The Priests of Hiroshima

Nina purred quietly while Maria placed the book carefully on the table and poured herself a small ceramic cup of wine. She did so love her wine, this Maria, Nina thought.

“I found it,” Maria said as she sat beside Nina, “when I was cleaning out the thing we laughingly call a store room. In the back. Next to a couple of very worn and very old Korans. It looked,” she hesitated, sipped her wine, then continued, “out of place. Very... much like a vagabond.” She gazed out the window for a moment then turned back to Nina. “How much do you know about a guy named Gutenberg?”

“The goldsmith turned printer turned pauper who lost his business to his partner’s father-in-law and once got 2000 liters of wine,” Nina nodded at Maria’s cup, “for a printing job and who, once he got over the shock of it, actually talked to me about typography,” Nina smiled as only a cat can smile and licked his right paw.

“Oh,” Maria muttered and smiled. “So, you met him.”

Nina nodded but realized she was only patronizing him. He kept his anger to himself.

“That makes you...”

“Old. What’s your evil plan?”

“Tell me about Gutenberg. How’d you meet him?” But she had a twinkle in her eye and Nina knew she was making fun of him. He snarled, raised the hair on the back of his neck and jumped off her lap onto the floor.

Maria sipped her wine and watched Nina who stared back.

“I have been alive since the black plague ravaged the earth,” Nina growled. “I have lived in Mainz and Istanbul. I have traveled with crusaders and merchants. I am not human so I am not a liar. I am not a human so I do not belittle my friends. I am not human so I do not immediately assume others are liars.” He hissed at Maria and strolled into the bookstore, seeking a comfortable, warm place to lie down and dream. If she didn’t want to believe him, he didn’t need to convince her. He would be around long after her grandchildren were dead. Having practical immortality allowed you to take a very long view of life.

After a moment in which Nina avoided the Philosophy books and found a warm cushion near the very very thin poetry books - not even books, he though, more like pamphlets and all easily destroyed by time - Maria strolled in pretending to dust the leather-cased books and shelves.

“Vincini is Venetian,” she said, still not looking at Nina. “But whereas I’m an unmarried maiden beholden to a shopkeeper for the next five years as an apprentice. Vincini is not.” Maria carefully examined the slightly damaged binding of a 900-year-old Koran. “He is not a maiden, he is not an apprentice, and he is not...” She looked directly at Nina and paused.

Nina, failing in his attempt to ignore her, finished her sentence. “Unmarried.”

“Exactly,” Maria stated firmly. “His wife lives, not poorly nor richly, but comfortably in a small house off St. Marks. With her two sons, one of whom is nearly 22 and unmarried.”

“You want to marry him? Vincini’s son?” Nina, curiosity getting the better of him, asked.

“No. Not at all. He is, what’s the word you use when people are, ah, yes. He is slovenly and extremely lazy. Vincini sends them money and they spend it.”

“And you want?”

“This,” she said and looked around the cramped and crowded little store.

“What’re you going to do with Vincini?”

“Do with?” she asked, puzzled. “Nothing.”

Nina looked at her, puzzled, now.

“Oh,” Maria smiled and sipped her wine. “You mean you think I want to steal this from... Oh, no, no. That would be... human of me,” she smiled. “No, I was hoping he would leave it to me, should he die.”

“You want to inherit this store?” Nina asked. “Why? It’s small, it rarely makes enough money. It is a treacherous business. Thieves would plunder this place if it were not for the alarms, bolts, and locks. Look,” Nina said and raised a paw at a large, 150-year-old Bible. “Don’t you notice how it is bolted not to the desk but to the floor? You have to never leave anything unprotected here. And selling them? Selling these books? How many customers have you seen in here since you came? Total. Can you not count the number of customers on both your hands? Why do you want to inherit such a painful store?”

“Because,” Maria replied casually, “It has a 300-year-old talking cat. Tell me about your weird adventure you had this morning.”

Nina stared at her.

“The one Vincini didn’t want to hear while he was spying on me.”

“You, Maria of Venice, are a witch. How else could you have heard that? We were in the alley. Whispering.”

“Not as quiet as you thought you were and maybe,” Maria’s eyes twinkled as she spoke, “Maybe I am a witch.” She smiled at Nina. “Or, since I’m human, maybe I’m a liar? Now, please, tell me about your little adventure.”

______________

Next: Coming Soon.

22. The Drunken Priest

2007-11-19T14:29:00.000-08:00

June 22, 1450 - Mainz, Germany

Father Gabriel stormed down the German street, his robes flapping earnestly with every step the agitated priest took. He ignored greetings from friends and Catholics alike. He strode with a determination few had seen outside of his sermons and confessions. He rounded a corner and kicked open the door to the print shop.

“Johannes!” he yelled but stared fiercely at the top of the counter. “Johannes!” he screamed again when no one responded to his first bellow.

“Sir?” Mikhail said softly from the floor of the print shop.

Father Gabriel looked over the counter and down at the prostrate apprentice. “Where is Johannes?” he asked.

Mikhail pointed toward the east and at first Father Gabriel thought that the young man meant Johannes had fled to the Byzantine empire and Constantinople, then he realized that a workman’s café was a few streets east and it was, he checked the sun, after mid-day.

“He’s at lunch, then?” Father Gabriel demanded of the boy. Mikhail nodded and waited. Father Gabriel had nothing left to say so he turned and stormed out of the print shop and headed to the café where he hoped to capture the immoral printer. He rushed quickly past the wine merchant’s store and the bakery and pushed his way into the crowded café.

“Johannes!” he yelled above the cacophony of workers’ voices. He noticed they were all drinking the Evil Beer and knew they would regret it when they attempted to get into heaven. “Johannes!” he screamed again and watched the serving wench as she stooped to place three large steins in front of three burly men. He also noticed that when she bent over, her bosoms were exposed to all the Laborers. And himself. He forced himself to look away but not before she caught his eyes looking down her blouse.

“Johannes!” he screamed in anger and frustration.

“Father Gabriel,” a soft voice replied. He turned and saw the Judge.

“Judge!” Father Gabriel responded, surprised. “What are you...” Then he noticed that the Judge was sitting with The Printer. “You!” he spit.

“Father Gabriel,” Johannes replied casually. “Please, join us.” He moved a wooden chair toward the priest and the Judge cautiously moved several plates away so that the priest would have adequate room for his own beer.

“Yes,” the Judge said. “Join us.”

“But...” Father Gabriel began but, defeated, sat. He watched in horror as the Printer motioned for the serving woman to bring another beer. The priest started to protest but the Judge raised his hand for another ale, too.

“It’s a pleasure seeing you again,” the Judge said, addressing the priest. “The archbishop was talking about you at dinner the other night.” The Judge turned to Johannes and added, “The archbishop has a weakness for seafood.”

Johannes nodded but remained silent.

The serving woman arrived with two large steins of beer and, smiling at Father Gabriel, bent low and exposed her bosoms to him. Father Gabriel glanced at them but then immediately looked up at the pockmarked unpainted ceiling until, giggling, she left.

“What brings you to our little café?” Johannes asked.

“Me?” Father Gabriel looked at his beer and forced himself to leave his hands palm down on the table without picking up the stein. “I, I was looking for you. I went to you shop, thinking you would be...”

“Ah,” Johannes interrupted. “Peter and I have worked so long and so hard we decided to take a break.”

“Where’s Peter?” Father Gabriel asked but without enthusiasm.

“Asleep, I believe. In our office. My office.”

“Ah,” the priest said. “Like your apprentice.”

The three sat in silence for a moment and let the hubbub of the café flow over them. The Judge picked at a bit of food left on his plate while Johannes sipped his beer.

“I came to ask you, sir,” Father Gabriel said, interrupting the noisy silence, “to allow the church... me...”

“Your beer, Father,” the Judge said. “You haven’t touched it.”

“I...” But Father Gabriel gave in to Temptation and picked up his stein. “To God,” he muttered and the other two men mumbled the same. When he finished his first sip, Father Gabriel knew his afternoon was doomed. He had another sip, larger and more refreshing that the first.

“Yes?” Johannes asked. “To ask me?” he prompted when the priest looked at him quizzically.

“Ah, yes,” the priest said.

“Are you hungry, Father?” the Judge suddenly asked but when Father Gabriel looked at him he saw the Judge staring at the serving wench.

“Yes,” Father Gabriel said reluctantly. His plan when he awoke was to confront the printer in his shop and return to his church to pray. This lunch was throwing his plans completely into disarray. “A bit of bread would be, uh, nice,” he said quietly.

“Excellent,” the Judge said and signaled the serving woman who hurried over to their table. The Judge ordered while the serving woman giggled and brushed her ample thigh against Father Gabriel’s leg. Then she curtsied, again displaying her bosoms to the three men, and rushed off. The Judge watched her as she scurried over to the kitchen. Father Gabriel didn’t like his lazy smile.

“I came to order you to give the church a copy of that Blasphemous tract you are printing. Against the church’s wishes,” Father Gabriel blurt out.

“Oh,” the Judge sighed. “Not that ungodly book again?”

“Yes,” Father Gabriel said and drank deeply from his beer. “The church wants a copy. For study.”

“You’re going to study a book you claim is immoral? Father Gabriel, I’m surprised at your unabashed glee. I can’t do it,” Johannes said flatly. “Ten copies. No more. It was my promise to the Judge, you, and the owner of the book.”

“I Must Have a copy!” Father Gabriel screamed, surprising even himself at his fierceness.

“Father!” the Judge cried out. “Please,” he said quietly. “Let’s discuss this as gentlemen.”

“I’m sorry,” Father Gabriel mumbled. “It’s this.” He held up his half-empty stein. “I’m not a strong drinker of alcohol. I apologize.”

“As do I,” Johannes said. “I cannot give what I do know own. If you would like a copy of the book, you must ask the owner.”

“And his name is?” the Judge asked.

“That, I’m also sorry to say, I do not know.”

“You’re printing a book for someone but you don’t know their name?” Father Gabriel asked.

“His money was a sufficient bond of trust.”

“Money isn’t everything.”

“No,” the Judge said, smiling at the serving woman as she approached with three plates of meat. “Money isn’t everything.”

The woman bent low to put the Judge’s food in front of him. He took the opportunity and stared down her blouse. She giggled and repeated the gesture for Johannes. Then she turned to the priest and allowed him the longest time to look, pretending to clean his area of the wooden table clean of invisible crumbs.

“Here you are, father,” she smiled as she bent over to place his plater of meat. “Hope you like what you see.” She giggled and turned to the Judge. “And you, sir? Anything else you’d be liking to have?”

“Yes,” the Judge said. Father Gabriel took the pause to look at the serving woman’s ankles. Slender for such a big woman, and clean. “But later, perhaps. After...” he waved a petulant hand at Johannes and Father Gabriel.

The serving woman giggled again and caught Father Gabriel tracing the curve of her buttocks with his eyes. “And do you fancy anything, Father?” she laughed.

Red faced, Father Gabriel could only shake his head and finish off his beer. He held up the empty stein and the serving woman grabbed it - and grazed his fingers with her own - intentionally? he wondered - and rushed off to the kitchen. Both the Judge and Father Gabriel watched until she disappeared behind a heavy door.

“As you can see,” Johannes continued, “I cannot give what I do know own. All I can promise is to tell the owner that you are interested in purchasing a copy.”

“Not me,” Father Gabriel muttered. “The Church.”

“Of course. And, just so that I may sweeten the bargain for the owner, how much would... the Church … be willing to pay for such an immoral and political treatise?”

“We were hoping the owner, or you, would be more than happy to bequeath us a copy.”

“Ah,” Johannes said and turned to his food in earnest. Giving anything away without suitable compensation never interested him; especially not his first completed book.

“Perhaps,” the Judge interrupted. “A small donation?” he said to Father Gabriel, “would - what is the word? - encourage our mysterious owner to part with a copy? In the interests of Catholic harmony?”

“How much?” Johannes asked as he tore a piece of venison apart.

“Oh,” the Judge said. “I think we should leave that up to the good father, don’t you? Maybe 50 florin wouldn’t be too little to ask?”

Fifty florin! Father Gabriel yelled to himself.

“Fifty?” Johannes mused. He could use with the extra money. He was in debt 800 florin to Peter’s father-in-law and fully expected to be an additional 800 florin in debt in a few months. His plan was three printing presses and a completed Bible in one, maybe two years. An extra 50 florin would be more than welcome. “Perhaps,” he said to both the priest and the Judge, “I can convince the owner to part with a copy. Or allow me to make an extra. For religious reasons, of course.”

The serving woman brought the priest another beer and allowed him to look at her bosoms. And he did, happily so. He took a huge gulp of beer and leered at her. She giggled and rushed to serve another group of increasingly drunken men.

“Father,” the Judge said suddenly, pulling the good priest from his fantasies. “Would 50 florin be too much to ask the good church to pay for a copy?”

“No,” Father Gabriel said, slurring the word and wondering why the Judge was leaning so far to his left. Then Father Gabriel wondered why he was looking at the unpainted ceiling instead of down at his food. Perhaps, he wondered, the earth was tilting sideways and all would be destroyed. Then darkness descended and all he heard was the serving woman giggling.

_______________________

Next: Maria of Venice

21. The Fall, The Time Warp, and Maria

2007-11-19T14:20:00.000-08:00

June 22, 1700 - Istanbul, Turkey

Nina leapt onto a stool, the only stool with a cushion tied to the seat. It was one of his favorite napping places. Someone, probably Vincini, had placed it in the Philosophy Section hoping that maybe more Spinoza would be sold; or Augustine. These were some of Nina’s favorite books, too. They smelled heavily of leather and ideas; they creaked when opened and could always be counted on to attract the more aggressive mice and rats. Nina enjoyed the chase more than the meal sometimes. It made him feel.… young.

Even Nina had to smile at that. Young. He was only 360 years old. How much younger could a cat be and still jump up on a stool in front of the many Spinoza and DeCartes books?

Vincini wasn’t in the store, of course. He was probably at the coffee shop buying cakes and coffee for the Istanbul elite. Or people who thought they were the Istanbul elite: lesser nobles, paunchier priests, a mullah. The kinds of people who had the money to buy expensive texts, although they were cheaper now than a few hundred years ago. Nina remembered when books dropped in price because they no longer had to be hand copied and bound. Johannes saw to that, although Wang Zhen came up with the idea 150 years earlier. Now, even with cheaper prices, only a certain segment of Istanbul society could afford books. Whether they read them or not, Nina was not sure. But even Nina thought having a shelf of leather-bound, handcrafted books was a thing of beauty. He wasn’t too sure about the leather part, though. It was only a matter of time before some artisan decided cat skin would make a good cover.

With Vincini at the coffee shop, Maria was left alone to tend to the tomes and customers, if any wandered in off the street. Nina liked Maria. She had only just come from Venice and was still uncomfortable with the size and energy of Istanbul. While Venice had merchants from around the world, it didn’t have the multitude of merchants and their families from so many distant lands as Istanbul. Nor did it have the Moslems or Buddhists from China that Istanbul had. Maria was overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, languages, religions, and pure unadulterated noise of Istanbul.

Comfortable on the cushion, Nina decided it was time for his mid-morning nap. He flopped his head down on his forepaws and was about to close his eyes when an arrow shot through the open window and - thunk! - whacked into the Spinoza just above Nina’s head.

He jumped off the stool.

Thunk!

Followed by a scream.

Horse hooves clattered on the cobblestone street.

Another scream!

Thunk! Thunk! Into the bookstore door.

Nina rushed through the store, up the stairs, into the kitchen, looking searching running to find Maria! Under attack! he screamed silently to himself. Why!?

Thunk!

Nina rushed to Maria’s bedroom. The door was open a crack. He pushed through. Inside: nothing. None of Maria’s clothes, Maria’s bed was gone. Nothing except a work bench. With leather strewn around. And an old man. An arrow in his back.

Thunk!

An arrow just above Nina’s head. He jumped beside the old man. Who is this? I don’t recognize... Thunk! and Twap! as an arrow careened off the metal window casing and flopped into a pile of fine leather.

Nina jumped to the window to look around.

Turks. Everywhere. Fires. Looting. Turks. People running. Horses chasing. Smoke from the fires everywhere. Women running naked. Men chasing. The air thick with arrows. Nina jumped down from the window into the street. He raced after a riderless horse. The horse rushed into the main street and was shot several times until it stumbled and slid into a squad of Turkish soldiers, knocking three into the Bosporus.

Nina watched two soldiers give the horse coup de grace and then rush off to loot a bakery that was already ablaze while the body of the baker lay dead in the doorway. His head was nowhere to be seen. His wife, clothes ripped and bloody lay seemingly dead beside a headless child

“This is not...”

Thunk!

Nina jumped into the wine merchant next to the bookstore. His first thought, “big mistake” was followed by howls and a cloud of arrows as 22 drunken soldiers shot arrows in his direction. The wine merchant’s body hung upside down from a beam and his body was pierced by a hundred arrows.

