by Tom Fox
But then new phrases had started to emerge on his web search. Accounts of impromptu silences amongst the faithful. Talk of strange behavior from the Swiss Guard. And when Alexander read the words “healing” and “Pope” in the same sentence on the tiny screen of his phone, he knew that more research was going to be necessary, if only to set his mind at rest that there really was no story here.
He fired up the surprisingly new computer on an otherwise entirely out-of-date desk. The old brown phone at its corner had barely blazed its way out of the rotary-dial generation, the ashtray had a faded enamel image celebrating the 1989 ascension of Giulio Andreotti to the office of prime minister, and the newest of the books piled up at the edges of a mess of papers were published decades before e-books had digitized their way into existence. By contrast, the Acer Aspire S7 laptop was shiny and new. Alexander had much preferred its dinosaur of a predecessor, with its green screen and advanced electronics capable of only two modes: “word processor” and “off.” That was his kind of dinosaur. But he’d been forced into the internet age and the requirement of a new computer when hand-held cameras and video phones had transferred news-gathering into the reach of the general populace. He, like every other reporter in the world, needed a computer capable of looking at it. He even had a “smartphone,” a word almost too ridiculous to be said aloud in serious company.
But it meant he could keep tabs on what the internet was up to, which was what he needed to do now. The events at St. Peter’s had made their way on to the net through various camera clips that had instantly become YouTube and Vimeo videos. At the very least he owed the story the time it took to watch the incident.
He clicked one of the links from a search engine. There were at least twenty at the top of the results, which for the first time gave Alexander pause. Whatever else might be said of the incident he was investigating, it had obviously attracted public attention, and far more of it than he would have expected. Which meant his editor had been at least partially correct.
Shit.
The video began to play, and Alexander tried to swallow his annoyance and pay attention. It was a square-framed, low-resolution recording taken from a camera phone. There was a jumble of noise coming from his speakers—a choir in the background, the Mass obviously in progress.
In an instant, he was transported. He was there: vested, abluted, standing before the altar, a young priest once again. He could smell the incense, see the familiar instruments of the office set out before him. His maternal uncle, the beloved Cardinal Rinaldo Trecchio, who had helped him make his way into the life of the Church, stood at his side, beaming with pride. Everything was familiar. Known. And in that moment he again had a solid faith.
The memory shook him. Everything in Alexander’s life had once been so firm, so stable. Even as far back as high school his faith seemed to grow year by year, and with his uncle’s help he’d entered the seminary the summer after graduation. He’d had that family support every step of the way as he’d been ordained deacon and then priest, traveling with his uncle to Rome for the occasion, then back to New York to settle into his first parish assignment. He’d begun a life of holy work. A life he intended to maintain until he died.
But his faith was not as sturdy as he’d assumed. Within a few years it had started to falter. The longer Alexander was involved in church life as a priest, the more he’d come to realize how deeply he struggled with the actions of the men around him. He’d always believed that those called to serve the Church were meant to be bastions of virtue, examples of piety and morality. When he’d discovered that they often had dark secrets, sometimes far deeper than other men, it had torn at his faith.
But in this instant, as he heard the music of St. Peter’s waft through his diminutive computer speakers, it all returned. He was there once again. He had not grown disillusioned; he did not battle his conscience. He simply allowed the beauty to overwhelm him, to inspire him, to fill him with . . .
The instant passed, as it always did, and Alexander was back. He pulled deeply on his cigarette, shaking off the unwelcome feeling. It was said that familiar memories lost their sting, that time healed wounds, but in Alexander’s experience these were just trite lies. Old memories remained as traumatic as ever.
He forced his attention back to the video clip. Over the heads of worshippers the angle panned to the left, toward the central aisle of the cathedral. There, though a clear view was obscured by countless bodies, the attention of the crowd had coalesced on a man walking slowly toward the front of the church.
Alexander’s left eyebrow rose, its motion always taking the lead over the right. It was his usual reaction when something took him by surprise.
Even through the blockish granularity of the video, something about the man was . . . compelling. Alexander leaned in toward the monitor as the scene continued to unfold. Suddenly he found the low resolution of the recording immensely frustrating and wished he could be seeing this in clearer tones.
The noises crackling through the minuscule speakers faded as a hush overcame the crowd. As the man walked, he seemed to be accompanied only by the angelic sounds of the choir.
The Swiss Guard fell to the ground, the choir faltered. And then came a scene he never could have imagined. Alexander Trecchio, who had been ordained eleven years before in that same basilica, his face pressed against the cold stone floor as his body lay prostrate in the form of a cross, watched as the man approached the Pope across the altar. He gazed into his face and spoke softly, words that Alexander could not hear.
When, a moment later, the crippled Pope stood upright, Alexander felt his skin go cold.
There had been many intruders into the Vatican in the past, many men claiming to be angels or prophets or even Christ returned. But never had one infiltrated a Mass, much less so quietly, peacefully. Never had one brought the Swiss Guard to their knees.
