The Cardinal

by Henry Morton Robinson

  A taxi horn tooted at the mouth of the alley. “You the guys that want a cab for the drunk?”

  “Coming,” cried Stephen. The three brothers lifted Gongaro from the ground, and bundled him into the taxi. “Five Stanhope Lane,” Stephen directed the driver.

  The jolting of the taxi stirred Gongaro into consciousness.

  “Where are you taking me?” he jittered.

  “To the Casa Lasquez,” said Stephen.

  “And if that’s not the place”—George belted Gongaro in the short ribs—”we’ll start all over again.”

  At the last house in a forbidding court the taxi halted. “This is the dump,” said the driver, “and I mean dump. How long’s this gonna take?”

  “Wait for us,” said Stephen.

  George and Bernie dragged Gongaro from the cab. Holding him hostagewise in front of them, they mounted the cast-iron stoop while Stephen jerked at the bell pull and pounded on the door.

  “Quien estd?” demanded a woman’s voice.

  George’s knee went into Gongaro’s rump. “Speak up,” he whispered.

  “It’s me, Dr. Panfilo,” said Gongaro in Spanish.

  “Ah, Doctor.” Señora Lasquez fumbled at the latch chain. “Am I not glad you have come.” She opened the door a crack’s width. “Something is very wrong with the pigeon …”

  Her words were drowned under an avalanche of strange men crashing through her door. Señora Lasquez saw two of the strangers hurl Dr. Panfilo to the floor and sit on him, while the third stranger, wearing the collar of a Catholic priest, grasped the yoke of her frowsy flannel nightgown and asked in a terrible voice, “Where is the pigeon?”

  “Third-floor back,” choked Gussie.

  Up the uncarpeted stairs Stephen leapt four at a time, “Monny, Monny!” he shouted. “Where are you, darling?”

  At the third landing he listened in a darkness seemingly composed of carbolic disinfectant hiding the odor of death. At the end of the hallway he heard a woman groaning. Stephen pushed open a door, and there on a filthy cot, half naked in a cold, stench-filled room, he saw Mona. She was panting like a wounded animal exhausted by a long chase, and her head moved from side to side in a delirium of pain. He was at her side, his arms around her. “Monny darling, it’s me, Stephen. Everything’s all right now.”

  The grinding of her teeth told him more than her agonized plea: “Stevie, it’s awful. Take me out of here.”

  He lifted Mona in his arms, caught up a torn blanket, and wrapped it around her. “Hold on tight, Monny. We’re getting out fast.” Through the reeking dark he felt his way down the stairs to the front hall.

  George and Bernie were over them like a wave, hugging Mona, thumping Steve, gloating and sobbing with joy at having found their sister. Weakly she smiled at her brothers as they kissed her lips caked with dry saliva.

  “I knew you’d find me,” she said, then buried her face in Stephen’s shoulder when she saw Gongaro and Gussie.

  “Turn that pair over to Shea,” Stephen said to George. “I’ll take Mona to the hospital.”

  Exultantly the brothers carried Mona down the front stoop, helped lift her into the cab.

  “City General,” cried Stephen. “Step on it, driver.”

  THE RIDE to the hospital was joyous and terrible. Stephen held Mona close, murmuring her name in an attempt to soothe her physical agony. Through an isolating mist of pain Mona’s words came wanderingly. At times she knew Stephen’s arms were around her; again the mists would rise, and her voice would trail off into childhood rememberings. Crescent Hill … the double runner … I’ll hold on tight, Teevie … jump rope on Maude Street … the lost flatiron holder. Dear St. Anthony, let me find it.

  The childish mists unwound. “Stevie,” she said timidly. “You know that statue of St. Anthony in the Cathedral?”

  “Yes, dear, what about it?”

  Mona snuggled into his shoulder. “I owe him a nickel for a candle. Pay him, will you, for finding me? … Promise?”

  Stephen promised. His lulling caresses soothed her. Mona was calm but not lucid as Stephen carried her up the steps of the hospital.

  “Name and address of patient?” asked the intern on duty, preparing to take down the usual case history. “Primapara or—?”

  Stephen snatched the form from the intern’s hand. “Call the resident physician and get this woman up to the delivery room.” The frightened intern set in motion the brisk mechanism of a modern hospital. An attendant wheeled Mona to the elevator. At the maternity floor, an intelligently cheerful nurse appeared.

