Red Army Spies and the Blackrobes Trilogy

by Patrick Trese

  Charley shouted at them.

  “Look up!” he cried out. “Can’t you see Him? Can’t you see who He is? Are you just going to squat there in the dust and let this happen to Him? Can’t you do something?”

  The peddlers gawked at him, then shrugged and looked away, shaking their heads. Another foreigner, they seemed to be saying to each other. Another foreigner ranting and raving in one more foreign tongue. They couldn’t or wouldn’t understand what Charley was trying to tell them. He looked about for Father Samozvanyetz. The priest was gone.

  Charley was alone.

  The ghastly procession stopped just a few yards away from him. The three condemned men crouched beneath their wooden crosses, bent down by their dreadful burdens.

  Charley saw Jesus clearly.

  He saw the face streaked with blood and dirt, the crown of thorns, the eyes.

  The Roman guards were arguing. One soldier pointed to the left, up the steep rise of the narrow street. Another gestured toward the prisoners. Charley edged closer to hear what they were arguing about. He was able to understand the legionnaires’ Latin.

  “He’ll never make it up that grade.”

  “He’ll be dead before we can crucify him.”

  “Then get somebody to help carry his cross up to the hill!”

  “But don’t get a Judean! We don’t want any trouble.”

  “Right! The crowd will go crazy if we grab a Judean.”

  “Then find a foreigner!”

  “Right! Find a foreigner.”

  “See that one in the black robe? He’s not from around here.”

  The Roman soldiers were looking straight at him.

  “You, there!”

  Charley took a step back.

  A Roman legionnaire, his right hand clasping the hilt of his sword, advanced on Charley.

  “You, there, foreigner! Come with me! I have a job for you!”

  He grabbed Charley by the shoulder and shoved him out into the street.

  “Move!” he shouted. “Take up that man’s cross! And start moving up the hill!”

  Charley grabbed the wooden cross with both hands, hauled it up from Christ’s shoulder and settled the weight on his own.

  Their eyes met.

  Jesus nodded, ever so slightly. “Come, follow me,” He whispered in English and turned to face the steps that led up the steep road ahead.

  The Roman soldier was shouting. “Get a move on, foreigner!”

  Charley tried to lurch forward. But he couldn’t move.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Suddenly he was back in his dormitory room.

  He couldn’t catch his breath. His eyes were wide open now. Outside, dawn was breaking. He had to get out of the room, out of the building, outside into the fresh air. He stumbled down the main staircase and out the side door.

  It was cold outside. He stood on the pavement just outside the side door of the novitiate, breathing deeply now. He could see his breath.

  Had he been asleep? Had he been dreaming? He didn’t think so. It didn’t feel that way. But he must have been dreaming. No, he thought, it had seemed all too real, like it was really happening, like it was still happening.

  He began to walk down the path toward the woods. He had to get away from the building. He broke into a run. He ran as fast as he could toward the trees, sucking in the cold air. He ran along the twisting gravel path through the dark pines until his breath gave out.

  He stopped and stood on the path, gasping for air. The shrine of Saint Stanislaus was just up ahead. He walked there slowly and sat down on the bench in front of the statue: Stanislaus Kotska, son of a Polish nobleman, a Jesuit novice for nine months until he got sick and died almost four centuries ago. Eighteen years old. Same as me. Charley sat and stared at the statue until his head cleared and he got control of his breath again.

  He felt that he was not alone. He looked around, but saw nothing. Just the trees and the empty path. Charley leaned over and put his head in his hands.

  Oh, shit! he said to himself.

  He sat trembling in the cold air, eyes tightly shut.

  “Oh, shit,” Charley said out loud. “Now what am I going to do?”

  C H A P T E R • 5

  The man who played Father Samozvanyetz was studying John Beck’s notes for the Fourth Week of the Spiritual Exercises when the Rector burst into his office.

  “I just heard it on the radio!” Father Thornton exclaimed. “The Russian ships have turned back! They’re not going to try to run through the blockade!”

  “Thank God!” he replied.

  “Amen,” said the Rector. “It’s been a nerve-wracking couple of weeks but we can all breathe easier now, for a while at least. But I’ll leave you in peace now while I go to tell the other priests the good news. I’m sorry for intruding like this. I thought you’d want to know right away.”

  “I do, I do! What a relief! No need to apologize. You’ve lifted the fear that made it hard to concentrate. And I thank you!”

  “Do you want me to keep you informed from now on?”

  “It might be better if I just come by your office from time to time to catch up on the news.”

  “Of course, of course,” Father Thornton replied. “That’s a better arrangement. Feel free to drop in anytime at all.”

  And with that, he was gone.

  That was easy, thought the man who played Father Samozvanyetz. All he had to do was sit and listen and smile. However, he had been taken by surprise by the Rector and his “thanking God” was dangerously spontaneous. Fortunately, “Thank God” was an appropriate reaction for a priest getting good news. It was “in character” even if he himself wasn’t.

  But, for a split-second, his true self had emerged. He had revealed what he actually felt.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The Fourth Week of the Spiritual Exercises was the shortest. According to John Beck’s notes, Ignatius had planned it to be “a joyful week of love and commitment to the Risen Christ, a series of contemplations of the Resurrection and Christ’s victory over Death itself.”

