by Morris West
“… Carl? I think I’ve made sense of our amateur spies. It’s clear now that Monsignor Logue passed the word that I would be working on this story. I think the surveillance was organized just to establish that fact. Now the Vatican has decided to issue its own account of the abdication. There will be a formal statement running to about three thousand words in next Tuesday’s edition of Osservatore Romano. That means we’ll be out first, and there’ll be some red faces over the mistake in timing!… I understand the text of the Vatican release will be made available in the secular press on Monday afternoon. I’ll call you if there’s anything in it that affects our position.…”
“How do your editors feel about our piece, Georg?”
“Everyone’s excited about it. Interesting though, there’s a lively betting market on the kind of reaction we’ll get from the public.”
“How are they phrasing the bet?”
“Who will come out best in the popularity stakes—the Vatican or the onetime Pope? Listening to the office talk, I’m not sure anymore.… I’ll be back in Rome on Monday morning. I’ll call you from there. Love to Lotte.”
“And to Pia.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. We’ve decided to become engaged. Or at least Pia did and I gave my reluctant consent.”
“Congratulations!”
“I’d rather be poor and free!”
“The hell you would! Thanks for calling, Georg.”
“Do you want me to place a bet for you in the papal sweepstake?”
“Ten marks on Gregory the Seventeenth. We have to support our own candidate!”
A week later the verdict was in. The Rainer/Mendelius account of the abdication was received with lively interest by the public, and by the pundits with qualified respect. There was a reluctant agreement that it “clarified many issues left diplomatically vague in the Vatican account.” There was question whether the authors “may not have inflated a crisis in the religious bureaucracy to the dimension of a global tragedy.”
The London Times provided the most judicious summing-up in a leader written by its Roman Catholic editor.
… The authors, each within his own competence, have written an honest brief. Their history is carefully documented; their speculations are based on sound logic. They have illuminated some of the dark byways of Vatican politics. If they have tended to exaggerate the importance of a papal abdication in twentieth-century history, it must be said in their defence that the ruined majesty of Rome can play tricks with the soberest imagination.
What they do not exaggerate, however, is the perennial power of a religious idea to rouse men’s passions and incite them to the most revolutionary action. It says much for the collective wisdom of the hinge-men of the Roman Catholic Church that they were prepared to act promptly and in unity against what they saw as a revival of the ancient Gnostic heresy. It says even more for the deep spirituality of Pope Gregory XVII that he chose to retire from office rather than divide the assembly of believers.
Professor Carl Mendelius is a sober scholar of world repute. His tribute to his patron and longtime friend reveals him as an ardent and loyal man with more than a touch of the poet. He is wise enough to admit that human polity cannot be directed by the visions of the mystics. He is humble enough to know that the visions may contain truths which we ignore at our peril.
It was the misfortune of Gregory XVII that he seemed to be writing prematurely the epitaph of mankind. It is his fortune that the memorial of his reign has been written with eloquence and with love.…
Mendelius was too intelligent a man not to see the irony of the situation. With Georg Rainer’s help he had raised a monument to an old friend; but the monument was a gravestone, beneath which lay buried forever the last vestiges of influence and power which Jean Marie might have exercised. No man could have served the new Pontiff and his policies better than Carl Mendelius. It was fitting that his labours should have made him a millionaire and given him a reputation far beyond the merits of his scholarship. But the most bitter irony of all was a note of thanks from Jean Marie in Monte Cassino.
… I thank you both from the bottom of my heart for what you tried to do. No man could have had better advocates or more gallant friends. The truth has been told with understanding and compassion. Now the chapter can be closed and the work of the Church can proceed.
So, you must not talk as though all is lost. The yeast is working in the dough; the seed, scattered on the wind, will germinate in its own time.… As for the money, I grudge you not a centime of it. I trust you will spend some of it happily on Lotte and the children.
Be calm, dear friend, and wait for the words and the sign.
