Gospel Truths

by J. G. Sandom

  Koster turned for a moment to the innkeeper. “Another café au lait, please,” he said.

  Agay vanished with a nod.

  “How did you find me?” Koster said.

  “I asked the concierge at the Hôtel de la Paix.”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you all right, Joseph?”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  Grabowski sat down once again at the table. “You just seem a little nervous,” he said.

  “Must be the work.”

  “How’s it going? Any luck with that missal?”

  Koster sat down beside the archbishop. “Actually, I wasn’t getting very far with the labyrinth at Amiens, so I thought I’d try this one instead.”

  The innkeeper returned with a pair of coffeepots and a small plate of croissants. Koster thanked him. Then he began to measure out equal portions of coffee and hot milk, pouring them one on top of the other in his cup. When he had finished, he pushed the service over to Grabowski.

  Where were the signs of guilt? Koster thought, watching the archbishop’s hands. Where were the nervous glances? Had Lyman been dreadfully wrong? “How long do you plan to stay?” he said, finally.

  “Not sure. A few days, I suppose. I haven’t seen this part of France in years. It’s quite charming.”

  “Yes, quite. You know, sometimes I think about getting out of New York. Going out to the country. Away from the crime and the pollution.”

  “I don’t blame you. It must be hard to live in New York.”

  “Unless you have a lot of money.”

  “I suppose.”

  “But you know, even the suburbs aren’t safe these days. Even places like Amiens.”

  Grabowski frowned. “What do you mean?” he said.

  “Didn’t I tell you what happened?”

  The archbishop shook his head.

  “At the hotel. They said it was attempted robbery, but I don’t know.” Koster pulled the collar of his shirt down, exposing the blue line around his neck.

  “Mother of Christ! When did that happen?”

  “My first week. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. It was all over the local papers.”

  “No,” Grabowski answered quietly. “I had no idea.”

  “You’re not safe anywhere these days. Except perhaps at the Vatican. But I guess that even there you have crime. I bet you get a lot of pickpockets for those Papal balcony scenes.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “I thought you were the mayor or something.”

  “It’s strictly a ceremonial title. My work at the IOR takes up most of my time.”

  “I bet it does. How is it these days, anyway? Are they still hounding you?”

  “Who?”

  “The press, the paparazzi. I would have thought they’d have given up by now, after all this time.”

  “I’d rather not discuss it.”

  “Oh, come on. Why not? It’s been years.”

  “I’d simply rather not.”

  “Some people would consider that a sign of guilt.”

  For a few seconds neither of them spoke. Then Grabowski leaned forward slowly, resting the tips of his elbows on the white tablecloth. “What do you want from me, Joseph? A confession? Is that what you expect?”

  “That’s not up to me.”

  “You’re damned right, it’s not.” Grabowski pushed his coffee cup away. “What do you know about Fabiano, anyway?”

  “I’ve read a few things.”

  “You’ve read!” The archbishop laughed flatly and dropped back in his chair.

  He wasn’t wearing a priest’s collar, Koster noticed for the first time. He was wearing a dark blue tie with little yellow squares.

  “Well, I lived it,” Grabowski continued. “All those years with Pontevecchio. You were only a kid then. You were barely born. They were hard years for the Church. Spiritually, politically.”

  “Financially.”

  “Yes, financially. What’s wrong with that? You make it sound as if banking and the Church are mutually exclusive. It’s okay these days when a priest acts like a politician, but if he’s a businessman, God help him. Everyone gets offended. Well, I ask you, Joseph. What’s wrong with business? How do you think we pay for all the hospitals we run, for all the schools, the soup kitchens? This is the real world. It costs money to help people.”

  “It wasn’t always that way. Not in the beginning, anyway.”

  “When? In some pristine, imaginary age?”

  “You know what I mean. In Christ’s day.”

  “Don’t be naive, Joseph. Even Christ had a bureaucracy. Someone took care of the transportation. Someone took care of the money.”

