For two days after his death and his embalming, the body of the Pontiff lay in state in the Chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament in Saint Peter’s Basilica. Tall candles burned about him. Officers of the Swiss Guard stood vigil while thousands of believers and non-believers – Romans and strangers alike – passed in slow procession by his open coffin.
His body was dressed in full pontificals, with a veil over his face, a rosary in his hands, his breviary laid open on his breast with the silk marker set at the Office of the Day. Tucked into the casket were copies of the medals he had struck during his reign, and a small leather purse containing specimens of his coinage. These, so the reasoning went, would help to identify him if, after the cataclysms of another millennium, he were exhumed and reburied. The Romans, a sceptical people with a long history, had another explanation: The Pope is human, too. He has to pay the ferryman like the rest of us.
On the third day, they entombed him in the crypt. The world media treated the obsequies and the interment with suitable gravity. The first editorials were couched in sonorous, panegyric prose. The first photographs emphasised architectural grandeur, ritual splendour, the worldwide reach and diversity of the Church – One Holy Catholic and Apostolic. The television services delivered reverent rhetoric and self-indulgent visuals of the familiar and unfamiliar icons.
Then began the Novemdiales, the nine days of masses, prayers and public preaching by notable prelates in the major churches of the city. The sermons were not pious celebrations of a dear departed soul. They were intended as public expressions of the needs of the faithful, as signals to the electoral college about their duty to find a good pastor for the Romans and for the Church at large.
At the same time, the world media were playing in a different key. The florid prose was dropped. Pious platitudes became political barbs. The election of a new Pontiff was a critical act whose consequences – for good or ill – would spill over the frontiers of nations and the barriers of race, creed and custom. The world was in crisis, the Church was in disarray. The media reflected all their confusions. It was the New York Times, however, which pulled the pin from the grenade:
The late Pontiff was a stubborn and courageous man who saw it as his pastoral task to mould human clay into a Christ-like image. However, it seemed often as if he were trying to create a community as uniform and as passive as the entombed warriors of China. He alienated the women of the Church. He silenced or intimidated its boldest thinkers. He was always a centralist and an interventionist. The notion of collegial government was as alien to him as the idea of a priesthood of women. It was a not unexpected move when he appointed men of like views to vacant bishoprics and gave others the Cardinal’s hat. Clearly? he hoped that the College of Cardinals would elect a Pope who would continue his own policies.
Now, immediately after his death, there is a new surprise. It could be interpreted – and most certainly will be by many – as a posthumous attempt at intervention in the electoral process itself.
In our weekend edition, we shall be publishing, simultaneously with other major newspapers around the globe, an extraordinary document. The document consists of private diaries written each evening by the late Pontiff. He kept them in a secret place in his dressing-room, and finally gave them, as a personal legacy, into the hands of his long-time valet, Claudio Stagni, who often kept the Pontiff company while he worked into the small hours.
The document has been fully authenticated by two handwriting specialists – one in Europe and one in the United States. The provenance is simple and direct – from the Pontiff to Stagni. The title is beyond question: a letter of legacy written by His Holiness to Stagni in the last days of his life. All this evidence will be displayed in our publication.
The diaries contain revealing footnotes on Vatican policies and vivid pen-portraits of high prelates all around the world, including those who are at this moment assembled in Rome to elect a new Pontiff. The material will be published in full, except for a few passages which, on attorney’s advice, might be considered libellous …
There was more yet; a promise of backstairs gossip from Claudio Stagni himself under the title, The Little World of Figaro and his Papa. The upshot of these announcements, and a rash of similar ones in various capital cities, forced the Cardinal Camerlengo to summon an emergency meeting of Cardinals in the Apostolic Palace. They were aggrieved. He himself was hugely embarrassed, especially when the Cardinal Archbishop of New York tabled a proof-copy of the offending material, and distributed copies which had been run off that afternoon at the Villa Stritch, where His Eminence was lodged. In his brusque military style – he was Chaplain General to the US Armed Forces – he addressed the gallery:
“This was delivered to me this morning from the Roman bureau of the New York Times. They were quite courteous about it. They said they had nothing to hide. They claimed their title was unassailable, and from what I’ve read, the documents are authentic. What we all want to know is just how this could have happened, and second, do we have at this late stage any hope of injuncting the publication?”
