“The winds!” Farag shouted, clutching the sarcophagus with all his might.
Captain Glauser-Röist, who was caught out in the open, turned on his flashlight and covered his eyes with his arm. He tried to make his way to us, some two or three meters away. The currents were so strong that they kept him in check. There was no way he was reaching us quickly.
Farag and I grasped the sarcophagus with our hands, in order to keep the demented cyclone from dragging us to the ground. I realized it wouldn’t be long till I lost my grip. My fingers were aching from squeezing the stone so tight. I had very little strength left, and my hope of surviving this test began to wane.
The overbearing gales forced the moisture from my eyes into long rivers of tears that ran down my cheeks. I’ve never felt so uncomfortable, my eyes stung with dryness, my face soaking wet. But that wasn’t the worse part: Boreas, Aparctias, and Hellespont, gods of wind, gradually cooled the chamber’s air until it seemed like it was freezing. Although Trascias and Argestes weren’t as cold, drops of water began to fly from their passageways, creating the effect of a horizontal rainstorm. The room was so cold that the moisture turned into hail. We were pelted by the granules of ice. It felt like we were being shot at with a BB gun. The pain was so intense I let go of the sarcophagus and fell to the ground. Dante’s words became dazzlingly clear.
My eyes were burning due to the harsh, dry air that emanated from Afeliotes and Euro. But while Trascias and Argeste were spitting hail, Euronoto, Noto, and Libanoto began to rattle with activity. A sudden exhale of violently hot air now filled the room, which melted the small amount of accumulated ice and burned my skin. At that point, I desperately missed my pants, which would have protected my legs from the furious hail and the burning air. I again tried to cover my face with my arms, but the hot air burned up much of the room’s oxygen, making it difficult to breathe. All I could think of was reaching Farag. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look for him. It was impossible to peel myself off the ground, much less move an arm or a leg. I called out to him, shouting with all the energy I could muster. The roar from the wind in the chamber was deafening; I couldn’t hear my own voice. It was definitely the end. How would we ever get out of there? It was impossible.
But then I felt something at my feet. I looked down and noticed something rubbing against my ankle. I then realized the rubbing was a hand which began to make its way up my leg. I had no doubt it was Farag. The captain would never have been so bold as to even touch me. Plus, the last time I had seen him he was ahead of me, not behind. As disconcerting as the hand on my leg was, it helped me not lose my head. I then felt an arm loop around my waist and after a second, a body next to mine. I must admit that even though I was dying because of the burning winds and the painful hail, that long instant it took Farag to reach my face was one of the most disturbing in my life. And the strangest thing was that those new feelings that should have made me feel guilty were actually turning me into a free and happy person. I wasn’t even worried about explaining those feelings to God as if I knew He would approve of them.
As soon as Farag’s face was at my head, he stuck his lips to my ear and began pronouncing incoherent sounds I couldn’t understand. He repeated them again and again until, with some imagination, I made out that his fragments formed the words “Zephyr” and “Dante.” I thought about Zephyr, the west wind, who, along with his lover, the maiden Cloris, casts flowers.
Zephyr, the wind, was always praised in great poems of antiquity as a light, soft, spring breeze. It sounded corny, but I’d read it somewhere— in Pliny, maybe: Zephyr, the wind of sunset, out of the west as the day is ending, as the winter is ending. Ending… Maybe that was what Farag was trying to say. The end of that nightmare, the way out. Zephyr was the exit. But how to get there? I couldn’t move a muscle. Where was Zephyr’s bothros? My mind reeled with panic. Until I suddenly remembered:
If you have been exempt from lying prone,
And wish to find the quickest way to go,
Be sure to keep your right side to the edge.
Dante’s tercet! That was what Farag was trying to tell me. Remember Dante’s words. I racked my brain to remember what we’d read in the airplane that morning:
My master moved ahead close to the cliff.
Wherever there was space—as one who walks
along the ramparts hugs the battlements.
