by Joseph Grady
She called and texted Andrew and Natasha again. No responses. She stretched her legs and set off jogging. Summiting the Spanish steps, she went around the corner to the Quirinale, the residence of the Italian president. In the piazza in front of the Quirinale she slowed to a walk. Natasha still wouldn’t answer her phone. Lucy paced a little in the square, and caught the eyes of the military bersaglieri next to a big green Iveco who were scanning her nervously and fiddling with their M-16s.
It was seven o’clock. An hour and a half before Natasha would be expected in school. For the first time ever, Lucy was in downtown Rome, unable to go home, and without any particular plans or place to go.
“This is why so many tourists look miserable.”
Thus began five of the most anxious hours in Lucy’s life. She went to Piazza dell’Orologio, and sat on a park bench waiting for Natasha to go to class. She didn’t come. She didn’t come for the second hour of class either. After the second break Lucy went up to the group of foreigners smoking outside the Italian Language School.
“Scusate ragazzi. Qualcuno di voi per caso conosce Natasha Abramova?”
They all gave her blank stares.
“Does anyone know Natasha Abramova?” repeated Lucy.
“Oh yeah, she’s in our class.”
“Have you seen her today?”
“No, she’s not here.”
“If she comes, can you tell her to call Lucy Fox immediately?”
“Sure.”
“What’s my name again?”
“Lucy Fox.”
“And what are you going to tell Natasha to do?”
“Tell Natasha to call Lucy Fox.”
“Bravo.”
So Lucy wandered. She walked down to one end of the old city, Piazza San Pietro, and then turned around and walked to the other end, over to the Coliseum. If you walk slow enough on the off season, the guys dressed up like Roman soldiers will pester you and try to get you to pay for a picture with them. Strolling through the ancient sights, Lucy grew sick of seeing young lovers holding hands and forcing themselves to look happy because of how much they paid to see piles of old Roman rocks. How many poor souls have been willingly duped by the garbage they read in Eat, Pray, Love? So she slowed down, and was glad to have the opportunity to sneer at the soldiers and other vendors when they pestered her. She’d never been inside the coliseum before. It was a chilly day in November, but the sky was as blue as can be. She told the guards at the exit that she’d forgotten her umbrella inside. They asked if she had a ticket or receipt. No. Alright, go look for your umbrella. The coliseum was nice. Very old. Her phone buzzed, and she grabbed at her shoulder to see who it was. A text from Brian.
Hey Lucy, what’s up?
“What the hell?” she said to herself. Why would Brian send a text like that? She didn’t respond, but returned to her solitary slow march around the ancient stadium. Another text:
How’s it going? What are you up to today? My classes got cancelled today so I’ll just be hanging around home. Are you gonna be around?
Something was wrong. That made no sense at all. Either he was a very weird passive aggressive jerk, or something was very wrong. The Gregorian was about a half mile from the Coliseum. She ran through the forum and across Piazza Venezia to the flagship Jesuit university. It was the last break of the day before the fourth and final hour of morning lectures. The third year theology auditorium was surprisingly full. She stopped the first American seminarian she could find.
“Hey, have you seen Brian today?”
“Um... I don’t remember. He might be here. He usually sits right up there.” The seminarian pointed at Brian’s seat.
Lucy walked up the stairs and into a long tight row of foldable chairs and desks bolted to the ground. The students meanwhile, were all making their way back up into the tight stadium seating. In the middle of the row, a very tall American stood reading his Kindle, next to Brian’s empty spot.
“Hey, you’re Brian’s friend, right?” the seminarian asked Lucy, looking up from his reading. He spoke very slowly and deliberately.
“Yeah, have you seen him today?” she replied.
“He normally sits right where you’re standing, but I haven’t seen him today.”
“He hasn’t been to class at all?”
“Nope.”
“Have you seen Scott Valentino?”
“You heard about his foot, right? He’s on a plane for America right now.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. They carted him off this morning.”
