What I did know for sure was that I had to see that cloth in Manoppello for myself. Could it really be an ancient image somehow created without paint or dye? If so, I would have my hands around the biggest story in two centuries—but first I’d have to live to tell it.
Somehow the scent of blood—literally—hanging on this story was stronger than my need to protect myself.
I had to start by finding this cloistered nun whose name I didn’t even get. But how many nuns can live alone in a shack above a monastery on a mountain in a tiny town? My guess was one. If I was lucky. But then again, this was Italy—a land where the unusual is usual, especially when it comes to the secrets of Christianity and the literal veil of secrecy about most things connected to the Vatican.
I searched around my bag and found the mini hand sanitizer from the plane and an old tissue to wipe my face. I was relieved to see the blood had stopped, so I cleaned up as best I could and hurried out of Saint Peter’s.
How, I wondered, had such a thing happened to me in a place where I felt so devoid of actual spirituality? Jewels and treasures, yes; God, no.
I was raised to believe that the Vatican is a temple in honor of the spoils of war, of human wealth, greed, and power—rather than the titular home of the prophet who preached poverty and nonviolence. Demiel ben Yusef wasn’t wrong about all of that.
I sat down at a pasticceria to gather my thoughts and get a cappuccino, despite the fact that it was well past breakfast and something no self-respecting Italian would ever drink after 10:00 A.M.
The cappuccino came with a heart elaborately “drawn” on top of the foamy milk with espresso. I smiled up at the waiter, grateful for a tiny bit of civilized normalcy, but the heart made me think of Pantera again, and I fought back the tears. I could only imagine what would happen if I started weeping blood tears outside the Vatican.
It occurred to me that the nun living up in those mountains now might, in fact, be Grethe! It was possible that the geneticist/cloner/rogue Catholic nun was not just alive but alive and working behind the scenes.
If so, it meant that so far, of the original people in the Great Experiment, only Pantera had been killed.
The sound on the little TV over the bar was turned up suddenly, and I couldn’t help but look up. It was tuned to the news, and I immediately turned away to avoid again seeing the charred body of Pantera being carried out of his flaming car. But a familiar voice made me look back up after a few minutes.
It was Dona. She was doing a stand-up outside the UN.
“Today was perhaps the most explosive day in the extraordinary tribunal of accused terrorist Demiel ben Yusef,” she said, her perfect blend of Cockney / rich girl carrying easily over the din of the café. She looked more gorgeous than usual, if possible, in a black coat with her knee-high black boots gleaming in the misting NYC rain.
She continued: “The defendant, ben Yusef, sat once more silent and serene as the most damning witness yet for the prosecution, former follower and top adviser Yehuda Kerioth, was called to the stand.
“To get ahead of any of today’s testimony, however, last night the veiled woman known only as il Vettore took to the Internet to allege that any testimony we’d hear today from Kerioth would be false.
“She accused ben Yusef’s close friend and follower, Kerioth, of a massive betrayal—the result of his having accepted a plea deal.”
Dona then cut to last night’s video of il Vettore. It was a well-lit, beautifully filmed close-up of a woman’s face—or what you could see of her face—the veil of her light blue cotton burqa covering almost everything but her magnificent bright blue eyes, which were heavily rimmed in black kohl.
Il Vettore claimed, in unaccented, almost-American-sounding English, that Kerioth had cut a deal with the international “powers-that-be” (unnamed), in exchange, as Dona had reported, for turning in ben Yusef and testifying against him. She claimed that in doing so he had received a deal that offered both freedom from prosecution and some thirty million dollars in gold and silver bullion.
Il Vettore then alleged, “Who is it that paid so exorbitant a price for the head of the Son of the Son?
“This blood-soaked bargain was brokered by a consortium of world leaders, who this day stand in judgment of Him as they will one day be judged by Him!”
Son of the Son? Pantera’s terminology!
Dona came back onscreen. “Neither il Vettore nor any of ben Yusef’s followers have ever named even one leader in the alleged plot against ben Yusef. The prosecution has vehemently denied these claims.
“However, the mysterious il Vettore has become a massively popular figure in her own right. The veiled woman has captured the imagination of people around the world, many of whom have taken to the Internet to even speculate that she is ben Yusef’s wife, calling her ‘the modern Mary Magdalene.’ TV pundits have taken to calling her ‘Mary ben Magdalene.’