“You’re not in Istanbul anymore, Nina,” Nina cried to himself and ran from the wine shop, out into the street, and skittered back into the bookshop. Looking quickly around, he jumped into the least ransacked area of the store: the philosophy section.

He decided to hide behind a thick leather-bound book written in Arabic and finely decorated. He crouched down, his heart thumping, as the mob of Turks moved on and the moans of injured and cries of survivors filled the darkening skies.

Nina stepped cautiously on the Arabic book and a tingle rushed through his body. He took another step and saw Maria!

“Maria!” he said to himself. She did not yet know that he could speak and after the turmoil of the Turkish invasion, he thought she didn’t have to be shocked by a talking cat. He rushed over to her and... stopped.

She reached down and petted him but absently. She was looking at Vincini’s ledgers, which Nina thought odd, and not in the mood to play with the old cat.

Nina looked outside.

All was peaceful. All was calm.

Nina strolled over to the door and looked around. The wine shop was in business. The wine merchant was serving customers at two small tables he had put out in front of his shop. But it wasn’t the same pin-cushioned merchant Nina had seen just moments earlier.

Across the street, the bakery was doing great business as a dozen people jostled for position for the remaining loaves. Among the customers were several Turkish soldiers laughing and pushing each other. A priest strolled quietly up the street, his head buried in a thin, loosely put together book. “Psalms,” Nina ventured aloud and quickly looked around.

No one seemed to have noticed the talking cat. Nina pounced back into the bookstore and into the kitchen just as Vincini stumbled in through the back door.

“Vincini,” Nina whispered. “I just had to most unusual...”

“Shhh,” Vincini hissed. He crept quietly to the door and peered out into his store where Maria was pouring intensely over his ledgers, big thick books chained to his desk. Vincini pulled back into the kitchen and motioned for Nina to go out the back door.

In the alley, Vincini turned to Nina.

“She’s up to something, what, I am not aware,” Vincini said as he slumped against the stone wall.

“But I just had a most unusual adventure. I slipped through...”

“She’s doing something. She’s reading my ledgers. She wants to get rid of me,” Vincini said.

“Reading your ledgers?” Nina said. “Probably just wants to know more about the store. It’s business. Customers... that sort of thing. But I traveled through time! Don’t you want to hear about that?” Nina nearly shouted.

“What sort of female cares about the book business? No, she’s up to something and this something she is up to I wager is not good. Even worse,” Vincini said quietly, “even worse is a female that can read. Who heard ever of teaching a female to read? Why? For what purpose was this woman taught to read?”

“I can read,” Nina admonished.

“Pshaw,” Vincini said, “You are a cat,” he finished as if it were natural that a cat could read but against all that was normal that a woman could read. “She is going to rob me, I’ll wager a years profit on that. She will steal my best books and then take all of my money.”

“Lucky for you, Vincini, you have so little of it.”

“I should take her to a priest. Have him confession her.”

As he finished, the back door opened and a surprised Maria stumbled into the alley with a book held tightly to her breast.

“Oh,” she said and started back into the shop.

“No,” Vincini argued. “Stay. We were just having a chat.”

“We?” Maria asked in her Venetian accent.

“The cat and I,” Vincini laughed, covering his mistake. “We often have subversive chats and a bowl of tobacco out here. In the dirty alley. By ourselves.” He laughed. “Someday perhaps you will see my cat smoking a pipe. It is a most hilarious sight. And what is this that you have under your arm?” he asked pointing at the book.

“Oh, I, uh, I was going...” Maria stuttered. Nina thought her Venetian accent was beautiful beyond description and wondered how Vincini had managed to convince her father that she should learn the book trade from him. In Istanbul!

“A book!” Vincini said, surprised. “And what book is it that you need to be carrying around with you like a culprit, eh?”

“Just a small one,” Maria whispered like a small child caught stealing dried fruit from an elderly grandmother.

“Come,” Vincini ordered. “Let us see.”

Maria held the thin book out and Vincini grabbed it from her. “Reading books while you are supposed to be taking care of customers. I find that... irresponsible. At best.”

“Just for a moment,” Maria mumbled, her head held down in shame.

“’Just for a moment?’” Vincini mocked. He looked at the book: an old book bound in an old style with a simple board-covered leather cover with a simple design. “I find it hard to believe, Maria, that you, as a woman, can read.”

“My father...” Maria started but Vincini held his hand up for her to stop.

“And this book,” Vincini said. “It is a trifle. Not worth reading. Not a history, not philosophy. Certainly not the Bible or even a book of psalms. A trifle. Not worth the energy you must be spending to read it. And look,” he opened the book to the first page. “Not even a dedication to anyone of note.”

Nina looked over at the book and saw that Vincini was right. Most books were dedicated to nobles or officials high in the church who either the author was currying favor from or who had paid to have the book printed and bound. This book had neither.

“I chose it,” Maria said, raising her head to defend herself, “Because it is a lovely story and a story that lifts me up and sends me to another time and place.”

“And what is wrong with this time and this place?” Vincini demanded. “Is Istanbul not your idea of a wonderful city and is not this time in which even I live not a good time?”

“It is a wonderful city, Vinicini, and a wonderful time to be alive,” Maria said, her voice gaining confidence as she spoke. “This book,” she pointed at the book in Vinicini’s hand, “Takes place in Istanbul, sir, and in Constantinople.”

“Then you had best leave the reading of it to a paying customer,” Vincini ordered and shoved the book in her hand. “Put it back.”

“We have very few paying customers this season,” Maria said, taking the book nonchalantly and pressing it to her breasts again.

“And what would a woman know about business?” Vincini said with a tone of disdain and sarcasm.

Maria glanced down at Nina, smiled, turned on her heel, and marched back into the store, leaving Nina and Vincini in the dirty back alley.

“She knows something,” Vincini muttered. “She knows and is planning something. I’ll have to send her back to her father.”

“You can’t,” Nina said. “The bargain was for five years, no exceptions.”

“The worst deal I’ve ever made,” Vincini mumbled and started off down the alley towards the wine merchant and his new tables.

“Don’t you want to hear about my... ordeal? My weird little ordeal?” Nina yelled after him. But Vincini only waved and hand and was gone.

“What little ordeal?”

Nina spun around. Maria smiled down at him, the book still pressed to her breasts.

“Meow,” Nina said, hoping to pass as a real cat.

“Meow yourself, Nina,” Maria smiled. “I heard you. I’ve suspected you could speak the first day I was here.” Maria smiled and looked down the empty alley where Vincini had gone. “I heard you talking to him that night. At first,” she looked down at Nina with a wry smile. “I thought he had a lover. Then I thought, is he a homosexual? Then I realized he was talking to you. About this book.” She held the book out so Nina could see it, although he already knew what book it was. “Got me kind of interested in it.”

“He thinks,” Nina said quietly, “that you’re planning on something evil.”

Maria smiled. “About your strange ordeal,” she said, ignoring his comment. “What happened?”

She sounded genuinely interested.

“You really want to know?” Nina asked and strolled past her into the warmth of the kitchen.

“Yes,” Maria said in her soft Venetian accent. “And then I’ll tell you about my ‘evil’ plan. And this book.”

______________

Next: The Drunken Priest

20. The Disappearance of Time

2007-11-19T14:11:00.000-08:00

October 26, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey

“Hiroshi. Calvado, here’s the mystery.”

“It’s not a mystery,” Zlatno sneered. “You lost it.”

“I didn’t lose anything,” Nina argued back. He turned back to Hiroshi and Calvado. “It moves.”

“It doesn’t move,” Zlatno told Hiroshi. “He lost it.”

“Lost what?” Calvado asked, more irritated than angry; she hated unimportant small talk when important things haven’t been cleared up yet. She looked at Zlatno then glared at Nina.

“This store,” Nina said as he waved a paw around the kitchen, “has a door. A mysterious door.”

“It’s not mysterious...” Zlatno began but Calvado glared at him.

“It’s not mysterious but it is a mystery,” Nina said, softening Calvado’s anger. “I found it about...” he looked up at the ceiling.

The mark of a liar, Calvado thought. Mac taught her that, also she probably realized it emotionally since she hit puberty.

Nina looked at her, directly into her eyes and held them. “in 1700 or so. Give or take a few years. You know,” he said and looked at Hiroshi, “when you’re 20 or 30 you can remember almost everything because you’ve only go a few years to devote to memory. As you get older,” Nina glanced at Zlatno, “you have more and more to remember so you have to edit, you have to decide what to remember and what you can forget. It’s not really up to you, of course, but your brain.”

“Your brain has a max input?” Hiroshi asked.

“It has a memory max, I think.” Nina looked at Calvado. “Imagine having to remember 667 years worth of experience. It’s... it’s...”

“A mystery,” Calvado said evenly and quietly.

“Yes, back to the mystery.” Nina looked at Hiroshi. “Back in 1700 I wandered around the philosophy section when I found a.. not a door. A.. a...”

“Space,” Zlatno said, miffed.

“Yeah,” Nina replied. “A space.”

“You mean like between books or shelves or what?”

“In front of a book,” Nina said. “In front of one of Liebinz’s musings,” he smiled.

“What happened?” Hiroshi asked.

“Well,” Nina said, “I stepped into this space and suddenly... Suddenly the store was different. The books were... newer. Different.”

“How long have you been here?” Calvado asked.

“This store or Istanbul?”

“Here,” Calvado said, looking briefly around the store.

“Ach,” Zlatno said. “This question is so frequent. Many times I have heard this question and the answer is, what is the word, sad.”

“Depressing,” Nina said. He turned back to Calvado. “I first found this store in 1453, just after the Fall.”

“The Fall?” Hiroshi asked, bewildered.

“The Ottomans,” Zlatno said as if that explained everything he needed to know, but Hiroshi looked confused.

“The Ottoman Empire,” Nina expanded but Hiroshi was still confused.

“The Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople in 1453,” Calvado said. “They defeated Constantine... the Second?” Nina nodded, so Calvado continued. “It wasn’t the first time Constantinople had been besieged but it was the first time it was completely and utterly controlled by another party. Genghis tried, didn’t he?”

Again Nina nodded.

“Genghis Khan?” Hiroshi asked. “The guy who tried to invade Japan a long time ago?”

“He says ‘a long time ago’ he says. What history do you learn in this Asian country of yours?” Zlatno said. “Of course a long time ago! The great Khan died a long time ago! I can’t believe this knowledge this Japanese man doesn’t have. I can’t believe...”

“Relax, Zlatno, he’s not as old as you,” Nina said.

“And he never will be either if he can’t remember simple history!”

“Not everyone is as immersed in their love of history as you, Zlatno,” Calvado said in her quiet soothing voice. “At least he knows who Genghis Khan was.”

“I’m learning more. On this trip, I’m learning more. About history, people, and, well, geography,” Hiroshi defended himself. “Growing up in Japan, history is always over there. Except Japanese history, of course. But Genghis Khan, the Black Death, the Crusades? All that took place over there, you know. Nothing ever happened in Japan.” Hiroshi sounded sad, as if as a country Japan had been left out of world history.

“World War Two?” Nina asked, incredulous.

“What?” Hiroshi said. “Oh, you mean the Pacific War. Hey, that reminds me. I saw ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and that looked like it took place in Europe, right?” Everyone nodded their head. “But then I said ‘Thin Red Line’ and that looked like the Philippines or some place like that.” Everyone nodded their heads again. “So, where did World War Two take place, anyway?”

Zlatno stared at Hiroshi. Nina looked at Calvado and Calvado looked first at Zlatno then Hiroshi. None of the three knew what to say except Zlatno but he was keeping his anger silent this time, so surprised he was about the question.

“Hiroshi,” Nina said quietly. “Which part of ‘world’ don’t you understand?”

“You mean every country in the world was at war?” Hiroshi asked.

“Every country was effected by World War 2, yes,” Nina replied.

“Except Yemen,” Zlatno spit out, angrily. “Maybe.”

“But, like, Israel fought? On whose side?”

“Israel wasn’t a country back then,” Nina said. “It’s a relatively new country.”

“But,” Calvado said to Nina, “it came into creation because of World War Two. All those concentration camp survivors and refugees. Somebody had to take them but, of course, nobody wanted them.”

“So they forced Israel on the Palestinians, right?” Zlatno said.

“They didn’t force Israel on anyone. Israel took it.”

“But if Israel wasn’t a country, how could they take...” Hiroshi said.

“The Haganah took it,” Nina said.

“What’s the …” Hiroshi began but Calvado, impatient, cut him off.

“We could be here all... year explaining the ins and outs of Mideast political and economic history but, Hiroshi,” she said quietly but firmly, “Read up on it some other day. Right now Nina was telling us about falling into a space in front of Leibinz book.

“But this is fascinating. I never knew anything about Istanbul until I picked up a book about it last month. In Goa.”

“Hiroshi,” Calvado said. “Bedtime story-time. Read it then get back to us.”

“But...”

“Hiroshi,” Nina meowed. “First my mystery spot, then back to history, okay?”

“Oh, all right,” Hiroshi said but wasn’t happy about it.

“And don’t pout,” Zlatno ordered. “You’ve got your life to read history. Listen to this now. Nina,” he said and nodded at the cat.

_____________________

Next: The Fall, The Time Warp, and Maria

19. The Mongolian Birth and The Talking Horse

2007-11-19T14:03:00.000-08:00

June 22, 1162 - Mongolia

She knew at the first twinge that the child was on its way and nothing, no husband, no horse, no downpour was going to stop it. She looked across the grassland until she caught her maid’s eye and nodded. The maid knew what she had to do and she did it quickly: gathering the other women, ordering the men to put up the yurt, screaming at them to hurry while speaking softly and calmly to the mother of the child.

The mother knew this child, this soon-to-be born baby, was going to be special; she knew it when it was conceived, she knew it because of the way it rode in her belly. She knew it in her heart that this child was going to be a leader because his father was a leader, his uncles and aunts were leaders. She knew this baby, if it survived the first few years in the harsh Mongolian landscape, would lead her people.

She didn’t know how many others he would lead: his army would span the Asian continent, he would battle the Japanese in the east and the Crusaders in the west at the same time; he would sweep through the remains of the Persian empire and occupy Constantinople, threaten Vienna, and sire the leaders of four great empires. His grandson would build an empire the world would never forget - he would inspire the Italian millionaire and create a great city out on the border of a desert.

The empire this as-yet-unborn baby would set in motion would not disappear for 760 years, longer than any other empire, longer than many countries, longer than cities and islands and ideas. But his mother didn’t know that as she felt the stabbing pain that signaled the child’s birth.

The yurt was up, the maid was soothing her forehead with mare’s milk. The woman was ready to give birth. Was the world ready for his birth?

November 20, 1290 - Xian, China

Wang Zhen fidgeted nervously with the clay tablet while his master spoke. His master spoke of land and farms and of harvests and famines but Wang Zhen had only the following thoughts:

The tablet takes too long to make and it is fragile. Making the tablet: designing it, molding it, firing it, and, if it breaks during firing, making it again - the whole affair takes too long. As long as writing the document out by hand. Even if all 40,000 characters could be made, multiple tablets of the most common five or six thousand would have to be made. Finding the proper character would be time consuming, too. No, ceramic tablets are too unwieldy and cumbersome. But what is easier to work with and how can they be arranged for easy use?

“Wang Zhen!” his master yelled. “Are you again daydreaming when the rest of us are working!? Useless cretin!” His master slapped Wang Zhen hard across his face. “You will sleep in the barn! For two weeks! No one,” his master yelled to all the other apprentices and journeymen, “will talk to this man for two weeks! He will live alone in the barn like the forgetful mule that he is!” The master turned to Wang Zhen. “Go. Now.”

Wang Zhen bowed and hurried to the barn, thinking all the way the following thoughts:

Wood. Wood is easier than ceramics. How long could a master carpenter make one character? An apprentice? But will wood work? Can it hold ink? Of course it can. Maybe I can convince Ciu Liu to carve a few characters for me. Where is he? Ah, there he is.

Wang Zhen walked hurriedly toward the barn knowing that his master and the journeymen were watching him but when he got close to Ciu Liu, he dropped his tools and, while pretending to pick them up as quickly as he could, whispered “I need woodworking tools. And wood. Come to the barn tonight.” Then he stood quickly and rushed to the barn where he set about thinking about 40,000 Chinese characters that were used in all official documents.

The night was cold and the wind coming off of the desert was stronger than normal when Ciu Liu snuck into the barn.

“Wang Zhen,” he whispered. There was only the wind howling through the cold barn. “Wang?” Ciu Liu called again. The barn was not big but there were three floors and if Ciu Liu were Wang Zhen, he would protect himself by staying on the lowest floor. Perhaps beside the horses? Ciu Liu rushed over to the horse stables. “Wang Zhen?” he whispered.

