The Clowns of God

by Morris West

  “So where does that leave us, Eminence?” asked Mendelius.

  “Facing the second dilemma: how do we prove whether the revelation is true or false?”

  “Your colleagues have already resolved that one,” said Mendelius tartly. “They judged him a madman.”

  “Not I,” said Anton Cardinal Drexel firmly. “I believed, I still believe, his position as Pontiff was untenable. There was no way he could have functioned in the face of so much opposition. But mad? Neverl”

  “A lying prophet, then?”

  For the first time Drexel’s mask-like visage betrayed his emotion. “That’s a terrible thought!”

  “He asked me to judge him, Eminence. I had to consider every possible verdict.”

  “He is not a liar.”

  “Do you think he is deluded?”

  “I would like to believe it. Everything would be so much simpler. But I cannot; I simply cannot!”

  Suddenly he looked exactly what he was: an old lion with the strength ebbing out of him.

  Mendelius felt a surge of sympathy for the anguish scored in his face. Still he could not relent in his own inquisition. He asked firmly, “How have you tested him, Eminence? By what criteria?”

  “By the only ones I know: his speech, his conduct, his writings, the tenor of his spiritual life.”

  Mendelius chuckled. “There speaks the Hound of God.”

  Drexel smiled grimly. “The wounds still smart, eh? I admit we gave you a rough time. At least we taught you to understand the method. What do you want to know first?”

  “It was the writing that finally damned him. I have a copy of the encyclical. How did you read it, Eminence?”

  “With great misgiving, obviously. I had not a doubt in the world that it must be suppressed. But I agree it contains nothing, absolutely nothing, that is contrary to traditional doctrine. There are interpretations that might be considered extreme, but they are certainly not heterodox. Even the question of an elective ministry, when ordination by a bishop is totally impossible, is a very open one—if rather delicate for Roman ears.”

  “Which brings us to the tenor of his spiritual life.” There was a faint hint of irony in Mendelius’ tone. “How did you judge that, Eminence?”

  For the first time, Drexel’s harsh face softened into a smile. “It measured better than yours, my dear Mendelius. He remained faithful to his vocation as a priest. He was a totally unselfish man, all of whose thoughts were directed to the good of the Church and of human souls. His passions were under control. In high office he was humble and kind. His anger was always against malice and never against frailty. Even at the end he did not rail against his accusers, but went with dignity and accepted the role of a subject without complaint. I am told by the Abbot that his life in Monte Cassino is a model of religious simplicity.”

  “He is also silent. How does that conform with the obligation, which he says he has, to spread the news of the Parousia?”

  “Before I answer that,” said Drexel, “I think we should clear up one question of fact. Obviously he wrote to you and sent you a copy of the suppressed encyclical. Correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Was this before or after his abdication?”

  “He wrote it before. I received it after the event.”

  “Good! Now let me tell you something which you do not know. When my brother Cardinals had secured Gregory’s consent to abdication, they were sure they had broken him, that he would do whatever they wanted. First they tried to write into the instrument of abdication a promise of perpetual silence on any issue affecting the public life of the Church. I told them that they had neither a moral nor a legal right to do so. If they persisted I would fight them to the death. I would resign my office and make a full public statement on the whole sorry affair. Then they tried another tack. His Holiness had agreed to enter the order of Saint Benedict and live the life of a simple monk. Therefore, he would be bound to obey his religious superior. Therefore, said my clever colleagues, the Abbot would be instructed to bind him to silence under the vow.”

  “I know that one,” said Carl Mendelius with cold anger. “Obedience of the spirit! The worse agony you can impose on an honest man. We’ve taught it to every tyranny in the world.”

  “So,” said Drexel quietly, “I was determined they should not impose it on our friend. I pointed out that this was an intolerable usurpation of the right of a man to act freely in the light of his private conscience, that the most stringent vow could not bind him to commit a wrong, or to stifle his conscience in the name of good. Once again I threatened exposure. I bargained with my vote in the coming conclave and I instructed Abbot Andrew that he, too, was bound under mortal sanction to protect the free conscience of his new subject.”

