Strange Gods

by Peter J. Daly

  As she stopped for the light at the corner of 54th and Madison, she turned slightly to her right, almost brushing her shoulder against the man with the ponytail. Suddenly, she was gripped by a fear like she had never experienced before. The man lifted his hand in a threatening gesture toward her. She instinctively jerked back away from him, thinking he was about to hit her or worse. Instead, he pointed his finger at her. His dark eyes locked onto hers, and with the slightest accent, maybe French or Spanish, he said, “You and your husband should consider this a warning—stop asking questions and digging into matters that could prove very dangerous for the both of you.”

  With that, the ponytailed man turned right and headed down Madison Avenue away from her.

  Brigid’s heart was racing. She hadn’t said anything. For a moment she was affixed to the pavement, and she stood there unaware that the light had turned green in her crosswalk. Crossing Madison, she quickly reached Park Avenue and almost broke into a jog as she approached her building. She smiled at the reassuring presence of Gus, their doorman.

  Back in the safety of her apartment, Brigid was exhausted but had trouble sleeping. She needed to hear Nate’s voice. There were times in her life that she really needed him. And this was one of them. She also needed to tell him to be careful over there in Rome.

  Nate answered, half-asleep.

  “I’m coming to Rome,” she said.

  “Really? You’re coming to see me?”

  “Of course,” said Brigid. “You and the dead pope, in that order.”

  24

  THE BRUGES CONNECTION

  ON HER FIRST FULL DAY IN ROME, BRIGID CAME DOWN TO breakfast, dressed for the summer heat in a sleek, silk blue shirtdress.

  Nate was already at a table in the veranda restaurant overlooking the courtyard garden. He was reading the International New York Times and poking at half of a grapefruit. “Wow,” he said, looking up from his paper. “You look great. This dining room looks a whole lot better with you in it.”

  Brigid smiled as she slipped into the chair opposite him. “Flattery is always appreciated, even when we know it’s flattery,” she said, adding “grazie.”

  A white-coated waiter brought coffee and orange juice to their table.

  After nearly a month in Rome, Nate had gotten used to the Hotel Columbus, with its frescoed vaulted ceilings, torch-lit courtyard, and traffic noise outside. He hardly even noticed the endless parade of tourists going past the front entrance on Via della Conciliazione as they headed to St. Peter’s.

  But to Brigid, all the sights and sounds were delightfully exotic. Before she touched her coffee, she paused for a few seconds, drinking in the setting. The stuccoed walls, the potted palms, the sunlight on the courtyard below, the sound of water from the fountain dripping into the pool, all created an air of timelessness.

  Brigid could almost see Cardinal Giulio della Rovere stepping out of his coach in the courtyard. She wondered if he had interviewed Michelangelo in the formal rooms outside the restaurant.

  The Eternal City does cast a spell on visitors, especially in the spring and summer. Brigid hadn’t anticipated that she would be so impressed by Rome. In fact, she was enthralled.

  She took the linen napkin from the table and put it on her lap. “Well, honey, we are in the same city again,” she said to Nate. “I never thought you’d get me to Rome, but you did.”

  “Me and the death of a pope got you here,” said Nate. “It took some doing, but I’m glad you’re here.”

  The waiter returned to their table. Brigid spoke to him in English, ordering a cappuccino, a pastry, and a boiled egg. The waiter, well accustomed to American breakfast tastes, answered, “Eccelente!” With a slight bow, he glided away.

  “What do you have planned for today?” asked Brigid.

  “I’m working on my presentation at my temporary office. I’m also going to make reservations for our excursion to Orvieto. Are you going off to tour the city?”

  Brigid remembered Sister Miriam. She had mentioned she was going to be in Rome about this time. She needed to warn her about the ponytailed man.

  “Maybe later. But first I’d like to try to get in touch with Sister Miriam, the nun I met in Belgium. She mentioned she would be here for a meeting at her mother house.”

