In The Name of The Father (8 page)

They said a short prayer together and then he gave them all his blessing. The audience over, they moved towards the door. He could tell by their faces that he had given what they had travelled far to receive. It struck him that he too had received from them the gifts of love and inspiration.

He watched as Father Panrowski shuffled his broken body across the thick carpet and suddenly he realised that there was yet another priceless gift he could give this old man, and in giving receive comfort himself. Quietly he asked him to remain behind for a few minutes.

When the door closed behind the others he took the priest by the arm and helped him to a well-cushioned, high-backed chair. As Panrowski settled into it, his face puzzled, the Cardinal said, ‘Father, we have all been uplifted by your suffering and your faith. I would be deeply moved and honoured if you would hear my confession.’

At first the old priest did not seem to understand. He raised his head and asked, ‘Confession?’

‘Yes, Father, my confession.’

Father Panrowski was dazed. He had heard that such things occasionally happened. Even that the Holy Father sometimes asked this of a humble parish priest. He stammered, ‘But Eminence . . . I am not . . . not worthy.’

‘Father, there are none more worthy in our beloved Church.’

The Cardinal pulled up a low velvet-topped stool. He sat on it next to, and below, the priest. He took his hands in his and bowed his head.

‘Please, Father.’

Father Panrowski heard his own voice. A hoarse whisper.

‘What do you remember?’

The Cardinal spoke, his voice low, humble but resonant.

‘Father, forgive me, for I have sinned. I have let my temperament and my impatience dominate my pastoral mission. On occasions I have failed to understand the frailties and humanity of some who are around me and who would help me.’

The priest breathed more easily. This would be the confession of the natural infringements of a powerful personality whose intellect occasionally overshadowed his compassion.

So it took its course. He listened sympathetically and admonished gently. He assumed it was over but the Cardinal remained sitting, his head bent. Perhaps a minute or two passed. The Cardinal raised his head slightly. He was looking at his desk. The priest felt his hand squeezed; clasped tight by his leader. Mennini was breathing deeply. He lowered his head again and spoke in a whisper. Spoke of a thing far beyond any infringement. Queried painfully whether he was perpetrating an act of God or an act of survival and could the two be compatible? It was a plea from one who suffered a little to one who had suffered a lot.

The priest was rigid in mind and body. Many seconds passed, spaced out by the soft ticking of the ormolu clock. It was too much for this priest but he was the confessor and he had to find words. Words of comfort. Words of understanding. They were expected. Yearned for. He was as old as this man at his feet, but infinitely older in relating faith and truth to pain and reality. He lowered his head and said softly, ‘My son, yes, my son, it is wrong to do wrong for what you think is right. But it is wrong to do nothing against evil. We sin because we are human and Our Lord understands and judges . . . and you will be forgiven.’

He felt the pressure on his hands lighten. Slowly the Cardinal raised his head and crossed himself. Then he lifted the gold Crucifix from his waist and kissed the tiny, spreadeagled image.

They rose and he helped the priest across the room. Silently the priest lowered his head and kissed the Cardinal’s ring. Then he straightened his bent body and looked him in the eyes. A look of understanding. He said, ‘Eminence, I shall pray for you.’

‘Thank you, Father. Have a safe journey. God be with you.’

As the heavy door closed Mennini raised a hand to his side and felt the outline of the key in its little secret pocket. He also felt comforted.

Chapter 5

‘You are too beautiful, much too beautiful!’

‘I’m sorry, Father.’

The Bacon Priest laughed.

‘Ah, I wonder if a woman ever said that before in all history.’

He pushed his bulk to his feet, moved out from behind his desk and slowly walked around her. Ania Krol stood very still, a troubled look on her face.

A middle-aged nun stood in a corner with a smile on her lips. She said, ‘Sister Anna looks wonderful!’

Van Burgh rounded on her. ‘Ania,’ he said sternly. ‘From this moment she is Ania! Her name will change at times but you and she must remember. Sister Anna is temporarily a non-person.’

‘Yes, Father,’ the nun said dutifully, but in no way abashed. ‘But why is she too beautiful?’

He sighed. ‘Because great beauty attracts attention. That’s the last thing we want.’

He stood in front of Ania and studied her. She was dressed in a plain white blouse and dark blue pleated skirt and black polished high-heeled shoes. He shook his head.

‘I sent to the East for authentic clothes and cosmetics designed by good party designers and made by the proletariat for the proletariat and you look like you stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine. Imagine what couturiers in Rome or Paris would do to you?’

‘But what can I do, Father?’ she asked.

He ignored the question and did one more circuit around her.

‘It’s the hair,’ he said finally. ‘It really is your crowning glory.’

Her hair was thick and long and so black it seemed to glow with ebony blue streaks. It swung like a dark bell to her shoulders.

‘We shall have to dye it,’ he stated emphatically.

‘Oh no!’ cried the nun in the corner. ‘It would be a crime.’

‘Silence,’ he admonished. ‘But first we shall cut it. I think a sort of page-boy style. We must not make you too plain. The man whose wife you are supposed to be is handsome . . . and I dare say appealing enough to women to have an attractive wife. But you cannot be as beautiful as you are.’

He was looking at her legs. They were neither slim nor sturdy, but they curved gracefully to slim ankles. The high heels accentuated the curve of her calves.

