The Last Cato (49 page)

“Your right on the outside, Professor! You’re the one who doesn’t get it!”

I frowned. Our right on the outside? Dante and Virgil advanced around the cornice of a mountain. Their right was, obviously, next to the precipice, to the void. But we were stuck to a wall, so our right was the center of the grotto; our free side was its interior, not the outside as in Dante’s case. Either way, we would have reached Zephyr, though it would have been shorter if we had gone the other way.

“We would never have gotten here the other way, Doctor!”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“I see you both have forgotten Trascias and Argestes. They were the last winds we’d have had to cross before getting to Zephyr! We would never have made it!”

There was silence in that arched corridor; neither Farag nor I could contradict him. The captain had saved us from retracing our steps. We could never have made it past Trascias and Argestes and the hail that stormed into the chamber. The heat from the other
bothros
acted as a balance to ice, creating a controlled environment and providing us with a safe path toward Zephyr.

“Do you understand or must I explain it again?”

He was right. He was completely right, and I said so. Farag didn’t hesitate to ask the Rock’s forgiveness in every language he knew. He began with Coptic, followed by Greek, Latin, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, French, English, and Italian. We laughed at ourselves, and the tension dripped off the moment.

“Stop with all the nonsense, and let’s get down this hole.”

“Why do I always have to go first?” I grumbled again, tired of honoring their ridiculous chivalry.

“Doctor, please…”

“Ottavia…”

He didn’t have to say another word, of course.

On all fours, holding my flashlight between two buttons of my blouse, I began the trek, sorry again that I had worn a skirt that day. It brought back bad memories of that time in the tunnel in the catacombs of Santa Lucia. Farag was then also behind me. I promised myself, if we got out of there, I’d throw all my skirts in the trash.

The truth is, crawling was hard. I couldn’t do it to save my soul. So I was so glad when the soft aroma of resin reached my nose. The familiar white powder began to fill the passageway.

“I believe we’re in luck.”

“What did you say,
Basileia?

“That we’ll get some sleep. Don’t you smell resin?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll say my farewells. See you when we wake up.”

“Basileia…”

A slight stupor made its way through me. “Yes?”

“What I said to you during the marathon was a lie.”

“What did you say to me during marathon?”

There was white smoke, that blessed white smoke, in the air. Like a good sleeping pill, it would give me some much needed hours of rest. I stretched myself out on the ground. The Staurofilakes could do what they wanted to my body. I didn’t care. I just wanted to sleep.

“If you got on your feet and ran to Athens, I’d never pester you again.”

I smiled. He was the most romantic man in the world. I wanted to look at him. No, I thought again, better to sleep. Besides, the Rock was listening to everything.

“It was a lie?” My smile opened my eyes, now half-closed by the sleep.

“A complete lie. I had to warn you. Was that so bad?”

“It was fine. I agree with you.”

“Okay, then, just wanted to be clear,” he murmured. “Kaspar, are you asleep?”

No,” he muttered. “Your conversation is very intriguing tonight.”

My God, I thought, and found myself instantly asleep.

CHAPTER 6

T
he shouts of children playing woke me. The midday sun fell on me like a shower of light. I blinked, coughed, and sat up, groaning. I was sprawled facedown on a carpet of weeds. The smell was unbearable. It was the smell of trash that had accumulated over years, and fermented in the Eastern heat. The children kept shouting and spoke in Turkish. Their voices grew faint.

I managed to sit up and open my eyes. I found myself in a patio where bits of the Byzantine masonry were mixed in with piles of trash. Clouds of blue flies as big as elephants flew overhead. To my left, I saw a very sinister looking car repair shop, which emitted noises from a chain saw and a blowtorch. I was dirty. Dirty and barefoot.

Farag and the captain were still lying facedown in the grass in front of me. I smiled when I looked at Farag, and my stomach did a somersault.

“So it was a lie?” I mused, walking over to him and looking at him with a smile on my face. I brushed a lock of hair off his forehead and amused myself by looking at the small lines etched on his skin. They were the traces of the time he’d spent without me, some thirty-odd years he’d lived far from me. He had lived, dreamed, worked, breathed, laughed, and even loved without suspecting that I was waiting for him. It continued to strike me miraculous that someone like Farag would latch on to someone like me, when I didn’t even have a hint of the beauty that he seemed to have too much of. Of course, looks aren’t everything, but they definitely are important. Even though beauty was something I had never even worried about, at that precise moment I wished I were beautiful and attractive so that Farag would have been completely blown away by me when he woke up.

I sighed and laughed under my breath. I wasn’t asking for a miracle. I had to resign myself. I looked around and didn’t see anyone. So I leaned over very slowly and gave him a kiss on those lines on his forehead. He was sound asleep.

“Doctor… Are you all right, Dr. Salina? How’s Professor Boswell?”

My heart raced, and my face burned. I sat up as if I had a spring attached to my back.

“Captain? Are you okay?” I asked, recoiling from Farag, who was still sleeping.

“Where are we?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

“We have to wake the professor. He speaks Turkish.”

