The Clowns of God (37 page)

“On the contrary,” said Jean Marie firmly.

“I’m called to give witness, to offer the gifts of faith and hope and loving.

What you do with them is your most private affair.” His tone changed to one of pleading and desperate persuasion.

“Pierre, my friend, you’ve helped me. I want to help you. What your wife called the ‘caress of life’ is something very real. I felt it today when this girl, who looks like a caricature of womanhood, laid her hand on mine and invited me into her special world. This great stoic courage of yours is so so barren, so desperately sad!”

“I’m in a sad business,” said Pierre Duhamel with arctic humour.

“I’m a funeral director, preparing the obsequies of civilisation. That demands a certain grand style… Which reminds me. Tomorrow I shall be asked to sign a document requiring Grade A surveillance of a certain Jean Marie Barette.”

“Classified as what?”

“Anti-government agitator.”

“And you will sign it?”

“Of course. But I’ll hold it up for a few hours so that you can make suitable arrangements.”

“I’ll leave here tomorrow morning.”

“Before you go,” Duhamel handed him a slip of paper, “call this number. Petrov wants to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Bread, politics and a few fantasies of his own.”

“When we met in Rome I liked him. Can I still trust him?”

“Not as far as you can trust me. But you’ll find him much more agreeable.” For the first time he relaxed. He held the cosmos-cup in his hands and turned it round and round, studying all the details of the etching. Finally he said; “We will drink from it, Paulette and I. We’ll think of you and the little bossue on the Place du Tertre. Who knows? It’s good enough theatre to suspend our disbelief. But, you understand, this is the bad time the day of the black battalions. If you fall into their hands, I can’t help you at all.”

“What does your President think of all this?”

“Our President? For God’s sake! He’s the same as every other president, prime minister, party leader, duce or caudillo. He’s got the flag tattooed on his back and the party manifesto on his chest, if you ask him why we have to go to war, he’ll tell you that war is a cyclic phenomenon, or you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs or God rot him in hell war is the archetypal orgasm: agony, ecstasy, and the long, long quiet afterwards. I’ve often wondered why I shouldn’t kill him before I kill myself.”

“Why do you stay then?”

“Because if I weren’t there, who else would get you your passport and who else would tell what goes on in the madhouse? I must go now! Make sure you’ve gone too, before midday tomorrow!”

Jean Marie Barette reached out and clamped firm hands on Duhamel’s broad shoulders.

“At least, my friend, give me time to thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” said Pierre Duhamel.

“Just pray for me.

I’m not sure how much more I can take!”

When he had gone, Jean Marie dialled the number for Sergei Petrov. A woman’s voice answered, in French. A moment later Petrov was on the line.

“Who is this?”

“Duhamel gave me a message to call you.”

“Oh yes! Thank you for being so prompt. We should meet and talk. We have interests in common.”

“I believe we may have. Where do you suggest we meet. I may be under surveillance. Does that bother you?”

“Not greatly.” The news did not seem to surprise him too much.

“So, let me think! Tomorrow at eleven, does that suit you?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s meet at the Hotel Meurice, Room 580. Come straight up. I’ll be waiting for you.”

“I have all that. Until tomorrow then.”

But over the rest of tomorrow and all the days afterwards there was still a very large question mark. Before the surveillance began, he had to find himself a bolt-hole, a place where he could sleep secure, from which he could communicate and travel quickly. Alain could help; but that relationship was already uneasy, and Odette was no model of discretion. He was still ruminating over the problem when the telephone rang. Madame Saracini was on the line. She was cheerful and abrupt.

“I told you I wanted to talk to you again. When and where can we meet?”

Jean Marie hesitated for a moment and then told her: “I’ve been informed by a reliable source that as of tomorrow I shall be under Grade A surveillance as an anti-government agitator.”

“That’s madness!”

“It is, however, a fact. So I need a secure place to stay for a while. Can you help me?”

The answer came back without a second’s hesitation.

“Of course! How soon could you be ready to move?”

“In ten minutes.”

