The Last Cato

by Matilde Asensi

  After putting supper in the oven and setting the table, my three sisters and I went to our small chapel and sat on floor cushions around a shrine where a tiny candle permanently burned. Together, we prayed the painful mysteries of the Rosary, and soon we grew quiet, gathered in prayer. It was Lent. On Father Pintonello’s recommendation, I reflected on Jesus’s forty days of fasting in the desert and the devil’s temptations. It was not exactly my taste, but I’ve always been tremendously disciplined. It would never have occurred to me to go against my confessor’s suggestions.

  As I prayed, the meeting with the prelates came back to me again and again, blocking my prayers. I asked myself how I could possibly succeed at my work if they were going to keep information from me. Besides, the subject was very strange. “The man in the photographs,” Monsignor Tournier had said, “was implicated in a serious crime against the Catholic Church, as well as against all other Christian churches. We are very sorry, but we cannot give you any more details.”

  That night I had horrible nightmares. A beaten, headless man who was the reincarnation of the devil appeared to me around every corner and down a long street. I stumbled down that street, like a drunk. He tempted me with power and the glory of all the kingdoms of the world.

  At exactly eight o’clock the next morning, the doorbell rang insistently. Margherita answered the door and came to the kitchen right away with a concerned look on her face. “Ottavia, a Kaspar Glauser is waiting for you downstairs.”

  I was petrified. “Captain Glauser-Röist?” I mumbled through a mouth full of bread.

  “He didn’t say anything about being a captain,” Margherita said, “but the name sounds right.”

  I hurried to finish the rest of my breakfast without chewing and gulped my coffee.

  “A problem at work.” I excused myself and rushed out of the kitchen under my sister’s surprised gaze. The apartment in the Piazza delle Vaschette was so small that in a second I had time to straighten up my room and pass through the chapel to say good-bye to the Lord. I grabbed my coat and purse from the hanger at the front door and ran out, closing the door behind me, totally confused. Why was Captain Glauser-Röist waiting for me downstairs? Was something wrong?

  Hidden behind impenetrable black glasses, the robust toy soldier leaned, expressionless, against the door of a flashy, dark-blue Alfa Romeo. It is a Roman custom to park right in front of the door, even if you’re blocking traffic. Any good Roman will explain to you that this saves time for everyone involved. Despite being Swiss—all the members of the small Vatican army had to be—Captain Glauser-Röist must have lived in Rome for many years to have seamlessly adopted its worst customs. Oblivious to my neighbors’ ogling, the captain didn’t move a muscle when I finally opened the door to my building and came out to the street. In the strong sunlight, I was very happy to see that the hulking Swiss soldier looked a bit older than at first glance. Time had left some wrinkles around his eyes and on his deceptively youthful face.

  “Good morning,” I said, buttoning my coat. “Is something wrong, Captain?”

  “Good morning, Doctor.” His very proper Italian didn’t hide a slight German inflection in the way he pronounced his r’s. “I’ve been waiting outside the Archives since six this morning.”

  “Why so early, Captain?”

  “I thought it was time to get to work.”

  “I start work at eight,” I mumbled, irritated.

  The captain cast an indifferent glance at his watch.

  “It’s eight ten,” he announced, cold as a stone yet just as pleasant.

  “Is that so? Well then, let’s get going.”

  What an irritating man! Didn’t he know that the boss always arrives late? It’s one of the perks of being in charge.

  The Alfa Romeo crossed the alleys in the Borgo at top speed. The captain had also adopted the suicidal Roman way of driving. Before you could say amen, we were crossing the Porta Santa Anna, leaving the Swiss Guard’s barracks behind. If I didn’t scream—or open the door and throw myself from the speeding death trap—it was only thanks to my Sicilian roots and the fact that I’d gotten my driver’s license in Palermo, where the traffic lights are for decorative purposes only and the rules of the road are based on the laws of physics, the use of the horn, and general common sense. The captain stopped the car abruptly in a parking space that had a plaque emblazoned with his name. He turned off the motor, a satisfied look on his face. That was the first trace of human emotion I’d observed in him, and it really got my attention. Clearly he loved to drive. We walked toward the Archives through parts of the Vatican I didn’t know existed, passing a modern gym full of machines as well as a shooting range. All the guards came sharply to attention and saluted Glauser-Röist as we passed.

