by Morris West
And that, Nicol Peters recorded, was about as close as one could get to a declaration of war, and it was a sentiment reiterated in all his interviews with Muslim sources around Rome. The Italians understood the sentiment and, for the record at least, expressed sympathy with it. They were bending over backwards to maintain friendly relations all round the Mediterranean rim. The Pope was problem enough – but at least they had been dealing with popes for centuries. The imams and the ayatollahs were another kettle of fish altogether.
The Israelis, however, were much more pragmatic. Menachem Avriel listened to the account of his other interviews and then introduced him to a lean, soldierly fellow with a cool eye and a thin smile and Mossad written all over him. His name – at least for the purpose of the exercise – was Aharon ben Shaul. He had a proposal.
‘I’m going to give you some facts, Mr Peters. Most of them you can’t print; but it’s background you’d never come by otherwise. Then I’m going to make a projection about what may happen very soon. After that, I’m going to ask your advice as a long-time resident with good connections in this city. Deal?’
‘Deal.’
‘First item. Omar Asnan runs the Sword of Islam group in Rome.’ ‘I rather thought he might.’
‘Miriam Latif is an agent of that group. She is in our hands in Israel. We have no present intention of releasing her. She cost us too much to surrender her now.’
‘I don’t understand that.’
‘We had a man inside the Sword of Islam. He was very close to Omar Asnan. When we decided to pick up Miriam Latif we blew his cover. Asnan killed him, in the cellar of his villa.’
‘How can you be sure of that?’
‘Because we have it on record. Our man was wearing a bug in the collar button of his shirt. He had also planted two others, one in the garden and another in the salone of the villa. So we have fragments of later conversations between Omar Asnan and other members of the group. The purport of those conversations is twofold: the assassination of the Pope has been upgraded from a target of opportunity to a target of honour. He is now the Great Shaitan who must be brought down by the Sons of the Prophet, and a woman hostage will be taken to trade off against Miriam Latif. That hostage has been named.’
‘Who is she?’
‘Tove Lundberg, Salviati’s mistress!’ ‘God Almighty! Do they know about this?’ ‘Not yet. We’ve got them both covered and we don’t believe Asnan is ready to make his move yet.’ ‘How can you know that?’
‘Because there’s a fragment on our tape which suggests that Asnan will try to use local muscle to steal the girl – Calabresi or Sicilians probably. Also he knows we’re on to him, so he’s more concerned to cover his own back at this moment.’
‘Can’t you do anything about him?’
‘Of course we can. We’re trying to do it at the least possible cost in terms of reprisals. We know he’s committed murder, we know where the body is. But if the Italians charge him for the murder of an Israeli agent, they’ll make themselves and us very unpopular when the vendetta begins.’
‘And what about the new threat to the Pope?’
‘The Secretary of State will have the evidence m his hands today.’
‘And where do I fit in to all this?’
‘In everything I have told you, the one thing you can’t print is Omar Asnan’s name. The rest we’ll give you – transcripts of the tapes, circumstantial details, everything. We’d like you to file the story as quickly as you can.’
‘And what does that buy you?’
‘Action. The Vatican pressures the Italians. The Italians have to move against Asnan and his group. You reinforce them with the old battle-cry – no negotiation under terror!’
‘And Miriam Latif?’
‘She’s ours as long as she’s useful.’ ‘Salviati?’
‘He’s the safest of all. Nobody wants him dead, not even Asnan.’
