The Quest: A Novel Part 3

He said, "The cardinal told us to go carefully, to go only with soldiers, and if we should find this black monastery, go into it. Avoid bloodshed if you can, he told us. But you must move quickly, he said, because the monks would spirit the relic away through underground pa.s.sages if they thought they were being overpowered. He spoke as if he knew something of this." Father Armano needed more water, and Purcell took the canteen and poured it slowly around his lips as Vivian translated.

The priest asked to be propped up so they sat him against the wall in the corner. He began talking without prompting. "So, a bold priest asked, 'How will we know what to look for and what to do when we enter the monastery?' And the cardinal said, 'The words of His Holiness are in the envelope, and if you should ever arrive at your destination, you will open the envelope and you will know all.' "

Father Armano paused, and a faraway look came into his eyes. At first Purcell thought he was dying, but the priest smiled and continued. "Then something happened which I will never forget. His Holiness himself came into the small room where we sat with the cardinal. He spoke with the cardinal and we could hear him address the cardinal by his Christian name. He called him Eugenio. So now the cardinal with no name had a name we could use in our heads when we thought of him. But we could not call him Eugenio, could we?" The priest asked for some time to rest.

Mercado seemed to be thinking, and Purcell asked him, "Do you know who this Cardinal Eugenio could be?"

"No..."

Purcell asked, "How many cardinals would there be living in Rome at that time? And how many do you think were named Eugenio?"

Mercado replied, "I wasn't a believer in those days and cared not at all for cardinals... but there was one who was secretary of state for Pius XI... Eugenio Pacelli."

"Sounds familiar for some reason."

"He a.s.sumed another name in 1939. Pius XII."

"That sounds more familiar."

Vivian pondered this information. "But we don't know for sure..."

"No," said Mercado. "We'll have to go to the Italian Library when we get back to Addis."

The old priest was following some words. Mercado turned to him. "If I showed you a picture of this cardinal as he looked in 1935, would you-"

"Yes. Of course. I could not forget that face."

Realizing that Father Armano might not live long enough to see a photograph, Mercado asked, "Was this cardinal tall, thin? Aquiline nose? Light-complexioned?" He added a few more details.

"That could be him. Yes."

Mercado leaned closer to Father Armano and asked, "And did His Holiness say anything to you?"

"Yes. He came right up to us. We were standing, of course. He seemed a kind man. He even tried to speak in the Sicilian dialect. He spoke it with a bad accent, but no one laughed, of course. He spoke of humility and obedience... he spoke of duty and he spoke of the Church, the true Church. He said we should treat the priests of the Ethiopian church with respect, but also with firmness... He did not mention the envelopes. The cardinal still had them on his person. His Holiness seemed not to know of the mission sometimes, but other times he seemed to know. The words were general. You understand? He blessed us and left. The cardinal then gave everyone an envelope and also we took an oath of secrecy. I am still bound by that oath, but I must tell you all that happened, so I am breaking my oath. It is of no importance after such a long time... And we made the oath under false..." His voice trailed off.

Mercado touched his arm and said, "It's all right, Father-"

"Yes. Yes. Let me finish. So, we were taken to the Piazza Venezia. There was a military procession there. Tanks, cannons, trucks. I had never seen such things. It seemed that all Italy was in uniform. And he was there, also. The new Caesar, Il Duce. He stood like Caesar on a balcony. I did not like that man. He was too much with guns and the talk of war. And the king was there too. Victor Emmanuel. A decent man. Is he...?"

"Dead. There are no more kings, Father. Go on."

"Yes. Dead. Everyone is dead. Forty years is a long time. Yes... I must finish. In the piazza they had the ceremony of the blessing of the guns. They put us to work, the priests from Sicily. We helped with the blessing. Then His Holiness arrived. He blessed the guns also. I did not like this. His Holiness stood with the king and Mussolini. Then came the cardinal, Eugenio. I was close to them. They spoke very intently. All the parade was going by for them, and the soldiers marched, but they paid no attention. I did not like the looks in their eyes. I was that close. Perhaps I imagined all this later... in the prison. The looks in their eyes, I mean. Perhaps they were talking about something else. Who knows? But I felt then, or maybe later, that they were talking about the thing..." His voice cracked and he stopped speaking.

Purcell picked up the canteen, but Mercado grabbed his arm. "You'll kill him, Frank."

"If he doesn't have a bad stomach wound, we're killing him with dehydration. If it's bad, then he's dead anyway. We can't get him to a doctor for hours."

Mercado nodded.

Purcell emptied the canteen over the old priest's mouth, saying to Mercado, "Keep him on track, Henry. The monastery."