A horse raised his head and looked at Ciu Liu. Had Wang Zhen been transformed into a horse by the demons that live in the desert, Ciu Liu thought. He touched the horse on the head. “Wang Zhen? Is that you?”

The horse snorted and shook his head.

It was Wang Zhen! The demons had worked their evil magic and changed the good Wang Zhen into a horse! The master will be..., Ciu Liu thought, no, not furious. He will be happy. The master always considered a good horse worth five apprentices. “I brought you your wood,” Ciu Liu said to the horse and laid ten small blocks of wood at the horse’s feet.

The horse nodded his head in appreciation.

“And the tools,” Ciu Liu said, “But, how will you use them?” Ciu Liu put the carving knives on the ground beside the wooden blocks. “I would carve for you, but you haven’t told me what to carve on these little blocks of wood. Oh, dear.”

The horse pawed the ground impatiently with his right hoof and snorted through his nose; the steam from his nostrils sprayed across the tools.

“I know,” Ciu Lie said. “I know I must carve something but what? Flowers? I can carve all kinds of flowers but for what purpose? Are you thinking of sending woodblock prints of flowers to all the women you know in Beijing? Are you looking for work in the archives of Shanghai?”

The horse whinnied nervously and pawed at the ground with his hoof.

“A horse! You want me to carve ten little horses?” Ciu Liu asked. In frustration he fell to his knees and begged Wang Zhen’s forgiveness. “Forgive me! I know not what you want of me!” he cried above the howling wind.

“Ciu Liu,” the horse seemed to say. “What are you doing?”

Ciu Liu spun around.

There was Wang Zhen, wrapped from head to foot in a scraggily blanket with straw falling off of it.

“Oh! Wang Zhen! You are human! Thank god! I thought the demons of the desert had changed you into a horse!” Ciu Liu prostrated himself in front of Wang Zhen and cried tears of happiness.

“The demons of the desert have changed you into a fool, Ciu Liu. Were you really talking to a horse?”

________________

Next: The Disappearance of Time

18. The Archbishop's Letters

2007-11-19T13:51:00.000-08:00

October 26, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey

It was after midnight and Zlatno had lead them all back to his small kitchen behind his store where he served them fresh hot coffee and thick pastries glazed with white frosting. For Nina, he opened a can of tuna and put a saucer of warm milk on the table.

“What was your quest?” Hiroshi asked.

“It was simple. Get the scribbles from the Archbishop and have them translated or, if he couldn’t have them translated, find out where they came from. He was most relieved until I told him if he succeeded, I would stay with him for a long time.”

“How old was he?” Calvado asked and Zlatno gave her a quick glance before staring into his hot coffee.

“Father Gabriel?” Nina asked. “Maybe 28.”

“Did he do it?” Hiroshi asked. “Did he get those scribbles?”

“He was most successful,” Nina said.”

“And died when he was 101,” Calvado said. “A happy old priest?”

“No,” Zlatno interjected. “Not a happy old priest. A senile old merchant here, in Istanbul.”

“A book merchant?” Calvado asked.

Nina and Zlatno both looked at Calvado but did not answer. Hiroshi looked at the three of them and wondered what was going on.

“The scribbles were of two languages. One was Turkish. From the Second Mehmed of the Ottoman Empire. It was a gentle letter to the Archbishop thanking him for the envoy the Archbishop had sent the previous spring. Nothing, really. Insignificant.” Nina slurped up some milk and nibbled some tuna before continuing. “The other was from the great Kublai Khan and it was written in letters no one had ever seen before.”

“From the Italian,” Zlatno added. “The Italian millionaire brought it to Mainz in 1294.”

“Before even I was born,” Nina laughed.

“Father Gabriel had no idea what it said,” Zlatno finished.

“But he brought a copy.” Nina said. “And I could look at it at my leisure. Of course, I am a cat,” he said.

“Wagahai wa neko de aru,” Hiroshi said and everyone looked at him, puzzled. “It’s a famous novel in Japan. Written from the cat’s point of view.” Hiroshi watched everyone watching him. “Very famous. By...”

“Natsume Soseki,” Zlatno said flatly. “Yes, we know. We are not provincial illiterates here, you know. We’re of Istanbul.”

“Constantinople was the center of trade, the arts, religion...” Nina began but suddenly Calvado pushed her coffee away and stood up abruptly.

“We’re here to take your place,” Calvado said with excitement. She looked at Nina, “You’re looking for Zlatno’s replacement.” She turned to Hiroshi. “That’s why we’re here. To take his place,” she said, pointing an accusing finger at Zlatno.

“It’s a simple job,” Nina said. “I’m very agreeable.”

“You want to know which of us will do your little test, don’t you? Your stupid little quest, like finding letters in the Archbishop’s office” Calvado said angrily to Nina. “You want us to compete to see who gets to live to be 101. Right!?” she screamed.

“Settle down, Calvado,” Zlatno said.

“We are?” Hiroshi asked. “We’re here to take care of a cat for the next 90 years?”

“One of us,” Calvado said. “Right, Nina? One of us?”

“Too much coffee,” Zlatno smiled.

“Shut up, old man!” Calvado yelled and paced around the small kitchen, kicking chairs. “Well, Nina, am I right? That’s why you brought us here?” She kicked a small footstool and sent it skittering along the cracked floor until it smashed against an oddly hung, small door - too small for even a young child to walk through without bending over - and the door opened a few centimeters. Nina looked quickly at Zlatno; he nodded and pushed himself to his feet and shuffled over to the small door.

“This is a Job Interview!?” Calvado yelled.

Zlatno pushed the door closed. “More than a job interview, Calvado, much more than that.”

“Yeah,” Hiroshi interjected. “What could be bad about living to be 101, Calvado? I mean, knowing the time, or at least how old you’ll be, when you die, you can make plans. Learn and do things you thought you didn’t have time for. I think you’d be more relaxed knowing when you were going to die.”

“What’s bad about living to be 101?” Zlatno asked flatly. “After 60 or 70 your friends begin to die. At 80 or 90 you only know a few people your age. By 90 or 95, you’re alone.”

“Except for a cat,” Calvado yelled angrily.

“Your wife dies before you. Even your children. How old are you, Hiroshi? Twenty, twenty-two?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Get married when you’re 25 and your wife is 25, too, and with luck, maybe, at 80 or 85 she’ll still be alive. Maybe. Your children, when you’re 101 will be 75 or 80. With luck.”

“Marry later, at 50,” Hiroshi said with a smile.

“Women can’t and still have children,” Zlatno said.

“Which is why all of your caretakers,” Calvado snarled at Nina, “have been men, right?”

“Change is good,” Nina replied and licked her right, white-speckled paw.

“I’m out of here,” Calvado said, storming toward the kitchen door and the antique bookstore beyond it.

“The test is simple but,” Nina said, stopping Calvado from leaving, “My quest - is more complicated then stealing letters from a priest,” Nina said. “A hundred times more complicated and a hundred times more rewarding and yes, whoever accomplishes it will live to be 101. With me by his or her side until then.” Nina smiled and his whiskers danced in cheerful little arcs. “Is that so bad?”

“Calvado, what brought you to Istanbul?” Zlatno asked.

“I don’t know,” Calvado replied angrily. “Get on with explaining your ‘quest,’ if you would,” she ordered Nina.

“And you, Hiroshi, what brought you to Istanbul?”

“History,” he replied immediately. “I love history and.. and internationalism.”

Everyone stared at him, expecting him to continue. He thought he had explained himself well enough but evidently not well enough, so he attempted to make more clear his interest in internationalism.

“Japan is mono-cultural, for the most part, right?” he asked. Everyone nodded. “One language, one culture. Do you know that show in America, uh, I forget the name but contestants have to guess how 100 people answered a question like, uh, ‘If you had one month for a vacation, where would you go?’ Do you know that show?”

Calvado, against her will, nodded yes. Zlatno and Nina reluctantly agreed.

“Well, in Japan it would be very easy: Hawaii, Los Angeles, and Europe, probably in that order. In America, where different cultures live with their different languages, it would be more challenging. For some Japanese, too many cultures or languages in one place is, uh, confusing and scary. For me, it is exciting and intriguing and, and, like living in a fantasy world. It’s great!”

“There,” Calvado said, “you have your caretaker, Nina. Enjoy.” She turned and pushed her way into the bookstore.

“Wait!” Nina shouted and rushed after her. “You’re interested in medicine, yes? You are intrigued by science? You have read Leibniz, Spinoza, and Descartes?”

“Of course,” Calvado answered. Behind Nina, she saw Hiroshi look questioningly at Zlatno as if to ask ‘Who are they?’ but she ignored him and stared at Nina.

“How would you like to meet them?”

_______________

Next: The Mongolian Birth and the Talking Horse

17. The Devil Cat's Quest

2007-11-07T07:41:00.000-08:00

November 20, 1450 - Mainz, Germany

Father Gabriel sat curled up on the floor beside his simple bed beneath his crude cross and wept while Nina licked his paws and fluffed out his fur.

“What do you want from me?” Father Gabriel whimpered and pulled his sleeve across his crying eyes but Nina continued preening himself, paying no attention to the suffering of the Catholic cleric but keeping an eye on him lest he suddenly spring up and swat at him. It had happened before so, as a careful cat over 120 years old, Nina paid careful attention.

“What do you want...” Father Gabriel cried and sunk his head in his hands wondering why of all the brothers connected to the Mainz Cathedral this Devil of a Cat, this Devil! had chosen him. Was it because of his transgression earlier in the year? Was this God’s Revenge for Gabriel failing the Flesh? Was this his Punishment? If so, Father Gabriel was willing to Accept his Punishment as it was God’s Will and he, Father Gabriel, had vowed to Uphold and Defend God’s Will. But, he wavered, but if this Cat were the Devil, he would Fight with his very Soul!

“I was in this house,” Nina said, breaking into Father Gabriel’s self-pitying soliloquy. “I was in this house and saw some strange... scribblings.”

“Yes?” Father Gabriel asked, unsure of what this Devil Cat was talking about.

“Strange scribblings but they seemed to follow some pattern. A very deliberate and unique pattern.”

“What do you want of me?”

“You repeat yourself endlessly, Father Gabriel, it is unbecoming of a priest. Especially a priest with your future, should you accept and fulfill my simple quest.”

Father Gabriel looked at the Devil Cat and waited but the cat remained silently licking his tail, his fur, his left white-spotted paw.

“Cats cannot speak,” he muttered. “It’s against the Laws of God and Nature.”

“You are aware of the Theodoric Schen?”

“The Archbishop? Of course.”

“And Theodoric of Isenburg-Budingen?”

“He is also a member of Mainz Cathedral. Of course I know of him also. I don’t understand.”

“They do not like each other, do they,” Nina said, quietly. He was right, of course. They both competed to be the archbishop of Mainz but the Pope sided with Theodoric Schen and in return Schen convinced the German princes to support the Pope. “And Theodoric of Isenburg-Budingen, he does not appreciate the fine work that Johannes Gutenberg is involved in, does he?” Nina continued. Father Gabriel shrugged his shoulders; he was not unaware of the politics inside the Mainz Cathedral but he was far from an expert, far from having any influence or inside knowledge of who supported who or who disliked who.

“If Theodoric does not support this Gutenberg fellow, he has my support. As does the Archbishop, of course,” Father Gabriel said quietly. He did not want to offend either man, both were extremely powerful within and outside of the church, Mainz, all the German principalities. Both also had some influence in Rome.

“And if you are also against Gutenberg and if Theodoric notices, perhaps you will grow in stature with him and others at the archbishopric, is this not true?” Nina asked innocently, although he knew the answer.

“I suppose,” Father Gabriel replied.

“Gutenberg is the devil, Father Gabriel. I put it to you simply. He has devised a way that will dilute the power and influence of your beloved Catholic Pope, indeed the Church itself. He must be... removed from doing that, don’t you think?”

“I...” But Father Gabriel had no idea what to say.

“Do you accept my quest, Father Gabriel or should I move to a more... aggressive priest. One with more... ambition to protect and preserve the Holy See?”

“I...” Father Gabriel began, then stopped. It occurred to him suddenly that this Cat was Tempting him as Satan had Tempted the Savior.

“If you accept, I can assure you of a long life and riches beyond belief.”

Even down to tempting me with gold and eternal life, Father Gabriel thought. This is Indeed Satan disguised as an Innocent Cat! He must kill this cat as quickly as possible.

“Tell me,” Father Gabriel said quietly, “More about your quest. I may be interested.” He looked around for a weapon, fearing that there was only one, over his bed and crudely carved. He didn’t want to use his cross, but if he had to, then he must.

Nina glanced quickly at the priest. His voice had changed. His demeanor had changed. He was conspiring to do something to harm the cat. Nina looked around for his best and quickest exit. There was none save a small hole that perhaps a mouse had made. Nina knew he couldn’t fit through such a small hole so he immediately devised another plan. One that would attract many people, save Nina from death and disgrace Father Gabriel.

“My quest is simple. These scribbles I observed in the Archbishop’s office,” Nina began.

“You’ve been in the Archbishop’s office?” Father Gabriel said, astonished, as he rose from the floor to get nearer his only weapon.

“I’m a cat, Father Gabriel,” Nina said and noticed how Father Gabriel eyed the black, wooden cross on the wall. “Aside from a hundred years ago when you people - and I mean the Catholic church - decided to destroy us all, we were revered by many and loved by most. But that is unimportant. What I want from you is simple. These scribbles seem to have come from a land far, far away,” Nina said.

“Yes?”

Nina did not continue. Father Gabriel was acting too friendly, too interested in Nina whereas before he was swamped in self-pity and sorrow.

“I want you to find out where...”

The priest leapt! He swung the cross at Nina’s head! Nina jumped and the cross missed his eye by mere inches.

“Rape!” Nina screamed in a woman’s voice, a struggle as he strained his vocal chords to reach such a high, intense, emotional level. “Help! Rape! Murder!”

“Shush!” Father Gabriel screamed and lunged after the escaping cat. “Quiet!”

“Help!” Nina screamed again as he leapt from table to bed to floor to table. Father Gabriel chased and kicked and swung his black cross. He got no closer to Nina. But he jumped and ran and swung himself around in a circle trying to nail the cat with the cross.

“Stop!”

“Rape!”

“Father Gabriel! Are you okay!” a nun screamed.

“Help me! Help me!” Nina cried as loudly as he could, hoping his female voice was convincing.

“Shut up! You Evil, Evil Cat!”

Whoever was outside began pounding on the door. “Father Gabriel!” It was another priest. He pounded and kicked and yelled through Father Gabriel’s locked door.

“Okay,” Father Gabriel whispered heavily to Nina. “I’ll do your quest. Just... stop them,” he whispered and pointed at the door. “Please, stop them.”

“Open the door!” the priest and nun yelled.

“Open the door,” Nina said calmly.

Father Gabriel nodded and slowly walked to the door.

“Before you open it, remember, you are practicing a dramatic sermon about forgiveness.”

Father Gabriel nodded.

“I will give you long life, Father Gabriel,” Nina said as the priest opened the door.

“I’m sorry I disturbed you,” he said as the other priest and nun rushed into the room. Nina sprang away from them and hid behind Father Gabriel. “I was practicing.”

The two others looked at each other, then at Father Gabriel.

“A sermon,” Father Gabriel stuttered. “About, about forgiveness.”

“It sounded as if a female were in here, Father Gabriel,” the other priest said. “And being...”

“Attacked,” the nun finished.

“Ah, yes...”

“Help!” Nina screamed and both the other nun and priest looked at Father Gabriel.

“That was it!” the nun exclaimed. “How did you manage such a high voice?”

“I, uh, have been studying... voice … with, uh, a teacher in town,” Father Gabriel said.

“Well,” the other priest said as he began moving towards the door. “You had me convinced. There’s no woman in here, is there Sister Verona?”

“No. Very convincing, Father Gabriel. Very convincing.”

“Thank you,” Father Gabriel said. “Sorry I disturbed you. I’ll refrain from shouting next time. Sorry.”

The other priest and nun left Father Gabriel’s small room and Gabriel closed the door. “That was close,” he said, more to himself than Nina.

But Nina was gone. Father Gabriel looked under his bed, under the table. He looked even in the small mouse hole but the Devil Cat was gone! Father Gabriel couldn’t have been happier. He laughed and fell on his bed, glad that his hallucination or vision had disappeared. No more cat! He Rejoiced! He clapped his hands! “No more cat!” he yelled. “No more cat!” He fell to his knees and prayed.

Only to come eyeball to eyeball with The Cat of the Devil.

“My quest? Are you ready?”

___________________

Next: The Archbishop's Letters

16. The Root of Evil

2007-11-07T03:41:00.000-08:00

October 25, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey

Calvado stared at the cat.

Hiroshi stared at the cat.

