Vatican Vendetta: A thrilling battle of power and politics

by Peter Watson

  ‘Wonderful. I’d like to live there.’ She laughed, then became serious. ‘But it might easily have been a disaster.’ She told him about Roskill’s attempt to bully Thomas and how His Holiness had turned the tables. ‘You know it’s amazing – all these other countries have foreign ministries and so on, with hundreds of people working out policy options, and yet a guy like Roskill still comes to us for help. Little us, with barely a dozen foreign diplomats. The Catholic Church really is the only truly international country, if you see what I mean.’

  A waiter brought a menu.

  ‘You all leave New York tomorrow?’

  She nodded. ‘Forty-eight hours in Chicago, then Boston for two nights. Back to Rome from there. And you?’

  ‘The scrolls’ sale is the day after tomorrow. A day clearing up, then back to London. Any news from Thomas, by the way – about the marriage dissolution, I mean?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If only he’d get a move on. Doesn’t he realize you want to have children?’

  ‘You know, I’m not so sure I do any more.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s true. I know it’s my duty as a Catholic – but there are other duties, too. Thomas and I, we’re both Americans and you must have noticed something about Americans, David. We have large appetites for everything. We pay lip service to family life but actually for most of us it now comes second to our jobs. A good companion – lover, spouse – plus a good job. But the job comes first. That’s the American way to happiness these days. I don’t disagree. I’m doing a job I think is important. I think Thomas is no ordinary Pope, that what he’s trying to do with St Patrick’s Fund especially will be remembered and may just change the world a little bit. I don’t want to sound priggish but I reckon the work I do is more important than having babies. Have you thought, David darling, that maybe this is God’s way of telling me what to do?

  ‘Which raises another awkward question. When Thomas gives us the go-ahead, and we get married, what then? I enjoy my job, so I couldn’t give it up and live in London, and you wouldn’t give up what you do, would you? So we’d have the kind of life we have now, only we’d be called married.’

  The waiter took their orders.

  David turned back to her. ‘You sound as if you don’t much relish the idea of marriage any more.’

  ‘Bah! Men! Always apocalyptic. I’m just raising the problems. Someone has to.’ She reached across the table and cupped her hand over his mouth, so he could kiss it. ‘I love you very much, you silly man. But look at me; I’m not classic housewife material, am I? We should be thinking ahead, David, that’s all I’m saying, not just waiting on Thomas’s word. Think of it, you in London during the week, me in Rome. Then long weekends in either city, together. It doesn’t sound bad to me and will probably help keep the marriage fresher than a good many others. We can work hard in the week, and love hard at weekends.’

  ‘The idea is growing on me.’

  ‘I’ll say this for you, you’re flexible.’ She stroked his cheek. Then her face darkened. ‘I only wish they were like you in Northern Ireland.’

  ‘Why? What do you mean?’

  ‘We’ve had a scary report from our apostolic delegate in Dublin. It seems the IRA are planning a major offensive in the north.’

  ‘I hate to sound cynical, Bess, but what else is new?’

  ‘This is. It won’t be just another sectarian attack, you see. I don’t know if you followed the story, but a night watchman was burned to death in Ulster some weeks ago, after the warehouse he was guarding had been set fire to. The night watchman’s firm was Catholic and word has it that the arsonists were from a rival Protestant firm. But the Royal Ulster Constabulary has made no arrests, even though it seems pretty clear who did it. So, inevitably perhaps, the IRA will think up a little “justice” of its own.’

  ‘Bloody awful, I agree. But, I repeat, nothing new in that.’

  ‘Except that the attack happened in the first place because the Catholic firm was getting support from the St Patrick’s Fund. The Catholics, God knows, have had a rough deal in Northern Ireland and the fund seemed a great way of helping them. But now I guess the fund is helping to put Protestant firms out of business. It looks like a third time the St Patrick’s Fund will have backfired. Thomas is riding high now. But if a full-scale sectarian tit-for-tat develops in Belfast things can change very quickly.’

