“Please, Doctor, have a seat next to the professor,” said Cato CCLVII. “I really want to talk with you all, and there’s nothing better than a good meal to enjoy the conversation.”
Cato was the first to sit down; twenty-four shastas did the same. One servant after another entered through several doors hidden by fresco paintings, with trays and carts full of food.
“First, allow me to introduce you to the shastas of Paradeisos, men and women who strive every day to make this the kind of place we aspire to be. Starting on the right from the door is young Gete, translator of the Sumerian language; next Ahmose, the best builder of chairs in Stauros; next to her, Shakeb, one of the professors at the school of Opposites; next Mirsgana, the water master; Hosni, kabidarios…” *
He continued the introductions until he finished all twenty-four: Neferu, Katebet, Asrat, Hagos, Tamirat… All were dressed exactly the same; they smiled the same way when they were mentioned, greeting us with a nod. What got my attention most was that despite those strange names, a third of them were as blond as Glauser-Röist and some were even redheaded, some brunette, still others were dark-skinned. Their features were as varied as all the races and peoples in the world. Meanwhile the servants parsimoniously set out a huge amount of dishes with no meat in sight. Almost all the dishes held ridiculous quantities, as if the food were more for decoration—the presentation was magnificent—than nourishment.
The greeting ceremony concluded, Cato started the banquet. Everyone had hundreds of questions about how we passed the tests and what we thought about them. Yet, I wasn’t as interested in satisfying their curiosity as much as their satisfying ours. The Rock was like a cauldron ready to burst; I even thought I saw smoke coming out of his ears. Finally, when the murmuring had gotten rather loud and questions fell on us like rain, the captain exploded.
“I’m sorry to remind you that the professor, the doctor, and I aren’t aspiring Staurofilakes. We’re here to stop you.”
The silence in the room was impressive. Only Cato had the presence of mind to save the situation. “Calm down, Kaspar,” he said calmly. “If you want to stop us, do it later. Right now, don’t spoil such a pleasant meal with such bravado. Has anyone here spoken harshly to you?”
I was petrified. No one had ever spoken that way to the Rock. At least, I’d never seen it. Now, surely, he would turn into a wild beast and hurl the round table into the air. To my surprise, Glauser-Röist looked around the room and calmed down. Farag and I took each other’s hand under the table.
“I apologize for my behavior,” the captain said unexpectedly, without lowering his eyes. “It’s unforgivable. I’m sorry.”
The conversation started up again as if nothing had happened. Cato chatted in a low voice with the captain, who didn’t seem at all ill at ease, but listened attentively. Despite his age, Cato CCLVII still had an undeniably powerful, charismatic personality.
The shasta named Ufa, the horsemaster, came over to Farag and me to allow the Rock and Cato to talk privately.
“Why are you two holding hands under the table?” The didaskalos and I were petrified. How did he know that? “Is it true that, during the tests, you fell in love?” he asked in Byzantine Greek with all the naiveté in the world, as if his questions were not an intrusion. Several heads turned to hear our answer.
“Uh, well, yes… In fact…,” Farag stuttered.
“Yes or no?” the shasta named Teodros insisted. More heads turned.
“I do not believe Ottavia and Farag are accustomed to that type of directness,” commented Mirsgana, who was in charge of water.
“Why not?” Ufa asked, surprised.
“They aren’t from here, remember? They’re from the outside,” Mirsgana pointed her head upward.
“Why don’t you tell us about you and Paradeisos?” I proposed, imitating Ufa’s naiveté. “For example, where exactly is this place; why have you stolen fragments of the True Cross; and how do you plan to stop us from putting you into police hands?” I sighed. “You know, that sort of thing.”
One of the servants, who was filling my wineglass just then, interrupted me. “That’s too many questions to answer at one time.”
“Weren’t you curious, Candace, the day you woke up in Stauros?” Teodros answered.
“That was so long ago!” he answered as he served Farag. I realized that people I’d thought were servants weren’t that at all, or, at least not in the usual sense. They were all dressed exactly the way Cato, the shastas, and we were; they participated in the conversations with complete ease.
