The Fifth Gospel (47 page)

Michael knows that. It must be exactly what he's counting on. This is the last place anyone would come looking for two priests meeting in the night.

I emerge from a passage beneath an old pope's tomb onto the main floor of the basilica. All around me is a weightless, twinkling dark. From around a corner comes a sound. A metal click, as of a lock turning.

“Alex?” I hear him say. “Is that you?”

I follow it into the north transept. When Michelangelo designed Saint Peter's, he planned a Greek cross, all four arms the same length. But then a nave was added, making the Greek cross into a Latin one, its long side facing east. Where I now stand is the right crossbeam, the only
part of the main floor that is cordoned off to tourists. For most Eastern Catholics, it's an unfamiliar place. Along the walls are the booths where pilgrims come to confess. The confessionals are built like triple coffins, with a priest's stall in the middle and an open compartment on either side. Eastern Catholics, though, confess in the open. Only because of the years I've spent in this basilica do I recognize the sound of the heavy wooden door of a priest's compartment being unlocked.

“Michael,” I whisper. “It's me.”

The door opens.

For the first time in years, I rest eyes on the living Michael Black.

IT WAS SIXTEEN YEARS
ago that he disappeared. Right after the carbon-­dating verdict, my father returned to the Turin hotel room they'd been sharing and discovered that Michael was gone. He wasn't on the train back to Rome, or in the office the next Monday. My father tried to track him down, but it wasn't long before Father himself began to disappear into the depression that would become his grave. The search petered out. We never saw Michael again.

Only later did I learn what had happened. On the way out of Turin, an Orthodox reporter had confronted Michael and blamed him for luring a few naïve Orthodox priests into our Catholic humiliation. Michael took away his tape recorder and beat him with it until the reporter ended up in a hospital. Only because the Turin police weren't about to prosecute a Catholic priest for defending their city's relic did he escape punishment. So deals were made, and Michael was sent for treatment. No one could've been naïve enough, in those days, to believe that a few months in a mountain facility would cure him of anything serious. But maybe nobody really believed it was serious. Yet.

He'd always been unruly. His language had been coarse. But Italians understood that he was an American, a cowboy. The real trouble only started after he came back from the mountains. That was when he got picked up by the Secretariat.

There are places in the world where the Church has to fight for its life. Priests are imprisoned. Kidnapped. Even killed on the street. The Secretariat recruits a certain type of priest for those places. The American archbishop who preceded Uncle Lucio in the Governor's Palace was almost as tall as Simon, and twice as burly. On a papal trip to Manila,
when a man with a bayonet tried to attack the Holy Father, the American grabbed the attacker and tossed him through the air. Michael was half the size of that archbishop, but in someone's eyes he had those makings.

It was Cardinal Boia who must've seen another kind of potential in Michael. Whenever John Paul proposed a new olive branch to the Orthodox, Boia would send one of his Quasimodos to make sure nothing came of it. A few good slurs, maybe a pushing match or two, and years of diplomatic work could be undermined in hours. Simon blamed Michael for becoming Boia's favorite Quasimodo in Turkey. But I blamed Michael's keepers for recruiting a volatile young priest and convincing him, at his most vulnerable moment, that he'd been right to attack an Orthodox reporter. That he could make a whole career of fighting that way. Priests are institutional men, clay in the hands of the Church. It would've taken a man of unusual strength to shrug off the Secretariat's influence. A man like Simon. And that is hardly the kind of man I see before me.

Michael is shorter than I remember. He breathes loudly, almost panting. A thousand cocktail parties and seven-course dinners have made him fat. He appears uncomfortable, adjusting his sash and making a wordless guttural noise that seems to be a complaint of exertion. He looks rougher than I remember. He hasn't shaved in days. The reason is obvious. It must be hard to work a razor around the divots in his face.

The wounds are still visible. One runs like a seam beneath his left eye. His nose isn't right either; the bridge still bends to one side. He reaches out a hand to offer an American shake instead of an Italian embrace. The first words he says to me, after more than a decade, are, “Damn, Alex. Nobody told me you stayed Eastern. I figured you jumped ship like Simon.”

And yet, at the bottom of those words, I hear guilt. His presence under this roof says he's here to repent for what he did to Peter and me.

“Did you meet with Monsignor Mignatto?” I say.

“Lawyers,” Michael says with disgust. “Yeah, I did.”

“And?”

“He's got me on the stand tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. Mignatto wastes no time.

“But I told him,” he continues, “I'm not going to lie up there. I don't
believe in this garbage. Reuniting Churches. Kowtowing to the beards. And if they ask me, that's what I'm going to say.”

“Michael, you told me on the phone that before these people beat you up, they wanted to know about Ugo's research.”

He nods.

“What about it?” I say.

He stares at his knuckles. “They thought he discovered something. Something bad for business with the Orthodox. They thought Simon made him hide it. So they wanted to know what it was.”

I'm tired of the secrets. “The Fourth Crusade. We stole the Shroud from the Orthodox in 1204.”

