The Testimonium (55 page)

He put his hands over his face, and his whole body was racked with sobs. His daughter came up to him and put her hands on his shoulders, and he looked up again. “But it was too late!” he said. “I lost the most precious thing I ever possessed—the trust of a woman who truly loved me. No, lost is too flimsy a word. I threw her trust away. I discarded it out of pure selfishness, and I never got it back. Oh, Simone, if you can hear me now, I hope you know just how sorry I truly am! I would pour my heart’s blood out on this altar just to see you smile at me one more time!”

He suddenly looked up at the mourners in the church. Every eye was staring directly at him. He raised his head high and addressed them directly. “That is probably not the eulogy that you were expecting,” he said. “But it is what is in my heart. My wife was the most beautiful woman I have ever known, inside and out, and I cast her aside. I would tell every man here—never make such a mistake! You will never find anything that will take the place of your first love.”

With that he sat down heavily, and the air seemed to go out of him. Lucretia Apriceno patted him on the shoulder, and then took her own stand behind the pulpit.

“That was not exactly the kind of remarks that my father and I discussed beforehand!” she said. “But scripts are boring, my mother used to say. Life is far more bitter and sweet than anything we can dream up. I will say this about my mother and father both: they always loved me, even when they forgot, for a while, how much they loved each other. Mama taught me her love of the past, and her love of the kitchen, as well as her love of life itself. I was never bored when I stayed with her, because she taught me how to enjoy everything that she loved to do. When she was studying ancient pollens, she bought me a microscope and taught me how to tell them apart, and what distinguished them from modern ones. When she baked lasagna, she showed me every detail of the recipe, and served me the first slice. When I wanted to go to my first dance, she put on her cassettes and we spent an entire afternoon learning every possible step to every popular song, so that I would not feel awkward on the dance floor. I could not have asked for a better mother.”

A single tear formed and slid down her cheek. “She called me right after the discoveries from Capri were made public. She told me that the contents of the Pilate scroll had removed the lingering doubts she had harbored about God for many years. And she said that if God could forgive a contrary old hen like herself, then she probably ought to find it in her heart to forgive my father, too. Just a few days later, I saw the blast on the news, and then got the call that she was one of the victims. I felt as if my heart had been ripped out and stomped upon, but as I have had time to reflect, and to talk with her friends, I can honestly say that I am glad she died without any bitterness in her heart. As much as I might wish that she and Papa had gotten back together and enjoyed the autumn of their lives as a couple, it comforts me to know that love between them never died completely. I will miss her, but I will do my best to honor her, every day of my life, by being the kind of woman she taught me to be—the kind of woman she was. I love you forever, Mama!”

With that her resolve gave way, and she sat down next to her father. The two of them clung to each other as the choir sang the requiem mass, and the pall bearers carried the casket out of the church. Josh and Isabella stood with the rest of the congregation as they walked by, leaning on each other. After the funeral procession left the cathedral, he looked down at the beautiful Italian who had stolen his heart.

“I can’t promise you much,” he said. “But I promise you this—I will never have to speak such words over you. You will always have my heart, and you will always have my promise to be true.”

She smiled, though her face was still wet with tears. “Of course you will be true,” she said. “You are not Italian!”

<<>>

BERTRAND: Good morning, Agent Lucoccini. I am Lincoln Bertrand, with the CIA’s counter-terrorism office.

LUCOCCINI: Yes, Colonel, your reputation precedes you! May I presume this is not a social call?

BERTRAND: That is correct, sir. I need to pass on a warning, and I was told that you were more trustworthy than the Naples Police Department.

LUCOCCINI: That is a harsh assessment, but not inaccurate. Chief Zadora is a scrupulously honest policeman who has implemented many reforms, but corruption is an epidemic among the rank and file that it will take a generation to root out. Tell me your warning, and I will do my best to see it is acted upon.

BERTRAND: There are two jihadist sleeper cells in Italy that we have been watching for some time now. Both have been activated and have gone off the grid completely. Our inside man was brutally murdered yesterday. We have reason to believe that the master terrorist known as “the Ethiopian” is in Italy, and may now be the operational commander of these two cells.

