Septimania Page 15

  Malory looked up. Settimio was still standing by his chair.

  “Who has read this book?”

  “From the beginning, the key to Septimania has been discretion,” Settimio said. “When Charlemagne heard that his future son-in-law was named Gan, he said, ‘What kind of a Frankish name is that? In the future you will be named Aimery. You will be King of Septimania. You will have lands and property and subjects—but quietly, pian piano.’ Both Charlemagne and Gan understood that a certain amount of secrecy was proper. And as the offspring of Aimery and Charlemagne’s daughter continued the dynasty down through the centuries, the marriage of secrecy to power was sanctified in Septimania.”

  “Aimery?” Malory asked. “As in Emery? As in Mrs. Emery?”

  “Both your grandmother and your mother were known to this house as Mrs. Emery,” Settimio acknowledged. “But since the Rule of Succession does not permit a woman to reign supreme over Septimania, both women were permitted only the name and certain other rights and privileges. The throne, however, remained vacant until her death. Since a male heir had, after all, been produced.”

  “As in me?”

  “As in you, mio Principe.”

  “I am the product of the marriage of secrecy and power? King of the Jews and Holy Roman Emperor?”

  “Neither Charlemagne nor Aimery had any problem with the double title.”

  “But Charlemagne’s daughter …”

  “Aldana.”

  “Certainly she wasn’t Jewish, so none of her children were Jewish …”

  “Mi scusi, mio Principe. But you will find that none of the books in the Sanctum Sanctorum, including the Septuagint and the many Torahs, insist that Judaism is passed down by the mother.”

  “Still …”

  “Simplex sigillum veri. The simple is the sign of the truth.”

  “What is simple?”

  “Charlemagne and Aimery decided it was so. Simple.”

  “As simple as that?”

  “You are both King of the Jews and Holy Roman Emperor, mio Principe. It all depends on how one looks.”

  “I would hardly call that simple!”

  “Then think of it as useful,” Settimio continued, “a trick of the light if all other explanation fails.”

  “Useful in what way?”

  “There was a time,” Settimio explained, “when many of the crowned heads of Europe looked to Rome and the King of Septimania to reveal himself and save civilization.”

  “And what happened?” Malory asked.

  “The guillotine,” Settimio said. “The French Revolution proved the wisdom of discretion. Better to see all of Rome, while Rome sees nothing of us.”

  “And now the crowned heads of Europe—what do they expect of Septimania? What do they expect of me?”

  “Expect, mio Principe?” Settimio said. “You are the one who expects. Nothing is expected of you.”

  Nothing. Nothing was expected of him.

  “Except in fifteen minutes—Suor Anna shall be with Suor Miriam.”

  FOURTEEN MINUTES LATER, MALORY AND SETTIMIO STOOD BEFORE SUOR Miriam in the long ward, now fledged in late-afternoon shafts of light shooting in through both sets of windows from the sun over the sea at the mouth of the Tevere. It didn’t appear to Malory that Suor Miriam had moved since the midnight before. But now there was a younger nun standing by her, small, eager, and undernourished.

  “Gentlemen,” Suor Miriam said softly, “welcome back. As I promised, I have invited Suor Anna to speak with you.”

  “Buona sera,” Settimio said.

  “Buona sera,” Suor Anna said.

  “It’s not her,” Malory said.

  “Not her?” Suor Miriam repeated. The light intensified around the old nun, or perhaps it just dimmed on Malory in sympathetic annoyance. Still, Malory pressed on.

  “I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Malory said. The young nun’s eagerness turned into a blotchy confusion. “Have you seen me?”

  “Sì, signore,” the young girl said and moved a step closer to Suor Miriam.

  “Principe!” Suor Miriam corrected her.

  “Yesterday afternoon, in the hospital. You were carrying a young lady in your arms. You came into the room very quick and put her on the bed.”

  “Is this not true?” Suor Miriam turned her blinking eyelids up to Malory.

  “I’m telling you,” Malory said, not caring whether it was impatience or disappointment speaking, “that I have never seen this girl, this nurse before in my life. The nun I saw was English.”

