The Thirteenth Apostle

by Michel Benoît

  Lev seemed impressed. He gently placed his hand on Nil’s forearm.

  “I’ve never really practised my religion much, Father Nil, but any Jew will understand what you’ve just told me, since every Jew is descended from the lineage of the prophets, whether he wants to be or not. Let me tell you I’ve taken a real liking to you, and though I’ve told a lot of lies in my life, I’m being totally sincere when I tell you that.”

  He got up, as the manager was starting to hover round their table.

  “With all my soul, I hope you succeed with your research. Don’t think it concerns nobody except yourself, and I won’t say any more about it. Beware: the prophets and those like them all met with a violent death. This too is something a Jew knows by instinct, and he accepts it, just as Jesus accepted it, long ago. It’s 2 a.m. now: let me order a taxi for you to get back to San Girolamo.”

  * * *

  Huddled in the back seat, Nil watched as the dome of the Vatican, gleaming softly in the cold December night, went by. Suddenly his eyes misted over with tears. Up until now this letter had merely been a hypothesis, with only a virtual reality. Now he had just shaken a hand that had actually touched it, his eyes had looked into the eyes which had seen that document.

  All at once, the hypothesis had become a reality. The letter of the thirteenth apostle was probably somewhere behind the high walls of the Vatican.

  He would keep going right on to the end. He too would see that letter with his own eyes.

  And he would try to survive, unlike all those who had preceded him.

  72

  Leeland was playing a Bach prelude when Nil arrived at the studio in the Via Aurelia. Until dawn he had mulled over the revelations of Lev Barjona. His eyes, ringed with dark circles, betrayed the depths of his anxiety.

  “I didn’t sleep a wink all night: too many new things all at once! Never mind – let’s go to the stacks, and I’ll get down to your manuscripts of Gregorian chant, it will help perk me up. Just think, Rembert: the letter of the thirteenth apostle is probably in the Vatican!”

  “We’ll only be able to spend the morning there. I’ve just received a call from Mgr Calfo: the Cardinal’s asked me to see him today at 2 p.m. in his office.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Oh…” Leeland closed the lid of the piano, looking embarrassed. “I think I know why, but I’d rather not tell you right now. If the mysterious epistle you’ve been chasing all these years really is in the Vatican, how are you going to get your hands on it?”

  Now it was Nil’s turn to look embarrassed.

  “I’m sorry, Remby, but I prefer not to tell you straight away. You can see what the Vatican has turned us into: brothers who are no longer completely brothers, since they no longer tell each other everything…”

  On the floor below, Mukhtar switched off his tape machines and uttered a low whistle. Nil had just said something that was worth a great number of dollars: the letter of the thirteenth apostle was probably in the Vatican! He had been right to listen to the orders from Cairo and not yet take action against the little Frenchman. Hamas knew almost as much as did Calfo about that letter and its vital importance for Christianity: the net was tightening around Nil, but they needed to let him get to the bottom of things.

  Calfo protected Christianity, but he, Mukhtar, protected Islam, its Koran and its Prophet – blessed be his name.

  As he walked down the long corridor leading to the office of the Prefect of the Congregation, Leeland felt his stomach tightening. Thick carpets, wall lights in Venetian glass, panelling in precious wood: this luxury suddenly struck him as intolerable. It was the ostentatious sign of the power of an organization that didn’t hesitate to crush its own members to preserve the existence of a vast empire based on a succession of lies. Ever since Nil had arrived, he had started to realize that his friend had fallen victim to this power just as he had – but for quite another reason. Leeland had never really asked himself any questions about his faith: Nil’s discoveries had shattered him, and provided his inner rebellion with a new ambition. He knocked discreetly on the high door decorated with thin gold lines.

  “Come in, Monsignor, I was expecting you.”

  Leeland had thought he would find Calfo sitting with him, but Catzinger was alone. On his empty desk lay nothing but a folder with a red stripe along it. The Cardinal’s face, usually round and pink, was hard as stone.