  “Who, Kazimierz?”

  “That’s not the point. The point is that without a defined hierarchy, without the proper finances, the Church could never have survived. It would have been crushed, persecuted out of existence.”

  “Like the Gnostics. They didn’t believe in a hierarchy. They didn’t require money.”

  Grabowski shook his head sadly. “I wish I could afford your simplistic view of the world, Joseph. I really do. But the sad truth of it is, to succeed, a Church requires a structure, an organization. And an organization requires money. Not only to feed the poor, but to finance missionaries. To pay for the heat in day care centers.” He pointed out the window. “To build cathedrals, Joseph.”

  “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about Fabiano.”

  The archbishop sighed. “Look, I don’t have to defend myself to you. The courts exonerated me. You can believe what you want. That’s your prerogative. But I never benefited personally from any one of those transactions, if that’s what you’re thinking. I live a simple life.” He paused. “I came here to help you, Joseph. That’s why I brought you those papers. And as far as my past is concerned, if I ever made some mistakes in judgment, if I ever got blinded in some small way by the monies generated by Pontevecchio, it was only because of my love for the Church.”

  Koster dropped his napkin on the table. The archbishop glanced back for an instant, and in that moment, as their eyes met just before he turned away again, Koster knew—with the certainty of numbers—that Lyman had spoken the truth.

  “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business,” Koster said. “Of course the Church needs money, operating expenses.” He tried to smile. “And I don’t want you to think that I’m not grateful for your help. I’m glad you came. Really I am. Have you found a place to stay yet?”

  Grabowski shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Well, this place isn’t bad. I’m in room thirty-six. There’s an empty one next door.”

  “You mean, you want me to stay?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Grabowski turned toward Koster slowly, his eyes downcast, his mouth half open. “I don’t know what to say.” Then he looked up. “Thank you, Joseph,” he added gently, without inflection.

  “Thank you for what?”

  “For believing in me. For taking me on faith.”

  The cathedral square was empty, except for a beggar by the western door, and a watchful tourist left over from the weekend. Koster and Grabowski walked along the northern wall of the Chartres Elementary School. Koster was talking, but Grabowski only heard the sounds of children playing on the other side, the swells of laughter, of footfalls running toward the future.

  For the Church, he thought. It was always for the Church.

  They crossed the street and stopped by the cathedral gate. Koster said something about a meeting later on, at the hotel, with his tourist friend from England. Grabowski tried to look agreeable. He shook his cousin’s hand as warmly as he could. He watched his back retreat along the path. He even waved as Koster finally slipped into the entrance to the cathedral. Then his whole demeanor changed. He turned briskly on his heels and headed back across the street, into the narrow garden at the center of the square, along the well-clipped lawn until he stood before the watchful tourist who was sit
ting with his camera on a bench.

  “Tell him it’s off,” he said contemptuously. “Tell him he made a mistake when he sent that man to the Hôtel de la Paix in Amiens.”

  “Sorry?” The dark young man in the olive-colored raincoat looked at him and smiled. “My English is not good.”

  “It’s good enough.”

  The young man shrugged. Then his smile collapsed, his eyes narrowed, and he started to his feet. Grabowski struck him squarely on the shoulder with his open palm. For a moment the young man struggled to keep upright. He reached for the archbishop, but Grabowski pushed him down again and he fell across the bench.

  “Just so that you realize my conviction,” the archbishop said. He dropped a hand on the young man’s shoulder and squeezed the nerves and muscles at the base of his neck. “Tell him that we had a bargain. He said no more bloodshed. That’s what he told me. That was the condition.”

  Suddenly the young man in the olive-colored raincoat laughed, a deep spontaneous frothy laugh. “It’s a little late now, isn’t it, to be concerned about your morals? Eventually, Your Excellency, we will have to come to terms. It is unavoidable. You are the only buyer.”

  “Never,” Grabowski said. “Not anymore.”

