The Thirteenth Apostle

by Michel Benoît

  Nil pushed back the sheet of paper on the table: trusting to his memory, he had just set down the letter of the thirteenth apostle, which he had memorized without difficulty. Together with the Pope, he would be the only one to know that a tomb containing the remains of Jesus lay somewhere in the desert, between Jerusalem and the Red Sea. He opened his bag and slipped the letter inside.

  He would soon have packed, and would keep his bag in his hand. And take the night train for Paris – it was never full at this time of year. Leaving the ghostly monastery of San Girolamo was a real relief for him: once he was back in St Martin’s, he would hide the most compromising of his papers and settle into the desert. Like the thirteenth apostle in bygone days.

  He still had the most important thing: the person of Jesus, his gestures and his words. In a desert, he would need no other food to survive.

  He was amazed to hear a knock at the door of his cell. It was Father John – another person he wouldn’t miss. The unstoppable chatterer’s eyes were gleaming.

  “Father, Mgr Leeland has just arrived and wishes to see you.”

  Nil rose to greet his friend. The erstwhile playful student was now a hunted man, who hurried into the cell and flopped onto the chair that Nil pushed forwards for him.

  “What’s up, Remby?”

  “My studio on the Via Aurelia has been bugged ever since you arrived, Catzinger and his men know everything we’ve been saying. And so do others, people who are even more dangerous. For different reasons, they want us put away.”

  Now it was the turn of Nil, shocked at this news, to drop into an armchair.

  “I’m dreaming – or have you succumbed to an attack of paranoia?”

  “I’ve just been paid a visit by Lev Barjona, who brought me up to date very briefly, but without room for doubt. He told me he was acting out of friendship, and I don’t doubt him for a moment. We’ve got ourselves involved in something much bigger than us, Nil. Your life is in danger, and so is mine.”

  Nil buried his face in his hands. When he looked up again, he stared at Leeland with eyes filled with tremulous tears.

  “I knew, Remby. I knew right from the start, as soon as Andrei had warned me. It was in the monastery, in the apparently changeless peace of a cloister protected by its silence. I knew it when I learnt of his death, when I went to identify his dislocated body next to the track of the Rome express. I knew it when history caught up with me, in all its horrible reality, thanks to Breczinsky and certain things he told me in confidence. I never felt afraid because of what I discovered. Is my life in danger? I’m the last in a very long list, one that starts at the moment the thirteenth apostle refused to see the truth being manipulated.”

  “The truth! There’s only one truth, the truth that men need to establish and maintain their power. The truth of the very pure love between myself and Anselm is not their truth. The truth that you have discovered in the texts isn’t the real truth, since it contradicts their truth.”

  “Jesus said: ‘The truth will make you free’. I am free, Remby.”

  “You’re free only if you disappear, and if your truth disappears with you. The philosophers you like so much teach that truth is a category of being, that it subsists in itself, like the goodness and the beauty of being. Well, it’s false, and I’ve come to tell you so. The love that brought Anselm and myself together was good and beautiful: it was not in conformity with the Church’s truth, so it was not true. Your discovery of Jesus’s face contradicts the truth of Christianity: so you’ve got it all wrong, the Church will not tolerate any truth other than its own. Nor will the Jews or the Muslims.”

  “What can they do against me? What can they do against a free man?”

  “Kill you. You need to hide – to leave Rome straight away.”

  * * *

  There was a silence, broken only by the chirruping of the birds in the reeds of the cloister. Nil got to his feet and went over to the window.

  “If what you say is true, I can’t go back to my monastery, where the desert would be peopled by hyenas. Hide? Where?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that on my way here. Do you remember Father Calati?”

  “The superior of the Camaldolese? Of course, we both had him as professor in Rome. A wonderful man.”

  “Go to Calmaldoli, ask him to take you in. They have hermitages scattered through the Abruzzi, you’ll find just the desert you’re looking for. Do it quickly. Do it now.”

  “You’re right, the Camaldolese have always been very hospitable. But what about you?”

  Leeland closed his eyes for a moment.

