Isabel and Luisa had spent the morning in an orgy of shopping. They had wandered into every gilded trap between the Via Condotti and the Corso and had fetched up, footsore and poorer, in Babington’s Tea-Rooms at the foot of the Spanish Steps. They found themselves a discreet corner, kicked off their shoes under the table and ordered Earl Grey tea with cucumber and smoked salmon sandwiches.
“Just like a pair of Anglos,” said Luisa, with a grin.
“Don’t mock, young lady,” Isabel admonished her lightly. “This place has a lot of happy memories for me. My father and mother brought me here when I was sixteen years old. That was back in the late fifties when Argentina was rich and Italy was very cheap to visit. We came by ship, a return trip on one of the big liners that were bringing Italian migrants from Naples to Buenos Aires.”
“And this place was here then?”
“This place has been here, if I remember rightly, since 1894. It was founded by a Miss Anna Babington, who was British, and Miss Isabel Cargill, who came from New Zealand. I remember her because her name was the same as mine – ‘Isabel’. There’s a lot more to the story, but I won’t bore you with it.”
“No, please! You’re not boring me. I love it when you share memories with me. It doesn’t happen often enough these days.”
“One loses the habit,” said Isabel. “I’m told one needs grandchildren to bring it back.”
The waitress came, laid out the sandwiches, poured the tea, wished them good appetite and left.
“Please,” Luisa begged her. “Please finish the story.”
“It’s strange, how things arrange themselves in your mind. Babington’s I remember as my mother’s place. The Anglo part of it appealed to her, and the history fascinated her. Anna Babington was descended from one Anthony Babington who was hanged, drawn and quartered for treason against Queen Elizabeth I of England. Her friend, Isabel Cargill, was descended from a Scots covenanter who preached against Charles II, accusing him of tyranny and lechery. He was executed in Edinburgh. When times were bad in Argentina and Luca and I were at risk, I used to dream about this place. Your grandfather Menéndez, on the other hand, was never comfortable here. He preferred the Caffè Greco just across the square on the Via Condotti. All the great romantics went there: Byron, Liszt, Wagner … And my father was a romantic – but he had the heart of a lion. When we were in hiding, after I’d shot the sergeant, he went alone to Buenos Aires and bargained for our lives … He never told me what happened, but when he died in the chopper crash, I wondered whether it was a final pay-back from someone whom he had threatened. It was reported as an accident; but who knows? We have buried so many secrets over the past twenty-five years. Still, here we are, you and I, drinking tea and eating cucumber sandwiches at Babingtons on the Piazza di Spagna!”
“While your Luca – and my new father – is a Cardinal with a red cap, who could even be our new Pope.”
“How do you feel about him now?”
“I don’t know. You’ve had twenty-five years to get used to him. I’ve only had twenty-four hours. Don’t you understand how confusing that is? It’s as though a figure has stepped out of a picture and is now pacing about the most private room in my life. You have to help me! You have to explain him. Where has Luca fitted in your life all this time? Where does he fit in your future?”
“The future? That’s easy. I’ll go home without him. I’ll die loving him.”
“My God, you can be brutal sometimes, Mother!”
“I killed a man, remember. That’s a brutal act. I lived through brutal times. Forgive me! You asked me to explain. I’m trying. But this love for Luca doesn’t explain itself in easy words. I was young then. I adored my father, who was everything Raul was not. He was strong, adventurous, decisive. He had himself seconded out of the army because he hated what was happening in the forces. I was still learning that Raul was what he would always be, a spoilt boy, an agreeable charmer, but a dead loss when you had to depend on him. He travelled a lot. He played when he travelled. When he was absent, I used to visit my father wherever he was working. That’s how I came to be in Luca’s parish that morning. I’d seen him a couple of times in the village, long enough to say good morning, to notice that he was a good-looking young man, and to wonder why he was content to bury himself in a no-place like that. The day the soldiers came everything changed.”
“Please, Mother, I don’t want to hear that part again. How did Luca behave?”
