The Last Cato

by Matilde Asensi

  “‘But let your perseverance bring with it a perfect work,’” I continued, “‘so you are perfect and fully integrated, without any flaw.’ Wait a minute… I know this text!”

  “Oh? So it’s not a letter from the Staurofilakes?” asked Farag, disappointed, raising the pen to his forehead.

  “It’s the New Testament! The opening lines of Saint James’s letter! The greeting Saint James of Jerusalem gave to the twelve tribes of the dispersion.”

  “Saint James, the apostle?”

  “No, no. Although he calls himself Iacobos,* the author of this letter doesn’t ever identify himself as the apostle. Besides, as you can see, he writes in a very scholarly and correct Greek that couldn’t have come from Saint James the Elder.”

  “So, this isn’t a letter from the Staurofilakes?”

  “Of course it is, Professor,” Glauser-Röist consoled him. “From what you’ve read to us, I believe it’s correct to surmise that the Staurofilakes used sacred words from the Bible to compose their messages.”

  “‘If any of you lacks wisdom,’” I continued, “‘ask God for it, that he shall give wisdom to everyone in abundance, without flaunting it, and he will give it to you.’”

  “I would translate this sentence,” Boswell interrupted me, also putting his finger on the text, “as, ‘If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask it of the Lord, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be granted to you.’”

  I sighed, arming myself with patience.

  “I don’t see any difference,” the captain concluded.

  “There is no difference,” I declared.

  “Okay, okay!” wailed Farag, shrugging with fake indifference. “I’ll admit my translations are a little baroque.”

  “A little?” I asked surprised.

  “Depends on your point of view. One could also say they are very precise.”

  I was about to observe that, as dirty as his glasses were, it was impossible for him to see clearly, but I held my tongue because he was stuck with copying the text and I had no particular interest in doing that.

  “We are getting off track here,” ventured Glauser-Röist. “Would you experts focus on the meaning, not the form, please?”

  “Of course, Captain.” I looked at Farag over my shoulder. “‘But ask with faith, without a single doubt. Doubt is like the waves of the ocean stirred up by the wind and carried from one place to another. Such a man should not think about receiving anything from the Lord. He is indecisive, inconstant in all his paths.’”

  “Rather than indecisive, I would read here a man of twisted spirit.”

  “Professor!”

  “Okay! I won’t say another word.”

  “‘Glory be to the humble man in his exaltation and the rich man in his humility,’” I was coming to the end of that long paragraph. “‘Good fortune to he who endures the test, because once proven, he will receive the crown.’”

  “The crown they will engrave in our skin, above the first cross,” murmured the Rock.

  “Well, the entrance test to Purgatory wasn’t easy, and we don’t have a mark on our bodies that we didn’t already have,” commented Farag, wanting to push aside the nightmare of future scarifications.

  “This is nothing compared to what awaits us. What we have done is simply ask permission to enter.”

  “True,” I said, lowering my finger and my eyes to the last words of the epigraph. “There’s not much left to read. Just a couple of sentences.”

  καὶ οὕτως εἰς τὴν Pώμην ἥλθμεν.

  “‘And with this, we head for Rome,’” the professor translated.

  “That’s what you would expect,” affirmed the Rock. “The first cornice of Purgatory is about pride. According to Cato LXXVI, this deadly sin had to be expiated in the city known for its lack of humility: Rome.”

  “So, we’re going home,” I murmured gratefully.

  “Yeah, if we ever manage to get out of here. But we won’t be there very long, Doctor.”

  “We haven’t even finished here,” I said, turning to the wall. “There’s still the last line. ‘The temple of Mary is beautifully adorned.’”

  “That can’t be in the Bible.” The professor rubbed his temples. His hair, grimy with dirt and sweat, fell in his face. “I don’t recall any mention of the temple of Mary.”

  “I’m nearly positive it’s from the Gospel of Luke, although modified by the mention of the Virgin. They must be giving us some kind of a clue.”

  “Let’s study it when we get back to the Vatican,” pronounced the Rock.

