The Fifth Gospel(195)

            The gendarmes point north, toward Ugo’s old office. “Head that way, Father. You’ll see it.”

            If Michael broke into my apartment, then he didn’t fly here for the trial. Everything he said was a lie. He was in Rome all along.

            I dial Leo. He doesn’t answer. I leave a message warning him to look out for Michael. Finally I see a private entrance unlocked in the museum wall. Inside, printed programs are left curled up on the floor.

            He’s the one who must’ve called the apartment, the night before he broke in. Which means he’s one of the men who was staying in that room at the Casa.

            I pick up one of the programs. In large red letters, a note on the first page says:

            WE ASK OUR GUESTS

TO FOLLOW THE GUIDED TOUR OF THE EXHIBIT.

            A map shows the route: from here down to the Sistine Chapel, a corridor one quarter of a mile long has been cleared for the exhibit. As I run to catch up, the history of the Shroud flashes by in reverse. 2004: radiocarbon tests refuted. 1983: Italian royal family gives Shroud to John Paul. 1814: Shroud exhibited to celebrate downfall of Napoleon. 1578: Shroud first arrives in Turin. 1355: first known Catholic exhibition of the Holy Shroud. The path runs unstoppably toward the Fourth Crusade. Toward 1204.

            That’s why Michael sent me to use the pay phone behind the Casa. Because he could watch me from his hotel window.

            When I reach the gallery with Constantinople painted on the wall, I stop in surprise. No one’s here either. And no part of the exhibit has been removed in the three days since I saw it.

            I hesitate, disbelieving. So it’s already happened. The Orthodox have learned that we stole the Shroud from them.

            There are shoe prints on the marble floor. Body heat still hangs in the air. Then I see them. On the other side of a display case, almost invisible in the darkness, are two Orthodox in black cassocks. They stand in the corner, weeping. Across the glass, one of them meets my stare. His beard is spangled with tears.

            But a voice comes from beyond the doorway. A deep, gentle voice, like a father soothing his son. I step forward, recognizing its accent.

            Passing between the doors that were kept locked until now, I find myself in a vast, darkened hall. The only thing I see at first are floating heads—disembodied faces peering into the black. Not until my eyes adjust do I make out their cassocks and tuxedo jackets and black gowns. There are hundreds of people here. I start searching for Michael, but it’s hard to move through the crowd.

            The walls lighten as the corridor continues. Black turns to gray. Gray to white. At the other end, far off, the room seems to glow. Up there, I see paintings on the walls. Down here, though, the walls are almost bare, stenciled with words and mounted with a few old artifacts—coins and bricks—that look like they came from the bottom of a fishing net.

            “You now know,” Nowak says, standing on a dais at the far end of the hall, “the history of the Holy Shroud. You know that Western crusaders stole it from Constantinople and brought it into the arms of the Catholic Church.” His voice goes silent. The crowd is staring. I look up. Archbishop Nowak’s eyes are closed, and his fist is in the air. He brings it down, down, down on his chest.

            Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

            My fault, my fault, my most grievous fault.

            I move by intuition. The Orthodox are in tight groups, not leaving each other’s sides. But the Roman priests, like Michael, are interspersed through the crowd.

            “Forgive us, Lord,” Nowak says, “for making Your Shroud a symbol of our separation. Forgive us our sins against our brothers.”

            There’s a dead hush. Some old cardinals in the crowd are stony, as if Nowak is going soft, but His Grace forges on.