The Dante Game

by Jane Langton

  “Caution, my young friend,” pleaded the grave old cardinal in the Council for public affairs, the one who had begun the correspondence with Father Roberto.

  “Your gallant action will restore the damaged papacy to itself,” wrote the political cardinal.

  “Your name may never be known to history, but it will live in our prayers of thanksgiving,” promised the eloquent cardinal.

  “How I wish we could meet and clasp hands in friendship!” exclaimed the affectionate cardinal.

  “Even the Vatican cats are with you,” joked the witty young diocesan bishop who was Roberto’s favorite.

  Five distinct correspondences, it was too many! Bindo had burdened himself with the boring duty of writing letters in three different hands and on two separate typewriters. It was tiresome, exhausting his capacity to invent new raffish phrases couched in the dignified language of the Holy See.

  Impatiently he tore open the new batch of letters from Father Roberto. They were just like all the others, long handwritten outpourings to the five anonymous prelates with whom the idiot thought he was corresponding. Impatiently Bindo waded through the high-flown language, the protestations of lofty purpose and dedication. The poor sciocco thought himself part of a worldwide conspiracy. The man was a fool.

  Bindo tore all the letters in two and dumped them in the wastebasket. Thank God he would no longer have to reply. Roberto would expect nothing in return, time was now so short.

  But Bindo had a different sort of letter to write. Winding a sheet of paper into his typewriter, he rattled off a command to Matteo Luzzi, and sweetened it by tucking it into a big envelope with a huge wad of hundred-thousand-lire notes. The inflation of the coinage was a nuisance, an anachronism that he, as a progressive man of business, complained about all the time. One couldn’t pay anyone a substantial amount of cash without using an attaché case.

  Hurrying out of the bank, Bindo trotted around the corner and mailed the envelope to Matteo in Caldine, thrusting it into the mailbox with his own hands.

  Matteo received it two days later. He was overjoyed. The money was an advance payment for services yet to be performed, a task so dangerous that he could surely expect a bonus. Now he counted the money and put it into a zippered case.

  At once it began to burn holes in the vinyl covering of the case.

  Matteo had been warned not to show his face in Florence except for reasons of the gravest urgency, but now the temptation was too great. He put on his mirrored aviator glasses, his sharp new leather-look coat and silver-toed shoes, climbed into the rented Honda and took off.

  On the outskirts of the city he was cautious enough to park the car and take the bus the rest of the way to the Maserati showroom on Lungarno Francesco Ferracd. Swaggering in, he soon impressed the principal salesman with his obvious intent to buy. It didn’t take long. Within half an hour, after leaving a massive deposit, he was test-driving his dream car. It was low slung, scarlet, vicious, magnificent.

  Matteo knew a stunning girl with an apartment in the neighborhood of Piazza Beccaria. Why not take her for a ride? Swiftly he zoomed across Ponte San Niccolò and swerved into a parking place in the square. Jauntily he swung open the car door and got out, frowning as became the owner of such an expensive car. Something fell off the front seat as he stood up, a crumpled piece of paper.

  It was the letter from Signor Bindo. Bending down to retrieve it, Matteo stood up to find himself looking into the clear hazel eyes of an officer of the polizia.

  “Matteo Luzzi?” said Inspector Rossi.

  “No, no, you are mistaken. My name is Valenti, Pasquale Valenti.” Fumbling in his pocket, Matteo took out one of the phony cards of identification supplied by Signor Bindo.

  Inspector Rossi looked at the tiny picture on the card. He had never seen Matteo in person, only in the drawing provided by Professor Zibo, which remained in his wallet at all times. Now he took out the drawing and looked back and forth between the picture and the man who called himself Pasquale Valenti.

  “Please, would you remove your glasses?”

  He looks like the angel Gabriel, Signor Kelly had said. It was true that this man had a charming boyish face, but there was a slyness about his expression that was far from angelic.

  And unfortunately Inspector Rossi was beginning, at thirty-six, to think younger men all looked alike. One ragazzo with a dark mustache was very much like another. Reluctantly he handed back the driver’s license and watched Valenti swagger away.