“No hope at all, I’m afraid.” The Camerlengo was regretful but firm. “I’ve discussed the matter with Monsignor Angel-Novalis and with our legal advisers, both lay and clerical. On the face of it, Claudio Stagni has full title to the documents, which the Pontiff himself designates as a legacy. The buyers and the literary agents who sold them around the world have obviously conducted their own enquiries. Our advice is that there are no grounds for injunction in any territory.”
“But how could His Holiness have committed a folly like this? You saw more of him than any of us, Baldassare. Was he in his right mind?”
“I have no doubt of it – no doubt at all.”
“Was there any possibility of undue influence by this Stagni fellow?”
The Camerlengo gave a small humourless smile.
“You know – we all know – how hard it was for any of us to influence the late Pontiff in these last years.”
“Where is Stagni now?”
“He’s on vacation.”
“For which we are paying?”
“Naturally. He had accumulated quite a lot of leave for which he is entitled to be paid. He is also entitled to a pension to which he and we have contributed for a long time.”
“Are we going to pay that too?”
“In the absence of any evidence of criminal behaviour, we are obliged to do so.”
“Are we seeking such evidence?”
“We are at a loss where to begin. Consider a moment. Before His Holiness died, I made a full inspection of his study in the company of his secretary, and of his bedchamber and dressing-room with the valet. There was no evidence of any of these documents.”
“Did you see the secret hiding place?”
“It was shown to me. It was empty.”
“And the valet made no mention of the documents?”
“No.”
“In hindsight, at least, doesn’t that look suspicious?”
“Not suspicious enough to go to law about it, then or now. At worst, his silence could be characterised as an act of enlightened self-interest.”
“Or a response to the wishes of the Pontiff himself.”
The interjection came from Luca Rossini, who stood up holding the text in his hand. There was a sudden shocked silence before the Cardinal Archbishop quizzed him sharply.
“Is that what our eminent colleague believes?”
“It’s what this eminent newspaper suggests.” Rossini was unruffled. “First it points out, quite correctly, that the late Pontiff made certain appointments to the College of Cardinals in the hope that the man whom the College elected would continue his existing policies. Then it goes on as follows: ‘Now, immediately after his death, there is a new surprise. It could be interpreted – and most certainly will be by many – as a posthumous attempt at intervention in the conclave itself’.”
Out of the silence that followed came the voice of the Camerlengo.
“Is that what you believe, Luca?”
“I believe that such an interpretation will be made by many readers and many commentators.”
“What is your own reading of this unfortunate incident? You were, after all, very close to His Holiness.”
“I was close enough to know that, in his later years, he could be sometimes hasty in judgment and that sometimes he believed that he could, or should, pre-empt the future course of history. That, however, is a personal opinion. It gives us no grounds to take legal action against Claudio Stagni, or even to impugn his reputation.”
“You mean we should do nothing?” The Archbishop of New York was outraged. “The man’s a thief!”
“Can we prove that?”
“Not yet. But we have to discredit him.”
“We may end by discrediting ourselves. Let’s reason a little here. The most powerful newspapers in the world will defend the authenticity of what they have bought. Most of us in this room recognise in the text echoes of remarks that the Pontiff has made from time to time in public or in private. We can all attest at the very least that the handwriting closely resembles that of the Pontiff. So I think we’d look foolish if we tried to discredit the documents. Stagni’s claim of ownership is another matter not easy to dispose of. He has a holograph document, a letter in the Pontiff’s handwriting, giving him the diaries as a legacy. Two handwriting experts have verified it as genuine. I submit that by the time we could offer contrary proof in court, we’d have spent millions – and we’d be handing our new Pontiff a sackful of litigations in a dozen jurisdictions. Hardly a good beginning to a new reign!”
Rossini sat down. There was a long silence while the Camerlengo looked about the room, waiting for another intervention. Finally the Secretary of State stood up:
“Our colleague, Luca, is right. Prima facie the diaries are authentic. Our only real challenge – hard to mount and expensive to sustain – is to the validity of Stagni’s title to the documents. Are they a valid legacy from the Pontiff to his valet? The letter of gift is in the same handwriting as the diaries, which most of us here would accept at first glance as that of the Pontiff himself. So what do we do? Mount a full-scale challenge or raise whatever legitimate doubts we can and hope that the affair will fizzle out like a Roman candle once the procedures of election begin?”
