The Dante Game

by Jane Langton

  7:30

  His Excellency the archbishop greets His Holiness and the Cardinal Prefect as they descend from the Vatican helicopter.

  7:45

  The sacred procession gathers in the Baptistery.

  8:00

  Easter mass is celebrated in the cathedral.

  9:00

  The recessional begins.

  9:15

  The Explosion of the Cart is witnessed from the steps of the cathedral.

  9:25

  His Holiness blesses the cathedral. Schoolchildren perform a choral celebration of the second year of the anti-drug crusade.

  10:00

  His Holiness departs for Rome.

  So far things had gone without a hitch. The archbishop was grateful to the Cardinal Prefect, who was, he knew, responsible for the prompt arrival of the little party from the Vatican. Now as they gathered in the golden gloom of the Baptistery to form in procession for the stately entry into the cathedral, it was Signor Bindo’s turn to chivvy them courteously into line.

  The archbishop watched with admiration as Bindo, smiling, murmuring softly, touched here a white lawn sleeve, there the golden brocade of a silken chasuble.

  Modestly the archbishop took his place at the end of the procession, immediately after the Holy Father, yawning secretly behind his hand. He shook his head graciously at the Sister of Charity who was offering him a little glass of mineral water, the only thing that could pass his lips before the first mass of Easter morning. Watching her as she carried her tray along the line, he couldn’t help wishing that all the nuns in the world were as gentle as the Sisters of Charity. But, please God, the Holy Father would never catch a glimpse of those obstreperous women from Chicago. That earnest young man, Inspector Rossi, had seen to that.

  At this moment, if all went according to plan, those misguided women were three blocks away, crowded together under a festive tent on Piazza San Marco, the guests of a special delegation of clergy and laity from the inspector’s own parish church in Sesto Fiorentino. There was a platform within the tent with a microphone for anyone who wished to make a preposterous address, tables were heaped with delicacies, courteous policemen and policewomen were posted at the exits to assure any restless American religious lady that the press of people in the street made it impossible, alas, to approach nearer to the cathedral.

  Thus, God be praised, the rebellious banners of the American nuns would not be seen by His Holiness, nor would he hear the faintest echo of their screams of protest.

  It was five minutes to eight. At a signal from Leonardo Bindo the golden doors were opened and the processional began.

  Remembering the warning of Inspector Rossi, the archbishop said a silent prayer for the safety of all servants of God taking part in the Easter celebration, especially the holy father, and then he walked bravely out into the sunlight, which was now pouring over the square through a hole in the clouds.

  Eight blocks away on Via il Prato another procession began its march to the cathedral. Cheers went up along the narrow street as the mounted policemen urged their horses forward and the band struck up with its drums and horns and fifes. The doublets of the musicians were red and blue, their trousers were slashed with scarlet and yellow, their hats were crowned with feathers. The noise was deafening, battering back and forth between the stone facades on either side.

  Behind the band strode the flag bearers, each with one jaunty arm akimbo. Tossing their banners high over their heads, they caught them one-handed on the way down and tossed them up again.

  The pride of the parade was the Carro del Fuoco, pulled along the street on its iron wheels by the four white oxen from the Val di Chiana. They were taller than their handlers. Their golden horns sparkled, their golden hooves stepped heavily on the sprinkled sawdust. Behind them wobbled the lofty festival cart, swaying from side to side like a drunken man. Emblazoned with the lily of Florence, wound around with fireworks, crowned with Pazzi dolphins and a gilt coronet, the tall cart lumbered forward in the direction of the Piazza del Duomo, while the music tweedled and thumped and the spectators along Via il Prato and Via Palazzuolo applauded and shouted, “Eccolo! Evviva!”

  It was even noisier on Via Cavour, as Homer and Zee shouldered their way frantically in the direction of the square. They had been forced to abandon the Saab at Piazza della Liberià. Around them now the street was jammed, thickly blocked with Florentine citizens and tourists and visitors from the Tuscan countryside, from Siena and Prato, Pisa and Carrara, Pistoia and Lucca and Arezzo, all pushing steadily forward in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Holy Father.

