There are bigger surprises in this letter, too. Michael Black was right: Simon has been inviting Orthodox clergy to Rome. Ugo seems to have been very aware of it—he refers to the trips Simon was taking and the gesture that should be made toward the Orthodox at an upcoming meeting. Strangest of all, there’s even a hint in the final lines that he and Simon were joined by Michael in the work they did together. The only contributor to Ugo’s exhibit who seems not to have known of these other arrangements was me.
I open the bedroom door and ask Diego if he can look up something for me.
“Daily schedules from the past few weeks,” I say. “For the Casina.”
The Casina, mentioned in this letter, where Ugo was preparing to deliver a keynote to visiting Orthodox, is a summer house in the middle of the Vatican gardens, a ten-minute walk from my apartment. It was built in the Renaissance as a papal retreat from the Vatican palace, but John Paul rarely uses it, and the building stays vacant other than the occasional meetings of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. That connection may be a clue about the meeting Ugo is discussing here. The Pontifical Academy is a group of eighty international researchers and theoreticians, including dozens of Nobel laureates, whose stamp of approval on Ugo’s exhibit might erase the radiocarbon stigma for good. No one would be better qualified to send the message that today’s science has overthrown yesterday’s. I could envision Simon inviting Orthodox priests to a meeting of the academy just as reassurance that my father’s Turin fiasco was not about to be repeated.
While I wait for Diego to return, I riffle through Simon’s day planner. Most of what I see is familiar. Simon’s trips to Rome are marked off with black Xs, over which he’s written Alex and Peter! in red. Michael emphasized Simon’s habit of disappearing over the weekends, and sure enough there are weekend meetings penciled here. But the notations tell me nothing. Written slapdash in pencil on the third Saturday in July is RM—10 AM. I presume RM means “Reverendissimo”—archbishop. But there’s no name, no location. The next weekend says SER 8:45 AM, which probably means “Sua Eccellenza Reverendissima”—a bishop—but again, no name or place.
Still, one thing gives me pause. At the beginning of the planner, in the directory of my brother’s contacts, I find a listing for the nameless archbishop: RM it says again. His phone number is odd. It has too many digits to be Turkish. It looks more like an international line.
I punch it into my mobile and wait for someone to answer.
“Bună ziua,” comes a man’s voice. “Palatul Patriarhiei.”
I’ve spoken to many Turks on the phone. This is not Turkish.
“Parla Italiano?” I say.
No answer.
“Do you speak English?”
“Small. Little.”
“What country am I calling right now? Can you tell me where you’re located?”
He pauses, and seems about to hang up, when I say, “Where are you? ”
“Bucureşti.”
“Thank you,” I fumble.
I stare at the letters Simon has written in the book: RM. They don’t mean “Reverendissimo.” They mean “Romania.” My brother has been doing business with someone in Bucharest.
So SER can’t be “Sua Eccellenza Reverendissima.” It must be—
“Belgrade,” says the man who answers the second number I call.
Serbia.
I can’t believe my ears. Romania and Serbia are Orthodox countries. Simon has been reaching out to Orthodox clergy on a scale I didn’t imagine. From Turkey and Bulgaria to Romania and Serbia, he has paved a wide path toward Italy that travels through half of Orthodox Eastern Europe. If he has invited a few priests from each of these countries, then he has begun to create a symbolic bridge between the capital cities of our two Churches.