Читать книгу Sacred Bones - Michael Spring - Страница 7

FOUR

It was about this time that God led me to the catacombs. I was wandering along the Via Labicana late one day, not far from Saint John’s Gate, when a downpour sent me scurrying to some ancient ruins for cover. Pushing my way through the high, tangled grasses, I came to a large, roofless basilica overgrown with nettles. As I stepped among the cypress and gray-leaved ilex, I noticed a flight of slick, moss-covered steps, disappearing into the ground. I hesitated, but the rain was sharp and cold, so I asked God to protect me, and descended.

Dim lights flickered in the crypt below. The air smelled sickly sweet, like an overripe melon. The dampness cut through me like iron. Suddenly I was standing in a low-arched chamber, before a marble altar. The walls were covered with religious scenes, barely distinguishable in the gloom. The mensa was strewn with wilted flowers, blood-red and white.

Suddenly I froze. There in the corner was the twisted body of a demon, gaping up at me through lidless eyes. I turned and fled up the stairs, through the wet grasses, back to the Via Labicana. I pulled off my tunic as I ran. The rain lashed me like a whip.

The altar, I learned from a priest, covered the earthly remains of two holy Roman martyrs, Peter and Marcellinus, who had been persecuted in the time of Diocletian. The steps offered a shortcut to their tomb.

When the skies cleared I paid the martyrs a second visit, this time with my classmate Luniso. He had never deigned to spend time with me before, but my hair-raising adventure intrigued him.

He lit a torch at the entrance and, without a prayer or a moment’s hesitation, plunged down into the ground. I touched the small box of relics that hung from my neck, and followed close behind. Our warm breath bloomed in the chilly air like poisonous white flowers. Tuber-like roots grew down through cracks in the plaster ceiling. Drops of moisture hung from them like jewels. Flames leaped from two or three oil lamps left by the faithful, blackening the walls. The sacred bones sweetened the air with the clean, spicy scent of frankincense and myrrh.

Luniso pointed gleefully at the partly decomposed body of a sheep, which must have wandered down into the crypt and lost its way.

“So much for your demon,” he laughed.

Nothing fazed Luniso. He hummed as he paced off the marble floor: fifteen feet by twenty-five. Pieces of fluted marble lay about an opening in the far left wall. “That should be the original entrance, through the catacombs,” he announced. “Let’s go see.”

He lifted his torch and headed down the narrow corridor. I rushed after him. The dead slept in niches dug into the rough walls, one above the other, five or six bodies high. A few tombs remained sealed behind tiles or marble slabs, but most of them had been plundered over the centuries by grave robbers. I reached into a gaping black hole and touched a bone. It crumbled in my hand like ash.

Whenever Luniso turned a corner, he left me in total darkness. An owl hooted. A bat rushed by my head. Luniso laughed. What did he know that made him so unafraid of death?

On we went. The air tasted old. Our shadows leaped across the walls like sprites. I was terrified that we would lose our way like the hapless sheep and be found hundreds of years from now, bones and dust.

It would be an honor, I mused, dying beside Luniso, our names forever linked on peoples’ lips.

Stooping through a low, lonely corridor, we found ourselves in a family crypt decorated with scenes of hope and redemption, life beyond this vale of tears. One of the paintings, severely damaged by water, portrayed a Roman family gathered around a table, sharing a joyful evening meal.

The scene still haunts me. Agape and Irene—Love and Peace—stand behind a table, waiting to serve the fish and wine—the flesh and blood of Christ. Misce me! says the father. Mix the wine for me. Da calda. Make it warm. The parents and children slouch forward in easy conversation, their arms and elbows on the table. It is a banquet of the blessed, a celebration of the Eucharist as it was meant to be observed: as an ordinary family meal.

Luniso stepped back into the dreary passageway, waving his lantern. The darkness enveloped me. I lunged after him. How far he would have led me I’ll never know, for God in His mercy blocked our way with debris fallen through a skylight, and forced us to retrace our steps. We passed back through the chapel of Peter and Marcellinus, up into the blinding light of day.