the corners of Koenig's mouth.
"I agree wholeheartedly," said
Devereaux, eagerly nodding his head.
"I'd throw it away if I were you."
"You would like that? All of you.
You are all out to get me! My great
contributions that kept peace in the
world, enemies in constant touch, that
opened hot lines and.red lines and
blue lines between the great
powers these are forgotten. Now you
whisper behind my back. You tell lies
about nonexistent bank accounts, even
my humble places of residence. You
never concede that I earned every
deutschmark I possess! When I retired,
none of you could tolerate it; you did
not have me to kick around any longer!
And now this! The injustice!" 14
"Oh, I understand."
"You understand nothing! Give me
something to write with, you idiot."
He farted and signed.
142
CHAPIER FOURTEEN
The bells of the Angelus pealed in
solemn, vibrant splendor. They echoed
throughout St. Peter's Square, floated
above Bernini's marble guardians, and
were heard in quiet celebration beyond
the (lame, deep in the Vatican gar-
dens. Seated on a bench of white
stone, looking up at the orange rays
of the descending sun, was a corpulent
man with a face best described as
having weathered seven decades
good-naturedly, if not always
peacefully. The face was full, but the
peasant quality of the.bone structure
under the folds of flesh would tend to
deny that the face was pampered. The
man's eyes were wide and large and
brown and soft; they held nearly equal
parts of strength, perception,
resignation, and amusement.
He was dressed in the splendid white
robes of his office. The highest
office of the Holy Apostolic Catholic
Church, the descendent of Peter
himself, the Bishop of Rome, the
spiritual commander of 400 million
souls throughout the earth.
Pope Francesco I, the Vicar of Christ.
Born Giovanni Bombalini in a small
village north of Padua in the first
years of the century. It was a birth
that was recorded sketchily, at best,
for the Bombalinis were not affluent.
Giovanni was delivered by a midwife
who, as often as not, forgot to report
the fruits of her labors (and her
patient's labors) to the village
clerk, secure in the knowledge that
the church would do something;
christenings made money. Actually
Giovanni Bombalini's emergence into
this world might never have been
legally recorded at all except that
his father had a wager with his cousin
Frescobaldi, three villages to the
north, that his second child would be
a male. Bornbalini Senior wanted to
143
_
take no chances that his cousin
Frescobaldi would renege on the bet,
so he went to the village hall himself
to report the birth of a male child.
As it happened, part of the wager
was that Frescobaldi's wife who was
expecting in the same month would not
give birth to a boy. But of course she
did, and the bet was canceled. This
child, Guido Frescobaldi, was born
according to the sketchy records two
days after his cousin, Giovanni.
Early in his life Giovanni showed
signs of being different from the
other children of the village. To
begin with he did not care to learn
his catechism by verbal repetition, he
wanted to read it, then memorize it.
This upset the village priest for it
smacked of precociousness and somehow
was an affront to authority, but the
child would not be denied.
The ways of Giovanni Bombalini were
indeed extraordinary. Although he
never shirked his labors in the
fields, he was rarely too tired to
stay up half the night reading
whatever he could get his hands on.
When he was twelve he discovered the
biblioteca in Padua, which was hardly
the library in Milan, nor Venice, nor
certainly Rome, but it was said by
those who knew Giovanni that he read
every book in Padua, then Milan, then
Venice. By which time his priest
recommended him to the holy fathers in
Rome.
The church was Giovanni's answer to
a prayer. And as long as he prayed a
great dea~which was easier, though no
less time-consuming than laboring in
the fields he was allowed to read more
than he ever thought would be allowed
him.
By the age of twenty-two, Giovanni
Bombalini was an ordained priest. Some
said the best-read priest in Rome an
erudite fantastico. But Giovanni did
not possess the properly stern visage
of a proper Vatican erudite; nor did
he assume the proper attitudes of
certainty with regard to everyday
truths. He was forever finding
exceptions and flexibilities in
liturgical history, pointing out (some
said mischievously) that the writings
of the church found their strength in
honest contradictions.
