The Last Cato (57 page)

The
Neway
had veered off toward Antioch’s dock where hundreds of townspeople dressed in white from head to toe—tunics, veils, scarves, and loincloths—shouted in welcome and jumped or waved their arms in the air. Apparently, the return of Mulugeta Mariam and his sailors was reason for great joy. The village was made up of thirty or forty adobe houses crowded around the dock. Their walls were painted lively colors with thatched roofs all sporting black tubes, a type of chimney that spanned a ditch. The thick smoke I’d seen when we were still at a great distance came from somewhere behind the village, somewhere between it and the forest. From up close, it seemed really huge, like the arms of titans as they struggled to touch the sky.

We were about to dock, but Glauser-Röist didn’t seem ready to put down the book.

“Captain, we’ve arrived,” I told him.

“Do you know exactly what you’re going to face in this town, Doctor?” he challenged me.

The shouts of the men, women, and children of Antioch could be heard on the other side of the boat’s hull.

“No, not exactly.”

“All right, then, let’s keep reading. We must not get off this boat without knowing all the details.”

But there weren’t any more details.

To conclude, Dante Alighieri describes, with a beautiful melancholy in his words, how he wakes up at dawn and sees Virgil and Estacio already up, waiting for him to finish climbing the steps to the earthly paradise. His teacher tells him:

“That precious fruit which all men eagerly
go searching for on many boughs
will give, today, peace to your hungry soul.”

Dante rushes ahead, impatient. When he finally gets to the last step and sees the earthly paradise’s sun, the bushes, and the flowers, his beloved teacher bids him farewell forever:

“You now have seen, my son, the temporal
and the eternal fire, you’ve reached the place
where my discernment now has reached its end.

“I led you here with skill and intellect;
From here on, let your pleasure be your guide:
The narrow ways, the steep are far below.

“Expect no longer words or signs from me.
Now is your will upright, wholesome and free,
And not to heed its pleasure would be wrong:

“I crown and mitre you lord of yourself!”

“That’s it,” the Rock announced, closing the book. He seemed less like the Rock than normal, as if he’d said good-bye to an old friend forever. Over the last several months, Dante Alighieri had been an integral part of our lives. That last, fleeting verse left us alone, without a guide.

“I believe this is the end of the line…,” Farag whispered. “It feels like Dante has abandoned us. I feel like an orphan.”

“Well, he made it to the earthly paradise. He reached his goal—the glory and the crown of laurels. We,” I said, smelling the strong smell of smoke, “must still pass the last test.”

“You’re right, Doctor. Let’s go.” Glauser-Röist jumped to his feet. I saw him secretly caress the cover of his well-thumbed copy of the
Divine Comedy
before he dropped it in his backpack.

The village of Antioch received us with loud cheers. The minute they saw us on the dock, their shouts of joy and clapping grew deafening.

“What if this is a town of cannibals cheering for the arrival of supper?”

“Farag, don’t make me nervous!”

Captain Mulugeta Mariam, like a master of ceremonies, walked down the narrow path opened by the multitude amid exclamations, kisses, shoves, and hugs, just like a Hollywood star. Behind him walked Captain Glauser-Röist, whom the Anuak children watched from below with fearful smiles and admiration in their eyes. He was so blond and so tall; they’d never seen such an impressive male specimen in their short lives. The women paid more attention to me, dying of curiosity. There mustn’t have been many female saints who came down the Atbara to attempt the last test of Purgatory; and I could tell from the looks in their eyes that they were proud to see a woman who had succeeded. Farag’s dark blue eyes caused havoc. A young girl, not more than fourteen or fifteen, egged on by her friends huddled around her, dying of laughter, rushed up and tugged on his beard. Casanova let out a burst of laughter, absolutely enchanted.

“See what happens when you don’t shave?” I said to him in low voice.

“I’ll never shave again!”

I poked him in the ribs, which only delighted him more.

