The Shoes of the Fisherman

by Morris West

  Jean Télémond said nothing. He drew placidly on his pipe, waiting for the Pontiff to finish the thought.

  ‘…A man like Saint Francis of Assisi, for instance. What does he really mean?…A complete break with the pattern of history…A man born out of due time. A sudden unexplained revival of the primitive spirit of Christianity. The work he began still continues…But it is not the same. The revolution is over. The revolutionaries have become conformists. The little brothers of the Little Poor Man are rattling alms-boxes in the railway square or dealing in real estate to the profit of the order.’ He laughed quietly. ‘Of course, that isn’t the whole story. They teach, they preach, they do the work of God as best they know, but it is no longer a revolution, and I think we need one now.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Jean Télémond with a twinkle in his shrewd eyes. ‘Perhaps Your Holiness will be the revolutionary.’

  ‘I have thought about it, Jean. Believe me, I have thought about it. But I do not think even you can understand how limited I am by the very machinery which I inherit, by the historic attitudes by which I am enclosed. It is hard for me to work directly. I have to find instruments apt to my hand. I am young enough, yes, to see big changes made in my lifetime. But there will have to be others to make them for me…You, for instance.’

  ‘I, Holiness?’ Télémond turned a startled face to the Pontiff. ‘My field of action is more limited than yours.’

  ‘I wonder if it is?’ asked Kiril quizzically. ‘Have you ever thought that the Russian revolution, the present might of Soviet Russia, was built on the work of Karl Marx, who spent a large part of his life in the British Museum and is now buried in England? The most explosive thing in the world is an idea.’

  Jean Télémond laughed and tapped out his pipe on a tree-bole. ‘Doesn’t that rather depend on the Holy Office? I have still to pass their scrutiny.’

  Kiril gave him a long, sober look, then quizzed him again. ‘If you fail to pass, Jean, what will you do then?’

  Télémond shrugged. ‘Re-examine, I suppose. I hope I shall have the energy to do it.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Partly because I am afraid, partly because because I am not a well man. I have lived roughly for a long time. I am told my heart is not as good as it should be.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Jean. You must take care of yourself. I shall make it my business to see that you do.’

  ‘May I ask you a question, Holiness?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You have honoured me with your friendship. In the eyes of many – though not in mine – it will seem that you have given your patronage to my work. What will you do if it is found wanting by the Holy Office?’

  To his surprise Kiril threw back his head and laughed heartily. ‘Jean, Jean. There speaks the true Jesuit. What will I do? I shall always be your friend, and I shall pray that you have health and courage to continue your studies.’

  ‘But if I should die before they are done?’

  ‘Does that worry you?’

  ‘Sometimes…Believe me, Holiness, whatever the outcome, I have tried to prepare myself for it. But I am convinced that there is a truth in my researches…I do not want to see it lost or suppressed.’

  ‘It will not be suppressed, Jean. I promise you that.’

  ‘Forgive me, Holiness, I have said more than I should.’

  ‘Why should you apologize, Jean? You have shown me your heart. For a lonely man like me, that’s a privilege… Courage now. Who knows? We may see you a Doctor of the Church yet. Now, if it will not offend your Jesuit’s eyes, the Pope of Rome is going for a swim.’

  When Kiril stripped off his shirt and made ready for the plunge, Jean Télémond saw the marks of the whip on his back, and he was ashamed of his own cowardice.

  Two days later, a courier from Washington delivered to the Pontiff a private letter from the President of the United States:

  …I read with lively interest Your Holiness’s letter and the copies of the two letters from the Premier of the USSR which were handed to me by His Eminence Cardinal Carlin. I agree that we shall need to preserve the most rigid secrecy about this whole situation.

  Let me say first that I am deeply grateful for the information which you give me about your private association with Kamenev, and your views on his character and his intention. I was also deeply impressed by the frank disagreement of Cardinal Carlin. I know that he would not have spoken so freely without the permission of Your Holiness, and I am encouraged to be equally frank with you.