Your always in Christ Jesus
Jean Marie
Lotte, reading the letter over his shoulder, rumpled his hair and said quietly, “Leave it now, my love! You did your best and Jean knows it. The people in this house need you, too.”
“I need you also, liebchen.” He took her hands and drew her round to face him. “I’ve meddled long enough in the big world. I’m a scholar, not a gadfly journalist.… I’m glad we start lectures again tomorrow.”
“Have you got all your stuff together?”
“Most of it.” He held up a wad of typescript and laughed. “That’s the first subject for this term. Look at the title: ‘The Nature of Prophecy’!”
“Talking of prophecy,” said Lotte. “I’ll give you one. We’re going to have a great season of gossip in town when Katrin goes off to Paris with her Franz. How are we going to deal with it?”
“Tell the old girls to jump in the Neckar!” said Mendelius with a grin. “Most of them gave up their own virginity in a punt under the willows!”
Every day during term time Carl Mendelius left his house at eight-thirty in the morning, walked down the Kirchgasse to the market, where he bought himself a boutonniere from the oldest character in the square: a raw-tongued grandmother from Bebenhausen. From there it was a short two blocks to the Illustrious College, which he entered always by the southeast gate under the arms of Duke Christoph and his motto: NACH GOTTES WILLEN—According to God’s Will. Once inside he went straight to his study and spent half-an-hour checking over his notes, and the daily stack of memoranda from the administration office of the University. At nine-thirty precisely he was on the rostrum in the aula with his notes stacked neatly on the lectern.
Before he left the house on this first Monday of term, Lotte reminded him of the police warning to vary his route and his procedures. Mendelius shrugged impatiently. He had three streets to choose from; and lectures always began at nine-thirty. There weren’t too many permutations to be made. Anyway, at least on his first morning, he wanted to sport a flower in his buttonhole. Lotte kissed him and showed him out of the house.
The ritual of arrivals was accomplished without incident. He spent ten minutes chatting in the quadrangle with the Rector of the College, then went up to his study, which, thanks to the ministrations of the housekeeper, was immaculately tidy and smelled of beeswax and furniture polish. His gown hung behind the door. His mail was stacked on the desk. The term schedules were penned on his message rack. He felt a sudden sense of relief, almost of liberation. This was home country. He could walk it blindfold.
He unpacked his briefcase, checked the texts of his day’s lectures, then addressed himself to the mail. Most of it was routine material; but there was one rather bulky envelope with the President’s seal on it. The superscription was faintly ominous: “Private and Confidential—Urgent—Deliver by Messenger.”
Since the faculty meeting the President had been studiously silent on all matters of contention, and it was not at all impossible that he wanted to stage a set-piece battle with every order in writing. Mendelius hesitated to open the missive. The last thing he wanted was to be distracted before the first lecture of term. Finally, ashamed of his timidity, he slipped a paper knife under the flap of the envelope.
When his students came running after the explosion, they found him lyin
g on the floor with his hand blown off and his face a bloody mess.
BOOK TWO
The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight His paths.
—Isaiah 40:3
VIII
His Holiness Pope Leo XIV settled his bulky body deeper in the chair, propped his gouty foot on the stool under his desk and surveyed his visitor like an old and ill-tempered eagle. He announced in his harsh Aemilian accent:
“Frankly, my friend, you are a great nuisance to me.”
Jean Marie Barette permitted himself a wintry smile and agreed. “Unfortunately, Holiness, it is easier to be rid of redundant kings than supernumerary Popes.”
“I don’t like the idea of your visit to Tübingen. I like even less the idea of your cantering around the world like some fashionable Jesuit intellectual. We made a bargain over your abdication.”
“Correction,” said Jean Marie curtly. “There was no bargain. I signed the instrument under duress. I put myself voluntarily under obedience to Abbot Andrew—and he has told me I must in charity visit Carl Mendelius and his family. Mendelius is critically ill. He could die at any moment.”
