The Devil Will Come

TWENTY-TWO

ELISABETTA UNLOCKED THE front door of her father’s apartment and blinked in confusion. Zazo was in the kitchen.

‘Where were you?’ he said with exasperation. ‘Haven’t I told you to stay put?’

‘I had an appointment.’ She didn’t want to lie but she said, ‘At the school.’

Zazo started to lecture her, ‘Elisabetta …’

‘What are you doing here?’ she countered. ‘How come you’re not in uniform?’

As he told her what had happened Elisabetta’s tears flowed again. ‘This is all my fault.’

‘How is it your fault?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘It just is.’

Zazo laughed. ‘You used to be so intelligent. What happened? Stop crying and make me some coffee.’

Later, while she washed their cups and saucers, Elisabetta asked Zazo if he wanted to go to church with her.

‘No more churches for me for a while,’ he said. ‘But I’ll walk you there.’

It was one of those wind-whipped afternoons where dense cumulus clouds blocked the sun intermittently, turning the light from yellow to gray and back to yellow again. Zazo couldn’t decide whether to keep his sunglasses on or not. He gave up finally and stuffed them into the inside pocket of his jacket where they got entangled with the phone records.

‘These were my undoing,’ he said, waving the papers at his sister.

‘Have you looked at them?’

‘No. Maybe later tonight or tomorrow. Whenever I sober up.’

‘Please don’t drink,’ Elisabetta said.

‘Are you a nun or a Puritan?’ her brother joked. ‘Of course I’m going to drink. A good long toast to the end of my career and to the new Pope, whoever he may be.’

They stopped at a corner, waiting for the crossing light to turn green. ‘I’m sure they’ll just give you a slap on the wrist. Zazo, I’m so cross with you. You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?’

‘No, I couldn’t.’

‘Me neither,’ Elisabetta confessed as she started across the street at the green signal.

Zazo caught up with her. ‘What did you do?’

‘I called the University at Ulm and found an old colleague of Bruno Ottinger’s. It turns out that Ottinger was a mean old fellow, a right-winger.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Nothing else too remarkable. He didn’t have many friends. The initial K didn’t mean anything to the colleague. Nor did Christopher Marlowe.’

‘Is Papa still working on the numbers?’

Elisabetta nodded.

‘Here’s hoping he’ll have more luck than with Goldbach,’ Zazo said dismissively.

‘Don’t be mean.’

Suddenly he said, ‘I’m really going to miss you.’

She gave him a tight-lipped smile, holding on to her composure. ‘I’m going to miss you too. And Papa. And Micaela. And my school.’

‘Then don’t go.’

‘It’s not my choice.’

‘Whose choice was it? It wasn’t God’s, you know.’

‘I don’t know whose decision it was but of course it was God’s choice.’

‘Someone wants you out of the way. It’s obvious, Elisabetta. First someone makes a call from your office to the newspapers, a call that gets you fired. Then you’re transferred a day after someone tries to kill you. This is not the hand of God. It’s the hand of man.’

The dome of the church came into sight.

‘Maybe we’ll find out the truth of this affair one day, maybe we won’t. What’s important for me is that I resume my life. If that’s in Africa, so be it.’

‘You know,’ Zazo said slyly, ‘the people you just mentioned won’t be the only ones who will miss you.’

‘Who else?’

‘Lorenzo.’

She stopped and stared at him.

‘He hasn’t said anything, of course,’ Zazo said, ‘but I can tell.’

‘But I’m a nun!’

‘Maybe so, but sometimes women leave the clergy. I can’t say that he’s thinking this, but I can see there’s something in his eyes. He’s my best friend.’ Zazo dropped his voice. ‘Next to Marco.’

‘Oh, Zazo.’

‘Let me tell you something else,’ her brother said, touching her black sleeve. An old woman with a shopping bag stopped to take in the scene of a nun and a young man having an intimate discussion on the street. Elisabetta smiled politely at her and she and Zazo began walking again. ‘I know why you became a nun.’

‘Do you? Why?’

‘Because Marco was perfect for you. There wasn’t ever going to be anyone who was as good.’

She gestured at the sky, ‘And because of that I married Christ instead? Is that what you’re going to say? Don’t you think that’s awfully simplistic?’

‘I’m not a complicated guy,’ he said.

‘You’re my brother, Zazo, but you’re also an idiot.’

They were at the Piazza S. Maria in Trastevere. He shrugged and pointed toward the church. ‘I’ll wait for you in the café.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘If I can’t protect the new Pope I’ll protect you instead.’

A Mercedes Vito panel van slowly poked its nose into the Piazza from the street they’d been walking along. It was a pedestrian zone. Before Zazo could motion to the driver that he’d made a mistake the van went into reverse and disappeared. In a short while a man with a reddish beard emerged from the van in a side street, walked back, and sat on the edge of the Piazza’s fountain to smoke a cigarette. He was halfway between the church and the café and seemed to be taking pains to keep both Elisabetta and Zazo in sight.

‘What are you doing here?’ Zazo’s father asked as he dropped his briefcase in the sitting room.

‘Runs in the family,’ Zazo mumbled. He repeated the entire story while Carlo poured himself one aperitif – and then another.

‘First Elisabetta gets in trouble, now you. What’s next? Something with Micaela? Bad news always happens in threes.’

‘Is that superstition or numerology, Papa?’ Elisabetta asked.

‘Neither: it’s a fact. What are we doing for dinner?’

‘I’m going to make something.’

‘Make it simple,’ Carlo said. ‘I’ve got to go out tonight.’

‘A date?’ Zazo asked.

‘Funny. Ha, ha. A retirement party for Bernadini. He’s younger than me. The writing’s on the wall.’ Carlo opened his briefcase and swore.

‘What’s wrong?’ Elisabetta asked.

‘I was going to spend an hour working on your puzzle but I left the goddamned book in my office. Let me have the old one.’

‘No!’ she protested. ‘You heard that it’s valuable. You’ll spill your drink on it. I’ve got a paperback in my room. You can even write in that copy if you like.’

Elisabetta cooked a bowl of pasta with pecorino and chopped a garden salad while Zazo drank a couple of his father’s beers.

‘Micaela’s coming over after supper,’ she told him.

‘I’ll take off when she gets here.’

‘You don’t have to wait if there’s someplace you’d rather be,’ she said.

‘It’s okay, I’m hungry.’

‘Well, get Papa then. Tell him it’s ready.’

Zazo rapped on his father’s bedroom door. When there was no reply he knocked louder and called out.

There was a testy, ‘What?’

‘Supper’s ready.’

Through the door came, ‘Wait a minute. I’m busy.’

Zazo returned to the kitchen, put a fork into the pasta and twirled a taste. ‘He said to wait a minute. He’s busy.’

They waited ten minutes and Elisabetta tried again. Carlo sent her away, promising he’d be ready in another minute.

Ten minutes later they heard his door swing open. He stepped slowly into the kitchen, scowling, with the Faustus paperback and a notebook in one hand.

‘Are you okay, Papa?’ Elisabetta asked.

Suddenly Carlo’s scowl turned into a giant smile, like that of a kid playing a trick. ‘I’ve cracked it! I’ve solved your puzzle!’