Earthly Powers

by Anthony Burgess

  Whatever response Carlo intended was never delivered. Getting up into the pulpit of his own cathedral on the second Sunday in Lent, he emitted a sudden bellow like that of a bull that feels the shears of the gelder and then collapsed. The hand of God had struck him, some said; others, the hoof of the devil. A cardiac arrest, the more rational presumed. As he lay still on his back he let out a row of Falstaffian snores. They would have made shudder, like a thirty-two-foot organ pipe, a sacred edifice less massive. It took six servitors to carry him off.

  CHAPTER 67

  I had my own affairs to attend to. Nevertheless, I wrote a long commiseratory letter to Carlo, who was sent for a rest to a nursing home run by nuns at Bellagio on the Lake of Como. I received no reply. I traveled, an aging man who, though the whole world knew him to be homosexual, had been restored to his habitual loneliness. Early in October 1958 Carlo, back on much reduced duty, sent me a cable. I was ordered to spend a weekday with him at the Hotel de Paris, Monte Himself. His secretary had made all arrangements. I was prepared to disobey the order, having already been invited by His Majesty of Morocco to attend a banquet and reception for the U.S. Secretary of State in Rabat. But curiosity, shame and even affection prevailed. I flew to Barcelona and thence to Nice. I rode in a taxi along the Corniche. The sea was calm, the sky was clear, the air was mild. At the hotel I was informed that His Eminence had already arrived. I was shown to my room and then to his suite.

  Carlo was seventy-odd, nobly fat, wonderfully ugly, apparently recovered. He was dressed in the total red of his rank. He had come, I gathered, alone. He offered me whisky, the rare brand Old Mortality. He said, "They told me the Casino was reserved for some visiting oil sheikhs. I was not having that. Would you put the infidel before a prince of your own Church? They then telephoned through to say that His Highness Hussain ibn Al-Haji Yusof or somebody would be honored if I joined the party. So. We play first. Dine after. Does that suit you?"

  "How many years is it now since we did that? Forty?"

  "Forty. There were three of us then."

  "Yes, three of us." I sensed that there was a taboo on mentioning the third by name. "How are you, Carlo?"

  "Well enough. You realize that the moment of truth is coming?"

  "You mean a certain death is imminent in Rome?"

  "Yes yes yes. You remember before the war, in Moneta, we discussed Greek tragedy. I cannot remember whether the term hubris came up."

  "I don't think it did."

  "Have some more whisky." He appraised me from his plush armchair. "Help yourself. You're thin. You look old. How old are you now?"

  "Sixty-eight."

  "Old, and you haven't yet come through to what I said." All this talk was very cryptic. "The revelation has not occurred."

  "Revelations of human turpitude. Plenty of those."

  "Human turpentine," he said in sudden jocularity. "Serpentine turpitude. You know why I was sick?"

  "I assumed--"

  "So did many. In fact it was the exhaustion of the hardest struggle of my entire career." His English accent was more British than I remembered: it came fairly close, in vocalic length and intonation, to that of the quondam Archbishop of York, but there was no fluting, the resonance rose from the belly still. "There was a child in a poor family in Novara, bored through like a cheese with infernal presences. Quell or quench one, whatever the word is, and another would take its place. The usual silly little names--Popo and Cazzo and Stronzetto. The usual silly little blasphemies. Then one day there was silence from all these, as though they were waiting for a tyrannical schoolmaster and could hear his footsteps in the corridor. I waited too, and then came the authentic tonalities of the master. Well-read in many languages, courteous. He quoted that damnable article with great accuracy. He performed little conjuring tricks in a bored manner. He made the electricity go oft and come on again, projected a kind of film of my early life onto the ceiling, produced vile odors for which he apologized and which he replaced with the scents of our garden at Gorgonzola. He recited the ordinary of the mass very devoutly, but at the same time he devoured the body of the child, on whose face was set a kind of comic grin."

  "Devoured?"

  "The limbs visibly wasted but the belly grew like a balloon and I knew it was going to burst like that of a poisoned dog. I felt I was powerless. He knew the Rituale Romanum far better than I. The stress wore me down very badly, especially as I was fasting. Many days of it, and only a few hours of rest. I did not use the prescribed order of exorcism. I prayed and prayed and I failed. He said vale sancte pater and broke the child's neck. Broke it as you would break the neck of a rabbit. It was all over and I had failed. It is no wonder I became sick."

