Jonathan Levi - Septimania

And then he saw the cast — the Beatrice, the Dante, Virgil, Thomas Aquinas, Paolo, and Francesca, all two hundred actors and musicians and extras — he saw the audience turn as one and begin to sing:

Tanti Auguri a te,

Tanti Auguri a te,

Happy Birthday to Dante …

To Dante?

They were looking at him. He was not Dante, but they were clearly singing to him, to Malory. It was his birthday, the way it had been Isaac Newton’s 309 years earlier. No one had sung to him since his tenth birthday, his last Christmas with his mother. And now, here in St. Peter’s as he stood with Antonella on the circle of porphyry, the Pole walked up the steps to the altar below Bernini’s baldacchino preparing to celebrate Christmas Mass and waved down the nave to Malory—

Happy Birthday to You!

Malory waved back, with hesitation and pride to his friend at the altar. And as the cheering continued, he turned to the congregation behind him and waved to them. Beyond those thousands in the nave, Michelangelo’s sculpted mother sat holding her son in her lap. He wished his own mother, he even wished Old Mrs. Emery could have been here for the cheering. And there was another mother, another child … Antonella took his elbow and turned him away from the dream, straddling his biceps with her very immediate breasts.

“Happy Birthday, my Malory.” With two gentle hands, she curled the stray hairs of Malory’s fringe behind his ears and pulled his lips to hers. And as the fluffy zabaione of Antonella’s lower lip touched Malory’s upper, an elixir tasting of Marsala and the yolk of forbidden eggs and forgetfulness pumped a warmth into Malory. Antonella’s lips came briefly away from his and drew with them an anesthetic that had coated his senses for nine long months, releasing a new drug that pulsed through his lips and tongue, across his cheeks, along his jaw to the nerves that sparked his brain, and down his throat to the untapped pipes of his most delicate organs. It unplugged, transposed the key of everything that Malory believed — beyond the skepticism of Tibor or the ministrations of Settimio — beyond everything Malory had worshipped since that first afternoon in the organ loft of St. George’s, Whistler Abbey.

Here he was in Rome with another woman, not Louiza. Here was Antonella, tasting of pillow and zabaione , and — as she wrapped her fingers into the few bits of gray matter that remained beneath his hair and urged his own hands lower towards the abundant bits of Italian girl that only the nearest celebrants in St. Peter’s could see — not only did she seem to want Malory, not only had she worked and traveled hundreds of miles to see Malory, but she had done so while knowing of Malory’s single-minded pursuit of Louiza. There was a part of Malory — just how much he was only beginning to sense — that, after a single fragrant kiss, was tempted by Antonella. Not the unseen, veiled Madonna but the very present Angel. Antonella reached up and took Malory’s face between her hands and kissed him again, without translation, without tea and biscuits, without Anna Ford or the Carafa Chapel.

“ Fututi pizda matii! ” The paw landed on Malory’s shoulder.

“Tibor!” Malory shouted, detaching, recalibrating. “This is Antonella. A colleague of mine. From Cambridge.” But it was not only Tibor. Cristina, Radu, Brendushka, Dora, Sasha, and the entire pack of Bomb Squad and Nurses were jumping and flitting around them in a show of Rumanian enthusiasm.

“ Eccezionale, Tibor! Complimenti! ” Without releasing Malory, Antonella reached up and kissed Tibor on both bearded cheeks.

“ Grazie mille, bella …” Tibor bowed. “But tonight the complimenti are for the birthday boy.”

“How did you know?” Malory began.

“We are the Bomb Squad,” Sasha said. “Do I need to remind you?”

“And the party is just beginning. Brendushka,” Tibor called, “take Malory’s colleague to the Dacia. I want to steal our hero for a few minutes.”

“Malory!” Antonella held onto his hand.

“Do not worry,” Tibor laughed. “The Dacia is my kingdom, and you are under my protection and the care of my Nurses.”

Malory kissed Antonella one last time and then let Tibor lead him out of St. Peter’s, below the balcony where only two months before the Polish cardinal had been reborn as pope to the world of Catholic believers. They threaded through the remnants of Christmas morning out the arches of St. Peter’s into the quiet of Santo Spirito.

“Thank you, Tibor,” Malory said at last. “Your Divine Comedy was spectacular. And that last …” Malory reddened, knowing that he was about to gush. “That was amazing!”

“Happy Birthday, Dante,” Tibor said. “Enjoy your day in Paradiso.” As they walked, without haste, without aim, down the Via della Lungara, Malory felt he was entering a new world — a world that was certainly new to Malory at least. In that world, Tibor had gathered the forces of the displaced and homeless of Rome to celebrate Malory’s journey down to the depths of Hell and back up to Paradise. There was no room in this new world for discretion.

“It’s time, Tibor,” Malory said, “that I told you where I went that evening, when those men took me away from the hospital.”

Malory told Tibor about the Vespa ride to the Sistine Chapel. He told him about the Turn that chose the new Pope, about his own investiture on the porphyry circle of St. Peter’s as Holy Roman Emperor and King of the Jews. He told him about Isaac Newton and how the whole story boiled down to One — one rule, one god, one woman. He told Tibor about Settimio and the Driver and Septimania, the invisible country that gave him unlimited powers. He told him about the Sanctum Sanctorum. He told him about the Pip.

Tibor listened as they walked, silent, unsmoking.

“So,” he said. “Septimania. In this country of Septimania, you believe that if you find the answer to Newton, if you bring all of the world’s religions under your belt, then you will also buy Peace in Our Time and find your girl? The One Girl?”

He understood, Malory thought. He wasn’t taking Malory for crazy or delusional.

“What about your colleague?” Tibor asked, a paw steering Malory towards the parapet overlooking the Tevere.

“She arrived this afternoon from Cambridge. With information about Louiza.”

“Malory,” Tibor said, “I am not a scientist or a king, only a poor, unemployed Rumanian from behind the Iron Eight Ball. But I do know that redheaded women do not come all the way to Rome to give organ tuners information about lost girlfriends.”

“You’re wrong,” Malory said.

“Holy Roman Emperor,” Tibor said, placing both paws down on Malory’s shoulders. “Don’t be a Holy Roman Fool.”

Cristina and Dora swept by and pulled Tibor and Malory out of their conference. But Malory fell away into the backwater of the sidewalk beneath the plane trees, where he found Radu leaning against the parapet overlooking the Tevere.

“I’m sorry, Malory,” Radu said.

“Sorry?” Malory asked. “That I am one year older and starting to lose my hair?”

“I imagine Tibor just told you.”

“Tibor told me a lot of things.”

“About Louiza?”

“Louiza?” Now it was Malory’s turn to place a tentative hand on Radu’s shoulder.

“He didn’t tell you?”

“Radu, tell me!” Malory had just said goodbye to his Angel of an Antonella. But the sound of Louiza’s name convinced him that this Divine Comedy, this divine birthday was bringing him a transcendent luck he could never imagine. The Bomb Squad had found Louiza, his prayers — such as they were — had been answered. “Where is she? At the Dacia?”