The Last Cato (58 page)

“I don’t want to die,” I said, pressed against him.

Glauser-Röist had silently come up behind us.
“‘O my dear son,’”
he recited,
“‘there may be pain here, but there is no death. Believe me when I say that if you spent a thousand years within the fire’s heart, it would not singe a single hair of yours.’”

“Oh, come on, Captain,” I shrieked with acrimony.

Mulugeta Mariam insisted. We couldn’t stand there all night; we had to walk down that path.

I walked like a condemned man headed for the gallows, held up by Farag’s strong arm. Two meters from the tapestry of embers, the heat was so unbearable I felt it scorch my skin. As soon as we stepped on the path that led to the center, I felt, literally, that I was being incinerated and that my blood was boiling. It was unbearable. Farag’s and the captain’s beards were fluttering gently, stirred by the hot air. That red lake emitted a muffled crackle.

Finally we arrived at the center, and as soon as we got there, the group of young men who had made all the preparations covered our path with another pile of embers. Corralled like animals, Farag, the captain, and I looked stunned at the circle of Anuaks, a few meters from the ring of coals. They seemed to be impassible ghosts, pitiless judges, lit up by the fire’s glow. No one moved, no one breathed, and neither did we as the burning air filled our lungs.

Suddenly a strange song rose from the crowd, a primitive cadence that I could not make out clearly due to the crackle of the wood. It was a single musical phrase, always the same, repeated tirelessly like a slow, meditative litany. Farag’s arms around my shoulders tensed like steel cables and the Rock shifted uneasily on his naked feet. Mulugeta Mariam’s shout brought us back to reality.

Farag said, “We have to cross the fire. If we don’t, they’ll kill us.”

“What!” I exclaimed, horrified. “Kill us? They didn’t tell us that! How can we walk across
that!”
The top layer of embers was turning black.

“Think, please,” begged the Rock. “If our only choice were to start running, I’d do it right now, even though I might wind up dead, with third-degree burns all over my body. But before I commit suicide, I want to know for sure that there’s no other option, that there’s nothing in our brains that can help us.”

I twisted around to see Farag’s face. He also leaned over to look at me. Gazing at each other, our brains shared in a split second all the knowledge we’d accumulated over our lives. But we couldn’t come up with a single reference to walking on fire.

“I’m sorry, Kaspar.” Farag was sweating copiously, but the surrounding heat caused the sweat to immediately evaporate. We didn’t need the Anuak’s help to die. If we stayed there, we would die on our own, of dehydration.

“We only have Dante’s text,” I mused, distressed, “but I don’t recall anything that can help us.”

A sharp projectile cut the air. One of the lances they’d used to spread the coals stuck in the ground neatly between my feet. I thought my heart would never beat again. They were throwing lances at us.

“Leave her alone!” cried Farag, literally becoming a wild man.

The monotonous chant grew louder and clearer. It sounded like they were chanting in Greek, but I thought that was just a hallucination.

“Maybe the answer is in Dante,” the Rock said pensively.

“But when Dante enters the fire, Captain, he only says that if he could, he would have thrown himself into a pool of boiling glass to cool down.”

“True…”

We heard another lance cut the air. The captain stopped midsentence. A new lance stuck in the ground, this time in the space formed by our three pairs of defenseless feet. Farag went crazy, shouting a string of insults in Arabic that I’m glad I didn’t understand.

“They don’t want to kill us! If they did, they would have done it by now. They just want to get us to start!”

The musical chant grew louder. You could clearly hear the Anuaks’ voices now:
“Macarioi hoi kazaroi ti kardia.”

“‘Good fortune to the pure of heart,’” I exclaimed. “They’re singing in Greek!”

“That’s what the angel was singing when Dante, Virgil, and Estacio were inside the fire, right, Kaspar?” asked Farag. Since the Rock had gone mute with the second lance, he just nodded. Farag was revved up now. “The solution has to be in Dante’s tercets! Help us, Kaspar! What does Dante say about the fire?”

“Well…,” the Rock stammered. “He doesn’t say anything, damn it! Nothing!” he exploded, disheartened. “Just that the wind parts the fire!”