  "He spoke Latin?"

  "Latin. And then the poor child's neck snapped, and then there was silence."

  "There's only one man who can be addressed as Holy Father. Can the devil speak true?"

  "The Father of Lies?" He gave a huge shrug. "If he lies all the time then he must be telling the truth. But he does not lie all the time, and that is why he is a great liar." And then, "Hubris, hubris. Shall we go now and play?"

  In the lobby of the hotel Carlo received obeisances and dispensed blessings.

  One or two open-necked Americans merely gawked and one said, "Whadya, know, a commie reverend." But Carlo did not hear. He had gone to the statue of Louis XIV and was stroking the raised foreleg of his horse. It gleamed a richer gold after all those forty years. "It is not," he said, "the kind of luck which you think it is that I seem to be asking for, not that I ask for anything," still cryptic. We went out into the mild evening and crossed to the Casino, Carlo blessing blessing all the way.

  The little gambling principality was, after a time of slump in which it had watched Nice, Antibes and Cannes eclipse it in popularity, now recovering, thanks chiefly to its ruler. His recent marriage to a lady of good family of Philadelphia, who had achieved world fame as a screen actress; the association, later to be broken, with a vulgar but lucky Greek shipping tycoon who had sought to add Monaco to his fleet; the promotion of thalassography and the encouragement of art--these were bringing fresh fame and glamour to the tiny state, whose prosperity and independence its great neighbor France begrudged and snarled at. The Casino, usually thronged, tonight had the tranquility of a church or mosque. The visiting Arabs had, it seemed, insisted for some security reason or other, or out of a sheer show of insolent wealth, on the closure of all rooms except the single salle privee reserved to them. To this rococo chapel of play we were bowed. The prince had, in his kindly wisdom, reinstated the old custom of providing free refreshments for serious gamblers, and Carlo eagerly accepted the misted flute of Mumm he was reverently offered. There, sipping orange squash, stood the white-robed magnates of the desert, ten or so in number. Three of them wore dark glasses against the mellow enough light of the chandeliers, and these were introduced to Carlo and myself by a well-spoken functionary in a Savile Row suit and Old Etonian tie. Their Highnesses the Sheikhs Fazal ibn Sayed, Mohamed ibn Al-Marhum Yusof, Abdul Khadir ibn al-Haji Yunus Redzwan. This last name, I remembered from Malaya, meant the same as that of Monaco's princess. And there she was in a painting on the wall, softly illumined. A banal romantic theme of poor Domenico's swam into my head: he had composed the score for No Way Out, in which, in her previous incarnation, she had appeared with Cary Grant. Carlo made out, with a gold pen, a check on the Bank of the Holy Spirit and received, with bows, plaques of large denomination.

  "Roulette?" The suggestion was that of His Highness the Sheikh Abdul Khadir.

  The prince of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church replied, "D'accord, pour commencer."

  We had the requisite number of croupiers in attendance, despite the exiguity of the party--one at each end of the table, two close together in each of its curved waists, the chef de partie on his raised throne.

  "Messieurs, faites vos jeux," and the wheel spun, the ivory ball trundled in the wooden basin and rolled against the directio
n of rotation of the wheel. Carlo handed over three chips and asked for finales sept par dix. The croupier obediently placed the chips on 7, 17 and 27. The princes bet the maximum, sixty thousand old francs each, en plein, a cheval, carre. I took a humble chance simple and made a gesture of self-depreciation: I was not really here myself to play. "Les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus." The ball lost velocity, struck the diamond-shaped metal studs of the basin, grew drunk and arbitrary of motion, reached the wheel, fought the raised metal edges of the numbered compartments, came at last to rest. The croupier announced: "Dix-sept, noir, impair et manque." Chips were raked toward Carlo: he did not seem overjoyed.

  He did not seem overjoyed when, trying all the chances multiples--transversale, carre, a cheval, quatre premiers, sixain, colonne, douzaine--he won a great deal more than he lost. One of the minor princes, whose name we did not know, said in fine English, "The money will go to the poor, your eminence?"

