The Thirteenth Apostle

by Michel Benoît

  He followed Leeland, who walked round St Peter’s Square without passing under the colonnade, and turned into Borgo Santo Spirito. He was heading for the Castel Sant’Angelo. It was a chilly night and the Romans were all snug at home. If those two had arranged to meet up at the foot of the castle, it was because they knew there wouldn’t be a soul there. All the better.

  Now Leeland was walking along slowly, and he felt at peace. In the twilight of the studio he had come to his decision, repeating to himself the words that Lev had used: “A killer, a professional. Leave, go and hide away in a monastery…” He would not leave, he would not hide away. On the contrary, he would march towards his destiny, as he was now doing, in full visibility. Suicide is forbidden to Christians, and he would never by himself put an end to this lifeless life that was henceforth the only life he would have. But if someone else assumed responsibility, that was fine. He came out on the left bank of the Tiber, passed in front of the Castel Sant’Angelo, and turned onto the Lungotevere. Cars – few and far between – came down this road overlooking the Tiber, then turned left to the Piazza Cavour. There was nobody about; the damp was rising from the river and it was biting cold.

  On arrival at the Umberto I Bridge, he looked round. Under the light from the lamp-posts he spotted someone who was walking the same way as he was, following the parapet. He slowed down, and had the impression that the man did likewise. It was most likely him. Don’t run, don’t hide, don’t flee.

  “Life is over.” Brother Anselm, his vanished illusions! Church reform, married priests, the end for so many noble-minded men of a long period of torment, the chastity imposed by a Church paralysed by human love… He saw some stone steps leading down to the bank of the Tiber: without hesitating, he walked down them.

  The quayside was barely lit and still cobbled in the old style. He walked on, gazing at the black water: the strong current, hemmed in at this point, swept over rocks scattered over the river bed. Clumps of reeds and dense thickets of vegetation covered the steep slope stretching down to the water. Rome has never quite stopped looking like a provincial town.

  Behind him, he heard a man walking down the steps; his feet echoed on the flags of the quayside as he approached. Although he had been of the right age, the fact that Leeland was a monk had in days gone by allowed him to avoid being called up for Vietnam. He had often wondered if he would have shown much physical courage out there. When faced with the shadow of an enemy intent on killing him, how would his body have reacted? He smiled: this river bank would be his Vietnam, and his heart was beating no faster than usual.

  A killer, a professional. What would he feel? Would he suffer?

  The one man followed the other towards the arches of the Cavour Bridge. Just afterwards, a high wall barred the quayside, marking the end of a walk that the Romans much enjoyed when the weather was good. There were no steps along the wall at this point: to get back up to the clearway that runs along the Tiber he would have to retrace his steps. And confront the man following him.

  Leeland took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. He felt very calm, but he would not see the man’s face. Let death come from behind his back, like a thief in the night.

  Without looking round, he stepped resolutely under the dark arch of the bridge.

  Behind him, he heard the footsteps of a man running, as if to gain momentum. Running lightly, with steps that hardly touched the cobbles.

  87

  Holding his bag in one hand and his suitcase in the other, Nil climbed out of the bus. The village was just as rustic as Father Calati had described it.

  “Our bursar is going just now to Aquila, you can get into his car. He’ll leave you at the local bus station. In the afternoons, there’s a bus service to this out-of-the-way part of the Abruzzi. Get off in the village, then follow the road on foot until you come to a crossing. Turn left, and carry on for about half a mile on an earthen track until you reach an isolated farm. You’re bound to meet Beppe, he lives there alone with his mother. Don’t be surprised – he doesn’t speak but he understands everything. Tell him that you’ve come from me, and ask him to take you to our hermit’s. It will be a long walk through the mountain – Beppe is used to it, he’s the only one who goes up to the hermitage to take a little food there from time to time.”

  Then Calati had raised his hands heavenwards, and silently given Nil his blessing as he kneeled on the icy flagstones of the cloister.

