Earthly Powers (96 page)

       "He spoke Latin?"

       "Latin. And then the poor child's neck snapped, and then there was silence."

       "There's only one man who can be addressed as Holy Father. Can the devil speak true?"

       "The Father of Lies?" He gave a huge shrug. "If he lies all the time then he must be telling the truth. But he does not lie all the time, and that is why he is a great liar." And then, "Hubris, hubris. Shall we go now and play?"

       In the lobby of the hotel Carlo received obeisances and dispensed blessings.

       One or two open-necked Americans merely gawked and one said, "Whadya, know, a commie reverend." But Carlo did not hear. He had gone to the statue of Louis XIV and was stroking the raised foreleg of his horse. It gleamed a richer gold after all those forty years. "It is not," he said, "the kind of luck which you think it is that I seem to be asking for, not that I ask for anything," still cryptic. We went out into the mild evening and crossed to the Casino, Carlo blessing blessing all the way.

       The little gambling principality was, after a time of slump in which it had watched Nice, Antibes and Cannes eclipse it in popularity, now recovering, thanks chiefly to its ruler. His recent marriage to a lady of good family of Philadelphia, who had achieved world fame as a screen actress; the association, later to be broken, with a vulgar but lucky Greek shipping tycoon who had sought to add Monaco to his fleet; the promotion of thalassography and the encouragement of art—these were bringing fresh fame and glamour to the tiny state, whose prosperity and independence its great neighbour France begrudged and snarled at. The Casino, usually thronged, tonight had the tranquillity of a church or mosque. The visiting Arabs had, it seemed, insisted for some security reason or other, or out of a sheer show of insolent wealth, on the closure of all rooms except the single salle privée reserved to them. To this rococo chapel of play we were bowed. The prince had, in his kindly wisdom, reinstated the old custom of providing free refreshments for serious gamblers, and Carlo eagerly accepted the misted flute of Mumm he was reverently offered. There, sipping orange squash, stood the white-robed magnates of the desert, ten or so in number. Three of them wore dark glasses against the mellow enough light of the chandeliers, and these were introduced to Carlo and myself by a well-spoken functionary in a Savile Row suit and Old Etonian tie. Their Highnesses the Sheikhs Fazal ibn Sayed, Mohamed ibn Al-Marhum Yusof, Abdul Khadir ibn al-Haji Yunus Redzwan. This last name, I remembered from Malaya, meant the same as that of Monaco's princess. And there she was in a painting on the wall, softly illumined. A banal romantic theme of poor Domenico's swam into my head: he had composed the score for No Way Out, in which, in her previous incarnation, she had appeared with Cary Grant. Carlo made out, with a gold pen, a check on the Bank of the Holy Spirit and received, with bows, plaques of large denomination.

       "Roulette?" The suggestion was that of His Highness the Sheikh Abdul Khadir.

       The prince of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church replied, "D'accord, pour commencer."

       We had the requisite number of croupiers in attendance, despite the exiguity of the party—one at each end of the table, two close together in each of its curved waists, the chef de partie on his raised throne.

       "Messieurs, faites vos jeux," and the wheel spun, the ivory ball trundled in the wooden basin and rolled against the direction of rotation of the wheel. Carlo handed over three chips and asked for finales sept par dix. The croupier obediently placed the chips on 7, 17 and 27. The princes bet the maximum, sixty thousand old francs each, en plein, a cheval, carré. I took a humble chance simple and made a gesture of self-depreciation: I was not really here myself to play. "Les jeux soft jaits, rien ne va plus." The ball lost velocity, struck the diamond-shaped metal studs of the basin, grew drunk and arbitrary of motion, reached the wheel, fought the raised metal edges of the numbered compartments, came at last to rest. The croupier announced: "Dix.sept, noir, impair et manque." Chips were raked toward Carlo: he did not seem overjoyed.

       He did not seem overjoyed when, trying all the chances multiples-transversale, carré, a cheval, quatre premiers, sixain, colonne, douzaine—he won a great deal more than he lost. One of the minor princes, whose name we did not know, said in fine English, "The money will go to the poor, your eminence?"

       Carlo replied, cryptic as ever this evening, "The poor you have always with you."

       "Trente-et-quarante?" Sheikh Fazal ibn Sayed suggested. So trente-et quarante, the rich man's game, it was. We moved to the shieldlike table, simply emblazoned with its diamond noir and rouge its couleur arrow and its chevron N for inverse. Two of the croupiers retired for refreshments: they were not needed here. The tailleur produced his six packs of playing cards and broke the seals. He shuffled each pack separately then all six together. With a kind of genuflection he invited Carlo to cut. Carlo cut. The cards were shoved into the shoe. "Messieurs, faites vos jeux." Large sums were bet on rouge and noir, couleur and inverse being for the present ignored. The tailleur laid out his two rows, the upper signifying noir, the lower rouge. We watched with bored impassivity. Carlo smoked a Romeo and Juliet. The top row came to 37, the lower to 32. "Rouge gagne." Carlo had won. Carlo went on winning. Noir-couleur, noirinverse, rouge-couleur, rouge-inverse. He lost a little, but the plaques piled up.