“So your classes weren’t cancelled?”
“Um... no...”
“That bastard. Something weird’s going on.”
“No kidding. We just got to a really weird point in Anthropology. The professor’s pretty good though. Nice guy.” The seminarian pointed at an almost middle aged skinny professor in a black suit and a grey clerical shirt. “He speaks perfect American English, but they say he’s actually French and Hungarian. Nobody can figure it out.”
The bell rang and the seminarian curled himself into the flip down chair and kept on reading his kindle. Lucy, in the middle of the row, turned around, and found herself facing a row full of six large German seminarians, taking notes as the professor had already begun speaking into the microphone, in a very clear and precise Italian, but with a thick French accent. Lucy turned around again to see if she could get out the other side of the row. Four other Americans were sitting there and did not appear easily moveable. She sat down in Brian’s spot. What better way to kill another hour while thinking up what to do next?
The professor got going, and everyone furiously scribbled notes on pads of paper or typed away on laptops. Only a few sat back, folded their arms, and just listened. Lucy thought about the case and Brian’s text. She fumed about Brian’s non-cooperation and worried about Natasha’s whereabouts.
The seminarian next to her, who was reading a Jane Austen novel, placed a piece of paper and a pen in front of Lucy, “Hey, you know Italian, right? How ’bout you take some notes for us?”
“You don’t understand Italian?”
“I get by.”
“And you’re in your third year of theology?”
“Could you please stop talking in class? I’m trying to pay attention.”
He returned to Jane Austen and Lucy wrote her name on the top of the page. She considered the blank space below her name, and thought about drawing a picture of the professor. The professor mentioned something in Latin, so at the top of the page she wrote her name again, but in Latin, Lucia. Then next to that, she wrote the etymology of her name: lux, and the English definition: the light. Then she wrote, in the middle of the page, the true heirs: heredes veraces and a question mark. Between lux and the heredes she wrote Ginevra, then scratched it out, using Ginevra’s full name: Virginia, from the Latin Virgo, meaning Virgin. Another question mark. From Virginia there was another arrow to the word Mater and an arrow from Mater to the word Eugenio, from the Greek Εὐγενιος, which means the noble offspring. And behind Eugenio, she wrote Ludovici, from the latin ludum vici, meaning ‘I won the game’. Ironic. Along one side of the paper, she wrote down the names of everyone else at Palazzo Mortimer and their Latin or Greek etymologies. One of those names would have to belong to the “true heirs.” Brian. The clown. Pagliaccio. Andrew. Ὁ ἀνηρ. Του ἀνδρος. Ὁ ἀνθρωπος. The man. Natasha. Natálya. Dies Natalis. Christmas Day. Fr. Damien. Δαμαζω. The tamer. Scott Valentino. Valentia. Strength. Gambetti. Little legs or shrimp cocktail.
But who were the true heirs? And what was their connection to anyone else in the Palazzo? It couldn’t just be two random giant thugs in leather jackets. The guy who killed Eugenio was not at all their size. Otherwise the police wouldn’t have thought it was Lucy. They’d even measured Lucy next to the height of the person on the security recordings. Next to the true heirs she wrote the word anonymous, from the Greek α-ὂνομα, without a name.
An Ame
rican seminarian at the end of Lucy’s row raised his hand.
“Sì,” said the professor, pointing at him.
“Um... scusa... ma io non capisco... cioè,” his Italian was horrendous. “Questa cosa... um... questa cosa di Gaudium et Spes...”
“You can just say it in English,” the professor told him. Just like Scott, the professor had a Wisconsin accent.
“Alright, so here’s the thing. We’re talking about the document Gaudium et Spes, paragraph twenty two, and it’s relationship to Rahner’s anonymous Christianity. He’s trying to be anthropological, but the most anthropological thing in Vatican II clearly contradicts him, right? If we say that by creation, man already has redemption, what’s the point of Gaudium et Spes’s affirmation that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light?”
