Lazarus Read online

  The crate labelled diplomatic documents was loaded on to the El Al evening flight to Tel Aviv. Inside it lay Miriam Latif, heavily drugged, wrapped in thermal blankets and ventilated by air-holes and an oxygen tank on slow release. When she arrived in Tel Aviv she was raced to the infirmary of a Mossad detention centre and registered with a number and coding that indicated special and prolonged debriefing.

  In the nightclub near the Veneto, Omar Asnan, the merchant from Tehran, ordered champagne for his usual girl and stuffed a 50,000 lire note into her cleavage. The message folded in the note was delivered ten minutes later to two men drinking coffee in one of the curtained alcoves. The delivery was noted by the cigarette girl, an Israeli agent who spoke French, Italian and Arabic.

  Her report completed the operation. Miriam Latif the assassin had been eliminated from the game. Mossad was in possession of a valuable hostage and a source of vital intelligence. Omar Asnan and his cohorts of the Sword of Islam were still ignorant of what had happened. All they knew was that Miriam Latif had failed to keep a rendezvous. It would take them at least twenty-four hours to put together a feasible outline of events. There was only a slim chance that they could organise another assassination attempt during the limited time of the Pontiff’s convalescence.

  The only problem left was to reassure Salviati and rehearse him in his testimony. The Mossad man did it with his usual brevity.

  ‘Your switchboard operator copied the message from Miriam Latif?’

  ‘Yes. I have it here.’

  ‘Is she usually accurate and reliable?’

  ‘All our operators have to be. They deal with medical matters – life and death.’

  ‘What are you doing with the girl’s clothes, her personal effects?’

  ‘I’ve asked her room-mate to list and pack them. We’ll hold them in store pending word from Miriam herself.’

  ‘Then that’s the lot,’ said the Mossad man. ‘Except, I thought you should see this to set your tender conscience at rest.’

  He handed Salviati the photostat of the ticket coupon made out in the name of Miriam Latif. Salviati scanned it quickly and handed it back.

  ‘You haven’t seen it, of course,’ said the Mossad man.

  ‘I’m a wise monkey,’ said Sergio Salviati sourly. ‘Deaf, dumb and blind.’

  The Mossad man, however, was not blind. He saw very clearly the new options for violence opened up by the disappearance of Miriam Latif. The operation against the Pontiff was blown sky-high, as Latif herself had warned it might be: ‘the place is crawling with vermin’. Nevertheless, money had been paid – big money – and the rules of the killing game were very explicit: we pay, you deliver. So, someone owed the Sword of Islam a lot of money. He had to hand back the cash or a body in lieu.

  There was more than money involved. There was honour, esteem, the authority of the movement over its followers. If the rules were not enforced, if the promised victim were not delivered, the followers would drift away to another allegiance.

  Finally – and this was perhaps the bitterest blow of all to the professionals – once the abduction of Miriam Latif had been established, the terrorist group would disperse and all the labour of penetrating it, all the risks taken to keep an agent in place within it, would be lost overnight.

  Which left the Mossad man some delicate decisions. How much should he tell the Italians? What kind of warning, if any, should he give the Vatican folk – and whether Sergio Salviati himself needed, or was worth, protection? On balance it seemed wise to keep the safety nets around him. It would be a long time before Mossad could develop a cover as deep, as useful and as authentic as the International Clinic.

  In a quiet angle of the garden, sheltered from the breeze by an ancient wall and from the sun by a canopy of vines, Leo the Pontiff sat at a table of weathered stone and wrote the diary of his seventh day in hospital.

  He felt much stronger now. He stood straighter, walked further. The mood-swings were less violent, though he was still easily moved to tears or to doleful anxieties. Each day a therapist worked on his back and shoulders and, although his cloven ribcage still hurt, he was beginning to sit and lie more comfortably. The one thing that bothered him more than all else was the knowledge that he was under close surveillance at every hour of the day and night. Even so, he did not speak about it, for fear of seeming crotchety and querulous.

