Lazarus Read online

  ‘Because,’ she told him, ‘I need nothing but what I have: work I can do well, a place where my Britte can grow to be an independent and talented woman, a man I trust and admire and love.’

  ‘How much do you love me, Tove Lundberg?’ ‘As much as you want, Sergio Salviati. As much as you will let me.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask how much I love you?’

  ‘Because I know already …’

  ‘Do you know that I am always afraid?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of what I am afraid?’

  ‘That one day, at some bad moment, the healing magic will fail you, you will misread the signs, lose the master touch. But it will not happen. I promise you.’

  ‘Are you never afraid?’

  ‘Only in a special way.’

  ‘What way?’

  ‘I am afraid of needing anything so much that someone could hurt me by taking it away.’

  And, she might have added, she came of old Nordic seafaring stock, whose women waited on windswept dunes and cared not whether their men were drunk, sober or scarred from brawling, just so that, one more time, they had escaped the grey widow-maker.

  In the small, dark hours before the false dawn, Leo the Pontiff began rolling his head from side to side on the pillow and muttering restlessly. His gullet was thick with mucus and his brow clammy with night-sweat. The night nurse shifted him in the bed, sponged his face and moistened his lips with water. He responded drowsily.

  ‘Thank you. I’m sorry to be a trouble. I was having a bad dream.’

  ‘You’re out of it now. Close your eyes and go back to sleep.’

  For a brief, confused moment he was tempted to tell her the dream, but he dared not. It had risen like a new moon from the darkest places of childhood memory; and it shed a pitiless light upon a hidden hollow in his adult conscience.

  At school there was a boy, older and bigger, who bullied him continually. One day he confronted his tormentor and asked why he did such cruel things. The answer still echoed in his memory: ‘Because you’re standing in my light; you’re taking away my sun.’ How could he, he asked, since he was so much smaller and younger. To which the bully answered: ‘Even a mushroom throws a shadow. If it falls on my boot, I kick it to pieces.’

  It was a rough but lasting lesson in the usances of power. A man who stood against the sun became a dark shadow, faceless and threatening. Yet the shadow was surrounded by light, like a halo or the corona of an eclipse. So the shadow-man assumed the numen of a sacred person. To challenge him was a sacrilege, a most damnable crime.

  So, in the last hours before they drugged him and wheeled him off to the operating theatre, Ludovico Gadda, Leo XIV, Vicar of Christ, Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church, understood how, in learning from the bully, he had himself been tipped into tyranny.

  In defiance of biblical injunction, of historic custom, of discontent among clergy and faithful, he had appointed as senior archbishops, in Europe and the Americas, men of his own choosing, hard-line conservators, stubborn defenders of bastions long overpassed, deaf and blind to every plea for change. They were called the Pope’s men, the praetorian guard in the Army of the Elect. They were the echoes of his own voice, drowning out the murmurs of discontented clerics, of the faceless crowd outside the sanctuaries.

  It had been a harsh encounter and a heady victory. Even as he remembered it, his face hardened into the old raptor look. Dissenting clerics had been silenced by a double threat: suspension from their functions and the appointment of a special apostolic administrator. As for the people, when their shepherds were silenced they, too, were struck dumb. They had no voice in the assembly. Their only free utterance was outside it, among the heretics and the infidel.

  It was the childhood nightmare which shamed Leo the Pontiff into admitting the harm he had done. It was the shadow of the surgeon’s knife which reminded him that he might never have the chance to repair it. As the first cocks crowed from the farmlands of the Villa Diana, he closed his eyes, turned his face to the wall and made his last desperate prayer.

  ‘If my presence hides the light of Yours, O God, remove me! Strike me out of the book of the living. But if you leave me here, give me, I beg You, eyes to see, and heart to feel, the lonely terrors of your children!’

  Book 2

  Lazarus Redivivus

  ‘He cried out in a loud voice:

  “Lazarus, come here, to me!” Whereupon

  the dead man came out, his hands and feet

  tied with strips of linen, his

  face covered with a veil. Jesus said:

  “Untie him. Let him go free.”’

