The Fifth Gospel(221)

            We have arrived. I am standing inside the Holy Father’s apartments. In front of me is a sitting room furnished with odd pieces of furniture and a few potted plants. No Swiss Guards anywhere. Leo says they aren’t allowed inside here. Gugel leads me on.

            We enter a library with walls of gold damask. Beneath a towering painting of Jesus there stands a single desk. On the desk is nothing but a gold clock and a white telephone.

            Gugel points to a long table in the center of the room and says, “Please wait here.”

            Then, to my surprise, he leaves.

            I look all around me, tense with feelings. Every night of my childhood I stared at the windows of this top floor, wondering what these rooms contained. What it was like for a poor soldier’s son from Poland, who grew up in a small room on the rented floor of another family’s house, to live in the penthouse of the world’s most famous palace. John Paul haunted so many of my thoughts in those days. Gave me strength against so many fears. He, too, had his parents die when he was young. He, too, once felt like an outsider in this city. For what I’m about to do, I am a traitor to my own guardian angel.

            More men are ushered into the library. First comes Falcone, the gendarme chief. Then the promoter of justice. Lucio arrives with Mignatto in his wake.

            Then, from a different door, Simon.

            All the rest of us stare. Lucio’s arms reach outward. He shuffles forward and raises his hands to Simon’s cheeks.

            But Simon’s eyes are locked on mine.

            I can’t move. He seems cadaverous. His eyes are sunken. His ropy arms could encircle his torso twice. I feel the gun case pressed against my ribs. Simon motions for me to come closer, but I steel myself and don’t respond. I’ve prepared myself for this moment. It’s important now for us to keep our distance.

            A moment later, Archbishop Nowak appears at the door. “Father Alexandros Andreou,” he says. “His Holiness will see you now.”



* * *



            I FOLLOW HIM INTO a smaller, more secluded room. I recognize it as the private study where John Paul makes his appearances to the crowds in Saint Peter’s Square. Bulletproof glass fills the enormous window, but behind the window is a modest desk littered with folders and papers to sign, the dossiers that arrive unstoppably from the Secretariat. They have so outpaced the pope’s ability to return them that they now choke the room, standing in stacks around the desk. The mounds are so large that at first I don’t see who sits behind them.

            I freeze. He is only an arm’s length away. But he looks nothing like the man I saw in the Sistine Chapel, who found the strength to kneel at patriarchs’ feet. This man is frail and sunken, with small, narrow eyes that barely conceal his pain. He doesn’t move except to breathe. He looks at me, but there’s no moment between us. No connection, no greeting. Humans are thrown in front of him as fast as they can appear and disappear. He might as well be staring at a mannequin.

            Nowak says, “Please be seated, Father.” He gestures to a chair opposite the desk, then sits beside John Paul, serving in a capacity I don’t understand.

            “His Holiness,” he continues, “has studied the evidence that the tribunal gathered. He wishes to ask you a small number of questions.”

            The Holy Father doesn’t budge in his chair. I wonder if he will speak at all.

            “Yes, Your Grace.”

            “Very well. Please begin by explaining how you knew Doctor No-gara.”

            “Your Grace, I met him—”

            But Archbishop Nowak makes a polite gesture of correction.

            I force myself to meet John Paul’s unwavering stare. “Your Holiness, I met Doctor Nogara through my brother. Doctor Nogara found a missing manuscript in the library, and I helped him read it.”