The Quest: A Novel

license.”
    “I see. And why didn’t you get into something along those lines?”
    “Well…” Purcell looked at Vivian and Mercado. “Well, I never actually took the test.”
    Mercado asked, “Do you mean you don’t have a license?”
    “Didn’t need one here. No one asked.”
    “Yes, but…”
    “I ran out of money.” He said, “I’ll bet you couldn’t tell.”
    Vivian laughed and said to everyone, “Can’t you tell he’s joking with us?” She looked at him. “Frank?”
    “Right. Just kidding.”
    Mercado pointed out, “It’s moot in any case. We’ve burned the plane, and we will not be renting another.”
    “But I’ll take you flying in New York.”
    “No, thank you.”
    Purcell stood and said to Vivian, “Take a walk with me.”
    Gann cautioned, “Do not go far, and be back no later than dark. And don’t forget your revolver.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Vivian stood and Mercado looked at her. “I don’t think this is a wise thing.”
    “Don’t fret, Henry.”
    Purcell led Vivian into the hallway and back to the lobby, then out to the courtyard. They walked along the colonnade then down the steps to the gardens.
    The sky was deep purple now, with streaks of red and pink, and night birds began to sing. A soft breeze blew down from the mountains and they could smell the tropical flowers.
    Purcell said, “I thought we would make love here.”
    “I know exactly what you are thinking.”
    “Sometimes I think about a cocktail.”
    “You’re rather basic, you know.”
    “Thank you.”
    They continued their walk and Vivian asked him, “Who was it?”
    “Who was who…? Oh… in Rome.”
    “Yes, in Rome.”
    “Well… I’m not sure who it was. An English lady.”
    “How did you meet her?”
    “In her hotel bar.”
    “Did you go to her hotel, or yours?”
    They were actually the same place, but he could imagine that Vivian would not like to think they’d all used the same bed. He replied, “Hers.” He also said, “I thought you had left for good.”
    “You should have known better. But I understand, and I forgive you.”
    “Thank you.”
    “And when we get back to Rome, if I go off shopping, I hope you don’t think I’ve left you for good, and go off and fuck another lady you’ve met in the elevator or somewhere.”
    “Right. That won’t happen.” He glanced up at the sky. “It’s getting dark.”
    She took his arm and led him around the statue of the two-faced Janus. She said, “For security reasons, we must keep our clothes on, but I suggest you drop your pants.”
    He liked that suggestion and pulled his pants and underwear down as she knelt in front of him. Vivian said, “We will learn a new Italian word today. Fellatio.” She put his now erect penis in her mouth and showed him the meaning of the word.
    On the way back to the spa hotel, she said, “There is a romance in classical ruins—something hauntingly beautiful about a great edifice returning to nature.”
    “Right.” He said to her, “We need to find some privacy tomorrow night.”
    “I don’t think that will happen again out in the bush.”
    “Well… let’s see.”
    “I’m embarrassed as it is that Henry and Colonel Gann know what we’ve been up to.”
    “I don’t think they do.”
    “I don’t think they could have missed hearing your moaning echoing through the colonnade.”
    “Really?”
    They got back to the lobby, which was very dark now. At the far end of the big room lay the bones of the slaughtered men, where Father Armano had also lain dying.
    Vivian said to him, “Tomorrow we go to where Father Armano was going. Do not be cynical—he will show us the way.”
    “I’m counting on it.”
    “Do you know what that statue was?”
    “The two-faced guy?”
    “That was Janus, the Roman god of the New Year—he faces back and forward.”
    “I get it.”
    “This is January.”
    “Right.”
    “Which reminded me of something. When I was in boarding school, which was English-run, I read a very beautiful passage—something that George VI said in his Christmas message to the English people, in the darkest year of the war. He said to them, ‘I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown. And he replied, Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’ ”
    “That is very beautiful.”
    “Put your hand into the hand of God,