Papal Decree

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  ‘You know how he is. Here today, there tomorrow. I didn’t want such important documents on a commercial flight. The Holy See is grateful.’

  I imagine so, Rafael thought to himself. He knew that nothing Barry said was entirely true. Barry wanted to be in JC’s good graces, a powerful ally it was convenient to cultivate. Then the Holy See would owe him a favor, whether they liked it or not. But above all, Barry wanted what all secret agencies want – information. Whoever has it comes out on top.

  The flight attendant interrupted this pleasant conversation. ‘Excuse me. We’re taking off now, and I have to ask you to take a seat.’

  ‘Certainly,’ Barry obeyed. ‘Later, Payne.’

  Rafael looked at Gavache with an unfriendly expression.

  ‘I understand your irritation, Father,’ Gavache offered. ‘You’ve got to understand that sometimes to get the ship to a good port, you need to navigate in the fog.’

  ‘I don’t understand why I had to come to this plane to meet that bastard,’ he said, pointing at Jacopo, ‘and Sarah …’ Then he stopped, as if he couldn’t say more. Of course. It could only be so. He began to shake his head. He couldn’t believe it. He was a naive fool. He’d let himself be used like a puppet. He was losing his touch.

  ‘Don’t blame yourself, Father,’ Gavache said, grabbing some crackers the flight attendant was offering on a tray. ‘You couldn’t have known. When we don’t want someone to focus on something specifically, we simply –’

  ‘I know how you work,’ Rafael interrupted. This made him even more annoyed. ‘You never needed me for anything, right? Jacopo was the bait, and I fell for it like a beginner on his first mission.’

  ‘What do you think, Jean-Paul? I never needed the reverend father?’ He asked toward the backseat.

  ‘Father Rafael was the one who discovered the Jesuit involvement, Inspector,’ Jean-Paul replied behind.

  Gavache looked at the priest with an expression as if to say, You see how important you were?

  ‘But you were working with JC,’ Rafael argued.

  ‘The only thing I did for JC was guarantee that Sarah would leave Ben Isaac’s house with the documents.’

  ‘Why did you call me to Paris to stage that scene with me over why I was there or not,’ Rafael pressured him.

  ‘Why did I call the reverend father to Paris, Jean-Paul?’

  ‘Technically, it was also JC who asked, Inspector.’

  ‘Okay, so I did two favors for JC,’ he responded, without a trace of shame. ‘That means he holds you in high regard.’ He took a deep breath. ‘The truth is, I have two related crimes on my hands and your contribution to solving them was decisive. I know you’d like a more elaborate explanation, but I’m not the one to give it to you, Father,’ Gavache concluded.

  Rafael blamed himself. How could he have been such an idiot? JC again pulling all the strings in the plot, but this time it was different. JC was involved with the Vatican. He looked at Jacopo angrily. He wanted to strangle him.

  ‘Don’t stare at me,’ Jacopo said uncomfortably. ‘I didn’t know any more than the inspector,’ he said in his defense.

  The engines of the plane started and emitted a rising roar. They were moving to the runway and finally taking off.

  Rafael continued to reflect. He was going to have to do something very difficult: talk to Sarah. He looked at her seat, but she still hadn’t returned. He began to hear an irritating noise at his side. Gavache was leaning against the window, making more noise than the engines.

  While Rafael endured Gavache’s snoring, Sarah waited in the bathroom for the result of the test. The instructions said ten minutes for the blue strip to change to red in case of a positive result. No change had taken place yet. She placed the test on the washbasin and avoided looking at it. Each minute seemed like five, a torture. She closed her eyes. Then she turned her gaze away, in case the test gave her a result ahead of time. She found herself hoping the strip would stay blue. Maybe she was selfish, but she didn’t want to be a mother, not at this unpredictable stage of her life, when she didn’t know where she’d be the following day or where she’d sleep that night. Perhaps in Francesco’s cozy arms in their suite at the Grand Hotel Palatino … but was that what she wanted? Damn, Rafael made her doubt everything. He had so much influence over her without even lifting a finger, simply by being out there in one of the seats. She was tired, fed up, hungry, unhappy. She needed a hug. She thought about her mother and father and the estate in Beja, Portugal. She’d give anything to be there right now. She needed her father’s embrace. The plane shook as if it were rolling down a street full of potholes. Soon they would leave the runway, and the engines accelerated to their maximum power to lift off.

