The Last Cato (24 page)

“That mouth…,” he asked amused. “Has it ever bitten anyone?”

I broke out in laughter. “Never! If it ever does, I’ll let you know.”

I watched him laugh. His blue eyes grew darker in the light. Stray gray hairs here and there in the stubble of his beard highlighted his Semitic features and his dark Egyptian skin. Life took some strange twists and turns to bring together a Swiss Guard, a Sicilian nun, and a compendium of so many races.

Spotlights placed at the top of the lateral naves and columns lit up the interior of Santa Maria. The light filtering in from outside was too weak to celebrate Mass. The church’s style was essentially Greek Byzantine. Although I liked everything about the church, what drew me like a magnet were its enormous iron candelabra. Instead of sheltering dozens of squat, white votive candles as in Latin churches, they held delicate yellow tapers, typical of the Eastern world. Without hesitating for a second, I walked to the candelabra leaning against the parapet of the schola cantorum, in the central nave in front of the altar. I tossed some coins into the alms box and lit one of the golden lights. I closed my eyes halfway and sank into prayer, asking God to take care of my poor father and brother. I also prayed that he protect my mother, who, apparently, was having trouble getting over their deaths. I gave thanks for being placed on a mission for the church, a mission that helped me put off the pain of losing them.

When I opened my eyes, I was completely alone. I glanced around for Farag and the captain, who were wandering around the lateral naves like baffled tourists. They were very interested in the frescos on the walls with scenes from the life of the Virgin and in the
cosmatesque
-style decorations on the floor. Since I was familiar with all that, I went to the presbytery to examine the most remarkable peculiarity of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Under a Gothic baldachin from the end of the eighth century, an enormous bathtub made of dark, salmon-colored porphyry served as the church’s altar. One would think that some rich Byzantine man—or woman—from imperial Rome had once taken some nice perfumed baths in that future Christian tabernacle.

Nobody noticed me walking in that presbytery. Except for during Mass and the Rosary prayers, there was no priest or sacristan in the church. Nor were there any dear little old ladies who would leave a few lire in the alms box and spend their afternoon in the church, as happily as my nieces and nephews spent their Saturday nights in Palermo nightclubs. Santa Maria in Cosmedin remained peaceful and solitary; only rarely did some lost visitor wander in.

I examined the bathtub at length. I tugged hard on the four large porphyry rings on its side to see what would happen. Nothing. Farag and Glauser-Röist weren’t having any luck either. It was as if the Staurofilakes had never been there. As I was inspecting the episcopal throne of the apse, my companions joined me.

“Anything special?” asked the Rock.

“No.”

Wearing a solemn look, we headed for the sacristy, where we found the only living person in there: the old salesclerk of an odd gift shop filled with medallions, crucifixes, postcards, and slides. He was an old priest, unshaven, wearing a greasy soutane, his gray hair uncombed. That clergyman’s hygiene was conspicuously absent. He observed us glumly when we entered, but his expression suddenly changed to that of a servile amiability that instantly put me off.

“Are you the people from the Vatican?” he inquired as he came from behind the counter, planting himself in front of us. His body odor was repugnant.

“I am Captain Glauser-Röist. This is Dr. Salina and Professor Boswell.”

“I’ve been expecting you! My name is Bonuomo, Father Bonuomo, at your service. How can I help you?”

“We’ve seen the church. Now we’d like to see the rest. I believe there’s also a crypt.”

The clergyman frowned, and I was more than surprised: a crypt? That was the first I’d ever heard of it. I had no idea there was such thing in Santa Maria.

“Yes,” admitted the old man, annoyed, “but it’s not visiting hours at the moment.”

Bonuomo?…
*
He really was
Maluomo.
Glauser-Röist didn’t budge. He stared at the priest, not moving a muscle in his face, not even blinking, as if the old man hadn’t said a word and he could wait forever for an invitation. The priest squirmed, torn between his duty to obey and his wretched inability to alter the church’s schedule.

“Is there a problem, Father Bonuomo?” Glauser-Röist asked in a cold, sharp voice.

“No,” the old man groaned. He turned and led us to the stairs that descended into the crypt. He stopped at the door and flipped several switches on a panel to the right. “Here’s some light. I regret I will not be able to accompany you, but I cannot leave the store. Let me know when you are finished.”

With these curt words, he disappeared. Breathing the unpleasantly pungent smell he gave off made my stomach churn. I was glad he was gone.

“Once again, we’re off to the earth’s center!” Farag joked heartily as he took his first step.

“I hope to see sunlight again someday…,” I muttered, following him.

“Not anytime soon, Doctor.”

I turned to look at him glumly.

“As you well know…,” the Rock said, as serious as ever. “The world might come to an end any day now. It might even happen while we’re in the crypt.”

“Ottavia!” Farag rushed to stop me. “Don’t even think about starting an argument!”

I had no intention to. There are trivialities that do not deserve an answer.

That fatuous priest had tricked us about the light. We’d barely gotten to the end of the stairs when we were plunged into total darkness. Unfortunately, we had descended so far down that going back would be quite the chore. We must have been several feet below the level of the Tiber River.

“Isn’t there is any light in this hole?” Farag’s voice said, to my right.

“There is no light in the crypt,” Glauser-Röist announced. “Don’t worry. I already knew that. I brought a flashlight.”

“Father Bonuomo could have told us that before he encouraged us to descend.” I was surprised. “Besides, how do they light the way for tourists?”

“Didn’t you notice, Doctor, that there’s no poster announcing visiting hours?”

“I already thought about that. In fact, I’ve visited this church many times, and never knew there was a crypt.”

Switching on the flashlight that splashed an intense beam of light on the place, Glauser-Röist said, “Isn’t it strange that there’s no light whatsoever, and that a priest of the church dares to challenge a direct order from the Secretariat of State, and that that same priest does not accompany the Vatican’s envoys on their visit?”

