The Last Cato (48 page)

“Nothing, Kaspar, I swear,” declared Boswell, jumping wide, then pirouetting on to the marble slabs. “I just put my feet in the gold hoops to climb down more easily.”

“Well, clearly that was the way to open the sarcophagus,” I murmured, while the porphyry plate stopped sliding with a loud screech.

Using one of the lion heads as a stirrup and dragging himself to the edge of the tomb, Glauser-Röist pushed himself up to look in.

“What do you see, Captain?” I was dying to know.

“A dead man.”

Farag raised his eyes to heaven with a look of resignation and followed the Rock, climbing up on the other lion.

“You’ve got to see this, Ottavia,” he said, smiling broadly.

I didn’t think twice. I pulled on the captain’s jacket to get him to climb down, and with all my strength I climbed to witness for myself what was inside. Like those Russian nesting dolls, the gigantic sarcophagus held several coffins, and the last one actually held the emperor’s body. They all had glass covers, so the remains of Constantine could be clearly viewed. Of course, it seemed rash to announce that
this
was Constantine the Great. While his skull was like anyone else’s, his imperial adornments revealed his lineage. That regular old skull wore a breathtaking gold
stemma
*
covered with jewels. Even more astonishing, he was adorned with gorgeous
catatheistae
†
that hung under his
toufa.
‡
The rest of the skeleton was covered by an impressive
skaramangion,
§
held in place on his right shoulder by a clasp, intricately embroidered in gold and silver, trimmed with amethysts, rubies, and emeralds, and edged with pearls. Around his neck he wore a
loros
*
and around his waist was tied an
akakia
,
†
a must for any Byzantine emperor.

“It
is
Constantine,” affirmed Farag with a weak voice.

“I guess so…”

“When we publish all this,
Basileia,
we’re going to be very famous.”

I quickly turned my head toward him. “What do you mean,
we?”
I was infuriated. Suddenly I understood that we both had a right to scientifically exploit the discovery. I would have to share the glory with Farag and Glauser-Röist. “Do you want to publish it, too, Captain?” I asked.

“Of course, Doctor. Did you think you have exclusive rights to all this?”

Farag chuckled and dropped to the ground. “Don’t take it so hard, Kaspar. Dr. Salina has a hard head but a heart of gold.”

I was about to give him the answer he deserved, when, suddenly, the faint noise that had begun just a few minutes before became incredibly loud. The noise sounded like furiously turning windmills. Suddenly a strong blast of air coming from the
bothros
blew my skirt up and pushed me against the sarcophagus.

“What’s happening?”

“I’m afraid the party’s starting, Doctor.”

“Hold on tight, Ottavia.”

Before Farag had finished speaking, the gust of wind became a strong wind, and then a hurricane. The torches went out and we were in the dark.

“The winds!” Farag shouted, clutching the sarcophagus with all his might.

Captain Glauser-Röist, who was caught out in the open, turned on his flashlight and covered his eyes with his arm. He tried to make his way to us, some two or three meters away. The currents were so strong that they kept him in check. There was no way he was reaching us quickly.

Farag and I grasped the sarcophagus with our hands, in order to keep the demented cyclone from dragging us to the ground. I realized it wouldn’t be long till I lost my grip. My fingers were aching from squeezing the stone so tight. I had very little strength left, and my hope of surviving this test began to wane.

The overbearing gales forced the moisture from my eyes into long rivers of tears that ran down my cheeks. I’ve never felt so uncomfortable, my eyes stung with dryness, my face soaking wet. But that wasn’t the worse part: Boreas, Aparctias, and Hellespont, gods of wind, gradually cooled the chamber’s air until it seemed like it was freezing. Although Trascias and Argestes weren’t as cold, drops of water began to fly from their passageways, creating the effect of a horizontal rainstorm. The room was so cold that the moisture turned into hail. We were pelted by the granules of ice. It felt like we were being shot at with a BB gun. The pain was so intense I let go of the sarcophagus and fell to the ground. Dante’s words became dazzlingly clear.

