Salve Roma! A Felidae Novel Part 6

Our loveplay went on for several hours, until we didn't even have the strength to clean ourselves, totally exhausted, yet soaked with happiness. From afar we already saw the first tourist crowds enter the Forum. It was time to take a little walk and get to know each other on a more intellectual level, or let's say time to finally talk to each other!

"Can you maybe tell me now who taught you the language, which the whole world thinks of as being an invention of ad writers for drugs boxes, darling?" I wanted to know while our feet led us towards Palatine under the blazing sun. "Dominus meus me docuit, Pater Umberto."

In my mind I translated the words, which poured out of her silvery sparkling snout. Her master, a padre called Umberto had taught her Latin ...

"... In his former life he used to be an engineer, until he plunged into a big crisis and turned towards religion. He joined a monastic order with a very bluenosed codex. But his reputation as a great engineer followed him into the dark monk's cell and, luckily, beyond. Thus, one day the Holy Father himself ordered for him to come to the Vatican to update the security technology. Today he is in charge of the monitoring systems, especially for the St. Peter's Basilica. And as he is so good, he was asked to apply his approved technology also here at the Forum. He is obsessed with our kind, and besides me he also keeps some black rascal on this site, who runs away pretty frequently though. At least, I don't see him very often. After Umberto had bought me from a breeder, he only talked Latin to me ever since I was a kid. He may live in this world, but his heart beats for the old world. He thinks our times are totally rotten. Like infested by a special kind of Alzheimer's, one after one would for their most primary and most important language, as well as the values of the Christian western civilization. For what it's worth, he's way over the top. Equidem me satis dixisse puto, Narra historiam tuam, Francis. Non hinc esse videris."

So now it was my turn to tell my story. Well, this one would sound rather crazy. For a beauty queen who spent her days with nothing else than comparing herself with stony beauties and turning up her nose at tourists in XXL-shorts, it may even sound a little silly. We had climbed the Palatine Hill meanwhile, a mystical-mythical world of ruins. The emperors of Rome had resided on the Palatine for ages. Rich Patricians, writers like Cicero, politicians and scholars used to live here, and emperors like Augustus and Domitian had built temples and city palaces on this hill the word "palace" originates from Palatine by the way. Even the rudiments of these buildings were able to give a clear impression of the former glory. Walking between the terraces and flower aisles, lawn, little buildings, fountains and groves was even more pleasurable than a stroll over the Forum. From up here it was also possible to see the empire's remains from the well-ordered aerial perspective. The best thing though was the unrestricted, breathtaking view of the Flavian amphitheater, also called Collosseum.

I told Sancta about the circ.u.mstances of my journey to Rome, the friendly reception by Antonio, Giovanni and Samantha in the city and about the events that had followed in quick succession. Of course I came to talk about the rampant murders and the last victim, which I had been forced to see with my own eyes. I presented her my thoughts on that score and the resultant theories. Sancta seemed to be far from the picture I had created of her, namely that of a delicate flower blossoming in a fissure of a broken column, and thank G.o.d! turned out to be a realist. She had also heard about the murders, was even afraid to lose her ear and life at the hand of the killer and had decided to energetically support my investigation with any information she could possibly give.

"Igitur investigator es, Francis, quaerens verum ultimum?" she said and narrowed her eyes to slits because of the scorching sun. We had rested on one of the terraces of the Thermae Severianae. The giant substructures, which once supported pillars and arches in the walls, some baths and corridors and even the heating system, were still in good condition. From here we could even see the Collosseum and the Circus Maximus. But still the most wonderful site of all was my ancient bride. In daylight, the blue color had totally disappeared from her fur. The silver tone in it had become a cosmic glowing though, which made her a saint once and for all. Her s.e.xy odor was stuck in my nose like some happy childhood memory, it almost brought me to my knees. Lordy! I hadn't felt like that since my blissful days of youth! The old fox had fallen in love! I had almost mocked myself if the use of animals in mockery didn't get on my nerves so much.

"Yeah, now and then the detective takes me over, Sancta", I replied, after I had recovered a little from the daze caused by too much sunlight and hormonal frenzy. "But only chance brought it about that sometimes I have to descend to Hades. Or fate. But as of today, I want to be just one thing, namely the one who adores you till the end of days."

