by Morris West
But Roman policy had long since determined that no Pope should recant or attempt to explain the mistakes of his predecessors. Silence was prescribed as the safest remedy – silence, secrecy and the incredible tolerance of believers whose need of faith was greater than their disgust for its faithless ministers. But their tolerance was wearing thin and their faith was sorely tried by the garbles and glosses of its official interpreters. For them, the only time of salvation was now.
The only hope of easement was a grand illusion; a universal amnesty, a single cleansing act of repentance, universally acknowledged. But if the man who called himself the Vicar of Christ could not contemplate a public penitence, who else would dare dream it?
Decades ago, the good Pope John had acknowledged the errors and tyrannies of the past. He had called a great Council, to open the minds of the People of God and let the wind of the Spirit blow through the assembly. For a brief while there was a surge of hope and charity, a message of peace for warring nations. Then the hope waned, and the charity cooled, and Ludovico Gadda came to power on the wave of mistrust and fear that followed. He saw himself at first as the stabiliser, the great restorer, the man who would bring unity back into a community wearied and divided by a chase after novelties.
But it had not turned out so. In the privacy of his own conscience, at this moment of close encounter with Brother Death, he had to admit defeat and default. If he could not close the widening breach between Pontiff and people, then he had not merely wasted his life, but laid waste the City of God.
He looked at his watch. It was still only eight-thirty. Desiring to be spared the humiliation of his illness, he had declined all visitors on this first night in the clinic. Now, he regretted it. He needed company, as a thirsting man needed water. For Ludovico Gadda, called Leo XIV, Bishop of Rome, Patriarch of the West, Successor to the Prince of the Apostles, it promised to be a long, restless night.
At eighty years of age, Anton Cardinal Drexel had two secrets which he guarded jealously. The first was his correspondence with Jean Marie Barette, formerly Pope Gregory XVII, now living in a secret Alpine retreat in southern Germany. The second was the pleasure of his old age, a small villa estate in the Alban Hills, some fifteen minutes’ drive from the Villa Diana.
He had bought it many years before from Valerio Cardinal Rinaldi, who had been Camerlengo at the time of the election of Kiril I. The purchase had been pure indulgence. Valerio Rinaldi had been a papal prince in the old mode – a scholar, a humanist, a sceptic, a man of much kindness and humour. Drexel, recently made a cardinal and translated to Rome, had envied both his lifestyle and the skill with which he navigated the shoals and over-falls of Curial life. Rinaldi had made a generous deal with him and he entered with zest and skill into his existence as an elderly anonymous gentleman retired to the country.
Then, an extraordinary thing happened. At seventy years of age, Anton Cardinal Drexel, Dean of the Sacred College, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, fell hopelessly in love.
The manner of it was very simple. One warm spring day, dressed in country clothes, checked shirt, corded trousers and hobnailed boots, he walked the five kilometres into Frascati to discuss the sale of his wine to a local cantina. The orchard trees were in flower, the new grass was ankle high, the first young tendrils were greening on the vines. In spite of his years, he felt supple and limber and ready to walk as far as the road would take him.
He had always loved the old town, with its baroque cathedral, its crumbling palace and the dark, cavernous wine shops in the back alleys. Once upon a time it had been the episcopal seat of His Serene Highness, Henry Benedict Mary Clement, Cardinal Duke of York, last of the Stuarts, who had once proclaimed himself Henry IX of England. Now it was a prosperous tourist resort, filled with a weekend horror of motor vehicles and petrol fumes. But in the cobbled lanes the charm of the past still lingered, and the old-fashioned courtesies of country folk.
Drexel’s destination was a deep cave hewn into the tufa rock, where great tuns of ancient oak lined the walls and the serious drinkers and buyers sat at long refectory tables, with dusty bottles and plates of green olives set in front of them. The padrone, who knew Drexel only as il Tedesco – the German – haggled a while over the price and the delivery, then agreed to accept a sample consignment and opened a bottle of his best vintage to seal the bargain.