“Wind?” Farag frowned, trying to remember.
“There, from the inner bank,”
he recalled,
“flames flashed out straight, while, from the ledge, a blast of air shot up, bending them back, leaving a narrow path.”

A strange mental image formed in my head: a foot that fell swiftly from above, cutting the air.

“A blast of air shot up…”
Farag murmured, pensive. Just then, another lance cut through the red glow of the coals and stuck deep in front of the right toes of the double saint.

“Damn them!” he bellowed.

“Listen to me!” cried Farag, very excited. “I’ve got it, I know what to do!”

“Macarioi hoi kazaroi ti kardia,”
the people of Antioch repeated over and over, loud and grave.

“If we step very hard, really hard, we will create a pocket of air on the bottoms of our feet, and we will cut the combustion off for a couple of seconds! The blast of air that shoots up will drive back the flames and moved them away from us. That’s what Dante was telling us!”

The Rock stood motionless, trying to get what Farag said through his hard head. I understood immediately—it was a simple game of applied physics: If our feet fell from above with a lot of force and struck against the coals, for a very brief period of time the air accumulated on the bottom of our feet and retained by the shoes of fire that formed around the skin would impede burns. To accomplish this you had to step very, very hard and fast, just like Farag said. You couldn’t get distracted and lose your rhythm. If you did, nothing could stop your skin from being calcinated. The embers would devour the flesh in a heartbeat. It was very risky, but it was the very thing that fit Dante’s instructions. It was the only idea we had, and besides, we were running out of time. Mulugeta Mariam announced that fact, shouting from where he stood next to Berehanu Bekela.

“Be very careful not to fall,” the Rock added, when he finally understood what Farag was saying.
“‘And I feared the fire or the fall,’
says Dante. Don’t forget. If the pain or anything else makes you lose heart or lose your footing, you will be burned.”

“I’ll go first!” Farag said, leaning over and giving me a kiss on the lips that also quashed my protests. “Don’t say anything,
Basileia,”
he whispered in my ear so the Rock couldn’t hear. Then he added, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you…”

He didn’t stop saying that until he made me laugh. Then, he pulled away from me and went into the fire, shouting, “Watch,
Basileia,
and don’t repeat my mistakes!”

Farag stepped rhythmically and decisively on the fire. I couldn’t watch. I hid my face in the Rock’s chest. He held me tight. I cried as I’d never cried before, racked with such sobs, such pain and grief, I couldn’t hear Captain Glauser-Röist when he shouted.

“He’s out, Doctor! He did it! Dr. Salina!” He shook me like a rag doll. “Look, Dr. Salina, look! He’s out!”

I raised my head, not understanding what the captain was saying. I saw Farag waving his arms from the other side.

“He’s alive, my God!” I screamed. “Thank you, Lord, thank you! You’re alive, Farag!”

“Ottavia!” He shouted, and suddenly toppled over onto the ground senseless.

“He’s burned! He’s burned!”

“Come on, Doctor! Now, it’s our turn!”

“What are you saying?” I babbled, but before I realized what was happening, the Rock had grabbed me by the hand and was pulling me to the fire. My survival instinct rebelled and I braked, digging my feet firmly in the ground.

“Right this second! Now, step! Step hard!” Glauser-Röist told me, undaunted by my abrupt stop. Proximity to the coals must have made me react because I raised my foot and slammed it down with all my might.

My life stopped. The world ceased its eternal gyration and Nature fell silent. I entered a type of silent white tunnel which proved that Einstein was right—time and space
are
relative. I looked at my feet and saw one of them sunk slightly into some white, cold stones. The other ascended in slow motion to take the next step. Time had expanded and stretched, allowing me to study that strange pathway without haste. My second foot fell like a bomb on the stones, making them jump in the air. My first foot had already started its indolent ascent. I could see how my toes extended, how the bottom of my foot expanded to offer more resistance to the rocky bed. Now it was descending very slowly so when it hit, it caused another gigantic earthquake. I laughed. I laughed because I was flying. A second before it hit the surface, the other foot lifted off the ground, leaving me suspended in the air.

