The Last Cato (3 page)

“However, after more thought, perhaps I could take a look, as long as you gave me enough time.”

Monsignor Tournier’s mocking expression vanished as if by magic while the tense expressions of the rest relaxed, sighing with great relief and satisfaction. One of my biggest sins is pride, I admit—pride in all its variations of arrogance, vanity, haughtiness. I will never repent enough nor do enough penance, and I am incapable of rejecting a challenge or getting cold feet when any doubt is cast on my intelligence or my knowledge.

“Splendid!” exclaimed His Eminence, the secretary of state, slapping his knee. “Then there’s nothing more to talk about. Problem solved, thanks be to God! Very well, Sister Ottavia. From this moment on, Captain Glauser-Röist will be at your side to collaborate on anything you might need. Each morning, when you begin your work, he will give you the photographs. You will return them to him when you’re finished at the end of each day. Any questions before you get started?”

“Yes,” I replied, puzzled. “Will the captain be allowed to enter the restricted area of the Classified Archives? It’s not a secular area, and…”

“Of course he will, Doctor!” Prefect Ramondino affirmed. “I will see to it myself. I’ll have his pass ready by this very afternoon.”

A little toy soldier (for what else is a Swiss Guard?) was about to put an end to a venerable and secular tradition.

I
had lunch at the cafeteria in the Archives and spent the rest of the afternoon packing up everything on the desk in my lab. Postponing my study of the
Panegyrikon
irritated me more than I could admit, but I’d fallen into my own trap. I couldn’t get out of a direct order from Cardinal Sodano. Besides, I was intrigued and felt a tickle of perverse curiosity.

When everything was in perfect order and my office was ready for the new task that began the next morning, I gathered my belongings and left. Crossing the Bernini Colonnade, I left by way of the Via di Porta Angelica and walked distractedly by numerous souvenir stores filled with the crowds of tourists that had flooded Rome for the great jubilee. I clutched my purse and picked up my pace. Although the pickpockets of the Borgo more or less recognized those of us who worked in the Vatican, since the Holy Year had begun—the first ten days of January, when three million visitors flood the city—pickpockets from all over Italy had swelled their numbers, the result of which made me as alert as ever. The afternoon light streamed slowly in from the west, and I— who’d always had a certain aversion to such light—couldn’t wait to curl up at home. I was almost there. Luckily, the head of my order had decided that having one of its nuns in such an outstanding position as mine merited the purchase of a furnished apartment near the Vatican. So, three sisters and I had been the first to live in a tiny apartment located in the Piazza delle Vaschette. It overlooked the baroque fountain, which long ago flowed with the angelic water known for its great curative powers for gastric troubles.

Sisters Ferma, Margherita, and Valeria, who worked together in a public school nearby, had just gotten home. They were in the kitchen, fixing dinner and chatting happily. Ferma, fifty-five and the oldest, still stubbornly wore a uniform. After habits were retired, she’d donned a white shirt, a navy blue cardigan, a skirt that reached below her knees, and thick black stockings. Margherita, the mother superior of our community and director of the school, was only a few years older than I. Our relationship over the years had gone from distant to warm, then from warm to friendly, but not any further. Lastly, young Valeria from Milan taught four- and five-year-olds, among whom increasingly numbered the children of immigrant Arabs and Asians, with all the problems of communication this brought to a classroom. I had recently seen her reading a big book on the customs and religions of other continents.