We had to get to the wall. The wall! If we stuck to our right until we reached Zephyr, the soft, temperate wind, we’d find relief. It was the only way.
Using all my strength, I took Farag’s hand and squeezed it so he knew I understood. Helping each other, we slowly made our way forward, like sloths. It took a long time for us to make our way to the far wall, and we needed each other to move. We could never have made our way alone. Avoiding the typhoon-force winds coming from the bothros, we zigzagged in search of open air pockets that allowed us momentary relief, which then enabled us to increase the pace of our crawl. Fleetingly, I thought we weren’t going to make it, that our effort was all in vain. But then we finally reached the stone wall, and I knew we had a chance to make it out.
Now we had to worry about Glauser-Röist. If we could get to our feet, as Dante instructed, and stick to our right, and the wall, we might be able to find the light of his flashlight.
Getting up off the ground was not simple. Like children learning to walk who grab onto furniture to stand, we had to dig our fingers into every solid chink in the walls around us. And yet, we had been right. As soon as we managed to keep our maneuvering to the far wall, the wind’s force lessened, and we could breathe easier. It wasn’t what you’d describe as calm—far from it—but the openings of the bothros were situated in such a way that the various air streams blasting through neutralized one another, creating partially calm spaces throughout the chamber.
If moving and breathing were hard, opening our eyes was almost impossible. They dried out in seconds and stung as if pins were being pushed into them. Yet we still could not find Glauser-Röist. With a colossal amount of effort, I finally spotted him at the far end of the grotto, between Trascias and Aparctias, stuck to the wall like a shadow, his head tilted back, his eyes tightly shut.
Calling to him was useless; he’d never hear us. We had to make our way to him. Since we stood between Euronoto and Noto, we crawled north, toward Boreas, following Dante’s instructions to always keep to our right. Unfortunately, the captain must not have remembered Dante’s clues. Instead of heading toward Zephyr in the same direction we were, he was making his way toward us, crouching when he passed in front of each violent bothros. It was the best he could do to keep the whirlwind from hurling him through the air and against Constantine’s sarcophagus.
I was exhausted. If it hadn’t been for Farag’s hand, I probably would never have gotten out of there. Fatigue held me down on the ground every time we had to drop to crawl in front of a bothros. My fatigue grew with each advancing moment.
Finally, we met up with the captain at Hellespont. With a nod, the three of us joined our hands in a tight, emotional squeeze. It was more eloquent than any word we could have said to each other. The real trouble started when Farag expressed that he wanted to keep heading toward Zephyr. Incredibly, Glauser-Röist flatly refused to retrace his steps and stubbornly blocked our way. I saw Farag shout something in the captain’s ear. The captain kept shaking his head no and pointing in the opposite direction. Farag tried over and over, but the Rock kept refusing and pushed Farag toward me, backtracking the way we had just come.
There was no way to convince him. No matter how hard we shouted, gestured, and tried to move to our right, the captain forced us to do as he indicated. I didn’t let myself think about what terrible things would happen to us if we didn’t follow Dante’s instructions. Farag and I saw desperation in each other’s faces. The captain was mistaken, but how could we get him to understand that we were acting in accordance with the clue?
It took about half an hour to cross the five wi
nds, in the opposite direction from where we were headed, toward Zephyr. I envied the captain’s physical strength and Farag’s natural resilience. When all this was over, I thought to myself, I was determined to get into shape. I couldn’t hide behind the stereotypic excuse that women were weaker than men; I was totally to blame for my sedentary life.
At last we came to the dead space between Libs and Zephyr. I sighed with relief, and broke into a smile. I was in front at that point, so it fell to me to approach. If our analysis was correct, we would soon find calm. I moved my right hand very slowly toward the bothros. My heart exploded with joy when I verified that, although Zephyr was a little more violent than the poets had claimed, his airy vehemence wasn’t anything like that of his eleven brothers. The wind from Zephyr didn’t burn or freeze or spit frost or hail. My extended hand undulated in its soft breeze as though I were sticking my arm out the window of a moving car. We’d found the exit!