He leaned on his hands and started to raise his body, but a rictus of pain paralyzed him mid-stride.

“Where the hell did they mark us this time?” he grumbled.

The tattoo! I raised my hand to the top of my shoulder, to my cervical vertebrae. That’s when I felt the familiar jab of pain.

“I think we’ve got the first of the three crosses that go on our spines.”

“Well, it hurts!”

Why hadn’t I noticed? The pain suddenly became intense. “Yes, yes it hurts,” I agreed. “I think it hurts more than the previous ones.”

“It will pass. We have to wake the professor.”

He didn’t think twice and started shaking him mercilessly. Farag groaned.

“Ottavia?” he asked without opening his eyes.

“Sorry, Professor,” growled the Rock. “It’s Captain Glauser-Röist. Not Dr. Salina.”

Farag smiled. “Not quite the same. Ottavia?”

“Here I am,” I said, taking his hand. He opened his eyes and looked at me.

“Sorry to bother you two,” the captain said, ill-tempered, “but we have to get back to the Patriarchate.”

“Have you checked your clothes yet, Captain?” I asked, still gazing at Farag and still smiling. “The clue for the test in Alexandria is important.”

Glauser-Röist quickly turned out all the pockets in his pants and jacket. “Here it is!” he exclaimed, lifting up the familiar folded piece of paper.

“Let’s see,” said Farag. He sat up, still holding my hand. “Have they marked us on our backs?” he asked quickly, very surprised.

“On our cervical vertebrae,” I confirmed.

“Hey! This one really hurts!”

The captain read from the clue and held it out to Farag. “If you don’t let go of the doctor’s hand, it’ll be very hard for you to take it.”

Farag laughed and quickly caressed my fingers before letting them go. “I hope you don’t mind, Kaspar.”

“It’s not my concern, Professor,” the Rock affirmed, very serious. “Dr. Salina is a big girl. She knows what she’s doing. I suppose she’ll straighten things out with the church soon enough.”

“Don’t worry, Captain,” I clarified. “I haven’t forgotten for a minute that I’m a nun. This is a private matter, but since I know well what you are thinking, allow me to tell you that I am fully conscious of the problems this will cause.”

The poor man was so obtuse about certain things, and I thought it was better to appease him.

Farag examined the paper and his jaw dropped. “I know what this is!” he blurted out, very agitated.

“Of course you know, Professor. The next test is in Alexandria.”

“No. No!” He shook his head frenetically. “I’ve never seen this place in my life, but I know I could find it.”

“What are you two talking about?” I asked, snatching the paper from Farag’s hands. This time the message wasn’t written on that rough paper, but was rather crudely drawn in charcoal. One could make out the image of a bearded snake wearing the pharaonic crowns of High and Low Egypt. It also had a medallion with the head of Medusa. From the creature’s rings, tied up like a sailor’s knot, emerged the thyrsus of Dionysus, the Greek god of vegetation and wine, and the staff of Hermes, the messenger god. “What’s this?”

“I don’t know,” answered Farag, “but we won’t have any trouble finding it. We have a computerized catalogue of the city’s archeological finds in the museum.” He looked over my shoulder and pointed to the drawing. “I would have sworn I could recognize nearly any Alexandrian work with my eyes closed. Even though this image looks familiar, I can’t remember where I’ve seen it. See the mixture of styles? Hermes’s staff and the pharaohs’ crowns? The bearded serpent is a Roman symbol. Such a bizarre combination is typical of Alexandria.”

“Professor, would you mind going over to that garage and asking where we are?” the Rock interrupted us again. “And ask if they have a phone. My cell phone was ruined in the cistern.”

Farag smiled. “Don’t worry, Kaspar. I’ll take care of it.”

“Here’s the Patriarchate’s number,” Glauser-Röist added, handing Farag his daybook, open to the number. “Tell Father Kallistos where we are and ask him to come get us.”

I wasn’t one bit happy that Farag walked so decisively toward that junk pit and disappeared, but he wasn’t gone five minutes. When he returned, he had a broad smile on his face.

“I spoke with the Patriarchate, Captain,” he shouted as he walked back. “They’ll be here right away. We are on the remains of what was the Great Palace of Justinian and Theodora.”

“The Great Palace of Justinian… this place?” I said, looking around skeptically.

“That’s right,
Basileia.
We’re in the Zeyrek neighborhood, in the old part of the city. This patio is all that’s left of the imperial palace of Justinian and Theodora.” He walked over and took my hand.

“I don’t understand, Farag,” I murmured, distressed. “How could they let things get this bad?”

“Byzantine remains don’t have the same value to the Turks as they have for us,
Basileia.
They don’t understand any religion but their own, with all the cultural and social implications that come along with that. They preserve their mosques, but do not feel the need to preserve the sacred places of foreign religions. This is a poor country. It can’t be concerned with a past that does nothing for their best interest.”

“But it’s culture, history!” I was furious. “It’s who we are!”

