The HolyPhone Confessional Crisis

by Charles Brett

  “Only if I have to decline other work would this matter, but I would let you know if this seemed a possibility. We could then decide what to do.”

  “That makes sense to me and is generous of you. Thank you. Your curiosity will be a reward and hopefully there will be more. But that raises a different issue. How do we communicate?

  “José Antonio, I have another favour to ask. Will you be our intermediary? If I suggest to Father Federico — Davide, José Antonio will explain to you another day about my worldly boss, namely Father Federico — that you are helping me think through some potential new parish aspects of the Santofonino and that we may need to meet more often so I can hear your ideas, then I think we can have a discreet open channel to talk. Does that make work for you? At least we would see each other more often, which is always a pleasure for me, and I would have the benefit of your common sense.”

  “Nelson, I apologise again for what I said earlier. The money numbers still frighten me. But I know that you have our church at the centre of your thinking. How can I refuse? I am happy to help.”

  Friday, Nahalal

  The conversation was erratic. In part this was because everyone was hungry, the boys especially. In part it was because there were many subtle tensions in the air.

  There was that between Miriam and Michele who found themselves sitting close together on a bench.

  There was also something of a Jewish and Christian uncertainty. The Christians had not attended a Jewish Shabbat before and the Jews had as little experience of Christian understanding, and none of a priest.

  On top of this were Golda’s several simultaneous attitudes, of manifest disapproval for Tamar and by extension Miriam, of doting grandmother on the boys, of irritation with Noach at bringing strangers into his house (which she still regarded as hers as it had been before Noach’s father died), and bewilderment about why these clearly Gentiles were participating in her (not Tamar’s) Shabbat dinner at all.

  Then there was Inma’s inner tension, which she tried hard to hide as well as ignore. Miriam’s confessions in the car had unsettled her and she had not had time to consider them, though she did regard Miriam as someone whose soul needed rescuing.

  Overlying all these was what had occurred at Belvoir earlier in the day. No decisions or actions had been agreed. If anything there was dissent rather than agreement.

  Tamar tried hard to keep everyone involved and talking. She asked questions of Miriam about their father, without raising the issue of the success (or lack of it) of his church because she knew that any mention would set Golda off. To distract, she encouraged Golda to show off her Ladino by talking to Inma, asking her to explain how her Sephardi family had arrived in Israel from Turkey and Iraq. When Miriam was not retelling New York news, making Tamar a little homesick, Miriam talked to the boys. They were reticent, not being used to talk with adults as equals as Miriam tried to do. Tamar left Michele alone. As for Noach, she just ignored him, knowing she could not trust him not to start down one of his increasingly pro-Settler diatribes, especially in front of people whom he knew might not agree with him.

  After serving the fish, handed out by the younger Noach, she reflected that this was almost a true Israeli family dinner, full of unsaid arguments and disputes ready to break out at any moment. The one difference in her experience was that the inevitable shouting matches that occurred when two or more Israelis could not agree or could not agree to disagree was unlikely this evening. Such excitements tended to be more hot air than genuine feuding but their ferocity always unsettled her. It was not in her or Miriam’s American tradition to be so openly aggressive or impolite or to challenge others in face to face terms. She doubted it was for Inma or Michele either. Luckily there was no other Israeli man for Noach to rant against.

  She looked at Inma talking with her mother-in-law. Inma was strange. Animated, her long face lit up in interesting ways though her dress sense was even worse than her own. Inma did not seem more than in her mid-forties, with good skin (though not as fresh as her own face, she thought gratefully). But dowdy did not capture the poorness of her taste. It was almost as if she wanted to be taken for someone in her fifties. Why would anyone want to do that? As for Inma’s hair, it was a dull, boring black, and tied in a bun like that of her mother-in-law. Yet, Tamar reflected, Inma’s dowdiness distracted from her own dismal appearance. For that Tamar was grateful. It was not often these days that she shone a little. She had a made an effort to look better than normal, though more for Miriam’s sake than for Noach’s.

