The Fifth Gospel

by Ian Caldwell

  My body tightens. My backbone curves. He sees through me. I’m a faceless priest to him, one of tens of thousands, but he can recognize a lie as surely as he can sense the change of weather in his bones. The pain in his face tells me that he feels it.

  When he’s inches away, he signals for Archbishop Nowak to stop.

  I don’t know what else to do. I crawl out of my chair and lower myself. It’s customary to kiss the pope’s ring or bend down to kiss his shoe, to make a gesture of abasement, and I would make myself invisible if I could, to hide myself from him. Nothing is beneath me.

  Nowak reaches down and touches me on the ribs. “His Holiness wishes to speak to you.”

  John Paul’s arm moves. For an instant the white sleeve brushes electrically against the bare flesh of my hand. Then he reaches out and puts his heavy palm down on my cheek. Over my beard.

  I feel him shaking. Rhythmically, incessantly. The cadence of his disease. Under the tremulous hand he transmits a pure, sweating heat. With this one gesture, he tells me he has seen enough. He is about to speak his mind. He opens his mouth and croaks something.

  I can’t make out the words. I glance at Archbishop Nowak.

  But John Paul strains and raises his voice.

  “Ioannis,” he says, pressing his hand deeper into my beard.

  I stare up at him, frozen. Wondering if I heard right. But Nowak warns me not to say a word. The Holy Father is not to be interrupted.

  “Ioannis Andreou,” John Paul says.

  He is confused. In the darkness of his mind, he looks at me and sees the man he remembers from more than fifteen years ago.

  Then he finds the strength to finish.

  “Was your father.”

  The breath catches in my lungs. I dig my fingers into my palms, trying not to show any emotion.

  “You,” he says in an almost inarticulate voice, “are the priest with the son.”

  He fixes on me with the oceans of those eyes, and suddenly I am reduced to my barest atom.

  “Yes,” I say, fighting the tightness in my throat.

  John Paul glances at Archbishop Nowak, asking him to finish the thought. The exertion is becoming too much.

  “His Holiness sometimes sees you with your pupils,” Nowak says, “when he’s driven through the gardens.”

  I ache. My shame guts me.

  John Paul bobs his hand in the air, gesturing toward himself. “I,” he says. Then he jabs his hand in the air, gesturing at Nowak. “And he.”

  Nowak translates, “His Holiness was a seminary teacher, too. He was my moral theology professor.”

  It is wrenching to keep his stare, to avoid looking away. John Paul plunges his hand one more time toward his chest. “And,” he says in a rattling whisper, “I had a brother.”

  I finally have to close my eyes. I know about this brother. Edmund. Older by fourteen years. A young doctor in Poland. He died of a fever from a hospital patient.

  The Holy Father’s voice surges with feeling. “We would do anything. For each other.”

  There are only two reasons he would say this to me. One is that he believes my testimony. The other is that he knows why I’m lying. When I open my eyes, I will know the answer. So, for an instant, I can’t bear to.

  Then the silence unnerves me. I look.

  The wheelchair is moving away. Archbishop Nowak is pushing it out the door, toward the library. His Grace turns to motion for me to come after him. The last thing I see, before following him out, is the look on Falcone’s face. I can’t read it. The old policeman doesn’t say a word. But he’s fingering the gun case and dialing a number on his phone.

  “THE CHARGE IS DISMISSED,” Archbishop Nowak says to the assembled group in the library. “We have heard a confession.”

  All around there are looks of shock. I watch the incredulity spread.

  But Simon rises.

  Every eye turns to look. He is a Mosaic presence, ten ells tall. His black shape pulls electricity from the air like a lightning rod. Nowak pauses, taken aback by his forcefulness. And in that pause, my brother says: “He lies.”

  Mignatto and Lucio turn against him, objecting. The promoter of justice watches in disbelief.

  “He lies,” Simon repeats. “And I can prove it. Ask him what he did with the gun.”

  “He has produced the gun case,” Archbishop Nowak explains.

  Simon blinks. He cannot imagine the lies I’ve woven.

