Conclave

by Robert Harris

  After his acceptance, the person elected was immediately Bishop of the Church of Rome, true Pope and head of the College of Bishops. He thus acquired and could exercise full and supreme power over the Universal Church.

  One word of assent, one name provided, one signature appended, and it was done: in its simplicity was its glory.

  The new Pope would then retire to the sacristy known as the Room of Tears to be robed. Meanwhile, the papal throne would be set up in the Sistine. Upon his re-emergence, the cardinal-electors would queue up ‘in the prescribed manner, in order to make an act of homage and obedience’. White smoke would be sent up the chimney. From the balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square, Santini, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education and also the Senior Cardinal-Deacon, would make the announcement, ‘Habemus papam’ – ‘We have a Pope’ – and shortly afterwards the new pontiff would appear before the world.

  And if, thought Lomeli – it was almost too momentous a possibility for him to allow his mind to encompass it, but it would be irresponsible for him not to do so – if Bellini’s prediction proved to be correct, and the chalice passed to him, what would happen then?

  In that event, it would fall to Bellini, as the next most senior member of the Conclave, to ask him by what name he wished to be known as Pope.

  The idea was dizzying.

  At the start of the Conclave, when Bellini had accused him of ambition and insisted that every cardinal secretly knew the name they would choose if they were elected, Lomeli had denied it. But now – God forgive him for his dissimulation – he acknowledged to himself that he had always had a name in mind, although he had consciously avoided giving voice to it, even in his head.

  He had known what he would be for years.

  He would be John.

  John in honour of the blessed disciple, and of Pope John XXIII under whose revolutionary pontificate he had grown to manhood; John because it would signal his intention to be a reformer; and John because it was traditionally a name associated with Popes whose reigns were short, as he was certain his was bound to be.

  He would be Pope John XXIV.

  It had a weight to it. It sounded real.

  When he stepped out on to the balcony, his first act would be to give the Apostolic Blessing, Urbi et Orbi – ‘to the City and the World’ – but then he would have to say something more personal, to calm and inspire the watching billions who would be yearning for his lead. He would have to be their shepherd. To his amazement, he realised the prospect did not terrify him. There had come into his head, unbidden, the words of our Saviour Jesus Christ: Do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given you in that hour. Even so, he thought (the bureaucrat in him being never far away), it would be best to make at least some sort of preparation, and so for the final twenty minutes of the balloting, casting his eyes occasionally to the Sistine’s ceiling for inspiration, Lomeli sketched out what he might say as Pope to reassure his Church.

  *

  The bell of St Peter’s tolled three times.

  The voting was over.

  Cardinal Lukša lifted the urn full of ballots from the altar and showed it to both sides of the chapel, then shook it firmly enough for Lomeli to hear the papers inside it stir.

  The air had become chilly. Through the broken windows came a strange, soft, immense sound – a murmur, a sigh. The cardinals looked at one another. They couldn’t comprehend it at first. But Lomeli recognised it immediately. It was the noise of tens of thousands assembling in St Peter’s Square.

  Lukša held out the urn to Cardinal Newby. The Archbishop of Westminster thrust his hand into it, pulled out a ballot paper, and said loudly, ‘One . . .’ He turned to the altar and dropped it into the second urn, then swung back to Lukša and repeated the process. ‘Two . . .’

  Cardinal Mercurio, his hands clasped to his chest in prayer, moved his head slightly as he watched each movement.

  ‘Three . . .’

  Until that moment, Lomeli had felt detached – serene, even. Now each counted ballot seemed to tighten an invisible band strapped around his chest, making it hard for him to breathe. Even when he tried to fill his head with prayer, all he could hear was the steady, inescapable intonation of the numbers. It went on like a water torture until at last Newby plucked out the last ballot paper.

  ‘One hundred and eighteen.’

  In the silence, rising and falling like a giant wave in the distance, came again the low, faint cry of the faithful.