  “There must be a lot of mother houses in Rome,” said Nate. “Do you know which one?”

  “Not sure, but she belongs to a community that was founded in Belgium. I don’t know their name.”

  “I’ll have my assistant check it out,” said Nate. “Sandra likes to solve puzzles.” Nate got up from the table, took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket, and went out into the hallway to make the call.

  After a couple of minutes he came back into the dining room. “Sandra will check it out for you and call you within the hour.” Nate liked being a resource for her, even for so small a matter. As Nate sat down at the table, the waiter arrived with their cappuccino and breakfast.

  “Thank you for taking care of that,” said Brigid. “And for making all this possible.”

  They ate for a few moments in silence. Nate took a drink of his cappuccino and handed her the paper. “There’s a lot on the pope’s funeral on page one. We’ll probably hear of nothing else for the next few days.”

  Finishing his breakfast, he stood up and came around to her side of the table. He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. “I’m so glad you are here,” he said.

  “I love being here with you,” she answered, kissing him back. She watched him walk away through the dining room. The thought occurred to her that he was just as handsome as George Clooney in The American.

  Soon after, Brigid received a call from Sister Miriam in her room. “That was fast!”

  “Your husband’s assistant is quite efficient,” said Miriam. “I’m so thrilled you are here. Why don’t we meet this morning? We could go for a walk in the Villa Borghese gardens.”

  Brigid thought this would be a good time to mention the ponytailed man who followed her in New York. Miriam listened without interrupting as Brigid relayed the details of her strange encounter.

  “Miriam, it’s difficult for me to believe that all this is connected in some way to that group in Bruges. Maybe more is going on here than just hurt feelings and angry Catholics.”

  Brigid took a deep breath. “Sister, we have so much to catch up on.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Miriam stated, “Take a taxi to Piazza del Popolo, and I will meet you at the top of the steps to the Pincio, where the park begins.”

  * * *

  Brigid got a cab at the front door of the hotel. Traffic was terrible. She could have walked in the hour it took her to go a couple of miles. From the circular piazza, she climbed the mountain of steps. Miriam was waiting there at the edge of the Piazzalle Napoleone, a huge promenade where Roman mothers walked their babies in strollers and little boys bounced soccer balls off their heads to each other.

  The two embraced and let out a dignified squeal.

  “Brigid, so good to see you here in Rome,” said Miriam.

  “Oh, Sister, I am so thrilled to be here,” said Brigid.

  Sister Miriam looked almost exactly the same as she had back in Bruges: plain light brown dress, sensible walking shoes, black shoulder bag. Brigid noticed again the simple little cross, pinned to the left shoulder of her dress. Apart from the cross, you would not have known that she was a nun. You would have figured that she was a poor, but dignified, older woman, which of course she was.

  Brigid and Miriam stopped to admire the view from the Pincio. A hundred feet below they watched the people crossing the Piazza del Popolo and circling the huge obelisk in the piazza center. Off in the distance they could see the huge dome of St. Peter’s set against an azure sky. It was warm but not hot. Behind them were the smells of the pretzel vendors. The ice cream vendors could be heard ringing the bells on their carts, selling Algida ice cream bars.

  There could not have been a clearer or more vibrant
morning. The two women were delighted to just be in each other’s company. They stood there in silence, taking in the moment.

  After a while Miriam said, “Let’s walk back into the park. There is a little folly called the Temple of Aesculapius that I want you to see. It looks like a miniature Greek temple. We can sit and talk over there.”

  “Who was Aesculapius?” asked Brigid.

  “A minor Greek god, I think,” said Miriam. “I remember on a pilgrimage I took to Turkey there were centers of healing dedicated to him. He was the Greek god of healing, especially of the emotionally disturbed. Maybe that’s why they built a temple to him here in the park. People come here for a little peace.”

  The two women walked arm in arm. There were too many tourists around to speak of Bruges, so Miriam continued the small talk.

  “Tell me about that husband of yours,” said Miriam. “When am I going to meet him?”