  John xi: 43, 44

  Six

  About the same hour on the same morning, Monsignor Matt Neylan finally made telephone contact with Lorenzo de Rosa, one-time priest of the Roman diocese, excommunicated, newly widowed, the father of two small children. Neylan explained himself curtly.

  ‘There’s a terrorist threat to the Pontiff, who is at this moment a patient in the International Clinic. You’re a suspect, because you sounded off yesterday to Malachy O’Rahilly. So you’re bound to get a visit from the anti-terrorist squad. My suggestion would be to get out of town as quickly as you can.’

  ‘And why should you care?’

  ‘God knows. Maybe a visit from the Squadristi sounds like one grief too many.’

  ‘There’s nothing they can do to us now. But thank you for calling. Goodbye.’

  Matt Neylan stood like a ninny with the dead receiver in his hand. Then a dark thought took hold of him and sent him racing for his car and careering like a madman through the morning traffic towards EUR.

  De Rosa’s house was a modest but well-kept villa in a cul-de-sac near the Via del Giorgione. There was a car in the driveway and the garden gate was unlocked. The front door was open, too. Neylan called a greeting, but there was no answer. He went inside. The ground floor was deserted. Upstairs in the nursery, two little girls lay still and waxen-faced in their beds. Neylan called to them softly. They did not answer. He touched their cheeks. They were cold and lifeless. Across the hall, in the big matrimonial bed, Lorenzo de Rosa lay beside the body of his wife, who was dressed as if for a bridal night. De Rosa’s face was distorted in the last rictus of dying. There was a small cake of foam about his lips.

  Matt Neylan, new to unbelief, found himself murmuring a prayer for all their sad souls. Then the prayer exploded into a blasphemy against all the hypocrisy and folly that lay at the root of the tragedy. He debated, for the briefest moment, about calling the police; decided against it, then walked out of the house into the deserted street. The only witness to his departure was a stray cat. The only person to hear of his encounter was the Cardinal Secretary of State, to whom he exposed, in the same speech, his discovery of the tragedy and his decision to leave the Church.

  Agostini, the lifetime diplomat, took the news calmly. With Neylan, there was no ground of argument. As an unbeliever he belonged henceforth to another order of being. The situation with the police was even easier to arrange. Both parties had a common interest. His Eminence explained it simply.

  ‘You were wise to leave the scene. Otherwise everybody would have been swamped with depositions and interrogations. We have advised the police of your presence in the house and your discovery of the bodies. They will accept your visit as a pastoral call, subject to confessional secrecy. They will not involve you in any further questioning.’

  ‘Which, of course, leaves everything very tidy.’

  ‘Spare me the ironies, Monsignore!’ His Eminence was suddenly angry. ‘I am just as unhappy about this sad affair as you are. The whole thing was bungled from the start. I have no taste for zealots and bigots, no matter how high they sit in the Sacred College; but I have to work with them, with as much tolerance and charity as I can muster. You can afford your anger. You have chosen to withdraw from the community of the faithful and dispense yourself from its obligations. I don’t blame you. I understand what has brought you
to this decision.’

  ‘It’s hardly a decision, Eminence. It’s a new state of being. I am no longer a believer. My identity has changed. I have no place in any Christian assembly. So I’m separating myself as discreetly as possible. I’ll move out of my office today. My apartment is on a private lease, not a Vatican one, so that’s no problem. I have an Irish passport, so I’ll hand you back my Vatican documents. That should leave everything tidy.’

  ‘For our purposes,’ – Agostini was studiously good-humoured – ‘we’ll formally suspend you from the exercise of priestly functions and proceed immediately to have you laicised.’

  ‘With respect, Eminence, these procedures are a matter of indifference to me.’

  ‘But I, my friend, am not indifferent to you. I have seen this coming for along time. It was like watching a classic rose mutate slowly into hedgerow stock. The beautiful bloom is gone, but the plant is still vigorously alive. I reproved you last night; but I understood your anger and admired your courage. I must say that in that moment you looked very like a Christian to me!’

