The Last Cato Read online

  Nobody noticed me walking in that presbytery. Except for during Mass and the Rosary prayers, there was no priest or sacristan in the church. Nor were there any dear little old ladies who would leave a few lire in the alms box and spend their afternoon in the church, as happily as my nieces and nephews spent their Saturday nights in Palermo nightclubs. Santa Maria in Cosmedin remained peaceful and solitary; only rarely did some lost visitor wander in.

  I examined the bathtub at length. I tugged hard on the four large porphyry rings on its side to see what would happen. Nothing. Farag and Glauser-Röist weren’t having any luck either. It was as if the Staurofilakes had never been there. As I was inspecting the episcopal throne of the apse, my companions joined me.

  “Anything special?” asked the Rock.

  “No.”

  Wearing a solemn look, we headed for the sacristy, where we found the only living person in there: the old salesclerk of an odd gift shop filled with medallions, crucifixes, postcards, and slides. He was an old priest, unshaven, wearing a greasy soutane, his gray hair uncombed. That clergyman’s hygiene was conspicuously absent. He observed us glumly when we entered, but his expression suddenly changed to that of a servile amiability that instantly put me off.

  “Are you the people from the Vatican?” he inquired as he came from behind the counter, planting himself in front of us. His body odor was repugnant.

  “I am Captain Glauser-Röist. This is Dr. Salina and Professor Boswell.”

  “I’ve been expecting you! My name is Bonuomo, Father Bonuomo, at your service. How can I help you?”

  “We’ve seen the church. Now we’d like to see the rest. I believe there’s also a crypt.”

  The clergyman frowned, and I was more than surprised: a crypt? That was the first I’d ever heard of it. I had no idea there was such thing in Santa Maria.

  “Yes,” admitted the old man, annoyed, “but it’s not visiting hours at the moment.”

  Bonuomo?… * He really was Maluomo. Glauser-Röist didn’t budge. He stared at the priest, not moving a muscle in his face, not even blinking, as if the old man hadn’t said a word and he could wait forever for an invitation. The priest squirmed, torn between his duty to obey and his wretched inability to alter the church’s schedule.

  “Is there a problem, Father Bonuomo?” Glauser-Röist asked in a cold, sharp voice.

  “No,” the old man groaned. He turned and led us to the stairs that descended into the crypt. He stopped at the door and flipped several switches on a panel to the right. “Here’s some light. I regret I will not be able to accompany you, but I cannot leave the store. Let me know when you are finished.”

  With these curt words, he disappeared. Breathing the unpleasantly pungent smell he gave off made my stomach churn. I was glad he was gone.

  “Once again, we’re off to the earth’s center!” Farag joked heartily as he took his first step.

  “I hope to see sunlight again someday…,” I muttered, following him.

  “Not anytime soon, Doctor.”

  I turned to look at him glumly.

  “As you well know…,” the Rock said, as serious as ever. “The world might come to an end any day now. It might even happen while we’re in the crypt.”

  “Ottavia!” Farag rushed to stop me. “Don’t even think about starting an argument!”

  I had no intention to. There are trivialities that do not deserve an answer.

  That fatuous priest had tricked us about the light. We’d barely gotten to the end of the stairs when we were plunged into total darkness. Unfortunately, we had descended so far down that going back would be quite the chore. We must have been several feet below the level of the Tiber River.

  “Isn’t there is any light in this hole?” Farag’s voice said, to my right.

  “There is no light in the crypt,” Glauser-Röist announced. “Don’t worry. I already knew that. I brought a flashlight.”

  “Father Bonuomo could have told us that before he encouraged us to descend.” I was surprised. “Besides, how do they light the way for tourists?”

  “Didn’t you notice, Doctor, that there’s no poster announcing visiting hours?”

  “I already thought about that. In fact, I’ve visited this church many times, and never knew there was a crypt.”

  Switching on the flashlight that splashed an intense beam of light on the place, Glauser-Röist said, “Isn’t it strange that there’s no light whatsoever, and that a priest of the church dares to challenge a direct order from the Secretariat of State, and that that same priest does not accompany the Vatican’s envoys on their visit?”