  I have to say that I am very dubious about the value of private conversations at this level. On the other hand, I am happy to pursue them so long as there seems the slightest hope of avoiding the explosive crisis which is inevitable in the next six or twelve months.

  The problem as I see it is both simple and complex. Kamenev has expressed it very well. We are caught in the current of history. We can tack across it, but we cannot change the direction of the flow. The only thing that can do that is an action of such magnitude and such risk that none of us would be allowed to attempt it.

  I could not, for example, commit my country to one-sided disarmament. I could not abandon our claims for a reunification of Germany. I should very much like to be quit of Quemoy and Matsu, but we cannot relinquish them without a serious loss of face and influence in Southeast Asia. I can understand that Kamenev is afraid of the Chinese, yet he cannot abandon an alliance – even a troublesome and dangerous one – which guarantees a solid Communist bloc from East Germany to the Kuriles.

  The most we can hope is to keep the situation elastic, to give ourselves a breathing space for negotiation and historic evolution. We must avoid at all costs a head-on clash, which will inevitably cause a cataclysmic atomic war.

  If a secret correspondence with Kamenev will help at all, I am prepared to risk it, and I am very happy to accept Your Holiness as the intermediary. You may communicate my thoughts to Kamenev and make known to him the contents of this letter. He knows that I cannot move alone, just as he cannot. We both live under the shadow of the same risk.

  I do not belong to Your Holiness’s faith, but I commend myself to your prayers and the prayers of all Christendom. We carry the fate of the world on our shoulders, and if God does not support us, then we must inevitably break under the burden…

  When he had read the letter, breathed a sigh of relief. It was no more than he had hoped, but no less either. The storm clouds were still piled, massive and threatening, over the world, but there was a tiny break in them and one could begin to guess at the sunlight. The problem was now to enlarge the break, and he asked himself how best he might co-operate in doing it.

  Of one thing he was certain: it would be a mistake for the Vatican to assume the attitude of a negotiator, to propose grounds for a bargain. The Church, too, carried the burden of history on her back. Politically she was suspect; but the very suspicion was a pointer to her task – to affirm not the method, but the principles of a human society. capable of survival, capable of ordering itself to the terms of a God-given plan. She was appointed to be a teacher, not a treaty maker. Her task was not to govern men in the material order, but to train them to govern themselves in accordance with the principles of the natural law. She had to accept that the end product – if, indeed, one could talk without cynicism about an end – must always be an approximation, a stage in an evolutionary growth.

  It was this thought that led him once more into the garden of Castel Gandolfo, where Jean Télémond, studious and absorbed, was annotating his papers under the shade of an old oak tree.

  ‘Here you sit, my Jean, writing your visions of a world perfecting itself, while I sit like a telephone operator between two men, each of whom can blast us into smithereens by pressing a button…There’s a dilemma for you. Does your science tell you how to resolve it? What would you do if you were in my shoes?’

  ‘Pray,’ said Jean Télémond with a puckish grin.

  ‘I do, Jean. Every day �
�� all day, for that matter. But prayer isn’t enough, I have to act too. You had to be an explorer before you came to rest in this place. Tell me now, where do I move?’

  ‘In this situation, I don’t think you move at all. You sit and wait for the appropriate moment.’

  ‘You think that’s enough?’

  ‘In the larger sense, no. I think the Church has lost the initiative it should have in the world today.’

  ‘I do, too. I should like to think that in my Pontificate we may be able to get some of it back. I’m not sure how. Do you have any ideas?’

  ‘Some,’ said Jean Télémond crisply. ‘All my life I’ve been a traveller. One of the first things a traveller has to do is learn to accommodate himself to the place and time in which he lives. He has to eat strange food, use an unfamiliar coinage, learn not to blush among people who have no privies, search for the good that subsists in the grossest and most primitive societies. Every individual, every organization, has to sustain a conversation with the rest of the world. He cannot talk always in negatives and contradictions.’

  ‘You think we have done that?’