I couldn’t erase the joy off my face the entire time that incredible experience lasted. It was only ten steps, but the longest ten steps of my life, and the most surprising. Suddenly the white tunnel ended and I entered reality, falling abruptly to the ground, propelled by the hot air. The drums were sounding, the shouts were deafening, dirt was stuck to my hands and feet, and I was all scratched up. I didn’t see Farag or Glauser-Röist anywhere although I sensed they were close by. Someone was covering Farag up with a large white linen cloth and carrying him off into the night. I too became a roll of linen. Hundreds of hands held me in the air in the middle of a deafening uproar. Then they laid me on a cushioned surface and unrolled me. I was dazed, completely soaked in my own sweat, exhausted as never before. I was so terribly cold; I shivered, as if I were freezing. Two women offered me a large glass of water, and I realized they weren’t Anuaks from Antioch. They were blond with translucent skin; and one of them even had green eyes.

After I drank what was in the glass, which didn’t taste anything like water, I fell asleep.

CHAPTER 7

I
detached myself from my slumber, floating out of the deep lethargy I’d sunk into after we stomped over the wheel of fire. I felt relaxed, comfortable even, with an incredible sense of well-being. A delightful scent of lavender told me I wasn’t in Antioch. Half-asleep, I smiled at how good that familiar fragrance made me feel.

I heard women’s voices, whispering softly, not wanting to disturb my sleep. My eyes still closed, I paid attention to the sounds around me. To my great surprise, I realized that for the first time in a lifetime of study, I had the immense honor of hearing Byzantine Greek spoken.

“We should wake her up,” whispered one of the voices.

“Not yet, Zauditu,” answered another. “Please leave without making any noise.”

“But Tafari told me the other two are already eating.”

“Fine, let them eat. This woman can sleep as long as she wants.”

I suddenly opened my eyes. I was stretched out on my side, facing the wall, and the first thing I saw was a pleasant fresco of flautists and dancers painted on the smooth wall across from me. The colors were brilliant and intense, with magnificent details in gold surrounded by an array of browns and mauve. Was I still dreaming? I suddenly understood: I lay there in the earthly paradise.

“See?” said the voice of the woman who wanted to let me sleep. “You and your chatter. You woke her up!”

I hadn’t moved a muscle, my back was still to them. How did they know I was listening? One of them leaned over me.

“Hygieia,
*
Ottavia.”

I turned my head very slowly and found myself looking into a middle-aged female’s face, with white skin and gray hair gathered up in a bun. I recognized her by her green eyes: she was one of the women who had given me something to drink in Antioch. Her mouth wore a beautiful smile that formed lines around her eyes and lips.

“How are you?”

I was just about to open my mouth when it dawned on me I’d never spoken Byzantine Greek. I quickly translated from a language I knew only on paper to an oral language I had never tried speaking. When I tried to say something, I realized how badly I sounded.

“Very well, thank you,” I said haltingly, interrupting myself with each syllable. “Where am I?”

The woman stood up and stepped away from me, making room for me to sit up. The sheets were made of very fine silk, softer and more delicate than satin or taffeta. I slid in them when I moved.

“In Stauros, the capital of
Paradeisos.
†
And this room,” she said looking around, “is one of the guest rooms in Cato’s
basileion.”
‡

“So,” I concluded, “I’m in the Staurofilakes’ earthly paradise.”

The woman smiled and the other younger woman hiding behind her did the same. Both were dressed in flowing white tunics held up by clasps at the shoulders and girded by a belt at the waist. The white of those garments had no equal. The white clothes the Anuak wore would have looked gray and dirty in comparison. Everything struck me as beautiful; an exquisite beauty I couldn’t stay indifferent to. The alabaster glasses placed on one of the magnificent wooden tables glinted with the light of innumerable candles. Vibrantly colored rugs covered the floors, and there were extraordinarily large and fragrant flowers everywhere I looked. The most disconcerting thing was the room’s walls—they were completely covered by Roman-style murals, complete with scenes depicting daily life in the Byzantine Empire of the thirteenth or fourteenth century A.D.

“My name is Haide,” the green-eyed woman said. “Stay in bed a while longer if you like and take it all in. You seem to thoroughly enjoy the items that surround us.”