At twenty-six Giovanni Bombalini was
a sharp pain in the large Vatican ass.
Aggravated further by his matured
appearance, which was the antithesis
of the gaunt, aca144
demic image so desired by Rome's
eruditi. He was, if anything, the
caricature of a field peasant from the
northern districts. Short of stature,
stocky, and wide of girth, he looked
like a farmhand more at home in the
goat stables than in the marble halls
of the various Vatican collegia. No
amount of theological erudition, or
good nature, or, indeed, deep belief
in his church could counteract the
combined aggravation of his mind and
appearance. So posts were found for
him in such unlikely locations as the
Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, Malta, and,
through an error Monte Carlo. An
exhausted Vatican dispatcher misread
the name Montes Claros and inserted
Monte Carlo no doubt because he had
never heard of Brazil's Montes
Claros and the fortunes of Giovanni
Bombalini turned.
For into the cauldron of high stakes
and high emotions wandered the simple
looking priest with the bemused eyes,
gentle humor, and a head packed with
more knowledge than any twelve
international financiers put together.
He'd had little to do in the Gold
Coast, Sierra Leone, and Malta, so he
had occupied his time, when not
praying or teaching the
natives, by
subscribing to scores of reading
services and adding to his already
extraordinary memory bank.
It is common knowledge that people
who live with constant motion, and
high risk, and a great deal of
alcohol, occasionally need spiritual
consolation. So Father Bombalini began
to comfort a few stray lambs. And to
the amazement of these first few
strays, they found not so much a
simple priest who outlined penance,
but a most amusing fellow who could
discourse at length on almost any
subject: economic conditions of world
markets, historical precedents for
anticipated geopolitical events, and,
particularly,. food. (Here he favored
the more basic sauces, eschewing the
artifices of the often inappropriate
haste cuisine.)
Before too many months had passed,
Father Bombalini was a regular guest
at many of the larger hotel suites and
great houses of the CBte d'Azur. This
rather odd-looking, rotund prelate was
a marvelous raconteur, and it always
made everyone feel better to have him
around before going out to
covet successfully his neighbor's
wife.
And a number of excessively large
contributions to the 145
.
church were made in Father Giovanni's
name. With increasing frequency.
Rome could no longer overlook
Bombalini. The exchequers of the
Vatican treasury said so.
The war found Monsignor Bombalini in
various Allied capitals and
occasionally attached to various
Allied armies. This was brought about
for two reasons. The first was his
adamant deposition to his superiors
that he could not remain neutral in
light of the known Hitlerian
objectives. He catalogued his thesis
with sixteen pages of historical,
theological, and liturgical
precendents, none but the Jesuits
could understand it, and they were on
his side. So Rome shut its eyes and
hoped for the best. The second reason
for his wartime travels was that the
international rich of Monte Carlo in
the thirties were now colonels and
generals and diplomats and
ambassadorial liaisons. They all
wanted him. There were so many
intra-Allied requests for his services
that in Washington, 1 Edgar Hoover
marked Bombalini's file: Highly
Suspect. May be a fairy.
The postwar years were a time of
rapid acceleration up the Vatican
ladder for Cardinal Bombalini. Much of
his success was due to his close
friendship with Angelo Roncalli, with
whom he shared a number of unorthodox
views, as well as a penchant for
decent, but not necessarily exclusive,
wine and a good game of cards after
the evening prayers.
As he sat on the white stone bench
in the Vatican gardens Giovanni
Bombalini Pope Francesco reflected
that he missed Roncalli. They had
accomplished much together; it had
been good. And the similarities of
their respective ascendencies to the
chair of St. Peter never ceased to
amuse him. Roncalli, John, would have
been amused, too; no doubt, was, of
course.
They were both compromises offered
by the stern, orthodox constituencies
of the Curia to quiet the fires of
discontent within the global flock.
