Papal Decree

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  ‘Isn’t he the indirect cause of all this?’

  ‘No.’ Ben Isaac smiled, cynically, as if those present were not prepared for a greater truth only he knew. ‘Loyola only intervened in a story that was two thousand years old. Everything began with Jesus of Nazareth.’

  Garvis shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  ‘Hell,’ Gavache exclaimed. ‘Maybe we should have something to drink with this. Do you have any coffee?’

  ‘Of course,’ Ben agreed. ‘Myriam, could you do us a favor and ask in the kitchen for coffee, tea, milk, something to eat?’

  Myriam got up. Sarah started to follow her, but Myriam didn’t let her. ‘Relax, dear. I’ll go.’

  ‘Let’s begin with Jesus of Nazareth, then,’ Gavache insisted. ‘We’re all anxious to hear about Him.’

  Ben thought about all his options, but realized he didn’t have any. He would tell the truth and hope God was merciful.

  ‘The historical Jesus has nothing to do with the one the Christian world worships. The truth about Jesus has suffered from an enormous conspiracy. Jesus was born –’

  The ringing of his phone interrupted this story. The instructions were on the way.

  45

  JC was an intriguing man. Perhaps if Francesco had met him under different circumstances, his opinion would be different … or perhaps not.

  From the top of the King David Hotel Francesco was looking down over all the Old City of Jerusalem, which in the early afternoon swarmed with life. It was cold outside, about thirty degrees. The hotel marked the boundary between the old city and the modern, outside the walls.

  Though he didn’t feel like a captive, Francesco didn’t feel as if he could just open the door and go outside, either. He was in a foreign country with no idea how he got there, no documents, no identification, and no money. He couldn’t stop thinking about Sarah. He hadn’t talked to her for more than fifteen hours. Was she all right? Where was she? He pictured her. She had such a pretty smile. She could seem bitter and withdrawn, but she was always lovely.

  At midday they served lunch in the suite. The salatim consisted of tabuleh, a kibbe, and a salad of peppers and eggplant. The main course was grilled lamb chops with vegetables. Everything tasted good, but Francesco had no appetite.

  ‘Eat. You don’t know when you’ll have your next meal,’ JC recommended, drinking some tonic water and lifting a forkful of meat to his mouth.

  Francesco didn’t want to admit that his stomach was turning over, and that because of his nerves he’d probably vomit anything he ate. The image of Sarah throwing up intervened. Was she better? He forced himself not to think about it. He’d cope with only what he could, and at the moment, that was JC and what he wanted from him. The old man obviously knew that Francesco was nervous and couldn’t eat, only drink, because his mouth was so dry that he was constantly moistening it and, as a result, was constantly going to the bathroom.

  ‘Calm down, my friend,’ JC encouraged him. ‘History doesn’t reward the weak.’

  ‘Have you ever felt fear?’ Francesco worked up the courage to ask.

  ‘I always killed everything that put fear in me,’ JC said, putting another piece of meat in his mouth, as if he were just talking about the weather. ‘There’s no reason to be afraid. Your role in this affair is just as an extra with a few lines to speak,’ he said, smiling.

  A crucial question struck Francesco. After several successful years of his career, he knew how to recognize a crucial question. He’d done it many times in press conferences, interviews, at some governmental official’s door, elbowing his colleagues on all sides to get the best position, the best angle. But those crucial questions never had anything to do with him. It was always about a case, a personality, an official inquiry into a life not his own. This question was different. The most important he’d ever asked.

  ‘What’s going to happen to me when my participation in this affair comes to an end?’

  JC didn’t even look at him when he replied. He continued eating eagerly, as if he had not done so for a long time. ‘We’ll put you on a plane for home. This never happened.’

  ‘How can I trust you?’ He was afraid to push his luck, but he needed some guarantee.

  ‘You can’t. A person’s words are worth very little. Things are always changing. What works today doesn’t work tomorrow. It’s human nature,’ JC said with his mouth full.

  Francesco was increasingly unhappy. Some things were better not to know.

