Papal Decree (10 page)

‘Why’d you bring me here?’ she asked, a variation on the question she’d asked before, like an artist creating something different from the same motif.

William pointed at the various images in the exposition. ‘For Him.’

Sarah looked puzzled at the different representations. Maybe William had not explained himself clearly. ‘For whom?’

‘For Yeshua ben Joseph.’ He proclaimed. ‘Jesus, the son of Joseph.’

She still didn’t understand. What was she there for? She waited for William to continue.

‘Sarah has a special talent. Rare in journalists, let’s say. Discretion.’ He praised her.

Sarah decided to stay silent. She didn’t know how to respond to the observation.

‘It’s not just journalism that lacks discretion. A lot of other professions could use it. Seriousness, too.’

‘Is the church discreet and serious?’ Sarah asked.

‘There are times when it’s not, I confess. Times we don’t like to remember, but today I’m proud to belong to an institution that excels in both qualities.’

Sarah didn’t doubt that William believed what he was saying, but she did doubt the complete honesty of his assertion.

‘According to the Holy Father, Sarah also excels in those qualities.’

Would the pope speak about her qualities? This remark left her perplexed, internally; externally she remained impassive. She’d learned not to show her feelings with Rafa … 
Oh, forget him.

‘The Holy Father?’ Sarah smiled. ‘Surely he has more to worry about than my qualities.’

‘Everything, Sarah. The Holy Father is a man who worries about all the sheep in his flock.’

‘Please, Cardinal William. I’m sorry, but I’m not a sheep in the pope’s flock.’

‘You have two books that prove it. That show you want to know the problems, that you want them to be solved, that you worry about them,’ the prefect argued.

‘Two books that, probably, the congregation over which you preside would censure if the Index Libro-rum Prohibitorum still existed,’ Sarah replied. She never thought she’d be speaking on equal terms with a cardinal.

‘The Holy Inquisition continues to exist, my dear. And it’s important that it does. But with respect to your reply, let me tell you that the Roman Catholic Church never for a moment opposed your books. There has not been one unfavorable review or angry sermon. Nothing.’

Sarah wasn’t convinced in the least. ‘Sometimes silence is the best remedy. The church is a master at letting time erase what it doesn’t want remembered.’

‘Let me remind you that you are alive because of this church you reproach and this pope you criticize.’

Sarah respected the remark. It was true. Twice. It suited the church to intervene in her favor, but, yes, it had done so.

‘Has the time come to collect?’ Sarah asked, frowning. Was that it?

William didn’t answer. He continued to walk along, looking at the faces of Christ. Some were very similar, others added something more: an athletic bearing, a physical detail, different hair, now blond, now brown, shorter, longer, thin, good-natured, smiling, suffering, contemplative, miraculous, enigmatic, angry, frightened. There were innumerable representations of the same person, each different and yet all the same, if that were possible.

‘The church needs you, Sarah,’ William concluded. ‘We’re in a war and under secret attack. It’s not a payback but an urgent request.’

Sarah was even more confused. What service could she provide for a church that made a cardinal look for her personally at her hotel?

‘In 1947 a Bedouin named Muhammed ehd-Dhib happened to find some parchments inside some jars while he was looking for a lost sheep,’ William began.

‘Qumran. The Dead Sea scrolls. I know the story,’ Sarah informed him.

‘Well, that story’s completely false.’

This was news indeed.

‘The person behind the expedition was an Israeli named Ben Isaac. Ever heard of him?’

Sarah searched her memory, but found nothing. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘He’s lived in the same city as you have for more decades than you’ve been alive,’ he said with a sad smile. It wasn’t a story he liked to tell. ‘He fabricated the story of the Bedouin to be able to investigate more thoroughly what his team had discovered. He was ingenious. In the ultimate analysis it was providential. The hunt for the scrolls began. Complete and partial parchments were sold on the black market for millions of dollars. Total fraud in the majority of the cases.’

