The Cross of Lazzaro

by John Harris

  As they jerked back in their seats and everything became quiet after the screech of tyres and the roar of the engine, Henry drew a deep breath.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘That was very stupid of me.’

  ‘It was very stupid of him,’ Maggie said in a shaking voice. ‘He wasn’t looking. He might have killed us.’

  They climbed out and walked back to where Oswino was sitting in his car, his thin face wearing a shut-down wary expression.

  ‘I’m sorry, Signore,’ he said at once. ‘I didn’t see you. I was busy thinking. I’m always thinking these days, Herr Doktor’ – his voice became a whine – ‘I have too much on my mind. I get worried. About the dam.’

  Maggie’s eyes met Henry’s and he was almost glad for a moment that Oswino had been so careless. It seemed to bring home even more to her what he had been trying to tell her.

  ‘Why?’ she was asking. ‘Why are you worried about the dam?’

  Oswino leaned on the wheel. ‘Wouldn’t you be worried about the dam if you lived here?’ he said. ‘Eating your break-fast every morning with the shadow of that thing across the house. Going to bed at night with the sun on it, to remind you always that it’s there, and that there’s a lake a mile long behind it ready to drop on you.’ He looked at Henry earnestly. ‘Herr Doktor,’ he said, ‘I’d be grateful if you didn’t report this. I’ve been in enough trouble with the police over my driving already. Living up here, you see, you get so you don’t expect traffic.’

  Apart from a dented mudguard, there appeared to be little wrong with the van and they agreed to say nothing. Oswino asked them back to the house for a drink, but there was something about the little farmer that repelled Henry, and he refused, and Oswino reversed his car off the road full of apologies. His wife had appeared in front of the house and he stopped the car to pick her up. As they disappeared, Maggie stood staring back at the grey wall of the dam, then she turned to Henry and gave him a wry smile.

  ‘It seems you’re not the only one who’s worried,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I was always so rude about it. I just didn’t realize.’

  Henry said nothing and she fiddled uncomfortably with a scarf she’d brought for her hair.

  ‘I don’t know what I can do to help,’ she said.

  ‘You should try getting Dei Monti up here,’ Henry suggested.

  She smiled. ‘I haven’t a chance. He’s like a dog with a bone between his teeth. But I’ll try. That’s all I can do.’

  Henry felt a desperate desire to tell her there and then what Caporelli had suggested, as though it were a secret of his own he needed to share. He looked up at the lowering clouds and in a burst of confidence, feeling he could trust her, the need to get some of his guilt off his chest broke out of him.

  ‘If Caporelli had his way,’ he said, ‘the water would have been running into the Punta dei Fiori tomorrow.’

  She looked up at him quickly and he explained. ‘He wanted to blow a gate out of the stopper wall,’ he said.

  She stared at him for a long time as he finished and he couldn’t tell whether it was contempt in her eyes or not.

  ‘Would he have done it?’ she asked.

  ‘If I’d been willing to help. As it happens, though, the explosive’s gone. I think some of these damn’ fools who’re blowing the railways have got it. I’ve been waiting for the police to arrive ever since. I might have to leave in a hurry. It was quite a night last night. First Stettner and then this.’

  ‘Perhaps Alois took the car,’ she suggested. ‘He went away by car. Perhaps in case we called the police.’

  What had been worrying Henry fell into place. He had heard a car leave, too, and he knew he’d never heard one arrive.

  ‘Maybe he did,’ he said. ‘I expect he had some other girlfriend to see. I suppose he just left it in the square where it was found and someone came across it and broke it open and found what was in it.’ He paused, thinking of Dittli and the man he’d seen on the mountain. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him to open the damned boot himself,’ he ended, ‘and sell the stuff. I expect he’s got contacts with the opposition.’