  ‘That said, you’re the boyfriend of someone important in all this. Your head is always at risk … if you don’t act right,’ JC warned.

  The man in the Armani suit entered the room, bringing with him a note of dread. Everything made Francesco shiver. It was surreal. The old man practically threatened him with death if he didn’t treat Sarah right.

  ‘How are things?’ JC asked his lame assistant.

  ‘Dispersed.’

  The old man stopped eating and looked at him. ‘Then the time has come to bring everything together.’ He wiped his mouth on a napkin.

  JC held out his arm to ask his assistant to help him up. The cripple raised him to his feet and gave him his cane.

  ‘Shall we go?’ JC said to everyone and no one.

  ‘Go where?’ Francesco asked, getting up awkwardly.

  JC walked to the door of the suite, aided by the cripple on one side and the cane on the other, leaving Francesco behind. ‘Let’s take a walk. It’s time for you to play your part.’

  46

  ‘What were you doing in London?’

  ‘What were you doing in London?’

  ‘I’m the one asking the questions here.’

  ‘You know perfectly well that you don’t have any valid reason to detain me here. Sooner or later you’ll receive an angry call from the Vatican asking to release me, and you’ll have no other choice.’

  Jacopo was right, and David Barry knew it. Two countries were abusing the confidence of a third that had no idea what was happening inside its own borders.

  The two men were alone in the interrogation room. Jacopo was sweating, it was so hot in the room. He’d taken off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt halfway. He hadn’t been tortured, at least not in the true meaning of the word. No one had laid a finger on him or threatened him physically, except for the heat in the room.

  David Barry sat in a chair opposite from him and rested his arms on the table. The white light shone uniformly through the small room, reflected everywhere, even on the door.

  ‘Jacopo Sebastiani, tell me what I want to know, or when the pope calls, I’m going to say that I have no idea what or who he’s talking about, have nothing to do with your disappearance, and when you next appear, your decomposed body will be floating in the Thames.’

  Jacopo swallowed dryly at the idea of finding himself in the dirty, cold river, and shivered despite the heat.

  ‘I don’t understand your interest in this affair. There are no Americans involved,’ Jacopo argued, aware that this wouldn’t move things along.

  ‘Everything that concerns our allies concerns us.’

  ‘How nice. You’re just busybodies, if you ask me.’

  ‘Are you going to be like this all day?’ Barry was losing patience.

  ‘No, you have to be in Rome by eight tonight,’ Jacopo joked.

  Barry banged his fist on the desk. ‘If you want to joke, I know how to joke, too. Playing with me is playing with fire.’

  ‘Wasn’t that what he said?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Rafael.’

  ‘What is he doing in London?’

  ‘Not even he knows.’

  ‘I’m losing patience, Mr. Jacopo.’ Barry decided to quiet his voice to calm the mood. He had more to gain if Jacopo cooperated. ‘Rafael may be in danger. We can help him if you tell me the purpose of his trip.’

  ‘Rafael knows the hazards of his occupation. Today we’re alive, tomorrow only God knows. Don’t worry about him.’

 
; ‘What’s your function in the Vatican?’

  ‘I’m a historian specializing in comparative religion.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Analyzing the similarities and differences between religions.’

  ‘Is a course necessary to know that?’ It was Barry’s turn to be sarcastic. ‘Why did you come with Rafael to Paris?’

  ‘Who said it was I?’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘I’m here. He’s not.’

  An annoyed sigh escaped Barry. They were going in circles, getting nowhere.

  There was a knock, then Aris’s head appeared through the half-opened door. ‘Do you have a minute, David?’

  Barry gave Jacopo a dirty look and got up. ‘I’m coming.’

  The door closed, leaving Jacopo alone with dozens of images of himself reflected in the mirrored walls. Sweat ran down his face and stained his shirt under his arms. He was weary. He longed for Rome, to return to the comforts of home, even for Norma’s strident voice calling him to dinner. Anything was better than this. ‘Can’t you turn off the heat?’ he grumbled to himself or whoever might be spying on him.

