The Quest: A Novel Part 24

"Be serious."

"I don't know, Vivian."

"But don't you think it was beyond strange that you turned off the road exactly where the spa was?"

"Let me think about it." He changed the subject. "Henry and I discussed the possibility that Getachu or someone else has already found the black monastery."

"They haven't."

"All right..." He wanted their first night to be more romantic, so he asked, "Would you like dinner?"

"No. I want to take a walk."

"Good idea." He signaled the waiter for the bill, then asked her, "Where are you staying?"

"There is not a room to be had in Rome."

"Sorry to hear that." He inquired, "Where is your luggage?"

"In your room."

He smiled. "How did you manage that?"

"Really, Frank. We're in Italy."

He asked, seriously, "How did you know this would go well?"

"It didn't matter how it went. We're sleeping together tonight."

He didn't argue with that, and he suggested, "Let's get you unpacked."

"I need a walk. It's a beautiful night."

"Okay." He paid the bill while she got her coat, and they went down to the lobby and outside into the cool night.

The Roman rush hour had ended, and the streets were becoming more quiet, and pedestrians were strolling on the broad Via dei Fori Imperiali. The Christmas decorations, such as they were, were mostly of the religious type, and there was no sign of Santa or his reindeer.

They held hands and didn't speak much as they took in the city and its people. Vivian said, "This is what I pictured when I received your romantic letter."

"I didn't know what tone to use."

"So you wrote it as a news release. If it wasn't for your P.S., I'd still be in Geneva."

"I know."

"Well, I don't blame you for being angry."

"Why should you?"

"I know I shouldn't have left under false pretenses. And I'm sorry for that. But I couldn't face you... and say..."

"Drop it."

She squeezed his hand and said, "I kept thinking to myself, 'Get thee to a nunnery, Vivian. Go think this out.' "

"Good. Let's move on. Avanti."

"I feel cleansed now, and pure."

"We'll take care of that later."

She laughed and they continued on. She asked him, "What is the most romantic spot in the city?"

"My room."

"Second most."

"I'll show you."

They walked around the Vittorio Emanuele monument, then up the steps of the Campidoglio to the piazza at the top of the ancient Capitoline Hill where dozens of hand-holding couples strolled past the museums and around the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius.

Purcell led her to a spot at the edge of the hill that looked out over the floodlit Forum below and at the Palatine Hill rising above the Forum ruins, with the Colosseum in the distance.

Vivian said, "Breathtaking."

"We'll come back here after Ethiopia."

"We will come back."

They descended the long flight of steps down the hill and walked back to the hotel.

Chapter 21.

Purcell picked up his room phone and called Henry at his office to inform him that Vivian was in Rome, though he didn't say when she'd arrived, or where she was staying, and Henry didn't ask. Had he asked, Purcell would have told him that Vivian was in the shower.

Henry suggested lunch at a restaurant called Etiopia, which he thought would be a fitting place for their reunion. Purcell didn't think so, but he took down the address, which Henry said was near the Termini. Henry further suggested that he, Henry, meet Vivian there at 12:30, and that Purcell join them at one-or even later.

Purcell wasn't sure he liked that arrangement, but he'd leave it up to Vivian.

Later, as he and Vivian began a morning walk, he told her about his call to Mercado, and about lunch.

He thought she might want to return to the hotel to change out of her jeans, sweatshirt, and hiking boots for lunch with her old boyfriend, but she said, "I'm all right with that. If you are."

"I'm okay." He informed her, "It's an Ethiopian restaurant."

"That's Henry."

It was a warm and sunny morning, and it was the Sat.u.r.day before Christmas, so traffic was light and the city seemed to be in a holiday mood.

They walked through the Campo de' Fiori, which made Purcell think of his advice to Jean, which in turn made him think of Henry sending Jean to his table under false pretenses. Henry Mercado, Purcell understood, was a manipulator and a man who knew how to compromise other people. But Henry was also a gentleman of the old school, and Henry would not mention Jean to Vivian. Unless it suited his purpose.

They then walked to the Trevi Fountain, made their secret wishes, and tossed their coins over their shoulders into the water, which according to tradition guaranteed that they'd return to Rome someday.

At 11:30, Purcell suggested they head toward Etiopia-the restaurant, not the country.

Their route took them past the Termini, Rome's central rail station, around which was Rome's only sizeable black neighborhood, whose residents were mostly from the former Italian colonies of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia. The area around the Termini was crowded with African street vendors whose native wares were spread out on blankets.

As they walked, Purcell asked Vivian, "Are you still all right with this meeting?"

She nodded, but he could see she was apprehensive. The last time Vivian had seen Henry was when they'd gotten off Getachu's helicopter in Addis Ababa. The flight from Getachu's camp to Addis had been made mostly in silence, except for Gann telling them that as foreigners and journalists, the worst they could expect was a show trial, a conviction, and expulsion from the country.

Purcell had realized at the time that Colonel Gann was not speaking about himself-he fully expected to be hanged or shot-and yet he'd put his own fears aside to boost the morale of three people he hardly knew. A true officer and gentleman. And now, according to Mercado, Gann was willing to return to Ethiopia, where he was under a death sentence. Fearless was one thing, but foolhardy was something else. He wondered what was motivating Colonel Gann.