  “We’ll take care of her, Father. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Stephen sank into a white iron chair in the corridor and lifted inward paeans of thanksgiving.

  A doctor slightly older than Stephen came out of the delivery room. From his neck hung a stethoscope; his white shoes, starched coat, and the aloof carriage of his head stamped him as the prime product of a Class A hospital.

  “I’m Dr. Parks, the attending physician,” he said. “Is this woman a relative of yours?”

  “My sister.”

  Dr. Parks, obviously Harvard, put no gloss on his speech. “My examination shows your sister to be in a grave condition. Apparently she has been in labor for several days. Unclean hands have made repeated attempts at delivery. I am not surprised that these attempts have failed”—the physician paused to choose language for his disclosure—“because, on the basis of sheer mechanics, normal delivery is impossible in this case.”

  “Why impossible, Doctor?”

  Lay explanations were distasteful to Dr. Parks. How could one express obstetrical mysteries to the uninitiated? He made the effort. “Your sister’s pelvic structure is small, almost infantile. The baby’s head is unusually large. In addition, we are confronted by what is known technically as a ‘brow presentation.’”

  Stephen thought he had the picture. “Can’t you perform a Caesarean?”

  Dr. Parks shook his blond head. “Your sister comes too late. She is already in shock from loss of blood. Her heart tones show extreme exhaustion, and the kidney function is gravely impaired. Surgical intervention at this point would be fatal.”

  “What do you advise?”

  The resident measured Stephen with blue Anglo-Saxon eyes. “Termination of labor by means of a craniotomy.”

  “But that’s—murder!” said Stephen.

  Nettlement rasped Dr. Parks’ voice. “I am not Catholic. I am under no obligation to take your view of the matter, Father. I realize the frightful choice that you must make. But unless you give me permission to destroy the fetus, nothing can save your sister. It’s her life against that of an unborn child.”

  Stephen gripped his chair. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph help me!”

  His ejaculation struck the ceiling of the hospital corridor and then rebounded in the words of the Fifth Commandment: Thou shalt not kill God’s explicit injunction, binding upon all—physicians not excepted. No room for private judgment here, and no bargaining about the comparative worth of one life as against another. In the Creator’s eye, the value of human life did not depend on its phase of development. Mother and unborn child were equal in His sight. No man had the right to decide that one should be sacrificed for the other. To make such a decision would be usurping a prerogative belonging only to God.

  Dr. Parks glanced at his watch. “You must make up your mind at once, Father.”

  A drench of anguish sapped Stephen’s will. For support he grasped at rebel fantasies—matchwood temptations whirling down the wind of despair. Was it thinkable that he should let Mona die, when a single word—a mere nod of assent—might save her? Had human love, with its pitiful intertwining of nerve roots and memory threads, no right to plead for special mercy? Would it be presumptuous to pray: “Lift thine ordinance this once, Lord?”

  “Well?” Dr. Parks asked again.

  The iron fall of the question brought Stephen back to reality. His training as a priest, his consum
ing faith in the Catholic Church bent his whole being to a submissive trust in an all-wise, all-knowing, all-merciful God. Stephen bowed his head; he yielded to the divine will expressed in the Fifth Commandment and reiterated in the canon law of the Church.

  “I have no authority to permit murder,” he said.

  Dr. Parks had the good taste not to say what he was thinking: You Catholics baffle me. Aloud he said, “Would you like to see your sister?”

  In the delivery room, Stephen bent over Mona’s sheeted form. Her face was a purple, toxic bloat, and her breath came pantingly between small teeth. Her once-glossy hair was a tangled mat—dirty-gold on the pillow, blue-black at the roots. She was sinking now: prolonged labor had flogged her almost to unconsciousness.

  “Oxygen,” said Dr. Parks quietly to the nurse. His code bound him to sustain the life of the body as long as possible, and by every means at his command.

  Stephen, too, was bound by a code—a solemn code looking beyond bodily death to the everlasting life of the soul. The thorn of personal sorrow, the lance of private remorse, must not prevent him from discharging his final obligation as a priest. He brought his head close to Mona’s.

