The Last Cato (50 page)

“What did Doria tell you yesterday that changed your mood after lunch?” Farag asked me as we climbed the stairs.

“I’ll tell you later,” I hedged. “Why is it that you didn’t come up to me if you had noticed how upset I was?”

“I couldn’t,” he explained as he greeted Paola and the rest of the crew. “I had cornered myself in my own trap.”

“What trap?” I asked surprised. Glauser-Röist had finished talking to the pilot as we took our usual seats. I thought I should wash up a bit before plopping onto the white upholstery, but I was very curious about what Farag was saying, and I didn’t want Glauser-Röist to interrupt him before he finished.

“Well… The thing with Doria, you know.” In his eyes shone a mocking smile I didn’t understand.

“No, I don’t know. What trap are you talking about?”

“Ottavia, don’t be so serious!” he joked. “In the end everything turned out fine.”

“I hope it’s not what I’m thinking, Farag,” I warned seriously.

“I’m afraid so,
Basileia.
I had to get your attention somehow. Are you happy?”

“Happy! What do you mean am I happy? You put me through hell!”

Farag exploded in a fit of laughter, more a little boy than a grown man.

“That was the whole point,
Basilea!
In Athens I thought I had lost it all! You have no idea how it was for me to see you get up and say to me ‘Shall we go?’ At that moment I looked at you and understood that to persuade a woman as stubborn as you, I’d have to use a nuclear bomb. And Doria worked out fine, didn’t she? The bad part was that after bombing you, you wouldn’t even look at me, and if you did it was with utter…” The Rock had joined us. “I’ll tell you later.”

“That won’t be necessary.” I responded as I got up and pulled my toiletries out of my bag. “You’re a cheater.”

“Of course I am!” he explained, delighted. “And many other things, too.”

The Rock fell into his chair, and I heard him sigh.

“I’m going to freshen myself up a bit,” I said without looking back.

“Remember, you have to be sitting here when we take off.”

“Don’t worry.”

The flight to Alexandria took three hours. During the trip we ate, talked, laughed. Farag and I almost mutinied when the captain took the
Divine Comedy
out of his backpack and suggested we prepare for the next circle of Purgatory. In spite of feeling fresh and rested after almost twelve hours of sleep, I was mentally exhausted. If it had been possible, I would have asked for a vacation and followed Farag to the ends of the earth, some place where nothing and no one reminded me of the life I was leaving behind. A changed woman after that, I would have been more willing to finish the tests we still had to take to get to the blessed earthly paradise. I felt uprooted. My home was now that airplane; my family was Farag and Captain Glauser-Röist; my work was hunting down those centuries-old relic thieves. Thinking about Sicily was painful; it made me sad, and I knew I’d never go back to the apartment in the Piazza delle Vaschette. What would I do when all this was over? Thank heavens I had that unscrupulous trickster, Farag Boswell, I thought, looking at him. I was sure he loved me and would be at my side until I put my life back together.

Around five in the afternoon, the pilot announced that we were about to land at Al Nouzha Airport. It was a sunny, 80-degree day.

“We’re home!” Farag exclaimed, thrilled.

There was no way to keep him in his seat as we landed. Poor Paola pleaded with him a hundred times. But he wanted to see his city, wanted to get there before the plane did. I wouldn’t have let anyone stop him for anything in the world.

Not even in my wildest dreams had I imagined that Alexandria would become a special place because of the love I had for this man. Of course, I’d read about Lawrence Durrell and Konstantinos Kavafis. Like everyone else, I knew some facts about the city, founded by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. I listened to Farag talk about its famous library, which housed more that half a million volumes on the entirety of human knowledge at that time, and about its lighthouse, one of the World’s Seven Wonders and how it guided the hundreds of merchants who entered its port, the largest in classical antiquity. I knew that for centuries it had been not only the capital of Egypt and the most important part on the Mediterranean, but more important, the literary and scientific capital of the world. Its palaces, mansions, and temples were admired for their elegance and wealth. It was where Eratosthenes measured the Earth’s circumference, where Euclid systematized geometry, and where Galen wrote his tomes on medicine. It was also in Alexandria that Mark Anthony and Cleopatra fell in love. Farag Boswell himself was an example of what Alexandria had been until not too long ago. A descendant of Englishmen, Jews, Coptics, and Italians, he was a mixture of cultures and characteristics which conferred on him, at least for me, a unique and wonderful status.