The three respected my work at the Vatican, but they didn’t know the details of what I did. All that they knew was that they shouldn’t ask too many questions; I assume they must have been warned firmly by our superiors, for in my contract with the Vatican, one clause was explicitly clear: Under penalty of excommunication, I was forbidden to discuss my work. However, once in a while they liked to hear what I’d recently discovered about the first Christian communities or the beginnings of the church. I only talked about good things, the things I could divulge without undermining the official history or the props of their faith. How would I explain to them that in a zealously guarded writing, Ireneo, one of the fathers of the church in the year 183, was cited as the first pope—not Peter, who wasn’t even mentioned? Or that the official list of the first popes, collected in the
Catalogus Liberianus
from the year 354, was completely false, and that the alleged pontiffs who appeared on that list (Anacleto, Clement I, Evaristo, Alexander) hadn’t even existed? Or that the four Gospels had been written after the Epistles of Paul, the true forger of our church, following his doctrine and teachings, and not the other way around as everyone believed? Why tell them any of that? My doubts and fears, my internal struggles and great suffering, which Ferma, Margherita, and Valeria clearly sensed, were a secret only my confessor could be a witness to. All of us who worked in the third and fourth subterranean floors of the Classified Archives had the same confessor, the Franciscan father Egilberto Pintonello.

After putting supper in the oven and setting the table, my three sisters and I went to our small chapel and sat on floor cushions around a shrine where a tiny candle permanently burned. Together, we prayed the painful mysteries of the Rosary, and soon we grew quiet, gathered in prayer. It was Lent. On Father Pintonello’s recommendation, I reflected on Jesus’s forty days of fasting in the desert and the devil’s temptations. It was not exactly my taste, but I’ve always been tremendously disciplined. It would never have occurred to me to go against my confessor’s suggestions.

As I prayed, the meeting with the prelates came back to me again and again, blocking my prayers. I asked myself how I could possibly succeed at my work if they were going to keep information from me. Besides, the subject was very strange. “The man in the photographs,” Monsignor Tournier had said, “was implicated in a serious crime against the Catholic Church, as well as against all other Christian churches. We are very sorry, but we cannot give you any more details.”

That night I had horrible nightmares. A beaten, headless man who was the reincarnation of the devil appeared to me around every corner and down a long street. I stumbled down that street, like a drunk. He tempted me with power and the glory of all the kingdoms of the world.

A
t exactly eight o’clock the next morning, the doorbell rang insistently. Margherita answered the door and came to the kitchen right away with a concerned look on her face. “Ottavia, a Kaspar Glauser is waiting for you downstairs.”

I was petrified. “Captain Glauser-Röist?” I mumbled through a mouth full of bread.

“He didn’t say anything about being a captain,” Margherita said, “but the name sounds right.”

I hurried to finish the rest of my breakfast without chewing and gulped my coffee.

“A problem at work.” I excused myself and rushed out of the kitchen under my sister’s surprised gaze. The apartment in the Piazza delle Vaschette was so small that in a second I had time to straighten up my room and pass through the chapel to say good-bye to the Lord. I grabbed my coat and purse from the hanger at the front door and ran out, closing the door behind me, totally confused. Why was Captain Glauser-Röist waiting for me downstairs? Was something wrong?

Hidden behind impenetrable black glasses, the robust toy soldier leaned, expressionless, against the door of a flashy, dark-blue Alfa Romeo. It is a Roman custom to park right in front of the door, even if you’re blocking traffic. Any good Roman will explain to you that this saves time for everyone involved. Despite being Swiss—all the members of the small Vatican army had to be—Captain Glauser-Röist must have lived in Rome for many years to have seamlessly adopted its worst customs. Oblivious to my neighbors’ ogling, the captain didn’t move a muscle when I finally opened the door to my building and came out to the street. In the strong sunlight, I was very happy to see that the hulking Swiss soldier looked a bit older than at first glance. Time had left some wrinkles around his eyes and on his deceptively youthful face.

“Good morning,” I said, buttoning my coat. “Is something wrong, Captain?”

“Good morning, Doctor.” His very proper Italian didn’t hide a slight German inflection in the way he pronounced his
r
’s. “I’ve been waiting outside the Archives since six this morning.”

“Why so early, Captain?”

“I thought it was time to get to work.”

“I start work at eight,” I mumbled, irritated.

The captain cast an indifferent glance at his watch.

“It’s eight ten,” he announced, cold as a stone yet just as pleasant.