LUCOCCINI: Merda! We have been trying to nail that bastardo ever since he killed several of our medical nuns in Somalia in the 1990s. Shot them in the back at point blank range and then urinated on their corpses! Help us nail him and the government of Italy will be very grateful!

BERTRAND: I wish we could be of more help, but all I can say for sure at this point is that we believe his target will be the scroll known as the Testimonium. For religious reasons, the jihadists are scared to death of this thing. I imagine they will also want to kill the scientists that excavated it.

LUCOCCINI: We have already figured that an attempt might be made on the scroll when it is transported to Rome for testing. We have arranged for full security—two armored personnel carriers, an armored car for the scroll and the scientists, and several police cars as well. They will have a full-scale battle on their hands if they decide to take us on!

BERTRAND: It is good to hear you take this threat so seriously, but I will remind you of two things. First of all, these jihadists will be very well armed. There was a large weapons cache in a storage unit south of Rome that is now gone. I imagine they will have at least one RPG launcher. And one more thing—

LUCOCCINI: Yes?

BERTRAND: In our experience, the Ethiopian is very good at thinking a step or two ahead of his competition. So—be careful out there!

LUCOCCINI: Good advice. Can you keep me apprised of any new intelligence that you develop?

BERTRAND: I have an agent on the ground monitoring the situation. He will contact you if there is anything further to share. He will identify himself only as “Dingo.” I have given him your number.

LUCOCCINI: Will your country be interested in interviewing the Ethiopian if we can catch him alive?

BERTRAND: Yes indeed. He is one of the most highly placed Al Qaeda officers still at large, and we could probably get some very valuable information from him—and there is also the matter of at least three dead CIA agents that we can lay at his doorstep. One of them was a friend of mine. The Ethiopian barbecued his face at point blank range with a small flamethrower of some sort. So yes, we would be very interested in . . . interviewing him.

LUCOCCINI: I take a rather old-fashioned view of justice, my friend. You know Italy no longer has a death penalty.

BERTRAND: We do.

That evening Josh and Isabella had dinner with Dr. Martens and Alicia. Reverend and Mrs. Parker had decided to take the train up to Rome the day after the funeral and see the sights before heading home, so they had retired early to pack up and rest. The two couples sat in the penthouse restaurant of the hotel, having decided to enjoy more traditional Italian cuisine in place of sushi.

Josh took a bite of a hot bread roll dipped in olive oil. “I don’t understand why you Italians aren’t the most obese nation on earth, eating this many carbs with every meal!” he said.

Isabella smiled. “It’s the olive oil,” she said. “Cooking agent of the gods! One reason the Romans lived longer than the other races of antiquity was the huge amounts of this stuff they consumed—that, and the fact that they despised beef. Romans loved fish and seafood, poultry, and occasionally pork or other more exotic meats, but they consumed far more fruit and vegetables than they did red meat.”

Josh nodded. “That may be, but a mere decade of mortality is a small price to pay for a well-cooked cheeseburger with bacon!”

She shook her head. “Americans!” she said.

“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, Izza!” said Alicia. Somewhere over the last three days she had bestowed this nickname on Isabella, who seemed not to mind it at all. “A good bacon burger is pretty hard to beat!”

“Well, I think Dr. Henderson was pretty impressed with your discovery,” said Martens.

“I don’t see how anyone could review all the evidence and come to any other conclusion,” said Isabella. “The discovery was in such obviously ancient context, there is no way any of the artifacts could have been planted!”

