Chapter 5

Henry Mercado retrieved a short spade from the Jeep, and Frank Purcell carried the body of the dead priest, wrapped in the blanket, into the courtyard of the spa.

Vivian chose a spot in the overgrown garden near the dry fountain, and Purcell dug a grave deep enough to keep the jackals from the body.

Purcell, Mercado, and Vivian lowered the body into the grave and took turns filling it with the red African earth. When they were done, Mercado said a short prayer over the grave.

Vivian wiped her sweating face, then picked up her camera and took photographs of the unmarked grave and the surrounding ruins. They had agreed not to make notes of this encounter, in case they or their notebooks fell into the wrong hands, and Purcell wasn’t sure Vivian should be taking pictures, but he said nothing. She said, “We can show these to his family.” She added, “They may want to bring the body home.”

Purcell didn’t think that after forty years there was anyone in Berini who would want to do that. But it was possible, and nice of Vivian to think of it.

Mercado looked at the grave, then said to his companions, “I somehow feel that we killed him with our prodding… and all that water…”

Purcell replied, “He was a dead man when we found him, Henry.” He added, “We did what he wanted us to do. We listened to him.” He reminded Mercado, “He wanted us to let his people know what happened to him. And we’ll do that.”

Vivian sat on a stone garden bench and stared at the grave. She said, “He also wanted us to know about the black monastery… and the Grail. He wanted us to go to Rome… the Vatican, and tell them that Father Giuseppe Armano had found what they sent him to find.”

Purcell glanced at Mercado and he was sure they were both thinking the same thing: They weren’t going to break this story to the Vatican. At least not now. In fact, Father Armano himself had suggested that the Grail was safe where it was, meaning leave it there.

Mercado sat beside Vivian, looked around at the crumbling faux-Roman spa, and said, “This is a fitting place to bury him.” He asked, “Well, what do we think about what Father Armano said?”

No one replied, and Mercado prompted, “About the black monastery… and the Holy Grail?”

Purcell lit a cigarette. “Well… I think his story was basically true… I mean about the cardinal, the pope, his war experiences, and the monastery. But he sort of lost me with the Lance of Longinus dripping blood into the Holy Grail.”

Mercado thought a moment, then nodded and said, “I’m supposed to be the believer, but… you know, in the Gulag, there was a prisoner who said he’d been sent there for trying to kill Stalin. But he was actually there for pilfering state property—twenty years. But you see, he needed a crime big enough to fit the sentence, instead of the other way around.”

No one responded, so Mercado continued. “We don’t know what Father Armano did to spend forty years in a cell. But I think he convinced himself that he was there because he’d seen what he wasn’t supposed to see.”

Vivian said, “But his story was so full of detail.”

Mercado said to her, “Vivian, if you had forty years to work on a story, you would get the details down quite well.” He added, “He wasn’t actually lying to us. He had just deluded himself to the point where it became truth in his own mind.”

Purcell wiped his face with his sleeve. The sun was a brutal yellow now. He asked Mercado, “Where do you think the story became delusional?”

Mercado shrugged, then replied, “Maybe after the Lake Tana part. Maybe he had been captured by the Ethiopian army and they put him in jail as a prisoner of war.”

Purcell asked, “But why lock him up for forty years? The war with the Italians ended within a year.”

Again Mercado shrugged and replied, “I don’t know… the local ras, Prince Theodore, had captured an Italian enemy… a priest who they didn’t want to kill… so they threw him in jail and forgot about him.”

Purcell pointed out, “But when the Italians won the war, the prince would have given Father Armano to them to curry favor, or for a price. Instead, they kept him locked in solitary confinement for four decades. Why?”

Mercado conceded, “I suppose it is possible that Father Armano did find and enter this black monastery, and maybe the monks did kill the Italian soldiers who were with Father Armano, and that’s why the monks handed him over to the Ethiopian prince and had him put away for life—so he couldn’t reveal what they’d done, or reveal the location of the monastery.” He added, “They silenced a witness without killing him. Yes, I can see that happening if the witness was a priest.”

Purcell suggested, “So maybe what the priest said is all true—except for the part about the Holy Grail and the lance dripping blood.”

Mercado replied, “That’s very possible.”

Purcell asked, “So should we look for this black monastery?”

“It would be a dangerous undertaking,” said Mercado.

“But,” said Purcell, “worth the risk if we’re actually looking for the Holy Grail.”

“Yes,” agreed Mercado, “but the Holy Grail does not actually exist, Frank. It is a legend. A myth.”

“I thought you were a true believer, Henry.”

“I am, old boy. But I don’t believe in medieval myths. I believe in God.”

Vivian was looking at Mercado thoughtfully and said to him, “I think, Henry, that you’re not so sure of what you’re saying.”

“I am sure.”

Purcell speculated, “Maybe you’re trying to cut us out of the deal, Henry. Or cut me out, and take your photographer along to look for the black monastery.”

Mercado looked offended and said, “You’ve been in the sun too long.”

“Look, Henry,” said Purcell, “you and I and Vivian all believe every word of Father Armano’s story, including him finding the Holy Grail in the monastery. But the problem is the Grail itself. The priest saw it, but is it actually the Grail? The cup used by Christ at the Last Supper? Or is it something that the monks think is the Holy Grail?”

Mercado nodded. “That’s the most logical conclusion.” He asked rhetorically, “How many false relics are there in the Catholic Church?” He answered his own question: “Probably hundreds. Such as a piece of the true cross. The nails used to crucify Christ. A piece of his robe. That is what the priest saw—a false relic.”

“Correct,” agreed Purcell. “But what we need to decide is whether or not we want to look for this black monastery, and the so-called Holy Grail. Is that enough of a story to risk our lives for?” He added, “Don’t forget what happened to…” He nodded toward the grave.

