by David Perry
She blames me for the loss of her beloved Andrea, he thought, blowing smoke with bored casualness. What else was new?
He viciously lit another cigarette from one still left burning in the tray. Two others had not yet been stamped out completely and were threatening to once again ignite like a toxic thurible of incense. With shaking hands, he dragged the fumes deep into his lungs and put on his reading glasses. If only La Donna Volsini had really killed him, at least this would all be over. This cross was too much for him to bear, not at his age. Not with what he’d already seen. Perhaps, something would change this time. He dared to read the article again.
Mysterious “ghost ship” carrying 900 migrants arrives in Italy
Wednesday, 18 December 2013 (AKI)—Gallipoli, Italy: Almost 900 immigrants landed in Italy yesterday. The 150-foot-long ship Fatima had been spotted in international waters during the night. Evidently abandoned by its crew of human traffickers a few days after sailing from an as yet still unidentified port, the vessel was set on autopilot and aimed toward the Italian coast.
“When my men tried to draw alongside they were shocked to see people dangling babies and small children over the side,” said Captain Francesco Marconi of the Italian Navy. “They told rescue sailors not to come any closer or they would let go. I have never seen anything like it. They would rather take the chance of their babies being picked up from the waves than having them return to where they came from. They only calmed down and let us on board when we assured them they were in Italian waters and they would not be returned to their departure port.”
While many of the refugees were Muslim, themselves fleeing Islamic extremists in Libya, also represented were a number of Christians and Jews escaping the escalating chaos of the Syrian civil war. Italy’s long coastline makes it one of the EU’s main targets for migrants fleeing unrest in their home countries. The Fatima, with over 600 adults and 361 children, was the largest single arrival for nearly five years.
Yes, Arnaud thought, but there’s only one passenger aboard that ship I’m interested in. He wondered what part of his priestly vows had prepared him for this. Which priestly vows were being destroyed because of this. He kept reading.
European border officials believe that such “ghost ships” are part of a new tactic by the trafficking gangs. They buy the boats on the black market and then simply abandon them once they are close to European shores or, in this case, even sooner, by setting the ships on autopilot. Typically, ship owners and crews are contacted in Turkey by human traffickers who post notices on social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) offering secret passage to Europe. Each refugee pays between $500–$2000 US for the perilous passage. Fees paid to the ship’s captains vary, although typically are in the range of $15,000 US. After they have received their money, the human smugglers lock their passengers in abandoned buildings by the ports, sometimes for days, with only stale bread to eat and questionable water to drink. Under cover of darkness, the pitiful band of migrants are then herded at gunpoint out to the beach and from there onto waiting ships or small boats.
Two months ago, a ship from Libya crammed with more than 500 people sank just off the Italian coast with the loss of 368 lives. A video broadcast widely around the internet shows bodies tangled among the sunken wreckage, including one especially poignant shot of two people clutching each other.
According to reports from the Italian Interior Ministry, though most refugees commonly come from sub-Saharan Africa and the continuing unrest in Libya, this year many are fleeing the Syrian civil war or political turmoil in Egypt and other parts of North Africa. Almost 9,000 migrants reached Italy by boat between July 1 and August 10 of this year, according to Ministry sources. In the 12 months up to August 10, more than 24,000 came, compared with more than 17,000 in the same period a year earlier, and almost 25,000 in the 12 months before that.
“Why do they have to come here,” said one unidentified woman watching the refugees debark in Gallipoli. ’These people are full of disease. What if they bring Ebola to Europe? What if they are terrorists? This is the perfect way for al Qaeda or the Islamic State to invade us. I’m sorry their life is hard, but my life is hard too. Send them back or let them drown.”
A United Nations report published in June announced that worldwide in 2013, a record number of people—51.2 million, half of them children—had been forcibly displaced by conflict or persecution. The Syrian civil war alone has forced 2.5 million to flee abroad. The majority—33.3 million—are internally displaced in their own countries. Once they arrive in Europe, they are subject to a shadowy and duplicitous network of modern-day slavers and underworld gangs who coerce them into lives of criminal servitude.
