The Fifth Gospel

by Ian Caldwell

  Mignatto clenches his teeth. He takes the phone and turns his back on me. The last thing I hear him say as he leaves is, “Father, you aren’t listening to me. I don’t ask the questions. Only the judges do.”

  * * *

  I’M TOO ANXIOUS TO leave, so I decide to stay outside the courtroom. Minutes later, the first witness comes walking up on foot.

  It’s old Bishop Pacomio, former rector of Simon’s seminary, the Capranica. He’s an overweight, balding man with a broad, wise forehead and serious eyes. Though he wears a plain priest suit, the thick gold pectoral cross on his chest says he’s more than a priest: for almost a decade he’s been a bishop in the Archdiocese of Turin. To the judges he will also be a minor celebrity—author of books and broadcaster of TV programs. Mignatto is opening with a bang: Bishop Pacomio has traveled four hundred miles to put in a good word for my brother.

  As the gendarmes open the courtroom door for him, I get a peek inside. The three judges sit at the bench with expressions like pallbearers. Behind them is a wooden façade like a mausoleum entrance, overhung by a black iron crucifix.

  Then the door closes, and I’m blind again. The waiting begins. For the next fifty minutes I pace the dusty courtyard, unsure how else to help. Then Bishop Pacomio resurfaces, looking placid. I want to ask how it went, but he wouldn’t be allowed to answer me. The oaths of court forbid it. So I watch him trot away, and I check my phone for any message from Mignatto.

  Nothing.

  Soon after, a lowly Volkswagen Golf pulls up with its windows rolled down. It disgorges a man I haven’t seen in a decade: Father Stransky, who worked with my father in the Christian Unity office back when it was nothing but a Vatican-owned apartment with a bathtub for its filing cabinet. Time has bleached his hair and lengthened his face, but he stops in front of me, stares quizzically, then makes the connection. “My heavens,” he says. “It’s little Alex Andreou!”

  “Father Tom.”

  He embraces me as if I were a son, and I wonder how Mignatto could possibly have tracked him down. Last I heard, he was the rector of an institute in Jerusalem.

  “Just happened to be in Rome,” he says with a wink. “Fortuity, I guess.”

  Lucio. Only Lucio could have flushed these men out of the woodwork. I wonder if he paid to fly them here overnight.

  Father Tom lowers his voice. “So what did your brother get himself into?”

  “Father, he didn’t do anything wrong. He just won’t tell the judges he’s innocent.”

  Stransky shakes his head. Simon in a nutshell. He points to the door and says, “Join me?”

  When I explain that I can’t, he smiles and says, “Well, let’s pray I don’t make an ass of myself. Haven’t dusted off ye olde canon law in a decade.”

  Modest words from a living legend. Working with two cardinals, Father Tom drafted a historic Church document on the future of our relations with non-Christians. Though he can’t testify to anything except Simon’s behavior as a young man, Mignatto’s strategy seems clear: to dazzle the judges with my brother’s character witnesses.

  An hour passes. Father Tom leaves. The third witness arrives—and he’s a showstopper.

  Archbishop Collaço is the former nuncio at Simon’s first posting in Bulgaria. Born in India, trained in Rome, Collaço is one of the most senior of all Vatican diplomats, the embodiment of Secretariat service. In his quarter-century career he’s been nuncio to a dozen countries. Today he wears a pure white cassock with purple sash, the attire worn by priests in the tropics, which lends even more dignity to his arrival. I have no trouble understanding the reason he’s here. Mignatto and Lucio are sending an important message: the Secretariat stands behind Simon even if its leader doesn’t.

  A final hour passes. Then, at two o’clock, Archbishop Collaço is followed by the last of the defense’s character witnesses. This time, I can’t believe my eyes.

  Even Lucio must’ve been hard-pressed to pull strings this high. Cardinal Tauran is a Secretariat giant. There was a time when people said he would become the new Cardinal Secretary, replacing Boia and revolutionizing our relations with the Orthodox. Then Tauran was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, just like John Paul, so out of concern for his health he was transferred to the less demanding job of Librarian of the Holy Roman Church. But not before getting to know Simon in a diplomacy class His Eminence taught at the Academy. The papal librarian is about to finger my brother as one of his favorite pupils.