Mercado glanced at the fresh earth, but didn’t reply.

Vivian reminded them, “Father Armano said that the sacred blood healed his wound.”

Purcell explained, “If you believe strongly enough, you can experience a psychosomatic healing of the body, and certainly of the mind. We all know this.”

“Well… yes…” replied Vivian. “But he also described the Lance of Longinus dripping a never-ending supply of blood into the Grail.”

“Well, you got me there, Vivian.”

She continued, “And apparently the Vatican believes in this—if you believe that part of Father Armano’s story. And I do.”

Purcell pointed out, “The Vatican does not necessarily believe that the Holy Grail even exists, or that it somehow wound up in Ethiopia. But they decided to take advantage of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and send a bunch of priests here with the army to check out something they heard or read—and while they were at it, grab anything they could find.”

Mercado agreed and said, “The Italian army looted a great number of religious artifacts from Ethiopia.” He further informed them, “The steles sitting in front of the Italian Foreign Ministry in Rome were taken from the ancient Ethiopian capital of Axum.” He added, “The Ethiopians want them back.”

“The spoils of war,” Purcell said, “go to the victors.”

Mercado agreed. “Europe, the Vatican, the British Museum are filled with objects looted from the rest of the world. But those days are over, so even if we decide to look for this relic, and we find it, we have no right to try to… take it.”

Purcell said, “You’re getting ahead of yourself, Henry. We’re not sure we’re going to look for it. And if we do look for it and we find it, what we’re going to do is take a few photos and write about it—not steal it.”

Mercado clarified, “We don’t believe it is the actual cup used by Christ at the Last Supper, and we could not prove that in any case. And we most definitely do not believe it has any mystical powers, contrary to legend. But the priest’s story—the Vatican, the cardinal, the pope, the monastery, the monks, the Grail, and the lance—are the stuff of a great news story.” He added, “A human interest story. The dying priest who has been imprisoned since the Italian invasion—”

“Correct, but we couldn’t write only about what the dying priest told us and then not report that we followed up by looking for the black monastery.” Purcell added, “We’d look like all those journalists sitting in the Hilton bar in Addis, rewriting government press releases.”

Mercado replied, “We are certainly not that.” He added, “We’re here.”

Purcell asked rhetorically, “So have we talked ourselves into this? Are we willing to risk our lives to look for the Holy Grail that probably says ‘Made in Japan’ when you turn it over?”

Mercado forced a smile, then said, “I think the story is good enough to pursue to the end.”

Purcell reminded him, “So did Father Armano.”

No one spoke for a while, each lost in thought. Finally, Vivian said, “If we don’t do this, we’ll regret it all our lives.”

“Which might be very short if we do,” Purcell pointed out.

Mercado said, “Or even shorter if we can’t get out of here.” He reminded his companions, “Our immediate problem is that we are in dangerous territory. I don’t suggest we try to drive back to Addis. I have a safe-conduct pass from the Provisional government, so we need to join up with the Ethiopian army, which is less than an hour from here. Or if that’s not possible, we’ll join up with the Royalist forces. What we don’t want to do is run into the Gallas.”

“That’s not a good story,” Purcell agreed. He suggested, “We’ll spend a few days with the army, reporting on their victory, then we will offer them our Jeep in return for a helicopter ride back to Addis. Then when we come to our senses, we can decide over a drink if we want to come back here and look for the black monastery.”

Vivian said, “I’ve already decided.”

“Don’t be impulsive,” Purcell advised.

Mercado said, “We can’t be sure this monastery still exists after forty years—or if it ever existed. We’ll need to do some research at the Italian Library in Addis, and we’ll need terrain maps and all that, and some better equipment—”

“Right,” Purcell interrupted, “but let’s first get away from this spa before the Gallas arrive for a bath.”

Mercado and Vivian stood, and they made their way across the courtyard, then walked through the colonnade, back toward their Jeep.

Vivian asked, “How do we find the army headquarters?”

Mercado replied, “Probably by accident. We just need to drive into the hills and with luck we’ll come across an army unit or an outpost.” He suggested, “Practice waving your press credentials.”

They got back to the lobby of the spa hotel and jumped into the Jeep. Purcell started it up and they drove across the lobby, out to the portico, then down the steps they’d ascended the night before. Purcell continued across the grass field and onto the narrow jungle road, then turned toward the hills and accelerated.

They were aware that they were in a battle zone and that anything was possible, especially bad things. The Provisional Army forces were supposed to honor their safe-conduct pass, issued by the Provisional government. The Royalist forces, who’d probably been beaten last night, might not be in a good mood. But their imprisoned emperor, Haile Selassie, had an affinity for the West, and Purcell thought that the Royalists, all Christians, would treat them well if they ran into them first. But as with all armies, you never knew for sure. What Purcell did know for sure was that the Gallas would butcher them without a thought about their status as accredited journalists.

Purcell tried to focus on the bad road and on the problem of avoiding the Gallas. But his thoughts kept returning to the priest and his story. Father Armano had found the black monastery that the Vatican knew existed. Purcell was sure of that part of the story. After that… well, as Henry Mercado said, it was all medieval myth. The search for the Holy Grail had been going on for about a thousand years, and the reason it was never found was because it never existed. Or it did exist for a brief hour or two at the Last Supper—but it had been cleared with the dishes and it was lost forever. More importantly, it had no special powers; that was a tale spun by storytellers, not historians or theologians. That fact, however, had never stopped anyone from looking for it.

Purcell wondered how many people had spent their lives or lost their lives in a quest to find this thing that didn’t exist. He didn’t know, but he did know that there might soon be three more idiots to add to that list.