She smiled mischievously, as if she would think of my words as a kind but rhetorical compliment. But I knew from experience that to the ladies especially the most pathetic compliments are music to their ears.

"To get back to the recent cruelty in my second job: I told you that on this creepy conference down in the catacombs the capeman talked about an upcoming miracle, about il miracolo. Does that ring a bell? I mean, have you ever heard rumors regarding a so-called miracle amongst our kind?"

Sancta thought for quite a while, whereas her patina-green eyes totally disappeared between the slits of her eyelids, then she shook her head. I just wanted to ask the next question, when she suddenly looked up as if she just got an idea.

"Well, come to think of it ... there actually is a miracle with a certain connection to us. But it is not about to come, it has existed for ages and it is quite alive. All Romans know it. And since the TV stations, which bless the people with pathetic impressions at Christmas and Easter, have broadcasted his pictures ad nauseam, everyone has been sick of it."

Instantly I changed from the pa.s.sionate lover back to the pa.s.sionate detective.

"What, there actually is an il miracolo?"

"Unfortunately! And that's his name, too."

"Excuse me?"

"Miracolo is the name of the Pope's pet! And ever since these cute media reports this creature carved out a career as the Vatican's secret mascot. That's okay. But this guy, who unfortunately is one of our kind, has more air than the pope himself. He's a Persian, who meanwhile has seen more springs than the Temple of Apollo. He surrounds himself with flunkeys who even support him in his megalomania. Anyway, from time to time he sends our kind some bluenosed messages, which outdo the pope's encyclicals by far. At best we don't get them and at worst we shake our heads."

"I got to meet him!" I yelled so loud as if I had spotted a fire.

"Quare?" she replied and looked at me, dumbfounded.

"Seriously? I'm looking for a miracle in Rome, Sancta, and Miracolo is the only miracle I can get a hold of."

"Iste non est miraculum, sed vir stultissimus!"

"Okay, he may be a moron. But an unerring instinct tells me, that there may be much riding on this conversation. But how on earth can I arrange a meeting between him and me? He is a star, and I'm just a miserable tourist."

"Don't worry, Francis." Sancta smiled mildly like a mother to her small son, who is scared Santa won't come because he hasn't been quite good enough during the year. "A star needs his audience, and Miracolo doesn't have a lot. He will meet you for sure. And I will let you know about the easiest way to him when you leave me for good."

She didn't smile anymore now. Quite the opposite, sheer cloud fields browsed her face.

"Are you that lonely, Sancta?"

"Sometimes", she said and struggled to keep her composure. But her whiskers vibrated, and her snout trembled persistently. She was about to burst out in tears. "This area suits our kind better than any other place, and yet sometimes I don't hear a single meow for weeks, or even for months. It has nothing to offer for our brothers and sisters. Awestricken, the tourists don't even dare to throw away a half-eaten bologna sandwich. Everything is nice to look at, but this beauty is due to those whose bones crumbled into dust ages ago. Life itself doesn't live here anymore. But I'm alive, and that's my tragedy."

My heart tensed up listening to her words. Though to me she had appeared to be a beauty queen, now I knew that actually she was a queen without a kingdom. How said she must feel, wandering about this whole splendor all day and never walking into a fellow at all? Without using the worn thin comparison to a golden cage, I sensed that even sparkling beauty and fabulous wealth couldn't make up for everyday occurrences like tender rubbing against a friend's cheeks or a little sc.r.a.p about the best place in the sun. No, Sancta didn't live in a golden cage nor was she kept hostage by some monster. She herself was the cage; that was the nub of the matter! The Forum, the old myths and legends, the Latin language, this whole freaking sunken world had rubbed off on her and had made her a ghost. She wanted to live, only she didn't have the guts to go outside to the living.

"Sancta, believe me, if I leave you for good, love itself will leave me for good. That would be my doomsday! After I have solved this tiresome issue and stopped the bloodshed amongst our kind, I will come back to you. This I swear! Though, you shouldn't rely on vows and promises and wean yourself from waiting. If you really want to live, you got to leave the netherworld. Let me recommend this to you as your therapist. Out there countless dangers are waiting for you, at every turn evil is lurking, and disappointment is a dime a thousand. At the same time of all things you be compensated by these devils that are responsible for all those bad things. Why? Because there's still blood running through their veins. You will face countless opportunities, and eventually true happiness. And you will realize: The Forum Romanum is beautiful, but life amongst the living is even more beautiful!"

