“What does that mean?” I asked Farag, looking over the pile of boxes.
“They refer to classic examples of loving your fellow man. That is what the protagonists of this circle are suffering from. Keep reading and you’ll see.”
Curiously, Dante asks Virgil the same thing, and the Mantuan answers:
Then my good master said: “The Envious
This circle scouges—that is why the whip
Used here is fashioned from the cords of love.
“The curb must sound the opposite of love:
You will most likely hear it, I should think,
Before the pass of pardon has been reached.
“Now look in front of you, look carefully
And you will see some people over there,
All of them with their backs against the cliff.”
Dante examines the wall and discovers some shadows dressed in shawls the color of stone. He gets closer to them and is terrified at what he sees:
Their cloaks seemed to be made of coarsest cloth,
The nature of the penance they endured,
The sight squeezed bitter tears out of my eyes.
………………
Just as the blind cannot enjoy the sun,
So, to the shades I saw before me here,
The light of Heaven denies its radiance:
The eyelids of these shades had been sewn shut
With iron threads, like falcons newly caught,
Could not stare back.*
I looked at Farag, who was looking at me with a smile. I shook my head. “I don’t think I can bear this test.”
“Did you have to carry rocks in the first cornice?”
“No.”
“Who says they’re going to stitch wire through your eyelids?”
“But what if they do?”
“Did they harm you when they marked you with the first cross?”
“No,” I admitted again, although I mentioned the small matter of the blow to my head.
“Well, come on, keep reading. Don’t worry so much. Abi-Ruj Iyasus didn’t have holes in his eyelids, did he?”
“No.”
“Did you stop to think that the Staurofilakes had control over us for six hours and that all they did was give us a little tattoo? Has it dawned on you that they know perfectly well who we are and yet they are allowing us to pass the tests? For some reason, they’re not afraid of us. It’s as if they said, ‘Go ahead, come to our earthly paradise, if you can!’ They are very sure of themselves. They even left the clue for our next test in the captain’s jacket. They didn’t have to do that. Actually, if they hadn’t, we’d be wracking our brains right now.”
“Are they daring us?”
“I don’t think so. More like inviting us.” He ran his hand over his beard, which was lighter than his skin. He winced, annoyed. “Are you going to finish reading the second cornice or not?”
“I’m fed up with Dante, the Staurofilakes, and Captain Glauser-Röist! Really! I’m fed up with everything about this!”
“Are you also fed up with…?” he started to ask, following the train of my complaints; but he stopped short, letting out a big belly laugh which almost sounded forced and looked at me sternly. “Ottavia, please keep reading!”
Docily, I lowered my eyes to the book and continued.
Next came a long, tedious segment in which Dante strikes up a conversation with all the souls who tell him about their lives and why they are on this mountain ledge: Sapia dei Salvani, Guido del Duca, Rinier da Calboli… All were terribly envious; other peoples’ bad fortune made them happier than did their own good fortune. Finally, canto XIV ends, and canto XV starts with Dante and Virgil alone again. A very bright light shines in Dante’s eyes, forcing him to cover them with his hand. It’s the guardian angel from the second circle. He erases another P on the poet’s forehead and guides them to the foot of the stairs leading to the third cornice. As he does this, the angel recites some strange lyric: Beati misericordes and Conqueror, rejoice…
“And that’s that,” I said.
“Well, so now we have to figure out what Agios Konstantinos Akanzon is.”
“We need the captain for that. He knows how to work the computer.”
Farag looked at me surprised. “Isn’t this the Vatican’s Classified Archives?” he asked, glancing around.
“You’re right!” I jumped to my feet. “What are those people out there for?”
I flung the door open and went out, resolved to recruit the first staff member I crossed paths with. Instead, I ran smack dab into the Rock, who was just about to storm into the lab like a bulldozer.
“Captain!”
“Were you going somewhere important, Doctor?”
“Well, really, no. I was going…”
“Well, come back in here, then. I have something important to tell you two.”