“You have to understand, nobody ‘behaves’ after a beating like that, he just hung on the wheel, moaning and twitching, with the sergeant’s riding crop stuck into his backside, while the sergeant unbuttoned his breeches and prepared to sodomise him.”
“Luca himself has blocked that part out completely. In all the weeks we were together, he never mentioned it. The doctor said he might suppress it till he died if his reason survived that long. The internal injury was not serious – but the damage to his psyche was, as the doctor put it, ‘inadmissible’ …”
“So, you pitied him and fell in love with him?”
“No! Quite the reverse. I fell in love with the anger he still had, the curses he could still summon up, the defiant soul of him. I wasn’t seeing him as a victim, but as a man tormented yet unbroken in spirit. He was my prize. I had killed for him. I, too, might be killed in the end, but this man was mine.”
“But you couldn’t keep him?”
“No! I healed him. I nursed him through fevers and nightmares. I used every trick I had ever learned to stir his passion and restore the ravages to his pride and his manhood. My God, Luisa! If ever there were a love-child in the world, you were that child.”
“So, why did you let Luca go? Why did you stay with Raul?”
“Because that was the deal my father had to make with the Generals and with the Church.”
“And if he hadn’t made it?”
“All three of us would have ended among the disappeared ones.”
“How much of this does Raul know?”
“I can’t say. We have never discussed the matter.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“It’s true. As soon as Grandfather Menéndez confronted the Generals – and remember Raul’s father was one of them! – they all saw the danger of the situation. There had been massacres and killings and disappearances in the past. This could be one too many. A little up-country priest – he was a cipher! But the daughter-in-law of a general, wife of a well-known international playboy, daughter of a well-known engineer in the oil business? Enough, they said! Get the woman home to her husband. Get the priest out of the country. Let the Apostolic Nuncio deliver him, gift-wrapped, to Rome. But in silence! One word out of place, and you’ll never guess how bad it can get! We were all hostages to silence!”
“Why didn’t you and Luca run away together?”
“Where could we have run? Peru, Chile? And don’t forget there were other hostages, too – my father, Raul and his family. There was no way we could better the deal we had! We both knew that.”
“How did Luca react?”
“I have never seen him so enraged. Our last love-making was wild and desperate and wonderful – but our goodbye was calm and quiet. We stood in the shade and watched the helicopter land. We didn’t kiss. We didn’t embrace. We had decided there should be no witnesses – no official ones at least – to our love for each other. Two people got out of the helicopter: a cleric and an army major. Luca’s eyes were like dark stones. His face looked like carved wood. I remembered what he had said to me in the first hour of the false dawn: “I love you. I will always love you. There will never be another woman in my life.” He walked away, proud and silent between the two men, without a backward glance. I don’t know whether he waved to me or not when they lifted off. I was blind with tears.”
“But you still went home and made love to my father, and you had other lovers. How did you feel when you were with them?”
“They were the toys I played with. They were my revenge for what Raul was doing to me.”
“But Luca, too, was part of your revenge.”
“No! He was my man.”
“You said he was your prize. Did you truly own him?”
“Not all of him.”
“Do you own him now?”
“No. Nobody owns him. His love is a free gift from a free man.”
“I’m sorry, Mother, but I’m trying to understand. Do you think Luca kept his promise about other women?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“How can you be? Did he feel so guilty about you that he lost all taste for women?”
“On the contrary. He refused to see me as a guilt in his life. He called me ‘a saving gift’, and he was right.”
“But he’s not saved yet, not altogether. He’s wrapped the Church around him like a cloak of invisibility. That hermitage of his tells another side of the story. He’s still in flight. He still needs a refuge. He won’t admit it. He’s too proud to do that, but you are still the lodestone which gives direction to his life. What will he do when you’re not here?”
“Is that what you’re afraid of, Luisa: that he will try in some fashion to lean on you?”
“It’s possible.”
“It’s impossible and it won’t happen. When Luca and I surrendered ourselves to the inevitable, that chapter of our lives was closed. The affair was over. Neither of us was prepared to accept a self-inflicted torture. Love was something else, a treasure, secret to both of us. We didn’t even begin to write to each other until your father and I moved to New York and I was working at the Institute with an office of my own. I was the one who began the correspondence. So never think Luca will intrude in your life!”
