beneath the flowing robe and cape, yes?"

Annja laughed. "That sounds quite plausible actually."

"I would not be surprised if the Moorish guards were wise to the ruse and went along with it. For all the real hostility existing between Muslims and Christians during the occupation, these people were neighbors. They lived far more of their lives peacefully together than they did in fighting one another."

"People depended on each other to survive," Annja said.

"Precisely! The lines were not drawn nearly so starkly at the time as they are now, in our pictures. Also there is a respect of cleverness and resourcefulness in many Islamic cultures. The guards may have thought the whole thing a capital joke, regardless of how seriously their commander took his edicts. And I think to see echoes in the tale, even at this essentially plausible level, from Sufi parables, which often involve degrees of deception. That strain of Muslim mysticism, as you well know, played an integral if often forgotten role in shaping our own Spanish intellectual and mystic traditions, after all."

"Yes," said Annja, who had studied Spanish history. "But what of the more...esoteric elements to the story?" she asked.

"I see two possibilities, which are far from exclusive. First, simple folk rumor, and the universal and long recognized tendency of any story to grow in the telling. The identification of the child bringing succor with the Christ child would be quite natural for people raised to believe unquestioningly in Christ's reality and dual nature, human and divine. The more so if in fact an image of the Christ child dressed in the pilgrim's characteristic garb preexisted the events that gave rise to the story, rather than came about as a result of them.

"The other possibilities? That Christian Spanish leaders, secular and of the church, deliberately created the tale, whether tailoring facts to fit or making it all of whole cloth, as a propaganda ploy. If you can credit the church fathers with such cynicism."

"You'd be surprised what I wouldn't put past the church. Please forgive me if I offend," Annja said.

Bobadilla laughed. "Not at all. In turn, forgive me if I presume, but something in your tone of voice – are you a lapsed Catholic?"

Annja nodded. "Raised by nuns," she said. "At a Catholic orphanage in New Orleans."

" Pobrecita," the professor said, clucking sympathetically. "We at least got to escape from our nuns by going home at the end of the school day!"

The monsoon had come to Cebu Island, tucked into the Philippine archipelago between Luzon in the north and Mindanao to the south. Riding the taxi back from Cebu City to the international airport, across the Opon Channel on Mactan Island, Annja found the torrent falling from the sky perfectly appropriate. First, as a metaphor for her Philippine expedition, which was a total wash. And as portrayal of her mood.