“Is that so? Well then, let’s get going.”

What an irritating man! Didn’t he know that the boss always arrives late? It’s one of the perks of being in charge.

The Alfa Romeo crossed the alleys in the Borgo at top speed. The captain had also adopted the suicidal Roman way of driving. Before you could say amen, we were crossing the Porta Santa Anna, leaving the Swiss Guard’s barracks behind. If I didn’t scream—or open the door and throw myself from the speeding death trap—it was only thanks to my Sicilian roots and the fact that I’d gotten my driver’s license in Palermo, where the traffic lights are for decorative purposes only and the rules of the road are based on the laws of physics, the use of the horn, and general common sense. The captain stopped the car abruptly in a parking space that had a plaque emblazoned with his name. He turned off the motor, a satisfied look on his face. That was the first trace of human emotion I’d observed in him, and it really got my attention. Clearly he loved to drive. We walked toward the Archives through parts of the Vatican I didn’t know existed, passing a modern gym full of machines as well as a shooting range. All the guards came sharply to attention and saluted Glauser-Röist as we passed.

One thing that had really piqued my curiosity over the years was the origin of the Swiss Guard’s gaudy, multicolor uniforms. In the Classified Archives, there was nothing that confirmed or debunked the rumor that Michelangelo had designed them. However, I was sure that one day we’d find some proof when we least expected among the vast quantity of documents still left to study. Unlike his fellow soldiers, Glauser-Röist didn’t wear the uniform. On the two occasions I’d met him, he was dressed in civilian clothes that were clearly very expensive, almost too expensive for the meager salary of a poor member of the Swiss Guard.

We crossed the vestibule of the Classified Archives in silence, passing in front of Reverend Father Ramondino’s closed office, and entered the elevator simultaneously. Glauser-Röist stuck his brand new key into the control panel.

“Do you have the photographs on you, Captain?” I asked as we descended toward the Hypogeum.

“I do, Doctor.” More and more he resembled a sharp rock on a steep mountainside. Where did they find this guy?

“Then I suppose we can start work right away, yes?”

“Right away.”

My staff’s jaws dropped when they saw Glauser-Röist come down the aisle toward the lab. Guido Buzzonetti’s desk was painfully empty that morning.

“Good morning,” I said in a loud voice.

“Good morning, Doctor,” someone murmured so I didn’t go unanswered.

If a thick silence followed us to my office, the shout that escaped me as I opened the lab door could be heard all the way to the Roman Forum.

“Jesus! What happened here?”

My old desk had been shoved heartlessly into a corner, and in the middle of the room was a metal desk and a huge computer. Other hulking devices had been set on small plastic tables that came from some empty office. Dozens of cables and plugs crisscrossed the floor and hung from my old bookcases.

Horrified, I clapped my hands over my mouth and cautiously stepped inside as if I were walking into a nest of snakes.

“We need this equipment for our work,” answered the Rock, behind me.

“I hope you’re right, Captain! Who gave you permission to enter my lab and assemble this mess?”

“Prefect Ramondino.”

“Well, he should have consulted me!”

“We set up the equipment last night after you left,” in his voice there was not even the slightest note of remorse. He was limited to informing me of the facts and that was that, as if everything he did was beyond discussion.

“Splendid! That’s splendid!” I repeated, utterly furious.

“Do you wish to start work or not?”

I spun around as if he had slapped me and I looked at him with all the disdain I could muster.

“Let’s get this over with as soon as possible.”

“At your orders,” he murmured, again dragging out his
r
’s. He unbuttoned his jacket and from some unfathomable place took out the same bulky dossier in a black file I’d seen the day before. “It’s all yours,” he said holding it out to me.

“What are you going to do while I work?”

“Use the computer.”

“To do what?” I asked, astonished. My computer illiteracy was an unresolved issue I knew I’d have to confront someday. Up until then, like any good scholar, I found it very comforting to scorn those diabolical pieces of electronic junk.