Mercado said, "I'm starting to feel guilty about pushing a dying priest to stick to the facts and give us a good story."

Purcell replied, "The whole point of the Catholic religion is guilt."

Mercado ignored him and asked Father Armano, "Would you like to rest?"

"No. I must finish." Father Armano continued, "The next day I was brought to an infantry battalion. The soldiers were all peasants from my province in Sicily. We went to a boat and the boat sailed for many days. And we sailed through Egypt and we could see Egypt on both sides of the ca.n.a.l. The boat went to Masawa, in Eritrea. You know the place? This was the new Caesar's African empire. He called us his legions. 'Go to Africa,' he said, 'and make Ethiopia Italian.' In Masawa our engineers were building the harbor. Ships arrived with soldiers and tanks... there was going to be a war. A fool could see that. The army marched to Asmara. It rained every day. But then the dry season began... The governor of Eritrea a.s.sembled the army in front of his palace. He read us a telegram from Il Duce. 'Avanti! I order you to begin the advance.' Then a general-I cannot recall his name-he read a proclamation. He spoke of the new Fascist Italy and of sacrifice. The bishop of Asmara rang the church bells and everyone sang the Fascist anthem, 'Youth.' Everyone seemed happy on the outside. But on the inside, there was much sadness. I know this because the soldiers came to me and told me they were sad. We marched on Ethiopia. At first it was not so bad, except for the heat and the fatigue. In the early part of October we entered Adowa. There was little fighting. But then we marched out of Adowa and the army of the Ethiopians began to fight. So, this Ethiopian emperor was a brave man. Haile Sela.s.sie-they called him the King of Kings. The Conquering Lion of Judah. Descended from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, they said. A descendant of the House of David. A brave man. He led his army with his own person, while our new Caesar sat in Rome. I am sure this man is dead, no? He must have died in battle."

"No," said Mercado, "the emperor escaped to England, then returned to Ethiopia when the British drove out the Italians. He is still alive, but a very old man now."

Purcell wondered if Father Armano could follow all this, but the priest said, "So, they are not all dead, then. Good. Someone lives from my time. This emperor was a brave man. His army was ill-equipped, but they fought like lions against our tanks and planes. But we won that war. That much I could see before my imprisonment."

"Yes," Mercado said, "you won that war. But you lost the big one afterwards. The one with the Americans and the English. Italy fought with Germany."

"With Germany? Insanity. Which war is this one, then?"

Mercado was pulled in two directions. On one hand, he wanted to put the old priest's mind to rest about all that had transpired in forty years. He actually enjoyed telling it to him. But on the other hand, there was the priest's own story, which had to be finished.

He glanced at Purcell, who now seemed resigned to the priest's recounting of all he remembered of the past and all his questions about the present. Mercado said to Father Armano, "It is a civil war, Father. Ethiopia now owns the old Italian colony of Eritrea. Some Eritreans, mostly the Muslims, want independence. They are fighting the Ethiopians. Inside Ethiopia itself, there are Christians and Muslims who no longer want the emperor. Mostly it is the army that no longer wants Haile Sela.s.sie as emperor, and they have arrested him, but he is well. He lives in his palace under house arrest. There are some Royalist forces who still fight the army. There are others who want neither the army nor the emperor. It is a very confused war and there is much unhappiness in this land. Also, there is famine. Famine for two years now."

"Yes, I know of the famine." He asked, "And the Gallas? I heard you mention them. They are not to be trusted. In the last war, they took advantage of the fighting and killed many on both sides. They love fighting. They love it when there is strife in the land." There was actual anger in the old priest's gentle voice. He said, "It was the Gallas who attacked the place where I was imprisoned... they killed everyone..."

Henry Mercado remembered the Gallas very well-fierce tribesmen with no loyalty beyond their clans. He said to the priest, "Yes. I remember from the last war. I was here then. I am from your time, too, Father."

The old priest nodded and said, "You must not fall into their hands." He looked at Vivian.

Mercado did not respond, but the priest's warning awakened old and bad memories of that colonial war, and especially of the Gallas. Between 1936 and 1940, they fought the Ethiopian partisans who still carried on the fight against the Italians, and when the British took Ethiopia from the Italians in 1941, the Gallas hara.s.sed the retreating Italians as well as the advancing British and the reemerging Ethiopian partisan forces. Wherever there was a clash of arms, the Gallas heard it and rode to it on their horses. This was how they lived; on military plunder. And they didn't know a white flag or a press card when they saw one. In quiet times, they stayed in the Danakil Desert, near Eritrea, or the Ogaden Desert, near Somalia. But when the dogs of war were let loose, as now, thought Mercado, they were all over the countryside, as though someone had shaken a beehive, and the famine had made them more fierce and more predatory than usual.

