“You have returned, my dear friend.”
“Yes, my lord, and now you will be healed.”
At the door of the chamber, the king’s guard stood in the way of curious courtiers pushing forward to witness the reunion of the king and his best friend.
Josar helped Abgar sit up and he laid in his hands the cloth, which the king held tightly to his breast, though he knew not what it was.
“This is Jesus, and if you believe, you shall be healed. He told me that you would be made whole again, and he has sent me to you with this shroud.”
The firmness of Josar’s words, his deep conviction, gave hope to Abgar, who held the cloth yet more tightly against his body.
“I do believe,” said the king.
And his heart was true. And then the miracle happened. Color returned to the king’s face, and the traces of the disease faded. Abgar felt the strength returning to his blood and a sense of peace invading his spirit.
The queen wept silently, overcome by the miracle, while the soldiers and courtiers knew not how to explain the king’s sudden recovery.
“Abgar, Jesus has healed you, as he promised. This is the shroud in which his body was laid, for you must know, my lord, that Pilate, with the complicity of the Jewish priests, ordered that Jesus be tortured and crucified. But be not of heavy heart, for he has returned to his Father, and from his place on high he shall help us and help all mankind until the end of time.”
News of the miracle of the king’s healing spread quickly through the city and throughout the surrounding countryside. Abgar asked Josar to speak of Jesus, to continue the teachings of the Nazarene. He and the queen and all their subjects, he pledged, would take the religion of Jesus, and he ordered that the temples to the old gods be pulled down and that Josar preach to him and his people and make them followers of the Christ.
“What shall we do with the shroud, Josar?” Abgar asked his friend one day.
“My king, you must find a safe place for it. Jesus sent it to you that it might heal you, and we must preserve it from all harm. Many of your subjects have asked me to let them touch the cloth, and I tell you, it has worked yet further miracles.”
“I shall have a temple built, Josar.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Each day, as the sun rose in the east, Josar rose and began to write. His intention was to leave a written testament of the wonders done by Jesus, both those he had witnessed and those recounted to him by the companions of the master while he had lived in Jerusalem. That done, Josar would go to the palace and speak with Abgar, the queen, and many others of what he had learned of the teachings of the Nazarene.
He would see the wonder in their faces when he preached that one should not hate one’s neighbors or wish one’s enemies ill. Jesus had taught his followers to turn the other cheek.
Josar was supported in his desire to plant the seed of the teachings of Jesus not just by the king but also by the queen. And in a short time, Edessa was a Christian city, and Josar sent epistles to some of the companions of Jesus, those who, like him, took the good news to other towns and peoples.
When Josar had completed his history of the Nazarene, Abgar ordered his scribes to make copies, so that men might never forget the life and teachings of the extraordinary Jew who, even after his death, had healed a king.
AS HE PARKED HIS CAR OUTSIDE THE JAIL, MARCO thought he was probably wasting his time. Two years earlier, he hadn’t been able to get anything out of the tongueless man, or “the mute,” as he always called him. He’d brought in a doctor, a specialist, who examined the man and assured Marco that his hearing was perfect, that there was no physical reason he couldn’t hear. Yet the mute had remained so tightly locked within himself that it was hard to know whether he could really hear or, if he could, whether he had any understanding of what was being said to him. It was more than likely that the same thing would happen now, but Marco felt compelled to see him nevertheless.
The warden was not in, but he’d left orders that Marco was to be allowed to do whatever he asked. What he asked was to be left alone with the prisoner.
“No problem,” said the head jailer. “He’s a real quiet guy. He never makes any trouble—in fact, he’s kind of mystical, you know? He’d rather be in the chapel than out in the yard with the others. He hasn’t got much time left on his sentence; they let him off easy, three years. So another year and he’s on the street. If he’d had a lawyer he could’ve asked for early out on good behavior, but he didn’t. No lawyer, no visitors, nothing…”
“Does he understand when people talk to him?”
“Huh! Now, that’s a mystery! Sometimes you think so, sometimes not. Depends.”
“That clears that up.”
“It’s that the guy’s strange, you know? I mean, I’d never take him for a thief; he sure doesn’t act like one. He spends all his time looking straight ahead or sitting in the chapel.”
“Does he ever read or write? He’s never put in a request for books, a newspaper, anything?”
“No, never. He never watches television—he’s not even interested in the World Cup. He’s never gotten mail, and he doesn’t write to anybody.”
When the mute entered the interview room where Marco was waiting for him, his eyes showed no surprise—just indifference. He remained standing near the door, his eyes lowered slightly, his posture expectant but unfearing.
Marco gestured for him to sit down, but the man remained on his feet.
“I don’t know whether you understand me or not, but I suspect you do.”
The mute raised his eyes off the floor slightly, in a gesture that would be imperceptible to anyone not a professional in human behavior—but Marco was a professional.
“Your friends have broken into the cathedral again. This time they set a fire. Fortunately, the shroud was unharmed.”