  One thing that had really piqued my curiosity over the years was the origin of the Swiss Guard’s gaudy, multicolor uniforms. In the Classified Archives, there was nothing that confirmed or debunked the rumor that Michelangelo had designed them. However, I was sure that one day we’d find some proof when we least expected among the vast quantity of documents still left to study. Unlike his fellow soldiers, Glauser-Röist didn’t wear the uniform. On the two occasions I’d met him, he was dressed in civilian clothes that were clearly very expensive, almost too expensive for the meager salary of a poor member of the Swiss Guard.

  We crossed the vestibule of the Classified Archives in silence, passing in front of Reverend Father Ramondino’s closed office, and entered the elevator simultaneously. Glauser-Röist stuck his brand new key into the control panel.

  “Do you have the photographs on you, Captain?” I asked as we descended toward the Hypogeum.

  “I do, Doctor.” More and more he resembled a sharp rock on a steep mountainside. Where did they find this guy?

  “Then I suppose we can start work right away, yes?”

  “Right away.”

  My staff’s jaws dropped when they saw Glauser-Röist come down the aisle toward the lab. Guido Buzzonetti’s desk was painfully empty that morning.

  “Good morning,” I said in a loud voice.

  “Good morning, Doctor,” someone murmured so I didn’t go unanswered.

  If a thick silence followed us to my office, the shout that escaped me as I opened the lab door could be heard all the way to the Roman Forum.

  “Jesus! What happened here?”

  My old desk had been shoved heartlessly into a corner, and in the middle of the room was a metal desk and a huge computer. Other hulking devices had been set on small plastic tables that came from some empty office. Dozens of cables and plugs crisscrossed the floor and hung from my old bookcases.

  Horrified, I clapped my hands over my mouth and cautiously stepped inside as if I were walking into a nest of snakes.

  “We need this equipment for our work,” answered the Rock, behind me.

  “I hope you’re right, Captain! Who gave you permission to enter my lab and assemble this mess?”

  “Prefect Ramondino.”

  “Well, he should have consulted me!”

  “We set up the equipment last night after you left,” in his voice there was not even the slightest note of remorse. He was limited to informing me of the facts and that was that, as if everything he did was beyond discussion.

  “Splendid! That’s splendid!” I repeated, utterly furious.

  “Do you wish to start work or not?”

  I spun around as if he had slapped me and I looked at him with all the disdain I could muster.

  “Let’s get this over with as soon as possible.”

  “At your orders,” he murmured, again dragging out his r’s. He unbuttoned his jacket and from some unfathomable place took out the same bulky dossier in a black file I’d seen the day before. “It’s all yours,” he said holding it out to me.

  “What are you going to do while I work?”

  “Use the computer.”

  “To do what?” I asked, astonished. My computer illiteracy was an unresolved issue I knew I�
��d have to confront someday. Up until then, like any good scholar, I found it very comforting to scorn those diabolical pieces of electronic junk.

  “Solve any problem you may have and access all the information on any topic you wish.”

  And that’s how we left it.

  I started by examining the photographs. There were a lot of them— thirty, to be exact. They were in the chronological order of the autopsy, from start to finish. After a quick once-over, I chose the ones where I could see the entire body spread out on the metal table in the positions of dorsal and prone decubitus (face up and facedown). At first glance, what stood out was the fracture of the pelvic bones, the very unnatural arch of the legs, and a huge lesion in the right parietal area of the cranium that had left the gray gelatin of the brain exposed amid slivers of bone. I found the rest of the images useless. The body probably had a number of internal lesions that I had no way to evaluate; nor did I think they were relevant to my work. But I did notice that—most likely due to the accident—the man had bitten through his own tongue.

