Critical Mass (28 page)

“But, Holiness—”

“You know, a few years ago the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought—do you know of this?”

“No, Holiness.”

“A Muslim institute published a letter of peace between the faiths that also contained an admonition against Christians’ waging war against Muslims on account of religion. And yet, there is no place on earth that has ever been forcibly converted from Islam to Christianity. Have you ever been to the Hagia Sophia?”

“Of course.”

“The Quran says they should conquer.” He thought back across his life, his mind touching a memory of the long-ago afternoon he had spent wandering the halls of the Alhambra in Granada, among the most beautiful buildings in the world—a Muslim building. “The conqueror of Spain was also called the Mahdi. His prophecies are in a work called the Hadith, and it is their fervor for conquest that has always animated the Muslim spirit. These terrorists are part of a deep tradition of Islam. They are not separate from it. I will tell you this: after the conquest is finished, this time, I will be knocked dead with stones.”

He knew that his feelings should be more balanced, his mind concerned only with being shepherd to the faithful. But he was so very, very angry. He thought of those poor people of Las Vegas, all burned and their homes ruined, and the gigantic suffering that this economic collapse would visit on mankind.

The knowledge came to him—perhaps, he thought, from God—that this invisible Mahdi was not a creature suffused with spiritual power, an Antichrist. Rather, he was like Hitler, an ordinary but ambitious man whose arrogance, aggression, and refusal to humble himself in prayer had opened the door of his soul to evil. “So,” the pope said, his voice low, “he is only a man.”

“Holiness?”

“Thank you, Hilario.”

The banker stood and stepped back, then turned and hurried away. Looking after him, the pope reflected that he was probably in the middle of the most frantic day of his life, poor man.

Alone now, the pope went across the apartment and entered his chapel. As always, he knelt in the back of the ornate little room. He heard an increasing great roar from the square. The faithful were gathering in the arms of the church. Closing his eyes, he prayed. Had he publicly called this foolish little creature the Antichrist, he might have set the whole world on fire. “Jesus, I hear your voice within,” he said. “Thank you, my beloved master, for this guidance. I give you my weakness, my anger, my senseless hatred. I give it to your compassion, oh my friend.” He followed this with a fervent Pater Noster, then raised his eyes to the blue-veiled virgin John Paul had installed here. “Thank you, Mother, for your intercession for me. I will not speak my anger, Mother.” Quickly he prayed a decade of his rosary.

When he turned from the chapel, he was not surprised to see that Mosconi was back.

“The Grand Mufti has come.”

“What is this?”

“The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia is here.”

But how could this be? “There was no such meeting arranged.”

“There was nothing. He has come on the king’s plane.” Mosconi shrugged. “He simply arrived.”

After the pope had publicly told the truth about Islam, that it was a religion of violence, there had been that letter signed by a number of high Muslim authorities saying that they had no argument with Christians, as long as these Christians did not seek to invade Islam. Then the Saudi king had come to Rome and said essentially the same thing. The pope had refrained from speaking of the Islamic invasion of Christian Spain and the Christian Middle East. But, in his mind, he had not forgotten the truth of
history, and he did not forget it now. Islam had invaded the Christian world then and was doing it again now.

So this—a meeting between the church and Islam, at this moment? “Mosconi, I’m at a loss.”

Mosconi bowed his head in assent. “In the private audience chamber?” He offered the pope no choice as to whether or not he would receive the Mufti. But the private audience chamber was a state room, private or not.

“No, no, it’s not a state visit. It can’t be official. Bring him here.”

“Will you take the throne, then?”

The pope considered this. If he sat in the symbolic chair that stood in this room, gilded and red, before the wall bearing his portrait, the meeting would take on a symbolic meaning that neither man wanted to cope with. But at his desk perhaps the Mufti would feel an unpleasant sense of being a supplicant.

“Mosconi, I have no private places! I cannot take him back to the dentist with me.”

Mosconi smiled slightly. The pope’s sense of humor was well known behind these walls. “Where, then, Holiness?”