  Then he remembered that someone was probably watching him through one of the mirrors, and smiled. Go fuck yourselves. Everything was going as foreseen. To hell with them all. The plan was almost concluded.

  Barry returned to the room, out of breath. He leaned on the desk and leaned his head into Jacopo’s face.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘The heat’s on too high,’ Jacopo enjoyed replying.

  ‘You son of a bitch. You’re going to talk, one way or another, you bastard,’ Barry insulted him. ‘I’m going to ask you for the last time what you were doing in London. What is Rafael’s plan?’

  Jacopo smiled cynically. ‘It’s incredible. All this technology, and it doesn’t help you at all,’ he confronted the American. ‘Ask him tonight. He won’t keep it secret.’

  ‘I don’t like being behind the curve.’

  ‘I know what your problem is,’ Jacopo asserted. ‘There’s a big circus going on in Ben Isaac’s house, and you don’t have any eyes or ears there. You have no idea what’s going on,’ he said. Despite being fed up with being there, that fact amused him.

  ‘Are you telling me that that’s all your doing?’

  ‘Of course. Wherever you go, we’ve been there already and know more than you.’

  ‘Rafael’s there, then?’

  ‘What a fixation, man! You still don’t see that Rafael is just a pawn in the game? He follows orders, nothing more.’

  ‘And the circus is part of those orders?’

  Jacopo sighed. ‘Rafael has no idea what’s happening in Ben Isaac’s house. All this is much bigger than him.’

  47

  One can, and should be, suspicious of assumptions. Just because a sinner says he has a gun pointed at the head of the confessor doesn’t mean it should be believed. Empirical proof is necessary, and the wooden screen between them does not allow for that. But the confessor opened the screen and saw the barrel of a gun pointed at his head, followed by a hand and body, and identified the man holding it.

  ‘Rafael?’

  ‘Robin.’

  ‘What are you doing here? Drop that shit.’ He tried not to change his voice too much. Confessionals are not soundproof.

  Rafael didn’t answer the question. He kept the Beretta pointed, holding it only in one hand, with the safety still on.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Robin asked.

  ‘You tell me. Put your hands where I can see them.’ He wasn’t joking.

  Robin looked confused, but Rafael didn’t believe it for a second. He needed answers and was there to get them.

  ‘Please, Rafael. We’re men of God. Put that down, for the love of God,’ Robin argued, visibly uncomfortable.

  ‘Men of God don’t murder innocent people. Tell me who the Jesuit is who’s going around killing people who helped us in the past, and why.’ Rafael’s voice expressed some anger.

  ‘What do I have to do with that?’

  ‘You should know what’s going on in your society. Where can I find Nicolas?’

  Robin did not reply. Rafael removed the safety. Robin remained pensive for a few moments. He considered the options, then opened the door of the confessional and got up.

  ‘I forgive you. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’ He made the sign of the cross as he said each word. ‘Follow me, and put that away. Show some respect for my church,’ he whispered, and left.

  Rafael waited a few seconds, holstered the gun in the front of his jacket, and left the confessional, lighter, free of sins. He followed Robin to the sacristy. He looked around for acolytes, priests, auxiliary people; he didn’t want to be surprised. It was ironic not to feel safe in the house of the Lord. If you couldn’t find safety there, it existed nowhere in the world.

  They left the church from a side door, which opened onto a cream-colored corridor. They passed a door with a plaque that read Sacristy and two more, Secretary, and the other unidentified. At the end Robin opened a final door. The plaque bore his own name, Father Robin Roth. He waited for Rafael and let him go in first, as good manners dictate, then he closed and locked it.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘Sit down,’ he invited, pointing at two stuffed chairs in the office. A desk at the back displayed a computer screen, which was on; two bookcases with shelves from floor to ceiling filled one of the walls. A simple cross hung on the other wall, without Christ, but only an engraving on the horizontal arm with the three letters that were the soul of the Society, IHS.

  Rafael kept his hand on the gun, inside the pocket of his jacket, as if he were cold.

  ‘No one’s going to hurt you in here,’ Robin assured him.

