Read Online The Last Cato by Matilde Asensi - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Matilde Asensi
Tags: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Ravenna, fascinatingl, Buzzonetti, Ramondino, Restoration, tortoiseshell, Laboratory, Paleography
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meticulous screening, we finally got what we were looking for: five press reports published between Wednesday, February 16, and Sunday the 20th of the same year. An English edition of the Greek newspaper Kathimerini, a bulletin from the Athens News Agency, and three Ethiopian publications called Press Digest, Ethiopian News Headlines, and Addis Tribune.
The story said that on Tuesday, February 15, a small rented Cessna 182 had crashed into Mount Helmos, on the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece, at 9:35 p.m. The dead included the pilot, a twenty-three-year-old Greek man who’d just gotten his pilot’s license, and the passenger, Ethiopian Abi-Ruj Iyasus, age thirty-five. According to the flight plan given to airport authorities in Alexandroupoli, in northern Greece, the plane was headed for the Kalamata Airport, on the Peloponnesus, and was due to land at 9:45 p.m. Ten minutes before, without any SOS, the plane flew over the heavily wooded Mount Helmos at an altitude of 7,736 feet, abruptly descended 2,000 feet, then vanished from the radar. Firemen in nearby Kertezi were immediately alerted by airport authorities. They hurried to the site and found the wreck, still smoking, scattered over a radius of a kilometer. The dead pilot and passenger were hanging from nearby trees. The story was then picked up in Greek newspapers, the report was corroborated by correspondents they had in the area. In the Kathimerini there was also a very blurry snapshot of the accident where I was able to make out Abi-Ruj on a stretcher. It was hard to recognize him, but I had no doubt it was the same man I had so intensely studied. His face was etched in my memory after having looked at his autopsy photographs over a thousand times. The correspondent from the Athens News Agency described in detail both men’s mortal wounds. Apparently, the scarification hidden under his clothes had gone unnoticed.
“Good morning, Doctor.”
“Good morning, Captain,” I answered without looking up at him. I couldn’t take my eyes off poor Abi-Ruj.
An offhanded sentence in the Athens News Agency report grabbed my attention. The firemen found, lying on the ground at the feet of Iyasus’s cadaver, as if it had slipped out of his hands after taking his last breath, an ornate silver box which, they surmised, had opened on impact, and strange pieces of wood had fallen out of it.
The Ethiopian newspapers gave very few details about the accident, mentioning it only in passing. They requested readers’ help to locate the relatives of Abi-Ruj Iyasus, who was a member of the Oromo tribe, a community of shepherds and farmers in central Ethiopia. They sent their request to refugee camps (the country was going through a devastating famine), but additionally—and this was the strangest part—to the religious authorities of Ethiopia, since they found “very valuable holy relics” in the deceased’s possession.
“You might want to turn around and take a look at what I have to show you,” the captain insisted.
The door to the lab behind me opened and closed softly. It was Glauser-Röist.
I grudgingly turned around. The Swiss man’s craggy face wore an enormous smile. In his hand was a very large photograph. I took it with all the indifference I was capable of mustering and cast a disdainful glance at him. My expression changed immediately once I realized what I was looking at. Within the image you could make out a wall of red granite, brightly lit by the sun. On the wall were two small crosses within rectangular frames topped off by small seven-pointed radiate crowns.
“Our crosses!” I uttered enthusiastically.
“Five of the most powerful computers in the Vatican have been working nonstop for four days to come up with what you have in your hand.”
“Just exactly what do I have in my hand?” I would have jumped for joy, except at my age that might have been fatal. “Tell me, Captain, what do I have in my hand?”
“A photograph representing a
The story said that on Tuesday, February 15, a small rented Cessna 182 had crashed into Mount Helmos, on the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece, at 9:35 p.m. The dead included the pilot, a twenty-three-year-old Greek man who’d just gotten his pilot’s license, and the passenger, Ethiopian Abi-Ruj Iyasus, age thirty-five. According to the flight plan given to airport authorities in Alexandroupoli, in northern Greece, the plane was headed for the Kalamata Airport, on the Peloponnesus, and was due to land at 9:45 p.m. Ten minutes before, without any SOS, the plane flew over the heavily wooded Mount Helmos at an altitude of 7,736 feet, abruptly descended 2,000 feet, then vanished from the radar. Firemen in nearby Kertezi were immediately alerted by airport authorities. They hurried to the site and found the wreck, still smoking, scattered over a radius of a kilometer. The dead pilot and passenger were hanging from nearby trees. The story was then picked up in Greek newspapers, the report was corroborated by correspondents they had in the area. In the Kathimerini there was also a very blurry snapshot of the accident where I was able to make out Abi-Ruj on a stretcher. It was hard to recognize him, but I had no doubt it was the same man I had so intensely studied. His face was etched in my memory after having looked at his autopsy photographs over a thousand times. The correspondent from the Athens News Agency described in detail both men’s mortal wounds. Apparently, the scarification hidden under his clothes had gone unnoticed.
“Good morning, Doctor.”
“Good morning, Captain,” I answered without looking up at him. I couldn’t take my eyes off poor Abi-Ruj.
An offhanded sentence in the Athens News Agency report grabbed my attention. The firemen found, lying on the ground at the feet of Iyasus’s cadaver, as if it had slipped out of his hands after taking his last breath, an ornate silver box which, they surmised, had opened on impact, and strange pieces of wood had fallen out of it.
The Ethiopian newspapers gave very few details about the accident, mentioning it only in passing. They requested readers’ help to locate the relatives of Abi-Ruj Iyasus, who was a member of the Oromo tribe, a community of shepherds and farmers in central Ethiopia. They sent their request to refugee camps (the country was going through a devastating famine), but additionally—and this was the strangest part—to the religious authorities of Ethiopia, since they found “very valuable holy relics” in the deceased’s possession.
“You might want to turn around and take a look at what I have to show you,” the captain insisted.
The door to the lab behind me opened and closed softly. It was Glauser-Röist.
I grudgingly turned around. The Swiss man’s craggy face wore an enormous smile. In his hand was a very large photograph. I took it with all the indifference I was capable of mustering and cast a disdainful glance at him. My expression changed immediately once I realized what I was looking at. Within the image you could make out a wall of red granite, brightly lit by the sun. On the wall were two small crosses within rectangular frames topped off by small seven-pointed radiate crowns.
“Our crosses!” I uttered enthusiastically.
“Five of the most powerful computers in the Vatican have been working nonstop for four days to come up with what you have in your hand.”
“Just exactly what do I have in my hand?” I would have jumped for joy, except at my age that might have been fatal. “Tell me, Captain, what do I have in my hand?”
“A photograph representing a
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