To Kill the Pope (26 page)

“No, no!” Tim cried, “Of course, I'm not too busy. I'm not busy at all, as a matter of fact. It would be great to see you! Shall we meet somewhere? What is convenient for you?”

“Well, we're rather near each other,” Angela said. “The Convent is just off Boulevard St. Germain, maybe seven or eight blocks from your Residence. And let us be a bit adventurous in a literary way. How about Deux Magots? Around noon? Do you know where it is?”

Tim hung up slowly, absolutely stunned. A get-together with Angela in Paris, and not on Holy See business, was the last thing in the world he would have ever expected. He let out a victory holler, like when one's team scores a touchdown—on a Hail Mary pass—and raced back upstairs, laughing so loudly that doors opened at other Jesuits' rooms as he passed them.
Ah, les Américains! . . .

In her room at the Convent of the Augustine Sisters of Notre-Dame of Paris, Angela said a quick prayer, quite pleased with herself, before starting to dress. Monsignor Sainte-Ange
did
suggest that she call Tim in Paris as a courtesy and to make sure he had everything he needed in his mission for the Holy Father. But he had not suggested that they meet for a cup of coffee. That was Angela's sudden inspiration when she heard Tim's voice over the telephone. She smiled with confidence at the image of the Virgin
on the wall of her room: She was full of love, She would understand.

*  *  *

At noon sharp, Tim stood in front of Café de Deux Magots on the boulevard, staring hard up and down the sidewalk in search of a nun amidst the crowd of tourists on that hot, muggy day. As usual in the summer, there seemed to be no Parisians in the street. Minutes elapsed, and Tim grew tense with impatience and anticipation. What if she had changed her mind and decided not to come? It would, of course, make sense. Why would they be meeting in the first place?

“I'm sorry to keep you waiting, Father Savage.” The quiet, melodic voice behind Tim made him jump as if a gun had been fired point-blank in his ears. Turning around, he saw a petite woman with straight dark brown hair and a lovely face looking at him with an amused smile. The face was even lovelier than he had remembered from their few Vatican encounters.

“I recognized you even from the back,” Angela told him, “even in your civilian clothes.”

Tim, who wore slacks and a dark blue short-sleeved shirt, saw that Angela was in plain but perfectly elegant street attire, a light-green dress just below her knee, a discreet silver necklace and tiny earrings. She had a touch of lipstick. This was the first time, Tim realized, that he saw her out of religious habit. Angela looked to him a completely different person and the same person, all at the same time.

“Oh, Sister, good morning . . . I mean good afternoon. No, you didn't keep me waiting. I just got here myself,” he said, extending his hand in a formal greeting because he did not know what else to do. “Shall we take one of these tables on the sidewalk?”

They sat down, Tim feeling more awkward and tongue-tied than ever in his life.

“Did you have a nice trip?” he asked, embarrassed that he could not think of anything else to say. “How is the Holy Father? How is the Monsignor?”

“I had an excellent trip from Rome and the plane was on time,” Angela answered, quite relaxed. “And they are very well. The Monsignor sends his regards.”

They ordered
citrons pressés
from the bored waiter, making small talk about Paris, with Tim telling Angela about his previous visits.

“Shouldn't I ask how your work is proceeding? Any progress?” she inquired.

“Well,” Tim said, “I think that a new avenue is opening up in the Muslim thing—you remember the ‘French Brethren' from my Istambul trip?—but it's too soon to tell. I guess I'm mildly encouraged. I'll have to go to the south of France, probably later this week.”

“Is there anything you want me to tell the Monsignor?” Angela asked.

Tim turned this over on his mind, deciding to trust his instinct.

“No, I believe it would be premature,” he replied. “In fact, I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention to him what I just said about a possible new avenue. Okay?”

“Sure,” she said, her eyebrows rising slightly. “By the way, are you familiar with the history of this place, the Deux Magots?”

Tim shook his head. “I've walked past it several times, that's all,” he said.

“It's quite famous in French literature and the history of the Church,” Angela explained. “It even plays a tiny part of my own history.”

“How so?”