My eyes were burning due to the harsh, dry air that emanated from Afeliotes and Euro. But while Trascias and Argeste were spitting hail, Euronoto, Noto, and Libanoto began to rattle with activity. A sudden exhale of violently hot air now filled the room, which melted the small amount of accumulated ice and burned my skin. At that point, I desperately missed my pants, which would have protected my legs from the furious hail and the burning air. I again tried to cover my face with my arms, but the hot air burned up much of the room’s oxygen, making it difficult to breathe. All I could think of was reaching Farag. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look for him. It was impossible to peel myself off the ground, much less move an arm or a leg. I called out to him, shouting with all the energy I could muster. The roar from the wind in the chamber was deafening; I couldn’t hear my own voice. It was definitely the end. How would we ever get out of there? It was impossible.

But then I felt something at my feet. I looked down and noticed something rubbing against my ankle. I then realized the rubbing was a hand which began to make its way up my leg. I had no doubt it was Farag. The captain would never have been so bold as to even touch me. Plus, the last time I had seen him he was ahead of me, not behind. As disconcerting as the hand on my leg was, it helped me not lose my head. I then felt an arm loop around my waist and after a second, a body next to mine. I must admit that even though I was dying because of the burning winds and the painful hail, that long instant it took Farag to reach my face was one of the most disturbing in my life. And the strangest thing was that those new feelings that should have made me feel guilty were actually turning me into a free and happy person. I wasn’t even worried about explaining those feelings to God as if I knew He would approve of them.

As soon as Farag’s face was at my head, he stuck his lips to my ear and began pronouncing incoherent sounds I couldn’t understand. He repeated them again and again until, with some imagination, I made out that his fragments formed the words “Zephyr” and “Dante.” I thought about Zephyr, the west wind, who, along with his lover, the maiden Cloris, casts flowers.

Zephyr, the wind, was always praised in great poems of antiquity as a light, soft, spring breeze. It sounded corny, but I’d read it somewhere— in Pliny, maybe: Zephyr, the wind of sunset, out of the west as the day is ending, as the winter is ending. Ending… Maybe that was what Farag was trying to say. The end of that nightmare, the way out. Zephyr was the exit. But how to get there? I couldn’t move a muscle. Where was Zephyr’s
bothros?
My mind reeled with panic. Until I suddenly remembered:

If you have been exempt from lying prone,
And wish to find the quickest way to go,
Be sure to keep your right side to the edge.

Dante’s tercet! That was what Farag was trying to tell me. Remember Dante’s words. I racked my brain to remember what we’d read in the airplane that morning:

My master moved ahead close to the cliff.
Wherever there was space—as one who walks
along the ramparts hugs the battlements.

We had to get to the wall. The wall! If we stuck to our right until we reached Zephyr, the soft, temperate wind, we’d find relief. It was the only way.

Using all my strength, I took Farag’s hand and squeezed it so he knew I understood. Helping each other, we slowly made our way forward, like sloths. It took a long time for us to make our way to the far wall, and we needed each other to move. We could never have made our way alone. Avoiding the typhoon-force winds coming from the
bothros,
we zigzagged in search of open air pockets that allowed us momentary relief, which then enabled us to increase the pace of our crawl. Fleetingly, I thought we weren’t going to make it, that our effort was all in vain. But then we finally reached the stone wall, and I knew we had a chance to make it out.

Now we had to worry about Glauser-Röist. If we could get to our feet, as Dante instructed, and stick to our right, and the wall, we might be able to find the light of his flashlight.

Getting up off the ground was not simple. Like children learning to walk who grab onto furniture to stand, we had to dig our fingers into every solid chink in the walls around us. And yet, we had been right. As soon as we managed to keep our maneuvering to the far wall, the wind’s force lessened, and we could breathe easier. It wasn’t what you’d describe as calm—far from it—but the openings of the
bothros
were situated in such a way that the various air streams blasting through neutralized one another, creating partially calm spaces throughout the chamber.