  A noisy street sweeper was rumbling and coughing along the pavement. Valenti dodged past it, dropped a piece of paper in its path, and turned into a side street.

  The sweeper rumbled closer, its brushes whirling. Two merchants rushed out of their shops, vigorously wielding brooms, sweeping trash into the gutter, sending up clouds of dust.

  Idly Rossi watched the brushes suck up the debris. The sweepings from the shops disappeared, inhaled by the powerful vacuum within the machine. At the last minute, just as the crumpled paper from the hand of the young man with the Maserati was about to be swallowed, Inspector Rossi darted forward impulsively, snatched it up and leaped back out of the way.

  At once the driver of the sweeper slapped open his folding door and shouted at him. Rossi merely returned to him the knifelike grin that sliced his face in half.

  Wheezing and growling, the huge machine rolled out of the square. The inspector unfolded the piece of paper and read it carefully.

  It was very short—

  Luzzi: After Roberto has finished, remove him, during the Explosion of the Cart.

  At once Inspector Rossi looked up and stared wildly around the square. The owner of the Maserati had disappeared.

  Swiftly Rossi found a phone booth from which he could keep an eye on the car, and called the Questura. Within five minutes a small army of fellow officers drove up, their sirens howling.

  He stationed two of them near the Maserati and dispatched the others to search the neighborhood.

  They did not find Matteo. Eventually a search of the scarlet car revealed that it had been borrowed from the showroom on Lungarno Francesco Ferrucci. The proprietors of the Maserati dealership were relieved to learn that their valuable fuel-injected twin-turbo convertible had not been stolen after all, nor smashed into worthless fragments in a high-speed collision.

  But Inspector Rossi could not forgive himself. Matteo Luzzi had been within his grasp, and he had let him get away. And the message Luzzi had tossed at the sweeper was as menacing as it was mysterious. Who was Roberto? What was he going to finish? What did the word remove mean? To Rossi it could have only one sinister interpretation.

  The only fully intelligible part of the message was the reference to the Scoppio del Carro. Everyone in Florence had an affectionate acquaintance with the Explosion of the Cart. It was an annual custom at the cathedral on Easter Sunday, the noisy setting off of fireworks on the tall ceremonial chariot drawn by white oxen. It was an ancient and beloved Florentine tradition with roots going back to the crusades, even as far back as the time of the Romans.

  Inspector Rossi went at once to the palace of the archbishop. The matter was too important to deal with by phone.

  Once again he knelt and kissed the archbishop’s ring. His Excellency gave him a tired smile. “What is it, Inspector?”

  Rossi rose to his feet. “I may be wrong, Your Excellency. I hope so. We have evidence that something may happen on Easter morning at the cathedral during the Explosion of the Cart. The noise of the fireworks, you see, could mask another sound.”

  “Another sound?” The archbishop was bewildered. “What sort of sound?”

  “A gunshot perhaps.” Inspector Rossi explained his understanding of the letter he had snatched from the sweeping machine. His words sounded feeble in his own ears. “So perhaps, Your Excellency, we should cancel the whole celebration.”

  “Cancel it!” The archbishop was aghast. It was like the moment before death when one’s whole life passes before one’s eyes.
Upon the screen of his mind he beheld in tempestuous review the whole history of his involvement with the celebration of the cathedral’s anniversary, the entire chronology of his struggle to persuade the Prefect of the Pontifical Household that His Holiness should attend, the endless catalogue of the committees he had appointed, the multifarious detail of the tasks they were carrying out.

  He took the hand of Inspector Rossi and squeezed it. “Inspector, I thank you for your care and concern, but I see nothing to do but go on as before. I trust you totally. My faith in your professional ability is supreme. We are in your hands, as we are in God’s. Carry on. I am sure the celebration will be perfect, from start to finish.” In the exhausted smile of the innocent old man there was an unaccustomed hint of sarcasm. “Perfection above all.”

  CHAPTER 48

  …Run! run for the pass!

  Inferno XII, 26.