  Yes, thought David, reflecting also on his own precarious position in Hamilton’s, they certainly can. What he said was: ‘Have you been to the Metropolitan Museum yet? The Giotto they bought has a room all to itself.’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ replied Bess. ‘The only other free half hour I’ve had, I managed to sneak off and buy some jazz records for Thomas. There’s a great music shop on 42nd Street. But when we were in Washington we saw Red Wilkie’s helicopter at Andrew’s Air-force Base. It has an outline of the “Pietà” on each side. Looked a bit incongruous to say the least. I gather he’s going to install the original sculpture in the atrium of his new headquarters in central Washington. It should be quite a draw. We were also told that he plans to rename “Wilkie Defence” and the new name is “Pietà Products”. I can’t say I like it, but at least it shows that the Holy Father’s approach is working better over here than in Italy.’

  ‘Still problems with the Romans? What news of Massoni?’

  ‘He’s still writing his column in Il Messaggero. It doesn’t make world news all the time, but the Romans love it. He just bitches on about everything Thomas does.’

  ‘What sort of thing does he say?’

  ‘His latest attack is on the canonization of Peter Knaths. I tell you, Thomas doesn’t see him as a problem but I think Massoni is acquiring power through his column. They’ll never have media religious leaders in Italy like we get here in America, but Massoni is becoming a sort of Roman equivalent. Il Messaggero’s circulation is climbing steadily and it seems to be due almost wholly to Massoni.’

  ‘Is it just the Romans who go for him? What about the Sicilians, for example?’

  ‘Oh, they’re on our side, of course. But, elsewhere in Italy, I don’t know. David, there’ll always be some people who like to knock whoever’s at the top of the tree.’ The food arrived. Bess helped herself to more wine. ‘Look, do we have to spoil our dinner? Isn’t there something nice we can talk about? What news of Ned?’

  ‘Ah!’ cried David. ‘I had nearly forgotten. I’ve got something for you.’ He reached into his pocket and took out a small box. ‘It’s a gift – but not from me. Ned gave it to me, for you, just before I left to come here.’

  Bess put down her fork and took the box from David. Inside was a crush of white tissue paper. She took it out and unwrapped it. Inside the paper was a brooch, a mass of gold wire, intertwined in complicated arabesques.

  ‘Ned’s now a goldsmith,’ said David. He reached across and set it down on the tablecloth. They could both see, entwined in the mass of loops and coils, the name ‘BESS’ faintly distinguishable.

  *

  The limousine eased forward through a thicket of bodies. A posse of blue-coated police forced back the angry crowd. The car was about thirty yards from the main entrance of Hamilton’s on 71st Street but it might just as easily have been thirty miles. An egg, not the first, smashed against the windscreen, and a low cheer went up from the people on the sidewalk.

  ‘You all right, Mike?’ said David, anxiously.

  ‘Yeah,’ growled the driver. ‘It’ll take more than that to stop me, Mr Colwyn. I was in Vietnam.’

  David gazed back through the car windows at the distorted faces, shouting and spitting at him. It was a big contrast from the smiles outside the first Vatican sale, when the ‘Madonna of Foligno’ had been on offer. Admittedly, David had expected trouble after the court case and the warning he had received, but nothing as bad as this. He had spent most of the day checking with the police and his security people that there would be adequate protection for all those who wished to att
end the sale, and had been able to dash back to his hotel to change only an hour before the gavel was supposed to fall. Now it looked as though he would be late for his own auction, the first time that had ever happened in all his years on the rostrum.

  But the limo at last reached the main doorway. Here the police held the protesters back. David had advised all the big potential buyers to enter by the side door, but he thought it would look cowardly if it got out that he, as chief executive, had failed to brave the crowds. The Israeli consul had felt the same. David only hoped he was already safely inside.

  Two of Hamilton’s own security men came out to the car and opened the door for him. As he stood on the kerb they positioned themselves either side. A roar went up from the crowd, banners were waved in his face, screams yelled in his direction. Lights flashed in a mini electrical storm as press photographers recorded the occasion.

