TEN

NICOLAE CARPATHIA and Leon Fortunato walked and talked until dawn, stopping to take in the beauty of the Romanian sunrise over the Carpathian Mountains. Peter and a bodyguard discreetly stayed about a hundred feet behind them.

The men traded life stories, hopes, dreams, plans. While Nicolae had not yet said it in so many words, it had to be clear to Fortunato that he was being vetted for a role in Carpathia’s future.

The more they talked, the more specific Nicolae became and the more questions he asked. Fortunato soon sounded like a man selling himself, but he was subtle. It was, Nicolae decided, as if it was clear to both men what each wanted, but neither would put it on the table.

Finally they retired back to the anteroom, where Leon slipped on the smoking jacket and Peter had plates of fruit and toast delivered.

“I do not like to play cat and mouse,” Nicolae said at last.

“I figured as much.”

“You are the ultimate kingmaker, Leon. And I want to be king.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Surely you are not surprised to know that I did my homework before accepting your invitation. Your rise in business has been meteoric. Your intelligence has already been celebrated. Your physical prowess is legendary. While you have not announced it publicly, it is getting around that you are restless, eager to expand your horizons, grow your business, widen your influence. Politics cannot be far off.”

“Let me ask you something, Leon. How far would you go to help a man achieve his dreams?”

Leon pushed his plate away a couple of inches and leaned back, crossing his arms. “Ah,” he said. “The true test.”

“I am just curious.”

“Oh, it is more than that and you know it. It is the crux of the matter. I told you I did my homework.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I have an idea how far you will go to achieve your goals.”

“Really? How far?”

“Let me stall by telling you what got me booted from the Catholic university.”

Carpathia loved such stories.

“I told you I loved the pageantry. I never forgot the funeral of one pope and the election of another and all that went with it. What is more beautiful than the red, red, red of the cardinals’ vestments? Even as a student, I always had businesses on the side and, thus, more money than my classmates. Once I had it in my head that I wanted a cardinal’s vestments, nothing could dissuade me. I rushed to the shop at the Vatican, only to have to lie to be able to purchase what I wanted. I was informed that I had to have special permission to buy such garments, so I immediately spun a yarn about it being a gift for my bishop. I said we were the same size, and I was overjoyed when the questions stopped and the measuring began.

“When the vestments were ready and I tried them on before the three-way mirror, I could have gone straight to heaven. I had to harness my emotions to continue the ruse and insist that my bishop would be as thrilled as I was. I wanted to wear them back to my dormitory, but that would have given me away. I couldn’t wait to get back and don them again.

“I wore them everywhere, like a costume. Classmates oohed and aahed. Upperclassmen scowled and derided. I outwitted a professor by telling him I was wearing a rented costume for a masquerade party. He didn’t find it amusing but neither did he imagine it broke any rules. Which was not true of my wearing the getup to classes the next day. Class, singular, would be more like it. By the time I entered my second class, the authorities were waiting for me. I was brought before an administration council, where I was scolded, reprimanded, and instructed to return the ‘costume’ posthaste.

“I tried to tell the council that my true motivation for wearing the elaborate habit was genuine admiration and respect for them. They weren’t buying. They said my devotion belonged to Christ. And you know, Nicolae, it hit me in that moment. While this had all really just been a lark—a compulsion to have and to wear the beautiful garments—I had no real devotion to Christ. I knew He was the object of the worship of the church, was purported to be the Savior of the world, the Son of God. But I simply didn’t believe it.”

“And so?”

“When I was seen, hours later, still traipsing about campus in my vestments, I was summarily expelled.”

“And excommunicated?”

“No. That was threatened. I accomplished that on my own.”

“On your own?”

“I simply stopped being Catholic. No Mass. No prayer. No rosary. No nothing. I had read widely in Theosophy, and while I determined to remain a-religious for the rest of my life, its tenets most resonate with me.”

“And those are, in a nutshell?”

Fortunato turned and stretched his legs, crossing them at the ankles. “The beauty of Theosophy, which is not yet two hundred years old, is that basically everything is okay with them. You can bring your own religion into the mix, as long as you agree that everything you believe from here on out comes from your own intellectual study and not from dogma or tradition or single authorities. We believe all religions are part of man’s effort to relate to one another. And everyone can cooperate.”

“But surely there must be some commonly held beliefs. Otherwise Theosophy becomes everything and nothing.”

Fortunato nodded. “These are not fixed beliefs but rather a way of looking at life. We believe in reincarnation, karma, worlds beyond the physical, consciousness in all matter, physical and spiritual and mental evolution, free will, self-responsibility, altruism, and the ultimate perfecting of human nature, society, and life.”

It sounded like blather to Carpathia, but he wasn’t ready to say so. “Oneness,” he said.

Fortunato nodded. “Oneness is very much a part of it. Our second president, the late Annie Besant, wrote the Universal Invocation. Would you care to hear it?”

“Of course.”

“O Hidden Life, vibrant in every atom;

O Hidden Light, shining in every creature;

O Hidden Love, embracing all in Oneness;

May all who feel themselves as one with Thee

Know they are therefore one with every other.”

Carpathia couldn’t help himself. He howled with laughter.

Fortunato smiled with only his mouth. “What am I missing? This is funny?”

“Hilarious! Has this mishmash of silliness had an iota of impact on the world?”

“It has an impact on its adherents.”

“Really. What impact has it had on you, Leon?”

Finally he truly smiled. “It gives me something to teach. To talk about. It’s harmless.”

“And toothless.”

“Unless—and this is the beauty of it—you bring a bit of your own belief system into it. For instance, among the founders and early leaders are women who were religious, then atheistic, then into Theosophy.”

“As for you, you bring a bit of Catholicism?”

“No. I told you, I never bought into the central theme of that. I believe in the spirit world.”

Nicolae stiffened. He was eager to get back to the subject of the extent to which Fortunato might go to achieve his client’s goals, but now they were getting somewhere.

Irene finally reached the part Rayford had feared and dreaded. She switched off the TV and stood to face him. “The fact is, dear,” she said, “this is not working. We’re not together in the most important areas of life, and something has to change.”

Really. Was she honestly prepared to present an ultimatum, to throw down the gauntlet? “What do you propose changes, Irene? Let me guess. I go whole hog with Jesus, start going to the fundamentalist church, never let golf get in the way of church, and use my influence on Chloe to get her on board too.”

“That would be a start. No, that would be heaven.”

“You’re joking.”

“No,” she said. “Were you? I think you have assessed the situation perfectly.”

“I think you have a blind spot the size of Texas. This isn’t going to happen, Irene, and I’ll tell you why. Chloe is going to make up her own mind with influence from us both. I am not switching churches. And I am not giving up golf or having you tell me what I can or can’t do or when I can or can’t do it. If I miss church for six months, that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in God or I’m not as spiritual as you. And if you think this gives you license to go to the other church behind my back, I forbid it.”

“There’s a twenty-first century man for you. You forbid it?”

“You heard me. It’s embarrassing enough to have you God-talking all the time, even when we have guests. Now enough is enough. I can’t tell you what to believe or how seriously to take it. But you know where I stand, and this is how it’s going to be.”