I backtracked and sat down again. Farag frowned again in disgust.
“Professor, before you say anything, I want to apologize for my behavior this morning,” the Rock said humbly, sitting down between Farag and me. “I felt pretty bad, and I am an awful patient.”
“I figured that out.”
“When I’m not feeling well, I become unbearable. I’m not used to staying in bed, not even with a 105-degree fever. I’ve been a horrible host and I’m so sorry.”
“Okay, Kaspar, case closed,” concluded Farag, waving a hand that meant that he’d closed that door forever.
“Okay, so,” sighed the Rock, unbuttoning his jacket and getting comfortable, “I’ll just jump right in. I told the pope and the secretary of state everything that happened to us in Syracuse and here in Rome. His Holiness was visibly impressed. Today, in case you don’t recall, is his birthday. His Holiness turns eighty. Despite his many engagements, he made time to receive me. See how important this matter is to the church? Despite the fact that he was very tired and couldn’t express himself clearly and had to speak through His Eminence, he let me know he is satisfied and is going to pray for us every day.”
An emotional smile flickered across my lips. If my mother only knew! The pope, praying for her daughter, every day!
“Well, the next question is, what’s next? We still have six tests to pass before reaching the Staurofilakes’ earthly paradise. Should we survive those six tests, our mission is, of course, to recover the True Cross. We must also offer forgiveness to the members of the sect when they are ready to be integrated into the Catholic Church as another religious order. The pope is especially interested in meeting the current Cato, if he exists, so we’ll have to bring him to Rome, voluntarily or by force. Cardinal Sodano told me that since the remaining tests take place in Ravenna, Jerusalem, Athens, Istanbul, Alexandria, and Antioch, the Vatican will loan us one of the Dauphin 365 along with His Holiness’s own Westwind. As far as our diplomatic credentials…”
“Just a moment!” Farag raised his hand like a schoolboy. “What are a Dauphin and a Westwind?”
“I’m sorry,” said the Rock, calm as lake water. “I didn’t realize you don’t know a thing about helicopters and airplanes.”
“Oh no!” I mused, letting my head fall heavily between my shoulders.
“Oh yes, dear Basileia! We’re going to keep running against time!”
Fortunately, Glauser-Röist didn’t understand the inappropriate Greek qualifier that Farag had lately regaled me with.
“We have no choice, Professor. This matter must be settled as soon as possible. Christian churches everywhere have been robbed of their Ligna Crucis. The few remaining fragments have disappeared, despite being carefully guarded. For your information, three days ago a Lignam Crucis was stolen from Saint Michael’s Church in Zweibrucken, Germany.”
“They keep stealing them even though they know we’re pursuing them.”
“They’re not afraid, Doctor. Saint Michael’s Church was guarded by a private security service hired by the dioceses. The church is spending a lot of money to protect the relics.
With no luck, as you can see. That’s another reason Cardinal Sodano, with His Holiness’s blessing, gave us one of the Vatican’s helicopters and the pope’s own Alitalia Westwind II.”
Farag and I looked at each other.
“So, here’s the plan: Tomorrow at seven a.m. we will meet at the Vatican heliport. It’s at the far west side of Vatican City, right behind Saint Peter’s—directly across from the Leonine mural. The Dauphin will be waiting for us there, and we’ll set off for Ravenna. Have you figured out the clue for the next test?”
“No,” my voice cracked. “We needed your help.”
“My help? Why?”
“You see, Kaspar, we know the city is Ravenna, we know the sin is envy, we know that the test has narrow doors and tortuous paths. The definitive clue seems to be a name we aren’t at all familiar with: Agios Konstantinos Akanzon. Or Saint Constantine of the Thorns.”
“The second circle is the one about hairshirts,” said Glauser-Röist, pensively.
“We already know how things are going to go—or how we think they’ll go. We need to figure out who this Saint Constantine is. Maybe his life can show us what we have to do.”
