Lazarus

by Morris West

  ‘I focused my mind on the Psalmist’s words: “Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain who build it.” I was immediately reminded of Agostini’s warning, so unexpected from that very pragmatical man: “If it is God’s war, you will win it, though not, perhaps, in the way you expect.” Came the sudden awareness that all my thinking recently has been in terms of conflict and confrontation. Then, soft and insinuating, like the sound of distant bells, I heard the words of Jesus: “A new commandment I give you: that you should love one another, as I have loved you.”

  ‘How can I, an ugly man, possessed so long by an ugly spirit, gloss or change that luminous simplicity? So be it then! This will be my first text, on which I shall build my first colloquy …’

  Yet, for all the brave confidence of the writing, his sleep was haunted by nightmares, and he woke next morning in the grip of a black and almost suicidal depression. His Mass seemed a sterile mummery. The nun who served his breakfast was like a character out of some oafish miracle play. He flinched at the pile of papers on his desk. Then, because he dared not any longer be seen as a maimed and halting spirit, he summoned his two secretaries to his desk and issued his directives for the day.

  ‘Monsignor Hopgood. You will reply to all my well-wishers in the Hierarchy. A short letter in your best Latin, offering my thanks, telling them they will hear from me again, very soon. You will also go through these documents from the dicasteries. Give me a thumbnail summary of each, in Italian, and a draft reply, also in Italian. If you have problems, discuss them with Malachy. If you can’t solve them between you, bring me what is left. Any questions?’

  ‘Not yet, Holiness; but it is very early in the day.’

  He gathered up the trays of documents and left the room. The Pontiff turned to O’Rahilly. His voice was very gentle.

  ‘Are you still bleeding, Malachy?’

  ‘Yes I am, Holiness. The sooner I can be gone, the better I’ll be pleased. Hopgood’s in place now. As you’ve seen, he’s a fast learner and he’s ten times better qualified than I am. So, will Your Holiness not make it easy for me?’

  ‘No, Malachy, I will not!’

  ‘In God’s name, why?’

  ‘Because, Malachy, I know that if you walk out of here in anger, you’ll never come back. You’ll shut your mind and lock up your heart and you’ll be unhappy until the day you die. You were meant to be a priest, Malachy – not a Papal Secretary, but a pastor, an understanding heart, a shoulder for folk to cry on when the world gets too much for them. It may get too much for you – and I know that’s what you’re afraid of – but what if it does? You and I are imperfect men in an imperfect world. You may not believe this; but I swear it is true. When I finished Mass this morning I was in so deep a despair that I wished I had died under Salviati’s knife. But here I am and here you are and this sorry old world has work for both of us. Now, please, will you help me write a letter? It may be the most important one I’ve written in a lifetime.’

  There was a long moment of silence before Malachy O’Rahilly raised his eyes to confront his master. Then he nodded a reluctant assent.

  ‘I am still in service, Holiness; but will you permit me to tell you something? If I don’t get it out now it will never be said and I ‘II be ashamed of that always.’

  ‘Say whatever you want, Malachy.’

  ‘Here it is then, for better or worse, richer or poorer! You’re just home from a long journey, a trip to the end of time, where you nearly dropped off the edge. The wonder of that and the fear of that are still with you. You’re like Marco Polo, back from far Cathay, itching to share the strangeness and the risks of the Silk Road … You’re convinced, as he was, that you’ve got knowledge and experience that will change the world. It will, it can, but not by the simple telling; because, as Marco Polo found and you’ll find, very few even of your own brother bishops are going to believe you!’

  ‘And why not, Malachy?’

  Malachy O’Rahilly hesitated for a moment, then gave a rueful grin and threw out his hands in despair.

  ‘Do you know what you’re asking, Holiness? My head’s in the lion’s mouth already!’

  ‘Answer the question, please. Why will they not believe me?’

  ‘You’re going to write them a letter first, an eloquent personal letter explaining this experience.’ ‘That is my intention, yes.’