  By the time they reached Cadivescovo again, great clouds were piling up into thunderheads, black below and building up in great breastworks of hail and rain that moved over the lake in a grey screen. The rain came again, in huge drops that splashed into the road and ran in noisy streams along the gutters. There was hail in it, too, and more dark masses lurching up the valley at the end of the lake. The boats by the Punta dei Fiori had stopped work and were huddled against the mole and Sister Ursula had long since marched her charges back to the orphanage.

  There were only a few people about in the town, hurrying along in the shelter of the walls, and the courtyard of the Stettnerhof was like a quagmire round their ankles as they splashed from the Fiat to the door.

  There was a group of Dei Monti’s archaeologists in the bar and they looked up as they entered.

  ‘Out with the opposition, Maggie?’ Frank Maggs called.

  Maggie blushed, and the group split up and came over to her.

  ‘I hope you enjoyed yourself,’ Maggs said. ‘Because we didn’t.’

  She looked unhappy. ‘It’ll stop raining tomorrow,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not the rain I’m talking about. The cross has gone.’

  Maggie’s hands flew to her mouth. ‘The altar cross?’ she whispered. ‘The gold altar cross?’

  Maggs nodded. ‘It was there when the kids were putting the things away last night,’ he said. ‘I saw it. They all swore it was there. But it wasn’t there this morning. We searched the whole bloody Customs House.’

  Maggie’s eyes looked frightened. ‘Where’s it gone?’ she asked.

  Maggs shrugged, an expression of disgust on his face. ‘God knows,’ he said. ‘These bloody plasticeurs, I expect. They’ll put it on a pole up the mountain and declare Tyrolean independence round it.’

  Eleven

  Maggie stood in silence for a moment, her hands at her throat, then she slowly turned round and went into the hall. Maggs watched her, then he swung back to the bar with a gesture of disgust.

  Henry came to life and followed her, but she was already running up the stairs. He ran after her and was just in time to see her door slam. He opened it and went in.

  She was sitting on the edge of the bed, a shocked look on her face, tears starting in her eyes.

  ‘Maggie!’

  She turned a horrified, beaten look towards him and suddenly her face crumpled and she began to cry in great sobs that shook her whole frame. Henry put his arm round her and, without embarrassment, she crouched against him, sobbing.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said.

  ‘No, I know. It’s not that. Going up the mountain made no difference. It would have gone just the same. It’s just that – it’s just that – well, everything’s just gone wrong.’

  ‘Nothing’s gone wrong.’

  ‘Yes, it has. Everything. All the way along. And now this. Dei Monti’s going to insist on removing everything now – even Lazzaro’s Cross if he can get it.’

  Henry lifted her chin. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Don’t let’s despair too soon. Let’s go and see Dei Monti first and see what he feels.’

  ‘Do you think it’ll help?’

  ‘It’ll do no harm.’

  She nodded and Henry kissed her. He didn’t think much about it and the gesture was quite natural and impulsive. For a second, she sat still, staring at him as though she were surprised, then she blew her nose and got to her feet.

  Dei Monti was in his hotel near the Municipio, and he was pale with rage.

  ‘Politics!’ he said. ‘Politics! What have politics to do with us? There were no politics when Lazzaro was drowned! Why do we have to be involved with politics?’

  He’d stared bitterly at Henry as he’d followed Maggie into the room, almost as though he held him responsible for the disappearance of the altar cross. He’d confirmed its absence with a sour nod
, then he’d exploded into disgust.

  ‘We must move everything,’ he said. ‘Everything!’

  ‘But, Professor’ – Maggie tried to reason with him – ‘we gave an undertaking that we’d leave everything here. That was why everyone agreed to help us so much. Because we were leaving everything that we found, here in Cadivescovo.’

  ‘Here?’ Dei Monti seemed thunderstruck. ‘Here? In this bear-garden? One of their damned explosions might blow the lot of us to perdition! How long can I leave things here when some stupid fool might steal the lot? They’ve already threatened to steal the cross from the church for some stupid political stunt. Erect it on the mountains and fly the Austrian colours from it, I suppose, or carry it on a float at the head of a demonstration march in Bolzano, complete with brass bands and police escort and shouted slogans and placards demanding freedom. Lazzaro’s Cross of Christ!’

