The Lady in Blue

by Javier Sierra

  Gripping the arms of his chair, Zsidiv raised himself above the papers lying between them.

  “The worst thing about this whole incident,” he continued, “is that we still have no idea if his death was accidental or provoked. The police are busy putting their report together, and the autopsy has to wait until later tonight. Even so . . .” Zsidiv wrung his hands. He thought for a moment. “What bothers me most is that he was conversant with certain subjects related to Chronovision, of which you know nothing, and that now may have leaked outside our circle.”

  Baldi’s face revealed his confusion.

  “Someone erased all the files from his computer. A technician from the Holy See has already taken a close look at the hard drive, and he says it was reformatted twenty minutes before Saint Matthew died. Someone copied everything to another disk. We have, shall we say, solid reason to believe that documentation of great value has disappeared from his work space.”

  “What kind of documentation?”

  “Historical papers, but also handwritten notes covering all his experiments.”

  Zsidiv changed his tone when he saw the look of incredulity on Baldi’s face.

  “We have placed you in quarantine. Is that clear? We cannot run the risk that this information gets out to the press, much less anything about Saint Matthew, or that you might accidentally give away our project.”

  “Do you have any suspects, Your Eminence?”

  “I am considering several candidates. The minions at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith salivate over this subject. As you already know, Paul the Sixth, in the spirit of reform, stripped them of their responsibilities, and now they follow any project that sounds like heresy in hot pursuit. They tried to bury Chronovision from the moment they heard of its existence, and your statements to the press suited their purposes perfectly. Although I remain in the dark as to how far they may have gone.”

  “My statements? I never—”

  Zsidiv leaned over his desk and fished around for a copy of the Spanish magazine Mysteries, which he placed on top of a pile of papers.

  “You can understand the title in Spanish, no?”

  Baldi flipped the magazine open to the centerfold and read the headline of the story that ran over his photo: “A Time Machine That Takes Photographs of the Past.”

  “But Your Eminence, do you think I—?”

  Zsidiv interrupted him before he could finish.

  “That problem is no longer relevant, as I told you. The most pressing matter is to get our hands on whoever stole Saint Matthew’s archives. We have to prevent another scandal.”

  Father Baldi nodded.

  “What I fear, Giuseppe, is that this is the work of our allies. But in the present state of our diplomatic relations, even insinuating the possibility is out of the question.”

  “Allies? Which allies?” The priest’s face showed that he had never heard of Chronovision’s having allies outside the reach of the Vatican.

  “This is something else the evangelists have avoided letting you know. But since we urgently need to recover the lost documents, I am obliged to bring you back into our confidence.”

  The Cardinal peered out over the top of his glasses.

  “I hope I’m not making a mistake in trusting you again.”

  The words were spoken in utmost seriousness. Baldi merely nodded his head. He sat there, riveted to his chair, waiting for the man on the other side of the desk to explain what had been hidden from him over the last several months.

  TWENTY

  VENICE BEACH, CALIFORNIA

  Jennifer lit a cigarette as she drove back to her house, her emotions running in circles after her session with Dr. Meyers. She thought that the warm breeze off the Pacific, and a long stroll ending in a champagne cocktail at the Sidewalk Cafe, would help her clarify her thinking.

  But she was wrong. As straightforward as she had tried to be with Dr. Meyers, there were things she could not tell her. How was she going to convey the assignment she had been working on those few weeks in Italy, a maximum security project, participating in tests in which she ingested hypnotic substances? And how could she get a clean bill of health from the doctor if she refused to reveal certain information classified as “secret” under the national security protocol? On the other hand, were all her dreams closely linked to her grandmother? Was it just chance that the woman who appeared there so resembled the Lady of Guadalupe she had remembered that afternoon?

  The truth was that those persistent dreams had ended up divorcing her from the project. They were clouding her mind, they told her. And now she really did feel as if she were moving around in a fog.

  The first time she had consulted a doctor was in Rome, after a clinical report issued at Fort Meade attempted to disqualify her participation: “The patient suffers from a strange variant of epilepsy known as ecstatic epilepsy or Dostoyevsky’s epilepsy. She should undergo a period of observation and use special safeguards during her work for INSCOM, the Intelligence and Security Command.”

  What sort of scientific jargon was that?

  Jennifer parked her Toyota in the resident parking area and walked to her house. Ever since she was a child, her parents had brought her here during the summer to enjoy the beach and to spend time with her cousins. Which was why, when she had left Washington with the intention never to return, she had been allowed to transform the house into her own place. It was an old wooden structure, the kind that creaks every time you take a step. She could still smell the blueberry pies her mother made each summer in the old stove.

  Before entering, she nostalgically contemplated its whitewashed façade. The house was a trove of memories. Once inside, she got out an old carton where she had stored her knickknacks, photographs, and souvenirs from her trips. It was all still there, even the thing that she had just remembered. Jennifer smiled. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? She recalled her conversation with the Italian doctor who had “deciphered” the diagnosis of her condition that had been given at Fort Meade. She had made notes on their conversation so that she could reflect on the doctor’s opinions later, when she had sufficient peace of mind. That little notebook had been sitting right where she’d left it inside the carton.