  ‘Holiness, believe me, you are the world’s worst letter writer. You’re too commonsensical. Too … too concrete and orderly. It takes a lot of work to polish your style, and even then it’s never emotional or eloquent enough to be more than a document. It certainly doesn’t speak with the tongues of men and angels. But that’s only the beginning of the problem … The crux of it is, you’re suspect, you will be for months yet. This cardiac intervention is a commonplace now. The sequelae are well documented. All your brother bishops have been warned that, for the time being at least, there will be a lame duck administration. You won’t find it anywhere in writing; no one will admit to being the source of the information; but it’s out there and for the present it taints everything you do or say. Right or wrong, Holiness, that’s my testimony …’

  ‘And your head is still on your shoulders, is it not?’

  ‘It feels like it, Holiness.’

  ‘So answer me one more question, Malachy. I’m a suspect leader. What should I do about it?’

  ‘Are you seeking an opinion, Holiness – or do you just feel the need to pin my ears to the wall?’

  ‘An opinion, Malachy.’

  ‘Well, look at it from the outsider’s point of view. You’ve been an iron-fisted Pontiff. You’ve installed some iron-fisted fellows in the Curia and in the national churches. Now suddenly your Grand Inquisitor, Cardinal Clemens, is out of favour. He’s put that word about, all by himself. So now there’s doubt. Everybody’s wondering which way the cat will jump. Fine! Let ‘em wonder! Do nothing. Gerard Hopgood will keep your desk clean and demonstrate that you’re working as efficiently as ever. Meantime, develop the one big motu proprio that says and does everything you want and when it’s ready, summon a short-notice full Consistory and publish it – tic-tac! – in your old style. That way, you’re not putting yourself forward as Lazarus, straight out of the tomb and shaky on his pins! In this most Christian Assembly, we hate innovators – even when they sit in Peter’s Chair. You can lock a saint up in a monastery; you can sack a mere monsignor; but a modernising pope is a long-term embarrassment! Now, Holiness, I beg you, please let me go!’

  Forty-eight hours later, Monsignor Malachy O’Rahilly left Rome, with ten thousand dollars in his pocket – a gift from the Pontiff’s privy purse. At the same time, the Pontiff announced a private Consistory of the College of Cardinals, to be held November 1st, the Feast of All Saints. At this Consistory the Pontiff would promulgate new appointments and deliver an allocution entitled ‘Christus Salvator Homo Viator’ – Christ the Saviour, Man the Pilgrim.

  Thirteen

  Summer wore swiftly into autumn. The maestrale stopped blowing. The seas lay slack and listless. The mists gathered in the river valleys. The late vintages were in and the stubble was ploughed under. In Rome, the final waves of tourists arrived – the wise ones who had missed the summer heats to travel in the mild, sunny weather. The pilgrims gathered on Sundays in St Peter’s Square and the Pontiff stood at his window to bless them and recite the Angelus, because his guardians would not let him descend into the square as he had done in former times. The terrorist threat was still marked ‘probable’ in the intelligence records.

  Inside the Vatican, there was an Indian summer. His Holiness was proving a docile patient. He was still following the strict regimen of diet, rest and exercise. His physician was pleased with his progress. His surgeon did not need to see him for another six months. The work that passed across the papal desk was handled promptly and efficiently.

  The new secretary was discreet, serviceable and, so rumour had it, a linguist to rival the fabulous Cardinal Mezzofanti. M
ost important of all, the Pontiff himself gave an impression of calm, of optimism, of lively but benevolent curiosity. He had even suggested to the Mother Superior that the nuns of the Papal Household might be more comfortable in modern dress, and that they should be given more leave time outside the precinct of the City.

  For the rest, the routines of the Apostolic Palace and the Papal Household had settled back to normal. His Holiness gave audience to foreign dignatories, to bishops making their ad limina visits to pay homage and make the offerings of their people to the Successor of Peter. They found him thinned down, less brusque than they remembered him, more generous with his time, more searching in his enquiries. He asked, for example, how matters stood between them and the Apostolic Delegates or Nuncios in their countries. Was there harmony, open communication? Did they feel spied upon? Were they given copies of reports made to Rome about the local church and clergy? Did they feel totally free to announce the Good News, interpret it to their people boldly, or did they feel constrained by fear of delation or denunciation to Rome? How well or ill did Rome understand their problems, the special conditions of their flock? And the last question of each audience was always the same: What do you need from us? What can we do for you?