“Are we going to have a welcome committee, Captain?” I asked the Rock, who had spent a long time talking on the phone in the plane.

“Of course, Doctor. A car from the Greco-Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria will pick us up. We will meet with the patriarch, Petros VII, at his headquarters, along with His Beatitude Stephanos II Ghattas and His Holiness Shenouda III, leader of the Copto-Orthodox Church. Our old friend, Archbishop Damianos, abbot of Saint Catherine of Sinai, will also be there.”

“Looks like it’s going to be a party…,” I grumbled. “You know, Captain? I never would have believed there were so many holinesses and beatitudes. At this moment my head is a jumble of holy pontiffs.”

“And how about the ones you’re not going to meet, Doctor,” he answered ironically, crossing his legs. “For Orthodox Christians all the apostles were equal. Each has the same authority when they govern their flock.”

“I know, but it’s still hard for me to equate them to the pope. As a Catholic, I’ve been educated to believe there is only one legitimate successor to Peter.”

“Long ago I learned that everything is relative,” he explained in one of his rare fits of openness. “Everything is relative, everything is temporary, and everything is mutable. Perhaps that’s why I search for stability.”

“You?” I was surprised.

“What’s wrong, Doctor? Can’t you believe that someone like me is human? I’m not as bad as Pierantonio told you.”

I was silent because I know he’d caught me.

“There’s always an explanation for what we do and who we are,” he continued. “And, if you don’t believe me, just take a look at yourself.”

“You know about my family, too?” I whispered, lowering my head. I realized I didn’t want to discuss that with anybody, least of all Glauser-Röist.

“Naturally!” He let loose one of his rare outbursts of laughter. “I knew when I met you in Monsignor Tournier’s office. Just like I knew you were the sister of Pierantonio Salina, guardian of the Holy Land. That’s my job, remember? I know everything, and I see everything. Somebody has to do the dirty work, and that, unfortunately, falls to me. I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit, but I’m used to it. You’re not the only one who’s going to give their life a new twist. Someday I, too, will leave the Vatican and live calmly in a little wooden house next to Lake Leman, devoting myself to what I really like: tending the soil, trying out new growing techniques and production systems. Did you know I studied agricultural engineering at the University of Zurich before I became a soldier and Swiss Guard? That was my true vocation, but my family had other plans for me. You can’t always escape what your family inculcates in you from the day you were born.”

I didn’t say anything for several minutes, looking out the window and thinking about the captain’s words. “Why do we think we live our own lives,” I said, finally, “when our lives are living us?”

“That’s true,” he replied, brushing the dirt off his slacks. “But we always have the opportunity to change. You’re already doing it, and I will, too, I assure you. It’s never too late. I’m going to confess something to you, Doctor. And I hope you can keep a secret: This it is my last job for the Vatican.”

I looked at him and smiled. His sharing this information with me had just sealed our friendship.

We drove down the streets of Alexandria in a black Italian limousine, a car belonging to Patriarch Petros VII. Farag sat silently in the front seat.

The vehicle traveled down wide, modern avenues, clogged with traffic, which passed by golden sand beaches stretching on and on. The Alexandria I saw had little in common with what I’d imagined. Where were the palaces and the temples? Mark Anthony and Cleopatra? The elderly poet Kavafis, who walked around Alexandria at dusk leaning on his cane? If it weren’t for the people in Arabic dress strolling down the sidewalks, this could have been New York.

Once we left the beaches behind and entered the heart of the city, the chaotic traffic increased to an unspeakable degree. On a narrow, oneway street, our car got stuck between a line of cars behind us and an even longer line in front of us. Farag and the driver exchanged some sentences in Arabic, then the driver opened the door, got out, and began to shout. I suppose the idea was to get the cars going in the opposite direction to back up and let us pass. Instead, it started a violent argument among drivers. Of course, there wasn’t a single policeman to be seen.

