The Quest

A few of his former colleagues had approached him in the two days since he’d been here, but they’d observed the unspoken rule of not asking any questions of a fellow reporter. He had, however, volunteered a few details about his trip to the front in September, his arrest and imprisonment, and his expulsion from the country. He was back, he said, on assignment for L’Osservatore Romano. This was old news and didn’t rate getting bought a drink, but they wished him good luck.

One reporter, a nice lady named Fran from AP, had informed him, “The crazy fun phase of the revolution is over. Almost everyone they wanted dead is dead or in jail, or on the run. Now they have to govern and they can’t deal with the famine or the Eritrean separatists.”

Purcell had asked her about the Gallas, but she didn’t know or care much. The Gallas were not on the radar screens of anyone in the capital; they were like marauding lions, somewhere out there, with no political agenda. Plus, they were not available for comment.

He also asked, “How about the Royalist partisans?”

“They’re finished.”

He thought about Colonel Gann, who was returning to fight a lost cause. Colonel Gann would wind up dead this time.

Fran also informed him that the Falasha Jews were beginning an exodus, to Israel, and that was a good story.

Purcell looked up at the huge stained glass window that diffused the dying afternoon sunlight throughout the modern bar, and which would do credit to a European cathedral. The window was the work of a contemporary Ethiopian artist, done in a neoprimitive style, and told the story of the founding of the Ethiopian royal line. The first panel showed the black queen, Sheba, visiting Jerusalem with her attendants. The next panel showed them being received by King Solomon. The queen then returns to her homeland, and there she gives birth to a son, Menelik, the ancestor of the present emperor, who would also be the last emperor of Ethiopia, unless Colonel Gann could perform a miracle. Purcell wondered if the new government would allow that window to stay there. The hotel guests liked it.

He looked at his watch: 4:36. Vivian’s plane had landed. Lovers meet at the airport. Reporters and their photographers do not if they are also lovers and don’t want to advertise that relationship to the security apparatus, who might make use of the information. So for that reason, and also because L’Osservatore Romano was a Catholic enterprise, Vivian had her own room.

Purcell had, however, sent a hotel car and driver to meet her, and to report by telephone that the hotel guest had arrived and was safely through passport control.

Purcell informed the bartender that he was waiting for this call.

He ordered another Jack Daniel’s and perused an English-language newspaper on the bar. A small item tucked away inside the paper reported that the former monarch, Mr. Haile Selassie, remained under the protective custody of the Provisional Revolutionary government.

If Mr. Selassie was a younger man, Purcell knew, they’d have already executed him. But one of the advantages of advanced age-if there were any-was that people who wanted you dead only had to wait patiently. Also, the now Mr. Selassie was still popular in the West and killing him would further strain relations with Europe and America. Even the Soviet and Cuban advisors would argue against regicide in this case. The murdered Romanovs had become martyrs, and the modern Marxists wanted to avoid that this time.

Purcell thought back to Berini. Coffee and cannoli at the rectory of San Anselmo had not been as awful as he’d expected. The sister of Father Armano, Anna, was a sweet woman and she had taken to Vivian, despite Vivian’s exotic appearance.

Vivian had told Anna that her brother had mentioned her by name, which made Anna weep. Anna told them that she had seen her brother in a dream, last year when there was much news of Ethiopia, and her brother was smiling, which according to Sicilian belief meant he was in heaven. Unfortunately, Anna couldn’t recall the exact date of the dream, though with Vivian’s prompting she agreed it could have been in September.

Coincidence? Not according to Vivian or Mercado, who took this as a further sign of divine design. Even he, Frank Purcell, found himself wanting to believe that Father Armano had traveled home for a last visit.

Father Rulli’s small rectory had become filled with the near and distant relatives of the late Giuseppe Armano, and as Father Rulli explained, unnecessarily, “Sicilian families are large.”