Papal Decree

by Luís Miguel Rocha

  ‘It was William’s strategy, and I didn’t want to interfere.’

  ‘Where is it that they guard the supposed bones of Christ?’ Rafael asked jokingly.

  ‘The supposed bones of some Christ from the fifteenth century, is that what you mean?’ the secretary corrected Rafael. ‘Where else would they be but in the Church of the Gesù?’

  ‘How ironic.’

  ‘We have another problem, Rafael, not related to this.’

  There’s always something, the priest thought to himself.

  ‘It’s about Anna and Mandy, her daughter,’ Tarcisio revealed.

  Rafael focused on the names he knew well. ‘What’s going on? That affair was resolved.’

  ‘It was, true, but Anna’s receiving visits from reporters, and she could never keep a secret, as you know.’

  Rafael knew this well. Anna and Mandy were a daughter and granddaughter of a pope. Anna knew this, but Mandy had no idea. She didn’t even know that Anna was her mother.

  ‘We have to resolve this problem,’ Tarcisio said.

  It was good to see how rapidly the church recovered itself. Everything was returning to normal … or almost everything.

  ‘I’m not going to be able to help you with this right away, Your Eminence. Please ask Jacopo and Roberta to argue the case during my absence. As soon as possible I’ll go see Anna and see what I can do,’ Rafael informed him.

  Tarcisio got up and put his hands behind his back. He walked off through the sacristy with a proud expression. He was the secretary of state in all his splendor again.

  ‘I think we can hold off for a while,’ he suggested with a smile, and extended his hand to say good-bye.

  Rafael went off again toward the interior of the enormous basilica to look at the altar. He passed the baldachin on his way through the immense nave and looked at Paul’s tomb. He went down some marble steps to the crypt, knelt down, joined his hands, and prayed.

  ‘I’ve never asked anything. I’ve always served You without question.’ He opened his eyes and looked at the chest that held the apostle’s bones. ‘The time has come to ask You humbly to protect her because only You can do so. Give me light and support my steps. I’ve got to do it, but I can’t do it alone.’

  72

  There’s a first for everything, and certainly Sarah never expected to find herself stretched out in a hospital bed with a tube pushing oxygen through her nose and a catheter stuck into the back of her hand, receiving fluids with unpronounceable names. At least she’d been able to sleep last night, probably with the help of some drug that soothed her eyes, convincing them to close, and quieted her mind, obliging her to rest. When she woke in the morning her vision was clouded, but she made out a figure seated in a chair against the wall. He seemed to be dozing as much as his uncomfortable position allowed.

  ‘Were you here all night, Rafael?’ she asked with a voice that came out a squeak.

  ‘Who’s Rafael?’ the figure asked, straightening up in the chair and then getting up to come to the bed.

  It was Francesco. She could make out his features now that he was closer. She touched his face.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t worry about me. Are you okay? What happened?’ He was worried.

  ‘I still don’t know. They gave me a battery of tests last night, and then I passed out.’

  Francesco took her hand and breathed deeply, a sigh that resembled a lament. ‘Sarah, I don’t know if I can deal with this.’

  His eyes were moist, a tear was about to fall from them, but he wiped it away.

  ‘I never thought your life was like this. I never imagined this existed,’ he tried to explain. ‘I don’t have the strength. I don’t have the strength.’

  ‘We’re going to have a baby, Francesco,’ she announced without thinking about it. ‘He’s going to need a father.’

  Francesco looked at her, amazed. ‘The nurse told me you weren’t pregnant, Sarah.’

  No? But the test came out positive. The attendant had congratulated her, and she couldn’t avoid looking at the red strip on the pregnancy test that showed positive.

  ‘No?’ she said, doubtful. ‘But …’

  Francesco pressed her hand again. ‘Give me time, Sarah. Please, give me time.’

  Now it was her eyes that filled with tears. Francesco was a good man, but she hoped with all her might that the nurse was right. She was selfish and he didn’t deserve a woman who couldn’t love him completely.

  Francesco kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’ll call you later, okay?’

  She agreed, wiping the tears, and watched him leave helplessly, without a Wait! Don’t go! Don’t leave me! Nothing. She simply let him leave. She remembered crying like a baby, the nurse asking her what was wrong, and answering nothing. She wasn’t crying over seeing him leave but over her own disappointment in herself, and she couldn’t say that to the nurse.

  She slept and woke up, slept again and awoke, not knowing how many hours had passed and not caring. Finally she awakened to a feeling of well-being. Someone was holding her hand and caressing her hair. Was it her mother or father? She opened her eyes, and it was him.

  ‘Rafael?’ she stammered. ‘What are you doing here?’ She pulled herself together and tried to draw her hand away, but he wouldn’t let her.

  ‘You’re not pregnant, Sarah,’ he told her. ‘You have a choriocarcinoma.’

  She felt as if he’d punched her in the stomach.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A trophoblastic cancer in the ovaries. That’s why the pregnancy test was positive, and why you had nausea and coughed up blood. Perhaps you also felt short of breath. Those are some of the symptoms. But there’s a high rate of success for treatment. I’ve already talked with the doctor. He’ll explain everything to you shortly.’ It was best to say it all at once.

  He didn’t mention that the doctor had told him she was in the third stage of metastasis. Having cancer was bad enough news.

  She didn’t know what to think. She hadn’t expected this particular misfortune. She had cancer. Everything had changed in seconds. One moment she was pregnant, and the next she was at the gates of death. Nice irony, God! Maybe it was a punishment for rejecting a child, but a God Who punished wasn’t God. At least the God she’d grown up with loved all beings unconditionally. Good, bad, criminal, saintly. A Father and a Mother always loved their children above everything else.