  “English, mio Principe? In Fatebenefratelli?”

  “Settimio, you were there. You saw the red-bearded doctor and the English nurse.”

  “I am afraid I only saw you in the corridor, mio Principe. And only the doctor and your Rumanian friend were in attendance.”

  “But it is impossible,” Suor Miriam said. “There are no English nurses in Fatebenefratelli and certainly no English nuns.”

  “The Principe is correct.” The little nun with the blotchy cheeks stared at the pavement of crushed marble and waited for a reaction.

  “In che senso—in what sense correct?” Suor Miriam repeated. “Were you telling a story just now, that you were there in the room with the Principe?”

  “No, no,” Suor Anna said with a firmness that smelled of honesty. “Perhaps the Principe did not see me, but I was in the room. He was wearing a jacket the color of …”—Suor Anna searched the room and pointed at the lintels of the windows—“of terracotta and made out of a funny material that looked as if it had been scratched by a cat.”

  “Corduroy,” Malory said.

  “Sì! And you had a funny bag across one shoulder.”

  “My Kit Bag,” Malory said, “yes.”

  “I was standing behind the door. You were in a big hurry. But,” she added, looking with more confidence up at Malory, “the Principe is correct. There was an English nurse. I did not recognize her habit. She was not a Franciscan or a Dominican, or from Santa Birgitta or Santa Sabina. I thought perhaps that she came from the Colegio Inglese, the English College, on via di Monserrato. She was very firm. As soon as the Principe entered the room carrying the young woman, the English nurse told me she would manage. I was very sorry to leave. I spoke only four words with the Rumanian signora, but she seemed very nice.”

  “What a nuisance,” Suor Miriam said. “Forgive me, Principe, for raising your hopes with this silly girl.”

  “Grazie, Suor Anna,” Settimio said. “We are sorry to have bothered you.” He inclined his head to both nuns—less a bow than a crumb of politesse frosted with disappointment—and signaled to Malory that the interview was over. But Malory wanted to hear more from this little nun, this nothing of a girl who was born afraid and neglected and reminded him of a young, deserted boy who had learned that survival depended on standing behind doorways and overlooking while being overlooked.

  “Suor Anna,” he said, holding her gaze. “You saw more, didn’t you? You saw what happened to the lady I brought in. And even perhaps to the nice Rumanian signora.”

  Settimio stopped in mid turn. Suor Miriam’s eyelids fluttered.

  “Sì,” Suor Anna said. “I did. I saw the doctor, the big doctor enter the room.”

  “The American doctor with the red hair?”

  “Sì, I remember the red hair. And he had a beard and he was very tall.”

  “You are not inventing this, Suor Anna?” Suor Miriam asked.

  “Oh, no,” Suor Anna said. “He passed me in the corridor. It is easy for me to look up at people. They are always looking ahead at something above me.”

  “And that’s all?” Malory asked.

  “The English nurse told me to leave the room. But I had nowhere else to go. My instructions were to assist in the maternity ward. I stood in the corridor, perhaps three meters from the door, and waited against the wall. I saw the Principe leave with the husband of the Rumanian woman. I saw this gentleman …”

  “Settimio �
��”

  “Sì, I saw him introduce himself to you, Principe. I saw you leave with him. I saw the Rumanian man walk down to the cortile. I watched him smoke a cigarette.”

  “And the women?”

  “A few minutes later—you had barely gone—the door opened. The English nurse was pushing one bed with the Rumanian woman. The doctor was pushing the woman you brought in. They went down the corridor and then turned towards the back of the building, to Operating Theater Number Three. You know which one I mean, Suor Miriam?”

  Suor Miriam nodded, but Malory also saw her take a quick breath, as if someone had surprised her from behind or punched her in the stomach.

  “The corridor outside Operating Theater Number Three was in shadows, so I stood a little farther from its door at the edge of the light from the cortile. I could see the husband of the Rumanian signora smoking his cigarettes. I counted. Ten cigarettes. Ten cigarettes later, I heard one cry, then another. Two babies. Two baby cries. Two different babies. I know, I have heard them before.” Suor Miriam nodded, with a smile of shadowed remembrance.