  ‘I’m curious,’ said Matt Neylan.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘We both know the Holy Father has asked for a special report on the de Rosa affair.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘My question: how will he react to the news of their deaths – by murder and suicide?’

  ‘We have no intention of telling him the news – until he is strong enough to receive it.’

  ‘And then what? How will he react? Will he repent his original harshness? How will he judge de Rosa – and himself? Will he amend the legislation in the canons, or mitigate its penalties?’

  ‘What you’re really asking,’ – Agostini permitted himself a small, wintry smile – ‘is a perennial question. Does the Church change when a pope changes his mind or his heart? In my experience, it doesn’t. The inertia is too great. The whole system is geared against swift movement. Besides – and this is the nub of the matter – the Church is so centralised now that every tremor is magnified to earthquake scale. The simplest act of official tolerance can be turned into a scandal. The most innocent speculation by the most orthodox theologian on the mysteries of the Faith sets off a heresy hunt.’ Agostini’s humour turned suddenly rueful. ‘Living at this altitude in this place is like being perched on the edge of the San Andreas fault. So the answer to your question: every public utterance of the Pontiff is ritually controlled. In his private life he may dress in sackcloth, powder himself with ashes, mourn like Job on his dunghill; but who will know about it? The Church has its own omertà, its rule of silence, every whit as binding as that of the Mafia.’

  ‘And what would happen …’ Matt Neylan laughed as he put the question. ‘What would happen if I decided to breach the wall of silence?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Agostini dismissed the thought with a gesture. ‘Nothing at all! What authority could you invoke? You’d be called an apostate, a renegade priest. In the Church you’d be prayed for and ignored. Outside it you’d carry another stigma: a fool who let himself be gulled for half a lifetime before he quit.’

  ‘A warning, Eminence?’

  ‘A counsel only. I am told you are seeking to make a new career as an author. You will not, I am sure, damage it by peddling scandals, or betraying professional secrets.’

  ‘I am flattered by your confidence,’ said Matt Neylan.

  We shall all remember you as a discreet and loyal colleague. We shall pray for your well-being.’

  ‘Thank you – and goodbye, Eminence.’

  So, simply and curtly, a lifetime was ended, a whole identity shucked off like a reptile’s skin. He passed by the Apostolic Palace to say goodbye to Malachy O’Rahilly, but was told he was waiting at the clinic until the result of the Pontiff’s surgery was known.

  So, because he needed at least one stepping stone between his old life and a new one, because he needed at least one weapon against the pitiless rectitude of Vatican bureaucracy, he telephoned Nicol Peters and begged to be offered a cup of coffee.

  ‘It’s my lucky day.’ Nicol Peters slipped a new cassette into the tape-recorder. ‘Two big stories and you’ve given me the inside running on both of them. I’m in your debt, Matt.’

  ‘You owe me nothing.’ Neylan was emphatic. ‘I believe the de Rosa business is a scandal that should be aired … you can do that. I can’t – at least not until I’ve established a new identity and authority. Which, by the way, is a problem you have to face. If I’m revealed as your informant, your story will be discredited. Drop-outs like me can be an embarrassment.’

  Nicol Peters shrugged off the warning.

  We agreed the ground rules. Trust me to play by them.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘So let’s go back. The assassination threat is the number one story, though I’m not sure how I can use it if it jeopardises the life of an undercover agent. Anyway, that’s my problem, not yours. Let’s look at the sequence of events. Mossad gets the news from an agent in place. The Israelis pass the news to the Vatican and to the Italian authorities. Those two set up a joint security operation inside and outside Salviati’s clinic. The Israeli’s can’t participate openly; but obviously they’re in it up to their necks.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘So far the Pontiff knows nothing of all this?’

  ‘Nothing. The news came in early yesterday evening. The meeting which I attended did not take place until very late. The countdown to the Pontiffs surgery had already begun. There was no point in disturbing him with the news.’

  ‘I accept that. Now let’s speculate a little further. An assassin is identified before an attempt is made on the Pope’s life. Who deals with him – or perhaps with her, as the case may be?’

  Matt Neylan poured himself more coffee and gave a slightly parodied exposition of the argument.