  Roberto Mori had given up his job with the Department of City Museums, but he still drove into Florence twice a week to perform his duties as a black-gowned volunteer with the Misericordia. He had begun as an ordinary stretcher-bearer, sitting beside the driver as they went out on calls to transport the sick and elderly to hospitals. But one day when the driver was absent, Roberto took his place, handling the job so well that he was promoted on the spot.

  Little by little he acquainted himself with the old building that was the central office of the Misericordia near the Duomo. It was a warren of rooms, spaces that had been used in traditional ways for centuries—the chambers of the Corpo Generate and the Magistrate, the oratory, the study of the Provveditore, the room devoted to archives, there were offices, there was an ambulance garage.

  And one day as he explored the building he discovered the right closet. It was full of black gowns. Swiftly he swept two from their hangers and packed them into his briefcase.

  The time was very near. Roberto strove to devote himself to details, to practical matters, but the presence of the American girl at the farm was a tormenting distraction.

  Daily he tutored her. She listened soberly, as he explained the need for revitalization within the church, the necessity for a massive change in direction. It was very strange. The girl had braided her hair in ridiculous pigtails, but it made no difference. She was half Rubens, half Botticelli. Her silent stubbornness captivated him. She looked at him and glanced away, then looked again with melancholy dignity. Using words that were simple and straightforward, she argued back.

  Roberto suffered. Profoundly attracted, he told himself, that this was the worst time in all his life for such a powerful diversion of his attention.

  Penitently he read and reread the letters he had received from Rome—Your name may never be known to history, but it will live in our prayers of thanksgiving—Your gallant action will restore the damaged papacy to itself—but the face of the American girl kept blossoming from the pages, it flowered from the dense language of the typescript, it glowed from the spidery handwriting. The remote abstractions inscribed on paper could not compete with the pulsing image of the woman here at hand. Roberto whispered to himself a line from the Paradiso, Love made a noose to capture me.

  Julia too was in distress. A week had passed since Roberto had taken her letter to the post office along with his own. But still there was no rush of cars, no rescuing attack by an army of policemen, no rattle of gunfire below the wall. For a few more days Julia told herself that mail service in Italy was notoriously bad. Then she began to lose hope.

  Her disappointment was crushing. She had begun to be terribly afraid of Roberto—not of any cruelty or violence on his part, nothing like that. It was his kindness that was so alarming, his gentle talk, the increasing enchantment of the way he looked at her. She was clinging to the edge of a cliff, her hold slipping and slipping. Now she was hanging by the tips of her fingers.

  Matteo Luzzi too was sunk in gloom, furious with his fate. He had not dared to return to Piazza Beccaria to pick up the Maserati, and therefore he had lost both the car and his hefty deposit.

  On the morning of Good Friday he strode away up the hill with his shotgun to fire at birds, chickens, dogs, ducks, anything that moved.

  It was a fine day, almost hot. Signor Roberto was away from the farm. Therefore Julia could unbraid her pigtails and wash her hair and sit outdoors with her face lifted to the sun. When her hair was almost dry she picked up her bucket, scoop and bushel basket, ready to begin the task of cleaning the muck from Graziella’s pen.

  Pancrazio had news for her. His eyes widened with excitement. “Povere porcellino! Oggi I’uccidono.”

  “What?”

  Pancrazio laughed. Carlo grinned and made a slicing motion across his throat.

  Julia gasped. She had forgotten that the pig was kept for a reason. Tears came to her eyes, and she went to the pigpen to look in. Graziella was trampling restlessly within her narrow cell as if she knew there was trouble ahead.

  Julia found Tina at the other end of the stony little yard, hanging up wash, briskly snatching wet clothes from a basket and pegging them to the line. “Porcellino?” said Julia, making the gesture of a key turning in a lock.

  “Un momento.” Tina went on hanging towels and sheets with quick furious motions. Patiently Julia helped her, shaking out pillowcases and dish towels and Egidio’s trousers, fastening them up with clothespins.

  When the basket was empty Tina carried it away, coming back a moment later to open the pigpen door. “Grazie,” said Julia, as Tina locked her in.

