Tedesco 22
Adeyemi 19
Bellini 18
Tremblay 16
Lomeli 5
Others 38
The size of his own vote dismayed him. Assuming he had drawn away support from Bellini, he might well have cost him first place, and with it the sense of inevitability that might have carried him to victory. Indeed, the more he studied the figures, the more disappointing for Bellini they looked. Hadn’t Sabbadin, his campaign manager, predicted at dinner that he was certain to be in the lead after the first ballot, with up to twenty-five votes, and that Tedesco would receive no more than fifteen? Yet Bellini had come in third, behind Adeyemi – no one had envisaged that – and even Tremblay was only two votes behind him. One thing was certain, Lomeli concluded: no candidate was anywhere near the seventy-nine votes it would take to win the election.
He was only half listening as Newby read out the official results: they merely confirmed what he had already worked out for himself. Instead he was flicking through the Apostolic Constitution to paragraph seventy-four. No modern Conclave had lasted beyond three days, but that didn’t mean it might not happen. Under the rules they were obliged to keep on balloting until they found a candidate who could command a two-thirds majority, if necessary for as many as thirty ballots, extending over twelve days. Only at the end of that time would they be permitted to use a different system, whereby a simple majority would be sufficient to elect a new Pope.
Twelve days – an appalling prospect!
Newby had finished giving the results. He held up the red silk cord on which all the ballot papers were threaded. He knotted the two ends together and looked towards the dean.
Lomeli rose from his place and took the microphone. From the altar step he could see Tedesco studying the voting figures, Bellini staring into nothing, Adeyemi and Tremblay talking quietly to the men sitting next to them.
‘My brother cardinals, that concludes the first ballot. No candidate having achieved the necessary majority, we shall now adjourn for the evening and resume voting in the morning. Will you please remain in your places until the officials are allowed back into the chapel. And may I remind Your Eminences that you are forbidden to take any written record of the voting out of the Sistine. Your notes will be collected from you, and burnt along with the ballot papers. There will be buses outside to take you back to the Casa Santa Marta. I would ask you humbly not to discuss this afternoon’s vote in the hearing of the drivers. Thank you for your patience. I now invite the Junior Cardinal-Deacon to ask for us to be released.’
Rudgard stood and walked to the back of the chapel. They could hear him knocking on the doors and calling for them to be opened – ‘Aprite le porte! Aprite le porte!’ – like a prisoner summoning his guard. A few moments later he returned accompanied by Archbishop Mandorff, Monsignor O’Malley and the other masters of ceremonies. The priests were carrying paper sacks and went up and down the rows of desks collecting the voting tallies. Some of the cardinals were reluctant to hand them over, and had to be persuaded to put them in the sacks. Others hung on to them for a last few seconds. No doubt they were trying to memorise the figures, Lomeli thought. Or perhaps they were simply savouring the only record there would ever be of the day they received a vote to be Pope.
*
Most of the cardinals did not go downstairs to the buses immediately but gathered in the vestibule to watch the ballot papers and notes being burnt. It was something after all even for a Prince of the Church to be able to say that he had witnessed such a spectacle.
Even now, the process of checking the votes had still not quite ended. Three cardinals, known as revisers, also chosen by ballot before the Conclave, were required to recount the tallies. The rules were centuries old and indicated how little the Fathers of the Church had trusted one another: it would require a conspiracy of at least six men to rig the election. When the revising was done, O’Malley squatted on his haunches, opened the round stove and stuffed it with the paper sacks and the threaded ballot papers. He struck a match, lit a firelighter and placed it carefully inside. Lomeli found it odd to see him doing something so practical. There was a soft wumph of combustion, and within seconds the material was ablaze. O’Malley closed the iron door. The second stove, the square one, contained a mixture of potassium perchlorate, anthracene and sulphur in a cartridge that ignited when a switch was pressed. At 7.42 p.m., the temporary metal chimney jutting above the roof of the Sistine, picked out in the November darkness by a searchlight, began to gush jet-black smoke.