  The young man brushed off his clothes with an air of casual resignation. “Never,” he repeated, playing with the word, “is what you told Pontevecchio.”

  Chapter XXI

  AMIENS

  September 26th, 1991

  IT HAD BEEN A LONG AND ARDUOUS AFTERNOON, AND the cold was creeping through his joints as Guy wound up his final lecture of the day. He stood on the western steps of the Amiens cathedral, running down the list of stone apostles in the porch, trying to gather up the strength to fashion a pretense of noble curiosity, if only at the end. He had said these words so many times that they had taken on the resonance of prayer, and each day, each rendition was a struggle to give meaning to the same inflected hum, to find something nameless and sublime in the commonest of sounds. “That’s John,” he said, “with the poisoned cup which Aristodemus gave him.” He pulled his sweater down in back. “And look, there’s James,” he added sprightfully. “Like a pilgrim from Compostela. You see his traveler’s cloak covered with shells?”

  There was a uniform nod from the crowd. Cameras clicked. A pair of men at the back grew impatient. Guy hurried through the final sentences. He knew the telltale rolling of the eyes, the awkward glances, the shuffling of the feet. “And here of course is Thomas,” he said. “Here, perhaps for the first time, we see him carrying the architect’s square, a reference to the legend in which he was commissioned to build a palace for Gondoforus, the mysterious king of the East.”

  “What legend was that?”

  Guy turned around. He could not tell who had spoken. “According to the story,” he said, “King Gondoforus invited Thomas to come to his kingdom in India, and to build him a palace as beautiful as the ones in Rome. When Thomas arrived, Gondoforus gave him a plan for the palace he wanted, and left him with a key to the royal treasury. Then he went off into another province. In his absence, Thomas set about preaching the gospel, and distributing the king’s wealth to the poor.

  “When Gondoforus returned and learned what the apostle had done, he ordered that Thomas be flayed alive. But just before the execution, the king’s brother recovered from a long illness and said, ‘Brother, I have seen the palace of gold and silver and precious stones which this man has built. It is in paradise, and it is thine if thou wilt.’ When Gondoforus heard this, he begged the apostle’s forgiveness and was baptized on the spot.”

  Guy looked out through the crowd, hoping that the man who had spoken earlier would ask another question. Had it been the American, the one with the tortoiseshell glasses? Or one of those two at the back?

  “Of course,” he continued, “the palace is only a symbol. The apostles, you see, were the architects of the edifice of faith—the Church.”

  He lingered on the silence. The questions had run their course. It was cold now. It was growing dark. They wanted to scramble back home, back to their buses and Paris for that prearranged meal. He finished with a flurry of laughter, a joke about priests, a poke at himself. Then he held out his hands and they filed past before him with their thank-yous and coins, with occasional smiles. He searched their faces, trying to recall the ones who had spoken most often. It was not that he thought they were any more likely to give. But Guy harbored a hope that of them he might recognize one with the same frantic longing that had sprung up in him so spontaneously, so unexpectedly twenty years earlier, when he too had been a face in the crowd.

  Guy covered his money, the crowd fell away, all save the two at the foot of the steps.

  “Are you Soury-Fontaine?” one of them asked. His accent was Italian or Spanish. He was wearing a hat with a medallion on the band. The other man had a mustache. He looked paler, more pleasant. British perhaps.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Guy replied.

  They started toward him. “And you have a sister,” the man in the hat said. “Her name is Mariane?”

  Guy was startled. This was the voice, the man who had asked about Thomas. “What about Mariane?” he replied.

  The two men came to a stop. “I’m afraid there’s been an accident. Now, don’t worry. She’ll be all right. But I suggest you come with us immediately. We have a car. We can take you right to her.”

  The stranger grasped Guy by the wrist, pulling him gently away.

  Father Marchelidon closed the confessional window and sighed. They were such little sins, he thought, and yet the people of Amiens could not bear them.