  Tauran slips by discreetly, lowering his head and smiling self-­consciously. With that, the pieces of the defense are assembled. I wish I could be inside to see the judges’ faces as they witness this conveyor belt of Church celebrities. No wonder Lucio wanted to watch it for himself.

  At three o’clock, Tauran exits. The stage is now set for Simon. Since most Vatican offices close at one o’clock, and workers are given at least an afternoon break during longer shifts, I expect the judges to declare a recess first. So I wait by the door for Mignatto, preparing to celebrate with him about a triumphant opening.

  But no one comes. The longer the silence stretches, the more I feel unease spreading behind my ribs. They’re waiting for Simon. And Simon isn’t coming.

  Twenty minutes later, a sedan pulls up. The driver exits, opens the rear door, and waits. The courtroom doors swing open. My uncle descends in a huff.

  “What’s happening?” I say.

  But Lucio walks straight past me and into the waiting car. A moment later, it pulls away. I turn back to find Mignatto standing behind me.

  “Did something go wrong?” I say.

  “No word from Cardinal Boia,” Mignatto growls.

  “How can they treat Simon this way?”

  The monsignor doesn’t answer.

  “Is my uncle coming back?”

  “No.”

  I clear my throat. “So I can come inside the courtroom?”

  He wheels on me. “You need to understand something. I can’t properly defend your brother if your family continues to take matters into its own hands.”

  “Monsignor, I’m sorry. But Ugo’s phone will—”

  “I know what the phone will do. If you can’t agree to what I’m asking, then I can’t agree to represent your brother.”

  “I understand.”

  “Everything else you consider doing, you come to me first.”

  “Okay. Agreed.”

  My acquiescence seems to calm him. “Very well,” he says. “The final deposition is in an hour. Get some lunch and meet me back here in fifty minutes.”

  I’m supposed to pick up Peter in an hour, but that will have to wait. “Who’s testifying?”

  “Doctor Bachmeier.”

  Ugo’s assistant curator. This must be how the judges will learn about the exhibit.

  “I’ll be here,” I tell him.

  * * *

  AT FOUR THIRTY, THE doors open. Mignatto leads me to a table on the right side of the courtroom. I see an identical table on the left for the prosecution, led by a priest with the ancient title of promoter of justice. Flanking him is the all-important notary, without whom the proceedings are void. Then comes the gallery behind us, rows upon rows of vacant chairs. Finally, a third small table with a microphone stands between the defense and prosecution. On the table are a pitcher of water and a glass. I don’t have to guess who’ll sit there.

  Mignatto whispers, “It is not our place to ask questions. If you hear things you disagree with, write them down. If I consider the questions useful, I can submit them to the judges.”

  “Please be seated,” says the presiding judge.

  Then the gendarmes admit Dr. Bachmeier, a tweedy layman with a thatchy beard and poorly combed hair. I met him twice when Ugo and I were working together, and I know Ugo kept him in the dark. I doubt he really knows much about the exhibit.

  The notary rises to swear
him in. There are two oaths: an oath of secrecy and an oath of truthfulness. Bachmeier looks slightly cowed as he agrees to both.

  “Please identify yourself,” says the presiding judge. He’s a gentle-­faced monsignor with an old-fashioned appearance, his eyeglasses large and black-framed, his full head of graying hair combed back with tonic into a shiny little pompadour. I don’t recognize him, or either of the other two monsignors on the bench, so Mignatto must’ve been right: any judge who knew Simon has had to recuse himself. Instead this monsignor’s accent is Polish, which would make him one of the judges appointed to the Rota during the beginning of John Paul’s pontificate. But for having that much experience, he still seems uncomfortable on the bench. His voice is unimposing, his body language tentative. When the time comes for the judges to meet in private and vote on sentencing, it’s hard to imagine this man bending others to his will.

  To his left is a much younger judge, still in his late forties, a ­friendly-looking man with tightly cropped hair. He has the air of a new student, eager to please. The last of the three is a grizzled bulldog with a clifflike brow and accusing eyes. He’s older than the others and wears his irritation plainly. Instinct tells me he’s the one this case will rest on.

