The Last Cato (32 page)

“Perhaps,” admitted the Rock, touching the design. “But an image made of tin.”

“Saturn was made of lead, as I recall,” I said.

“I don’t know…,” repeated Farag, irritated. “This is all very strange. What kind of game are they playing this time?”

We found the next door about five hours later.

We sat down on the ground and ate something before entering. The next path—or gigantic circle, if you like—was narrower, and the thorny plants seemed to be denser and more dangerous. Here, the symbol was the planet Mars, and it was made of iron.

“Now there’s no doubt,” commented the captain.

“We’re walking through the solar system.”

“We shouldn’t think in contemporary terms,” Farag corrected me, leaning over the figure. “Our knowledge of the planets and the universe today has nothing to do with what was known in antiquity. If you look closely you’ll see that the sequence we have followed has been Saturn– Jupiter–Mars. I’d say we’re moving through the universe as it was perceived from the time of classical Greece until the Renaissance: The sphere of the stationary stars on the first path, then the seven planets and Earth.”

“That’s the same concept Dante has of the universe.”

“That’s right, Captain. Dante, like everyone before him and many more after him, believed the universe was a series of nine concentric spheres. The outermost enclosed all the rest as well as the stationary stars, while the innermost was Earth, where humans lived. Neither of these two spheres moved; their position was fixed. The spheres that did turn were one inside them, the seven known planets—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus, the sun, and the moon.”

“Nine spheres and seven planets,” observed Glauser-Röist. “Seven and nine again.”

I couldn’t hide my deep admiration for Farag. He was the most intelligent man I’d ever met. Everything he said was completely right; his memory was excellent, even better than mine. I’d never met anyone I could say that about.

“So, the next orbit will be Mercury.”

“I’m sure, Kaspar. I also think we are advancing more and more quickly, since the circles are contained within each other. The perimeters should be smaller.”

“And the paths, narrower,” I added.

“Let’s get walking,” ordered the Rock. “We’ve got four more planets to visit.”

We came to the door of Mercury by sunset, when I was thinking to myself that Abi-Ruj Iyasus must have been a kind of Colossus, a true Hercules, if he had passed the brotherhood’s tests. The rest of the Staurofilakes—Dante and Father Bonuomo included—what kind of faith or fanaticism propelled them to bear all these calamities? If the Staurofilakes are so special, and so incredibly wise, why did they agree to remain in humble outposts, living out innocuous, hidden lives?

We stopped for the night at one of the Mercury symbols, made this time from a sparkly, highly polished violet-colored metal we were unable to recognize. We had to stretch out single file to sleep. The edge between the path’s thorny walls no longer allowed for any niceties.

On the morning of the next day, Sunday, we awoke once again startled by the birds’ deafening song, and set out at first light, every one of our bones and muscles aching.

We reached the orbit of the fifth planet when the sun was at its zenith. The captain announced that we had turned more than two hundred degrees from our original point, so we’d covered more than half a complete circle. On Venus’s path we found only twenty-two symbols, made of red-brown copper. The big surprise awaited us on the next path. Unlike the previous paths, it no longer had straight convergent lines, but lines that clearly curved to the left. As soon as we crossed the threshold and delved into the circle of the sun, we were shocked to see that the thorny cover of brambles and thistles now formed an arch above our heads. The side walls were so close together that Captain Glauser-Röist had to walk sideways. The sleeves of Farag’s jacket had torn even before we’d found the first symbol, and I had to keep my eyes peeled if I didn’t want to get jabbed by hundreds of those horrendous needles.

The first symbol appeared almost immediately—a simple circle with an even simpler dot at its center. It was made of gold—a gold so pure that, even in the shadowy enclosure, it twinkled in the faint light filtering through the canopy. If we hadn’t been so rushed, with large spines threatening us on all sides, ripping our clothes and scratching our skin, we certainly would have stopped to study such riches. (We counted fifteen solar symbols.) But we were in a hurry to get out of there, to get somewhere we could move around without wearing ourselves out, without incurring rashes from nettles. Besides, night was falling.

As we advanced, we worried about what we would find once we crossed the threshold of the seventh and last planet, the moon. Once we finally got there, the iron plate in front of us barely opened enough to let us squeeze through, as if there were something behind it blocking the door. The obstacle turned out to be nothing less than the hedges. The path was so narrow at this point that only a child could have walked through it without getting scratched. The thorns on the walls and the roof had been pruned to form a human-shaped hole in its center. We had to walk with our heads caged, as if a brambly trap had closed in around our necks, preventing us from moving anywhere but the path. Since Farag and the captain were taller and wider than the hole in the hedge—it fit my body like a tailored suit—I gave them my jacket and sweater to avoid as many of the wretched scratches as possible. Farag flatly refused to cover up.

“We’re all going to get scratches,
Basileia!”
he argued. “Don’t you see? That’s part of the test! Why should you suffer more than we do?”

I stared at him, trying to telegraph all the determination I felt. “Listen to me, Farag. I’ll only get some scratches, but you two will have more serious wounds if you don’t cover up with all the clothes you can.”

“Professor Boswell,” added the Rock, “the doctor is right. Put on her jacket.”

“And the caps,” I added. “Put the caps on your heads.”

“We’ll have to cut holes for our eyes.”

“You’ll have to protect your face with a cap, too, Ottavia. I don’t like this one bit…,” jabbered Boswell.

“I know. Don’t worry—I’ll cover up too.”