*
As the members of the Conclave filed out of the chapel, Lomeli drew O’Malley aside. They stood in a corner of the vestibule. Lomeli had his back to the stoves. ‘Did you speak to Morales?’
‘Only on the telephone, Your Eminence.’
‘And?’
O’Malley put his finger to his lips and glanced over Lomeli’s shoulder. Tremblay was passing, sharing a joke with a group of cardinals from the United States. His bland face was cheerful. After the North Americans had strolled out into the Sala Regia, O’Malley said, ‘Monsignor Morales was emphatic that he knows of no reason why Cardinal Tremblay should not be Pope.’
Lomeli nodded slowly. He had not expected much else. ‘Thank you at least for asking him.’
A sly look came into O’Malley’s eyes. ‘However, will you forgive me, Your Eminence, if I say that I did not entirely believe the good monsignor?’
Lomeli stared at him. When there wasn’t a Conclave, the Irishman was Secretary of the Congregation for Bishops. He had access to the files on five thousand senior clerics. He was said to have a nose for discovering secrets. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because when I tried to press him regarding the meeting between the Holy Father and Cardinal Tremblay, he went out of his way to assure me it was entirely routine. My Spanish isn’t perfect, but I have to say he was so emphatic, he rather aroused my suspicions. So I implied – I didn’t specifically state it as a fact, I hope – let us say I hinted in my inadequate Spanish that you might have seen a document that contradicted that. And he said you were not to worry about the document: “El informe ha sido retirada.”’
‘El informe? A report? He said there was a report?’
‘“The report has been withdrawn” – those were his exact words.’
‘A report on what? Withdrawn when?’
‘That I don’t know, Eminence.’
Lomeli was silent, considering this. He rubbed his eyes. It had been a long day, and he was hungry. Was he to be worried that a report had been compiled, or reassured that it might no longer exist? And did it matter much in any case, given that Tremblay was only in fourth place? Suddenly he threw up his hands: he couldn’t deal with it now, not while he was sequestered in the Conclave. ‘It’s probably nothing. Let’s leave it there. I know I can rely on your discretion.’
The two prelates walked across the Sala Regia. A security man watched them from beneath a fresco of the Battle of Lepanto. He turned his body away slightly, and whispered something, into either his sleeve or his lapel. Lomeli wondered what it was they were always talking about in such urgent tones. He said, ‘Is anything happening in the outside world that I ought to be aware of?’
‘Not really. The main story in the international media is the Conclave.’
‘No leaks, I trust?’
‘None. The reporters interview one another.’ They began to descend the stairs. There were a great many steps – thirty or forty – lit on either side by electric lamps shaped like candles; some of the older cardinals found their steepness a challenge. ‘I should add there is great interest in Cardinal Benítez. We have put out a biographical note, as you requested. I have also included a background note for you, in confidence. He really has enjoyed the most remarkable series of promotions of any bishop in the Church.’ O’Malley pulled an envelope from beneath his vestments and handed it to Lomeli. ‘La Repubblica believes his dramatic arrival is all part of the late Holy Father’s secret plan
.’
Lomeli laughed. ‘I would be delighted if there was a plan – secret or otherwise! But I sense that the only one with a plan for this Conclave is God, and so far He seems to be determined to keep it to Himself.’
8
Momentum
LOMELI RODE BACK to the hostel in silence, his cheek pressed against the cold window of the bus. The swish of the tyres on the wet cobbles as they passed through the successive courtyards was oddly comforting. Above the Vatican Gardens the lights of a passenger jet descended towards Fiumicino airport. He promised himself that the next morning he would walk to the Sistine, whether it was raining or not. This airless seclusion was not merely unhealthy: it was unconducive to spiritual reflection.
When they reached the Casa Santa Marta, he strode past the gossiping cardinals and went straight to his room. The nuns had been in to clean while the Conclave was voting. His vestments had been neatly hung in the closet, the sheets on his bed turned down. He took off his mozzetta and rochet and draped them over the back of the chair, then knelt at the prie-dieu. He gave thanks to God for helping him perform his duties throughout the day. He even risked a little humour. And thank you, O Lord, for speaking to us through the voting in the Conclave, and I pray that soon You will give us the wisdom to understand what it is You are trying to say.