“But, like you, I can’t ever shut him out of it.”
“That’s true. So why not welcome him?”
“And thank him for acknowledging me as his daughter?”
“That, too, if you want.”
“It would make a big mess of his career if that news got out!”
“I doubt it.” Isabel signalled to the waitress to bring the check.
“How can you say that, Mother?”
“Because I think he may be on the verge of leaving the Church.”
Luisa gaped at her mother in surprise.
“To do what?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t think he knows either.”
“But why would he want to resign? Unless they make him Pope, he’s climbed as high as any man can go in Rome.”
“I don’t think he sees it that way.”
“How then?”
“He’s come to a crisis of belief. It may be that this is the form in which the unresolved trauma in his life will work itself out. The beating, the violation, our love for each other, the conspiracy of silence between the Church and the State in which, to save our lives, we both consented to be joined. It’s a lot to wear, my dear daughter. So try not to judge either of us too unkindly. By the way, what are you doing with your afternoon?”
“I’ll take our packages back to the hotel, then I’ll write some eards and letters. What about you?”
“I have a meeting at two-thirty with the leader of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. She’s staying with the Missionary Sisters of Nazareth over on Monte Oppio. After the meeting, I’ll pass by Luca’s house and spend a little time with him, provided he’s home and will receive me.”
“Remember we’re booked for dinner at the Embassy tonight. They’re sending a car for us. You should leave enough time for a rest before we go.”
“What time are we due?”
“Eight for eight-thirty – oh, and since we’re still in mourning for the Pope, dress is informal.”
“That’s a blessing,” said Isabel. “Let’s move. We’ll pay at the desk.”
“Before we go, Mother. I know I sound like a bitch sometimes, but I do love you and I do know it’s very special to be your love-child as well as your legal one.”
“Do you know why?”
“Tell me!”
“Aunt Amelia used to say, ‘Love children are lucky when they’re welcomed. They have better care, and generally better manners, than the rest of the family.’”
On his small roof-top terrace in the Via del Governo Vecchio, Rossini was pouring coffee for Monsignor Piers Hallett. He was also delivering a short information piece on the conclave arrangements.
“This time, all the conclavists and their attendant staff will be lodged in Saint Martha’s House. It isn’t exactly the Grand Hotel, but it’s an all-new building with a hundred and eight suites and twenty-three single rooms, together with dining and lounge areas. The present tenants will be moved out to accommodate the conclavists. We’re not sure yet how many Cardinals will be present, but let’s say anywhere between a hundred and ten and the top limit of a hundred and twenty. That doesn’t leave too much room for attendant staff. Each of us has been asked to specify the personal staff we need and to justify their presence in an accompanying memorandum to the Camerlengo. Quite apart from questions of space, the move is to cut down on the number of clerical flunkeys who used to be trotting between various factions of electors. So I’ve decided, my dear Piers, to present you as my personal confessor.”
Hallett burst out laughing.
“That’s rich! Piers Hallett, palaeographer, pedant, library mouse, now private confessor to an eminence! They’ll never buy it! They’ll run me out of the place by the scruff of my neck!”
“No, they won’t,” Rossini told him. “I’ve already made it clear that I have a personal problem and that I hope to sort it out during the conclave, during which we are commanded to act ‘having God alone always before our eyes’. So, in fact, I do need a confessor – and I’m nominating you.”
“You still have to be joking.”
“No, I’m not. You’re a priest, yes?”
“Of course. But look, friend to friend, I’m not a spiritual man. I’m a scholar in a dog-collar. What counsel can I offer a man like you?”
“But you asked counsel of me, about a very spiritual matter, your own identity, your own moral life. I hope I can help you; I’m sure you can help me.”
“How, for God’s sake?”
“By listening, by hauling me through the bramble patches into open country. All our talk will be under the seal. We’re free, either of us, to grant or refuse forgiveness at the end.”