The man betrayed not the slightest reaction. His features remained unmoving, seemingly without any effort on his part. Yet Marco had the impression that his probes, his flailings in the dark, were hitting something. Perhaps, after two years in prison, the mute was more vulnerable than when he’d been arrested.
“I suppose it makes a man desperate, being in here. I won’t waste your time, because I don’t want to waste mine either. You had a year left, and I say ‘had’ because we’ve reopened your case in the course of our investigation of this fire in the cathedral a few days ago. A man was burned to death—a man without a tongue, like you. So you may have a long wait in jail while we proceed, tie up all the loose ends—two, three, four years, it’s hard to say. Which brings me to why I’m here. If you let me know who you are and who your friends are, we might be able to reach an agreement. I’d try to convince the authorities to let you out early, and if you’re afraid of your friends, you could go into our witness protection program. That means a new identity, and that means that your friends could never find you. Think about it. It could take me a week or it could take me ten years to close this case, but as long as it’s open, you’ll be sitting in this prison, rotting.”
Marco proffered a card with his phone numbers.
“If you want to get in touch with me, show this card to the guards; they’ll call me.”
Nothing. Marco left the card on the table.
“It’s your life, not mine.”
As he left the interview room he avoided the temptation to look back. He’d played the role of the tough cop and one of two things had happened—either he’d wasted a little time or, against the odds, he’d managed to plant the seed of doubt in the man’s mind and he just might react.
When the mute returned to his cell, he fell onto his cot and stared up at the ceiling. He knew security cameras covered every inch of the chamber, so he had to remain impassive.
A year—he had thought he would be free again in a year. Now this man had told him it might be ten years. It could be a bluff, but it could also be the truth.
Since he deliberately shunned the television and other sources of news in
the prison, he knew almost nothing of what was happening in the outside world. Addaio had told them that if they were captured they were to isolate themselves, serve out their sentence, and find a way back home.
Now Addaio had sent another team. He’d tried again. A fire, a brother dead, and the police once more searching for clues.
In prison he had had time to think, and the conclusion was obvious: There was a traitor among them. It was not possible otherwise that every time they planned an action something went wrong and somebody wound up in prison or dead.
Yes, there was a traitor among them, and there’d been one in the past as well. He was certain of that. He had to go back and make Addaio see that, convince him to investigate, find the person responsible for so many failures and for his own misery, the years in jail.
But he had to wait, whatever that meant to him personally. If this man had offered him a deal, it was because he had nowhere else to turn. It was a bluff, and he couldn’t fall for it. His strength came from his resolute silence, the strict isolation he imposed on himself, the vows he had made. He had been well trained for this. But how terribly he had suffered during these two years without a book, without news from the outside world, without communicating, even by signs, with the other prisoners.
He had convinced the guards that he was a poor inoffensive mental case, remorseful at having tried to steal from the cathedral, which was why he sat in the chapel and prayed. That’s what he’d heard them say when they talked about him. He knew they felt sorry for him. Now he must go on playing his role and hope that they trusted him and would talk in front of him. They did that all the time, because for them, he was just part of the furniture.
He had deliberately left the man’s card on the table in the interview room. He had not even touched it. Now he had to wait—wait for another year to pass.
“He left the card right where you put it—didn’t even touch it.” The warden had called Marco to report the status of his prisoner, as promised.
“And have you noticed anything unusual these past few days?”
“Nothing. He’s the same as always. He goes to the chapel when he’s out of his cell, and when he’s in his cell he’s staring at the ceiling. The cameras record him twenty-four hours a day. If he did anything unusual I’d call you.”
“Thanks.”
Marco hung up. He thought he’d struck a nerve, but he was wrong. The investigation was going nowhere.
Minerva would be arriving any minute. He’d asked her to come to Turin because he wanted the entire team on hand. Maybe if they all sat down together they’d be able to see something.
They’d stay on in Turin for two or three more days, but then they had to go back to Rome; they couldn’t devote themselves exclusively to this case—that wouldn’t fly with the department, much less the ministries. And the worst thing that could happen would be somebody starting to think he was obsessed. The guys upstairs were already restive—the shroud was unharmed, no damage done, nothing taken from the cathedral. There was the body of one of the perps, of course, but nobody had figured out who he was, and nobody seemed to care much either.
Sofia and Pietro walked into the office. Giuseppe had gone to the airport to pick up Minerva, and Antonino, always punctual, had been there for some time, reading files.
Sofia raised a hand in greeting.
“How’re things, boss?”
“Great. The warden assures me the mute hasn’t taken the bait—it’s like I was never there.”
“That sounds like the way he’s acted since the beginning,” said Pietro.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
A peal of laughter and the clacking of high heels announced the arrival of Minerva. She and Giuseppe came in, laughing.
The atmosphere brightened with Minerva’s arrival, as it always did. She was happily married to a software engineer who, like her, was an authentic computer genius, and she seemed to be in a perpetual good mood.
After the usual round of greetings, the meeting got under way.
“Okay,” said Marco, “let’s go over what we’ve got. And when we’re done I want each and every one of you to give me your opinion. Pietro, you start.”
