The Mephisto Club

divine agony of martyrdom. After a long and uncomfortable illness, all she’d managed was a disappointingly ordinary death. As Lily labored up the hill, she thought:
I have seen visions of Hell, too. But I want no part of martyrdom. I want to live. I’ll do anything to live.
    By the time she climbed to the Basilica di San Domenico, her T-shirt was soaked with sweat. She stood panting at the top of the hill, gazing down upon the city, its tiled roofs blurred to soft focus in the summery haze. It was a view that made her heart ache, because she knew she would have to leave it. Already she’d lingered in Siena longer than she should have, and she could now feel the evil catching up to her, could almost smell its faint, foul odor wafting in on the wind. All around her, doughy-thighed tourists swarmed the hilltop, but she stood in silent isolation, a ghost among the living.
Already dead,
she thought.
For me, this is borrowed time.
    “Excuse me, Miss? Do you speak English?”
    Startled, Lily turned to see a middle-aged man and woman wearing matching U Penn T-shirts and baggy shorts. The man was clutching a complicated-looking camera.
    “Do you want me to take your picture?” Lily asked.
    “That’d be great! Thanks.”
    Lily took the camera. “Is there a trick to this one?”
    “No, just press the button.”
    The couple linked arms and posed with the view of Siena stretching like a medieval tapestry behind them. Their souvenir of a strenuous climb on a hot day.
    “You’re American, aren’t you?” said the woman as Lily handed back the camera. “So where are you from?” It was merely a friendly question, something countless tourists asked each other, a way to connect with fellow travelers far from home. Instantly it put Lily on guard.
Their curiosity is almost certainly innocent. But I don’t know these people. I can’t be certain.
    “Oregon,” she lied.
    “Really? Our son lives there! Which city?”
    “Portland.”
    “Now, isn’t it a small world? He lives on Northwest Irving Street. Is that anywhere near you?”
    “No.” Already Lily was backing away, retreating from these overbearing people who would probably next insist that she join them for coffee, and ask her ever more questions, probing for details she had no intention of sharing. “Have a nice visit!”
    “Say, would you like to—”
    “I have to meet someone.” She gave a wave and fled. The doors of the basilica loomed ahead, offering sanctuary. She stepped inside, into cool silence, and breathed a sigh of relief. The church was nearly empty; only a few tourists wandered the vast space, and their voices were blessedly hushed. She walked toward the Gothic arch, where the sun glowed through stained glass in chips of jeweled light, past the tombs of Sienese nobles that lined both walls. Turning into a chapel niche, she stopped before the gilded marble altar and stared at the tabernacle containing the preserved head of Saint Catherine of Siena. Her mortal remains had been divided and distributed as holy relics, her body in Rome, her foot in Venice. Had she known this would be her fate? That her head would be wrenched from her decaying torso, her mummified face displayed to countless sweaty tourists and chattering schoolchildren?
    The saint’s leathery eye sockets gazed back from behind glass.
This is what death looks like. But you already know, don’t you, Lily Saul?
    Shivering, Lily left the chapel niche and hurried through the echoing church, back toward the exit. Outside again, she was almost grateful for the heat. But not for the tourists. So many strangers with cameras. Any one of them might be furtively snapping her photo.
    She left the basilica and started back downhill, through the Piazza Salimbeni, past the Palazzo Tolomei. The tangle of narrow streets easily befuddled tourists, but Lily knew the way through the maze, and she walked quickly, purposefully, toward her destination. She was late now, because she’d lingered too long on the hill, and Giorgio would surely scold her. Not that the prospect offered any sort of terror, for Giorgio’s grumblings never resulted in consequences of any significance.
    So when she arrived at work fifteen minutes late, she did not feel even a hint of trepidation. The little bell tinkled on the door, announcing her entrance as she stepped into the shop, and she inhaled the familiar scents of dusty books and camphor and cigarette smoke. Giorgio and his son, Paolo, were hunched over a desk near