Jonathan Levi - Septimania

Settimio who had kissed him on both cheeks only the week before.

Malory’s world was losing perspective.

In the pew in front of Malory sat an old woman, a younger man, and his wife and young child. Settimio’s family? Had he never wondered whether Settimio had a family? Would this young man be assuming Settimio’s duties? From his quarter-sided, rearview angle, Malory tried to read the grief on the face of the wife and the son. But much had been hidden from Malory for the past twenty-three years — perhaps for much longer. I want to tune the world, he had told his mother before she died. What had he told Settimio? Settimio was as far from the father Malory believed he’d had, that amorous Irish sailor with more passion than perspective. Settimio was perhaps the only father Malory had known. And yet what had he known? Looking at the family, Settimio’s family, so close, so perfectly attuned to their grief, Malory realized that no matter how much he knew about music, he knew little about harmony.

There was no music in the ceremony. Few words were said, and all of them by the white-robed friar in a Latin pitched at too low a volume for Malory to make out much. The family rose and left the chapel. Malory thought about approaching them, thought about giving his condolences, asking about their welfare, taking the young man aside and ensuring that he knew Malory, Septimania would provide for them. But the coffin, or maybe it was merely the presence of Settimio, even dead inside the coffin, reminded Malory that discretion would be the best way he could memorialize Settimio. And he sat.

“ Signore?” The white-robed friar returned to the chapel. He took a seat next to Malory on the pew and looked forward.

“I didn’t know,” Malory said. “It must have happened when I was in the States.”

“There was something that Signor Settimio wanted me to give you,” the friar said, even more discreetly, “if you did not return in time.” He handed Malory a package wrapped in brown paper, no heavier than a suit and a change of shirts.

“Thank you,” Malory said. So it was true. Settimio was dead.

The friar stood.

“One more question.”

The friar stopped.

“The family, Settimio’s family. Will they, will the son be at the villa tonight?”

“The villa?” the friar asked. In the dim light of the chapel, Malory had no way of telling whether he honestly lacked knowledge or knew more than Malory or Thomas Aquinas for that matter.

“Thank you,” Malory said again, “for the package.”

The friar descended the steps into the nave of the church. Malory was alone with Settimio and Lippi. And the package.

He separated the tape from the paper. Malory. He saw his name, his father’s name, stenciled along the flap. The Kit Bag. The Kit Bag with his name. He hadn’t seen the Kit Bag in many years. He’d had little use for the Universal Tuner inside. And since he had used Antonella’s English translation of the Newton Chapbook, the Italian original had remained semi-forgotten, tucked away in the central pocket next to Malory’s own Book of Organs. There was only one reason why Settimio would want Malory to have the Kit Bag. Twenty-three years before, Malory had brought the Kit Bag to Rome. It was the sum total of what had belonged to Malory before he arrived, before he was crowned King of Septimania. Settimio had left him a final message. It was time for Malory to go.

On top of the Kit Bag sat a first-class train ticket from Rome to Cambridge, departing that night — Rome to Milan; Milan to Paris; Paris to London; London to another garden, another life. Malory thought back to the vicar of Whistler Abbey and another funeral. He had been sent to Rome by train twenty-three years before. Now, with the world falling apart and the Villa Septimania dark and shuttered, he was being sent back home without so much as a panino ? And why? Because Settimio had died? But Malory was alive. Why would they crown a new king of Septimania to go along with a new majordomo? Did the choice of a new caliph of all Islam depend on the life of the butler? It was all a little too ornate to be the punch line of a rather extensive joke.

Malory stood and walked over to the coffin. Discretion be damned. He wanted to pound on the lid and get a few answers from Settimio. Or better yet kick the coffin down off the trestle and trample it beneath his feet in response to this heresy! A butler dictating to the King of Septimania. That is not how it works.

But Malory didn’t. He pulled the strap of the Kit Bag over one shoulder. He wheeled his suitcase out Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The elephant was gray. The train departed from Termini at 8 p.m. And now Malory stood at the Gate of Trinity College, Henry VIII holding his stony sword like the angel at the eastern gate of Eden, and thought about his own expulsion, and wondered would they let him back in?

“Excuse me?” Malory stood at the counter of the Porters’ lodge. Pigeonholes and bulletin boards had been replaced with computer terminals and stainless steel, but the hat stand next to the desk still sported a pair of bowlers, and the porter on duty still wore a tie. “I was wondering whether I might speak with Mr. Rix? Is he still the Head Porter?”

“Rix?” The porter looked carefully at Malory. “Did you ask for Mr. Rix?” He couldn’t have been much older than Malory, but his hair had already turned the color of a dishwater that Malory associated with his Trinity hallmate and his baroque cooking habits.

“Yes,” Malory said. “I am a member of the college, but it’s been quite a few years.”

“Would you mind waiting a moment,” the porter asked, “Mister …?”

“Malory,” Malory said.

“Ah,” the porter’s eyes lit up and he disappeared for a moment into the back room. When he returned, it was in the company of a younger woman, one of those bright-cheeked, sensible women of indeterminate post-marital years that Malory always associated with biology degrees and children who played field hockey.

“Mr. Malory!” The woman walked around the counter and gave Malory a hug, which surprised him, even if it was an eminently sensible hug. “I was hoping you might come.”

“I’m sorry,” Malory said. “You are?”

“Sybil,” the woman said, “the eldest.”

“Ah,” Malory said.

“Would you mind doing the honors?” She took his arm.

“I’ll look after this, sir,” the porter said, taking Malory’s suitcase as Sybil led Malory out of the Porters’ lodge and towards the chapel.

“Honors?” Malory said, but the woman was walking so quickly that he wasn’t able to make out much of anything except that she was hoping Malory might be willing to play the organ. Malory looked up at a statue of a second king, the stony Edward III with his scepter and orb, as he passed beneath the arch into the chapel. Pugna pro patria, read the challenge beneath the king’s feet — fight for your country. Edward had been king of his country for fifty years — Malory had seen his own kingdom locked and barred after a mere twenty-three. What kind of king was he? But even Edward, conqueror of Scotland and France, had seen his England pustulate and crumble beneath the buboes and inky gangrene of a Black Death that recognized neither scepter nor orb. Now it was September 2001. The whole world was falling apart. And though the King of Septimania at one time could crown a pope, what was that against planes from above and guns from below? Perhaps the best Malory could do for his patria was to pull out all the stops and play the Trinity organ, the organ he knew more intimately than he knew Louiza, than he knew his mother, or even poor, dead Settimio, his most constant companion in life.

Sybil led Malory into the forechapel, past the statues of Tennyson and Bacon, with barely any time for Malory to genuflect to the odd French statue of the old Newton, a man so full of himself in the world that he had been caught in the act of stepping off the pedestal and onto the shoulders of ordinary mathematicians. She stopped at the door to the staircase up to the organ — the Metzler Söhne — refurbished Father Smith organ Malory knew so well — that stood above the arch to the chapel proper, opening its pipes both to the fleshy congregation inside and Newton and his marble companions frozen in the forechapel. Sybil turned to Malory and pressed his hands. Hers were wet — with what Malory couldn’t properly tell.