We’re all living lives of forced servitude, Arnaud thought. He spat out a piece of tobacco from his cigarette. Everyone’s a slave. Especially me, with many masters. And now, the ship was here. She was here and he wasn’t yet ready. Who was he kidding? He would never be ready for the mission he had been given. This was a filthy business. Arnaud knew it. The men, they would work—they would survive. But…
…for the women, it is worse: sold into lives of squalid prostitution and forced to work along the roads north of Rome as entertainment for truckers and drug dealers. The forests of Umbria and Lazio are full of their unmarked graves. When they are worn out, their pimps discard them like used toilet paper.
The knock on the door startled Arnaud.
“Shit!” The knock on the door startled Arnaud, and the cigarette tumbled from his mouth onto the open paper. He stamped out the embers with the end of a crucifix paper weight and brushed the butt onto the floor. “Who is it?”
The door swung open to a darkened hall and an even darker face.
“Have you brought the money?”
“Yes, Bishop—”
“Your Eminence.”
“Yes, Your Immensus”—the man in the door struggled with the word—“I have it. I had to be—”
“I don’t care how you got it. I have another job for you.” The Bishop motioned for his guest to hand over what he had brought. Arnaud shoved a small index card across the desk as an envelope bulging with euros passed it along the smooth, polished wood. Quid pro quo. The Bishop didn’t open it to count. He knew it would all be there. The prospect of it not being enough was too horrible for his servant to contemplate. The Bishop knew that the man standing in front of him was honest—a heathen—but honest. That, plus his terror, made him the perfect messenger. “Read that and give it back.”
Dawud read, then handed back the card.
“You understand, Dawud?” Arnaud’s eyes were steely with confirmation.
“Yes, Your Immin, Your immo—yes, Bishop. I understand.”
“Good.”
Arnaud lit a match, ignited the edge of the paper, watched it burn, then dropped it flaming into his ash tray.
“You may go now.”
The immigrant got up to leave.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, Dawud?”
Dawud stopped. He turned from the door. He dropped to his knees. He took the Archbishop’s ring in his hands and kissed it as he had been taught. His lips had barely touched the gold purple amethyst before Arnaud pulled away as if having touched something disgusting.
“Go. Your sister is waiting.”
CHAPTER XXXIX
Time to Say Goodbye
May 27, 1528 (Julian Calendar), Orvieto
“It is time, Your Holiness.”
Pope Clement didn’t move. He sat at the open window of the Papal Palace overlooking the plaza, where a battalion of artisans and stone cutters were busily at work on the increasingly luminous facade of the Cathedral. In the last six months, all of Orvieto seemed to have returned to employment. The viaduct had been restored, and water once again flowed freely into the city. An even larger well would ensure the city’s future for decades, if not longer. The decay that had greeted Clement barely half a year previous had been driven away by papal authority and the munificence of his Jewish ba
nker—his friend—Moses de Blanis.
An unusually warm breeze blew against the Pontiff’s cape, dislodging a small piece of peacock feather from the ceremonial collar. It floated briefly in the air and then wafted down onto the table next to a pair of pearl-clasp gloves, scented with lavender from the Umbrian hills. Nearby on a stand rested a newly constructed papal tiara, a gift from Moses to replace the one hocked just after the Sack of Rome when nothing was of value yet everything for sale.
“Holy Father.” Gio, the young Swiss guard, called out again.
The Pope did not respond.
Quietly, Gio walked across the room and laid both his hands gently on the Pope’s shoulders.
As quickly as a trap snapping shut on its prey, Clement reached back with his right hand to squeeze that of his friend. He turned and looked up into Gio’s eyes. “I’m afraid, Gio. I don’t want to leave.”
