I rested my head in my hands. It wasn’t that he was wrong. It was that he was moving too quickly. The creed of any Bible student is humility. Caution. Patience. Sixty years ago, the pope let a small team of men dig beneath Saint Peter’s to look for Peter’s bones. Today, gospel teachers are those men, entrusted with digging under the foundation of the Church, allowed to search where searching is most dangerous. Anything less than immense care is reckless.
“Ugo,” I said, “if I gave you the impression we use these tools lightly, then I made a mistake.”
He put a hand on my shoulder, as if to comfort me. “Father, don’t you see? This is good. It’s very good. Everyone who has ever studied the Shroud assumed the four gospels were all factual. The world has been making the same mistake as the Diatessaron without even realizing it: we weave together the four gospels even though John isn’t historical. There must be a dozen aberrations in his version of the burial story alone: Jesus is buried by a different man, on a different day, in a different way. You’ve changed the future of the Shroud, Father Alex. You’ve found the skeleton key.”
But instinct told me otherwise. It told me the tool I had placed in his hands wasn’t a skeleton key but a battering ram. Having taught the gospels to hundreds of students of all ages, I had never come across a man so fearless about the truth. He felt a heroic, almost militant, compulsion to side with it. To explode the most cherished beliefs if they were mistaken. No doubt, this was what so attracted him to the defense of the Shroud in the first place, this rage against the injustice of error.
It worried me, though, for his sake. Sometimes I wondered if he would sooner make an enemy than assuage a friend so long as the smallest crumb of factual truth hung in the balance. He was relentless, ruthless, even with himself. He admitted to me once that it saddened him to relinquish the gospel stories he’d grown up believing to be historical; some childish part of his heart sank to know that the manger and wise men existed more in a little nativity scene than they ever had on that magical night two thousand years ago. But he smiled with pride and said, “If the pope’s behind it, then so am I.” And he insisted on beginning all our lessons by saying, “Time to put away childish things.” He was eager to give up his manger and wise men if it meant winning back the Shroud for the world.
Deep in the marrow of our religion is the conviction that loss and sacrifice are noble. To surrender something beloved is the highest proof of Christian duty. I always admired this quality in Ugo. Yet I couldn’t help feeling that his bravery contained an undercurrent of self-flagellation—and that this was an important insight into how he’d become such fast friends with my brother.
CHAPTER 13
PETER SLEEPS IN. He’s usually up first, marching into the bedroom and rowing my limp arm like the oar of a Greek trireme. I’m out of practice sneaking out of bed, but I manage not to wake him. While ironing my cassock, I can’t help cracking the front door just to be sure.
Fontana is still on duty.
An hour later, Peter and I have breakfast in the dining hall. As he enters the room, old bishops and cardinals look up from their plates and smile. There are more men here over the age of eighty than under the age of thirty. And all of them are Roman Catholics. Peter and I sit at a conspicuous table where any Eastern Catholics passing by might notice us and decide not to flee. But in vain.
Midway through the meal, my mobile phone starts beeping. Simon has left a message.
Alli, something’s come up. Meet me at the exhibit hall as soon as you get this.
I set my napkin beside my plate and tell Peter to grab a last bite for the road.
* * *
IN PREPARATION FOR UGO’S exhibit, a whole wing of the museums has been closed. Work trucks idle outside the galleries like war elephants, making the air shimmer with their exhaust. Inside, a highway of carts and dollies carries paintings and display cases and raw lumber, all moving at the same speed like cars in a funeral caravan. Wooden frames are being raised, hiding ancient frescoes behind makeshift walls, turning gold corridors into empty white pipes. Art that hasn’t been moved since Italy became a country is suddenly gone.