Martens nodded. “I will tell you something, Dr. Sforza,” he said. “People who do not want to believe will find a reason not to. I had a co-worker a few years ago who used to ridicule me to no end for believing in Christ. He accused me of pimping out science to serve the interest of those he called ‘brain dead fundamentalist yahoos’! I sat and talked till I was blue in the face about all the valid, historical reasons for accepting the New Testament as an authentic, eyewitness account of the life and ministry of Jesus. No matter how thoroughly I thought I had proved my case, he managed to poke holes in it, and question everything I believed in. Proof and evidence didn’t matter—he had convinced himself the Gospels were fairy tales, and no amount of persuading would convince him otherwise. As I got to know him better, I found out that he was a compulsive womanizer—a true sex addict, in fact. He was terrified of religion, because he knew that believing in Christ would require him to change his lifestyle, or acknowledge the eternal consequences. So, for him, it was safer not to believe—even at the cost of complete cognitive dissonance!”

Isabella looked at him with interest. “You know, Josh and I have talked about this at some length,” she said. “Why does God care who, or with how many partners, we choose to have sex? The drive is a natural part of our biological nature, so why should He punish us for engaging in it?”

Martens nodded. “It is probably the biggest single impediment to belief for young people in the Western world today,” he said. “I remember a quip from some comedian I was listening to once, he said that ‘if it weren’t for that whole “thou shalt not commit adultery” thing, France would still be Christian today!’ But honestly, God has never based His commandments and standards on what people enjoy the most, but rather on what is best for them. Is society best served by rampant promiscuity and unwed mothers? Any sociologist worth his salt will tell you that societies grow and thrive when the family unit is stable, and study after study has shown that children do best when raised in a home with both parents. Is any relationship ever improved by adultery? None that I have seen! Think about what Signor Apriceno said this afternoon. How much happier would he and Simone have been if he had never strayed! God guides us, not towards the short term thrill, but towards the long-term ideal. However, I have found that, in following His plan, the short-term can be pretty amazing too!” He leaned over and planted a kiss on his younger bride’s cheek.

Alicia squeezed his hand and spoke up. “There is this, too,” she said. “I was a virgin when Luke and I married. He is the best man I have ever known and the only man I’ve known in an intimate sense. For however many years God gives us together, I know that I won’t be comparing my husband to all the other lovers I have ever had. He will always be my first and my best!”

Martens blushed. “Unfortunately, I cannot say that,” he said. “My first wife, God rest her soul, was a very special woman, and I will always love her memory. But my love for Alicia is something new and different, and so far she has not minded sharing me with the memory of the woman I lost. God put us together for a reason—even if, so far, she’s managed to nearly kill me on more than one occasion!”

Alicia swatted his shoulder gently. “Don’t blame me if you can’t handle the bunny slopes, old man!” she said with a laugh.

Josh was amused. Dr. Martens had seemed rather stiff and formal when they first met, but Alicia had brought him out of his shell and turned him into a fun-loving, adventurous soul who was a joy to be around. Now that Josh knew them both better, he realized that Luke had still been grieving his first wife’s death when Josh had met him. It had taken Alicia’s warm, adventure-loving heart to give the archeologist a reason to emerge from his shell again. Looking across the table at them, he was happy for them both. The fifteen-year age difference seemed a little smaller and less troublesome every time he saw them together.

“So are you going to come visit the States when all this is over with?” asked Alicia. “I’d love to take you diving with me sometime!”

“That sounds wonderful!” said Isabella. “I don’t know what my future plans are right now, but I hope that we can do that. I have enjoyed getting to know you so much! Italian archeology is pretty much a boy’s club, and I get so tired of having to constantly prove myself to these silly jocks with degrees. It is nice to spend time with another woman my age!”

They passed that Tuesday evening in great happiness, the grief of the double funerals ebbing from them as they enjoyed good food and good company. The shock of the ordeal they had been through that awful Friday was still in the back of their minds, and both of them missed their lost friends, but the healing process had begun. Luke and Alicia Martens, Josh realized, had become an important part of that process. He had come to regard the American professor as more than a professional mentor in the last week, instead seeing him as a close friend, perhaps even an older brother. Alicia and he had been chums since college, although he had never had any romantic feelings for her—in fact, he had been shocked to find out that she had once been interested in him! But that, too, had worked out for the best. Luke needed her far worse than he had, and Josh had found the love of his life in Isabella.