Conclave (6 page)

And finally – and broadly speaking it
was
finally – there came that separate and most rarefied species of cardinal, the two dozen members of the Curia, who lived permanently in Rome and who ran the big departments of the Church. They formed in effect their own chapter inside the College, the Order of Cardinal-Deacons. Many, like Lomeli, had grace-and-favour apartments within the walls of the Vatican. Most were Italian. For them it was an easy matter to stroll across the Piazza Santa Marta carrying their suitcases. As a result, they had lingered over their lunches and were among the last to arrive. And although Lomeli greeted them just as warmly as he did the others – they were his neighbours, after all – he couldn’t help
noticing that they lacked the precious gift of
awe
he had detected in those who had travelled from across the world. Good men though they were, they were somehow knowing; they were blasé. Lomeli had recognised this spiritual disfigurement in himself. He had prayed for the strength to fight it. The late Pope used to rail against it to their faces: ‘Be on your guard, my brothers, against developing the vices of all courtiers down the ages – the sins of vanity and intrigue and of malice and gossip.’ When Bellini had confided on the day of the Holy Father’s death that the Pope had lost his faith in the Church – a revelation so shocking to Lomeli that he had tried ever since to banish it from his mind – it was surely these bureaucrats he had meant.

Yet it was the Pope who had appointed them all. Nobody had made him pick them. For example, there was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Simo Guttuso. The liberals had had such high hopes for the genial Archbishop of Florence. ‘A second Pope John XXIII,’ they had called him. But far from granting more autonomy to the bishops, which he had proclaimed as his great cause before he entered the Curia, once installed Guttuso had slowly revealed himself to be every bit as authoritarian as his predecessors, merely lazier. He had become very stout, like a figure from the Renaissance, and walked with difficulty the short distance from his huge apartment in the Palazzo San Carlo to the Casa Santa Marta, which was almost next door. His personal chaplain struggled behind him with his three suitcases.

Lomeli, eyeing the suitcases, said, ‘My dear Simo, are you trying to smuggle in your personal chef?’

‘Well, Dean, one never knows quite when one will be able to go home, does one?’ Guttuso grasped Lomeli’s hand in his two fat damp paws and added hoarsely, ‘Or even, for that matter, if one
will
be going home.’ The phrase hung in the air for several seconds, and Lomeli thought: dear God, he actually believes he might be elected; but then Guttuso winked. ‘Ah, Lomeli! Your face! Don’t worry, I’m joking. I am one man who is aware of his limitations. Unlike certain of our colleagues . . .’ He kissed Lomeli on either cheek and waddled past him. Lomeli watched him pause in the doorway to recover his breath and then disappear into the Casa Santa Marta.

He guessed it had been lucky for Guttuso that the Holy Father had died when he did. Another few months and Lomeli was sure he would have been asked to resign. ‘I want a Church that is poor,’ the Pope had complained more than once in Lomeli’s hearing. ‘I want a Church that is closer to the people. Guttuso has a good soul but he has forgotten where he came from.’ He had quoted Matthew: ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ Lomeli reckoned the Holy Father had had it in mind to remove almost half the senior men he had appointed. Bill Rudgard, for example, who arrived soon after Guttuso: he might come from New York and look like a Wall Street banker, but he had failed entirely to gain control over the financial management of his department, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (‘Between you, me and the bedpost, I should never have given the job to an American. They are so innocent: they have no idea how bribery works. Did you know that the going rate for a beatification is said to be three quarters of a million euros? The only miracle is that anyone pays it . . .’).

As for the next man to enter the Casa Santa Marta, Cardinal Tutino, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, he would surely have gone in the New Year. He had been exposed in the press for spending half a million euros knocking two apartments together to create a place big enough to house the three nuns and the chaplain
he felt necessary to serve him. Tutino had been given such a mauling in the media, he looked like the survivor of a physical attack. Someone had leaked his private emails. He was obsessed with finding out who. He moved furtively. He glanced over his shoulder. He found it hard to meet Lomeli’s eyes. After only the most cursory of greetings, he slipped into the Casa, ostentatiously carrying his belongings in a cheap plastic holdall.

By five o’clock it was becoming dark. As the sun dipped, the air chilled. Lomeli asked how many of the cardinals had yet to arrive. O’Malley consulted his list. ‘Fourteen, Your Eminence.’