Zlatno watched the two younger people.

“This is...” Calvado began but couldn’t think of what to say, so she stopped.

“Weird,” Hiroshi finished.

“Yeah.”

“How...?” Hiroshi managed to ask, not taking his eyes off of Nina.

“Easy,” Nina said. His voice was half-way between a purr and a growl and pitched lower than either Calvado or Hiroshi imagined. As Nina spoke, his lips barely moved but his whiskers bobbed up and down like fishing rods in a fight with a dangerous fish. “When I was 50 years old, I had had enough of meowing and purring and trying to get people’s attention by being ‘cute.’ I wanted a real conversation with an animal other than the mangy cats I ran with in Mainz.”

“Mainz?” Hiroshi said. “Germany?”

“Asian boys,” Zlatno said to Calvado, “They know everything, yes?”

“Yes,” Nina said to Hiroshi while ignoring Zlatno. “I taught myself how to speak. It took 32 years but, as you can see... hear... I succeeded.”

“Cats have different vocal chords,” Calvado said. “Different from humans.”

“Yes,” Nina replied and turned to Zlatno. “She’s a smart one. You should marry her.”

“Ach!” Zlatno cried aloud, almost waking up the waiter. “I believe maybe I am 60 years too old for this woman, yes?”

“A talking cat,” Hiroshi mused aloud. “No one... Can I interview you?”

“No one will believe you’re talking to a cat,” Nina said. “Not even if you video-taped it.” He turned to Calvado. “Computer graphics has destroyed film as evidence, you know.”

“But you must know history. I, I would love to interview you about, uh, the Black Death or … World War Two... or...”

“Sometimes,” Nina said as he looked at Calvado and then Hiroshi, “instead of the ability to talk, I wish I had an opposable thumb.” He stopped and licked his paw. While addressing his grooming, he added “I was a kitten during the Black Death and living here, in Istanbul, with Zlatno during World War Two. It didn’t effect us. Except for the shortages.”

“Nina, tell them the other thing.”

“What other thing?” Calvado asked.

“I’m 98 years old. I have three years to live.”

“How do you know that?” Hiroshi asked and surreptitiously clicked on his voice recorder.

“I have another ability,” Nina answered, staring at Hiroshi so strongly that Hiroshi suspected Nina knew he had turned on the voice recorder but when Hiroshi moved to turn it off, Nina looked away, so he left it on.

“I first discovered this second ability in... 1452? 53? … I was living with my second family...”

“Second?” Calvado asked.

“...in Mainz. Near that guy, the one with the bible?”

“Gutenberg?” Hiroshi answered. “You lived near Johannes Gutenberg? Wow. What was he.…”

“A priest,” Nina interrupted. “I was living with a priest. Father Gabriel, I believe his name was. One day, quite by accident, I fell down the stairs.”

“A cat what falls down stairs. Is that not funny? A clumsy cat?” Zlatno laughed.

“And I had a vision, of sorts,” Nina said ignoring Zlatno again.

“A common phenomenon after a fall. Many prophets had visions after getting hit...” Calvado said but Nina stared at her and she stopped.

“I am not a prophet but I had a vision.” Nina turned to Hiroshi. “I saw a number. Etched in sunlight. On the ceiling.” Nina looked at Calvado. “At midnight.”

“101,” Zlatno said solemnly.

“101,” Nina repeated and stared at Calvado.

“Zlatno’s 98,” Calvado said.

“Three years,” Hiroshi added.

“Asian boys,” Zlatno smiled.

“My first family, my first keeper - a simple peasant farmer - died at 101. I spent about nine years looking for someone else to take care of me and I found Father Gabriel...”

“Why?” Calvado asked.

“What?” Nina replied.

“Why did you look for someone to take care of you? I mean, nine years on your own, why would you need.…”

“Ah,” Nina said, understanding Calvado’s confusion. “I’m a cat. I like to be... what’s the word you always use, Zlatno?”

“Pampered.”

“Yes. Warm rooms in the winter, a study flow of food. Getting back rubs. And.. and it is lonely living in the streets.” Nina looked down the narrow alley where a stray cat was jumping up in a bakery window, then Nina looked at Calvado. “I need people to talk to.”

“You could make a fortune in, in a carnival. Or on TV!” Hiroshi said, suddenly excited about meeting a talking cat. “Especially with all the history you’ve lived...”

“Trivial matters,” Nina said scathingly. “Money is not the god you western young people seem to think it is. Money is not the religion you young westerners wish it were. Besides, what is religion but the root of all evil? And what is the punishment of evil but death?” Nina stared down at the table top for a moment, then looked up at Hiroshi and Calvado.

“I have lived through pogroms and crusades. I have witnessed the ruthless slaughter of children and the crucifixion of the elderly. I have seen the damage the cross and crescent have inflicted upon each other and upon the star. Whenever a leader begins invoking their god or their church, I cringe. I cringe because I know what follows invocation can only be desecration. Desecration of buildings, naturally, but also the desecration of lives, of human lives, of animal lives. The complete and unnatural destruction of entire towns and countries. Millions of people cast upon the waters of despair, destitution, hunger, and hatred. And that hatred, Hiroshi, that hatred, Calvado, never goes away. The Turks hate the Kurds and the Kurds hate the Turks for something that happened a thousand years ago. The Germans look down on the French and the French despise the Germans. Because of a war, an invasion, a crusade, a pogrom, an insult a thousand years ago.“ Nina watched the stray cat jump up on a lidless garbage can. “It is sad,” he said. “It is religion.”

“Yet you lived with a priest,” Calvado said.

“And he died the day after his 101st birthday,” Nina said and looked at Zlatno, then back at the stray cat. Zlatno stood, picked up the scraps of food Calvado, Hiroshi, and he had left, and wandered away from the other three. “I try to help my species when I can,” Nina said, “But I cannot help your species.” He stared at Calvado.

“Can you help me?” he asked.

“How?” Calvado asked.

“And you, Hiroshi, can you help me?”

“How?”

“I have a quest,” Nina said with a small cat-like smile on his lips. “A … simple quest.”

_____________

Next: The Devil Cat's Quest

15. The Revelation of Father Gabriel

2007-11-07T03:35:00.000-08:00

November 20, 1450 - Mainz, Germany

Jesus, it was another bad night for Father Gabriel. First that damn printer couldn’t be made to realize the harm he - the harm his infernal machine - was doing! And now this! The printer was one thing but this! This is inexplicable new Fiend! and, and,.. it’s the work of the Devil!

But the goldsmith! Really he is nothing but a goldsmith! A goldsmith and what is he doing? Printing obscene political tracts that denounce the Mother Church! And taking jobs away from scribes. The poor scribes who spend their youth hunched over a high bench as they.… As Gabriel did! … copy passages onto vellum. The painstaking details and, yes! Yes! The Art! of the Scribe is heavens away more creative, more industrious, More Godlike! than anything that, that Printer will ever accomplish. Except put thousands of scribes on the street.… Copying the Bible is a Task no Man should squelch! It is, after all, how Gabriel learned to both read and write. It was what brought Gabriel from a superstitious, spirits-fearing, ignorant subsistence farm family to this.… The opulence and glory that is The Church! He will shut down the printer if he must call on the Pope himself for a crusade, Yes! A Crusade! against those immoral machines.

Gabriel felt he was chosen, chosen by God to be a priest and he will Uphold the Sanctity of all that the Church has given him: the ability to read and write, authority over ignorant peasants like his father, and the comfort of knowing where he will sleep at night. And the love of God, of course. Amen. The village priest, bless him, when Gabriel was 10, chose Gabriel from all the young boys in the village to be his protégé, to learn what he had to learn and become himself a respected Priest! There were dark days, but Gabriel has forgotten them, those dark days of Touching, of praying for the pain to stop. Of sobbing to sleep in silence beside the drunken, snoring, farting priest. A pity, yes, a Pity about his ‘Accident.’

But that was all in the Past! The Dark Past and now it is Light and Progress! Except for those two things: The printer (the devil in metal) and now This Fiend! How can Gabriel get rid of This Fiend! without drawing the ridicule of the other priests or the archbishop?

Who will believe Gabriel if he tries to Explain in Simple language, what he has sitting before him? Who will believe Gabriel? He’s not 11 years old anymore. Crying and pretending to be disraught will no longer be enough to convince anyone.

“Well?”

“I’m thinking. I... I have to report you to the archbishop.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because... because... It is the Right thing to do. The Proper and Appropriate course of Priestly Action,” Gabriel said, defending his inaction.

“And you think the archbishop will believe you? About me? You can’t believe that, can you?”

Gabriel stared at his Inquisitor: a large cat. A Feline. A male cat with... with... the Ability to Speak! In flawless German!

“I can’t talk to a cat,” Gabriel complained. “You are … God did not deign to give you the power of speech!”

“Then perhaps you are insane,” the cat said. “Meow, meow.”

“Cats Can NOT Talk!” Gabriel screamed.

“Father Gabriel? Are you okay?” a nun asked as she paused outside Gabriel’s door.

“Yes, sister. Just, uh,….” he stuttered looking for a convenient lie.

“Practicing a sermon,” the cat whispered.

“Yes,” Gabriel called to the nun. “Just practicing a sermon.…”

“About the Insane!” the cat hissed and arched its back, spitting and growling.

Gabriel lurched into the corner of his small room with its single bed, small table, chair, Bible, and cross on the wall. “No,” he cried. “No, this can’t be happening.” He fell on his bed and wept, silently, the tears welling up in his eyes and flowing down his cheek to drip, drop by drop, on his coarse blanket leaving a diabolic pattern.

“If I cannot talk, Father Gabriel, why are you talking to me?” the cat asked. “Why are you listening to me?”

“Aaaaaaaaaaargh,” Father Gabriel cried as he curled up on his small bed. “I can’t listen to a cat! It’s the sign of the Devil!”

“Aooooooooo,” the cat howled, then laughed. “You can’t not listen to a cat, Father Gabriel but,” he added sinisterly, “I have a quest that you must fulfill.”

“No,” Gabriel cried. “I can’t... Get away from me Devil!”

“I believe the exact quote is ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’ And,” the cat replied, “I’m neither the devil nor your tormentor. Listen to me, set out on the quest, complete the quest and I will leave you to your own devices. You will be free of me.”

“You’re the Devil!” Gabriel screamed. “I’m telling the archbishop!”

“Father Gabriel?” the nun called through his door and, when he did not answer, pushed the door open. She saw a cat licking its forepaw and watching Father Gabriel cower in the corner of his small room. “Father?”

Gabriel whimpered and the nun ran to get the archbishop.

“You’re in trouble now, Father Gabriel,” the cat said. “Unless...”

“Unless what?” Gabriel mumbled, unsure if he could Survive the Wrath of the Devil’s cat.

“Listen to my quest...”

_________________

Next: The Root of All Evil

14. Nina's Truth

2007-11-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

October 25, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey

“Now, I tell you,” Zlatno said as the waiter poured their second bottle of red wine. “Now I tell you, but you must tell no one. No one. It is secret without favor. Most secret.”

“And if we don’t?” Calvado asked plainly. Her vegetables were delicious and she had eaten more than she thought she would. And the wine was a delirious pleasure; she felt sated.

“Father Gabriel you will have to deal with,” Zlatno replied equally plainly.

“Where does Father Gabriel live?” Hiroshi asked.

Zlatno looked down the narrow alley toward his antiquarian bookstore. “Ah,” he said. “Where indeed does the priest live?” He sipped his wine. “May I tell you how the Catholic church killed half of Europe?” he asked as he pet Nina. “It was in 1330,” Zlatno began. “A priest, a silly uneducated priest, decided that cats were... Or perhaps it was the Pope himself who decided one cold night that cats were.... Or a scribe scribbling away in the scriptorium all day, writing and tracing and illustrating Bible page after boring page. Perhaps the scribe told the silly uneducated priest and the silly uneducated priest told the Pope and the Pope told everyone else and a bounty was placed - a monetary bounty and a reward in Heaven bounty - on the head of every cat in Europe. Death!,” Zlatno screamed. “Death to the cat! was the rallying cry of the Catholics. The Roman Catholics. Death to the the Cat which is Satan in animal form. Satan! Can you imagine?” Zlatno stroked Nina’s chin and the cat purred loudly, contentedly.

“Now here, in Istanbul, we were more, what is the word? Sophisticated. More, the other word, cosmopolitan. More... well, to be blunt, we in Istanbul have always been more intelligent... worldly... Ah, scientific than the Latins, more scientific than the Latins - the Greeks, Romans, Franks, and Gauls. Constantinople traded internationally, you know, with nearly everyone, everyone important. Constantinople was so powerful we were the center. The center of the universe, we thought. We traded with Egypt before Rome knew Africa existed. We traded for wheat to feed the people because Constantinople was a huge city. Maybe a million, maybe more than a million.

“Justinian is our emperor and he is a great emperor, but, of course, he cannot foresee the future. In 541, the Egyptians send us boat loads of wheat, many, many boat loads. And with the wheat come infected Egyptian rats. We are defenseless against these infected Egyptian rats. These infected Egyptian rats bring to us from Egypt the Black Death. 541, we are dying; Constantinople is a dying city. We are dying at 10,000 souls a day. A day! 10,000 people. The dead lie in the streets of our great city. 541, the first Black Death rides over Constantinople. But we are also lucky. Justinian is our emperor and he is very smart. He orders his mathematicians and sorcerors and priests to investigate this Black Death that has killed thirty, forty, maybe 50% of the great citizenship of Constantinople.

“Justinian is our emperor and by 545 he knows the infected Egyptian rats brought the Black Death to our city. He rebuilds our city and he protects our cats. Cats, you see, kill rats. Cats will protect us from the infected Egyptian rats that sneak aboard our ship loads of wheat. But... But there are men more foolish than the most foolish. There are everywhere but the fools in Rome, perhaps the Pope - perhaps himself - or perhaps a lowly scribe scribbling patiently in the scriptorium decides in 1330 to kill all the cats! They are Satan! And rewards are offered, both money and promises of a better life after death. Ha! What irony.”

Hiroshi refills Zlatno’s glass and notices Nina watching him with a glaring intensity. When Hiroshi notices Nina watching him, Nina suddenly closes his eyes and purrs loudly.

“By 1340, all the cats are dead. And, yes, again, infected Egyptian rats surge into Rome and Athens, and Mainz and Oslo. The black hand of the Black Death returns to kill us all. There is no defense. The cats are dead, the priests killed them all. And soon the Black Death is killing the priests as they hover over the dying, giving them last rites and catching the Black Death themselves, and going to their churches and cathedrals to pray for salvation from the Black Death but instead they are spreading the Black Death to their parishioners, their followers, their lambs.”

Zlatno closed his eyes and Hiroshi thought he was reliving those terrible days when a third to a half of the population of Europe suddenly died. Entire towns died and the dead were left unburied because there was no one to bury them; entire towns became incubators for more Black Death.

“Please, Calvado, my Japanese friend, think what your countries would be if in the next year, two years, maybe three, half of your fellow countrymen suddenly died. Catastrophe. But,” Zlatno opened his eyes to stare at Calvado. “But what of the babies? What of the babies born to dying mothers? What happens to them?”

“I,” Calvado started.

“I will tell you what happens to them. If they live, if another dying person picks them up from their dead mothers and takes them home, feeds them, clothe them, they survive. If... If there is anyone to pick them up that is not already dead? Yes? Or dying. But what if there is no one?” He stared at Hiroshi for so long that Hiroshi felt obligated to speak.

“I,” he began.

“I will tell you what will happen if there is no one. They die. Or most of them die. But, but, there is that one baby, that one child. That one... strong child who does not give up, he refuses to accept the fate of death. There is one baby who learns to feed himself. Perhaps sipping muddy water from a rut in the road beside his dead mother. Perhaps sucking on his dead mother’s breast. Enough milk for that one strong child to survive. Milk, perhaps, water, perhaps, rotten fruit lying in the road that no one picks up. Why?”

“Because...” Hiroshi began.

“Because,” Zlatno interrupts, “there is no one. But that one strong child survives. He becomes one. Two. Three years old. And what else is that child?”

“Strong,” Calvado interrupts. “Determined and strong.”

“Yes,” Zlatno nodded his head enthusiastically up and down. “Determined, strong, and the possessor of a strength not even Hercules could match: the one strong child has the strength to live where others die.”

“Immunity,” Calvado said. “He has immunity from the plague.”

“He has immunity from the Black Death. Black Death cannot kill this child. This child is a beacon of life in a dying continent.” Zlatno sipped his wine, closed his eyes and quietly said, “Do you agree such a strong child would be extraordinary?”

Both Calvado and Hiroshi nod their heads but Zlatno couldn’t see them through his eyelids so Calvado added, “We do.”

Instantly, Zlatno opens his eyes. “Into all this death, this Black Death where even the priests are dying, in the middle of all of this, Nina is born.”