‘Tove Lundberg? She’s got a handicapped child. We know that. It’s a complication. For a while at least we have to get her off the scene. She just has to disappear …’
On Saturday afternoon, while the pickers were still at work and the crushers were pouring out the first murky liquor, there was a crisis conference in the garden of the villetta. Present were the Pontiff himself, the Secretary of State, Drexel, Monsignor O’Rahilly and the chief of the Vatican Vigilanza. The Secretary of State read the reports he had received from the Israelis and from the Italians. The Pontiff sat bolt upright in his chair, his jaw and beak clamped together in the old predator look. He spoke with harsh finality: ‘There is no doubt in my mind. I cannot indulge myself in a vacation which puts others at risk. I shall stay here tonight, say Mass as I promised for the children and the parents of the colonia. After that, I shall go to Castel Gandolfo and remain there until the end of the summer vacation … I am sorry, Anton. You have been put to so much trouble, and I am more disappointed than I can say.’
Drexel made a gesture of resignation.
‘Perhaps another time, Holiness.’
‘Perhaps. Now, gentlemen!’ The aura of command enveloped him. He seemed to grow stronger before their eyes. ‘The Pope retires behind the ramparts. He leaves behind a woman who, because of her service with him, is now endangered, not only in her own person, but in that of her child. I take it this danger has not been overstated?’
The question was addressed in the first instance to the Secretary of State.
‘In my view, it has not, Holiness.’
The Vigilanza man confirmed the verdict.
‘The threat is very real, Holiness.’
The Pontiff put another question: ‘Is it not possible for the Italian authorities, with the resources and skills which we know they have, to guarantee protection for this woman and her child?’
‘No, Holiness, it is not. In fact, it is not possible for any police force to do so.’
‘Is it not possible for them to terminate the threat by summary action; for example, by the arrest and detention of the known conspirators?’
‘It might be, given an adequate will on the part of the Italian government; but that government itself is severely handicapped by its vulnerability to terrorist methods. Even if the law is suspended to permit or tolerate unorthodox intervention, the consequences are not always controllable, as we have seen in the present case.’
‘Thank you. A question for you, Anton. Has Tove Lundberg been informed of this threat?’
‘Yes. She telephoned today to ask my advice on what to do about Britte.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘At the clinic, working as usual.’
‘Would you ring and ask her to call in here, before she goes home?’
Drexel hesitated for a moment and then left the room. Monsignor O’Rahilly began a tentative intervention.
‘May I suggest, Holiness …’
‘No, you may not, Malachy!’
‘As Your Holiness wishes.’
The Pontiff was beginning to sweat. He mopped his face with a handkerchief. O’Rahilly handed him a glass of water. When Drexel came back, he was accompanied by Sister Pauline. She went straight to the Pontiff, felt his pulse and announced firmly: ‘This meeting is over. I want my patient in bed.’
It will take only a moment, Sister.’ He turned to the others and said simply: ‘For what has happened I am responsible, at least in part. The risk is real for Tove Lundberg and her child. The protection that can be offered is minimal. Until the threat is removed or greatly reduced, I want them both to come and live within the confines of Vatican City.’ He turned to the Secretary of State. ‘Our good sisters can make room for them and see that they are comfortable.’ Then he addressed himself to Drexel. ‘You are the Nonno of the family, Anton. Try to persuade them both.’
‘I will do my best, Holiness. I can promise no more.’
With the old imperious gesture, the Pontiff dismissed them.
‘Thank you all. You have our leave to go. Sister Pauline, I am ready for you now.
’ As he walked slowly back into the house, the familiar melancholy descended on him like a black cloud. Oblivious even of Sister Pauline, he muttered to himself.
‘I don’t believe it. I simply don’t believe it. The world wasn’t always like this – or was it?’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t,’ said Sister Pauline cheerfully. ‘Our old parish priest used to say the madmen have taken over the asylum; but they’ll get tired of it very soon and hand it back.’
In the chapel of Cardinal Drexel’s villa, designed, so the records said, by Giacomo della Porta, the members of the colonia were assembled: the young ones in front, parents and teachers behind them and, left standing against the rear wall, the few members of the Curia to whom Drexel, the old fox, had offered a personal compliment and a test of their sympathies. Agostini was there, and Clemens from the Doctrine of the Faith, and MacAndrew from the Propagation of the same Faith, and – a long reach from the power-base – Ladislas from the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. Few as they were, they made a crush in the chapel. They also made a sharp reversal of protocol: the people before the princes.
