The Miracle (7 page)

Pale and dizzy, Tikhanov reached the concierge's desk in the ground floor lobby of the Hotel du Palais, prepared to book a seat on the earliest plane to Lisbon. The bald concierge was busy with another tourist, arranging a dinner reservation for four at the Rdtisserie du Coq Hardi in Biarritz. Waiting his turn restlessly, Tikhanov glanced at the rack beside the second counter with its lineup of international newspapers for sale. One word in every bold headline, and recognizable in every language, assaulted him. The word was miracle . . . milagro

. . . MIRACOLO.

Curious, Tikhanov moved around the comer of the concierge's counter to the newsrack. The headlines all seemed to be shouting about the same thing. Obviously, a big event of some kind. Tikhanov tugged free a copy of France Soir, left some change on the counter, and scanned the headline, the bank of headlines, MIRACLE EXPECTED AT LOURDES. BERNADETTE'S LEGACY. Her lost journal reveals the secret Virgin Mary entrusted to her long ago. The Virgin will reappear at the grotto in Lourdes in three weeks, sometime during the week and day following August 14. Some fortunate pilgrim will see the Virgin. Some ailing pilgrim will enjoy a miraculous cure.

Normally, at another time when he was in full control of his senses, Sergei Tikhanov would have cast this typical Western nonsense, this fable for gullible readers, into the nearest waste basket.

But a phrase that Dr. Motta had used in concluding their conversation still rang in his ears. What could be done to save Tikhanov? Dr. Motta had replied: Nothing short of a miracle.

Thinking about the coincidence, newspaper held open before him, Tikhanov shambled across the brown carpet, with its imperial design, spread on the marble floor of the lobby. There was a narrow red couch resting near two towering marble pillars. Tikhanov lowered himself into it and carefully read the story in French from Paris, the cardinal's announcement at a press conference that the Pope had authorized word to go out to the world that the Virgin Mary, during the seventh of her eighteen appearances before Bernadette, had promised to reappear at the grotto in Lourdes and provide a miraculous cure for an ailing pilgrim.

Religion and its miracles, the opium of the people, as Lenin had stated. Actually, Karl Marx had stated it first. "Religion is the soul of soulless conditions, the heart of a heartless world, the opium of the people."' And Marx's collaborator, Friedrich Engels, had echoed, "Get rid of the Church, which permits working people to suffer silently in this world while awaiting their reward in the next." Lenin had preached this, Stalin had supported it, and the Communist Party had demanded that every member shed his belief in religion. And Tikhanov had become, was still, a loyal Party member, an unswerving atheist since adolescence. As a veteran Communist, Tikhanov knew that not for a minute could he take this ignorant rubbish about the Virgin Mary seriously.

No matter how deep his depression, no matter what weakness had afflicted his brain, no matter how desperate his need for hope, this Lourdes story was impossible. About to throw the newspaper aside, Tikhanov's eyes fell upon a second story from Lourdes. This was a feature about the almost seventy miracle cures that had already been attributed to the grotto or the water from its spring. His gaze fastened on the list of incurables and their potentially fatal illnesses, persons from France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland who had been saved by miracles. Sarcoma of the pelvis—cured. Multiple sclerosis—cured. Addison's disease—cured. Cancer of the uterine cervix—cured. And other diseases miraculously cured, several diseases that seemed to resemble muscular dystrophy.

Following this story was an interview with a Dr. Berryer, head of the Lourdes Medical Bureau. The cures, certified by priests, were first thoroughly investigated and attested to by the best medical men in the world. Tikhanov's eye held on another statement that Dr. Berryer had made: Even non-Catholics and nonreligious visitors had been blessed by cures.

Impressive.

Tikhanov sat still. Very impressive. He thought back to his childhood in the farmhouse outside Minsk. His worn mother had been an

orthodox Catholic, a cheerful one, and his father had paid lip service to this faith. Tikhanov remembered the small wooden church -- the candles, the priest, the Mass, the rosaries. Communion, holy water, the confessional. Growing up, he had grown away from the sweet, comforting mysticism, and as a mature intellectual had found a more acceptable faith in the preachings and writings of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, much to his mother's distress.

But once, in innocence, he had been a believer. Maybe it was not necessary to remind himself of this now, but it was a kind of credential.