If moving and breathing were hard, opening our eyes was almost impossible. They dried out in seconds and stung as if pins were being pushed into them. Yet we still could not find Glauser-Röist. With a colossal amount of effort, I finally spotted him at the far end of the grotto, between Trascias and Aparctias, stuck to the wall like a shadow, his head tilted back, his eyes tightly shut.

Calling to him was useless; he’d never hear us. We had to make our way to him. Since we stood between Euronoto and Noto, we crawled north, toward Boreas, following Dante’s instructions to always keep to our right. Unfortunately, the captain must not have remembered Dante’s clues. Instead of heading toward Zephyr in the same direction we were, he was making his way toward us, crouching when he passed in front of each violent
bothros.
It was the best he could do to keep the whirlwind from hurling him through the air and against Constantine’s sarcophagus.

I was exhausted. If it hadn’t been for Farag’s hand, I probably would never have gotten out of there. Fatigue held me down on the ground every time we had to drop to crawl in front of a
bothros.
My fatigue grew with each advancing moment.

Finally, we met up with the captain at Hellespont. With a nod, the three of us joined our hands in a tight, emotional squeeze. It was more eloquent than any word we could have said to each other. The real trouble started when Farag expressed that he wanted to keep heading toward Zephyr. Incredibly, Glauser-Röist flatly refused to retrace his steps and stubbornly blocked our way. I saw Farag shout something in the captain’s ear. The captain kept shaking his head no and pointing in the opposite direction. Farag tried over and over, but the Rock kept refusing and pushed Farag toward me, backtracking the way we had just come.

There was no way to convince him. No matter how hard we shouted, gestured, and tried to move to our right, the captain forced us to do as he indicated. I didn’t let myself think about what terrible things would happen to us if we didn’t follow Dante’s instructions. Farag and I saw desperation in each other’s faces. The captain was mistaken, but how could we get him to understand that we were acting in accordance with the clue?

It took about half an hour to cross the five winds, in the opposite direction from where we were headed, toward Zephyr. I envied the captain’s physical strength and Farag’s natural resilience. When all this was over, I thought to myself, I was determined to get into shape. I couldn’t hide behind the stereotypic excuse that women were weaker than men; I was totally to blame for my sedentary life.

At last we came to the dead space between Libs and Zephyr. I sighed with relief, and broke into a smile. I was in front at that point, so it fell to me to approach. If our analysis was correct, we would soon find calm. I moved my right hand very slowly toward the
bothros.
My heart exploded with joy when I verified that, although Zephyr was a little more violent than the poets had claimed, his airy vehemence wasn’t anything like that of his eleven brothers. The wind from Zephyr didn’t burn or freeze or spit frost or hail. My extended hand undulated in its soft breeze as though I were sticking my arm out the window of a moving car. We’d found the exit!

Zephyr took me in and saved my life. I fell to the ground like a sack of sand when I ventured into the narrow
bothros.
I breathed its tame, delicate air unobstructed; it was perfume to my lungs. I would have lain there a long time, perfectly still, but I had to keep going so Farag and the captain could enter behind me. I knew they were in when I heard Farag shouting furiously at Glauser-Röist.

“Will you please tell me why the hell you made us trek through three-fourths of the grotto!” he roared, indignant. “We were almost at Zephyr when we found you! Don’t you remember Dante said to keep going right?”

“Quiet down!” Glauser-Röist snapped back. “That is what I did!”

“Are you crazy? Can’t you tell we went clockwise! Don’t you know right from left?”

“Please!” I exclaimed. “We’re out and we’re okay. Please stop shouting.”

“Listen, Professor,” the Rock roared. “What did Dante say? He said you always had to keep your right on the outside.”

“To the right, Kaspar! The right, not the left! You still don’t get it!”