The Fifth Gospel(22)

            I turned to Simon, waiting for him to say something. But when he kept silent, I couldn’t do the same. The carbon-dating had stunned our Church and crushed my father, who’d pinned his hopes on the scientific authentication of the Shroud as a rallying point between Catholics and Orthodox. Father had spent his career trying to make friends across the aisle, and before the announcement of the radiocarbon verdict, he and his assistant Michael Black had coaxed and urged and pleaded with Orthodox priests from around Italy to join them at the press conference in Turin. Risking the displeasure of their bishop, some of those priests came. It would’ve been a milestone, if it hadn’t been a catastrophe. The radiocarbon tests dated the linen cloth to the Middle Ages.

            “Doctor,” I said, “people’s hearts were broken sixteen years ago. Please don’t put them through that all over again.”

            But he was undaunted. He served us plates of food in silence, then rinsed his hands with bottled water and said, “Please, begin eating. I’ll return in a moment. It’s important that you see this for yourself.”

            When he disappeared behind a screen to fetch something, I whispered to Simon, “Is this why you brought me here? To listen to this?”

            “Yes.”

            “Simon, he’s a drunk.”

            My brother nodded. “When he blacked out in the desert, it wasn’t from heatstroke.”

            “Then what am I doing here?”

            “He needs your help.”

            I ran a hand through my beard. “I know a priest in Trastevere who runs a twelve-step program.”

            But Simon tapped his head. “The problem’s up here. Ugo’s worried that he won’t finish his exhibit in time.”

            “How can you be helping him with this? You really want to relive what happened to Father back then?”

            Every television in our country had been tuned to the news conference when the lab results were announced. That night, the only sound in the Vatican was of children playing in the gardens, because our parents needed time to be alone. The experience wounded my father in a way he would never recover from. Michael Black abandoned him. Phone calls from old friends—from Orthodox friends—dried up. Father’s heart attack came two months later.

            “Listen to me,” I whispered. “This is not your problem.”

            Simon squinted. “My flight to Ankara leaves in four hours. His flight to Urfa isn’t until next week. I need you to keep an eye on him until he leaves.”

            I waited. There was something more in his eyes.

            “Ugo’s about to ask you a favor,” he said. “If you don’t want to do it for him, then I want you to do it for me.”

            I watched Nogara’s shadow approach us down the hallway. It paused there, while his body was still out of sight, and like an actor preparing his entrance onstage, he made the sign of the cross with one hand. In his other hand was something long and thin.

            “Have faith,” Simon whispered. “When Ugo tells you what he’s found, you’re going to believe in him, too.”



* * *



            NOGARA REENTERED CARRYING A bolt of fabric. He unspooled it along the clothesline strung across the room, then said, in a reverent tone, “I’m sure this needs no introduction.”

            I froze. Before me was an image that had lain undisturbed in my memory for years: two silhouettes, the color of rust, joined together at the tops of their heads, one of a man’s front, one of his back. On top of the silhouettes were bloodstains: along the head, from a crown of thorns; on the back, from scourging; and under one rib, from a spear in the side.