The leader of the village, Berehanu Bekela, a gigantic man with enormous pendulous ears and gigantic teeth, welcomed us with full honors. He and several others wore many ceremonial white handkerchiefs around their necks which formed a thick, warm stole, very inappropriate for that temperature. Then, on a straight path from the dock, they took us to the center of a dirt esplanade. Houses were grouped around it, brightly illuminated by torches tied to long wood poles, stuck in the ground. Once we got there, Berehanu shouted some incomprehensible words and people exploded in wild cheers that kept up until the leader raised his hands in the air.

In seconds, the esplanade was filled with stools, rugs, and cushions. Everyone took his place, ready to attack the mountains of food carried out of the houses on wood trays. They quit paying attention to us to concentrate on the mounds of meat on great green leaves that served as platters.

With their own hands, Berehanu Bekela and his family served us our food that looked like a pile of raw meat. They watched expectantly to see what we would do.

“Injera, injera!”
a darling girl of about three said seated at my side.

Mulugeta spoke with Farag who watched the captain and me with a serious look on his face.

“We have to eat this even if we die of disgust. If we don’t, we’ll deeply insult the leader and the entire town.”

“Don’t say such foolish things!” I exploded. “I don’t plan to eat raw meat!”

“Don’t argue,
Basileia.
Eat!”

“How I am going to eat those pieces of who-knows-what?” I argued apprehensively, picking up something that looked like a black, plastic tube.

“Eat!” Glauser-Röist muttered gritting his teeth, putting a handful of that stuff in his mouth.

The celebration grew larger and larger as the bottled beer flowed among the townspeople like the Atbara River. The little girl kept staring at me; her large black eyes gave me the courage to open my trembling lips and insert, very slowly, a pinch of raw meat. Managing not to gag, I chewed as well as I could, then swallowed what I later learned was a piece of antelope kidney, almost whole. Next I bolted down a piece of stomach with a milder flavor than the kidney. To finish, I gulped down a small slice of still hot liver that stained my chin and the corners of my lips with blood. Ethiopians seemed to love those delicacies. I gulped down a bottle of beer and would have drunk another if Farag hadn’t grabbed my wrist.

The celebration went on for a long time. When the meal was over, a group of young girls, among them the girl who had tugged on Farag’s beard, entered the circle and began a very strange dance in which they never stopped shaking their shoulders. It was incredible. I never thought a body could move like that, at such speed, as if they were disjointed. The music had a simple beat marked by a single drum. Soon others joined in, and then another and another, until the cadence became hypnotic. Between that and the beer, my head was no longer on my shoulders. The girl who apparently had decided to adopt me rose from the ground and sat down between my crossed legs as if I were a comfortable chair and she, a small queen. I liked watching her carefully tie and arrange her veil so it covered her head, hanging all the way down to her waist. Again and again, I had to put the veil back in place but that white linen never stayed still on her curly, black hair. When the dancers disappeared, she leaned back on my stomach and got comfortable as if I actually was a throne. Just then, the thought of my niece Isabella struck my mind. I would have loved to hold her in my arms as I was holding that little girl. In an Ethiopan village, lost in the middle of nowhere, under the light of the moon and the burning torches, my mind flew to Palermo. I realized that sooner or later I would have to go back home to try to make things better. Although I knew I would never succeed in doing so, my conscience told me I should give them one last chance before I left forever. That tribal attachment, so similar to that of the Anuak people, that my mother had inculcated in me, stopped me from cutting all ties with them even though I knew now how disappointing my family really was.

As soon as the drums went silent and the dancers left the scene, Berehanu Bekela walked with measured steps to the center of the plaza, deep in silence. Even the children stopped fidgeting; they ran to their mothers and stood there, quiet and still. The occasion was solemn and my pulse began to race. Something told me the real party was just about to begin.

Berehanu delivered a long discourse that Farag explained in a whisper. He spoke of the very ancient relationship between the Anuak and the Staurofilakes. The simultaneous translation by Mulugeta and Farag left much to be desired, but our interpreters were doing their best, so the Rock and I had to make do with half phrases and half words.