Nina meowed and leapt up on the table and looked first at Calvado, then at Hiroshi. Calvado and Hiroshi stare at him.

“Nina?” Calvado said.

“Born in...?” Hiroshi added.

They both look at Nina. Nina looks at them both, turning his head back and forth between the two young people. Then, he nods his head.

Calvado and Hiroshi continue to stare until Calvado shakes her head and says, “Oh, come on. That means he’s.…” She tries to compute Nina's age in head.

“667 years old,” Hiroshi said.

“See, Nina? I told you those Asian boys are math geniuses, don’t you know,” Zlatno laughed and drank his wine. “Nina is immune to all diseases. Nina can only die if I strangle him,” Zlatno said as if he were mentioning that the main language of Turkey were Turkish.

“Oh, come on,” Calvado said. “How can you know this?”

“Easy, medical school lady. Easy.”

“And?” Calvado coaxed.

“Nina told me,” Zlatno replied.

“What?” Hiroshi asked, astonished but half believing Zlatno was too drunk to realize he was too drunk to be speaking.

“No,” a voice said. “It’s true.”

Calvado and Hiroshi looked around the empty café. Except for the waiter sleeping at the counter, the three of them were alone. They both looked at Zlatno, then down at the cat.

“Hello?” Hiroshi called out.

“Hello,” Nina answered.

___________________

Next: The Revelation and Mystery of Father Gabriel

13. The Revelation

2007-11-05T05:47:00.000-08:00

October 25, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey

The argument began before dinner but the revelation came after their second bottle of red Kocabag. Dinner, they decided, would be at a café down the street Zlatno acknowledged had both the best lamb and the best - perhaps most expensive - wine. Calvado declared her vegetarianism and Zlatno suggested she eat not the lamb but one of the many vegetable or salad offerings the Café Hankla had to offer. She agreed and the four of them: Calvado, Zlatno, Hiroshi, and Nina (in Calvado’s arms) strolled to the Café Hankla in the early evening, before the other merchants closed up shop. As the evening was still warm and the traffic light in the alley, they settled at an outside table.

“Beautiful sky tonight,” Hiroshi said, regretting it the moment the words were out of his mouth.

“Beautiful? You’re looking at Istanbul in the sky; mere reflection of the mosque against clouds. A mosque in the clouds, you know,” Zlatno ridiculed. “When I was a child...”

“100 years ago,” Calvado countered. Before Zlatno could respond, she turned to Hiroshi.

“You’re quiet. I mean, you don’t say much.”

“My mother always says I was a quiet child. Never cried, she said, even as a baby.”

“Odd.”

“That’s what the doctor who delivered me said, too. I was an odd baby.”

“Babies almost always cry after being delivered,” Calvado said as she stroked Nina.

“My mom says I was always looking around, you know, observing, but never complaining,” Hiroshi said, adding, “But you’re a med student. Do they have long vacations for med students in America?”

“No,” Calvado said sharply and Nina meowed in protest.

“You are medical school student, yes?” Zlatno asked impolitely and, when Calvado nodded, continued, “Yet you are not in the school. This my little Japanese friend and I think is odd, as is his refusal to cry like a baby should.”

“I did something wrong and they, uh, they put me on leave. They suspended me for a semester.”

“Wrong? What, if I may ask,” Hiroshi asked.

“Ach,” Zlatno cried as the waiter set a bottle of white Kocabag and three glasses on the table. “Excellent.” He reached out and touched the bottle. “Ach, the peasant in the kitchen even made this cold, this bottle. Excellent. Please,” he said to the waiter and held up his glass.

The waiter poured everyone’s glass to the brim and left the bottle and the few remaining drops on the table.

“To your health,” Calvado said, raising her glass to Zlatno first and then Hiroshi.

“To your future,” Hiroshi exclaimed, touching his glass to the other two.

“To your history,” Zlatno said cheerfully. “Serefe,” he added quickly and they all sipped their cold wine.

The waiter reappeared and Zlatno ordered lamb and. “And something juicy for the cat,” he added in Turkish. He turned to Calvado. “He says they have no vegetarian dishes but if you are willing, perhaps he can find something in the refrigerator.”

“You said they had plenty of salads and ….” Calvado protested.

“What can I say?” Zlatno pleaded. “The man is a liar? A thief? He only says what he has. I can do nothing.”

“Tell him to bring me some vegetables. Washed!” she said angrily.

“And the luttennitza, yes? Excellent sauce. Only Turks can make it properly, yes?” Zlatno offered.

“What’s luttennitza?” Hiroshi asked.

“A most excellent sauce. Tomato, pepper, onions...”

“Salsa?” Calvado asked, but Zlatno allowed as he had no idea what salsa was. Calvado ordered the luttennitza on the side.

“Americans,” Zlatno grumbled, “always so picky about food.”

“How many Americans have you met,” Calvado demanded. “One?”

“Ah, yes, anger.” Zlatno turned to Hiroshi, “A very American trait. Have you noticed Americans are the angry people? Fighting, yelling. This I saw on TV. What do you call two camel drivers arguing in America? Road rage. Unbelievable. Domestic rage. Postal. Do you know postal, my little Japanese friend?”

“Uh, no,” Hiroshi answered politely.

“Post office employees killing each other! Post office employees! America, it is a great country that even makes a boring job like putting a letter in a box and then putting another letter in a box and then another letter in another box... the most boring job in the world, no? … America has made this boring job violent and then they coin a word for it. Postal. Only in America. Like eskimos and snow, they have a hundred words for violence.”

“How many words do you have in Turkish for violence?” Hiroshi asked.

“One. We only need one,” Zlatno stated flatly. “We are a peaceful people.”

“Tell that to the Kurds,” Calvado spit.

“Ach, the Kurds. Who loves the Kurds? Not intelligent people. Your first George Bush did not like the Kurds. No, intelligent people do not like the Kurds; it’s a way of judging the intelligence of other countries - if you like the Kurds you cannot be expected to be a normal country. Iraq does not like the Kurds. Even the Assyrians did not like the Kurds - 3000 years ago. Do you know, my Japanese friend, what the word ‘Kurd’ means? ‘Warrior.’ These people have been fighting someone, anyone for 3000 years: Assyrians, Hittites... The Assyrians destroyed their cities. Cyrus the Great of Persia forced them into slavery. Yes, intelligent people do not like the Kurds. A violent people. Not like we Turks. We Turks love... Ah, our food!”

“I can’t believe.…” Calvado grumbled.

“Please, doctor student lady, do not argue about trifles when now comes our food. Ah, lamb,” Zlatno said to the waiter. “Tell Hasan thank you,” he added.

“The Kurds...” Calvado began.

“Your vegetables look wonderful,” Hiroshi said, diverting her anger.

“Come, we eat in peace,” Zlatno smiled at Calvado. “After dinner, I will tell you the Revelation and Mystery of Father Gabriel.”

“Who is Father Gabriel?” Hiroshi asked as he cut into his succulent lamb.

“After dinner. With red Kocabag and no talk of the Kurds. Kurds,” he laughed “curdle the food in your.. what is this called?” he said as he patted his stomach.

“Fat?” Calvado asked.

“Stomach,” Hiroshi added.

“Fat stomach? Yes, this is good. Isn’t it, Nina?” Zlatno looked underneath the table.

Nina meowed and chewed her bit of fish thoughtfully, wondering how he would explain the revelation to two foreigners.

________________

Next: Nina's Truth

12. Father Gabriel's Protest

2007-11-05T04:58:00.000-08:00

October 26, 1450 - Mainz, Germany

Johannes was applying ink to the platen when the policeman entered his printing shop.

“You,” the policeman said. “You are Johannes the Printer?”

Johannes nodded, wiped his inky hands and approached the policeman.

“You printed this?” the policeman asked and held up a page from “The Priests of Hiroshima.”

“Yes, yes, I did. What is it?” Johannes demanded.

“Thank you, sir,” the policeman said politely and left the print shop.

Mikhail watched and said, “That was odd.”

“You should be working, not gawking at whoever walks into the shop. Get back to work,” Johannes scolded, but he, too, was aware how odd the encounter had been. Nonetheless, Johannes hurried back to inking the platen; with only a few weeks to finish a 250-page book, he couldn’t afford to waste any time. Nor could his apprentices. “You!” he screamed at a new apprentice leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. “Get to work! I’m not here to teach you how to sleep!”

The apprentice jumped to his feet and hurried over to Mikhail’s side. He watched carefully as Mikhail slipped paper onto the press; he also watched Johannes as Johannes expertly and quickly inked the platen.

“Johannes!” screamed someone. Mikhail and the new apprentice hid behind the press.

Everyone turned to the door. Three policemen and a judge. A judge! stood in the doorway. Behind the judge stood the parish priest.

“Yes?” Johannes answered quietly. He again wiped his hands and approached to counter.

“Johannes the Printer!” the policeman yelled.

“Yes, yes,” Johannes answered irritably. “What is it? I’m not like some people, ” he glanced at the priest.

“I’m not an idle man.”

“Johannes the Printer,” the policeman yelled. “You are printing immoral political manifestoes and the city, the church, and the people demand you stop.”

“I’m what?” Johannes yelled. “I’m printing what!?”

“Immoral political tracts,” the priest yelled. “Immoral!”

“I am not,” Johannes yelled back. “And if I were, I didn’t write it. I’m merely the printer!”

“You must stop,” the policeman yelled. “It has been decided.”

“By what fool?” Johannes yelled.

“By me,” the judge replied quietly and calmly.

Johannes looked at the short, pudgy judge with his dark beard and pale blue eyes. The judge leaned heavily on a cane and seemed to wince whenever he changed his position.

“And how is it immoral?” Johannes asked the judge.

The judge stared into Johannes’ face. “Because it is,” he said quietly.

Johannes threw the inky rag on the counter and sat on a high stool behind it. He looked at the incredulous priest and the short judge. The three policemen had pistols and short swords. The judge looked as if he should sit down, but Johannes wasn’t about to offer him a place. He decided to argue until the judge tired and left, hopefully with the policemen and priest.

“Immoral, you say,” he said to the judge. “How...”

“I read this, this filth and said so to the judge,” the priest interrupted. “It is filth and will destroy the morals of the citizens of Mainz. I,” the priest paused for effect, “am the people’s protector. I must protect them from this, this filth.” He tossed the offending sheet of paper at the counter. It hit the counter, then floated to the floor at Johannes’ feet.

He didn’t pick it up. Nor did he look at it.

“That is a test print, sir,” he said. “It is not the finished project. You have judged a book by its incompleteness. Not a particularly rational viewpoint, don’t you think?” he asked innocently.

“I, I,” stuttered the priest. “I read what I read. What I read was immoral and should be prohibited from being distributed to the citizens of Mainz.”

“Ah,” Johannes said with a small giggle. “It will never be distributed to the good citizens of Mainz, who I, too, wish to protect from filth and immoral political tracts.”

“Good!” the priest said loudly. “Excellent. Then you will cease printing at once, yes?”

“No.”

“But, but you said you will protect the citizens from...” the priest protested.

“No,” Johannes replied, calmly and with a mischievous smile, “I said it will never be distributed to the citizens of Mainz. And it will not be. Ever.”

The priest looked quizzically at Johannes, then pleadingly at the judge.

“Do you mean to proceed with printing this tract?” the judge asked and shifted his weight to his left foot.

“If I may. I’m very busy, sir.”

“After the priest and I, with these policemen, have asked you to stop?”

“I believe the good priest has asked that it not be distributed to my fellow Mainz citizens. Of that, I assure you, I will not allow.”

“And how can you assure us of that if you continue printing this... immoral tract?” the judge asked.

“Because the customer who requested I print it requested only ten copies. Ten, he said, for himself and a few friends. I made clear my desire that he could print more copies, up to 100 and sell them, but he insisted that he need only ten copies. Distribution,” Johannes said and looked at the priest, “is impossible with so few editions, don’t you think?”

“We ask you stop printing them,” the priest whined.

“Father Gabriel, if you don’t mind,” the judge insisted. “Do you guarantee that these books will never fall into the hands of anyone but the buyer, you, and the buyer’s few friends?” he asked Johannes.

“No,” Johannes replied.

“No? No?! You refuse our demands!?” the priest cried hysterically.

Johannes looked at the judge. “I cannot guarantee anything but that I will give these books to their owner without allowing any Mainz citizen to see them. What the buyer does with them, I cannot guarantee. He is not,” Johannes whispered conspiratorially, “German.”

“Not German?! Not German!?” the priest cried. “Judge, you must demand...”

“Johannes,” the judge said, ignoring the priest’s outburst, “Perhaps you can find a way to assure Father Gabriel that your... machines are not being used to disrupt the lives of the citizens of Mainz. Perhaps you can... modify the text. I’m sure Father Gabriel would be pleased to show you what needs to be... altered? Yes?”

“Yes! Immediately! I can...”

“Father Gabriel, if you would allow me,” the judge said.

“I will be glad to have Father Gabriel’s assistance in creating this book,” Johannes said. “For the second edition. You!” he yelled at the new apprentice. “Get to work! I’m not here to teach you how to sleep!” Johannes waited until the new apprentice and Mikhail rushed to the press and began printing the current page. “Our Mainz apprentices are getting lazier and lazier every year,” he said to the priest and judge. “I will not allow Mainz’s reputation as the center of hard-working men to be tarnished by slovenliness and idleness. Don’t you agree, Father Gabriel?”

“Uh, yes, of course. Except...”

“Perhaps, judge, if I were to promise Father Gabriel that my next printing project will be of an uplifting and moral nature, he will excuse this slight digression into the common.”

The judge shifted his weight to his right foot and looked at Father Gabriel. Even Father Gabriel realized he had been defeated but he wanted to appear to be in control.

“Your next project will be the Bible, then?” he demanded.

“As you wish,” Johannes said with a bow.

“Good. That’s settled then,” the judge said as he turned to the door. “Oh, and Johannes...”

“Sir?”

“Pay Father Gabriel a sum of your choosing for his trouble, will you? Anything will be fine. 100 florin, perhaps?” The judge smiled and exited the printing shop.

“Of course,” Johannes mumbled to the closing door.

Father Gabriel smiled and held out his hand.

“Peter!” Johannes yelled and stormed away from the counter.

“Yes?” Peter called back from the office above the shop. “What is it?”

______________

Next: The Revelation

11. The Turkish Soldier

2007-11-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

October 25, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey

“History has shaped us all,” a man’s voice called.

“Who’s that?” Hiroshi asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve heard him, but I haven’t seen him.” Calvado downed the last of her tea.

“Were you really a model?” Hiroshi asked.

“Come on, let’s find out if history is a bitch or not,” Calvado said. “And who that other man is.” She put her cup down and hurried out of the kitchen.

Hiroshi jumped to follow her, leaving his bag behind but grabbing his voice recorder. He snapped it on because he sensed whatever the old man was going to tell them about history, or about books, was going to be memorable. He hoped the battery wouldn’t die too soon.

Calvado and Hiroshi found Zlatno sitting in the old, overstuffed chair behind the massive cash register. Zlatno was petting the cat and the cat looked like it was asleep.

Hiroshi stepped forward. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

Zlatno nodded.

“What’s your name and how old are you?”

The silence in the bookshop held for a minute, then Zlatno spoke in a tired, old man’s voice, one that neither Calvado nor Hiroshi had heard before.

“My name is Zlatno Moruno. My great-great grandfather was born in Istanbul; his son was also born in Istanbul, as was his son, and his son on down until me. I was born in Istanbul 98 years ago and my mother has been dead for 96 years.”

Hiroshi couldn’t believe his ears; he was interviewing a ninety-eight year old man for his podcast. A ninety-eight-year old Turkish man.

“How long have you owned this bookshop?” Hiroshi asked.

Again, the silence held for a minute while Zlatno stroked Nina’s back.

“When I was 30,” Zlatno said, then stopped. He opened his eyes and stared at Hiroshi’s voice recorder. “When I was 30,” he repeated louder, “I rented this space. But not as a bookstore. As a café. It lasted until the end of the war. 1945. Six years. Then a Turkish soldier came into my café. He was missing his,” Zlatno stopped and thought about it for a moment. “His left arm. He could not pay me for a sandwich or tea, he told me. But he had a book. A book! I said. What good is a book to me?! He claimed it was a special book. Valuable, he said. In his family for generations. Ha! I said. Show me this book you tell me is valuable and I will tell you it is worthless.” Zlatno adjusted his tired body in the chair. “He pulls this book,” Zlatno turned to his right and yanked open a crusty drawer, slipped his hand inside, and showed Hiroshi an old book with Egyptian coptic binding with black thread, wooden covers, and a cross carved in the front cover. “The Gospel According to Matthew,” Zlatno snorted. “Hand drawn. This is the book the Turkish private tries to tell me is valuable. I look at it. I think maybe I can get a few lira for it. Maybe enough to cover the cost of a sandwich and a cup of tea,” Zlatno smiled. “I take the book and give the Turkish private a sandwich and a cup of my worst tea. He finishes them both, smiles at me, says thank you, and leaves. I never see him again.”

