The Last Cato (20 page)

“Let’s go, Ottavia.” Farag cheered me on from the other side of the door, seeing I had no intention of entering.

A naked lightbulb hung from the ceiling of the grotto, casting a dim glow of shadows on a table, a chair, and some tools covered with a thick layer of dust located next to the entrance. Luckily, the captain had brought a powerful flashlight that lit the space up as though it was a thousand-watt beam. Some stairs, excavated in the rock many centuries before, tumbled toward the depths of the earth. Without hesitating, the Rock began his descent, while Farag stood to one side to let me pass and brought up the rear. Along the walls, lots of graffiti carved in the rock recalled the dead:
Cornelius cuius dies inluxit,
“Cornelius, whose day dawned”;
Tauta o bios,
“This is our life”;
Eirene ecoimete,
“Irene went to sleep.” After a cramped space, the stairs turned left. There, several headstones were piled, some of which were only fragments. Finally we came to the last stairway and found a small, rectangular-shaped sanctuary decorated with magnificent frescos that must have dated from the eighth or ninth century. The captain shined his flashlight on them, and we were fascinated to discover the prayer of the forty martyrs of Sebastia. According to legend, these young men made up the Twelfth Legion and loaned their services in Sebastia, Armenia, during the reign of Emperor Licinius, who ordered that all his legionnaires make sacrifices to the gods for the good of the empire. The forty soldiers of the Twelfth Legion flatly refused, since they were Christian. They were condemned to death by numbness—that is to say, they died frozen, hung by a rope, naked over an icy pond.

We admired how that whitewashed plaster wall had stayed in nearly perfect condition all those centuries, while later works done with more advanced techniques were in lamentable condition today.

“Don’t shine your flashlight on the frescos, Kaspar,” Farag begged, from the dark. “It could damage them forever.”

“Sorry.” The Rock quickly pointed the light toward the ground. “You’re right.”

“What do we do now? Do we have a plan?”

“Keep walking, Doctor. That’s all.”

On the other side of the sanctuary, we came to a cavity that seemed to be the beginning of a long corridor. We continued for a long stretch in complete silence, passing other galleries on the right and left in which you could see an endless line of tombs dug into the walls. The only sound we heard was that of our footsteps. Despite the vents in the ceiling, I felt I was suffocating. At the end of the tunnel, there was a new stairway, blocked off by a chain with a sign prohibiting entrance. The captain went around it and led us to the second level underground; there, the atmosphere was even more oppressive, if that were possible.

“Let me remind you,” whispered the Rock, “these catacombs have hardly been explored. This level has never been studied, so be really careful.”

“Why don’t we study the upper level?” I felt the blood racing in my temples. “We have passed many galleries. The entrance to Purgatory might be there.”

The captain walked forward a few steps and stopped, shining his light on something he saw on the floor. “I don’t think so, Doctor. Look.”

At our feet, enclosed in an intense circle of light, you could clearly make out a monogram of Constantine with the horizontal traverse line, identical to the one on Abi-Ruj Iyasus’s body and on the cover of the codex of Saint Catherine. There was no doubt that the Staurofilakes had been there. What we couldn’t know, I told myself in anguish, was how long ago they had been there, since most of the catacombs had fallen into disuse during the early Middle Ages right after, little by little, the saints’ relics had been removed for security reasons and the vegetation had sealed the entrances, many of which had disappeared completely.

Farag couldn’t contain his delight. As we advanced at a good pace through a very low tunnel, he celebrated the fact that we had deciphered the Staurofilakes’ mysterious language. From now on, he said, we would be able to understand all their secret clues and hidden signs. His voice rose from the darkness that closed in behind me; only the captain’s flashlight lit up that cavern a good meter in front of me. In the reflection of the light on the rock walls, I examined the three rows of loculi—many of them obviously occupied—that meandered at the height of our feet, our waists and our heads. I read the names of the dead engraved in the small headstones: Dionisio, Puteolano, Cartilia, Astasio, Valentina, Gorgono. Each one had a symbol for the work they did (priest, farmer, housewife) or for the primitive Christian religion they professed (the Good Shepherd, the dove, the anchor, the loaves and fishes). Encrusted in the plaster were the deceased’s belongings, from coins to tools or toys, if they were children. That place was a priceless historical resource.