“No. It wasn't that.”

I'm taken aback. “Michael, I'm sure of it.”

He's a Roman Catholic. Even after working for years with my father, he may not understand what 1204 means in the East.

But he shakes his head. “It was something Nogara found in the Diatessaron.”

“That's impossible. I worked with Ugo for a month on the Diatessaron.”

He whistles. “Then you're lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“That Cardinal Boia didn't find you before now. You're the one he should've been looking for all along.”

Maybe he feels betrayed by Boia. Attacked by his own master. I wonder why it happened.

“Why were you in that airport?” I say. “Were you helping Simon?”

He bristles. “I already told you this.”

“Told me what?”

“That I can't talk about what happened.”

I throw my head back. I've forgotten. Another oath.

“I told the lawyer, too,” he says. “I won't answer questions about that in court.”

“Break the oath. Tell the judges the truth.”

Suddenly his voice bubbles with anger. “The lawyer and I settled this, and I'm not here to rehash it with you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because those were my orders.”

A chill goes through me. “What are you talking about?”

“Cardinal Boia called me today. He knows I'm in town.”

“How is that possible?”

“Your lawyer put my name on some document.”

“Did His Eminence threaten you?”

“No. Just gave me a little reminder. And then asked how he could get to
you
.”

My pulse is hammering. “What do you mean?”

“He says you shouted at him today. At his windows.”

“I was just trying to—”

“Get his attention? Well, it worked.”

“What are you telling me?”

“His Eminence wants to meet with you.”

I nervously glance around me. “Right now?”

Michael snorts. “Tomorrow morning before the trial reopens. Seven thirty at his apartments.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. But for your sake, I hope it goes better than my meeting in the airport.”

C
HAPTER
31

I
STAMMER A FEW
more questions, but Michael has no answers. Cardinal Boia's name has a weird effect on him. He begins to fill the silence with praise for his boss. Boia the great man. The defender of tradition. Then his party line: reunion with the Orthodox would weaken our Church, dilute what it means to be Catholic, make the pope nothing more than another one of their patriarchs. Michael's irrationality is returning.

I feel clammy. The chill of the air penetrates under my skin. Finally I say, “I've heard enough, Michael. I'm leaving.”

I feel him watching me as I go. If I knew any other way out of this basilica at night, I would take it. As I walk home, I keep one hand on my mobile phone. More than once I think of calling Mignatto. But I know what he would say. Not to listen to Michael. Not to meet with Boia.

I collect Peter from the pharmacists' apartment. He's still wide awake. Rarely have I seen him so eager to leave Brother Samuel.

“What's on your mind?” I ask, slipping the new key into our new lock.

He's almost skipping. “Can we call Mamma?”

“Peter, not tonight.”

He frowns. He must think I'm teasing him. After a whole day of separation, I wouldn't really refuse him the one thing he's been hoping for.

“There's something we need to talk about,” I say instead.

And then I send him down the hall to wash his face and brush his teeth, telling him to meet me back in his bedroom. He looks anxious. But he obeys.

I open the Bible we keep beside an icon of the Theotokos. She watches serenely as I turn the pages. I wish I could share her calm.

Peter comes back reeking of the ginger-mint toothpaste he loves. He strips down to underwear, then climbs into bed and draws up the sheet to his Adam's apple.

“Peter, I want to talk to you about what's happening with Uncle Simon.”

He stares at me. His eyes are suddenly filled with innocence, with the tremulous courage only a child can have, being powerless to stop the things he fears.

“Do you remember Mister Nogara?” I say.

He nods.

“Five days ago, Mister Nogara died.”

A wrinkle forms in Peter's forehead. I wait for him to say something.

“Why?” he asks.

Why.
The question so distantly beyond my capacity to answer.

“There's no reason to be afraid. You know what happens when we die.”

“We go home,” he says.

I nod, and it takes a wrenching effort to hide my emotion.

“Now,” I say, running a hand through his hair, “you need to know something about his death. We don't understand why it happened. And some people say Simon is to blame. Some people think he hurt Mister Nogara.”

Muscle by muscle Peter grows rigid. I can feel him begin to tremble.

“Don't be scared,” I repeat. “We know Simon. Right?”

He nods, but the pressure of his body doesn't subside.

“In fact,” I say, “do you know where I went today? To a place where people have been coming from all over Italy just to talk about Simon. And do you know what some of them said?”

“What was the place called?” he asks instead.

I hesitate. “It was one of the palaces.” I gesture. “Over there.”

“Prozio's palace?”

“No, a different one.” I persevere. “Bishops and archbishops have been coming there, even cardinals, and do you know what they came to say? That Simon is a very good man. That they know the same thing we do: that he would
never
hurt anyone. Especially not his own friend.”

The nodding intensifies, but only because Peter is trying to live up to my expectations. Trying to show he's strong enough to take this awful news. I reach my arms around him and pull him into my chest, showing him he doesn't have to be a grown-up tonight. The relief is so instantaneous, he explodes in tears.