  “Finally the door opened. The English nurse came out. ‘Good,’ she said when she saw me. The Rumanian signora was sitting in a wheelchair. I was surprised, of course. It was much too soon for a woman to sit in a wheelchair. But the English nurse insisted that I take the Rumanian signora down the lift to her husband in the cortile. I thought that maybe the English know better than we Italians about these things. So I wheeled her to the main lift.”

  “This was one hour after I left?” Malory asked.

  “Sì. It was seven o’clock, when the lift is very busy with people leaving for the night. And everybody was so excited about the Holy Father in San Pietro—it took me several minutes to get a lift with enough room for the Rumanian signora. When the lift doors opened, I looked down the corridor into the shadows by Operating Theatre Number Three again and saw the door open. The tall doctor was wheeling another chair. I was certain he would come in my direction and I held the door. I was about to call to him, but I saw him turn the other way. I don’t know why. The corridor ends at that level. But I thought perhaps he just wanted to give your wife some fresh air.”

  “Ah …” Malory wasn’t certain how to respond to the word wife, but gave the young nun an encouraging smile.

  “I took the Rumanian signora down to the cortile. Handed her and the chair to her husband. Neither of them spoke to me, neither noticed me. I stood for perhaps two minutes and then excused myself and climbed the stairs back to Operating Theater Number Three. I knocked on the door—I had, after all, done what the English nurse asked me to do—and entered. The room was dark. Only the light from the lamps on the Lungotevere shone through the window. The English nurse was standing, looking out at the synagogue. The two beds were empty, the machines turned off. But in its own shaft of light, not far from the English nurse, I saw a cradle. I walked over. I was eager to see the babies.”

  “And you saw them?” Malory asked.

  “I saw one,” Suor Anna answered. “One baby.”

  “Only one?” Suor Miriam raised her chin. “But you heard two cries?”

  “Sì e sì,” Suor Anna said. “I asked the English nurse where was the other baby. ‘Go home,’ she said to me. I protested, I’m afraid that I was rude. I wanted to know what happened to the other baby—I assumed, of course, that it was with your wife, Principe—and I wanted to know where she had gone with the tall doctor with the red hair and beard. They could not have left the hospital without taking the lift down to the cortile and passing me.”

  “There is another lift,” Suor Miriam said. “It is not obvious, but it is where you saw the doctor wheel the young lady. It has been used in the past, when discretion was called for.” She lifted her chin to Settimio. He nodded.

  “The English nurse asked me where I lived. I told her Santa Sabina with the Dominicans. She said ‘Then it won’t take you long to get home. Good night.’”

  “And you left?” Malory said.

  “I left,” Suor Anna said.

  “And the Rumanians?”

  “To walk to Santa Sabina I must cross from the Isola Tiberina across the Ponte Fabricio. As I turned to cross the bridge, I saw the two of them—he was holding her arm, she was walking, I could not believe it, very slowly in the opposite direction, across the Ponte Cestio to Trastevere.”

  “Without a baby?”

  “It is impossible to walk like that with a baby.”

  “And then you went home?”

  “I went to Santa Sabina, sì. I prayed.”

  A distant bell rang. Twice.

  “I am afraid they expect me in the hospital,” Suor Anna said.

  “May we go with you?” Malory asked, suddenly taken with a plan of action. “We must be able to speak with Suor Anna’s supervisor, or the director of the hospital, and find out who is this tall American doctor with the red beard and his English nurse. I mean, can just anyone come into a hospital in Rome and deliver a few babies without permission?” The distant bell rang again. Neither Suor Anna nor Suor Miriam said anything.

  “I believe, mio Principe,” Settimio murmured delicately, “that we might have more success searching for your Rumanians. Or better still—waiting for them to search for you.”

  2/3

  S SETTIMIO PREDICTED, IT WAS THE RUMANIAN WHO FOUND Malory.

