The Quest: A Novel

wounded of recent and past wars. And then there were the deformed beggars, the diseased prostitutes, and the starving barefoot children running through donkey dung. A quarter million already dead from the famine. How was he supposed to believe in God? “How can this be?”
    “How can what be?”
    “
This
.” He swept his arm over the city.
    She thought a moment, then replied, “It’s good that you still care.”
    “I don’t care anymore.”
    “You do.”
    He said to her, “Sometimes I think I’ve been around too long.”
    “I think you told me that once before.”
    “Did I? What did you say?”
    “I don’t remember.”
    But
he
did. She’d said to him, “How can you say that when you have me?”
    He looked at her and his heart literally skipped a beat.
    The aircraft was now directly over the city, making tight banking turns as they’d have to do when they were shooting photographs of the ground. He thought she should leave before Purcell decided to doa flyby. But she just sat there, her feet on the rail, with her legs parted too wide, sipping coffee, watching her lover fly. Finally he said to her, “You should go to your own balcony. Or his.”
    Again, she didn’t reply.
    Mercado stood, but did not go inside.
    The sun was coming over the eastern hills, burning off the last of the ground mist. The capital of the former empire was a straggly city of empty lots with gullies and ridges everywhere. The few high-rise buildings were separated by miles of squalid huts that sat in clusters like primitive villages. Banana trees and palms shaded the corrugated metal roofs of the huts from the blazing sun. Vermin and insects swarmed through the city, and at night hyenas howled in the surrounding hills. Whatever hope there had been for this city and this country under the emperor’s halfhearted reforms was now drowned in a sea of blood. A long night was descending on this ancient land, and if a new dawn ever arrived, he would not see it in his lifetime.
    “Are you all right?” she asked.
    “I see things more clearly now. And I am feeling sorry for myself, and for these people.”
    “You’re a good man, Henry.”
    “I was.”
    “We will find that good, happy, and optimistic man. That’s why we’re here.”
    He nodded. This was the last quest. He hoped for salvation, but was prepared for the final disillusionment.
    He looked down into the square dominated by the city’s only beautiful building, the octagonal Cathedral of Saint George. The square was filled with beggars by day and prostitutes by night. To further desecrate the great Coptic cathedral, it had been built by Italian prisoners of war captured at Adowa during the first Italian invasion of 1896. He found that an irony of sorts, or maybe a great cosmic joke.
    Vivian said, “Here he comes.” She pointed.
    The black aircraft was coming in from the east so that the pilot’s side would be facing the hotel as it passed by. Mercado noticed the aircraft was flying dangerously low and slow as it approached the hotel. If he stalled, he had no altitude to recover.
    Vivian seemed not to understand the danger, and she was smiling and waving.
    Mercado could not take his eyes off the aircraft, expecting it to nosedive any second. What was Purcell thinking? That’s what happens when you show off for a woman, Mercado thought. You die. And if Frank Purcell died… He looked at Vivian.
    She was standing on her toes now, waving wildly. “Frank! Over here!” She jumped up and down.
    The aircraft dipped its wings about a hundred yards from the balcony, indicating he’d seen them. Mercado gave a half wave, and as the plane passed by he could see Purcell’s face, looking at them.
    Vivian shouted, “He saw us! Did you see him, Henry?”
    He didn’t reply. Mercado watched the aircraft as it gained speed and continued west. He expected that Purcell would come around for another flyby, but he continued on and disappeared against the background of the tall western mountains.
    Vivian remained standing at the rail, looking at the fog-shrouded hills.
    Mercado was going to ask her to leave now, but he didn’t. Finally he said, “I trust this will not cause a problem.”
    She turned her head toward him. “We had coffee. Waiting for Frank.”
    He nodded.
    She turned and put her back against the rail. “You were not the jealous type.”
    “No.”
    “We all bathed together.”
    “Yes… well, bathing together and sleeping together are different things.”
    “One