A smile returned to her silvery face. Still, it couldn't hide a sparkling trickle of tears. Maybe it was sadness about the many lost years, in which she had dwelled on thoughts without ever daring to put them into operation.

"So now you will say Vale! Francis?" she said.

"No, there are so still many things I want to know about you."

"What? If I can cross a street without your help?"

Now the smile also turned back to my face.

"Yes, and what is it with the many confusing colors on those street lights?" I replied. "What I'm also deeply interested in is this glorious security technology that Umberto apparently installed here. Quite honestly, I see precious little of it. Unless your master nailed down every single column and every single stone single-handed."

"You're not totally off base, Francis", she said, jumped down the terrace rudiment and ran down the hill. I followed her, full of curiosity. Meanwhile it was noon, and down there whole battalions of tourists shoved themselves through the landscape of ruins. Even from afar, one could easily identify them by their clothes. Weird that humans think that in regard to clothes they even have to outdo circus clowns during their vacation.

"Every single ancient stone has been numbered, cataloged and photographed a bunch of times. Umberto also did something else to them. He didn't nail them down, but injected a very modern version of these things, microchips. The newest development of these chips is called smart tags, if I remember that correctly."

In a split second I got the ingenious security concept that Signore Umberto had come up with. Here the magic words are: data transmitting labels! Skeptics have another term for it though: prying chips. I had heard of it in a TV report, even though only fragmentarily as Gustav's monster snoring had drowned out the announcer's voice. The smart tags or RFID-, namely radio-frequency-identification-chips, represented the fulfillment of every observation fetis.h.i.+st's dreams. So far people noticed the barcode of grocery store products no earlier than the minute they get scanned at the checkout counter. Shortly, they'll have to hope that they themselves don't get noticed by its multifunctional successor. Namely, a current-independent radio chip barely visible to the naked eye that is attached directly to the product and is thought to displace the barcode at retail. By means of a new technology the tiny chips transports the data to remote sensors by radio. But also in other respects this transponder sets new standards: It also qualifies for the activation of CCTV and allows the tracking of customers, who come in contact with the product. The cas.h.i.+er can go home an automatic register gathers all goods by radio and collects the customers' money. By use of a hidden so-called transponder it can be registered when a thief stuffs something into his pocket and leaves the store as well as in which street or which house entrance he disappears after that.

And at this point our smart Umberto got into the game. He had realized the opportunities, which this chip offered to security systems, a little earlier and had used it to prepare every single ancient thing at the Forum. So stealing only a single stone from this site, for a thief amounted to voluntarily turning himself in. Security guys were able to track his every single footstep on a computer screen and, thus, locate him.

"Furthermore, there are several cameras hidden around here, which are connected to a central processor", Sancta kept talking, after she had superfluously tried to quite ponderously explain the role of smart tags to me. Out of courtesy, I didn't want to interrupt her of course. We had reached the Forum by now, but followed outlying trails, so that the flow of tourists didn't get in our way. If I hadn't lost track in this rubble jungle, we must be on our way to the Arch of t.i.tus again.

"Every newly arriving face gets scanned and matched with the biometrically recorded mugshots of previously convicted crooks. But even the biometric data of innocent people won't be deleted as they are hypothetic first offenders."

"Fortunately, we don't fall in any of these categories. For animal shapes the program is probably blind", I replied with a cheeky att.i.tude.

"Not at all", Sancta said unaffectedly, as if it was the most casual thing in the world. I just wanted to shrivel up from embarra.s.sment, or at least blush to a bordeaux-violet, if that would be possible for our kind. As at the thought that we had secretly been filmed at our pa.s.sionate fling at dawn made me tense up so much that I almost turned into one of the statues we kept pa.s.sing. Sancta though didn't seem to mind that she was watched at every turn. Why would she, having grown up like this?

Close to the Arch of t.i.tus my lover suddenly sidestepped into an area that was covered with wild bushes. We crawled through dense undergrowth, stopped and squeezed us through sprawling roots like flounders, and finally we battled liana-like plant curtains, which stood comparison to a real jungle. Suddenly our paws unexpectedly stood on gla.s.s. It was bulletproof gla.s.s, about 2 inches thick, rectangular and so broad that one could easily have built a house on it.