  ‘Start talking, Robin. I don’t have all day.’

  Robin sat down and sighed. It wasn’t a subject he wanted to take on. ‘Were you with Gunter?’

  ‘Until the end.’

  ‘That must have been shitty.’

  Rafael agreed. A silent look said it all. Sure, it was shitty, one more image to forget, a friend to erase from memory, a past, a life. Fuck it. He’d deal with it later, one day when everything was confounded in a mass of dreams, thoughts, things that were and others that were not, a fog that time always had the ability to create to attenuate sorrow and happiness, the good and the bad.

  ‘Have you ever heard of the Secret Monition?’ Robin asked, crossing his legs for more comfort.

  ‘Of course. Its authority was attributed to Claudio Acquaviva, one of the first superior generals of the Society of Jesus in the seventeenth century. According to my memory, it was all a forgery by some Pole who was expelled from the society.’

  ‘Do you know what it was for?’ Robin asked in a professorial tone.

  ‘According to malicious tongues, it was instructions and methods for helping the society gain importance and influence in communities they infiltrated and in other institutions of power. Am I right?’

  ‘Correct.’

  Robin got up from the chair and went to the desk. He took a key out of his pocket and opened a drawer. Rafael took the gun inside his jacket pocket in his hand. Robin took out an ancient book, whose cover was coming apart. It had seen better days. He returned to the chair and handed the book to the Italian.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Read it.’

  Rafael felt the book, turned it over in his hands, looked at the cover, the title page, the back page, tried to identify a certain odor; the exterior gave no clue whatsoever, no engraving, just brown leather, worn by time. He opened it. The first three pages were blank, yellowed, frayed, almost sticking together. On the fourth page he understood everything. Stamped in capital letters, MONITA SECRETA, and in smaller letters, a subtitle, Methods and Advice. The name of the author was below, a little indistinct, Ignatius Loyola, and the year, 1551.

  ‘Interesting
,’ Rafael murmured. He turned to the next page, where the text began in Spanish.

  ‘The Monition is one of Loyola’s works?’

  ‘Exactly. He always knew what he wanted for the society, and he left it in writing. What you have in your hand is the reason for our success and longevity,’ Robin explained.

  The Secret Monition was a polemical work that many insisted didn’t exist or was a fraud. There was always constant doubt about its authorship. It was attributed to Acquaviva, the superior general between 1581 and 1615, always with great uncertainty, but no one dared once to claim that Loyola was the author. This fact was new.

  ‘Why was this necessary?’ Rafael wanted to know. ‘Why such intransigence?’

  ‘Don’t speak nonsense,’ Robin criticized him. ‘We’re not a religious order, and you know it.’

  ‘Then what are you?’

  Robin didn’t answer. He was searching for the right words.

  ‘What are you, Robin?’ Rafael insisted.

  ‘We are the front line of the Roman Catholic Church.’

  ‘Please, Robin. Spare me the bullshit.’

  ‘Since 1523.’

  ‘Now you have ten more years?’ Rafael mocked. ‘Didn’t the founding in Paris occur in 1534 in Saint-Denis?’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it, Rafael. Only two minutes ago you didn’t know Saint Ignatius was the author of the Monition,’ Robin admonished.

  Rafael had to concede the point. He was there for answers, and Robin was providing them. Rafael let him go on.

  ‘You should know about Saint Ignatius’s voyage to Jerusalem in 1523.’ Robin didn’t wait for Rafael to confirm. ‘History said that Saint Ignatius had had visions and various spiritual experiences in Manresa. He decided to go to Jerusalem and devote himself to saving souls. He and some followers had gone to Rome at the time of the event to ask for Pope Adrian the Sixth’s authorization. That’s the official version. But Loyola was never interested in going to Jerusalem. That was meaningless for him. He had a project, a vision, and if, in order to achieve it, he had to do a favor for someone, he would do it.’

  ‘Then who sent him to Jerusalem?’

  ‘The cardinal of Florence, Giulio de’ Medici,’ Robin revealed.