The Dark River fr-2

by John Twelve Hawks

  The man gestured to the page on his workbench. “The parchment is old, probably cut from a Bible, but the inscription is modern. For ink, the medieval monks used soot, crushed seashells-even their own blood. They couldn’t drive over to the store and buy products from the petrochemical industry.”

  “You’re Simon Lumbroso?”

  “You sound skeptical. I do have business cards, but I keep losing them.” Lumbroso slipped on a pair of eyeglasses with thick lenses that magnified his dark brown eyes. “Names are fragile these days. Some people change names like pairs of shoes. And what’s your name, signorina?”

  “I’m Rebecca Green, from London. I left the brooch back at my hotel, but perhaps I could draw you a sketch that shows you what it looks like.”

  Lumbroso smiled and shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ll need the actual item. If there’s a stone, I can remove it and look for a patina in the setting.”

  “Loan me some paper. Maybe you’ll recognize the design.”

  Looking skeptical, Lumbroso handed her a pad of paper and a felt-tipped pen. “As you wish, signorina.”

  Quickly, Maya drew the Harlequin lute. She tore off the page and placed it on the workbench. Simon Lumbroso glanced at the oval with the three lines, then turned slightly and studied her face. Maya felt as if she were an art object that had been brought to his house for evaluation. “Yes, of course. I recognize the design. If you allow me, perhaps I could give some more information.”

  He walked over to large safe set against the wall and began to turn the dial. “You said that you were from London. Were your parents born in Great Britain?”

  “My mother came from a Sikh family living in Manchester.”

  “And your father?”

  “He was German.”

  Lumbroso opened the safe and took out a cardboard shoe box filled with over one hundred letters, arranged by date. He placed the box on the workbench and thumbed through its contents. “I can’t tell you about the brooch. In fact, I don’t think it really exists. But I do know something about your place of origin.”

  He opened an envelope, took out a black-and-white photograph, and placed it on the bench. “I think you’re the daughter of Dietrich Schöller. At least, that was his name before he became a Harlequin named Thorn.”

  Maya examined the photograph and was surprised to see herself, at the age of nine, sitting next to her father on a bench in St. James’s Park. Someone, perhaps her mother, had taken the shot.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Your father has sent letters to me for almost forty years. I have one of your baby pictures if you’d like to see it.”

  “Harlequins never take photographs unless it’s for a fake passport or some kind of identification card. I always stayed home when they took pictures at school.”

  “Well, your father took some pictures, and then he stored them with me. So where is he, Maya? I was sending letters to a postbox in Prague, but they’ve all been returned.”

  “He’s dead. Murdered by the Tabula.”

  Tears for Maya’s father-her violent, arrogant father-filled Lumbroso’s eyes. He sniffed loudly, found some tissues on the workbench, and blew his nose. “I’m not surprised by this news. Dietrich lived a very dangerous life. But still, his death saddens me greatly. He was my closest friend.”

  “I don’t think you knew my father at all. He never had a friend in his life. He never loved anyone, including my mother.”

  Lumbroso looked astonished and then sad. He shook his head slowly. “How can you say that? Your father had a great deal of respect for your mother. When she died, he was depressed for a very long time.”

  “I don’t know anything about that, but I do know what happened when I was a little girl. My father trained me to kill people.”

  “Yes, he turned you into a Harlequin. I’m not going to defend his decision.” Lumbroso stood up, went over to a wooden hat stand, and retrieved a black suit coat. “Come with me, Maya. Let’s get something to eat. As we Romans would say, ‘No story on an empty stomach.’”

  Wearing the suit coat and a black fedora, Simon Lumbroso escorted her through the ghetto. The sun had disappeared behind the red tile roofs, but quite a few people were sitting on kitchen chairs out in the street and gossiping while children kicked at a ball. Everyone appeared to know Lumbroso, who greeted his neighbors by touching two fingers to the wide brim of his hat.

