by David Perry
“You have a point, dear friend,” said the Pope with a sigh. “An unwelcomed one, but a point nonetheless. Let’s hope it works better for you.”
“I certainly hope so, Your Holiness,” said de Blanis with a mysterious smile. “But, before you return to the Throne of St. Peter at the Vatican, Orvieto has one more surprise for you. I have something to show you.”
Clement grabbed his friend strongly, but affectionately by the arm. “Now, you show me a surprise? What, it slipped your mind over the last several months?”
“Wear this,” said the physician turned banker, tossing a tattered cape to the Pontiff. “Also, you’ll need this,” he said and handed him a small torch hanging in a sconce at the side of the door. Then de Blanis motioned for his friend to follow him.
“Where are you going? The entrance to the Duomo is this way,” said Clement, stepping into the hall outside his chambers. “This part of the Papal Palace is still abandoned. It’s been shut up since the time of Pope Martin the Fourth.”
“Longer than that. This is part of the expansion begun by Urban the Fourth. Watch your step.” De Blanis continued along the darkened abandoned passage for about a hundred yards until they came to a stone wall covered by a moth-eaten tapestry depicting the crucifixion. Pulling it aside, Moses revealed a large wooden door, old, but clearly well maintained. Reaching into his cloak, de Blanis withdrew two heavy and obviously ancient keys, one gold, one silver. Clement’s eyes grew large recognizing the unmistakable duo, each with a locking mechanism in the shape of a cross and embossed with the papal tiara.
“Where did you get those?” His tone was severe.
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Clement stood with his mouth agape. “You are a man of many secrets, my Lord de Blanis.”
The physician shrugged and put the keys in Clement’s hands. “I am a Jew. It comes with the territory. Open it. The gold one first. It’s a double lock.”
The pope pushed the first key into the lock, expecting it to turn with difficulty, but to his surprise, the tumbler fell into place with barely a sound.
“Now the second.”
The silver key slid in as easily, and the door stood unlocked.
“After you, Holy Father, and watch your step.”
Pope Clement held the torch in front of him, revealing a long and narrow passageway, sloping downward at an angle. The ceiling was low. Clement had to stoop.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see, my friend. You’ll see.”
The pair continued on for some minutes until the passage became level for a few feet. Suddenly, they were confronted with a wall.
“It’s a dead-end,” said Clement with a chilling foreboding and sinking of heart. The story of Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane popped into his brain. Could he have been deceived all this time?
“No, my noble de Medici. It is quite the opposite. Give me your keys.”
De Blanis held up his own torch to what at first appeared to be a blank stone wall, but in the flickering light was revealed to be a wooden door painted to look like stone. Putting the silver key into a lock disguised by artfully created moss, de Blanis pushed against the door to reveal another passage, dark, damp, and unpaved. The roots of trees grew through the ceiling. “This is the passage to freedom, an escape route to the foot of the cliff beneath San Giovanale, thankfully, that you did not have to use. The last pope to use it was Alexander the Sixth.”
“The Borgia!” gasped Clement.
“Yes, as you rightfully noted, he was more unpopular even than you, and perhaps even more misunderstood. He and his son Cesare fled here after the French, briefly, and took Naples in 1495.” De Blanis pulled the door shut and locked it back. “This door, however, leads to someplace a good deal more pleasant.” Slipping the golden key into the lock, de Blanis pushed against a similarly disguised door to the right. Swinging open, it revealed a long stone passage, richly adorned with tapestries and illuminated with intricately carved oil lamps. In the niches along the wall, as far as the eye could see, were statues of exquisite craftsmanship and detail. Etruscan.
“Where are we?” asked Clement.
“Let us say, my dear Giulio de Medici, that my home is a museum, and my museum is a home.”
“This is the basement of your palazzo?”
“Below the basement,” said de Blanis, nodding. “A good deal below, actually. Closer to purgatory.” He chuckled.
Clement walked over to one of the statues—Minerva offering wisdom to two young girls at her feet. A few feet farther down the corridor, Venus rose from a marble surf, a sculpture to shame Botticelli’s iconic version. The craftsmanship was superior. The age—he could not tell. They were at once ancient and contemporary, an artistic statement out of time. But who was the artist behind such wonders? Michelangelo would have but blushed. “These are incredible. I have seen nothing to their equal, in Rome or in Florence.”
