The Quest: A Novel

Addis.”
    The old priest was following some words. Mercado turned to him. “If I showed you a picture of this cardinal as he looked in 1935, would you—”
    “Yes. Of course. I could not forget that face.”
    Realizing that Father Armano might not live long enough to see a photograph, Mercado asked, “Was this cardinal tall, thin? Aquiline nose? Light-complexioned?” He added a few more details.
    “That could be him. Yes.”
    Mercado leaned closer to Father Armano and asked, “And did His Holiness say anything to you?”
    “Yes. He came right up to us. We were standing, of course. He seemed a kind man. He even tried to speak in the Sicilian dialect. He spoke it with a bad accent, but no one laughed, of course. He spoke of humility and obedience… he spoke of duty and he spoke of the Church, the true Church. He said we should treat the priests of the Ethiopian church with respect, but also with firmness… He did not mention the envelopes. The cardinal still had them on his person. His Holiness seemed not to know of the mission sometimes, but other times he seemed to know. The words were general. You understand? He blessed us and left. The cardinal then gave everyone an envelope and also we took an oath of secrecy. I am still bound bythat oath, but I must tell you all that happened, so I am breaking my oath. It is of no importance after such a long time… And we made the oath under false…” His voice trailed off.
    Mercado touched his arm and said, “It’s all right, Father—”
    “Yes. Yes. Let me finish. So, we were taken to the Piazza Venezia. There was a military procession there. Tanks, cannons, trucks. I had never seen such things. It seemed that all Italy was in uniform. And he was there, also. The new Caesar, Il Duce. He stood like Caesar on a balcony. I did not like that man. He was too much with guns and the talk of war. And the king was there too. Victor Emmanuel. A decent man. Is he…?”
    “Dead. There are no more kings, Father. Go on.”
    “Yes. Dead. Everyone is dead. Forty years is a long time. Yes… I must finish. In the piazza they had the ceremony of the blessing of the guns. They put us to work, the priests from Sicily. We helped with the blessing. Then His Holiness arrived. He blessed the guns also. I did not like this. His Holiness stood with the king and Mussolini. Then came the cardinal, Eugenio. I was close to them. They spoke very intently. All the parade was going by for them, and the soldiers marched, but they paid no attention. I did not like the looks in their eyes. I was that close. Perhaps I imagined all this later… in the prison. The looks in their eyes, I mean. Perhaps they were talking about something else. Who knows? But I felt then, or maybe later, that they were talking about the thing…” His voice cracked and he stopped speaking.
    Purcell picked up the canteen, but Mercado grabbed his arm. “You’ll kill him, Frank.”
    “If he doesn’t have a bad stomach wound, we’re killing him with dehydration. If it’s bad, then he’s dead anyway. We can’t get him to a doctor for hours.”
    Mercado nodded.
    Purcell emptied the canteen over the old priest’s mouth, saying to Mercado, “Keep him on track, Henry. The monastery.”
    Mercado said, “I’m starting to feel guilty about pushing a dying priest to stick to the facts and give us a good story.”
    Purcell replied, “The whole point of the Catholic religion is guilt.”
    Mercado ignored him and asked Father Armano, “Would you like to rest?”
    “No. I must finish.” Father Armano continued, “The next day I was brought to an infantry battalion. The soldiers were all peasants from my province in Sicily. We went to a boat and the boat sailed for many days. And we sailed through Egypt and we could see Egypt on both sides of the canal. The boat went to Masawa, in Eritrea. You know the place? This was the new Caesar’s African empire. He called us his legions. ‘Go to Africa,’ he said, ‘and make Ethiopia Italian.’ In Masawa our engineers were building the harbor. Ships arrived with soldiers and tanks… there was going to be a war. A fool could see that. The army marched to Asmara. It rained every day. But then the dry season began… The governor of Eritrea assembled the army in front of his palace. He read us a telegram from Il Duce. ‘Avanti! I order you to begin the advance.’ Then a general—I cannot recall his name—he read a proclamation. He spoke of the new Fascist Italy and of