The Last Cato (51 page)

Visibly moved, Farag took a key out of his pocket and opened the iron gate. A slight scent of mint wafted out of an opening in the wall. The doorway was wide and shady, typical of a warm country like Egypt.

“Don’t make a sound,
Basileia,”
Farag whispered to me. “I want to surprise my father.”

We climbed the stairs quietly and stopped in front of a large wooden door with panels of polished glass. The doorbell was set in the doorframe, at eye-level.

“I have a key,” he explained to me, pressing the button, “but I want to see the expression on his face.”

As its ring echoed in my ears, furious barks approached from inside.

“That’s Tara!” Farag whispered, smiling really big. “It was my mother’s idea. She loved
Gone with the Wind,”
he added as an excuse, guessing my thoughts.

When the wooden door opened slowly, I noticed a tall, thin man, about seventy, with white hair and intense, dark blue eyes, filtered by charming bifocals. He was as handsome as his son. He had the same Jewish features, the same dark skin, the same expression… I understood how Farag’s mother left everything for a man like this and felt a complicity with her because I was acting similarly.

Their embrace was long and emotional. The dog, an unfortunate mix of Yorkshire and Scottish terriers, barked desperately, jumping into the air like a rabbit. Butros Boswell kissed his son’s hair over and over, as if each and every day Farag had spent far away had been torture for him. Also he murmured joyful words in Arabic. His eyes even filled with tears. When they finally let go of each other, they came toward me.

“Papa, let me introduce Doctor Ottavia Salina.”

“Farag has spoken of you so often these last several months, Doctor,” he said in perfect Italian as he shook my hand. “Come in, please.”

Followed by Tara, who wagged her tail frenetically, obviously delighted with Farag’s caresses, we entered the foyer of their spacious house. There were books everywhere, even piled on the sideboard in the entrance. Old family photographs abounded in the hall and around all the rooms. The decoration was a motley mixture of English, Viennese, Italian, Arab, and French furniture: a Lalique vase here, a silver repoussé teapot over there, a turn-of-the-century English
trumeau,
a wood box inlaid with mother-of-pearl, an Arabic set of glasses, wooden chairs ornamented with curved scrolling placed around an old, round pedestal table, holding a chessboard with ivory figurines… But what caught my attention most were the pictures hanging on the walls in the hall. When he saw my interest, Butros Boswell came over and explained, not without some pride, who all those people were.

“This is my grandfather, Kenneth Boswell, the discoverer of Oxirrinco. Here he is in this old, black-and-white photograph standing next to his colleagues, Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, in 1895, during the first excavations. And this…,” he said and pointed to the next picture. A very beautiful woman looked out at us, dressed in an elegant cocktail dress and very long black gloves that came almost to her shoulders. “This was his wife, Esther Hopasha, my grandmother, and one of the most beautiful Jewish women in Alexandria.”

Pictures of Ariel Boswell, their son, and his wife, Miriam, an Egyptian Coptic with dark skin and henna-dyed hair, also hung on the walls in the hall. The place of honor was held by the photo of a young woman, not especially beautiful, but with laughing, flashing eyes that broadcast out an infinite love of life.

“This was my wife, Doctor Salina, Farag’s mother, Rita Luchese.” His face became gloomy. “She died five years ago.”

“Papa,” Farag huffed, carrying Tara in his arms. “We have to take the luggage upstairs to my apartment.”

“Will you have supper here tonight?” Butros wanted to know.

“We’ll have supper upstairs, with Captain Glauser-Röist. I plan to order something from the Mercure.”

“Fine,” Butros replied. “Then I’ll see you later, son. Don’t leave Alexandria without saying good-bye.”

“You’re also invited, Papa!” Farag exclaimed, tossing Tara into the air. The dog, who must have weighed quite a bit, landed gracefully on the ground. Without hesitating, she came straight to me. She had an intelligent look in her huge eyes; her fur was a cinnamon color except where her neck and chest were white. I petted her head with some apprehension. Unexpectedly, she got up and braced her front legs against my stomach.