Zephyr took me in and saved my life. I fell to the ground like a sack of sand when I ventured into the narrow bothros. I breathed its tame, delicate air unobstructed; it was perfume to my lungs. I would have lain there a long time, perfectly still, but I had to keep going so Farag and the captain could enter behind me. I knew they were in when I heard Farag shouting furiously at Glauser-Röist.
“Will you please tell me why the hell you made us trek through three-fourths of the grotto!” he roared, indignant. “We were almost at Zephyr when we found you! Don’t you remember Dante said to keep going right?”
“Quiet down!” Glauser-Röist snapped back. “That is what I did!”
“Are you crazy? Can’t you tell we went clockwise! Don’t you know right from left?”
“Please!” I exclaimed. “We’re out and we’re okay. Please stop shouting.”
“Listen, Professor,” the Rock roared. “What did Dante say? He said you always had to keep your right on the outside.”
“To the right, Kaspar! The right, not the left! You still don’t get it!”
“Your right on the outside, Professor! You’re the one who doesn’t get it!”
I frowned. Our right on the outside? Dante and Virgil advanced around the cornice of a mountain. Their right was, obviously, next to the precipice, to the void. But we were stuck to a wall, so our right was the center of the grotto; our free side was its interior, not the outside as in Dante’s case. Either way, we would have reached Zephyr, though it would have been shorter if we had gone the other way.
“We would never have gotten here the other way, Doctor!”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I see you both have forgotten Trascias and Argestes. They were the last winds we’d have had to cross before getting to Zephyr! We would never have made it!”
There was silence in that arched corridor; neither Farag nor I could contradict him. The captain had saved us from retracing our steps. We could never have made it past Trascias and Argestes and the hail that stormed into the chamber. The heat from the other bothros acted as a balance to ice, creating a controlled environment and providing us with a safe path toward Zephyr.
“Do you understand or must I explain it again?”
He was right. He was completely right, and I said so. Farag didn’t hesitate to ask the Rock’s forgiveness in every language he knew. He began with Coptic, followed by Greek, Latin, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, French, English, and Italian. We laughed at ourselves, and the tension dripped off the moment.
“Stop with all the nonsense, and let’s get down this hole.”
“Why do I always have to go first?” I grumbled again, tired of honoring their ridiculous chivalry.
“Doctor, please…”
“Ottavia…”
He didn’t have to say another word, of course.
On all fours, holding my flashlight between two buttons of my blouse, I began the trek, sorry again that I had worn a skirt that day. It brought back bad memories of that time in the tunnel in the catacombs of Santa Lucia. Farag was then also behind me. I promised myself, if we got out of there, I’d throw all my skirts in the trash.
The truth is, crawling was hard. I couldn’t do it to save my soul. So I was so glad when the soft aroma of resin reached my nose. The familiar white powder began to fill the passageway.
“I believe we’re in luck.”
“What did you say, Basileia?
“That we’ll get some sleep. Don’t you smell resin?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll say my farewells. See you when we wake up.”
“Basileia…”
A slight stupor made its way through me. “Yes?”
“What I said to you during the marathon was a lie.”
“What did you say to me during marathon?”
There was white smoke, that blessed white smoke, in the air. Like a good sleeping pill, it would give me some much needed hours of rest. I stretched myself out on the ground. The Staurofilakes could do what they wanted to my body. I didn’t care. I just wanted to sleep.
“If you got on your feet and ran to Athens, I’d never pester you again.”
I smiled. He was the most romantic man in the world. I wanted to look at him. No, I thought again, better to sleep. Besides, the Rock was listening to everything.
“It was a lie?” My smile opened my eyes, now half-closed by the sleep.
“A complete lie. I had to warn you. Was that so bad?”
“It was fine. I agree with you.”
“Okay, then, just wanted to be clear,” he murmured. “Kaspar, are you asleep?”
