God's Favorite (35 page)

“I broke my vows from the moment I started wanting you.”

“Well, there's a difference between thinking and doing, I don't care what the Church says.” She began unbuttoning her blouse. Father Jorge's face felt as if it were on fire. He was filled with desire and confusion about her intentions. “You're nice to me,” she was saying. “You were always nice, even from the beginning. I just want you to talk to me. It doesn't matter what you say. Just don't lie to me.”

When she opened her blouse, Father Jorge found himself staring at her brassiere. He put his index finger on the stiff white material and slowly traced the border along the soft brown skin of her breasts. Gloria watched him do this as if he were drawing a sketch in the sand. It was not as if it were her own body that was being touched. Physically she was somewhere else. He did not know how to reach her or if he should even try.

Nor did he know how to get past the brassiere. Certainly there was some simple and probably obvious means of removal, but it presented an inscrutable barrier to the priest.

“In the back,” Gloria said, leaning forward helpfully so that he could reach around her. He felt the clasp in the middle of her back. He pulled at it, but desire and guilt had made him fumbling and incompetent.

Gloria gently pushed him away and easily unfastened her bra.

The priest stifled a sob. It had been years since he had actually seen a woman's breasts. Now that they were being offered to him, he felt awed, as if he were in the presence of something mysterious and holy. Was this blasphemy? he wondered. How could something so commonplace and profane as a prostitute's body fill him with a sense of worship?

But these thoughts fluttered past and he lost himself again in sensation. The shape and feel and smell of her were dizzying. He was attached to her breast like a baby.

Gloria suddenly pushed him away. “You're not keeping your end of the bargain,” she said. “You have to talk to me.”

“What do you want to hear?”

“Whatever is in your mind. You don't have to worry, Father.
Men tell me things—things they would never even say in confession. You won't shock me.”

“I was thinking about my mother,” the priest said. “I don't know why she came into my mind. She never wanted me to be a priest. She was not especially religious. I think she wanted grandchildren too much.”

“I approve of this mother,” Gloria said, smiling.

“I think she would have liked you, too,” Father Jorge said. “I was young when she died, but I remember that she judged people by her own standards. It didn't matter to her who you were, but how you treated other people.”

“I think you have the same nature.”

The priest looked again at Gloria's breast, cradled in his hand. “I keep wondering if my life has completely changed,” he said. “I've never felt what I'm feeling now, and I don't know if I ever will again. There's so much I don't understand. I think I'm committing some terrible sin, but at the same time I feel like getting down on my knees and thanking God that I can be here with you.”

“I think I hear Renata coming,” Gloria said, as she quickly redressed. “Now you should eat your pudding, Father, and put these thoughts away. Renata loves you too much. You will have to be a priest again now.”

T
HE CURSE OF
Panama, the criminal class,” Tony said as he led the small delegation across the street to La Modelo, where curious faces stared out at them from every barred window.

None of the officers said anything. Some of the faces in the windows belonged to the hundreds of men who had been their friends and colleagues only a few weeks before. Many others were buried in La Modelo.

The director of the prison hobbled forward to greet them, a large, crooked man named Pujols. “Welcome, General, we've
made the preparations you've suggested,” he said. He led them through the courtyard to a wooden door that was reinforced with iron bands. “This is where we keep our special cases,” he explained.

“You once lived here yourself, didn't you?” said Tony.

Pujols made an eerie noise that may have been a laugh, then he stuck an inhaler in his mouth and took a deep breath.

Inside the door a spiral staircase led down to a foul-smelling basement. The stairs were lit by bare yellow bulbs, which gave a sickening luminescence to the perspiring concrete walls. The sound of screaming became very clear.

“You hear that?” said Tony. “That's the sound of the Traitor Bird.”

The officers looked at each other. Pujols tapped on the door of the room at the bottom of the stairs. A pudgy guard opened it and the officers followed Tony inside.

“Is he dead?” asked Tony.