The Pontiff entered, with Drexel as his deacon, Sister Pauline as lector, with a spastic boy and girl as acolytes.
Some, but not all, of the ritual subtlety was lost on Sergio Salviati and Tove Lundberg, who sat, with Britte between them, in the front row of the congregation. Salviati was wearing his yarmulke. Tove was wearing a veil and carrying her father’s old order of service. One of the mothers handed them a Mass-book. Salviati riffled through it and then whispered to Tove: ‘My God! They’ve stolen most of it from us!’ Tove, stifling a laugh, cautioned him: ‘Keep an eye on your patient. This is his first appearance in public.’
It was more than that – much more. It was the first time in thirty years that he had said Mass as a simple priest. It was the first time he had talked to an audience within hand’s touch and heart’s reach.
Knowing how quickly he tired, he began the ritual at a steady pace; but by the time he came to the readings he was glad to sit down. Sister Pauline read the lesson in her emphatic and inaccurate Italian and ended with the exhortation of Paul to the Corinthians:
‘While we are still alive, we die every day for the sake of Jesus, so that, in our mortal flesh, the life of Jesus, too, may be openly shown.’
Then they held the book for the Pontiff. He kissed it and in a firm, clear voice read the Gospel.
‘One Sabbath day, Jesus happened to be walking through the cornfields and, as they went along, His disciples picked the ears of corn and ate them. And the Pharisees said to Him: “Look, why are they doing that which is forbidden on the Sabbath?” And he said to them: “The Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath …”’
Pale but composed, he stepped forward to face the small assembly. Salviati watched him with a clinical eye, noting the bloodless lips, the knuckles white with tension as he grasped the edges of the lectern. Then, in the midst of an eerie calm, he began to speak.
‘I looked forward to this visit with you as I have looked forward to few pleasures in my life. From the moment I arrived I felt surrounded by love. I felt love welling up in my own heart, like a miraculous spring in a desert. Now, abruptly, I am called away. My brief happy time with you is ended. I lay awake last night, asking myself what gift I could leave you to say my thanks – to you, Anton, my old adversary, who has become my dear friend; to you, Sergio Salviati, my stern but careful physician; to you, Tove Lundberg, who gave wise counsel to a man much in need of it; to you, my children; to you all who care for them with so much devotion and who have made me for these few days a privileged member of this family. Then I realised that the only gift I have is the gift of which Paul speaks, the good news that in and with and through Christ we are all of us – believers and unbelievers alike – made members of the family of God our Father.
‘There are no conditions to this gift. It was given to me. I pass it to you – but you have it already and already you have shared it among yourselves and have passed it back to me. This is the mystery of our communion with the Creator. It has nothing to do with laws, prescriptions, prohibitions. And this is what our Lord Himself emphasises when he says: “The Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
‘One of the great mistakes we have made in the Church, a mistake we have repeated down the centuries – because we are human and often very stupid – is to make laws about everything. We have covered the pasture-land with fences, so there is no place for the sheep to run free. We do it, we say, to keep them safe. I know, because I have done it all too often. But the sheep are not safe: they languish in a confinement that was never their natural habitat …
‘For most of my life I have been a celibate priest. Before that I was a lonely boy, brought up by my mother. What do I know of the complex and intimate relationships of married life? I confess it: nothing. You are the ones who know. You are the ones who confer the sacrament on each other, who experience the joy, the pain, the confusions. What can I, what can any one of my wise counsellors, my brother bishops, tell you that you do not know already? I am sure my friend Anton will agree with me. He did not legislate this family into being – he created it, with you, out of love.