Gio walked around to face Clement, then dropped to his knee, kissing the papal ring, by now an act marked more by affection than hierarchy. “You must, Holy Father. The people are waiting for you. Rome is waiting for you.”
“Ha!” Clement laughed gently and bade his friend to rise and sit next to him. “Rome is only waiting for me to return so they can spit upon me, or worse. They’ll have to wait a little longer. First, we join good Cardinal Egidio in Viterbo. A few months there will help us better gauge the mood in Rome, and whether or not it’s truly safe to return to the Vatican. Have you decided?”
Gio looked up as if surprised by the question. “My decision was made that day that I took my oath as a Swiss Guard. I serve my pope. I go where he goes.”
“And Sofia?”
“She will stay here in the house of de Blanis.” Gio paused for a moment. “Until the baby is born. The roads between here and Rome are not safe for an expectant mother. She is better off here with her father. I will return once you are safely re-ensconced in St. Peters.”
Clement exhaled deeply, then took Gio’s chin in his hands as he did the first night they met. Smiling, he quietly uttered only one word. “No.”
“But Holy Father, you—”
“No!” Clement was up in an instant with such rage that Gio again dropped to his knees. “Too many people have died to defend this Church, to defend this pope. One hundred forty-six of your comrades in the Swiss Guard died so that I might live, almost exactly a year ago, including your best friend.”
“You are my best friend,” Gio said quietly, rising to face Clement.
“My son.” Clement fell to his knees in front of the young guard, weeping uncontrollably. “I am not worthy of such friendship. I have lost one son, I cannot bear to lose another.”
Gio joined him on the stone floor, holding the heaving shoulders of the man to whom all Europe’s monarchs must bow. After a while, the weeping stopped.
Clement wiped his eyes and repeated quietly, “No,” then added, “I command it. What God hath joined together let no man put asunder—popes included. I married you and Sofia in the sight of God and his witnesses, Hassan, Cardinal Egidio, and Sofia’s father. Yes, you are my friend, my son, and always will be. But now, more importantly, you are a man, a husband, a father. I relieve you, my Knight of the Golden Spur. Go in peace.”
Gio rose slowly, helping his Pontiff to his feet as well. Then, with a smile tinged by tears, he said, “So shall it be written; so shall it be done.”
“Yes,” said Clement, returning the smile. “So shall it be written; so shall it be done.” Then he said in a lighter tone, “Go. You can see me off to the turn in the road toward Bolsena, but no more. Then, you will return here to Orvieto, to your family, to my family, for never have I felt so welcomed since the days of my Medici youth in Florence.”
“As you wish, Holy Father.”
The melancholy reverie was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Enter all who love and serve the Lord,” said the Pope, no longer constrained by safety-concerned pass codes. “Moses!” And the Pope embraced his friend.
“Father.” Gio smiled. “I will leave you two together. I need to speak with Sofia and tell her that I will be tonight in Bolsena, but, then I will be returning here to Orvieto.”
With a slight bow, he embraced both men and exited, quietly pulling the door closed behind him.
“My dear Moses, I didn’t expect to see you again today,” said Clement, motioning for Orvieto’s richest citizen to sit next to him. “We said our farewells at dinner last night, as usual, an epicurean orgy prepared at your home. You do me a double honor but I cannot say I am sad to see you again. I will miss you, dear friend. Without you, my Papacy would already be over, and likely, my life. I have many debts to repay.”
“But not to me,” said Moses. “Your account is balanced, and your debt paid in full. No, no—” Moses motioned for Clement to be silent. “Your collateral is your life, and more importantly, your legacy. I understand from Wazzan that you have commissioned Cardinal Egidio to write a new book, a book on the meeting of the Jewish Cabala and Catholic mysticism. He tells me it is to be called Schechina.”
“As usual, not from the Curia nor from his friends, a pope has no secrets.” Clement chuckled. “Yes, I have indeed asked Egidio to put to parchment that which his life is so clearly devoted, a love and respect for the study of the divine in all faiths.”