At first, in the dim light, it was difficult to see the naked body lying motionless in the straw.

The guard kicked the body savagely in the kidneys. There was a small moan.

“Trust,” said Tony. “Who do you trust these days, you know what I mean?”

The officers nodded uncomprehendingly.

“I trust you, but I trusted him once, too.” Tony ground his boot into the prisoner's crumpled hand. The finger bones cracked. But the man no longer registered pain. “My old friend. How are they treating you?” He turned to the others. “You all remember Major Giroldi?”

“Yes, sir!”

“That's right. You all knew him, didn't you? And what I know is that the major could never have done what he did without cooperation. Without his friends knowing. This being Loyalty Day, I'm going to offer you the opportunity to show some loyalty.”

The officers exchanged desperate and uncertain looks.

“Remember, trust!” said Tony. “It is the highest quality of friendship.”

Colonel Macías unholstered his pistol and waited for the others to do likewise. Then, at his nod, they each began firing. Giroldi's body jumped at the first volley and then lay motionless.

T
HE
N
UNCIO WAITED
in the antechamber of the cardinal's office. It had been three years since he had been in Vatican City, and he walked through the black-and-gold gate of Porta di Sant' Anna with a mixture of nostalgia and humility, nodding to the familiar faces among the mass of unfamiliar ones in the Sacred College and wondering what their thoughts might be. Everyone seemed to know something about him that he didn't. Probably this was a feature of his own paranoia, he decided, but to be summoned back to the Holy See with no explanation left him feeling vulnerable and on edge.

After fifteen hours of travel, the forty-five-minute wait he had already endured in the cardinal's antechamber was more insult than was strictly required. Struggling to stay awake, he leafed through a foreign-policy journal, but the words kept melting and sliding off the page.

The cardinal's door opened and a page exited, carrying an envelope. The boy had entered fifteen minutes before, and now he walked directly past the Nuncio without a sideways glance. Every action seemed unbearably charged and ominous.

Time passed and the Nuncio's ruminations became disjointed and fanciful. He was engaged in a pleasant reverie about having a meal with the
Wheel of Fortune
lady when he suddenly became aware of Cardinal Falthauser's massive roseate face in front of him.

“Henri? Are you awake now?”

“I must have nodded off,” the Nuncio said.

“You were snoring like a locomotive,” the cardinal observed uncharitably.

Hans Cardinal Falthauser's office was self-conscious in the manner of a genuinely powerful man who still needs to impress others with his power. A bank of muted television sets covered one wall, with satellite reports coming in from a dozen countries. Three computers sat on a console, apparently doing something on their own as numbers and tables scrolled across the screens, making unfathomable reports. There were some intermittent electrical noises that the Nuncio recognized as modern computer sounds, but he could not grasp their function. He felt suitably diminished and antiquated, a sad old relic snatched out of the provinces and brought to the home office to give an accounting.

“Sherry?” asked the cardinal.

“I think espresso would be more appropriate for my condition.”

The cardinal ordered the coffee and then sat on the divan, smoothing out the wrinkles in his immaculate cassock. At least he had the grace not to receive me behind his spacious, clutter-less desk, the Nuncio thought. In front of the window, on a highly polished ebony credenza, was a photograph of the pope looking like an awed student as the cardinal lectured him on some important point.

“So, Henri, you find yourself in a bubbling pot. Perhaps you could be so kind as to give us a quick assessment of the political situation in Panama.”

Was this really the point of his sudden recall to Rome? In his
best professional voice, which he hoped was not too buoyant with relief, the Nuncio described the essential failure of the popular revolution, the ongoing international boycott, and the disastrous coup attempts, which had only served to reinforce the General's power. Reason said that Noriega would have left long ago, but he persisted despite logic, despite threats, despite the will of his people and the massing of immensely superior American forces. He was a stain that would not be washed away.

“He must be a very resourceful man.”