The path of the seventh planet was a nightmare. The captain said that the moon’s symbols—silver crescent moons shaped like bowls— were the most beautiful of all. He could see them, since he went first and was carrying the flashlight. But even if I could have tilted my head to see them—touching them was out of the question—I have to say I couldn’t have cared less. I had the desire, in my desperation, to impale myself against the foliage, to stop once and for all those hundreds of unbearable tiny nips, pinpricks, and cuts that made my arms, my legs, and even my cheeks bleed. There was no wool nor any other cloth that could stop the assault from those natural daggers. I tried to stay calm thinking about how Christ suffered as he walked to Calvary wearing his crown of thorns. I recall being on the verge of desperation, of uncontrollable hysteria. But above all, I recall Farag’s dirty, bloody hand reaching for mine. And I think it was in those moments, when I had no control over myself, that I realized I was falling in love with that strange Egyptian who was always at my side and who secretly called me
empress.
It seemed impossible, and yet I felt it could only be love, although I had nothing to compare it with. I’d never been in love, not even when I was a teenager. I never understood the meaning of the word. Not once had I had my heart broken. God had always been my center, and I had always protected myself from the emotions that drove my older sisters and my friends crazy, making them say and do silly, stupid things. Now here I was, Ottavia Salina, a nun of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary, nearly forty years old, falling in love with a blue-eyed foreigner. I no longer felt the thorns. And if I did, I now no longer remember it.

The rest of the path of the seventh planet was a losing battle with myself. I thought I could still do something to block what was happening to me; at least, that was what I had decided to do before we came to the last door of that diabolical labyrinth. I said to myself that that unknown feeling that bewildered me, making my heart race while I felt like both crying and laughing at the same time, was no more than the product of the terrible circumstances we were living through. When this Staurofilakes adventure ended, I would go back home and be the same person I was before—no more rash behavior. Life would get back on track, and I would go back to the Hypogeum and bury myself among my codices and my books. Bury myself? The truth was, I couldn’t bear the idea of returning home without Farag Boswell. I said his name in a low voice so no one would hear me, and a childish smile spread across my lips.
Farag.
No, I couldn’t go back to my former life without Farag. But I couldn’t go back with him either! I was a nun. I couldn’t stop being a nun! My whole life, my work, revolved around this central fact.

“The door!” exclaimed the captain.

I wanted to turn around toward the professor, smile at him, and let him know I was there. I needed to see him and tell him that we had made it, even though he already knew we had; but if I’d turned my head even a centimeter, I probably would have lost my nose. Thankfully, that thought saved me. Those last seconds before we left the path of the moon brought me back to my senses. Perhaps it was coming to the end of the path or the certainty I would lose myself forever if I gave in to those intense emotions… My rational side won that first battle. Without hesitation, I ripped the danger out by the root, and smothered it mercilessly.

“Open it, Captain!” I cried, dropping the hand that an instant before was all that mattered. As I pulled away, though it pained me, everything I had felt was erased.

“Are you okay, Ottavia?” Farag asked me, worried.

“I don’t know.” My voice trembled a little, but I got control of it. “As soon as I can breathe without getting myself jabbed, I’ll tell you. Right now, I just need to get out of here.”

We’d come to the center of the labyrinth. I thanked God for the wide, circular space in front of us, where we could move, stretch our arms, and even run if we felt like it.

The captain set the flashlight on a table in its center. We gazed around as if it were the most beautiful palace in the world. What wasn’t so charming was how we looked: like miners coming out of the mines. We had a multitude of small cuts on our foreheads and cheeks; our necks and hands were dripping with blood and sweat. We even had bloody wounds under our pants and sweaters, as well as numerous bruises and rashes caused by the fluid that had oozed from many of the plants.

Luckily, the captain had a small first-aid kit in his backpack. With a little cotton and sterile water, we cleaned the blood off our wounds— which were all superficial, thank God. In the glow of the flashlight, we applied a coat of iodine. When we were finished, slightly composed, and comforted by our new situation, we took a moment to look around the enclosure.

The first thing that got our attention was the rudimentary table where we’d first set the flashlight. After a quick inspection, we saw something else: an ancient, large iron anvil, its top battered by many years of service in a blacksmith’s shop. Yet the strangest thing was not the anvil, but an enormous pile of hammers of various sizes piled carelessly in a corner.

We stood there in silence, unable to figure out what to do. If we’d had a forge and some metal to mold, we would have understood. But there was just an anvil and a mountain of hammers. That wasn’t much to go on.

“I suggest we eat something and get some sleep,” said Farag, letting himself fall to the ground, leaning against the soft, lush vines that now covered the circular stone walls. “Tomorrow is another day. I’m exhausted.”

Without another word, in complete agreement, the captain and I sat down next to him and followed his lead. Tomorrow would be another day.

W
e had no more cold coffee in the Thermos, no water in the canteen, no salami and cheese sandwiches in the backpack. We had nothing, except our wounds, exhaustion, and creaking joints. We couldn’t even stay warm with the survival blankets, because they’d been shredded the day before in our trek around the labirynth. As the sun rose in the sky, I said to myself that if God didn’t help us get out of there, we would most certainly end up like the numerous Staurofilakes aspirants who’d failed.

Despite appearances, I realized our situation hadn’t changed much from when we were in the circle of the moon. While there, we were forced to stay on the outlined path of that vegetal jail. Here—in this seemingly free, diaphanous center—all we could do was solve the problem of the anvil and the hammers. It was that simple.