The Gene of Life

by Tetsuo Ted Takashima

  “I don’t know. But I have a feeling that the people who hold all the keys are here. Tonight, my comrade will be getting in touch. Why don’t you just enjoy Rome in the meantime?”

  “I didn’t come here to sightsee,” Max said as he looked around.

  “Impatience is our greatest enemy. If we make a careless mistake, we could make an enemy out of the whole world. We have to be cautious.”

  “Aska’s here somewhere,” muttered Katya, looking from the basilica to the palace.

  “Facing the palace to the right is the guard barracks. They used to have their own army, but it was disbanded in 1970 and replaced by Swiss Guards.”

  “Is that a soldier?” Katya asked, pointing to a guard holding a spear and dressed in Renaissance-style yellow and blue stripes—a uniform said to have been designed by Michelangelo. He didn’t look like a soldier who would fare well on a modern battlefield.

  “We don’t know much about the Vatican’s security. Ever since their military was abolished, it’s been guarded by private security forces and Swiss Guards. We don’t have a clue what weapons they carry. But it’s safe to assume that security got much stricter after 1981 when Pope John Paul II was shot.”

  They entered St. Peter’s Basilica, stepping into an enormous, dim space. The dignified construction created a sublime and solemn atmosphere.

  “This is the largest church in the world,” Feldman said, his voice echoing in the vast space.

  Max and Katya followed Feldman around the church. They stopped under the huge cupola designed by Michelangelo that covered the intersection of the church’s transept and nave. Feldman looked up at the dome ceiling, then down at the altar beneath it.

  “This is the Altar of the Confession, or the Papal Altar. This is where the pope professes his faith.”

  “I bet any Nazis here would start melting on the spot.”

  “Thou art Peter,” Feldman said as he admired the cupola, “and upon this rock I will build my church. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”

  “Matthew 16:18-19,” said Max.

  “It seems faith and knowledge of the faith are two separate things. Those are the words carved around the cupola, translated from the Latin.”

  “We’re at the center of God’s domain,” murmured Katya. “The ladder leading from the Earth up to heaven.”

  Faint sunlight shone through the cupola’s glass windows, illuminating the altar directly below it, which made it seem even holier.

  They left the basilica and stepped out onto the elevated rampart, where they had a view of a huge, round castle—a cylindrical edifice towering above sturdy walls. It was the Castel Sant’Angelo, which had been converted to a museum. Standing at the top was a statue of an angel wielding a sword. Their guidebook said that the angel was trying to sheath the sword, but to Max it looked more like it had unsheathed it. Where was that sword pointed?

  “The Vatican and the Nazis—the godly and the demonic. What do they have in common?” Feldman asked.

  “They’re both obsessed with life and death,” Max said. “Or, with the image of death. They both have death at the base of their worldviews.”

  “I agree,” Feldman said, nodding as he glared at the castle.

  They entered the castle alongside groups of tourists. After passing through the gate, they were in a courtyard with rusty artillery and cannonballs. They could peer down at the Tiber from a terrace. Far, far away, they could see a hill, the Janiculum.

  The elevated passage stretched in the direction of St. Peter’s Square and enclosed the Vatican city-state, linking the Vatican and the Castel Sant’Angelo. In the past it had served more than once as an escape route out of the Apostolic Palace for the pope, who was chased out by the emperor. And in the twentieth century, the Nazis used it to escape from the Allies.

  After they left the Castel Sant’Angelo, they looked for a restaurant for lunch. They felt surrounded by the harsh rays of the sun, people and cars coming and going, and the frenetic activity of a busy Roman afternoon. They found a restaurant with a table on a terrace. All three stared at the street below.

  At the next table, six middle-aged men and women were chatting about the Vatican Museum over beers. They were playing a radio that was broadcasting the news in English: “. . . picked up many seats in the general election . . . far-right parties . . . response to increasing numbers of immigrants and illegal aliens in France and Germany . . . culprits behind the Dörrenwald bombing have yet to be identified, but the police have said they will continue their investigation . . .”