“This is pure formalism.” Hallett was genuinely surprised. “I never expected to hear you talk like this.”
“I know,” said Rossini. “But it’s all I have left at this moment. You see, what I have to decide – with your assistance, I hope – is whether or no I am still a believer, whether or no I should resign quietly and go into the desert for a while.”
“Where would you go?”
“That was Peter’s question: ‘Lord to whom shall we go?’”
“But Peter answered it for himself. ‘You have the words of eternal life.’”
“Exactly; but Peter already had the answer. I’m not sure I have any longer.”
“And I’m not sure either.” Hallett was suddenly moody. “I’m not sure where I fit in this pluperfect world of the moral absolutists. Perhaps we’ll make some discoveries together while we watch the raree-show of Peter’s Successor!”
Luca Rossini was puzzled by the reference. He asked: “What was it you said?”
“‘The raree show of Peter’s Successor’. It’s a quotation from the English poet, Robert Browning.”
“But what, please, is a raree-show?”
“Oh dear! In Italian or Spanish, I would guess the nearest word would be carnival, although the expression in English suggests a fairground with jugglers, sword-swallowers, bearded ladies and other freaks.”
“With some comic ecclesiastics thrown in – a Cardinal or two, or a skeleton from the vaults of the Franciscans.”
“Now you’ve got the idea,” said Hallett happily. “It’s an old-fashioned word, but it might raise some ghosts in Vatican City!”
Rossini was still chuckling over the image when his mobile rang. He answered brusquely; then his whole expression changed. One moment he was eager, the next dubious and concerned. Finally, he said: “Very well. I’ll see her with you. I’ll have my man drive her back afterwards. I need to talk with you alone for a while. No, not at all, I have a visitor with me, that’s all.” He switched off and turned to Hallett.
“I have people to see in about twenty minutes, so I’ll have to throw you out. Are we agreed, then? You will enter the conclave as my personal confessor. All our personal transactions henceforth are under the confessional seal.”
“We’re agreed. And thank you for the trust you’re showing me.”
“Come to think of it,” said Rossini with a grin, “we’re both putting a lot of trust in each other. If either, or both of us, becomes a non-believer, none of the rules makes sense, except as tools for the conduct of the institution.”
“Which is why most of them were invented down the centuries,” said Piers Hallett. “A well-ordered society is a splendid thing to see. It’s like a hot-house. You can grow anything in it, but not everything will survive the rough weather outside. That’s the real terror of the world for me, Luca. All us humans – and so many are so bloody lonely!”
In the lounge of the Foreign Press Club Fritz Ulrich, well primed with a heavy lunch and two brandies, was dispensing wisdom and irony to a group of newcomers from the Bavarian Catholic Press.
“This is the smallest and most exclusive electoral college in the world: a hundred and twenty male celibates appointed to choose an absolute ruler for the largest religious constituency on the planet. Think about that! They, themselves, are not elected. They are appointed by a reigning Pontiff. Whom, truly, do they represent? Certainly not the vast mass of the faithful. What are they charged to do? Find a universal man for a universal Church. Impossible! In theory, they can elect any baptised male, and make him priest, bishop and Pope in one ceremony. In fact, they’ll choose one of themselves: one out of a hundred and twenty – if they all turn up! – to hold the keys of the kingdom for a billion believers and all the other benighted souls whom they claim a mandate to convert.”
“You’re talking very loudly, Fritz!” Steffi Guillermin called to him across the room. “Some of us are trying to work.”
“I apologise! I will try to be more quiet. Anyway, I have said my piece. These good people will make up their own minds.”
“Thank you, Fritz.”
Now that they were both under pressure to report a millennial event, now that they were involved in pooling and syndication deals, their relations were less abrasive. Ulrich dismissed his audience, heaved himself out of his chair and crossed to her table. She frowned and waved him away.
“Not now, please, Fritz. I’m working.”
“A few moments only, Steffi. Home office has sent me a query.”
“On what?”
“Your Aquino interview. You know we bought the German language rights to all those portrait pieces of yours.”
“So, what’s their problem?”