My eyes became aware of a high-tech-center that was hidden in the ground. The faces of the newly arrived visitors appeared on countless monitors on the wall. The moving pictures froze in a matter of seconds, and a program calculated the measures of specific facial features and a.n.a.lyzed color of skin and hair on the basis of bright point of lights and flas.h.i.+ng lines. After that the faces changed into abstractions consisting of rough structures and blinking dots and disappeared in a window in the upper part of the monitor. On other monitors numerical series scrolled through. On the next one though a special program, which recognized solid geometric patterns, compared the current look and the position of the single ruin elements with the old data from archival footage without a single break. This total electronic monitoring proceeded almost automatically, as there was only a guard in a blue uniform sitting at the monitoring desk with the many controllers and keys, who now and then brought himself to get a call and used to the rest of the time to yawn of boredom.

"Now you know the secret why the Roman empire will stay at its ancestral place for ever and always, Francis", Sancta said, and her face couldn't hide the pride in her master and his thaumaturgic feats.

"This is all very impressive indeed, Sancta", I replied. "Compared with your Umberto, George Orwell was a fanciless mediocrity. Do you maybe know in which technical field he did research before he turned towards religion?"

"I believe he thought of some funny things."

"Funny things?"

"He owns a spa.r.s.e cabin underneath the broken bridge next to the Ponte Rotto. But his real home is a Volkswagen transporter that probably dates back to the Gallic War. Among other things, he keeps the few mementos of his former life in there. I once went there and found yellowed magazines and sheets with scientific notes under the junk that is scattered all of the place."

"So?"

"Well, like I already said, at that time he used to work at silly things. For example, he considered the question of whether the coating of water-repellent plant leaves can be synthesized and how the result can be converted to modern car paint. Stuff like that."

In a row of columns at the threshold to the Piazza del Colosseo it eventually was time to say farewell. After leaving the hidden gla.s.s bunker Sancta had guided me here unerringly. The elliptic square sort of built the end of the Forum Romanum. The Colosseum towered in its center. My lover couldn't hide that she was afraid to leave her ghost land and just set just a single paw outside its borders. Although the cobblestoned square was a care-free zone, which served as collecting point for tourists and as an elegant promenade for walkers, nervousness make itself at home in her silver face. Her hypnotizing smell still reached my nostrils like a spell, which irreversibly had been cast over me. And the sight of her smooth, slim body with the fur, which glistened in the midday sun, the extraordinary long tail and the big paws for a few minutes caused me to consider to just stay here instead of hunting some monsters.

"Right over there on the right the Via dei Fori Imperiali leads to the Piazza Venezia, Francis", my Roman lover said, and agitatedly she looked around as if it was possible that she got sucked into the metropolis' dangerous whirl any second. "There are traffic lights in abundance. You just need to wait long enough until a moped with the Vatican license plate number stops at one of them. The letters SCV and the Vatican crest are stamped in them. Most of the time, a cleric sits on the moped, on the back there's usually a basket for the daily shopping. Just hop in, be quiet as a mouse during the drive, and eventually you will end up in Vatican City. However, how you are going to find Miracolo once you got there, I leave to your apt.i.tude."

We rubbed at each other's cheeks and moist noses for one last time.

"Vale, Francis!" she said and gave me a long melancholic look. Then she turned to go.

"No, not farewell, Sancta!" I replied. I guess that my facial expression was also dripping with melancholy now. "I will come back to you and induct you in the pleasures of chaos. And not only that. You are in Rome, the culinary Mecca of the whole planet. You are going to shovel so many delicacies into your stomach that you will eventually long for a rotten fishbone. I know some restaurant with an excellent cuisine. In other words, I ask you to dinner!"

The jubilant smile that spread on her face resembled the midday sun.

"O, just one more thing", I said. "Do you maybe know the reason for Umberto's life crisis, which made him become a priest?"

"I don't really know details. But he once talked to himself, and at that he mentioned very sad things. He said he used to have a family who were killed three years ago in a catastrophe abroad. His wife and his three little children apparently died in the most awful way one can imagine."

A pause ensued, in which all sounds around us seemed to be sucked off by a vacuum pump and as if time stood still. In my mind's eye, the movements around us, but above all the movements of my lover expanded into intolerable slowness, when she spoke to me with her sweet black mouth: "Nisi ad me redibis, non melior eris quam stupida mortuaque larva, Francis!"