  But David made it safely inside. He thanked the security men as the second set of double doors leading into Hamilton’s closed behind him, shutting out most of the noise. It was exactly eight o’clock. He rushed to his office to comb his hair and pick up his marked catalogue, then dashed down to the auction hall, on the mezzanine floor.

  When he arrived he was surprised, but gratified, to see that the hall was full to overflowing. Clearly some people liked a bit of danger; the stormy publicity had done no harm at all, at least not to attendance.

  David mounted the rostrum and smiled down at the many faces he knew. He opened his catalogue and set his gavel down. ‘Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our sale.’ From now on, his intention was to proceed as if everything was absolutely normal. He glanced around the room to check that his assistants were all in place. He turned to the head porter who nodded gravely: the lots were ready to be displayed.

  ‘As you know, ladies and gentlemen, there are four lots for your consideration tonight, four scrolls from the Dead Sea caves at Qumran, all of immense historical and religious importance and all put up for sale by the Israeli government which wishes to make charitable use of the funds so raised. Once again, therefore, this is not a simple commercial transaction tonight. It is something far more important, and I hope you will reflect that – in the energy of your bidding.’

  He flattened the pages of his catalogue.

  ‘Lot one is the Hodayoth Scroll, known as 1QH, and which consists of eighteen columns dating from the first century AD.’ David looked down at his notes, though this was largely for effect as he well knew what he was going to say. ‘I will start the bidding at six million. Six million dollars – any more, any more?’

  Again the terrifying dead seconds while he struggled to keep a look of relaxed confidence on his face. But then a dealer, Muffy Ward, on the telephone and in touch with David Tribe, a Texan private collector, raised her hand. The evening was off.

  To begin with, the sale went marvellously well. The Hodayoth Scroll fetched seventeen million dollars, bought by David Tribe; the Apocryphal Psalms, lot two, also went to Texas, to the university at Austin, for nineteen million dollars; and the War Rule, nineteen columns describing the perpetual struggle between good and evil, fetched nineteen million dollars also but went to Tokyo Museum.

  David now turned to lot four. ‘The last lot, ladies and gentlemen, is the Genesis Apocryphon, known technically as lQapGen, an Aramaic paraphrase of the Genesis story with many supplementary embellishments. The scroll itself dates from the first century BC but the composition perhaps goes back to the second century BC. I shall start the bidding at ten million dollars.’

  In no time it was at eighteen, with three people in the bidding: Michael Manasseh, a private collector from Los Angeles, Leonard Mayer of the Semitic Museum at Harvard, and Raymond Snowden, a private New York antiquities dealer.

  At that point, however, David noticed a commotion at the door at the back of the room and the captain of the security guards, who was supposed to be on duty down at the main entrance, forced his way in. He marched down the centre aisle towards the rostrum looking grave.

  David stopped the bidding and leaned forward. A buzz swept the room as the two men became locked in a whispered exchange. David straightened his back. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it was perhaps inevitable that we wouldn’t get through tonight without some slight bother. I have just been informed by my chief of security that the Hasidic Biblical Archaeology Society which, as you know, has been demonstrating at the front of the building, has set fire to part of the ground floor – now there’s no need to panic,’ he reassured them as people started scrambling to their feet. ‘I understand that the danger is not serious and the fire department have been informed.’ He raised his voice still more. ‘I should say that we anticipated something like this and we have reserved a room at the Westbury Hotel around the corner on Madison Avenue and 68th Street. Champagne and canapés are available there now, ladies and gentlemen, and the sale will continue in one hour. Please leave quietly by the door to your left where you see a Hamilton’s commissionaire in dark blue. He will lead you to the Westbury by a side route. I repeat, the danger is not serious, there is no need to panic and the sale will continue at the Westbury Hotel in an hour.’

  Though he sounded calm, David was furious. He had pleaded with the police to keep the demonstrators on the other side of the street. Still, the situation could have been worse. He discovered, when he went to investigate, that someone had thrown a small firebomb through a window into a ground floor room where back numbers of auction catalogues were kept. The shiny, heavy paper of the catalogues had burned slowly and harmlessly, but with a lot of smoke and that had set off the alarm system immediately.