“It will take me forty-five minutes to get to you. Pack your bag. Pay the bill. Be waiting at the front entrance.”

Before he had time to thank her, she had rung off. He packed his few belongings, explained to the patron ne that a sudden change in his personal situation dictated his brusque departure, paid his account, then sat down to read his breviary until Madame Saracini arrived. He felt very calm, very trustful. Step by step he was being led to the proving ground. By a curious trick of association Saracini, Malavolti, Benincasa, we Sienese he was reminded of the words which the twenty-five-year-old Catherine had written to Gregory XI at Avignon: “It is no longer time to sleep, because Time never sleeps, but passes like the wind … In order to reconstruct the whole, it is necessary to destroy the old, right down to the foundations…”

The woman who picked him up at the entrance to the Hostellerie looked ten years younger than Madame Saracini, president of the Banco Ambrogiano all’ Estero. She wore slacks and a silk blouse and a headscarf, and drove a convertible, custom-built by the most famous Italian designer. She locked his suitcase into the trunk and whisked him away with a scream of tyres, before any curious guest had time to notice the car or its owner. Once on the road, however, she drove with studious care and a sharp eye for police traps, while she instructed him briskly in her plans.

“The safest place in Paris for you is my house precisely because it is a house. There are no other tenants, no concierge and I can guarantee the loyalty of my domestic staff. I entertain a lot; so there’s a constant coming and going of people. Any visitors you have will pass unnoticed. You will have your own apartment a bedroom, a study and a bathroom. It has a direct telephone line and its own private stairway to the garden. My staff are underemployed; so they can easily look after your needs.”

“This is most generous of you, madame; but …”

“There are no buts. If the arrangement doesn’t work, you leave. Simple! And would you please call me by my given name, Roberta!”

Jean Marie smiled to himself in the darkness and said:

“Then, Roberta, will you let me point out that there are certain risks in harbouring me.”

“I’m happy to accept them. You see, I know you have work to do. I want to be part of it. I can help more than you realise at this moment.”

“Why do you want to help?”

“That’s one question I’m not prepared to answer while I’m driving; but I will answer it, when I get you home.”

“Try this one then. Do you think it’s good for your reputation to have a man in residence?”

“I’ve had others, far more scandalous,” she told him bluntly.

“It’s twenty years since my husband died. I didn’t live like a nun all that time. But, things happened to make me change. My father went to prison. I went through a very bad patch with someone I loved very much and who one night went crazy in my arms and nearly killed me. Then there was you. When you were Pope, I felt the same way about you as my father used to feel about the good Pope John. You had style. You had compassion. You didn’t go round shouting discipline or damnation. Even when I was living pretty wildly I always felt there was a way back, as there was with my father when I’d been a naughty girl. Then, when you abdicated and I heard some of the inside story from your brother, Alain, I was furious. I thought they’d broken you;

until your friend what’s his name? wrote that wonderful piece about you.”

“Mendelius?”

“That’s it! … And then somebody passed him a letter bomb It was then that I began to see how things fitted together. I started to go to church again, read the Bible, pick up friends that I’d dropped in the wild days because they seemed too earnest or stuffy. But we’re off the track. First we install you in your apartment; then we feed you. Afterwards we talk about the future and what you need to do.”

He was tempted to chide her, tell her that, while he needed help, he was not prepared to be managed. He thought better of it. He changed the subject.

“I’ve been provided with a second passport and an identity card in the name of Jean Marie Gregoire. It’s probably best if we use that name with your staff.”

“I agree. There are three altogether: a man and wife and a daily maid. They’ve all been with me a long time. We’re nearly home now. My place is just off the Quai d’Orsay.”

Three minutes later she stopped in front of a portecochere closed by a steel gate, which opened to a radio signal.

The garage was on the left of the entrance and an interior stairway led to the floors above. His suite was a pair of rooms, the one a large studio lined with books, the other a bed-sitting room with a bathroom between. Outside was a balcony from which he could look down on the central atrium, which had been converted into a rock garden with a fountain in the centre.