“First, the fire. The company that’s doing the work in the cathedral is named COCSA. I’ve interrogated everyone who’s working on the electrical system—nobody knows anything, and I think they’re telling the truth. Most of them are Italian, although there are a couple of immigrants: two Turks and three Albanians. Their papers are all in order, including work permits.
“According to them, they get to the cathedral every morning at eight-thirty, as the first Mass is ending. As soon as the worshippers leave, the doors are closed and there are no more services until six in the evening, when the workers go home. They take a break for lunch, from one-thirty to four. At four sharp they’re back, and they get off at six.
“Although the electrical system is not all that old, they’re removing it to install better lighting in some of the chapels. They’re also repairing some of the walls—humidity has caused chunks of stucco to come loose and drop off. They figure that they’d have been done in two or three more weeks.
“None of them remembers anything unusual happening the day of the fire. In the area where the fire broke out, there were three men working: one of the Turks—a guy named Tariq—and two Italians. They say they can’t understand how the short circuit happened. All three of them swear they left the wiring in order when they went to lunch at a little tavern near the cathedral. They have no idea how it happened.”
“But it did happen,” said Sofia.
Pietro glared at her and went on:
“The workers are happy with the company; they say the pay is good and the bosses treat them well. They told me that Padre Yves oversees the work in the cathedral, that he’s a nice guy but he doesn’t miss a thing, and that he’s very clear about how he wants the work done. They see the cardinal when he officiates at the eight o’clock Mass and a couple of times when he’s reviewed the work with Padre Yves.”
Marco lit a cigarette, despite Minerva’s reproachful look.
“But,” Pietro went on, “the experts’ report is conclusive. Apparently some cables that were hanging above the altar in the Virgin Chapel touched and caused a short circuit; that’s where the fire started. An accident? Oversight? Neglect? Hard to say. The workers swear they left the cables apart, in perfect condition, but we have to ask ourselves whether that’s true or just self-justification. I interviewed Padre Yves. He assured me the workers have always seemed very professional, but he’s convinced that somebody fucked up. Not a direct quotation, by the way.”
“Who was in the cathedral at the time of the fire?” asked Marco.
“Apparently,” Pietro answered, “just the porter, an older guy, about sixty-five. People are in the offices until two, when they go to lunch. They come back around four-thirty. The fire started around three, so the porter was the only one there. He was in shock. When I interrogated him he broke down crying; he was scared, you could tell. His name is Francesco Turgut—an Italian citizen, father Turkish, mother Italian. Born and raised in Turin. His father worked at Fiat, and his mother was the daughter of the porter in the cathedral and helped him clean it. The Church maintains a house for the porter that actually shares a wall with the cathedral, and when Turgut’s mother and father married, they moved in with the mother’s parents, into the porter’s residence. Francesco was born there; the cathedral is his home, and he says he feels guilty for not having been able to prevent the fire.”
“Did he hear anything?” Minerva asked.
“No, he was watching TV and was half asleep. He gets up early to open the cathedral and the office annex. He says he jumped up when somebody rang the buzzer at the door. A man passing by in the piazza alerted him to the smoke. He ran in and discovered the fire and immediately set off the alarm and called the firemen. Since then he’s been beside himself—all he does is cry. He says he walked through the cathedral before clos
ing it up, and nobody was there. Part of his work is precisely that—seeing that nobody remains inside. He swears that when he turned off the lights, the cathedral was empty.”
“So what do you think?” Marco asked him. “Was it set intentionally, or do you think it was caused by neglect or some sort of accident?”
Pietro hesitated. “If we hadn’t found the body, I’d say it was an accident. But we’ve got the body of a man we don’t know anything about, except that he’s missing a tongue, just like the other guy. What was he doing there?
“Plus,” Pietro went on, “somebody, in fact, broke in. The side door to the offices was forced. You can get from there to the cathedral. There are marks on the doorjamb. Whoever it was knew how to get in and how to get inside the cathedral. Since he did it without attracting the porter’s attention, we assume he did it pretty quietly and when he knew there’d be nobody there.”
“We’re sure,” Giuseppe put in, “that the thief, or thieves, knew somebody who works in the cathedral or has some relationship to it. Somebody who told them that that day, at that hour, there wouldn’t be anybody around.”
“Why are we sure of that?” Minerva asked.
“Because in this fire,” Giuseppe said, “as in the purported robbery attempt two years ago, as in the fire in ’97, as in all the other ‘accidents,’ the thieves knew there was no one inside. There’s just one entrance besides the main entrance that’s open to the public—the entrance to the offices. The others are permanently boarded over. And it’s always been that side door that’s been forced. The door is reinforced, but that’s no problem for professionals. We think there were other men with our dead guy and they got away. Raiding a cathedral is not something one man does alone. According to the records, all these incidents have taken place when work is being done on the church. Whoever these guys are, they seem to take advantage of repairs to get people in there when no one else is around, maybe short-circuit some wiring or flood the place or otherwise create chaos. But this time, like all the times before, they didn’t take anything. Which is why we keep asking ourselves—what were they looking for?”