  He leaned back and closed his eyes, waiting for the sound of footsteps to recede. He was so tired. He felt that if he were to hear the story of another lie, another duplicitous spouse, another petty hurt, he would lose control and scream at the darkness. People were killing each other across the world, and here they just squandered their love like loose change.

  He slipped out of the confessional and headed for the western portico. It was getting late, he thought. The sisters from Brazil would be arriving any minute. He pushed his way through the doors.

  Guy stood on the far side of the portico, flanked by two men.

  “Guy!” the priest said. He started toward his friend across the steps. “Do you know what time it is? You promised you’d be ready.”

  One of the men was holding Guy by the elbows.

  “I’m sorry, Xavier,” Guy answered sadly. “You’ll have to tell the sisters I can’t make it.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t make it? Are you serious? They’ve traveled thousands of miles. What am I supposed to say? Sister Theresa will be furious.”

  Guy tried to shrug. “It’s Mariane. She’s had an accident.”

  “What accident?”

  “Isn’t that so?” Guy said, looking at the man in the hat.

  “I don’t understand. I just saw her at the photo shop before confession. She looked perfectly fine.”

  “He’s busy,” the man in the hat replied.

  Father Marchelidon looked at the stranger for the first time, and his stomach curled into a ball. He had seen this man before. Perhaps the face was a little different, but he wore the same expression. He had seen him in Manaus, stepping out of unmarked cars at night, knocking on apartment doors, ushering people away. He had seen him on the far side of a light in São Luís. In the end, of course, the city and country didn’t matter. Men like this always spoke the same language. They always said the same thing.

  “Father Marchelidon,” someone called out behind him. The priest turned around. A nun stood by the main door of the cathedral. She was wearing a traditional habit and her face looked unnaturally small in the folds of her veil. “Father, I hate to be rude, but we have to make the station by seven.”

  “Sister Theresa, I’m sorry. I was just telling Guy here.”

  As he spoke another nun appeared at the entrance, and then another still. Soon they were joined by a d
ozen more who followed Sister Theresa across the steps. “So this is Guy,” she said. “We’ve heard so much about you in São Luís. It’s a pleasure to meet you after all this time.” She offered him her hand.

  The man in the hat stepped away. “How do you do,” Guy replied.

  “And these men,” Father Marchelidon broke in. “These men are…these men.” He floundered desperately. “These men heard about your school in São Luís, and they’re thinking about making a donation. Yes, that’s right,” he continued, trying to catch up with the lie. “They were very impressed with what they heard from Guy. Isn’t that right?”

  “They were?” said Guy.

  “Yes, of course.”

  Sister Theresa sighed. “Oh, thank you,” she said, grabbing the stranger by the hand. She began pumping it wildly. The other nuns gathered nearby, cooing. One had translated into Portuguese and the rest were pressing closer, mumbling “Obrigada, obrigada,” over and over.

  Father Marchelidon grabbed Guy by the sleeve and pulled him away from the crowd. “Go on,” he said.

  “What about Mariane?”

  “I’ll take care of her. Go on, get out of here.” The priest gave Guy another push. Then he turned to face the strangers. The man in the hat was trapped in the black-and-white whirl. Sister Theresa had withdrawn a wallet from her inside pocket and was holding it up before him. A plastic line of photographs dangled like a kite string from her hand.

  “Here it is from the south,” she said proudly. “You see the bougainvillea. Someday we’d like to build a kindergarten there, something for the unwed mothers.” She sighed again. “Someday.”

  The stranger in the hat brushed the wallet to the side. Then he barreled through the crowd and up the steps, taking them two at a time. Father Marchelidon tried to block his path. He held his hands out but the stranger struck him on the neck and he fell back, stunned, ears ringing.

  “Well, I never,” Sister Theresa said, trying to buoy him. “They can keep their money, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Father Marchelidon looked up across the steps and smiled. The two men had finally reached the entrance but he knew they were too late. Guy had already vanished through the door, into the twisting passageways and hidden corridors within, into the dark and sanctuary.