“Candace was born in Norway,” Ufa explained to me, “and he arrived here about fifteen or twenty years ago, right, Candace?” He agreed, wiping a dry cloth over the mouth of the jar. “He was shasta of foods until last year. Now he has chosen the kitchens of the basileion.”
“Delighted to meet you, Candace,” I hurried to say. Farag did the same.
“Enchanted… Believe me: If you wish to get to know the true Paradeisos, start by taking a walk down its streets, without asking questions.” Saying this, he moved toward the doors.
“Candace may be right,” I said, resuming the conversation and taking the glass in my hands, “but taking a walk down the streets of Paradeisos is not going to clear up where this place is exactly, why you stole fragments of the True Cross, and how you plan to stop us from turning you over to the police.”
The number of shastas listening to our conversation grew; others listened to what the Rock and Cato were saying privately. The table was divided into two.
Waiting for the answers which had taken all the courage in the world for me to ask, I sipped more wine.
“Paradeisos is in the safest place in the world,” Mirsgana said finally. “We didn’t steal the Wood since it has always been ours. Regarding the police, we’re not particularly worried.” The others nodded. “The seven tests are the entrance into Paradeisos. Those who pass them usually possess qualities that make them incapable of doing gratuitous, senseless harm. You three, for example, couldn’t either,” she added very amused. “No one has never done that, and we have existed for more than sixteen hundred years.”
“What about Dante Alighieri?” Farag sprung on her without warning.
“What about him?” Ufa asked.
“You killed him,” Farag said.
“Us…?” several shocked voices asked all at once.
“We didn’t kill him,” Gete, the Sumerian translator, assured us.
“He was one of us. In the history of Paradeisos, Dante Alighieri is a key figure.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Either they were artful liars or Glauser-Röist’s theory had collapsed like a house of cards.
“He spent many years in Paradeisos,” added Teodros. “He came and went. In fact, he began writing the Convivio and De vulgari eloquentia here in the summer of 1304. The idea for the Commedia, to which publisher Ludovico Dolce added the ‘Divina’ in 1555, arose during a series of conversations with Cato LXXXI and shastas in the spring of 1306, shortly before he returned to Italy.”
“But he recounted all the stories of the tests and paved the way so people could discover this place,” Farag pointed out.
“Naturally,” Mirsgana replied, with a bit of a smile. “When we hid in Paradeisos, in 1220, during the time of Cato LXXVII, our numbers started to dwindle. The only aspirants to the brotherhood came from associations like Fede Santa, Massenie du Saint Graal, Cathari, Minnesänger, Fidei d’Amore, and, to a lesser extent, from military orders such as the Knights Templar, Hospitalers of Saint John, or the Teutonic Knights. The problem of who would protect the Cross in the years to come was really alarming.”
“For that reason,” Gete continued, “Dante Alighieri was put in charge of writing the Commedia. Do you understand now?”
“It was a way to attract people capable of seeing beyond what’s in front of their nose,” Ufa explained, “nonconformists who like to look under rocks.”
“What about his fe
ars about leaving Ravenna after publishing Purgatory? Those years when nothing is known about him?” Farag asked.
“They were political fears,” Mirsgana said. “Remember, Dante actively participated in the wars between the Guelfs and the Ghibelline. He was the attorney for the white Guelfs and faced the party of the black Guelfs. He always opposed the military policy of Boniface VIII, of whom he was a great enemy on account of the shameful corruption during his papistry. His life was in danger a number of times.”
“You mean the Catholic Church killed him on the Holy Day of the True Cross?” I asked sarcastically.
“Actually, the church didn’t kill him either, and we aren’t certain he died exactly on the Holy Day of the True Cross. We’re certain he passed away either the night of the thirteenth or the fourteenth of September,” explained Teodros. “We would like for it to have really been the fourteenth because it would be a nice coincidence, an almost miraculous one, but there’s no way to prove that. You are very mistaken about his being murdered. His friend Guido Novello sent him as ambassador to Venice. Upon his return, traveling through the lagoons of the Adriatic coast, he fell ill with malaria. We had nothing to do with it.”