After a few moments, the padrone left him to attend to another customer. Drexel sat relaxed in the half-light, watching the small passage of people on the sunlit pavement outside the entrance. Suddenly, he felt a tug at his trouser leg and heard a strange gurgling sound, like water swirling down a pipe. When he looked down he saw a cascade of blonde curls, an angelic little girl-face and a flurry of spidery legs and arms that seemed to have no co-ordinated connection with the tiny body. The voice was out of control too, but the mouth seemed to be trying to form sequential sounds. ‘Ma-no-no, ma-no-no …’
Drexel lifted the child on to the table, so that she sat facing him. Her tiny marmoset hands, soft as silk, groped at his face and hair. Drexel talked to her soothingly.
‘Hullo, little one! What’s your name? Do you live around here? Where is your mama?’
But all he got was the agonised twisting of the mouth and the sound gurgling out of the tiny gullet. ‘Ma-no-no, ma-no-no.’ Yet she was not afraid. Her eyes smiled at him and there was, or seemed to be, a light of intelligence in them. The padrone came back. He knew the child by sight. He had seen her before, sometimes with a mother, sometimes with a nurse. They came to Frascati for shopping. They didn’t belong in town, but maybe to one of the villas in the near countryside. He had no name for them, but the mother seemed to be foreign. She was a bionda, like this one. He shook his head sadly.
‘Poor little mite. You have to think God must be dozing when he makes mistakes like this one.’
‘Do you think you’re a mistake, little one?’ Drexel stroked the blonde curls. ‘I’m sure you know angel talk. I don’t. What are you trying to tell me?’
‘I’ve got fifteen grandchildren,’ the padrone told him. ‘Not a runt among ’em. A man can be lucky. What about you?’
Drexel smiled and shook his head.
‘No children. No grandchildren.’
‘That’s hard, for a wife especially. A woman always needs someone to cluck over.’ ‘No wife,’ said Drexel.
‘Well then!’ The padrone seemed embarrassed. ‘Maybe you’re the lucky one. Families keep you poor – and when you’re dead they pick you bare like vultures. Would you like me to call the police and let them know we’ve got this one?’
‘I could perhaps take her outside and look for the mother.’ ‘Not a good idea!’ The padrone was very firm about it. ‘Once you leave here with her, you’re suspect. Abduction, abuse. That’s the times we live in. Not our folk here, but the forestieri, the outsiders. You could have a hell of a time proving different. Best you sit there and let me call the cops.’
‘Do you have something for her to eat or drink – an aranciata, a biscuit perhaps? Do you like sweet things, little one?’
The tiny soft hands groped at his face and she said, ‘Ma-no-no, ma-no-no.’
The padrone produced a saucer of sweet biscuits and a glass of aransoda. The child slopped over the drink, but Drexel steadied her and wiped her lips with his handkerchief. He helped her to manipulate the biscuit into her mouth. A woman’s voice spoke behind him.
‘I’m her mother. I hope she hasn’t been too much trouble to you.’
‘No trouble at all. We’re getting along famously. What’s her name?’
‘Britte.’
‘She seems to be trying to tell me something. It sounds like Ma, no, no.’ The woman laughed.
‘That’s as close as she can get to Nonno. She thinks you look like her grandfather. Come to think of it, you do … He’s tall and white-haired like you.’
‘Aren’t you worried about her being lost?’
‘She wasn’t lost. I was just across the street in the salumeria.
I saw her come in here. I knew she would come to no harm. The Italians care for children.’
The child scrabbled awkwardly for another biscuit. Drexel fed it to her. He asked: ‘What’s the matter with her?’
‘Cerebral diplegia. It’s due to a defect of the nerve cells in the central cortex of the brain.’
‘Is there any cure?’
‘In her case, there’s hope of improvement, but no cure. We work very hard with her to establish muscular co-ordination and adequate speech. Fortunately, she’s one of the special ones.’
‘Special?’
‘In spite of the lack of muscular co-ordination and the almost incoherent speech, she has a very high intelligence. Some victims verge on idiocy. Britte could turn out to be a genius. We just have to find ways to break into this – this prison.’