  The captain shined the light toward the bottom of the crypt. The first thing I noticed was a small altar right beneath the central nave. That place was shaped exactly like a scale model of a church, with little columns that divided it into three naves. It even had chapels on the side, all completely covered in darkness.

  “Are you insinuating, Captain,” Boswell asked, “that Father Bonuomo could be a Staurofilax?”

  “I’m saying he just might be, just like the sacristan of Santa Lucia.”

  “Well, he is,” I pronounced, as I entered the little church.

  “We cannot be sure, Doctor. That’s just a guess, and guessing gets us nowhere.”

  “How did you know this secret place existed?” I asked.

  “I looked on the Internet. You can find almost anything on the Internet. But you already know that, don’t you, Doctor?”

  “Me? But I barely know how to work a computer!”

  “Yet you went online to find all that information on the Ligna Crucis and the accident involving Abi-Ruj Iyasus, isn’t that right?”

  I was paralyzed by the point-blank question. There was no way I would confess to involving my poor nephew, Stefano, in the search. But I couldn’t lie either. Besides, why lie? At this point my face revealed all the guilt I felt.

  Glauser-Röist didn’t wait for my answer. He passed me on the right, and as he did, he handed me a flashlight like the one he gave Farag. We split up, each one taking a side. With the light from three flashlights, the place became less forbidding.

  “This crypt is known as the Crypt of Adriano, in honor of Pope Adrian I, who ordered its restoration in the eighth century,” the Rock explained as we examined the enclosure, meter by meter. “The building dates to around the third century, during the persecutions of Diocletian, when the first Christians built a small secret church on the foundation of a pagan temple. The stones sticking out of the plaster walls are the ruins of the pagan temple and the altar of the apse is what’s left of the Ara Maxima.”

  “It was a temple dedicated to Hercules the Triumphant,” I clarified.

  “Like I said, a pagan temple.”

  I shined my light into every corner of the three naves and some of the small lateral oratories on the left. There was dust everywhere, as well as broken urns containing the remains of saints and martyrs forgotten many centuries back. Aside from its obvious historical and artistic value, that modest chapel contained nothing worth mentioning. It was simply a strange underground church with no information and no clues to the first test of Staurofilakes purgatory.

  After our fruitless search, we gathered in the apse and sat down on the ground, next to the Ara Maxima, to take stock. In my new pants, I felt completely at ease. In a large chest in the wall, the skull and the bones of one Saint Cirilla rested next to me (“Saint Cirilla, virgin and martyr, daughter of Saint Trifonia, died for Christ in the reign of Prince Claudius,” read her epitaph in Latin).

  “This time we haven’t found any chrismon to point the way,” Farag said, pushing his hair out of his face.

  “There must be something,” the captain replied, distressed. “Let’s go back over everything we have seen since we got to Santa Maria in Cosmedin. What got your attention?”

  “The Mouth of Truth!” exclaimed Boswell enthusiastically. I smiled.

  “I’m not talking about tourist attractions, Professor.”
/>   “Well… That really got my attention.”

  “The cover of that Roman culvert is very interesting,” I observed to cover his back.

  “Fine. We will go back on top and start our inspection all over again.”

  That was more than I could bear. I looked at my watch and saw it was five thirty in the afternoon. “Can’t we come back tomorrow, Captain? We’re tired.”

  “Tomorrow, Doctor, we will be in Ravenna, facing the second circle of Purgatory. Don’t you get it? At this very moment, somewhere in the world, there could be another theft of a Lignum Crucis! Maybe right here in Rome! No, we are not going to stop, and we are not going to rest, either.”

  “I’m sure it’s not important,” the professor blurted out, stuttering and pushing up his glasses again, “but I saw something strange over there.” He pointed to one of the oratories on the right.

  “What is it, Professor?”

  “A word written on the ground… etched in the stone.”

  “What word?