“You discuss the accusations brought against him by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. My people ask do you have any notes on another aspect of the situation: the involvement of former German nationals in the dirty war, suspected war criminals and the like?”
“No, I don’t, Fritz. That’s old ground. I didn’t want to walk over it again. Why do they need that sort of stuff anyway?”
“They’re trying to build a background piece on candidates who may have black marks against them for political or other reasons. Italians who have lived in the pockets of the Christian Democrats, South Americans who turned too far left or too far right, that sort of thing. I told them I’d send some brief notes; but I didn’t want to waste time on it. It’s filler material – pure speculation.”
“Well, tell them I’m sorry I can’t help. Now, if you don’t mind …”
“Just one more thing, then I’ll leave you in peace. What do you know about the Janissaries?”
“The who?”
“Janissaries!” He was happy to have surprised her, happy to be launched on a new monologue. “Shock troops of the old Ottoman Empire, founded in the fourteenth century, they garrisoned all the Balkan outposts of the Ottoman Turks.”
Steffi Guillermin stared at him blankly.
“And what the hell have they got to do with a Papal election? Are you sure you’re sober, Fritz?”
“No, I’m not sure. I need another drink. One more would prove it one way or the other. You wouldn’t like to join me, would you?”
“No way! And you shouldn’t have one either. Now what’s this garbage about Janissaries?”
“Analogy.” He stumbled over the word, then took a run at it. “Important historical analogy. They recruited captive Christian boy-children. They enslaved them to Turkish families where they learned the language and embraced Islam. After that, they were enlisted in the army as an elite corps. They trained in special barracks; they were celibate; they were debarred from trade or commerce; their obedience was absolute. Their badges of honour were the old slave-names: pot-cleaner, wood-cutter, cook. But they were a feared and formidable force. Now, my dear Steffi, do you see where my little analogy is leading me? All the prelates who are assembling in this city now are like the Janissaries – shock troops of a religious empire.”
“It’s an interesting thought, Fritz. But what are you going to make of it?”
“A panel piece perhaps. Would your people be interested in picking it up?”
“I doubt it, but I’m willing to try for you when it’s done. The problem we’ve all got is an overdose of information and not enough educated readers to deal with it. Now, get the hell out of my hair. I’ve got a deadline to meet.”
“I’m going! I’m going!” He scrambled awkwardly to his feet before delivering his exit line. “The Janissaries did well so long as they had a regular supply of slave boys. But once the fighting stopped, the breeding had to begin; so they tossed celibacy out the window. There’s a lesson in that, Steffi – a lesson for the Church. A lesson for you, too, come to think of it.”
“Thank God I’m not a breeder, Fritz, otherwise I could be stuck with a child like you!”
As he wandered away laughing, Frank Colson came to the table. Before he opened his mouth, Guillermin appealed to him:
“Why do I always fall for it? I’m an intelligent woman, yet every time he talks to me I fly off my perch like a demented parrot.”
“Fall for what, Steffi?”
“Fritz Ulrich’s bad jokes! He’s such a tasteless oaf.”
“He knows you too well. You always rise to the same lure. Now, I have a little news for your ears only.”
“Good news, bad news, what?”
“The London tabloids are floating a story about the morals of the senior clergy – old stuff most of it: one Austrian cardinal, a couple of stalwarts in the Curia. They’re just trawling muddy waters; but one of the names that came up was Luca Rossini’s. You interviewed him the other day. You called him the mystery man.”
“I know. I’m revising the story now and I still don’t like the phrase. I’d like to find a better one before I file. Anyway, what are the London tabloids saying?”
“They’re sailing very close to the wind. They’re talking about a mysterious crime with which Rossini was connected in Argentina, a horrendous beating, a statement that he had been sodomised, a secret arrangement to smuggle him out of the country – and they’re making smoke signals about a love affair and the birth of a child after he had left the country.”
“My God! They’re taking a hell of a risk!”
“Of what, a lawsuit? He can’t sue except by permission of the Pontiff – whom we don’t have at the moment. And besides, what would it matter? So far as election chances are concerned, Rossini will be dead in the water.”