And the slow motion effect still lasted when she turned her back at me and finally disappeared between the line of columns and rampant bushes. It's certainly true what people say about the korat cat and its halo. When she was gone, it seemed to me as if someone had suddenly turned off the light at this idyllic tableau. But also her last words to me were true. If I didn't come back to her, then I certainly wasn't better than some stupid dead ghost. At that one that was to be dipped into sulphur and lava in h.e.l.l every day!

But I would come back. For that reason alone that not for all coffee in Brazil I wanted to miss out on watching this pet.i.te body bloat like a pumpkin in ideal weather conditions two weeks from now. And exactly with this alleged blemish I would constantly tease the mother of my future children. At our morning meeting, Sancta had been on the climax of her fertility, which I had sensed. A thing that made me even more happy than sprouting father's pride was something not a single dad nowadays can hope for: My children would speak Latin

fluently! (4)

Sancta's tip turned out to be worth a mint. I scampered along the busy Via dei Fori Imperiali to the Piazza Venezia, where the artificial mountain Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II made from light travertine towers with its giant perrons. The Italians also disdainfully call this "the typewriter", due to its unusual shape. Here, I only had to wait next to a traffic light for a cab with a Vatican car sign, and off I was to the state of the Impeccable.

The churchman on his moped, who stopped next to the sidewalk because of a red sign, shared Gustav's pet.i.te figure so the motorbike's suspension prostrated a little. Yet, I didn't have to pa.s.s on convenience in two respects. Firstly, there was a wire basket attached to the carrier, just like Sancta had predicted. In a single soundless bound I was in it and made myself comfortable between potatoes, leeks and eggplants. On the other hand the modern moped didn't have anything in common with the loudly rattling motorino with a frugal suspension, which provoked slipped disk at every b.u.mp, which I knew from old Sophia Loren movies. Our pope mobile for average pay grades literally hovered over the asphalt.

And that's how my chauffeur and I flew along the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II in G.o.d's name half of Rome was named after this Emanuele II apparently , reached the good old Tiber, which flowed away in the most impervious moss-green, crossed the, guess what, Vittorio-Emanuele-II-bridge, made a turn to the left at the Castel Sant Angelo, and finally found our way into the Via della Conciliazione. There must be few people in this world who have ever heard of this street name, however, many who have a picture of these street in their minds. As this street offers the free and billionfold photographed view at St. Peter's Square and the dome of the St. Peter's Cathedral. Even the Protestant poet Schiller once raved about this estate of the pope: "A true kingdom of heaven is his house. As these shapes are not from this world." And so it comes apparent again that a good architect is well worth the money.

As I drove towards the capital of the Catholics, I remembered that of all things this access was due to the signature of a previously mentioned nice guy, namely the fascist dictator Mussolini, who had hoped to gain broader support from the people by aligning with the Catholic church. On February 11, 1929 he granted the Vatican autonomy with all consequences according to international law. Fortunately, today wasn't Wednesday, when the pope usually blesses pilgrims from all over the world at St. Peter's Square. There had been no getting through otherwise. There was a lukewarm stir on the broad boulevard, while St. Peter's Cathedral with its t.i.tanic dome towered next to us like a ma.s.sif hewed by Michelangelo. Groups of priests, nuns and pilgrims made their way to the cathedral or were already on their way home, with enraptured faces after hours of sightseeing. There were devotional objects of the pope or Christian bookstores all over the place; such a density of crucifixes and rosaries must be unique in this world.

To me being hurled from one millennial kingdom to another caused a proper dizziness. There's the following reason for the control center of the latter kingdom, which in contrary to the Roman empire hasn't lost any of its influence, is situated so far from the city center: In the year 280 or so the wealthy family Laterani had given some buildings and their garden to one of all sects, who believed that a man from Nazareth had been G.o.d's son. And according to the apostles Saint Peter had suffered the ordeal in this spot in either 64 or 67 AD. It's true that I store G.o.d in my heart, regardless of where I'm standing or going, and I feel embraced by Him even though I don't go to church on a regular basis, but only those, who have once faced this biggest church in the world, are able to conceive the power of faith. At the end of the street my driver made a turn to the left and decreased the pace down to step speed. I jumped at the opportunity and out of the wire basket, and ran towards St. Peter's Square!