And never, never had one healed a pope who stood before the throne of God.
4
Rome: 9:42 a.m.
Across the city, the morning sun shone a golden light through the office window of an underpaid, aging professor by the name of Salvatore Tosi. The light shimmered across leather book spines, custom-made picture frames and the surroundings of a man who had less than ten minutes to live.
The two figures that had walked into Tosi’s office a few minutes before, unannounced and most certainly unwelcome, knew that this morning’s death was to be the first of many. Death came to every man—that could not be changed. They simply helped it along, when required. It was necessary work, sacred in its own way, and they undertook it with devotion.
This morning’s task had come upon them suddenly, the scope of their commissioned work potentially extensive, though they knew neither its full contours nor its intended ends. They rarely did—they were passed solely the data they needed to get the job done.
It was background work, they’d been informed, to ensure “the advent of a miracle.”
“We’ve told you already,” one of the figures said to the trembling Salvatore, now tied fast to his wooden chair, “that your silence will bring only torment. Tell us what you know. Everything you were planning to use to expose the Messiah.” It was a strange term to use, but they’d been told that was the image at play. “The quicker you tell us what you know, the less painful this will be.”
Salvatore’s bound wrists were already bleeding. Sweat soaked the skinny middle-aged man’s armpits, tears stinging his vision as his attention moved back and forth between the two intruders. Their strange calmness was designed to upset him and was having its intended effect.
“I’ve told you before, I know nothing!” he cried, spittle streaming from his mouth as the panicked words escaped his throat. “I don’t know why you’ve come to me!”
“Lies, Salvatore, will get you nowhere. They will merely bring you more pain. Only the truth can set you free.”
Salvatore blanched. “I’m not lying! I don’t know your ‘Messiah.’ I don’t know
what you’re talking about! Please!”
“If you won’t cooperate, then this is going to have to be . . . difficult,” the second figure answered. The gleam in his eye suggested that this did not disappoint him.
Salvatore pleaded. “Tell me what you want. I can help you. Maybe I can give you something!” He waved his head desperately at the surroundings of his office. The small academic chamber was filled with a collection of artifacts that looked to be worth a decent sum—the accumulated trappings of a moderately successful professional life. Some small, apparently ancient statuary. Carved figurines. A few examples of original artwork.
The two intruders’ stoic calm persisted. It was clear they were not interested in his trinkets.
“Who are you?” Salvatore asked, his terror now complete.
“You’d be surprised how many people ask that question,” the first intruder answered, “but does it really ever matter? We could be men, or demons, or angels. Is there any answer that would comfort you?” There was a slight twist at the edge of his lips. Was it a smile? Did men such as this smile? “I can tell you,” he added wryly, “it’s never comforted anyone else.”
Salvatore’s expression was panicked, though bitterness crept in at the man’s words. There was a hint of piety in him and these men offended it. He felt his anger growing. “Angels don’t come with ties and threats and . . . knives.” He tried not to stare at the sheathed blade conspicuously present on the left man’s hip.
“I’ve been told they come in many forms.” The response was emotionless. “But I’m no theologian.” The man allowed his eyes to lock with Salvatore’s, transmitting his meaning through the tense space, already filled with the stench of terrified sweat.
Then he broke eye contact, reached down toward the knife and released it from its leather hold.
“But I do like that imagery. Angels, the messengers of God,” he said. “You seem a religious man. Maybe the thought will aid you.” He abruptly took a step closer to the trembling Salvatore, the knife blade coming up to his chest as he leaned in and breathed into his sweat-covered face.
“Because by God, these messengers are going to make you speak.”
5
Headquarters of La Repubblica newspaper: 10:40 a.m.
However scarred I might be, I still have enough respect to expose a fraud. Even a fraud in the Church.
The thought came vividly into Alexander Trecchio’s mind. There were many ways to describe a broken relationship, but no term perfectly fitted his lingering relationship to the Church. He usually characterized it as dysfunctional: he didn’t hate the Church, but he didn’t love it. He certainly would no longer describe himself as a man of faith, but he was not without the lingering tendrils of respect. At least enough respect to expose a quack.
And a quack was exactly what Alexander knew the stranger at St. Peter’s had to be, despite what he’d seen on the screen. After the strange entrancement of his first video-based vision of the man’s appearance had been supplemented by five additional online clips, Alexander had puffed through a new cigarette and determined three things in quick succession.
First, there was nothing supernatural about the stranger, despite the online hype and rampant speculation. He was a man, plain and simple. All other considerations aside, and mundane as the fact might be, the video clearly showed him to be wearing jeans with a label over the back pocket. Alexander doubted that Levi Strauss had a manufacturing branch in the Great Beyond.
Second, he was obviously charismatic, which explained the mesmerized reaction of the crowd and the clergy—indeed, even the strange entrancement Alexander had felt when watching the footage. This made the man even more loathsome in Trecchio’s eyes. Charisma was an easy tool to wield against the unwary, and one never had to look far to find examples of charismatic men leading others to do deplorable things.