No,” he muttered. “Your conversation is very intriguing tonight.”
My God, I thought, and found myself instantly asleep.
____________
* Cloth with which Arabs cover their heads.
† Cord that holds the kaffiyeh on the head, usually black.
* Mark 6:40.
* Ethiopian athlete, famous for running barefoot. He won the marathon at the Olympic games in Rome (1960) and in Tokyo (1964).
* Mary runs to visit her cousin Elizabeth when she learns she is pregnant.
* Psalm 118, 25: “My soul is stuck to the ground.”
* “Long step and short mouth.” Motto of the Omerta, the code of honor of the Sicilian Mafia. With this phrase the mafiosi reminded each other of the famous “Law of Silence.”
* In the terminology of the Cosa Nostra, a rural mafioso.
* Sawed-off double-barrel shotguns that use bird shot as ammunition.
* Curved stern of a ship.
* Imperial crown.
† Ornaments that hung from the imperial crown.
‡ Imperial diadem that bore a comb of peacock feathers.
§ Tunic that formed part of the imperial Byzantine vestments.
* Jeweled shawl that was only worn by the emperors and people of imperial rank.
† Silk bag filled with dust that comprised part of the imperial attributes.
CHAPTER 6
The shouts of children playing woke me. The midday sun fell on me like a shower of light. I blinked, coughed, and sat up, groaning. I was sprawled facedown on a carpet of weeds. The smell was unbearable. It was the smell of trash that had accumulated over years, and fermented in the Eastern heat. The children kept shouting and spoke in Turkish. Their voices grew faint.
I managed to sit up and open my eyes. I found myself in a patio where bits of the Byzantine masonry were mixed in with piles of trash. Clouds of blue flies as big as elephants flew overhead. To my left, I saw a very sinister looking car repair shop, which emitted noises from a chain saw and a blowtorch. I was dirty. Dirty and barefoot.
Farag and the captain were still lying facedown in the grass in front of me. I smiled when I looked at Farag, and my stomach did a somersault.
“So it was a lie?” I mused, walking over to him and looking at him with a smile on my face. I brushed a lock of hair off his forehead and amused myself by looking at the small lines etched on his skin. They were the trac
es of the time he’d spent without me, some thirty-odd years he’d lived far from me. He had lived, dreamed, worked, breathed, laughed, and even loved without suspecting that I was waiting for him. It continued to strike me miraculous that someone like Farag would latch on to someone like me, when I didn’t even have a hint of the beauty that he seemed to have too much of. Of course, looks aren’t everything, but they definitely are important. Even though beauty was something I had never even worried about, at that precise moment I wished I were beautiful and attractive so that Farag would have been completely blown away by me when he woke up.
I sighed and laughed under my breath. I wasn’t asking for a miracle. I had to resign myself. I looked around and didn’t see anyone. So I leaned over very slowly and gave him a kiss on those lines on his forehead. He was sound asleep.
“Doctor… Are you all right, Dr. Salina? How’s Professor Boswell?”
My heart raced, and my face burned. I sat up as if I had a spring attached to my back.
“Captain? Are you okay?” I asked, recoiling from Farag, who was still sleeping.
“Where are we?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
“We have to wake the professor. He speaks Turkish.”
He leaned on his hands and started to raise his body, but a rictus of pain paralyzed him mid-stride.
“Where the hell did they mark us this time?” he grumbled.
The tattoo! I raised my hand to the top of my shoulder, to my cervical vertebrae. That’s when I felt the familiar jab of pain.
“I think we’ve got the first of the three crosses that go on our spines.”
“Well, it hurts!”
Why hadn’t I noticed? The pain suddenly became intense. “Yes, yes it hurts,” I agreed. “I think it hurts more than the previous ones.”
“It will pass. We have to wake the professor.”
He didn’t think twice and started shaking him mercilessly. Farag groaned.
“Ottavia?” he asked without opening his eyes.
The Last Cato Page 39