“Well, it’s still suspicious,” observed Farag with distrust.
There was an overwhelming silence in our group’s conversation.
“Do you know what beauty is?” asked Shakeb, professor of the school of Opposites, who had been silent up to then. Farag and I looked at him in confusion. He had a round face and large, expressive black eyes. On his chubby hands he wore several rings that cast spectacular sparks of light. “See how the flame on that candle flickers, the shortest one, the gold one above Cato’s head?”
The torch he mentioned was barely a luminous spot in the distance. How could we make out the shortest candle and, on top of that, its flickering flame?
“Can you detect the scent of cabbage jam coming from the kitchen?” he continued. “How about the pungent aroma of marjoram they put in it and the acrid aroma of rhubarb leaves they cover the jam with in clay bowls?”
Frankly, we were confounded. What was he talking about? How could we possibly smell that? Without moving my head or lowering my gaze, I tried, without success, to guess the ingredients in the exquisite dish right under my nose, but I could only remember—and that was because I’d just taken a bite—that its flavors were very concentrated, much more intense than normal.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” Farag said to Shakeb.
“Could you tell me, didaskalos, how many instruments are playing the music accompanying our meal?”
Music…? What music, I thought. Then I realized a beautiful melody was coming from behind our seats. I hadn’t heard it because I wasn’t paying attention and because it was played so softly. It would have been completely impossible to distinguish each musical instrument.
“Or how that drop of sweat sounds,” he continued unperturbed, “that’s sliding down Ottavia’s back at this very moment?”
I was frightened. What was he saying? I kept my mouth shut when I noticed that, on account of nervous tension and excitement, a very small drop of sweat did rush down my spine.
“What’s going on?” I exclaimed, totally disconcerted.
“Ottavia, tell me,” the man with the rings was implacable, “at what rate is your heart beating? I can tell you: like this…” He tapped the table with two fingers, perfectly in time with the palpitations I felt at the center of my chest. “And how does the wine you’re drinking smell? Have you noticed its spices, the slightly buttery texture it leaves in your mouth, and its dense, dry woody flavor?”
I was from Sicily, the greatest wine-growing region of Italy. My family has vineyards and we drink wine at meals, but I’d never noticed anything like what he was describing.
“If you can’t perceive what is around you or feel what’s happening to you,” he concluded with an amiable but clear and firm tone, “if you don’t enjoy the beauty because you can’t even detect it, and if you know less than the youngest children in my school, don’t pretend to be in possession of the truth or allow yourself to fear those who have welcomed you warmly.”
“Come on, Shakeb,” Mirsgana said, coming to our defense. “That is all well and good, but that’s enough. They just got here. We need to be patient.”
Shakeb changed his expression quickly, showing some repentance.
“Forgive me,” he asked. “Mirsgana is right. But accusing us of murdering Dante was impertinent on your part.”
These people certainly spoke their minds.
Farag, on the other hand, was tense and clearly deep in thought. As he followed Shakeb’s logic, I was sure I could hear the gears in his brain turning at top speed.
“Forgive me, Shakeb, for what I’m about to say,” he said in a monotone voice. “Although I accept the possibility that you can see that flame from afar or smell the aromas of the cabbage jam coming from the kitchen, I refuse to accept that you can hear Ottavia’s heart beating or a drop of sweat sliding down her back. It’s not that I doubt you, but…”
“Well,” Ufa interrupted him, taking up Shakeb’s reply, “in fact we all heard that drop and right now we can hear the beats of your heart, just like we can hear in your voice how nervous you are or how the food in your stomach is digesting.”
I couldn’t have been more incredulous; my unease increased at the thought that something in all that was true.
“No, that’s impossible,” I stammered.
“Want proof?” Gete offered amiably.
“Of course,” Farag replied curtly.
