The Last Cato (8 page)

Well, well! It was all or nothing for me. Of course, when facing such a powerful and unalterable hierarchy as the Catholic Church you either save yourself or get thrown to the lions.

“Do you realize, Captain,” I enunciated clearly so he didn’t miss one syllable of what I was saying, “that Abi-Ruj Iyasus, our Ethiopian, is but a small cog in a large gear that has been set in motion? For some reason, someone is looking to steal sacred relics from the True Cross. Do you realize, Captain?”

My God, what desperation was pushing me to talk that way! I was like an old actor in a Greek play speaking to the Gods.

“Behind all this there must be a religious sect that considers itself the descendants of traditions that go back to origins of the eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium, Emperor Constantine, and his mother, Saint Helen, who not only ordered the construction of Saint Catherine of Sinai, but also discovered the True Cross of Christ in 326?”

With its gray eyes, Glauser-Röist’s colorless face, framed by the blond and metallic reflections of his head and jaws, looked even more like one of those ferocious white marble heads of Hercules on display in the Capitolinos Museums of the Palazzo Nuovo in Rome. But I didn’t give him time to take a breath.

“Have you given any thought to the fact that on Abi-Ruj Iyasus’s body we found seven Greek letters,
ΣTAYPOΣ
, that signify “cross,” seven different crosses with seven different designs that reproduce those on the southwestern wall of the Monastery of Saint Catherine of Sinai—and that each one of these crosses is topped by small sevenpointed radiate crowns? Do you realize that Abi-Ruj Iyasus was in possession of important relics of the True Cross at the moment he died?”

“That’s enough!”

If looks could kill, I’d have been dead in an instant. The sparks that leaped from his eyes sent charges like flaming arrows in my direction.

“How do you know all that?” he roared, storming over to where I stood. He tried to intimidate me, but he didn’t scare me. I was a Salina.

It wasn’t especially hard to connect the strange pieces of wood found by firemen at the feet of Iyasus’s cadaver with those “very holy and valuable relics” mentioned by the Ethiopian newspapers. What wooden relics could mobilize the highest levels of the Vatican as well as the rest of the Christian churches? The scarifications on Iyasus confirmed it. According to a legend generally accepted by ecclesiastic students, Saint Helen went looking for the Holy Sepulchre and discovered the True Cross of Christ in 326, during a trip to Jerusalem. According to the well-known Golden Legend of Santiago of the Whirlpool,
*
as soon as Helen, then eighty years old, arrived in Jerusalem, she tortured the wisest Jews in the country until they confessed whatever they knew about the place where Christ had been crucified. Helen was relentless in her search, and soon she succeeded in wrenching the information out of them. Thus, they led her to the supposed location of Golgotha, the mount of Calvary—whose location still remains a mystery—where about two hundred years before, Emperor Adriano had had a temple built dedicated to Venus. Saint Helen ordered the temple to be demolished, and during the excavation they found three crosses: Jesus’s, of course, and those of the two thieves crucified next to him. To find out which was the Savior’s cross, Saint Helen ordered a dead man brought to the site and as soon as they placed the corpse on the True Cross, the man’s body came back to life. After the miracle, the empress and her son built a lavish basilica on that site called the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, where they kept the relic. Over the centuries, numerous fragments of it were distributed throughout the world.

“How do you know all that?” the captain roared again, very angered, coming to within inches of me.

“Perhaps you and Monsignor Tournier thought I was an idiot?” I protested energetically. “Did you really think that by denying me information or keeping me in the dark you could use just the part of me that interested you? Come on, now, Captain. I won the Getty Prize for Paleographic Investigation. Twice!”

The Swiss man stood still for several, never-ending seconds, his eyes boring into me. Many thoughts must have passed through his mind at that moment: rage, powerlessness, fury, and finally, a flash of prudence.

