The Testimonium (41 page)
Castolfo smiled at this. Despite the tragedy, there was still a bond between the team and the board members that could not be shaken. “I have asked the cafeteria to send down some sandwiches,” he said. “I personally don’t feel like eating, and I doubt that any of you do either, but the body must go on even when the spirit is crushed. After we are done, we will take the scroll up to the press room and begin setting the stage. Reporters will be allowed in at two thirty, and the briefing will begin promptly at three o’clock. Does anyone NOT want to speak?”
The three surviving members of the team looked at one another. Not a one of them said a word. Castolfo and Guioccini looked at the three scientists for a moment, and then the board president nodded. “I cannot tell you how much I have come to respect and admire each of you,” he finally said. “You are a credit to your respective disciplines, and to your faith.”
“What lies ahead after this afternoon?” Josh asked.
“That is a good question,” said Guioccini. “Dr. Castolfo and I have been discussing it for some time now. Dr. Henderson, from the Smithsonian, will be arriving in Rome on Tuesday. We have decided to do the carbon-14 testing on the scroll itself at the new lab in the Palazzo Massimo in Rome. They have the newest spectrographic equipment, and it will only be necessary to remove a tiny fragment of the scroll to get an accurate date. Later next week we will transfer the scroll by automobile to the Palazzo and conduct the testing next Friday. The results should silence Tintoretto once and for all. As for the scroll’s permanent residence, since it was found so close by, agreement has been reached that it will be permanently exhibited here in Naples.”
“I would like to see it formally designated in all subsequent scholarly works as the Rossini Papyrus,” said Isabella.
“That is a wonderful gesture, Isabella,” said Guioccini. “Dr. Castolfo and I have already discussed it, and agree—with one slight amendment. We propose to call it the Rossini-Sforza Papyrus.”
She sighed. “I don’t really care,” she said. “Not about my name being on it, at least. As long as our friend is remembered, I am content.”
“We have a large crew sifting through the rubble of the lab alongside law enforcement,” said Sinisi. “It is possible that some of the more durable relics from the chamber may have survived the blast, and if they did, we will make sure that they are displayed with the scroll here at the museum.”
“Do you really expect to find anything?” asked Josh.
“The flames were put out pretty quickly,” said Sinisi. “I doubt any papyrus survived, but there is a chance some of the other pieces did. Fortunately all the photographs taken at Capri, and in the lab, were downloaded to the museum’s hard drive and saved. We know what every last scrap of material from the chamber looks like!”
About this time, a museum cafeteria worker arrived with a tray of sandwiches and sliced fruit, and the six scholars enjoyed a brief and mostly silent meal. Josh looked down the table at Father MacDonald, missing the familiar banter between him and Rossini. A thought occurred to him about his last conversation with Giuseppe.
“Did anyone call Mrs. Bustamante?” he asked.
The three team members looked at one another in dismay, while the board members looked puzzled. Finally Isabella spoke.
“Let me go ahead and do it,” she said. “He asked us to speak to her, and we were just too stunned and exhausted last night to even think about it.”
Josh stood, groaning as his sore muscles complained. “Would you like me to go with you?” he asked.
She nodded. “I wasn’t going to ask, but I will not say no either,” she replied.
They took the elevator up to her office, and she dialed out on the land line—the museum’s massive stone structure made cellular communication difficult. The phone rang twice on the other end before the familiar voice of the restaurant owner answered.
“Bustamante’s Fine Dining,” she said. “We are closed for the day, due to the death of our friend Dr. Rossini.”
“Antonia, this is Isabella Sforza. I was a good friend of Giuseppe’s,” she began.
“I remember you, dear girl!” said the Spanish widow. “Giuseppe’s face always lit up when he talked about you. He was a dear, dear man.”
“He thought very highly of you, too, Antonia,” said Isabella. “In fact, the last time I saw him, in the hospital after the blast, he asked me if I would speak to you.”
“He thought of me? At the end?” she asked.
“He told me to tell you—” Isabella began, then swallowed hard, choking back the tears. “He wanted you to know that he was very sorry he could not keep his date with you.”