“Or maybe,” I proposed, “Agios Konstantinos Akanzon is a church in Ravenna. That’s what you have to figure out, with that marvelous invention called the Internet.”
“Very well,” replied the Rock, taking off his jacket and hanging it carefully on the back of his chair. “Let’s get to work.”
He turned on the computer, waited a moment to let the system boot up. Next, he connected to the Vatican’s server.
“What was that saint’s name?”
“Agios Konstantinos Akanzon.”
“No, Captain,” I said. “First try Saint Constantine of the Thorns. It’s more logical.”
After a little while, just when Farag and I were tired of standing still, staring at the screen as countless documents whizzed by, Glauser-Röist let out a triumphant shout.
“We’ve got it!” he said, flopping back in his chair and loosening his tie. “Saint Constantine Acanzzo, in the providence of Ravenna. Listen to what this tourist guide says about its green routes.”
“Green routes?” asked Farag.
“Ecotourism, Professor, itineraries for nature lovers—hiking and rock-climbing off the beaten track.”
“Ah!”
“‘Saint Constantine Acanzzo is an ancient Benedictine abbey located north of the Po delta, in Ravenna Province. It’s a monastic complex, built before the tenth century. It includes a highly esteemed Byzantine church, a refectory decorated with splendid frescoes, and a bell tower from the eleventh century.’”
“I’m not surprised the Staurofilakes chose Ravenna as one of the cities for their tests,” I commented. “It was the capital of the Byzantine Empire in the West from the sixth to the eighth century. What I don’t understand is why they considered it the most representative of the sin of envy.”
“During its period of greatest splendor, those two centuries of Exarchate you just mentioned, Ravenna established a real rivalry with Rome.”
“I know Rome’s history,” I glowered at him. “I’m the only Italian here, remember?”
The captain didn’t even look at me. He turned to Farag, ignoring me entirely. “As you know, the Roman Empire in the West fell in the fourth century, and the barbarians then controlled the entire Italian peninsula. When the Byzantines won it back in the sixth century, they handed it over to Ravenna instead of returning it to the Western capital, Rome, because Rome was the pope’s territory and the enmity between Byzantium and the Roman pope had gone on for years.”
“As I recall, the Roman pope was and still is considered the only true successor to Saint Peter,” Farag pointed out in a singsong voice. “If it weren’t for that small detail, the union of all Christians throughout the world might be a bit easier.”
Glauser-Röist studied him in silence, void of expression.
“Since Byzantium left Rome in the dust,” he continued, as if Professor Boswell hadn’t said a word, “the city declined as Ravenna grew richer and stronger. Not content with its glory, it focused all its efforts on overshadowing the past grandeur of its enemy. Besides filling itself with magnificent Byzantine structures that are the pride of the city and all of Italy even today, they added one more humiliation, the worship of Saint Apollinar, patron saint of Ravenna, to Saint Peter’s Basilica itself.”
Farag gave a long, soft whistle. “Yes,” he admitted, astonished. “I have to say envy was the great characteristic of Byzantine Ravenna. That business with Saint Apollinar was a really bad idea. How do you know all that?”
“Do you think there’s no diocese in Ravenna? At this moment, people all over the world are digging up those details for us, especially in the six cities we still have to visit. You can be sure that in those six cities, they are already prepared for our arrival.” He loosened his tie even more. “Stopping the Staurofilakes is a grand-scale undertaking in which we are no longer alone. All Christian churches have a lot at stake in this.”
“Okay, but I don’t see any of them joining us to risk their lives in Agios Konstantinos Akanzon.”
“Now it’s called Saint Constantine Acanzzo,” I reminded him.
“Exactly, and with all this chitchat we haven’t finished reading about that ancient abbey,” grumbled the captain, turning back to the screen. “The old monastic complex is very run-down, but there is still a small community of Benedictines who run an inn for travelers. It’s situated in the center of the Palu Forest, which it owns and which extends more than five thousand hectares.”
