by Peter Watson
It was a good piece of journalism, David told himself. Thoughtful, unsensational, useful. Rare.
The news from Bess in Rome was vague. Either what Hale had told them was exaggerated because he wanted to stop what was afoot, or the opposition to Thomas was, for the moment, keeping a low profile. The Holy Father himself had told Bess that while representations had been made to him by a few bishops, it was still his intention to go ahead with the encyclical.
The Renaissance Society meeting came and went. Fortunately, it was held in Pisa on the weekend when Sarah and Greener were married. David was happy to be out of the way. His paper was a success—he called it ‘The Lost Leonardo?’ Bess joined him in Pisa for just one night and they had dinner with the usual Society members—Townshend from the Fogg, Shirikin from the Hermitage and so on. Bess too seemed to enjoy the company of scholars, and they themselves appreciated the odd tit-bit of Vatican gossip she was able to mix into the conversation. She also managed to find an unusual pipe for the Holy Father. ‘You never know,’ she told David. ‘He might feel like a change from those dreadful cigarettes one day. This is a hint, from me.’ They both laughed.
The break primed David nicely for the exhibition of royal pictures, at the Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace Road, which was to precede the royal sale. Opened by Her Majesty, it turned out to be quite an occasion.
The art establishment was there, led by Sir Christopher Bentham, director of the British Museum, and Madeleine Hall, the small, strange woman who ran the Victoria & Albert. The arts in general were represented by David Sloane, the opinionated manager of Covent Garden, Ian Coleridge, director general of the BBC, Richard Amery, the fancy publisher. Cultured business types, investment bankers and fund managers, looked sleeker than the rest, with younger, blonder wives.
David surveyed the pictures. Though he was unhappy with Seton’s choice of paintings to be sold, he could still admire them as works of art. His favourite, he thought, was the small Cranach drawing of ‘St George and the Dragon’.
‘Good bash,’ barked a voice, interrupting this reverie.
David turned to see Edward Lister, the new director of the British Heritage Preservation Trust, a man he did not know at all well. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Let me get you a drink.’ He signalled to a waiter who brought champagne. ‘Some fine pictures—eh?’ said David generally.
Lister eyed him over the glass and didn’t reply.
‘Something wrong?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lister. ‘I just thought we should have a word. We don’t know each other very well—I’m new in this job, after all.’ He paused. ‘Look, I’ve been a great admirer of what the Pope’s been doing—and your role in it. Very good for Britain, all that business. And I’m a banker, as perhaps you know. But—’
‘But—?’ David looked at him sharply.
‘—it’s only fair to say that some of our members are not so happy …’
‘What do you mean?’
Lister gazed awkwardly down into his glass. ‘Well, the Pope’s sale was one thing. That earthquake was such a tragedy … it was a masterstroke to sell the Raphael. And the other sales, too—brilliant … But, you know, the Pope is a law unto himself—literally—isn’t he? He has his own state so he is the owner of all the art. Now this sale, the Queen’s sale, is rather different—’
‘Is it?’ David interjected sharply. ‘How? In what way? The collection is Her Majesty’s own private property.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Lister looked uncomfortable. ‘But … some of our members feel that the Queen doesn’t really have the right to sell off these pictures. They were acquired by several monarchs, all of whom received substantial funds from the state. Even if the pictures were not in fact bought with state money, but with the royal family’s private income, the state undeniably helped to keep the royal collectors in a manner which made their connoisseurship possible.’
David looked hard at Lister, trying to guess what was going on behind those grey, expressionless banker’s eyes. ‘Is … is this a warning?’