‘I’m being very rude,’ said Anton Drexel. ‘Won’t you sit down and take a glass of wine with me? Britte hasn’t finished her drink or her biscuits. My name is Anton Drexel.’
‘I’m Tove Lundberg …’
And that was the beginning of the love affair between an elderly Cardinal of the Curia and a six-year-old girl-child, a victim of cerebral palsy. His enchantment was instant, his commitment total. He invited the mother and child to lunch with him at his favourite trattoria. Tove Lundberg drove him home, where he introduced the child to the married couple who cared for him, and the gardener and the cellar master who made his wines. He announced that he had been officially adopted as her nonno and that henceforth she would be visiting every weekend.
If they were surprised they gave no sign. His Eminence could be very formidable when he chose – and besides, in the old hill towns discretion about the doings of the clergy and the gentry was a long ingrained tradition. The child would be welcome; the signora also, whenever His Eminence decided to invite them.
Afterwards, on the belvedere, looking out over the fall of the land towards the hazy cupolas of Rome, confidences were exchanged while the child limped happily among the flowerbeds. Tove Lundberg was unmarried; her partner’s love had not been strong enough to bear the tragedy of a maimed love-child. The break-up of the union was somehow less tragic than the damage to her own self-image and self-esteem as a woman. So, she had fought shy of new attachments and devoted herself to her career and to the care and education of the girl. Her medical training had helped. Salviati had been more than supportive. He had offered to marry her; but she was not ready yet, perhaps she would never be. One day at a time was enough … As for His Eminence, she would not have taken him for a sentimentalist or an impulsive man. What in fact did he have in mind when he proposed himself as a surrogate grandfather? A shade less eloquently than was his wont, Anton Cardinal Drexel explained his folly …
‘According to some of the most ancient protocols in the western world, I am a prince – a prince of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. I am the most senior member of the College of Cardinals, Prefect of a Congregation, member of Secretariats and Commissions – the perfect and perfected ecclesiastical bureaucrat. At seventy-five I shall offer my resignation to the Holy Father. He will accept it, but ask me to continue working, sine die, so that the Church may have the benefit of my experience. But the older I get, the more I feel that I shall leave this planet the way a snowflake disappears, without a trace, without a single permanent imprint to mark my passing. What little love I have left is withering inside me like a walnut in the shell. I should like to spend the last of it on this child. Why? God knows! She took possession of me. She asked me to be her nonno. Every child should have two grandfathers. So far she has only one.’ He laughed at his own earnestness. ‘In another age, I’d have kept mistresses and bred my own children and called them, for decency, nephews and nieces. I would have enriched them out of the coffers of the Church and made sure my sons became bishops and my daughters married nobly. I can’t do that for Britte, but I can get her whatever training and therapy she needs. I can give her time and love.’
‘I wonder,’ Tove Lundberg was suddenly withdrawn and thoughtful, ‘I wonder if you will understand what I am about to say.’
‘I can try.’
‘What Britte needs is the company of her peers, children who are handicapped but of high intelligence. She needs the inspiration of loving and enlightened teachers. The institute which she attends now is run by Italian nuns. They are good, they are devoted, but they have the Latin view of institutional life. They dispense charity and care by routine, old-fashioned routine … That works for children who are mentally handicapped and who tend to be docile and responsive. But for those like Britte, imprisoned intelligences, it is far, far from enough. I don’t have the time or the money, but what I would love to see started is a group, what the Italians call a colonia, properly staffed with trained people from Europe and America, supported by parent groups, subsidised if possible by the State and the Church.’ She broke off and made a little shrugging gesture of self-mockery. ‘I know it’s impossible, but it would be one way to getting yourself a late-life family.’
‘For that,’ said Anton Drexel, ‘one needs more life than I have at my disposal. However, if God has endowed me with a granddaughter, He will hardly deny me the grace to perform my duties towards her. Let’s walk awhile. I’ll show you what we have here, the vineyards, the farmland. Then you will choose the room where you and Britte will stay whenever you visit … A colonia, eh? A colony of new intelligences to grace this battered planet! I’m sure I can’t afford it, but the idea is wonderful!’