  Newby and Mercurio left the altar and went into the Room of Tears. Lukša waited, holding the white cloth. They returned carrying the table. He covered it carefully, caressing the fabric, smoothing it flat, and then from the altar he lifted the urn full of votes and placed it reverentially in the centre. Newby and Mercurio set out the three chairs. Newby collected the microphone from its stand. The trio of scrutineers sat.

  Across the Sistine Chapel, the cardinals shifted in their seats and reached for their lists of candidates. Lomeli opened his folder. Without noticing it, he held the tip of his pen poised above his own name.

  ‘The first ballot is cast for Cardinal Benítez.’

  His pen travelled up the column and made a mark against Benítez’s name, then returned to his own. He waited, not looking up.

  ‘Cardinal Benítez.’

  Again his pen traversed the list, made a mark, and returned to its default position.

  ‘Cardinal Benítez.’

  This time, after he had awarded the tick, he looked up. Lukša was feeling for the next ballot paper from deep inside the urn. He pulled it out, unfolded it, noted the name, and passed the paper to Mercurio. The Italian also wrote the name down carefully, then gave the ballot to Newby. Newby read it and leaned across the table to speak into the microphone.

  ‘Cardinal Benítez.’

  The first seven votes were all for Benítez. The eighth was for Lomeli, and when the ninth was as well, he thought that perhaps the early run for Benítez had been one of those flukes of distribution they had seen throughout the Conclave. But then came another spell of Benítez, Benítez, Benítez, and he felt God’s grace draining from him. After a few minutes he started counting up the Filipino’s votes, putting a line through each group of five. Ten lots of five. He had fifty-one . . . fifty-two . . . fifty-three . . .

  After that, he no longer bothered with his own tally.

  Seventy-five . . . seventy-six . . . seventy-seven . . .

  As Benítez approached the threshold that would make him Pope, the air in the Sistine seemed to tauten, as if its molecules were being stretched by some magnetic force. Dozens of other cardinals had their heads bent over their desks and were making the same calculation.

  Seventy-eight . . . seventy-nine . . . eighty!

  There was a great collective exhalation of breath, a half-ovation of hands being tapped on desktops. The scrutineers paused in their counting and looked up to see what was happening. Lomeli leaned out of his seat to peer along the aisle at Benítez. His chin was on his chest. He appeared to be praying.

  The counting of the ballot resumed.

  ‘Cardinal Benítez . . .’

  Lomeli took up the sheet of paper on which he had roughed out the notes for his speech and tore it into tiny fragments.

  *

  After the last ballot paper had been read out – as it happened, it had been cast for him – Lomeli sat back in his chair and waited while the scrutineers and revisers went over the official figures. Afterwards, when he tried to describe his emotions to Bellini, he said that he felt as though a great wind had briefly lifted him off his feet and whirled him into the air, only to set him down abruptly and go whirling off after someone else. ‘That was the Holy Spirit, I suppose. The sensation was terrifying and exhilarating and certainly unforgettable – I am glad to have experienced it – but when it was over, I felt nothing except relief.’ It was the truth, more or less.

  Newby said into the microphone, ‘Your
Eminences, here is the result of the eighth ballot . . .’

  Out of habit, Lomeli lifted his pen for the final time and wrote down the figures:

  Benítez 92

  Lomeli 21

  Tedesco 5

  The end of Newby’s announcement was lost in the outbreak of applause. None clapped more loudly than Lomeli. He looked around him, nodding and smiling. There were a few cheers. Opposite him, Tedesco was bringing his palms together very slowly, as if beating time for a dirge. Lomeli, redoubling his clapping, stood, and it was taken as a signal for the entire Conclave to get to its feet in an ovation. Benítez alone remained seated. With the cardinals at his back and on either side looking down at him, applauding him, he appeared, at his moment of triumph, even smaller and more out of place than before – a tiny figure, head still bowed in prayer, his face obscured by a tumbling lock of black hair just as it had been the first time Lomeli saw him with his rosary in Sister Agnes’s office.