“So, who loaded the cannon and fired the shot?”
“Good question, Steffi! What’s your answer?”
“There are two. First, the Argentinians have had this information for a long time. The one thing they’d never want to see is one of the victims of their dirty war enthroned in the Vatican, scars and all. The second guess, which I don’t like half as much, is someone inside the Vatican who has access to the records and the motive to leak them against Rossini.”
“Cleric or layman?”
“Cleric. It would have to be.”
“Motive?”
“Jealousy or malice, either or both.”
“So now I need your advice. My office has asked me to advise whether we should investigate the story or drop it cold and let someone else do the autopsy.”
Steffi Guillermin considered the question in silence for a few moments before she answered.
“First of all, Frank, there’s nothing there except the sodomy and the illegitimate child which wasn’t implicit in the Pontiff’s diaries. The love affair is mentioned, if not described. The child? A birth certificate would settle that question out of hand.”
“You’re right, of course. I hate rummaging in dirty linen. I guess I’m looking for a good excuse to cry off.”
“You know, Frank, that whatever advice one gives in a case like this, is bound to be wrong. You turn down a dirty story, it turns into tomorrow’s headlines. You chase it and you’re giving aid and comfort to the bastards who floated it in the first place. I’m keyed in to both Aquino and to Rossini, and it wouldn’t be too hard to prise some comment out of the Argentinians. But, as a friend, I’d say don’t touch it. You’ve got an easy out anyway. You’re bureau chief. You advise that any attempt to play up such a story on the eve of an election could be construed as an attempt by an Anglo Saxon Protestant country to interfere in an election.”
“That wouldn’t wash, Steffi.”
“So, invoke your conscience. Tell him you refuse to be party to scurrilous rumour-mongering at this crucial time.”
“The plea might just appeal to him. He has a taste for well-rounded phrases. I owe you a drink. Ciao!”
Which left Steffi Guillermin face to face with her own dilemma: how much treachery to a colleague would be involved if she took another look at her story before she filed it, and perhaps – only perhaps – floated some smoke of her own. It took her at least two minutes to make her decision. She telephoned Rossini’s office and asked that her call be transferred to him wherever he might be. Yes, the matter was quite urgent. She needed to check a key passage in her interview text before she filed it for publication. There was a longish wait before the answer was relayed to her. His Eminence had a very busy afternoon, but he would make time to see her at his apartment at five-thirty in the evening. He hoped she would not be offended if she were kept waiting a short time. Of course not. Please convey Mademoiselle Guillermin’s thanks to His Eminence!
The woman whom Isabel presented to him that afternoon was more than seventy years old. Her name was Rosalia Lodano. She was the leader of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, sojourning in Rome.
Her hair was snow-white, her skin like old ivory, seamed and scored by time and bitter experience. There was a strange sibylline calm about her, a formidable gravity beyond the reach of fear or malice. Her eyes were dark, hooded and implacable. With Isabel at her side, she sat, bolt upright, her clothing loose about her thin figure, her hands lying flat and immobile on a thick folder of documents. Her first utterance was a surprise: a curt, imperious statement.
“I know your history, Eminence. I know Señora Ortega. I am prepared to trust you.”
‘You understand I make no promises; but those I do make, I keep.”
“You know why my friends and I are in Rome?”
“I believe so; but I want you to tell me, simply and clearly.”
“In 1976, I lost a son and a daughter. My daughter was arrested, questioned, tortured, raped and finally killed. My son was arrested. We know he was taken to ESMA, the School of Mechanical Engineering. After that, no trace. There are thousands like him, the disappeared ones. We know they are dead. We do not know where or how they died. There is a torture in not knowing, a torture that never ends! We need to know – and once we know, perhaps we can bring the killers to justice. But knowing is the first step. You understand?”
“I do.”
“Understand something more. At home, the regime has changed, yes. However, our President has blocked all roads to the justice we seek. He has granted amnesty to the senior officers who were responsible for the years of terror. He will not authorise the taking of testimonies and depositions against them or other offenders in Argentina. Vital records have been sent out of the country – we believe to Spain. As Señora Ortega has told you, we hope to lay hands on some of them in Switzerland.”