  “Make a good act of contrition, darling,” he whispered.

  Mona looked up at her brother, tried obediently to speak. Her lips moved without sound.

  “Trust me, Monny. I won’t let you down. Try hard. Say it after me.”

  The essential words came. “Most heartily … sorry … for having offended Thee,” breathed Mona. Stephen was giving her absolution when Dr. Parks’ stethoscope caught the last flutter of her exhausted heart.

  The obstetrician leaped to his instruments. “I’ve got exactly three minutes to save that baby,” he said. “You’d better get out of here, Father. It’s not going to be pretty.”

  Outside the door, Shephen leaned against the corridor wall. He had scrupulously fulfilled his sacerdotal contract, and now payment was due in terms of mortal anguish and physical collapse. He wanted to lie down on the floor and beat his head against the uncaring wood. Gross forms of human lamentation beckoned to him. His lips were shaping desperate words when he heard a thin wail—a trumpet pitiful and piercing, the announcement of a new life entering the world.

  A nurse appeared in the doorway, holding something in a delivery blanket. “It’s a little girl!” she said. “Dr. Parks says the baby is going to live.”

  CHAPTER 6

  IN AN UPPER CHAMBER of the Vatican Palace twelve kneeling cardinals of the Roman Curia intoned the de profundis. At the end of the majestic psalm a prelate, whose hawk beak and saddle-brown coloring proclaimed his Sicilian lineage, rose heavily from his knees and approached a canopied bed. In his right hand he held a silver mallet; with decent hesitation he lifted the mallet and gently tapped the lifeless forehead of Benedict XV.

  “Giacomo,” he murmured, calling upon the Pontiff by his baptismal name. Thrice he tapped with the silver hammer, repeating the name each time. Receiving no answer, the hawk-beaked prelate turned sorrowfully to the company of cardinals.

  “Most Reverend Lords,” he announced, “the chair of Peter is vacant. Of a certainty, the Pope is dead.”

  A Prothonotary Apostolic drew up the official certificate of Benedict’s death and submitted it to the assembled cardinals for their signatures. First to sign was the hook-nosed prelate, Pietro Cardinal Giacobbi, who, as Camerlengo, assumed virtual control of Vatican affairs until a new Pope should be elected. Entrusting the papal apartments to a platoon of Noble Guards, the Camerlengo withdrew to an adjoining chamber where, in the presence of witnesses, he broke Benedict’s ring and seals. These high symbolic actions duly performed, the Camerlengo notified cardinals in all parts of the world that the Supreme Pontiff was dead, and summoned them to meet in solemn conclave to choose his successor.

  Among the prelates to receive the Camerlengo’s notification and summons, none was more disturbed than Lawrence Cardinal Glennon. His personal grief was not beyond control, for he scarcely knew the deceased Pontiff. Nevertheless, Glennon was deeply moved. To soothe his agitation he withdrew to his private chapel and gave himself up to prayer and meditation. The prayers were moderately comforting, but the meditations were immoderately bitter. From old knowledge and grim experience the Cardinal knew that a painful inequity was about to be suffered by the Catholics of the United States. Within the next ten days a new Pope would be elected, and in this election some twenty million American Catholics, Glennon among them, would be coolly neglected by the Roman See.

  Narrow patriotism, Glennon could agree, was no ground for electing Christ’s Vicar; the Holy Father, as head of the Universal Church, must transcend national boundaries. But if the Church were truly universal (and this is what bothered Glennon), why should America have such meager representation in the approaching conclave? Of the sixty cardinals accredited to the Sacred College, at least thirty-five would be Italian—and only two American. The proportion was grievously unfair, but a still more grievous unfairness would be perpetrated. The conclave would take place before the two American cardinals could reach Rome!

  It had happened before, and Glennon saw that it was about to happen again.

  By a provision of the Apostolic Constitution, the conclave must begin on the evening of the tenth day after the Pope’s death. Rarely were American Cardinals able to cross the Atlantic in time to cast their votes. Though Glennon loved Rome with the genuine and profound love of his Catholic heart, the recurring injustice of the conclave galled him. Not that any protest had ever escaped his lips! For years he had choked down his choler. But the fact was clear: America, the country that made the heaviest material contribution to the support of the Holy Father, was in practice barred from the spiritual privilege of voting for him.

