The Omega Scroll (15 page)

‘Swim before lunch?’

Allegra’s peace was suddenly shattered. ‘Giovanni …’ She hung her head. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you. I can’t …’

Giovanni was suddenly concerned and he took her gently by the shoulders. ‘Can’t what? Is something wrong?’

‘I can’t—’ she stammered. ‘I can’t swim,’ she blurted out and coloured with embarrassment.

Giovanni gently lifted her chin with his finger so their eyes met.

‘My fault. And I could kick myself. I should have realised that when you said this was your first time in a boat. Were you really saying this is your first time on the coast?’

Allegra nodded.

‘Hey,’ he said quietly. ‘Think of it as another one of life’s little adventures. If you feel up to it we’ll just wade in up to here.’ Giovanni measured his hand against Allegra’s slender waist. ‘And I’ll give you your first lesson, deal?’

Allegra nodded again, still miserable.

‘Only if you smile.’

‘Thank you,’ she said gratefully.

He took her hand and guided her down to the water’s edge. ‘It’s pretty natural to feel nervous but trust me, if you need to you can reach the bottom. The first thing I will show you is how to float. Watch this.’

Allegra followed him into the warm water and with Giovanni’s hands supporting her, she allowed herself to be coaxed onto her back. Then she panicked and flung her arms around him, coughing and spluttering.

‘I’ve got you. I’ve got you.
Rilarssasi
. Relax,’ he said softly, holding her.

‘You must think I’m such an idiot,’ she said, her head down, arms still around his neck.

‘You should have seen me on the end of a rope off the breakwater with Papà holding the other end. I was terrified.’

His voice was steady and reassuring but as Allegra raised her head her thoughts were thrown into confusion. Carlo had been a terrible transgression but somehow this was different. This seemed like a natural force that was overwhelmingly strong. How could something that felt this right be so wrong in the eyes of the Church.

‘Want to try again?’ Giovanni’s voice sounded strangely hoarse as Allegra laid back in his arms. At first he supported her and then he slowly let her sink until the only thing holding her up was the Tyrrhenian, and a trust in this man who seemed even more pleased than she was at her achievement.

Back on the beach the sun was warm on Allegra’s shoulders as she opened the picnic basket Giovanni’s mother had packed.

‘Olives, smoked fish, fresh bread, pickled onions – your mother must have thought we were coming for a week!’

‘Now that would start people talking,’ he said, handing her a plastic cup. Little rivulets of condensation dribbled down the sides of the bottle of Bianco Malvasia as Giovanni filled their glasses.

‘
Salute!
’

‘
Salute!
And thank you for the swimming lesson,’ she said, conscious again of how close they were sitting.

‘You were a natural. Well, almost,’ he said, his blue eyes dancing as Allegra grinned sceptically. ‘Another couple of lessons and you’ll be swimming the bay from point to point.’

‘Can we come back here again one day?’ Allegra asked, handing Giovanni a roll with a little of everything from his mother’s hamper.

‘Probably, although it is hard on both of us,
non è vero
?’ Giovanni mused, for the first time putting his own inner struggle into words.

Allegra nodded, acknowledging her own feelings. ‘Why did you become a priest, Giovanni?’

‘That part wasn’t hard. A deep love for the Church. A need to give my best to those around me, and the fact that I would follow Christ wherever he sent me,’ he said, smiling warmly.

‘Do you know where he is going to send you?’

‘No. And I think that is only revealed bit by bit. Who knows where we will end up after university?’

‘It would be nice if we could finish up somewhere together,’ she responded, the wine dissolving her inhibitions.

Giovanni took Allegra’s cup and put it next to his on the sand. His lips were salty as she moulded herself against his body. Giovanni held her more tightly and she found herself responding, willingly. Allegra found herself searching out Giovanni’s tongue with her own.

‘Oh, Giovanni.’

Giovanni was torn.

‘Allegra,’ Giovanni whispered. He fumbled with the clip on her swimsuit and she reached around to help him. Her small breasts were wet with beads of saltwater, her nipples hard and erect. Allegra groaned as he licked them softly and gently took them in his mouth.

That night both had knelt for a long time asking forgiveness.
Accettazione
. Now they lay awake. Confused and uncertain. Allegra stared out of her window at the night sky. Her room was upstairs, next to Giovanni’s at the front of the house. The lights from the marina were subdued and a light breeze feathered the Tyrrhenian below.