  “My name is Andreas Bachmeier. I am curator of medieval and Byzantine art at the Vatican Museums.”

  “You may sit,” says the presiding judge. “Doctor Bachmeier, we’re here to establish why Doctor Ugolino Nogara might have been killed. You worked with Doctor Nogara?”

  “To an extent.”

  “Tell us what you know about his exhibit.”

  Bachmeier plucks at his bushy eyebrows in a sour, querulous way. He seems to find the question open-ended. “Ugolino wasn’t very forthcoming about his work,” he says.

  “Nevertheless,” says the lead judge.

  Bachmeier looks down at the tip of his nose, gathering his thoughts. Finally he says, “The exhibit shows that the radiocarbon tests on the Shroud of Turin were wrong. The Shroud existed in the Christian East for most of the first millennium as a mystical relic called the Image of Edessa.”

  The judges glance at each other. One of them murmurs something inaudible. My muscles are tense as I wait to see if Bachmeier can establish the groundwork the prosecution needs. Only one motive can possibly be pinned on Simon for killing Ugo: that Ugo was about to reveal our theft of the Shroud from Constantinople in 1204. If Bachmeier doesn’t know about 1204, then today has been a triumph for the defense.

  The young judge says, “All of that comes as surprising and wonderful news. But how much of it was Father Andreou aware of ?”

  “I don’t know. I met him only a few times and never asked him. But he was very close to Ugolino, so I’m sure he knew much more about the exhibit than I do.”

  “And can you think of a reason,” the lead judge says, “why the defendant would’ve been motivated to kill Doctor Nogara because of what he knew?”

  Even before Bachmeier answers, I’m thrilled. This is asking him for more information than he can possibly provide. Even if he knows about 1204, almost nobody is aware that Simon invited Orthodox clergy to attend. I glance at Mignatto and notice a certain gleam in his eye. Maybe this question came from a list of suggestions he gave the judges.

  Bachmeier, though, takes us both by surprise.

  “Yes,” he says. “I can imagine a reason. We recently discovered that one of the most important parts of the exhibit has disappeared. Someone took the Diatessaron manuscript from a locked display case.”

  I launch from my seat in disbelief. Before I can speak, Mignatto’s hand is on my arm, pulling me back. The promoter of justice stares at us from the prosecution table.

  “You’re suggesting Father Andreou stole the book?” asks the presiding judge.

  “All I know,” Bachmeier says, “is that the day after Ugolino was killed, Father Andreou came into the museum and made a change to the exhibit. He removed a photographic enlargement showing a page from the Diatessaron, and when I asked him about it, he offered no explanation.”

  I hastily scribble a note to Mignatto.

  He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. There are still Diatessaron photos on the walls.

  Mignatto mouths, You’re sure?

  When I nod, he rises and says to the judges, “Permission to approach?”

  They wave him forward. A hushed parley follows. Then Mignatto returns to our table, looking stiff.

  The young judge says, “Doctor Bachmeier, did Father Andreou remove all the photographic enlargements?”

  “After I questioned him about the first one, he didn’t touch the ­others.”

  Mignatto frowns. This isn’t the impression he wanted to leave the judges with. But it’s a dead end. I’m more concerned about the Diatessaron. I wonder what the stains on Ugo’s hands mean. Whether it’s possible he brought the manuscript to Castel Gandolfo, and now it has vanished.

  “Doctor Bachmeier,” the lead judge says, “can you think of a reason why—”

  But the question is interrupted by the opening of the door at the rear of the courtroom. Its sound perforates the quiet hum of the proceedings. I turn.

  A tall, doughy-faced man enters. He has downcast eyes and wears a plain black cassock. Soundlessly he sits on the last bench in the courtroom, trying not to attract attention. No gendarme stops him. And almost immediately his presence makes a stir. Even the judges are staring.

  “Please,” the soft-faced man says in Polish-inflected Italian. “Continue.”

  He has lived inside these walls for twenty-six years but has never shed his accent.

  “Your Grace,” the presiding bishop says, “may we help you?”

