The Road to Bisanz

Wait a minute--that's right outside the hotel! How do they know which way the minivan is pointing? Okay, okay... I'll just drive into the intersection and...

In America that's what we call a hard left, okay? So finally we're getting out of Strasbourg, and none too soon from my perspective--my financial perspective, I mean. More on that later. Anyway, we've had some rearrangement of the travel parties. Here in the Opel Zafira, I've got some of the same crew as I had from Speyer to Strasbourg, with a couple of changes. In the wayback seat, there's Bertha and Conrad (the Duke of Lower Lotharingia is back in his kindersitz--I'm not compromising on that!), and Bruno of course has squeezed in beside them. (He seems to have permanently attached himself to Bertha, as a kind of au-pair boy or something).

Right. Got it. Rue de Feu. In the middle seats, with a pile of luggage, I've got one of the Gozilos (the young one with the big hands), and up here next to me, in the shotgun seat, I've got a Rabbit Warrior, Geng the Horse Lover, or Philip, as he prefers to be called. Philip is running the GPS, and he's a hell of a lot better at it than Lambert was, I can tell you that.

We're sort of going in circles, aren't we? Right, I understand, this will get us on the highway out of town. Today, our various vehicles are heading to different destinations. Basically, some of us are going to Besançon, in Franche-Comté, for a meeting with one of Henry's relatives and the rest of us are heading straight to Gex, on the border with Switzerland, where Bertha's Mom and brother have a place. The point is to try to save some kilometers for the BierWagen, which after all is a carnival float being pulled by a tractor. Their route doesn't really save all that much distance, however, since to go straight to Gex you've got to cross into Switzerland, through Basel and Bern. Wait, wait! What's this big intersection? What do I do?

Cool. Got it. So the reason I've got one of the Gozilos riding with me is scooter trouble--his Vespa wouldn't start this morning. The RKS guys insisted that they could fix it--just put it on the BierWagen, they said, they'd have it running by the time they get to Gex. Well, the BierWagen didn't seem like much of a mechanic's shop, from what I remember of it, but these guys are all engineering students, so I suppose they can fix things, and they've probably got their tools stored somewhere.

Okay, now this looks like a highway--pretty much like the entrance ramps on an American freeway...

Damn it, I'm in the wrong lane! Do I have room? Okay, I'm going...

Whew! Okay... stay on this for 14 kilometers? What was I saying? Oh yeah, so Gozilo, the young one, he was going to stay with his Vespa--you know, take the BierWagen to Gex, but Henry said "No way, cousin, I need you in Bisanz, get in the minivan"--so here he is. That's what Henry calls Besançon--"Bisanz"--I guess its some sort of Medieval thing. Lambert explained it to me. Speaking of Lambert... well, it kind of surprised me, but he volunteered to ride on the BierWagen. I admit I was a little disappointed--after all, Lambert's the only one I've really been able to talk to, about, you know, the history of this journey, both history in the sense of what really happened and history in the sense of the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the past, which is a distinction I don't feel comfortable bringing up with anybody in the minivan right now, not to say they aren't intelligent, but it just doesn't seem appropriate. Maybe I was a little hard on Lambert about the GPS, or maybe he was just tired of babysitting Conrad, which is what he and Bruno ended up doing, for most of the two days in Strasbourg.

How are we doing? 5 kilometers to the next turn? Good...

Henry and the older Gozilo are riding their motorcycles to Bisanz--I don't think they are riding together, though--partly because Henry has a BMW and Gozilo has a Vespa, but more because of what you might call their personal styles. I haven't spent much time with him, but I get a very strong impression that Henry is incapable of traveling at the same speed as anyone else--if you want to zig, he's gotta zag. And that Gozilo--the older one, the one who's kind of crippled--he's got an agenda. He's up to something.

Got it. You know, it's odd how many of the town names around here sound German...

What do you mean I missed it? Why would I take the sign for Strasbourg? That's where we're coming from!