“Let’s go to my books.”

He crossed the room, his feet whispering on the carpet—an Arabian design, he recalled, a gift from the king of Jordan—and went to the little nook of chairs that was his private lair, where he indulged himself in history, poetry, and thought. He sat beneath the tall shelves of volumes, every one of which had been read. It was like an extension of his mind, his library. The treasure of his life. “I will receive him now.”

Mosconi turned toward the desk, reaching to press the intercom button.

“Wait. What do I call him? A name? What is his name?”

“You call him Sheikh. He will call you Pastor.” Mosconi picked up the telephone, and in a moment the outer door opened.

The Mufti was tall and very straight, and came striding forward, his spotless white robe whipping behind him. The pope could see a hint of a dark cuff under its hem, and a gleaming shoe peeking out as the Mufti walked. Beneath his robe of ancient design, there was a business suit, no doubt from Savile Row.

As he came closer, the pope rose. This was something the outside world would never see, but he realized that this man could possibly know a great deal about what was happening. He could be a key.

“Pastor, I bring you greetings from the king, as custodian of the Holy Sites of Islam and leader of the Islamic Kingdom, and I greet you from my sad heart and the hearts of all good Muslim people.” He spoke a densely accented but understandable English, and his face—the expression—caused the pope to at once cease to be wary of him. The man was exhausted. His eyes were desperate. Many tears had been there. The pope could imagine this man on the king’s palatial plane, sitting alone, weeping in the privacy of the sky.

Suddenly, as if it was entirely natural, as if it had been meant from the beginning of the world, the two men embraced. The pope felt the trembling bones, then stepped back, holding the Mufti at arm’s length. How fragile was this old man, beneath his robes.

They were silent, and the pope suddenly knew why. He knew that it was because God was there, directly there, speaking to both of them in the eternal language, the pope believed, of truth.

He told the Mufti, “We say that our God is not your God, but it isn’t so. It isn’t so.”

“We have it, ‘there is no God but God.’ ” Then his eyes pleaded. “These people are monsters. Heretics in our faith.”

In English, also, the pope responded, but carefully, “Sheikh, it is a tragedy when holy faith is used as justification for violence.”

“You and I have both been to the Alhambra,” the sheikh said softly. “I know that you have.”

“You and I have both been to the Hagia Sophia,” the pope replied. “I know that you have.”

Their eyes said the rest of this history, and their silence.

“The king has conveyed our sorrow to the president and the American people. I am here because I wish to appear with you before the multitude in the square and before the world.”

The pope was affronted. This lost soul could not appear here, in God’s church. The pope started to speak his refusal—but, again, he felt that presence. This time, there seemed to be a little girl here, she was all burnt, standing behind the Mufti, and with her was an angel of God. They were silent, watching the pope. Even so, he shook his head. A thing this great could not be done in a moment, no, not even for the angels.

Such an event would normally be years in the planning, perhaps decades. There were three congregations that should be involved, and many
cardinals who would expect to be consulted, and rightly expect this. There were many orders, also, that would anticipate offering their opinions, not to mention Opus Dei and other powerful lay organizations.

But the child was still there, still watching him. He could hardly bear to look at her blackened flesh, but it would not leave his mind’s eye. “Be as little children.” He recalled his mother saying it to him, recalled her telling him that if he forgot this, he forgot Christ.

He knew what a child would do. He forced himself to smile. “Mufti,” he said, “I sense that God is with us.”

From outside, the roar of the crowd was now enormous, louder than he had ever known it. He thought of each of them, each an astonishing microcosm of the whole. “The Kingdom of God is within you.” The Lord had said that not to kings but to simple folk just like the multitude whose hopeful faces were turned now toward that window over there.

His heart bowed, and he knew that when he and the Mufti went to the window Jesus would be with them.

“We will go before the world, then, you and I.”

The Mufti closed his eyes for a moment. In the tightness of the lines around them, the sunken cheeks, the pope saw that he also was in deepest inner conflict. “There is only one God,” he said. “I will say it.”