  But he has one last hope. Turning to me, he says, “Then open it for them.”

  Nowak looks as if he’s about to cut Simon off. But John Paul rakes his hand through the air, allowing it.

  Everyone in the room stares, waiting.

  “I don’t know the combination,” I repeat to Nowak. “Ugo never shared it.”

  Simon peers down at me. And there is such heart-splitting love in that look. Such astonishment. As if I should have known it was impossible for me to succeed at this, but he is amazed, shattered, that I would have tried anyway.

  His voice is slow and broken. “Holy Father, you won’t find the gun inside that case. I buried it in one of the flower beds in the gardens, where I buried Ugo’s wallet, watch, and hotel key. I can show the gendarmes the spot.”

  I’m frozen. Before I can say anything, Falcone enters the room. He is carrying the case. And the clamshell is open.

  “Your Holiness,” he murmurs in a concerned tone.

  When he shows John Paul the contents, I feel Mignatto’s eyes on me. Yet I can’t take my own eyes off the case.

  Simon is right. Where the weapon should be, there is only that cursed, rotted thing. Deathless. Invincible. Its gnarled leather umbilical cord no longer binds the manuscript tight. The stitches that attach the cover flaps together, making the Diatessaron almost waterproof, are open. Had it fallen into a puddle of rainwater that night at Castel Gandolfo, the way it once fell into the Nile, it might’ve been soaked through. But the gun case has served impeccably. Tucked inside it like a bookmark is a white sheet of paper on which I can see Ugo’s handwriting. The notes for his presentation to the Orthodox.

  Archbishop Nowak carefully lifts out the manuscript. But it is John Paul who raises his good hand and motions toward the notes. Nowak hands them to him. And for a moment the room is silent as he reads.

  Piece by piece, the mask of his face crumbles. He is in anguish. Nowak slowly pries the sheet away. But instead of reading it, he turns to me and says, “What is the meaning of this?”

  Simon intervenes. “My brother didn’t know the book was in there. His confession was a lie.”

  Falcone reaches into his back pocket for his handkerchief. He spreads it over his palm and gently lifts the gun case from the Holy Father’s hands.

  I scramble for words, trying to cobble together anything that would change this. That would mitigate Simon’s guilt. But my brother’s expression as he stares at the gun case is so horrified that my thoughts go to pieces. He shrinks from the cold appraisal in Falcone’s eyes. He can’t even look at me.

  The police chief shuts the clamshell. But he does not move it from Simon’s eyes. The sight is agony for Simon, and Falcone knows it.

  “Take it, Father,” he says.

  Simon recoils.

  There is no trace of humanity in the gendarme chief’s eyes. “Take it,” he repeats.

  “No.”

  “Open it.”

  “I won’t touch that thing again.”

  “Then give me its combination.”

  Numbly Simon says, “One, sixteen, eighteen.”

  The same combination as the vault in Ugo’s apartment. The verse from Matthew that establishes the papacy.

  Falcone dials in the digits. Before pulling the clasp, he glances back at Simon. There’s something between them that I don’t understand.

  “Your brother took
you by surprise, didn’t he?” Falcone says.

  Simon’s face is blank. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Falcone’s fingers pull. The lock does not open.

  Simon is paralyzed. He glances at me as if Falcone and I are in collusion.

  The old police chief turns the case and considers it from all angles. Then, for the first time, he turns away from Simon. He addresses John Paul.

  “Holiness, one of the reasons the Swiss Guards recommended this gun case is that its combination is set by the manufacturer. It cannot be changed.” He lifts a scrap of paper in his hand. “I have just called the factory. And ‘one, sixteen, eighteen’ is not the combination.”

  Consulting the scrap, he turns the dials one at a time. The lock clicks open. I feel the breath slip out of me.

  “Father,” Falcone says to Simon, “I saw it in your eyes.”

  Archbishop Nowak murmurs, “Saw what, Inspector? What does this mean?”

  Falcone stares at the gun case as if it has beguiled him. Darkly he says, “There was gunshot residue on Doctor Nogara’s right hand.” He extends an index finger down the edge of the clamshell, making the shape of a pistol. “His shooting hand.”