  “Don’t worry about me. My life is over – it’s been over ever since I learnt that the love preached by the Church might be just one ideology like any other. Your discoveries, with which I have become associated even though I didn’t ask to be, have merely confirmed my feelings: the Church is no longer my mother, she is rejecting the child I have been because I loved in a different way from her. I’m going to stay in Rome; the Abruzzi desert isn’t the right place for me. My desert is inside me, as it has been ever since I was forced to leave the United States.”

  He headed for the door.

  “Your suitcase can be packed quickly. I’m going to go downstairs and ask Father John to show me the library, to keep him away from the porter’s lodge. In the meantime, you can slip out of the monastery, take a bus for the Stazione Termini and jump into the first train to Arezzo. I trust Calati, he’ll keep you safe. Hide away in a hermitage of the Camaldolese and write to me in two or three weeks: I’ll tell you if you can come back to Rome.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m already dead, Nil – they can’t hurt me any more. Don’t worry: you’ve got a few minutes to leave San Girolamo without being spotted. See you soon, my friend: truth has made free men of us – you were right.”

  Father John was surprised at the sudden interest Rembert Leeland seemed to have developed in the library, which was generally considered to be a jumble. While the American asked him questions that proved how totally incompetent he was when it came to historical scholarship, Nil, his suitcase in his right hand, slipped aboard the bus that passes down the Via Salaria and serves Rome’s main railway station.

  In his left hand, he clutched a bag that seemed to be his most precious treasure.

  84

  Antonio walked along with a spring in his step. Nestled in a bend of the Tiber, the Castel Sant’Angelo reflected the setting sun from its tawny bricks. Here, papal justice had once been dispensed: it was divine justice that he was going to enforce this evening. A man was preparing to oppose the government of the Church for a cause that he thought was right – but there is no right cause outside the hierarchy. And the man in question was depraved, a Satanic pervert. The Spaniard leant against the guardrail of the Victor Emmanuel II Bridge. Before he took action, he wished to remember the words the Cardinal had uttered the evening before and rekindle his burning sense of indignation: then his hand would not tremble.

  * * *

  “You say he is going to use the epistle to put pressure on us?”

  “He’s stated as much on several occasions, Your Eminence, and the Twelve agree. The letter of the thirteenth apostle will give considerable power to anyone who possesses it: making it public would cause such an uproar that our Church – and even certain Western heads of state – will be ready to pay a considerable amount of money for the Society to keep it secret. The Templars did not hesitate to use this means.”

  “Jesus’s tomb… Incredible!” – The Cardinal wiped his brow. “I thought the epistle contented itself with denying Jesus’s divinity. It wouldn’t have been the first time – the Church has always been able to overcome that particular danger and throttle heresy. But discovering the real tomb containing Jesus’s bones! Not just one more theological quarrel, but tangible, undeniable proof! It’s unthinkable! It’s the end of the world!”

  Antonio smiled.

  “That’s just what Mgr Calf
o thinks, but he has his own ideas. He thinks the Church is too timorous in the face of a rotten world that’s going its own way without us, or against us. He wants money, a lot of money, so that he can influence world opinion.”

  “Bastardo!”

  The Prelate quickly got a grip on himself and continued:

  “Antonio, when I knew you in Vienna, you were a fugitive from Opus Dei – but you had sworn to serve the Pope and, if his health were to fail, to serve the Papacy, the backbone of the West. Our venerable Holy Father is ill – or at all events he devotes his strength and his attention to the crowds that acclaim him everywhere he goes on his travels. For twenty years, the real governance of the Church has rested on shoulders such as mine, and sometimes the Pope has not even been informed of the dangers we have been forced to face. I have often had to act in his name; I’ll do the same again here. Can I count on your help? We need to… neutralize Calfo, and take over control of the Society of St Pius V. Without delay.”

  “Your Eminence…”

  The Cardinal pinched his lips, sucked in his cheeks, and his tone of voice became harsh.