“I also.” It was now five fifteen. Less than an hour. He wanted to telephone the president again, to beg him to leave Washington. But the president, he knew, had ascended already into another state. He had observed it in John Paul, the sudden sense of distance that comes as death steals closer.

No, President Fitzgerald was beyond telephone calls now. He was busy, that poor man, with the waiting that comes before dying.

TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS

As the president danced on the end of his rope in Washington, in Peshawar birds
were making riot in the high morning and it was pleasant in the gardens of the town. Later, it would grow warm, but the heat of summer was gone, and even here there was that sense of echo that haunts autumn days.

Aziz took his tea with careful design, for he knew that history would record his actions in every detail. There would be poetry and song and texts, and each gesture of his that Eshan and the Persian boy Wasim were observing now would become part of the eternal history of human freedom.

He must be seen as the confident servant of Allah, not the man he felt himself to be, full of flutters and fears.

It must be, this thing, for this was be the world’s last chance to join itself to the love of God. In a very few moments now, the Great Satan would be finished.

Aziz wanted to look at his watch, but he would not show anything that might later be taken to mean that he was not entirely surrendered to Allah. He nodded to the Persian, who came forward, his enormous eyes, as always, full of wonder. Again, he nodded.

The tea gurgled into Aziz’s glass. “Thank you, Wasim,” he said, bringing the whisper of a smile to the face of a boy who was just beginning to understand
his own role, that not only was he here as a student but also his duty was to serve the Mahdi and give him relaxation when his heart was heavy with cares.

There were sounds coming from outside, voices shouting. The Mahdi allowed himself to wonder if word had come to Peshawar that the Great Satan had been brought down.

“I am not here to give tea,” Wasim said. “I want to return to Tehran. I don’t want to wear this—” He gestured to his
djellaba
. He shook his head.

“Children are beaten for impertinence.”

“I want my Xbox back! This is all crazy! You live like it was the Stone Age!” The beautiful eyes bored into him; the voice dropped, the lips barely moving. “You’re ignorant and you care about nobody but yourself. You’re a monster.”

Aziz sucked breath. Every cell in his body wanted to strike this insolent boy. Even so, in Aziz’s deepest heart he felt an abiding sorrow for the terrible thing that had been done, and the fact that it could never now be changed.

He shook it off. There could be no faltering now, no weakness.

Outside, more voices were rising.

The boy smiled at him. “When can I go? All Tehran is against you. All Muslims are against you. Even Hezbollah says you’re evil!”

“They are cursed of God. Our Brotherhood is not evil!”

“The Muslim Brotherhood has also condemned you, whoever you are. Nobody knows! Are you some madman’s stooges? Osama’s? He’s stupid enough to try this. Who are you?”

He would say nothing of Inshalla to this boy. He would not say the name to this rebellious child. “I will ignore your insults now, but later I will beat you.”

The boy looked straight at him, his eyes glinting with accusation. “I hate you,” he spoke with a mildness that was chilling to Aziz. He reflected that this boy had killed, and so become a man. A man could kill again.

“Your father paid a great deal to put you with me.”

“My father is a fool.”

The voices outside had become a roar, and Aziz was beginning to be curious about what might be happening. Surely if the bomb had detonated, Eshan would come and tell him.

Then the boy spoke again. “You lied; you’re not a teacher. You teach nothing. I want to call my father! Why is there no telephone?”

Eshan appeared. His face was impassive. “It is three minutes past the hour now,” Eshan said.

Perhaps Eshan had not heard what the crowd had heard. “History is three minutes long now,” Aziz said to Eshan. “In the first minute Mohammed is born; in the second the Quran is finished. In the third all the world rejoices at the death of the Great Satan.”

Eshan did not respond but only lowered his eyes. Aziz wanted to savor this event, as the people of Peshawar, so used to the oppressive faithlessness of the apostate government and its Crusader-financed police, realized that the Crusader king had been killed.

Aziz got up from the chair where he had been taking his tea, and moved across to the heavy door that sealed the garden off from the outside world.