“I know,” I say, stroking his hair, feeling his hot tears through my cassock. “I know.”

He makes an insensible sound, the cry of a much younger child.

“Oh, my boy,” I say, feeling the strange fullness that exists only in these moments of pure dependence. I am his. God made me for this child.

On the nightstand, the Theotokos casts her protective glance over the open Bible. The title above the chapter says:
δίκη του Ιησού
.
The Trial of Jesus
. Many times we've read it. But when we read it tonight, I hope Peter will start to understand. Tomorrow, I can't know what will happen with Cardinal Boia. I will take a risk that we may both regret. But tonight I can explain to him, in a way he will someday understand, why I have to take that risk.

A Christian life is lived by the example of the disciples. By imitating their virtues, but also by learning from their failures. When the disciples were faced with the arrest and trial of the man they believed in, they abandoned him in fear. They placed their own safety, and the verdict of their priests, above the demands of their consciences.

I believe in my brother as I believe in nothing else on this earth, except for the love of this little boy. And I will never abandon either of them.

So let this be the lesson between us. What I do for
Simon, I would do for you. There is one law under God. And it is love
.

This
is love
.

Peter cries, and I hold him. Not until he falls asleep will I let him go.

SLEEP WON'T COME FOR
me. In the middle of the night I walk out to the living room and sit on the couch. I stare out the window at the moon. I pray.

Before dawn I put the moka pot on the stove. The brothers next door have already showered by quarter to seven, when I ask them to stay with Peter again. On the kitchen table I leave his favorite superhero cup beside the plastic bottle containing the last of our Fanta. Then I write a note, choosing from the words I know he can easily read.

Peter—

I have gone to help Simon. I will be back as soon as I can.
If you need to talk to me, Brother Samuel will let you use his phone. When I get home, you and I will call Mamma. I promise.

Love,

Babbo

I look at those words again—
when I get home
—and they choke me. I'm so glad to be back under this roof. This apartment has been in my family for more than twenty years. It's the only place where I still feel the presence of my parents. And yet I know: Boia could find a way to take it from us. To reassign it to another family. Even Lucio could not stop him. Boia could have the pre-seminary fire me, forcing me out of the Vatican economy. Peter and I would lose our Annona pass, so that we couldn't buy our food tax-free; our gas privileges, so that we would have to pay almost double for fuel in Rome; our parking pass, so that we could no longer afford to have a car at all. John Paul pays a little extra to all his workers with children, and if I were to lose that, too, along with my job, then Peter and I would have nothing. My savings would last us only a few months. What I'm about to do is right. I know that. But I beg God not to let Peter suffer for it.

On my way to the palace, archbishops roll by in chauffeured sedans. Lay workers race past on Vespas. Nuns pedal bicycles. I hurry through the crosswalk on foot, fighting the consciousness of my own smallness. At the first checkpoint the gendarmes sneer when I say, “I have a meeting with Cardinal Boia.” But they make the phone call and I'm on the list. Wordlessly they let me by.

My heart thumps as I reach the Secretariat courtyard. I don't know
where to go next. Gianni said there was an archway leading to the private courtyard and the elevator. But that archway is sealed with huge doors. I have to backtrack and take the only other elevator I know, down by the Secretariat offices.

The doors open to a different world. These hallways are five hundred years old. They were built to giant scale, two hundred feet long and twenty-five feet high. Their ceilings were painted by Raphael. The priests who march by are Secretariat men, former prefects of their seminary classes, former stars in their home dioceses, men who found the language training at the Academy no harder than the etiquette classes. Even so, many of them won't cut it. The motto here is that a new door opens every time you push another man out a window. I think to myself that Simon never belonged here. He could wipe the floor with these priests. He's already proven he was made for bigger things. And yet they will push him out the window at the first sign of weakness.

I cross into the final wing of the palace. The last checkpoint of Swiss Guards makes its phone call. I'm now a hundred paces from seeing Simon. I keep the thought of him with me at every step. Otherwise the idea of what I'm doing terrifies me.

A priest-secretary greets me at the door. He's thin as a staff, with a cassock so expensive that the fabric shimmers like liquid silk. His hands are clasped in the half-begging, half-praying pose that Secretariat priests use to keep people from embracing them. He gives me a fraction of a bow, then leads me into a library that nothing, not even Lucio's palace, has prepared me for.

On the floor is a red Persian rug the size of a small courtyard. The walls are gold damask. So are the doors, upholstered like jewelry-box tops to make them disappear into the walls when they close. The chairs and footstools and candelabras are gilded. Simon has told me about places in the Secretariat where the tapestries are gifts from Renaissance kings and the gold was brought back by Columbus from America. But the priest-secretary makes no effort to dazzle me with facts. He just leads me to a negotiating table in the middle of the library. He instructs me to wait at my seat, one arm's length away from the chair at the head of the table. And then he leaves.

A moment later, a door on the far side of the room opens. And a great black form enters the room.