Abruptly, and in utter silence, he gathered up the photographs, ripped down the silhouette of the Ethiopian, and put all the sketches, notebooks, and images into his leather portfolio. He shut down the computer, and without saying a word—not even good-bye, not even turning around to look at me—he left my lab, slamming the door so hard the walls shook. At that moment, I knew I’d dug my own grave.

H
ow can I explain what I felt the next morning? When I ran my ID through the card scanner, a red light blinked on the small screen and a siren went off. Everyone in the foyer of the Classified Archives turned to look as if I were some criminal. It was one of the most humiliating moments of my life. Two security guards, dressed as civilians and wearing dark sunglasses, stood in front of me before I even had time to beg God to let the earth swallow me. Very politely, they asked me to accompany them. I closed my eyes so tight they hurt. No, this couldn’t be happening; surely it was a terrible nightmare and I would wake up at any moment. But the pleasant voice of one of those men brought me back to reality: I was to go with them to the office of the prefect, Reverend Father Ramondino.

Already knowing what the Reverend Father was going to say, I was on the verge of refusing to follow them and just begging the guards to let me go back home. But I didn’t say a word, and accompanied them docily, more dead than alive, knowing that my years of work in the Vatican were over.

It’s simply painful to record what happened in the prefect’s office. In a very correct and amiable conversation, I was officially informed that my contract was terminated. (I would be paid, of course, to the last lira what the law specifies in these cases.) The Reverend Father reminded me that my vow of silence concerning anything surrounding the archives and the library remained in effect until my death. He also said that he had been very satisfied with my services and hoped, with all his heart, that I found another job in keeping with my many talents. Finally, slamming his hand against the table, he told me that I would be seriously sanctioned, even excommunicated, if I said one word about the subject of the Ethiopian man. With a firm handshake, he bid me farewell at the door of his office, where Dr. William Baker, the secretary of the archives, was patiently waiting for me with a medium-size box in his hands.

“Your things, Doctor,” he said with a contemptuous look.

I knew I’d become a pariah, somebody the Vatican never wanted to see again. I would be ostracized and would have to leave Vatican City.

“Will you give me your ID and key, please?” concluded Dr. Baker, handing me the box that contained my meager personal possessions. The closed box was sealed with wide, gray industrial tape. For an instant I wondered if it also contained the red hand Isabella had made me.

But the worst was yet to come. Two days later, the general director of my order summoned me to the main office. Of course, she didn’t receive me herself; she was always loaded down with a thousand responsibilities. The assistant director, Sister Giulia Sarolli, explained that I had to leave the Piazza delle Vaschette apartment—as well as the community. I was being sent with great haste to our house in County Connaught, Ireland, where I would be made charge of the archives and old libraries in various monasteries throughout the area. There, Sister Sarolli added, I would find the spiritual peace I so needed. I was to present myself in Connaught next week, between Monday, March 27, and Friday, the 31st. Sister Sarolli asked me when I’d like to arrive in Ireland. Perhaps I wished to spend some time in Sicily, saying good-bye to my family before I left? I turned down the offer with a simple nod. I was so demoralized I couldn’t even speak.

I had no idea what I would say to my mother. I felt an immense pain for her, she had always been so proud of her daughter, Ottavia. My leaving the Vatican was going to hurt her so much, and I felt responsible. What would Pierantonio say? And Giacoma? One good thing about my exile was that I’d have my sister Lucia close by, in London. She would help me bear my failure. Any way you looked at it, I was a failure. I had failed my family completely. They would certainly not love me less for leaving the Vatican for a remote, lost part of Ireland, but I knew that all my brothers and sisters, and especially my mother, would no longer view me the same way. Poor Mama. She was always boasting about Pierantonio and me. Now she’d have to forget about me and speak only of Pierantonio.