“I love it,” I exclaimed. So much luxury, good taste, and Byzantine art gathered in one room. It was the perfect time to study firsthand what I could only guess at in examining adulterated reproductions in books. I added, “I’d really like to see my companions.” I’d always been so proud of my vocabulary in that language; now it proved woefully lacking. I said “compatriots”
(simpatriotes)
instead of “companions.” But they seemed to understand.

“Didaskalos
*
Boswell and
Protospatharios
†
Glauser-Röist are eating with Cato and the twenty-four
shastas.”

“Shastas?”
I repeated, surprised.
Shasta
was a word in Sanskrit meaning “wise” or “venerable.”

“The
shastas
are…,” Haide hesitated before finding the right way to explain such a complex concept to a neophyte like me, “Cato’s assistants, although that isn’t exactly their role. Be patient in your apprenticeship, young Ottavia. There’s no need to hurry. In
Paradeisos
there is always time.”

As she said this, Zauditu opened barely visible doors in the wall and removed from a closet covered in murals a tunic identical to theirs. She laid it out on an ornately carved wooden chair. Then she opened a drawer tucked under the top of one of the tables, took out a case and set it carefully on my knees, which were still covered by sheets. To my surprise, in the enameled case was an incredible collection of gold brooches and precious stones, valuable as much for the Byzantine engraving and design as for their raw materials. The goldsmith who worked those wonders had to be a first-class artisan.

“Choose one or two, if you like,” said Zauditu timidly.

How do I choose between such beautiful objects, especially when I was not accustomed to wearing any type of jewelry?

“No, no. Thank you,” I apologized with a smile.

“Don’t you like them?” she said surprised.

“Oh, yes, of course I do. But I’m not used to wearing such expensive things.”

I was on the verge of telling her I was a nun who had taken a vow of poverty, before I remembered that aspect of my life was now a thing of the past.

Distressed, Zauditu walked over to Haide, but the young lady’s attention was elsewhere. She talked calmly with someone standing on the other side of the door. Zauditu picked up the box and set it on the nearest table. I then heard the soft sound of a lyre playing a festive melody.

“That’s Tafari, the best
liroktipos
*
of Stauros,” said Zauditu with pride.

Haide returned, with languid grace and rhythmic steps. Later I discovered that this fluid way of walking was the way all the inhabitants of
Paradeisos
moved, in Stauros, as well as in Crucis, Edem, and Lignum.

“I hope you like the music,” Haide commented.

“Very much,” I replied. Then I realized I had no idea what day it was. With all the turmoil, I had lost complete track of time.

“Today is the eighteenth of June,” Haide responded. “Our Lord’s day.”

Sunday, the eighteenth of June. It had taken us three months to get here and we’d been missing more than fifteen days.

“She doesn’t want any clasps,” Zauditu interrupted, very worried. “How will she hold up her
himation?”
*

“You don’t want any clasps?” Haide was astonished. “But that’s not possible, Ottavia.”

“They’re… They’re too much… I never wear such things; I’m not accustomed to such things.”

“Could you please tell me how you plan to fasten your
himation?”

“Don’t you have anything simpler? Pins, needles.” I had no idea how to say “safety pins.”

The two women looked at each other, confused.

“The
himation
can only be worn with clasps,” Haide declared. “It can be held up differently if you prefer, with one or two of them, but you can’t just hold it up with simple pins. They wouldn’t hold up under your movements or the weight of the fabric itself, and they’ll end up tearing it.”

“But those clasps are too ostentatious!”

“Is that what bothers you?” asked Zauditu, growing more and more surprised.

“Well, Ottavia, don’t worry about that,” Haide said. “Let’s talk later. Now choose some clasps and sandals, and we’ll go to the dining room. I sent word with Ras, and they’ll be expecting you. I believe
Didaskalos
Boswell is eager to see you.”

And I was eager to see him. I jumped out of the bed, and indiscriminately chose a pair of clasps. One had a lion’s head with two incredible rubies for eyes and the other one was a cameo depicting a waterfall. I started to take the long nightgown I’d been sleeping in off over my head.

“My hair!” I exclaimed in Italian.

“What did you say?” Zauditu asked.