On the Road to Besançon

We're heading to Besançon -- more to follow soon!
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Strasbourg - The Two Gozilos

When I get back to the Hotel Mercure Strasbourg Quartier St. Jean, three of the Rabbit Warriors are sitting in the sidewalk cafe outside.

"Zere he is!" calls out Benedikt when he sees me. "Ze steward of ze empire!"

"Did you sleep in ze BierWagen?" asks Manuel.

"Ah!" says Andreas, "Ze perfect cure for jet lag! Sit down and join us for breakfast, bro. Ve are drinking Strasbourg beer! Vill you have vun?"

"Vait, vait," says Manuel. "Ve must randomize ze trial!"

"You try ze salicylic acid," says Andreas, and they all burst out laughing.

From inside my hangover, I watch them laugh. I have no idea what the joke is about, but I start laughing too.

"Another line from XKCD?" I say.

"Yah, yah," says Manuel. "Ze vun about ze acne medicine. Have you seen it?"

"No... not exactly," I say. "I'll have some... coffee."

I think about ordering breakfast, but I decide that's not a good idea, not yet. All I really want to do is go up to my room and take a shower. But I figure I'd better talk to these guys for a minute, and find out if I did anything really embarrassing last night. They assure me that by their standards, my behavior was kind of tame. I ask them about the Danish girls. Benedikt punches me in the arm.

"Zose vere not Danish girls!" he says.

They all laugh, make funny faces and point at me. I decide not to purse the matter any further.

Just then Bruno comes out from the lobby. He seems very upset.

"Have you seen Henry?" he says.

"No," I say. "I... just got here..."

"It's all your fault," he says. "Bertha blames you. And she's right. You should never let them sleep together.'

"What?" I say.

"All they do is fucking fight the next day. Henry's gone. He's gone."

"What about Conrad?" I say. I don't know why I'm so worried about the little brat, but I am. I mean, he's a kid.

"Right now, let's see, the Duke of Lower Lotharingia, oh yes, he's throwing a tantrum in the lobby," says Bruno. I look in through the glass door. Amid the reflections of the street I catch glimpses of the little boy swinging a shopping bag, whopping it hard against the front desk.

"Don't vorry about him," says Benedikt, standing up.

"Yah," says Andreas.

"Ve know how to play vith little dukes," says Manuel.

And before I know it, the Rabbit Warriors have rushed into the lobby. Next thing I see, when a big black truck goes by and darkens the window, is Conrad on Benedikt's shoulders, throwing something at the other RKS guys. He seems to be having fun.

Sometimes a hangover gives you a real Zen-like attitude towards life's problems. Like now. There seemed to be a crisis, but because I'm hungover, I didn't do anything, and now it's all better.

"Look," I say to Bruno, "Don't worry about Henry. He has a motorcycle. That's what's guys with motorcycles do. They go."

By this point, Bruno and I are the only ones sitting in the sidewalk cafe outside the hotel. Where's that coffee? Did I ever actually order it?

"Or in this case," says Bruno, "they arrive."

I turn around and look. Three figures on motorcycles are coming over the bridge. One of them I recognize as Henry. The others... Are those Vespas? It looks like a man and woman, all dressed in black and riding black motor scooters. Black helmets, black visors, black suits, black shirts, black shoes.

They pull up right outside the cafe. I'm pretty sure it's not a legal place to park motorcycles, even scooters, but what the hell do I care? One of the scooter riders is definitely a man, tall and athletic. The other is a small feminine figure with an odd limping walk, one arm kinda shorter than the other. For a moment I think my self-indulgent revery of the other night has come true--could these two be John Currin and Elizabeth Peyton? Did Henry ride over to Basel and get them? It's not impossible--after all, he's the emperor.

Then they take off their helmets and I feel like an idiot. They're both men. Both red-haired, both bearded. The tall one is young, with his hair pulled back in a pony tail. The small one, with the twisted arms and funny shoulders, is much older. His hair is thinning and his beard is whispy.

As they approach our table, Bruno gets up and goes inside. Henry doesn't seem to notice. He never seems to notice Bruno, coming or going, present or absent.