  “Soon enough, Miriam. If you are going to the pope’s funeral, maybe we could go over together.”

  “That would be great. I hate being in big crowds by myself. Most of our sisters here in Rome are too elderly to go to an event that big.”

  “Fine,” said Brigid. “Then it’s settled. Come by our hotel tomorrow before the funeral. We are at the Columbus. It’s right by the Vatican.”

  “It’s a famous hotel,” said Miriam. “I always wanted to see the inside. That would be great.”

  There was a café in the park. They grabbed a coffee and took it to one of the nearby tables, in the shade of a tree.

  “What do you think will happen in the conclave?” asked Brigid.

  “I don’t hope for much,” said Miriam thoughtfully. “They don’t have much to choose from.

  “Pope Thomas was a well-intentioned man, but weak. He wanted to reform things, but he was overwhelmed. I met him once a few years ago. People were impressed by his simplicity, but I think the curia here is so entrenched that it was all too much for him.” Miriam looked at Brigid. “What are you hoping for? Anything?”

  “I don’t know, really,” said Brigid. “I don’t feel like I’m a Catholic most of the time, but somehow when it comes to the election of a new pope, I suddenly care about what’s going on. Seems strange that in the twenty-first century there’s not a single woman who has a voice in choosing the leader of a billion people.”

  “Not just strange,” said Miriam. “Immoral.”

  Brigid chuckled and nodded. To a schoolgirl from Long Island, it still seemed strange for a nun to talk that way about the Church.

  “The conservatives in the Church don’t think we should even get our feet washed on Holy Thursday,” said Miriam. “They certainly are not going to let a woman into the room when it comes to voting for the pope.”

  “Well, the world is leaving them behind,” said Brigid. “Nobody really cares what they do. Among my friends in New York, half of them were raised as Catholics, but almost nobody pays any attention to what the Church says.”

  “Nobody but your husband,” said Miriam.

  “True,” said Brigid. “But this investigation may be weakening even his ties to the Church. He seems a little bit repulsed by what he’s seeing. I guess the closer you get to the internal workings of the Church, the more you dislike it. Sort of like that ex-priest we met in Belgium. He certainly was turned off by the Church.”

  “Not turned off,” said Miriam. “Angry. There is a difference. Bernard is certainly not indifferent to the Church. He hates it.

  “By the way, I went to a meeting in Bruges the other day. Bernard and others from New Church were there. Bernard and I didn’t speak. In fact, he avoided me. But some of New Church people let me know they were not happy about our visit. They especially are not happy that your husband is making inquiries into their business. They seemed to know all about it. After the meeting, some people told me some disturbing things about Bernard. Your husband might want to know about them.

  “I always thought New Church was just talk, but now I don’t know.

  “The difference is, your friends in New York just walk away from the Church. Bernard wants to throw a firebomb on his way out the door,” Miriam said as she finished her coffee.

  “Why is he so angry?” asked Brigid.

  “Let’s walk around the pond a little,” said Miriam, checking to see if anyone was eavesdropping. “I’ll tell you what I know of his story. Maybe it would be useful to your husband in his inquiries.”

  The two women got up and walked along the carefully tended gravel path toward the little pond. On an island there was a perfectly round little reproduction of a Greek temple dedicated to the Greek god Aesculapius. They found a bench near the pond and sat down.

  Miriam looked again to see if anyone was watching them. When she saw they were alone, she stated softly, “Evidently our visit really upset Bernard. He wouldn’t even speak to me the other day. But once he found out that he was the target of Nate’s investigation, it made him livid. He even called the convent and told me that you and your husband had better stay away.”

  “Do you think he is dangerous?” asked Brigid.

  “No one is angrier at the Church than an ex-priest. His anger has roots that go way back,” said Miriam.

  “I’ve known Bernard for years. When he was young, he was one of the brightest and most attractive young priests in the diocese of Bruges. I knew his family. His mother was very devout. He was one of eleven children. He wanted to be like Damien of Molokai. He was full of idealism. He was going to change the world, and he thought the Church was his vehicle to do it.

