A thought occurred to me last night—it may or may not be relevant, I do not know. Do you recall that Scripture tells us of other men who lived dozens of average lifetimes? Adam lived nine hundred thirty years; Methuselah lived to be nine hundred sixty-nine. Enoch and Elijah never died but were taken bodily to heaven. God used each man for his purposes. Every one of their earthly days was counted and appropriated by the Almighty.
Which brings me, dear one, to the real purpose of this letter. I am thick and slow, but God is gracious, and I am convinced he will soon welcome me home. This letter is to validate your claim to my journals. I will die without a will (how could I write one?), and I do not care how my property is disbursed. But my journals— I leave them to you. Whether I spend a week or a lifetime in prison, I leave my precious books in your hands. Take them with you when you leave Rome. Use them as you will, dear friend.
Thank you, beloved sister, for having courage enough to speak truth to me. I leave you now with a quote from Job, who suffered many things, and yet did not turn his heart against God:
“If mortals die, can they live again? This thought would give me hope, and through my struggle I would eagerly wait for release.”
I await my release . . . and another encounter with my Savior. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
Asher Genzano, signed this 23rd day of November, Regina Coeli Prison, Rome.
I stared at the signature, then ran my fingertip over the bold, sure strokes of the date. The fourth Thursday of November. Thanksgiving Day in America . . . and for at least one man in Rome.
So—Asher had found victory at last. What I had witnessed today was not an end, but a beginning.
The owner of the trattoria moved to a small black-and-white television above the counter and pressed the power button, providing the noon news for his patrons. The screen immediately filled with the face of an earnest reporter standing before the Tiber embankment. Behind her I could see the divers in their darkly gleaming wet suits and the somber-faced chief of police. A single phrase caught my ear: “Temiamo che il prigioniero sia morto.” We fear the prisoner is dead.
“No,” I whispered, folding Asher’s letter. “Sappiamo che il prigioniero è libero. We know the prisoner is free.”
I was honestly happy for Asher, but my lower lip wobbled and my eyes filled in spite of myself.
I would miss him.
EPILOGUE
A WEEK LATER, I STOOD INSIDE THE FIUMICINO AIRPORT WITH MY luggage and forty-two cardboard boxes containing Asher’s journals. The government had been delighted to get its hands on Asher’s estate and agreed to give me what the court-appointed appraiser called “a heap of dusty diaries.” After I found people to translate the foreign journals, I planned to study them carefully, beginning with the earliest entries.
I could already think of a hundred uses for Asher’s writings. The journals were priceless for their historical value alone and would bring forgotten eras and peoples to life. Asher’s testimony would also shine the bright light of truth upon certain dark episodes in the history of civilization—his experience in the Inquisition alone would make any churchman cringe. And what politician would not be interested in Asher’s encounter with Hitler? In his misguided enthusiasm to find the Antichrist, Asher had encountered one of the most occult-driven personalities of the twentieth century.
Yes, his history would have much to teach anyone with a heart of faith. Most important, Asher’s experiences could expose all the dead-end roads man has traveled in an effort to reach God. I planned to condense his story, close with his final letter to me, add a postscript about his release, and let the record speak for itself. After all, his journals had made a believer of me.
The airline attendant waved me forward to the desk. I checked my luggage and the boxes, picked up my boarding pass, and made my way to the gate. As I settled down to wait with a book I had picked up in the airport bookshop, an image on the overhead television caught my eye. The screen featured a photograph of Santos Justus, with the words Morti in scontro automobilistico superimposed across the bottom of the screen.
“Morti . . .” My breath caught in my throat. Morti meant dead.
Trembling, I stared at the television screen in hypnotized horror. Santos Justus was dead?
Clutching the armrest of my seat, I strained to follow the news report. Footage of Justus and Synn rolled across the screen, then I saw a video clip of Angelo pulling the blue Alfa Romeo away from the curb. The next clip revealed an accident scene along a deserted country road. The Alfa Romeo was a mangled mess, a grisly metal sculpture wrapped around a tree. Two sheet-covered bodies lay on the ground. Darien Synn, however, was shown upon a stretcher being lifted into an ambulance.