Why? she asked her God for the hundredth time. Why was this so wrong? She knew the episode with Carlo had been wrong, but this was so different.
Testarda
. Brilliant, gentle Giovanni, and so much fun to be around. He was someone she felt she could spend the rest of her life with, helping him achieve whatever it was that God wished him to achieve. Someone from whom she had learned so much. Someone with whom she was now deeply in love. Yet the Church forbade it. Why? Allegra began to sob, silently. Sobs born of desperation and frustration, and an increasing questioning of her faith.

In his room Giovanni was on his knees again praying for forgiveness to a God who, tonight, seemed very, very distant, silent, immoveable. He had asked for forgiveness, but he felt alienated because his feelings for Allegra were stronger than ever. Alienation from his God was new territory for Giovanni. He tried to distance his heart from his head, but that didn’t help. As a young seminarian he had accepted celibacy without too much thought. It had not seemed an extreme price to pay to serve Christ, until now. Giovanni opened his eyes and stared up into the night sky and the galaxies that stretched for billions of light years. Years of study, as both a theologian and as a scientist, had caused him to think more deeply, and never more deeply than tonight, struggling with the Church’s hypocrisy on sex. A Church that taught one thing, yet often secretly practised another. Giovanni knew that many Catholics were unaware that for a thousand years after Christ, Catholic priests had been happily married and were more effective because of it. Then in 1074 Pope Gregory VII, while keeping a mistress himself, had decreed that priests could only owe allegiance to the Church. Thousands of married priests ‘were to be freed from the influence of their wives’ and divorced. Giovanni also knew there was a more sinister reasoning behind the damaging policy of celibacy; the early Church had moved to protect her vast holdings of property because there had been a danger at law that the children of priests might inherit that property and deprive the Church of an accumulation of wealth.

Christ had absolutely nothing to say about celibacy. Never even thought it worthy of a mention, other than that he had chosen not to marry – or had he? The Church always downplayed Christ’s enjoyment of the company of women. Giovanni reflected on Luke’s description of Jesus travelling through the towns and cities of the Holy Land with several women among his disciples. ‘Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others – who provided for him out of their resources.’ All this in a culture where it was forbidden to speak to a woman in public, let alone travel with them. Jesus was charismatic, spiritual and a gifted speaker, and he treated women as equals. No wonder they were attracted to him. Perhaps Mary Magdalene’s relationship with Jesus was much deeper than the Church allowed. Perhaps the hypocrisy of the Church on sex and the role of women in religion covered up something that was more spiritually balanced. A sense of harmony between male and female that was a crucial element to the patterns of creation, as Professor Rosselli had hinted at in his lectures.

When sleep came, it was fitful. Giovanni drifted in and out of a drowsy wakefulness, deeply troubled. Somewhere along the line the Faith had become perverted by a male hierarchy intent on increasing their power. The Church had somehow corrupted Christ’s message, of which celibacy was but one element. It didn’t have to be that way.

Giovanni changed gears three times from fourth down to second before he had to stop the Fiat on one of Maratea’s notorious hairpin bends. The gearbox grated and protested as he searched for low gear. An awkward silence had settled over Allegra and Giovanni, broken only by the protests of the little car as they ground up the valley between the mountains in the still of the early morning, the port town of Maratea and the Tyrrhenian slowly receding behind them. The crunching of the gears reflected the cranking up of Allegra’s anger at the restrictions of her Church and she was equally angry at herself for dreaming about a partnership with Giovanni. Why did the Church try to overrule human emotion, and had it always been that way? Perhaps the Omega Scroll did give some insight into a more human Church, a Church that recognised human nature and what people felt in their lives.

‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ Giovanni said, interrupting her thoughts.

‘Are you?’ she snapped, angry that Giovanni should be sorry for what they both felt for each other, something that was so natural between them. Rebellion had surfaced again, but this time even stronger than before.
Molta testarda
.

Giovanni was taken aback by Allegra’s response. It wasn’t like her. He felt a shift in Allegra, a strength and determination starting to surface within her.

‘I’m sorry too,’ Allegra said, finally controlling her anger. ‘For the way I sounded. It’s just that I’m not sorry for how I feel and how we responded to each other.’

Giovanni didn’t reply immediately. ‘Me neither,’ he said. ‘But it can’t happen again. We both know that.’

‘I know, but that doesn’t mean we can’t see each other,’ she said defiantly.

Giovanni took one hand off the wheel and reached out for hers. ‘Of course not. There’s no rule against pasta on a Friday night. But … there’s nothing I want more than to be back on that beach with you, but that is too difficult for both of us.’ Giovanni hesitated. ‘I love you, Allegra.’