“He is, then, a true Catholic,” replied Moses. “I like the title. Was that your idea?”
“I thought you would. Schechina. The divine presence of God and his cosmic glory. Hebrew is a beautiful language.”
“As is Latin, Holy Father.”
“As beautiful as is ugly, lately, English and German.” The Pope sighed, motioning to two large leather satchels poised by the door, ready for the journey. “There, my dear Moses, are pages and pages of the ugliest words of my papacy. One from a king who first begged to be married to his brother’s widow and now wants to end said wedlock, the other, the theses of a mad Saxon priest who thinks God has spoken through him. Christ on a stick. Henry the Eighth and Martin Luther will be the death of me. More the point, they will be the death of the Roman Catholic Church.”
“Now, now, Giulio, this too will pass.”
“No.” Clement smiled, suddenly picking up his gloves and buttoning them delicately about his wrists. “No, this divorce petition from the English King so that he can wed Anne Boleyn and this so-called Reformation will not pass. Both issues will grow, flourish, and, I am afraid, merge into one great large protestant movement destined to end the Church as I know it, but…who knows, perhaps something greater will come along. But, thankfully, I will not live to see it.”
“You have become philosophical since arriving in Orvieto.”
“The Sack of Rome will do that to a man.”
At this, they both laughed.
“What will you do now?” Moses queried. “Officially, Henry the Eighth and King Francis of France are allied in warfare against the Emperor Charles. Perhaps they will prevail. Perhaps you will regain the Papal States, and even increase them.”
“I think not, dear friend, but for once, I am not worried about it. I am more interested in finding common ground and common divinity between faiths than in negotiating treaties between earthly princes. War will go on. I cannot end it, no pope can. But I can encourage others to think and to write. As much as it will be Egidio’s legacy, I hope this Schechina will be mine. Plus, I hear that Michelangelo might be tempted back to Rome once things are safe on the roads from Florence. Who knows, maybe I’ll have him do something to that water-stained wall at the far end of the Sistine Chapel. His ceiling cries out for a suitable frame.”
“And your son.” Moses spoke quietly. “What of Alessandro?”
“Safe, but safer not with me.” Clement sighed. “One day, perhaps, he will take his place as the leader of Florence like the Medici before him. But, for now, Florence wants nothing of the Medici, certainly not my son. I love him too much to bring him to me. He is safer without a father, Holy or otherwise.”
“You will be lonely without Alessandro, without Gio.”
“When I return to Rome, I will have my young great niece Catherine to keep me company,” said Clement. “She’s a strange, lonely child, orphaned, abandoned by everyone, forced to flee her home in front of an angry and ignorant mob. We have a lot in common, this little waif Catherine de Medici and I. Lucky for her, she’s safely at a convent for the moment. You see, everyone in my family is forced to flee because of the failing of their bastard relative, Giulio de Medici, Pope Clement the Seventh.” With that the Pontiff made a theatrical bow.
“Your flare for the dramatic could have led to a life on the stage,” offered Moses.
“That’s all the Papacy is,” retorted Clement, “a stage. But now, enough. You and I both are clearly delaying a goodbye neither of us wants to make, unless I am greatly mistaken. I have come to love Orvieto, and as long as I am here, all Jews are safe, if not beloved, though I wish I could accomplish both. I shudder to think, sometimes, what my Christian brothers and sisters may do to the tribe of Judah without sufficient protection.”
“Do not worry, noble Medici,” said Moses. “We have survived the plague of rats and Christian princes. I imagine we can survive a few more popes.”
“Well, don’t rush me to the grave yet. I’ll be around for a while. Plus, if anyone, any Catholic enemy, should ever trespass across your threshold in aggression, show them the coat of arms I gave you. Few Catholics, no matter how much they hate Jews or Medici, would desecrate a home bearing the Papal Crest.”
“It didn’t help you when Charles sacked the Vatican,” Moses teased back.