The Dante Game Page 7

  There was a newsstand near the corner, decked in magazines and big sheets of newsprint with giant headlines. Homer paused to read the news, wondering if his Italian was up to it. The words across the front page of Il Messaggero di Roma were clear enough—

  IL PAPA PORTA LA CROCIATA ANTI-DROGA A BERIINO

  Nothing to it. The pope was taking his anti-drag crusade to Berlin. And Homer could get the gist of the headline of La Repubblica, which was wagging its finger at all the women in the world, who, in the opinion of the holy father, would never be priests—

  NESSUNA DONNA

  SARA UN PRETE

  DICE IL PAPA

  The local paper, La Nazione, was more sensational—

  BAMBINI GEMELLI SIAMESI

  MORTI NELL ARNO

  Good lord, dead Siamese-twin babies had been found in the Arno.

  Homer turned away, pleased with himself, and began breasting the crowds of tourists approaching the Piazza del Duomo. Before him rose the cathedral, an immensity of colored marble, a stupendous stone valentine. Homer gaped at it, and stumbled blindly forward, but his way was blocked by an elderly couple, husband and wife in yellow trousers. The husband was fumbling with a guidebook, unfolding a map.

  “You know, honey,” said the wife, “it’s not what I thought it would be. I mean it’s so foreign.” She was staring at a young couple embracing beside the railing, trying out various interlocking grips they had seen in films.

  “Well, Christ, honey,” said her husband, “it’s a foreign country.”

  Homer edged past them, aware of himself as a tourist among tourists. Alien hordes were occupying the famous square. Sorrowfully he made his way around the Baptistery to the south door and walked into its shadowy interior, to find Zee with Ned Saltmarsh and the seven women members of the student body of the American School of Florentine Studies gathered in the gloom, staring upward.

  In the glowing darkness their faces were white blobs that glanced at him, then looked up again at the glittering mosaic pageantry on the octagonal dome.

  Zee was lecturing, directing their attention to Christ the Judge, the ranks of the blessed, the tortures of the damned souls in Hell. “Dante was baptized here,” he said, trying not to look at Julia Smith. Julia had taken off her dark glasses, and he was struck to the pit of his stomach by the way her eyes followed his pointing finger so obediently. “As you travel with him through the Inferno, remember the visions he saw here in his infancy.”

  Sukey Skinner was repelled by the lizards and snakes biting the poor sinners condemned to Hell. “It’s barbaric, just incredibly barbaric,” she said, almost in tears. “Religion ought to be, you know, sort of inspiring, not scary and disgusting like this.”

  As they drifted out of the Baptistery, blinking in the sunlight, the bell in the Campanile began to ring. Looking up, they could see it swinging in the tower. Like great wobbling drops the bell notes fell, as though the tower had sucked up into itself the city of Florence and was releasing it now in tears of sound, celebrating the genius of the city, mourning its contentious pride, lamenting the crushing of the republican spirit under the grand dukes, sorrowing for the time when great men had been as thick on the streets as cockroaches.

  “Where are the other guys?” said Homer, looking around for Kevin and Throppie and Tom.

  “Oh, they all begged off,” said Joan Jakes contemptuously. “Not a good sign, I’m afraid.”

  “Tom, at least, has seen it all before,” said Dorothy Orme.

  “Then why did he come to the school at all?” exclaimed Joan.

  “Time for gelati, I think,” said Zee firmly, and he led them around the corner for ice cream—ciccolata, vaniglia, fragola.

  Meanwhile, back at the Villa L’Ombrellino in the absence of most of the students, Isabella Fraticelli was once again making herself at home in the rooms in the dormitory. Her chambermaid’s key was an ‘open sesame.’ She could poke around in drawers and cupboards as much as she liked.

  In Ned’s room she studied the snapshot of his mother. In Julia’s she looked for beauty secrets—facial creams, mascara, transparent negligees. But there were no magical cosmetics on Julia’s dresser, no pretty nightgowns in her wardrobe, only cotton pajamas and a flannel bathrobe.