“A new chrismon,” the captain announced, stopping at the intersection of two galleries.

To the right, at the back of a narrow passageway, was a cubicle with an altar at its center; on the walls were various loculi and large niches, each shaped like an oven, in which an entire family was usually buried. To the left was another gallery with a high ceiling identical to the one we had just passed. In front of us was a new stairway dug into the rock. It was a spiral stairway that twisted and turned down around a thick central column of polished stone that then disappeared into the dark depths of the earth.

“Let me have a look,” begged Farag, stepping in front of me.

The monogram of Constantine was chiseled right on the first step.

“I believe we need to keep going down,” the professor murmured, passing his hands nervously over his hair and pushing up his glasses.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I objected. “It’s dangerous to keep descending.”

“We can’t turn back now,” affirmed the Rock.

“What time is it?” asked Farag looking at his own watch.

“Six forty-five,” the captain announced, starting to descend.

Given the chance, I’d have tromped back to the surface. But who was brave enough to backtrack alone, in the dark, through that labyrinth full of dead people? I had no choice but to follow the captain and descend, with Farag close behind me.

The spiral stairway seemed endless. We continued down into that pit, step by step, breathing air that grew heavier and more stifling, as we held on to the column to keep from losing our balance. Soon the captain and Farag had to walk stooped over, as their foreheads grazed the stairs overhead. The steps began to grow narrower, and the wall and the central column started to close in, making that dreadful funnel more suitable for children than adults. The captain had to stoop over and walk sideways, since his wide shoulders no longer fit through the opening.

If the Staurofilakes had thought up those stairs, they had twisted minds. The place was claustrophobic. The air was dwindling; and the thought of returning to the surface seemed just short of impossible. It seemed as though we’d bidden farewell to the real world (its cars, lights, people) forever. I felt like we’d entered one of those niches and we could never leave. Time stood still, and there was apparently no end to that diabolical stairway, which grew smaller and smaller at each step.

At one point, I was seized by a panic attack. I couldn’t breathe, I was choking. I just wanted to get out of there, leave that hole, get back to the surface immediately. I was gasping like a fish out of water. I stopped, closed my eyes, and tried to calm the ferocious, hurried beats of my heart.

“Wait, Captain,” Farag said. “Doctor Salina isn’t well.”

The place was so narrow that Farag could barely reach me. He softly stroked my hair and then my cheek. “Are you better, Ottavia?”

“I can’t breathe.”

“Yes you can. Just calm down.”

“I have to get out of here.”

“Listen to me,” he said firmly, taking my chin and raising my face to where he stood a few steps above me. “Don’t let claustrophobia get the best of you. Take several deep breaths. Forget where we are and look at me, okay?”

I did as he said. I fixed my eyes on him, and as if by magic, his eyes gave me breath and his smile expanded my lungs. I calmed down and regained control. He stroked my hair again and gave the captain a sign to keep descending.

Five or six steps farther down, Glauser-Röist abruptly stopped. “Another chrismon.”

“Where?” asked Farag. Neither he nor I could see it.

“On the wall, level with your head. It’s etched deeper than the others.”

“The others were on the floor,” I pointed out. “As the steps wore away, the engravings could have worn down.”

“That’s absurd,” added Farag. “Why here? It doesn’t point to any path.”

“It could be confirmation to the aspiring Staurofilax that he’s going the right way. A sign of encouragement.”

“Maybe.” Farag wasn’t convinced.

We resumed our descent, but we had barely gone two or three steps when the captain stopped again. “Another chrismon.”