  It was Salviati himself who raised the question with him when he came to share morning coffee with his patient. The Pontiff expressed pleasure at the unusual concession. Salviati shrugged and laughed.

  ‘I had no operations today. I thought you could use some company. These fellows …’ His gesture took in three marksmen who encircled the area. ‘These fellows aren’t very talkative, are they?’

  ‘Not very. Do you really think I need them?’

  ‘My opinion wasn’t asked,’ said Salviati. ‘Nor, I imagine, was yours. Odd, when you come to think of it. You’re the Pope. I run this place. But it seems there’s always a moment when the Palace Guard takes over. Anyway, you won’t be here much longer. I’m discharging you very soon.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Three days from now. Saturday.’

  ‘That’s wonderful news.’

  ‘But you’ll have to stick to the regimen – diet and exercise.’

  ‘I will, believe me.’

  ‘Have you decided where you’ll be staying?’ ‘I had hoped it would be at Cardinal Drexel’s villa; but my Curia doesn’t approve.’ ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘They tell me it would require a new and expensive security operation.’

  ‘I would doubt that. I’ve visited the place several times with Tove Lundberg. It would probably be very easy to seal off. The perimeter wall is clearly visible from the villa itself.’

  ‘That, of course, isn’t the only reason. The Vatican is a court, as André Gide once observed. And courtiers are jealous as children of their precedence and privileges.’

  ‘I thought Churchmen were above such worldly matters.’

  Salviati’s grin took the malice out of the gibe. The Pontiff laughed.

  ‘The habit, my friend, does not make the monk.’ ‘And since when has the Pope been reading Rabelais?’ ‘Would you believe, my friend, I have never read him. My reading list was rather restricted.’ ‘You profited well from it.’

  ‘I’ve learned more in the last week than I have in half a lifetime – and that’s the truth, senza complimenti! I am deeply in your debt and I owe much to the wisdom and the gentleness of your counsellor.’

  ‘She’s very good. I’m lucky to have her.’

  ‘Obviously you are very fond of each other.’

  ‘We’ve been close for a long time.’ ‘No thought of marriage?’

  ‘We’ve discussed it. We agree it wouldn’t work for either of us … But let’s talk about you for a moment. It’s clear you’re going back into the stress situation of your own household. I had hoped to defer that until you were stronger … You are doing very well indeed; but you must be aware that the sense of well-being is relative. Today is better than yesterday, tomorrow you will feel stronger still, but the energy is quickly spent and you are still dependent on the ministrations of our staff. With your permission, I’d like to talk to Cardinal Agostini about this. Frankly, I believe your well-being is more important than the jealousies of your Curial Cardinals. Why not override them and follow my advice?’

  ‘I could. I would rather not.’

  ‘Then let me be your advocate. At least no one can accuse me of self-interest. My clinical opinion has to carry some weight. I’d like to talk to Cardinal Agostini.’

  ‘Then do so.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I want you to know, my friend, how grateful I am for your skill and your care of me.’

  Salviati grinned like an embarrassed schoolboy.

  ‘I did tell you I was a very good plumber.’

  ‘You are much more than that. I see all the dedication which has gone into this
place and which still holds it together. Afterwards, I should like to discuss some permanent contribution to your work – an endowment perhaps, some special equipment. You will tell me.’

  ‘You can endow me now.’ Salviati was direct and forceful. ‘Tove Lundberg and I are putting together a series of psychic profiles on post-operative cardiac patients. In all our patients we note symptoms of radical psychic change. We need to understand that better. In your counselling sessions with Tove, you have described that change with various metaphors: a snake sloughing off its old skin, a graft on an orchard tree that produces a different fruit, Lazarus walking out of the tomb, a new man in a new world …’

  ‘That’s the best description I have found so far. Of course I know that I did not die, but …’

  ‘You came close enough,’ said Salviati drily. ‘I wouldn’t argue a heartbeat or two. But here’s my question. You came to this situation better equipped than most. You had a clear faith, a whole well-packed baggage of philosophy, theology and moral practice … How much of that baggage have you left behind? How much have you brought back?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ The words came slowly as if he were weighing each one. ‘Certainly not all the baggage has survived the journey and what I have brought back is much, much less than I had at the beginning. For the rest, it’s too early to know or to say … Later, perhaps, I may be able to tell you more.’

