The Devil Will Come (29 page)

‘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!’

London, 1589

MARLOWE PRACTICALLY SUCKED
in the rough and tumble of London as he strolled through the crowded, jostling streets of Shoreditch. He smiled at every blackguard, whore, blackamoor, cheating monger and filthy urchin he brushed past.
I was born to live in such a place
, he thought.

Today was a day of high expectation and even the stench of the open drains couldn’t diminish his pleasure: in a short while he would see the first performance of his new play,
The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus
.

Marlowe had donned his best suit of clothes, the same that he had worn four years earlier when, pockets laden with Walsingham’s payments, he had posed for a commissioned portrait. In an unheard-of act of hubris, which had thoroughly seized the imagination of his fellows, he had presented the portrait to the Master of Benet on the occasion of his leaving the college in 1587. Somewhat flummoxed by the gift, Master Norgate had had no choice but to hang it in
his
wood-paneled gallery next to a bevy of vastly more notable academics and alumni.

In the painting, he had assumed a cocky pose with his arms folded, his lips pouty and rebellious, his hair flowing and his moustache wispy. His doublet was close-fitting, black with a red velvet lining, trimmed with gold buttons down the front and up the sleeves. His linen shirt was open-necked with a floppy cobwebbed collar, far more rakish than the usual starched and ruffled collars that graced the worthies on Norgate’s wall. The garments, which had seen their share of use in England and the Continent, were a bit worn now, but they still looked splendid and fit perfectly. Still, if the play were a success he’d already laid a plan to visit Walsingham’s tailor for a new ensemble.

London, this dense metropolis of 100,000 souls, was now Marlowe’s oyster. In a short time he’d repeatedly pried open its unyielding shell, plucking out one treasure after another; he had little doubt that
Faustus
would give him his most lustrous pearl yet.

Marlowe had taken to London like a witch to a cauldron. By night he frequented the riotous Nag’s Head in Cheapside, the dark brothels of Norton Folgate where he could try to hide the truth of his anatomy under his drawn-up breeches, and the feverish salons of Whitehall where – among Cecil, Walsingham and his kind – he had no need to hide. And by day, when his head had cleared from the previous night’s
excesses
, he sat in his rooms and put quill to parchment until his hand ached.

He found his theatrical home among the Admiral’s Men, a troupe of players under the patronage of Charles Howard, Elizabeth’s Lord Admiral. The Admiral had lured the leading actor in England, Edward Alleyn, to his company and when Alleyn, an imposing man with a baritone voice like a fine brass horn, first read
Tamburlaine the Great
it was the beginning of an intense artistic partnership. Alleyn could scarcely believe that a masterpiece like
Tamburlaine
was penned by a 22-year-old. Nor could the audiences, and the play about a simple shepherd who rose to be the murderously blaspheming ruler of Persia became the talk of London and a commercial sensation.

The Theatre was London’s first purpose-built playhouse and Marlowe still felt a shiver of excitement every time he entered. It was a great timbered polygon, built partly by Burbage’s own hand, he a master carpenter by trade. There were three galleries surrounding a cobblestoned yard fronting a raised stage. For a penny a few hundred could stand on the stones pressed hard against one another. For another penny, a few hundred more could ascend the galleries and for yet another penny they could rent a stool. A half a dozen Lord’s Rooms were fashioned into the galleries, private cozies for the wealthy.

Outside the Theatre Marlowe had to fight his way, unrecognized, through an unruly smelly crush of
patrons
, prostitutes, procurers and pickpockets. He arrived at the turnstile whisking at his doublet with the back of his hand in case something nasty had stuck to it.

‘Kit! Over here!’ Thomas Kyd was waving at him from the other side.

‘Tom!’

The gatekeepers let him pass and Tom closed the distance with a few loping steps. He was much taller, as fair as Marlowe was dark. ‘I thought you’d be late for your own opening.’

Marlowe beamed. ‘They hardly need me any longer. The words, after all, have long been writ.’

Kyd clapped him on the shoulders. ‘Such is our lot in life, my friend. But without our small contribution, the actors would have naught to do but fart and stammer.’

Marlowe had met Kyd shortly after leaving Cambridge. Kyd was a fixture of the Mermaid, one of the young lions of the theatre. His
The Spanish Tragedy
had been one of the most successful productions in recent memory. He was six years older than Marlowe, like him of rather humble origins, and was further disadvantaged by having never attended university. He had triumphed solely on the basis of his creative talent and a winning personality. Marlowe took to him instantly and vice versa but the younger man resisted for the longest time his entreaties to become his paramour.

Finally, after one particularly ale-filled night, they
found
themselves in the same bed. Marlowe pulled away from Kyd’s ardent kisses and said hoarsely, ‘I have a certain feature.’

‘Really? How intriguing. Is it very large, very small or very crooked?’ Kyd asked, propping himself on one elbow.

‘Do you swear never to tell anyone?’

‘I do so swear,’ Kyd replied melodramatically.

Marlowe got off the bed, stood, turned his back and lowered his breeches.

Kyd screamed in delight. ‘I always knew you were a devil! How marvelous! May I touch it?’

‘You may,’ Marlowe said. ‘It can take rough treatment.’

Kyd stroked the tail in fascination. ‘Does this peculiarity run within the bloodlines of your family?’

‘No,’ Marlowe lied. ‘I am the only one. Perhaps the only one in the world.’

‘This will be our special secret, then,’ Kyd said. ‘Come back into my bed as quick as you can.’

The two men pushed their way through the crush to the stage. In the wings Edward Alleyn, England’s leading actor, in the full academic robes and hat of Doctor Faustus, was warming up his vocal chords with a harmonic exercise.

‘Kit!’ he exclaimed. ‘And Tom! How’s the house looking?’

‘Oversold, judging by the crowds,’ Kyd said. ‘You’re looking the part.’

‘I look it well enough but will I remember it? I’ve done three new plays in the past week.’

‘Do not, good sir, forget my lines,’ Marlowe scolded. ‘Remember, the other plays were mere meat pies. This one is a top cut of beefsteak.’

‘I shall do my very best, of that you may be assured.’

James Burbage sidled over and escorted Marlowe and Kyd up a narrow staircase to one of the Lord’s Rooms where they surveyed the crowd.

‘Look at them all!’ Burbage exclaimed. ‘I hear there’s a mob at the gates, all clamoring for tickets. I’ll have to dispatch armed horsemen to keep order! Word of mouth is a powerful ally, is it not?’

‘Well, the play has it all!’ Kyd said. ‘Kit’s notions – summoning Mephistophilis with magic, selling one’s soul to the Devil in exchange for the secrets of the universe – these are heady themes.’

There was a flask of wine on the table. Burbage poured out three glasses. ‘Here’s to heady themes and frothy success, gentlemen.’

The stage manager called for quiet and announced the players to the audience. At the mention of Edward Alleyn there were rousing cheers. The Chorus marched onto the stage and the play began.

When the Chorus set the scene and exited, Alleyn, as Doctor Faustus, entered and at the mere sight of the great man the house erupted in cheers. He managed to stay in character as the robed Faustus while pausing smugly to let the audience exercise their lungs. Soon he was standing in an elaborately drawn magic circle
of
astrological signs, done precisely to Marlowe’s specifications. His voice boomed: