Lucia wasn’t sure where Rosa was taking her. The older woman had barely spoken two sentences to her since calling for her in the scrinium. But there was no escape, any more than from her periods.
Lucia suppressed a sigh. She had forgiven Pina for what had felt like another betrayal. Pina had only done what would have had to be done eventually; in her way she had tried her best to help. Lucia just had to endure whatever was to come.
The cab took them north toward the city center. They passed a breach in the massive, ugly old Aurelian Wall and headed northeast, driving through the areas dominated by the old imperial ruins, to the Piazza Venezia.
The Venezia was the heart of the Roman traffic system. It was just a broad field of tarmac sprawling before the Vittoriano, the grandiose Vittorio Emanuele monument erected to celebrate Italy’s national unity, a mound of pillars and marble that loomed over the skyline, even dominating the imperial relics. The Venezia was crowded with traffic that seemed to be flying in every direction, and Lucia quailed when the cabdriver launched his vehicle into the mob, horn honking briskly. Gradually, as cars edged this way and that, nobody apparently giving way to anybody else, a route forward opened up, bit by bit, and the driver made his way to the exit he wanted, for the west-running Via del Plebiscito.
To Lucia’s surprise, Rosa took her hand in her own. Rosa smiled, her eyes hidden. “Listen, I know how you feel. I know how difficult this is for you.”
Sitting in the cab, apparently unperturbed by its jolts as it lurched forward through the traffic, Rosa was elegant, cool, and her narrow face with its strong nose seemed kind, though Lucia could not make out her eyes. She was tall, taller than Lucia, certainly taller and more slender than most Order members, who tended to be short and somewhat squat. But then, as everybody knew, Rosa was one of the few at the heart of the Order who hadn’t been born in the Crypt. Though she had come to the Order as a child, her fluent Italian still bore traces of England, short vowels and harsh consonants.
“At school we come up here every week,” Lucia said. “To the city, I mean. Even so I can never get used to it.”
“What, exactly? The crowds, the noise — the light?”
“Not that,” Lucia said, thinking. “The chaos. Everybody going every which way, all the time.”
Rosa nodded. “Yes. You know that I’m something of an outsider. Well, I always will be, and it’s not to be helped. But it does give me a certain perspective. There are some things about the Crypt that we all take for granted, and we notice only when they are taken away. In the Crypt everything is orderly, calm, and everybody knows what she is doing, where she is going. Even the temperature is controlled, the air clean and fresh. But out here it’s quite the opposite. Out here is anarchy, everything out of control. And now you, Lucia, feel that even your own body is out of your control. And you fear—”
“I fear I don’t belong anymore,” Lucia blurted.
The driver had a broad head, all but hairless, with a band of greasy pores above his collar. He looked about fifty. At her slightly raised voice, he turned, glancing in his mirror. His speculative gaze was heavy on her; she looked away.
Rosa said, “You won’t be turned out — out into this messy chaos — if that’s what you fear. In fact, quite the opposite. You’re more likely to be drawn into the center.”
“The center?”
“You’ll see. You have nothing to be ashamed of, Lucia. The Order needs you.” Rosa smiled. “It’s just that you may be needed for something other than record keeping or calligraphy … Ah. Here we are.”
Lucia was, of course, full of questions. But the cab was drawing to a halt, and there was no time to ask.
She got out of the cab to find herself in the Piazza di Rotonda. The square was thronged with tourists bustling between ice cream stalls and cafй s. She stood before the blocky walls of a great building that loomed over them like a fortress — and indeed, said Rosa, it had been used as a fortress in the Middle Ages, as had been most of Rome’s ancient buildings; the brick walls were, after all, six yards thick. This was the Pantheon.
Rosa pointed to a ditch around the walls. “See that? The road level is higher than the base of the building. Since this place was built the rubble and dirt has risen like a tide … Come.” She took Lucia’s hand.
They walked under the great colonnaded portico at the front of the building. Though the height of the tourist season had been the summer, the space among the great gray columns was crowded by people,
many in shorts, T-shirts, and baseball caps and with tiny cameras in their hands. In the Crypt everybody was trim, neat, and would get out of each other’s way without having to be shoved. Not here. The people all seemed grossly overfed and clumsy to Lucia. It was like being in a herd of cattle — slow-moving and aggressive cattle at that.
And then there were the boys, and even some of the men, who looked at her, stared in fact, with a calculating intensity, a greed that made her shudder.
But there was one boy whose gaze seemed clearer. He looked perhaps eighteen, with a pale face, high forehead, and red hair in which sunglasses nestled. He stared, too — he seemed fascinated by her — but there was an innocence in his gaze. He actually smiled at her. She flushed and looked away.
Rosa didn’t seem troubled by the tourists. She was stroking the cool marble of one of the columns. “My father is an accountant, but he did a lot of work with the building trade,” Rosa said. “I know what he would say if he was here.” She switched to English. “Imagine shifting one of these buggers.”
“You were only small when you came here, to the Crypt.”
“Yes. But I still remember him. I remember his hands.” She spread her own fingers. “Big, scarred hands, great slabs of muscle, like a farmer’s hands. He always had strong hands, even though most of his life was spent behind a desk.”
Lucia didn’t know what to say, how to join in a conversation about fathers. Lucia had seen her own father only once or twice. He was a contadino who did occasional work in the Crypt. He was a slightly overweight man, characterless, given to smiling a little weakly. She’d never even spoken to him. To Lucia, even to think about your father seemed unnatural.
“Do you miss your father?”
Rosa smiled, her eyes hidden. “No, I don’t miss him. I lost him, or he lost me, too long ago for that.” She touched Lucia’s shoulder. “And anyhow, the Order is my family now. Isn’t that true?”
Lucia was uncertain how to respond. “Of course.” That didn’t need saying. It shouldn’t be said.
“Come on. Let’s go inside.”
Lucia looked back once. The redheaded boy had gone.
The Pantheon enclosed a broad, airy volume. There was an altar, the walls were decorated with paintings and holy figures, and the floor was a cool sheet of marble across which tourists wandered.
But it was the roof that drew Lucia’s gaze. It was a dome, decorated with a cool geometric design, quite unlike the clutter on the walls. The structure seemed to float above her. The only illumination in this immense space came from a hole in the domed ceiling, the oculus. The light it cast showed as a broad beam in the dusty air, and splashed a distorted circle on one wall.
Rosa murmured, “The dome is bigger than that of Saint Peter’s in the Vatican. Did you know that? But the building was started before the birth of Christ. The Pantheon was built as a temple to all the pagan gods, but was turned into a Christian church in the seventh century, which saved it from being torn down. Now it’s the most complete of the buildings of antiquity left. Of course it has suffered even so. Once the dome was clad, inside and out, by bronze, but that was stripped away by the Barberini popes to make cannons. What the barbarians didn’t do, the Barberini did, as they say.”
Lucia gazed up at the disc of blue sky. “We used to get taken to the Forum area all the time, as kids. But you get used to the imperial-era stuff as just a heap of ruins. You forget that it was once all intact — that it was once all like this.”
“Yes.” In the subdu
ed light of the Pantheon, Rosa had taken her dark glasses off, to reveal slate-gray eyes, just like Lucia’s own.
Lucia said, “I think you should tell me why you brought me here.”
“All right. Look at this building, Lucia. It was rebuilt by the Emperor Hadrian, but the Renaissance artist Raphael is buried here, as are the first kings of Italy. The same building, you see, serving many purposes over time. But at root it is the same Pantheon, the same expression of its architect’s vision.”
“I don’t understand.”
Rosa laughed. “I’m starting to think I’m becoming heavy-handed in my old age. I’m being metaphorical, Lucia.”
“Oh.” Lucia made a stab in the dark. “The Pantheon is like the Order?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so, though that isn’t what I meant. After all, this church is even older than the Order itself. Yes, the Order has survived for sixteen centuries by adapting, by changing what we do to suit the needs and pressures of the times. But we, who we are and why we gather together, that at heart hasn’t changed.
“And just as the Pantheon has survived, though it changes — just as the Order survives, though it changes — so you, too, will survive the changes your body is taking you through, now and in the future. That’s what I wanted to show you. Why, if you hadn’t grown up in the Order your menarche would seem normal for a girl your age. Whatever becomes of you — whatever is asked of you — you will still be yourself. Remember that.”
Whatever is asked of you: now Lucia felt scared.
Rosa raised her face to the great halo of light in the ceiling. “You should take some time for yourself, Lucia. Come out again — immerse yourself in Rome. One of the most remarkable cities in the world is on our doorstep, and yet down in the Crypt we often behave as if it doesn’t exist! And I don’t mean with your classes. Come by yourself — or with a friend or two, if you like. That girl Pina seems sensible. Immerse yourself in humanity for a while.”
It will prepare me, Lucia thought. That’s what she’s telling me. I must broaden my experience, to prepare for — what?
“You’re talking in riddles, Rosa,” she flared. “What is to be asked of me?”
“A great deal, if you are lucky. You’ll see. I’ll do what I can for you — but always remember, I envy you! It isn’t duty, but privilege.” Rosa glanced at her watch. “Now we must go back. There’s somebody I want you to meet.”
“Who?”
“Maria Ludovica.”
Lucia felt as if her heart had stopped, there in the dusty air of the Pantheon. Ludovica was one of the matres.
Rosa smiled, watching her reaction.
* * *
The elevator was steel-walled, and it slid into the ground smoothly, all but silently. All very modern, as was much of the equipment in the Crypt. Rosa stood in patient silence watching the elevator’s LED display, hands calmly folded before her. Lucia envied her composure.
Lucia vaguely imagined the Crypt as a great drum shape, sunk deep into the ground beneath the old Appian Way. There were at least three levels — everybody knew that much. On the first story, nearest the surface, there were schools, offices, libraries, and the computer center where she herself worked on the scrinium ’s endless projects. On the story beneath that — downbelow, as the Crypt jargon had it — there were living accommodations, the dormitories and rest rooms and dining rooms, food stores, kitchens, a hospital, all of them crammed, day and night, with people. Few of the day girls who attended the Order’s famous schools would ever descend this far, and the light shafts didn’t reach; there was only the pale glow of electric lights, and in the old days, it was said, candles and torches.
And there was at least one more level downbelow.
The elevator whispered to a halt. The doors slid open to a mundane white-walled corridor: the third story. Rosa led the way out with a reassuring smile. Lucia followed reluctantly. The corridor was narrow. Some of the doors leading off the corridor were heavy, as if designed to keep an airtight seal. There was a faint smell of antiseptic here, heavily overlaid with a more pleasant scent, like lavender.
Lucia’s heart pounded. She didn’t know anybody who had visited the third level. Lucia herself hadn’t, not since she was a very small child. From what little she knew, this was a place of nurseries and crиches. She herself had been born here, and had spent her first couple of years here. She remembered nothing but a blur of smiling faces, of pale gray eyes, all alike, none special, all loving.
And, so went the whispers in the dark, this was a place of mortuaries. You were born downbelow, here on the third story, and you died downbelow. So it was said. Lucia didn’t want to know.
The corridor was crowded, of course. In the Crypt, everywhere was crowded. People smiled, nodded, and ducked out of the way as Rosa forged ahead. Almost everybody was female. Most people wore everyday clothing, but some wore simple cotton smocks that looked like nurses’ uniforms. Though most shared the usual lozenge-shaped features and smoky gray eyes — and even though everybody seemed young, not much older than she was — there wasn’t a single face here that Lucia recognized.
Lucia had heard bits of dormitory gossip that the Crypt might hold as many as ten thousand people in its great halls and corridors. That scarcely seemed credible — but then, wherever you looked, there were always more corridors, more chambers, stretching on into the electric-lit dimness: who was to say how far it stretched? She would never know, for she would never need to know. Ignorance is strength …
And it was possible, she thought now, that nobody knew the whole picture — nobody at all.
Here on the third level people stared at her openly. Their manner wasn’t hostile — some of them even smiled at her — but Lucia felt herself cringe. This wasn’t her place; they knew it, and she knew it. The pressure of those accusing glares made her long to flee back to where she belonged. She felt breathless, almost panicking, as if the air in these deep chambers were foul.
If only she could be like Rosa, who seemed to be accustomed to flitting between the stories with the ease of a dust mote in the Pantheon.
At last Rosa paused by a door. Lucia felt a vast relief. Whatever lay ahead, at least she was done with the ordeal of the corridor. Rosa opened the door, and let Lucia go through first.
She was immediately struck by a sense of richness. It was like a drawing room, she thought, with dark oak panels on the walls, and marble inlays in the floor, and furniture, tables and chairs and couches. The furniture looked as if it had come from a number of periods, perhaps as far back as the eighteenth century, but there was a wide-screen television, set in a large walnut cabinet. The furniture was heavily used: worn patches on the seat covers, scuffs on the table surfaces, even wear in the marble tiles on the floor. Clocks ticked patiently, their faces darkened by a patina of time. There was more of a sense of age here than in any room she had ever visited in the Crypt.
And there was a unique smell — sour, strong, quite unlike the antiseptic hospital smell of the corridor — something hot, animal, oddly disturbing.
At the center there was a bed, or a couch, the single largest piece of furniture in the room. There was somebody lying on the couch, still, frail looking, reading a book. There was one other person in the room, a young woman who sat patiently in a big, worn armchair, quietly watching the woman in the bed. Rosa nodded at the attendant, smiling.
Rosa led Lucia forward. Their footsteps seemed loud on the marble, but as they neared the bed they reached a thick rug that deadened the noise.
There was one large painting on the rear wall, Lucia saw now. It showed a melodramatic scene of a line of women, their clothing rent, standing before a mob of marauding men. The women were wounded and defenseless, and the intent of the men was obvious. But the women would not give way. The picture was captioned: 1527 — SACCO DI ROMA, the Sack of Rome.
The woman on the bed did not look up from her book. She was very old, Lucia saw. Her face looked as if it had dried out and imploded, like a sun-dried toma
to, her skin leathery and marked with liver spots. Wisps of gray hair lay scattered on the cushion behind her head. On a metal stand beside her bed a plastic bag fed some pale fluid into her arm. A blanket lay over her legs, and she wore a heavy, warm- looking bed jacket, although the room seemed hot to Lucia.
This was Maria Ludovica, then, one of the legendary matres. She looked terribly old, tired, ill — and yet she was pregnant; the swelling in her belly, under the blanket, was unmistakable.
The stink was powerful here, a stink like urine. Lucia felt drawn, repelled at the same time.
Rosa leaned forward and said softly, “Mamma — Mamma—”
Maria looked up blearily, her eyes rheumy gray pebbles. “What, what? Who’s that? Oh, it’s you, Rosa Poole.” She glanced down at her book irritably, tried to focus, then closed the book with a sigh. “Oh, never mind. I always thought old age would at least give me time to read. But by the time I’ve got to the bottom of the page I’ve forgotten what was at the top …” She leered at Lucia, showing a toothless mouth. “What an irony — eh? So, Rosa Poole, who is this you’ve brought to see me? One of mine?”
“One of yours, Mamma. She is Lucia. Fifteen years old.”
“And you’ve reached your menarche.” Maria reached out with one clawlike hand; she compressed Lucia’s breast, not unkindly. Lucia forced herself not to flinch. “Well, perhaps she’ll do. Is she to be your champion, Rosa?”
“Mamma, you shouldn’t talk that way—”
Maria winked, hideously, at Lucia. “I’m too old not to speak the truth. Too old and sick and tired. And Rosa doesn’t like it. Well, I’ve stirred you all up — haven’t I? At least I can still do that. It’s just as when I’m ready to pup. I can see how it agitates them, all these slim breastless sisters. Their little nipples ache, and their dry bellies cramp — isn’t that true, Cecilia?” She snapped the question at her patient nurse, who merely smiled. “Well, I’m pregnant again — and I’m dying, and that’s stirred them up even more. Hasn’t it, Rosa Poole?” Maria cackled. “I feel like the pope, by God. White smoke, white smoke …”
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