“My hair, my hair!” I repeated, letting the garment fall over my body, looking for a mirror. I ran over to a full-length silver mirror hanging on a wall, next to the door. My blood froze when I saw my head completely shaved. Incredulous, I raised my hands to my scalp and tried to remember what my head felt like with hair. As my fingertips probed my head, I felt a sharp pain. I twisted my neck slightly downward and there it was: On the very top of my head, in the very center, I had a tattoo like Abi-Ruj Iyasus, a capital sigma.

Still in shock, unable to react to Haide’s words of consolation, I took the shirt off again and stood there naked. Another six capital Greek letters were distributed over my body: on the right arm, a tau; on my left arm, an epsilon; on my heart, between my breasts, an alpha; on my abdomen, a rho; on my right thigh, an omicron; and on my left thigh, another sigma like the one on my head. Adding up all the crosses I’d gotten for completing the series of tests, along with the great chrismon de Constantine on my navel, I looked like a mental patient with a penchant for body art.

Suddenly, Haide appeared by my side in the mirror, also naked; a moment later, Zauditu was there, too. They had the same marks, although they’d long since healed.

“I will get over it… more or less…” I stammered, on the brink of tears.

“Your body didn’t suffer,” Haide calmly explained. “We were always sure you were deep asleep before cutting your skin. Look at us. Are we so horrible?”

“I believe they are very beautiful symbols,” Zauditu observed, smiling. “I love the tattoos on Tafari’s body, and he likes mine a lot, too. See this?” she added, pointing to the letter alpha between her breasts. “See how delicately they made it. Its edges are perfect, smooth and rounded.”

“Think how those letters,” continued Haide, “form the word,
Stauros.
It will be with you wherever you go. It is an important word, and, therefore, they are important letters. Remember what it took to get them and feel proud.”

They helped me get dressed, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my hair and my body, now covered with tattoos. What would Farag say?

“Perhaps it will calm you to know that the
didaskalos
and the
protospatharios
look just like you,” Zauditu said. “It does not seem to bother them.”

“They’re men!” I protested while Haide tied the sash around my waist. They exchanged a knowing look and tried to hide a look of patient resignation.

“It may take you some time, Ottavia, but you will learn that focusing on those differences is trivial. Now, let’s go. They are expecting you.”

I said nothing and followed them out of the room, surprised at how modern the Staurofilakes were. On the other side of the door was a wide corridor furnished with tapestries, armchairs, and tables; it opened onto a patio full of flowers. A large fountain shot water into the air. Although I tried to look for the sky, I could only make out strange black shadows so far above me that I couldn’t estimate their height. Then I realized the light of the real sun didn’t reach where I stood. There was no sun anywhere, and what light there was, was in no way natural.

We walked down many other corridors similar to the first, with more and more patios and ornamental gardens with jets of water forming incredible effects. The sound was relaxing, like the gentle sound of a noise made by a running creek. I was starting to get nervous. If I concentrated on everything around me, a thousand signs pointed to something very unsettling.

“Where is
Paradeisos
exactly?” I asked my silent guides. They walked in front of me without hurrying, looking into the patios from time to time, arranging the tablecloth on a table or smoothing the waves in their hair. A lilting laugh was my answer.

“What a question!” added Zauditu, delighted.

“Where do you think it is?” Haide felt obliged to add, with the same tone of voice she would use in talking to a small child.

“In Ethiopia?”

“That’s what you think?” she answered as if the solution were so obvious. The question was superfluous.

My guides stopped before two impressive doors and opened them gradually without the slightest strain. Behind them was an enormous room, as beautifully decorated as everything else I had seen. At its center was a colossal circular table.

Farag Boswell, the baldest
didaskalos
I’d ever seen, leaped to his feet when he saw me. The rest of those at the meal also stood. His arms open wide, he started to run toward me, tripping on the hem of his tunic. I got a lump in my throat when I saw him walking toward me, and for a second, forgot everything around me. They had shaved his head, true, but his blond beard was as long as ever. I pressed against him feeling like I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt his warm body pressing into mine and took in his scent—not the light sandalwood smell of his
himation,
but the familiar smell of the skin on his neck. We were in the strangest place in the world, but in Farag’s arms, I began to feel safe again.