  “What terrible times we live in,” Katya said, putting down her wine glass.

  “That is why we’re hunting Nazis.”

  “What do you plan to gain here? We didn’t come here for the scenery, I imagine,” she said, looking at the cityscape.

  “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

  “John 12:24.”

  “It seems it’s true; you really did memorize the entire Bible when you were in elementary school, Professor,” Feldman said.

  Katya looked at Max.

  “Was that in my dossier, too?”

  “It was,” Feldman nodded.

  “Rumors are always at least a little embellished. My mom used to take me to Sunday school, that’s all.”

  “I used to go to church, too,” Katya said. “But I’ve never actually read the Bible.”

  “I just found the Bible more interesting than the sermons,” Max said. “The second I stepped outside church, God would vanish from my mind. I had football waiting for me.”

  “So, what’s the deal with the wheat verse, then?” asked Katya, losing her patience.

  “I don’t know,” Feldman said. “It’s part of the message that was sent to me.”

  Feldman looked down. A red ball had rolled under his seat. Behind him, a girl of four or five was looking at the ball. Then she looked at Feldman. The girl had big dark eyes.

  “Hand it back to her,” Katya said.

  Feldman clumsily picked it up and glanced at Katya.

  “Now give it to her.”

  Feldman looked at the girl and hesitantly held it out for her.

  “Thank you.” She smiled, and took the ball with embarrassment.

  A young couple at a table a few feet away were smiling their way.

  “Have you never talked to a kid before?” Katya asked.

  “I’m a busy man.” Feldman watched as the girl’s parents held her hands and walked out. “Family, eh . . .”

  A taxi stopped nearby, and out stepped Jake wearing a bright-colored jacket. He greeted Max and Katya with his eyes, and whispered something in Feldman’s ear.

  “I have to go. Rome is a beautiful place; please, you two, enjoy your holiday here.” Feldman was about to walk off, but he stopped himself. “Please be back at the hotel by nine,” he said, his expression as dead serious as ever. Then he got into the taxi with Jake.

  Max and Katya went back to the Vatican and walked around St. Peter’s Basilica and Castel Sant’Angelo. The whole city glowed in the summer sunshine, but Max couldn’t shake his anxiety, and Katya was constantly checking the time. In the evening, they walked around the street market near Stazione Termini.

  “Market’s ‘mercato’ in Italian,” Katya said. “I came here with my parents once.”

  They walked arm in arm. Max was beginning to feel natural and relaxed about it. The events of the night before kept coming back to him, but the reality of what had happened hadn’t really sunk in yet. He’d say it was a dream, but the memories of the warmth of Katya’s skin and the way she smelled were so vivid.

  The market was overflowing with both locals and tourists.

  “It’s a wonderful city, isn’t it?” Katya said. But her expression wasn’t cheerful. She just couldn’t stop thinking about Aska.

  They had more time than they knew what to do with. Max called Feldman’s cellphone but it
went to voicemail.

  They had an early dinner near the Pantheon before they went back to the hotel a little after seven. They asked reception whether Feldman had left them a message, but he hadn’t. After each took a bath, they tried watching TV. They called Feldman’s room a number of times, but there was no answer. His cellphone still went straight to voicemail.

  It was past ten, but Feldman still hadn’t been in touch. Max stood in front of the window. The shadow of Castel Sant’Angelo could be seen across the Tiber. To its west lay St. Peter’s Square and the Basilica. There was something he wanted there, and when he thought about it, something hot welled up inside him.

  “I’m worried,” Katya said from behind him.

  Those plain, unaffected words soaked into Max’s mind. “There’s no need to worry. We’re in God’s domain. And what we’re looking at is God’s land.”

  Katya’s hand touched Max’s. Max gripped it softly, and Katya held his hand strongly. He caught a faint whiff of the scent of her perfume.

  “Feldman said all of the answers are in there.”

