Root (37 page)

I got up and left my pew during the breaking
of the bread. I don’t know if people thought I was jumping the gun
for Communion or what but I drew plenty of stares and
mutterings.

I was in a foul mood and let these servile
wankers know it with my glare. They were wasting their time on a
silly charade. No amount of praying would save them from what was
to come. I turned my back to the altar without as much as a
genuflect or a nod and headed for the exit.

I paused on the steps of the Basilica and took
in the scene outside. The day was crisp and bright but I didn’t
feel worthy of breathing this air. This was not my world
anymore.

I had no idea why I kept getting kicked back
here. Hope was the drug that supposedly fueled this shared
hallucination, but I had to wonder where this hope was hiding in
me. It sure didn’t feel like I had a shred of it left.

As I gazed out over St. Peter’s Square, this
place and Luthersburg began to blur together in my head. I saw no
distinction anymore. Root and Earth were just different facets of
the same existence. I suspected there might be other facets I had
yet to witness, some I’d better hope I never saw.

Hope. There was that word again. Amazing how
closely it was linked with despair, because I was infected with
both and it was getting harder and harder to tell the two
apart.

All these other people though, the couples
hand in hand, the lonely old spinsters maneuvering with their
walkers—where did they find their hope? Did those with good lives
hope things stayed good a little longer if not forever? Did those
with crap lives hope things got better even a little bit, or at
least that things didn’t get much worse?

Couldn’t they see the futility of it all? On a
geologic scale, their lives had the significance of a gnat. They
would be over in a blink and they would have nothing to show for it
but a photo album and a headstone. Why did they bother? By what
miracle did they not crowd the tunnels of Root?

I searched in my heart for the cursed seed of
hope that had separated me from my friends in their time of need. I
bet it was that damned sheet of hospital stationery I had found in
Luther’s hospital play room. It had made me believe that I could
track down Luther in the flesh, and possibly that would lead me to
Karla, though a few pictures of a longish lake were a pretty feeble
connection if you asked me. I guess it didn’t take much hope at all
to get a guy like me kicked out of Root.

I hoped that wouldn’t be the last I would see
of Lille and Bern. Harvald might be brutish but he didn’t seem
evil. Surely he would have called off the dogs after giving them a
good scare. Wouldn’t he?

For now, my destination seemed clear. A broad
avenue spilled down to the Tiber from the split in the edifices
that bracketed the Square. I started walking.

***

The Piazza di Spagna was mobbed. Thousands of
people had gathered, many bearing banners and home-made signs,
waiting for a march to begin.

The little Occupy encampment remained in
place, but the police had been pushed back into the side streets,
except for one anxious group in riot gear guarding the smashed
façade of a bank. Alarms pealed. An overturned car smoldered in
front of an apothecary.

I pushed my way to the tents where large trays
of pasta al forno were being doled out to all comers. The Occupiers
in the media center still pecked away at their laptops. Smart phone
cameras linked to tablets captured video of the whole affair and
broadcast it live over the web.

Taken aback by all the hubbub, I just stood
around and gawked at everyone. Angelica came bustling by and did a
double take when she spotted me.

“
James! You are back. Are you still
waiting for a computer? What patience you have, like a saint. I
promised you, yes? And then you will march with us?”

“
Sure … but … if this isn’t a
convenient time….”

She tapped a bearded guy on the shoulder. “Hey
Ubaldo. Do your tweeting later, okay? I promise James one minute to
make something on the 3G.”

The bearded guy shrugged and got up from the
chair. I couldn’t believe it, but I sat down, brought up Google and
typed ‘La Coccinnelle’ in the search box. It came back with all
these links to nature pictures, garden suppliers and descriptions
of beetle ecology.

I added ‘hospital’ to the terms and that was
the ticket. The top link was ‘EMS La Coccinelle SA’ and a click
revealed the same logo I had seen on Luther’s stationery—a lone
ladybug on a mulberry leaf.

I cut and pasted some of the French text into
Google Translate and learned that EMS La Coccinelle was a long-term
care facility—basically, an old folks home with medical
capabilities—and an upscale one at that. They supported only 42
residents with various levels of needs from physical therapy and
assisted living to total life support.

So on this side, Luther was an old fart or a
cripple, and a wealthy one at that. Wouldn’t he be surprised to
have me show up at his door?

I checked the address on Google maps. Turned
out the place wasn’t in France or Canada or Belgium at all. It was
in a town called Chêne-Bourg, a suburb of Geneva, Switzerland. I
had no idea people spoke French there. I thought they
spoke—Swiss.”

What was more, the map showed a big, long lake
that curved like a fat crescent through the countryside to the
north, not unlike the bodies of water that kept turning up in
Karla’s tapestries. Was I onto something here?

Hope, that un-killable zombie emotion, picked
itself off the ground. If I went to Switzerland, not only would I
have the chance to confront Luther on much more equitable terms,
but there was a chance I might find Karla there. How she might be
connected to Luther, I had no idea, but I couldn’t discount the
possibility, and that was enough to send another dose of thrill
zinging through my heart.

Angelica came up behind me. “The march, it is
leaving. Are you ready to go?”

“
Hey, how do you get to Switzerland
from here?”

She seemed taken aback. “Switzerland?” She
shrugged. “You can fly. You can go by train. However you
want.”

“
Is it far?”

“
Nine, ten hours by fast train. You
must change in Milano.”

“
The train would be cheaper,
right?”

“
Not necessarily. There is EasyJet.
But I am so sad to have you leave so soon. We have hardly got to
know you.”

She looked genuinely disappointed. It kind of
startled me.