Mercado had suspected and the priest had confirmed that the Gallas were in the area, that the battle in the hills between Prince Joshua's Royalist forces and the army forces of the Provisional government had drawn them like sharks to the smell of blood. They would sit in a place just like this spa and wait patiently for stragglers from one or the other army. Or if an army was badly beaten and retreating, they would attack the whole force. Yes, Mercado remembered them well. They butchered more than one beaten Ethiopian army and never spared the Western reporters who were with the army, and the Azebe Gallas, who populated this region, and who were neither Muslim nor Christian but pagan, were the worst of a bad lot. They hated the indigenous Amhara pa.s.sionately, but they saved their most creative torture and death for Westerners.

The priest was sleeping again, and Mercado's mind went back to the first weeks of the Italian invasion, which he had covered for the Times of London. He'd had the misfortune to be with the Amharic Prince Mulugeta in February 1936, at a place called Mount Aradam, a place historically and topographically like Masada, where the Israelites made their last stand against the Romans, and where the prince was making his last stand against the new Roman legions of Mussolini. Prince Mulugeta's force of seventy thousand was being systematically destroyed by the Italians as the days dragged on. Mercado was with the prince at his headquarters, and with them was a British Army advisor with the evocative name of Burgoyne and a strange Cuban-American soldier of fortune named Captain Del Valle.

The prince, Mercado remembered, was weeping in his tent at the news that his son had been mutilated and killed by Azebe Gallas at the edge of the battle, and he decided to go down to the foot of Mount Aradam to find his son's corpse. Mercado, Burgoyne, and Del Valle, young and foolhardy and playing the part of Kiplingesque Europeans, volunteered to go with him and his staff. When they got to the area where the scouts-supposedly Gallas loyal to the prince-had said the body was located, they themselves were surrounded by Gallas. The Gallas would have butchered them all, except that a flight of Italian Air Force planes swooped down on them and began machine-gunning the whole area, killing not only the Ethiopians but also the Gallas. Prince Mulugeta was killed and so was most of his staff. Del Valle and Burgoyne were killed also. The surviving Gallas stripped and castrated all the bodies, and Mercado escaped only by stripping himself and smearing blood over his body so that he looked to any pa.s.sing Galla as though he had already been killed and mutilated.

Mercado suspected, thinking back on it, that the whole thing had been an elaborate trap, perhaps with Italian connivance. But that was another time. The place was the same, however. They were not too far from Mount Aradam, where Mercado had lain naked, trying very much to look dead.

He took a deep breath, then looked at Father Armano, who was awake, and asked him, "Were you at Mount Aradam?"

"Yes. I was there. It was a few weeks before I was captured. It was the biggest slaughter yet. Thousands. I was made very busy in those weeks."

Mercado thought it was a stunning coincidence that he and this priest were at the same battle almost forty years ago. But maybe not. Priests, reporters, and vultures were attracted to death; they all had work to do.

Purcell lit another cigarette. A false dawn lit the eastern sky outside the gaping windows. He said to Mercado, "People die at dawn more frequently than other times. Ask him to finish."

"Yes. All right. I was just remembering Aradam."

"Remember it in your memoirs."

"Don't be insensitive, Frank," said Vivian.

Mercado looked at Father Armano. "Would you like to continue, Father?"

"Yes. Let me make an end of it. So, you asked about Aradam. Yes. The mountain was drenched in blood and the Gallas came afterwards and slaughtered the fleeing army of Ethiopia. And General Badoglio tried to make common cause with the Gallas because there were many Italian units, like my own battalion, that were weak and exposed to the Gallas, and the Gallas were bought with food and clothes by the Italian generals. But the Gallas were treacherous; they ma.s.sacred small Italian units that were weakened by the fighting. My battalion-perhaps four hundred men remained out of a thousand-was told to march to Lake Tana at the source of the Blue Nile. The Gallas hara.s.sed us as we moved, and the remnants of the Ethiopian army hara.s.sed us, and the Gallas also attacked the Ethiopians. Was there ever so much bloodshed in such a confused, senseless manner? Everyone was like the shark and the vulture. They attacked the weak and the sick at every opportunity. I buried boys who had been baptized in my church. But we arrived at Lake Tana and made a camp, with the lake at our backs, so we could go no further."

Father Armano fell silent, and Mercado had no doubt the old man was not so much remembering as he was reliving that terrible battle and its aftermath.