There was a muffled sob from the other end, and a long pause. “The old fool!” snapped Bustamante through her tears. “I had eyes for him these last five years, and he waits this long to ask! We could have had some good years together if he had not been so shy!”
Isabella was crying now, the tears running down her face as she listened. “He loved his wife so much,” she said. “I don’t think he really thought he could ever be that happy again. Only here in the last two weeks did it seem to me he finally began to move on. I am sorry the two of you did not have a chance to find each other sooner, but I do know this much—they would have been very good years for both of you.”
Bustamante nodded. “I cannot be angry with him, really,” she said. “Loyalty is so hard to find, how can I fault him for being faithful to her memory? But oh! dear girl, I will miss him so much. He was my favorite customer and a dear friend.”
“I hope to see you at the memorial service on Monday,” Isabella said.
“I will be there,” the Spanish restaurateur replied. “He loved you like a daughter, you know.”
“I know,” said Isabella. “And I loved him as a second father. I am afraid I must go now, Mrs. Bustamante. I will see you on Monday.”
“Goodbye, my dear, and thanks for calling,” said Bustamante.
Isabella hung up and sat at her desk for a long time, staring at her hands. Josh put his own hands on her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.
“That was a sweet thing to do,” he told her.
“It was his request,” said Isabella. “How could I do otherwise?”
“I guess it is time to go down to the lab,” he said. They left Isabella’s office and headed toward the elevators. When they got there, they found the scroll and its case already set on the rolling cart that had carried it from the other lab moments before the explosion on Friday. Sinisi smiled when he saw them.
“I am glad you got here before we left,” he said. “Come along and I will show you the set-up.”
The press conference was being held in the museum’s old ballroom to accommodate the huge crowd of journalists already gathering outside. There were chairs for over 300, and an elevated stage at the front, with a large black curtain drawn. Very carefully, the cart was wheeled from the elevator near the front of the room to a small ramp that led up to the stage. The beautiful mahogany table was set near the front of the stage, with six chairs arranged behind it. In the center of the table was a large sheet of clear plexiglass. MacDonald lifted the carrying tray off the cart with Sinisi’s assistance, and then the two of them donned acid-free gloves to raise the plexiglass top off the tray and then gingerly move the scroll onto the plexiglass stand prepared for it. The new base was very slightly angled to tilt the ancient scroll toward the audience. Once the scroll was centered on the new base, the clear plexiglass shield was placed back over it. The material was so transparent and non-reflective that the cover was barely visible.
From beyond the curtain, they heard a mass of voices entering the room from all three doors at once. The press had been allowed in, and so the six of them quickly began preparing to face the cameras. There was a small lavatory backstage for last-minute grooming and calls of nature, and within a few minutes everyone had checked their hair and clothes in the mirror and situated themselves behind the table. The team sat in the middle seats, with Josh and Isabella at the center and Father MacDonald at his right. Sinisi sat at the end next to MacDonald, while Castolfo and Guioccini sat on the other side of Isabella. Josh glanced over at her, and saw how tired and pale she was. He was sure he looked no better, but he gave her hand a squeeze and smiled for her anyway.
At three o’clock the curtains drew back, and a storm of flashbulbs exploded at the sight of the ancient scroll. Josh flinched reflexively, recalling the blast from the day before. Isabella shot him a quick smile, and then Sinisi rose up to speak.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the press, after the tragic events of yesterday, all of us felt that the best way to honor the sacrifice of those we lost was to show that the cowardly terrorist who murdered our friends failed in his goal of destroying what they discovered. As you can see, the
Testimonium Pilatus
is intact and undamaged. I have asked the surviving members of the team to present it to you today.” Sinisi finished his remarks and looked over to Isabella, who stood and looked at the assembled press corps.
She looked pale but determined, and the bandage across her forehead was painfully obvious in the strong light. When she spoke, her voice was soft but very firm. “The scroll you see before you was found inside a locked cabinet which had been sealed inside the ‘Tiberius chamber’ of the Villa Jovis since 37 AD. My colleague and friend Dr. Apriceno had to excavate about six centimeters of dust to even reveal the cabinet itself. We carefully chronicled every step of our excavation from start to finish, to show that there was no chance whatsoever that the chamber or the artifacts within it had been tampered with, despite the reckless comments by a disgruntled former board member.”