  “Monsignor, I won’t beat about the bush. For three weeks you have been meeting Father Nil daily. Now you go dragging him off to a concert and let him meet a rather shady character, a man we have heard bad things about.”

  “Your Eminence, Rome is not a monastery…”

  “Sufficit! We had made an agreement: you were to keep me informed of your conversations with Father Nil and how his personal research was progressing. No research can be personal in the Catholic Church: any thinking, any discovery must be useful to it. I’ve stopped getting any reports from you, and those you have sent me are, to put it mildly, far from informative. We know that Father Nil is heading in a dangerous direction, and we know that he is keeping you up to date with his work. Why, Monsignor, are you choosing the path of adventure rather than that of the Church, to whom you belong and who is a mother to you?”

  Leeland lowered his head. What could he say in reply to the man in front of him?

  “Your Eminence, I don’t understand much about the scholarly work of Father Nil…”

  Catzinger interrupted him sharply.

  “I’m not asking you to understand, but to report on what you hear. It’s painful for me to have to remind you, but you’re in no position to choose.”

  He leant across the table, opened the folder and slid it over to Leeland.

  “Do you recognize these photos? Here you’re in the company of one of your monks at St Mary’s at the time you were the Father Abbot. Here” – he waved a black-and-white photo in front of Leeland’s nose – “you are face to face in the Abbey garden, and the look you are exchanging with him is pretty eloquent. And here” – this time the photo was in colour – “you’re at his side, seen from behind, and your hand is placed on his shoulder. Between two monks, such postures are indecent.”

  Leeland had turned pale, and his heart thumped in his chest. Anselm! The purity, the beauty, the nobility of Brother Anselm! Never would this Cardinal understand anything of the feelings that had brought them together. But never would he allow himself to be sullied by that pop-eyed stare, or those words emerging from a mouth of rigid, icy marble.

  “Your Eminence, I have proved – as you know full well – that nothing happened between myself and Brother Anselm that affected our vow of chastity. Never an act, or even the hint of an act, contrary to Christian ethics!”

  “Monsignor, Christian chastity is not violated by acts alone; it has its seat in the mastery of one’s mind, heart and soul. You failed in your vow by evil thoughts, as your correspondence with Brother Anselm” – he showed Leeland a dozen letters that had been carefully sorted under the photos – “abundantly proves. By abusing the authority that you had over him, you led this unfortunate brother towards a dangerous inclination, one that bubbles away inside you – even mentioning it fills me, as a priest, with horror.”

  Leeland blushed to the roots of his hair and stiffened. “How did they get hold of those letters?” he thought. “Anselm, my poor friend, what did they do to you?”

  “Your Eminence, those letters contain nothing other than the evidence of the affection between a monk and his superior – an affection that was intense, admittedly, but chaste.”

  “You’re joking! These photos, plus these letters, and finally your public stance on married priests, all come together to show that you have fallen into such a state of moral depravity that we have been obliged to shelter you behind the rank of a bishop so as to avoid a dreadful scandal in the United States. The Catholic Church in America is going through a terrible period right now, repeated cases of paedophilia have seriously undermined
its credit among the faithful. Imagine what the press would do to us with that information! They’d be baying for blood. ‘St Mary’s Abbey, an outpost of Sodom and Gomorrah!’ I’ve buried you away in the protective shadow of the Vatican and persuaded the journalists not to harass you personally – and it cost us a lot of money. This file, Monsignor…”

  He carefully placed the photos on the pile of letters, and closed the folder with a peremptory gesture.

  “…this file, well, I won’t be able to keep it secret for much longer if you don’t fulfil our contract in such a way as to keep me satisfied. From now on, you’ll keep me informed directly of any progress in the work of your French colleague. In addition, by seeing that he meets nobody else in Rome other than yourself, you’ll be ensuring your own safety as much as his. Capito?”