“I hope she’s not bothering you, Doctor,” Butros observed, smiling. “It’s her way of saying she likes you.”

“Your father is charming,” I said to Farag when we were almost to the landing of his house, on the third floor.

“I know,” he replied, unlocking and pushing the door open.

“Who lives on the middle floor?”

“Right now, no one,” Farag explained, entering the dark interior and setting the suitcases on the ground. “My brother, Juhanna, used to live there with his wife, Zoe, and their son.”

“It’s hard to believe what you told me. What happened to them is just horrible.”

“I’d rather not think about it,” he said, taking the bags and closing the door behind me. “We have other things to do.”

Yes, we certainly did. That didn’t include turning on the lights, or opening the blinds or taking a tour of the house. I had never imagined it would be so hard, so terribly hard to stick to my second vow. I knew there was a limit, but I… I never knew how simple it would be to cross that line. I didn’t, though. At the last minute, fighting against my tormented instincts, I remembered I had to fulfill a promise. It was absurd, it was madness, it was the most ridiculous thing in the world, I knew. For some reason, I had to be faithful to the commitment I still had to God, my order, and the church. It was dreadful to pull away from Farag’s lips, Farag’s body, Farag’s tenderness and passion. It was like shattering into a thousand pieces.

“You promised… You promised you would help me,” I said as I pushed him away.

“I can’t, Ottavia.”

“Farag, please,” I begged. “Help me! I love so you much!”

He stood there, still as a statue for several seconds. Then he leaned over and kissed me.

“I love you,
Basileia,”
he said pulling away. “I’ll wait.”

“I promise I’ll call Rome tonight,” I said, putting my hand to his heavily-bearded cheek. “I’ll speak with Sister Sarolli, the assistant director of my order, and explain the situation to her.”

“Please do it,” he whispered, kissing me again. “Please.”

“I promise,” I repeated. “This very night.”

I showered and changed the bandage on the tattoo on the cervical vertebrae (this time, a branched cross) and put on clean clothes. Obeying my orders, Farag opened doors and windows, wiped the dust off the furniture, and got his house ready for visitors. Then we switched places. He’d already phoned the restaurant at the nearby Hotel Mercure and ordered supper. He went into the bathroom—inviting me to accompany him, of course. He left me free in that unfamiliar place to snoop around. Hypocritically, I asked him if there was anything he didn’t want me to pry into.

“Make yourself at home,
Basileia.
Look anywhere you like,” he said, then disappeared.

That’s exactly what I did it. If he thought I wasn’t curious about his life, he was very wrong. In that half hour, I turned everything upside down. Farag’s house, with its smooth, white walls and light terrazzo floors, had only two bedrooms but, typical of old houses, they were huge. One of the rooms, a very austere one with a large bed in the center, was his; the other, at the other end of the house, had two smaller beds and seemed to be used just to store books—hundreds of books—as well as history, archaeology, and paleography magazines. The living room had a long sofa in it and several cream-colored armchairs. On one side was a large dining room table made of dark wood. The rest of the furniture was also dark wood: beds, closets, shelves, tables, chest of drawers, cabinets… He must really like cushions a lot, because, in colors ranging from copper to white, they were everywhere. Another thing of interest was the photographs, as abundant as in the house downstairs: Farag with his father, his mother, his brother, his sister-in-law, his nephew. I discovered several of him as a small boy, with classmates, others with college classmates and friends, and several others with the same two friends. But the photographs of trips around the world were, invariably, with very attractive girls, different ones in every country. The photographs taken in Rome, for example, showed a very young Farag with a blonde with a long, pointed nose; those in Paris, next to a brunette with a funny smile; those in London, with an Asian woman with short, black hair; those in Amsterdam, with a statuesque model with perfect teeth. I realized I had fallen in love with Casanova, or worse, with a cad of the highest order.

I collapsed, desolate, onto the sofa, hugging one of the cushions as I watched the dusk sky through the windows. I doubted seriously if I’d make that call to Sister Sarolli. There was still time to retreat to the house in Connaught. Just then, the little tune on Farag’s cell phone went off. The phone was on one of the small bookshelves in the hall, next to the bathroom door.