  But the publicity the fire brought, for Hamilton’s and for the HBAS, and the danger it threatened for all the well-heeled people at the auction, were far from harmless. David put all this firmly from his mind. The evening wasn’t over: there was one scroll still to sell. He left the security chief and a captain from the fire department in charge of the Hamilton building, satisfied that all was as well as could be expected, then walked briskly round to 68th Street.

  When he arrived at the hotel he was relieved to see that most people had come across from the other building. They seemed not to be too badly affected by what had happened: in fact they looked quite cheerful. The champagne and canapés were being served as promised and, as David arrived, someone shouted: ‘Here he is! Come on, Colwyn, let’s get going. It’s cold in here without a fire.’ But the man was laughing, enjoying the unexpectedness of it all.

  There was no rostrum at the Westbury, just a raised platform and a lectern. No matter. The chairs for the bidders were more comfortable than at Hamilton’s. David climbed on to the platform, reached down and took a glass of champagne from one of the hotel staff holding a tray. As he tossed it back a low ironic cheer went up from the others in the room.

  David looked to his left: there was the head porter holding the Genesis Apocryphon as if nothing had happened. The other scrolls were safely at his side, too. David winked and they both smiled at each other. He opened his catalogue and a silence descended on the room.

  ‘The Genesis Apocryphon, then. The bidding stands at eighteen million dollars – with you sir.’ He nodded to Leonard Mayer, then blandly surveyed the room. ‘Any more?’

  And with that unflamboyant remark the bidding restarted. And, perhaps because people in the room now shared a special camaraderie, they seemed unaffected by what had gone before. Manasseh dropped out at twenty-two million dollars and at twenty-five million dollars Mayer, very reluctantly, gave in too. Raymond Snowden got it for twenty-six million dollars.

  The New York dealer approached David. Briefly they spoke together, then David addressed the room. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, before you go, I have been asked by Mr Snowden here to announce that he was bidding on behalf of the Vatican Secret Archive which has therefore acquired the oldest manuscript relating to the bible.’

  Chapter Twelve

  David arrived back in London completely exhausted. In the sense that it ha
d raised eighty-one million dollars and that meant a commission for Hamilton’s of sixteen point two million dollars, the Dead Sea Scrolls sale had gone well. But the cumulative effect of the court case, the demonstrations and the fire had drained him. And, coming as it did at the same time as the daubings on the walls of Buckingham Palace, it meant that Hamilton’s featured in some rough press coverage on both sides of the Atlantic.

  At the regular board meeting which took place shortly after David returned, the Earl of Afton congratulated him on earning Hamilton’s such a handsome commission. But the Earl seemed muted. Averne now openly proposed that the firm should withdraw from the Queen’s sale, giving as his reasons the bad publicity which had attended the scrolls auction and the fierce opposition that continued to rumble on in Britain about the royal pictures. The Earl still maintained that Hamilton’s could not withdraw but it seemed to David, with less and less conviction.

  It was with some relief, therefore, that David travelled to Paris with Ned at half term for their weekend together in the Loire and at the Louvre.

  At Paris airport they hired a car. The plan was to spend Saturday in the Loire, at Cloux and Amboise, for David’s benefit, and then to travel into Paris on Sunday and visit the Louvre on Monday, for Ned’s.

  They found Leonardo’s château at Cloux a rather sombre building. It gave David no new ideas of where to look for Leonardo documents, nowhere that had not been covered by countless scholars before. Dispirited, but trying for Ned’s sake not to show it, he travelled back to Paris.

  The Louvre visit was altogether more successful. In the first place, they almost immediately bumped into Ed Townshend, David’s friend and sparring partner in the Renaissance Society, the American who was a curator at the Fogg Museum at Harvard.

  ‘Ed! I might have expected to see Jean-Claude Sapper here, since he’s the curator, or Ivan Shirikin, since his museum has the best collection of icons in the world, but why are you here? It’s not your field, is it?’