William continued the detailed account. The church had its own agents in all the markets of the Near and Middle East looking for any documents relevant to the Holy See or the history of the West. Sarah imagined Rafael as one of these infiltrators, with turban and dagger, or saber, in a white tunic negotiating in the hot sands of Damascus, Amman, and Jerusalem. Of course he wasn’t old enough for this.

From time to time there was talk, whispers only to interested parties, about some fragment that appeared in some place in the possession of some person or another. Offers came in from all sides, always in a tent, never in the heat of the sun, and the church managed to acquire some of these fragments of history in exchange for large sums of money. They were translated and authenticated. The Dead Sea Scrolls do in fact exist. For some time they were not seen or heard of by anyone, but then two or three appeared at the same time. Ben Isaac released a few he deemed sufficiently provocative, but harmless.

‘And how was it they discovered his scheme?’

‘It was God.

‘They might never have been discovered. Ben Isaac was an intelligent man with an acute, discreet mind. But one of the archaeologists who was part of the Israeli’s team quarreled with his supervisor and resolved to abandon the project. Despite a pledge of secrecy, he sent an anonymous accusation to the secretary of state. It was the pontificate of the good Pope John that tried to verify the information. It was confirmed.’

William was silent for a few moments to let all this sink in for Sarah, who listened attentively.

‘But the story of the Bedouin prevails today,’ Sarah objected.

‘In the beginning we decided not to reveal the false story, until we saw what was going to happen. It turned out to be advantageous to both sides.’

‘For both sides?’

‘For the church and for Ben Isaac.’

‘He gave you what he discovered?’ Sarah was astonished.

‘Part of it. Fundamentally we had the same objectives.’

‘Which were?’

‘To preserve history,’ William offered.

Sarah didn’t exactly agree. She considered the church an institution that preserved only the history that served its own interests, not all of history.

‘So what was Ben Isaac’s plan?’

‘He wanted to keep the discoveries secret at all cost. Not just from the church, but from everyone.’

‘He didn’t want glory, like every other adventurer?’

‘No, he was born into wealth. He studied in London, fell in love, and married. He was a hard worker. Then he took on the mission of finding evidence of the Bible. Others before him had tried, without success. The place where the scrolls were discovered was a route of passage for the Jews. Jesus himself might have passed that way. He knew what had to be done and equipped himself with very expert historians and archaeologists. Money was not a problem, so everything came together in a positive final result.’

‘Yes, but I thought they found the gospels of Philip and Magdalene, which the church considers apocryphal and not credible, along with other irrelevant things. That’s what I read or heard, anyway.’

‘You’re well informed. That was only what they made public.’ He hesitated before deciding to go on. ‘The rest is protected by an agreement.’

Interesting,
Sarah thought.
The church and its secrets.

‘An agreement between …’ she insisted.

‘Between the Holy See and Ben Isaac. It’s called the “Status Quo.” ’

Sarah smiled, remembering a rock band with the same name.

‘It means the current state of something. It was signed by John the Twenty-third and Ben Isaac, and later, by John Paul the Second and Ben Isaac and their team of historians, archaeologists, and theologians, obviously. It was important to maintain absolute secrecy.’

‘He must have been very young when he signed the first agreement.’

‘A little more than thirty years old.’

‘That’s something,’ Sarah said with admiration.

‘Indeed,’ William concurred.

‘I still don’t see what I’m here to do!’ Sarah exclaimed. Her curiosity continued to grow.

‘We’ll get there, Sarah. Be a little more patient.’

At that moment one of the doors opened to admit William’s resolute assistant, who whispered something in his ear.

‘We’ll go at once,’ William murmured.

The priest left and the cardinal was available again. It was time for the question a good journalist would ask if this were an interview. ‘And what documents are included under this agreement?’

William didn’t answer at once. He approached Sarah, stopped looking at the faces of Christ, and focused on her. He hadn’t stared as intensely all night as in this moment. He felt uncomfortable, even blushed.

‘Two documents from the first century,’ he informed her at last.

‘Important?’ Sarah asked uncomfortably.

‘Very. One of them is the Gospel of Jesus.’