  As for Miriam, Tamar wondered if they would have the chance to talk openly together. From experience she knew it took Miriam time to relax and start sharing confidences, as they had done together when younger. But she still looked amazing. If anything she looked better, slim but better proportioned. Yes, her face was somehow harder, with a few lines, but even dressed as simply as this evening she oozed appeal. Indeed, Tamar thought, she was amazed that Michele could keep his hands off her even if he was now a priest. From what she remembered of Miriam telling her, they had been a hot item. Miriam had enthused about his keenness to experiment in bed and outside, something that she knew Miriam loved. That same passion for sex had not been passed to her. In that area she and Noach were pretty much dead. But at least she was pretty sure that he did not wander, or if he did it was not in Israel, which was far too small a place for anything personal to stay secret for long. She suspected that here he was also afraid of his mother. She had ruled his father with a rod of steel and now as the matriarch she tolerated little of which she disapproved. That this included her mattered even less, though having produced the boys helped.

  She rose to remove the main course dishes and remains of what had been on the table. Though it had seemed a huge amount for nine, the food had been demolished, helped not a little by the children. They ate like horses. But that was one of the delights of Nahalal. They could run around safely in a large space with plenty of neighbours to keep an eye on what was happening. Whether this would continue when they reached their teens was for the future. A move to Haifa or Tel Aviv did not appeal and to Jerusalem even less so. The worst would be to go to one of Noach’s beloved settlements but she knew he liked the comfort of this house as well as the special basement, hardly ever shown to outsiders and from which she herself and Golda were forbidden, filled with his electronics.

  Michele and Miriam had risen to help her. That was welcome for she knew that Noach would not lift a finger to help in what he regarded as women’s work and that Golda equally would do as little because it did not befit her. Swiftly all was removed. The three of them took a selection of fruits, baklava and other sweetmeats to the table and coffee or tea was offered.

  “Well, what shall we do about continuing our discussions?” started Noach. “It’s still before ten o’clock. We can continue now and then in the morning or just in the morning if you prefer. Miriam, you’ll stay in Noach’s room and he’ll sleep with the twins. Inma, would it be acceptable to use our guest room? Michele, I’m sorry but we do not have another spare room but our good friends Ruben and Ruth next door have said they will be happy to offer you a bed for the night.”

  “It’s lucky I checked out of Tel Aviv and have everything with me” responded Inma. “I had hoped that if we finished today I might visit Nazareth, the Jordan River and Jerusalem.”

  She didn’t say that what she really wanted was to visit the site where John had baptised Jesus as well as hear Mass in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. She was not so bothered by missing Bethlehem. She’d heard that the Church of the Nativity was a disappointment and that, combined with the effort to go through the massive concrete wall the Israelis had built to keep out the Palestinians, it was not worth bothering.

  “I don’t have anything with me. I left everything in my hotel room,” said Michele. “But, if you or your friends have an airline flight kit as well as a spare throwaway razor I will be fine.”

  In truth the prospect of sleeping in a stra
nge house with people he did not know did not thrill him. But he would not complain.

  “The travel kit and razor are here. You will have your own bathroom next door. I’ll take you over now and introduce you and so you can see where to go later. Then I suggest we come back here and I’ll give an overview of what we briefly discussed earlier today. We can do this in my study.”

  Tamar and Golda looked at each other, almost for the first time that evening, stunned. For one they had not realised he had organised so much, from Miriam and the others coming to where each should sleep. But even more surprising was that he was going to let three strangers into his study, his euphemism for that part of the basement they weren’t allowed to enter.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Saturday, Nahalal

  Michele woke up in his strange bed. At first he could not place himself. There was bright light pouring through the window, which was unlike his Parioli apartment, and when he looked at his watch it was only a little before 6 a.m. As he could hear no other noises in the house where he was a guest, he decided to stay in bed to reflect on the previous day.