“Around the middle of the seventeenth century, Blaise Pascal, the great religious philosopher and mathematician, used to come to Deux Magots—it was an old Paris inn—to do his writing. He may have written his famous
Pensées
right where we sit.”

“But how is the café a part of your history?”

Angela laughed. Tim loved the sound. It cascaded like water over a fall.

“It's very simple,” she said. “Pascal was a Jansenist, a follower of Bishop Cornelius Jansen who had early in the seventeenth century launched a religious revival movement based on the teachings of St. Augustine. Jansenism proclaimed, as Augustine did, that spiritual religious experience, not reason, must be the guide in the life of Christians. The
Pensées
reflect this view. Now, because I belong to the order of Augustine Sisters, Pascal, the champion of St. Augustine, is our hero. When I was at the Convent,
all of us—students, novices, and Sisters—had to pray for Pascal when we walked past Deux Magots.”

“That's very interesting,” Tim remarked. “I didn't know about Deux Magots and Pascal, but I do know about Jansenists. For example, they were in most violent conflict with the Jesuits.”

“Oh, I won't hold it against you,” Angela smiled, her green eyes sparkling. “Anyway, Pope Innocent X declared Jansen heretical later in the century. Which reminds me that Pascal had denounced Father Sainte-Ange, who was a Capuchin priest, for being unorthodox, if not downright heretical. I read that in school . . .”

“Was the Father related to Monsignor Sainte-Ange?” Tim asked.

“I have no idea. Maybe he was the Monsignor's great-great-great-grandfather or something,” Angela said. “I had forgotten all about Pascal and Sainte-Ange the Capuchin, until I went to work for
this
Sainte-Ange. But I never questioned him about his ancestry.”

“What a coincidence,” Tom commented. “A Saint-Ange who was a heretic? How about that! But good for old Pascal to keep the faith even if he fought the Jesuits. And for having immortalized Deux Magots for us. He must have been quite a figure.”

“He was,” Angela nodded. “And do you know what else Pascal did at Deux Magots?”

“No, I don't.”

“He wrote here his
Discours sur les passions de l'amour . . .
He was a romantic theologian . . .”

And, Tim suddenly remembered, St. Augustine of Carthage, after whom Angela's religious order was named, had lived with a concubine for fourteen years, until his conversion at the age of thirty-three. And as the great bishop of Hippo, he remained sex-obsessed—or so claim Church historians.

“W
HAT IS TRUTH
?” Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator of Judea, asked Jesus before sanctioning His crucifixion.

What
is
truth? Tim Savage asked himself for the millionth time as he reflected about the causes and circumstances of the assassination attempt against the head of the Church of Jesus Christ. And the immediate and most pressing question on his mind—as the TGV, the super-express
Train à Grande Vitesse,
sped him southwest from Paris to Toulouse—was who exactly were the “French Brethren” and why had they sponsored and orchestrated the attack on Gregory XVII?

However, for the first time since he had accepted the investigatory mission, Tim had the sense that he was moving, promisingly, in the right direction—though he was still without a clear idea what it was. It remained a Muslim track, but it was now evolving away from Sainte-Ange's original if vague “Muslim Connection” concept.

Unquestionably, Tim was making progress. The Istambul meeting with the Gray Wolves was a breakthrough as he learned about the mysterious “French Brethren.” This had led him to Paris, where, through amazing luck, he was introduced by his Egyptian friend to the imam of the Stalingrad Mosque. Just as amazingly, the imam, grieved and contrite over the role his Council of Elders had inadvertently played in the conspiracy, had agreed to put him in touch with the Muslim “brethren” in the South.

True to his word, the imam provided Tim with names, addresses, and telephone numbers in Toulouse and other towns in the sprawling region at the foot of the Pyrénées. He also told Tim that he would be expected by those whose names he had been given.

“I am, of course, assuring them that you will be absolutely discreet
and protect their identities from the authorities and everybody else,” the imam had added.

“Of course,” Tim said. “In my religion we respect trust as you do in yours. Besides, you too must wish to know the truth.”

Tim and the imam had gone on to discuss Islam and its mutations and nuances in relation with the shooting on St. Peter's Square by Agca Circlic. The imam, who turned out to be an Islamic scholar as well as a mosque prayer leader, remarked that, in his opinion, the plot had most likely originated with fundamentalist Muslim groups or sects in the south of France rather than with religious moderates who were a majority there.

