The Quest: A Novel

from the country.
    Purcell had realized at the time that Colonel Gann was not speaking about himself—he fully expected to be hanged or shot—and yet he’d put his own fears aside to boost the morale of three people he hardly knew. A true officer and gentleman. And now, according to Mercado, Gann was willing to return to Ethiopia, where he was under a death sentence. Fearless was one thing, but foolhardy was something else. He wondered what was motivating Colonel Gann.
    From the helicopter, they had been made to run barefoot across the tarmac, wearing leg shackles, to four waiting police cars. Before they were separated, Vivian had called out to Henry, “I love you!”
    But Henry had not replied—or maybe he hadn’t heard her.
    Then Vivian had turned toward him, and they made eye contact. She gave him a sort of sad smile before the policeman pushed her into the car.
    And that was the last he saw of her until the Hilton, and the last Henry would see of her until about fifteen minutes from now.
    He said to her, “If you’re having second thoughts, I’ll go with you.”
    “No. I just need to put it to rest, Frank. Then get on with what we have to do.”
    “All right.” There was no script for this sort of thing—the eternal triangle in the Eternal City—and he supposed that Henry’s request for half an hour alone with his former lover was not unreasonable, and that Vivian’s acquiescence was meant, as she said, to put it to rest and move on. Henry, on the other hand, had many agendas, and Purcell didn’t know which one was on the schedule today.
    Vivian was looking at the blankets spread over the open spaces around the Termini, and the street vendors were calling out to her in Italian as she passed. She said something to one of them in Amharic and the man seemed surprised, then delighted.
    She stopped and looked at the crafts on his blanket, and the man was speaking rapidly to her in Amharic, then switched to Italian.
    Purcell looked at the items. There were a few objects carved out of what looked like teak and ebony, some beadwork, and a few sculptures carved from jet black obsidian, polished to a high gloss, including a model of the distinctive octagon-shaped Saint George Cathedral in Addis Ababa. He smiled. “We’ve found the black monastery.”
    “Frank, that’s Saint George in Addis.”
    “Looks smaller than I remember.”
    A lady was selling embroidered
shammas
and Purcell suggested, “Let’s wear these to lunch.”
    Vivian surprised him by saying, “The last time Henry saw us in shammas, he didn’t like what he saw.”
    Purcell had no comment on that. He walked over to another blanket covered with bronze ware, and he spotted a wine goblet that reminded him of the goblets in Prince Joshua’s tent. The vendor wanted fifty thousand lire, Purcell offered ten, and they settled on twenty.
    Purcell moved back to Vivian, who was negotiating the price of Saint George’s, and held up the goblet. “I have found the Holy Grail.”
    She laughed.
    “Here. Give it to Henry and tell him mission accomplished.”
    She examined the goblet of hammered bronze, which looked ancient, but was probably made last week, and asked, “How will we know?”
    “The thing will speak for itself.”
    She nodded, then handed it back to him, saying, “You give it to him.”
    The
polizia
were doing a scheduled sweep through the Termini area, chasing off the street vendors, who rolled up their blankets and wares and moved a few meters behind the sweep, then set up again on the pavement. No one seemed to take things too seriously here, he noticed, and maybe Henry had found the right place to live and die, if he didn’t die in Ethiopia. Same for him and Vivian.
    Purcell asked a policeman for directions to Via Gaeta, and he walked Vivian part of the way. They stopped and he said, “See you in half an hour.”
    “Don’t be late.”
    “I might be early.”
    She smiled, then said seriously, “If he’s willing to forget the past, and get over his anger, and be with us under these… I guess, awkward circumstances, then you—”
    “I get it.”
    “All right…” She gave him a quick kiss, turned, and walked off.
    Purcell checked his watch, then wandered the streets around the Termini. He found a taverna and went inside. The clientele was mostly black, though the taverna itself seemed to be traditional Roman.
    He sat at the small bar and ordered an espresso, then changed his mind and asked for a
vino rosso
.
    Henry