  Lomeli went up to the altar, holding his copy of the Apostolic Constitution. Newby handed him the microphone. The clapping died away. The cardinals sat. He noticed that Benítez had not moved. ‘The necessary majority has been achieved. Will the Junior Cardinal-Deacon please summon the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations and the Secretary of the College?’

  He waited as Rudgard went into the vestibule and called out for the doors to be opened. A minute later, Mandorff and O’Malley appeared at the back of the chapel. Lomeli stepped down into the aisle and walked towards Benítez. He was conscious of the expressions on the faces of the archbishop and the monsignor. They were standing discreetly just inside the screen and staring at him in astonishment. They must have presumed he would be Pope and were wondering what he was doing. He reached the Filipino and stood before him. He read from the constitution.

  ‘In the name of the whole College of Cardinals, I ask you, Cardinal Benítez, do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?’

  Benítez seemed not to have heard. He did not look up.

  ‘Do you accept?’

  A long silence followed, as more than a hundred men held their breath, and it crossed Lomeli’s mind that he was about to refuse. Dear God, what a disaster that would be! He said quietly, ‘May I quote to you, Your Eminence, the Apostolic Constitution, written by St John Paul II himself? “I ask the one who is elected not to refuse, for fear of its weight, the office to which he has been called, but to submit humbly to the design of the Divine Will. God who imposes the burden will sustain him with his hand, so that he will be able to bear it.” ’

  At last Benítez raised his head. His dark eyes contained a glint of resolution. He stood. ‘I accept.’

  Spontaneous exclamations of pleasure erupted along both sides of the chapel, followed by more applause. Lomeli smiled, and patted his heart, to indicate his relief. ‘And by what name do you wish to be called?’

  Benítez paused, and suddenly Lomeli guessed the reason for his apparent detachment: he had spent the last few minutes trying to decide his papal title. He must have been the only cardinal who had come into the Conclave without having a name in mind.

  In a firm voice he said, ‘Innocent.’

  19

  Habemus papam

  THE CHOICE OF name took Lomeli by surprise. To derive one’s papal title from a virtue – innocence, piety, clemency – rather than from a saint was a tradition that had died out generations ago. There had been thirteen Popes named Innocent, none of them in the last three centuries. But the more he considered it, even in those first few seconds, the more he was struck by its aptness – by its symbolism at such a time of bloodshed, by the boldness of its declaration of intent. It seemed to promise both a return to tradition and yet a departure from it – exactly the sort of ambiguity the Curia relished. And it fitted the dignified, childlike, graceful, softly spoken Benítez to perfection.

  Pope Innocent XIV – the long-awaited Third World Pope! Lomeli privately gave thanks. Once again, miraculously, God had guided them to the right choice.

  He was aware that the cardinals had started clapping again, in approval of the name. He knelt before the new Holy Father. Smiling in alarm, Benítez raised himself out of his seat, leaned across the desk and tugged at Lomeli’s mozzetta, indicating that he should get back on his feet. ‘It should be you in this place,’ he whispered. ‘I voted for you in every ballot and I shall need your advice. I would like you to continue as Dean of the College.’

  Lomeli grasped Benítez’s hand as he hauled himself up. He whispered in return, ‘And my first piece of advice, Your Holiness, would be to make no promises of office just yet.’ He called to Mandorff: ‘Archbishop, would you be so good as to bring in your witnesses and draw up the deed of acceptance?’

  He stepped back to allow the formalities to be conducted. It would take five minutes at most. The document had already been written out; it was necessary merely for Mandorff to insert Benítez’s birth name, his pontifical name and the date, and then for the new Holy Father to sign it and for it to be witnessed.

  It was only as Mandorff placed the paper on the desk and began filling in the blank spaces that Lomeli noticed O’Malley. He was staring fixedly at the deed of acceptance, as if in a trance. Lomeli said, ‘Monsignor, I’m sorry to interrupt you . . .’ When the Irishman failed to react, he tried again: ‘Ray?’ Only then did O’Malley turn and look at him. His expression was confused, almost frightened. Lomeli said, ‘I think you should start gathering the cardinals’ notes. The sooner we can light the stoves, the sooner the world will know we have a new Pope. Ray?’ He reached out his hand in concern. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Your Eminence. I’m fine.’ But Lomeli could see he was having to make a great effort to act as if nothing was wrong.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s simply not the outcome I was expecting . . .’