  The pig looked at her with its tiny white-lashed eyes, and welcomed her with affectionate snufflings. She stroked it and scratched behind its ears and ran a hand along its spine. Graziella was fatter than she had been at first, plump and tasty for the cooking. Before long she would be transformed into Tuscan salsciccia and prosciutto, and nothing would be wasted. Julia suspected bitterly that even the pig’s head would be boiled and made into sausage.

  “Good-bye, Graziella,” she whispered. Turning away blindly Julia leaned against the wooden bars of the door, waiting to be released.

  But Tina took her time. Carlo went looking for her, but Tina was nowhere to be found, and he came back shaking his head.

  After half an hour Julia shook the door experimentally and gave it a shove. It wobbled, but the lock held. She studied the hinges. The pintles were loose. Carefully, using all her strength, she lifted the hinged side of the door and pulled the pintles free. Gently she set the door down again, leaning it upright against the frame.

  Carlo and Pancrazio had seen nothing. When Tina came at last to draw the bolt and unfasten the padlock, Julia supported the door with one hand as she went out, then held the heel of her shoe against it as the hasp of the lock was fastened in place.

  Tina noticed nothing, and hurried away. Cautiously Julia tugged at the hinged side of the pigpen door until it stood ajar.

  Perhaps this was not to be Graziella’s last day after all.

  Carlo and Pancrazio had invented a new game. They were running around the yard, kicking at chickens. Feathers flew. The black and white ducks and the mottled hens raced frantically this way and that. The dog barked.

  “Buona sera,” said Julia loudly, wading through squawking chickens, beaming at Carlo and Pancrazio.

  At once they stopped horsing around and stared at her in surprise. “Bella, bellissima,” said Carlo enthusiastically, gazing at her. In the pigpen her hair had dried completely. Now it poured loosely over her shoulders, curling in ringlets and spirals and fine wires of gold.

  Julia made the most of it. Tossing her head playfully, she began to talk boldly in Italian, using more words than she was supposed to know. “Un bel giorno,” she said gaily, looking up at the sky. “Molte nuvole.”

  They were delighted. “Si, si,” they said together, glancing up too at the white clouds floating in the blue.

  Julia tried to think of other things to say, to keep their attention away from the pig. She pointed at the sun shining above the trees behind the house. “Il sole! Gli
alberi!”

  Pancrazio and Carlo were enchanted. “Si, si! Il sole, gli alberi!”

  She pointed at the farmhouse across the valley. “Il contadino?”

  “No, no, Signorina,” said Pancrazio, laughing at her. “C’é un podere, non un contadino.”

  Julia glanced over her shoulder only long enough to see Graziella’s nose emerging from the crack in the door, sniffing at the air. Intelligent pig!

  Carlo reached out and stroked her hair. “Capelli d’oro,” he said thickly.

  And then Graziella took off with a clatter of sharp hooves. They turned to see the pig rushing down the stone steps to the road below the farmyard, her white rump with its curly tail bouncing down the stairs.

  “Ehi,” shouted Pancrazio, running after her, yelling and waving his arms, followed by Carlo. Tina came rushing out of the house with a rope, shrieking.

  Julia saw her chance. Picking up a bucket of kitchen scraps, she raced after them, crying, “Graziella, Graziella.”

  The pig was already halfway down the hill, dodging and swerving and squealing, scampering through the underbrush.

  Julia ran off to one side, calling, “Here, pig, here, Graziella.” Then, dropping the bucket, she stopped calling and gave herself up to plunging down the stony little path that was a shortcut between switchbacks. Where was the next shortcut? She found it, a white streak running off the road on the other side, and beat her way along it, down, down, half scrambling, half sliding, shoving her way through scratchy brambles that tore at her clothes, at her bare legs.

  Where was the next bend of the road? The shortcut should be leading her straight to it. But the white streak had disappeared, and soon she was engulfed in twiggy underbrush bristling from the steep hillside.

  Ear away she could hear them shouting at the pig, and for a moment she heard the desperate panting of Graziella, a frantic snuffling, the flailing of her heavy body through the thicket. Good luck, Graziella! Good luck, Julia!