  “You can barely make it out; it’s almost worn away. It seems to be Vom.”

  “Vom?”

  “Let’s see.” The Rock got to his feet.

  In the left corner of the oratory, right in the center of a huge rectangular flagstone at right angles with the walls, you could make out the word VOM.”

  “What does Vom mean?” the Rock asked.

  I was just about to answer when, suddenly, we heard a dull crack and the ground began to tremble. I screamed as I fell like dead weight onto the stone slab. We were sinking into the earth, rocking furiously from side to side. One important detail stuck with me: seconds before the crack, I got a strong whiff of the unmistakably pungent smell of Father Bonuomo’s sweat and dirt. He had to have been close by.

  I was too panicked to think clearly; all I could do was try to grab onto the oscillating floor to keep from falling into the void. I lost my flashlight and purse. An iron hand was clutching me by the wrist, helping me keep my body glued to the stone.

  We descended like that for a long time. Of course, what seemed like an eternity may have only been a few minutes, but finally the damned rock touched down and came to a halt. Nobody moved. All I could hear was Farag’s and the Rock’s ragged breathing under mine. My legs and arms felt like they were made of rubber, as if they’d never be able to support me again. I trembled uncontrollably from head to toe. My heart was beating wildly and I felt like I really needed to throw up. I recall a blinding light streaming through my closed eyelids. We must have looked like three frogs spread out facedown on some mad scientist’s dissection tray.

  “No. No, we didn’t… we didn’t do it right…,” I heard Farag say.

  “What are you saying, Professor?” asked the Rock in a very low voice, as if he didn’t have the strength to speak.

  “Through a narrow cleft, along a path that zigzagged through the rock,” the professor recited, gulping in air, “the way a wave swells up and then pulls back. ‘Now we are at the point,’ my guide began, ‘where we must use our wits: when the path bends, we keep close to the far side of the curve.’”

  “Blessed Dante…” I sighed with dismay.

  My companions got to their feet, and the iron hand turned me loose. That’s when I realized it was Farag. Standing in front of me, he timidly extended that same hand like a gentleman, offering me help getting to my feet.

  “Where in the world are we?” pronounced the Rock.

  “Read Canto X and you’ll know,” I murmured, my legs still trembling and my pulse racing. That place smelled damp and rotten, in equal parts.

  A long line of torch holders, attached to the walls by iron rings, lit up what seemed to be an old culvert, a drainage ditch. We were on its ledge. From that ledge, where a trench of black and dirty water flowed, to the wall, there must have “room for three men’s bodies laid out end to end,” the exact width of the slab we had descended upon. The same vaulted tunnel extended as far as I could see, all the way to the right and to the left.

  “I think I know what this is,” the captain said, settling the backpack on his shoulder with a decisive gesture. Farag was brushing the dust and dirt off his jacket. “It’s very possible we are in some branch of the Cloaca Maxima.”

  “Cloaca Maxima? It still exists?”

  “The Romans didn’t build things halfway, Professor. When it comes to engineering, they were the best. Aqueducts and culverts held no secrets for them.”

  “In fact, the Roman aqueducts are still in use in many European cities,” I added. I had just found the remains of my purse scattered everywhere. My flashlight was destroyed.

  “But the Cloaca Maxima!”

  “It was the only way they could build Rome,” I explained. “The entire area occupied by the Roman Forum was a swamp and had to be drained. They started building the sewer in the sixth century B.C., by order of the Etruscan king, Tarquin the Old. They expanded and reinforced it until it reached colossal dimensions. It was in perfect working order during the Roman Empire.”

  “Where we are standing was, no doubt, a secondary branch,” Glauser-Röist said, “the branch the Staurofilakes use for their test of pride.”

  “Why are the torches lit?” asked Farag, taking one of them from its holder. The fire roared as it struggled against the air. The professor put his other hand up to protect his face.

  “Clearly, Father Bonuomo knew we were coming.”

  “Well then, let’s get going,” I said, looking up toward the distant opening, which was nowhere to be seen. We must have descended quite a few feet.