  “‘All of the answers,’ huh. I just want to know about Aska, that’s all. I just want her back. If she—” She stopped. Outside the window, the yellow moon was shining in the middle of a blanket of twinkling stars. “What is Feldman planning? I don’t think the Vatican’s going to open its doors for us without a fuss. The Vatican’s hardly going to go public with its Nazi ties, and it’s not as though the world’s going to put their feet to the fire.”

  “To Nazi hunters, this is a bridge that needs crossing, which is why Feldman and his group ended up here.”

  “His work must have reached its final stage. And that means, your objective . . .”

  “But Feldman, he . . .” There was something unaccounted for in his heart. He didn’t know what it was, but the anxiety that appeared like a sunspot got deeper and darker. It grew to an oppressive mass that spread to his entire body. “I don’t know.” Then he said no more.

  A knock on the door. They opened it. There stood Feldman.

  “We’re leaving tonight,” he said. Max thought Feldman’s face looked rather stiff. “You should stay here.” He looked at Katya, who was standing beside Max.

  “You must be joking! What did I come all the way to Rome for?” said Katya.

  “Even we don’t know what will happen. This is our first time doing this.”

  “When did you become so chivalrous? You’re letting a woman in on the action?”

  “There’s no way the Vatican is more dangerous than the jungles were,” Max said. “I don’t think we’re going to get killed in God’s own city.”

  They thought about the grand and solemn atmosphere of the Vatican, where they’d strolled around that day.

  Feldman looked at Katya. “Very well, then,” he said, nodding. “We are going to meet up with a certain individual.”

  “A Nazi war criminal?” Max asked.

  “He’s an important figure. That’s all I know. A Vatican insider will guide us.”

  “A traitor to the Vatican?”

  “That, too, I don’t know. However, there will always be weak points in any organization. In any case . . .” He searched for the words. “I have a feeling something will come to a close with this mission. Some of the answers that we’ve been searching for sixty-three years lie inside this place.”

  “It may just be the beginning,” Max said half to himself.

  “I’ll come get you at midnight. You have time to shower again. I hear the noses of God’s servants are quite sensitive.”

  Feldman patted Katya’s shoulder before bowing his head a little and leaving the room.

  CHAPTER 23

  It was just after midnight. Max and Katya followed Feldman out of the hotel. There were still plenty of people in the streets. Feldman briskly turned into a side street, which was surprisingly empty. Occasionally, a car’s headlights on the main road flashed across the buildings, and the street echoed with the sound of the engine.

  A black car stopped in front of them. Two priests were inside. The three got in, and one of the priests, a young man in a black cassock, started the car without a word. He was hunched over the steering wheel and kept looking around as he drove. The priest in the passenger seat had on the same vestment. The face they saw in the rearview mirror was a man entering old age with a white beard. He was putting up a calm front, but he was clearly terribly afraid, and that fear was palpable.

  “Please wear these.” The older priest turned around and handed the three of them black cassocks.

  They slowed down. A police car drew up to the side of their car, and a policeman in the passenger seat made eye contact. The face of the priest gripping the wheel grew stiff. The older priest bowed his head a little, and the police car sped up and moved away. For the next twenty minutes, not one of the five said a word.

  The car crossed the Ponte Umberto I into the road by the Tiber and stopped in front of Castel Sant’Angelo. The older priest and Max, Katya, and Feldman, all dressed in priestly garb with hoods, stepped out of the car, which drove off. The castle towered over them like a black mountain. Though it looked majestic during the day, by night it radiated an eerie aura. The priest glanced at Max’s group, and began to walk. They strode to the other side of the castle until they came to a sturdy door. The priest pushed the door open and ushered the three into a corridor that was dead quiet.

  The ceiling was lofty, and the walls had been tinged by the passage of time. It felt as though this space had trapped in the air that people had exhaled in medieval times. None of the warmth they’d felt during the day made it inside. Ever since the castle was built, so much had unfolded here, and vast amounts of blood had been shed. It seemed more like an old fortress where ghosts wandered around than a place of great importance for Roman Catholicism.