“Indeed,” said de Blanis, “no one has for over a thousand years. Orvieto is rich in history and its history is rich. That for which the Romans leveled Volsini and the treasure for which they searched.”
“The statues of Pliny and Metrodorus!” Clement gasped. They were not a myth. He turned back to scan the secret museum. For a millennia this horde had been whispered about, dreamed about. Written about and sought. His uncle, Leonardo de Medici, would have wept, would never have been able to afford, or even catalog such wonders. No one could. No one had ever seen these before, except—“Moses. Where did you find these?”
The Jewish philanthropist smiled slyly. “Seek and you shall find, as the Good Book says.”
Clement stomped his feed in gleeful agitation. “Where!”
“Upon this Rock, my Lord Medici. Upon this Rock.”
CHAPTER XL
Dress Rehearsal
Thursday, December 19, 2013, afternoon, Orvieto
In the year 1223, St. Francis organized the first Presepe as a protest against the extravagant excess of the Church for which Christmas was just another way to extort guilt-laden donations or purchases of indulgences from the peasants. Heading into the forest near Assisi, Francis gathered together some poor families, pulled together an impoverished petting zoo, and set up the world’s first living Nativity. Since those thirteenth-century origins, towns up and down the Italian peninsula—especially those near Assisi—outdo each other in over-the-top recreations of the first Christmas. Orvieto was no exception, and to watch Don Bello in full CEO mode, Lee and Adriano could be forgiven for thinking that some competitive prize hung in the balance. The clifftop garden of San Giovanale was a circus of activity, with the church’s wizened rector carnival barker and ringmaster all rolled into one.
“It’s a stable,” the old priest directed a young teenage member of the parish who was setting up the manger, “not a hotel. Make it look rustic. Remember, they were poor refugees with a donkey. They didn’t take a taxi.”
About thirty people, young, old, male and female, were scurrying around, transforming San Giovanale’s garden into a Palestinian village circa the year 0. La Donna Volsini was handing out hot mulled wine and pastries, warmly fresh from her oven, to the workers. Her cat was curled up in the manger, as if daring a superior tenant to evict it. All around, local boys were digging fire pits. Others were hammering boards together for temporary stalls. A blacksmith’s anvil sat half-uncrated next to the horse cart that had hauled it next to the church. Large copper pots were stacked, wrapped in last year’s newspapers, ready for distribution around the site, vying for space with pallets of sandbags, red banners on poles, and rolling racks of costumes for peasants, priests, three kings, noblemen, serving women, and a virgin. It was like being on the movie set for a Renaissance faire documentary, which undoubtedly via Facebook this would become on St. Stephen’s Day, December 26, the first of two performances for San Giovanale’s Liv
ing Nativity. January 6, Three Kings Day, was the second, and closing, performance.
“Can you give me a hand?”
Lee turned to see Grigori, St. Chippendale, standing in sweat-bathed beauty and carrying a baby sheep around his neck. Errant pieces of straw tangled in his dirty blond hair and mud-caked work boots. The left bottom of his work shirt was untucked from his button-fly jeans, and the creamy white hem of his Calvins peaked tantalizingly above his waist. As he lifted the lamb down from his shoulder, a taut sliver of flesh popped into view where his hem had escaped. He had a tiny mole next to his outie navel. The sheep nuzzled Grigori’s stomach, then lay down in the grass with an almost post-coital bahhhhh.
“Sure,” was all Lee could manage, a gay Jimmy Carter, lusting in his heart. I’m a married man I’m a married man I’m a married man. He looked over to see his husband on the far end of the lot helping Don Bello and one of his teenage minions with the laptop-controlled sound system. Definitely Adriano’s forte. Help!
“Great, you can hold this while I hang?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The ladder.” Grigori smiled and mounted the wooden steps. “Hold it while I climb up and hang the star.” “Ah yeah, sure, you bet.”