  The elevation of the Polish cardinal to the Chair of St. Peter magnetized the Eternal City. The kings and queens of the Catholic countries of Europe, the congressmen and senators from the United States who bore Polish names, and tens of thousands of fortunate Poles who found themselves outside the borders of their native country descended on Rome by plane, by coach, by motorcycle, by Volga and Lada, Trabant and Dacia, Polski Fiats and little Maluchs, and even by automobiles with lawnmower engines that ran on potato skins and cabbage leaves for the inaugural Mass of the new pope, John Paul II. Although it would not have been discreet for Malory to attend the Mass, Settimio asked him twice whether he would like to host a small luncheon at the Villa for a select group of guests who were already aware of the existence of Septimania. But not even the temptation of sharing tortelloni in brodo with Princess Grace could shake Malory out of his reluctance to be examined by royal invigilators on subjects he had never studied.

  Settimio dutifully worked the telephones and called whomever Malory requested—from carabinieri to secretaries in the embassies of the United States, England, and even Rumania. But few picked up their phones, and those who did were at best confused and at worst unhelpful. Rome was otherwise engaged. Travel through the streets was nearly impossible, backed up to the rim of the bowl with a holy wash of dignitaries and pilgrims. The city was buried beneath the weight of a machine nearly two millennia in the making, fueled only in the smallest part by religion.

  Isolated and besieged, Malory devoted his days to a better understanding of his inheritance, with the not-so-secret aim that it might reveal to him how he might be reunited with his barely seen Louiza and his unseen progeny. He developed a speedy dexterity with the card catalog of the Sanctum Sanctorum, although the vast bulk of the collection in the dozens of tunnels beneath the villa were in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and several other languages that meant nothing to Malory. During his nights in the Sanctum Sanctorum, he read through The Complete History of Septimania. He read and read again the story of Haroun al Rashid and his secret mission to bring the first King of Septimania to the West. He read again of his meeting with the butcher Yehoshua and his subsequent encounter with the daughter of Charlemagne. But his imagination was most attracted to the story Haroun spoke of with the red-headed Princess Aldana. “The Tale of Judar Son of Omar” appeared in each one of the fifteen editions of the Thousand and One Nights that Settimio was able to draw out of the depths of the tunnel.

  “Do you think,” Malory asked him one evening, “that these tales are also more than bedtime stories, Settimio?”

  “You may recall, mio Principe, that bedtime meant some
thing very different to the young Scheherazade.”

  “Ah,” Malory said, wondering how the girl could fall asleep at night knowing that her survival the next day depended on coming up with an A-plus yarn for King Shahryar. “Do you remember the story of Judar—do you remember the Magic Saddlebag? All you had to do was imagine a dish, put your hand into the bag, and voilà! There it was on a silver platter ready to serve. Do you remember?”

  “Certo,” Settimio smiled.

  “And do you remember the Celestial Orb? All you had to do was to turn the orb towards the sun, and you could see into all the countries of the world, all the cities, all the homes.”

  “The Celestial Orb, sì, I remember.”

  “Settimio,” Malory wasn’t certain how to ask the question without seeming either silly or greedy. “Those treasures—they wouldn’t be stored here, would they? They wouldn’t be part of my inheritance?”

  Settimio’s smile softened. “It would certainly make the cook’s job easier at dinnertime.”

  “You’ve been very kind to me,” Malory said. “And the food I like seems to appear at mealtime without my having to do much more than Judar with his bag. But the Celestial Orb …”

  “You wish there were an easy way to turn a little globe in your hand and find your Louiza? I wish it too.”

  That night, Malory lay with his cheek kissing the top of the seven-sided desk and slept free of dreams, surrounded as he was by nothing but.

  In the morning, Settimio woke him at the desk and led him up to the dining table and the chairs of Tiberian oak for his tea and scones. Outside, it was still dark.

  “The streets are empty at this time of the morning,” Settimio said, as he guided Malory onto the back of the Driver’s Vespa. “The Driver will take you to the Mattatoio, the slaughterhouse in Testaccio. Rumanians, Bulgarians, Poles, the illegal workers of Rome line up there at dawn. At seven o’clock, any employer in need of a worker for a day, a week, a month, can drive by and make a selection.”