The Shoes of the Fisherman

by Morris West

  ‘Given at Rome this twentieth day of October in the first year of the pontificate of His Holiness Kiril I, Gloriously Reigning!’

  Leone finished his reading, laid the document on Kiril’s desk, and waited in silence.

  ‘Twenty years,’ said Kiril softly. ‘Twenty years demolished in one stroke. I wonder how he will take it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Holiness. There was nothing else we could do. I myself had no part in this. The commissioners were appointed at Your Holiness’s direction.’

  ‘We know that.’ Kiril’s address was studiously formal. ‘You have our thanks, Eminence. You may carry our thanks and our appreciation also to the Reverend Fathers of the Sacred Congregation.’

  ‘I shall do that, Holiness. Meantime, how is this news to be conveyed to Father Télémond?’

  ‘We shall tell him ourselves. Your Eminence has our leave to go.’

  The old lion stood his ground, stubborn and unafraid. ‘This is a grief to Your Holiness. I know it, I wish I could share it. But neither my colleagues nor I could have returned a different verdict. Your Holiness must know that.’

  ‘We do know it. Our grief is private to ourselves. Now we should like to be alone.’

  He knew it was brutal but he could not help himself. He watched the old Cardinal walk, proud and erect, out of the chamber, and then sat down heavily at the desk, staring at the document.

  They were caught now, Jean Télémond and himself. At one stride they had come together to the point of decision. For himself the issue was clear. As custodian of the Deposit of Faith, he could not accept error or even risk its dissemination. If Jean Télémond broke under the weight of judgement, he had to stand by and see him destroyed rather than permit one single deviation from the truth transmitted from Christ to His Apostles, and from the Apostles to the living Church.

  For Jean Télémond, he knew, the problem was far greater. He would submit to judgement, yes. He would bend his will obediently to the Faith. But what of his intellect, that fine-tempered, far-ranging instrument that had grappled so long with a cosmic mystery? How would it bear the immense strain laid upon it? And its tenement, the weakened body with its fluttering, uncertain heart. How would it tolerate the battle soon to be waged within it?

  Kiril the Pontiff bent his head on his hands and prayed an instant, desperately, for himself and the man who had become a brother to him. Then he lifted the telephone and asked to be connected with Cardinal Rinaldi at his villa.

  The old man came on almost immediately.

  Kiril asked him, ‘Where is Father Télémond?’

  ‘In the garden, Holiness. Do you want to talk with him?’

  ‘No. With yourself, Eminence . . . How is he today?’

  ‘Not too well, I think. He had a bad night. He looks tired. Is something wrong?’

  ‘I have just had the verdict from the Holy Office.’

  ‘Oh! . . . Good or bad?’

  ‘Not good. They have gone as far as they can to minimize their objections, but their objections are still there.’

  ‘Are they valid, Holiness?’

  ‘Most of them, I think.’

  ‘Does Your Holiness want me to tell Jean?’

  ‘No. I should like to tell him myself. Can you put in a car and send him to the Vatican?’

  ‘Of course . . . I think perhaps I should prepare a little.’

  ‘If you can I shall be grateful.’

  ‘How do you feel, Holiness?’

  ‘Worried for Jean.’

  ‘Try not to worry too much. He is better prepared than he knows.’

  ‘I hope so. When he returns take care of him.’

  ‘I shall, Holiness. I have a great affection for him.’

  ‘I know. And I am grateful to Your Eminence.’

  ‘Who delivered the verdict, Holiness?’

  ‘Leone.’

  ‘Was he distressed?’

  ‘A little, I think. I have never been able to read him very well.’

  ‘Would you like me to telephone him?’

  ‘If you wish . . . How long will it take Jean to get here?’

  ‘An hour, I should say.’

  ‘Tell him to come to the Angelic Gate. I shall leave orders that he is to be brought straight to my room.’

  ‘I shall do that, Holiness . . . Believe me, I am deeply sorry.’

  When Jean Télémond came in, pale of visage but straight and soldierly, Kiril went forward to greet him with outstretched hands. When he went to kiss the ring of the Fisherman, Kiril drew him erect and led him to the chair by his desk. He said affectionately:

  ‘I’m afraid I have bad news for you, Jean.’