  “Right or left?” asked the professor, planting himself in the middle of the path, holding his torch high, resembling the Statue of Liberty.

  “Definitely through here,” indicated Glauser-Röist, pointing mysteriously toward the ground. Farag and I walked over to him.

  “I can’t believe it!” I murmured, fascinated.

  Right where the ledge started to our right, the stone ground was wonderfully etched with scenes in relief, just the way Dante described it. The first was Lucifer’s nosedive from heaven. You could see his beautiful angel face wearing a terrible look of anger as he reached toward God as he fell, begging for mercy. Such artistic perfection and attention to details gave me chills.

  “It’s Byzantine,” commented the professor, impressed. “Look at that strict Pantocrator thinking over his favorite angel’s punishment.”

  “The prideful punished…,” I murmured.

  “Well, that’s the idea, right?”

  “I’ll get out the Divine Comedy,” announced Glauser-Röist. “We need to check out the similarities.”

  “Don’t worry, Captain. They’ll match, they’ll definitely match.”

  The Rock leafed through the book, then looked up with a smile in the corners of his lips.

  “Did you know that the tercets in these iconographic representations start in verse twenty-five of the canto. Two plus five, seven. One of Dante’s favorite numbers.”

  “Don’t get carried away, Captain,” I implored. There was quite an echo.

  “I’m not getting carried away, Doctor. For your information, the series in question started in verse sixty-three. Six plus three, nine, his other favorite number. We’re back to seven and nine.”

  Farag and I weren’t paying much attention to that spate of medieval numerology. We were too busy enjoying the beautiful scenes on the ground. After Lucifer came Briareus, the monster son of Uranus and Gaia, heaven and earth. He was easy to recognize by his one hundred arms and fifty heads. Believing he was stronger and more powerful, he rebelled against the gods of Olympus and died, pierced by a celestial arrow. Despite how ugly Briareus was, the image was incredibly beautiful. The light from the torches gave the reliefs a terrifying lifelike quality, while the flames from Farag’s torch gave them greater depth and volume. Nuances stood out that might have gone unnoticed.

  The next scene was the death of the proud giants who plotted to do away with Zeus. They, too, died dismembe
red by Mars, Athena, and Apollo. Next was crazed Nimrod standing before the ruins of his Tower of Babel. After that came Niobe, turned to stone for daring to have seven sons and seven daughters in the presence of Latona, who only had Apollo and Diana. The path continued on: Saul, Arachne, Roboam, Alcmaeon, Senaquerib, Cyrus, Holofernes, and the razed city of Troy, the last example of punished pride.

  There we were, our heads bent like oxen in a yoke, not talking, avidly studying it all. Like Dante, we walked along admiring those artful pieces of mythology or history that promoted humility and simplicity. After Troy, there were no more reliefs, and the lesson ended. Or did it?

  “A chapel!” exclaimed Farag, squeezing through an opening in the wall.

  We made our way through and found another Byzantine church identical to the Crypt of Adriano in size, shape, and layout. This chapel was different from its bigger twin in one important way: The walls were covered by wooden platforms from which hundreds of empty eye sockets in as many skulls glared at us from those perches. Farag put his free arm around my shoulders.

  “Did that startle you, Ottavia?”

  “No,” I lied, “I was just taken aback.” The truth was, I was terrified, paralyzed with fear by those empty gazes.

  “This is one big necropolis, right?” joked Boswell. He flashed me a smile and walked over to the captain. I scurried behind him. I didn’t want to be separated by one centimeter.

  Not all the craniums were intact. The majority were leaning directly on some upper teeth (if they had any) or on their base, as if somewhere they had lost the lower jaw. Many lacked a parietal bone, a temporal bone, pieces of the frontal bone, or even the entire frontal bone. To me, the worst part was the eye sockets. Some were totally empty, and others still had the orbital bones. All in all, it was hair-raising. There were literally hundreds of those remains.

  “They are relics of Christian saints and martyrs,” announced the captain, carefully examining a row of skulls.