“Any more comments?” asked the Camerlengo.
“Only one,” said the man from Paris. “I hate the thought of that little salaud sunning himself in Rio or some place like it and living like a prince on his ill-gotten gains! Maybe he’ll catch the plague.”
“I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” said the man from Rio. “My city is one of the pest-houses of the world.”
“Not half as bad as mine,” said the man from Kinshasa.
The Camerlengo called the meeting to order.
“His Eminence the Secretary of State has offered a motion: We make no challenge to the authenticity of the diaries. We announce that enquiries are being made as to the legitimacy of title.”
“With respect,” said Luca Rossini, “I suggest a small addendum. That Monsignor Angel-Novalis be given authority to conduct the enquiry and make whatever comments are possible to the press. The rest of us are going to have more important things to do.”
“I accept the amendment,” said the Secretary of State.
“I second the amended motion,” said the Archbishop of New York.
“Placetne fratres?” The Camerlengo put the ritual question. All hands were raised. All voices murmured agreement.
The Archbishop of New York raised his hand with the rest, but being a testy fellow, he delivered a final unhappy protest to his neighbour, Gottfried Gruber:
“I still can’t figure out the relationship between that little creep Stagni and the Holy Father.”
“I can,” said Gottfried Gruber moodily. “The Holy Father became such a public figure, he had no place to laugh or cry except in his own chambers. Even with us, his colleagues, he was often wary and withdrawn. His valet was the only person with whom he could relax and share a joke or the gossip of the day. We all knew that. Some of us were jealous of it.”
“Do you really believe he gave his diaries to Stagni?”
“I’m sure he shared some of the entries as he wrote them.”
“I could see that happening. I know what it feels like to be alone at the end of a rough day, with only God to talk to. He’s a good listener, but a silent one. Sometimes it’s hard to believe He’s there at all.”
“My point exactly,” said Gruber. “No-one has worked harder than I to keep the Faith pure and defend the authority of the Roman Pontiff as its arbiter and interpreter. But lately, I have come to wonder …”
He broke off in mid-sentence. The Archbishop prompted him sharply.
‘You wonder what? Say it, man! We’re all brothers here.”
“I have come to wonder whether I have not helped to create a recipe for revolution.”
“There’s only one way to answer the question, Gottfried.”
“Please, tell me!”
“Ask yourself what you would do, if suddenly we sat you on the throne of Peter!”
The idea was proposed by Steffi Guillermin at the bar of the Foreign Press Club. Fritz Ulrich was loud in support. The vote in favour was unanimous. Monsignor Domingo Angel-Novalis should be invited to address the members of the Club at luncheon the next day and answer questions afterwards. Guillermin made the phone call and received a favourable answer. A shout of jubilation went up when she put down the receiver and gave the thumbs-up sign.
“He wants to do it. He’s just got to clear it with the Secretariat. He doesn’t expect any problems.”
“They’d be fools to refuse,” said Ulrich. “It’s the best chance they’ll get to respond to our publication of the diaries.”
“It could also be Angel-Novalis’s last hour in the spotlight – and the Opus Dei people must be wondering how their role will change in a new pontificate.”
“Angel-Novalis won’t have to hedge as much as usual,” Colson reminded them. “He’ll give us answers in double space, so we can read between the lines.”
“Provided we ask the right questions,” said Guillermin, “and don’t waste time duplicating them.”
“A suggestion then. Why don’t we pool our questions and have them put by a single interrogator who can’t be side-tracked and can move forward quickly? Our guest is very fast on his feet, as we all know.”
“I nominate Steffi.” Ulrich grinned at her. “She thought of the idea. She’s fast on her feet, too. I’ve never known a man who could catch her!”
Guillermin ignored the jibe and refused the challenge.
“The questions should be asked in English, in which our guest is fluent. It makes for easier coverage and pooling both of questions and answers.”
“Who chooses the final list of questions?” This from Colson.
“Bureau chiefs of those papers who bought the publication rights – and television services who contributed to the purchase. Does anybody have problems with that?”
“None from me,” said the man from the New York Times.
“None from us,” said The Times of London.
Guillermin had the final word.
“All questions to be handed to the barman by six this evening. We need a morning’s work to set them in order and give ourselves the best chance at a first-rate story. I nominate Frank to put the questions. Even I can understand his English. One more thing – we’re more interested in what is said than in camera angles. We’ll allot positions for TV crews and still photographers. We can’t have people popping off flash bulbs during the speech or the question time. And people who have paid for syndication rights get priority. Understood?”