  “He always wore his hair long. He was very handsome and charismatic. As they say, all the women wanted to be with him, and all the men wanted to be like him.”

  “I know the type,” said Brigid, thinking about Nate.

  “In those days,” continued Miriam, “devout Belgium had way too many priests. It seems hard to believe today, but we used to say that the principal export of Belgium was priests and nuns. You may have heard of a famous movie called The Nun’s Story. That was about a Belgian nun who went to our colony in the Congo. To Catholic youth in Belgium, raised on pious stories of great adventure in the Belgian Congo, there could be no better place to set about the liberation and reformation of the world. Bernard finished his seminary training in the early seventies, just after the Second Vatican Council, about ten years after Belgium gave up its colony in the Congo. Reform was in the air. He requested permission for an assignment in the missions. Even though war was raging down there, the Bishop of Bruges gave him permission to go.”

  “Did something happen down there to make him so angry?” asked Brigid.

  “I think so,” said Miriam. “I only know the rumors, but since our visit, I have made some more inquiries.”

  She looked into the distance.

  “Like many young priests in the missions, he soon grew very lonely. He became very close to a beautiful African woman who had studied medicine in Belgium. I’m told that her European name was Immacule. I think there was a pregnancy. She was out in the bush working as a women’s doctor. She did not get good medical care herself. The bishop, who later became a cardinal, demanded that Bernard leave the country to avoid scandal. I know Bernard was angry about that. I’ve heard him say as much. He said that if he had been an African priest, there would have been no problem. The bishops did not expect the Africans to live their vow of celibacy. It was well known that many African priests had women and families. But with Europeans, it was a different story. They were expected to remain celibate, and certainly not to share their bed with an African woman.”

  “What happened to the woman and the baby?” asked Brigid.

  “I hear that Immacule died in childbirth, preeclampsia, probably. The baby survived and was given up for adoption. Bernard went back and searched for the child, but did not find it. A boy, I think.”

  “That’s quite a story,” said Brigid. “I can see why he is so angry, especially at bishops and the Church.”

  “
But that’s only half the story,” said Miriam, raising her hand as if taking an oath. “When Bernard came back to Bruges in the eighties, he was assigned to a parish where one of his sisters lived. After a few years, Bernard discovered that his nephew had been molested by the parish priest. Bernard was ready to kill the man.

  “But instead, he went to the bishop about it. The bishop told him to keep quiet, and he would do something about it. However, nothing was done. The molesting priest was just moved to another parish.”

  “It’s become a familiar story,” said Brigid.

  “About ten years ago, it came out in the papers that the bishop had been molesting his own nephew during those years when Bernard had gone to him. The bishop’s nephew is now suing the diocese of Bruges and the bishop. The bishop appeared to think it was all in good fun. He said the boy appeared to like it at the time. That it was just rough play.”

  “Wow,” said Brigid. “What happened to the bishop?”

  “Nothing,” said Miriam. “He just resigned in disgrace, but so far nothing. No criminal charges. The case is still pending, and the bishop still receives his pension.

  “Bernard is in his early seventies now. He left the priesthood more than twenty years ago, but I don’t think his anger has ever cooled. He is bitter about the woman he loved and the double standard for African priests, but he is especially bitter about his nephew and the hypocritical bishop.”

  “Do you think he would do anything violent?” Brigid was suddenly concerned about Nate.

  “Well,” said Miriam, “Bernard and his group have been much more aggressive in the past year. They have held more demonstrations. They threw eggs at the bishops when they came out of a meeting. They have disrupted some Masses and probably sprayed graffiti on Church buildings. Last year, they disrupted the Holy Blood procession in Bruges with some street theater and loud speakers playing hip-hop music.”

  “What is the Holy Blood procession?” asked Brigid, incredulous at the strange arcana of the Catholic world.