The Fifth Gospel(226)

            When he’s inches away, he signals for Archbishop Nowak to stop.

            I don’t know what else to do. I crawl out of my chair and lower myself. It’s customary to kiss the pope’s ring or bend down to kiss his shoe, to make a gesture of abasement, and I would make myself invisible if I could, to hide myself from him. Nothing is beneath me.

            Nowak reaches down and touches me on the ribs. “His Holiness wishes to speak to you.”

            John Paul’s arm moves. For an instant the white sleeve brushes electrically against the bare flesh of my hand. Then he reaches out and puts his heavy palm down on my cheek. Over my beard.

            I feel him shaking. Rhythmically, incessantly. The cadence of his disease. Under the tremulous hand he transmits a pure, sweating heat. With this one gesture, he tells me he has seen enough. He is about to speak his mind. He opens his mouth and croaks something.

            I can’t make out the words. I glance at Archbishop Nowak.

            But John Paul strains and raises his voice.

            “Ioannis,” he says, pressing his hand deeper into my beard.

            I stare up at him, frozen. Wondering if I heard right. But Nowak warns me not to say a word. The Holy Father is not to be interrupted.

            “Ioannis Andreou,” John Paul says.

            He is confused. In the darkness of his mind, he looks at me and sees the man he remembers from more than fifteen years ago.

            Then he finds the strength to finish.

            “Was your father.”

            The breath catches in my lungs. I dig my fingers into my palms, trying not to show any emotion.

            “You,” he says in an almost inarticulate voice, “are the priest with the son.”

            He fixes on me with the oceans of those eyes, and suddenly I am reduced to my barest atom.

            “Yes,” I say, fighting the tightness in my throat.

            John Paul glances at Archbishop Nowak, asking him to finish the thought. The exertion is becoming too much.

            “His Holiness sometimes sees you with your pupils,” Nowak says, “when he’s driven through the gardens.”

            I ache. My shame guts me.

            John Paul bobs his hand in the air, gesturing toward himself. “I,” he says. Then he jabs his hand in the air, gesturing at Nowak. “And he.”

            Nowak translates, “His Holiness was a seminary teacher, too. He was my moral theology professor.”

            It is wrenching to keep his stare, to avoid looking away. John Paul plunges his hand one more time toward his chest. “And,” he says in a rattling whisper, “I had a brother.”

            I finally have to close my eyes. I know about this brother. Edmund. Older by fourteen years. A young doctor in Poland. He died of a fever from a hospital patient.

            The Holy Father’s voice surges with feeling. “We would do anything. For each other.”

            There are only two reasons he would say this to me. One is that he believes my testimony. The other is that he knows why I’m lying. When I open my eyes, I will know the answer. So, for an instant, I can’t bear to.

            Then the silence unnerves me. I look.

            The wheelchair is moving away. Archbishop Nowak is pushing it out the door, toward the library. His Grace turns to motion for me to come after him. The last thing I see, before following him out, is the look on Falcone’s face. I can’t read it. The old policeman doesn’t say a word. But he’s fingering the gun case and dialing a number on his phone.