Of course they understood! In Rome everyone understood everything, even before it was uttered, so no one took time to listen to anything. But Steffi Guillermin had lived long enough in the city to understand arrangiarsi; the art of arranging oneself. So she gathered her own small group of conspirators to set a seating plan and formulate the questions in English with Frank Colson.
At five in the afternoon, Angel-Novalis called. He had been granted permission to speak at the luncheon. There were, however, certain conditions. Guillermin was instantly in combat position.
“What conditions, Monsignore?”
“First, you must note in reports that I am speaking as a private individual and not as a Vatican representative.”
“That’s stretching the truth, isn’t it?”
“It’s expressing a canonical fact. The See of Peter is vacant. All the prescriptions of the recent Pontiff are in force until a new Pope is elected. I cannot comment on his policies or make prophecies about new ones. I can, however, express my private opinions, provided they are so designated.”
“You understand that what we send from here may be changed or omitted by editors in our home offices?”
“Of course. I am as you might say …”
“Covering your backside,” said Steffi Guillermin. “We understand that, Monsignore. What’s the next condition?”
“I will not express opinions on specific persons whose names are mentioned in the diaries. The risk of libel still exists for me and for you.”
“But you won’t back away from general enquiries about ‘certain persons’?”
“I reserve always my right to refuse comment.”
“We’re comfortable with that. Anything else?”
“The subject of my address will be ‘Past and Future in an Abiding Church’.”
“It doesn’t sound like a lunch-time laugh show,” said Guillermin, “but I’m sure you’ll do a beautiful job. You may find this hard to believe, but you will be among friends.”
“I never doubted it, Mademoiselle! Until tomorrow, then.”
Guillermin hung up and gave a little yelp of delight. This man was bright – sometimes too bright for his own good, but he had enough self-esteem to guarantee a first-rate performance. This would be a classic courtroom piece with a very assured defendant and a very urbane prosecutor. At issue would be twenty-five years of centrist Church government and a vision – if such existed – of a new millennial epoch, each interpreted from the secret diaries of a dead man.
When Luca Rossini returned home at seven in the evening, there was a message from Isabel.
Luisa and I leave New York at 1830 hours this evening.
We arrive Rome 0850 hours tomorrow morning and will be met by an attaché from the Argentine Embassy. Raul has reserved a suite for us at the Grand Hotel. He insists that we “present ourselves with a proper style”. After a long night flight, we shall both need a rest and some beauty treatment before we meet our very special Eminence! We shall expect you at eight for dinner in the suite. Please leave a message at the hotel to confirm that you will arrive – even if Attila is at the gates of Rome.
All my love,
Isabel.
In spite of all the fantasies he had nourished, the impact of the news took his breath away. After a quarter of a century of separation and soul exile, they would be together in the same room. They would meet, eye to eye, lip to lip, body to body – and all the lost yesterdays would be forgotten.
Then a sudden panic seized him. This, too, was a fantasy. There would be a witness to the meeting, a young woman in her mid-twenties, daughter of Isabel and Raul, granddaughter of that doughty old adventurer, Carlos Menéndez, who had bullied the junta and the Church to send him safely out of the country. Menéndez’s grim warning still echoed in his memory: “It takes a long time to recover from the experience of torture. It’s too soon to know how you’ll come out. I hope one day you’ll be a made man.”
How would old Carlos judge him now – wherever he was lodged? He had died ten years ago, when his chopper went down in a remote Andean valley. He asked himself also how the young woman would react to him. Most of all, he wondered how he would look to Isabel who, so many years ago, had nursed him out of an obscene degradation into the image of a man.
He walked into the bedroom, and stood a long time looking at himself in the mirror on his bureau. He saw a lean fifty-year-old fellow with the olive skin of a Mediterranean man, iron-grey hair, and a mouth grim in repose, which could twitch into a rare smile when the lights were lit in his dark eyes. He was tall for a southerner and he had wondered sometimes what tincture of corsair or raiding Norseman had given him his height and his long loping gait.
Suddenly he burst out laughing at the image in the mirror and the tally he was making of its good points, as if he were judging an animal. This was the root of his fear: that Isabel, the one woman he had loved, should find him ridiculous.
