He said, “Keep them,” and smiled. “You’re such a bookworm, I knew you wouldn’t have any.”
He had put a pair of sunglasses on me so I could look out the window comfortably. I took notice of how the bright sunlight filtered through the windows and reflected off his hair.
The sun climbed higher and higher. Our helicopter flew over the town of Forli, twenty kilometers from Ravenna. Glauser-Röist told us over the loudspeaker we’d be arriving at the Po Delta in fifteen minutes. We’d disembark and the helicopter would fly to the Spreta airport, in Ravenna, to await our instructions.
Those fifteen minutes passed in a sigh. Suddenly the machine tipped forward, and we started a dizzying descent that made my heart race.
“We have descended about five hundred feet,” the captain’s metallic voice announced. “We are flying over the Palu Forest. Notice how dense it is.”
Our faces were glued to the window. We saw a green carpet with no beginning or end, formed by enormous trees. My vague mental image of five thousand hectares was unimaginably off.
“Good thing we don’t have to cross it on foot,” I mused, entranced.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” replied Farag.
“To the left is the monastery,” said the captain’s voice. “We’ll land in that clearing there, in front of the main entrance.”
Boswell sat beside me, studying the abbey. It must have been a beautiful place for reflection and prayer many centuries before with its unassuming four-story cylindrical bell tower and a cross above its eaves. All that remained was the thick oval wall that enclosed the complex. From our bird’s-eye view, the rest was a pile of broken rocks and a wall here and there that struggled to remain upright. Only when we started our descent, the air from the blades stirring up the woodlands, did we make out some small structures near the abbey’s walls.
The helicopter landed gently. Farag and I opened the cabin door. We didn’t take into account that the propellers were still rotating; their wild force flung us around like hapless plastic bags in a hurricane. Farag grabbed me by the elbow and helped to steady me.
The captain stayed in the cockpit for a few minutes, talking to the pilot, now just a helmet with an impenetrable black visor. The man nodded and gunned the engines as Glauser-Röist, with less effort than we had needed, cut through the whirlwind. The machine rose back into the air, and in seconds, it was just a white speck in the sky. My first flight in a helicopter had been thrilling, something I’d do again first chance I got, but in a split second, it was old news. Farag, the captain, and I found ourselves standing in front of an iron gate at the entrance of the Agios Konstantinos Akanzon. With the copter out of earshot, all we heard were the birds singing.
“Well, here we are,” the Rock said, glancing around. “Let’s go find the friendly Staurofilax in charge of this test.”
We didn’t have to look too far. From out of nowhere, two elderly monks in black Benedictine habits appeared on the gravel road that led to the main gate.
“Hello! Good morning!” exclaimed one of them, waving his arm in the air, as the other opened the gate. “Are you seeking shelter?”
“Yes, Father!” I answered.
“Where are your bags?” the older of the two asked, folding his hands over his chest and covering them with his sleeves.
The Rock lifted his backpack to show them. “This is all we need.”
The monks were much older than I had guessed, but they had pleasant, jovial spirits and nice smiles.
“Have you had breakfast?” asked the only one of the two with a small tuft of hair.
“Yes, thank you,” answered Farag.
“Well, let’s go to the inn and get you some rooms.” He looked us over and added, “Three, right? Or is one of these men your husband, young lady?”
I smiled. “No, Father. Neither of them is my husband.”
“Why did you come in a helicopter?” the other nonagenarian asked with childlike curiosity.
“We don’t have much time,” the Rock explained, walking very slowly so his long strides didn’t leave the old men behind.
“Oh! Then you must be very rich. Not just anyone travels in a helicopter.”
Both monks laughed heartily, as if this was the funniest joke in the world. We exchanged furtive, perplexed looks. Either those Staurofilakes were first-rate actors, or we were completely wrong about the place. I studied them for any sign of deception, but their wrinkled faces were so innocent; their frank smiles seemed completely honest. Had we made a mistake?
As we headed toward the inn, the monks told us a succinct history of the monastery. They were very proud of the Byzantine frescoes that decorated the refectory and the well-preserved church, to which they had dedicated their entire lives in a place in the middle of nowhere and visited by just a few hikers. They wanted to know what made us decide to visit Saint Constantine Acanzzo and how long we were going to stay. Of course, they said, we were welcome to share their table; and if their services pleased us, would we mind, since we were so rich, leaving a nice tip for the abbey when we departed. With that they laughed again like happy children.
As we walked and chatted, we came to a small garden where another elderly Benedictine monk was bent over, plunging a shovel into the earth with great effort.
“Father Giuliano, we have visitors!” shouted one of our companions.
Father Giuliano put his hand over his eyes to see us better and grunted.
“Father Giuliano is our abbot. Go over and say hello,” one of our companions urged under his breath. “Most likely he’ll detain you a while with questions, so we’ll wait for you at the inn. When you are finished, follow that path over there and take a right. You can’t miss it.”
The captain was getting impatient and was out of sorts. Clearly he thought we were mistaken, and that this was all just a waste of our time. Those monks bore no resemblance to the image we had of the Staurofilakes. But as we walked over to the garden, I asked myself, what image did we really have of the Staurofilakes?