After a full minute, Father Armano continued. "Now, the battalion commander was a young captain-all the senior officers were dead-and we had perhaps two hundred men left. And this young captain sent a patrol into the jungle to see what was there. Ten men he sent and only five came back. These five said they were ambushed in the jungle by Gallas. The Gallas captured two or three of the five missing men. The returning patrol said they could hear the screams of the men as they were being tortured... and the men of the patrol also told of seeing a high black wall in the jungle. Black like coal. It was like a fort, they said, but they could see a cross coming from a tower within the walls, so perhaps it was a monastery. I asked the captain if I could go back and find the bodies of the lost soldiers. He said no, but I said it was my duty as the priest of the battalion and he conceded to my wish. Also, I wished to see this black wall and the tower in the jungle... but I said nothing of this."

Vivian translated for Purcell, who commented, "This guy had b.a.l.l.s."

"Actually," said Mercado, "he had orders from the pope, and he had his faith."

Vivian added, "And he knew he had found what he was looking for."

Father Armano looked at his three benefactors as though he knew what they were saying, and he nodded, then continued. "So with the five soldiers who had survived the ambush, and who were not happy to go back, and five others, we returned to the place of the ambush. The soldiers we were looking for were dead, of course. The ones who had been captured alive-three of them-had been tied to trees by the Gallas and castrated. I gave the last rites and we buried them all."

Father Armano stayed silent awhile, then said, "So now I had to make a decision... I had to know... so I opened the envelope that was with me since Rome, and I read the words... and I had to read the words in Latin again and again to be certain..."

Mercado asked, "What did the letter say?"

The priest shook his head, drew a long breath, and continued, "So now I imposed upon the leader of this patrol, a young sergeant, whose name I only remember as Giovanni, to show me the place of the black walls that he had seen. He asked my forgiveness and he refused. So then I told him and the men of the patrol of my mission to find the black monastery... I showed them the letter with the seal of the Holy Father and I told them that the Holy Father himself had asked me to do this... that within the monastery was a sacred object of the time of Jesus... I promised them that if we found this monastery and the sacred relic, I would pet.i.tion the Holy Father to bring them home and they would receive great honors... Perhaps I promised too much, but they spoke among themselves and agreed, so we set off into the jungle."

Father Armano stared into the darkness awhile. "It was a long distance and took many days and we were lost, too, I think. The sergeant was not sure. I felt that the Ethiopians or the Gallas were following... Please, some water."

Vivian gave it to him as she translated for Purcell. The dark hour before the dawn had come and gone and now the sky began to lighten again.

"We can move in about a half hour," announced Purcell.

Mercado said, "We can leave now. We need to get him to Gondar."

Purcell replied, "He needs to finish his story, Henry. He's left us hanging."

Mercado was again torn, but there were no good choices.

Vivian said, "I agree with Henry."

"Well," said Purcell, "I don't. And it's my Jeep." He added, to soften his words, "It's not only about the monastery. Father Armano wants us to tell his people and the world what happened to him-if he dies."

Mercado said, "It's actually about the monastery and the relic. But you make a point, Frank."

The priest had sat himself up higher in the corner. In the dawning light, his features began to materialize, and he was no longer the shadow of a voice. They stared at him as their eyes became accustomed to the gray light. The priest looked like death, but his eyes were much brighter than they should have been, and his face-what they could see through the dirt and the beard-was rosy. But the rosiness, Purcell knew, was the fever, and the brightness of the eyes was also the fever, and perhaps a little madness too.

Mercado wiped the priest's forehead. "Father. We will be moving shortly."

The priest nodded, then said, "But I must first finish."

Purcell looked at him. He had become real all of a sudden. The voice had a body. Purcell became melancholy and felt a great sadness, not only for the priest but also for himself. He saw himself as he was in the prison camp. The priest's bearded face brought it back, and he felt uncomfortable with that face. It was the face of all suffering. Indochina had settled into his brain again and he could not cope with it so early in the morning.

The priest breathed softly and continued. "So, we came upon it. In a deep jungle valley. In a million years you would not find it, but this sergeant was a good soldier, and having found it once by accident, he remembered how to find it again. A rock. A tree. A stream. You see? So we approached the black place. The jungle came up to the walls of the place, and hid it from view, but a tree had fallen and exposed some of the wall. We walked in a circle through the jungle and around the wall, which was of black stone, with a shine like gla.s.s, and it was constructed in the old style of the monasteries and had no gate or door."

Father Armano asked for more water on his face, and Vivian washed him with a wet handkerchief. Purcell was briefly touched by her compa.s.sion; he could see why old Henry had taken a liking to her.