  When Leeland found himself in the long empty corridor, he had to lean for a moment against the wall. He was panting: the effort he had just made to master his feelings had left him exhausted, and his T-shirt was sticking to his chest. Gradually he got a grip on himself, walked down the grand marble staircase and emerged from the Congregation building. Like an automaton, he turned right, following the first of the three steps that go round Bernini’s colonnade. Then right again, and he headed towards the Via Aurelia. His head was empty, and he walked without looking to either side.

  He had the impression he had been physically crushed by the Cardinal. Anselm! Could they know, could they even understand what love is? For these men of the Church, love seemed to be nothing more than a word, a category as devoid of content as a political programme. How can anyone love the invisible God when you have never loved a creature of flesh and blood? How could you be a “universal brother” if you are not your brother’s brother?

  Not quite knowing how he had got there, he found himself in front of the door to his apartment block, and walked up the three flights of stairs. To his great surprise, he found Nil sitting on a step, his bag between his legs.

  “I couldn’t stay in San Girolamo without doing anything – that monastery is a gloomy place. I needed to talk to someone, so I came to wait…”

  Without a word, he ushered him into the living room. He too needed to talk – but would he be able to force off the iron hoop crushing his chest?

  He sat down and poured himself a glass of bourbon: his face was still very pale. Nil gazed at him, his head leaning to one side.

  “Remby, my friend… what’s happening? You look distraught.”

  Leeland nursed his glass between the palms of his hands, and for a moment closed his eyes. “Am I going to be able to tell him?” he thought. Then he took another sip and addressed a shy smile to Nil. “He’s my only friend now.” He could no longer stand the duplicity to which he had been constrained ever since his arrival in Rome. With an effort, he began to speak:

  “You know I was very young when I entered St Mary’s conservatory, and that I went straight from the schoolroom to the novitiate. I had experienced nothing of life, Nil, and chastity was no burden since I didn’t know what passion was. The year I took my vows, a young man entered the novitiate; like me he came from the conservatory and like me he was as innocent as a newborn child. I’m a pianist, he was a violinist. Music brought us together to begin with, then something of which I knew nothing, something against which I had no defences, something they never talk about in the monastery: love. I needed years to identify this feeling that was so new to me, to understand that the happiness I felt in his presence was love. For the first time in my life, I was in love! And I was loved, as I found out on the day when Anselm and I opened our hearts to each other. I loved a younger monk, Nil, someone like a clear spring flowing from a pure source… and I was loved by him!”

  Nil stirred, but restrained from interrupting him.

  “When I became the Abbot of the monastery, our relationship deepened. My election as Abbot meant that he had become my son in the sight of God; my love for him was tinged by a boundless tenderness…”

  Two tears trickled down his cheeks – he wouldn’t be able to go on. Nil took the glass out of his hands and placed it on the piano. He hesitated for a moment.

  “That mutual love, that love of which you were both aware – did you express it in the form of any physical contact?”

  Leeland looked up at him, his eyes swimming in tears.

  “Never! Never, you hear me – if it’s anything vulgar you’re alluding to. I breathed in his presence, I perceived every vibration of his being, but our bodies never indulged in any coarse contact. I never stopped being a monk, and he never stopped being as pure as crystal. We loved each other, Nil, and knowing this was enough for us to be happy. From that day on, I understood the love of God better, and grew closer to it. Perhaps the beloved disciple and Jesus experienced something similar, all that time ago?”

  Nil pulled a face. One shouldn’t mix everything together, but stick to the facts.

  “If nothing happened between you, if there was never any act and thus no matter for sin – I’m sorry, but that’s the way the theologians argue – what is Catzinger concerned about? You’ve just come from his office, haven’t you?”

  “I once wrote some letters in which this love is evident – I don’t know what pressures the Vatican exerted to get their hands on them – with two innocent photos in which Anselm and I are side by side. You know the Church’s obsession with everything to do with sex: this was enough to feed their sick imagination, to accuse me of moral depravity, to sully a feeling that they can’t understand and cover it with mud, make it stink. Are those prelates still human beings, Nil? I doubt it, they’ve never experienced the wound of love that brings a man to life, makes him really human.”