Zlatno pushed Nina off his lap and got to his feet.

“I must go tinkle the pee,” he muttered. He shuffled back to the kitchen.

“Interesting man,” Hiroshi said.

“I wonder if he’s lying,” Calvado responded as she leafed through a heavy Greek text of agriculture. She looked at the flyleaf and all she could read was the printing date: 1769. “He sure has a lot of old books.” She looked around the store. Every nook, every cranny, every bookshelf was crammed with books. All old. Yet there was something strange about the store. “How long have you been here?” she asked Hiroshi.

“Me? In Istanbul? About three days.”

“Three days. And in three days you found this shop? Out of the way, down an alley so narrow donkeys have trouble. You found it.” She smiled at him. “Me, too. I’ve been here three days, too.”

Hiroshi held the voice recorder close to Calvado. “Can I...”

She swatted it away with a flick of her hand and put the book down. “We’ve both been here three days and we both found this store because we saw a book in the window. And now neither of our books is there. You don’t find that just a bit weird?”

“You saw a book, too? What about?”

“It had... It had a picture of,” Calvado glanced down at Hiroshi’s voice recorder. “Is that on?” she demanded.

“Uh, yeah,” Hiroshi said, quietly.

“Good, when Zlatno gets back, keep it on. Have you got extra batteries?”

Hiroshi nodded just as Zlatno stumbled in from the kitchen.

“Now,” Zlatno grumbled at Hiroshi. “Where was I?”

“You were explaining how you know me,” Calvado interrupted. “And don’t say it’s from a nine-year-old fashion magazine. You don’t read fashion magazines.”

“How do you know what I read, woman?” Zlatno spit back as he settled into the overstuffed chair.

“I have eyes. I can see,” Calvado indicated all the books in the store with an angry wave of her hand. “People with these books don’t read fashion magazines. You’ve, you’ve got a first edition Tristram Shandy over there. First edition! And you tell me you read women’s fashion magazines? Either you’re a fool or you think I’m a fool.”

Zlatno allowed Nina to jump up into his lap to be petted.

“Have you ever tried to read Tristram Shandy? Abominable book. No story, no plot; just meanderings of an overly-wrought mind. He is too impressed with his own writing, Sterne is. Was.”

“But you have it straight from Sterne’s printer!”

Zlatno stared at Calvado for a full minute, each second clicking silently away on Hiroshi’s voice recorder.

“I took the Turkish soldier’s book to a book appraiser,” Zlatno said, ignoring Calvado’s angry face. “The book appraiser, a friend of a friend, he let me down easily. He said the book was, what’s the word, a novelty item. Of recent vintage. This is in 1945, you remember. The appraiser said it was made, maybe, in 1900 or 1890. He can not be sure. In other words, he said, you have been robbed of a sandwich and a cup of tea. That is all. I was disappointed that soldier of my beloved country, the country of my great-great-great grandfather, would lie to me. The book appraiser, a friend of a friend, says, this sandwich and tea, how much does it cost at you shop? I tell him, only a few lira. The book appraiser, he is saddened by the soldier as I have too been. The appraiser, he says to me, I will reimburse you for the sandwich and tea. A few lira, it is nothing. And you give me the book. We are all happy. I enjoy the novelty book, you make money, the soldier he is fed.

"At this point,” Zaltno says sternly into Hiroshi’s voice recorder, “at this point I realize the book appraiser, a friend of a friend, is a liar. Appraiser!” Zaltno spits. “He is no book appraiser, he is a thief. A common thief. I keep the book. You see it here.

"I keep it and the next day I go to another book appraiser. No friend of a friend. He tells me this book is very valuable. How valuable, I ask. This new book appraiser scratches his head, he sips some tea, and stares at the book. Maybe 1000 lira, he says. Maybe 2000 lira. At an auction, he says, who knows. Book people are crazy; they will pay anything for nothing sometimes. He says the book is over 100 years old and printed by a famous man. I don't know this man, but I keep it to remind me to trust no one. Ever. I keep the book. You see it here. I keep it and ask a bank for a loan. I use it for a loan to open this shop. I am 30 years old.”

“You’ve owned this shop for 68 years?” Hiroshi says, amazed.

Zlatno turns to Nina. “The boy is smart. Japanese boys, they are smart. He subtracts my age now from my age then and comes up with the answer. Smart, these Asians, yes?”

Nina meowed.

“He is a smart cat, no?” Zlatno says clearly into the voice recorder.

“I don’t know how you did it,” Calvado says suddenly. “But you lured us here. Both of us. Hiroshi and me. You lured us here. How, I don’t know. Maybe you’re a warlock or a wizard. But you brought us here. Didn’t you, Zlatno? Didn’t you!”

“Why would I bring an overly-wrought former model to my antique bookstore? To meet a young Japanese mathematics wizard? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Calvado answered back. “But I’m going to find out.”

_________________

Next: Father Gabriel's Protest

10. The Bitch Goddess History

2007-11-03T04:35:00.000-07:00

October 25, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey

Calvado and Hiroshi sat on the same side of the small table while Zlatno boiled more water for tea and Nina jumped up into Hiroshi’s lap. Absently, while watching Zlatno and Calvado, Hiroshi stroked the old cat’s fur and rubbed its ears. Calvado sat quietly beside him but Hiroshi could feel the intense energy coming from her.

“What do you do?” he asked. “Back in... Where are you from?”

“New York. I’m a medical student.”

“Oh,” Hiroshi knew American med students were older than Japanese med students but she didn’t look very old. “Shouldn’t you be in school? Studying... cadavers or something?”

Calvado thought about the last cadaver class she had participated in; the one where Mac’s body was on the slab. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I should.”

Hiroshi knew enough to know he shouldn’t push her further. “I’m a student, too,” he said. “In Tokyo.” He hoped it sounded important.

“Tokyo’s nice,” Calvado said. “I was there once. Roppongi and, uh, some fashion place. Very crowded.”

“Japan’s crowded,” Zlatno said as he hobbled over to the table. “The whole of Asia has too many people. Only Turkey is logical. Not too many people, not too many roads. A nice... balance.”

“Have you been to Japan?” Hiroshi asked.

“No. And I don’t want to, either. Crowded. Too crowded. Sugar?”

“Uh, no thank you.”

“Good. Sugar’s too expensive. You?”

Calvado shook her head and Zlatno struggled to lower his body onto the rickety old chair.

“You’ve said ‘In due time’ twice now, Mr.…”

“Yes, I did. Twice. You’re very observant for a woman.” Zlatno turned to Hiroshi. “Usually women are only interested in their own clothes and make-up. Superficial things that - poof! - disappear with age.” He turned to Calvado. “Right?”

“No, but that’s beside the point. Why did you say that, ‘In due time’?”

Zlatno sipped his bitter, strong tea and stared down at the floor. He closed his eyes and sat completely still for at least two minutes. Calvado was about to poke him in the arm to see if he was still awake when he suddenly jerked his eyes open and peered at her with that intensity she’d only seen in surgeons and gamblers.

“You never answered my question.”

“The history one?” Hiroshi asked.

“Yes,” Zlatno said, not taking his eyes off of Calvado. “Well, do you? Do you believe in history?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Hiroshi said.

“How can you believe in history?” Calvado asked. “History is just there; like believing in air or water. It is just there. If you don’t believe in history or air or water, it still exists. You can’t believe in facts; they just are.”

“Very philosophical, Calvado, very philosophical.”

Calvado nearly jumped out of her skin. She inched her chair back and took several deep breaths. “How did you know my name?”

Nina jumped out of Hiroshi’s lap and skittered over to Zlatno; he jumped up and rubbed his head against Zlatno’s neck. Zlatno remained silent, closed his eyes and seemed to enjoy the cat’s fur against his skin.

“I asked...” Calvado demanded but Zlatno raised a hand to silence her.

Nina - in slow motion, it seemed - dove off of Zlatno’s lap and mewed his way over to Calvado’s ankles where it rubbed and purred and begged to be picked up.

“I asked...” Calvado repeated but this time Zlatno raised a hand to silence her so that he could answer.

“You’re famous, Calvado, if you don’t know that. Here,” he reached into a pile of books and magazines forming a small pyramid beside the fading green refrigerator and pulled out a fashion magazine, faded and torn, with Calvado’s highly made up face: in the style of a kabuki actor, on the cover. “Turkey’s most famous women’s fashion magazine,” Zlatno smiled. “And look who’s on the cover!”

“You recognize me from this?” Calvado asked, astonished. The magazine was nine years old and in every photo she had on the grotesque kabuki make-up that succeeded in obliterating any recognizable feature. Plus, she couldn’t believe Zlatno sat and read women’s fashion magazines, Turkish or not.

“That’s you? I thought you were a med student,” Hiroshi said.

“I am, I was a model before med school. No more, though,” Calvado replied, puzzled by Zlatno.

“Of course I remember you from this,” Zlatno spit out angrily. “It’s all part of history and history, real history, is a cruel mistress.”

“History is cruel?” Hiroshi asked. “That sounds... odd.”

“Odd!?” Zlatno exploded. “Odd!? You think history is safe? Coddling? A nursemaid? History is a bitch, young man, a bitch and a cruel slave-driver! Cruel!” Zlatno rose in his seat then collapsed, exhausted by the outburst. “A huge weight battering us all into the earth like tent pegs in the sand,” he whispered.

Nina meowed so Calvado picked her up.

“You really think so?” she asked Zlatno.

“Of course not!” he snorted and pushed himself to his feet. “Women, no sense,” he grumbled and then turned to her with a ferocity that surprised her. “But!” he screamed. “History is a bitch.” He hobbled out of the kitchen.

Nina jumped off of Calvado and skittered after Zlatno.

"And you'll find out soon enough!" he yelled.

______________

Next: The Turkish Soldier's Book

9. The Priests of Hiroshima

2007-11-02T23:12:00.000-07:00

October 25, 1450 - Mainz, Germany

Johannes looked over the manuscript and handed a few pages to Peter. They both hemmed and hawed while the mysterious man waited patiently.

“You could use the money,” Peter said.

“You could, too,” Johannes replied and turned over a page. “Lots of quotes,” he said. “I don’t like quotes.” He looked at Mikhail and the other assistant and then glanced at Peter. All four of them were busy but not with what Johannes liked to call ‘elegant’ work. Playing cards and poetry for the most part and this poster for the historical exhibition. Who cares about history, Johannes thought when the exhibition manager came to ask for his help. “I’m in negotiations now with, well, with a rather wealthy client. He has a big secret project. It might take me a year. Maybe more.”

Peter glanced at him and wondered if Johannes was going to ask Peter’s father-in-law for more money. Johannes was a pretty bad businessman but he had the power of persuasion and the skill to create beautiful printed matter.

“If we take this on,” Peter said, “I can’t guarantee we’ll be done by the end of November. There are a lot of words here we’re not familiar with. It takes time.”

“I’m willing to pay,” the mysterious man said, “whatever it takes to finish by the end of November. Absolutely must be finished by November 30. By midnight.”

“We’ll need extra apprentices,” Johannes said to Peter.

“And extra paper,” Peter replied.

“The money might change,” Johannes said to the mysterious man. “We might need more than we originally thought.”

Peter smiled. This was an old tactic of Johannes; give a low initial price and then gradually raise the price until the customer starts to hesitate. He made money in the short term but lost a lot of potential business from savvy merchants and noblemen.

“Ten copies,” the bearded man said. “That’s all I need.”

“Can we do it, Peter?”

“Can we put our name on it?” Peter asked the bearded man.

“Your name?”

“On the colophon, can we stamp “Gutenberg Printing” on it?”

The mysterious man looked at Peter, then at Johannes. “Well, I don’t know...” he began and Johannes interrupted.

“It’s not important,” Johannes said.

“But may we? With the date?” Peter pushed.

The bearded man looked at them and down at his manuscript as if the answer would pop out at him from the depths of his writing. “Is this, uh, natural? I mean, do you do with all your books?”

Peter stared at Johannes, anxious to hear his explanation. They had yet to print and entire book; there was no ‘normal’ or ‘natural.’ Each production was completely new and original.

“Well,” Johannes began.

“Often,” Peter interrupted. “Whenever the author agrees.”

“Okay,” the bearded man said, “let’s answer that question when you get to the last page. Meanwhile, when can you start?”

“As soon as we finish this poster. Tomorrow afternoon at the latest,” Johannes said and Peter almost chocked. They’d never finish the poster by tomorrow. In a week, maybe, but not by tomorrow. “The problem is the apprentices we need to take on. We can’t take them on for only one job, you know. It’s for years.”

“I understand.”

“And training.…” Peter said.

Johannes glared at him and Peter realized there would be no new apprentices; he, Mikhail, Johannes, and the other apprentice were going to have to work doubly hard for longer hours and a lot less sleep.

“What’s the title, then?” Johannes demanded. “Might as well start working on the title page as soon as possible, right? I’ll work on it tonight. Title?” he said and picked up a quill and dipped it in ink.

“The Priests of Hiroshima,” the bearded short man said.

_________________

Next: The Bitch Goddess History

8. Do You Believe, II

2007-11-02T22:42:00.001-07:00

October 25, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey

“We have a visitor,” Zlatno said and seconds later Calvado heard someone yell, “Hello?” from the store; just as she had done. “He’s not from around here,” Zlatno added after the ‘Hello’ sailed through the kitchen. “Can you get that for me, miss? My legs,” he said and rubbed his thigh.

“Sure, but I don’t speak Turkish,” Calvado said.

“Neither does he,” Zlatno responded. “Remember,” he added as Calvado got to her feet, putting the cat gently on the floor. “Sell expensive stuff.” Then, mumbling to himself, “We need the money.” Calvado nodded and left the kitchen for the front store.

“Two? In one day?” Nina said.

“It’s a miracle,” Zlatno responded sarcastically as he closed his eyes and rested his chin on his chest.

Nina hurried into the store.

“Let me know what happens,” Zlatno said, eyes closed and breathing heavily.

“Yes?” Calvado asked the young Japanese man standing in front of her with an iPod in his hand.

Hiroshi was awed. The woman was definitely the most beautiful woman he had ever seen: tall, not too thin, shortish hair that looked like she was trying to grow it longer and a body... a perfect body. But there was something about her that made him think she was more than just beautiful; he couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something.

“You... you’re the owner?” the man asked.

“No, no. Uh, can I help you?”

“There’s a book in the window,” Hiroshi said. “I want to know, uh, how, uh...”

Well, Calvado thought to herself, he isn’t staring at my boobs. “You want to know the price?” she helped.

“And the age. It looks very old,” Hiroshi said.

“All the books in this store are old,” the man behind the cash register said. Hiroshi looked but didn’t see anyone.

“Yeah,” Calvado said and picked up a nearby book. “This one was printed in 1522.”

“By Fusto-Shoeffer!” the man behind the counter yelled. Calvado was getting irritated and wanted the man to either come out from behind the cash register or be quiet.

“1522? Wow,” Hiroshi said and looked through the book. It was in Latin and he couldn’t read a word, but he liked the font design. And the paper. “Nice paper.”

“It ain't paper. It's vellum,” the man shouted.

“Do you want to come out here and help?” Calvado yelled with one hand on her hip.

“I don’t deal with tourists,” the man shouted as if tourists were the worst of a bad breed of human.

“Hey,” Calvado said. “I’m a tourist.”

There was silence from behind the cash register but Nina strolled patiently into the store and rubbed his back against Hiroshi’s leg.

“Nice cat,” Hiroshi said.

“Which book were you interested in?” Calvado asked.

“It’s...” Hiroshi moved toward the window and looked around. “It’s in here. It’s a bit bigger than...”

Nina jumped up in the window and sat on a thick book in the corner to watch Hiroshi search the books for the one that attracted his attention.

“That’s odd...”

“What?” Calvado asked.

“It was here...but it’s gone.”

“What did it look like?”

“Big. Old. The title was in Japanese.”

“Really? In Japanese? I was just looking through those books just a few minutes ago and I didn’t see any book with Japanese. That’s odd, indeed. Here, help.”

Calvado started moving books around, staking them up in one side of the window, next to Nina. Hiroshi placed books where Calvado could reach them. He picked up a psalm book printed by Fuch-Shoeffler in 1503 and a bible by Sacco-Vanzetti in 1792. He saw a book titled Il Milione but didn’t read Italian, so he passed it over to Calvado without looking at the printer’s mark which said it was printed in 1789 in Venice. As Calvado bent over, Hiroshi tried not to look down her t-shirt but failed.

“Lose something?” Zlatno asked.

“Oh, you scared me,” Calvado said.