  ‘The verdict?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought so. May I see it, please?’

  Kiril handed the paper across the desk and watched him intently as he read it. His fine face seemed to crumple under the shock, and small beads of sweat broke out on his forehead and on his lips. When he had finished, he laid the document on the desk and looked at the Pontiff with eyes full of pain and perplexity. He said unsteadily, ‘It’s worse than I thought . . . They’ve tried to be kind, but it’s very bad.’

  ‘It’s not final, Jean, you know that. Some of it seems to be a matter of semantics. For the rest there is no censure. They simply ask for a re-examination.’

  Télémond seemed to shrink back into himself. His hands trembled. He shook his head. ‘There isn’t time . . . Twenty years’ work depends on that volume. It’s the keystone of the structure. Without it, the rest falls apart.’

  Kiril went to him swiftly, laying his hands on his trembling shoulders. ‘It isn’t all wrong, Jean. They don’t say that. They simply challenge certain propositions. These are the only things you have to clarify . . .’

  ‘There isn’t time . . . At night I hear the knocking on the gate. I am being summoned, Holiness, and suddenly the work is undone. What am I to do?’

  ‘You know what you have to do, Jean. This is the moment you were afraid of. I am here with you. I am your friend – your brother. But the moment is yours.’

  ‘You want me to submit?’

  ‘You must, Jean, you know that.’

  Through his own fingertips, Kiril could feel the struggle that racked him in body and spirit. He felt the tremor of nerve and muscle, the dampness of sweat. He smelt the odour of a man in mortal torment. Then the tremor subsided.

  Slowly Jean Télémond lifted a pain-racked face. In a voice that seemed to be wrenched out of him, be said at last, ‘Very well. I submit . . . What now? I submit, but I see no light. I am deaf to all the harmony I used to hear. Where has it gone? I’m lost, left . . . I submit, but where do I go?’

  ‘Stay here with me, Jean. Let me share the darkness with you. We’re friends – brothers. This is the time of gall and vinegar. Let me drink it with you.’

  For a moment it seemed that he would consent. Then with a great effort he took possession of himself again. He heaved himself out of his chair and stood facing the Pontiff, ravaged, shaken, but still a whole man. ‘No, Holiness! I’m grateful, but no! Everyone has to drink the gall and vinegar by himself. I should like to go now.’

  ‘I shall come and see you tomorrow, Jean.’

  ‘I may need more time, Holiness.’

  ‘Will you telephone me?’

  ‘Only when I am ready, Holiness . . . Only when I see light. Everything is dark to me now. I feel abandoned in a desert. Twenty years down the drain!’

  ‘Not all of it, Jean. Hold to that, I beg of you. Not all of it.’

  ‘Perhaps it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Everything matters, Jean. The right and the wrong as well. Everything matters. Take courage.’

  ‘Courage? You know all I have at this moment? A small pulse inside me that flickers and beats and tells me tomorrow I may be dead . . . I have said it, Holiness. I submit. Please let me go now.’

  ‘I love you, Jean,’ said Kiril the Pontiff. ‘I love you as I have never loved another person in my wh
ole life. If I could take this pain from you I would do it gladly.’

  ‘I know it,’ said Jean Télémond simply. ‘I am more grateful than I can say. But even with loving, a man must die alone. And this, I have always known, would be ten times worse than dying.’

  When the door closed behind him, Kiril the Pontiff slammed his fists down on the desk, and cried aloud in anger at his own impotence.

  The next day and the next, and the day after, he had no word of Jean Télémond. He could only guess at what he must be suffering. For all his authority as Supreme Pastor, this was one drama, one very intimate dialogue, in which he dared not intervene.

  Besides, he himself was besieged with business, from the Secretariat of State, from the Congregation for the Affairs of the Eastern Church, from the Congregation of Rites . . . Every tribunal and commission in Rome seemed to demand his attention at once. He had to drive himself through the days with a relentless discipline, and at night his desk was still piled high with papers, and his soul cried out for the refreshment of prayer and solitude.