“Where is it this time?” The professor was very annoyed.

“The same place as the last one.” The previous chrismon was at the level of my face. I could see it perfectly.

“I still think this makes no sense,” insisted Farag.

“Let’s keep going down,” the Rock said laconically.

“No, Kaspar, wait! Examine the wall. See if you notice anything. If not, let’s keep descending. But please check it over carefully.”

The Swiss Rock turned the flashlight on me, momentarily blinding me. I covered my eyes with one hand and cried out a muffled protest. Just then I heard an exclamation louder than my own.

“There’s something here, Professor!”

“What have you found?”

“Between the two chrismons, you can make out another eroded shape in the rock. It looks like a small gap. I can barely see it.”

My blindness was passing. Suddenly I could detect the shape the captain was talking about. It wasn’t a gap at all. It was a sliver of stone perfectly embedded into the wall.

“It looks like the work of
fossores,
*
a reinforcement in the wall or a masonry frame,” I commented.

“Push it, Kaspar!” the professor urged.

“I don’t think I can. I’m all twisted up.”

“Then you push it, Ottavia!”

“You want me push that rock? It isn’t going to move an inch.”

As I was protesting, I rested my palm on the block. With just a nudge, it gently moved inside. The hole it left in the wall was smaller than the rock itself. The front face of the rock was chipped away along the edges so it would fit into a frame about five centimeters thick.

“It moved! It moved!”

It was strange. The ashlar stone slid away noiselessly and without any resistance, as if it had been greased. My arm wasn’t long enough to push the rock to the end of its track. We were clearly surrounded by several meters of rock, and the small square passageway it slid down seem endless.

“Take the flashlight, Doctor,” yelled Glauser-Röist. “Get into the hole! We have to follow it.”

“Do I have to go first?”

The captain snorted. “Listen, the professor and I have nowhere to move. You are right in front of it. Get in the damn hole! The professor will enter after you, and then I will backtrack to where you are now.”

So there I was, making my way down a narrow corridor barely two feet high and about a foot wide. I pushed the stone with my hands and pushed the flashlight with my knees. I nearly fainted when I realized that Farag was behind me and that I was on all fours, my skirt probably failing to cover me entirely. I told myself it was no time for foolishness. Still, in the future, when I returned to Rome—
if
I returned to Rome—I would buy some pants, even if my sisters, my order, and the entire Vatican had a heart attack.

Luckily for my hands and feet, the passageway was as smooth as a newborn baby’s skin. It was like walking on glass. The sides of the stone cube that touched the walls must have been planed too, and that’s why it was so easy to move. When I lifted off my hands, it slid back toward me a bit, as if the tunnel were on a slight incline. I had no idea how far we’d gone—fifteen or twenty meters, maybe more. It seemed like an eternity.

“We are ascending,” the captain’s voice announced from far away.

That was true. That corridor was tilting more and more. The stone was starting to weigh on my tired wrists. It wasn’t a place where any human being could get through. A dog or cat, maybe, but definitely not a person. The thought that at some point I’d have to go back the way I’d come, ascend the sinister spiral stairway, and climb two levels of catacombs made me long for sunlight and fresh air.

Finally I noticed that the far end of the stone was out of the tunnel. The slope was very steep. I could barely push the block; it kept falling back against me. With my last effort, I gave it a big push, and the stone fell into the void, immediately hitting something metallic.

“Done!”

“What can you see?”

“Wait till I catch my breath.”

I shined the flashlight through the hole. I didn’t see anything, so I inched forward and stuck my head in. It was a cubicle identical to the one we had seen in the catacombs, but this one was completely empty. At first glance, it was just four empty walls, dug right into the rock, with an even lower hung roof and a floor covered by a strange plank of steel. Right then, I didn’t register that everything was spotless, and I didn’t notice I was leaning on the same rock I had pushed up that long ramp. The rock’s height was approximately equal to the distance from the floor to the hole I’d emerged through.