“
I was just passing through,
anyhow.” I got up from the table. “But first … we
march.”

***

People from all walks of life marched with us:
white collar and blue collar, teenagers and elderly, farmers and
city folk, families and neighbors, hippies and bikers, cliques and
loners. You name it, they were there. I couldn’t understand any of
their chants or read any of their signs, but I couldn’t help being
impressed by their enthusiasm.

If I ever settled down, I decided I would work
hard to make myself fluent in another language. I just wanted there
to be some place other than America that I could hobnob with the
locals without feeling like such a dumbass. It didn’t matter where
that turned out to be, but Italy would do. I already kind of liked
this place.

I found myself gravitating towards the little
knots of Black Bloc folks who kept to the fringes of the march.
Angelica saw me with them and frowned, but I didn’t care. These
guys had swagger and verve. So what if they liked to smash things
for fun. I felt safe among them. I knew they would protect
me.

As we marched, I kept scanning the faces of
bystanders, looking for people fitting the profile of the flunkies
and mercenaries that the Cleveland cartel had commissioned to find
and teach me a lesson, probably with the promise of a
bounty.

I must have passed at least a dozen likely
suspects, glaring back at anyone whose gaze lingered too long. Most
were probably just ordinary folk who thought I was some cocky punk.
My attitude probably hardened their distaste for the Occupy
movement’s politics, but really I was just trying to provoke any
goons who might be in the crowd.

I overheard one of the Black Bloc-ers chatting
with someone in English.

“
Hey, I was just curious but … who
are you guys?”

He scrunched his eyebrows. “What do you
mean?”

“
The Black Bloc. What’s it all
about? How does one like … join up?”

“
Simple. Wear black. Fight back.
Black Bloc is not a political party. It is just a tactic. It is not
like we are all anarchists, like some people think.”

“
Huh?”

“
It is just a way of dealing with
authorities. When we wear black we blend together. The police
cannot target one so easily. They have to deal with all of
us.”

“
But you guys seem … uh …. different
… from the regular Occupy folks.”

“
Okay, so maybe we are less afraid
of the violence, yes. But we have the same goals.”

“
Like what?”

“
Fairness.”

A guy squeezed by us wearing a Guy Fawkes ‘V
for Vendetta’ mask perched on his head like a hat. He wore no
black. I had seen a smattering of these mask wearers in the crowd
and had no idea what group or ideology they represented and how
they meshed with everyone else. Maybe it was just a fashion
statement?

This Occupy stuff was turning out to be a lot
more complicated and fascinating than what the media made it out to
be. Those talking heads on the news made it sound like this was
just a bunch of unwashed hippies protesting rich people.

The march stalled. A wave of people staggered
back. I pushed ahead to see what was happening. A can of spray
paint rolled against a curb. Fresh graffiti dribbled down the side
of an ATM. A ring of people shouted and chanted around a bunch of
cops who had some girl restrained on the ground. Some were yelling
at the cops, some yelled at the girl, others just yelled at each
other. Meanwhile, blood trickled down the girl’s
forehead.

The police tried to get people to move back
but the crowd was getting more and more agitated and started
shoving, and there weren’t even any Black Bloc-ers around. The mob
surged forward, carrying me with them, head on into a line of
police wearing face masks and bearing riot shields.

I braced myself and threw my shoulder into a
shield. Batons flew. Noses crunched. People screamed and came at
the cops even harder. They broke through the line. The cops turned
and ran, some of them losing their helmets in the
process.

People cheered and helped the girl with the
bloody forehead to her feet. Someone freed her from her plastic
cuffs with a pair of garden clippers.

One group had broken free from the march and
was actually chasing the cops farther down the alley where they had
gone to regroup. An old man at a sidewalk café sipped his
cappuccino and casually watched the whole affair unfold as if it
were some street performance staged for his amusement.

As for me, my heart was going a million thumps
a minute. I had never been part of anything so
invigorating.

I rejoined the march, which had become a great
river of people flowing uphill. We came to a circle with a big
fountain and I saw a sign for ‘Termini’.

I tapped a woman on the shoulder. “Termini …
that’s the bus station, right?” Again, such an ugly American I was,
just assuming she would understand and speak English, but she
did—perfectly.

“
It is a transportation hub,” she
said. “For the bus … the train … the metro …
everything.”

“
Train?”

A police car came squealing around a corner
and knocked into a group of people, sending them flying. Some
people screamed in pain, some in outrage. A mob swarmed the little
car and started banging on it and rocking it. The windshield
shattered. The cops were hauled out onto the hood. The car was
flipped over and set aflame.

All hell broke loose. A squad of motorcycle
cops zoomed down a side street and nudged the people back. All
kinds of stuff came flying their way—rocks, shoes, water bottles.
Someone threw a hammer into a bank window. A series of loud,
concussive pops brought billowing clouds of tear gas. Alarms and
ambulances wailed.

I slipped away, jogging through a park full of
bus stops and vendors selling kick-knacks to tourists, making my
way to the squat and massive Termini building. I hated to leave in
the middle of all the action, but I had a train to
catch.

Chapter 33:
Termini

Walking into the Termini station was like
switching channels into a different world. Though my eyes and
nostrils still stung from tear gas, tourists and locals went about
their business as usual, totally oblivious to the presence of a
massive and violent protest march only a half a block
away.

But they weren’t completely unaffected and
insulated. Some people fretted over the ‘mysterious’ bus delays
even though folks with protest signs ran through the station, late
to the march, trying to catch up. My hoodie alone emitted enough
traces of CS gas to draw the occasional wince or cough from those I
passed.