  Carlo replied, cryptic as ever this evening, "The poor you have always with you."

  "Trente-et-quarante?" Sheikh Fazal ibn Sayed suggested. So trente-et quarante, the rich man's game, it was. We moved to the shieldlike table, simply emblazoned with its diamond noir and rouge its couleur arrow and its chevron N for inverse. Two of the croupiers retired for refreshments: they were not needed here. The tailleur produced his six packs of playing cards and broke the seals. He shuffled each pack separately then all six together. With a kind of genuflection he invited Carlo to cut. Carlo cut. The cards were shoved into the shoe. "Messieurs, faites vos jeux." Large sums were bet on rouge and noir, couleur and inverse being for the present ignored. The tailleur laid out his two rows, the upper signifying noir, the lower rouge. We watched with bored impassivity. Carlo smoked a Romeo and Juliet. The top row came to 37, the lower to 32. "Rouge gagne." Carlo had won. Carlo went on winning. Noir-couleur, noir-inverse, rouge-couleur, rouge-inverse. He lost a little, but the plaques piled up.

  Sheikh Fazal said, "The devil's own luck, as we say in our language."

  "Only the devil has luck," Carlo said, adding to the Wit and Wisdom of. "God does not need it. Shall we break briefly for refreshments?" We broke.

  We drank champagne and ate exquisitely fashioned but innutritious canapes. Sheikh Abdul Khadir told, in French, the joke about Moses taking the wrong turn in the desert and so missing the oil. "Is there," Carlo asked, "some mystical connection between oil and Allah?" This gave offence expressed in greater cordiality. The chef de partie, who had been computing Carlo's plaques, came up to him and told to his ear the amount of his winnings. Carlo nodded and said, "The ill-gotten gains of the Church confront those of the Sons of the Prophet. I am prepared to stake all on the turn of a single card. Would any of you gentlemen care to play?"

  Sheikh Fazal said, "The sum in question?" Carlo told him. The sheikh said, "It is large, very large. But not overlarge. The wealth of the soil that Allah blesses is limitless. Your Church was founded on a rock not rich in mineral deposits."

  "Tu es Petrus," Carlo quoted, "non Petroleum. You may confront my small sum with ten or twenty times the amount. If I win, the money will go to the poor."

  "The Christian poor," Sheikh Fazal said.

  "Or the Muslim poor if you wish. Poverty is its own religion."

  "Very well. Now?"

  Carlo drained his flute and belched tinily. "Mr. Toomey here can preside over the ceremony."

  "He is a Christian."

  "Not overwhelmingly so." And Carlo shot me a look of what seemed brief malice.

  "Let us have instead Monsieur le Chef de Partie. He has his own religion. We must also respect a man's metier."

  "Good." We went over to a plain baize table with a shaded lamp above it. Carlo sat. Sheikh Fazal sat. The chef bowed and sat with them. A croupier brought, bowing, a new pack. The chef ceremoniously ripped the seal. "I stake," Carlo said, "the sum of one million six hundred and seventy-five thousand francs."

  "To make a round figure, I respond with twenty-six million. Ace is high?"

  "Indeed."

  The cards were shuffled and cut. We held our breaths, all except Carlo, who puffed smoke. Sheikh Fazal drew first: the ten of clubs. Carlo replied with the queen of hearts.

  "Congratulations, your eminence. Let us drink to the poor."

  "Wait," Carlo said. "The best out of three. You accept?"

  "If you say so."

  Carlo drew the three of spades, the sheikh the seven of clubs. The cards were reshuffled. The sheikh drew the king of hearts. Carlo drew the eight of the same suit. He whispered: "Deo gratias." And then, aloud, "May we still drink to the poor?"

  "As you said before, your eminence, the poor we have always with us."

  Bows and bows and bows. As we crossed back to the Hotel de Paris I said, "I descry superstition. A possible belief in Schicksal, or qismat as the Arabs call it. What did that mean?"

  "It means I've played for the last time. As for the other thing, no. We're free."

  "I've ceased to believe it. We're not free. We're damned."

  "Not overwhelmingly so, as I said. A Christian, that is. Let's dine."