“But you have come to Rome. Why?”
“We want to bring this whole dirty business to the International Court in the Hague. As individuals, we cannot do that. The petition must be made by a country through its legal government. Our own country refuses to act. So we address ourselves to Italy. You and I, Eminence, are of Italian origin, but we are not citizens. Again, we have no voice. However, hundreds of the disappeared ones were Italian citizens, holders of Italian passports, legally resident in Argentina. They have no voice, because they do not exist anymore. So, we turn to an Italian who knows what happened, the Pope’s man, the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Aquino.”
“But you discover you can’t touch him either, because he is a citizen of Vatican City State?”
“Precisely! We beg him to abdicate that position so we may lay charges against him in an Italian court, and there expose witnesses and testimonies which may force the Italian government to bring the matter to the International Court. The Archbishop – he is now a Cardinal – declines. He claims we have no evidence. He says he should not be asked to convict himself. Besides, he needs the consent of the Holy Father to present himself in a civil court. Now the Holy Father is dead – and whatever hopes we had died with him. I mean no disrespect. You have received me in your house, but I have to say I have no faith in the Church anymore. In Argentina, too many of the hierarchy made a pact of silence with evil men. It seems we shall have to wait to argue the matter with God!”
“If you are looking for justice, Señora,” said Luca Rossini “that’s the only place you’ll find it. I should be a liar if I told you differently. Listening to you, I myself feel guilty. I suffered, as you know. Señora Ortega took a mortal risk to save me; but in the end we owed our lives to that same conspiracy of silence. A bargain was made. If we broke the bargain, others would suffer.”
“But why are you still silent, now that things have changed? Are you still afraid?”
“I can answer only for myself,” said Rossini. “I have nothing to fear.”
“I have something to fear,” said Isabel. “I have a husband, a daughter. I cannot play dice with their lives.”
“I understand,” said the old woman. “I know very well what fear means. So, my brave Eminence, what do you think you can do for us?”
“Let’s talk a little more, Señora. We get one chance at this, we cannot afford any mistakes. I want to hear your whole case against Aquino – and remember it’s against him, not against the local church.”
For more than forty minutes they sat huddled together at the desk, while Rosalia Lodano displayed the contents of her dossier and Rossini questioned her closely on their authenticity and their provenance. Finally, he broke off the conversation.
“I have seen enough. I’ll have Juan bring you tea or coffee. I need to be private for a few minutes.”
He rang for the servant, ordered refreshments for the women, then retired to his bedroom, where he made a telephone call to Aquino. He began abruptly.
“This is Rossini. I am at my house. With me is a woman from Argentina, Rosalia Lodano, with whom you have been in correspondence. I have just gone through the documents in her dossier against you.”
“This is outrageous! You have no right to intrude in this fashion.”
“Be quiet, please. Just listen. I did not intrude, you asked for my help. Today this woman came to me with the same request. A couple of days ago, you gave a rather mischievous interview to a journalist from Le Monde in which you revealed our private conversations about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.”
“I would hardly call it a revelation. I thought it a good opportunity to prepare the ground for any discussions we might have with the women – create an atmosphere of goodwill. I saw nothing objectionable in that.”
“I found it gravely objectionable. You represented me as your advocate and defender.”
“I did not.”
“The lady said otherwise.”
“Come now, Rossini! Be fair! You know how exposed one is to misinterpretations, especially in a relaxed interview.”
“And you know it, too! You’re an experienced diplomat. You’ve been weighing words all your life. You weighed these, too, before you spoke them.”
“That’s ridiculous – utterly paranoid!”