  ‘Professor,’ Maggie begged. ‘We must leave everything here. We promised.’

  ‘If they break their promises we break ours! Everything goes to Venice! Or even to Rome, where we can place a substantial guard over it. We’ll continue our work but everything we find will be sent away at once, accompanied by someone responsible, not a lot of orphans from a poorhouse.’

  ‘Professor, you can’t!’

  ‘Can’t?’ His deep black eyes flared fanatically. ‘Can’t? Who says I can’t? Of course I can! I am responsible not only to archaeology but to Christianity to see that these relics are kept safe! Every one of them! We start moving them tomorrow!’

  By next morning the whole archaeological team was on the mole outside the old Customs House, dragging crates about and struggling with piles of shavings that blew about in the cool breeze. There was a great deal of shouting and angry youngsters were busy with bottles of indian ink, balls of twine and labels. Watched by the policemen, who stood guard at night over their treasures, they looked sullen and uneasy, almost even as though some of them were in flat disagreement with Dei Monti themselves. Dei Monti moved about among the crates, stiff and unbending, gesturing with the jerkiness of uncontrolled rage, and Sister Ursula stood on one side with her children, completely ignored, as though they’d been discarded. She had her hand on Giovanni’s shoulder, occasionally passing her fingers gently over his hair, and the boy kept glancing up at her, puzzled and frowning and faintly resentful, as though he were angry at having his job taken away from him. He was silent and strained-looking, too, as though they’d been questioning him about the missing altar cross.

  Maggie was there, also, but she seemed to be standing alone like Sister Ursula, as if no one included her any longer in what was going on. She accepted Henry’s offer of coffee and crossed the square with him to a small café where a linnet in a wooden cage was liquidly lamenting its incarceration, and sat staring gloomily at her cup under the dripping oleanders.

  ‘They don’t trust me any more,’ she said. ‘I have the key to the Customs House and the explosives, and that’s about the lot. And as we’re not using explosives any more, and everything we’ve found will soon be gone, even that hasn’t much point. The worst of it,’ she ended, ‘is that I can’t feel very indignant about it.’ She looked unhappily at Henry. ‘I find I’m suddenly not on their side any more.’

  She fiddled with her cup, then said unexpectedly: ‘Why did you take me up there? All that we’re doing here doesn’t seem very important since I came back.’

  She walked back to the Stettnerhof with Henry, but she was silent and indifferent to him, as though she didn’t know on which side she belonged. When the archaeologists appeared at lunchtime they all ignored her except Stettner, who slipped his arm round her waist as usual. She didn’t push it away, but she gave him a bitter look that caused him to take it away himself.

  Making no attempt to eat with the rest of the group, she sat with Henry, picking at her food in silence, neither of them saying much because Caporelli was still aloof and silent and Henry felt like an outcast, too.

  He had described the damage he had done to the van and had offered to pay for its repair, but Caporelli had shrugged the matter off and told him not to worry, in a tone that only served to make him feel worse about it.

  ‘What does it matter?’ he had said unconcernedly. ‘I already have to claim for the damage to the Alfa. What is another one between friends? The insurance company will pay.’

  The bar and dining-room were warm, the windows blurred by the condensation from the coolness of the rain that came in thin slanting drizzles from the north. Everybody had newspapers, as though they were trying to find out something they all knew already, all of them staring at the blazing headlines.

  It was obvious everyone in the village had heard what was going on, and there were a few surly glances in the direction of Dei Monti’s group.

  ‘These things belong to Cadivescovo,’ Henry heard someone say. ‘They’re ours. They were always ours.’

  ‘Was anything ever ours?’ Dittli said, bringing the coffee from behind the bar. ‘Did we ever have anything? My father said it started disappearing in 1919 and it’s never come back.’

  Caporelli had appeared in the doorway and Henry saw Dittli flash him a scared glance, then Caporelli followed him behind the bar.