“The
Staurofilas,”
Berehanu said, “came to Atbara hundreds of years ago in great boats… the Anuak the word of God. Those men of… the faith and showed us how to move rocks, to farm… to make beer and build boats and houses.”

“The
Staurofilas
made us Christians,” the leader continued, “and taught us what we know. All they asked in exchange… their secret and bring the saints from Egypt to Antioch. We Anuak have… that Mulualem Bekela gave in honor of our town. Today, three saints… over the waters of the Atbara, the river that God gave to… we are responsible for… and the
Staurofilas
expect us to fulfill our duty.”

Suddenly the people broke out into a deafening ovation. A small squad of fifteen or twenty young men got to their feet and set off, disappearing into the darkness.

“Men, go prepare the road for the saints,” Farag translated after the fact.

Everyone started to dance in time to the drums. In the middle of the party, hands grabbed Farag, the Rock, and me and took us to different houses to prepare us for the upcoming ceremony. The women who took care of me took off my sandals, pants, blouse, and underwear, leaving me completely naked. They sprinkled water on my body with a bundle of branches and then dried me off with linen. They took away my clothes, so I had to make do with a shirt, white of course, that fortunately hung down to my knees. They refused to return my shoes. When they led me from the house, I minced along as if I were walking on pins and needles. I didn’t feel any better when I saw Farag and the Rock dressed the same way. I was surprised, however, to see my reaction when I saw Farag. The fact is, I still wasn’t used to the unexpected behavior of my hormones. My eyes were stuck on his brown skin, glowing under the light of the torches, on his hands, his long and soft fingers, his body, tall and lean. When our gazes finally met, my stomach felt as tight as a knot, and I wondered what was actually in that raw meat.

Between applause and beats of their drums, they led us down dark alleys and in the direction of large dense clouds of smoke, which gave off a disconcerting purple glow. The night sky was full of stars. Farag took my hand and squeezed it gently to calm me down. With all the preparations and drumming, a tremor had taken hold of my spirit. I felt like Jesus en route to Calvary with the Cross on his shoulders. Could the so-called True Cross be that very cross, the one the Staurofilakes were retrieving piece by piece? Surely not. We were here because of it, even if it was fake. I felt my legs trembling, my body sweating, and my teeth chattering.

Finally we came to a new esplanade; the people of Antioch were standing around it, in silence. Several immense bonfires consumed the last logs of wood with great sparks as the young men spread a thick wheel of glowing embers on the ground with the help of some long, sharp lances. Striking the coals with those lances, they broke apart the biggest pieces and smoothed out the surface, roughly about twenty centimeters thick by about four or five meters long from the interior to the exterior. They left a narrow walkway uncovered, wide enough so we could go down the center. When Mulugeta Mariam said something to Farag, he translated it right away so I’d know exactly what he was saying. At that moment Mulugeta was the joyful angel of God who comes to Dante in the seventh circle and tells him he must enter the fiery walkway.

I squeezed Farag’s hand tightly and leaned my cheek on his shoulder; I was so frightened I could barely breathe.

“Cheer up, my love,” he whispered bravely to me burying his nose in my hair and kissing me softly.

“I’m scared, Farag,” I said, closing my eyes.

“Listen, we’ll get out of this as we got out of all the other tests. Don’t be afraid, my dear Ottavia!” But I was inconsolable. I couldn’t stop the chattering of my teeth. “Remember—there’s always a solution,
Basileia.”

As I stared into that immense ring of fire, a solution seemed more a fantasy than a certainty. I admit I had violated, to a greater or lesser degree, the other six deadly sins at some time in my life. But I would not die for the sin of lust. Up to that very day, I was completely innocent of that sin. Besides, if I died in the fire, I’d never get the chance to sin against God’s sixth commandment: to commit with Farag those famous impure acts I’d heard so much about.