The Piazza San Pietro is a perfect creation regardless of it being filled with tens of thousands, sometimes even with hundreds of thousands or being rather deserted like right now. At full tilt, the May sun shone on the 790-feet-long ellipse with the high Egyptian obelisk in its center and caused striking shadows. 284 pillars and 88 travertine piers, which looked like widely outstretched arms, encompa.s.sed the oval in rows of four. White striped intarsia imbedded in the pavement functioned as dividing sections and led towards the middle. Two tall fountains with giant granite bowls on their sides enlivened the square with their high plumes of water.

The black-dressed clerical people, here and there also some tourists and pilgrims, who usually were chased in groups from one sight to the next by tourist guides, petered out in the broad square. In its middle, I stood like petrified and almost wasn't able to break away from the cathedrals about 165 feet high monster-facade with its differently shaped pillars, columns, windows, doors and balconies. It was an unbelievable decoration, its pieces stepped back and forth, inwards and outwards in every imaginable way, without any reason or cause. The facade was crowned by 20-feet-high statues of Christ with the cross, John the Baptist and the apostles. Through the five doors with brazen railings I saw that through the dome windows sunlight flooded the inside in the shape of giant lances. The builders of this house had used all their creativity to create the impression that the Almighty didn't live anywhere else but here. And what I can say, I also believed in that now!

After the first enchantment had subsided a little, I remembered my mission. Miracolo where in the nucleus of the Catholic universe might His Holiness be? After all Vatican City embraces 0,17 square miles, and besides St. Peter's Cathedral there are countless buildings, parks and gardens, yeah even a train station and a heliport in the lateral and rear areas. I was tempted to use the tasteless comparison with finding a needle in a haystack but quickly noticed that my plan actually was even more desperate. It seemed unlikely that the colleague, who according to Sancta behaved even more papal than the pope, would just run into me by accident. In this minute, he probably sat in the pope's lap and bathed in his glory. Maybe I had made a mistake when I had rushed here reflexively at the mentioning of his name instead of adoring my Roman G.o.ddess a little longer.

Before I let myself get totally overwhelmed by desperation, I decided to at least do my Christian duty and have a look at the cathedral's inside. As to be in Rome without seeing the workshop of the deputy of Christ, would indeed have verged on blasphemy. The only question was if the soldiers of the Swiss Guards, who were standing in front of the church's doors would allow a fellow to pa.s.s who wasn't just hairy on his head, at his armpits and a little further down. I had heard that they sometimes couldn't stop school of pigeons from flying inside and that because of that there was a certain tolerance towards animal invaders from time to time. If this applied to representatives of the Felidae, I was about to find out.

I raised my right paw in order to boldly kick it off ...

"Il Pius stupido ha trovato morto! Il Pius stupido ha trovato morto! ..." I suddenly heard some drowning yelling from both sides, which made my raised paw freeze in motion. The yells probably wouldn't have shocked me so much, hadn't they been uttered by my kind and if it hadn't been for the little word "morto". "Stupid Pius found bodies!" What was that supposed to mean?

I put my paw back to the floor and moved my head from side to side. And when I looked back again, two fellows on each side of me streaked pa.s.s me and nervously ran towards the Bernini Colonnades on our right. It was a piebald, a fat gray one, and two more figures that I wasn't able to identify in regard of color, race or s.e.x. Totally taken by surprise at first, I quickly composed myself and ran after them.

"What is all this buzz about, folks?" I shouted to my fellow runners after I had caught up on them.

"Stupid Pius has found bodies!" the piebald panted while he ran like it was for his life.

"I already got that. But who is stupid Pius? And who are these bodies anyway?"

"What? You don't know stupid Pius?"

I was afraid the guy might have a coronary any minute.

"Guess what, no! Will I get excommunicated now?"

He gave me a suspicious look as if I was a wacko Muslim.

"Everyone here knows stupid Pius", he said. "And if you don't know him, then you're not part of the Vatican circle and better go fry an egg!"

"O my, I beg your pardon a thousand times, but did your Reverence have some nasty problems taking a s.h.i.+t this morning or why are you behaving like this?"

