The scarlet Lady

by Giada Trebeschi

  «I’ll never forgive myself. I should have come with you» said the captain.

  «Giulio, please. Don’t be silly. Unless you wanted to be caught and accused of high treason» answered his friend.

  Cesare told them that walking to the station they had only met an old man going around walking his dog and a woman carrying a basket with risen dough clearly on her way to the bakery to have it cooked.

  At the station everything seemed fine. There were passengers, a few soldiers and some railway employees. Once near the train, they saw they were checking the papers. Three Blackshirts with two big black dogs created a kind of check point and some others were controlling everyone. It was too late to leave.

  Cesare and Tettamanzi tried to think of something else but the only possibility for Kornblum was to get on that damned train. There was no time to think of something else and in any case Kornblum had decided to risk it.

  The Little told them not to worry and thanking them for all what they did for him queued with the last little group of passengers.

  Cesare and Tettamanzi stayed aside observing it all and ready to help in case something should happen. But they didn’t have the time to think nor to act before Kormblum was on the floor and a roaming bullet had hit Tettamanzi.

  The documents of the Little seemed all correct but when a Blackshirt put on his face the light of a torch someone recognized him.

  «Look who is here! Exactly the same Jewish dog we were looking for» he shouted.

  Immediately two men stopped him. But the young art historian succeeded in escaping again so one of the Blackshirts let a dog free and another one got his pistol out and shot. He wasn’t a good marksman and the bullets didn’t get Kornblum, bouncing somewhere and hitting Tettamanzi instead.

  The dog was better and didn’t miss his prey. It reached Kornblum biting one of his legs and making him fall on the railway. The Little didn’t have the time to get up. The Blackshirt that missed him the first time was on him and shot at closed range. In his bad luck he had been lucky. He didn’t have to suffer and be tortured before dying: the bullet in his head sent him directly to his eternal sleep.

  The Blackshirts were too busy with Kornblum to notice his accomplices, so Cesare helped Tettamanzi to go back. The rest they knew.

  The Little was dead.

  Letizia couldn’t believe it.

  She recognized she was crying only when some salted tears reached her lips.

  She would never see him again, never listened to his precious suggestions; she was never going to hear again the Great making fun of him and his imaginary illnesses.

  She didn’t know how much she cared for him until the moment she realized she had lost him forever. She looked at Alessandro who was trying to hold the tears and she hoped never to lose him as well. In those months in Poggio Catino her two colleagues became the family she didn’t have any more, and now another of the people she loved was gone.

  «I am so sorry – said the captain caressing her hair – You can’t imagine how sorry I am.»

  The chimes of the clock hit Letizia like a slap.

  «I have to go now – said Giulio giving her his handkerchief – Try to sleep for a few hours. I’ll see you in Saint Peter in Chains after the matins. It’s not very far away from here, Cesare will tell you the way. Bring your things with you. We won’t come back.»

  The captain was again the master of the situation. His orders were precise and were to be executed without discussion. He seemed always ready with a plan, he seemed to know always what to do and Letizia appreciated it enormously. Giulio embraced her tightly before going and his perfume stayed on her for a long time.

  Rome, Dolores flat, 3.15 a. m.

  When the captain returned to Dolores, Vittorio was getting dressed.

  Messalina didn’t show him any mercy and now the only thing he really wanted was to lie down near her beautiful body and fall asleep holding her in his arms. But he was on duty. He had to check on the captain and, in case he had already left, try to find him. Morelli was not going to forgive him on the contrary.

  The prostitute was laying on the bed half naked with her long hair the colour of fire disorderedly on the pillow. She looked at him without speaking and Vittorio felt his desire growing again. He would have stayed there with her forever. The woman had seduced him, bewitched him and made him discover a lustful world which lost him forever. The prostitutes who had loved him before were nothing in comparison with the amazing creature he met that night.

  The third time they had sex he asked her if she ever did that with two men at the same time.

  «With three as well» she answered and he couldn’t help exploding his pleasure on her.

  Messalina knew his secret phantasy to possess her together with other men was going to make him explode but she didn’t let him rest before she got her pleasure as well.

  Messalina didn’t move from the bed and when he left the room she wished him goodbye with a lustful smile. Her next lover was already waiting sitting on the sofa near the door of her room.

  When Vittorio arrived in the living room he only saw a couple of girls who were chatting and smoking while waiting for possible late clients. He thought that the captain was still with the blond blue-eyed girl and it took him a few seconds before noticing that he was sitting in a corner of the room reading a newspaper.

  «I was waiting for you – the captain said smiling – This is yesterday’s newspaper, I was starting to wonder if I had to wait for you till the delivery of the morning one. Did you enjoy yourself with Messalina?»

  «I did – mumbled Vittorio – she is indeed a very well trained expert» he added pretending to know what he was talking about.

  «Good. But I think now it is time to go. We should rest a few hours before starting our search again. Where do you live?» asked de’ Risis.

  «On the other side of Rome. It is very late and it doesn’t make sense to go back and forward. Morelli will be waiting for me tomorrow very early in the morning. Don’t worry about me, I can sleep in the car.»