  It wasn’t until she went upstairs to Professor Himmelfahrt’s room that Isabella found something interesting. There were pornographic magazines under his bed. Lying down on his tumbled bedclothes, she lit a cigarette and flipped the pages. When she heard Matteo talking to someone in the hall she got up carefully, stuffed the magazines back under the bed, and began wielding her dust cloth.

  Later he saw her with mop and bucket, doing Himmelfahrt’s floor, and it dawned on him that she had been there all along.

  “My God, what did she hear? What were we saying?”

  “Nothing. It’s all right. But we’ve got to be more careful.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Witness that first proud being, made so bright

  He topped creation; yet he fell anon,

  Unripe…

  Paradiso XIX, 46–48.

  The important lessons in the use of firearms had begun. Bindo knew of a remote farm north of the city. It had been useful to him in the past. It would be an excellent place to practice.

  He had supplied Matteo with a rented car, a little Fiat. It was an insult to Matteo, whose imagination ran so naturally to Maseratis and Lamborghinis. Now Matteo pressed the accelerator to the floor and moved out into the passing lane, trying to zip ahead of a Ferrari. To his shame the Fiat refused to pick up speed, and he had to drop back, cursing.

  “Mother of God,” said Roberto, frightened.

  Roberto was timid with firearms too. Matteo had to teach him everything. Even when the man had the weapon in the correct position, he trembled so much the barrel wobbled and moved in circles.

  “Beh, he’s hopeless,” Matteo complained to Signor Bindo that afternoon in the Banca degli Innocenti.

  “Don’t worry. He’ll learn, there’s plenty of time. Here, take this to him.”

  “Another letter from the cardinal?”

  “A masterpiece.” Bindo grinned at Matteo. “It’s an apologia for strong action. I’ve composed a history of tyrannicides, a list of despots assassinated for the good of humanity—Caligula, Sejanus, Heliogabalus, Rasputin, Czar Nicholas. Suppose Hitler had been killed in 1939, think how many millions of lives would have been saved.” He winked at Matteo. “I’m sure you’ll find Father Roberto a better student from now on.”

  A few blocks away from the bank, in the palace of the archbishop, His Excellency was engaged in another uneasy telephone conversation with the Prefect for the Pontifical Household.

  “Nuns from the United States,” warned the prefect. “A horde of rebellious women, they’re coming, they’re coming soon.”

  “Rebellious nuns?” The archbishop could hardly believe his ears. All the sisterhood of his own experience, whether cloistered within convent walls or active in the world, were strong but gentle women devoted to the sacred traditions of the church. “What are they rebellious about?”

  “The opposition of His Holiness to the idea of women priests.”

  “Women priests!” The archbishop gasped. Of course he had heard of this apostasy, but only on the outer limits of his horizon. “But the ordination of women is impossible. The holy father is right. No sensible person could accept it. There were no women priests in the time of Christ. All of Christ’s disciples were men.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to persuade me,” said the prefect testily. “But these madwomen in Chicago, this National Federation of Religious Sisters, they’re coming to Italy to mount a long campaign. What if they make an outcry at the celebration in Florence next Easter? I think we should change our plans. His Holiness should not leave the Vatican.”

  The archbishop was flabbergasted. He spent the next ten minutes explaining that the protesting women would be kept away from the cathedral. The Holy Father would never even see them. The p
lans for the security of His Holiness would be superb, the prefect could be certain of that.

  The prefect didn’t seem to be listening. Abruptly he changed the subject. The archbishop’s head whirled. What was His Eminence talking about now?

  “… the Anno Sacro Anti-droga, the holy father’s crusade against drugs. You must have heard of it?”

  “Oh, yes, Your Eminence, I’m familiar with the crusade. It’s been a triumph. You must be very proud of the Holy Father.”

  “Of course, of course.” The prefect brushed the compliment aside. “It’s been such a triumph, as a matter of fact, that he wishes to launch a second crusade on Easter Sunday next year. As the first year comes to an end, the second will begin. It’s so appropriate, you see, Your Excellency—the resurrection of Christ and the new birth into life of thousands of penitent addicts who have abandoned their degradation during the period of Lent. In fact His Holiness has vowed to carry on the crusade for the rest of his life, until the illegal traffic in narcotics is utterly at an end.”