  Sometimes the answers were bland; sometimes they were almost brutally frank; but every night Leo the Pontiff set them down in his diary. Each day he tried to incorporate them into the allocution, which was growing slowly, page by page. It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle as big as the world. How did the problems of bio-ethics in prosperous societies fit with the appalling toll of famine in the desert fringes? What moral definitions should be applied to the destruction of rain-forests and the genocidal land-grabbers of Brazil? How boldly was he prepared to speak about a married clergy, the rights and status of women within the Christian assembly, the vexed question of a female priesthood? Then, one day, Monsignor Gerard Hopgood brought back a pile of typescript, the compilation of the Pontiff’s handwritten notes. By accident or design, he found, stuck in among the pages, a scrap of paper on which was written in Hopgood’s clear cursive script: ‘Round and round the mulberry bush! Why don’t we say it plainly, once and for all? We have the message of salvation, total and complete. We do not and never will have the answer to every ethical problem that may arise …’

  The next time Hopgood came in with letters to be signed, the Pontiff handed him the paper with an offhand remark: ‘I think you dropped this.’

  Hopgood, cool as ever, simply glanced at the torn piece of foolscap and nodded.

  ‘Yes, I did. Thank you, Holiness.’

  His Holiness went on signing the letters. He spoke without raising his eyes from the paper.

  ‘What do you think of my allocution, so far?’

  ‘So far,’ said Hopgood carefully, ‘it seems as though you are writing your way towards a document. You are a long way from the document itself.’

  ‘As bad as that, eh?’ The Pontiff went on writing assiduously.

  ‘Neither bad nor good. It should not be judged in its present tentative form.’

  ‘Monsignor O’Rahilly told me I was the world’s worst writer. Any comments?’

  ‘None. But if Your Holiness would entertain a suggestion …?’

  ‘Make it.’

  ‘Writing as you are doing it is brutal labour. Why inflict it on yourself? If you will give me an hour a day, and talk out to me what you want to say, I’ll write it for you in half the time. Then you can cut it about to suit yourself. I’m good at that sort of thing. I’ve written and directed theatre at Oxford; so the rhetoric of the thing is easy for me … Besides, I very much want this Consistory to be a success.’

  The Pontiff put down his pen, leaned back in his chair and studied Hopgood with dark, unblinking eyes.

  ‘And how would you define a success?’

  Hopgood considered the question for a few moments then, in his precise, donnish fashion, he answered it.

  ‘Your audience will be men powerful in the Church. They can, if they choose, remain totally indifferent to anything you say. If they dislike it, they can obstruct you in a thousand ways. But if they go out into St Peter’s Square and look at the people and feel a new kinship with them and a new care for them … then your allocution will have meant something. If not, it will be windblown words, lost the moment they are spoken.’

  ‘You seem to me to be a very dedicated but rather reclusive young man. What is your own contact with the people?’

  It was the first time the Pontiff had seen Monsignor Gerard Hopgood embarrassed. He blushed, shifted uneasily on his feet and made the surprising confession.

  ‘I’m a runner, Holiness. I train on my days off with a club over on the Flaminia. A friend of mine is the priest there. He set up the club to keep the kids off the drug circuit and out of the thieves’ kitchens. So the answer is that I do see quite a lot of the people.’

  ‘Are you a good runner, Monsignore?’

  ‘Not bad … which reminds me: you’ve been missing your morning exercises, Holiness. You can’t afford to do that, it’s dangerous! If it helps, I’ll do them with you.’

  ‘I am rebuked in my own house,’ said Leo the Pontiff. ‘And by my own secretary! A runner indeed!’

  ‘Let us run with endurance”,’ said Monsignor Hopgood innocently. ‘St Paul to the Hebrews. I wait on Your Holiness’s decision about the allocution – and the exercises. Personally, I’ll settle for the exercises, because they at least will keep you alive. In the end, it’s the Holy Spirit who takes care of the Church.’