  ‘Not always, Holiness. But of late, all too often. We have lived to ourselves and for ourselves. When I say we, I mean the whole Church – pastors and faithful alike. We have hidden the lamp of belief under a cover instead of holding it up to illuminate the world.’

  ‘Go on, Jean. Show me how you would display it.’

  ‘This is a plural world, Holiness. We may wish it to be one in faith, hope, and charity. But it is not so. There are many hopes and strange varieties of love. But this is the world we live in. If we want to participate in the drama of God’s action with it, then we must begin with the words we all understand. Justice, for instance. We understand that…But when the Negroes in America seek justice and full citizenship, is it we who lead them? Or we who support most strongly their legitimate demands? You know it is not. In Australia, there is an embargo on coloured migrants. Many Australians feel that this is an affront to human dignity. Do we support their protests? The record shows that we do not. In principle, yes, but in action, no. We proclaim that the Chinese coolie has a right to work and subsistence, but it was not we who led him towards it. It was the men who made “The Long March”. If we object to the price they put on the rice bowl, we must blame ourselves as much as we blame them…If we want to enter once more into the human dialogue then we must seek out whatever common ground is available to us – as I take it Your Holiness is trying to do with Kamenev – the ground of human brotherhood and the legitimate hopes of all mankind…I have thought often about the Gospel scene when Christ held up the coin of the tribute and proclaimed: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s…” To what Caesar? Has Your Holiness ever thought about it? To a murderer, an adulterer, a pederast…But Christ did not abrogate the conversation of the Church with such a one. On the contrary He affirmed it as a duty…’

  ‘But what you show me, Jean, is not one man’s commitment. It is the commitment of the whole Church – Pope, pastors, and five hundred million faithful.’

  ‘True, Holiness – but what has happened? The faithful are uncommitted, only because they lack enlightenment and courageous leadership. They understand risk better than we do. We are protected by the organization. They have only God’s cloak to shelter them. They grapple each day with every human dilemma – birth, passion, death, and the act of love. But if they hear no trumpets, see no crusader’s cross lifted up…’ He shrugged and broke off. ‘Excuse me, Holiness. I am too garrulous, I think.’

  ‘On the contrary, Jean. I find you a very serviceable man. I am glad to have you here.’

  At that moment a servant approached, bringing coffee and iced water, and a letter which had been received that moment at the gate. opened it and read the brief, unceremonious message:

  ‘I am a man who grows sunflowers. I should like to call upon you at ten-thirty tomorrow morning.’

  It was signed: ‘Georg Wilhelm Forster.’

  He proved a surprise in more ways than one. He looked like a Bavarian incongruously dressed by an Italian tailor. He wore thick German shoes and thick myopic spectacles, but his suit and shirt and his tie came from Brioni, and on his small pudgy hand he wore a bezel ring; half as large as a walnut. His manner was deferent, but vaguely ironic as though he were laughing at himself and all he stood for. In spite of his German name, he spoke Russian with a strong Georgian accent.

  When Kiril received him in his study, he went down on one knee and kissed the papal ring; then he sat bolt upright in the chair, balancing his panama hat on his knees, for all the world like a junior clerk being interviewed for a job. His opening words were a surprise too. ‘I understand Your Holiness has received a letter from Robert.’

  Kiril looked up sharply to catch a hint of a smile on the pudgy lips.

  ‘There is no mystery about it, Holiness. It is all a matter of timing. Timing is very important in my work. I knew when Kamenev’s letter would reach the Vatican. I knew when Cardinal Carlin returned to New York. I was told the date and time of his interview with Robert. From that point it was a simple deduction that Robert’s letter would reach you at Castel Gandolfo.’

  Now it was Kiril’s turn to smile. He nodded approval and asked, ‘Do you live in Rome?’

  ‘I have lodgings here. But as you can guess, I travel a good deal…There is an extensive business in sunflower seeds.’

  ‘I imagine there is.’