“It’s not quite the Vatican,” said Roberta Saracini.

“But I hope you’ll be comfortable. Dinner in thirty minutes. I’ll send someone to fetch you.”

She came in person, dressed in a house gown of some rich brocaded material, stiff as a benediction cope. She led him into the dining room, a small but beautifully proportioned room, with a coffered ceiling and refectory furniture of Spanish mahogany. The meal was simple but exquisitely cooked, a country pate, a filet of sole, a mousse of blueberries. The wine, he told her, was much too good to waste on Monsieur Gregoire, pasteur en retraite. To which she answered that the pastor was in retirement no longer and it was time to discuss what he wanted to do.

“I know what I must do: spread the word that the last days are upon us and that all men of good-will must prepare for them. I know also what I must not do: make confusions or dissensions among honest believers, or undermine the principles of legitimate authority in the Christian community. So, first question: how do I resolve the problem?”

“It seems to me you’ve already found the solution: a new identity. After all, it’s the message that’s important, not the man who proclaims it.”

“Not quite. How does the messenger establish his authority?”

“He shouldn’t try,” said Roberta Saracini.

“He should put the word about, as the early disciples did, and trust to God to make it fruitful.”

There was more than piety in the way she said it. There was a total confidence, as if she had herself made proof of the proposition.

He told her: “I agree with the principle; but how do I, a man unwelcome in his own country, deprived of a canonical mission, preach the word without a breach of the obedience which I owe to the Church?”

Roberta Saracini poured coffee and handed the cup to him across the table. She offered brandy. He refused it. She explained carefully:

“I’m a banker, as you know. As a banker I have holdings in a lot of diverse enterprises: mining, fabrication, travel, advertising, entertainment, communication. So, once you are sure of what you want to say …”

“I have always been sure of that.”

“Then we can find a hundred ways, a thousand voices, to spread the news.”

“That will cost you a fortune.”

“What if it does? Who’s going to keep accounts after Rubicon Day?”

“How do you know about Rubicon Day?”

“I have my sources. You don’t think I gamble blind in the market?”

“I suppose not.”

He was still uneasy, though the explanation made sense enough. He himself would not name his sources, even to a close friend.

“There are ample funds available for whatever you want to do. I’d like to introduce you to some of my people in publishing, television and advertising. Consider them as your voices. Tell them what you want to say. You’ll be surprised what ideas emerge. You’re looking dubious. Why? Where would the modern papacy be without television or the American presidency for that matter? Isn’t it a moral duty to use all the gifts that are placed at our disposal?”

Once again, most strongly, he was reminded of that young Sienese woman of the fourteenth century who had written to Pierre Roger de Beaufort-Turenne, Gregory XI … “Siatemi uomo, virile e non timoroso…” Be a man for me, virile and not a coward!

He was silent for a moment, considering his decision.

“How soon can I meet your experts?”

“Tomorrow evening.”

“And how far can I trust them?”

“The ones who sit at this table you can trust, as you trust me.”

“Then, will you answer the question I asked on the way here: why do you want to help a man who is foretelling the end of the world?”

She did not fumble with the answer; she gave it to him, flat and unadorned.

“Because he is a man, just that! All my life I’ve been waiting for someone who will stride out into the storm and shout against the wind. I watched you this morning at the bank. You were so angry I thought you would burst; but you had the grace to say you were sorry for bad manners. For me that’s reason enough.”

“Not for me,” said Jean Marie Barette.

“Nobody’s so strong all the time. Nobody lasts so long. The man I followed as Pope I stood by his death-bed and watched him puking up his life-blood and crying, “Mamma, Mamma, Mamma!”

The newspapers said he was calling on the Virgin Mary. He wasn’t. He was calling for his mother in the dark. Don’t build on me, Roberta! Build on yourself! You’re not some sad devote in the middle of the menopause. I’m not some troubled priest wondering why he’s wasted his whole life in celibacy.”

“Tell me what you are then!” said Roberta Saracini with sudden anger.

“Let’s be good Jesuits and define the terms!”