When a commandment comes from God, it cannot be questioned. It is known that He always writes without error. His will is law, always, even if it is not written. It will come to pass from that day forward. And if to protect Him certain commandments must be violated, commandments that He himself inscribed and gave to Moses to communicate to us; well, then, let His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

One of the Ten Commandments he violated constantly,
Thou shalt not kill,
but He slept like a baby every night since He knew the majesty of His work in the astonishing Creation.

The mail was delivered every week without the name of the sender or the recipient listed, since it could be for only him, for only he and she lived there.

She always woke up before he did and never went to bed unless she was told to or unless he was not at home, which, fortunately, happened frequently. She rarely spoke unless he asked her a question, though she did speak to herself when she was alone. Every day, like taking medicine, before bed, and first thing in the morning, she had a random passage from the Bible to read, or at least that’s what she thought.

Tonight he returned without prior warning, and she was still not asleep at nine. She was reading a novel that he didn’t know about. Her lip split from the hard slap he gave her and splattered blood on the pillow.

‘The sun has already set,’ he said in a calm voice and with an expression that made it seem the remark should be considered an act of leniency.

‘Forgive me,’ she murmured, her eyes tearing with pain.

She got up and ran for her room.

‘Stop,’ he ordered, and approached her menacingly. He grabbed the book roughly. ‘I’m confiscating this. Go to your room.’

Everything had its time, rules, and discipline. A fault, whatever it was, required a punishment, and the slap in the face that split her lip was not itself the punishment, but a warning.

These outbursts could be avoided if she followed the rules. She knew them backward and forward. She had no excuse to disobey what had been determined.

He looked at the book and read the title,
The Man Who Never Existed,
by one Hans Schmidt. A heresy in two hundred pages that pretended to point out the road to salvation. He couldn’t understand it. God showed them the way. Why did she have to look for other ways? He was too merciful. Some people needed to learn the hard way how to stay on His track.

He threw the book in the fireplace, which was burning with a hot flame, and opened his briefcase. He took out the last envelope he had received. Inside there was a letterhead with round strokes in large letters. On the top line he read
AD MAIOREM DEI GLORIAM.
On the next line was
Deus vocat,
followed by the name of the chosen ones. Normally there was one name, rarely two. This time he read two: Yaman Zafer and Sigfried Hammal.

He threw the letter and envelope into the fireplace.

He got up and went to see her. She was kneeling by the bed to pray. The power of prayer. He didn’t interrupt her, since nothing is more sacred than the direct contact with God through prayer. To ask forgiveness, grace, an idea, a suggestion, this was the privileged, sacred channel that should never be interrupted. He waited with his arms crossed, staring at her. As soon as she made the sign of the cross, signaling the end of the communication, she got up and lay down in bed. He went to a chest at the foot of the bed and opened a drawer. His back was turned to her, so he didn’t see her eyes fill with tears, which she quickly wiped away. Her shaking lessened, then stopped, for better or worse. He looked at her and came over. He carried a syringe containing a yellow liquid.

‘Give me your arm,’ he ordered.

She wouldn’t. He pulled her to the edge of the bed and inserted the needle. He slowly emptied the syringe and waited. He looked at his watch. Two minutes later she’d be sleeping like a baby. Breathing quietly. A sleep without dreams. A holy repose. He undressed, folding and hanging each piece of clothing on a chair. He got on the bed, on top of her, raised her nightgown, opened her sleeping legs, and entered her. He went in and out in a frenzy, and she never opened her eyes or uttered a sign. A few minutes later he finished, with a few drops of sweat on his face. She remained asleep, unchanged, with the same quiet breathing.

He left her asleep and went to look at the mail. A box in the door with a lock only he had the key to. There was an envelope in it, as he suspected. A cold smile, if it could be called that, spread over his lips. He opened the box and took it out. The same letterhead across the top and then the name of those chosen by God to join Him. He had no time to waste. This time there were three names.

‘Tell me the story straight,’ Gavache asked as he leaned his head against the front passenger seat.