  ‘You’re going to overcome this, Sarah,’ Rafael assured her.

  She smiled sadly. ‘This time you can’t protect me.’

  The priest looked at her seriously and pressed her hand again. He gave her a timid smile, pleasant, or at least she thought so.

  ‘I know there’s a part of me somewhere inside you. Only you know where it is and what it could be. Use it to protect yourself. I’ve never let you down, have I?’

  Tears ran down Sarah’s face. She shook her head. No, he’d never let her down.

  ‘That Rafael you have within you will never let you down,’ he repeated.

  She closed her eyes. She felt pain. ‘I don’t know if I can make it alone,’ she confessed through her tears.

  He made her look at him. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Sarah,’ he assured her. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  73

  Five years had passed since that first night, but it seemed like fifteen. His hair had turned white, his back bent with the weight of humanity, of believers, nonbelievers, heretics, infidels, all of whom weighed upon him every day.

  Night was worse than day, when he gave himself over to his thoughts, caught in the meshes of loneliness in the middle of a colosseum filled with lions and gladiators.

  Ratzinger was alone in his office, the light dim, conducive to thought and meditation. A whiskey appealed to him. Perhaps he’d have one.

  The last several days had been terrifying. Filled with conflict, murders, disrespect for God. As pope he was accustomed to this. The majority disrespected Him, or, at best, accep
ted Him only in times of trouble. No one ever needed Him or even lost time thinking about Him when things were going well. Why? God was only necessary to satisfy the most important requests, the most tormented, while the others were insignificant. Success was always attributed to the individual, failure to others, society, destiny, or chance, and then, yes, God’s presence was missing.

  No one seemed to care that God was always present in good and bad times, whether He was celebrated, called upon, or ignored. It was the one immutable certainty.

  Someone knocked on the door and partly put his head into the room.

  ‘Your Holiness.’

  ‘Ah, Ambrosius. Are seven days over?’ He asked in a firm voice.

  ‘Yes, Your Holiness,’ the other replied. ‘How do you feel today?’

  ‘Perfect, Ambrosius. And you?’

  ‘This weather makes my joints ache,’ the other complained.

  ‘God always knows where to grab us,’ the pope agreed.

  ‘Are you ready to make confession?’

  ‘Not today,’ Ratzinger decided, pushing an envelope toward the front of his desk. ‘I’d like you to give this to the superior general.’

  ‘Certainly,’ the other replied, taking the envelope and putting it away carefully, showing some discomfort. ‘When do you want me to come back, Your Holiness?’

  ‘We’ll see later,’ the pope answered shrewdly. ‘It’s my will that the provision made by my predecessors Clement the Seventh and Pius the Ninth be canceled.’

  ‘What did Your Holiness say?’ He couldn’t have heard right.

  ‘The ritual of the first night will not be repeated. My successor will not put his eyes on the content of that letter which you faithfully guard. I order it to be destroyed immediately.’

  ‘And the secret, Your Holiness?’ Ambrosius asked, visibly uncomfortable and suspicious.

  ‘What secret? There you have a copy of a letter sent by Loyola to Francisco Xavier. Nothing which you guard is real. It was all a hoax.’

  The other was ashamed.

  ‘Jesus, the Nazarite, was crucified and rose from the dead on the third day,’ Ratzinger proclaimed. ‘His body was never found, nor will it ever be, because He ascended into the heavens to join His Father, where He sits on the right hand. That’s what Scripture says. That’s what actually happened.’

  The priest retreated in defeat, without turning his back on the Supreme Pontiff until he reached the door.

  Ratzinger sighed and got up with difficulty. He looked out at Saint Peter’s Square through a slit in the curtains. A few camera flashes from the Roman side recorded the facade of Saint Peter’s Basilica for posterity.

  The whiskey could wait. He gave a sad sigh and retired to his bedroom. ‘That’s what actually happened.’

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Every book is much more than its writer.

  I want to show my deep appreciation to Monsignor Sansoni, who brought me the magnificent world of Jesus the Nazarite, and to Dr. David, who explained the Jewish tradition and the inconsistencies in the story of Jesus, and to Ben Isaac, who found history as history should be found and for having shown me what I never expected to see (despite not understanding most of what I saw).

  Special thanks to my marvelous agents, Laura Dail, Maru de Montserrat, and Eva Schubert, who have been much more than just agents.

  My thanks to Robin McAllister, my translator, who, starting with The Holy Bullet, has helped make these writings legible to readers of English. We’ve made a great team, Robin, many thanks.

  To the super team at Putnam, Ivan Held, Chris Nelson, Stephanie Sorensen, Kate Stark, my respect and admiration; thanks to my publicist, Summer Smith, who’s done a magnificent job. I appreciate the innumerable hours of dedication in promoting me and, last but not least, to my editor, Rachel Kahan, to whom I bow in deep admiration and gratitude for all that she has done for me.

  In Italy I owe a debt of gratitude to Roberta Hidalgo and Raffaella Rosa for their invaluable assistance with my book. To my marvelous friend, Vincenzo di Martino, director of the Grand Hotel Palatino, the Sun King of hotel directors, my sincere thanks. I feel privileged to enjoy your friendship.

  In Portugal I cannot forget to thank Carlos Almeida and João Paulo Sacadura, for all their help and encouragement; and Luisa Lourenço, for putting up with my whims as a writer in the full process of creation at any hour of the day or night. Your friendship is precious to me.

  To JC, wherever you are.

  Finally, to my readers all over the world. I am grateful for the privilege of telling you the story of Sarah and Rafael, whatever their names in real life.