The Quest: A Novel

mimicking Vivian’s words.
    Mercado turned his attention back to the priest and asked him, “Father? Can you continue?”
    “Yes. What are you talking about? I cannot go to Gondar.”
    Mercado told him, “We will take you to an English hospital in the morning. Continue, if you feel—”
    “Yes. I must finish it. The envelope… he told us that we were on no account to open it, unless, when we got to Ethiopia, we should see in the jungles a black monastery. Black like coal, made of black stone, he said. Hidden… in the jungles. There was none like it in all of Ethiopia, he said. It was the monastery of the old believers… the Coptics. And in this black monastery was a reliquary and within that reliquary was the relic of a saint, he told us. An important saint.A saint of the time of Jesus, he told us… The relic of the saint was so important that His Holiness himself wanted very much to have the relic carried back to Rome where it belonged, in the true church of Jesus Christ. In the Church of Saint Peter.”
    Vivian translated for Purcell, who commented, “Don’t they have enough stuff in the Vatican?”
    Mercado leaned closer to the priest. “Which saint? What kind of relic? A lock of hair? A bone? A piece of a garment?”
    The priest laughed. “It was not the relic of a saint at all. Can you imagine such a thing? A cardinal of the Sacred College lying to a flock of rustic priests… Yes, we were well chosen to follow and serve with the Italian infantry. We asked no such questions as you ask now, Henry. We were simple country priests. We had strong legs and strong hearts and strong backs for the infantry. And we asked no questions of the cardinal who spoke to us in the shadow of the Basilica of Saint Peter, a man who had no name himself, but who spoke in the name of His Holiness. One priest, though, a young man… he asked why we should take a relic from a Christian country, even though it was not a Catholic country. It was a good question, was it not? But the cardinal said the relic belonged in Rome. That priest did not go to Ethiopia with us.” The old priest laughed softly, then let out a long groan and lay back.
    Purcell listened to Vivian’s translation and said, “It sounds to me like Father Armano actually saw this relic—or whatever it was.”
    Mercado nodded.
    Purcell continued, “And probably tried to grab it for the pope, as per orders. And that’s what got him in the slammer for forty years.”
    Again, Mercado nodded and said, “That’s a possible explanation of what he’s saying.”
    “There may be a good story here, Henry.”
    Mercado looked at the priest, who was now sleeping, or unconscious, and said, “This may be the end of the story.”
    “Wake him,” suggested Purcell.
    “No,” said Vivian. “Let him sleep.”
    Purcell and Mercado exchanged glances, knowing that the priest might never wake up.
    But Mercado said, “If it’s meant to be that we should hear the rest of this man’s story, then it will be.”
    “I envy you your faith, Henry,” said Purcell.
    Vivian looked at the priest and said, “He’s traveled a long road to meet us and he’ll finish his story when he awakens.”
    Purcell saw no way to argue with the illogic of Mercado’s faith and Vivian’s mysticism, so he nodded and said, “We’ll post a watch to listen for Gallas and to see if the old man wakes up, or dies.”
    “You’re a very practical man,” observed Vivian. She added, “All brain and no heart.”
    “Thank you,” said Purcell.
    Mercado volunteered for the first watch, and Purcell and Vivian lay down on two sleeping bags.
    The two armies in the hills seemed to have lost their enthusiasm for the battle, though now and then a burst of machine-gun fire split the night air.
    Purcell stared up at the black sky, thinking about the priest’s story, and about Henry Mercado. Mercado, he thought, knew something or deduced something from what the priest had said.
    Purcell also thought about Vivian, lying beside him, and he pictured her naked, standing beside the sulphur pool.
    He thought back a few days to when he’d met her and Henry Mercado in the Hilton bar in Addis Ababa. It had seemed like a chance meeting, and maybe it was, just as meeting the priest in this godforsaken place was totally unexpected. And yet… well, Vivian would say it was fate and destiny, and Henry would say it was God’s will.
    A parachute flare burst overhead and lit up the sky. He stared at it awhile, then closed