  Still he could not put Télémond out of his mind, and on the morning of the fourth day – a day taken up with private and semi-private audiences – he called Cardinal Rinaldi at the vila.

  Rinaldi’s report was less than comforting:

  ‘He is suffering greatly, Holiness. There is no doubt about his submission, but I cannot begin to count what it is costing him.’

  ‘How is his health?’

  ‘Indifferent. I have had the doctor to him twice. His blood pressure is dangerously high, but this, of course, is the result of tension and fatigue. There is little to be done for it.’

  ‘Is he still happy with you?’

  ‘Happier here than anywhere else, I think. We understand each other. He is as private as he needs to be, and, strangely enough, I think the children are good for him.’

  ‘What does he do with himself?’

  ‘In the morning he says Mass, and then walks for a while in the country. At midday he goes to our parish church and reads his office alone. He rests after lunch, although I do not think he sleeps. In the afternoon he walks in the garden. He talks with the children when they come home. At night we play a game of chess together.’

  ‘He’s not working?’

  ‘No. He is in deep perplexity . . . Yesterday Semmering came to see him. They talked together for a long time. Afterwards Jean seemed a little calmer.’

  ‘Would he like me to visit him?’

  Rinaldi hesitated a moment. ‘I don’t think so, Holiness. He has a deep affection for you. He talks of you very often with gentleness and gratitude. But he feels, I think, that he must not ask you to bend yourself, or your office, to his personal problem. He is very brave you know, very noble.’

  ‘Does he know that I love him?’

  ‘He knows. He has told me. But the only way he can return the love is by maintaining his own dignity. Your Holiness must understand that.’

  ‘I do. And, Valerio . . .’ It was the first time he had used the Cardinal’s first name. ‘I am very grateful to you.’

  ‘And I to you, Holiness. You have given me peace and the opportunity to share my life with a great man.’

  ‘If he gets really ill, you will call me immediately?’

  ‘Immediately, I promise.’

  ‘God bless you, Valerio.’

  He put down the receiver and sat for a while collecting his energies for the formalities of the morning. He did not belong to himself any more. He could spend no more than a part of himself even on Jean Télémond. He belonged to God, then through God to the Church. No man’s purse was deep enough to stand such a constant expense of body and spirit. Yet he had to go on spending, trusting in the Almighty for a renewal of the funds.

  The audience list was on his desk. When he picked it up he saw that the first name was that of Corrado Calitri. He pressed the bell. The door of the audience chamber opened, and the Maestro di Camera led the Minister of the Republic into his presence.

  When the first formalities were over, Kiril dismissed the Maestro di Camera and asked Calitri to sit down. He noted the containment of the man, the intelligent eyes, the ease with which he moved in an ambience of authority. This was one born to eminence. He had to be dealt with honestly. His pride had to be respected, his intelligence also. Kiril sat down and addressed himself quietly to his visitor:

  ‘I am anchored to this place, my friend. I am not so free to move as others, so I have to ask you to come to see me.’

  ‘I am honoured, Holiness,’ said Calitri formally.

  ‘I shall have to ask you to be patient with me, and not resent me too much. Later I believe you will sit on the Quirinal Hill; I shall sit here in the Vatican; and between us we shall rule Rome.’

  ‘There is a long way to go before then, Holiness,’ said Calitri with a thin smile. ‘Politics is a risky business.’

  ‘So this morning,’ said Kiril gently, ‘let us ignore politics. I am a priest and your bishop. I want to talk to you about yourself.’

  He saw Calitri stiffen under the shock, and the swift flush that mounted to his pale cheeks. He hurried on. ‘The editor of the Osservatore Romano resigned a few days ago. I think you know why.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I was sufficiently concerned to call for the file on your case from the Holy Roman Rota. I examined it very carefully. I have to tell you that the record of the proceedings is completely in order, and that the decree of nullity handed down was fully justified by the evidence.’

  Calitri’s relief was evident. ‘I’m glad to hear that, Holiness. I did a great wrong in attempting marriage. I’m not very proud of myself, but I’m glad to see justice done at last.’