“I cannot tell you why fundamentalist leaders would have become engaged in such a plot,” he told Tim, “but we have in the south a number of
mojtaheds,
you know, senior Shia theologians, who follow the Ayatollah Khomeini's teachings on how Islamic holy laws should be applied to modern life. Most of them came from Algeria where fundamentalism is quite powerful, and I suppose we cannot rule out some aberration that might have triggered the notion of killing your pope . . . Perhaps one of my friends in Toulouse might guide you better than I can. Your impeccable Islamic scholarly credentials that I mentioned to them will help you in understanding whatever had occurred.”

“Could it have been motivated by the fact that the French Church is divided over the whole Muslim question and so many bishops and priests agree with the government on deporting Muslim immigrants back to North Africa?” Tim asked. “Would the
mojtaheds,
or some other Islamic leaders, want to take it out on Gregory XVII?”

“No, not really,” the imam replied. “It just doesn't make sense. The pope has been most supportive of us. But, again, fundamentalists are a mystery even to a man like me. In some ways, you know, they remind me of Roman Catholic fundamentalists in France. They are mirror images. For all I know, they have a lot in common.”

*  *  *

Tim may have been making progress along the Muslim track, as he now called it in his mind, but the warning from de Marenches to the Holy See kept nagging at him. All he knew about the late French
spymaster was what the elderly Jesuit had told him in Rome, the interview in
Le Figaro,
Angela's remark about the “mysterious” death of de Marenches' top aide, and Paul Martinius' casual comment that Tim should look into the past activities of the SDECE chief Everything he had heard and read about de Marenches was enormously intriguing, yet none of it seemed to fit the different variations of the Muslim track he was seeking to reconcile.

Although Tim hated wasting even a minute of his evening with Angela on papal business he raised the subject of de Marenches as they were both studying dinner menus at the little old bistro on Rue d'Odéon in their Left Bank neighborhood. After saying goodbye at Deux Magots, Tim and Angela had agreed, quite naturally, to dine on the eve of his departure for Toulouse. He had thrown out the suggestion, and she responded, “Sure, why not?” as if they had been friends forever, meeting unexpectedly away from home.

And, joining him at a corner table in the bistro, Angela was a sight to behold. Tim had dreamed about her every night following Deux Magots. He knew he was smitten as never before, and now she stood before him like a reverie. She wore a long skirt, a white blouse with short sleeves, and a cardigan over her shoulders, a touch of modesty. A light scent of
eau de cologne
wafted after her. On the ring finger of the left hand, Angela wore a wedding band: She was a bride of Jesus Christ. A pang of jealousy coursed through Tim.

The waiter came by to pour wine. Tim lifted his glass, saluting Angela, then said, “I hate to bring this up, but I am enormously puzzled by this de Marenches warning business, and I recall that you had mentioned something to me about the strange death of one of his aides. This could be really important, and I wonder whether you remember anything else?”

“Well,” Angela said, “not really, not very much. When you requested the
Figaro
interview with de Marenches, I had asked the Monsignor whether there was anything else about it that you should know, that I should pass on to you. He replied that, no, there was nothing particularly relevant to tell you. He sort of seemed annoyed when I brought up de Marenches, so I dropped the subject.”

“But how did you know about that Colonel, Bernard Nut,
you told me had been murdered or whatever in Nice?” Tim inquired.

“To tell you the truth,” Angela answered, “I, too became curious, and I did something a bit out of school. When the Monsignor went to lunch with the Holy Father in the dining room upstairs, I spotted a file folder on his desk, marked ‘de Marenches.' I peeked inside and saw some newspaper clippings about de Marenches, the interview and his death. But I also found a sheet of paper on which the Monsignor had written the name of the Colonel and a notation that he died ‘mysteriously' after the de Marenches warning had been delivered to the Holy See by one of his deputies. De Marenches does mention in the interview, as you know, that he had dispatched a top aide to deliver the warning, and it might have been this Colonel Nut. That's all I know about it . . .”