  “I’m happy to hear it, Eminence.” Mendelius was grave and respectful. “It’s the first light I’ve seen in this dark affair. But it still doesn’t answer my question. Why is Jean Marie still silent? Both in his letter to me and in the encyclical, he speaks of his obligation to proclaim the news that he claims has been revealed to him.”

  Drexel did not answer immediately. Slowly, almost painfully, he rose from his chair, walked to the window and stood again, staring out into the garden. When he turned finally, his face was in shadow as before; but Mendelius made no protest. The man’s distress was all too evident in his voice.

  “The reason, I think, is because he is now undergoing the experience of all the great mystics, which is called ‘the dark night of the soul.’ It is a period of utter darkness, of howling confusion, of near despair, when the spirit seems bereft of every support, human or divine. It is a replica of that terrible moment when Christ Himself cried out: ‘My God! Why have you abandoned me?’… This is the news I hear from Abbot Andrew. This is why he, and I, wanted to speak with you before you see Jean Marie.… The fact is, Mendelius, I think I failed him, because I tried to compromise between the promptings of the Spirit and the demands of the system to which I have been committed for a lifetime.… I hope, I pray, you may prove a better friend than I.”

  “You talk of him as a mystic, Eminence. That seems to predicate a belief in his mystical experience,” said Carl Mendelius. “I’m not ready for that yet, much as I love him.”

  “I hope you will tell him that first and ask your questions afterwards.… Perhaps you’ll be kind enough to call me after you’ve seen him?”

  “You have my promise, Eminence.” Mendelius stood up. “Thank you for inviting me here. I hope you’ll forgive me if I seemed rude at the beginning.”

  “Not rude, just robust.” The Cardinal smiled and held out his hand. “You were much less reasonable in the old days. Marriage must be good for you.”

  Lotte and Hilde had driven out to Tivoli for lunch, so he was treating himself to a solitary meal in the Piazza Navona. When he left the Vatican it was a quarter to midday; so he decided to walk. Halfway down the Via della Conciliazione he stopped and turned back to look at the great basilica of San Pietro, with the encircling colonnades that symbolized the all-embracing mission of Mother Church.

  For half a billion believers this was the center of the world, the dwelling place of Christ’s vicar, the burial place of Peter the Fisherman. When the IBM’s were launched from the Soviet perimeters, it would be obliterated in the first blast. What would happen to the half-billion faithful once this visible symbol of unity, authority and permanence were destroyed?

  They had been conditioned for so long to regard this time-worn edifice as the navel of the world, its ruler as the sole, authentic legate of God to men; to whom would they look when the house and the man were reduced to a glaze on the pavement?

  These were no idle questions. They were possibilities hideously imminent—to Jean Marie Barette, to Anton Cardinal Drexel, to Carl Mendelius, who knew the apocalyptic literature by heart and saw it rewritten in every line of the daily press. He felt sorry for Drexel, old, still powerful, but bereft of all his certainties. He felt sorry for all of them: cardin
als, bishops, curial clerics, all trying to apply the Codex Juris Canonicus to a mad planet, whirling itself towards extinction.

  He turned away and strolled, in leisurely fashion, through the crowd of pilgrims, across the Victor Emmanuel Bridge and down the Corso. Halfway along the thoroughfare he found a bar, with tables spread along the sidewalk. He sat down, ordered a Campari and watched the passing show.

  This was the best time in Rome: the air still soft, the flowers fresh on the vendors’ stalls, the girls flirting their new summer finery, the shops filled with bright baubles for the tourist season.

  His attention was caught by a young woman standing on the curb a few paces to his left. She was dressed in dark blue slacks and a white silk blouse that displayed high-tilted breasts. Her black hair was held back by a red scarf. She looked like a southerner, slight and olive-skinned; with a calm, Madonna face, singularly beautiful in repose. She carried a folded newspaper in one hand, and in the other a small handbag of blue leather. She seemed to be waiting for someone.