  The tone of his voice says everything.

  The expression on Simon’s face tells me it’s true.

  CHAPTER 43

  “SIMON . . .” I SAY.

  He doesn’t answer. He looks dimly at the gun case.

  Archbishop Nowak squints at me, trying to square my confession with Falcone’s demonstration.

  But I know. At last, I understand. The relief is so intense that I don’t feel, at first, the crushing sadness of how Ugo really died.

  “The only person who knew the combination,” Falcone says, “was Nogara. He was the one who opened it.”

  Simon says nothing. He will maintain his silence to the last.

  “But he wouldn’t have had to break the window to enter his own car,” Falcone says. “So what happened, Father?”

  It’s Mignatto who says, almost in a whisper, “The surveillance video.”

  The two minutes between Ugo’s arrival and Simon’s. It was almost the first thing Simon said to me when I got to Castel Gandolfo.

  He called me. I knew he was in trouble. I came as soon as I could.

  “But why,” Falcone repeats, “did you break the window of his car?”

  This explains the sequence of sounds Mignatto heard in the footage. Gunshot. Then glass breaking.

  Simon still doesn’t speak. But he doesn’t need to.

  “Because,” I say, “the gun case was inside the car.”

  “But Nogara had already opened the case,” the promoter of justice protests. “It was empty.”

  But it wasn’t empty. Simon wouldn’t have locked a case he couldn’t reopen. The case must’ve been locked before he ever got to it.

  “Ugo put the manuscript in there,” I say.

  It was pouring that night. He was protecting the Diatessaron.

  In a hushed voice I say to my brother, “How did you know?”

  Simon wouldn’t have saved the gun case unless he’d known what was in it. And he couldn’t have known what was in it unless Ugo told him.

  My brother still doesn’t speak. But I think again of those two minutes separating him from Ugo.

  “Did you catch up to him,” I say, “before he died?”

  Simon raises a hand to silence me. Then the thumb and forefinger of his hand come together until they almost meet. Almost. And he stares at me, bottomlessly, through that tiny gap.

  I’m mute. If only those giant strides had been a fraction longer. A fraction faster. I can see Simon now, in my mind’s eye, just fifteen years old, standing on the narrow balcony of Saint Peter’s, reaching out his hands to prevent that stranger from jumping. I wonder how close he came this time. What final words passed between him and the friend whose life he thought he had already saved.

  But not even the beginning of an explanation comes from my brother’s mouth. The room is silent. At last Archbishop Nowak speaks in a faint voice. In his hands are Ugo’s lecture notes.

  “Why would you hide this from us? ” he asks. “Both of you?”

  I look to Simon. He doesn’t want to look at Nowak, but he won’t disrespect him by continuing to look away. The muscles of his neck tighten. His nostrils flare.

  “Why,” the archbishop repeats, “would you hide it?”

  Even now, Simon still doesn’t utter a sound. But a weaker voice speaks up. It chokes out a question, and the room goes perfectly still.

  “Why did this—” John Paul says, “—poor man—take his own life?”

  The greatest crime of Judas was suicide. It was not long ago that suicides were refused Church funerals. Denied cemetery plots. Shame, though, isn’t why Simon hid the truth.

  John Paul thumps his hand down. He moans, “Answer me!”

  At last Simon weakens. The cloak of silence drops.

  “Holiness,” he says, “Ugo never knew how much the exhibit meant to you until he saw the patriarchs at Castel Gandolfo.”

  John Paul frowns.

  Archbishop Nowak says, “You didn’t tell him he would be addressing the Orthodox?”

  Simon says nothing. He refuses to blame anyone else.

  But John Paul croaks, “You did as I asked.”

  My brother won’t trace any of this back to the Holy Father. Instead he says, “I begged him not to tell anyone what he’d discovered about the Shroud. I pleaded with him. But Ugo insisted on telling the truth. He came to Castel Gandolfo to tell the Orthodox what he’d found. But then he saw who was in the audience. He never knew, until that moment, what his exhibit was going to make possible. He couldn’t live with himself if he lied to you about the Shroud, but he couldn’t forgive himself if he destroyed your dream with the Orthodox.” My brother’s face is agony. He lowers himself to his knees. “Holy Father, I am so sorry. Please forgive me.”