“‘How narrow is the door and how narrow the road that brings life. And how few are they who find it,’” I recalled.
“Are we going to have to cross that forest?” Boswell asked.
“The forest is the monks’ private property. You need their permission to enter it,” the Rock explained, looking at the screen. “Either way, we’ll get there by helicopter.”
“Now that’s more like it!” I said, amused at the thought of crossing the sky in an eggbeater.
“Well, you’re not going to like what I’m going to say next, Doctor. I need you to pack your bags. We won’t return to Rome until we are in the presence of the current Cato. As of tomorrow evening, Alitalia’s Westwind II will be waiting for us at the Ravenna airport to take us straight to Jerusalem. Those are His Holiness’s orders.”
____________
* Kalos kekosmetai, phonetic transcription of καλως κεκοσμεται “beautifully adorned.”
* First beatitude of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, Beatitude of the poor in spirit… (Matthew 5:3).
* A common last name in Italy that translates as “good man.”
* “And, nevertheless, it is moving.” Famous phrase spoken in 1632 by Galileo, after the church forced him to retract his theory that Earth turned around the sun, as Copernicus affirmed and demonstrated.
* Canto XIII, 1–3.
† “We don’t have any wine”—a reference to the wedding at Cana.
*This was a common practice in falconry to tame the birds.
CHAPTER 5
The Vatican heliport was a narrow rhomboid hemmed in on all sides by the sturdy Leonine Wall, which had separated the city from the rest of the world for over eleven centuries. The sun had just risen in a beautifully radiant, light blue cloudless sky.
“We’re going to have first-rate visibility!” shouted the pilot of the Dauphin AS-365-N2 to Captain Glauser-Röist. “It’s a splendid morning.”
The Dauphin’s engines were running and its blades were moving gently. It sounded like a gigantic fan, not at all like in the movies. The pilot, a young, robust, blond guy with a rosy complexion, was decked out in a gray flight suit that was covered with pockets. He had a pleasant, frank smile. He looked us over, probably asking himself who we might be to deserve a ride in his shiny white Dauphin.
I was a bit nervous, since I’d never flown in a helicopter before. Farag was
carefully examining everything with the curiosity of a foreign tourist visiting a Chinese pagoda.
The night before, I had packed my bags feeling somewhat uneasy. Ferma, Margherita, and Valeria helped me out. They rushed around the apartment putting everything in the washing machine; ironing, folding, and packing. They cheered me up with jokes and a good meal. I wanted to feel like a heroine off to save the world; instead, I was terrified, and crushed by a weight I couldn’t identify. I felt like these were the last minutes of my life—my last supper. The worst part was definitely going to our chapel. When my sisters prayed for me and the mission I was about to undertake, I couldn’t hold back my tears. I had the feeling I was never coming back to the apartment again. I tried to shake off such useless fears and tell myself to be brave, not to be so cowardly. If I didn’t come back, it would be for a good cause and for the good of the church.
Now here I was, at the heliport, dressed in my freshly washed and ironed pants, about to climb into a helicopter for the first time. I crossed myself when the pilot and the captain said it was time to board. I was surprised at how comfortable and elegant the interior was; there were no hard metal benches or military gear. Farag and I sat down in overstuffed white leather seats in an air-conditioned cabin, with wide windows and in a church-like silence. Our luggage was stowed in the lower part of the helicopter, while Captain Glauser-Röist took the copilot’s seat.
“We’re taking off,” Farag announced, looking out the window.
The helicopter rocked slightly as it lifted off the ground. If it weren’t for the strong vibration of the engines, I wouldn’t have known I was in the air.
Flying in a helicopter was incredible. The sun to our right, we executed some maneuvers that were clearly impossible to perform in a steadier, more conventional airplane. The sky was so dazzling that looking out the window hurt my eyes. Farag reached over and hooked something around my ears.
The Last Cato Page 24