‘So a hundred and three of our sheep are safely in the pen before nightfall. Rocco,’ he said, turning to his priest, ‘would you be so kind as to bring me my scarf?’

The helicopter had moved away, but the last of the demonstrators could still be heard. There was a steady, rhythmic beating of drums.

He said, ‘I wonder where Cardinal Tedesco has got to?’

O’Malley said, ‘Perhaps he isn’t coming.’

‘That would be too much to hope! Ah, forgive me. That was uncharitable.’ He could hardly admonish the Secretary of the College for lacking respect if he didn’t show it himself. He must remember to confess his sin.

Father Zanetti returned with his scarf just as Cardinal Tremblay appeared, walking alone from the direction of the Apostolic Palace. Slung over his shoulder was his choir dress in a dry-cleaner’s cellophane wrapper. In his right hand he swung a Nike sports bag. It was the image he had projected ever since the Holy Father’s funeral: a Pope for the modern age – unpretentious, informal,
accessible – even though not one hair of that magnificent silvery helmet beneath his red zucchetto was ever out of place. Lomeli had expected the Canadian’s candidacy to fade after the first couple of days. But Tremblay knew how to keep his name before the media. As Camerlengo, he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Church until a new pontiff was elected. There was not much to do. Nevertheless, he called daily meetings of the cardinals in the Synod Hall and held press conferences afterwards, and soon articles began appearing, quoting ‘Vatican sources’, saying how much his skilful management had impressed his colleagues. And he had another, more tangible means of ingratiating himself. It was to him, as Prefect of the Congregation for Evangelisation of Peoples, that the cardinals from the developing world, especially the poorer countries, came for funds, not just for their missionary work but for their living expenses in Rome during the time between the Pope’s funeral and the Conclave. It was hard not to be impressed. If a man had that strong a sense of destiny, perhaps he had indeed been chosen? Perhaps he had been given a sign, invisible to the rest of them? It was certainly invisible to Lomeli.

‘Joe, welcome.’

‘Jacopo,’ said Tremblay amiably, and lifted his arms with a smile of apology, to show that he couldn’t shake hands.

If he wins, Lomeli promised himself as soon as the Canadian had passed, I shall be gone from Rome the very next day.

He knotted his black woollen scarf around his neck and thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his overcoat. He stamped his feet against the cobbles.

Zanetti said, ‘We could wait indoors, Your Eminence.’

‘No, I’d prefer to get some fresh air while I still can.’

Cardinal Bellini didn’t appear until half past five. Lomeli noticed
his tall, thin figure moving through the shadows around the edge of the piazza. He was pulling a suitcase with one hand. In the other he carried a thick black briefcase so crammed with books and papers it would not properly close. His head was bowed in meditation. By general agreement, Bellini had emerged as the favourite to succeed to the throne of St Peter. Lomeli wondered what thoughts must be passing through his mind at the prospect. He was far too lofty for gossip or intrigue. The Pope’s strictures about the Curia had not applied to him. He had worked so hard as Secretary of State that his officials had been obliged to provide him with a second shift of assist-ants to come on duty at six every evening and stay with him until the early hours. More than any other member of the College he had the physical and mental capacity to be Pope. And he was a man of prayer. Lomeli had made up his mind to vote for him, although he had been careful not to say so, and Bellini had been too fastidious to ask him. The ex-Secretary was so wrapped up in his thoughts he seemed likely to walk straight past the welcoming party. But at the last minute he remembered where he was, glanced up and wished them all good evening. His face looked more than usually pale and drawn. ‘Am I the last?’

‘Not quite. How are you, Aldo?’

‘Oh, fairly dreadful!’ He managed a thin-lipped smile and drew Lomeli aside. ‘Well, you’ve read today’s newspapers – how else would you expect me to be? I’ve twice meditated on the
Spiritual Exercises
of St Ignatius just to try to keep my feet on the ground.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen the press, and if you want my advice, you’d be wise to ignore all these self-appointed “experts”. Leave it to God, my friend. If it’s His will, it will happen; if not, not.’

‘But I’m not merely God’s passive instrument, Jacopo. I have some say in the matter. He gave us free will.’ He lowered his voice so
that the others couldn’t hear. ‘It’s not that I want it, you understand? No sane man could possibly want the papacy.’

