Daniel Silva GABRIEL ALLON Novels 1-4 (93 page)

“What sort of inconsistencies?”

“Inconsistencies about the date of your mother’s death. How old you were when you were orphaned. Where you stayed. Who cared for you. He is an enterprising reporter, a constant thorn in the side of the secretariat. He manages to uncover things that we’ve done our best to bury. I have reiterated to my staff that no one is to talk to him without the approval of the Press Office, but somehow—”

“People are talking to him.”

“That appears to be the case, Holiness.”

The Pope pushed away his empty plate and exhaled heavily. It had been his intention to release the full details of his childhood in the days after the conclave, but there were those in the Curia and the Press Office who
thought the world was not ready for a street-urchin pope, a boy who had lived by his wits and his fists until he was drawn to the breast of the Church. It was an example of the very culture of secrecy and deceit Lucchesi so despised about the Vatican, but in the opening days of his papacy he had been unwilling to waste valuable political capital, so he reluctantly agreed to paper over some of the less saintly details of his upbringing.

“It was a mistake to tell the world that I grew up in Padua, in a loving home filled with much devotion to Christ and the Virgin, before entering the seminary at fifteen. Your friend from
La Repubblica
is going to find the truth.”

“Let me deal with
La Repubblica
. We have ways of bringing wayward journalists into line.”

“Such as?”

“Banning them from accompanying Your Holiness on foreign trips. Locking them out of press briefings. Revoking their privileges at the Press Office.”

“That seems awfully harsh.”

“I doubt it will come to that. I’m sure we can convince him of the truth.”

“Which truth is that?”

“That you were raised in Padua, in a loving home filled with much devotion to Christ and the Virgin.” Brindisi smiled and brushed an invisible bread crumb from his cassock. “But when one is battling this sort of thing, it can be helpful to have the complete picture so that we know what we’re up against.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“A brief memorandum. It will be seen by no one in the Curia but myself and will be used by me only in the preparation of a defense—should one be warranted.”

“Did you learn those tactics studying Canon Law, Marco?”

Brindisi smiled. “Some things are universal, Holiness.”

“A memorandum will be forthcoming.”

The Pope and the cardinal stopped talking as a pair of nuns cleared the table and served espresso. The Pope stirred sugar into his coffee slowly, then looked up at Brindisi.

“I have something I wish to discuss as well. It concerns the matter we discussed some months ago—my initiative to continue the process of healing the rift between the Church and the Jews.”

“How interesting, Holiness.” A man who had spent his career climbing the bureaucratic ladder of the Curia, Brindisi’s tone was skillfully noncommittal.

“As part of that initiative, I intend to commission a study of the Church’s response to the Holocaust. All relevant documents in the Secret Vatican Archives will be made available for review, and this time we will not tie the hands of the historians and experts we select for this project.”

Cardinal Brindisi’s already pale face shed any remnant of color. He made a church steeple of his forefingers and pressed it to his lips, trying to regain his composure before mounting his challenge. “As you well remember, Holiness, your predecessor commissioned a study and presented it to the world in 1998. I see no need to repeat the work of the Pole when there are so many other—and I dare say more important—issues confronting the Church at this time.”

“
We Remember
? It should have been called
We Apologize
—or
We Beg Forgiveness
. It did not go far enough, neither in its soul-searching nor in its search for the truth. It was yet another insult to the very people whose wounds we wished to heal. What did it say? The Church did nothing wrong. We tried to help. Some of us helped
more than others. The Germans did the actual killing, not us, but we are sorry in any case. It is a shameful document.”

“Some might consider it shameful that you are speaking this way about the work of a predecessor.”

“I have no intention of condemning the efforts of the Pole. His heart was in the right place, but I suspect he did not have the full support of the Curia”—
from men like you,
thought Lucchesi—“which is why the document ended up saying little if anything at all. Out of respect for the Pole, I will portray the new study as a continuation of his good work.”

“Another study will be seen as an implicit criticism, no matter how you attempt to render it.”

“You were on the panel that drafted
We Remember,
were you not?”