I felt a sharp pang of sorrow for the people at Global Union. Some of them I had liked, others I had tolerated, but they had all been bound together by a shared wish for peace. Now Il Presidente was gone, and Il Direttore would have to carry on . . . if I couldn’t have him arrested.
A thought suddenly froze in my brain. Asher had risked spending the rest of his immortal life behind bars because he was convinced that Santos Justus would become the Antichrist, but Asher was . . . wrong.
The thought was so absurd I couldn’t stop a smile, though I felt a long way from genuine humor. “Ah, Signor Pace,” I murmured, lowering my gaze from the carnage on the television screen. “You were right. It does us no good to look for evil when we ought to be looking for those who are lost.”
As the flight attendant began to call for first-class passengers, I pulled out a photo of the brass plaque I had commissioned for the entry of the Sole al Pantheon, Asher’s home. For as long as the hotel remained in the heart of Rome, all who entered would read my tribute to the man who had lived in the city longer than any other:
Grace comes into the soul, as the morning sun into the world: first a dawning, then a light; and at last the sun in his full and excellent brightness.
–Thomas Adams
I tucked the photo into my purse, dashed a tear from my eye, then stood to follow the line of passengers down the ramp to the plane. As I settled into my seat and fumbled for the safety belt, the woman next to me twiddled her fingers to get my attention.
“What a lovely necklace,” she said, pointing to the watch dangling from the gold chain around my neck.
“Thank you.” I snapped the seat buckle, then looked at my traveling companion. “It was my mother’s. She always loved Rome.”
“So do I,” the woman answered, giving me a relaxed upper smile that indicated friendliness and honesty. “But I was only able to visit for the weekend. There was so much more I wanted to see.”
I tilted my head, returning her smile in full measure. “I was in Rome ten weeks,” I told her. “And I saw things you wouldn’t believe.”
“Will you tell me?” Her pupils dilated with interest. “It’s a long flight, and I don’t have anything to read.”
I smoothed my skirt, then touched my watch, remembering the inscription, Do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of . . .
“I’d be happy to tell you all about my trip,” I said, nodding. “I have a hunch you’ll be a good listener.”
RESOURCES
ASHER’S RECOLLECTIONS OF THE INQUISITION ARE ADAPTED FROM eyewitness accounts recorded in Edward Burman’s The Inquisition. The two stanzas of poetry about the Wandering Jew are from John Ker Roxburghe’s Roxburghe Ballads and quoted in The Legend of the Wandering Jew by George K. Anderson.
I owe a special thanks to novelists and friends Nancy Moser, Robert Elmer, Melody Carlson, and Molly Bull, who shared vivid memories of Rome. (Thanks, folks! I’ll make it to Italy yet!) Also, special thanks to Grant Jeffrey, who shared many things about the Wandering Jew, and to Susan Richardson, who waded through a very rough draft and provided helpful feedback. Grazie molto, amici!
I am also indebted to the following authors and their informative books:
Anderson, George K. The Legend of the Wandering Jew. Hanover
, N.H.: Brown University Press, 1991.
Blumberg, Arnold, ed. Great Leaders, Great Tyrants. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995.
Burman, Edward. The Inquisition. New York: Dorset Press, 1984.
Chirot, Daniel. Modern Tyrants. New York: The Free Press, 1994.
Dimitrius, Jo-Ellan and Mark Mazzarella. Reading People. New York: Random House, 1998.
Grun, Bernard. The Timetables of History. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991.
Hindson, Ed. Is the Antichrist Alive and Well? Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House, 1998.
Hofmann, Paul. The Seasons of Rome. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997.
Jeffrey, Grant. Final Warning. Toronto: Frontier Research Publications, 1995.
Lewis, David. The Secret Language of Success. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1989.
Neighbor, Travis, and Monica Larner. Living, Studying, and Working in Italy. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998.
Pentecost, J. Dwight. Things to Come. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1964.
Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. New York: Harper Perennial, 1985.
Stableford, Brian, ed. Tales of the Wandering Jew. Sawtry, U.K.: Daedalus Ltd., 1991.
Wild, Fiona, ed. Rome. New York: DK Publishing, 1997.
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