The Quest: A Novel (26 page)

“I will.” She added, “I’m sure he’s over it.”

“He said he was.”

She changed the subject and asked, “How long are you staying in Rome?”

“That depends. How long are
you
staying in Rome?”

“As long as you are.”

“All right.” He informed her, “I’ve resigned from the AP office in Cairo.”

“Why?”

“Because Charlie Gibson fired me.”

“Good. You hated the job and you hated Cairo.”

“I wasn’t fond of either,” he admitted, “but it was tolerable with you there.”

She smiled. “I can make any place tolerable, Frank.”

“Even Ethiopia.”

“That may be overstating my powers.” She asked him, “What about our apartment in Cairo?”

“That’s the only home I have at the moment.”

“Me too.”

“We’ll keep it awhile.” He asked, “Where did you stay in Geneva?”

“My old boarding school.” She explained, “We’re always welcome back. Twenty francs a night in the guesthouse. Best deal in Geneva.” She added, “No men allowed.”

“Can you at least drink?”

“Yes. You
must
drink to stay sane there.”

He smiled.

She told him, “I’m not a writer, but I did write a sort of diary about what happened in Ethiopia.” She told him, “I also wrote about us in Cairo.”

“Can I see it?”

“Someday.” She added, “I’m still angry about losing all my photographs.”

“You can ask Getachu for them when we go back.”

She looked at him for a few seconds. “Are we actually doing that?”

“Well… that’s the plan.” He asked, “Are you still interested?”

“I am.” She added, “I’m surprised that Henry wants to go back.”

“I’m not, and neither are you.” He reminded her, “He believes he has been chosen by God to find… it.”

She nodded.

“And you?”

Again, she nodded, and asked, “And
you
?”

“My motives, according to Henry, are confused at best.”

“But you
do
want to go?”

“I do.” He informed her, “Henry is working on getting us press credentials with L’Osservatore Romano, then we need to get visas. If none of that works, we may consider jumping the border from Sudan.”

“That could be dangerous.”

“No more dangerous than trekking through Getachu territory to find the black monastery.”

She nodded.

He told her, “Good news. Colonel Gann has been released from prison.”

“Thank God. I thought… they’d kill him.”

“They would have, but they sold him instead.” He added, “I don’t know where he is now, but Henry got a telex from him and Gann says he’s willing to accompany us to Ethiopia.”

“That is insane.”

“He probably had the same thought about us.”

“But he’s… an enemy—”

“Maybe he’ll rethink that trip. In the meantime, he’s coming to
Rome after the New Year, and if you’re up for it, all four of us will go to sunny Sicily for holiday. Berini.”

She smiled. “I would like that.”

He informed her, “There was a piece in the news… they shot Prince Joshua.”

“I saw that… that poor man… and all those other members of the royal family, and all the former government people…” She looked at him. “How can people do that to other people?”

“It’s been going on awhile.”

“I know… but… there’s such evil in the world…” She asked him, “Doesn’t it test your faith in God?”

“Father Armano—and Henry—would tell you it’s all part of God’s plan.”

“It can’t be.”

“The devil, then.”

She nodded, then looked at him and said, “I always meant to ask you… that night… when we were driving, why did you suddenly turn off the road?”

“I don’t know.”

“You went right through a wall of bushes. Right where the spa was.”

He’d thought about that himself, and he couldn’t recall what had made him suddenly crash the Jeep through those bushes. He smiled. “A voice said, ‘Turn right.’ ”

“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.

P
urcell 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 Saturday 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 spaces around the Termini, and the street vendors were calling out to her in Italian as she passed. 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.