"Book a room for these guys," says Henry. "This is my cousin, Gozilo, and his nephew, Gozilo."

"Please to meet you," I say. "Uh, sit down... I was just ordering coffee."

The young Gozilo says something in a language I don't understand, or even recognize. Dutch, maybe?

"They're hungry," says Henry. "Take care of them." Then he hops on his bike and takes off.

The two Gozilos sit down and look at me.

"There's a server on duty," I say. "I saw her before..."

The young one says something again, in that language. What does Walloon sound like? The older Gozilo nods his head.

Then it occurs to me. "Gozilo!" I say. "Isn't that Latin for Godfrey? Or Gottfried?"

"No," says the small twisted man. "No, it's not."

"I'm pretty sure..." I say. For some reason I'm suddenly talkative. "I was looking at the Latin text of Lambert's Annals--last week, before I flew over here--not that my Latin is any good, I barely made it through Ceasar's Gallic wars with an interlinear translation, and that was many years ago, but I found a copy of the Latin text, you know on the internet..."

It's true, you can find it, it's not that hard.

"...so anyway, I did some side-by-side comparisons with the translations, you know, just to get a feel for the original, and I could swear that I saw 'Gozilo dux Lotheringorum'--you know, in the part about the murder of Godfrey the Hunchback...."

Stony silence, from both Gozilos. But I keep going...

"Maybe it's just a medieval Latin thing, an unusual spelling. Lambert himself is staying in this hotel. We could ask him..."

Suddenly the red-haired youth leans forward and grabs my shirt.

"We are not named Godfrey!" he says. I guess he speaks English, after all.

"Okay," I say, trying to breathe. The guy is really strong. Is he a gangster or something?

"We are named Gozilo! Got that? Gozilo!"

I nod my head and he lets go.

Warrior, Daughter, Saint - The Funeral Visit

Shortly after the death of Nora Quinn Larkin, in February 1974, two of her nine daughters felt bold enough to make long distance calls to Italy. At the Villa Schifanoia in Florence, a polite young lady answered the phone, and went to fetch the Dean of Art History. Later, comparing notes, the two daughters agreed as to how polite the young lady was, how vast the transoceanic silence seemed when they were put on hold, and how the cost didn't matter, not at a time like this. Soon Sister Martin de Porres was making plans to come home to Dubuque, Iowa, for the first time in forty-two years.

Nora Eunice Gagliano, who had bravely continued working during her grandmother's decline, told everyone in the offices of B&B Books not to expect to meet their bestselling author--the Sinsinawa Dominicans had rigid rules, and Sister Martin, for all her achievements, had been given permission only to attend the funeral of her mother. But Father Bresnahan was eager to meet this nun whose scholarship was rumored to match his own, and whose book had outsold his last two. He still had connections in Rome, and he made a few phone calls.

At the wake, Sister Martin told her sisters and cousins and nieces that times were changing, and she had decided to use her birth name: they could now call her "Sister Eunice Larkin." Nora Eunice Magliano was disappointed in the change, but everyone else seemed to like it--they all said it was so much easier to talk to Sister Eunice than to Sister Martin. After the burial, Sister Eunice returned to the Mother House in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, a few miles from Dubuque, across the Mississippi.

That evening, the Mother Superior took Sister Eunice aside--after first calling her Sister Martin, and then apologizing with a smile that Sister Eunice considered rather unctuous--and gave her permission to visit her publisher the next day. Apparently a priest named Father Bresnahan had arranged to send a car in the morning.

At first, Sister Eunice had no idea what the Mother Superior was talking about. But the Mother Superior seemed quite certain that she, Sister Eunice, had some sort of business relationship with "B&B Books" in Dubuque. Could this be the place where her niece had found a job? Concealing her puzzlement, Sister Eunice agreed to the arrangements, and asked a few discreet questions about this priest and his publishing house. The Mother Superior told her all the details, rattling off sales figures with evident pride.