  When he had presented himself at Camaldoli, his old professor had hugged him, his bushy beard caressing Nil’s cheek. So he needed to settle in the desert, for an indeterminate period? Nobody must know where he had taken refuge? Calati did not ask any questions, was not surprised at his arrival, nor by the way he looked like a fugitive, nor by his unusual request. He would be fine with the old hermit – that was all he had said.

  “You’ll see, he’s rather an odd fellow, who’s been living in the mountains for years. But he’s never lonely: he is in contact with the whole universe through prayer, and he possesses a gift of divination of the sort sometimes developed by great spiritual masters. We remain in contact thanks to Beppe, who comes down from the mountain every fortnight to sell his cheeses in Aquila. God bless you!”

  Nil watched as the bus set off in a cloud of smoke, and turned down the village’s only street. It was still day, but the low-roofed houses were draught proof to keep out the night cold.

  As he walked down the street, he glanced into a window and smiled at the image it reflected back at him: his close-cropped hair, which had still been grey when he had left St Martin’s Abbey, had become completely white ever since he had discovered the epistle.

  The suitcase was a weight on his arm by the time he stopped outside the farm. Dressed in a sleeveless sheepskin jacket – the traditional costume of Abruzzi shepherds – a young man was chopping wood in front of the door. On hearing Nil, he looked round and stared at him with disquiet, his brow furrowed under a crown of curly hair.

  “Are you Beppe? I’ve come from Father Calati. Can you take me to the hermit’s?”

  Beppe carefully set his axe down against the pile of logs, wiped his hands on his jacket lining, and then came up to Nil and examined him more closely. After a while his face relaxed, he gave the ghost of a smile and nodded. He vigorously picked up the suitcase, jutted his chin in the direction of the mountain and motioned him to follow.

  The path plunged into the forest and then rose sharply.

  Beppe strode along, his gait giving the impression of ease and almost of grace. Nil found it difficult to follow him. Had the boy understood him? He needed to put himself in his hands, and keep his precious bag with him.

  They arrived at a point where the path seemed to peter out: a dead end, where one could see the already ageing traces of furrows dug by mechanical contraptions – the tractors of the foresters, who obviously did not come here very often. There was clear water flowing into a ditch: Beppe put the suitcase down, bent forward and took a long drink from his cupped hands. Then, still in silence, the teenager picked up the suitcase again and set off up a path that led into a coomb on the mountain side. Between the treetops, a distant crest could be seen.

  Night had just fallen when they reached a tiny esplanade looking out over the dark valley. Nil could make out a lit window level with the rock face. Without hesitating, Beppe went over to it, dropped the suitcase on the ground and knocked on the window pane.

  A low door opened, and a shadow filled its frame. Dressed in a sort of smock tied by a belt, a very old man, his head surrounded by white shoulder-length hair, took a step forwards: behind him, Nil could see a hearth in which a faggot of wood was burning, shedding a bright light. Beppe bowed, uttered a grunt and pointed towards Nil. The old man gently touched the boy’s curls, then turned to Nil and smiled at him. He showed him the inside of his hermitage, from which a mild heat was emanating, and said simply:

  “Vieni, figlio mio. Ti aspettavo.”

  “Come, my son, I was expecting yo
u!”

  88

  On that particular morning, the Vatican City was filled with a feverish agitation, at least relatively speaking given the nature of the place: some prelates walked down the marble corridors at a pace slightly less stiff and solemn than usual, a few violet belts fluttered a little higher as people dashed up the stairs four at a time. A car with the SCV registration plate swept through the main gate of the Belvedere court, saluted by a Swiss guard who recognized inside it the Pope’s personal doctor, a middle-aged man clutching a black briefcase on his knees.

  Anywhere else, these imperceptible signs of agitation would have passed unnoticed. But the Swiss guard, as he witnessed this unusual tenseness in the Holy City, felt cheered: today there would be plenty for his colleagues to talk about.