  ‘The Vatican position would be defined very simply. I’ve written enough position papers to give it to you verbatim. Their sole concern is the safety of the Sacred Person of His Holiness. They leave the criminal to be dealt with by the Republic. Simple! Clean hands! No imbroglios with the Muslim world. The position of the Republic of Italy is somewhat different. They have the right, the power, the sovereign authority to deal with criminals and terrorists. Do they want to? Hell no! That means more terror – hijacks, hostages, kidnappings to bring the criminals out of custody. Conclusion: though they’d never admit it, they’d love Mossad to handle the business quickly and neatly and have the body buried by sunrise. You want me to prove it? No way. You want me to swear that’s what I heard in the Apostolic Palace – no way either! It wasn’t said. It would never be said!’

  ‘Me thinks,’ said Nicol Peters amiably, ‘me thinks the lady hath protested enough! I’ve got enough to frame the story and prise the rest of it out of other sources. Now let’s talk about de Rosa. Here again, the sequence is clear. De Rosa quits the priesthood, beds down with a girl without benefit of clergy, has two children by her. They are happy. They want to regularise their union – a situation not without precedent, not at all impossible under the canons …”

  ‘But quite contrary to present policy, which is to make things as tough as possible for offenders and damp down hopes of lenient solutions.’

  ‘Check. Now tragedy strikes. The woman dies, still unreconciled, in spite of her wish to be so. The despairing husband stages a macabre family reunion, kills his children with an overdose of sleeping pills and himself with cyanide – all this while under suspicion as a possible assassin of the same Pope who had denied him canonical relief.’

  ‘A caveat here! Until I called de Rosa in the small hours of this morning he didn’t know he was a suspect. He couldn’t have.’

  ‘Could your news have precipitated his decision to kill his children and himself?’

  ‘It could have. I doubt it did. The fact that he had brought his wife’s body back to the house seems to indicate that he had already decided on some kind of ceremonial exit … But what do I know? The who
le thing is a madness – all because a bunch of clerical bureaucrats refused legitimate relief in a human situation. Let me tell you something, Nico! This is one story I want His Holiness to read, no matter what it does to his sacred blood pressure!’

  ‘Do you really think it will matter a damn what he thinks or says about it?’

  ‘It could. He could change a lot of lives overnight if he had the will and the courage. He could bring back compassion and clemency into what, believe me, has become a rigorist institution.’

  ‘Do you really believe that, Matt? I’ve lived in this town longer than you have and I don’t believe it for a minute. In the Roman Catholic Church, the whole system – the hierarchy, the education of the clergy, the Curial administration, the Electoral College – is designed to perpetuate the status quo and eliminate along the way any and every aberrant element. The man you get at the top is the nearest you can come to the Manchurian Candidate, the perfectly conditioned representative of the majority interest of the Electoral College itself.’

  ‘It’s a good argument,’ said Matt Neylan with a grin. ‘I’m a conditioned man myself. I know how deeply the imprint goes, how potent the trigger-words become. But, by the same token, Nico, I’m the flaw in the argument too. I’ve lost all the conditioning. I’ve become another person. I know that change is possible for good or ill – and the two most potent instruments of change are power and pain.’

  Nicol Peters gave him a long, searching look and then said gently: ‘It seems I’ve missed something, my friend. Would you be patient enough to tell me what it is?’

  ‘It’s nothing much, Nico. And yet, in a way, it’s everything. It’s why I feel so angry about what happened to de Rosa. Agostini put it very bluntly this morning. I’m labelled now – I’m an apostate, a renegade, a defector, a fool. But that isn’t the nature of my experience at all. I’ve lost something, a capacity, a faculty – as one can lose sexual potency or the gift of sight. I am changed, irrevocably. I am back at the first day of creation, when earth was still an empty waste and darkness hung over the deep … Who knows? There may be wonders still to come but I do not expect them. I live in the here and now. What I see is what is. What I know is what I have experienced and – most terrifying of all, Nico! – what will be is a totally random matter. That makes the world a very bleak place, Nico. So bleak that even fear can hardly survive in it.’