She reached out suddenly and retrieved the string, rewrapped the packet, and took it back to the closet. She placed it on the flat top of the higher trunk in back and took another packet from the smaller one. Returned to the desk, she untied the packet and pulled out the first sheet. It seemed to be more of the same, an invitation dated 1722 for “Monsignore di Spiga” to present his written request directly to the Secretary for Appointments and Benefices of the Archbishop of Vienna. She looked beneath this letter, hoping to find a copy of Steffani’s request. It was common for people of that epoch to keep copies of the letters they sent, and they often attached the copy to the letter they were answering. But, instead, she found another begging request for help in winning an appointment to office, this one dated 1711, addressed to Steffani as the “Assistant at the Pontifical Throne.” He was back in Hanover by then, she recalled, still working to bring Catholicism back to Northern Germany.
The next paper was a list of what looked like titles and clerical positions. Although it was written in German, the hand was Italianate and the document bore no date. She remembered then that one of the things she had wanted, and failed, to do in the Marciana was find an autograph score and check the handwriting against what she had found in these papers. Memory did tell her, however, that it very strongly resembled the writing in a letter of his reproduced in one of the books she had at home.
Because she had sat still too long, Caterina got up and went back to the cupboard, where she retrieved the first packet of papers. She untied it, opened it, and paged through the papers until she found the aria. She took it back to the table and placed the first page next to the list of titles. She studied the papers for some time. Both of them had unusual d’s and e’s, each letter with a tendency to circle over itself back toward the left, as though the writer had tried to draw a circle but had grown tired of it and stopped a quarter of the way around. She had no idea if this was enough to prove they were written in Steffani’s hand, but she decided to believe that they were and see where that led.
She returned to the list of offices and titles that were lined up neatly beneath one another: Privy Councillor and president of the spiritual council; General President of the Palatine government and council; Monsignore di Spiga; Apostolic Prothonotary; Rector of Heidelberg University; Provost of Seltz; Envoy of the Palatinate in Rome; Apostolic Vicar of North Germany; Assistant to the Pontifical Throne; Temporary Suffragan of Münster; Member and President of the Academy of Ancient Music.
Below them, in what she believed was the same hand, was a row of question marks running from one side of the page to the other. She felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. Caterina was not a woman much given to reading scripture nor, for that fact, paying much attention to it, but her mother was a religious woman and was fond of quoting it. “If I know all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” Provost of Seltz. What was that? Apostolic Vicar of North Germany? What was that worth to a man condemned to be forever childless?
These reflections were interrupted by a light knocking at her door. She got to her feet and went over to open it. It was Dottor Moretti, today in a dark blue suit made of the same quality fabric as the dark gray one he had worn the day before. The tie was a bit less sober. In fact, the burgundy stripes on a dark blue field, worn by a man of Dottor Moretti’s sartorial sobriety, seemed to Caterina little different from a red rubber nose and yellow clown wig.
“I’m not disturbing you, am I, Dottoressa?” he asked.
“No, not at all,” she said, stepping back from the door to allow him room to enter. “Please,” she said, waving him over toward the table.
“I brought you the computer,” he said and smiled. “As I said, it’s nothing special, but our tech person said it should be enough for simple things.”
“All I need to do is make notes on my reading and send them to you by email,” she said.
“And read La Gazzetta dello Sport, if you please,” he said. “If you need distraction from the eighteenth century.”
For a moment, she didn’t understand, and then she did. “Don’t tell me La Gazzetta’s online, too?”
“Of course it is.” Then, seeing her expression, he added, “You seem surprised.”
Caught, she had to admit, “I suppose I have certain ideas about the people who buy it.”
“That they wouldn’t be computer literate?” he inquired.
“That they wouldn’t be literate, full stop,” she said.
It took him a moment, and then he laughed along with her. “I’ll confess I was surprised to learn it, too. My brother reads it online.”
“He likes sports?” she asked.
“Hunting and fishing and tramping around in wet fields all day with his pals,” Dottor Moretti continued, shrugged, and smiled.
“I have a sister who’s a nun,” she said to suggest he was not the only one with odd siblings.
“Is she happy?” he asked, adding to her surprise.
“I think so.”
“Can you see her?”
Caterina smiled. “She’s not locked up, you know. She wears jeans and teaches at a university in Germany.”
“My brother’s a surgeon,” he said, holding up his hands. “Don’t even think about asking. I don’t understand anything.”
“Is he a good surgeon?”
“Yes. And your sister?”
“Head of the department.”
“In Germany,” he observed in the tone of respect Italians used when speaking of German universities. He looked down at the bag he was holding and placed it on the table. Unzipping it, he pulled out a laptop and its cord. He looked around to find an electrical outlet and had to carry the computer down to the other end of the table to plug it in.
He lifted the lid, pushed a button, and took a step back from it, as though not at all certain what was going to happen and perhaps fearful there would be a loud noise or an explosion. The machine hummed and clicked, although in a very small, discreet voice.
When the various lights stopped blinking, he bent over the computer and opened a program, then another. He stared at the screen, turned to Caterina, and asked, “The thing for the Wi-Fi is down at the bottom, I think.”
“The thing?” Caterina asked herself. This was the lawyer in intellectual properties speaking, and he referred to it as “the thing for the Wi-Fi”?
He touched the pad and moved the cursor to the bottom, tapped once, waited, tapped twice, and gave her a triumphant grin when Google appeared.
“See,” he said, “you can send emails.” Then, looking stricken, he asked her, “You won’t mind using your own address, will you?” And, before she could answer, explained. “Our tech man,” he said, speaking with unwonted awkwardness. “He asked if there were an email address here at the Foundation, and when I said I didn’t know, he suggested I ask you to use your own.” Then, in a much lower voice, he continued, “He told me I could give you an address at the office, but when he told me what had to be done to do that, I said I’d ask you if you’d be willing to use your own.”
When Caterina did not answer, he went on hurriedly, “It’s all right. I can have him do it, set you up with an account at the office. I can give it to you this afternoon, but it sounded to me like he’d want the computer back to put it in.”
She smiled, glad to be able to relieve him of this concern. “It’s fine. I can easily use my own. No sense your having to take that back to your office and then bring it back again.” She considered the work ahead of her and said, “Besides, I don’t know how much there’s going to be reported at the beginning.”