  Ten minutes had passed, and she didn’t dare look at the verdict. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to face the hard reality. She feared the red strip, the positive result, the divine blessing of procreation. She didn’t want to be ungrateful, but … two light knocks on the door.

  ‘Miss Sarah, we’re in line to take off. We’re fifth.’ It was the attendant’s voice. ‘In five minutes we’ll take off.’

  ‘I’m coming. Thanks.’

  Reality was pressuring her. She got up and opened the door. ‘Excuse me,’ she called.

  The attendant came to the door. ‘Can I help you?’

  She gestured for her to come in. The attendant was surprised but did what she asked. On these flights one didn’t question the passengers. For the fortune they paid, wishes were orders.

  ‘Can you see that on the washbasin?’ Sarah asked, her voice choking.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell me what you see, please.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell me what you see.’

  The attendant went over to the sink and saw what she was referring to. She checked it and gave Sarah an uncomfortable half smile. Tears were running down the journalist’s face.

  ‘Congratulations,’ the attendant said in a questioning way.

  61

  Tarcisio rode in the backseat of a luxurious Mercedes, and felt an unbearable absence, as if he’d lost a familiar part of himself. Trevor had been a dedicated assistant, and Tarcisio didn’t return a third of the attention the young Scotsman devoted to him. A man as pious as the secretary of state should not feel remorse. His feelings were supposed to follow a sense of right, of purity, full of love and compassion. Still, he couldn’t help but feel overwhelming guilt for having taken Trevor for granted, with never a friendly word of recognition. Although the Scotsman had never indicated he felt the lack of appreciation, Tarcisio now felt he should show a paternal concern for a life whose only detail he knew was his nationality. Tarcisio had been embroiled in his own problems, the church’s problems. Never had he called Trevor at the end of the day to ask him about his hopes for the future, how his family was … if he needed anything. Trevor never missed work for an illness, never showed a lack of respect toward anyone. The church and the secretary of state were the first priority in his short life. He had died under terrifying circumstances without a friendly hand to help him. Remorse. That’s what Tarcisio felt, though his position did not permit it.

  His eyes couldn’t camouflage his grief and guilt. If it weren’t for the presence of Cardinal William and Father Schmidt in the car, Tarcisio would have cried openly.

  The secretary didn’t have the courage to look at poor Trevor’s body splayed out in the corridor of the Domus Sanctae Marthae. It was a sight he didn’t want to remember. William spared him that suffering and offered to go in his place. Trevor was not his assistant. He saw him often and always considered him a good person, but felt nothing more than the normal shock of seeing a life cut short in that way.

  ‘This doesn’t seem prudent to me,’ William protested vehemently in the backseat. ‘It goes against all security standards.’

  ‘You’ve already said that,’ Tarcisio answered impatiently, his voice breaking a little.

  Daniel, the commander of the Swi
ss Guard, had also disapproved when he’d heard Tarcisio’s intention in his office.

  ‘There are security protocols that have to be complied with,’ he’d asserted. ‘With all due respect, the secretary of state can’t leave the Vatican like a normal citizen or even like a normal cardinal. Your Eminence knows you are not a cardinal like the others, excuse my familiarity.’ This last remark was for William, who agreed with him and was not offended.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ the secretary argued.

  ‘It would be the first time under these circumstances. Two murders in one day. We’re under attack, Your Eminence agrees, I know. The secretary of state is the most important prince of the church.’

  ‘You don’t have to teach me my position, Daniel,’ Tarcisio grumbled.

  ‘Your Eminence, pardon me, but I can’t let you leave without security.’

  ‘Be reasonable, Tarcisio,’ William said.

