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The Fifth Gospel(229)

By:Ian Caldwell


            This explains the sequence of sounds Mignatto heard in the footage. Gunshot. Then glass breaking.

            Simon still doesn’t speak. But he doesn’t need to.

            “Because,” I say, “the gun case was inside the car.”

            “But Nogara had already opened the case,” the promoter of justice protests. “It was empty.”

            But it wasn’t empty. Simon wouldn’t have locked a case he couldn’t reopen. The case must’ve been locked before he ever got to it.

            “Ugo put the manuscript in there,” I say.

            It was pouring that night. He was protecting the Diatessaron.

            In a hushed voice I say to my brother, “How did you know?”

            Simon wouldn’t have saved the gun case unless he’d known what was in it. And he couldn’t have known what was in it unless Ugo told him.

            My brother still doesn’t speak. But I think again of those two minutes separating him from Ugo.

            “Did you catch up to him,” I say, “before he died?”

            Simon raises a hand to silence me. Then the thumb and forefinger of his hand come together until they almost meet. Almost. And he stares at me, bottomlessly, through that tiny gap.

            I’m mute. If only those giant strides had been a fraction longer. A fraction faster. I can see Simon now, in my mind’s eye, just fifteen years old, standing on the narrow balcony of Saint Peter’s, reaching out his hands to prevent that stranger from jumping. I wonder how close he came this time. What final words passed between him and the friend whose life he thought he had already saved.

            But not even the beginning of an explanation comes from my brother’s mouth. The room is silent. At last Archbishop Nowak speaks in a faint voice. In his hands are Ugo’s lecture notes.

            “Why would you hide this from us? ” he asks. “Both of you?”

            I look to Simon. He doesn’t want to look at Nowak, but he won’t disrespect him by continuing to look away. The muscles of his neck tighten. His nostrils flare.

            “Why,” the archbishop repeats, “would you hide it?”

            Even now, Simon still doesn’t utter a sound. But a weaker voice speaks up. It chokes out a question, and the room goes perfectly still.

            “Why did this—” John Paul says, “—poor man—take his own life?”

            The greatest crime of Judas was suicide. It was not long ago that suicides were refused Church funerals. Denied cemetery plots. Shame, though, isn’t why Simon hid the truth.

            John Paul thumps his hand down. He moans, “Answer me!”

            At last Simon weakens. The cloak of silence drops.

            “Holiness,” he says, “Ugo never knew how much the exhibit meant to you until he saw the patriarchs at Castel Gandolfo.”

            John Paul frowns.

            Archbishop Nowak says, “You didn’t tell him he would be addressing the Orthodox?”

            Simon says nothing. He refuses to blame anyone else.

            But John Paul croaks, “You did as I asked.”

            My brother won’t trace any of this back to the Holy Father. Instead he says, “I begged him not to tell anyone what he’d discovered about the Shroud. I pleaded with him. But Ugo insisted on telling the truth. He came to Castel Gandolfo to tell the Orthodox what he’d found. But then he saw who was in the audience. He never knew, until that moment, what his exhibit was going to make possible. He couldn’t live with himself if he lied to you about the Shroud, but he couldn’t forgive himself if he destroyed your dream with the Orthodox.” My brother’s face is agony. He lowers himself to his knees. “Holy Father, I am so sorry. Please forgive me.”