Neither compromise expected to reign
very long. But Roncalli had it easy;
he had only theological arguments and
undeveloped social reformers to
contend with. He didn't have damn fool
young priests who wanted to marry and
have children and, when of other
persuasions, run homosexual parishes"
Not 146
that any of these personally bothered
Giovanni; there was absolutely nothing
in theological law or dogma that
actually prohibited marriage and
offspring; and, as far as the other,
if love of fellow man did not surmount
biblical ambiguities, what had they
learned? But, Mother of God, the fuss
that was made!
There was so much to do and the
doctors had made it clear that his
time was limited. It was the only
thing they were clear about, they
could isolate no specific illness, no
particular malady. They just conferred
and confirmed that his "vital signs"
were slowing down at an alarming rate.
He had demanded openness from them;
Mother of God, he had no feat of
death! He welcomed the rest. He and
Roncalli could plow the heavenly
vineyards together and take up their
baccarat again. At last count Roncalli
owed him something over six hundred
million fire.
He had told the doctors that they
looked too long in their microscopes
and too little at the obvious. The ma-
chine was wearing out; it was as
simple as that. Whereupon they nodded
pontifically and uttered somberly
"Three months, four at the most, Holy
Father."
Doctors. Basta! Veterinarians with
cagini in the Curia! Their bills were
outrageous! The goatherders of Padua
knew more about medicine; they had to.
Francesco heard the footsteps behind
him and turned. Walking up the garden
path was a young papal aide whose name
escaped him. The youthful priest
carried a clipboard in his hand. There
was a painted crucifix on the
underside; it looked silly.
"Your Holiness asked that we resolve
some minor matters before the vesper
hour."
"By all means, Father. What are they?"
The aide rattled off a series of
inconsequential functions ceremonial
in nature, and Giovanni flattered the
young prelate by requesting his
opinion on most of them.
"Then there is a request from an
American periodical, Viva Gourmet. I
would not mention it to the Holy
Father except that the inquiry was
accompanied by a strong recommendation
from the United States Armed Forces
Information Service."
"That is a most unusual combination, is
it not, Father?" 141
1
"Yes, Your Holiness. Quite
incomprehensible."
"What was the request?"
"They had the effrontery to ask the
Holy Father to submit to an interview
with a lady journalist regarding the
pontiffs favorite dishes."
"Why is that an effrontery?"
The young prelate paused; he seemed
momentarily perplexed. Then he
continued with confidence. "Because
&nb
sp; Cardinal Quartze said it was, Holy
Father."
"Did the learned cardinal give his
reasons? Or, as usual did he commune
with God all by himself and simply
deliver the divine edict?" Francesco
tried not to overdo his perfectly
natural reaction to Ignatio Quartze.
The cardinal was a loathsome fellow in
just about every department. He was an
erudite aristocratico frbm a powerful
Italian-Swiss family, who had the
compassion of a disturbed cobra.
Looked like one, too, thought
Giovanni.
"He did, Holy Father," replied the
priest. And the instant he spoke, the
aide was struck by a sudden embar-
rassment. "He he
"May I suggest, Father," said the
pontiff with graceful understanding,
"that our splendidly berobed ca dinal
offered the opinion that the pope's
favorite dishes were less than
impressive?"
"I I
"I see he did. Well, Father, it is
true that I subscribe to simpler
cooking than does our cardinal with
the unfortunate nasal drip, but it is
not due to lack of knowledge. Merely
lack of, perhaps, ostentation, not
that our cardinal who is afflicted
with that unfortunate eye that strays
to the right as he talks, is
ostentatious. I don't believe it ever
crossed his mind."
"No, of course not, Holy Father."
"But I think that during these days
of high prices and widespread
unemployment, it might be a fine idea
for your pontiff to outline a number
of inexpensive, though I assure you,
quite excellent dishes. Who is this
journalist? A lady, you say? Don't
ever tell anyone I said it, Father,
but they are not the best cooks."
"No, surely not, Your Holiness. The
nuns of Rome are strenuous
148
"Galvanizing, Father. Positively
galvanizing! Who is the journalist
from this gourmet periodical?"
Robert Ludlum - Road To Gandolfo.txt Page 21