  Tarcisio persisted. ‘I’m the cardinal secretary of state of the Holy See,’ he cried, flushed with anger. ‘His Holiness is the face of the church, but I’m the one who has to expose my chest to the bullets. What happened here today and in the last few days must not happen again. The Society of Jesus wants to negotiate, and with these latest developments they’re in a position to do so.’ His voice broke. ‘I don’t want to belong to a church that won’t defend its own.’

  Daniel took a deep breath after listening to the secretary’s arguments. What a situation. ‘Very well, Your Eminence, I’ll prepare a car. You’ll take one of my men as the driver, and I’ll go in back.’

  ‘I’d like to go with Your Eminence to help as much as possible,’ Father Schmidt volunteered.

  Tarcisio laid a grateful hand on Schmidt’s shoulder. ‘I appreciate it, my friend, but you’ve been through a lot today, and I want you to get some rest. I’ll take care of this.’

  ‘I won’t be able to rest until you return. Let me go with you, please.’

  Tarcisio said nothing. He went to the window and looked at the sun setting behind the buildings.

  ‘All right,’ he finally decided.

  ‘I’ll come also,’ William said.

  Daniel held a Beretta up in front of Schmidt’s face. ‘Do you know how to use one of these?’

  Schmidt blushed and smiled nervously. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I’ll explain it quickly.’

  The Mercedes left twenty minutes later with a driver and two Swiss Guards, young but well trained, and two Volvos behind the Mercedes.

  ‘Was it Adolph who called?’ William asked.

  ‘No, Aloysius.’

  ‘What do you expect from this?’

  ‘I have no idea, Will. Not the slightest.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘He threatened to kill more people, Will,’ Tarcisio suddenly confessed. ‘He said they would kill …’ He hesitated. ‘His Holiness, to be specific. After what happened to Trevor, I don’t believe I’m in a position to bargain,’ he added in defeat.

  ‘The bastards,’ the prefect swore.

  ‘We can’t foresee their game, Will. We can only look out for ourselves.’

  ‘There’s nothing that can be done?’ Schmidt asked.

  The two cardinals gestured negatively.

  ‘The person who helped us with this tragic operation complied with what was specified. Our interest was only the parchments. They’re in our possession,’ Tarcisio explained.

  William didn’t approve of the secretary revealing these details to someone unknown. They might be friends, but that didn’t give him the right.

  ‘Who did you trust with this job, if I might ask?’ William insisted with no embarrassment or hesitation to interfere.

  Tarcisio looked out at the Roman street they were passing before responding, ‘The pope’s assassin.’

  62

  Everyone follows predetermined patterns. His weak father had chosen to be an alcoholic who abused his wife and three children. Being a bricklayer was no excuse for staggering home every night, reeking of alcohol and shouting insults at his children and the bewitching woman to whom he was married. He was cursed for life with the responsibility of being the head of a family … or at least that’s what he blabbered during those long sessions with a belt in one hand and a beer in the other.

  His mother never intervened. She always ended up asleep at the table, deaf to their wails and their father’s roars. When he tired of beating them, he knocked her awake and dragged her to the bedroom, slamming the door. A few minutes later the creaking of the bed could be heard.

  For years he hated his mother for her weakness, her lack of concern for them, for falling asleep during almost every supper, for having to take her plate away so that her stringy blond hair didn’t get in the food, and for leaving them at the mercy of his father’s belt. Sometimes he saw her swollen face or eyes, a look of suffering, or a more pronounced limp in a woman who must have been very beautiful once.

  He spent the best hours of the day in school, when his father didn’t make him come to work with him. He learned to read, though poorly, joining the syllables together with difficulty and stammering over the words like someone with a speech impediment.

  One day when he was twelve, he found a book on a shelf in his parents’ bedroom, the only book in the house, and started reading it every night. He heard it mentioned in the Mass they attended every Sunday morning. His father would shave, his mother dressed them in their best clothes – his only pair of shoes and the only shirt that wasn’t torn – and they went with other parents and children to hear a man talk about Jesus and God. It was probably the only thing his father feared – not that he wouldn’t quickly forget everything that very same night, when he would return to his drunken ways.