That night, the Friday of Lent, Ferma, Margherita, Valeria, and I went to the basilica of Saint John of Letran to pray the Via Crucis and to take part in the penitential celebration. Inside those walls, so filled with history, I felt diminished, shrunken. I told God that I accepted the punishment for my enormous sin of pride. I got what I truly deserved. I had felt superior for easily obtaining something that had been denied to me. Invested with this power, I had obtained my goal. Now, bent and beaten, I humbly asked for forgiveness, seeking penance for what I had done. I knew full well it was a belated repentance, that it could no longer change my punishment. I was afraid of God, and accepted the Via Crucis as a test of divine mercy that allowed me to share with Jesus Christ the pain he suffered at Calvary.

And as if all that was happening weren’t enough, as if echoing the pain gnawing inside me, Etna, the volcano which we Sicilians know so well, and always watch with anxiety and fear, erupted spectacularly. A sea of lava descended its slopes throughout the night until dawn, its mouth spitting fire and ashes 3,200 meters into the air. Fortunately, Palermo is pretty far away from the volcano, but the city still suffered electricity outages and water shortages. I called home, very worried, and found everyone awake, waiting for news updates on the local radio and television. They calmed me down; no one was in any danger, the situation was under control. I should have told them right then that I was leaving Rome and the Vatican, bound for Ireland, but I didn’t dare. I was afraid of their disappointment and comments. When I was settled in Connaught, I’d think of a way to convince them that the change was a positive one, and that I was delighted with my new post.

The following Thursday, at one in the afternoon, I got on the plane headed for my exile. Only Margherita came to see me off. She gave me two sad kisses and earnestly begged me not to resist God’s will, to try to adapt joyfully to this new situation and to fight my strong temperament. It was the saddest, most agonizing flight of my life. I didn’t watch the movie and didn’t taste a single bite of the plastic food they set in front of me. I labored over what I’d tell my sister Lucia when I called her and what I’d say to my family when I found the strength in me to talk to them again.

Nearly two and a half hours later, at five in the afternoon, Ireland time, we landed at the Dublin airport. We passengers, tired and on edge, entered through the international terminal to claim our luggage from the conveyor belts. I clutched my enormous suitcase, sighed deeply, and walked toward the exit, looking around for the sisters who were supposed to meet me.

I would probably spend the next twenty or thirty years in that faraway country. With a little luck, I told myself without conviction, I would adapt and be happy. As I listened to my train of thoughts, I knew perfectly well that I was lying to myself. That country was my grave, the end of my professional ambitions, projects, and investigations. Why had I been so stupid? Why had I tried so hard over the years, getting one degree after another, one prize after another, one doctorate after another? All that wasn’t worth anything in that miserable town in Connaught, where I was sure to live until buried in the ground. I looked around apprehensively, asking myself how long I could stand my shameful situation, when I recalled with dark sorrow that I shouldn’t keep my Irish sisters waiting.

To my surprise, there was no one from the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary there to meet me. Instead, two young priests dressed in old-fashioned high clerical collars, soutanes, and black gabardine rushed up to take my luggage as they asked me in English if I was Sister Ottavia Salina. When I answered yes, they seemed relieved. They put my bag in their cart. One of the priests charged at it with outstretched arms as if it were alive and in need of tackling, while the other priest explained I had to board a return flight to Rome that left within the hour.

I didn’t understand what was going on; they knew even less. During the few minutes I spent with them, they explained that they were the bishop’s secretaries, sent to escort me from one plane to another. The bishop himself had given them their orders. The diocese had found a return flight just in time, and the bishop had made the reservation on his cell phone.

That was all I saw of the Republic of Ireland: its international terminal. At eight in the evening, I was off again on my way back to Rome. I’d spent the entire day flying from one country to another, like a confused bird. To my surprise, once off the plane I was escorted to the airport’s VIP area. In a private waiting room, seated in a plush seat, the cardinal vicar of Rome, His Eminence Carlo Colli, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, was waiting for me. He got to his feet slowly and extended his hand with a certain degree of embarrassment.

“Eminence,” I said startled, quickly kissing his ring.

“Sister Salina…,” he stuttered. “Sister Salina… You don’t know how much we regret what’s happened.”

“Eminence, as you can imagine, I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”