  “Forty years ago I used to offer tours of this area to foreigners. That was how I met your father. One afternoon, he was the only person who showed up outside the synagogue. Your father was a gentile, of course, but he knew a great deal about Jewish history. He asked intelligent questions, and we had a pleasant time debating various theories. I told him that I had enjoyed practicing my German and that he didn’t need to pay me anything.”

  “That meant my father had an obligation.”

  Lumbroso smiled. “Yes, that’s how a Harlequin would see it. But I didn’t realize any of that. At the time, a group of wealthy young men here in Rome had formed a fascist group, and they would come down to the ghetto late at night to beat up Jews. They caught me down by the Tiber-just a few hundred yards from here. It was five against one. And then, suddenly, your father appeared.”

  “He destroyed them…”

  “Yes. But it was the way he did it that startled me. He showed no anger while fighting-just this cold, focused aggression and a complete lack of fear. He beat all five men unconscious and would have tossed them into the river to drown if I hadn’t pulled him away.”

  “Now that sounds like my father.”

  “From then on, we began to see each other to explore the city and eat dinner together. Gradually, Dietrich told me about his life. Although your father came from a Harlequin family, he never saw that as his destiny. As I recall, he studied history at the Free University of Berlin; then he decided to become a painter and moved to Rome. Some young men experiment with drugs or sexuality. For your father, having a friend was just as forbidden. He never had a friend-even when he was a teenager at the Oberschule.”

  They circled the synagogue on Lungotevere and took the Ponte Fabricio footbridge to the small island in the middle of the Tiber. Lumbroso paused in the middle of the bridge, and Maya gazed down at the muddy green water that flowed through Rome.

  “When I was growing up, my father told me that friends made you weak.”

  “Friendship is as necessary as food and water. It took some time, but eventually we became close friends with no secrets between us. I wasn’t surprised to learn about the existence of Travelers. There’s a mystical branch of Judaism based on the Kabbalah that describes these kinds of revelations. As for the Tabula-you just have to read the newspaper to realize that they exist.”

  “I can’t believe that my father didn’t want to be a Harlequin.”

  “And what’s so surprising? That he was human-like the rest of us? I thought he had broken free of his family and that he was going to stay in Rome and paint. Then a Harlequin from Spain showed up and asked for help. And Dietrich gave in. When your father returned to Italy eight months later, he had taken his Harlequin name. Everything was changed-his normal life was over-but a love for Rome remained in his heart. We saw each other occasionally and he would send me letters twice a year. Sometimes the letters included a photograph of you. I watched you grow up and become a young lady.”

  “He trained me to become a Harlequin,” Maya said. “Do you know what that means?”

  Lumbroso touched Maya lightly on the shoulder. “Only you can forgive your father. All I can say is that he did love you.”

  Each lost in their own thoughts, they crossed the bridge and entered the Trastevere neighborhood on the other side of the river. The three-and four-story houses lined narrow streets-some no wider than alleyways. The houses were painted with faded pastel colors, and dark ivy crept up the walls.

  Lumbroso led her down one street that ended at a cobblestone square called Piazza Mercanti. It was empty except f
or a dozen hungry seagulls fighting over the contents of a spilled trash can. The birds screeched at one another like a group of Romans arguing about football.

  “Only tourists and invalids eat at such an early hour,” Lumbroso said. “But it’s a good time for a private conversation.” They entered a trattoria that was empty of customers. A waiter with an imposing mustache escorted them to a back table, and Lumbroso ordered a bottle of pinot grigio and a first course of deep-fried cod fillets.

  Maya took a sip of wine, but didn’t touch the food. Lumbroso’s view of her father was different from anything she had ever imagined. Did Thorn really care about her? Was it possible that he had never wanted to become a Harlequin? The implications of these questions were so disturbing that she pushed them from her mind and focused on the reason she had traveled to Rome.

  “I didn’t come here to talk about my father,” she said. “A Harlequin named Linden said you were an expert on the six realms.”