       Sheikh Fazal said, "The devil's own luck, as we say in our language."

       "Only the devil has luck," Carlo said, adding to the Wit and Wisdom of. "God does not need it. Shall we break briefly for refreshments?" We broke.

       We drank champagne and ate exquisitely fashioned but innutritious canapes. Sheikh Abdul Khadir told, in French, the joke about Moses taking the wrong turn in the desert and so missing the oil. "Is there," Carlo asked, "some mystical connection between oil and Allah?" This gave offence expressed in greater cordiality. The chef de partie, who had been computing Carlo's plaques, came up to him and told to his ear the amount of his winnings. Carlo nodded and said, "The ill-gotten gains of the Church confront those of the Sons of the Prophet. I am prepared to stake all on the turn of a single card. Would any of you gentlemen care to play?"

       Sheikh Fazal said, "The sum in question?" Carlo told him. The sheikh said, "It is large, very large. But not overlarge. The wealth of the soil that Allah blesses is limitless. Your Church was founded on a rock not rich in mineral deposits."

       "Tu es Petrus," Carlo quoted, "non Petroleum. You may confront my small sum with ten or twenty times the amount. If I win, the money will go to the poor."

       "The Christian poor," Sheikh Fazal said.

       "Or the Muslim poor if you wish. Poverty is its own religion."

       "Very well. Now?"

       Carlo drained his flute and belched tinily. "Mr Toomey here can preside over the ceremony."

       "He is a Christian."

       "Not overwhelmingly so." And Carlo shot me a look of what seemed brief malice.

       "Let us have instead monsieur le chef de partie. He has his own religion. We must also respect a man's métier."

       "Good." We went over to a plain baize table with a shaded lamp above it. Carlo sat. Sheikh Fazal sat. The chef bowed and sat with them. A croupier brought, bowing, a new pack. The chef ceremoniously ripped the seal. "I stake," Carlo said, "the sum of one million six hundred and seventy-five thousand francs."

       "To make a round figure, I respond with twenty-six million. Ace is high?"

       "Indeed."

       The cards were shuffled and cut. We held our breaths, all except Carlo, who puffed smoke. Sheikh Fazal drew first: the ten of clubs. Carlo replied with the queen of hearts.

       "Congratulations, your eminence. Let us drink to the poor."

       "Wait," Carlo said. "The best out of three. You accept?"

       "If you say so."

       Carlo drew the three of spades, the sheikh the seven of clubs. The cards were reshuffled. The sheikh drew the king of hearts. Carlo drew the eight of the same suit. He whispered: "Deo gratias." And then, aloud, "May we still drink to the poor?"

       "As you said before, your eminence, the poor we have always with us."

       Bows and bows and bows. As we crossed back to the Hotel de Paris I said, "I descry superstition. A possible belief in Schicksal, or qismat as the Arabs call it. What did that mean?"

       "It means I've played for the last time. As for the other thing, no. We're free."

       "I've ceased to believe it. We're not free. We're damned."

       "Not overwhelmingly so, as I said. A Christian, that is. Let's dine."

       Bows and bows and bows. Crystal and light. Not so many elegant ladies as there had been forty years before. A plain woman with ginger hair chewed with her mouth open. A table was served with Coca-Cola in a beautiful misted silver bucket. All eyes were, for a time, on Carlo. He was hungry, and he did not hide his greed. It was as if he were enacting the stock rOle of the sybaritic prelate. His great ring lightninged in the belle époque chandeliers as he drank his wines with a kind of valedictory relish. Dom Perignon with the seafood, a Corton Bressandes with the meat, Blanquette de Limoux with the dessert. "A kind of valedictory relish," I said. "You have a funeral ahead and then a conclave. 'What is the news?"

       "He'll be dead tomorrow. I come from one funeral to another." A dozen praires jarcies, then rou gets barbets, then, the marine lust continuing, barbues a l'oseille.

       I swallowed my sixth and last oyster. "Whose?"

       "My sister. You didn't hear. Of course, you've been out of touch. My sister, I say. She died believing we were blood of each other's blood. Now, no further deception."

       "I spoke to her on the telephone. The day of that infernal premiere. Her last words to me were about Domenico at last seeing the light. Believe me, that was none of my fault."