  The Pontiff signed the last of the letters. Hopgood gathered them into the file and waited for his formal dismissal. Instead, the Pontiff waved him to a chair.

  ‘Sit down. Let us go through the text we have so far …’

  On Matt Neylan’s farm, it was another kind of autumn, warm and misty from the wash of the Gulf Stream, cloudy most days, with the air smelling of sea wrack and peat smoke and the trodden grass of the cow pastures. It was a lonely place, halfway between Clonakilty and Courtmacsherry, thirty-five acres of grazing land, with an orchard and a kitchen garden and a view across the bay to Galley Head.

  The house was larger than he had remembered, with a tree-break planted against the westerlies, and central heating, and a walled garden where roses grew and pears and apples were espaliered along the walls. Inside, it was spotless. His mother’s ornaments were all in place, his father’s books dusted, the pictures square on the walls. There was a Barry over the mantel and a David Maclise in his study, which was a pleasant windfall to be going on with.

  The welcome the Murtaghs gave them was like the climate, grey and tepid; but once Neylan had told them the story: how this brave woman had nursed and counselled His Holiness and was now threatened with kidnap and worse, and how this dear child was the ward and the adoptive granddaughter of the great Cardinal Drexel himself – then they warmed up and Mrs Murtagh fussed around the pair like a mother hen, while Neylan and Mr Murtagh drank Irish whiskey in the kitchen.

  Which left only the problem of his own defection from the faith which, as Mr Murtagh put it, didn’t worry him too much but bothered his old woman somewhat, she having a sister in the Presentation convent at Courtmacsherry. But then – he conceded after two whiskies – a man’s belief was his own business, and wasn’t he giving shelter and protection to these two threatened creatures? Which prompted the next question: did Neylan think they’d be pursued to this neck of the woods? Neylan admitted that it was possible, but hardly likely. However, just in case, it might pay to pass the word around the villages that an early warning of strangers would be appreciated. And – this was Murtagh’s contribution – there was a twelve-bore shotgun and a rook rifle that used to belong to his father. It would be wise to keep them oiled and clean. And, by the way, how did he want to be addressed, now that he wasn’t a priest any more? And what about the ladies, Missus or Miss? Christian names, Matt Neylan told him – and wondered what it was that made a name Christian when its owner wa
sn’t.

  After that, life was easier. They were fed like kings. Britte was coddled. They explored the coast from Skibbereen to Limerick and down across the counties to Waterford. They ate well and drank well and slept warm, though separate. It was only when the first gales hit that they looked at each other and asked what the devil they were doing in this place and how did they expect to get through the winter?

  Two telephone calls gave them the answer. Salviati said without hesitation: ‘Stay put. It hasn’t begun yet.’ The Israeli Embassy gave them even plainer warning: ‘Don’t move. Keep your heads down. We’ll tell you when it’s safe to return!’ Then for good measure they gave them a telephone number in Dublin where Mossad maintained a station to watch the arms runners from Libya and elsewhere.

  So, Britte began to paint. Matt Neylan picked up his writing and Tove Lundberg fretted in silence until she read that a German manufacturer of pharmaceuticals, enjoying a tax holiday in Ireland, had decided to endow a cardiac unit at the Sisters of Mercy hospital in Cork. They would need skilled staff. She had the best possible references. Any objections? From Britte, none. Matt was working at home. The Murtaghs kept the house and the farm going. From Matt Neylan?

  ‘What can I say? If it’s a choice between going crazy here or sticking your head up a little – and who, for Christ’s sake, reads about Cork in Rome? – then go to it, by all means. It’s a forty-mile drive from here to Cork. They’ll probably give you a room at the hospital. Why not apply?’

  ‘You don’t mind looking after Britte?’

  ‘What’s to look after? Mrs Murtagh mothers her and does the girl things she needs. I entertain her and cart her about with me when she isn’t painting. It seems to work for her. You’re the one who has to be happy with the arrangements.’

  ‘What about you?’