Cabal - 3 (16 page)

Tania was talking on the phone when he walked in. As soon as she caught sight of Zen, a furtive air came over her. Shielding her mouth with one hand, she spoke urgently into the phone as he strode towards her. All he could make out before she hung up was ‘I’ll speak to you later,’ but it was enough. The form of the verb was familiar, her tone conspiratorial.

‘Who was that?’ he demanded.

‘Oh, just a relative.’

She actually blushed. Zen let it go, out of self-interest rather than magnanimity. What with the stresses and strains of the morning, and those that loomed later in the afternoon, he needed an interval of serenity. In a way it didn’t even seem to matter that her love was all a fake. If she was making use of him, then he would make use of her. That way they were quits.

He stared at the computer screen on the desk, which displayed a list of names and addresses, many of them in foreign countries. Surely they couldn’t
all
be her lovers? Tania depressed a key and the screen reverted to the READY display.

‘Shall we go?’ she asked.

But Zen continued to gaze at the screen. After a moment he pressed one of the function keys, selecting the SEARCH option. SUBJECT? queried the screen. Zen typed ‘Malta/Knights’. The screen went into a brief coma before producing two lines of print: SOVEREIGN MILITARY ORDER OF MALTA/KNIGHTS OF MALTA/KNIGHTS OF ST JOHN OF JERUSALEM/KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS:1 FILE (S); 583 INSTANCE (S).

‘What does that mean?’ he asked Tania.

She surveyed the screen with the impatience of a professional aware of the value of her time.

‘It means, first of all, that these people evidently can’t make up their minds what to call themselves, so they are referred to under four different titles. The database holds one report specifically dedicated to this organization. There are also five hundred plus references in other files.’

‘What sort of references?’

Tania’s swift, competent fingers rattled the keyboard with panache. AUTHORIZATION? appeared. ZEN, she typed. Again the screen faltered briefly, then filled with text which proved to be an extract from the Ministry’s file on a Turin businessman who had been convicted of involvement in a local government corruption scandal in the early eighties. The reference Zen had requested was picked out by the cursor: ‘Member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta since 1964 with rank of Knight of Magisterial Grace.’

That sort of thing was apparently all there was, at least in the open files. He got Tania to run him off a copy of the report on the Knights of Malta, even though he knew that anything really worth knowing would be held in the ‘closed’ section of the database, accessible only with special authorization restricted to a handful of senior staff. The files stored there supposedly detailed the financial status, professional and political allegiances, family situation and sexual predelictions of almost fourteen million Italian citizens. Like everyone else, Zen had often wondered what his own entry contained. Was his connection with Tania included by now? Presumably, judging by Moscati’s mocking remarks. How much more did they know? Reading such an entry would be like seeing a copy of your own obituary, and just as difficult.

4

They strolled along the quay, hand in hand, fingers entwined. It had rained while they were in the restaurant, briefly but hard. Now the sky had cleared again, every surface glistened, and the air was flooded with elusive, evocative scents.

The little town of Fiumicino, at the mouth of the narrower of the two channels into which the Tiber divided just before it met the sea, was somewhere Zen always returned to with pleasure. The scale of the place, the narrow waterway and the low buildings flanking it, the sea tang, the bustle of a working port, all combined to remind him of the fishing villages of the Venetian lagoon. In addition, Fiumicino contained several restaurants capable of doing justice to the quality and freshness of the catches which its boats brought in.

Replete with
crema di riso gratinato ai frutti di mare
and grilled sea bass with artichokes, he and Tania wandered along the stone quays like a pair of young lovers without a care in the world.

‘… the best artichokes in the world,’ she was saying. ‘My aunt prepares the hearts, then they bottle them in oil, ten kilos at a time.’

‘You’re making me hungry again.’

‘You must try them, Aurelio! I’ll get Aldo to send an extra jar with the next batch of samples …’

She broke off.

‘Batch of what?’ Zen asked mechanically, so as not to reveal that he hadn’t been listening, absorbed in the spectacle of a skinny cat stalking a butterfly across a pile of empty fish crates.