Which brought him, by a round turn, to a new series of questions. How would they greet each other: with a handshake or a kiss, and what sort of a kiss would be appropriate in the presence of her daughter? Isabel had given him no signals in any of her letters, yet she, too, must have dreamed the moment of their meeting. Whenever she mentioned her daughter, it was with pride and affection – and a genuine satisfaction that relations between the girl and her father were good. “She adores him, because he denies her nothing. She is his show-pony whom he delights to display – and he is very careful about whom among his friends, male or female, he introduces to her. She on her part has a generous and happy spirit and we have become good companions.”
So, another question – more foolish than any others: what should he wear to this three-cornered dinner-party? He had several choices: a cassock, scarlet-piped with scarlet cincture, highly formal and certain to create a stir in the lobby of the Grand Hotel, a standard clerical suit, with only a Roman collar and the purple stock to denote his rank, or the business suit with collar and tie which he wore when he travelled to places where it was expedient to display a religious neutrality. He rejected that option instantly. It would take too long to explain. However, he promised himself that when he drove Isabel out to his retreat in the hills, he would wear his work clothes and she, please God, would agree to come alone.
A shadow of resentment intruded into his musings. Why had Isabel arranged their first encounter like this? Had she already drawn some kind of line in the sand? Was she afraid of a sudden impulse of passion on his part or her own? He was angry with himself even for entertaining the idea. She owed him nothing. He was the debtor. She had the right to set the terms of payment. Besides, her letters were the true testimony to her feelings for him – and, he had to admit, they were much more open than his to her. So he rejected the untimely thought and exchanged a grin of self-mockery with the image in the mirror.
None the less, he was restless and uneasy. He did not want to face the evening alone. He told the staff he would be out for dinner. Then he dialled the number of a certain Monsignor Piers Paul Hallett, who worked as a palaeographer in the Vatican Library. Theirs was an unlikely friendship which had flowered out of a chance meeting in the Library just after Rossini’s arrival in Rome. As soon as they had been introduced, Hallett had asked the languid question: “I say dear boy, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about Inca time numeration would you?”
Hallett had a witty tongue, a gift for indolent scholarship, and a very English contempt for the excesses of clerical government. Was he free for dinner? Always when the Eminent were paying. Would he be happy with Antica Pesa? Of course. The place was splendidly discreet, and it would be even more comfortable if they could both wear civilian clothes.
“No offence to my eminent host, but Rome these days is suffering from a plague of prelates. All that red and purple! It’s like a measles rash!”
The name Antica Pesa signified the Old Weigh-house where carters’ loads were checked and taxed before they went on up the Janiculum Hill. It was situated in an ancient tenement whose front doors opened on to the cobbled pavement of the Via Garibaldi, while at the rear it gave access to a small enclosed garden, a pleasant place for summer dining.
There was a chill in the air that night, so Rossini and his guest settled themselves in the glow of an olivewood fire set in an ingle-nook large enough to roast an ox. They agreed on the menu: spaghetti alta poverella and vitello arrosto with a flagon of red wine and a bottle of mineral water. Then, counting on a leisurely service, they began the ambling talk of old friends. Hallett, as always, put the opening questions.
“So tell me, eminent friend, what’s the truth about these diaries? Are they authentic? Were they stolen? Why no public protest from the Vatican about their publication?”
Rossini shrugged and rattled off the answers:
“They’re authentic, yes. The provenance seems simple. The Holy Father gave them to Stagni as a personal legacy. There’s a manuscript letter to prove it.”
“The man must have been in his dotage!”
“He’s dead and buried, my friend. Let him rest m peace.”
“What do you know about this valet?”
“Not much. He was already a fixture when I arrived in Rome. I’ve passed the time of day with him; but like everyone else, I’ve just taken him for granted. You’ve been here longer than I, what do you know?”
“I work in the Library, which is a long way from the Papal bedchamber, but I do take coffee every morning in the Nymphaeum across the garden. It’s a lively place – for the Vatican at least! Stagni was there often.”
“What was he like?”
“An agreeable gossip. People liked him. They called him Figaro; but you know that, of course.”
“I know it.”
“What you probably don’t know is that he had been talking for a long time about writing a book when he retired. Obviously some Italian publisher had approached him, but he had larger ambitions. He was like a jackdaw snatching up scraps of information about agents, publishers and the media in different countries. I gave him an old copy of Writers and Artists Year Book and suggested he get a similar publication for America. He was profusely grateful.”