Sister Eunice listened carefully. This was the first she had heard of Father Niall Bresnahan, or B&B Books, or Marcellina's Bookshelf, or a best-seller called Warrior, Daughter, Saint: the Story of St. Matilda of Canossa, by Sister Martin de Porres.

The Mother Superior suspected nothing: Sister Eunice gave no hint of her astonishment or her suspicions. In fact, Sister Eunice seemed most grateful for the opportunity to make a visit to B&B Books.

Warrior, Daughter, Saint - Marcellina's Bookshelf

Fr. Niall Bresnahan's own prolific pen supplied the early catalog of B&B Books: Learning the Suscipiat: the Struggles of an Irish Altar Boy, Non Serviam: The Contraceptive Mentality in Modern American Life, and The Feel-Good Trap: How the Pursuit of Pleasure Leads to Despair all appeared within three years of that fateful golf outing. In this period, he also contributed entertaining prefaces (many readers said they were his best work) for two books co-written by his stockbroker: Faith: Your Greatest Asset, and The Rosary and Your Portfolio: Marian Investment Strategies. B&B Books added staff, moved to larger offices, and in 1973 Bresnahan, perhaps sensing that his own well might soon run dry, made what turned out to be a very shrewd move: he asked his employees (all of them Catholic women) what mattered to them, as readers.

Bresnahan knew little of women (aside from sharing his bed in Angola with his housekeeper, a sin for which the Cardinal Patriarch had granted him a dismissive absolution), and he was surprised at the enthusiasm of his employees' response. Intrigued, Bresnahan began visiting book clubs, holding impromptu focus groups, and listening to the life stories of devout women told in the form of effusively annotated reading lists. Bresnahan discerned a pattern--that a woman's lifetime love of inspirational reading always began with the passionate literary appetites of a prepubescent Catholic girl. From that insight, Marcellina's Bookshelf was born, taking its name from Bresnahan's favorite female saint: the consecrated virgin sister of St. Ambrose.

Needless to say, the female employees of B&B Books embraced this new project. (Bresnahan, for his part, had learned more about Catholic women than he really wanted to know, and returned, refreshed, to his polemics and his putter.) Among the staffers most ardent about Marcellina's Bookshelf was a overweight typist in her early thirties named Nora Eunice Magliano. A self-described "ceramist" who was "lost without her kiln," Magliano had moved to Dubuque only a few years before, after vaguely described domiciles in Madison, Milwaukee, Florence, and London, to care for her frail and aged grandmother, also named Nora. Nora Eunice Magliano referred to tiny grandmother as "big Nora" and herself as "little Nora," and often spoke to her co-workers of duty, sacrifice, and the lessons taught to her by her "favorite aunt"--the distinguished Sister Martin de Porres. A formidable woman indeed, Sister Martin was dean of art history at the Villa Schifanoia in Florence, an Italian graduate school "of the fine arts for women," where Nora Eunice Gagliano had once taught, or studied, or visited, no one was quite sure. It was Nora who brought the manuscript of Warrior, Daughter, Saint to the B&B offices, where it instantly impressed everyone who read it, even Fr. Bresnahan, and it was quickly chosen as the first book to be placed with pride on Marcellina's Bookshelf. Throughout the pre-publication process all communication with Sister Martin was conducted through hand-written letters, which Nora Eunice received at the home of her grandmother, who was, of course, Sister Martin's mother.

Then, in 1974, "big Nora" died at the age of 93, her final weight in pounds matching her age in years.