  The SCV car went all the way down the Via della Conciliazione, turned left, passed in front of the Castel Sant’Angelo and parked a little further on, on the pavement of the Lungotevere, behind a van with its roof light flashing. The man with the briefcase hurried down the steps that led to the Tiber bank and walked along the uneven cobbles towards the Cavour Bridge, where a dozen or so Italian policemen were gathered around a dark shape, dripping with water, that they had apparently just pulled out of the reeds at the river’s edge.

  The doctor examined the corpse, talked to the policemen, snapped his briefcase shut and then went back up to the Lungotevere, where he spoke in a low voice into his mobile phone, taking care to keep his distance from a few curious onlookers. He nodded several times, motioned to his driver to go without him, and hurried back to the foot of the Castel Sant’Angelo. He crossed through, carried on walking for a while and then plunged into a recent apartment block, at the foot of which a young man dressed like a tourist seemed to be waiting for him.

  They exchanged a few words, and then the young man took a key from his pocket and motioned the doctor to follow him into the building.

  Late that morning, Cardinal Catzinger was standing before the Sovereign Pontiff, who had been placed behind his desk. The Pope’s right hand, adorned with the ring of the Second Vatican Council, at which he had participated, trembled as he read a sheet of paper. He was broken by his illness, but under his beetling eyebrows his gaze was bright and sharp.

  “Can it be true, Your Eminence? Two Vatican prelates dying within a few hours of each other last night?”

  “A painful coincidence, Most Holy Father. Mgr Calfo, who had already had a mild attack a few months ago, succumbed to cardiac arrest last night and did not survive.”

  Alessandro Calfo had been discovered in his bedroom, lying on the two beams of wood arranged in the shape of a crucifix. His empurpled face was still crumpled into a grimace of pain. His arms were held out, tied to the horizontal beam of the cross by two silken cords; his glassy eyes were staring at a Byzantine icon hung just above the scene, representing the Mother of God in all her virginal purity.

  Two nails had been pulled out of the transom of the bed and pushed through the dead man’s palms. No blood had flowed: the man had probably already been dead by the time he was crucified.

  As the apartment was some distance from St Peter’s Square, the affair fell into the jurisdiction of the Italian police. But the violent death of a prelate, a Vatican citizen, always puts the Italian government in an extremely delicate situation. The police superintendent – a Neapolitan, like the dead man – was highly embarrassed. Was this crucified man part of some Satanic ritual? He didn’t like it, and remarked that, after all, as the crow flies, the immaterial frontier of the Holy City was only a hundred or so yards away: so it could be considered that the Pope’s personal doctor, who would be arriving any minute now, was perfectly competent to deliver the burial permit.

  The worthy practitioner did not bother to open his suitcase: helped by the young man with the strange black eyes who had come with him, he began by carefully buttoning up Calfo’s collar, so that the traces of strangulation would no longer be visible. Then he pulled out the nails, called over the police officer, who had discreetly stepped to one side, and told him his diagnosis: cardiac arrest, an excess of pasta combined with lack of exercise. These are things that a Neapolitan understands immediately. The police officer heaved a sigh of relief, and without further delay handed the body over to the Vatican authorities.

  “Cardiac arrest,” sighed the Pope. “So he won’t have suffered? God is kind to his servants, requiescat in pace. But what about the other man, Your Eminence? There were two deaths last night, weren’t there?”

  “Indeed, and this is a much more delicate matter. This was Mgr Leeland, of whom I have already spoken to you.”

  “Leeland? The Benedictine abbot who had noisily come out in support of married priests? I remember very well, it led to him being given a promoveatur ut amoveatur and, ever since then, he’d kept quiet here in Rome.”

  “Not entirely, Your Holiness. In this very city he met a rebel monk, who communicated to him his senseless theories about the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It seems this deeply disturbed him, and doubtless led him to despair: he was found this morning, drowned, among the reeds at the edge of the Tiber, near the Cavour Bridge. It may be a suicide.”