  The three silently followed the priest. Suddenly, he stopped and forced them behind a pillar. Two guards were walking down the hallway in their direction.

  A faint tapping sound; Katya’s shoes touched the wall. The guards stopped. They exchanged a few words, and one started to walk toward them. The priest put his index finger to his lips and communicated with his eyes that they were to wait. Then he straightened up and stepped out from behind the pillar. The guards stopped to gaze at him.

  Max noticed Feldman’s hand held a gun with a silencer. The priest talked to the guards, who pointed in the direction of Max’s group and said something. Feldman’s arm rose, and he took aim at the guards. Max put his hand on Feldman’s gun. Eventually the guards nodded, and they walked down the hallway. After the guards turned a corner, the priest motioned for the three of them to come out. They followed the priest down the empty corridor. The priest stopped in front of a door and knocked three times before making the sign of the cross. No answer came from the other side. The priest gently bowed his head to the three and returned to the hallway. When Max turned the knob, the door opened quietly. A man was standing alone in a dim room. He had on a white gown, and was cradling something in his hands. He stared at them without moving.

  Feldman pushed Max and Katya into the room. Flames from candles lit the space, casting a huge shadow on the wall, like a ghost imprisoned in an old castle. The sound of the door closing behind them echoed in the air. As their eyes adjusted, they saw that the man was holding a Bible.

  “Are you the one who’s going to tell us everything?” Feldman asked, but the man didn’t answer.

  The room was simple, with white plaster ceiling and walls, no decorations, and furnished with only a wooden bed and desk. It was like they’d been transported to a medieval monastery. Standing next to Max, Katya glanced at the man defiantly.

  He flipped a switch, and a faint light illuminated the room, revealing the man’s face. Katya grabbed Max’s arm. She was trembling.

  Max and Feldman gawked at the priest.

  “You’re . . . ,” uttered Feldman in disbelief.

  It was as though the object of an image from sixty yea
rs prior had slipped through time to the present. He had slightly wavy brown hair, a shapely nose, and firm lips, like an old Hollywood actor. Even in the stark light, he had no wrinkles. His glossy skin shone. Max recalled the photo Feldman had shown him at the office in the town near La Cruz. The man before their eyes was Artyom Yunov.

  Father Yunov stood tall and straight. He looked no older than his forties. The man who was over a century old had retained his youth and vigor.

  “I’m your—”

  Yunov raised his right hand to cut off Feldman. “I’ve been waiting for this day,” he said in a low voice.

  Yunov’s bluish eyes gazed at Feldman, Max, and Katya in that order. His hair had the faintest traces of white. Max could sense that past his peaceful expression lay a bottomless well of fear and sorrow. Something was lurking within this man’s soul—and it was the same feeling Max felt in his own.

  CHAPTER 24

  Time slowed to a frozen standstill, as the four fell silent for quite a while.

  Feldman broke the silence: “We came here because a resident of the old castle told us this is where we could uncover the truth.”

  “The truth, you say,” Yunov said quietly. “I am the truth you seek.” He picked up a candlestick and slowly walked over to them. Feldman reached a hand toward his shoulder, but Max grabbed Feldman’s arm.

  Yunov opened the door and walked through to the hallway. The three followed the white-cassocked priest, crossing the hallway in silence before descending the spiral staircase at its end. It seemed like the staircase might continue all the way down to the center of the Earth, but finally they reached the bottom. Their path was blocked by a thick iron door.

  “Where are we?” asked Max.

  “The basement of the Castel Sant’Angelo,” Feldman said.

  Yunov took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door, which opened without a sound, and they were hit by the chill of a narrow brick passageway. Yunov entered without hesitation, and the candle lit up the slimy sheen of the brick walls. The musty air smelled like it was in there since the Middle Ages. It felt like they had been pulled into a realm of darkness, their footsteps echoing eerily against the walls.