“I was indeed, Holiness.”

“Ten years to write fourteen pages.”

“Consideration and accuracy take time.”

“So does whitewash.”

“I object to—”

The Pope cut him off. “Do you oppose revisiting the issue because you fear it will bring shame upon the Church, or because you calculate it will damage your chances of taking my place when I’m gone?”

Brindisi lowered his hands and lifted his eyes to the ceiling for a moment, as if preparing himself for a reading from the Gospel. “I oppose
revisiting
the issue because it will do nothing but give more ammunition to those who wish to destroy us.”

“Our continued deception and evasion is more risky. If we do not speak forcefully and honestly, the work of our enemies will be accomplished by our own hand. We will destroy ourselves.”

“If I may speak forcefully and honestly, Holiness,
your naïveté in this matter is shocking. Nothing the Church can say will ever satisfy those who condemn us. In fact, it will only add fuel to the fire. I cannot allow you to tread on the reputation of popes and the Church with this folly. Pius the Twelfth deserves sainthood, not another crucifixion.”

Pietro Lucchesi had yet to be seduced by the trappings of papal power, but the blatant insubordination of Brindisi’s remark stirred his anger. He forced himself to speak calmly. Even so, there was an edge of rage and condescension in his voice that was plain to the man seated on the other side of the table. “I can assure you, Marco, that those who wish for Pius to be canonized will have to pin their hopes on the outcome of the next conclave.”

The cardinal ran a long, spidery finger around the rim of his coffee cup, steeling himself for one more assault on the ridge. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “The Pole apologized on numerous occasions for the sins of some of the Church’s sons and daughters. Other prelates have apologized as well. Some, such as our brethren in France, have gone much further than I would have preferred. But the Jews and their friends in the media will not be satisfied until we admit that we were
wrong
—that His Holiness Pope Pius the Twelfth, a great and saintly man, was
wrong
. What they do not understand—and what you seem to be forgetting, Holiness—is that the Church, as the embodiment of Christ on earth, cannot be
wrong
. The Church is truth itself. If we admit that the Church, or a pope, was wrong…” He left his sentence unfinished, then added: “It would be an error for you to go forward with this initiative of yours, Holiness. A
grave
error.”

“Behind these walls, Marco,
error
is a loaded word. Surely it is not your intention to level such an accusation at me.”

“I have no intention of parsing my words, Holiness.”

“And what if the documents contained in the Secret Archives tell a different story?”

“Those documents must never be released.”

“I am the only one with the power to release documents from the Secret Archives, and I have decided that it will be done.”

The cardinal fingered his pectoral cross. “When do you intend to announce this…
initiative
?”

“Next week.”

“Where?”

“Across the river,” the Pope said. “At the Great Synagogue.”

“Out of the question! The Curia hasn’t had time to give the matter the thought and preparation it deserves.”

“I’m seventy-two years old. I don’t have time to wait for the mandarins of the Curia to give the matter thought and preparation. That, I’m afraid, is how things are buried and forgotten. The rabbi and I have spoken. I’m going to the ghetto next week, with or without the support of the Curia—or my secretary of state, for that matter. The truth, Eminence, shall make us free.”

“And you, the street-urchin pope from the Veneto, pretend to know the truth.”

“Only God knows the truth, Marco, but Thomas Aquinas wrote of a cultivated ignorance, an
ignorantia affectata
. A willful lack of knowledge designed to protect one from the harm. It is time to shed our
ignorantia affectata
. Our Savior said that he was the light of the world, but here in the Vatican, we live in darkness. I intend to turn on the lights.”

“My memory seems to be playing tricks on me, Holiness, but it is my recollection of the conclave that we elected a
Catholic
Pope.”

“You did, Eminence, but you also elected a human one.”

“If it were not for
me,
you would still be wearing red.”

“It is the Holy Spirit who chooses popes. We just cast his ballots.”

“Another example of your shocking naïveté.”

“Will you be at my side next week in Trastevere?”

“I believe I’m going to be suffering from the flu next week.” The cardinal stood up abruptly. “Thank you, Holiness. Another pleasant meal.”