Lucy’s head picked up when she heard the word anonymous. Meanwhile most of the class had set down their pens and were stretching their hands. Once the professor went into English, they all checked out, and the Americans, for the first time during the whole lecture, looked like they were paying attention.
“But it also goes on to talk about the first Adam being only the figure of the future Adam, not vice versa,” the professor responded. “Rahner’s not talking about creation in our terms, which have a bifurcation of natural and supernatural. Remember the implicit athematic knowledge of the Logos that we were talking about earlier? We can affirm the same about created man. Even in creation, he’s still talking about the incarnate Word. And here’s another thing. Rahner’s not talking about man being a mystery, meaning, like, something that we don’t know, that we’ve still got to find out, like an Agatha Christie novel, or what’s for lunch today. I don’t know right now, but I’ll find out in an hour. Probably pasta. He’s saying a mystery that is, in itself, impenetrable, but that is also, at the same time, the horizon upon which I can understand everything else. That’s something to consider. ”
Bill leaned over to Lucy and whispered, “But what if pasta is the horizon upon which I understand everything else?”
Lucy ignored him and wrote the word “mystery” on her paper next to the true heirs, and put an unequal sign between the two.
The seminarian at the end of the row raised his hand again, “But professor – ”
“Listen I’m on your side,” he interrupted. “Rahner’s certainly problematic, but perhaps not so much for the reasons you point out.”
“So what’s problematic?”
“Well, it’s right there in Gaudium et Spes twenty two. Man is not the measure for the incarnation. Despite how much he claims to be doing a posteriori theology, Rahner risks making the incarnation necessary and therefore not free, given what he’s said about man. Against Rahner, Gaudium et Spes affirms that the light comes in freedom, not necessity. The light is the measure of man, not man the measure of the light.”
“Right, so anonymity is impossible,” said the seminarian.
“Well what’s anonymity? It’s the lack of a name. And what’s a name?” The professor then pointed at the people along the row of Americans. “You’re Jack, you’re Kevin, you’re Michael, you’re Bill, you’re... I’ve never seen you here before.”
He was pointing at Lucy.
“I’m Lucy.”
“Well, it’s five weeks into the semester and you’ve finally decided to bless us with your presence at lectures today. Does Brian know you’re in his spot?”
“I’m an ospite.”
“Va bene. Anyways, you’re Lucy. The point is that you have a name, and that means that someone else calls on you by name. Like Balthasar said, name, mission, and identity are all the same thing. You don’t have an identity without a name that expresses your mission. Without a relationship, a name has no sense. It’s not about your own consistency. The name is yours, yes, but it’s not yours. It’s for the other. Something else is the measure. Someone else calls you by name. Perhaps that’s where the difficulty lies. Anonymity, perhaps, works in theory. But in reality, anonymity is horrendous. It’s hell. It’s to be without relationship.”
Before the American had a chance to ask another question, the professor went on with his lecture notes, switching back to Italian, and Lucy wrote down on her paper the light is the measure of man, not man the measure of the light. And in one blinding second everything made sense. She rewrote it, but in Latin and Greek: lux is the measure of ανθρωπος, not ανθρωπος the measure of lux. She rewrote it a third time, this time all of it back in English, substituting the Latin and Greek with the modern names of the people from the Palazzo. Her jaw dropped, and she put her hands on her head.
“The light is the measure of man,” she said out loud. “Lucy is light. Lucy is the measure… the police told me that… Lucy is the measure.”
“What was that?” The professor looked up.
“The light is the measure of man!” this time Lucy blurted out, sitting up straight and yelling at the professor.
“Correct,” he narrowed his eyebrows and looked back.
“The light is the measure of man, but what if the light is also man? Or woman, I guess, in my case. What if the light is a human person?”
“That’s exactly the proposal.”
“Then that means that lux and ανθρωπος are the same height! What if man is the same height as lux? Then we’re the same! We can measure!”