       "No further deception. She rambled a good deal before she died. The mother superior talked to the ceiling about the sins of the flesh. She wept."

       "She committed no sins of the flesh."

       "That, presumably, is why she wept. You're eating nothi: g."

       "I've lost most of my appetites. I understand that the most horrible food is served at these conclaves. That the length or brevity of the conclave is a gauge of the badness of the cuisine."

       Rognons de veau entiers flambés. Carlo watched kindly the cognac flames flare. "In hell," he said, "we eat. In heaven we are eaten. Who said that?"

       "I don't know. It sounds an extremely stupid aphorism." He nodded, as though expunging it from the Wit and Wisdom of. "Do you think," I said, "that it will be you?"

       "The elected one," he said, chewing kidney, "is supposed to show a great humility and declare himself unworthy of the holy burden. The Holy Spirit chooses. But he chooses through fallible men. I may be unworthy of the office, but I have things to do. Is that hubris?"

       "You mean you want to send a great wind blowing through the Church. The Holy Ghost appears as a wind, doesn't he? Fallible men. You have enemies."

       "Oh, one always has enemies. Fortunately, enemies are inimical for a diversity of reasons. They are not a united foe clashing armour in the same rhythm. I have capitalistic enemies, but I have Marxist enemies too. The spiritualization of the Communist Manifesto-unthinkable. The unification of the churches. The vernacularization of the liturgy. Those who disapprove of innovation in some areas accept it in others. Enemies cancel each other out. The great thing, perhaps, is not to have friends."

       "What do you mean?"

       He said nothing till the prunes a l'eau-de-vie appeared, with a glace meringue Chantilly on the side. He did not answer my question. "The time," he said instead, "is fairly short. The medical men don't like the state of my arteries. I have to watch my diet. If I can have five years, even four—"

       "What was that about not having friends?"

       "No friends. No brothers, no sisters, no father, no mother. Like Oedipus, you remember." He spat a stone onto his spoon. "If God can accept loneliness, so can his servant. I don't want any of you."

       "Say that again."

       "I don't want you. You're a hindrance. Can you understand that? I elect loneliness. Whatever happens, I shan't go back to Milan. If the Holy Spirit rejects me, I shall enter a house of contemplation. If not the highest, then the lowest. But whatever it is, loneliness."

       "This, then, is a meal of valediction. A ceremony of rejection. There was a time when you called me /ratello."

       "God preserve me from brothers."

       "And from sisters?"

       "I don't want you. Any of you."

       I looked at him hopelessly as he spooned in his Chantilly. It left a thin white foam round his mouth. "Well, then," I said stupidly. "Nunc dimittis. May I wish you—no, luck doesn't apply, does it? That's just something for the Casino." I folded my napkin with prim neatness. I got up and said, "Vale, sancte pater." He seemed to snarl, or it may have been merely a chewing motion. Then I went to the bar, leaving the bill to him.

CHAPTER 68

Knowing, as on that previous occasion, my connection with the Italian prelacy but now a more particular connection with one of its papabili, the London press urged me to go to Rome to cover the funeral, the conclave, the election. There was even a call from The Times the following morning while I was just leaving the hotel. No. Nothing doing. I was old, I was tired, I was not interested.

       And yet, back in Tangier, I followed in the newspapers of four languages the empty reports, all colour, no news, which emerged from days of waiting for a gush of white smoke. Later, in books like Peter Hebblethwaite's Rebirth of a Church and Conor Cruise O'Brien's Morning in Their Eyes, we got the whole story of the conclave of 1958. It began with the gathering of one hundred and twenty cardinals in the Pauline Chapel, with its frescoes by the great homosexual of Saint Peter's seeing the world end upside down and Saint Paul stupefied on the road to Damascus. Red in cassock, biretta and mozzetta, snowy in surplice, they were led by Monsignor Pierluigi Bocca, the papal master of ceremonies, through the Sala Ducale into the Sistine Chapel, whose choir went before chanting Veni Creator Spiritus. Two long narrow tables faced each other, with straightbacked chairs of great discomfort cynically masked by red velvet. The cardinals grunted, whinnied and squinted, looking for their place cards. There were prayers, and then Monsignor Bocca cried "Extra omnes." Choir, servitors, workmen got out. The entrances were blocked with double slabs of tough wood. Then the assembly swore to follow the apostolic constitution, nodded over a long dull discourse from the chamberlain, Cardinal Percini, and went to eat a bad though atoxic meal in the Sala Borgia. After that they retired to their cells, which were frequently renaissance drawing rooms forty feet high, crammed with sofas and chiffonniers, with the lightswitch a long obstacle race away from the bed. There, presumably, Carlo prayed that he be made Pope.