  ‘No, but it’s wonderful all the same.’ He dropped his voice. ‘Listen, if it’s my position you’re worried about, my dear fellow, let me assure you I feel nothing but relief. God has blessed us with His mercy. Our new Holy Father will make a much greater Pope than ever I would have done.’

  ‘Yes.’ O’Malley managed a kind of stricken half-smile, and gestured to the two masters of ceremonies who were not involved in witnessing the deed of acceptance to begin gathering the cardinals’ papers. He walked a few paces further into the Sistine, then halted and quickly returned. ‘Eminence, I have a great burden on my conscience.’

  It was at that moment that Lomeli once again felt tendrils of alarm begin to curl around his chest. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘May I speak with you in private?’ O’Malley grasped Lomeli’s elbow and tried to guide him urgently towards the vestibule.

  Lomeli glanced around to see if anyone was watching. The cardinals were all looking at Benítez. The new Pope had signed the deed of acceptance and was leaving his seat in order to be taken to the sacristy to be robed. Lomeli surrendered reluctantly to the monsignor’s pressure and allowed himself to be conducted through the screen and into the cold, deserted lobby of the chapel. He glanced up. A wind was blowing through glassless windows. Already it was starting to get dark. The poor man’s nerves had obviously been affected by the explosion. ‘My dear Ray,’ he said, ‘for heaven’s sake calm yourself.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Your Eminence.’

  ‘Just tell me simply what it is that’s troubling you. We have much to do.’

  ‘Yes, I realise now I should have spoken to you earlier, but it seemed so trivial.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘On that first night, when I took Cardinal Benítez the toiletries he was lacking, he told me I needn’t have bothered with a razor, as he never shaved.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was smiling when he said it, and to be frank, given everything else that was going on, I thought nothing of it. I mean, Your Eminence, it’s not uncommon, is it?’

  Lomeli squinted at him, uncomprehending.
‘Ray, I’m sorry, but you are making no sense to me.’ Dimly he recalled blowing out the candle in Benítez’s bathroom and seeing the razor in its cellophane wrapper.

  ‘But now that I’ve discovered about the clinic in Switzerland . . .’ His voice trailed away helplessly.

  ‘The clinic?’ repeated Lomeli. Suddenly the marble floor began to feel like liquid. ‘You mean the hospital in Geneva?’

  O’Malley shook his head. ‘No, that’s the point, Eminence. Something kept on niggling away in my mind, and this afternoon, once I saw that there was a chance the Conclave might move towards Cardinal Benítez, I decided I should look it up. It turns out it isn’t a normal hospital. It’s a clinic.’

  ‘A clinic for what?’

  ‘It specialises in what they call “gender reassignment”.’

  *

  Lomeli hurried back into the main part of the chapel. The masters of ceremonies were moving along the rows of desks, collecting every scrap of paper. The cardinals were still in their places, talking quietly among themselves. Only Benítez’s seat was empty, along with his own. The papal throne had been set up in front of the altar.

  He walked the length of the Sistine to the door of the sacristy and knocked. Father Zanetti opened the door a crack. ‘His Holiness is being robed, Your Eminence,’ he whispered.

  ‘I need to speak with him.’

  ‘But Your Eminence—’

  ‘Father Zanetti, if you please!’

  Startled by his tone, the young priest stared at him for a moment before withdrawing his head. Lomeli heard voices within, then the door was opened briefly and he slipped inside. The low vaulted chamber looked like the props room backstage at a theatre. It was cluttered with discarded clothes and the table and chairs that had been used by the scrutineers. Benítez, already clothed in the white watered-silk cassock of the Pope, was standing with his arms held wide, as if nailed to an invisible cross. Kneeling at his feet was the papal tailor from Gammarelli, pins in his teeth, stitching the hem, so intent on his work he did not look up.