  ‘May I see Robert’s letter?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Kiril handed the paper across his desk. Forster read it carefully for a few moments, and then passed it back.

  ‘You may have a copy if you like. As you see, the President is perfectly willing that Kamenev should see the letter.’

  ‘No copy will be necessary. I have a photographic memory. It’s worth a lot of money to me. I shall see Kamenev within a week. He will have an accurate transcript of the letter and of my conversation with you.’

  ‘Are you empowered to talk for Kamenev?’

  ‘Up to a certain point, yes.’

  To Kiril’s amazement he quoted verbatim the passage from Kamenev’s second letter:

  ‘“From time to time…you will receive applications for a private audience from a man named Georg Wilhelm Forster. To him you may speak freely, but commit nothing to writing. If you succeed in a conversation with the President of the United States, you should refer to him as Robert. Foolish, is it not, that to discuss the survival of the human race, we must resort to such childish tricks.” ’

  Kiril laughed. ‘That’s an impressive performance. But, tell me, if you know of whom we are speaking why do I have to refer to the President as Robert?’

  Georg Wilhelm Forster was delighted to explain himself. ‘You might call it a mnemonic trick. No man can guard altogether against taking in his sleep, or against verbal slips when he is under questioning…So one practises this kind of dodge. It works too. I’ve never been caught out yet.’

  ‘I hope you won’t be caught out this time.’

  ‘I hope so too, Holiness. This exchange of letters may have long consequences.’

  ‘I should like to be able to guess what they may be.’

  ‘Robert has already pointed to them in his letter.’ He quoted again. ‘“An action of such magnitude and such risk that none of us would be allowed to attempt it.”’

  ‘The proposition contradicts itself,’ said Kiril mildly. ‘Both Kamenev and the President – excuse me, Robert – point to the need for such action, but each in the same breath says that he is not the man to begin it.’

  ‘Perhaps they are looking to a third man, Holiness?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Yourself.’

  ‘If I could promise that, my friend, believe me I should be the happiest man in the world. But as our countryman, Stalin, once remarked, “How many divisions has the Pope?” ’

  ‘It is not a question of divisio
ns, Holiness, and you know it. It is at bottom a question of influence and moral authority. Kamenev believes that you have, or may come to have, such an authority…’ He smiled and added an afterthought of his own. ‘From the little I have learned I should say that Your Holiness has a greater stature in the world than you may realize.’

  Kiril considered the thought for a few moments and then delivered himself of the firm pronouncement. ‘Understand something, my friend. Report it clearly to Kamenev as I have already reported it directly on the other side of the Atlantic. I know how small are our hopes of peace. I am prepared to do anything that is morally right and humanly possible to preserve it, but I will not allow myself or the Church to be used as a tool to advantage one side or the other. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Perfectly. I have only been waiting for Your Holiness to say it. Now may I ask a question?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘If it were possible, and if it seemed desirable, would Your Holiness be prepared to go to another place than Rome? Would you be prepared to use another channel of communication than the Vatican radio and the Vatican press, and the pulpits of Catholic churches?’

  ‘What place?’

  ‘It is not mine to suggest it. I put the proposition as a generality.’

  ‘Then I will answer it as a generality. If I can speak freely, and be reported honestly, I will go anywhere and do anything to help the world breathe freely for however short a time.’

  ‘I shall report that, Holiness. I shall report it very happily. Now there is a practical matter. I understand the Maestro di Camera has a list of those who may be admitted readily to private audience with Your Holiness. I should like my name added to the list.’

  ‘It is already there. You will be welcome at whatever time…Now I too have a message for Kamenev. You will tell him first that I am not bargaining, I am not pleading, I am not making any conditions at all for the free passage of talk through me. I am a realist. I know how much he is limited by what he believes and by the system to which he is subject, as I am subject to mine. This being said, tell him from me that my people suffer in Hungary and Poland and East Germany and in the Baltic. Whatever he can do to ease their burden – be it ever so small – I shall count as done to myself, and I shall remember it with gratitude and in my prayers.’