I’ll help you hang just about anything you want, Lee thought, biting his tongue against making a joke about well-hung celestials. As he held the collapsible steps while Grigori’s trunk-like legs passed by in ascent, there it was again, the smell of cinnamon, like some sticky bun just ready to be licked, which wasn’t too far from the truth. Also, there was something familiar about Grigori, as if Lee had seen him somewhere before. Of course, it was possible. We all had dirty dreams, Lee thought, and this one could have starred in one of mine with ease.
“You live here in Orvieto?” Lee asked looking up at, oh, quite a lot.
“Rome,” Grigori answered, winching a stubborn Star of Bethlehem into place at the front of the grotto that would house the stable. His biceps rippled with the effort. It was like that old joke about Marilyn Monroe. Grigori had muscles in places where most men don’t have places. “I just came up to help Marco’s grandmother and Don Bello with some Christmas errands.”
“But you’re originally from Orvieto?”
“Fluelen. It’s just over the border in Switzerland, on Lake Lucerne. Hold on to my calf. I need to balance.”
Grigori stood up on tiptoes to wrestle with the LED comet over the manger. “There, almost got it. Lean into my butt so I don’t fall.”
“Sure.” Lee meekly complied, wondering if Adriano was watching the soft-core gay Victoria’s Secret scenario from across the garden. “Do you work in construction?”
“Sometimes.” Grigori jumped down from the ladder to land right in front of Lee with an almost gymnastic precision. The musk of his perspiration mixed with his unique cologne in a heady cocktail. Lee felt dizzy and a bit wobbly. “I do a lot of things,” he said with a smile that promised a diverse résumé.
One lives in hope, Lee thought.
“Oh Christ.” Grigori’s naughty smile faded. “It’s her. Gotta go.”
Lee turned to see Orvieto’s most relentless blogger standing on the rise above the garden, a lookout scanning for harpoonable prey.
Like a retreating thoroughbred colt, at the first sight of Peg, Grigori bolted across the expanse of San Giovanale’s garden and disappeared into a cliffside doorway built into the foundation of the church, half hidden by ivy and other foliage. In a second, the muscular youth had disappeared into the rock face. Robin into the Bat Cave.
“Lee! Mi amico! Ciao!”
Peg sailed down the ramp into the garden, an armada of chintz pushing pleated waves of scattering chickens, goats, and Grigori’s sheep in front of her prow-like dress. Scarlett O’Hara would have been hard pressed to have a bigger hoop, Lee thought.
“Where have you been hiding! I haven’t seen you for days!” The writer chirped as her flotilla of fabric dropped anchor. She bent over the bulbous bow of her ensemble to kiss Lee on both cheeks. “Was that Grigori I just saw skittering off, typically, into the bushes? Frankly, I’m surprised he had the nerve to show his face here again.”
“Why?” Lee suddenly found himself irritated by Peg’s practiced coy pond of fishing for a response.
“Deacon Andrea’s suicide,” she exhaled, slapping the sides of her copious dress as if Lee should see the obvious. “Grigori was the reason the Vatican sent that fax to Andrea.” Peg dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “A lot of people thought they were, well…you know. And, of course, because of the sex scandal at the Vatican.” She typed in the air with gloved hands as if googling to heaven. “Look it up. Ah, Don Bello, Adriano! Buon Natale!”
“Buon Natale, Signora Peg.” The blogger offered her cheeks, somewhat reticently, Lee thought, for the cleric’s cheeky benediction. Adriano motioned that his hands were dirty and just waved.
“What brings you down to our little parish from your writing tower?” Don Bello was smiling, but, as Lee couldn’t help but notice, with a copious effort of charm.
“Bambino Jesu, of course,” Peg said and tittered, taking out a pad and pen from her lifeboat-sized purse. “Orvieto wants to know, who it’s going to be this year in the manger for the living Nativity. It’s the highlight of my Christmas-week blog.”
Don Bello’s face grew ever so slightly dark, and his usual elfish grin took on a decidedly irritated crease. “Now, Peg, you know better than that. The identity of Baby Jesus is never revealed before the Presepe. One baby on St. Stephen’s, and a second infant on Three Kings Day, January sixth. You’ll just have to come back and file a live report from the scene. Adriano, why don’t you show our esteemed journalist what we’ve been working on today? You don’t mind, do you, Adriano? Of course not. Give Peg a tour of our little Bethlehem petting zoo.”