Hiroshi looked up to see an old man with a long beard dressed in a dress-like smock of dark green. He looked like a cheap Turkish amateur version of Angus Dumbledore.

“This is the owner,” Calvado said to Hiroshi. To Zlatno she said, “This young man is looking for a book that’s disappeared.”

“Sell it to him and give him an empty box, eh, eh,” Zlatno laughed. “And buy your invisible book, too, eh, eh,” he laughed. “Books seem to be disappearing left and right here today, eh?” His eyes sparkled with laughter and a mix of devious snarking.

“Books?” Hiroshi asked.

“The book I came in here to buy seems to have disappeared, too.”

“That’s odd.”

“Very.”

“All in due time,” Zlatno said, “all in due time. Would you like some coffee?” he asked Hiroshi, who looked at Calvado, who nodded so Hiroshi nodded, too. “We’re all in agreement, then, eh? How about you?” Zlatno asked Nina as he napped on top of a first edition of “Tristram Shandy” by Laurence Stern. Nina stretched and jumped out of the window display and followed Calvado, Zlatno, and Hiroshi into the back room.

“Do you believe in history?” Zlatno asked over his shoulder to Hiroshi.

“Believe? In history? I don’t understand,” he replied.

“Do you believe history is... mysterious,” Zlatno said.

“Well,” Hiroshi said. “It’s certainly important.”

“But do you believe?” Zlatno insisted.

________________

Next: The Priests of Hiroshima

7. Hiroshi's Mysterious Book

2007-11-02T22:37:00.000-07:00

October 25, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey

It was an unusually warm day in Istanbul - or was it global warming? and Hiroshi, used to the cooler air of Ankara, was looking for a café that sold iced tea, iced coffee, when he saw it. There, down a narrow alley lined with ancient stores it flickered almost as if it had its own light.

A short, muscular Turkish man was hefting crates of oranges onto an ancient truck while cars and bicycles squeaked their way around him. But down the alley, almost shining, Hiroshi saw a book shining at him. It was no ordinary book, Hiroshi thought, if it could attract his attention from across a busy Turkish street.

He crossed the street, dodging cars and trucks and hurried down the alley, skirting the orange crates. He hurried down the alley, past a neighborhood café, past a shish-kabob stand, and past an old man smoking stringent Turkish tobacco in front the blue front door of his home.

He stood in front of the window to the bookstore and looked at the book. It was leather-bound and big, almost double the size of a normal book and it had the feeling of age about it. But it was the title that attracted Hiroshi. Here, in an old bookstore down a narrow alley in Istanbul was a book with a Japanese title. For some reason, Hiroshi needed to look at it and immediately he thought it would be a great souvenir for his mother or Ryo...

A week after Ryoko returned to Japan, Hiroshi was snapping pictures of Norwegian bicyclists at Angor Wat. The Norwegians gave him a good idea and he agreed. As they bicycled around the world, they broadcast their progress on their podcast.

“All you need is a voice recorder,” Sven said and held up his Olympus Voice-Trek.

“And a web host,” Anna added. She smiled at Hiroshi and pushed her blonde hair out of her face.

“We use Libsyn because they give us a blog, too,” Sven said.

“And,” Micheal said, “they zip it over to iTunes automatically. Very good.”

“How do you get messages from listeners?” Hiroshi asked.

“Through the blog,” Anna said. “It’s all very cool. Can we interview you?”

“For your podcast? Sure.”

That was in Cambodia and ten days - and a country - later, Hiroshi had his voice recorder, blog, and iTunes podcast: HiroshiWorld. Most of his podcasts were his thoughts on his day; he recorded mostly at night after he’d eaten dinner and was reviewing his day. Some of his shows had interviews with travelers and workers he came across during the day. Sometimes he lucked into meeting a politician or businessman who wanted to talk and buy him lunch, too. All of his podcasts had sound scapes of the places he went to: street vendors, crowds, street music and, of course, the languages: Cambodian, Malay, Chinese, English, Korean... all the languages he met on his trip.

He knew as soon as he saw the book in the window he wanted to interview the bookstore owner. The book looked ancient and the store looked just as old. He pulled his Turkish-Japanese phrase book out and looked quickly through the vocabulary for words he could use, or at least point at. He rummaged through his backpack for his voice recorder and checked the battery life. All set. He pushed open the door.

“Hello?”

_________

Next: Do You Believe? II

6. Taxi Troubles for Hiroshi

2007-11-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

November 20, 2006 - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Ryoko pulled her wheeled pink and white Hello Kitty suitcase out of the train station while Hiroshi hefted his backpack onto his back.

“It’s not too far,” he said as he checked his map.

“Good. I need a shower.”

“This way,” Hiroshi said and started walking north.

“We’re walking?” Ryoko whined.

Hiroshi knew she was going to complain. “Yeah,” he sighed. She wanted to travel in comfort, Hiroshi knew. He wanted to travel cheap, light, and fast, stopping only to meet people and absorb the atmosphere of a good place.

“But the taxis are really cheap,” she said.

“Every yen we save means we can travel that much longer.”

“We still have to get back to school before April,” Ryoko correctly pointed out. “It’s not like we can travel forever anyway.”

“Walking is good for us,” Hiroshi said, changing tactics. “Get our legs in good shape for the mountains.”

“Mountains?”

“Remember, I said I wanted to try to see the Dalai Lama? He lives in Nepal. And the road to Tibet is open now, so we can see Tibet, too.”

“They have taxis, don’t they?” Ryoko said as she wrestled her suitcase down the station steps.

“This is only our fourth country,” Hiroshi said. “We’ve got dozens more.”

“Well, this isn’t what I expected.”

Hiroshi knew what she expected and he wasn’t it. She wanted a honeymoon and people waiting on her. She wanted a daily itinerary that she could follow and feel as if she were back in Japan in her daily life.

“Adventure, Ryoko, is seldom what we expect.”

“Well, I don’t want adventure. I want comfort.” She yanked her suitcase over the broken sidewalk.

Hiroshi warned her a suitcase, even with wheels, wasn’t going to be as useful as she thought but she insisted, crying “It’s so cute!” (Kawaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!) when she saw the Hello Kitty suitcase.

“I want a taxi. I’m not walking all the way with this suitcase.”

“Ryoko...” He hailed a taxi and paid 20 yen to go less than a kilometer.

Their argument wasn’t about the taxi or the cost, of course, it was deeper than that. Ryoko wanted to tour Vietnam as if she were a tourist: nice hotel, stores, the main sites and nice dinners in a nice restaurant.

Hiroshi wanted to see things from street level and talk with as many people as he could. And live cheaply, which meant dorm-style hotels where they met travelers in the common room, shared a kitchen and stories about good places to go and see.

But even their travel style wasn’t their real argument. She wanted a nice ‘safe’ life; Hiroshi was willing to take risks, push his personal space envelope, and was willing to try something new just because it was new.

They sat down for dinner at a ‘nice’ Vietnamese restaurant. It had plastic table cloths and clean water glasses that the water person kept filled throughout their meal.

“Hiroshi,” Ryoko said after they had finished their meal, mostly in long extended silences. “I’m going back to Japan.”

“When?”

____________

Next: Hiroshi's Mysterious Book

5. Do You Believe?

2007-11-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

October 25, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey

Zlatno watched Calvado search through the window display books and waited. He knew that eventually she would stop in frustration and turn to him to explain that the book was really really there but now, well, it’s not. He was hoping for a person like this tall, slender woman. He had been hoping for her to show up for nearly 40 years. He closed his eyes and remembered that fateful day. Ever since he met Nina. That damn Nina had changed his life and not necessarily the way he wanted it to change; although there was that one advantage that he appreciated.

“What she doing?” Nina whispered.

“Looking. Searching,” Zlatno replied without opening his eyes.

“It was here a minute...” Calvado said, more to herself than anyone else. “It was just right...” She didn’t think she was seeing things; hallucinations weren’t her thing - she didn’t trust anything she couldn’t figure out scientifically - it was her habit, it was what got her through photo shoots with bores and modeling agents with only one thing on their immature little minds. “It was...”

She straightened up and looked around.

Zlatno was staring at her with those dark, piercing eyes of his that seemed to light up when she looked at him and then fade to a dull faraway gaze when she wasn’t. She’d seen that before, in male models, photographers, and men on the street but none were so intense or powerful. It scared her a little bit.

“It’s gone,” she said to him.

“Oh,” he answered and pushed himself to his feet with a lot of effort and grunting.

“Are you okay?” Calvado asked.

“Couldn’t be better,” Zlatno responded.

“Ha!” the man behind the counter laughed.

“Be quiet, you little bastard,” Zlatno growled. “Come,” he said to Calvado gently. “Have some tea.” He shuffled into the back room and waited, waving for Calvado to come with him.

She wove her way through the hundreds of books. As she passed the cash register, she glanced behind it hoping to see the mysterious other person who kept insulting Zlatno and being insulted by him. All she saw was a large, grey and black speckled cat asleep on an old overstuffed armchair draped with off-white doilies.

The back room was littered with old books, a wobbly table, two rickety old chairs that looked like they would collapse if Zlatno or Calvado sat on them.

“Sugar?” Zlatno asked.

Calvado shook her head.

“There was a book,” Calvado said. “With the picture of.…” How could she explain Mac to him? She wasn’t even sure if she knew what he was. “Of an old friend on the cover.”

“An old friend?”

“Yes, and, and...”

“It glowed?” Zlatno said with a smile that made him years younger than Calvado thought possible.

“Yes!” Calvado cried. “It glowed. I saw it from, from across that...” she pointed at the big street.

“Trick of the light,” Zlatno said. “It happens from time to time. People come in here all the time,” he lied. “I guess the sun reflects just right about this time of the day.”

“And year!” the man behind the cash register yelled.

“Who is that?” Calvado asked. “I didn’t see...”

“In due time,” Zlatno said. “In due time.”

“What do you mean?”

Zlatno poured tea into an old cup and handed it gently to Calvado. He poured himself a cup and shuffled to one of the rickety wooden chairs. He set his cane against the small. old, leaky refrigerator and sat down. The chair creaked but held. He sipped his tea and made a face; either it was too hot, too bitter, or too … right. Calvado sipped her tea and nearly choked. It was so strong she felt the caffeine surge through her veins.

“What do you mean?” she asked again.

“Well,” Zlatno said then looked off at a cupboard behind her. “Would you like a biscuit? They’re quite good.”

“Sure,” Calvado said. She realized she was going to have to wait until the old man was ready to tell her what he wanted to. She watched as he struggled to his feet, walk uncertainly to the cupboard and pick up an old tin and return to the table with it. He pried it open and pulled out a carefully wrapped package of biscuits. He offered her the package, she took one, and he returned the package to the tin and shut it without taking one himself.

“You’re not,” she asked.

“Bad for my stomach,” he replied. “Have been since I was 78 years old.”

The large cat jumped up on his lap.

“What are you doing?” he spit and pushed it back on the floor. The cat hissed and jumped up on Calvado’s lap. She rubbed it’s fur and scratched it under it’s chin and soon it was purring quietly. “You’re shameless,” Zlatno said. The cat just purred.

“He’s cute,” Calvado said. “What’s his name?”

“Nina.”

“What are you going to explain to me?” Calvado asked.

“First, I have to ask you. Do you believe in history?”

“Believe? In history? I don’t understand.”

“Hmm,” Zlatno said. “Do you believe history is... great?”

“Well,” Calvado said and sipped her tea. “It’s certainly important.”

“No, no,” Zlatno said. “History,” he leaned forward and his eyes became bright and powerful accents on his face as if his entire life were flowing out of them and into her. “Do you believe in history?”

___________________

Next: Taxi Troubles for Hiroshi

4. Hiroshi's Ryoko (旅行 and 虜子)

2007-11-02T05:36:00.000-07:00

October 25, 2006 - Musashi-Sakai, Tokyo, Japan

“God,” Hiroshi groaned as he slumped in his hard bench seat in the last row of the huge lecture hall as the teacher droned on and on about the economics of 15th century Venice and how its virtual monopoly on silk road trade financially forced Spanish and Portuguese businessmen to find an alternate route to the riches of China.

“What?” Ryoko whispered.

“This is so boring,” Hiroshi said, not even bothering to whisper.

“Shh,” Ryoko admonished, although she agreed. “He’ll hear you.”

“So what?” Hiroshi slapped his notebook closed, snapped up his cell phone, and pulled his iPod out of his bag. “I’m out of here. Want to have a cup of coffee or something? I’ll buy.”

“You don’t have any money.”

“Well, vending machine coffee, then.” Hiroshi smiled and Ryoko melted. His smile was the nicest she’d ever seen; she knew if she left the lecture, they’d go to Skippu Dori and she’d end up buying their coffee and, probably, doughnuts, too. She didn’t mind. Hiroshi was funny, fun to be with, and smart but quiet. Not quiet in the way so many of her boyfriends had been - they never spoke or spoke only in grunts (something she thought was somehow ‘masculine’ and ‘cool’ when she was in high school.) Hiroshi spoke only when he had something to say, be it funny, emotional, or generous. He even discussed international relations and history with her, something her last boyfriend thought was ridiculous. (“What would a girl know about international relations?” her ex-boyfriend used to say whenever she asked him about one of their classes.)

Ryoko nodded and they both got up quietly and hurriedly quickly out of the lecture hall. Hiroshi stopped by a friend and whispered for him to collect any handouts for them, then they escaped into the sunlight, rushed past building 3 and were on their way to Skippu Dori without either of them making any plans to do so. That was another thing Ryoko liked about Hiroshi: he could read her mind.

• • •

“I’m thinking of going traveling, Ryo,” Hiroshi said as they sat in a window seat of Mr. Donuts on Skippu Dori.

“Oh?” Ryoko said. “With your mother?” Hiroshi often went to hotsprings with his mother whenever she sailed through Tokyo on her way north or south or east. She was a busy woman since her divorce but Ryoko sensed she was lonely, too.

“Ah, no. No, I haven’t talked to her about it, yet. She’s not going to be happy.”

“Why? She travels all over Japan.”

“That’s business. And, okay, sometimes to relax, but mostly business. My trip, uh,” he bit in to his chocolate old fashioned. “My trip is more, uh, involved. Elaborate. And, uh, longer. Not a day trip. Not even for a week.”

Ryoko stopped sipping her coffee. This sounded serious. Almost like he was about to break up with her.

“Oh?” she said as noncommittally as she could.

“But related to school. Very much. International relations shouldn’t be boring lectures and multiple choice tests, right” he said and Ryoko knew he was going to complain about their school.

“We’re going to America next fall. For six months,” Ryoko said, hopefully.

“Yeah, that’ll be fun. But even that... Getting to know other foreign students in America will be great. Great experience. But, but foreign students are the lucky ones. They have the money to go to America to study. What about the kids our age that don’t leave their country? The ones without the money?”

“But the ones with the money might become the leaders of their countries. The ones without, probably won’t.”

“True. You’re right,” Hiroshi said and looked out the window at three Moslem women and a man walking up Skippu Dori from the train station. The woman were dressed in burqa. The man was dressed in casual slacks and a jacket. “What do you think those women are wearing underneath their burqas?”

“The same as him,” Ryoko ventured.

“I’m thinking of traveling around the world,” Hiroshi blurted out. “For a year. First, Southeast Asia, then India and Pakistan. Then up to Turkey and on to Europe. I think I should go to Egypt, but I’m not sure. Africa is a big place. Then Central America and back to Japan.”

“Hiroshi,” Ryoko cried out.

“Just for a year,” Hiroshi said, trying soften the blow. He had one more way to soften the blow but he didn’t want to use it. He would if he sensed tears or anger but he’d wait to see what developed before he used it.

“Hiroshi!” Ryoko cried again. “We won’t see each other? For a year? And, and, those places are dangerous. Tourists get beheaded in some of those places.”

“But I’ll learn about the world. I can’t … we can’t learn about the world from boring lectures. Half the time the professors are just reading from a book! That’s not the way to learn...”

“You just want to get rid of me! You want to dump me but you’re too polite to just come out and say it,” Ryoko screamed.

“No, Ryoko, I...”

“Admit it, you hate me!”

“Ryoko, no. I love you. I just want... Hey, I’ve got a great idea,” he said. “Come with me.”

“Come with...around the world?” Ryoko hadn’t expected this. She loved the idea of traveling with Hiroshi. Their trips to Hokkaido and Okinawa were great. But around the world? “I, I don’t have any money,” she said weakly. They both knew if she asked her father, he’d pay for the trip. ‘Guilt money’ Ryoko called it once; her mother had left them when Ryoko was twelve and her father was trying to make it up to her and her younger brother ever since.

“Think about it, Ryo,” Hiroshi said. “A year is a long time to be apart and if we travelled together, think of the fun...?” He raised his eyebrows and made her laugh; she knew what he meant.