  As she went through her notes, she could hear the reed-thin voice of Dr. Buonviso. What a charmer. She smiled as she recalled his amusing English with its Italian accent, and it was as though she were back in the cafeteria of Ospedale Generale di Zona “Cristo Re,” where they had had their conversation a little over a year ago.

  “The illness you are asking me about is extremely unusual,” he had told her.

  “So I hear, Doctor,” she replied. “Is there anything else you can tell me about it?”

  “Well . . . someone who suffers from Dostoyevsky’s epilepsy generally has extremely vivid dreams or visions. First comes a blinding light, which precedes a rapid reduction in the patient’s attention to any surrounding stimuli. The body is then, in the great majority of cases, immobile, as rigid as a board, and finally the patient submerges himself in extremely detailed hallucinations that flow into a state of well-being. Afterward the patient experiences absolute physical exhaustion.”

  “I am familiar with the symptoms. . . . Can the condition be treated?”

  “In reality, we are at a loss for a treatment. Bear in mind that there are only a dozen documented cases in the whole world.”

  “So few?”

  “As I said, this is an extremely rare disease. Combing through the historical records, I find that some specialists have found its symptoms in historical figures such as Saint Paul—remember the flash of light that beset him on the road to Damascus?—Muhammad, Joan of Arc . . .”

  “And Dostoyevsky?”

  “He certainly had it as well. In fact, the illness is named for him because in his novel The Idiot he describes its symptoms with extraordinary precision. He attributes them to one of the protagonists, Prince Myshkin. All the characteristics of this kind of epilepsy are laid o
ut in detail—”

  Jennifer interrupted. “So you’re saying you wouldn’t know what course of treatment to follow if you had a patient with those symptoms?”

  “To be honest, I wouldn’t.”

  “Do you know if it’s hereditary?”

  “Aha! There is no doubt about that, signorina. Although it is rarely diagnosed as a disease these days. In the past it was regarded as almost a divine gift. It is even said that Saint Teresa suffered from it, and it was this illness that led to her ecstatic communion with God.”

  Had she inherited this illness? And in that case, from whom? Her mother never suffered from it. Nor her father, who had been a cold, inflexible man till the day he died.

  After leafing through some old family albums to jog her memory, Jennifer spent the rest of the day reviewing the last few years of her life. First there had been her inability to finish her studies at Georgetown University, then her recruitment for the Stargate project under the honorable cover of the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), and her eventful encounters in telepathy. From there, it had been a short trip to the little-known regions in the Defense Department.

  All of it was coming back to her.

  She also vividly recalled an exceptional man, a psychic named Ingo Swann, who had convinced her to accept the job. Swann could describe a faraway place simply by concentrating on predetermined coordinates. He also possessed the uncanny ability to change traffic light signals at will, and could disperse cumulus clouds whenever he wanted, simply by staring at them intently. He was a kind of mental athlete who insisted that his skills came from elsewhere, that they were powers he had inherited from his great-grandmother, a Sioux medicine woman who had transmitted them from the afterlife.

  “And if in my case . . .”

  A smile spread across her face. Her meeting with Swann, those old photographs—it had all made her feel like a young recruit again. The animated debates between the different remote vision teams inside INSCOM came vividly to mind. Everyone, without exception, was convinced that psychic behavior obeyed genetic configurations. In fact, they were certain that in sensitive families predisposed to astral voyages, prophetic dreams or telepathy, the psychic was always identifiable by his unstable, neurotic, or hysteric behavior. The paranormal was a weakness that skipped from one generation to the next.

  Jennifer slammed the photo album shut. She needed to make a call to Phoenix, Arizona. A sudden inspiration had struck her. One of those impulses that Swann talked about so frequently.

  A tired voice answered on the other end of the line.

  “Mom?”

  “Well, finally you call at night,” her mother reproached. “At last you realize rates are much cheaper this time of day.”

  “Sure, Mom. I know. But I need to ask you something about the family.”

  “Again?”

  “Don’t worry,” she said quietly. “It has nothing to do with Dad.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you know if anyone in our family ever suffered from epilepsy?”

  “What kind of question is that, Jennifer! Epilepsy? Are you all right?”

  “Just tell me yes or no.”

  The phone line was quiet.

  “Well, when I was a child, my mother was very concerned about the attacks my grandmother suffered. But she died before I was ten years old, and I have no way of knowing what kind of attacks they were talking about.”

  “Your grandmother? My great-grandmother?”

  “Yes, but all that is so long ago! It’s too bad you never had the chance to get to know her. She must have been quite a character, like you. Her ancestors lived along the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, although later, during the Gold Rush, they emigrated south, to the other side of the border. They lived near Guadalupe.”

  “I know all that. But why didn’t anyone ever tell me about my great-grandmother? Is it true she was named Ankti, like you?”

  “Yes, and like your grandmother, too. But all these stories are ancient history. You young people have more important things to do than listen to old stories.”

  “What stories?”