“Yes, well… !” His Holiness was too seasoned a bureaucrat to court a confrontation. “I will not interfere with your Abbot’s decision; but I remind you that you have no canonical mission. You are expressly debarred from public preaching or teaching. Your faculties to ordain clergy are suspended—but you are not of course prohibited from the celebration of Mass or the Sacraments.”
“Why are you so afraid of me, Holiness?”
“Afraid? Nonsense!”
“Then why have you never offered to restore to me the functions of my bishopric and my priesthood?”
“Because it seemed expedient for the good of the Church.”
“You realize that so far as my apostolic vocation is concerned, I am reduced to impotence. I believe I have a right to know when and in what circumstances my faculties may be restored, and I may be given a canonical mission.”
“I cannot tell you that. No decision has yet been made.”
“What is the reason for the delay?”
“We have other concerns, more pressing.”
“With great respect, Holiness, whatever your concerns, even you are not dispensed from natural justice.”
“You reprove me? Here in my own house?”
“I, too, lived here once. I never felt like an owner, but rather like a tenant—which as events proved, I was.”
“Let’s get to the point of this visit. What do you want of me?”
“Dispensation to live in the lay state, to travel freely and exercise my priestly functions in private.”
“Impossible!”
“What is the alternative, Holiness? Surely it would embarrass you more to keep me a prisoner on my own parole at Monte Cassino.”
“This whole situation is a mess!” His Holiness winced as he moved his gouty foot on the stool.
“I offer you a way out of it. Look! Rainer and Mendelius published an honest account of the abdication. They thought they were defending me; but what was the real result? Business as usual in the Church; and you settled beyond attainder in the Chair of Peter! If I tried to change that situation—which, believe me, I have no desire to do—I should make a public idiot of myself. Please! Can you not see that far from being a threat or a nuisance I may even be able to help you?”
“You can’t help me by propagating these lunatic ideas about the Last Days and the Second Coming!”
“Do they look so lunatic from where you sit now?”
His Holiness shifted uneasily in his chair. He cleared his throat noisily and dabbed at his cheeks with a silk handkerchief. “Well!… I’ll admit we’re approaching a highly critical situation; but I can’t give myself nightmares about it. I go on doing what falls to my hand each day and…”
He broke off, embarrassed by the cool scrutiny of the man he had ousted. Jean Marie said nothing. Finally His Holiness found voice again.
“Now let me see, where were we? Oh, this request of yours!… If your situation at Monte Cassino isn’t satisfactory, if you do want to return to private life, why don’t we make an interim arrangement, in petto as it were, without any documents or formalities. If it doesn’t work out, then we both have other recourse. Does that make sense?”
“Very good sense, Holiness.” Jean Marie was studiously grateful. “I shall make sure you have no cause to regret it. Presumably the arrangement begins now.”
“Of course.”
“Then I leave for Tübingen in the morning. I’ve procured myself a French passport and returned the Vatican document to the Secretariat of State.”
“That wasn’t necessary.” His Holiness was relieved enough to be magnanimous.
“It was desirable,” said Jean Marie Barette mildly. “As a man without a canonical mission I should not want to give the impression that I had one.”
“What do you propose to do with yourself?”
“I’m not quite sure, Holiness.” His smile was limpid as a child’s. “I’ll probably end up telling the good news to children at the crossroads. But, first I must visit my friend Carl.”
“Do you think…” His Holiness seemed oddly embarrassed. “Do you think Mendelius and his family would like me to send them a papal blessing?”
“Mendelius is still critically ill; but I’m sure his wife would appreciate the gesture.”
“I’ll sign the scroll and have my secretary post it first thing in the morning.”
“Thank you. Do I have Your Holiness’ leave to go?”
“You have our leave.”