‘The next time one of the family comes to Rome, I mean,’ said Tania.

‘Look!’

Balanced on its hind legs like a performing monkey, the cat was frantically pawing at the air, trying in vain to seize the elusive, substanceless quiver of colour.

‘You’ll never catch it, silly!’ laughed Tania in a slightly tipsy voice. ‘And even if you do, there’s nothing there to eat!’

Still intent on its prey, the cat stepped off the edge of the boxes. It twisted round in mid-air and landed on its feet, shooting a hostile glance at the couple who had witnessed its humiliation.

‘Actually I may go myself, this weekend,’ Tania announced as they continued on their way.

‘Go? Where?’

‘Home to Udine, to see my cousins.’

Zen freed his hand.

‘Suppose I came too?’

Tania shot him a panicky glance.

‘You? Well …’

She gave an embarrassed laugh.

‘You see, Bettina and Aldo don’t actually know about you.’

A few minutes earlier, as they walked together along the quay, Zen had found himself thinking, ‘This, or something very like it, is happiness.’ That exaltation now looked like nothing more special than a side effect of the
verdicchio
they had drunk at lunch. Now the hangover had arrived.

‘So who
do
they know about?’ he demanded truculently.

Tania looked at him, a new hardness in his eyes.

‘They know I’m no longer with Mauro, if that’s what you mean.’

He didn’t say whether it was or not.

‘So they think you’re living alone.’

‘Well, aren’t I?’

They faced each other for a moment over that. Then Tania broke into a smile and took his arm.

‘Look, Bettina’s my cousin, the second daughter of my father’s younger brother. It’s not an intimate relationship, but since my parents died and Nino emigrated to Australia it’s the best I’ve got. Bettina doesn’t burden me with her problems and I don’t burden her with mine.’

‘I didn’t realize I was a problem,’ he replied, snapping up the cheap shot on offer.

‘I didn’t mean that, Aurelio. I mean that we don’t share our innermost preoccupations, good or bad. We keep our distance. That’s the best way sometimes, particularly with relatives. Otherwise the whole thing can get out of control.’

‘And control is important to you, is it?’

He hated the snide way he said it. So did Tania, it soon became clear.

‘And why not?’ she snapped. ‘Damn it, I spent the first thirty years of my life asleep at the wheel. You saw the result. Now I’ve decided to try taking charge for a while and see how that goes. I mean is that all right?’

Aware of the weakness of his position, Zen backed down.

‘Of course. Go where you like. It looks like I might have to work, anyway.’

The fishing boats which had landed their catches early that morning were now tied up two abreast on either side of the channel, stem to stern. Two crewmen were mending nets spread out over the quay, and Tania and Zen chose to go opposite ways around them. As they joined up again, she said, ‘What
is
this work you’re doing, anyway?’

Partly out of fatigue with the truth, partly to get his own back for her own evasions, Zen decided to lie.

‘The Vatican have got a problem with documents disappearing from the Secret Archives,’ he said, recalling the case which Grimaldi had been working on at the time of his death. ‘They can’t use their own security people because they think some of them may be involved.’

‘And you hang around like a store detective waiting for someone to lift a pair of tights?’

‘More or less. It’s a hell of a way to make a living, but if I crack the case I get a full plenary indulgence.’

Tania laughed.

‘Not that I really need one,’ he went on, eager to please. ‘I’m already owed over a hundred thousand years’ remission from purgatory. In fact I’m a bit worried that I might soon reach the stage where my spiritual credit exceeds any practical possibilities I have of sinning. Just think what a ruinous effect that would have on my moral fibre.’

‘How did you get to be so holy?’

‘Oh, I used to be quite devout in my way. I loved the idea of collecting indulgences, like saving up coupons for a free gift. If I said three
Pater noster
s after confession, I got three hundred years’ remission from purgatory. That seemed an incredible bargain! I couldn’t believe my luck. It takes maybe a minute or so, if you gabble, and for that you got off three hundred years of unspeakable torture! I couldn’t understand why everyone wasn’t taking advantage. I and Tommaso, my best friend, used to vie with each other. I had well over a hundred thousand years’ worth stored up before I finally fell in love with Tommaso’s sister. After that, the next world no longer seemed quite so important.’