‘So what am I saying to you? You do not need me, any more than you need the vast edifice of St Peter’s, the complex organisation that takes two thousand pages of the Annuario Pontificio to describe. The Lord is present with you in this place. You are a light to the world because you live in the light of His countenance. You need no law because you live by love – and if you stumble as we all do, fall as we all do, there are loving hands to lift you up.
‘If you ask me why the innocent among you, the children, are stricken, why they must carry a lifetime handicap, I cannot answer you. I do not know. The mystery of pain, of cruelty, of the jungle laws of survival, have never been explained to us. God’s secrets are still God’s secrets. Even his Beloved Son died in darkness, crying to know why God had abandoned him. It would be a shame to me to claim that I am wiser or better informed than my Master.
‘In this, perhaps, I am most your brother. I do not know. I walk often in darkness. I ask not whose hand is stretched out to guide me. I touch it and from the bottom of my heart I am grateful … God keep you all!’
‘Thank you,’ said Tove Lundberg. ‘Thank you for offering us a refuge; but Britte and I are agreed, we live as we are. She stays here in the colonia, Sergio and I continue working as we have always done.’
Anton Drexel smiled and shrugged resignedly.
‘I can’t say I’m sorry. I would have hated to lose my granddaughter.’
Sergio Salviati obviously felt some explanation was needed.
‘At first I thought it would be a good idea to have both of them out of the way. Our people advise it anyway. Then, when we thought about it, we came back always to the same question: why should we retreat? Why should we surrender to these obscenities? So we stay.’
‘Then we shall see each other again. You, my prickly friend, have to keep me alive; Britte must deliver my portrait; and to you, my dear counsellor, my house is open always.’
He embraced them all; then Drexel led him away for a brief private talk. He told him:
‘While you were speaking, I was watching our colleagues. Clemens disapproved, Ladislas too. MacAndrew was surprised, but pleasantly so I think. Your secretary was very surprised. He was trying to read everyone’s reaction.’
‘Agostini?’
‘He was neither shocked nor surprised; but that’s his style. Tell him the sun failed to rise, he’ll deal with it. However, there is one thing you have to remember. From this moment on, every member of the Curia, except the few geriatrics like myself, will see himself as a potential candidate at the next Papal election. You look very tired this morning, so it’s natural that people will ask whether you’ll really make old bones … So, being human, they’ll begin building alliances for the next conclave. It’s a point to keep in mind when you start gathe
ring forces for a spring-cleaning.’
‘I’ll remember it. You still haven’t told me what you thought of my sermon.’
‘I thanked God for the good word. I’m proud it was spoken in my house. Now I have a favour to ask of Your Holiness.’
‘Ask it, Anton.’
‘Let me go now, Holiness. Relieve me of all my duties in Rome. I am long past retirement age. I desire desperately to spend the rest of my life with my little family here.’ He gave a small, embarrassed laugh. ‘As you see, there’s a lot of work to do around the place.’
‘I shall miss you very much; but yes, you are free. I shall be very much alone now, Anton.’
‘You will find others, younger and stronger. From this moment I should only be an obstacle in your path.’
‘And how in God’s name do I reach the young ones?’
‘As you did this morning. Let your own voice be heard, let your own authentic utterance be read. You can do it. You must.’
‘Pray for me, Anton. Have the children pray for me.’
They clasped hands, two old adversaries united after a long campaign. Then the Pontiff gathered his strength, straightened up and, with Drexel beside him, walked briskly outside to the waiting prelates.
Book 3
Lazarus Militans
‘A man’s enemies shall be the folk of his own household.’
Matt. x: 36
Ten
For the next three weeks, the only reports on the Pontiff were the medical bulletins, the gossip of the Papal household at Castel Gandolfo and the occasional garrulities of Monsignor Malachy O’Rahilly.
The bulletins were studiously uninformative: the Holy Father was making steady progress but, on the advice of his physician, he had cancelled all public appearances until the end of August. The Mass of the Assumption in St Peter’s on 15 August would be celebrated by His Eminence Cardinal Clemens.