  “No, no,” says Archbishop Nowak, sounding contrite about the commotion. “I am here only to observe.”

  The judges are unsettled. It’s one thing to be observed. It’s another thing to be observed by the eyes and ears of the pope.

  “Doctor Bachmeier,” the presiding judge repeats, “can you think of any reason why the accused would want to steal the manuscript?”

  I find these questions absurd. There’s no evidence to suggest Simon ever laid a finger on the book.

  “Pardon,” comes a voice from behind us. Nowak again. “What is this question?”

  The judge explains what Bachmeier has revealed about the theft of the Diatessaron.

  “My apologies,” Nowak says. “You may ask another question, please.”

  The judge tries to parse what the archbishop means. Looking uncertain, he decides to repeat his question to Bachmeier.

  But Nowak interrupts, “My apologies. No more about this, please. The topic is now outside the dubium.”

  Two of the judges glance at each other. I whisper to Mignatto, “What’s the dubium?”

  Mignatto doesn’t answer. He stares at Archbishop Nowak in what seems to be shock.

  The presiding judge riffles through the papers before him, then holds one in the air to read from it. “Your Grace,” he says, “I have the joinder in front of me, and it says the dubium is whether Father—”

  Nowak raises a hand in the air and says in a mild voice, “His Holiness commands a change in the dubium. No more on this topic, please.”

  Mignatto scribbles something blindly on the pad between us.

  Dubium: what is to be proved. The scope of the trial.

  The presiding judge is so surprised that he says something to Archbishop Nowak in Polish. The older judge asks, “Which topic is His Holiness referring to, Grace?”

  “The exhibit of Doctor Nogara,” Nowak says.

  Mignatto seems frozen. His eyes never leave Nowak. But under the table he clamps his hand on my forearm and squeezes. If the tribunal can’t hear about the exhibit, then Simon has no possible motive. The trial is all but over.

  “Are you sure, Your Grace?” the presiding judge asks
.

  Across the courtroom, the promoter of justice is agog.

  Archbishop Nowak nods. “You may continue, if you wish, with another topic.”

  At the witness table, Bachmeier clears his throat. He isn’t competent to speak on any other topic.

  The judges confer. Finally the presiding judge says, “Doctor Bachmeier, you are excused. The tribunal will adjourn until tomorrow.”

  Nowak rises. The gendarmes open the doors for him, and he quietly shuffles out.

  Mignatto calmly opens his briefcase. He places the legal pad inside, then seems to remember something and jots a note on it. The promoter of justice is already buzzing nearby, hovering between the defense table and the bench, waiting to confer.

  “I’ll call you later,” Mignatto says to me. Before closing the briefcase, he tears off the top sheet, folds it over, and hands it to me. Then he joins the promoter on his way to meet with the judges.

  Archbishop Nowak is already gone when I reach the courtyard outside. I sit on a bench by the gas station and close my eyes to collect myself. Few times in my life have I felt more acutely that my prayers have been answered. Then I open the sheet of legal paper. On it, Mignatto has written a single line:

  I think we just found out who your brother’s guardian angel is.

  CHAPTER 26

  AS I WALK back to the village to pick up Peter, I look at the papal palace in the distance and wonder about what I’ve just seen. Boia is trying to force Simon to talk. Nowak is trying to keep the exhibit a secret. Battle lines seem to crisscross the palace. If John Paul supports the exhibit—if he supports Simon—then none of this should be happening. He has the power to stop the trial; he has the power to bring Cardinal Boia to heel. But when a pope nears death, he sometimes finds that old friends are wolves in priests’ clothing. Archbishop Nowak has been forced to play the role of illusionist, creating the mirage of a strong pope to stave off a power vacuum. That mirage can last only so long.

  What puzzles me most is the disappearance of the Diatessaron and where it might be now. Why would Ugo have taken it from the museum? To distract the Orthodox at Castel Gandolfo from the news about 1204? Or to prove something to them? The last time Ugo and I worked on the Diatessaron, he proposed a theory that could’ve sealed the final gap in his research. If true, it would’ve proven that the Shroud came to Edessa in the hands of one of Jesus’ disciples. And it would’ve located that proof in the Bible itself.