The Last Ember (46 page)

And now here they were, old men. Francesco Inocenti, a ranking administrator of the Roman Curia, and Mosè Orvieti, the archivist, both icons in their communities.

“What is it, Mosè?”

Orvieti was firm in his purpose. Beneath his pant leg, the skin of his shins and calves were shredded from having kicked through the stained glass, but he did not mention the injury or the pain he was in.

“The menorah,” Orvieti said.

“Mosè.” The cardinal fell silent. He nodded to the Swiss Guard, and the sentry left the room. “You know I am not at liberty to discuss any matter related to the menorah. Not since the concordance of 1998. You were part of the meeting with—”

“The deal was not made with me,” Orvieti said. “It was made with the state of Israel.”

Technically, Mosè Orvieti was correct. The cardinal had been referring to a secret meeting between the state of Israel and the Vatican, stemming from a panel of Israeli archaeologists’ request to investigate the whereabouts of the Tabernacle menorah. The archaeologists portrayed a convincing picture of history that led to the menorah being stored in the Vatican archives. They had prepared extensive sources from Theophanes Confessor and other monks of Constantinople to show that as late as the eleventh century, historical documents reported a massive candelabrum deep inside Byzantine palaces that corresponded to the modern location of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. And the Fourth Crusade’s sack of Constantinople in 1204, the Israelis argued, would have brought the menorah back to Rome and into the Vatican Archives. But the spokesman for the Vatican Library was unresponsive. After the meeting, diplomats from the state of Israel who accompanied the archaeologists signed a diplomatic agreement not to pursue the matter. The agreement was reached in exchange for the permanent loan of some priceless Jewish manuscripts confiscated by the Vatican during the persecution of the Italian Jewish community in the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries. The state of Israel returned home with enough rare manuscripts to fill a new wing in the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv. But they received no clear answer regarding their original request.

“They came here, Mosè, some of the most eminent biblical archaeologists in the world. The charts they brought . . .” The cardinal fell silent, staring absently at the fire. “How they competently mapped out its journey, suggesting it wound up here, as though somehow all the evidence they had gathered could magically make it so.” His tone was respectful; empathetic, although with an edge of condescension. “Of course, even if those archaeologists’ presumptions were correct, even if the Church took possession of the menorah from the vaults beneath the
Heptalychnos
in Constantinople in 1204 C.E.”—the cardinal used the abbreviation for “common era,” as a courtesy for his guest, rather than
anno Domini
—“you know I still could not possibly share that information. Mosè, more than anyone I know, you understand that an archive’s greatest protection is its secrecy.”

“You have the menorah taken by Titus during his sack of Jerusalem,” Orvieti said evenly.

Cardinal Inocenti said nothing for a moment, taken aback by Mosè’s bold assertion.

“But it is not the menorah from Herod’s Temple,” Orvieti continued. “It is a replica. It is a replica that has been fought and died for countless times, stolen and stolen in return throughout the Middle Ages.” Orvieti pushed himself forward in the chair. “And during the early 1700s, one of the Church goldsmiths, Luigi Valadier, realized that. The artifact in the Vatican’s secret archives did not match the proportions laid out in the Book of Exodus, and his exhaustive research of the Church’s Josephus manuscripts suggested the true specimen was not pillaged by Roman troops at all. It was a theory so controversial that Luigi Valadier was found drowned before it could be proved. He had told only one person of his theory: his son, Giuseppe Valadier. A decade later, when Napoleon decided to rip up the Colosseum as an amateur archaeologist, Giuseppe agreed, no doubt controversially, to assist. Valadier could now explore the Colosseum in search of the truth. But what Valadier found was not the final stage of his
father’s
research, but the beginning. He found Josephus’s first clues leading to the original menorah, and that began his private crusade. He discovered a map of Jerusalem inside the Domus Aurea and preserved it on the wall of a synagogue in the Ghetto in Rome. Josephus’s message was on the brink of extinction, and as the consummate restorer, Valadier alone kept it alive. What greater act of restoration is there than returning the sacred vessel of Jerusalem to the very people from whom it was robbed two thousand years before?” Orvieti finished speaking.