  At San Marco the din was increased by the amplified voices of the sisters from Chicago, proclaiming the dawn of a new age for Catholic women. Their only listeners were Inspector Rossi’s patient fellow parishioners from Sesto Fiorentino and the sculptured saints on the facade of San Marco, lifting their stone hands in wonder. Balloons floated over Via Cavour in clusters like bunches of grapes, hawkers sold rosaries and medallions with pictures of the Holy Father, babies screamed, teenagers laughed and shouted, and two of them barged past Homer Kelly, their elbows prodding his ribcage.

  “Explain it to me, Zee,” whimpered Homer, “this exploding cart. What’s it got to do with Easter, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Light—the return of light to the world with Christ’s resurrection.” Zee shouted in Homer’s ear and hauled him urgently through dense crowds of tourists bristling with cameras. “It goes back to pre-Christian times in Florence, when the Romans brought fire from the altar of the gods to every hearth.”

  “Well, what’s this about the dove? What dove?”

  “O Signora, mi displace.” Zee maneuvered past two mothers, two babies, two strollers decked with infant baggage. “It’s a toy dove carrying a flint. At the right moment it flies along a wire from the high altar of the cathedral all the way down the nave and out the door to the cart covered with fireworks. The flint strikes a spark and ignites it. Or else—scusi, Signorina!”

  “What? Or else what?”

  “Or else it doesn’t, and then the farmers of Tuscany can expect a bad harvest. Listen!”

  They craned their necks. From far ahead came the beat of drums and the eerie one-note blasting of horns. Cheers went up in the square. “I can’t see,” cried a child, tugging at her father, who picked her up and hoisted her high on his shoulders. Homer was tall enough to see above the choked throngs in the street the high-flying banners of the flag tossers. Miraculously they floated in air, then dropped out of sight and floated up again.

  “Where’s Rossi?” shrieked Homer. “We’ve got to stop the whole damned thing. He’s got to call everything off.”

  But there was no Inspector Rossi, no uniformed officers of the polizia, only a row of Vigili Urbani in white helmets along the sidewalk and a double file of soldiers in khaki uniforms lining the barrier around the open space between the Baptistery and the cathedral. Beyond the black berets of the soldiers Homer could see the halberds of the pope’s traditional household defenders, the Swiss Guard, and beyond the guardsmen rose the grandstands where the important people sat in rising tiers. Homer had read the list in the paper—the prime minister of Italy was there, along with the President of the Republic and miscellaneous royal personages from Great Britain and Monaco, a clutch of Kennedys from the United States, and a scattering of famous athletes and film stars.

  Then Zee jogged Homer’s arm and pointed up at the uniformed sharpshooters on the rooftops. “How do we know they’re legitimate?”

  “Oh, they’re legitimate, all right,” exulted Homer. “Look, there he is, there’s Rossi.”

  Inspector Rossi was recognizable at once, silhouetted against the sky, a slight figure among the tall men with rifles. He was turning slowly, looking down with an anxious face at the crowded street, sweeping his gaze over the multitudes thickly crushed together in the square and crowded against the barrier.

  “Inspector Rossi,” cried Zee, throwing his arms in the air. �
��Hey, hey,” hollered Homer.

  One of the sharpshooters nudged Rossi, and he shifted his attention and looked in their direction.

  “Here we are,” shrieked Homer, making huge beckoning gestures. “Come down!”

  The inspector nodded and moved out of sight, while Homer and Zee struggled to the side of the street, plunging through a surge of eager Florentines. “Scusi, Signore,” cried Homer, “scusi, Signora,” while from a thousand throats a cheer went up, “II Papa, il Papa!”

  CHAPTER 53

  Behold the beast with stinging tail unfurled.…

  Inferno XVII, 1.

  On the other side of the square three people in the black robes of the Misericordia worked their way through the crowd at the barricade. Pausing a moment at the checkpoint, they were waved through by an officer of the carabinieri in a cocked hat.

  “Look,” said an old man, standing in the front row behind the barrier. He bent down to his grandson, who was squeezed into the circle of his arm. “Do you see the black robes? Those are the good people of the Misericordia. See? There they go with a stretcher. Someone must have fallen ill inside the Duomo.”