  If the meeting at Belvoir had been awkward, the Shabbat dinner had been more so. After Noach had taken him across to Ruben and Ruth and shown him to his bedroom for the night, Noach had tried to corner him, asking what was really going on. Noach had seemed ultra-suspicious, which was worrying. Michele thought he had succeeded in putting him off. Yet Noach seemed evermore on edge.

  The two had then returned to Noach’s house to find Golda and Inma clearing up with the former talking in Ladino while Miriam and Tamar chatted on the sofa. As soon as Noach and he walked in, all activity stopped until Tamar offered to assist Golda. Noach had used this as a pretext to indicate to Inma and Miriam that they should follow Michele. He had led them downstairs to what looked like a mix of playroom and TV room — with a monster flat TV screen dominating one wall. At the far end was a door through which Noach had gone, into a small room with no windows but with a video camera. A second door lay beyond with two separate sets of combination locks, plus something that Noach had appeared to trigger from his telephone. They had all gone through into his inner-sanctum.

  This had turned out to be a large room entirely enclosed by a tight-fitting, doubly-layered metal mesh surrounding the whole room. Behind the mesh the walls seemed to be covered in aluminium foil. There were no windows. Noach explained that this was a Faraday cage, but said no more. Around three of the walls had tables piled high with electronic equipment on top or underneath. In the middle he had a large round table with one black office chair, the latter using the different mesh that had become office fashionable.

  Noach sat down. Realising that he had not offered his guests a seat, he rose, found three uncomfortable folding chairs, and placed them around the table. Everyone sat.

  “If this afternoon was about Michele telling us about da Ferraz’s concerns, it is now my turn to explain what we have been doing. I propose to do this in two parts; one now that sets the general scene, and tomorrow we can consider the financial mechanics. Until you understand these I don’t think we can progress, as we experienced this afternoon. Is that okay with everybody?”

  The others nodded. Michele thought Noach was becoming more truculent and domineering in his attitude. The women, from a quick glance, were beginning to feel the same, yet nobody commented.

  “Fine. This is where I developed the structure of what we have been achieving, working closely with Michele, who provided the legitimate links into the world’s banking and payments systems on behalf of the Vatican. It has needed both of us. Neither could have done this without the other. I know why Miriam became involved, mainly as the conduit via Tamar to me. I do not know what Inma contributes but as she was part of the original proposition that Michele brought to me that is sufficient.”

  He continued, going over how Michele had originally made contact suggesting that two opportunities existed.

  “The first was to assist creating a working solution for the then embryonic Santofonino, which at that point was only a concept. The second was to invest early in order to be in a position to divert a small percentage of any confessional income to the other purposes represented by Miriam, Inma, Michele and himself. Michele was brilliant in his understanding that if monies were to leak without notice this had to be set up before the Santofonino went live.”

  He had paused, checking that all were with him.

  “Michele’s and my initial idea was to abstract 1 per cent of any monies. The trouble with this was it was too much; too noticeable. 10c out of every $10 may not sound much but trying to lose this in an untraceable way would be difficult. Always it is better to operate at the margins, where tiny amounts will be unnoticed. We modified what we might take.

  “Our next steps were to establish some companies with which the Vatican could legitimately do business. Necessarily we kept these operating as legally separate, though they worked together in open view. One was in Italy, for the payment process handling; a second was also incorporated in Italy to handle the Santofonino design. A third, registered in Switzerland, handled the communication design and pre-processing; more about this tomorrow. Additionally, a fourth and genuinely reputable Italian company with deep experience of call centre design and implementation was added to the mix. The first two companies are now defunct and have legally been closed. They had served their purpose, though a fifth company won the contract to support the Santofonino, which continues its development and maintains the communications design.