“Here, people survive as best as they can,” he replied. “The old churches are converted into houses, the old palaces into garages. When those fall down, they look for other churches and palaces where they can set up their homes or businesses. It’s a different mentality. Simply put, why preserve it, if you can reuse? We should be grateful they preserved Saint Sofia.”

“As soon as the Patriarchate’s car gets here, we’ll go directly to the airport,” Glauser-Röist announced laconically.

I was alarmed. “From here? Without changing our clothes or taking a shower?”

“We’ll do that in Alexandria. It’s just a three-hour trip, and we can freshen up on the Westwind. Would you rather explain what we did down there?”

Naturally, I didn’t want to do that, so I didn’t put up any more objections.

“I hope it’s not too difficult to get me back into Egypt…,” murmured Farag, worried. When he left his country, he had been accused of stealing a manuscript from the Monastery of Saint Catherine of Sinai and was forced to cross the border into Israel with a fake passport from the Vatican.

“Don’t worry, Professor,” the Rock calmed him down. “The Iyasus Codex has been returned officially to the monastery we
borrowed
it from.”

“Borrowed!” I exclaimed sarcastically. “There’s a slight euphemism.”

“Call it what you like, Doctor. The important thing is that the codex is back in the Saint Catherine Library, and the Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches have given the abbot appropriate apologies and explanations, and Archbishop Damianos has rescinded his accusation. So, Professor, you are completely free to return to your home and your work.”

Farag couldn’t believe his ears. He began to get angry, very slowly, like a caldron that heats up and builds pressure. The captain stayed calm, but my legs were trembling. Although Farag had an affable personality, I knew he had a short fuse.

“Since when is the codex in Saint Catherine?” he muttered, his teeth clenched.

“Since last week. A copy of the manuscript was made, and we had to return it to its original state. I reminded them of the condition we found it in, unbound and its pages loose. Then, through the Coptic- Catholic patriarch of your church and the patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Michel Sabbah, the conversations with Archbishop Damianos ensued. His patriarch, Stephano II Ghattas, also talked with the director of the Greco-Roman Museum of Alexandria. As of yesterday, you have special access indefinitely. I thought you would like to know that.”

Farag’s face deflated, and incredulous, he looked at me and looked at Glauser-Röist several times before he could say a word. “I can go home…,” he stuttered. “I can go back to the Museum…”

“Not to the Museum, at least not yet. But you can go home this afternoon. Does that sound good?”

Why was he so emotional about the possibility of returning to Alexandria and getting back his job in the Greco-Roman Museum? Didn’t he tell me that being Coptic in Egypt was like being a pariah? Didn’t the Islamic war kill his little brother, his sister-in-law, and his five-week-old nephew on the steps of the church just the year before? He had told me all this the first time we had lunch.

“Oh my God,” he exclaimed, lifting his arms to the sky like a runner who reaches the finish line. “Tonight, I’ll be home.”

As he was expounding on how much I was going to like Alexandria and how happy his father would be to see him and meet me, the car from the Patriarchate drove down one of the side streets and picked us up on the opposite end of the dump. It took me an eternity to reach the other side because the ground was covered with sharp refuse which would have cut my feet. After I sat down in the car with a big sigh of relief, I discovered the drive wasn’t going to be the peaceful respite I had hoped. Sitting beside me in the backseat of the Patriarch’s chauffer-driven car was our expert in Byzantine architecture, Doria Sciarra.

The captain sat next to the driver. I made sure Farag got in through the other door, so that he sat on the other side of Doria, trapping her between us. I acted delighted to see her, as if the day before hadn’t had the slightest impact on me. I was amused when she wrinkled her nose at our smell. She was hurt because we had left her behind to entertain the doorman at the Fatih Camii. When she went back to the patio and didn’t find us anywhere, she walked to the car and waited until nightfall. Worried and alone, she returned to the Patriarchate. She wanted us to tell her everything, but we ducked her questions with insipid answers, telling her superficial things like how hard the test had been and the terrible pain and torture we’d endured. Frustrated, she lost interest. Neither of us could tell her about one of the greatest discoveries in history, our finding the burial chamber of Constantine the Great.

Farag was as charming toward her as he had been the day before. But he didn’t play her game and didn’t respond once to her silly insinuations. I was perfectly calm and at peace with myself: at peace about Farag and about how Doria had wanted to hurt me and only managed to do so fleetingly. She still wanted to make a fool out of me, and I didn’t let her. I smiled, chatted, and joked as if the day before had been a day like any other, not the day my world had come crashing down around my head, only to be raised again by the tenderness of Farag’s hand. Now he was all that mattered to me; Doria was nothing.

When the Patriarchate’s car left us at the vast hangar where the Westwind was parked, I said good-bye to my old friend with a couple of kisses on her cheeks despite her discreet attempt to avoid them. I’ll never know if she ducked my kisses because she felt guilty or because of how I smelled, but the fact remained I kissed her forcibly and repeatedly thanked her “for everything.” Farag and the captain shook her hand. She sped away in the Patriarchate’s car, never to be seen again.