We’d only seen one we could be sure of—our young Ethiopian man, Abi-Ruj Iyasus. The other two, the sacristan at Saint Lucia and the foulsmelling priest at Santa Maria in Cosmedin, might have been just what they appeared to be.
The monks disappeared down the path while the abbot awaited us, leaning on his shovel, rigid as a king on his throne.
“How long do you plan on staying?” he asked point-blank when we got close to him.
“Not long,” answered the Rock, obviously skeptical of our decision to be there.
“What brings you to Saint Constantine Acanzzo?” he asked. We couldn’t see his face; his head was covered by the wide hood of his habit.
“The flora and fauna,” the captain answered gruffly.
“The countryside, Father, and the peace and quiet,” the professor rushed in to add.
The abbot grabbed his shovel with both hands, turning his back on us, and resumed digging. “Go to the inn. They’re expecting you.”
Confused and surprised by the brief conversation, we set off, single file, through the garden, down the road the others had pointed out. The trail penetrated a shadowy stretch of forest and grew narrower until it was little more than a path.
“What are those tall trees, Kaspar?”
“There’s a bit of everything,” explained the Rock, without looking up at them, as if he’d already examined them. “Oaks, ash, elms, white poplars. But those species don’t usually grow so tall. Maybe the soil is very rich or maybe the monks of Saint Constantine have developed some special fertilizer over the centuries.”
“Impressive!” I exclaimed, raising my eyes to the dense, leafy dome which cast a shadow on the path.
After walking a few minutes in silence, Farag asked, “Didn’t the monks say we should go right at the fork in the road?”
“It can’t be much farther,” I answered.
But it was a long way. Several minutes passed with no sign of a fork in the road.
&nbs
p; “I think we’re on the wrong path,” said the Rock, looking at his watch.
“I said that a while ago.”
“Let’s keep walking,” I objected, sure we had gone the way we were told.
After a half an hour, I had to admit my mistake. We were headed into the deepest part of the woods. The road was barely visible and the foliage was very thick. The lack of sunlight due to the dense treetops kept us from determining the direction in which we were going. Luckily, the air was fresh and clean, making the hike somewhat pleasant.
“Let’s go back,” ordered Glauser-Röist, scowling.
Neither Farag nor I argued. We clearly weren’t getting anywhere. The strange thing was, when we doubled back, we had barely gone a kilometer when we found the fork. How had we missed it?
“This is annoying,” bellowed the Rock. “We didn’t pass this junction before.”
“Want my opinion?” asked Farag, smiling. “This is the start of our journey through the second cornice. They must have covered up those trails and then cleared them off so we could find them. One of them leads to the right place.”
That seemed to pacify the captain. “In that case, let’s proceed as if this was just what we were expecting.”
“Which way? Right or left?”
“What if this isn’t the test?” I objected, pursing my lips. “What if we’re just lost and imagining things?”
Their reply was an indifferent silence. They both began to snoop around, kicking and pushing aside the gravel with their shoes. They were like two Boy Scouts, or two hunting dogs looking for fallen prey.
“Here! Over here!” shouted Farag.
He’d found a little Constantine chrismon, tiny as a fingernail, on the trunk of a tree growing next to the road to the left.
“What did I tell you?” he said smugly. “It’s this way!”
“This way” turned out to be a very long path that led to a hedge nearly three meters tall blocking our path. We stopped, as surprised as a Tuareg would be if he came upon a skyscraper in the middle of the Sahara.
“I think we’ve arrived,” murmured the professor.
“Now what do we do?”
“Follow it, I guess. Maybe there’s an opening. Maybe there’s something for us on the other side.”
We skirted it for about twenty minutes, until its perfectly regular shape finally gave way. An entrance some two meters wide invited us to enter. An iron chrismon nailed into the ground left no doubt about what we had to do.
“The circle of the envious,” I murmured, a bit cowardly, putting my left hand on my forearm where the tattoo of the first cross was still tender.
“Come on, Basileia, don’t let them think we’re cowards,” Farag uttered, elated, as he thrust himself through the hole.
A second hedge extended in front of us. We couldn’t see the end in either direction; the two formed a path that seemed to go on forever.
“Would the lady and gentleman prefer the right or the left?” Boswell said in the same good-humored voice.
“Which way does Dante go?” I asked.
The captain quickly pulled his well-thumbed copy of the Divine Comedy out of his backpack and scanned it.
“Listen to what he says in the third strophe of the canto,” he said, visibly excited. “‘No sign of any souls or carvings here. The cliff face is all bare, the roadway bare…’ Four lines later he observes of Virgil: ‘Then, looking up and staring at the sun, he made of his right side a pivot point bringing his left side of his body round.’ Could you ask for any clearer directions?”
“So, where’s the sun?” I inquired, looking around. The gigantic trees grew so close together they covered the sky.
The captain looked at his watch, took out a compass, and pointed to a spot in the sky. “It should be about there.”
Sure enough, once we knew where it was, it was easy to detect the source of the light coming through the branches.
“But we can’t be sure what time of day Virgil looked at the sun,” replied Farag. “That could completely change the direction.”