  As he watched, a small red Alfa backed into the space near her. The driver parked in awkwardly, with the nose pointing out into the traffic. He opened the door and leaned across to speak to the girl. For a moment it looked like a pickup; but the girl responded without protest. She passed her handbag to the driver and, still holding the newspaper, turned back to face the sidewalk. The driver waited, with the door open and the engine running.

  A few moments later a man, middle-aged, fashionably dressed and carrying a leather briefcase, walked swiftly down the Corso. The girl stepped forward, smiled and spoke to him. He stopped. He seemed surprised; then he said something which Mendelius could not hear. The girl shot him three times in the groin, tossed the newspaper into the gutter and leapt into the car, which roared away down the Corso.

  For a single, stunned moment, Mendelius sat shocked and immobile; then he lunged towards the fallen victim and rammed his fist into the man’s groin to stanch the blood pumping from the femoral artery. He was still there when the police and the ambulance men pushed their way through the crowd to take charge of the victim.

  A policeman dispersed the gaping onlookers and the photographers. A street sweeper cleaned the blood from the pavement. A plainclothes man hustled Mendelius into the bar. A waiter brought hot water and clean napkins to mop his bloody clothes. The proprietor offered a large whisky with the compliments of the house. Mendelius sipped it gratefully as he made his first deposition. The investigator, a young, poker-faced Milanese, dictated it immediately over the telephone to headquarters. Then he rejoined Mendelius at the table and ordered a whisky for himself.

  “.… That was most helpful, Professor. The description of the assailant, detailed and closely observed, is very useful to us at this early stage.… I’m afraid, however, I’ll have to ask you to come to headquarters and look at some photographs—maybe work with an artist on an identikit picture.”

  “Of course. But I’d like to do it this afternoon if possible. As I explained, I have engagements to fulfil.”

  “Fine. I’ll take you down when we’ve finished our drinks.”

  “Who was the victim?” asked Mendelius.

  “His name’s Malagordo. He’s one of our senior Senators, Socialist and Jewish.… A filthy business, and we’re getting more of it every week.”

  “It seems so pointless—a gratuitous barbarity.”

  “Gratuitous, yes; but pointless, no! These people are dedicated to anarchy, a classic and total breakdown of the system by a destruction of public confidence.… And we’re getting very close to that point now. You may find this hard to believe, Professor. At least twenty other people saw the shooting today; but I’ll bet a month’s salary yours will be the only deposition that tells us anything concrete… and you’re a foreigner! The others have to live in this mess; but they won’t lift a finger to clean it up. So”—he shrugged in weary resignation—“in the end they’ll get the country they deserve.… Which reminds me, you’d better be prepared to see yourself spread all over the newspapers.”

  “That’s the last thing I need,” said Mendelius glumly.

  “It could also be dangerous,” said the detective. “You will be identified as a key witness.”

  “And therefore a possible target. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “I’m afraid so, Professor. This is a propaganda game, you understand—black theatre. They have to shoot the leading man. The girl in the ticket office has no publicity value.… If you take my advice you’ll move out of Rome, preferably out of Italy.”

  “I can’t do that for at least a week.”

  “As soon as possible then. Meantime, change your address. Move into one of the bigger hotels where the tourists congregate. Use another name. I’ll arrange the passport problem with the management.”

  “It wouldn’t help much. I’m booked for lectures at the German Academy. So, I’m still exposed.”

  “What can I say then?” The detective shrugged and grinned. “Except watch your step, vary your routine, and don’t talk to pretty girls in the Corso!”

  “No chance of police protection, at least for my wife?”

  “Not a hope. We’re desperately short of manpower. I can give you the name of an agency that hires bodyguards; but they charge millionaire rates.”

  “Then to hell with it!” said Mendelius. “Let’s go look at your photographs.”

  As they drove through the midday chaos, he could still smell the blood on his clothes. He hoped Lotte was having a good lunch at Tivoli. He wanted her to enjoy this holiday; there might not be too many more in the future.