Allegra turned to face him, her brown eyes gentle.

‘I love you too, Giovanni.’

BOOK THREE

1985

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Milano

I
t was winter. The snow during the night had been unusually heavy. In the Piazza della Scala, the stone coats of Leonardo da Vinci and other statues in the old historic centre of Milano were dusted in white. The cold snap matched the mood of the Cardinal Archbishop of Milano, Lorenzo Petroni. In a concise hand he wrote just one word on one of two documents in the morning dispatches,
Accetti
, directing his private secretary to accept the invitation to attend the graduation ceremony at the Università Statale. The second document did nothing to improve his temper. It was a letter from the Chancellor.

Eminence,

I am writing this letter because Signor Donelli and Signora Bassetti have achieved marvellous results in Philosophy, Archaeology and Chemistry …

The reference to Catholic students as
Signor
and
Signora
irritated Petroni, but it was the Chancellor’s description of the pilot program as a brilliant success that annoyed him intensely. It didn’t surprise Petroni that Father Donelli had achieved the University Medal for Philosophy, but at least the problem of what to do with him next had been solved. There had been some initial surprise when Petroni had suggested posting Father Donelli to the Middle East, but there were more pressing issues in Rome than the posting of a young priest to Israel. An ageing Cardinal Secretary of State had acquiesced with a shrug of his shoulders.

But how to deal with the nun from Tricarico? She could not so easily be dispatched to some far-flung corner of Catholicism without some eyebrows being raised. Sister Bassetti was to be awarded the University Medal for Archaeology and the University Medal for Chemistry. How could a woman achieve this? This signalled a danger for the Holy Church. Trying to control his frustration Cardinal Petroni reflected on Genesis. In the Garden of Eden Woman had been responsible for the Fall of Man and all women needed to realise that like the snail that carries its house on its back, a woman had been put into the realm of Man to manage his household and to provide sex for the procreation of mankind. In his next report to the Pope, Petroni had already decided to describe the education program as ‘an interesting experiment’. This would be accompanied with a strong recommendation for a return to the normal Catholic channels of education that had appropriate controls in place.

As he studied Allegra’s photograph that had now found its place on the inside cover of her file, Petroni grew thoughtful. Dark brown eyes and black hair, a tanned oval face; a very beautiful young nun who was obviously academically gifted was an interesting combination. Perhaps it was time to get better acquainted with Sister Bassetti. Madonna, whore – Petroni could always see advantages in any situation. The religious conundrum would be a perfect one to explore. Petroni’s eyes narrowed as he chanted the words of the apostle Paul to the Ephesians: ‘Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is head of the Church.’ The hum of the wise words of Paul soothed him. It was time to put Sister Allegra Bassetti in her place.

Allegra pulled her coat tightly around her as snow was still falling lightly on the thickly covered grounds of the university. The summons to dinner had been delivered that morning by Cardinal Petroni’s driver and, try as she might, Allegra had not been able to come up with an excuse to refuse the invitation from the powerful Cardinal. She made her way through the now familiar cloisters surrounding the quadrangles of the main square towards Ca’ Granda’s main entrance. Giovanni had only been gone two days and she missed him more than she thought possible. It had been hard, but they had honoured the pact they’d made on the way back from their fateful visit to Maratea. For her part, Allegra had thrown herself into her studies and the increasing number of High Distinctions and Distinctions were impressive. Delving into the intricacies of biochemistry, the exquisite phosphodiester bonding and nucleotides of DNA, and the development of life on Earth from a single primordial cell line intrigued her. The more she learned, the more she realised that the creation story of Adam and Eve didn’t gel.

Giovanni and Allegra had agreed to try to not be alone together, or if they found themselves in one or the other’s room, they would leave the door open. Friday nights were always a big danger. Discussions over pasta and a few glasses of wine on anything from the origins of humankind to Christ’s relationship with Mary Magdalene had nearly brought them undone on more than one occasion. Somehow they had managed to transcend the love they had for each other, and that love had grown into something even more powerful. They became closer than ever. Now he was gone, of all places to somewhere in the West Bank of the Occupied Territories of Israel. It was a posting that made absolutely no sense at all, and he’d been sent there the moment he completed his last exam. Giovanni had asked for a week’s leave but the Cardinal Archbishop of Milano had been adamant he was needed there immediately. Beyond Ca’ Granda’s stone archways she could see the shiny black Volvo and Cardinal Petroni’s driver.