“Giuseppe Valadier was a religious man,” the cardinal said. “Yes, he bequeathed his sketches to the Jews rather than to the Vatican, but you are suggesting he told the Holy See nothing of this?”

“The Jewish community in Rome was prone to pillage. Valadier knew that Josephus’s final message must reside in a secure place, so he entrusted the message to the Holy See, from whom it has been passed down from one papacy to the next.”

“How do you—” Cardinal Inocenti began, but gathered himself and fell silent.

“He is back in Rome,” Orvieti said. “To find it.”

“How is that possib—” Fear flashed in the cardinal’s eyes. He rose and began to pace in front of the fire. “By now, they must have all the information they require.”

“Not all the information,” Orvieti said. “I believe Pope John Paul the Second signaled a message to the chief rabbi of Rome. I believe he revealed the line in Josephus that describes the menorah’s location.”

The cardinal’s gaze fell to the floor. He knew the return of sacred relics was a private passion of Pope John Paul II. He recalled the former pontiff ’s controversial decision to restore the bones of two Middle Age saints, which Orthodox Christians had sought for centuries.

“I remember how moved
il papa
was when he visited the Great Synagogue in Rome. ‘Open for me a pinhole of light, and I will broaden it to a sanctuary,’ he said. But I don’t remember him passing on any information to the chief rabbi. Even if
il papa
had information,” Inocenti said, “he could not have disclosed it. Rules of the secrecy governing the Curia would—”

“Have applied only during his lifetime,” Orvieti interrupted, “which is why the pope left the message posthumously. As papal chamberlain, you would have been the emissary to the chief rabbi of Rome. You would have seen any additional messages between them. The comment would have been obscure, a hint at best.”

Cardinal Inocenti crossed the black-and-white marble floor, glaring at the tile as though it were about to sin.

“Before he died, His Holiness asked me to pass on a line of scripture to the rabbi of the Ghetto,” Cardinal Inocenti said, picturing the pope’s hand tightening around his, dictating the letter with his last breaths. “He quoted from Deuteronomy, chapter six, verses seven and nine. ‘Teach these matters diligently to your children. . . . And you shall write them on your doorposts.’ That is all that His Holiness said.”

“A mezuzah,” Orvieti said. He pushed his small frame from the chair with great effort. Orvieti knew that the Bible twice commanded to write the word of God upon the doorposts of one’s house. Many of the medieval homes that still stood in the Ghetto had the ritual scrolls buried inside their stone doorframes. “The information is in a scroll parchment on a doorpost,” Orvieti said. “But which doorpost?”

Orvieti closed his eyes, turning the possibilities in his mind.
Valadier excavated in the Colosseum, the Domus Aurea . . .
his eyes widened . . .
and the Arch of Titus.
“Of course,” he spoke softly. “A doorpost.”

“Are you all right, Mosè?”

“Francesco, do you have any drawings or photographs of the Arch of Titus?”

Within minutes, a priest returned from the adjacent Sala Consultazione Manoscritti with a book of Vatican restorations of monuments in the Roman Forum.

“Here,” Cardinal Inocenti said, turning to a black-and-white photograph of the nineteenth-century inscription on the Arch of Titus.

“Giuseppe Valadier restored the Arch of Titus on behalf of Pope Pius the Seventh in 1821.”

That is why he bequeathed his drawings to the synagogue.
Orvieti understood at last.
Valadier discovered that Josephus’s clues led to the Arch of Titus.
He leaned over, staring more closely at the photograph of the Arch of Titus’s pediment, searching for anything unusual.

“There,” Orvieti said, pointing at the end of the arch’s dedicatory inscription.

“Valadier is simply dating his completion of the arch to the twenty-fourth year of Pope Pius the Seventh’s reign—” Cardinal Inocenti stopped. “It
is
curious, though,” he said, pointing at the Roman numeral XXIIII
.
“The spelling of the Roman numeral four is, admittedly, unusual,” the cardinal said. “Ancient Romans used IIII, refraining from using the IV because of the letters’ pagan sanctity as the beginning of the name of the god IVPITER. So, predictably, early Church Fathers made a deliberate point of using IV in everyday usage, a statement against the pagan god for whom those letters were reserved.” Francesco again pointed at the line. “But here Valadier spelled the number according to its ancient Roman style, IIII. It might have been an oversight.”