  I think of Ugo, alone, arriving at Castel Gandolfo with his notes and his manuscript, prepared for the bravest act of his life. To disown the Shroud he had considered as precious as a child. To sacrifice it in the name of truth. My brave friend. Fearless to the end. Even in that awful, terrifying final act.

  John Paul murmurs to Simon, “Why would you not tell me this?”

  My brother struggles to compose himself. Finally he says, “Because if you knew, then you would never have offered the Shroud to the Orthodox. And if we had nothing to offer them, then we had no hope of a reunion. Ugo was willing to die for this secret. His choice was my choice, too.”

  I have seen thousands of pictures of John Paul. He is one of the most photographed men in history. But never have I seen him like this. The lines of his face converge in pain. His eyes squeeze shut. His head lolls back, tensing the muscles in his great thick neck. Archbishop Nowak lowers himself and whispers concerned words in Polish.

  There are trails of reflected light down Simon’s cheeks. Not a hair of him moves.

  Quickly Nowak announces, “We will recess until the Holy Father wishes to reconvene.” Then he wheels John Paul into the adjoining study and closes the door.

  A moment later, a different door opens. Monsignor Mietek, the second secretary, abruptly enters. Looking pale, he says, “I will see you all down on the service elevator now.”

  We’re led away in a herd. As we wait in the hallway, Mietek keeps a finger on the elevator call button. When the car comes, he shepherds us inside and touches the button. Only at the last instant does he place a hand on Simon’s forearm and say, “Not you, Excellency. You are to remain.”

  It happens so quickly that I barely see Simon as the doors close between us. He’s staring back at me. Not at anyone or anything else. But behind him, in the distance, a door has opened. Archbishop Nowak stands in it, looking at my brot
her, who sees nothing but me.

  CHAPTER 44

  I WAIT FOR HIM the rest of the morning. Then into the afternoon. I watch from my apartment windows as the treetops begin to sway. As litter in the cobblestone fairways begins to shift and scatter in the rising wind. Rain is close at hand. Just past five, there’s a rapid knock at the door. I rush to answer it.

  Brother Samuel. His face is pinched. His voice is agitated when he says, “Quick, Father Alex. You have to go downstairs.”

  I race down. But what I find, instead of Simon, is a small procession. Leaving the door of Health Services are two deacons carrying candles, led by a cross-bearer. Then comes a priest chanting quietly, followed by Ugo’s coffin.

  In the lot outside, no hearse is waiting. Instead, the procession walks down the village streets, into the spitting rain, and turns left just before the border gate, entering the Vatican parish church.

  A metal bier is waiting in the empty nave. The coffin is lifted onto it, Ugo’s feet facing the altar. Every motion is gentle and thoughtful and silent. I feel short of breath. I step outside and phone Simon again. Still no answer.

  Just inside the door, the priest places a funeral notice on a board. CALLED TO ETERNAL LIFE. UGOLINO LUCA NOGARA. The vigil will be tonight. Mass in the morning. Graveside ceremony to follow.

  As I watch him spell the words, I feel the rain at my back, splashing off the steps, spattering my cassock. When he’s gone, I lift the board and place it outside, in the open air, where passersby will see it. But there’s no one on the streets. Thunder rolls in the distance.

  From the door of the church I look across the road at the papal palace, waiting for Simon to appear in the archway. This brief vigil will be the only time for eulogies. Once the funeral Mass starts, none will be allowed. But there’s not a living thing in sight.

  Finally I go to the coffin and pray. The closed casket feels like an accusation. Surely the morticians could’ve covered up Ugo’s wounds, but there’s a message here, in the hasty way Ugo was brought to this church, in the way his announcement was buried on this overlooked board, in the way no villager is coming down after seeing a coffin travel through these streets. They will say it was raining. They will say they didn’t know Ugo. They will say anything except that it was a suicide.