  “It’s from Luke, I’m sure,” I insisted, proud of my good memory. “I can’t say what chapter or verse, but it’s the moment when Jesus prophesied the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the persecutions of the Christians.”

  “Actually, Luke wrote those prophesies and attributed them to Jesus,” pointed out Boswell. “Those events took place between A.D. 80 and 90. Jesus didn’t prophesy any of it.”

  I looked at him coldly. “That was uncalled-for, Farag.”

  “I’m sorry, Ottavia. I thought you knew.”

  “I knew,” I replied rather angry, “but why do you need to remind me of it?”

  “Well…,” he stuttered, “I’ve always thought it’s better to know the truth.”

  Not wanting to get mixed up in our discussion, the Rock got to his feet, picked his backpack up off the floor, slung it over his shoulder, and headed down the hallway toward the exit.

  “If the truth harms people, Farag,” I snapped, enraged, thinking about Ferma, Margherita, and Valeria, and so many others, “they don’t need to know it.”

  “We have different opinions on this, Ottavia. I’ve always preferred the truth to a lie.”

  “Even if it does harm?”

  “That depends on the person. There are cancer patients who don’t want to hear a thing about their disease. Others demand to know everything.” He stared into me. “I thought you were of the latter.”

  “Doctor! Professor! The exit!” Glauser-Röist boomed, not very far away.

  “Let’s go, or we’ll be stuck in here forever!” I exclaimed, and started off down the passageway, leaving Farag alone.

  We surfaced through a dry well, in the middle of some rugged, wild mountains. Night was falling, it was getting cold, and we didn’t have the slightest idea where we were. We walked for a couple of hours, following a river through a narrow canyon, and reached a dirt road that led to a private villa whose kind owner was used to opening his doors to lost hikers. He told us we were in the Anapo Valley, some 10 kilometers from Syracuse. We’d skirted the Iblei Mountains in the dark. After a short time, a car from the archbishopric picked us up at the villa and took us back to civilization. We couldn’t tell His Excellency Monsignor Giuseppe Arena about our adventure, so we ate a quick dinner in the archdiocese, picked up our bags, and left as fast as we could for the Fontanarossa Airport, some 50 kilometers away, to hop on the first flight for Rome.

  As we were fastening our seat belts in the plane, the old sacristan of Saint Lucia popped into my head. I asked myself what they might have told him at the archdiocese to keep him quiet. I wanted to mention the matter to the captain, but when I looked over, I noticed he was fast asleep.

  ____________

  * Purgatory, Canto I, 1–6.

  * Purgatory, Canto 1, 94–102.

  * Saint Lucia.

  † Purgatory, Canto IX, 85–90.

  * Excavators specialized in opening galleries of the catacombs.

  * Hypnos, Sleep.

  † Thanatos, Death.

  * Iacobos is Greek for James.

  CHAPTER 4

  When I opened my eyes the next day, it was well before dawn. I felt like one of those travelers cast adrift when they lose a day due to the earth’s rotation. In that guest room in the Domus, I felt so drained, as if I hadn’t slept through the entire night. In the silence, studying the silhouettes that the pale light from the street s
ketched all around me, I asked myself a thousand and one times what had I gotten myself into, what was happening, and why my life had come unhinged. Just hours before, I’d been on the brink of dying in the bowels of the earth. In less than two days, my father’s and brother’s deaths had become a distant memory. If that weren’t enough, I hadn’t taken my renewal of vows.

  How could I adjust to the way I was living, a rhythm I so was completely unaccustomed to? The days, weeks, and months flew by. I became less and less conscious of my role and obligations as a religious person and as director of the Restoration and Paleography Laboratory of the Vatican’s Classified Archives. I knew I shouldn’t worry about my vows; situations like mine were provided for in my order’s statutes. As long as I signed the petition as soon as I had a moment, my vows were automatically renewed in pectore. True, my order and the Vatican gave me dispensation for everything. True, I was doing a job of vital importance to the church. But did I give myself dispensation? Did God give me dispensation?