‘Warning is too strong a word. I am simply saying, as politely as I can, since you are one of my hosts here, that there are some—some—members of the British Heritage Preservation Trust who may try to disrupt this sale. Put brutally they think the Third World should look after itself and we should hang on to what is ours.’ He laid a hand on David’s arm and went on quickly. ‘These are minority voices at the moment and raised only in private discussion. I cannot pretend, however, that they will not get louder, more insistent. Why am I telling you this? So that you may prepare your defence and Her Majesty will not be embarrassed. I would not like to see a battle between our trust and Buckingham Palace. No one would win.’ He made to move off. ‘So you see what I’m saying, Mr Colwyn. Not a warning; just putting you in the picture. I hope you don’t think me impolite.’ And he drifted discreetly away, back into the melée.
David let him go. He was worried and wanted to think. First the warning from Paul Clegg on behalf of the government, now this. If the ВHPT ever found out that the Prime Minister was against the sale, Hamilton’s would be drawn into the biggest controversy in the art world for years. He had been sharp with Lister because he had half-expected this kind of reaction all along. Damn. Nor was that all. While a rumpus involving the Queen threatened in London, a different kind of trouble loomed in New York. David also received word from his Jerusalem office that orthodox Jews from Israel had threatened to disrupt the sale of Dead Sea Scrolls authorized by the Knesset. It looked like a rough ride ahead.
The news about Thomas’s trip to Beirut hit David like an ambush. He woke up one morning to find the radio and newspaper correspondents as astounded as he was. There had been no warning for him from Bess, though she had accompanied Thomas. It was to be a brief visit—two days—but in that time the Pope would meet everyone on the Christian side who mattered. He travelled late at night, arriving in the Lebanon just as dawn broke. Only after he had landed safely was the world’s press alerted, by Bess’s number two, back in Rome. To begin with no one could be sure whether Thomas was foolhardy, or brave. But, by the time the press caught up with him, the mythmaking was already in operation.
The Holy Father had come to see for himself how the twenty million dollars would be spent in this, the most war-torn of areas. Like that other American religious leader who had visited war zones, Cardinal Spellman, he did not arrive in flowing robes, but instead wore battle fatigues: that was a picture worth a few magazine covers at least. He saw the rubble for himself, visited Christian strongholds, met with the leaders of the various factions and discussed their aims and needs. He baptized babies born in bomb shelters, he blessed older children orphaned by the killings, he visited hospitals and clinics to comfort the wounded. He even visited an apartment block which had been shelled by Muslims only hours before and he was present when the bodies were brought out. Seeing one of the rescue workers stumble, Thomas went to help him pull the corpse from the ruins. Then, when a cry went up that someone under the block was still alive, Thomas organized the digging. It took over an hour but when a seven-year-old boy, frightened and tearful though otherwise whole, was pulled out from the wreckage, the picture of His Holiness posing, smiling with the rescue team and enjoying a celebratory cigarette dominated the newscasts.
Security was tight. The Muslims would not allow such a great propaganda coup for the Christians to pass off without retaliation. The shelling of Christian areas during the night Thomas spent in Beirut was particularly heavy.
It was deep into that night when Bess called David.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you anything. But it was too risky—we might have been overheard on the phone.’
David was too delighted to hear her voice, and too relieved, to be churlish about that or the fact that it was one o’clock in the morning, 4.00 am in Beirut. ‘Is it as bad as it sounds from all the newsreels?’
‘Worse. I’m terrified and I think it was a mistake to come—and to put m
oney into this place. It’s chaos.’
‘But Thomas himself is a great success. This trip was an extraordinarily brave undertaking. Some people are saying he should win the Nobel Peace Prize this year.’
‘You may think so, the world may think so. Officially, I think so. We’re all fool—’
The line had been cut then and Bess was unable to call back. David lay awake for another hour but the phone didn’t ring.