  “A noble vow,” said the archbishop politely, wondering how his celebration of the seven hundredth anniversary of the cathedral could be combined with this irrelevant crusade.

  “The trouble is,” said the prefect, speaking solemnly, emphasizing his words one by one, “it isn’t only those insane American women you’ve got to hold in check, it’s the young people themselves. Your Excellency, I wish you could see what it’s like here in Rome—the crowds, the hordes.” The prefect spluttered as though he could find no words to describe the daily tumult in Saint Peter’s Square. “You must find a way to contain the enthusiasm of the throngs of pathetic children throwing down their needles like afflicted pilgrims at Lourdes tossing away their crutches. Imagine! Saint Peter’s Square littered with used hypodermic needles! We have to pick them up at once with heavy gloves for fear of AIDS! We can’t miss a single one!” He was almost sobbing into the telephone. “I beg you, Your Excellency, to discuss this matter with your committee on security.”

  “Of course I will, of course, of course,” promised the archbishop, wincing at these horrifying prophecies, casting about in his head for possible solutions, finding his mind a total blank. As he hung up, his glasses became entangled in the telephone wire, and he had to crawl around on the floor, groping for them blindly.

  CHAPTER 18

  Heaven cast them forth—their presence there would dim

  The light.…

  Inferno III, 40, 41.

  Ned Saltmarsh irritated everybody. No one had expected to find a jerk like this so far from home. Oh, yes, they’d all known kids like him back in high school. But he shouldn’t have turned up here, having a junior year abroad along with the rest of them.

  “Ned, listen,” said Julia. “You don’t love me. That’s just silly.”

  “Yes, I do,” whined Ned. “I love you. Lordy, I do. I’ll kill myself, I swear. Lordy!”

  Julia winced. Lordy was Ned’s only retort to the evil in the world. He had obviously never experienced the explosive freedom of a hearty bullshit, never expanded his horizons with an asshole. “Look,” she said in exasperation, “you mustn’t take it so seriously. You’re not going to do anything so dumb. You’re not in love with me, you’re in love with all this.”

  They were sitting in the garden under the cast-iron umbrella. Julia swept her hand over the landscape of domes and towers. Then for a moment she forgot Ned, distracted by the red-roofed city where Dante had loved so greatly, where Savonarola had preached a different sort of passion and gone up in flames. Turning back to Ned, she found it hard to focus on the pink pudding of his face.

  But Ned in his callow ardor hungered for her attention. If he didn’t get it, he would have to press harder, display his need more dearly, be more forlorn.

  He looked at her craftily. “Professor Zee, he’s got a thing about you.”

  “A thing? What do you mean, a thing?” But Julia knew what he meant. And she didn’t know what to do about Zee. Everything seemed to speak for him—his face, his voice, his learning, his zestful strength that had survived such terrible things, or was perhaps itself the fruit of trouble. Even the city of Florence was speaking up for him now, there on the other side of the wall. He was linked to it, he was its deputy, its spokesman. How could she care for one and not the other?

  But Florence was an Italian city. Perhaps she didn’t speak its language well enough to know whether it spoke true or false. She would wait. Julia glanced back at the blue haze lying like a sweet poison over the medieval rooftops and told herself there was pleasure in the waiting.

  Ned looked at her jealously. “He’s so old. I think it’s gross, really gross.”

  It was time for lunch. Ned stuck fast to Julia as they entered the dining room. Listlessly she filled her plate. She was tired—tired of being grasped at, of having pieces of her flesh bitten off in gobbets.

  Lucretia looked at them shrewdly. “Ned Saltmarsh,” she said sharply, “would you see me in the office after lunch?”

  The office was not a private place. Zee was there, and so was Matteo, typing slowly with two fingers. Both of them pretended not to listen as Lucretia sat down in a corner with Ned and chastised him for pestering Julia.

  “Don’t you think you’re overdoing it? Bothering her so much?”

  Ned paled. “You mean,” he whispered, “like she said so? Oh, golly, did Julia say that?”