  Lumbroso smiled as he cut the fish into bite-sized pieces. “A Traveler is the only real expert, but I know a good deal. Meeting your father changed my life. I’ve had a career in art appraisal, but my real passion has been learning about these different worlds. I have tried to acquire a copy of every book, diary, or letter that has described their complexity.”

  Keeping her voice low, Maya explained how she found Gabriel in Los Angeles and how they ended up in Europe. Lumbroso put down his fork and listened intently when she told him what they discovered on Skellig Columba.

  “I think Gabriel went to find his father in the First Realm. If he’s trapped, is there any way I can bring him back?”

  “No,” Lumbroso said. “Not without going there yourself.”

  Both of them stopped talking when the waiter brought out the pasta course, the small semolina dumplings called gnocchi alla Romana. Maya wouldn’t touch the food, but Lumbroso poured her another glass of wine.

  “What do you mean? How is that possible?”

  “You must understand that the classical Greeks and Romans did not perceive a rigid separation between our world and other realities. There were Travelers during that time, but the ancients also believed that certain ‘doors’ existed that allowed anyone to cross over to a different realm.”

  “So it’s like a passageway?”

  “I would say it’s more like an access point available to any seeker. A modern analogy for this would be the so-called ‘wormholes’ described in theoretical physics. A wormhole is a shortcut through space and time that allows us to travel faster from one parallel universe to another. Many physicists these days sound like the Delphic oracle-with equations.”

  Lumbroso picked up a napkin and wiped some tomato sauce from his chin. “Reading ancient texts, it seems clear that many of the sacred places in the classical world, such as Stonehenge, were originally built around an object that provided an access point to other realms. To my knowledge, none of these access points still exist. But the Romans might have left us a guide that will show us where to find one.”

  Maya put down her glass of wine. “Is it a map?”

  “It’s much better than that. Maps can be lost or destroyed. This particular guide is hidden beneath the streets of Rome. It’s the Horologium Augusti-the sundial created by the Emperor Augustus.”

  When the waiter came to their table, Lumbroso discussed various options for the next course, finally deciding on veal cooked with fresh sage. When they were alone again, he poured himself another glass of wine.

  “The Horologium was not some little sundial found in the back garden. It was the center of Rome-an enormous circle of white travertine inlaid with bronze lines and letters. If you’ve walked passed the Italian Parliament building in the Piazza di Montecitorio, you’ve seen the Egyptian obelisk that created the shadow.”

  “But now the sundial is buried underground?”

  “Most of ancient Rome is underground. It could be argued that every city has a ghost city hidden from view. A small portion of the sundial was excavated in the 1970s by German archaeologists-some friends of mine-but they stopped after a year of work. There are still natural springs beneath the streets of Rome, and a stream flows across the surface of the sundial. And there were security problems as well. The carabinieri didn’t want the archaeologists digging a passageway that would lead directly to the Parliament building.”

  “So what does this have to do with finding an access point to another realm?”

  “The sundial was more than just a clock and a calendar. It also served as the center of the Roman universe. On the outer rim of the sundial there were arrows pointing to Africa and Gaul, as well as directions to spiritual gates that led to other worlds. As I said, the ancients didn’t have our limited view of reality. They would have seen the First Realm as a distant province on the edge of the known world.

  “When the German archaeologists finished their project, most of the sundial was covered with dirt and rubble. But that was over thirty years ago, and Rome has experienced several floods since that time. Remember-an underground stream flows through the whole area. I’ve inspected the site and I’m convinced that a much larger section of the sundial is now exposed to view.”

  “So why didn’t you check it out?” Maya asked.

  “Anyone entering this area would have to be flexible, athletic, and”-Lumbroso gestured to his stomach-“a good deal less corpulent. You’d need an oxygen tank and breathing apparatus to go underwater. And you’d need to be brave. This ground is highly unstable.”

  Both of them were silent for a few minutes. Maya took a sip of wine. “What if I bought the necessary equipment?”

  “The equipment is not the problem. You’re my friend’s daughter-which means I want to help you-but no one has explored this area since the flooding. I want you to promise that you’ll turn around and come back if it looks dangerous.”