  It was a good story with a happy ending and it had been easy for the man who played Father Samozvanyetz to suspend enough disbelief to present it persuasively. Throughout the week, he found his spirits rising along with those of his novices.

  But the elation he felt was not caused by Christ’s supposed resurrection and ascension into Heaven. It was triggered by the good news arriving from the outside world through Father Rector’s radio.

  He had resisted the lure of the television set in the priests’ recreation room, but he had visited Father Thornton’s office several times each day to hear the Rector’s summaries of what was going on. That was good enough. He learned all he needed to know.

  Kennedy’s strategy had worked. Khrushchev had buckled under pressure. The missile bases were being dismantled. The rockets and support equipment were being hauled away to the ports by convoys of trucks to be shipped back to Russia. Bulldozers were destroying the launch pads.

  The crisis was over. And, if Oksana Volkova was right, Khrushchev’s political degradation was probably well underway. The man who played Father Samozvanyetz knew he’d had only a small role in this drama, but he had played his part well. He felt satisfied with his work.

  And, as far as he could determine, the Long Retreat had gone splendidly. Through the month of silence and meditation, he had held his audience. Not one novice had left the novitiate since that first day when four young men had packed their trunks and gone home.

  Those novices who remained had responded well to the stories he told and the characters he paraded before them, each one differing in voice and posture, each shaded with a unique inner life. Best of all, his evocation of Ignatius Loyola had held up for the whole thirty days.

  Tomorrow morning, after the meditation period, the novices would rejoin the rest of the community for Sunday Mass in the main chapel. And that would be that. So, for the final meeting of the Long Retreat this Saturday evening, he
had decided to portray a captain of infantry who loved the young men he had led into battle.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Sit down on the floor in front of me, lads. Relax and get comfortable. It’s been a long, hard march and you’ve all done well. We’ve come to the end, at last.”

  He hitched up his cassock and sat down on the topmost altar step. He picked up the little green book and held it before him in both hands.

  “Thirty days of silence, prayer and meditation. You thought you couldn’t do it, but you did. With open minds and willing hearts, you have done well and I am proud of each one of you.”

  He held up the book.

  “This is your last exercise, my young friends. Ignatius calls it ‘The Contemplation to Gain Love.’ Now, don’t take that the wrong way. Ignatius doesn’t mean that you should try to get God to love you. God loves you already. Always has and always will. The purpose of this exercise is to help you gain love for God. Well, it is obvious to me that you lads have got that already.”

  He opened the book.

  “Ignatius says right here at the beginning of this exercise that ‘love ought to be put more in deeds than in words.’ And that is what you’ve been doing, have you not? Marching through this Long Retreat without falling out? That’s truly love of God, my lads.”

  “So, what’s the id quod volo here? Id quod volo: that which I want. What you’re going after now is a deepening of your love for God. That’s what this last exercise is all about. And, you could say, that’s what this Long Retreat is all about.

  “How do we go about deepening our love for God? Ignatius tells us ‘to ask for interior knowledge of so great good received, in order that being entirely grateful, I may be able in all to love and serve his Divine Majesty.’

  “That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? So let’s break it down.

  “Step One: Knowledge. Make a mental list of what you’ve received from God. Long or short, it doesn’t matter. Your life, your faith, your parents, your health, the sun, the rain or whatever comes to mind.

  “Step Two: Gratitude. Here at Milford, we say Deo gratias a lot, don’t we? It gets to be a habit. The words tend to lose their meaning. But tomorrow morning, contemplate that list you’ve made and let yourself feel gratitude for what God’s given you. Just say ‘Thanks be to God’ and think seriously about what you’re saying.

  “Step Three: Love of God. According to Ignatius, that’s what comes next almost automatically. One, two, three. By the numbers. Knowledge. Gratitude. Love.

  “Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well, it is. It just happens, if you let it happen. That’s what Father Beck wrote in his notebook.”

  He put down the book of the Spiritual Exercises by his side, took a deep breath, raised his eyes to the ceiling of the chapel and exhaled slowly.

  “There is one last thing to do,” said the priest. “Ignatius tells us that the purpose of the Spiritual Exercises is to help you make a decision that only you can make. I’m sure you all think the decision you are being urged to make is whether to become a Jesuit or not. Should you take the perpetual vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience? Or should you return to the world?

  “That would be a reasonable assumption on your part. But there’s a decision to make more immediate than a decision to take the Jesuit vows. You’ll have another year and a half to decide that.

  “Tomorrow morning, you should decide whether or not to accept God’s will for you, no matter what that may turn out to be.”

  He let that sink in and then he adjusted his cassock and, smiling. leaned closer to his novices.

  “This is as far as I can take you. I must let you go on alone toward your decision, which must be yours alone.

  “How is it done? Quite simply and with love in your heart, as you make the final meditation of your Long Retreat.