  Later in the afternoon, while he waited for Lotte and Hilde to return from their outing, he sat on the terrace and taped a memorandum to Anneliese Meissner. He set down the new facts he had learned from Georg Rainer and from Cardinal Drexel and only then added his own comments.

  “… Rainer is a sober and objective reporter. His medical evidence though secondhand proved reliable. Clearly Jean Marie Barette was under great mental and physical strain. Clearly, too, there was no consensus on his mental incapacity.… As Rainer put it: ‘Had they wanted to keep him, the most he would have needed was a decent rest and a reduction of his workload.’…

  “Cardinal Drexel’s point of view surprised me. Remember I was under inquisition for a long time, and I knew him as a formidable and quite relentless dialectician. However, even in our worst encounters, I never had the slightest doubt of his intellectual honesty. I would love to see you and him lock horns in a public debate. It would be a sell-out performance. He rejects utterly any idea of insanity or of fraud on Jean Marie’s part. He goes further and puts him in the category of the mystics like Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and Catherine of Siena. By inference, Drexel commits himself to a belief—not yet clearly categorized—in the authenticity of Jean Marie’s visionary experience. So now it is I who am the skeptic or, at least, the agnostic.…

  “I am to see Jean Marie next Wednesday and Thursday and I shall report to my assessor after those meetings. I give my first Academy lecture tomorrow. I am looking forward to it. The Evangelicals are an interesting group. I admire their way of life. And, of course, Tübingen has always been one of the heartlands of the Pietist tradition, which has had such a huge influence in England and the United States.… But I forget. You are tone-deaf to this music.… None the less I trust you and am glad to have you as my Beisitzer. My most affectionate salutations from this wonderful, but now very sinister, city. Auf wiedersehen.”

  The audience was already seated when he entered the auditorium; twenty-odd Evangelical pastors, most of them in their early thirties, a dozen wives, three deaconesses, and half a dozen guests whom Herman Frank had invited from the local Waldensian community in Rome. Carl Mendelius felt comfortable with them. The theological faculty at Tübingen had been one of the early forcing-grounds for the Pietist movement in the Lutheran Church; and Mendelius was personally attracted by its emphasis on personal devotion and works of pasto
ral charity. He had once written a long paper on the influence of Philipp Jakob Spener and the “College of Piety” which he founded in Frankfurt during the seventeenth century.

  When Herman Frank had finished his introduction and the applause had subsided, Mendelius laid out his papers on the lectern and began to speak. His manner was relaxed and informal.

  “I don’t want to give a lecture. I should prefer, if you agree, to explore our subject in a Socratic dialogue, to see what we can tell each other and what the historical evidence can tell us all.… In broad terms we are dealing with eschatology, the doctrine of last things: the ultimate destiny of man, of social organizations and of the whole cosmic order. We want to consider these things in the light of both Old and New Testament writings, and the earliest Christian traditions.…

  “There are two ways of looking at the Doctrine of Last Things. Each is radically different from the other. The first is what I call the consummatory view. Human history will end. Christ will come a second time, in glory, to judge the living and the dead. The second is what I call the modificating view. Creation continues, but is modified by man working in concert with his creator, towards a fulfilment or perfection, which can be expressed only by symbol and analogy. In this view Christ is ever present, and the Parousia expresses the ultimate revelation of His creative presence.… Now I’d like to know where you stand. What do you tell your people about the Doctrine of Last Things? Show hands if you want to answer and let’s hear your name and your home-place.… You sir, in the second row…”

  “Alfred Kessler from Köln…” The speaker was a short sturdy young man with a square-cut beard. “I believe in continuity and not consummation for the cosmos. The consummation for the individual is death and union with the Creator.”

  “How then, Pastor, do you interpret the Scriptures to the faithful? You teach them as the Word of God—at least, I presume you do. How do you expound the Word on this subject?”

  “As a mystery, Herr Professor: a mystery which, under the influence of divine grace, gradually unfolds its meaning to each individual soul.”