She walked around to the front of the table, facing the press members directly, and lowered her voice to a quiet and conversational tone. “The ‘Tiberius chamber’ was discovered by my dear friend and mentor, Professor Giuseppe Rossini. I was the first person he called when he found the chamber revealed by an earthquake on Easter Sunday morning; I was, with him, the first person to enter it—he refrained from stepping inside from the time he found it until I could join him almost six hours later. Dr. Rossini was a friend and mentor to an entire generation of classical archeologists; he was a man of honor and decency, with a sense of professionalism that was tempered only by his warm and compassionate heart.”
The assembled reporters were completely silent. Her raw grief, and the warmth in her voice as she spoke of her old friend, had turned a room full of eager, panting newshounds into a sympathetic audience that felt her pain and grieved with her. She looked around the room and saw their reaction, then continued.
“As soon as it became evident that we had discovered a trove of untouched relics from the first century, I called my superior, Dr. Guioccini, who helped me assemble a team of brilliant archeologists to assist with their excavation and removal. The one whose work would be the most important in establishing the antiquity of the chamber and its contents was Dr. Simone Apriceno. She spent the better part of five days collecting samples of dust and pollen from every single surface in the chamber. Once we got back to the mainland, her work in analyzing the pollens and other botanical residue inside the chamber was almost nonstop. She spent more time in the lab than any of us, and although her work was cut cruelly short by the cowardly terror attack on this facility, the results that she was able to complete all show that the chamber was undisturbed and intact—other than some visiting rodents about five hundred years ago!”
The reporters nodded to each other. It was apparent that Dr. Tintoretto’s accusations had not found a sympathetic audience with most of them. Isabella managed a tiny smile, and then went on.
“Simone was someone I had not worked with before, but we quickly became close friends. She was a big-hearted, generous soul who loved to laugh and dance. I only regret that we did not meet sooner.
“It took us less than a week to completely catalog everything in the chamber. The reliquary cabinet containing the two scrolls was the last item to be removed. The two scrolls were not discovered until the entire cabinet was safe inside the mobile lab on Capri. Once the importance of the find was realized, the Antiquities Bureau elected to move all the artifacts from the chamber to the mainland. This was accomplished one week ago today. After the papyrus manuscripts reached the new research lab here in Naples, Dr. MacDonald took over the curation process, as an expert in ancient document preservation and restoration.” At this point she nodded at Duncan, who stood and surveyed the reporters calmly, then began to speak.
“Dealing with ancient papyrus is a tricky business. I had no idea how long it would take for the two ancient scrolls to unroll, nor how intact they were. Fortunately, these scrolls had been preserved so well inside the locked compartment where we found them that they unrolled as quickly as any papyrus I have ever handled. As you know, the shorter scroll, the last will and testament of Caesar Augustus, unrolled in a matter of two days, and many of you were present when we shared its contents at the beginning of this week. By the time we held that press conference Tuesday, the Pilate scroll had already begun to open. As soon as it was safe to do so, we unrolled it and began the work of translation. It was my privilege to work with a brilliant young scholar in ancient Latin, Dr. Joshua Parker of Oklahoma. We both translated the scroll separately, using high-resolution photographs of each page, and then going to the original any time there was a question about a single character. Only when both of us had completed our efforts did we compare notes. The scroll was completely undamaged and written in a strong, clear hand, making it so easy to read that there were no discrepancies at all between our translations. To be doubly sure, we invited two more noted scholars, my own instructor in ancient Latin, Cardinal Heinrich Klein, and Doctor Luke Martens from Texas. Both of them conducted their own separate translations of the scroll and found our work to be without error. I would like to take this moment to offer my condolences to the many friends and students of Cardinal Klein, who was a brilliant antiquarian and a teacher to so many historians and archeologists over the course of his fifty-year career. His loss is a cruel blow, not just to the Church he served so faithfully, but also to the discipline of history and Latin studies to which he brought a consummately professional and scholarly approach.”