  I rolled over, closed my eyes, and tried to go back to sleep for a few more minutes. I decided to abandon my morning reflections and instead let life lead me by the reins. But my eyelids refused to close, and my inner voice accused me of acting like a coward, always grumbling about everything and hiding behind some false fear or remorse.

  Instead of weighing down my conscience with blame, why didn’t I enjoy what life had offered me? I always envied Pierantonio’s adventures: his jobs, his post in the Holy Land, his archeological excavations. Now, I was wrapped up in a similar project, and instead of unleashing my strong side, I was tangled up in my fears like a fly in a web. Poor Ottavia! Her whole life squeezed into books, prayers, and studying; trying to shine with her codices, scrolls, papyruses, and parchments. When God decides to snatch her from her studious work and take her out into the field, she trembles like a little girl.

  If I wanted to keep investigating the theft of the Ligna Crucis with Farag and Captain Glauser-Röist, I had to change my attitude, and act like the privileged person I was. I had to be more spirited and decisive, learning to stop my laments and protests. Hadn’t Farag lost everything without complaining—his home, his family, his country, his work in the Greco-Roman Museum in Alexandria? In Italy all he could rely on was a rented room in the Domus and the stingy hourly wage the secretary of state had allotted him at the captain’s request. Yet he was ready to put his life on the line to clear up a mystery that was turning all Christian churches upside down. And he was an atheist!

  Not an atheist, I told myself, as I turned on the light on the nightstand, poised to hop out of bed. For all he claimed to be, he just couldn’t be an atheist. We all believed in God, in one way or another. At least that was what I’d been taught and what I firmly believed. Farag surely believed in his own way, no matter what he said. Deep down I knew, however, that my unbendable stance, so typical of believers, was intolerant and arrogant: There certainly were people in the world who didn’t believe in God, no matter how strange that seemed to me.

  I couldn’t help letting out a shriek as I swung my legs out from under the covers. I felt pain all over my body. The adventure in the catacombs of Saint Lucia the day before had left me bruised and injured. Nonetheless, I did feel proud of what we had accomplished in Syracuse. I was deeply satisfied that we had solved the puzzle and come out of that hole alive. It was highly likely that others had died in that very spot.

  “And what about their remains?” I asked out loud.

  I do not doubt that there are Staurofilakes in Syracuse,” the captain said hours later when we gathered in my lab for the first time since Syracuse.

  “Ask the archbishop about the sacristan of the church,” Farag proposed.

  “The sacristan?” the Rock asked.

  “Yes, I’m sure he has something to do with the brotherhood,” I agreed. “Just my intuition.”

  “Why should I call? They’re going to tell me he’s a good man who has spent many, many years generously helping out at Saint Lucia. Unless you don’t have a better idea, let’s drop it.”

  “Still, I’m sure he’s the one who cleans up after the test and removes the remains of those who don’t pass. Remember how shiny the gold and silver chains were?”

  “So what if he was?” he replied sarcastically. “Do you think that if we asked nicely, he would confess to being a Staurofilax? Maybe we can get the police to lock him up, even though he has never committed a single crime, even though he’s Saint Lucia’s honored elderly sacristan. In that case, we could take off his clothes to see if he has scarifications on his body. Though, if he isn’t willing to strip, we can always get a court order to force him to. And once we manage to get him naked at the police station—surprise! There are no marks on his body and he turns out to be the person he says he is. Then he sues us, okay? He slaps a nice lawsuit squarely on the Vatican, and the news hits all the papers.”

  “The question is, if the sacristan is a Staurofilax,” Farag said to settle the argument and calm the captain, “besides doing the jobs Ottavia mentioned, he could also be the one to warn the brotherhood of anyone who has taken the first test.”

  “We can’t ignore that possibility,” conceded the captain. “We should keep our eyes peeled in Rome.”

  “Speaking of Rome…,” I said. The men looked at me, questioningly. “We need to keep in mind that we could die in one of these tests. I’m not saying I’m scared or that we should backpedal, but the possibility should be on the table before we continue.”

  The captain and Farag looked at each other, then at me.

  “I thought that was settled already, Doctor.”