  The music of the service poured out of the cathedral, and the sound of five thousand voices chanting the responses. A stream of schoolchildren in blue choir robes mounted the cathedral steps. The choirmistress hissed at them and pointed there and there and there, and lined them up in three perfect rows.

  In single file behind the children came the three people in black gowns, their hoods tied tightly around their heads like kerchiefs. With solemn tread they walked in front of the important people, they passed the tall ceremonial cart as the oxen were unharnessed and led away, they moved up the cathedral steps as a man walked down them carrying a wire.

  “Look,” said the old man, leaning down again to his grandson, “the wire is for the dove. You see, the man is attaching it to the fireworks so that they will blow up, BAM, when the dove makes a spark.”

  BAM,” cried the child eagerly. “BAM, BAM.”

  Inside the cathedral the organ began to thunder a tremendous recessional, and the papal procession started down the central corridor of the nave. Its progress was delayed whenever the holy father paused to bless kneeling members of the congregation or kiss an occasional child. Behind him the Cardinal Prefect murmured, “Holiness, we must hurry.”

  Benignly the pontiff smiled and walked faster, keeping his eyes forward. As he emerged from the shadow of the lofty central door, the Porta Maggiore, the crowds in the square began to cheer again. Waves of reverent clapping beat against the marble facade and echoed around the square.

  Mounting a tall platform, the Holy Father raised his arms and cried, “Christ is risen! Alleluia!”

  There was a roar of response, “He is risen indeed! Alleluia!”

  Lost in the general clamor was a single defiant whoop from one of the Chicago sisterhood, a stray nun who had escaped the concentration camp at Piazza San Marco. Unrolling an impertinent sign, she held it high over her head and shouted “Priesthood for women!” But only the archbishop, of all the clergy massed on the cathedral steps, witnessed this sacrilege, and he was thankful to see her hauled off at once by a couple of soldiers in khaki.

  The great morning was nearly over. The archbishop’s heart thumped with foreboding. It was time for the Explosion of the Cart. What was it Inspector Rossi had said? “The noise of the fireworks could mask another sound.”

  Now, as Signor Bindo leaned toward His Holiness and pointed out the remote control device that would start the little dove on its journey down the wire, the old archbishop let his gaze rove around the square. Hundreds of soldiers encircled the enclosed space between Baptistery and cathedral, scores of policemen with sharpshooting rifles stood ready on the rooftops, dozens of Swiss Guardsmen and officers of the Vatican Vigilanza surrounded the Holy Father, and a thousand carabinieri were scattered among the crowd.

  And there was His Holiness, high on the ceremonial platform, ready to begin. The archbishop’s eyes widened. Surely the platform was higher than it had looked on the architect’s original plan? Had there been some mistake in construction? There was no denying that His Holiness was now a clear and conspicuous target. Closing his eyes, the archbishop told himself that nothing could possibly happen, that they were in God’s hands, and that all would surely be well. Opening them again, he whispered, “Amen,” and forced himself to look on calmly as the Holy Father pushed the button.

  At once a breathless silence descended on the square. A balloon sailed up out of reach, but the child who had been clutching it did not cry. On the cathedral steps Leonardo Bindo moved humbly away from the platform and took his place loyally beside the archbishop. Then the grandfather standing behind the barricade squeezed his grandson’s hand and whispered, “Here it comes, the little dove.”

  The wire thrummed, the toy dove flew out of the doorway, rushed at the cart and struck it, and the fireworks began. There was a puff of smoke. A spitter-spat began at the bottom of the cart, and the noisy explosions circled upward.

  Throughout the square there was a simultaneous release of breath, “Aaaah, there it goes! Eccol” Torrents of sparks showered down, and white smoke billowed. There was laughter and applause. His Holiness beamed, and in spite of himself the archbishop smiled broadly, enjoying the din, the overwhelming uproar. It was a happy noise, auspicious and safe and joyful, the sign of a prosperous harvest.