From the helicopter, they had been made to run barefoot across the tarmac, wearing leg shackles, to four waiting police cars. Before they were separated, Vivian had called out to Henry, "I love you!"

But Henry had not replied-or maybe he hadn't heard her.

Then Vivian had turned toward him, and they made eye contact. She gave him a sort of sad smile before the policeman pushed her into the car.

And that was the last he saw of her until the Hilton, and the last Henry would see of her until about fifteen minutes from now.

He said to her, "If you're having second thoughts, I'll go with you."

"No. I just need to put it to rest, Frank. Then get on with what we have to do."

"All right." There was no script for this sort of thing-the eternal triangle in the Eternal City-and he supposed that Henry's request for half an hour alone with his former lover was not unreasonable, and that Vivian's acquiescence was meant, as she said, to put it to rest and move on. Henry, on the other hand, had many agendas, and Purcell didn't know which one was on the schedule today.

Vivian was looking at the blankets spread over the open s.p.a.ces around the Termini, and the street vendors were calling out to her in Italian as she pa.s.sed. She said something to one of them in Amharic and the man seemed surprised, then delighted.

She stopped and looked at the crafts on his blanket, and the man was speaking rapidly to her in Amharic, then switched to Italian.

Purcell looked at the items. There were a few objects carved out of what looked like teak and ebony, some beadwork, and a few sculptures carved from jet black obsidian, polished to a high gloss, including a model of the distinctive octagon-shaped Saint George Cathedral in Addis Ababa. He smiled. "We've found the black monastery."

"Frank, that's Saint George in Addis."

"Looks smaller than I remember."

A lady was selling embroidered shammas and Purcell suggested, "Let's wear these to lunch."

Vivian surprised him by saying, "The last time Henry saw us in shammas, he didn't like what he saw."

Purcell had no comment on that. He walked over to another blanket covered with bronze ware, and he spotted a wine goblet that reminded him of the goblets in Prince Joshua's tent. The vendor wanted fifty thousand lire, Purcell offered ten, and they settled on twenty.

Purcell moved back to Vivian, who was negotiating the price of Saint George's, and held up the goblet. "I have found the Holy Grail."

She laughed.

"Here. Give it to Henry and tell him mission accomplished."

She examined the goblet of hammered bronze, which looked ancient, but was probably made last week, and asked, "How will we know?"

"The thing will speak for itself."

She nodded, then handed it back to him, saying, "You give it to him."

The polizia were doing a scheduled sweep through the Termini area, chasing off the street vendors, who rolled up their blankets and wares and moved a few meters behind the sweep, then set up again on the pavement. No one seemed to take things too seriously here, he noticed, and maybe Henry had found the right place to live and die, if he didn't die in Ethiopia. Same for him and Vivian.

Purcell asked a policeman for directions to Via Gaeta, and he walked Vivian part of the way. They stopped and he said, "See you in half an hour."

"Don't be late."

"I might be early."

She smiled, then said seriously, "If he's willing to forget the past, and get over his anger, and be with us under these... I guess, awkward circ.u.mstances, then you-"

"I get it."

"All right..." She gave him a quick kiss, turned, and walked off.

Purcell checked his watch, then wandered the streets around the Termini. He found a taverna and went inside. The clientele was mostly black, though the taverna itself seemed to be traditional Roman.

He sat at the small bar and ordered an espresso, then changed his mind and asked for a vino rosso.

Henry Mercado had a flair for drama and stage setting. He was, in fact, a performer. An illusionist. Purcell could see it in some of Henry's writing. There were never any hard facts-just suggestions of fact, mixed with his profound insights. Henry manipulated words the way he manipulated people. Purcell had no doubt that Henry's epiphany in the Gulag was real, but Henry's inner pagan had remained the same. If Henry Mercado wasn't a Catholic journalist, he'd probably be a magician or a wizard. Purcell didn't think that Vivian would again fall under his spell, but Henry would use her guilt to his advantage.

He had a second wine and looked at the patrons in the bar mirror. Ethiopia was disgorging large chunks of its population, especially the entrepreneurs and the professional cla.s.s, and also the old aristocracy who had escaped hanging and shooting, as well as the Coptic and Catholic clergy who felt threatened by the G.o.dless revolutionaries. Ethiopia was, in fact, a replay of the French and Russian revolutions; an isolated ruling elite had lost touch with the people, and with reality, so the people had brought reality to the palaces and churches. The three-thousand-year-old established order was crumbling, and for this reason, the Holy Grail was up for grabs.

It was only a matter of time, he thought, before the revolutionaries located the black monastery; it was well hidden, but nothing can be hidden forever, though he knew that the lost cities of the Mayans had remained undiscovered for hundreds of years in jungles far smaller than those of Ethiopia.

But no matter who found the monastery, he was sure that the Holy Grail, or whatever else was there, would be spirited away before the first intruders got over the walls. And yet...

He took the bronze goblet out of his trench coat and looked at it.

The proprietor, an Italian, looked at it also, then nodded toward his clientele and said in English, "Ethiopian junk."

Not wanting the man to think he was a gullible tourist, Purcell informed him, "This is the Holy Grail."

The proprietor laughed. "What you pay for that?"

"Twenty thousand."