Peg frowned, but curtsied slightly in strategic retreat. “Of course, Don Bello. Whatever you say.”
Like a pastoral tug boat, the old priest linked Peg and Adriano arm in arm and pushed them toward the stable and its coterie of quadrupeds. “Be careful of the calf next to the stable. There may be cow pies. Ciao.”
Adriano looked over his shoulder at Lee in mock surrender as Peg pulled him toward the manger, her voice clear above the mooing of cows and grunting of pigs. Don Bello kept waving until they were at the far side of the garden. Like a guillotine he dropped his hand and turned to Lee in utter seriousness.
“What was she saying to you?”
“She insinuated that Grigori and Deacon Andrea were lovers.” Lee opted for frankness and hoped for the same from the priest. Don Bello just sighed.
“I have to go to confession every time I see that gossipy woman. She fills me with violent thoughts.”
The question hung in the air. Lee waited.
“They were friends.” Don Bello exhaled in surrender. “Very good, dear friends. How friends express their love for each other is no one’s business save theirs and God’s.”
Lee pressed on. “Did the Vatican think they were lovers? Is that why they stopped Andrea’s ordination?”
Don Bello stood for a moment looking out at the garden, gazing at the spot where Andrea balanced on his last night in Orvieto. “The Vatican has a reason for everything. They are not in the habit of revealing their secrets to me, or most people. It is a fault, a most grievous fault.”
Lee looked at the old man’s face and noticed that he was crying and that his hands were clenched in angry fists. “Here.” He pulled a paper napkin from Café Volsini out of his pocket and offered it to the priest.
“Thank you, my son.” Don Bello smiled slightly and dabbed his eyes. “You and Adriano are good boys…men. You are good men.”
“And Grigori?”
Don Bello seemed startled by the question. He paused a second before answering. “Grigori is a kind and generous soul. He’s also deeply conflicted, about many things.” Then, as if suddenly figuring something out for the first time, he added, “Grigori is
a very good man. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Do you think he feels responsible for Andrea’s suicide?”
Don Bello started to speak, then stopped. After a second he added in what was clearly meant to be the final word today on the matter. “Grigori would have given his life for Andrea. He still would. Where is he by the way? I thought he was helping you hang the star.”
“He was.” Lee sighed and cocked his head across the garden to where Adriano and Peg were inspecting the petting zoo. “As soon as he saw her approaching, he dashed inside a door over by the cliff.”
“I don’t blame him,” Don Bello said archly. “Our Lady Peg was most unkind to Grigori before and after Andrea jumped. She said…ah, well. Let’s just say her blog is the petty public face of a scurrilous scandal monger. God forgive her and me.”
“I’ve read her blog,” Lee said. “I never saw anything about Grigori there.”
“I made her take it down,” Don said with obvious but distasteful pride. “It was malicious, unfounded, hateful gossip. It wasn’t the first time she had written about things that should have remained private, and I got her to issue a retraction. Vicious woman. She even wrote about Bagnoregio—” Suddenly, the old priest clammed up, crossed himself, and kissed his pectoral cross. “Forgive me. I’m giving in to that of which I accuse her. Gossip.”
“As our friend Bishop Brian used to say, karma is a bitch. I’m sure she’ll get her comeuppance.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Don Bello said.
“Goddamn it!”
Lee and Don Bello pivoted at the cursing to see Adriano at the far end of the garden next to the animal lean-to. He was courageously defending a goat from Peggy’s wrath. The ram was vigorously devouring her purse. Adriano’s efforts were futile. Another goat was beginning to nibble on the hem of Peggy’s voluminous dress. The buffet was beginning to draw a cafeteria line of hungry baahhhhhs. Like an unhappy Bo Peep, Peggy went screaming up the ramp pursued by the carnivorous cabras.
For a moment, the garden of San Giovanale rang with the crowd’s healing laughter, one Lee thought, that had probably been stifled for a year. As Don Bello leaned on his shoulder and they walked up the earthen ramp toward the church, Lee couldn’t help but wonder what was in that blog post that Don Bello had successfully pressured Peg into deleting. He wondered who else might have read it. It was time to visit Bagnoregio.