“Ottavia!” Casanova shouted. “Answer it! It must be the captain!”

I didn’t answer him. I just pressed the green button on the phone and said hello to the Rock, who seemed displeased.

“Is the meeting over, Captain? How did it go?”

“Same as always.”

“Then get out of there and come over here. Dinner is nearly ready.”

“Where are you going to sleep tonight, Doctor?” he asked me pointblank.

“Well,” I vacillated. “I hadn’t given it much thought. Where are you going to sleep?”

“Does the professor have enough rooms for all three of us?”

“Yes. There are two bedrooms and three beds.”

“Here, at the Patriarchate, there’s room, too. They want to know what we are going to do.”

“Do we need computers or anything else to prepare for the test?”

“Doesn’t the professor have a computer?” Glauser-Röist asked, very surprised, not understanding what I had insinuated.

“Yes, he has one in his office, but I don’t know if it’s connected to the Internet.”

“Yes, it is!” shouted Casanova, who was following our conversation closely. “I’m connected to the Internet, and I have access to the museum’s database!”

“He says he does, Captain,” I repeated.

“You decide, Doctor,” I heard doubt in his voice. He must have felt uneasy.

“Come on over, Captain. We’ll be more comfortable here. What’s the address, Farag?” I asked through the door.

“33 Moharrem Bey, top floor!”

“You heard him, Captain.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour.” He hung up without saying good-bye.

Fortunately the restaurant delivery boy got here before the Rock did. We arranged the table quickly to make the captain think we’d fixed it ourselves.

“Wouldn’t you rather call Sister Sarolli before Kaspar gets here?” Farag asked me as we carried the cups and glasses from the kitchen. I couldn’t think what to say, so I kept quiet. But he insisted, “Ottavia, aren’t you going to call Sister Sarolli?”

“I don’t know, Farag! I’m not sure!” I exploded.

“What are you saying?” he was surprised. “Did I miss something?”

If I explained my reason, I was sure he’d laugh at me. I felt foolish for being so absurdly jealous of his romantic history, but I wasn’t sure if it was really jealousy I was feeling. Sleeping with Farag was something more than a comparatively small offense. I’d never had anyone in my past. He, on the other hand, had an assortment of ex-lovers. No matter how many times I turned it over in my mind and weighed the consequences, I came out the loser.

He must have seen something in my face. He set the dishes on the table and came over and put his arms around my shoulders.

“What’s wrong,
Basileia?
Are we starting to have secrets?”

“That’s what this is about!” I wailed, pointing an accusatory finger at the group of travel photos. “Have you been married? Because if you have…” I left my threat hanging in the air.

“I haven’t been married, ever,” he babbled. “What are you getting at?”

I continued to point accusatively at the photographs but he still didn’t understand my hopelessness and incredulity.

“My God, Farag! You really don’t get it? You’ve had too many women in your life!”

“Oh, okay,” he sighed. “I didn’t realize you were referring to that! Well, what do you think, Ottavia? Did you really expect me to be a virgin for thirty-nine years?” He was kind to add a year to equal my age.

“Why not? I have!”

If I expected excuses or for him to argue that I was a nun, I was left high and dry. All he did was flop down on the sofa, laughing loudly like a lunatic. When I saw there wasn’t going to be any attack—his face was drenched with tears—I took my wounded pride and headed for the room where my suitcase was. But I didn’t make it. Taking big strides, Professor Boswell caught up with me in the hall and pinned me against the wall.

“Don’t be silly,
Basileia,”
he said between hiccups, trying to hold back his laughter. “I will tell you once and hope you are clear: Make that call to Italy, say farewell to Sister Sarolli and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Erase all the women I may have had in my life from your mind. I didn’t feel for any of them what I feel for you, and this is the first time I am sure of how I feel. I love you like I’ve never loved anyone else.” He leaned down and kissed me. “While you’re talking with Sister Sarolli, I’ll take down all those photographs and get rid of them, okay?”