  «Don’t be silly. You are a sort of colleague of the Voluntary Militia, right? Let’s see if I find you a camp bed at the base» said the captain walking to his car followed by Vittorio.

  Rome, Saint Peter in Chains, 7.15 a.m.

  The captain was able to rest for nearly an hour before he washed and changed his shirt.

  He returned at dawn to the base and took Vittorio to one of the soldiers’ dormitories. He was completely sure that the young man, as soon as his head touched the pillow, was going to fall asleep. De’ Risis made him an appointment directly with Morelli’s office because before took care of a few things at the base. He said goodbye and went to his room.

  The captain, as always, left his car in the parking lot where everybody could see it and when Vittorio, started to go to Morelli’s at eight o’clock, he noticed the car and thought de’ Risis was still at the base.

  In reality, the captain had left long before going on a service bicycle to Saint Peter in Chains.

  Letizia and Alessandro rested for a few hours that night but slept such an anxious sleep that they were almost grateful when Cesare woke them up at five thirty. By contrast, Tettamanzi slept quietly, his breath regular and he had no fever. He was a strong man and he was luckily going to survive.

  The two art historians ate something before leaving and Cesare drew a map for them to reach Saint Peter in Chains. It wasn’t too far or too complicated.

  «Find the treasure for us as well – said Cesare accompanying them to the door – Maybe we’ll meet again someday.»

  What they had lived through in the last two days together, the risks Cesare had taken for them, his hospitality and the sharing of their secret made him as dear to them as an old friend. Letizia wanted to embrace him before leaving. He looked at the two young art historians walking away silently wishing that they would both live long lives.

  The scarlet Lady wrote that her mother was living in a house on the Esquilino, just
on top of the vicus sceleratus. It was the exact little street that Letizia and Alessandro were now walking on. The Saint Peter in Chains basilica was just at the end of it in front of the Borgias palazzo once lived in by two of Alexander VI’s lovers: the scarlet Lady’s mother and Vannozza Cattanei.

  It was incredible how many connections and links the scarlet Lady had hinted at in her papers. She had to be a woman of extraordinary intelligence and culture.

  When they entered the church a small group of old women and a couple of friars had just started the morning prayers. The captain was standing near Julius II’s tomb and seemed to be praying as well. So as not to be too noticed the two art historians knelt in some benches behind the women and started repeating the prayers along with them.

  As soon as the matins concluded the few people in the church started to leave and ten minutes later the place was empty. The light of a new day was filtering from the windows so, before leaving for the sacristy, the friars blew out most of the candles leaving only a few lit for the three believers still praying.

  Once alone Letizia and Alessandro reached de’ Risis and started observing Julius II’s tomb. The connection with the Moses was unmistakable and now the statue that they had studied so deeply for scientific purposes assumed a totally new importance.

  Suddenly, the beautiful beard curls became the ideal place to hide a stone that wasn’t too big, the clothes folds stopped being the incredible draperies they had always admired and loved, becoming simply marble creases where a ruby could be easily hidden.

  They inspected every corner of the statue, they combed every possible hole with the fingers but they didn’t find anything. Then they searched the rest of the monument: the ruby was nowhere to be found.

  «Maybe the stone has been found during one of the cleaning or restoring procedures. We have to remember that five hundred years have passed…» said Letizia discouraged by the fruitless search.

  «We would have known it» answered Alessandro going on looking without losing his optimism.

  «Unless the one who found it kept it for himself without publishing the news» she went on sitting on one of the benches in front of the funerary monument.

  «I am not sure – said the captain sitting near Letizia – If it is true that the ruby is so important for the scarlet Lady and so beautiful to have been used for the ring of a pope, in case someone had found it, it wouldn’t have been easy to sell without giving some explanation.».

  «The captain is right. It still has to be here, somewhere» said Alessandro passing his fingers for the third time over the beard curls of Moses.

  Then he sat near the others and they spent some minutes in silence gazing at the masterpiece of art.

  Giulio de’ Risis began to think that if the scarlet Lady invented such a riddle to bring them there the stone had to be hidden much better than they expected. If it was simply fitted in some hollow of Moses’ statue it could have been easily found even by chance. Certainly the stone was not supposed to fall into the wrong hands or it could have been lost forever. The ruby was the key and probably the scarlet Lady wouldn’t take a chance: she swore to perpetuate and protect the Seal’s secret not to destroy it.

  «May I read the sonnet again? – asked the captain after a long silence – there must be something we didn’t understand.»

  Alessandro gave him his notebook and looked disappointed even if he wasn’t resigned to going away with empty hands.

  Giulio read the sonnet again focusing on the last tercet. The first eleven verses led clearly to the front of the monument and specified the scarlet Lady’s origins. The last three verses had to be the crucial clue.

  «If I were of the Abrabanel, as in fact I am, / The red Fire I’d deprive from his eyes / And leave the living marble, to someone else» he repeated loudly.

  «Making it clear that the ruby is on Moses» commented Letizia.