Father Armano said, "We came around to the place from which we started. There was now a basket there on a rope, as in the old style of the monasteries of the Dark Ages. The basket was not there before, so we took this as a sign of hospitality. We called up to the walls, but no one answered. The basket was large and so we climbed into it... all of us. It was made of reeds, but it was strong. And we all fit-eleven-and the basket began to rise."

He stopped, took a long, deep breath, then went on. "The men were somewhat uneasy, but we could see crosses cut into the black stone so we knew it was a Christian place and we were not so much afraid, though I remembered the words of the cardinal about the monks. The basket came to rest at the top of the wall. There was no one there. The basket had been raised with a device of stones and gears and it was not necessary to stand by it once it was started. You understand? So we were alone on top of the wall... We climbed out of the basket, over the parapet, and stepped onto a walk."

The priest's face contorted and he grabbed his stomach with both hands.

Vivian knelt beside him and said in Italian, "You must lie down and rest."

Mercado said, "He's actually better off sitting up. That's why he sat up in the first place."

Vivian said, "We need to get him to the hospital. Now."

Purcell suggested, "Ask him what he wants to do."

Mercado asked Father Armano, and the priest replied, "I need to finish this... I am... near the end..."

Mercado nodded.

Father Armano took a deep breath and spit blood into his beard. He stayed silent for a time, then began. "Within the walls of the monastery lay beautiful buildings of the black stone and green gardens and blue ponds and fountains. The men were very happy at the sight and asked me many questions, which I could not answer. But I told the sergeant, Giovanni, about the monks and he ordered his men to keep their rifles at the ready. We called down into the monastery, but only the echoes of our own voices answered us. Now everyone was troubled again. But we found wooden steps to the ground. We walked with caution like a patrol because we were uneasy. We called out again, but only our own voices answered, and the echoes made us more uneasy, so we did not call out again, but walked quietly. We walked to the main building... a church. The doors of the church were covered with polished silver and they blinded us in the sunlight. On the doors were the signs of the early Christians... fish, lambs, palms. We entered the church. Inside, we observed that the roof was made of a substance like gla.s.s, but not gla.s.s. A stone, perhaps alabaster, and it let in the sunlight and the church was bathed in a glow that made my head swim and hurt my eyes. I had never seen such a thing and I am sure there is not such a thing, even in Rome." He laid his head back in the corner and closed his eyes.

Purcell, Mercado, and Vivian watched him closely in the dim light. Mercado asked, "Are we doing the right thing? Or are we killing him?"

Purcell said, "I think he's accepted death, so we need to accept it."

Vivian concurred and added, "He wants the world to know his story... and his fate."

Purcell agreed, "That's what we do best. So I think we need to wake him."

Mercado hesitated, then crouched and shook the priest gently.

The priest opened his eyes slowly. He said, "I can see you all now. This woman is very beautiful. She should not be traveling like this."

Purcell informed him, "Women do whatever men do these days, Father." But no one translated.

The priest took a deep breath. "So, now we make an end of it. And listen closely." He pressed his eyes with his shaky hands. "So we walked through the strange light of the church and into an adjoining building. A bigger place it seemed, but perhaps it was the darkness that made it look so. It was a building of many columns. We walked in the darkness, and the soldiers had removed their helmets because they were in a church, but they did not sling their rifles on their shoulders, but held them ready. Though it made no difference. In a second, every column produced a robed monk. It was over in a second or two. Everyone was clubbed to the ground and not a shot was fired. There was very little noise..."

Father Armano seemed to be failing, but he was determined to go on and spoke quickly. "I wore on my helmet a large cross which was the army regulation. So perhaps this is what saved me. The others were clubbed again and taken away. I remember seeing this, although I was stunned by the blow. But you see, I had left my helmet on, as it was not required of me to remove a head covering in church. You understand? So the steel absorbed the blow and G.o.d saved me. The monks dragged me away and put me in a cell."

The priest suddenly became rigid, and his face turned pale. His gums bit into his bearded lip, then the pain pa.s.sed and he exhaled, drew a long breath, and said something in Latin that Mercado recognized as the Lord's Prayer. He finished the prayer, then he picked up his story in Italian. "A monk's cell... not a prison... they cared for me... two or three of the Coptic monks spoke some Italian... so I said to them... I said, 'I have come to see the sacred relic...' and one who spoke Italian answered, 'If you have come to see it, you will see it.' But he also said, 'Those who see it may never speak of it.' I agreed to this, though I did not understand that I had sealed my fate..."

Purcell waited for Vivian's translation, then commented, "I think he understood that."

And in fact, Father Armano added, "But perhaps I did understand... though when I saw the sacred relic, it did not matter..."

Mercado asked Father Armano, almost casually, "What was it, Father? What did they show you?"