  “What do you mean, it was settled already?”

  “We’re not going to die, Ottavia,” Farag declared very decisively, raising his glasses. “Nobody says it won’t be dangerous, but…”

  “… But, as dangerous as it may be,” the Rock continued, “why wouldn’t we pass the tests, like hundreds of Staurofilakes over the centuries?”

  “No, I didn’t say we were going to die for sure. What I said is, we could die, that’s all. We shouldn’t forget that.”

  “We know that, Doctor. And His Eminence Cardinal Sodano knows that and His Holiness the Pope knows that. No one is forcing us to be here. If you don’t feel capable of continuing, I’ll understand. For a woman…”

  “Don’t start that!” I exclaimed, indignant.

  Farag laughed under his breath.

  “I’d like to know what you’re laughing about!” I spit out.

  “I’m laughing because you’ll want to be the first woman to pass all the tests.”

  “Well, yes! What of it?”

  “Nothing!” he answered, breaking out in a belly laugh. Before I had time to react, I heard another belly laugh. I couldn’t believe what I saw. Farag and the Rock were laughing, both a chorus of unending chuckles. I sighed and smiled, resigned. If they were ready to follow that adventure to its end, I decided I’d be two steps in front of them. So, the matter was settled. Now I just had to get them to work.

  “We should start studying our notes on the inscription,” I suggested, patiently leaning my elbows on the table.

  “Yes, yes…,” babbled Boswell, drying his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Great idea, Doctor,” said the captain, between hiccups of laughter.

  “Well, once you recover, please read your notes, Farag.”

  “Just a moment,” he begged, looking at me affectionately as he extracted his notebook from one of the enormous pockets in his jacket. He was hoarse. He pushed his hair off his face, raised his glasses, and took a deep breath. Finally locating what he was looking for, he started to read. “‘Consider, my brothers, as motive for great joy to see you involved in all manner of tests, knowing that the test of your faith produces perseverance. But let your perseverance bring with it a perfect work, so you are perfect and fully integrated, without any flaw. If any of you lacks in wisdom, ask it of the Lord who gives to all generously and without repro
ach, and it will be granted to you. But ask with faith, without a single doubt. Doubt is like the waves of the ocean stirred up by the wind and carried from one place to another. Such a man should not think of receiving anything from the Lord. He is a man of twisted spirit…’”

  “A man of twisted spirit? That isn’t my translation.”

  “Actually, it’s mine. Since I was the one taking notes…,” he said, proud of himself. “‘… He is a man of twisted spirit, inconstant in all his paths. Glory be to the humble brother in his exaltation and the rich man in his humility. Good fortune to he who endures the test, because once proved, he will receive the crown.’ Then this part: ‘And with this, we set off for Rome.’ As the captain said, this is the clue to the city of the first test of Purgatory. And finally, ‘The temple of Mary is beautifully adorned.’”

  “Is beautifully adorned,” I repeated, a bit vexed. “It refers to a beautiful temple dedicated to the Virgin. It’s the clue to finding the spot, of course, but it’s a pretty poor clue. The solution isn’t a sentence; it’s in the sentence. But how do we figure it out?”

  “In Rome all the churches dedicated to Mary are beautiful, right?”

  “Just those churches dedicated to Mary, Professor?” Glauser-Röist said ironically. “In Rome all the churches are beautiful.”

  Without thinking, I got to my feet and raised my right hand in the air. My mind pondered the words. “How did that phrase go in Greek, Farag? Did you copy down the original text?”

  The professor noticed my hand mysteriously holding on to some nonexistent cable and furrowed his brow. “Something wrong with your arm?”

  “Did you copy down the text, Farag? The original, did you copy it down?”

  “Well, no, I didn’t copy it down, Ottavia, but I remember it more or less.”

  “More or less does me no good,” I exclaimed, lowering my hand to the pocket in my lab coat. I always put it on out of habit. I didn’t know how to work in my lab without it. “I need to know how the words went exactly, the words ‘beautifully adorned.’ Was it kalos kekosmetai? * I have a hunch.”