  «Actually it’s not! That was the mistake! – exclaimed de’ Risis – It is not on or around Moses! His eyes are made of marble and the red Fire I’d deprive from his eyes doesn’t mean that she would take it from his eyes but from the point where the statue is looking!»

  The idea was good.

  For centuries experts questioned themselves about this masterpiece: why did Moses look like he was getting up? Did he see someone he wanted to reach? And why did he look in the direction of the entrance of the church and not to the main altar where God is? Many theories existed about it but none was really satisfying. That living marble was a beautiful mystery and many were still trying to find its real meaning.

  The captain got up and walked to the point at which the Moses was looking. Letizia and Alessandro followed him.

  The basilica was separated into three naves divided by ten marble columns on each side. The church had been patterned on the old pre-existing basilica built on a roman domus. After undergoing some modifications over the centuries, the basilica remained practically unchanged from the renaissance structure designed during the renovation works started by pope Sixtus IV at the end of XV century.

  This meant that, even if the monumental group of Julius II’s tomb had been completed with the statues of Lia and Rachele, (finished by Raffaello da Montelupo in 1545), when Michelangelo planned and made the Moses in 1514 the structure of the basilica was already finalized.

  Once the captain and the two art historians reached the entrance wall they noticed that, through the free space in between the columns, Moses was looking at a very precise point on the left of entrance wall. It was a very normal ordinary wall with no particular signs on it, no pictures, no frescoes. But Moses was looking exactly there.

  The captain started knocking on the wall with his knuckles in a few different places. Alessandro and Letizia watched him holding their breath and losing a bit of hope every time the sound confirmed the presence of a full wall. De’ Risis started thinking that his intuition was wrong when suddenly they all heard the sound of a possible cavity under the plaster.

  Their excitement was obvious.

  «This is the place. Maybe behind the plaster we’ll find the ruby!» exclaimed Giulio without taking his hand off the right spot.

  «We need something to strip it – said Alessandro looking around to find something apt to the use – suitable a knife, a pick, something like that.»

  «I have this. Do you think it might work?» asked Letizia opening her chignon and pulling out an ancient long metal hairpin.

  «It might do. And with your hair like that you look amazing» said Giulio smiling. Letizia looked away and blushed.

  The captain had the marvellous power to confuse her.

  While de’ Risis started chipping at the wall with the hairpin, Alessandro went to the entrance door and Letizia kept an eye on the sacristy door.

  The plaster was falling and it showed the contours of a metal panel set in between the bricks. Its little door didn’t have a lock but a triangular mechanism.

  «Letizia get the medallion. It is the key» ordered the captain.

  In a second she was near him.

  «Put it there, in the centre. And try to turn it. Let’s see what happens.»

  Alessandro got closer. But in the exact moment when Letizia was inserting the medallion they heard a door slamming. They stood still to see if someone was arriving.

  They waited five, maybe six endless seconds. It was probably the wind that slammed one of the sacristy doors.

  «Come on, Letizia, move. We can’t stay here till tomorrow» Alessandro exhorted her.

  The jewel adapted perfectly to the triangular cavity, but when she tried to turn it nothing happened.

  «Try counter clockwise» suggested Alessandro.

  Nothing.

  «Try with a stronger pressure when you turn» said the captain.

  This time the medallion turned in the cavity springing the mechanism. The metallic door opened. It was hiding a little rectangular niche. Inside there was a velour bag that once had to be red. But the most extraordinary thing was that on t
he piece of wall behind that little door there was a fresco.

  Letizia took the bag and opened it. A beautiful ruby shone in her hand. While she was quickly putting the stone back in the bag Alessandro opened the little metallic door wide to better examine the fresco in the niche.

  It was a fresco probably to be dated to the VII or VIII century portraying Christ.

  «Today we finally unveil the mystery of Moses! He looks at the face of God’s son» said a very excited Alessandro.

  Moses recognized the Messiah in the face of a man coming from far away and entering the house of God as a nondescript believer. Jesus was the real God who became human and mixed with his people to share their pain. On the little fresco there was Christ who now was coming back to his father after defeating Death, after newly ratifying the value of the ancient alliance and of the Tables of the Law. Moses, keeper of the Tables, was then portrayed getting up to finally pay homage to the Messiah who he had waited for and desired for so long.

  If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, Alessandro would probably not have believed it. For centuries researchers had asked themselves what was that Moses was looking at and now he was one of the three who had discovered the truth. Astonished in front of that discovery they forgot to check the sacristy door.

  «Hey, you three! What are you doing there?»

  A priest surprised them in front of the broken wall.

  «You are Vandals, scoundrels! What did you do? This is a church! A sacred place and you profaned it! I am calling the police now» he shouted running in their direction.

  In the fraction of a second the captain took Letizia’s hand and pushed Alessandro to the exit and they quickly found themselves outside in the blinding light of the morning. They crossed the place in front of the church and ran down the Borgia’s alley. They were so fast that it didn’t take long before they were far enough from the basilica to allow themselves to slow down.