  “So,” persisted Nil, “it’s you Catzinger is pressurizing now. But do you know why? What has he told you, why are you so upset?”

  Leeland lowered his head and replied in a murmur:

  “On the day you arrived in Rome, he told me to go and see him. And he ordered me to report all our conversations to him, or else he’d throw me to the wolves in the press. I’ll survive, perhaps, but Anselm is without defence, he doesn’t have the strength to stand up to the mob, I know it will destroy him. Just because I have experienced love, because I have dared to love, they asked me to spy on you, Nil!”

  Once the first moment of surprise had passed, Nil stood up and poured himself a glass of bourbon. Now he could understand his friend’s ambiguous attitude, his sudden silences. It all started to become clear: the documents stolen from his cell on the banks of the Loire must have landed on a desk in the Congregation very soon after. His summons to Rome on an artificial pretext, his meeting up with Leeland, it had all been planned out and arranged in advance. Had he been spied on? Yes, in the Abbey, immediately following the death of Father Andrei. Once he had come to Rome, poor Rembert had merely been a pawn on a chessboard in which he was the central piece.

  He was deep in thought, but he soon came to a decision.

  “Rembert, my research and Andrei’s seem to be upsetting rather a lot of people. Ever since I discovered the presence of a thirteenth apostle in the upper room, next to Jesus, and the way he was relentlessly excluded by a deliberate and tenacious effort of will, things have been happening that I would have thought were no longer possible in the twentieth century. As far as the Church is concerned, I have become a black sheep because I have finally accepted what cannot be admitted, however convincing the proof: Jesus’s transformation into Christ-God was an imposture. And also because I have discovered a hidden face to the personality of the first pope, and the manoeuvring for power at the origins of the Church. They won’t let me carry on down this path: I’m now convinced that it was because he started down it that Andrei fell from the Rome express. I want to avenge his death, and only the truth will avenge it. Are you ready to come with me, all the way?”

  Without hesitating, Leeland replied, in a hoarse voice:

  “You want to avenge your dead friend, and I want to avenge my living frien
d, who is now reduced to shame and silence in my own abbey: he hasn’t written to me for months. I want to avenge the way we have been spattered in mud, and the way something much too innocent to be understood by the men in the Vatican has been annihilated. Yes, I’m with you, Nil – at last we’re back together again!”

  Nil leant back in his chair and emptied his glass with a grimace. “I’m starting to drink like a cowboy!” he thought. Suddenly, he relaxed: once again he could share everything with his friend. Only action would allow them to escape being caught.

  “I want to find that epistle. But I have a few questions about Lev Barjona: our meeting wasn’t a matter of chance, it was deliberately arranged. Who fixed it, and why?”

  “Lev is a friend, I trust him.”

  “But he’s a Jew, and he’s been a member of Mossad. As he told us, the Israelis know the letter exists, and perhaps they even know what it contains, since Ygael Yadin read it and spoke of it before he died. Who else is in the know? It seems that the Vatican doesn’t know that the epistle is somewhere within its walls. Why did Lev drop that item of information? A man like him never does anything lightly.”

  “I have no idea. But how are you going to find a mere sheet of parchment, maybe jealously protected, or maybe simply gathering dust in some nook? The Vatican is huge, with all the different museums, the libraries, their annexes, the eaves and the basements containing an incredible jumble – from abandoned manuscripts in a cupboard to the copy of the Sputnik that Nikita Khrushchev gave John XXIII. Millions of barely catalogued objects. And this time you have nothing to guide you, not even a classification number.”

  Nil got up and stretched.

  “Lev Barjona, perhaps unwittingly, gave us a valuable clue. In order to make use of it, I have just one trump card to play: Breczinsky. That man is a human fortress, barricaded on every side: I have to find some means of breaking through, he’s the only one who can help me. Tomorrow we’ll go and work in the stacks as usual, and you will let me take the necessary steps.”