Bess was wrong about Thomas’s trip being a mistake. The world likes few things more than a man of peace dressed up as a warrior: there is a sort of contentment in action, especially if that action is vicarious. The Pope was praised for his bravery and the west, which for years had put up grudgingly with Islamic moral righteousness, relished his forthright action. His departure from Beirut was as secret as his arrival had been, and after his return to Rome, Thomas announced details of how the twenty million dollars would be spent. Essentially, he planned a fund in Beirut not unlike the one he had set up in Sicily, an informers’ fund, but this time money would be paid to people who provided useful information about Muslim terrorists. Thomas had concluded, he said, that intelligence was the most important commodity in Beirut and that although certain clinics and schools would be funded the best support he could offer Christians in Lebanon was aid with information. That held out the best prospect for a just and lasting settlement.
Bess called David as soon as she returned to Rome.
‘Thank God, you’re safe,’ he said. ‘I waited up the other night but obviously you couldn’t call back. And I didn’t know how to reach you.’
‘We were shelled! David, it was real scary—’
‘Poor Bess. I felt so bloody useless, trying to give comfort on the phone, thousands of miles away.’
‘But I didn’t call for comfort, David. I called to tell you something very important, but we got cut off before I could say it.’
Something in her voice warned him to be prepared for bad news.
‘I talked to Thomas on the flight out to Beirut. We had a long chat. Hale was right, David. Thomas has changed his mind on divorce. He has decided not to allow it. Oh, David! What a mess! Where does that leave us?’
8
The two brothers sat quietly, smoking and staring out to sea. Without a moon you could barely see the waves breaking on the reef but, despite the wind, you could hear them, a disembodied roar, sounding angrier than they really were. It had become a habit for Rodriguez and Pablo Portillo to sit on, late into the night after their bar had closed. They had by far the most successful drinking establishment on their stretch of the Baia de Guadiana, near the western end of Cuba, the only place for miles around where ships of any size could get in through the reef. Even sailing ships came in during the day for lunch and the brothers’ famous rum cocktail, ironically dubbed a ‘Battista’ on the grounds that, like the island’s notorious dictator, the drink ‘destroys anyone in thirty days’.
The two brothers ran the bar together. Tonight had been very busy, with a lot of people in the area for President Castro’s visit to the local town tomorrow to open a new agricultural research station. Only now, at two thirty in the morning, had the last customers drunk up and left. José and Sandoz had counted the money taken during the evening, paid the staff and, satisfied, were enjoying local cigars and imported brandy.
The brothers were not interested in Castro or politics. Outside the bar football and fishing were their main loves. They were discussing their plan to go looking for barracuda later in the week when suddenly Pablo, the elder of the two, a bony, slow-moving, grey-haired man, raised his head. ‘Was that a boat?’
Rodriguez, younger, darker, fatter, tapped his cigar ash into an empty coffee cup. ‘Not at this hour, surely.’
They both listened anxiously. The reef here was treacherous and they hated shipwrecks: shipwrecks were bad for business. They could hear nothing, only the swishing of the wind thickening the roar of the reef. The wind gusted, paused and, in that pause, they both heard it: the deep chug of an outboard motor.
‘They don’t seem very far out, do they?’ said Pablo. ‘Must be close to the reef.’ The channel through the reef hereabouts was large and could be clearly seen during the day. At night, however, the passage was a different matter—unless of course you had sonar which very few small-boat owners could afford.
The brothers went on smoking, expecting the engine noise to fade.
It didn’t. ‘You know, I think it’s coming in,’ said Pablo. This was odd since, apart from the danger, their bar was the only building on the bay and its lights had been put out hours ago. More, there was a fishing port only four kilometres down the coast where fuel and provisions could be found.
As both men stared into the blackness trying to locate the boat, a light suddenly flashed on and raked the beach. As it snapped off the boat’s engine also died. Pablo got to his feet. ‘Come on. They were lucky, getting through the reef. But they may need our help.’
Rodriguez rose also but hung back warily. ‘Why didn’t they keep their beam on? If they’re in trouble it would have helped them land.’
‘Battery trouble maybe. We’ll find out soon enough. But that reminds me: we should take a light.’ He went to the bar and returned with a bright red torch.