The captain shined the light toward the bottom of the crypt. The first thing I noticed was a small altar right beneath the central nave. That place was shaped exactly like a scale model of a church, with little columns that divided it into three naves. It even had chapels on the side, all completely covered in darkness.

“Are you insinuating, Captain,” Boswell asked, “that Father Bonuomo could be a Staurofilax?”

“I’m saying he just might be, just like the sacristan of Santa Lucia.”

“Well, he is,” I pronounced, as I entered the little church.

“We cannot be sure, Doctor. That’s just a guess, and guessing gets us nowhere.”

“How did you know this secret place existed?” I asked.

“I looked on the Internet. You can find almost anything on the Internet. But you already know that, don’t you, Doctor?”

“Me? But I barely know how to work a computer!”

“Yet you went online to find all that information on the
Ligna Crucis
and the accident involving Abi-Ruj Iyasus, isn’t that right?”

I was paralyzed by the point-blank question. There was no way I would confess to involving my poor nephew, Stefano, in the search. But I couldn’t lie either. Besides, why lie? At this point my face revealed all the guilt I felt.

Glauser-Röist didn’t wait for my answer. He passed me on the right, and as he did, he handed me a flashlight like the one he gave Farag. We split up, each one taking a side. With the light from three flashlights, the place became less forbidding.

“This crypt is known as the Crypt of Adriano, in honor of Pope Adrian I, who ordered its restoration in the eighth century,” the Rock explained as we examined the enclosure, meter by meter. “The building dates to around the third century, during the persecutions of Diocletian, when the first Christians built a small secret church on the foundation of a pagan temple. The stones sticking out of the plaster walls are the ruins of the pagan temple and the altar of the apse is what’s left of the Ara Maxima.”

“It was a temple dedicated to Hercules the Triumphant,” I clarified.

“Like I said, a pagan temple.”

I shined my light into every corner of the three naves and some of the small lateral oratories on the left. There was dust everywhere, as well as broken urns containing the remains of saints and martyrs forgotten many centuries back. Aside from its obvious historical and artistic value, that modest chapel contained nothing worth mentioning. It was simply a strange underground church with no information and no clues to the first test of Staurofilakes purgatory.

After our fruitless search, we gathered in the apse and sat down on the ground, next to the Ara Maxima, to take stock. In my new pants, I felt completely at ease. In a large chest in the wall, the skull and the bones of one Saint Cirilla rested next to me (“Saint Cirilla, virgin and martyr, daughter of Saint Trifonia, died for Christ in the reign of Prince Claudius,” read her epitaph in Latin).

“This time we haven’t found any chrismon to point the way,” Farag said, pushing his hair out of his face.

“There must be something,” the captain replied, distressed. “Let’s go back over everything we have seen since we got to Santa Maria in Cosmedin. What got your attention?”

“The Mouth of Truth!” exclaimed Boswell enthusiastically. I smiled.

“I’m not talking about tourist attractions, Professor.”

“Well… That really got my attention.”

“The cover of that Roman culvert is very interesting,” I observed to cover his back.

“Fine. We will go back on top and start our inspection all over again.”

That was more than I could bear. I looked at my watch and saw it was five thirty in the afternoon. “Can’t we come back tomorrow, Captain? We’re tired.”

“Tomorrow, Doctor, we will be in Ravenna, facing the second circle of Purgatory. Don’t you get it? At this very moment, somewhere in the world, there could be another theft of a
Lignum Crucis!
Maybe right here in Rome! No, we are not going to stop, and we are not going to rest, either.”

“I’m sure it’s not important,” the professor blurted out, stuttering and pushing up his glasses again, “but I saw something strange over there.” He pointed to one of the oratories on the right.

“What is it, Professor?”

“A word written on the ground… etched in the stone.”

“What word?

“You can barely make it out; it’s almost worn away. It seems to be
Vom.”

“Vom?”

“Let’s see.” The Rock got to his feet.

In the left corner of the oratory, right in the center of a huge rectangular flagstone at right angles with the walls, you could make out the word
VOM.”

“What does
Vom
mean?” the Rock asked.

I was just about to answer when, suddenly, we heard a dull crack and the ground began to tremble. I screamed as I fell like dead weight onto the stone slab. We were sinking into the earth, rocking furiously from side to side. One important detail stuck with me: seconds before the crack, I got a strong whiff of the unmistakably pungent smell of Father Bonuomo’s sweat and dirt. He had to have been close by.

I was too panicked to think clearly; all I could do was try to grab onto the oscillating floor to keep from falling into the void. I lost my flashlight and purse. An iron hand was clutching me by the wrist, helping me keep my body glued to the stone.

We descended like that for a long time. Of course, what seemed like an eternity may have only been a few minutes, but finally the damned rock touched down and came to a halt. Nobody moved. All I could hear was Farag’s and the Rock’s ragged breathing under mine. My legs and arms felt like they were made of rubber, as if they’d never be able to support me again. I trembled uncontrollably from head to toe. My heart was beating wildly and I felt like I really needed to throw up. I recall a blinding light streaming through my closed eyelids. We must have looked like three frogs spread out facedown on some mad scientist’s dissection tray.

“No. No, we didn’t… we didn’t do it right…,” I heard Farag say.

“What are you saying, Professor?” asked the Rock in a very low voice, as if he didn’t have the strength to speak.

“Through a narrow cleft, along a path that zigzagged through the rock,”
the professor recited, gulping in air,
“the way a wave swells up and then pulls back. ‘Now we are at the point,’ my guide began, ‘where we must use our wits: when the path bends, we keep close to the far side of the curve.’”

“Blessed Dante…” I sighed with dismay.