Not an oversight at all,
Orvieti knew, taking a step backward as he felt a sudden strength.

“Thank you, Francesco. Thank you for your help.”

“But Mosè, we need to bandage that leg, you can’t just—”

Orvieti barely heard him.
A mezuzah on the Arch of Titus.
The pagan monument that announced the pillage of Jerusalem’s menorah actually possessed the secret of its survival.

“No,” Orvieti said. “What you have just done is more than enough.” He lowered his tone to a whisper as he hurried out. “You showed me where the answer has been all along.”

J
onathan jogged into the ruins of the Roman Forum, sneaking through the northern exit gate, adjacent to the Mamertine Prison. He weaved through a tour group and walked briskly, past the rostrum and toward the Arch of Titus. His leg muscles ached as he walked up the Via Sacra’s incline toward the arch’s higher elevation.

The drizzle stopped and Rome’s afternoon sun peeked through, brightening the air with a vividness that comes only after days of rain.

Jonathan approached the Arch of Titus. At the academy, he had studied its single-arched opening of travertine stone, which would become a model for all of Rome’s subsequent triumphal arches. But the historical importance of the arch now seemed trivial compared to what may have been hidden inside for two thousand years.

Jonathan surveyed the height of the arch’s attic. It was over twelve feet high—higher than necessary to hide the tabernacle’s eight-foot lamp of gold. Jonathan imagined Josephus and his men hoisting the massive object into the attic in the dead of night. The millennia-old tradition among Roman Jews not to stand beneath the arch suddenly made sense. The presence of the Temple menorah resting above the arch had hallowed the ground beneath it.

But all of this was trivialized by Jonathan’s dread.
Emili.

On his way to the Forum, he must have thought a dozen times about going to the authorities. He could not go to the carabinieri without Lieutenant Rufio knowing, but he considered the American embassy, the law firm, even the New York City Police Department’s international desk. But as his panic settled, he realized he could trust no one.
The UN director?
Jonathan was still bewildered.
He knows more than you can imagine,
she had said.

He circled the arch, searching for any signs of entry or recent excavation. A thin aluminum scaffolding had been constructed to clean the western façade, but the pediment was solid stone, allowing for no access to the arch.

He climbed up on the arch’s ashlar base, surveying the Forum park for any signs of Chandler. He began to worry that their phone call was cut short intentionally. His eyes moved rapidly over the ruins.
No sign of Chandler.

Jonathan stepped beneath the underside of the arch and peered up at its sculptured foliage, which descended to two bas-reliefs lining the passageway. Jonathan stood there, staring at the western interior relief, the arch’s most famous element and perhaps the most famous bas-relief in all of Rome: the deeply carved depiction of a triumphal procession with the wreathed Roman soldiers carrying the menorah shoulder-high through the city. Jonathan knew the marching of Roman victory through city streets had become a frequent practice to celebrate military conquests. But his observations about this famous scene meant infinitely more now than they had in some graduate school seminar.
Emili’s life could depend on them.

Jonathan moved closer to the carved relief, so close that he could touch a stone captive of Jerusalem following behind the Roman soldier in the relief.

“Where did you put it?” Jonathan said softly to the stone. The sculpted figure on the arch seemed to march past him, ignoring his desperation. Frustrated and exhausted and standing in the cold, Jonathan stepped closer to the relief and screamed.
“Did—you—put—it—in—the—arch?”

The sound of his voice echoed beneath the stone pillars. The Forum was still, except for some elderly tourists who steered clear of the young madman.

“Yes,” said a weak voice, and for a moment, Jonathan thought the stones had answered.

Jonathan turned around to see Mosè Orvieti. He stood very still, his pants stained dark brown with dried blood.

“Signor Orvieti,” Jonathan said, “are you all right?”

But Orvieti was not concerned with himself.

“Where is she?” he asked.

Jonathan said nothing.

With an almost mystical understanding, Orvieti walked toward him. “You have to find it, don’t you?”