“Until next Friday?”

“That remains to be seen.”

The Pope held out his hand. Cardinal Brindisi looked down at the fisherman’s ring shining in the lamplight, then turned around and walked out without kissing it.

FATHER DONATI
listened to the quarrel between the Holy Father and the cardinal from the adjoining pantry. When Brindisi had gone, he entered the dining room and found the Pope looking tired and drawn, eyes closed, thumb and forefinger squeezing the bridge of his nose. Father Donati sat in the cardinal’s chair and pushed away the half-drunk cup of espresso.

“I know that must have been unpleasant, Holiness, but it was necessary.”

The Pope finally looked up. “We have just disturbed a sleeping cobra, Luigi.”

“Yes, Holiness.” Donati leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Now let us pray that in its rage, the cobra makes a miscalculation and bites itself.”

6
MUNICH

G
ABRIEL SPENT THE BETTER PART
of the following morning trying to track down Doctor Helmut Berger, chairman of the department of modern history at Ludwig-Maximilian University. He left two messages on the professor’s home answering machine, a second on his cellular phone, and a third with a surly secretary in the department. Over lunch in the shadowed courtyard of the hotel, he considered waiting in ambush outside the professor’s office. Then the concierge appeared with a message slip in his hand. The good professor had agreed to meet with Herr Landau at six-thirty at a restaurant called the Gastätte Atzinger on the Amalienstrasse.

That left five hours to kill. The afternoon was clear and blustery, so Gabriel decided to take a walk. Leaving the hotel, he wandered up a narrow cobblestone street that led to the southern end of the English Gardens. He moved slowly along the footpaths, beside shaded streams, across broad sunlit lawns. In the distance the thousand-foot spire of the Olympia Tower sparkled against the crystalline blue sky. Gabriel lowered his gaze and kept walking.

Leaving the park, he drifted through Schwabing. In the Adalbertstrasse he saw Frau Ratzinger sweeping the steps of No. 68. He had no wish to speak to the old woman again, so he rounded a corner and headed in the opposite direction. Every few minutes he would look up and glimpse the tower, looming before him, growing larger by degrees.

Ten minutes later, he found himself at the southern edge of the village. In many ways Olympiapark was just that: a village, a vast residential area, complete with its own railway station, its own post office, even its own mayor. The cement-block bungalows and apartment houses had not aged gracefully. In an attempt to brighten up the place, many of the units had been painted in bright tie-dye patterns.

He came upon the Connollystrasse. It was not a street, really, but a pedestrian walkway lined with small three-story apartment houses. At No. 31 he stopped walking. On the second floor, a bare-chested teenager stepped onto the balcony to shake out a throw rug. Gabriel’s memory flashed. Instead of a young German, he saw a Palestinian in a balaclava. Then a woman emerged from the ground-floor apartment, pushing a stroller and clutching a child to her breast. For an instant, Gabriel saw Issa, leader of the Black September team, his face covered in boot polish, swaggering about in his safari suit and golf hat.

The woman looked at Gabriel as though she was used to strangers standing outside her home with disbelieving expressions on their faces.
Yes,
she seemed to be saying.
Yes, this is the place where it happened. But now it’s my home, so please go.
She seemed to sense something else in his gaze—something that unnerved her—and she quickly strapped the child into the stroller and headed toward a playground.

Gabriel climbed a grassy hillock and sat in the cool grass. Usually when the memories came, he tried desperately to push them away, but now he unchained the door and allowed them to enter.
Romano… Springer… Spitzer… Slavin…
the faces of the dead flashed through his memory. Eleven in all. Two killed in the takeover. Nine more during the bungled German rescue attempt at Fürstenfeldbruck. Golda Meir wanted revenge of Biblical proportions—an eye for an eye—and she ordered the Office to “send forth the boys” to hunt down the members of Black September who had plotted the attack. A brash operations officer named Ari Shamron was placed in charge of the mission, and one of the boys he came for was a promising young student at Jerusalem’s Betsal’el School of Art named Gabriel Allon.