Warrior, Daughter, Saint - The Publisher

Fr. Niall Bresnahan, the publisher and founder of B&B Books, joked that until the success of Warrior, Daughter, Saint, he had secretly suspected himself of running a vanity press. Though repeated often, the joke, delivered in Fr. Bresnahan's nasal Cork City brogue, usually got a laugh, and quickly joined his repertoire of apparently self-deprecating humor. Fr. Bresnahan had only discovered his skills as a raconteur four years earlier, when he had been assigned to the Archdiocese of Dubuque--some would say exiled--as Censor Librorum and assistant Cathedral Chaplain. In Dubuque he took up the game of golf and learned, to his surprise, that middle Americans found his accent charming. Prior to his arrival in Iowa, charm had been the least of Niall Bresnahan's qualities. A brief outline of his career to that point reveals little time for conviviality, let alone golf:

1930 Born, Cork City, Ireland

1944-51 St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Baccalaureate in Theology, summa cum laude

1951-52 Assistant Chaplain, Hospital Nacional de Enfermedades Infeciosas (Hospital del Rey), Madrid, Spain.

1952 Ordination1

1952-57 Curate, St. Kentigen's Parish, Manchester, England

1953-56 Oxford University, First class degree, philosophy

1957-60 Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, Lateran Pontifical University, Rome, Sacrae Theologiae Doctor, theology and patristic sciences

1960-63 Missionary in Angola

1963-65 Personal Secretary to Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira, Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, at the Second Vatican Council

1966-70 Assistant Professor, Theology and Philosophy, Catholic University, Washington D.C.

1969 Receives book contract from the University of Notre Dame Press; one-semester leave of absence from teaching duties

1970 Publication of Lean and Flashy Songs: The Misuse of Vatican II in America

In Lean and Flashy Songs, Bresnahan performed a delicate balancing act--he endorsed, or claimed to endorse, every decree, constitution and declaration issued by Vatican II (many of which he cited at length, in Latin, with punctilious accuracy), while at the same time using those very documents to denounce the implementation of the Council's work in the United States: Bresnahan declared that legacy of the Council had been "hijacked by the unholiest of ideas, the idea of Reform." In a furious final chapter, Bresnahan broadened his attack to include several other unholy ideas--"the sweaty nightmare of Progress, the brutal lie of Social Equality, and the scorched wasteland of Psychology." It was in this final chapter that he made his most shocking--and yet most subtle--accusation. Bresnahan somehow managed to proclaim his loyalty, love, and eternal respect for Pope Paul VI, while simultaneously suggesting that Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, the former Archbishop of Milan, had been a lifelong member of the Italian Communist Party.

Bresnahan learned quickly that fervid anti-communism played very well on the golf courses of Dubuque, Iowa. On the fairway, men of substance and achievement would confide to him their growing estrangement from a Church in which the celebration of Holy Mass increasingly resembled the meetings of a socialist cell, or a spaced-out drug party, or both. Bresnahan reminded them of a more vigorous strain of Catholicism: long hours in the polio ward, strict adherence to ancient rules, narrow escapes from Communist guerrillas at African mission schools. The golfers bought his book; they skipped the Latin but read with guttural assent the incendiary final chapter; soon an offer of financing was presented to him over drinks at the country club bar. He took the money with a handshake, bought his friends a round of his favorite apertif, and the next day established Burke & Benedict Books ("libertas per opsequium") as a "platform for the neglected voices of conservative Catholics." If the liberal Catholic bishops of the early 1970s thought they could silence Fr. Niall Bresnahan by sending him to Dubuque, they were sorely mistaken.

---

1Bresnahan's fellow students at St. Patrick's were puzzled by the odd delay between his baccalaureate and his ordination--why did the brightest light in their class spend a seemingly penitential year rotting in Spain? A dozen years later, in the Roman Curia, that same year would elicit knowing nods.

The Meek Shall Inherit - The Pitch Meeting

Nina began the meeting by telling Bradley and Renee a bit about what she was looking for. Since she took over as vice-president of prime-time programming, she had been trying to position her network as the place for strong narrative, interesting characters, and moral complexity. She confessed to being a big fan of the Spanish language telenovelas--she loved the long narrative arcs, stories that go somewhere and eventually come to a resolution—to an end. And as a business person she particularly liked the ability of some telenovelas to draw a substantial male audience.

"Absolutely" said Bradley. "On Spanish TV, the men have cojones!"

Nina paused for a moment and looked at Bradley and Renee.

"So," said Nina. "You two work together... in real estate?"