“Yes and no. Man and the light are exactly the same but still very different, aren’t they?”
“Very!”
“That’s the mystery.”
Lucy stood up. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You’re brilliant!”
All hundred and fifty students in the lecture hall had turned to stare at her. She climbed over Bill, Michael, Kevin and Jack. They each tried to get up and move out of her way, but the Greg’s rows of desks were too tiny and she was moving too fast to give them time to get up. Once in the aisle, she sprinted down the stairs, across the front of the lecture hall, and out the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LA CHENOSI
Coming down the front steps of the Greg her phone buzzed. Another text from Brian.
Listen. We’ve got your friends Andrew, Brian, and Natasha tied up on the terrace. If you’d ever like to see them alive again you need to come home within half an hour. The True Heirs.
She texted back.
I can be there in an hour.
They weren’t having it:
You’ve got half an hour or they’re dead.
At Brian’s pace, the Greg is a forty-minute walk from the Palazzo. She sprinted across Piazza della Pilotta, and was about to turn the corner when she heard a clicking sound. An American seminarian on a black bicycle was moving along very slowly through the piazza, carefully avoiding pot holes. Every time the petal went around one rotation, the bike made a terrible clicking sound. He was thin, was wearing a helmet and clerics, and a fleece jacket with the word Denver written on it.
“Hey, hey, hey!” she flagged him down. “I need your bike.”
He stopped and put one leg on the ground. “Um... you need my bike? Do we know each other?”
“It’s an emergency, I don’t have time to explain. You’re at the NAC, right? I’ll give it right back, I promise. It’s an emergency”
“Well... um... I guess I wanna believe you... but...”
“Just give me the bike! It’s life or death! I promise. I live right down the street from you,” she walked up right next to the bike and put her face right next to his.
He leaned back, and put his leg out farther, now very unsteadily leaning to one side of the bike. “No, I’m sure it sounds like you have a great reason to need the bike more than me right now, it’s just that I... I don’t know... it’s a little weird don’t you – ”
He was interrupted by Lucy, who had firmly planted her lips right on his, in an attempt to end the discussion. She kept pressing forward with her lips, and grabbed onto the handlebars, maintaining her lips on his face, un
til he let go of the handlebars and fell backwards off the bike. He lay on the ground with a stupid smile on his face, and Lucy helped herself to his bike.
“I’m sorry, I just really need a bike right now.”
She got on, and started to petal away.
“Hey!” the seminarian yelled back, now laughing. “If you’d like to come convince me to lend you the helmet too, I’ve still got it. Oh, and don’t worry, I won’t tell Scott about anything. We can keep this little moment between us two.”
Lucy didn’t have time to worry about what the Scott comment was all about, because she was already in the highest gear, halfway down the block, yelling “permesso” at all the tourists on the narrow lanes between her and Starbucks, where she hit the brakes, dismounted, and left the bike on the ground outside the store. Within three minutes, she was back on the bike, headed towards Piazza Flaminio, where she made another brief stop at the biggest modeling agency in Rome. The clicking noise that the petal made every time it went around was louder and faster than ever. From Flaminio she cut around the Vatican, Via della Conciliazione, then past San Pietro’s and straight into a tunnel that led into one of the ugliest places in Rome: the underground bus station beneath the Janiculum hill. Lucy only ever used that bus station short-cut in times of extreme need. The crowds were not very thick, so she cruised through the fluorescent-lighted tunnels, with a strong odor of urine, riding directly on the moving walkways, to get to the tour-bus parking garage, and emerge at the top of the Janiculum, ten minutes ahead of Brian and Natasha’s threatened execution time.
She skidded to a stop, dismounted and left the bike unlocked on the ground outside the entrance to Palazzo Mortimer. I was sitting there in the lobby waiting for her. Gambetti and the security guards were sound asleep, snoring and slobbering on the porter’s desk, gripping Gatorade bottles that had clearly been laced with some strong sleep aids. I explained the situation to her.