Only a miracle. Dr. Motta had said.

It was a dangerous enterprise, a key Soviet official going to a Catholic shrine to abandon momentarily Marx for Mary. But it could be done in secrecy. He could work it out.

He would work it out.

My God, his life was on the line, and there were no other options. Only this one. Besides,

what was there to lose?

Venice, London, and Madrid

The last time she had taken a private motorboat from a wharf outside the Marco Polo Airport to the Hotel Danieli Royal Excelsior in Venice, it had been a dazzling sunny morning three years ago. Natale Rinaldi remembered that morning vividly. The wondrous ride in the motorboat past fields and swamps, mounds of islands, the turning into a canal, the moist dirty-gray buildings on either side, the emergence into the shimmering main lagoon, the rich umber of the Hotel Danieli with its array of miniature white balconies jutting out on every floor.

It had been strange coming back to Venice this morning in total darkness, although her Aunt Elsa had reassured her that the morning was as sunny as it had been during their last visit.

Darkness had permanently enveloped Natale's world one week after she had returned to her parents' apartment in Rome following the vacation in Venice three years ago. She had rehearsed all that afternoon and into the early evening at the Teatro Goldini for her role as the Stepdaughter in Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, part of the fall repertory and her first real opportunity, and she had come back to the apartment and her bedroom tired but stimulated by the director's predictions of what the future held in store for her. Going to bed, she had been comforted by the cozy beige print wallpaper surrounding her—she had known it since childhood—and then she had

blinked out the bed lamp and closed her eyes. When her alarm had gone off at nine o'clock in the morning, and she had opened her eyes, she was lost in darkness. At first, confused, she had been unable to understand, and then she had realized that she had lost her sight. Somehow, somewhere in the night she had become totally blind. And then she had screamed. It would be the first and last time that she would ever panic.

Her frenzied parents had rushed her to a hospital. Rome's leading eye specialist had been called in. There had been a slit-lamp examination. There had been the ophthahnoscopy. There had been weeks of examinations to determine the cause of her blindness. There had been discussion of an occlusion in the central retinal artery. There had, finally, been a verdict: optic atrophy, abrupt, with no possibility of restored vision.

Three years ago, it had happened. Natale had been frightened and deeply shaken, but not shattered. At twenty-one, before the sudden darkness had come, she had been a gay, cheerful, optimistic young woman, and like her Catholic parents she believed unquestioningly in God, His Son, and in the Holy Ghost. The Lord knew what was best and He would look after her.

From the onset of her blindness, Natale had refused to buckle under or wallow in despair and self-pity. She had resolutely determined to be as independent and cheerful as possible. Although forced to give up her budding stage career, she had tried to maintain the life that she had known. Rejecting a Seeing Eye dog, refusing a white cane, she had encouraged her Aunt Elsa to guide her and teach her to get around on her own, in the apartment, in the street, in the antique shop her parents had on the Via Veneto. Aunt Elsa, her mother's younger sister, had been a perfect companion for her, a realistic and practical spinster in her late forties. Natale loved her parents, but their emotions had been hard to cope with, and she adored Aunt Elsa, who was solid and stable. Natale had continued to visit with her friends, and to go to the movies for the dialogue. Superficial changes had included wearing dark glasses at all times, learning Braille, and subscribing to a Talking Books service. As for church, she had gone to Mass more often and, when by herself, prayed more frequently. Her major sacrifice had been to deny herself dating or being with young men alone. There had always been so many, because of her beauty, she supposed, but with her handicap she had not wanted to become involved, become someone's burden.

This summer, for the first time since her blindness, she had wanted a vacation, to go back to Venice for three weeks, to the last city outside Rome that she had seen and loved before her loss of sight. Understanding and indulgent as her parents were, neither had been able to accom-

pany her to Venice, not during Rome's tourist season, their busiest time of the year. But they had agreed that Aunt Elsa, who was the manager of their shop, could take Natale.

Now, in the familiar third floor bedroom of the two-room suite at the Hotel Danieli, Aunt Elsa was unpacking their bags, and Natale stood before the twin beds, singing as she changed her clothes for their first foray into the streets.