After a while, Farag also got out of the car, spoke with our driver, and came back. Instead of getting back in his seat, he opened the trunk and took out his suitcase and mine.

“Let’s go, Ottavia,” he said sticking his face in the window. “My father lives just two streets over.”

“Just a minute!” the captain said, looking glum. “Get back in the car, Professor! They’re expecting us!”

“They’re expecting
you,
Kaspar,” Farag said, opening my door. “All these meetings with the patriarchs are useless! When it’s over, call me on my cell phone. Monsignor Kolta, His Beatitude Stephanos’s vicar, has my number as well as my father’s number. Let’s go,
Basileia!”

“Professor Boswell!” the Rock exclaimed. “You can’t take Dr. Salina!”

“Ah, no? Remind me of that tonight. We’ll be expecting you for dinner at nine. Don’t be late.”

We darted off like fugitives, leaving behind the car and Captain Glauser-Röist, who had to apologize repeatedly to important religious authorities for our absence. Octogenarian Patriarch Stephanos II Ghattas had specifically asked for Farag, whom he’d known since he was a little boy. Needless to say, he did not believe a word of the captain’s lame excuses.

As soon as we got out of the car, we ran, loaded down with our luggage, down a side street that ended at Avenue Tareek El Gueish. Farag took the two suitcases and I took his and my hand luggage. I couldn’t help laughing as we escaped at full speed. I felt happy, free like a fifteenyear-old girl who was bucking authority.

“He lives in the lower floor, and I live on the upper.”

“So, we’re going to
your
house?” I was worried.

“Naturally,
Basileia!
I said it was my father’s house not to scandalize Glauser-Röist.”

“But now I’m the one who’s scandalized!” I could barely speak because I couldn’t breathe.

“Don’t worry,
Basileia.
First we’ll go to my father’s house, then we’ll go up to mine to shower, doctor our tattoos, put on a clean set of clothes, and fix dinner.”

“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you, Farag?” I reprimanded him, stopping in the middle of the street. “You want to scare me.”

“Scare you!” he was surprised. “What you are afraid of?” He leaned over. I was afraid he’d kiss me right there. Fortunately, we were in an Arab country. “Don’t worry,
Basileia…”
I smiled when I heard him stutter. “I understand…. I assure you, even if it costs me my life, you have nothing to fear… nothing. I can’t guarantee one hundred percent, of course, but I’ll do everything I can. Agreed?”

He was so handsome, standing in the middle of the street, staring at me with those dark blue eyes. I was afraid I was acting against my true desires. Desires? What desires? All this was so new to me. I should have had these feelings twenty years ago. I was taking such a giant step backward, I was afraid I’d make a fool of myself.

“Let’s go to your father’s house right away,” I exclaimed.

“I hope you clear up your affairs with the church soon, like Glauser-Röist says. It’s going to be very hard to be around you, knowing I can’t touch you.”

I was about to tell him that I was as untouchable as I decided to be, but quickly refrained from doing so. If, by magic, I were suddenly free of my religious status at that very moment, I still wouldn’t be ready to break my second vow without having officially separated from my commitment to God and my order.

“Let’s go, Farag,” I said with a smile. I’d have given anything to kiss him.

“Why did I have to fall in love with a nun?” he shouted in the middle of the street. Fortunately, he said so in ancient Greek. “With all the pretty women in Alexandria!” Now that he was back home he was a changed man. Different from the one I had first met in Rome.

“Let’s go, Farag,” I repeated patiently, a smile still on my face, knowing that I had a few terrible weeks ahead of me.

The Boswell family home was on a street with a wide panorama of old buildings that had elegant, English-style facades. It was dark and cool; traffic wasn’t allowed. That did not prevent covered carts and bicycles from traveling down it, dodging strolling wayfarers. Despite its European air, the doors and windows of the houses were decorated with harmonious arabesques in intricate patterns of leaves and flowers. It was a pretty street, and the people on it seemed pleasant.