From the adjoining room emanated muffled voices occasionally punctuated by laughter. Lomeli glanced at the wall. He was sure now that his neighbour must be Adeyemi. No other member of the Conclave had a voice so deep. It sounded as if he was having a meeting with his supporters. There was another burst of hilarity. Lomeli’s mouth tightened in disapproval. If Adeyemi truly sensed the papacy might be closing in on him, he ought to be lying prone on his bed in the darkness in silent terror, not relishing the prospect. But then he rebuked himself for his priggishness. The first black Pope would be a tremendous thing for the world. Who could blame a man if he felt exhilarated at the prospect of being the vehicle of such a manifestation of the Divine Will?
He remembered the envelope O’Malley had given him. Slowly he raised himself on his creaking knees, sat at his desk and tore open the envelope. Two sheets of paper. One was the biographical note released by the Vatican press office:
Cardinal Vincent Benítez
Cardinal Benítez is 67 years old. He was born in Manila, Philippines. He studied at the San Carlos Seminary and was ordained in 1978 by the Archbishop of Manila, His Eminence Cardinal Jaime Sin. His first ministry was at the church of Santo Niño de Tondo and afterwards at Our Lady of the Abandoned Parish (Santa Ana). Well known for his work in the poorest areas of Manila, he established eight shelters for homeless girls, the Project of the Blessed Santa Margherita de Cortona. In 1996, following the assassination of the former Archbishop of Bukavu, Christopher Munzihirwa, Fr Benítez, at his own request, was transferred to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he undertook missionary work. He subsequently set up a Catholic hospital in Bukavu to assist female victims of the genocidal sexual violence perpetrated during the First and Second Congo Wars. In 2017 he was created monsignor. In 2018 he was appointed Archbishop of Baghdad, Iraq. He was admitted to the College of Cardinals earlier this year by the late Holy Father, in pectore.
Lomeli read it through twice just to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. The Archdiocese of Baghdad was tiny – if he remembered rightly, these days it numbered barely more than two thousand souls – but even so, Benítez appeared to have gone straight from missionary to archbishop with no intervening stage. He had never heard of such a meteoric promotion. He turned to O’Malley’s accompanying handwritten note:
Eminence,
From Cardinal Benítez’s file in the dicastery, it would appear that the late Holy Father first met him during his African tour in 2017. He was sufficiently impressed by his work to create him monsignor. When the Baghdad archdiocese fell vacant, the Holy Father rejected the three suggested nominations put forward by the Congregation for Bishops and insisted on appointing Fr Benítez. In January this year, following minor injuries sustained in a car-bomb attack, Archbishop Benítez offered his resignation on medical grounds, but withdrew it after a private meeting in the Vatican with the Holy Father. Otherwise, the file is remarkably scanty.
RO’M
Lomeli sat back in his chair. He had a habit of biting the side of his right forefinger when he was thinking. So Benítez was in delicate health, or had been, as the result of a terrorist incident in Iraq? Perhaps that accounted for his fragile appearance. All in all, his ministry had been served in some terrible places: such a life was bound to take its toll. What was certain was that the man represented the best that the Christian faith had to offer. Lomeli resolved to keep a discreet eye on him, and to mention him in his prayers.
A bell rang, to announce that dinner was served. It was 8.30 p.m.
*
‘Let us face facts. We did not do as well as we had hoped.’ The Archbishop of Milan, Sabbadin, his rimless lenses glinting in the light of the chandeliers, looked around the table at the Italian cardinals who formed the core of Bellini’s support. Lomeli was seated opposite him.