“Once he had the contacts,” Rossini mused, “he would have been encouraged to extend the ideas.”
“Exactly! Now here’s another sidelight. This time I’m involved.”
“You? How in God’s name …”
“Patience, dear Eminence! Patience! In my line of work, the question of forgery crops up from time to time. It’s an ancient trade: people have been forging artefacts and documents for centuries. We’ve done our share of it in the Church, too! Anyway, the question came up one morning at coffee time. Stagni was there. He claimed to know an old man who had done time on Lipari for forgery of identity documents, banknotes and even – would you believe – phoney patents of nobility. There was quite a trade in those just after the war.”
“Do you remember this man’s name?”
“I do, as a matter of fact. I got his address from Stagni and consulted with him on a disputed document. His name was Aldo Carrese. He’s dead now.”
“When did he die?”
“A few months ago.”
“Was Stagni using him?”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“Why would Stagni give you his name?”
“He could hardly refuse it. I told you he was a gossip. He had talked himself into a corner.”
“Not that it helps us very much now. The man’s dead. The diaries are already in publication. Stagni’s home free and rich.”
“That’s a shame!”
“Still, we may be able to salvage something. Angel-Novalis is addressing the Foreign Press Club. I’ll talk to him in the morning. I confess I can’t care too much. This whole affair is a nine-days’ wonder.”
“Is that meant to be a pun?”
“It is. We’ve just started the nine-day memorials – looking back, looking forward. The press will go into a feeding frenzy over the diaries, until we’re locked into the conclave. After that, it will be a dead issue – a footnote to history.”
“That touches a nerve!” Hallett was suddenly moody. He relapsed into silence. Rossini prompted him.
“Something’s on your mind, Piers. We’re friends. Tell me.”
“I was just thinking,” Hallett began slowly, “I’ve been dealing with footnotes all my life.”
“I thought you were happy in your work.”
“I was, until recently.”
“Something’s happened to change that?”
“Nothing’s happened exactly. I’m just going through a bad patch – boredom, accidie, vanity of vanities, all flesh is grass – that sort of thing.”
“You probably need a holiday – or a change of job.”
“The latter, more likely. It’s the job itself that’s getting to me. I used to love it, but now there’s no taste in it any more.”
“Go on.”
“It’s simple enough. I’m a palaeographer. I deal with ancient writings and inscriptions. It’s one of the most arid fields of scholarship – one of the most lonely, too. Everything refers back to the past. The signposts all point down dead-end streets, to crumbling temples and forgotten gods. My own self has become a very dusty habitat. That’s why I was so delighted when you called and invited me to dinner tonight.”
Before Rossini had time to respond, the waiter set down the heaped plates of pasta and chanted his litany: “Cheese, gentlemen? Pepper? Good appetite!”
“I have the appetite,” said Luca Rossini. “I could use a blessing.”
Hallett made the sign of the cross over the food and pronounced the benediction.
“Bless us, O Lord, and the food we share in friendship.”
“Amen!” said Luca Rossini. “I’m grateful for your company, too, Piers.”
They ate steadily through the mountain of pasta; but halfway into the dish, Rossini was defeated. He picked up the thread of Hallett’s talk.
“I understand what you say, Piers, about the solitude of specialist scholarship. The Hittites and the ancient Illyrians are hard to share over a breakfast table.”
Hallett put down his fork with a clatter and looked up at Rossini. There was a fire of anger in his eyes.
“It’s the breakfast table I’m missing, Luca! I’m withering in celibate solitude. I hit fifty next year and what have I got to show in merit for myself or good for anyone else? I’m not a priest; I’m a pedant. More than that, Luca, I’m a wasted man!”
“Who’s the girl, Piers?” It was only half a joke, a fly cast to catch a too difficult confession. Hallett rose to the lure.
“It’s not a girl, Luca. It’s a man.”
Rossini hesitated for a split second only, then asked with studious neutrality:
“Do you want to tell me the rest of it?”
“He’s a priest, like me. He’s been working for the last six months over in the Secret Archive. He’s British, like me, which adds a certain piquancy to the joke. Remember old Peyrefitte and the young French cleric who fed him material from the Archive to build into his plots? Peyrefitte grew rich and famous on the novel, which, if memory serves me, was called The Keys of Saint Peter. The cleric achieved fame as a character in his works.”
