Free Vango by Timothee de Fombelle

meals, and sleep were allocated their hours of the day and night according to a set timetable. It was a peaceful human clock.
    But Vango was a grain of sand caught in the cogs.
    Nobody knew about the invisible monastery except for the pope (who had encouraged Zefiro to found it) and a dozen contacts on the Continent and across the world.
    Keeping it secret was a matter of life or death for Zefiro and his brothers.
    The arrival of Pippo Troisi could already have been a serious cause for concern, but, having heard what he had to say for himself, the community had decided to keep him. The portrait he painted of his wife, the fearsome Giuseppina, made the assembly of invisible monks quake with fear and laughter.
    They had accorded Pippo the title of “asylum seeker from marriage,” and they treated him as a survivor.
    When he found out that they were going to let him stay, Pippo had jumped with joy. He felt as if he’d landed in paradise, before he could so much as say Arkudah!
    But Pippo Troisi’s first day nearly went disastrously wrong. He took the considerable risk of not going to mass.
    He was still asleep at half past six in the morning, when Zefiro came out of the chapel to fill a bucket of water from the cistern and empty it over the head of the poor novice.
    “Are you sleeping in, Fratello Pippo?”
    From the next day, Pippo, who had never set foot inside a church, was on his knees before five o’clock in the morning, with a meditative expression, hands together. Zefiro warmed to him. He had fun watching his lips move during the Latin cantos, which he pretended to know. Pippo mumbled, into his beard, the couplets of sailors’ songs, which weren’t strictly speaking liturgical:
“
What shall we do with the drunken sailor . . .”
    Vango, the newcomer, was of more concern to the padre.
    Zefiro had been observing him for three days now.
    Vango was starting to feel better and was able to leave the kitchen more often. He spied on monastic life, following the monks’ every gesture. He had been spotted on the chapel roof listening to evensong.
    Zefiro had found out Vango’s story from Pippo Troisi, including the boy’s mysterious origins and the existence of his nurse. It was all fascinating. But he couldn’t keep a child in a monastery. On the other hand, how could he make Vango keep the secret of Arkudah outside these walls?
    Zefiro didn’t hear the knocking at the door. Brother Marco, the cook, entered and walked over to him.
    “Padre.”
    He broke off his thoughts.
    “Yes?”
    The conversation that followed between these two men of the church would have made their guardian angels blush.
    “I’ve found your queen,” said the cook.
    “My queen . . .”
    Zefiro carefully pushed the door shut.
    “Really? You’ve got my queen?”
    “I believe I’ve found her, Padre.”
    Zefiro pressed his hand against the wall. He seemed to be losing his balance.
    “You believe so? Is this merely a belief?”
    The cook stammered as he fiddled with his glasses, which were already half broken: “I b-b-believe so. . . .”
    “Believing isn’t enough!” pronounced Zefiro.
    Coming from the mouth of a man who had chosen to make believing his vocation, these words represented something of a blunder. Zefiro was aware of this. He tried to calm down before his guardian angel collapsed behind him.
    “You have to understand, Brother Marco . . .” he went on. They were almost whispering. “I’ve been searching for my queen for such a long time.”
    “I understand, Padre. That’s why I’m telling you about it. I believe — I
think
she could be with us in just a few days, if that’s what you wanted.”
    This time, Zefiro turned very pale. He was smiling.
    “In a few days . . . my queen, my God! My queen!”
    “On one condition.”
    “Yes?”
    “You’ve got to let the little one go.”
    Zefiro stared hard at Brother Marco and his mischievous face.
    “The little one?”
    “Yes, young Vango. As of today.”
    Zefiro made