The Quest: A Novel (20 page)

“And you didn’t want me showing up unexpectedly.”

Which was true, but Purcell stuck to the subject and said, “I was sure they were going to shoot Gann. Or hang him.”

“All’s well that ends well.”

“Right.” Purcell looked out at the Roman wall that surrounded the city. He realized that the bricks of the ancient city wall looked exactly like the bricks of the Italian-built prison in Addis. He pointed this out to Mercado and said, “The Italians know how to build.”

Mercado did not respond.

“Those mineral baths were impressive.”

“Don’t get nostalgic on me, Frank.”

“Henry… have you thought about going back?”

Mercado stayed silent for a moment, then replied, “I have, actually. But it’s obviously too risky.”

“Well, if you decide to go back, let me know.”

“You’ll be the last to know.”

The waiter came by and Purcell ordered two more. He asked Mercado, “Did you hear the news out of Ethiopia today?”

“I did not.”

“Well, a guy named General Banti took over the military council and announced a new government. Same group of thugs in the Derg, but with different leaders, and I’m thinking it may be possible now to go back if these new guys are not as crazy as the last bunch.”

“Speaking of crazy.”

“Just a thought.” He informed Mercado, “The big story is the Mideast. The canal is still closed and Sadat is saying things like, ‘Mideast time bomb.’ He’s pissed off at all the Russian Jews immigrating to Israel. It really looks like there could be another war.”

“If there is, cover this one from Cairo.”

“Right. Those safe-conduct passes to the front don’t work that well.” He smiled, then said, “I hear you’re working for L’Osservatore Romano.”

“Yes. I’m doing some English-language stuff for them on the coming Holy Year. Mostly press releases.”

“Bored?”

“I like Rome.”

“Cairo sucks.” He asked, “Are you working on anything else?”

“You mean like our Ethiopian adventure?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“No, I’m not. But I expected to see something from you about that.”

“I’m holding off,” Purcell replied. “I wanted to speak to you first.”

“You don’t need my permission or my collaboration.”

“I thought we’d do something together.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Really?”

Mercado thought a moment, then said, “If you—we—wrote about this, then not only Getachu but a lot of other bastards and idiots would be smashing through the jungle looking for the black monastery.”

Purcell nodded. He’d certainly thought about that. He said to Mercado, “Getachu may have already found it.”

“Perhaps. But if he did, I think we’d have heard that an important religious object was for sale.”

“A lot of that stuff is sold privately,” Purcell reminded him.

“True. And this one goes to the Vatican.” He added, “Or perhaps the monks have spirited it away.”

“Well, we could go check.”

“Not interested.”

“All right.” He asked Mercado, “Did you report Father Armano’s death to the Vatican?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I… there doesn’t seem to be any urgency. I’ll get around to it.”

“Your offices are in Vatican City, Henry.”

“I’ll get around to it.”

“Good. Maybe we should go to Berini and look up his family.”

“Why?”

“He asked us to do that. He also asked us to tell his story to someone in the Vatican. Or you can tell your people at L’Osservatore Romano.”

“All right. I’ll do that.”

“I’m not quite understanding, Henry, why you’re sitting on this.”

“Why have
you
sat on it?”

“I told you. I wanted to speak to you first.” He reminded Mercado, “We made sort of a pact.”

Mercado asked, “What does Vivian think?”

“She wants to go back and find the Holy Grail. That’s what she thinks.”

“Insane.”

“I’m sorry you’ve lost your enthusiasm for this, Henry.”

“I’m sorry you’ve found it.”

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Try not to do that.”

“It’s a great story, Henry.”

“It seemed so at the time.”

Purcell looked at him and asked, “Have you been snooping around the Vatican archives? Like, on your lunch hour?”

“Yes… to satisfy my curiosity about a few things.”

“Find anything?”

“I’ll get you a pass and you can do your own research.”

“May be a language problem.”

“You can hire translators there.”

“I need to get back to Cairo in a few days.”

“Forgive my curiosity, Frank, but I don’t understand why you’re not going to Geneva.”

Purcell ordered another round, and Mercado did not object.

Neither man spoke for a while, then Purcell said, “I received one letter from Geneva telling me… well, telling me that she felt awful about leaving you in Addis, and that she was feeling guilty because of what happened and how it happened.”

“And well she should.”

“Right. Me too.”

Mercado stared into his drink, then said, “I’ve gotten over this, Frank. Except for the anger. You both behaved badly.”

“We know that.”

“And I did too… that moment in Getachu’s tent… when he asked me—”

“You are forgiven.”

Mercado looked at him. “Thank you for that.”

“Vivian never once mentioned it.”

“I’m sure she thought about it.”

“We all need to move on.” He smiled and said, “Avanti.”

“I need to go.”

“Some news, too, about Prince Joshua. They executed him in Addis.”

“That was a mercy.”

“It was.” He asked Mercado, “Did you read about the mass executions at the end of November?”

“I’m not really following Ethiopia.”

“You should.”

Mercado asked, “What happened?”

“Well, they shot another bunch of guys from the old regime. The former premier, Makonnen, a general named Aman who was former chief of staff or something, another former premier named Wolde, and Rear Admiral Alexander Desta, a grandson of the emperor.”

Mercado nodded and observed, “The revolution lives on blood.”

“Right. And they shot fifty-six other guys, including Prince Joshua.”

“Let me know when they shoot Getachu and Andom.”

“I’ll keep an eye on the wire.”

Mercado stood and walked unsteadily to the
bagno
.

Purcell lit another cigarette and watched the Romans. It was almost dark now, and the cafés along the Via Veneto would be getting full.

Inside Harry’s, the bar and the tables were filling up with what looked like mostly American tourists who needed to have a drink with the ghost of Ernest Hemingway, or to experience a little of
la dolce vita
.