  “Well, the ones your grandmother Ankti was always telling. I’m very bad with that sort of thing, dear. And anyway, they were unbelievable. Stories about spiritual protectors, visits from the kachina gods, things like that. You would have been frightened!”

  “You’re impossible, Mom. I remember my grandmother’s tales. Of the Indian Juan Diego, of the Virgin, and the flowers in the poncho.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have no idea what tribe my great-grandmother came from?”

  “That, no. Sorry. I know she was a kind of enchanter, and that the family emigrated because they had problems with the parish. But if you ask me, she never said much about this to her grandchildren.”

  “Does the name Cueloce bring anything to mind? Or la Gran Quivira?”

  “No.”

  The voice on the other end of the line let out a deep sigh before continuing.

  “Why this sudden interest in your great-grandmother Ankti?”

  “No special reason.”

  “Hmm . . . You know”—her mother chuckled—“when you were born, the first thing she said was that you looked a lot like the ‘witch.’ ”

  “Great-Grandmother? Are you sure?”

  “Of course. What’s the matter? Don’t tell me you’re having premonitions in your dreams again? I thought you were through with that a long time ago!” The alarm was evident in her tone of voice.

  “Calm down, Mom. It has nothing to do with that. I’m fine. The next time we see each other I’ll explain it all.”

  “You promise?

  “I promise, Mom.”

  Jennifer hung up the phone with a strange sensation. She had just discovered, almost without wanting to, that she had more in common with her friend Ingo Swann than she ever imagined. Both had an Indian past . . . and a great-grandmother who was a witch! But did that explain her peculiar dreams? And the diagnosis of Dostoyevsky’s epilepsy?

  What would Dr. Meyers think of it?

  TWENTY-ONE

  GRAN QUIVIRA

  Father! Say something! Can you hear me?”

  Sakmo had grasped his father by the shoulders and was shaking him. He was slowly coming around.

  The great Walpi was dazed. His cramped muscles refused to respond. He had no idea how much time had elapsed since the apparition had left him in the Canyon of the Serpent. But as he began to hear his son’s voice urgently calling him, he remembered everything that had taken place. The ritual of invocation had been a success.

  Little by little, the old warrior was recovering mobility in his arms. After he got to his feet, he at last saw the round face of his son.

  “Sakmo . . . Did you see her?”

  He leaned on his son’s shoulders, trying to camouflage his confusion.

  “Yes, I saw her again, Father. I have been here every night that the men have been in the kiva. All the watchmen have seen her moving from place to place.”

  “And she spoke to you?”

  “She called me and I went, Father. I no longer fear her. She promised that she would return to teach us a new religion.”

  “I know as much,” he said just above a whisper. “She left me this.”

  Sakmo took the object that the visitor had thrown to the ground for his father. It was a wooden cross, crudely tied together. It meant nothing to him.

  “What is happening, Father?”

  The warrior gathered the last of his strength in order to stand fully erect. Once he was on both feet, he leaned on his son’s shoulder and looked into his eyes, then lowered his gaze to the rose-shaped mark that appeared on Sakmo’s forearm.

  “Do you see that sign?”

  Sakmo nodded.

  “I had one as well, in the same place as yours, from the day I was born. But now, my son, it is no longer there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The old warrior rolled up his sleeve so that his son coul
d see his left arm. There were no marks there. It was as if it had never borne the image of the rose that now shone on his son’s arm.

  “Sakmo, the lady is saying that you will soon occupy my place in the tribe. My mission is coming to an end.”

  “But you cannot leave us. Not now, Father.”

  The old warrior remained calm.

  “She also said,” he went on, “that tomorrow at dawn, without fail, you and a group of Jumano warriors will go out from the village to meet the men bearing the new god. You will travel in a southerly direction, day and night if necessary, and before the full moon illuminates the plains again, you will pay your respects to these men. Whoever they may be.”

  “But how will I recognize them? I cannot do this.”

  “Carry this cross. It will help you.”

  “But Father . . .”

  “There is no other way, my son. Our world has already ended. Is it possible you are blind and cannot see that?”

  TWENTY-TWO

  ÁGREDA

  Carlos followed the nun’s instructions to the letter, while Txema came up a step behind him, his pace slightly more hesitant. Txema was asking himself if the day’s events were not, after all, slightly miraculous. In the final analysis, he was a man of faith. Discreet about it, of course, but still a man of faith.

  They entered a small common room, and at one end there was a passageway that was blocked by a grating. Peering past it, they could make out a second room adjoining it in the interior of the cloister. The walls of the room where they stood were crowded with old canvases. On one of them appeared the fading image of a nun wielding a pen in her right hand, her left hand resting on an open book; on another, a Madonna of the sort that Bartolomé Murillo churned out by the dozens in the seventeenth century, while next to it hung a peculiar tapestry depicting the revelation of the Virgin of Guadalupe to the Indian Juan Diego in Mexico a hundred years earlier. But what really caught their eye was a modern canvas, in vivid colors and naive technique, which depicted a nun dressed in blue, surrounded by American Natives and domestic animals.