  Bows and bows and bows. Crystal and light. Not so many elegant ladies as there had been forty years before. A plain woman with ginger hair chewed with her mouth open. A table was served with Coca-Cola in a beautiful misted silver bucket. All eyes were, for a time, on Carlo. He was hungry, and he did not hide his greed. It was as if he were enacting the stock role of the sybaritic prelate. His great ring lightninged in the belle epoque chandeliers as he drank his wines with a kind of valedictory relish. Dom Perignon with the seafood, a Corton Bressandes with the meat, Blanquette de Limoux with the dessert. "A kind of valedictory relish," I said. "You have a funeral ahead and then a conclave. 'What is the news?"

  "He'll be dead tomorrow. I come from one funeral to another." A dozen praires farcies, then rougets barbets, then, the marine lust continuing, barbues a l'oseille.

  I swallowed my sixth and last oyster. "Whose?"

  "My sister. You didn't hear. Of course, you've been out of touch. My sister, I say. She died believing we were blood of each other's blood. Now, no further deception."

  "I spoke to her on the telephone. The day of that infernal premiere. Her last words to me were about Domenico at last seeing the light. Believe me, that was none of my fault."

  "No further deception. She rambled a good deal before she died. The mother superior talked to the ceiling about the sins of the flesh. She wept."

  "She committed no sins of the flesh."

  "That, presumably, is why she wept. You're eating nothing."

  "I've lost most of my appetites. I understand that the most horrible food is served at these conclaves. That the length or brevity of the conclave is a gauge of the badness of the cuisine."

  Rognons de veau entiers flambes. Carlo watched kindly the cognac flames flare. "In hell," he said, "we eat. In heaven we are eaten. Who said that?"

  "I don't know. It sounds an extremely stupid aphorism." He nodded, as though expunging it from the Wit and Wisdom of. "Do you think," I said, "that it will be you?"

  "The elected one," he said, chewing kidney, "is supposed to show a great humility and declare himself unworthy of the holy burden. The Holy Spirit chooses. But he chooses through fallible men. I may be unworthy of the office, but I have things to do. Is that hubris?"

  "You mean you want to send a great wind blowing through the Church. The Holy Ghost appears as a wind, doesn't he? Fallible men. You have enemies."

  "Oh, one always has enemies. Fortunately, enemies are inimical for a diversity of reasons. They are not a united foe clashing amour in the same rhythm. I have capitalistic enemies, but I have Marxist enemies too. The spiritualization of the Communist Manifesto--unthinkable. The unification of the churches. The vernacularization of the liturgy. Those who disapprove of innovation in some areas accept it in others. Enemies cancel each other out. The great thing, perhaps, is not to have friends."

  "What do you mean?"

  H
e said nothing till the prunes a l'eau-de-vie appeared, with a glace meringue Chantilly on the side. He did not answer my question. "The time," he said instead, "is fairly short. The medical men don't like the state of my arteries. I have to watch my diet. If I can have five years, even four--"

  "What was that about not having friends?"

  "No friends. No brothers, no sisters, no father, no mother. Like Oedipus, you remember." He spat a stone onto his spoon. "If God can accept loneliness, so can his servant. I don't want any of you."

  "Say that again."

  "I don't want you. You're a hindrance. Can you understand that? I elect loneliness. Whatever happens, I shan't go back to Milan. If the Holy Spirit rejects me, I shall enter a house of contemplation. If not the highest, then the lowest. But whatever it is, loneliness."

  "This, then, is a meal of valediction. A ceremony of rejection. There was a time when you called me fratello."

  "God preserve me from brothers."

  "And from sisters?"

  "I don't want you. Any of you."

  I looked at him hopelessly as he spooned in his Chantilly. It left a thin white foam round his mouth. "Well, then," I said stupidly. "Nunc dimittis. May I wish you--no, luck doesn't apply, does it? That's just something for the Casino." I folded my napkin with prim neatness. I got up and said, "Vale, sancte pater." He seemed to snarl, or it may have been merely a chewing motion. Then I went to the bar, leaving the bill to him.

  CHAPTER 68

  Knowing, as on that previous occasion, my connection with the Italian prelacy but now a more particular connection with one of its papabili, the London press urged me to go to Rome to cover the funeral, the conclave, the election. There was even a call from The Times the following morning while I was just leaving the hotel. No. Nothing doing. I was old, I was tired, I was not interested.