  ‘The answer will be important to us all. You have only to look around this garden to know that the fanatics are taking over the world.’

  ‘Part of the baggage I still carry,’ said Leo the Pontiff, ‘is a set of instructions for survival. It was written by a Jew, Saul of Tarsus … “Now there remain these things: faith, hope and charity. And the greatest of these is charity.” I haven’t always used them very well myself; but I’m learning.’

  Sergio Salviati looked at him for a long moment and then a slow smile softened the saturnine lines of his face.

  ‘Perhaps I did a better job than I thought.’

  ‘I for one will never underrate you,’ said Leo the Pontiff. ‘Go with God.’

  He watched Salviati striding swiftly through the garden. He saw the guards salute him as he passed. Then he opened his diary and began again the task of explaining his new self to his old one.

  ‘In my argument with Cardinal Clemens yesterday, he made much of the dangers of “the new theology”, the rejection by certain Catholic scholars of what he called “the classic norms of orthodox teaching”. I know what he means. I understand his suspicion of novelty, his concern that new concepts of traditional doctrines are being proposed to students in seminaries and universities before they have been proven by argument and experience against the Deposit of Faith, of which Clemens and I are appointed guardians and I am the final arbiter and interpreter.

  ‘There! I have written it! It stares at me from the page … “I am the final arbiter and interpreter.” Am I? What makes me so? Election by a college of my peers? A private colloquy with the Holy Ghost, of which I personally have no record or recollection? Would I even as Pope presume to pit myself in argument against any philosopher, or theologian, or biblical scholar from the great universities? I know I could not. I should make a fool of myself; because I could only appeal to those “classic norms” and their traditional expression, in which I was drilled so thoroughly in another age. I was not elected for my intellectual attainments or the stretch of my intuition in spiritual matters. I am no Irenaeus, no Origen, no Aquinas. I am and always have been a man of the organisation. I know it inside out, how to service it, how to keep it running. But now the organisation is outmoded and I am not inventive enough to remodel it. I am as deficient in social physics as I am in philosophy and theology. So I am forced to admit that my arbitrations and interpretations are those of others, and that all I contribute to them is the Seal of Peter.

  ‘So, next question: what is the real authority of those upon whose judgement I rely? Why have I chosen them above others more forward-looking, more understanding of the language, temper and symbolism of our times? The answer is that I have been afraid, as so many in this office have been afraid, to let the wind of the Spirit blow freely through the House of God. We have been garrison men, holding the ramparts of a crumbling citadel, afraid to sally out and confront the world which bypasses us on the pilgrim road.

  ‘When I first left home to go to seminary, I was surprised to find that the commerce of the world was not carried on in the Emilian dialect of my home-place. The first step in my education was to learn the language of a larger world, the customs of a less rustic society. However, in the government of the Church which calls itself universal I have tried to anchor it to the language and the concepts of centuries past, as though in some magical fashion antiquity guaranteed security and relevance.

  ‘Our blessed Lord used the language and the metaphors of a rural people, but his message was universal. It embraced all creatures, as the sea embraces all the denizens of the deep. I have tried to reduce it to a static compendium, to stifle speculation about its myriad meanings.

  ‘I begin, slowly, to understand what one of my more outspoken critics meant when he wrote: “This pontiff is like a scientist trying to run the third millennium on a textbook of Newtonian physics. The cosmos has not changed, but our understanding of how it works is greater and different … To that extent we have all penetrated a little more deeply into the mystery of the Godhead. Just so, in the confusions and threats of the modern world, the pedagogy of the past is not enough for us. We need a teacher who will discourse with us in terms of the world in which we are involved.”