And that, whenever he looked backwards, was the day he identified as the beginning of his career as a surrogate grandfather to Britte Lundberg and sixteen other girls and boys who, year by year, had taken over his villa, most of his income, and the happiest corner of his life – from which small, secret standing place he now proposed to launch the most foolhardy venture of his career.
Three
It was ten o’clock when the night nurse came in to settle the Pontiff and give him a sedative. It was nearly one in the morning before he lapsed into an uneasy sleep, haunted by a serial dream.
… He was at his desk in the Vatican surrounded by expectant dignitaries, the highest in the Church: patriarchs, archbishops, of every rite and nationality – Byzantine, Melchite, Italo–Greek, Malakanese, Ruthenians, Copts, Bulgars and Chaldeans. He was writing a document which he intended to read aloud to them, seeking their approval and endorsement. Suddenly, he seemed to lose control of his fingers. The pen slipped from his grasp. His secretary picked it up and handed it back to him; but now it was a goose-quill, too light to handle, which dribbled ink and moved scratchily on the paper.
For some reason, he was writing in Greek instead of Latin, because he was anxious to impress on the Byzantines that he was open to their spirit and understanding of their needs. Suddenly he blocked on a word. All he could remember was the first letter – μ. The Patriarch of Antioch reproved him gently: ‘It is always safer to use a translator who has the language as a mother tongue.’ The Pontiff nodded a reluctant agreement, but continued to grope for the word among the cobwebs that seemed to have invaded his mind.
Next, still holding the paper, he found himself walking across St Peter’s Square to the Via del Sant’Ufficio. It seemed important that he confer with the Consultors to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for an explanation of the mysterious letter. They were vigilant guardians of the ancient truth, who would first rise to salute the Vicar of Christ and then enlighten him with their wisdom.
They did nothing of the kind. When he entered the aula where the Consultors were assembled, they sat like mutes, while the Prefect pointed to a stool where he must sit, isolated under their hostile scrutiny. The paper was taken from his hand and passed around the assembly. As each one read it, he clucked and shook his head and mouthed the sound ‘Mu’, so that soon the room was full of the bourdon as it were of swarming bees: Mu … Mu … Mu …
He tried to cry out, to protest that they were making a travesty of a m
ost important encyclical, but the only sound he could utter was Mu … Mu … until, for very shame, he fell silent, closed his eyes and waited for their verdict. Out of the darkness a voice commanded him: ‘Open your eyes and read!’
When he obeyed, he found himself a boy again, in a dusty classroom, staring at a blackboard upon which was written the word which had eluded him for so long, A great sense of relief Hooded through him. He cried out: ‘You see, that’s what I was trying to say – Metanoia, repentance, a change of heart, a new direction.’ But no one answered. The room was empty. He was alone.
Then the door opened and he froze in terror at the vision that confronted him: an old, eagle-beaked man, with furrows of anger about his mouth and eyes black as volcanic glass. As the man moved towards him, silent and threatening, he screamed, but the sound would not come. It was as if a noose were knotted around his neck, cutting off air and life …
The night nurse and a young male orderly helped him to get up. While the orderly remade his tangled bed, the nurse walked him into the bathroom, peeled off his sodden pyjamas, sponged the sweat from his body, then brought him clean night clothes and a cool drink. When he thanked her and apologised for putting her to trouble, she laughed.
‘The first night in hospital is always a bad one. You’re full of fears that have to be dreamed out because you can’t put them into words. The sedatives get you to sleep, but they can disturb the normal rhythms of rest and dreaming … You’re better now. Your pulse rate’s steadying down. Why don’t you read for a little while? You’ll probably doze off again
‘What time is it, please?’
‘Three in the morning.’
‘Then it’s bad luck, isn’t it?’
‘Bad luck? I don’t understand.’