‘Some of our colleagues seem to.’

‘Well then they’re fools, or worse. We both saw what it did to the Holy Father. It’s a Calvary.’

‘Nevertheless, you should prepare yourself. The way things are going, it may well fall to you.’

‘But what if I don’t want it? What if I know in my heart I’m not worthy?’

‘Nonsense. You’re more worthy than any of us.’

‘I am not.’

‘Then tell your supporters not to vote for you. Pass the chalice to someone else.’

A tortured look passed across Bellini’s face. ‘And let it go to
him
?’ He nodded down the hill to where a squat, bulky, almost square figure was marching up the slope towards them, his shape rendered all the more comical by the tall, plumed Swiss Guards flanking him. ‘
He
has no doubts. He’s perfectly ready to undo all the progress we’ve made these past sixty years. How am I to live with myself if I don’t try to stop him?’ And without waiting for a reply, he hurried into the Casa Santa Marta, leaving Lomeli to face the Patriarch of Venice.

Cardinal Goffredo Tedesco was the least clerical-looking cleric Lomeli had ever seen. If you showed his picture to someone who didn’t know him, they would say he was a retired butcher, perhaps, or a bus driver. He came from a peasant family in Basilicata, right down in the south, the youngest of twelve children – the kind of huge family that used to be so common in Italy but had almost vanished since the end of the Second World War. His nose had been broken in his youth and was bulbous and slightly bent. His hair was
too long and roughly parted. He had shaved carelessly. In the fading light he reminded Lomeli of a figure from another century: Gioachino Rossini, perhaps. But the rustic image was an act. He had two degrees in theology, spoke five languages fluently, and had been a protégé of Ratzinger’s at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where he had been known as the Panzer Cardinal’s enforcer. Tedesco had kept well clear of Rome ever since the Pope’s funeral, pleading a severe cold. Of course nobody believed him. He scarcely needed any more publicity, and his absence added to his mystique.

‘Apologies, Dean. My train was delayed in Venice.’

‘Are you well?’

‘Oh, not too bad – but is one ever really well at our age?’

‘We’ve missed you, Goffredo.’

‘No doubt.’ He laughed. ‘Alas, it couldn’t be helped. But my friends have kept me well informed. I’ll see you later, Dean. No, no, my dear fellow,’ he said to the Swiss Guard, ‘give me that,’ and so, a man of the people to the last, he insisted on carrying his own bag inside.

AT A QUARTER
to six, the Archbishop Emeritus of Kiev, Vadym Yatsenko, was pushed up the slope in a wheelchair. O’Malley made an exaggerated tick on his clipboard and declared that all 117 cardinals were now safely gathered in.

Relieved and moved, Lomeli bowed his head and closed his eyes. The seven officials of the Conclave immediately followed suit. ‘Heavenly Father,’ he said, ‘Maker of heaven and earth, You have chosen us to be Your people. Help us to give You glory in everything we do. Bless this Conclave and guide it in wisdom, bring us, Your servants, together, and help us to meet one another in love and joy. Father, we praise Your name now and forever. Amen.’

‘Amen.’

He turned towards the Casa Santa Marta. Now that all the shutters were locked, not a gleam of light escaped the upper floors. In the darkness it had become a bunker. Only the entrance was illuminated. Behind the thick bulletproof glass, priests and security men moved silently in the yellowish glow like creatures in an aquarium.

Lomeli was almost at the door when someone touched his arm. Zanetti said, ‘Eminence, remember Archbishop Woźniak is waiting to see you.’

‘Oh yes – Janusz; I’d forgotten him. He’s cutting it a bit fine, isn’t he?’

‘He knows he has to be gone by six, Eminence.’

‘Where is he?’

‘I asked him to wait in one of the downstairs meeting rooms.’

Lomeli acknowledged the salute of the Swiss Guard and entered the warmth of the hostel. He followed Zanetti across the lobby, unbuttoning his coat as he walked. After the healthy cold of the piazza, it felt uncomfortably hot. Between the marble pillars, several small groups of cardinals stood talking. He smiled at them as he passed. Who
were
they? His memory was going. When he was a Papal Nuncio, he could remember the names of all his fellow diplomats, and of their wives and even their children. Now every conversation came freighted with the threat of embarrassment.