The four shared confused looks, which also contained a little fear. Having to listen to impious talk right after the jeremiad of the discovered bodies seemed too much for them. One of them eventually indicated with a lukewarm nod that I was to follow them.

Meanwhile we had pa.s.sed the sprawling arch of the colonnade and slipped through the holes and cracks inside the sidewall, which were just as big enough to fit our girth. The cathedral, mostly its dome, still towered above our heads like an omniscient observing Goliath, but the surroundings had turned into less gorgeous renaissance functional buildings. The Vatican Bank Inst.i.tuto per le Opere di Religione and the sleeping sheds of the Swiss Guards already lay behind us. Some doors stood open so that we could rush through the buildings. Pa.s.sing clerics had to brake sharply in the nick of time so they didn't trip over us. At that they cursed worse than Roman truckers.

Other openings turned out to be less comfortable. We had to enter dark cellars in the size of halls and had to leave through open windows. Just as we pa.s.sed through a dark hole between thousands of upended paintings, I realized that we happened to be in the fund of the Vatican Museum, one of the most important art collections in the world. Wait a minute, wasn't that a genuine Botticelli, that peeked out of this endless appearing gallery of dusty canvas? The picture ill.u.s.trated the almost-binding of Isaac through his own father's hand. How beautiful! Had I taken this great daub to Sotheby's, I would have been able to afford an original Ancient Christian catacomb as a toy for Gustav as well as an inflatable Forum Romanum on a scale of 1:1. But no time, no time, we had to run to this stupid Pius.

Meanwhile my piebald fellow runner had come off his high horse and had deigned to bandy some words.

"You will presently see Pius", he said. "Usually he isn't even able to find his own tail. The Almighty must have led him this time."

We left the buildings behind us and eventually reached the Vatican gardens. Miniature woods took turns with extended lawn areas, picturesque allies led to renaissance gardens which with their artfully cut bushes and pergolas, spherical, conical and pyramidal trees as well as several plays of water seemed to have arisen from the obsessions of a stickler for order rather than from Mother Nature. To our right lay the stirring nunnery from the Middle ages, to our left lay the office of the Governor of Vatican City.

Finally we reached a meadow that was embraced by a square which was planted with trees in lose intervals. In the middle of this square stood a Saint Bernard dog in the size of a grizzly! If this creature with its pendent chaps and its wrinkled face, that reminded me of melted plastic bulges, didn't weigh at least 220 lbs, I wanted to be called Scrooge McDuck from now on. The friendly giant had sat down and looked at the ground. In his gaze, emptiness, astonishment and cluelessness took turns at intervals of seconds. There were about ten representatives of my kind sitting with him in a circle, who also stared at the middle with bowed heads.

"Pius is the dog of a retired French cardinal, who enjoys his twilight years at Saint Martha's House", the piebald said while we now made for the group. "He is totally harmless and holds a, well, doglike kindness, but unfortunately he got the brains of a grub. The other day he mistook the Holy Father in his white gown for a snowman and howled the whole day because he was worried that he might melt in the sunlight. Turns out he made an explosive find about half an ago at one of his routine bone-digging missions."

That was more than an understatement, as when we reached the site of the find and I was confronted with the result of Pius' digging, the shock made me lose ground. I settled myself on the lawn and stared at the pit as horrified and quiet as all the others. The Saint Bernard and the fellows that had arrived before me had meanwhile enlargened the pit with their paws so that I could face the horror full-frontal. About two palms beneath the ground lay more than a dozen dead fellows, one superimposed on the other. Their number was hardly definable as the killer apparently hadn't been the diligent gravedigger and had scooped the pit just as deep as to squash all of the bodies inside. It was a cla.s.sical ma.s.s grave, even though a very straitened one.

The bodies were still partially covered with dirt, decayed and oozed a sickening sweet scent. At some of them worms, germs and decomposing gas had made amazing progress. Between yellow s.h.i.+mmering bones, extensively burst sections on the backs and stomachs by now offered sheer obscene insights into inner organs, which partially were barely existent anymore, partially still well "inhabited"! Leaked eyeb.a.l.l.s, that dripped from the orbits like transparent wax, scalps along with fur, which had scaled off partially and revealed cranial bones, torn open mouths with blackened ivories ... Given this horror everything whirled around me like the clappers, just as if I had been sitting inside a spin top. The same seemed to go for the others.