  For Inspector Rossi, emerging from the narrow channel of Via Cavour into the open square, it was the moment he had been dreading. At the same instant Homer Kelly caught sight of someone pressing and shoving his way toward the railing, and he pointed and shouted above the bang and thunder of the exploding cart, “Look, Inspector, it’s Raffaello Biagi. I told you, he’s part of it.”

  “Avanti,” shouted Zee. Vaulting over the barricade, the three of them began to run along the north side of the cathedral, urged on by the excited cries of the spectators. What was happening? “Stop, thief!”

  The cries alerted Raffaello, who looked back in surprise. He had come to the Easter celebration to indulge in his favorite sport of purse-snatching. Now he too leaped over the railing and took off, while smoke billowed over the square and the fireworks erupted around the corner in front of the Duomo.

  The man and the two women in the black robes of the Misericordia witnessed the festive explosion from a vantage point just inside the high central portal at the west front of the cathedral. Behind the rows of Swiss Guards and the men of the Vatican Vigilanza they stood like dark columns in the shadows, black against black, ready at a moment’s notice to attend a fainting child or an aging prelate overcome with fatigue.

  By this time the sun had crept around to the south, and it raked across the facade in a blaze of light, illuminating here a marble apostle, there a virgin and child, dazzling and blinding the multitude in the square, throwing into total darkness the deep jambs of the central door.

  Julia’s hair was hidden under her black kerchief. As the innocent shield and protector, her place was in front with Lucretia. Behind them Roberto Mori waited quietly, listening to the machine-gun fusillade from the Carro del Fuoco.

  As the cannonade of firecrackers raged in smoke and fire the whole tidal thrust of Roberto’s life was cresting, spilling over in waves of glory and power. His eyes were moist, his heart was bursting out of his body. Gazing up at the man on the high platform, he studied the back of the hand-embroidered chasuble with its Latin cross, gold on white—the work, it would be, of Gammarelli, the finest ecclesiastical tailor in the city of Rome. Slowly Roberto lowered himself and knelt on the marble floor. Reaching under his gown with a gloved hand, he withdrew Matteo’s .22-calibre American automatic, the one with the thick sound-suppressing barrel. Softly he inserted it between the hanging folds of the robes of the two women in front of him and aimed it at the center of the cross on the chasuble, while the fireworks burst and thundered, mounting swiftly to the summit of the lofty cart, burning through the st
ring holding the three little flags at the top, which now unrolled in sprightly fashion and whirled merrily around and around, displaying the dolphins of the Pazzi family, the lamb of the woolen guild, the lily of Florence.

  It was a matter of simple geometry. The long lines running straight across the calendar from Easter to Easter were at last converging. Roberto fired.

  But the convergence failed. At the last instant Julia’s hand reached down and struck the muzzle aside, and the cartridge spanged into the carpeted step.

  The slight noise of the explosion was lost in the last merry snap of the firecrackers at the very pinnacle of the tall cart, above the uppermost coronets and lambs and lilies and dolphins. Spitter-spat, rattled the tag end of the squibs and crackers, and then the little flags stopped whirling and the smoke began to clear, and the spectacle of the exploding cart was over. The Holy Father lifted his hands to clap over his head, and everyone cheered.

  Trembling, Roberto lowered his weapon and rose to his feet. And then there was a last unexpected pop of fireworks, and everyone laughed. No one saw the tallest of the Misericordia volunteers slump and drop out of sight. But across the square in one of the windows above the open loggia of the Bigallo, Matteo Luzzi lowered his rifle and stepped back into darkness.

  Roberto, falling, brushed against the back of Julia’s gown. Turning her head, she saw the blood drenching his black robe. With a sob she bent to take the gun as it slipped from his fingers. Then Lucretia too glanced down, and tore the weapon from Julia’s hand.

  Julia turned and ran away. The immense empty volume of the cathedral opened around her, and around Lucretia, who was running too.

  Only then did one of the Swiss halberdiers on the cathedral steps look back and elbow the guardsman beside him, as the children of the choir began singing and the choir-mistress pumped her arms up and down and grinned at them and mouthed the words, “Mai, mai, mai!” In the stands there were cooing murmurs of appreciation. “Angels, cherubs.”