  Kiril the Pontiff said evenly, ‘There was something else in the record which interested me more than the legal process. It was the evidence of a deep spiritual dilemma in your own soul.’ Calitri opened his mouth to speak, but the Pontiff stayed him with an uplifted hand. ‘No, please! Let me finish. I did not ask you here to accuse you. You are my son in Christ, I want to help you. You have a special and very difficult problem. I should like to help you to solve it.’

  Calitri flushed again and then gave an ironic shrug. ‘We are what we are, Holiness . . . We have to make the best terms we can with life. The record shows, I think, that I have tried to improve the terms.’

  ‘But the problem is still there, is it not?’

  ‘Yes. One tries to make substitutions, sublimations. Some of them work, some of them don’t. Not all of us are ready for a lifelong crucifixion, Holiness. Perhaps we should be but we are not.’ He gave a small, dry chuckle. ‘Just as well, perhaps; otherwise you might find half the world in monasteries, and the other half jumping off a cliff.’

  To his surprise Kiril acknowledged the irony with a smile of good humour. ‘Strange as it may sound, I don’t disagree with you. Somehow or other, we all have to come to terms with ourselves as we are, and with the world as it is. I have never believed that we have to do it by destroying ourselves . . . Or, even more importantly, by destroying others. May I ask you a question, my son?’

  ‘I may not be able to answer it, Holiness.’

  ‘This problem of yours. This thing that drives you. How do you define it for yourself?’

  To his surprise Calitri did not balk the question. He answered it bluntly. ‘I defined it a long time ago, Holiness. It is a question of love. There are many varieties of love and – I am not ashamed to say it – I am susceptible to, and capable of, one special variety.’ He hurried on urgently. ‘Some people love children, others find them little monsters. We don’t blame them, we accept them for what they are! Most men can love women – but even then not all women. I am drawn to men. Why should I be ashamed of that?’

  ‘You should not be ashamed,’ said Kiril the Pontiff. ‘On1y when your love becomes destructive – as it has done in the past, as it may do with Campeggio’s son. A man who is promiscuous is not a true lover. He is too centred upon himself. He h
as a long way yet to grow to maturity. Do you understand what I am trying to say?’

  ‘I understand it. I understand also that one does not arrive at maturity in one leap. I think I am beginning to arrive there.’

  ‘Sincerely?’

  ‘Which of us is wholly sincere with himself, Holiness? That too takes a lifetime of practice. Let us say that perhaps I am beginning to be sincere. But politics is not the best training ground, nor is the world.’

  ‘Are you angry with me, my friend?’ asked Kiril the Pontiff with a smile.

  ‘No, Holiness. I am not angry. But you must not expect me to surrender to you like a schoolgirl at first confession.’

  ‘I don’t expect that, but sooner or later you will have to surrender. Not to me, but to God.’

  ‘That too takes time.’

  ‘Which of us can promise himself time? Is your span so certain? Or mine?’

  Calitri was silent.

  ‘Will you think about what I have said?’

  ‘I will think about it.’

  ‘And not resent me?’

  ‘I will try not to resent you, Holiness.’

  ‘Thank you. Before you go I should like to tell you that here, in this place three nights ago, I stood and suffered with a man who is as dear to me as life. I love him. I love him in the spirit and in the flesh. I am not ashamed of it because love is the noblest emotion of humankind . . . Do you ever read the New Testament?’

  ‘I haven’t read it for a long time.’

  ‘Then you should read the description of the Last Supper, where John the Apostle sat on the right hand of the Master, and leaned his head on His breast so that all the others looked and wondered and said, “See how he loves Him.”’ He stood up and said briskly, ‘You are a busy man. I have taken up too much of your time. Please forgive me.’

  Calitri too stood up and felt himself dwarfed by the tall, commanding figure of the Pontiff. He said, not without humour, ‘Your Holiness took a great risk calling me here.’

  ‘This is a risky office,’ said Kiril evenly. ‘But very few people understand it – besides, your own risk is much greater. Don’t, I beg of you, underrate it.’