"Well," said Bradley, "my business started as a production company. In the mid-90s we made a couple of, uh, genre pictures. But yes, our main focus now is commercial real estate."

"And I do some freelance sales, commercial leases..." said Renee, "when I'm not acting."

"Renee Alcala," said Nina, ruminating on the name and face. "You were very good in that series--the one set in New Orleans..."

"True Bayou," said Renee, beaming.

"Too bad it didn't last," said Nina. "Well, you both must be fascinated by the eleventh century. It's an unusual era."

"Definitely," said Bradley. "We really love the eleven-hundreds. Of course Renee did all the research. I just did the wordsmithing."

"Right," said Nina. She went on to tell them how some people at the network just wanted to translate and repackage a Spanish-language telenovela, but Nina had told them, C'mon, this is America, this is Hollywood, can't we generate something original?

"And then this treatment appeared." Nina picked up the copy her assistant had placed on her desk before the meeting.

Ever so slightly off-axis, it has been the only object on the gleaming surface for the entire time Renee and Bradley have been waiting. For more than twenty minutes it has been exerting a strange power over Bradley's attention, like a forbidden sexual urge or a beckoning animal in a dream, tempting him to pick it up and just hold it in his hands, or peak inside and learn its secrets, or better yet take out a spy camera and photograph every page, which Bradley knows would be completely absurd--he retyped it all himself, every word, because he didn't trust the security on Renee's laptop--but still, he's had to force himself to resist its pull; at one point, Renee actually had to slap his hand.

Nina paged thoughtfully through the document.

"What amazes me about this story," she said, "is your choice of the central character. Completely unexpected, and yet--it works! How did you settle on Bertha--Bertha of Savoy, of all people, as your heroine?"

"Oh, we just had a feeling... " said Renee.

"Well, it's brilliant," said Nina. "The obvious thing, of course would have been to make Matilda the lead--but I love how this story uses Bertha, I really do. The mousy wife, the child bride, who discovers her warrior princess within--that will have much broader appeal, I think, over the run of the show, than Matilda would have. And Matilda has such baggage--sleeping with the Pope, murdering her husband. Definitely better to make her the female antagonist."

"Absolutely," said Bradley. "Matilda--what a bitch! I mean, that was my reaction."

Nina seemed not to hear him. She continued to flip through the pages, apparently with pleasure, even admiration. Renee and Bradley looked at each other--were they about to get the green light?

"On the downside," said Nina, "there are the challenges of producing a costume drama on a basic cable budget. But the eleventh century, it's not like Louis Quatorze at Versailles, now is it?"

Bradley realized that Nina was looking at him. Had she just made a joke?

"I mean the quality and detail of the costumes," explained Nina.

Bradley chuckled and shook his head. "No, no, not at all."

"And the setting," Nina continue, "Southern Germany, Northern Italy, the Alps--we could probably get away with locations in British Columbia. Keep the costs under control."

She turned a page, and frowned a little."Oh there are still a few--what should I call them?--undigested nuggets of scholarship in here, Renee. The word 'allodial,' for example. We need to find ways to make feudal concepts like that clear to our viewers--we want our viewers to feel smart, not dumb."

"Yes, yes, certainly..." said Renee.

"Just cut that line," said Bradley. "It's gone!"

Nina smiled at Bradley. Then she closed the treatment and put it down upon her gleaming desk.

"Renee, Bradley," she said. "Let me be honest. I love this project, and I'm so grateful that you brought it to our attention. If you don't mind me saying so, you two are representative of our target audience--upwardly mobile Americans--and the fact that you relate to the struggles of these people in the eleventh century, that you perceived value in this"--she picks up the manuscript again--"well it excites me. It intrigues me.

"But the thing is--I don't believe for a moment that you two wrote this story."

Nina studied her guests, who suddenly were very busy avoiding each other's eyes.

"So here's the deal," said Nina. "Renee, I can guarantee you an audition for the part of Bertha--and Bradley, I won't press charges--if you tell me who really wrote this treatment."