They reached the beach and to walk more easily in the sand, took off their shoes. As they trudged towards that part of the beach where the boat had flashed its light the wind whipped particles of sand into their faces. The boat, when they came to it, was visible in the moonlight and lay anchored about thirty metres off-shore. It was about twenty metres long and resembled the lifeboat of a large liner. It obviously had a powerful engine.
The brothers stood where a rubber dinghy was pulled up out of the water, and a mass of untidy, disturbed sand showed where the occupants had headed into the trees at the back of the beach.
Pablo switched on the torch. ‘Hallo!’ he cried. ‘Anyone there? Anyone need help? Hallo?’ He moved forward towards the trees, keeping his torch on. Rodriguez followed a few paces behind. When they reached the trees Pablo shouted again. He could see a path of sorts before him. ‘Hallo! If you want our bar you’re going in the wrong direction? Can you hear me? That’s the wrong way—’
Before Pablo could finish, the torch was knocked from his hand, his arms were pinned to his side and the hard metal barrel of a gun was shoved against his neck.
‘Can you hear me?’ said a harsh voice. ‘If you so much as sweat, your brains will kiss the sky.’
Luis enjoyed the road to Guane. In his job he didn’t often get the chance to put his foot down. Driving for the President as likely as not meant idling the car forward in some parade or other where the chief hazard was running over the guard of honour’s feet. This was different; this was motoring.
The road from Havana to the western tip of Cuba was one of the island’s better highways and, early on a Sunday morning, was empty enough to enable the motorcade to speed along at one hundred kmph. There were five cars, with Luis and the President in the second. Luis, Ramon—his deputy in the front car—and Lorenzo picking up the rear, had all been on what was called a defensive driving course in Moscow. What a week that had been! Luis had never expected the Russians to drink like that! They were worse than the Spanish.
The sun shone brilliantly over his left shoulder. It had been the usual early start and they would be in Guane by nine-thirty for breakfast with the mayor. The latest road sign had said that the town was twenty-five kilometres away. After breakfast the President would be doing what he liked best, opening some technological facility. Luis knew his charge well. Castro was especially proud of Cuban medicine which had achieved miracles in reducing child mortality, in dentistry, and in basic surgery. Cuban doctors had been exported to Jamaica, Angola, Nicaragua. But the President was proud too of the way Cuban agriculture was progressing and that did not just mean the growing of tobacco. Since the collapse of the sugar industry following the President’s takeover, part of it had been rebuilt, and
the rest of the land had been utilized for cattle ranching, orange groves or, more recently, for rice. Cuban scientists had been particularly adept at developing new strains of rice to suit the island’s conditions. It was an agricultural research station which the President was to open this morning so he was in a good mood, looking forward to the ceremony.
The motorcade swept into a gorge. This wasn’t Luis’ part of the island but he guessed they must now be close to the Martinez river, with the spindly mountains of the Pinar del Rio beyond the gorge. Ramon in the lead car slowed now as the road through the gorge began to twist. Luis reflected that, in his job, beautiful scenery was nearly always a security risk. He looked in the rear view mirror. The President was talking with his senior secretary, Pino. The bodyguard sat on a jump seat reading a newspaper.
They came to the end of the gorge, an area where spray from a waterfall made the road very wet. The cars slowed still further. Luis turned his head to admire the falls and so missed the explosion. He felt the blast an instant before he heard it and by then his eyes were already turning back to look ahead. Ramon had hit a mine. Luis saw the car lift off the ground, horribly mangled amid the brown smoke that almost engulfed it.
‘Move!’ shouted the bodyguard. ‘Move!’
Easier said than done. The front car had left the road in a somersault, but then had flopped back on to the highway on its side and was blocking the way forward. Luis glanced in the rear view mirror again. There appeared to be no one behind him in the car: the President and Pino were on the floor with the bodyguard on top of them. The other cars in the motorcade prevented an escape in that direction.