  The doctor had not wanted to pay any more attention than did the police to the marks of strangulation around Leeland’s neck. It was obviously a steel coil that had crushed his glottis. The work of a professional. Strangely enough, the American’s face had remained serene, almost smiling.

  The old Pontiff raised his head with an effort and stared at the Cardinal.

  “Let us pray for that unfortunate Mgr Leeland, who must have suffered greatly in his soul. You will now hand on to me any letters addressed to him that might arrive. And… what about the rebel monk?”

  “Yesterday he left San Girolamo, where he had been staying for a few days, and we don’t know where he is. But it will be easy to track him down.”

  The Pope waved his hand.

  “Your Eminence, wherever do you think a monk will go to hide if not in a monastery? Anyway, don’t do anything for the time being, let’s give him time to recover the inner peace that he seems to have lost, from what you tell me.”

  Once he was back in his office, Catzinger realized that he shared the Pope’s sentiments unreservedly. Calfo’s death had taken a huge weight off him. Antonio had intervened just in time: the letter of the thirteenth apostle would remain buried away in the secret collection of the Vatican, and there was nowhere it would be safer from prying eyes. Leeland? A mere insect. One of those you brush aside with the back of your hand. And as for Nil, he was dangerous only when he was inside his abbey. Until he returned there, there was no hurry.

  That left Breczinsky: his presence within the Vatican walls was an intolerable thorn in the flesh. It reminded him at every instant of a dark episode in Germany’s history, and stoked in him a sense of collective guilt which he had been struggling against for ever. His father? He had merely been doing his duty by carrying out his mission bravely: fighting against Communism which threatened the whole world order. Was it his fault, was it the fault of any of them, if Hitler had hijacked so much nobility of spirit to establish the domination of his so-called superior race, even if it meant apocalypse?

  The Pole had been broken by his father, but that was the fate of all the vanquished. The Cardinal, without admitting it to himself, felt humiliated by a tragedy in which he had not after all taken part himself. But his father… That feeling of humiliation galvanized him in his permanent combat on behalf of the purity of Catholic doctrine. There lay his mission – he would not be part of the lineage of the vanquished. The only superior race, the only one that could win, was the race of men of faith. The Church was the last rampart against the modern apocalypse.

  Breczinsky had become hateful to him, and needed to be got rid of. Catzinger would find no peace as long as he had in front of his eyes that last witness to his own history and that of his father.

  For the time being, his energies were mobilized by one dossier
, and one alone: the canonization of Escrivá de Balaguer that was to take place in a few months’ time. The founder of Opus Dei had managed to consolidate the edifice founded on the divinity of Christ. Thanks to men of his mettle, the Church could carry on resisting.

  But he’d still need to make up his mind to perform a miracle. These things can be arranged.

  89

  The desert of the Abruzzi was just as Nil wished – and no doubt just as the thirteenth apostle had experienced it after his flight from Pella, as Jesus had experienced it after his encounter with John the Baptist on the Jordan. The hermit had pointed to a straw mattress in the corner.

  “It’s the one that Beppe uses when he spends the night here. That boy has grown attached to me as if I were the father he never knew. He doesn’t talk, but we manage to communicate all right.”

  Then he had said no more, and for several days they lived together in complete silence, sharing without a word their meals of cheese, herbs and bread on the terrace, where the mountain spoke its own language to them.

  Nil realized that the desert is first and foremost an attitude of mind and soul. One that he could have experienced just as easily at the Abbey, or in the centre of a city. A certain quality of inner asceticism, an abandonment of all the usual landmarks of social life. The extraordinary poverty of the place soon became a matter of indifference to him, to such a point that he soon ceased even to notice it. His contact with the hermit meant that he was soon sensing a very strong, warm presence, of an unsuspected richness. To begin with, he perceived it as coming from outside, from nature, from his companion. Then he realized that it was linked to another presence inside him. And that if he became attentive to it, contenting himself with observing it before welcoming it, nothing else would ever matter again. There would be no more discomfort, nor loneliness, nor fear.