And third, this was a story after all. Alexander could no longer pretend it wasn’t, or that interest in it would dissipate on its own. The most visible man in Christendom had been “healed,” by all appearances, and in plain view. This would reverberate worldwide. Already the internet had taken flight, the posted videos starting off a chain reaction of social media activity that was consuming the digitized generation throughout Rome and spreading outside the city. The Twitter hashtags #StrangerInTheVatican and #PopeHealed had been trending for over an hour. There were already three community pages established on Facebook to assess whether the man who had affected the pontiff was an insane vagrant or a divine visitor. Unsurprisingly, opinion was about evenly split. People were just as anxious to believe in the supernatural as they were to mock the sub-par. The human condition at its finest, made all the more fragmentary and divisive when questions of faith came into view.
And it was that ingredient that made this story troubling. Alexander was a man who had struggled long with his own faith before finally letting it go. He’d grown up far too Catholic for him to consider God’s existence as anything other than a fact, and even today he wouldn’t risk the audacity of saying he didn’t believe in God at all. He was too close to his uncle, the cardinal who had tolerated Alexander’s wandering but would never put up with “that kind of defeatist nonsense.” But Alexander certainly didn’t believe in the Church. He’d been too intimately involved in ecclesiastical life not to be scathed by it, and the psychological scars that resulted gave evidence of being just as permanent as the physical variety. He’d seen the worst of men claiming the best of God, and it had driven him further and further away.
Still, what lingered wasn’t hate. He’d left the clergy, walked away from the embrace of an institution that millions called Mother, and his faith—whatever that really was—had dissipated until it was only a memory. Yet some faint tendril of an attachment remained. And the man who had taken the helm since his departure seemed a decent and well-intentioned pontiff. Too bad he hadn’t been around sooner.
But that very fact brought out a fourth curiosity, one that made Alexander far more uncomfortable than the other three: what was the Pope’s involvement in this? Alexander had watched the man stand upright with his own eyes—an action the whole world knew was impossible. But this was the Pope, not a swindling faith healer’s audience plant. Catholics in every nation on the globe knew of his childhood illness, knew the story of his struggles against physical restriction to climb higher and higher in church life. He had been in the public eye for decades. Always crippled. Always physically broken.
What the hell is going on?
Whatever it was, it stank of deception. Alexander had watched too many sick people die in his years as a priest to believe that God spontaneously healed the suffering. Those things he’d witnessed and been willing to call miracles had always been interior: the transformation of sorrow into peace, the calming of hearts torn by grief. God tended to be a quiet actor in Alexander’s experience, not a showman who performed parlor tricks, even if the backdrop was the Vatican.
All of which meant something was afoot. Alexander knew instinctively that his chances of getting anywhere with the curia were non-existent. The church wasn’t known for talking to the press, even on a good day. That meant no line to the magisterium, which in turn meant that focusing squarely on the Pope would get him nowhere.
He had to go after the stranger, and see what he could dig up on the man.
Strangely, that task inspired a powerful zeal within him. He almost didn’t know what to make of it. But for the first time he could remember, Alexander felt enthusiastic about his job.
6
The Apostolic Palace, Vatican City: 11:09 a.m.
“Cardinal Viteri, come in,” the Pope announced, speaking loudly so that his voice would carry to the far side of the large room. A few seconds later, a wooden door slid open and the familiar shape of his Secretary of State stepped into the office, closing the door behind him. Viteri said nothing, but walked solemnly toward the pontiff. The Pope observed his approach in contemplative silence.
His Holiness Pope Greg
ory XVII of Rome had sat upon the throne of St. Peter for less than twelve months, and already his life had changed more times than he could articulate. It had changed at that moment in the conclave’s third round of voting, the frescos of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel soaring majestically above them and the scents of antiquity filling the space, when the deciding vote had been read aloud by the Cardinal Dean from a slip of paper deposited in the chalice. The much-speculated possibility of his being named the next Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pontiff of the Church had, in that instant, become reality.
It had changed in the moment they had first lain the white robes upon him, veiled his shoulders in scarlet and led him to the balcony of St. Peter’s to address his people. The moment when Cardinal Antonio Pavesi, as he had been before the conclave, had vanished and the world had been introduced to Pope Gregory. He had set his eyes on the vast crowd that afternoon, itself only a tiny fraction of his billion-strong flock, and felt the weight of the awesome responsibility God had given him.
It had changed in those first weeks of his papacy, as he had come to know the inner workings of the curia more intimately—the good as well as the bad—and had become aware that it was down to him to call it toward a higher standard of life.
It had changed, too, the morning he had celebrated his first papal High Mass over the bones of the chief of the Apostles, St. Peter, entombed in glory beneath the majestic dome of the basilica that bore his name. The church had been packed, the whole world watching, and in that moment Gregory had felt closer to heaven than ever before in his thirty-nine years of ministry.
And it had changed this morning, when during the angelic service he had met . . . him.