Natale had already zipped up her blue jeans, pulled on the tight T-shirt (knowing, by feeling the raised initial sewn inside, that it was the becoming yellow one that contrasted so well with her loose shiny brunette hair), and with sure fingers she had patted down her hair and tied it at the nape of her neck with a ribbon. She fumbled on the bed for the dark glasses and adjusted them on the ridge of her small but perfect nose. She pirouetted in the direction of the unpacking and asked, "Aunt Elsa, am I together? Do I look all right?"

"Neat and beautiful as ever."

"You wouldn't be prejudiced, would you?"

"I've always told you, you could win any beauty contest. Why not? You take after me."

Natale laughed, remembering that her dumpy Aunt Elsa, with her straggly black hair and faint outline of a mustache, always believed that everyone else was beautiful.

Natale heard her aunt approaching, enjoyed her companion's warm hug, her aunt's forehead pressed against her cheek. Aunt Elsa was five feet two inches, and Natale was five feet six, thin and graceftil as a reed.

She took Aunt Elsa's arm. "Let's go outside. You can finish unpacking later. I want to see Venice again." She felt Aunt Elsa unconsciously wince at the use of the word "see," and Natale said with determination, "Yes, Auntie, I will see it if you point things out. I'll remember exactly."

"Very well," said Aunt Elsa. "I'm about ready, too."

"We'll go to the Piazza," said Natale, taking her purse from her aunt. "I want some fruit juice at Quadri's, a little walk on the Mercerie, and then lunch at Harry's Bar."

Leaving the two-room suite, Natale would not let her aunt guide her. Starting from a familiar fixed point, the familiar suite, she felt sure of herself. She had been to Venice and the Danieli many times with her parents, when she had been growing up. The last visit, three years ago, was still fresh in her mind. Touching the railings, she descended a few steps ahead of Aunt Elsa, recalling that the second flight of stairs down into the lobby was marble. In the lobby, she slowed to let Aunt Elsa

catch up with her, then smilingly acknowledged the greetings of several of the older concierges who had known her through the years and now had been informed of her condition.

Outside, on the Riva degh Schiavoni, Natale asked, "What kind of day is it? I know it's warm and a little sticky."

"The sun's out, but hazy. It'll be hot by noon."

"Is it crowded?"

"Swarms of tourists. Lots of Germans, British, a group of Japanese. You'll know it when we get to the bridge."

The bridge formed an arch over a canal, the Ponte della Paglia, upon which visitors always jammed to photograph the Bridge of Sighs, the high passageway on their right that led from the Doges' Palace to the ducal dungeons, from which Casanova had once escaped. As an adolescent, Natale had read the forbidden parts of Casanova's Memoires and wondered what had made him such a legendary lover, or if it had all been self-promotion. She had fantasized having Casanova make love to her, and supposed that it was the variety he had offered and his endurance that had excited so many women from every social class.

They were walking, and there was a constant babble of voices in numerous languages, and she felt the pressure of Aunt Elsa's hand on her arm. "There are three young men, locals I think," said Aunt Elsa, "who have stopped and are staring at you, stupefied."

"Because they pity me?"

"I said stupefied, stupid," said Aunt Elsa. "They don't know there's anything to pity. They see only a gorgeous young girl with an inadequate brassiere beneath a flesh-tight T-shirt, and they're awed."

"Oh, sure," said Natale, but she was pleased.

"Here's the bridge, step up."

The Ponte della Pagha was crowded, as it had always been, and this time Natale took pleasure in the bumping, pushing, elbowing as they reached the top. It was easier coming down and crossing the pavement toward the two granite columns of the Piazzetta. Natale could picture the colonnaded side of the Doges' Palace to her right, and to her left, across the bobbing moored black gondolas, the magnificent San Giorgio Maggiore rising up out of the glistening lagoon.

"There are all kinds of bookstalls and vendors along the ducal palace," said Aunt Elsa.

"Yes," said Natale remembering. It was poking through these stalls that she had first found Byron, Stendhal, Ruskin in Italian paperbacks and devoured them.

"Cafffe Chioggia isn't too filled right now," said Aunt Elsa. Natale

pictured the long outdoor cafe across from the Doges' Palace where she had once flirted with a timid American boy, who had been afraid to approach her.