  “Remember, my child: when you arrived in Vienna, you were being followed. Nobody leaves Opus Dei, especially not after criticizing it the way you did. You were young, idealistic, unaware! I gave you shelter, protection, and then my trust. It was I who made you a member of the Society of St Pius V, I who paid up so that the Catalans of Escrivá de Balaguer, those fanatics, would keep quiet when Calfo made his inquiries about you. I’ve come to collect my dividends, Antonio!”

  The young man lowered his head. Catzinger realized that, for what he was demanding, a simple command would not be enough: he would need to arouse his indignation, awaken the Andalusian’s volcanic temperament. Touch him at his sensitive point: his rigid, intransigent character, his rejection of the body, kept in force by so many years of sexual frustration at the school of Opus Dei. He puckered his lips, and they distilled honey.

  “Do you know who your Rector is? Do you know what kind of a man he is, one you respect in spite of his lack of discipline? Do you know what horrors the first of the Twelve is capable of imagining, a hundred feet away from this Holy City and Peter’s tomb? A few days ago I heard, in confidence, the story of one of his victims, a young woman as beautiful and pure as a Madonna, whose very soul he humiliates – the soul of a believer – even as he enjoys her body. And she is not the first to have been sullied by him. You don’t know? Well, I’m going to tell you what he has done, and what he is planning to do tomorrow.”

  He whispered for a few moments, as if he wanted to stop the crucifix hanging on the wall behind him hearing what he said.

  When he had finished, Antonio looked up: his black eyes were glinting with a harsh, inflexible light. He left the Cardinal’s office without uttering a word.

  With a sigh, the Andalusian pulled himself away from the parapet of the bridge: it had been a good idea to relive that scene before he started to act. The Church ceaselessly needs to be purified, even by steel. The Cardinal’s commands exonerated him from all responsibility: this too had always been the Church’s strength. A difficult decision, a moral violence, a gangrenous limb to tear off… The man who wielded the knife, who plunged it deep into living flesh, did not view himself as responsible for the blood shed or the lives destroyed. The responsibility lay with the Church.

  85

  Alessandro Calfo took a step back, looking satisfied: it was perfect. On the parquet floor of his bedroom, a big cross was laid out, two broad beams of wood that would allow a body to lie at ease. Sonia would be fine there. He would tie her hands with the two soft silk cords he had prepared; her legs must remain free. As he imagined the scene, the blood rushed to his temples and his lower belly: to unite carnally with the young woman lying in the place of the divine crucified one was the most sublime act he would ever accomplish. Divinity finally merged with humanity, the least of his cells experiencing ecstasy in union with Christ’s redemptive sacrifice in its most perfect form. No violence: Sonia would be consenting, he knew it, he sensed it. Her horrified reaction the other day was merely the effect of her surprise. She would obey as she always did.

  He checked that the Byzantine icon was directly above the cross: in this way, while he was celebrating the cult, she would be able to contemplate, merely by lifting her eyes, this image that would appease her Orthodox soul. He had thought of everything, since everything needed to be exemplary. And tomorrow evening he would place the cursed epistle on the empty shelf which had been awaiting it for so long.

  He gave a start when he heard the doorbell ring. Already? Usually, always discreet, she came only after nightfall. Perhaps, today, she was impatient? His smile broadened. He went to open the door.

  It was not Sonia.

  “An… Antonio! But what are you doing here today? I asked you to call round for tomorrow morning; Nil first needed to see the Pole this afternoon… What is the meaning of this?”

  Antonio advanced towards him, forcing him to retreat down the entrance corridor.

  “The meaning of this, Brother Rector, is that we need to talk, you and I.”

  “To talk? But I talk to you, at times of my choosing! You are the last of the Twelve, in any case…”

  Antonio was still advancing, his eyes focused on the face of the Neapolitan, who retreated before him, bumping into the walls as he did so.

  “No longer at times of your choosing, but when the God whom you claim to serve chooses.”

  “Whom I… claim to serve? And who has given you permission to speak to me in that tone of voice?”

  The one man pushed the other before him until they reached the bedroom door, which Calfo had left open.