“Is it? Let me put it in context for you. I consent, privately, to mediate a discussion – not arbitrate, not adjudicate, just mediate. The Guillermin woman is very intelligent, an accurate reporter. You give her a version of our agreement that immediately and irrevocably compromises me and absolves you. The victim himself is pleading the innocence of the accused. That does everything you need. You don’t have to answer any accusation. You walk into the conclave a cleanskin candidate for an interim papacy. And that’s another thing – please don’t recommend me to anyone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Another meeting, with a deputation of our colleagues. You were quoted: ‘Rossini gets about a lot. He knows how to read the wind. If I were Pontiff, I’d make sure to keep him near me.’”
“It was a compliment.”
“It was conveyed to me as an inducement.”
“And you were appropriately insulted!”
“Yes, I was.”
“Then I suggest you cool off before we finish our business together.”
“We can finish it this afternoon, if you wish. Rosalia Lodano is still here. Mademoiselle Guillermin will be here at five-thirty. I have all the dossier material I need to take an intelligent role in the discussion.”
“To what end?”
“To give you the chance to state your case openly to the press – to a woman with whom you were obviously comfortable. To give the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo a chance to be heard in an open forum. To give me a chance to do what you asked in the first place, mediate a position of minimal risk for you and for the Church.”
“And if I decline?”
“Then I shall take the meeting and do the best I can.”
“I can’t decide immediately on this. I need time …”
“You have none.” He quoted ironically: “‘Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.’”
“Can you at least limit the scope of …”
“I believe I can limit the damage and still leave you some vestige of reputation. Tell me now, Eminence, yes or no?”
“Have you told the Secretary of State about this?”
“I remind you that it was he who arranged our first meeting at your request. I quote him verbatim: ‘You may even find some ground of compassion which would encourage him to confront his accusers. You may perhaps break through to the real man behind the enamel.’”
There was a longish silence on the line. Then Aquino asked:
“How will you arrange this?”
“Rosalia Lodano is here. You should speak with her first. Then we should all meet Mademoiselle Guillermin.”
“Who else will be there?”
“Señora Ortega. It was she who put me in touch with Rosalia Lodano.”
“What is her standing in all this?”
“Rather like mine, a friend of the court. Well, what do you say?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“I think that’s a wise decision,” said Luca Rossini. “Very wise.”
When he went back to report the conversation to the two women, he found Rosalia Lodano quite hostile.
“The more I think of this, the less I like it, a private talk in a private room. Afterwards, everyone has a different version. This is what happens always, here and at home: soft words, careful phrases, a promise to study the matter further – then nothing.”
“We shall record the talks,” said Rossini calmly. “You shall have the original tape. Much more important, however, is what you will get out of the meeting.”
“We have to get him into court!”
“No, Señora!” Rossini was curt. “You will never do it. I have seen your documents. You will bleed yourselves of money and of life, but you do not have a case to bring to court.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because it’s a fact, clear from your own files. In any legal sense, Aquino is not a criminal; on what I have read in your dossier, you will never get an indictment against him either in Italy or the Hague.”
“So why am I wasting time here?”
“Because this afternoon you have the chance to bring the story once again to world attention, implant it more deeply in world memory, so that the shadow of guilt hangs always over the perpetrators. As for Aquino, his previous silence may yet be a powerful witness in your cause. If you can get him to admit to moral guilts, then you will have won a great victory.”
“Can you guarantee he will admit anything?”
“I believe he can be brought to it, yes. His consent to this afternoon’s meeting puts him halfway along the road.”
“And the rest of the journey?”
“I believe I can coax him further.”
The two women stared at him in astonishment. Isabel uttered a warning.
“You’ve arranged the meeting, Luca. Already that’s a great deal. Is it wise for you to conduct the discussion?”
“I’m not sure. That is, in any case, a choice for Señora Lodano. The fact is that I can use words and arguments which she would find too bitter in her mouth. I can judge the impact of those words on Aquino. In their own context they may prove more potent than any reproaches pronounced upon him in the name of the absent ones. However, I am equally prepared to be mute and let her conduct her own dialogue.”
The old woman sat in silence for a few moments, then she said abruptly:
“Why do you think you can plead our case better than we can?”
“I cannot plead it better. I may deliver you a quicker result and perhaps a better one than you will otherwise get.”
“Convince me of that, Eminence. Convince me that we should trust you so far!”