  ‘Not here,’ he said fiercely, gesturing with the flat of his hand. ‘Not here, you understand? Your views are your own but don’t express them here.’

  ‘Leave him be, Ettore,’ one of the diners called out. ‘He’s only saying what we all think.’

  ‘You can think and say what you like,’ Caporelli said.’ You pay to come here. He doesn’t. He keeps his mouth shut on his views in the public rooms – like me.’

  Maggie listened to the talk in silence, then she got up, leaving her coffee untouched, and said she’d like to go to her room for a while. Henry walked with her to the foot of the stairs then, as she turned away, he saw Caporelli by the office. He raised his eyebrows and thrust out his lower lip in a questioning gesture.

  ‘Trouble?’ he asked in a flat disinterested tone.

  Henry told him what had happened and he shrugged, unmoved.

  ‘I wish that were all the trouble in the world,’ he said. ‘I still wait for the discovery of the plastic – or the bang.’

  He sighed. ‘The boy in hospital. The one who was blinded. He’s died. That makes two. It’ll mean more trouble. Someone will be bound to use the occasion for a demonstration. A wreath on the Hoferdenkmal. A few arrests. More grief. More mothers weeping. More boys hurt. I wonder when this valley will be normal again.’

  It rained a lot during the afternoon and Henry hung around the hotel lounge in case Maggie appeared. He could hear the talk in the bar and there was obviously a lot of dissatisfaction in the town at Dei Monti’s cavalier decision.

  Somebody had produced a copy of Dolomiten and was reading from the leader article. ‘The Sudtyroler Volkspartei was not responsible for the theft,’ he was saying. ‘But it should be made clear that the party is firmly behind the motive that prompted it. Father Lazarus was a Viennese and the stolen object, like all the others, belongs in the Tyrol.’

  ‘They say Father Anselmo’s sitting at the foot of the cross with a shotgun,’ Caporelli said cynically. ‘And Father Gianpiero at the head with another. They even say the Bishop of Trepizano has offered to take a watch, too, with the man from the Vatican Library in the sacristy to supply them with coffee. Dei Monti’ll not get the cross away from Cadivescovo in a hurry.’

  The papers that came on the afternoon boat from Trepizano had exploded into a vast controversy embroiling not only the lakeside and Rome but two countries. There was an interview with the Cardinal who’d come up from the Vatican to investigate the ‘miracle’, and he had stated categorically that all the treasures should go to Rome, where they belonged, to be surrounded by the ancient history of the Church they represented.

  He was answered by a Communist Deputy from Milan who had seized on the opportunity to run down the Church which was always such a stumbling bl
ock to his party at election time: The treasures belong to the people – and to the people where they were discovered. Not to the princes of the Church who are already overloaded with loot.

  There was also a firm and dignified statement by Del Monti. We cannot take the chance of losing more of the treasures, he’d said. Our discoveries undoubtedly belong in Cadivescovo but, while there is discord there and political disagreement, there is always the chance that they may be seized for political purposes and we cannot risk that with relics which should be above regional differences.

  And finally, briefly, but very firmly, Father Anselmo’s own pronouncement: The Great Cross of Bishop Lazzaro will leave the Church of Lazzaro di Colleno only over my lifeless body.

  Twelve

  There was enough rain during the night to make Henry anxious about the dam again. The hours of darkness became a meteorological nightmare, with the wind roaring in the trees and the rain drumming on the leaves outside the windows.

  He woke to the rushing sound of water as the rain continued to pelt down, obscuring the lake with what looked like a heavy fog. There was lightning coming out of the blackness at the end of the valley towards the Punta dei Fiori and the low clouds were like dirty cotton wool behind Trepizano, and he was glad when Caporelli suggested they went up the mountain again to examine the dam. The coolness between them nagged at him. It was impossible to feel deeply enough about something he would probably never see again after he left, to encourage Caporelli in his mad scheme, but at the same time he had an uneasy feeling that he might have done more than he had.