This was the night when the real business of the Conclave started to be done. Although in theory the papal constitution forbade the cardinal-electors from entering into ‘any form of pact, agreement, promise or commitment’ on pain of excommunication, this had now become an election, and hence a matter of arithmetic: who could get to seventy-nine votes? Tedesco, his authority enhanced by coming top in the first ballot, was telling a funny story to a table of South American cardinals, and dabbing his eyes with his napkin at his own hilarity. Tremblay was listening earnestly to the views of the South-East Asians. Adeyemi, worryingly for his rivals, had been invited to join the conservative archbishops of Eastern Europe – Wrocław, Riga, Lviv, Zagreb – who wanted to test his views on social issues. Even Bellini seemed to making an effort: he had been parked by Sabbadin on a table of North Americans and was describing his ambition to give greater autonomy to the bishops. The nuns who were serving the food could hardly help overhearing the state of play, and afterwards several of them were to prove useful sources for reporters trying to piece together the inside story of the Conclave: one even preserved a napkin on which a cardinal had jotted the voting figures of the first-round leaders.
‘Does that mean we cannot win?’ continued Sabbadin. Again he sought to look each man in the eye, and Lomeli thought unkindly how rattled he looked: his hopes of becoming Secretary of State under a Bellini papacy had taken a knock. ‘Of course we can still win! All that can be said for certain after today’s vote is that the next Pope will be one of four men: Bellini, Tedesco, Adeyemi or Tremblay.’
Dell’Acqua, the Archbishop of Bologna, interrupted. ‘Aren’t you forgetting our friend the dean here? He received five votes.’
‘With the greatest respect to Jacopo, it would be unprecedented for a candidate with so little support on the first ballot to emerge as a serious contender.’
But Dell’Acqua refused to let the subject drop. ‘What about Wojtyła in the second Conclave of ’78? He received only a scattering of votes in the first round yet went on to be elected on the eighth ballot.’
Sabbadin fluttered his hand irritably. ‘All right, so it’s happened once in a century. But let’s not distract ourselves – our dean does not exactly have the ambition of a Karol Wojtyła. Unless, that is, there’s something he’s not telling us?’
Lomeli looked at his plate. The main course was chicken wrapped in Parma ham. It was overcooked and dry but they were eating it nonetheless. He knew that Sabbadin blamed him for taking votes off Bellini. In the circumstances, he felt he should make an announcement. ‘My position is an embarrassment to me. If I find out who my supporters are, I shall plead with them to vote for someone else. And if they ask me who I’ll be voting for, I shall tell them Bellini.’
Landolfi, the Archbishop of Turin, said, ‘Aren’t you supposed to be neutral?’
‘Well, I can’t b
e seen to campaign for him, if that’s what you’re implying. But if I’m asked my view, I feel I have a right to express it. Bellini is unquestionably the best-qualified man to govern the Universal Church.’
‘Listen to that,’ urged Sabbadin. ‘If the dean’s five votes come to us, that takes us to twenty-three. All those hopeless candidates who have received one or two nominations today will fall away tomorrow. That means another thirty-eight votes are about to become available. We simply have to pick up most of them.’
‘Simply?’ repeated Dell’Acqua. His tone was mocking. ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing simple about it, Your Eminence!’
Nobody could say anything to that. Sabbadin flushed pink and they resumed their melancholy chewing in silence.
*
If that force which the secular call momentum and the religious believe is the Holy Spirit was with any of the candidates that night, it was with Adeyemi. His rivals seemed to sense it. For example, when the cardinals rose for coffee and the Patriarch of Lisbon, Rui Brandão D’Cruz, went out into the enclosed courtyard to smoke his evening cigar, Lomeli noticed how Tremblay immediately hurried after him, presumably to canvass his support. Tedesco and Bellini moved from table to table. But the Nigerian simply went and stood coolly in the corner of the lobby and left it to his supporters to bring over potential voters who wanted to have a word with him. Soon a small queue began to form.
Lomeli, leaning against the reception desk, sipping coffee, watched him as he held court. If he were a white man, he thought, Adeyemi would be condemned by the liberals as more reactionary even than Tedesco. But the fact that he was black made them reluctant to criticise his views. His fulminations against homosexuality, for example, they could excuse as merely an expression of his African cultural heritage. Lomeli was beginning to sense that he had underestimated Adeyemi. Perhaps he was indeed the candidate to unite the Church. He certainly had the largeness of personality required to fill St Peter’s Throne.
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