  ‘When I first read those lines I was outraged. I felt that the writer, a layman, was uttering an arrogant insult. Now I see it differently. I am being asked to explore boldly the mysteries of a new time, by the light of ancient truth, confident that the light will not fail …’

  A shadow fell across the page and he looked up to see Tove Lundberg standing a pace or two away. He gave her a smile of welcome and invited her to join him at the table. As he did so, a spinal spasm hit him and he winced at the pain. Tove Lundberg moved behind him and began to massage his neck and shoulders.

  ‘When you write your posture is wrong. So when you straighten up you get a pinch and go into spasm … Try to hold yourself erect.’

  ‘My old master used to scold me for the same thing. He said I looked as though I were trying to crawl into the paper like a bookworm.’

  ‘But you listen only now, because it hurts!’

  ‘True, my dear Tove. True!’

  ‘There now, does that feel better?’

  ‘Much better, thank you. Can I offer you some mineral water?’

  ‘You can offer me some advice.’

  ‘Willingly.’

  ‘Do you extend the seal of confession to unbelievers?’

  ‘They have a specially strong seal. What’s troubling you?’

  ‘Sergio and I have quarrelled.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Is it serious?’ ‘I’m afraid it is. We haven’t been able to exchange anything but cold courtesies since it happened. It’s something that goes to the root of our relationship. Neither of us is prepared to surrender our position.’

  ‘And what precisely are your positions?’

  ‘First, we’ve been lovers a long time. You probably know that.’

  ‘I guessed it.’

  ‘But you don’t approve, of course?’

  ‘I cannot read your private consciences.’

  ‘We’ve talked often about marriage. Sergio wants it, I don’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘My reasons are very clear to me. I’m not prepared to risk another child. I don’t believe I should condemn my man – any man – to a childless marriage. Britte is completing her education at the colonia; but at a certain moment she will have to leave it and I will have to provide a home and care for her. I do not want to contemplate lodging her in an institution. She is much too intelligent for that. So that’s
another burden I’m not prepared to lay on a husband. As a lover, I feel the contract is more equal, if more temporary …’

  ‘And Sergio Salviati? How does he feel about all this?’

  ‘He accepts it. I think he’s even relieved, because he has problems of his own, which go deeper than mine but are less easy to define. First, he’s a Jew – and you, of all people, must know what it means to be a Jew, even now, in this country. Second, he’s a passionate Zionist, who often feels frustrated and demeaned because he’s here making money and reputation, while his people are fighting for survival in Israel. At the same time, his position involves him in all sorts of compromises. You’re one of them. You’re the reigning Pontiff, but you still refuse to recognise the State of Israel. The Arab sheikhs he treats here are another compromise – and the fact that this place is also an undercover post for Mossad agents working in Italy. There’s nothing too secret about that. The Italians know it and profit by it. The Arabs know it and feel safe against their own factions. But all of it tears Sergio apart and when he’s upset and frustrated a streak of cruelty comes out, which I find unbearable. That’s what caused our argument.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me what the argument was about.’

  ‘Are we still under the seal?’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘The argument was about you.’ ‘All the more reason to tell me.’

  ‘You don’t know this; but the person who was named to assassinate you was a woman, an Iranian agent who was actually employed in this clinic. Mossad agents identified her, kidnapped her and … well, nobody’s quite certain what happened after that. The Vatican was not involved because of jurisdictional reasons. The Italians were happy to let the Israelis handle it because they didn’t want reprisals. Sergio felt very guilty, because the girl was one of his employees; he knew and liked her. He felt that the evidence against her was highly circumstantial. Even so, he could not intervene in what happened. I tried to comfort him by saying that even you had to play a passive role. You accepted armed guards, which meant that you accepted that they might kill someone to protect you. Sergio wasn’t happy with that either. He said … it doesn’t matter what he said. It was just very painful and, somehow, final.’