“I never read the book,” said Luca Rossini, “but I understand how you feel.”
“I wonder if you do. This is the first time in love for me, Luca, and, God help me, it’s the coup de foudre! I don’t know how to handle it. I don’t know what to do or say. Until now, all my fantasies and all my little lusts used to be safely hidden under my cassock. I had work I enjoyed. I prayed as I was taught to do against the noonday devil. I played by the rules. Now I see no point in the game. I’m too vulnerable. The Church is too vulnerable to me.”
“And your friend in the Archive?”
“We meet, we talk, we find pleasure in each other’s company. For the moment that’s all – but it won’t go on like that.”
“What does he want to do?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t had to declare himself yet. I’m not sure either that I’m ready for it. All I know is that this is the wrong place for me.”
“I’m sure we could find another appointment for you in a more congenial environment.”
“You know that’s not the answer.”
“I know it, my friend – better than most. We carry our own devils on our backs, because often they’re the only company we can endure. We’re just friends talking through a difficult situation; even so, I am not sure how to advise you.”
The waiter came back to clear the pasta dishes, carve the veal and offer a second flask of wine.
“Can we manage it?” Rossini asked.
“I need it,” said Hallett. “Perhaps we’ll find wisdom in the bottom of the bottle.”
“Better, I think, that wisdom be justified in her children.” He said it with a laugh and then raised his glass to Hallett. “I’m honoured that you’ve confided in me. I know how dangerous it is to be alone when a crisis hits.”
“I believe you do,” said Hallett. “The thing I fear most is that I could be so needy that I might enslave myself, utterly demean myself to a lover.”
“In particular, the young man from the Archive?”
“In a way, yes. He’s like a young god, proud in his youth. I’m what? An ageing cleric with the seven-year itch. Not a pretty picture, is it?”
“It’s a sad picture, my friend. My heart weeps for you.”
“I wish I could weep. I can’t. I’m just so bloody ashamed of my own need. Do you have needs, Luca?”
“I do. Not the same needs as yours, but yes, I have them.”
“How do you cope?”
“Not very well.” Rossini smiled. Hallett persisted with the question.
“‘This kind is not cast out except by prayer and fasting’. Is that what you’re saying?”
“That hasn’t been my experience.” There was a sharp edge to his retort. Hallett apologised.
“I’m sorry. I stepped over the line. I should tell you I’ve been thinking of leaving the priesthood. It would be one less burden to bear, one fear less to carry. You know how exposed we are these days to scandal and litigation.”
“I know very well. As a Church we have yet to learn how to cope with our own humanity. If you left, would you be able to sustain yourself professionally?”
“Without a doubt – even with the handicap of age. In my own narrow field, I’m one of the best in the world.”
“Then you should think calmly about it as a possible decision. There is a process to go through if you want a formal release with all the seals in the right places. I’d try to shorten it for you if I could; but God knows where I’ll end up under a new Pontiff. You don’t have to make a decision yet. You don’t want a crisis situation with your friend.”
“He’s not likely to create it. I am.”
Rossini was silent for a moment, toying with a new thought, then abruptly he put it to Hallett.
“First you need to cool off.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I was thinking of a retreat.”
Hallett gaped at him in surprise and anger.
“Come on, Luca! Not from you of all people! Cold showers and a hairshirt – and some solitary confinement!”
“Not at all! As a conclavist, I am entitled to bring with me a minimal staff. I was thinking of taking someone from my office. You can have the job if you want.” His eyes lit up and his mouth relaxed into a boyish grin. “At least it will keep you off the streets and put you in the company of your elders and betters.”
“That’s uncommonly kind of you. You’re right, it might provide a therapeutic shock to the system, but what happens afterwards?”
Rossini, still smiling, refused the challenge.
“One day at a time, Piers. That’s all we’re given; that’s all we can take, any of us. We invoke the Holy Spirit to guide us in the conclave. Maybe the Spirit will speak to you.”
“Are you expecting Him – or should it be Her? – to speak to you, Luca? Give you a name for your voting card?”
“At this moment,” said Luca Rossini lightly, “the Spirit and I are out of touch with each other. You don’t have to answer yet about the conclave. Just think about it for a day or so. Pour me some more wine like a good fellow!”