  That man could never have passed for anything but what he was: Ethiopian. Like most Ethiopians, he was very thin and reedy, with gaunt, fibrous flesh. His extremely dark skin pigmentation was striking. The planes of his face were definitive proof of his Abyssinian origin: very pronounced high cheekbones, sunken cheeks, broad knobby forehead, thick lips, and narrow nose. His large black eyes were open in the photographs, and this really caught my attention. A nearly Greek profile. Before they had cleaned up the section of the head that remained intact, his hair had been matted down, tightly curled, rather dirty, and bloodstained. After he was shaved you could clearly see a fine scar in the shape of the uppercase Greek letter sigma (Σ) in the very center of his skull.

  That morning I studied the terrible images over and over, reviewing any detail that seemed significant. The scarifications stood out like highways on a map, some disgustingly fleshy and thick and others nearly imperceptible, some fine as silk threads. Without exception, all were rose-colored, even reddish in spots, which gave them the repulsive look of grafts of white skin onto black. By midafternoon I had stomach cramps, I was light-headed, and the table was covered with notes and sketches of the deceased’s scarifications.

  I found another six Greek letters distributed over the body: a tau (T) on the biceps of the right arm; an upsilon (Y) on the left arm; an alpha (A) in the center of the chest over the heart; a rho (P) on the abdomen; an omicron (O) on the quadriceps of the right thigh; and another sigma (Σ) on the same spot on the left thigh. Right below the alpha and above the rho in the lung and stomach area could be seen a large chrismon, a very common monogram in the tympana and altars of medieval churches. The two first Greek letters of Christ’s name, XP—chi and rho—were superimposed onto it.

  This chrismon, however, had a very peculiar variation: a horizontal bar had been added, giving the symbol the added appearance of a cross. The rest of the body, except the hands, feet, buttocks, neck, and face, was covered with the most original-looking crosses I’d ever seen in my life.

  Captain Glauser-Röist sat for long stretches in front of the computer, typing mysterious instructions without taking a break. From time to time, he came up behind my chair and stood there in silence, studying the evolution of my analysis. I was startled when, out of the blue, he asked if it would help to have a life-size drawing of the human body so I could record the scars. Before answering I moved my head in exaggerated nods and shakes to relieve the pain in my neck.

  “That’s a good idea. Captain, how much are you authorized to tell me about this poor man? Monsignor Tournier mentioned that you took these photographs.”

  Glauser-Röist rose from his chair and turned toward the computer. “I can’t tell you anything.” He quickly struck several computer keys quickly and the printer began to chirp and expel paper.

  “I need to know more,” I protested, rubbing the bridge of my nose under my glasses. “Maybe you know some details that would facilitate my work.”

  The Rock wasn’t moved by my pleading. He cut pieces of tape with his teeth and stuck those sheets of paper to the back of my door. The complete silhouette of a human being took shape.

  “Can I help you in some other way?” he asked when he finished.

  I glared at him. “Can you consult the databases of the Classified Archives from that computer?”

  “From this computer I can consult any database in the world. What would you like to know?”

  “Anything you can find on scarification.”

  Without missing a beat he got to work. I grabbed a fistful of markers from a box on my desk and planted myself in front of the life-size paper silhouette. A half hour later, I had managed to rather faithfully reconstruct the painful road map of the victim’s injuries. I had to ask myself why a sane, strong man only thirty-some years old would let himself be tortured in this manner. It was quite strange indeed.

  Besides the Greek letters, I found a total of seven beautiful crosses, each one completely different from the others: the first, a Latin cross on the inner part of the right forearm; the second, a Latin inmmissa cross (with a short crossbar in the middle of the staff), on his left forearm; the third, a branched cross (with tree limbs) on his cervical vertebrae; the fourth, an Egyptian ansate cross on his dorsal spine; and the fifth, a bracketed cross on his lumbar vertebrae. The remaining two Greek crosses were called decussates (in an X) and were located on the back of his thighs. The variety was admirable; yet they did have certain elements in common: They were all enclosed or protected by circles, squares, or rectangles (like tiny medieval windows or arrow slits), and in each case the top edge of the enclosure was crowned with serrated teeth, always numbering seven.