“Let’s take a chance,” I reasoned. “If the Staurofilakes wanted us to take a certain direction, they would have shown it to us.”
Glauser-Röist, still reading the Divine Comedy, raised his head and looked at us with shining eyes. “Well, Doctor, this time chance is on our side, for Virgil and Dante arrived at the second cornice just past noon. About the same time we did.”
With a satisfied smile, I lifted my face to the sun, planted my right foot on the ground, and turned to my left. My left foot landed on the path on the right. We started down the “bare roadway” between the bare walls that only appeared seamless because they were formed by a dense bower. The “bare roadway” wasn’t completely smooth, either: Every couple of hundred meters, firmly anchored in the ground, was a wooden star. At first those stars really caught our eye, and we speculated about what they meant. After more than an hour of walking, we decided that however incorrect we might be, whatever they were, they were all the same and were therefore insignificant as clues.
Fatigue was starting to take its toll. My feet were burning and aching. What I wouldn’t have given for a chair—better yet, a comfortable leather armchair like the one in the helicopter. Like Dante and Virgil, we walked a long way before we found anything noteworthy.
“This reminds me of a line by Borges,” said Farag, “which says: ‘I know a Greek labyrinth that is a unique, straight line. So many philosophers have gotten lost on this line that even a mere detective could get lost.’ I think it’s from Artificios.”
“And don’t you remember the part about that ‘infinite circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is so great that it appears to be a straight line’?” I too had read Borges, so why not show it off a bit?
At about five in the afternoon, with nothing to appease our hunger or thirst, we came upon a gap in the hedge: an iron door, as tall as the enclosure it sealed, and some eighty centimeters wide. When we pushed it and crossed the threshold, we discovered some interesting things. First, our enormous hedges were solid stone walls nearly a meter thick and entirely covered by vines. Second, the door was designed so that it could only be opened from the outside. As soon as we turned our backs, we couldn’t open it again.
“We need something to prop it open,” proposed Farag.
There were no rocks lying around, and we couldn’t spare anything we were carrying. On top of that, the vines were as strong as hemp rope and pricked like the devil. The only solution was to use Farag’s watch. He offered it generously, saying that it was made of titanium and would easily hold up. We leaned the iron slab on it very gently. The poor watch held out for a few seconds, then buckled under the door’s weight and shattered into a thousand pieces.
“Sorry, Farag,” I said, to console him. More than downhearted, he was incredulous.
“Don’t worry, Professor—the Vatican will compensate you. The bad part is, the door is now closed and there’s no way for us to get out.”
“That means we’re on the right path,” I replied, nervous about what might be next.
We were all thinking the same thing, so we started walking again. The second path was narrower than the first, and darkness made walking dangerous. There may have still been plenty of light outside the forest; but under that thick sky of branches, visibility was very poor.
We hadn’t walked a hundred meters when we stumbled upon a new symbol on the ground. This one was much more original.
It seemed to be made of lead, although we couldn’t be sure. Whoever put it there had made certain we couldn’t pry it loose. It was as if it had sprung from the earth.
“It looks familiar.” I squatted down to examine it. “Is it a zodiac sign?”
The captain just stood there, as if waiting for the two classics experts to decide what it is.
“No. It looks like one, but it isn’t,” said Farag, brushing back the weeds. “It’s an ancient symbol for the planet Saturn.”
“Will we have to spend the night here?” I asked, turning up the collar of my jacket. At least it was leather and had a thick flannel lining.
“I’m afraid so, Basileia. Kaspar, I hope you foresaw this possibility.”
“What does Basileia mean?” asked the captain.
Suddenly, my legs started to tremble.
“It was a very common word in Byzantine, meaning ‘worthy woman.’”
What a liar! I sighed silently with relief. Basileia would never have been translated as ‘worthy woman’ and it wasn’t a common Byzantine word. Its literal meaning was “empress” or “princess.”
It was only six thirty in the evening, but the forest was so dark that the captain had to switch on his powerful flashlight. We’d walked all day down long dirt paths and had gotten nowhere. Finally, we stopped and sat on to the ground to eat our first meal since we had had breakfast back in Rome. We chewed the infamous salami and cheese sandwiches (the captain’s menu never varied), and recapped what we’d learned. We came to the conclusion that we were missing several pieces of the puzzle. The next day we’d figure out what we’d gotten ourselves into. A Thermos of hot coffee got us back into a good mood.
“Why don’t we sleep right here? We can set out at dawn,” I ventured.
“Let’s go on a bit longer,” countered the Rock.
“But we’re tired, Captain.”
“Kaspar, I think we should do what Ottavia suggests. It’s been a very long day.”
The Rock gave in, utterly disgusted. We set up an improvised tent, and the captain handed us a couple of heavy woolen hats. We laughed, and looked at him as if he were crazy.
“Your ignorance is shameful!” he thundered. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘If you’re feet are cold, put on a hat’? A good part of body heat is lost through the head. The human organism is programmed to sacrifice the extremities if the torso and back get cold. If we don’t lose heat through our heads, we will maintain our body temperature and keep our feet and hands warm.”
The Last Cato Page 25