The Last Cato by Matilde Asensi

anyone care how I feel?” I called from the other side of the kitchen, deftly sautéing some vegetables. “Maybe I don’t want to go.”
    My mother laughed. “Now, now! What are you even talking about?” She joked as if it were inconceivable I wouldn’t go for a walk with my brother.
    “And the rest of us—are we just invisible to the two of you?” protested Giacoma, Lucia, and Agueda.
    Pierantonio, the flatterer, kissed each one, then snapped his fingers as if he were summoning a waiter. “Ottavia, let’s go.”
    Without missing a beat, Maria, one of the cooks, took the skillet I held from my hands. It was one big conspiracy.
    “In all my life,” I said as I took off my apron and set it on a bench in the kitchen, “I’ve never seen a Franciscan priest less humble than Father Salina.”
    “Guardian, Sister,” he replied. “Guardian of the Holy Land.”
    “And so modest!” guffawed Giacoma. Everyone broke out in a chorus of laughter.
    If I could have been a spectator and watched my family from a distance, one thing would have stood out: The Salina women adored Pierantonio. No one ever enjoyed a more fervent, submissive flock of honey-tongued sweet talkers. Like a god, his most trivial wishes were carried out with the fanaticism of the Greek Bacchae. He knew it, enjoying like a child playing the part of a capricious Dionysus. My mother was completely to blame. She had infected us with her blind worship of her favorite son like a virus. Why wouldn’t we indulge the little god in every whim when he bestowed his wit and kisses upon us? He was so easy to make happy!
    Pierantonio put his arm around my waist and steered me out to the back patio toward the garden door. “Tell me how things are going!” he exclaimed bombastically the minute we set foot on the soft grass around the house.
    “You tell me!” I replied, looking at him. His hairline had receded a bit; his wild eyebrows gave him a savage air. “How can the important guardian of the Holy Land abandon his post when His Holiness is set to arrive in Jerusalem?”
    “Wow! You shoot to kill!” he laughed, putting an arm around my shoulders.
    “I’m so happy you’re here, you know that. But I’m puzzled. I know the pope leaves tomorrow for your jurisdiction.”
    He looked at the sky distractedly, acting as if the point weren’t important. But I knew him too well. That gesture conveyed just the opposite.
    “Well, as you know… Things aren’t always what they seem.”
    “Look, Pierantonio, you can fool the priests, but not me.”
    He smiled, still looking at the sky.
    “Okay, okay! Are you going to tell me why the illustrious guardian of the Holy Land leaves when the sovereign pontiff is about to arrive?” I persisted before he could start talking about how beautiful the stars were.
    “I can’t tell a nun employed by the Vatican the problems we Franciscans are having with the high prelates,” he said, regaining his cocksure attitude.
    “You know I spend my life locked up in my lab. Who am I going to tell?”
    “The pope?”
    “Yeah, sure!” I uttered, stopping in my tracks in the middle of the garden.
    “Cardinal Ratzinger?…” he hummed. “Cardinal Sodano?…”
    “Come on, Pierantonio!”
    Something must have shown on my face when he mentioned the secretary of state, because he opened his eyes and arched his eyebrows maliciously. “Ottavia… Do you know Sodano?”
    “I was introduced to him a few weeks ago,” I admitted evasively.
    He took me by the chin, lifted my face, and pressed his nose to mine. “Ottavia, little Ottavia… What are you doing hanging around with Angelo Sodano? What are you not telling me?”
    It’s awful for someone to know you so well. And it’s awful to be the second youngest in a family of brothers and sisters so highly skilled at manipulating.
    “Well, you haven’t told me the problems you Franciscans are having with His Holiness, and look what you’ve asked me,” I hedged.
    “Let’s make a