Purcell had not expected to find Henry Mercado in a place like Harry’s, but the bartender at the Excelsior said he might be here, and here he was, drinking with the tourists. But, Purcell thought, Henry was a pre-war character and he’d probably started coming here when it was the thing to do, and when it was a hangout for journalists and expat writers. Henry didn’t seem to notice that the world was changing, and Purcell pictured himself at Henry’s age—if he lived that long—staying at the wrong hotels, eating in the wrong restaurants, and getting drunk in the wrong bars with the wrong people.

He half understood Vivian’s attraction to Henry Mercado in Ethiopia, but he didn’t understand why she remained emotionally attached to him in absentia. Or why she hadn’t tried to find him. It occurred to him, though, that she wanted Frank Purcell to find
Henry Mercado. In fact, her letter hinted at that. She wanted the three of them to go back to Ethiopia to find the black monastery and the Holy Grail. Well, that sounded like a trip to hell on several levels. And yet… it made him think about it. And maybe that’s why he had asked around about Henry Mercado.

Mercado returned but did not sit, and said, “I have to go. Let’s split the bill.”

Purcell stood. “You buy tomorrow night.”

“I think we’ve said what we had to say.”

“I’m staying at the Forum. Rooftop bar. Six
P.M.
” He put out his hand, and Mercado hesitated, then took it. Purcell said, “I’m sorry about what happened.”

“If you’re looking for forgiveness, there are nine hundred churches in Rome.”

“Let’s be happy we’re alive. We survived the camps and we survived Ethiopia. We’ll survive cocktails. See you tomorrow night.”

Mercado turned and walked out into the cold night.

Purcell watched him disappear into the crowd, then sat and finished his drink. He understood, as did Vivian, that they were not all through with each other yet. And Henry understood that, too.

F
rank Purcell sat at the bar of the glass-enclosed Hotel Forum restaurant. The real Forum lay five stories below, its marble ruins bathed in floodlights. A crescent moon hung above the Colosseum, and three thousand years of history hung over the city.

He’d spent the morning writing in his room—a piece about Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, whom he’d characterized as a Jew-hater with a pro-Nazi past, and not the moderate peacemaker and reformer that the rest of the news media were making him out to be.

His editors in the States would cut that, of course, or kill the whole story, and the Cairo bureau chief would remind him that he wasn’t hired to write an opinion column. But he’d written it because he—and thus his writing—had been transformed.

In the afternoon, he’d taken a long walk, first to the Piazza Venezia where Mussolini used to stand on the balcony of the Palazzo, making a fool of himself
Urbi et Orbi
—to the city and the world. But the city and the world should have taken him more seriously, as Father Armano had at the blessing of the guns.

Next, he walked through the baths of Caracalla, the mother of all Roman spas, then over to the Fascist-built Foreign Ministry where the looted stone steles from Axum sat out front, a monument to European imperialism and good taste in stolen art. Rome, in fact, was filled with looted treasures going back over two thousand years, and, he admitted, they all looked good in their extrinsic settings. And in return for what they’d taken, the Romans had built roads and bridges all over their empire, amphitheaters and baths, temples and forums. So what Mussolini had done in Ethiopia was just a continuation of a long and venerable tradition of imperial stealing and giving. The Vatican, however, had planned a snatch of the Holy Grail without so much as an IOU.

The point of his walk, aside from physical exercise, was to get his head into the right mindset regarding the story—which was turning into a book—that he was writing about Father Armano, the black monastery, and the Holy Grail.

That story, however, would never see the light of day unless or until he went back to Ethiopia to discover the ending. Or, he supposed, it could be published posthumously, with an editor’s epilogue regarding the fate of the author.

Now, Jean, the attractive lady next to him at the bar, was looking through her guidebook and said, “It says here that the Piazza Navona is all decorated for Christmas.”

“I actually walked through there last night. Worth seeing.”

“All right. Campo de’ Fiori?”

“Produce market by day, meat market by night.”

“All right…” She went back to her Roman guidebook, and Purcell went back to his Ethiopian book. The questions raised in his story, and in his mind, were: Who owns a two-thousand-year-old relic? Obviously, whoever has it owns it. But how did the present owner get the object? And does the object, if it is priceless, actually belong to the world?

The other question, of course, had to do with the authenticity of the object. Purcell had no doubt that whatever it was that now sat in the black monastery had no mystical powers, despite Father Armano’s claim that it healed his wound and his soul, whatever that was. But the cup could be authentic in the sense that it was the actual chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper. Or it could be an object of faith, like most religious relics he’d seen in Rome and elsewhere.

He recalled what he’d once seen in the small chapel of Quo Vadis on the Appian Way, outside the gate of the city wall: a piece of black basalt paving stone, in which was a footprint. Specifically, the footprint of Jesus Christ who had appeared to Peter on the Appian road as the saint was fleeing for his life from Rome. Peter, stunned at seeing his risen Lord, blurted, “
Domine, quo vadis?
” Where are you going, Lord? And Christ had replied, “To Rome, Peter, to be crucified for a second time.” And Peter, feeling guilt at fleeing, and understanding what Christ was saying to him, returned to Rome to meet his fate and was crucified.

The story, Purcell understood, was apocryphal, and the outline
of a foot in the paving stone was not actually made by Jesus’s size nine sandal. But an Italian friend once said to him about the stone of Quo Vadis, “What is real? What is true? What do you believe?”
Quo Vadis?

Well, he thought, maybe he was going back to Ethiopia to be crucified a second time. And that depended on Henry Mercado, who was half an hour late for his date with destiny. Purcell knew he was coming; Mercado had no choice, just as Peter had no choice.