  “Let me read you the prayer Saint Ignatius composed at this point of his own spiritual journey. You’ll find the Suscipe on Page 120 of the Exercises. You know it by heart, I am sure. But don’t recite the prayer with me, lads. Wait until you are alone. Then say it by yourself and for yourself. For now, just listen.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Charley Coogan leaned forward to hear the prayer the Master of Novices was reading slowly and softly. He could almost see the disabled Basque soldier, exhausted from fighting the enemy and himself.

  “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my intellect, and all my will. All that I have and possess, Thou gavest it to me. To Thee, Lord, I return it! All is Thine. Dispose of it according to all Thy will. Give me Thy love and grace, for this is enough for me.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The chapel was silent. All eyes were fixed on the priest who now sat on the topmost step of the altar, eyes downcast, the little green book resting in his lap. The novices were clustered about his feet, waiting for him to speak. He did not raise his head or meet their eyes. Instead, he lifted his right hand and blessed them in Latin.

  “Go to your prayers, my dear, brave brothers in Christ,” he murmured. “Finish your Long Retreat by yourselves during your morning meditation. Ignatius Loyola, John Beck and Alex Samozvanyetz have nothing more to say to you tonight. Go in peace.”

  He watched them rise from the chapel floor and walk out to their dormitory rooms.

  “Take a bow,” he told himself; “Through it all, you have maintained your cover.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  That Sunday morning, Charley recited the Suscipe over and over again. He tried his best, but he couldn’t tell if he really meant what he was praying. Still, he thought it felt like he meant it. Finally, toward the end of the meditation period, he sat back in his chair and let Loyola’s ideas sink into his mind.

  He wasn’t upset when the bell rang to end the period. He had finished that last meditation and he had made it through the Long Retreat. He felt good about that. Not like he’d scored a touchdown or won a game or anything. He just felt satisfied and very calm.

  A little later that Sunday morning, after his month of monastic solitude and silence, Charley Coogan found himself overwhelmed by the music and pageantry of High Mass in the Main Chapel. Then, after Father Rector read the Gospel in English, he told the first-year novices what had happened during the Long Retreat. “The Cuban Missile Crisis,” he called it.

  Charley listened closely, but the events of the world crisis Father Thornton described seemed distant and remote. What he had been living through in Jerusalem seemed more real and compelling than the Rector’s summary of what had been happening that October in Washington, Moscow and Cuba.

  How odd, Charley thought, that he should feel so uninvolved. He was thankful when Father Thornton returned to the altar to resume celebrating the Mass.

  The chanting and the vestments, the candles and the flowers, the stained glass windows sending shafts of sunlight streaming through the incense embraced Charley and carried him away. He received the Lord in Holy Communion and returned to his pew to say the Suscipe, softly and slowly, trying to mean every word.

  C H A P T E R • 6

  Now that the Long Retreat was over and the world was no longer in danger of being destroyed utterly, at least not for the moment, the man who played Father Samozvanyetz wanted nothing less than to rest forever in peace in this quiet, orderly novitiate. But he knew Oksana Volkova would not call off the game. Not now, not after such a success.

  Indeed, she managed to communicate with him that very Tuesday. He discovered her message halfway down the stack of mail for the novices. In an envelope addressed to Cr. Charles Coogan, N.S.J., he found another sealed envelope on the front of which was printed:

  Do Not Open! Give this envelope to Fr. Samozvanyetz immediately. Ask no questions. Tell no one. This is an important security check.

  How audacious, he thought. The letter from Oksana Volkova was in his personal code and in Russian to boot.

  Do you still examine all letters sent to novices? Is this a safe way to message you? One red for No/Stop or one green for Yes/Conti
nue.

  That afternoon, rosary in hand, he walked to the statue of Saint Stanislaus in the woods where he stuck a green pin into the underside of the wooden bench. Her second letter arrived in the mail a few days later. Again in Russian, again in his personal code:

  Pleased Mail safe. Sincere well done from all at home. Changes underway. Maintain contact prime source indefinitely. Anya well/still safe.

  He sat at his desk and tore the letter and its envelopes into ever-smaller pieces.

  Anya. Yes, of course. She must never allow me to forget that Anya will be kept alive and protected only as long as I play my part.

  That afternoon, he paid another visit to Saint Stanislaus and stuck another green thumbtack under the bench. Message received. Not only had he received her letter, he now knew for certain that Oksana Volkova—or somebody who reported to her—was nearby and watching.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The letter from the President of the United States addressed to The Rev. Alex Samozvanyetz, S.J., arrived at Milford Novitiate a few days later. The unexpected appearance of White House stationery in the regular mail delivery electrified the Jesuit community. The priests and lay brothers were the first to learn about it. The news spread quickly among the scholastics and novices during the recreation period following the noon meal. The man who played Father Samozvanyetz found the Jesuit community’s barely concealed excitement amusing. Everybody seemed to know about the President’s letter, but nobody had asked him about it directly, not even the Rector. Obviously, the Milford Jesuits, especially the younger ones, were in danger of death by curiosity. So, that evening, he asked Father Thornton for permission to make an announcement when the entire community gathered in the main chapel for Litanies.

  He waited until the last stragglers pushed through the double doors before walking up the center aisle. He genuflected before the altar, then turned and glared at the young men seated before him.