  Lucretia made an impatient motion. “No, no, I say it. Anyone can see you never give the poor girl a moment’s peace.”

  “I can’t help it,” said Ned, sighing gustily. “I admire her so. She’s, like, a saint.”

  “Oh, she is not.” Lucretia picked up a flyswatter, whammed at a fly and missed. “Why don’t you get interested in the younger girls? They’re all very attractive.”

  “Oh, no,” pouted Ned. “They’re so immature. Lordy!”

  “Immature?” Lucretia was stunned. She held the flyswatter poised in air. “Well, anyway, in the future try not to hang around Julia so much. She’ll like you better for it.” Bang, she swatted the fly.

  Ned made a sulky face and went away. Lucretia snorted contemptuously, dismissing all the witless boobies in the world, Matteo snickered, and Zee stood frozen, Lucretia’s words ringing in his head. This boy was in love with Julia, and so were all the others, indubbiamente, and so was he, just one more lovesick jackass, un buffone like Ned Saltmarsh.

  Matteo had stopped typing. He was staring out the window.

  Zee glanced out too, and saw Isabella Fraticelli sweeping mildewed figs from the terrace far below. Franco Spoleto was nearby, smoking, leaning against a tree, staring at Isabella. His hedge clippers lay on the ground beside him. His arms and shoulders were bare, the muscles of his chest were powerful under his tank top.

  The straps of Isabella’s little blouse kept slipping off her shoulders, and she flicked them up as she swept. After a while she let them fall. She looked at Franco and stopped sweeping.

  Lucretia came to the window too.

  It was like a scene in a film. Throwing away his cigarette, Franco began walking heavily up the steps of the terrace. Isabella dropped her broom. Franco reached out and stroked her hair, her bare shoulder. He kissed her throat.

  Zee and Lucretia had seen enough, and they turned away, but Matteo went right on gazing, grinning from on high.

  Later that afternoon Homer stopped in at the office. He had a book-order form in his hand. At the door he encountered Augustus Himmelfahrt backing out.

  “Good lord, don’t go in there,” whispered Himmelfahrt, hurrying away.

  Homer imagined copulation or nakedness or some hideous depravity, but when the door swung open it was only Lucretia on her knees.

  “Oh, forgive me,” said Homer.

  “No, no, it’s all right.” Lucretia stood up. “You poor Protestants think there’s something private about praying, but that’s because you don’t do it very often. It’s a perfectly ordinary human function, like eating and breath
ing.”

  “Of course,” agreed Homer. “I know that. I was raised a Catholic myself.”

  When Homer went away, Lucretia went back to the window. The terrace was empty but for a small green lizard scurrying along the wall. Isabella’s broom lay forgotten on the stone floor, Franco’s hedge clippers were abandoned on the lawn.

  She wondered if the two of them were making love right now in some corner of the villa.

  Love, it had such terrible, crushing power—no one knew that better than Lucretia Van Ott. She sighed. She knew what would happen. Sooner or later the attraction between the gardener and the wife of the cook would make trouble at the school. It was bound to. And that would be a nuisance, an awful pest.

  CHAPTER 19

  Florence, within her ancient walls embraced

  Whence nones and terce ring still to all the town.…

  Paradiso XV, 97–98.

  The Dante Game began by accident on the next guided tour of the city.

  The tours were an extension of the lectures of the classroom. Lucretia’s slides came to life on the walls of churches. Zee’s pitiful souls condemned to Hell had actually lived in this or that rough-hewn tower.

  One cool athletic morning the whole school climbed the long twisting stairway to the top of the dome of the cathedral, then came down and climbed the Campanile. After that they were too ravenous to go home for lunch, so they went to a trattoria and drank more wine and made more noise than they were used to, and took the bus in a state of hilarious exhaustion and got out at Porta Romana, where Sukey Skinner promptly threw up.

  Even after a month of city exploration they still weren’t used to the Florentine traffic. “You can’t cross the street here,” screamed Lucretia, as they approached the Piazza del Duomo one morning in October. “Only at the corner, only at the corner.”