“I would say his abilities are chronically underestimated. He reminds me at times of Mussolini, a genial monster, although lately he's become more brutal. He's crushed any remaining rebellious elements in the military. The lack of formidable internal opposition coupled with uncertain signals from the U.S. have allowed him to remain in control. Chaos seems to favor him. That said, however, General Noriega simply cannot continue to behave as recklessly as he has toward the United States without expecting consequences.” The Nuncio then related an incident that had occurred just before his departure, in which an American soldier was shot and killed in Panama City as he tried to run a PDF roadblock.

“So you predict a response?”

“I believe that the U.S. has been waiting for just such an incident. They have been building up their arsenals for weeks.”

The cardinal gravely shook his large head. “This is what our intelligence tells us as well. I understand that you have been involved in the negotiations to persuade the General to resign.”

“Ah, yes,” the Nuncio admitted. “He came to us for his own obscure reasons. I have tried to be a neutral mediator. Certainly I have not attempted to interject myself or the Church into these discussions.”

Cardinal Falthauser turned slightly and stared thoughtfully out the window at the thousands of tourists who were filling Saint Peter's Square for the Christmas season. “You realize, of course, my dear Henri, that the Holy See does not intend to become
party to the political quarrels of other nations. This is a recurring problem with our Latin American bishops. Haven't we repeatedly instructed you to remove yourself from this process, not to meddle, not to mediate? And yet you continue to receive members of the opposition for clandestine meetings, and you encourage your secretary in his seditious political goals. This partisanship is directly contrary to the instructions you have been given again and again concerning your mission in Panama.”

The Nuncio flushed and sat quietly. Cardinal Falthauser's spy in the nunciature obviously knew everything—and reported on it most unfavorably.

“I cannot hide my disappointment,” the cardinal continued. “Again and again I have represented your position to the Curia, along with your constant requests for money. I must say that you've been a source of annoyance to the other members for quite some time now.”

The Nuncio bowed his head. “Apparently I was not meant to serve in this capacity,” he said humbly. “I can only hope that the Church has some other task more suitable for my inadequate abilities.”

“I did not say that you were inadequate, Henri, only that you were disrespectful and annoying. However, you have other qualities. No one doubts your political skills, least of all me. Moreover, I'm reluctant to replace you immediately. The situation is too volatile to throw in someone new.”

The Nuncio gratefully seized on the grudging reprieve that the cardinal was offering. “Certainly, the situation is perilous. One can't know what will happen next.”

“But you must do all in your power to keep the Church out of the negotiations,” the cardinal said sternly. “If the General uses you as a political counselor, then people will hold the Church responsible for whatever develops. That could be disastrous, depending on the outcome.”

“I see your point. And yet, between us, I must confide that General Noriega does not really come to me for political advice.
We do talk about the various proposals concerning his resignation, but he doesn't really appear to be at all interested in stepping down. He seems to have another goal in mind. A religious one, if you can believe it.”

Cardinal Falthauser looked at him questioningly. “Is Noriega a religious man?”

“A confused one, to be sure, but he is deeply interested. I've even wondered whether this entire saga of his rise to power and his assault on convention is some odd kind of religious theater. He seems to be testing God.”

“So in this case you have been acting more as a priest than as a political adviser.”

“I believe so.”

“Then I must ask you, Monseñor, what is the current state of your own religious belief?”

The Nuncio looked into his superior's unforgiving eyes and then glanced away. “I'm afraid that my faith is as tattered and insubstantial as it was when I left,” he admitted. “I pray, I read my office, but no one could say that I am devout. Whatever force it was that drew me into the service of God has apparently deserted me.”

“In that case, you are even less qualified as a spiritual adviser than as a political one,” the cardinal observed. “I will agree to let you return to Panama for the time being, until the immediate situation resolves itself. But I caution you one last time to remain out of the fray. Become invisible. Do not counsel, do not presume to insert yourself in matters of state or of spirit. You are to hold the fort, no more. And when the turmoil has subsided, we will reevaluate your future.”