  “Why am I telling you all this? The simple answer is I would prefer not to. But if you do not have a full picture you may not see problem areas or holes that I have not seen, which is why we are here. In practice I have controlled the first, second and third companies — because Michele wanted no links to him going to the Vatican. That I can understand, though it has cost him personally what could have been a small fortune.”

  Inma and Miriam sat quietly, increasingly fascinated. Michele knew all this, though not the extent of Noach’s self-importance, which was now more than seeping through.

  “The key, in my view, may be the pre-processors — the systems that provide an automated intermediary between the sinner, the call centre and the payments systems. Nearly all of how we make our monies happens through these. In this room I pulled together the various elements which have given us success so far.”

  Noach spent another hour lecturing them on how the pre-processors worked and, inevitably, ended by displaying himself as being ever so clever. It had all been rather overwhelming, even for Michele, who thought he had understood more than it now appeared.

  When Noach had finally stopped, a little before midnight, they returned upstairs to find no one else still up. Noach had taken Michele back over to Ruben and Ruth’s house, while Miriam and Inma had gone to bed. Noach said they would have breakfast at around nine o’clock and continue from about ten.

  Lying in bed, Michele reflected that there was no choice. Actually, if he considered all that had happened since he had brought Noach into the Santofonino project, this had always been the case. Noach took control whenever he could. Where he could not do this by persuasion he tried to bully his way through. At a distance, like from Rome, this had not been too bad. Up close in Nahalal it was painful and could become yet more so for all concerned if there was indeed a conspirators’ mistake.

  Or maybe he, Michele, had made the mistake. Perhaps someone else, like da Ferraz’s Mafia, had found their own way in and there was nothing to fear about Inma’s, Miriam’s, Noach’s and his modest depredations from the confessional income. That was genuinely another possibility. Perhaps he had jumped the gun by reacting as being guilty (which they were) without knowing if it was in fact their activities that were making da Ferraz so worried.

  He looked at his watch again. It was already after eight. It was time to get up.

  Saturday, Monteverde

  José Antonio was a little excited and nervous, which did not happen
often these days. He had heard from Nelson that Davide was acceptable and he had again agreed, at Nelson’s request, to be their mutual connection point. After all, it was similar to how the Santofonino was introduced to Santa Maria and the other small number of original parishes. Discreetly was how Nelson worked.

  Now he was waiting to show Davide what he privately referred to as the ‘sinner’s end’ of how the Santofonino worked. Just as he was smiling to himself about his name for the confessional Davide walked into Santa Maria. He greeted José Antonio warmly. Just like the first time all those years ago when they originally met there was a simple pleasure in each other’s company. Talking in Spanish made it better. José Antonio liked it. It was different to what he felt when he was with Father Giorgio or his other fellow priests.

  “Good morning, Davide. Ready for your tour of the parish end of the Santofonino?”

  “Yes, I am looking forward to seeing what you have to show me.”

  “Bien. Let’s find an available confessional, though we may have to wait until there’s a gap. I don’t want to prevent our parishioners achieving absolution, even if Nelson has given the go-ahead.

  “Oh. There is a short queue, of one. We’ll have to wait. Hopefully it will not be for long. By the way, Nelson asked me to tell you that he has spoken with his Interpol contact. He would be very pleased if you will complete the systems part of the investigation that you suggested. I believe that the Non-Disclos … or whatever you called it that you emailed to me and I sent to him will be prepared for your signature later today. Then you can start in earnest.”

  As José Antonio spoke an elderly lady left one confessional booth and a middle-aged man exited the second. The one waiting sinner entered a confessional and José Antonio, after rechecking no else was waiting, led Davide to the other. The space was somewhat tight for the two of them, so José Antonio looked over Davide’s shoulder. Davide, to his discomfort, had to kneel, making it simpler for José Antonio to supervise. What Davide saw before him was what looked like a standard mid-sized smartphone held in a case securely attached to the confessional grill through which a penitent would confess. An electrical cable led into the space through the grill where the priest would previously have been, providing power to the Santofonino.