His words were drowned by the roar of a plane taking off from the international airport just a few kilometres to the north.

‘Anyway,’ he concluded, ‘having attended Mass on the first Friday of each month for the nine months after my First Communion, I’m assured of dying in a state of grace whatever happens.’

To his surprise, Tania immediately reached out and touched the nearest metal – a mooring bollard – for good luck.

‘Don’t mention such things, Aurelio.’

He took her in his arms, and she kissed him in that way she had, making him wish they were in bed.

‘Sweetheart,’ she said.

He laughed, moved despite himself, despite his knowledge that she was cheating him.

‘I didn’t know you were superstitious,’ he said as they walked on. ‘You’ve spent too long living with southerners.’

‘Now, now! Don’t start coming on like some region-alist red-neck who thinks that the Third World starts at the Apennines.’

‘Of course it doesn’t! It starts at Mestre.’

‘Mauro may have been a creep, but …’

‘
May?
Tania, you once described Mauro Bevilacqua as someone for whom strangling at birth would have been too good.’

Perhaps that was who she was seeing on the side, he thought. Perhaps Mauro would have the last laugh after all, and Zen suffer the ignominy of being cuckolded by his lover’s husband.

‘… but not
all
southerners are like that,’ Tania continued. ‘Mauro’s elder brother, for example, is a charming man, scholarly and cultured, with a nice dry wit.’

‘Oh yes?’ demanded Zen, his jealousy immediately locking on to this new target.

‘In fact you might see him while you’re snooping around the Vatican Archives. He works for the region’s cultural affairs department, and he spends a lot of time there researching material for exhibitions and so on.’

‘Maybe he’s the one who’s been stealing the stuff,’ Zen muttered moodily.

‘From what Tullio says, I’m surprised the thefts were ever noticed. According to him the Vatican collections are so vast and so badly organized that you can spend days tracking down a single item. It’s more like a place for hiding documents than for finding them, he says.’

She broke off, frightened by the intensity with which he was staring at her.

‘What’s the matter, Aurelio? Did I say something wrong? You seem so strange today, so moody and unpredictable. Is there something you haven’t told me?’

There was a deafening siren blast as a large orange ocean-going tug slipped her moorings on the other side of the river. Zen transferred his obsessively fixated gaze to the vessel as it proceeded slowly downstream towards the open sea.

‘Do you ever see this … what’s his name?’

Now it was Tania’s turn to stare.

‘Just exactly what is that supposed to mean?’

He looked at her and shrugged, ignoring her indignant tone.

‘What it says.’

They faced each other like enemies.

‘Do I ever see Tullio Bevilacqua?’ Tania recited with sarcastic emphasis. ‘No, I haven’t seen him since Mauro and I broke up. Does that satisfy you?’

‘But are you on good terms? Would he do you a favour?’

‘What sort of favour?’ Tania shouted, scaring away the seagulls. ‘What the hell are you talking about, Aurelio?’

So he told her.

They returned by train. Tania got off at Trastevere and got a bus back to her flat, while Zen continued to the suburban Tiburtina station. The determined effort they both made to part on good terms was itself the clearest indication yet of the growing crisis in their relationship, and of their mutual sense that things were no longer quite what they seemed.

From the station, Zen caught a taxi to the Hotel Torlonia Palace. On the way he looked through the Ministry’s file on the Knights of Malta. As he had expected, the document was entirely non-controversial, amounting to little more than an outline of the organization’s history, structure and overt aims. Founded in 1070, the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta was the third oldest religious Order after the Benedictines and Augustans, and the first to consist entirely of laymen. The Order was originally formed to staff and run infirmaries during the Crusades, but soon took on a military role as well. At the end of the twelfth century the Knights retreated to Rhodes, from where they conducted covert operations all over the Middle East until their expulsion by the Turks in 1522. Thereafter they led a token existence in Malta until Napoleon’s conquest of the island once again forced them into exile, this time in Rome.