  Maya’s first reaction was to say Harlequins don’t promise, but she had broken that rule with Gabriel.

  “I’ll try to be careful, Simon. I can’t agree to anything more than that.”

  Lumbroso bunched up his napkin and dropped it on the table. “My stomach doesn’t like this idea. That’s a bad sign.”

  “But now I’m famished,” Maya said. “So where’s the waiter?”

  34

  The next evening Maya met Simon Lumbroso in front of the Pantheon. She had spent the day buying scuba equipment at a dive shop in the western suburbs and had stuffed everything into two canvas bags. Lumbroso had also gone shopping, buying a large battery-powered lantern, the kind of equipment miners carried in caves. He gazed at the tourists eating gelato in the square and smiled.

  “The Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope wandered around Athens with a lantern looking for an honest man. We’re looking for something equally rare, Maya. You need to take a photograph-just one photograph-of the directions that will lead us to another world.” He smiled at her. “Are we ready?”

  Maya nodded.

  Lumbroso led her over to Campo Marzio, a side street near the Parliament building. Halfway down the block, he stopped in front of a doorway between a tearoom and a perfume store.

  “Do you have a passkey?” Maya asked.

  Lumbroso reached into his suit coat pocket and pulled out a wad of euros. “This is the only passkey you need in Rome.”

  He knocked loudly and a bald old man wearing rubber boots opened the door. Lumbroso greeted the man politely and shook his hand, paying the bribe without the vulgarity of mentioning money. The bald man let them into a hallway, said something in Italian, and then left the building.

  “What did he tell you, Simon?”

  “‘Don’t be a fool and lock up when you’re done.’”

  They walked down the hallway to an open courtyard filled with lumber, scaffolding, and empty paint cans. Families had lived in the tenement for hundreds of years, but now the building was empty and the stucco walls were stained from flooding. All the windows were smashed, but iron bars still formed a grid in the
window frames. The rusty bars made the building look like an abandoned prison.

  Lumbroso pulled open an unlocked door and they climbed down stairs covered with plaster dust. When they reached what appeared to be the building’s cellar, Lumbroso switched on the lantern and opened a door labeled with red paint: PERICOLO-NO ENTRI.

  “There’s no electric power from this point on, so we’ll have to use the lantern,” Lumbroso explained. “Be very careful where you step.”

  Holding the lantern low, he moved slowly down a passageway with brick walls. The floor consisted of plywood boards placed over concrete crossbeams. Fifteen feet beyond the doorway, Lumbroso stopped and knelt beside a gap in the floorboards. Maya stood behind him, peered over his shoulder, and saw the Horologium Augusti.

  The excavated section of the emperor’s sundial had become the floor of a stone-walled cellar about eight feet wide and twenty feet long. Although the sundial was underwater, Maya could see its travertine surface as well as a few bronze lines and Greek letters inlaid in the limestone. The German archaeologists had removed all the rubble, and the room resembled a looted sepulchre. The only modern touch was a steel ladder that ran from the gap in the plywood boards to the floor of the cellar nine feet below.

  “You go first,” Lumbroso said. “I’ll hand you the equipment; then I’ll come down with the lantern.”

  Maya placed the two sacks of equipment on a plywood board and removed her jacket, shoes, and socks. Then she climbed down the ladder to the sundial. The water was cold and about three feet deep. Lumbroso handed Maya the equipment sacks, and she looped the drawstrings around the steps of the ladder so that they hung from opposite sides.

  While Simon took off his fedora, suit coat, and shoes, Maya inspected the cellar. As she moved around the room, little waves sloshed back and forth, breaking against the walls. Over the years, the minerals in the water had transformed the white travertine sundial into slabs of grayish stone; in various places it was pitted, cracked, and stained. The bronze lines and Greek symbols that had been embedded in the limestone had once been a bright gold color that glittered brightly in the Roman sun. The metal had oxidized completely and now the letters were dark green.