Unconsciously he had slipped into the antique form. Then, as if to make amends for an unnecessary formality, he struggled painfully to his feet and held out his hand. Jean Marie bent over the ring which once he had worn in his own right. For the first time Leo XIV seemed touched by a genuine regret He said awkwardly:
“Perhaps… perhaps if we’d known each other better, none of this need have happened.”
“If this had not happened, Holiness, if I had not reached out for support in my solitude, Carl Mendelius would now be healthy and whole in his house!”
That same evening Anton Cardinal Drexel entertained him to dinner and their talk was of a far different kind. Jean Marie explained eagerly what he had concealed so carefully in his interview with the Pontiff.
“… When I heard what had happened to Carl, I knew beyond all shadow of doubt that this was the sign and the summons I had been waiting for. It’s a terrible thought, Anton, but the sign is always of contradiction: man in agony begging to be released from it. Poor Carl! Poor Lotte! It was the son who sent me the telegram. He felt his father would wish me near him and his mother begged me to come. I was terrified that our Pontiff would refuse permission. Having gone so far in conformity I did not want a battle at this stage.”
“You were lucky,” said Drexel drily. “He hasn’t yet seen this stuff. Georg Rainer sent it round by messenger this afternoon.”
He reached behind him to the buffet and picked up a large manila envelope filled with glossy press photographs. All of them were from Tübingen. They showed a city caught in a mediaeval fervor of pageant, piety and plain riot.
In the hospital Mendelius was shown bandaged like a mummy, with only his mouth and nostrils visible, while a nurse kept vigil by the bed and armed police stood guard at the door. In the Stiftskirche and the Jakobskirche, men, women and children knelt in prayer. Students paraded on the campus carrying crude banners: NO FOREIGN KILLERS! GUEST-WORKERS, GUEST-MURDERERS! WHO SILENCED MENDELIUS? WHY ARE THE POLICE SILENT TOO?
In the industrial sectors of the suburbs, local youths battled with Turkish labourers. In the marketplace a politician addressed a lunchtime crowd. Behind him a four-colour poster screamed the slogan: IF YOU WANT SAFETY IN THE STREETS, VOTE MULLER!… Jean Marie Barette studied the pictures in silence.
Drexel said, “Incredible, isn’t it
. It’s almost as if they’ve been waiting for a martyr! And the same demonstrations are being made in other German cities.”
Jean Marie shivered as if some squamous creature had touched him.
“Carl Mendelius in the role of Horst Wessel! It’s a horrible thought. I wonder what the family thinks of all this?”
“I asked Georg Rainer. He told me the wife is deeply shocked. She is rarely seen. The daughter looks after her at home. The son gave an interview in which he said that his father would be horrified if he knew what was being done. He claimed that the tragedy was being stage-managed to create a social vendetta.”
“Stage-managed by whom?”
“Extremists of the left and the right.”
“Not very specific, is it?”
“But these”—Drexel tapped the photographs spread on the table—“these are terribly, dangerously specific. This is the old black magic of the manipulators and the demagogues.”
“It is more than that.” Jean Marie Barette was suddenly somber. “It is as if the evil that lurks in man has suddenly found a focus in this little provincial town. Mendelius is a good man. Yet he, in his extremity, is made the hero of this—this witches’ sabbath! That’s gallows humour, Anton, and it frightens me.”
Drexel gave him a shrewd, sidelong look and began replacing the photographs in the envelope. He asked, casually enough, “Now that you are free and able to be anonymous, do you have any plans at all?”
“To visit old friends, to hear what they say about our sorry world—but always to wait for the hand’s touch, to listen for the voice that will tell me where I am commanded to be. I know it sounds strange to you; but to me it seems perfectly natural. I am Pascal’s thinking reed, waiting for the wind to bend me in its passing.”
“But in the face of this evil”—Drexel tossed the package of photographs onto the bureau—“in the face of the other evils that will follow, what will you do? You cannot bend to every wind, or leave every shout unanswered.”
“If God chooses to borrow my vagrant voice, he will find the words for me to use.”