“I’ll give it to you,” declared Ahmose, the builder of chairs, who had not joined in till then. “Candace,” she whispered, as if she were speaking in the servant’s ear. I looked around, but Candace wasn’t in the room. “Candace, would you please bring some of that elderberry flower pastry you just took out of the oven?” She waited a few seconds, then smiled with satisfaction. Candace answered: “Right away, Ahmose.”
“Ha!” Farag blurted out. Farag had to swallow his disdain when, almost immediately, Candace came through one of the doors bringing a plate of a white pudding that had to be what Ahmose had requested.
“Here’s the elderberry flower pastry, Ahmose,” he said. “I fixed it thinking about you. I have already put aside a piece for you to bring home.”
“Thanks, Candace,” she replied with a happy smile. There was no doubt they lived together.
“I don’t understand.” My distrustful didaskalos continued to be suspicious. “I really don’t understand.”
“You do not understand… but you’re starting to accept it,” said Ufa, raising his wineglass joyfully in the air. “Let’s toast to all the wonderful things you are going to learn in Paradeisos!”
Everyone in our group raised their glasses and toasted enthusiastically. Those in the Rock and Cato’s group didn’t moved a muscle, fascinated by whatever it was they were listening to.
Shakeb was right. The wine smelled of spices; its flavor was dense and dry like wood. A minute after we toasted, its smooth buttery texture lingered on my taste buds.
That afternoon we strolled through Stauros accompanied by Ufa, Mirsgana, Gete, and Khutenptah, the shasta of agriculture, who became quick friends with Captain Glauser-Röist. She came along to show us the greenhouses and their overall agricultural production system. The Rock, ever the agricultural engineer, was extremely interested in this aspect of life in Paradeisos.
When we left Cato’s basileion after lunch, we walked back through numerous rooms and patios. Our guides, who spoke English, cleared up the mystery of the absence of the sun.
“Look up,” Mirsgana said.
Overhead there was no sky. Stauros was located in a gigantic underground cave whose colossal dimensions were delineated by walls and a ceiling you couldn’t see. If hundreds of excavating machines, like those that dug the English Channel, had worked nonstop for a century, they couldn’t have dug a space like the one Stauro
s occupied at the heart of the Earth. Its size was equal to that of Rome and New York combined. But Stauros was just the capital of Paradeisos. Three other cities were built in grottos just as large. A complex system of corridors and amazing galleries connected the four urban centers.
“Paradeisos is a marvelous whim of Nature,” Ufa explained, who’d insisted on taking us to the stables where he trained horses, “the result of terrible volcanic eruptions in the Pleistocene era. Hot water flowed through here and dissolved the limestone, leaving just lava rock. Our brothers found this place in the thirteenth century. Can you believe that, after seven centuries, we still haven’t explored the entire area?”
“Tell us how the light works here, without the sun,” Farag requested, taking my hand as he walked by my side. The city streets were paved with rocks. Down them traveled riders on horseback and horse-drawn carts that seemed to be the only means of transportation. On the sidewalks, bright mosaic tiles depicted natural landscapes or scenes depicting musicians, craftsmen, and other snapshots of daily life, all in pure Byzantine style. Several Staurofilakes swept the grounds and gathered trash with strange mechanical shovels.
“Stauros has more than three hundred streets,” Mirsgana said, waving to a woman who watched from a first-floor window. The houses were made of the same volcanic rock, but the cornices and decorative touches, the drawings and colors of the facades, conferred upon them a delicate, extravagant, or distinguished air, depending on the owner’s taste. “In the city there are seven lakes, all navigable, baptized by the first settlers with the names of the seven cardinal and theological virtues that counter the seven deadly sins.”
“The lakes, especially Temperance and Patience, are full of blind fish and albino crustaceans,” Khutenptah pointed out, who looked very familiar to me. My memory is excellent; I was sure I’d seen her before, outside Paradeisos. She was very attractive; her black hair and eyes and classic features (including a delicate nose) were triggering a memory within me.
The Last Cato Page 48