  Glennon’s superb Catholic faith caused him to believe that divine intention, operating through the College of Cardinals, would be expressed perfectly (though perhaps inscrutably) in the naming of Peter’s successor. No matter who wore the triple crown, he would be God’s choice. Lawrence Glennon’s acceptance of this truth did not oblige him, however, to become feebly docile about it. As a Cardinal-elector he rated himself on a par with any Italian as a spokesman of the Lord. And because he was theologically entitled to regard himself as an instrument of God’s will, His Eminence held very definite views about the next occupant of the Fisherman’s throne.

  The Cardinal’s favorite candidate was his old friend Merry del Val, former Secretary of State. What a Pope Merry del Val would make! Glennon snatched a fantasy of himself at the conclave discreetly canvassing suffrages for his favorite. The French, Irish, Spanish, and South American delegations were being persuaded; segments of the Italian ring began to crack. Glennon started counting votes on his fingers.

  At the thumb of his left hand, the absurdity of the whole business struck him. There he sat electing a dream Pontiff in Boston when he should be packing his trunks for Rome. Ridiculous! But a goose chase across four thousand miles of ocean, only to arrive as the conclave ended—wasn’t that ridiculous, too?

  Humility beckoned Glennon Romeward: dread of humiliation held him back.

  The Cardinal emerged from his chapel more disturbed than when he went in. Entering the Tower Room, he saw his secretary sorting an unusually heavy mail. Stephen’s chalky pallor was frightening … looks like St. Anthony coming out of the desert, thought Glennon. Taking his sister’s death hard. Blames himself, no doubt. A cruel option, but how else could he have solved it? Caroming off the side wall of Glennon’s mind, these thoughts promptly disappeared into the limbo of things that can’t be helped. Other more pressing matters were forward.

  “Tell the Vicar-General and Chancellor Speed to come here at once for a conference,” he said to Stephen. “I want you in on it too, Father Fermoyle.”

  It was ten o’clock when the Cardinal’s diocesan consultors ranged themselves around the refectory table. “I see you’ve read the sad news,” Glennon began, eying the folded Globe in Mike Speed’s hand
. “Benedict is dead, God rest his soul. The Camerlengo’s cablegram makes it official. The throne of Peter stands vacant, and most of my colleagues are already on their way to Rome.”

  Like any troubled executive, the Cardinal wanted the opinions of his advisers; like any other advisers, the priests around the table wanted a clearer idea of the advice expected of them. In silence they waited till Glennon spoke again.

  “The privilege of taking part in a conclave is the highest prerogative of a Cardinal’s office. Dearly would I love to exercise this privilege”—Glennon was being purposely oblique—“yet I am of two minds about making the journey.”

  “Why does Your Eminence hesitate?” asked the Vicar-General.

  Not even to trusted subordinates could Glennon acknowledge hint or tint of disloyalty to Rome. He chose instead to state the problem in terms of time and space. “The conclave opens in ten days. Rome is four thousand miles distant. The question is this—how can I get there in time to cast a ballot?”

  Stephen, trying to consider the immutable facts, found his brain fuzzy. No bounce, no lift to it. Grief, the great fogmaker. He heard Mike Speed suggesting: “Your Eminence might cable the Camerlengo, asking for two or three days of grace.”

  The Cardinal was tart. “A feasible idea—if the Camerlengo were anyone but Giacobbi. Unfortunately, the relations between the Lord Camerlengo and myself are marked more by coolness than cordiality. If I asked for an extension, he’d reply as he did at the last conclave. Giacobbi was Camerlengo then, too. And do you remember what happened?” Glennon jabbed his thumb over his shoulder like an umpire calling a base runner “out.” “They held the election without me.”

  Memory of the old affront broke loose in Glennon’s blood stream. “Do you wonder that I hesitate to race across the Atlantic—and the Mediterranean—only to hear Giacobbi’s scornful ‘You come late, Lord Cardinal,’ as I stagger into the conclave?”

  A tradition of secrecy made it undesirable for Glennon to reveal, outside the conclave, his cherished hopes for Merry del Val’s candidacy. It was his strongest motive, but he could not mention it. He drummed the table testily. “Can any of you advance a reason why I should go to Rome?”