  At first he read with great difficulty, but then he made progress. It was the best story he’d ever heard. He had no idea what the title, The Holy Bible, meant, nor did he understand everything he read, but the impression of the stories as a whole was overwhelming. He started reading it every day, over and over, imagining the worlds described, the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Rebecca, Moses and the freeing of the people from slavery in Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the fall of Jericho, Samson, David and Goliath, David and Jonathan, Absalom’s rebellion, the wisdom of Solomon, the birth of Jesus, His baptism, temptation in the wilderness, turning water into wine, calming the storm, finding refuge in Jesus’s parables, in the special child whose parents loved him, sometimes at the end of one more violent night. The Bible was his fantasy world, Joseph and Mary the parents he wished he had, the Apostles his only friends.

  One night he discovered something. His father poured a colorless, odorless fluid into his mother’s drink and kept it in the bathroom in a cupboard full of dozens of medicines, many past their expiration dates. His mother slept at the table during supper; his father beat them with the belt. He thought of the Bible, the stories and Jesus, while he endured the belt. His father loosened his trousers to do the rest, but he recalled the Bible and shouted, ‘God will punish you. God will punish you.’ Then he shut his tearful eyes. He trembled and prayed, Help me, Jesus, help me, Joseph and Mary. His earthly father stopped hitting him with the belt.

  ‘What did you say?’ his father demanded, holding the belt up to hit him again, but the boy didn’t say anything.

  His father put down the belt and said nothing more. He staggered from the table, grabbed his mother, carried her to the bedroom, slammed the door, and moments later the bed began to squeak.

  His father never touched him again, even if nights at home didn’t change much. His mother appeared with her arm in a sling and her lip swollen, but for him it was as if he had achieved a new status as an untouchable, silent witness, until he couldn’t take it anymore and retired to his room to take refuge in his book. But his brothers’ cries and frightened gasps pierced his ears without his being able to do anything about them. ‘Make him stop, Jesus. Make him stop,’ he begged. He opened the Bible at random and read the first verse. The
crying had quieted, and the bed in his parents’ bedroom had begun to creak.

  The next day he went over to his father, who was sleeping at the table and would not wake again. He struck his head so hard with a heavy plate that it broke. His mother thought it was strange when she felt her son’s hand on top of hers. ‘He’s not going to hurt us any more, Mother.’

  She got up, upset, and tried to wake her husband without success. ‘What have you done, Nicolas?’ she asked in panic. ‘What have you done? What’s going to become of us?’ She couldn’t even look at her son.

  One afternoon a few days after the funeral, two men in white coats came to get him from his room, just when he was about to read a passage from the Book of the Apocalypse. He struggled but couldn’t free himself, and was dragged to a white van, clinging to his book.

  Young Nicolas never saw his brothers again.

  He was placed in a school, required to follow a rigid schedule of classes and study a lot of subjects, most of which he’d never heard of before. He learned Latin, Spanish, English, French, and Hebrew, but his favorite class was biblical studies, about his favorite book. Of course he read other books, getting to know other stories – The Odyssey, Oedipus Rex, The Satyricon, The Decameron – but none of them moved him with passion like the Bible. Perhaps because it had been his lifesaver until the death of … the man who said he was his father, but acted like a lunatic. His real father was Father Aloysius, who mentored him to adulthood and gave him his first mission with instructions. ‘This is God’s will,’ Aloysius told him. ‘Fulfill it.’ Nicolas executed that mission perfectly and continued to do so until the present moment at this corner of Via Merulana and Via Labicana.

  Night closed over Rome, but the activity remained frenetic, with sounds of cars, motorcycles, buses, vans, pedestrians, horns, and shouts. The impatient Rome of late afternoon. He looked at his watch, which read six thirty. It was time.

  He took out his cell phone and waited for the call, which was not long in coming, just six minutes. When he saw the Mercedes, he crossed the street, taking out his gun.