  At nine that night we were dead tired. Glauser-Röist summed up what few references to scarifications he had located. It was a religious practice limited to a strip of central Africa that unfortunately didn’t include Ethiopia. In that region, apparently, the primitive tribes had the custom of rubbing a grass mixture into the incisions, usually made with small pieces of cane as sharp as knives. The decorative patterns could be very complex, but basically they corresponded to the geometric shapes of sacred symbols, often as part of some religious ritual.

  “That’s it?” I asked, disenchanted, after he had read his most obvious and meager report.

  “Well, there is something more, but it’s not significant. The queloides—that is, the thickest, enlarged scarification marks—are a genuine sexual lure for men when women exhibit them.”

  “Oh, go on…,” I replied with a look of wonder. “Now, that’s funny. It never would have occurred to me.”

  “In any case,” he went on, nonplussed, “we still don’t know why those scars are on that man’s body.” I believe that was the first time I noticed that his eyes were a washed-out gray. “Another peculiar piece of information, also irrelevant to our work, is that this practice is becoming fashionable among young men in many countries. They call it ‘body art’ or ‘performance art,’ and one of its most prominent followers is the singer and actor David Bowie.”

  “I can’t believe it…,” I sighed, with a slight smile. “Do you mean they let someone cut them like that just to be fashionable?”

  Well…,” he murmured, as disturbed as I. “It has something to do with eroticism and sensuality, but I wouldn’t know how to explain it to you.”

  “Don’t even try, thank you very much,” I dismissed him. Tuckered out, I got to my feet and mentally put an end to that first exhausting session. “Let’s get some rest, Captain. Tomorrow is going to be another very long day.”

  “Allow me to take you home. It’s too late for you to walk alone through the Borgo.”

  I was too tired to refuse, so I once again risked my life in that spectacular little sports car of his. When we said good night, I thanked him, feeling guilty for the way I had treated him—although I must say, the remorse did pass quickly. I rejected his offer to come pick me up again the next morning, since
I hadn’t heard Mass for two days and I wasn’t going to let another day go by without doing so. I’d get up early and go to Saint Michele and Magno Church before work.

  Ferma, Margherita, and Valeria were watching an old movie on TV when I walked through the door. They warmed up some supper for me in the microwave, and I ate a little soup. I didn’t have much of an appetite; I’d seen too many scars that day. I shut myself away in our chapel before going to bed, but I couldn’t concentrate on my prayer—and not just because I was so tired (which I was), but because three of my eight siblings had called from Sicily to ask if I was planning to attend our annual celebration of Saint Giuseppe in honor of our father. I said yes to all three and went to bed, utterly exasperated.

  Captain Glauser-Röist and I spent several hectic weeks locked away in my office from eight in the morning till nine at night, Monday through Sunday. We reviewed what little information we received from the archives. The question of the Greek letters and the chrismon proved relatively simple to solve; it was a different matter entirely to decipher the enigma of the seven crosses.

  On the second day, I was closing the door to the lab and studying the paper silhouette taped to my door out of the corner of my eye, when the solution to the Greek letters hit me as if I’d been slapped in the face with a glove. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it the night before: reading from the head to the legs, from right to left, the seven letters formed the Greek word STAUROS—STAUROS—which means, of course, “cross.” At that point, it was unquestionable that everything on the Ethiopian’s body was related to the subject of crosses.

  Several days later, after poring over the story of old Abyssinia (Ethiopia) several times, with no luck; after consulting a variety of documents on the Greek influence on that country’s culture and religion; after long hours of scouring dozens of books on all styles of art from all eras, extensive files on sects sent by various departments of the Classified Archives and exhaustive information on chrismons that the captain found on the Internet, we made another very significant discovery: a monogram of the Name of Christ on the Ethiopian man’s chest and stomach corresponded to the well-known Monogram of Constantine, which had not been used in Christian art since around the sixth century.