“I’ll think about it,” Ryoko promised and smiled.

“At my place?” Hiroshi smiled. “Now?”

“Oh, you.…” Ryoko laughed again and they hurried out of the donut shop. He would be one of the last times Hiroshi would see Ryoko laugh.

____________________

Next: Do You Believe?

3. Zlatno and Nina

2007-11-02T05:25:00.000-07:00

October 25, 2007 - Istanbul, Turkey

“Hello?” Calvado called as she entered the bookshop.

No one answered her greeting so she wandered over to the window where she saw the book that had called to her from across the busy Istanbul street. Behind her was the cash register, an ancient mechanical model that required great strength to open and operate. She paused at a bookshelf. All the books on it were the same: leather-bound, gold-leafed titles imprinted on the spine and all the same book: “Il Milione” by Marco Polo. In Italian. She picked one up and immediately felt its age. Not a hundred years old, maybe more. She opened up the front cover and glanced down at the printing date. It was in Roman numerals so it took her a while to figure out.

“1522!?” she cried out.

“The year Magellan failed to circumnavigate the earth,” an old voice boomed throughout the shop.

“This book was printed in 1522?” Calvado asked as she hurriedly placed the ancient tome next to its 25 identical shelf-mates.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” came the voice.

Calvado turned toward the ancient cash register.

No one was there. Calvado looked around behind some of the overloaded bookshelves but couldn’t see anyone.

“Hello?” she called again.

“Hello,” came a different voice from a back room.

Calvado heard feet shuffling and swearing as someone made their way to the front of the store. “I was wondering about a book in the window,” she shouted.

“Wait! I’ll be there someday,” came the voice; a man’s voice and, Calvado guessed, another old man.

As she waited she looked around the crowded shop; all the books were old - some centuries old - and none of them had anything less than leather covers delicately etched with gold or dark ink.

“Well? What do you want?” an old man groused.

“Oh,” Calvado said, startled. The old man was stooped over so badly his nose nearly hit the floor. He had a long, white beard that he kept tied to the back of his head like a scarf. His gnarled right hand gripped a cane with a large, golden knob in the shape of a lion.

“What is it? Don’t go wasting my time. I’ve got no time to waste.” The old man straightened up with a scruffy penny in his hand. He turned and shouted behind the cash register. “You dropped a penny!” he yelled at some one. “That’s the fifth time this decade!”

“Leave me alone,” came the other voice, the first voice - deep and masculine. “I’m napping.”

“You’re always napping. That’s something old people do,” the man yelled back. “And you?” He turned to address Calvado as she was trying to peer over the cash register at whoever was behind it.

“Oh,” she stumbled. “I, uh, I, you have a book in the window...” she trailed off.

“I’ve got lots of books in the window. Forty or fifty. Which one, woman! Which one?”

“We’ve only got 27 books in the window, Zlatno, don’t exaggerate,” the man napping behind the counter said.

“Twenty-seven, fifty, what’s the difference?!” Zlatno yelled back. “I still don’t know which damn book she’s talking about!” He spun around to Calvado. “Well?!”

“Uh, I can show you.”

“You want me to walk all the way over there so you can show me one of my books? Are you going to buy it? I’m not walking all the way over there to look at one of my own books if you’re not going to buy it. I’m a busy man, I don’t need the exercise.”

“Busy?” the man napping shouted.

“You keep out of this, Nina,” Zlatno yelled back. “I’m the businessman here. You’re... the consultant.”

“I’ll just, uh, go over and get it,” Calvado said.

Zlatno nodded and shuffled slowly toward a hardback chair in front of the counter. It took him a few moments but he lowered himself onto the chair, positioned his cane in front of himself, leaned back and closed his eyes.

“It’s that book,” Nina whispered to him.

Zlatno nodded but didn’t say anything or open his eyes.

Calvado navigated her way through the bookshelves and piles of books strewn haphazardly around the shop; she noticed one book open on the floor and bent down to pick it up. Fust -Schoeffer was printed on the opening page along with a date, 1498. Calvado looked inside the book; it was in Latin but it had color, amazing illustrations, and elegant page numbers in the lower left corner.

“Interested in psalms?” the old man called.

Calvado turned; something about the old man was different. His eyes seemed to smile; his lips, hidden behind the long beard, seemed rosy with mirth. Calvado shook her head, put the book gently down, and moved toward the window. She looked around the window display for the book that captured her attention; the one with Mac’s picture on the cover.

“It must be,” she leaned over to move a few books. Then a few more. She accidentally tipped over three books and they clattered to the bottom of the window display with a loud crash. She looked at the old man, but he looked asleep. She continued her search for Mac’s book.

“That’s odd,” she whispered to herself?

“What’s that?” Zlatno said.

“The book I want to buy,” Calvado answered before realizing Zlatno heard her whisper from across a large room. “It’s...”

____________________

Next: Hiroshi's Ryoko

1. A Disgraced Intern in Istanbul

2007-10-26T21:09:00.001-07:00

October 25, 2007 - Istanbul

It was an unusually warm day in Istanbul - or was it global warming? and Calvado, used to the cooler air of Florence, was looking for a café that sold iced tea, iced coffee, or anything cold. She was thinking maybe she would look for a gelato shop instead when she saw it. There, down a narrow alley lined with ancient stores it flickered almost as if it had its own light.

Someone had stacked dozens of wooden crates of oranges at the mouth of the alley; piled so high they reached the second story windows and Calvado had to wonder who manhandle the crates at the top. Half a dozen crates blocked the road and two cars - one trying to exit the alley and one trying to enter the alley - were honking their horns at the inanimate crates but, past the exiting car, past two children pushing bicycles, and past an old woman all dressed in black, Calvado saw it.

She turned off the main road she was on and headed toward it. To find such an object was a miracle but to find it in Istanbul, where Mac had never traveled, was more than a miracle, it was an act of God.

A small Turkish man with huge biceps and a barrel chest emerged from a café with a small expresso cup in his leathery hand. He yelled at the cars and immediately the driver of the car trying to get into the alley jumped out, threw his cigarette on the cobbled street and started shouting back. The other driver opened his car door and half-stood on the street and half stayed in his car and shouted at the small man. Soon they were all shouting, pointing, and gesturing at each other in what Calvado assumed were obscene gestures. As she walked in front of the the small man, his face softened, he looked at her and smiled.

“Welcome to Istanbul,” he said in an English heavy with German pronunciation. He glanced down at her breasts and body but was looking at her face quicker than most men Calvado met.

“Thank you,” Calvado smiled back. “You have quite a traffic jam here.”

“Ach,” the man coughed and pointed his espresso cup at the cars. “It is their problem, not mine. I am only responsible for the oranges in the crates, not Constantinople’s transportation problems.”

Calvado smiled; she liked the man’s attitude - even using the name of the city that was changed 554 years earlier; long before the man’s great-great grandfather was even a child. This, Calvado thought as she picked her way around an orange crate, is Istanbul where the past is alive and the present is just a thin veneer over a 3000-year history.

She looked up and saw it, still shining in the small shop which she could tell now was a used bookstore: the object was surrounded by dozens of old books. As she got closer she realized this was no ordinary used bookstore - the books were not quickly written best-sellers by former lawyers or spooky dwellers of New England but real books. Books with leather covers, hand-tooled titles with gold-leaf, and raised spinal cords. She looked at the book that drew her attention from across the three dozen orange crates, from across a busy Istanbul road, and from this small, dilapidated store. She gazed at it as if in a trance for a few minutes; she swirled through the past in New York when she ran the streets with Mac, when she narrowly escaped with her life - again with and because of Mac, and then she remembered finding his body stretched out on the slab in the morgue during her anatomy class. She shook herself out of her memories and looked at the book. She put her hand on the bookstore's window and silently wept. Then she pushed open the door and entered.

“Hello?”

October 25, 1987 - Kanazawa

“It’s crowning nicely,” the doctor said as he watched the baby’s head emerge from the woman’s body.

“Any second now.” The doctor placed his gloved-hands gently on the baby’s head when suddenly, easily, and quickly the entire child slipped bloodily into his hands; so quickly the doctor wasn’t ready and nearly dropped the baby but, fortunately, didn’t. The husband slumped to the floor and a nurse rushed to drag him out.

“You have a healthy baby boy,” he said to the mother as a nurse gently grabbed the newborn and whisked it away. The doctor turned back to the woman to wait for the placenta. “What are you going to call him?”

“Hiroshi,” the woman panted.

“What kanji will you use,” the doctor asked.

“Shi will be history’s shi (歴史の史); and hiro will be Hakata’s haka (博多の博),” the woman answered.

“That’s a very elegant name, Mrs. Majime,” the doctor smiled. “He’ll grow up to be a professor.”

“博史,” the woman repeated and at first the doctor thought she was calling for her husband, but saw that the nurse was returning with Hiroshi, who wasn’t crying, something the doctor thought was unusual.

Did the baby survive nine months of gestation only to see the world and reject it, dying inexplicably? It happened, rarely, but it happened. The fathers blamed the doctors and yelled at the nurses; the doctors could only blame the fates; the mothers blamed themselves and wept quietly, away from everyone else. The worst part of a newborn dying was the grief of the mother and the inevitable moment when the doctor would have to take the dead child from its mother’s breast. Some mothers pleaded for more time with their child; none escaped months of depression.

The doctor looked at the nurse, hopping she would smile and nod to indicate all was fine and the child was doing well. A newborn who didn’t cry was too unusual. But to show any sense of alarm in front of a new mother was not wise; hence, the doctors and nurses gave each other ‘looks.’ He worriedly watched the nurse’s face.

_______________________

Next: 2. Gutenburg's Real First Book

2. Gutenberg's Real First Book

2007-10-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

October 25, 1450 - Mainz, Germany

The man, short, bearded, slightly paunchy, and carrying a small wooden box held tightly under his right arm by a worn leather glove crept silently into the printing shop. So silently, no one noticed him for the five minutes he stood near the door and watched as Johannes set a page for a poster. Mikhail, Johannes’ youngest apprentice suddenly shrieked and everyone looked up. Mikhail pointed at the short man.

“What are you doing here?” Johannes asked. He was gruff and impatient; not salesmen-slimy or smooth as a businessman should be.

The short man stepped forward and placed the wooden box on top of the nearby counter but he kept his leather-gloved hand on it as if ready to grab it and run at the first sign of danger.

“Yeah?” Johannes grumbled. “What is it?”

“This is...” the man mumbled. “This is,” he started again, slightly louder. He had an accent Johannes didn’t recognize; perhaps he was from France or Italy. He wasn’t a native speaker of German.

“Come on, come on. I’m a busy man. I don’t have time for small chat.” Johannes waved the printer’s case in the air.

“I need your.…” the man glanced at the printing press being worked over by a couple of apprentices who were glancing at the mysterious man with the box while placing paper and turning handles to align the poster on the platen as carefully as possible.

“Yes, yes, what do you need?” Johannes yelled. He was never known for his warmth, especially to his apprentices but not even to Peter Schoffer, the man who spent long hours and many months crafting the metal type Johannes used in his printing press.

“Your printing press,” the man blurted out. “I need your printing press.”

“My press?!” Johannes yelled. “What for? Who are you that you need my press?”

“I, I,” the short man said and pushed the wooden box closer to Johannes. “I have this. I need...” His voice trailed off as if he were embarrassed or too shy to ask what he needed.

Johannes snatched the box from the man’s hand and examined it. It was finely made with three kinds of wood and held closed by two lengths of leather that were fastened together by a silver clasp in the shape of a ram’s head. Johannes noticed immediately that the craftsmanship was superb, the best he’d seen in months. From the Bavarian carpenters’ guild, Johannes mused.

“What is it?” he asked angrily.

“Open it,” the short man offered and Johannes untied the leathery knots to find inside a pile of vellum upon which were odd characters that resembled German but weren’t German. They didn’t look like French or Italian either, though Johannes could recognize the letters. The calligraphy was amateurish, though, and Johannes scoffed at the scribe who spent - probably - a year or more scribbling on the vellum only to end up with a virtually unreadable mishmash of letters.

“Pretty ugly calligraphy,” Johannes said without warmth. “Who did it? A young monk?”

“I did,” the bearded man said quietly.

“Harrumph,” Johannes coughed. “What do you want from me?”

“Your press,” the man said and glanced at Mikhail as he tapped in a spacer.

“No, no. Me. What do you want from me?”

“This,” the man said as he tapped on the small box, “is a mess. As you see, the handwriting is... subpar.”

“Less than subpar,” Johannes said and the bearded man nodded.

“I want a, a clean copy. I want a book. If you can...”

“If you can come up with my fee, I can print anything you want. But I’m busy now. I’m printing posters for an historical exhibition. And I have a book scheduled for next year. We’re very busy here. We might have to take on more apprentices.”

At this last sentence, the two over-worked and tired apprentices looked up.

“My fee is high, sir,” Johannes said. “Very high.”

“I realize that. I’m prepared...” the bearded man said as he pulled a leather purse from his bag. He opened it and gingerly took out a gold soverign and laid it gently on the counter. “I’m prepared.”

Johannes stared at the coin. His apprentices watched him carefully. His print shop was not doing well. In fact, they’d only had two orders in the last two months: the poster for the historical exhibition with only a single sheet and only 40 copies. They’d be finished in less than a week. And the other book. But they wouldn’t be starting that 42-line book for another year. Or more. Even the apprentices knew Johannes needed the money.

“How many pages, handwritten, is your book, sir?” Johannes asked quietly.

“About 250,” the bearded man replied.

“Two hundred and fifty,” Johannes repeated. “How many copies? Remember that once a page is broken down, it can’t be set up exactly the same again.”

“Ten.”

“Ten. Ten copies of a 250-page book?”

“Yes.”

“Ten.”

“Ten,” the man insisted.

“Once the page is set up, 100 would be as easy as ten. And almost the same price.”

“Just ten.”

“For 100 copies,” Johannes said, “I’d charge you 250 florin. For ten copies, I’m charging 200 florin. As you can see, for an extra 50 florin you get 90 more copies. Pass them out to your friends.”

“I have none.”

“Relatives.”

“Just ten.” The man said as he pulled the box back to his side as if Johannes would grab it and make 100 copies without his permission.

“Listen,” Johannes nearly screamed, “It’s hardly worth my time to set up 250 pages, print out ten copies of each page and then tear the pages down again. Set up time alone would be ten times the amount of time it would take to print ten copies. And each page would probably use 20 pages of expensive paper. Test prints and corrections.”

“But you charge the same for 100 copies or ten copies,” the bearded man mumbled shyly. “I only want ten copies.”

“Who’s going to bind them, then? Ten copies. No bookbinder I know would want such a small lot,” Johannes said.

“I’m a bookbinder,” the bearded man mumbled again. “I’ll bind it myself.”

“You? A bookbinder? With delicate hands like that?” Johannes laughed and the bearded man hid his gloved hand behind his back.

“Yes,” the man said in a whisper. “I’m a bookbinder.”

Johannes looked at the man and then down at the gold guilder on the counter. He flipped idly through the vellum pages and it’s odd words.

“I don’t even know if I have these letters,” he said, more to himself than to the mysterious man.

“They’re all available in German,” the man said quickly. “Do you have good fonts?”

Johannes was surprised. Not many non-printers knew fonts. “Of course,” he said brusquely. “What competent printer doesn’t?”

The bearded man smiled. “I believe,” he said, “outside of China, you are the only printer.”

“Quite right,” Johannes said.

“Well,” the bearded man asked. “Are you going to print my book? Ten copies? For 250 florin? Or do I have to get a Chinese printer?”

“Chinese,” Johannes scoffed. “They don’t have metal fonts.”

The mysterious little man pulled a block of wood from his bag and laid it next to the gold coin. It was a woodcut type of a font Johannes had never seen before. “Can you make this?” the man asked.

“Hmm,” Johannes hummed as he examined the type. “A fair font. Did you make this?” he asked the man, who shook his head and produced an upper case, italic,‘Z’ and a lower case, bold, ‘f.’ “I have several families of this font,” he said. “Italic, bold, cursive, and regular. All on wood.”

“Wood is old, wood is going to be old-fashioned and useless in a decade,” a man yelled from behind a second press.

“Peter!” Johannes yelled. “Come here!”

The man, an alert, young man with ink stains on his shirt front and fingers and the start of a scraggily mustache on his face, hurried to the counter.

“What do you think of these?” Johannes asked and gestured at the wooden fonts.

“Interesting. Where did you get them?”

“I made them,” the mysterious man said.

“What are they called?” Peter asked. He picked up the upper case ‘Z’ and peered at it in the light.

“I was thinking of naming it after myself, then, well, I thought I’d wait. See if a name came to me. Can you do my book in less than a month?” the bearded man asked Johannes. “Say, by the end of November?”

“A month?!”

____________________

Next: Zlatno and Nina