  “Who has given me permission? And who has given you permission, you wretch, to betray your vow of chastity? Who has given you permission to humiliate one of God’s creatures, hidden behind your episcopal ordination?”

  With a jerk of his hips, he forced the pudgy little man to back into the room. Calfo stumbled over the foot of the cross. Antonio looked round at the carefully elaborated setting: the Cardinal had not lied to him.

  “And what about this? What you were planning on doing is an abominable blasphemy. You are not worthy to possess the letter of the thirteenth apostle, the Master cannot be protected by a man like you. Only someone pure can keep at bay the filth that is menacing Our Lord.”

  “But… but…”

  Calfo again tripped over the upright of the cross, slipped over and fell on his knees in front of the Andalusian, who stared at him with contempt, his lips pursed with disgust. This was no longer his Rector, the first of the Twelve. It was a human wreck, trembling, drenched in foul sweat. His eyes suddenly dulled over.

  “You wanted to stretch out on the cross, didn’t you? You wanted to unite your body, transfigured by ecstasy, with the Master transfigured by his love for each one of us? Very well, so you shall. You will never suffer as much as He who died for you.”

  A quarter of an hour later, Antonio gently closed the apartment door behind him and wiped his hands with a paper handkerchief. It hadn’t been difficult. It’s never difficult when you obey.

  86

  Leeland walked like a jerky automaton down the uneven cobbles of the Via Salaria Antica. “Nil loved to take this route when he came to see me… Already I’m thinking of him in the past!”

  He had succeeded in keeping Father John busy in the library for a long while, but had declined his invitation to share in the community’s lunch.

  “Father Nil and I are meeting in the Vatican at the start of the afternoon. He’s probably already left without telling me. He’ll be coming back… late this evening.”

  Nil would not be coming back: at this very moment he would be on the platform of the Stazione Termini, ready to get into a train for Arezzo. Or was already gone.

  Overwhelmed by anguish, Leeland felt as light as a feather: in fact he was emptied, down to the smallest fibre of his muscles, down to his fingertips. “Life
is over.” What he had been refusing to accept ever since he had been exiled to the Vatican, the truth that he had been hiding from himself, had just been made absolutely clear to him by Nil’s short stay in Rome: his life no longer had any meaning, all zest for living had left him.

  He found himself, without knowing how, outside the door of his studio. He pushed open the door with a trembling hand, shut it behind him and sat down with an effort at the piano. Would he still be able to play music? But… for whom?

  On the floor below, Mukhtar had again taken up his listening post and set the tape recorders going. Today the American had come home later than usual, and he was alone: so he had left Nil in the Vatican – the Frenchman must be talking to Breczinsky. He settled down comfortably, headphones on. Nil would be coming back at the end of the afternoon and would talk to Leeland. At nightfall he would head back to San Girolamo, as usual. On foot, through dark and deserted streets. His friend would go part of the way with him.

  The American first. Then the other one.

  But Nil did not return. Still sitting at the piano, Leeland watched as the shadows filled his studio. He didn’t switch the light on: he was trying to struggle against his fear with all the strength at his disposal – struggling against himself. There was only one thing left for him to do. Lev had provided him, unwittingly, with the solution. But would he have the resolve and the courage to go out?

  An hour later, night had fallen on Rome. The tapes were turning round and round in silence – what could the Frenchman be up to? Suddenly, Mukhtar heard muffled noises from upstairs, and the studio door opening and shutting. He took off his headphones and went to the window: Leeland, alone, had left the building and was crossing the street. So had they agreed to meet on the way to San Girolamo? In that case it would be even easier.

  Mukhtar slipped out. He was armed with a dagger and a steel coil. He had always preferred weapons with blades, or strangulation. Physical contact with the infidel gives death its proper value. Mossad preferred to use its crack sharpshooters, but the God of the Jews is merely a distant abstraction: for a Muslim, God is reached in the reality of direct physical combat. The Prophet had never used arrows, but always his sabre. If possible, he would strangle the American. He would feel his heart stop beating under the pressure of his hands – that heart ready to provide those of his nation with a decisive weapon against Muslims.