‘The high heels have to go,’ he announced. ‘Flat, sensible shoes and a lower hemline.’

Ania hardly heard him. She was in mourning for her hair. Mentally it was her only feminine vanity. As a child the nuns had trimmed it, combed it, admired it and taught her to take care of it. At night before she slept and in the mornings before prayers she would always stroke her brush through it a hundred times, taking pleasure from its caress on her neck and shoulders; moving her head from side to side, letting it swing like a dark flower in a breeze. Then in the mornings she would tuck it up into her starched, austere headpiece, like a glittering piece of onyx wrapped and hidden in a pristine handkerchief.

‘We shall make you a little garish,’ Van Burgh said. ‘It’s the fashion now in the East.’ He pointed to her fingers. ‘Not colourless nail varnish but a slightly loud red and more rouge on your cheeks . . . and a darker lipstick more thickly applied. Also some bright metal bangles for your wrists and a cheap silver-plated chain round your neck, holding the letter “A”.’

Yet again he circled her, obviously now seeing, in his inner eye, a different woman. He stopped again in front of her. ‘And a few patent leather belts with shiny buckles just too big to be in good taste.’ He looked again at her hair. ‘We shall need two or three wigs of different style and colour . . . obviously with your skin colouring not blonde. Auburn, dark mousy, and so on. Ania, take your shoes off and walk across the room.’

She slipped off the shoes and walked back and forth in front of him. He sighed again.

‘You walk like a nun.’

‘I am a . . . How does a nun walk?’

‘Like this.’

He held his head up, pulled back his shoulders, put his hands by his sides and, with short steps, walked across the room with an expression of great piety on his face. The two women laughed in surprise. In their eyes his brown cassock was suddenly a white habit. Van Burgh was a perfect mimic and could have made his fortune on the stage. He walked exactly like a modest, demure nun.

‘So how should I walk?’

‘Like this.’

His entire posture changed. Even before he took one step he was a young woman, aware of her looks and sensuality. His hands and arms moved differently. He patted an imaginary lock of hair into place and walked again. Now there was a swing to his stride. He glanced to left and right. His left elbow was cocked against his side as though carrying a handbag.

Again the two women laughed, but then Ania was thoughtful. She had seen the complete difference.

‘But Father, I don’t have your talent. How can I learn to walk like that?’

‘I will teach you, Ania. Also you will spend time in the streets of Rome. Watch how other women walk, and talk to each other . . . and to men. Watch how they shop and use the telephone and carry bags. You must watch with a different eye than you have been used to. You will do that in the mornings. Every morning for the next week. You will go into coffee shops and ride on buses. You will walk the lobbies of big hotels and visit tourist attractions. Do you have any lay friends in Rome?’

Her hair swung as she shook her head. ‘No, Father.’

He frowned. For all her common sense and intellect she must get used to the close proximity and the conversation of people outside the clergy.

‘I will arrange some acquaintances for you: men and women. You will take coffee with them and lunches and, yes, sometimes drinks and dinner in the evening.’

‘I don’t drink, Father.’

‘Of course not, Ania. Just soft drinks - and you will tell these people that you were a nun who has just renounced her vows.’

Her lips tightened. ‘I certainly will not.’

He sighed. ‘Ania, listen to me. In the coming days we will build up a convincing cover for you. But it will take time. You will have much to learn and remember. You will be doing that in the afternoons and evenings along with other things that will be necessary and useful. In the meantime you must get used to the world outside of a convent. So it is important that your temporary cover is that you renounced your vows.’

She said stubbornly, ‘To say such a thing will make me physically sick!’

A glitter came into Van Burgh’s eyes. He looked at the nun in the corner. ‘Please wait outside, Sister.’

With a sympathetic glance at Ania she rustled away.

The priest moved behind the desk and sat down heavily. He pointed to a chair opposite him. She sat and arranged her skirt self-consciously over her knees.

He spoke rapidly. Short, blunt words. ‘You have Papal dispensation to suspend your vows temporarily. But the Pope did not intend that you suspend obedience to your superiors.’

A silence. Then she lowered her eyes and said, ‘I’m sorry, Father.’

His voice cracked at her. ‘Don’t be so demure! You are not a nun, Ania.’

Her head snapped up and he saw the steel in her. She looked him in the eye and said firmly, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘All right. So until you’re rehearsed in your permanent cover you will tell anyone who asks that you were a nun who renounced her vows. Very recently.’

‘Yes, Father.’

His tone softened just a little. ‘The people I will have you introduced to will not ask. They will have been told that you are sensitive to the matter.’

‘Thank you, Father.’

Again he studied her face for several minutes, assessing. Then he made up his mind. ‘Ania, I know you have strength of character and a fine mind. But naturally your years of seclusion and piety have made you sensitive in certain areas. That sensitivity, unless concealed and controlled, could be dangerous to you and the man who is travelling with you and his entire mission. Now, if I feel that you cannot conceal or control that aspect then I will not send you. I will have to find someone else.’

She considered that and then nodded. Again he could see her inner strength. She said firmly, ‘I understand that very well, Father. I will control it and conceal it.’

‘I hope so.’ He picked up an ivory paper knife and turned it in his fingers. ‘Ania, you will have seen modern films in the convent but they will have been carefully selected by the Mother Superior. You will have read books - but again selected. Even what you listened to on the radio and saw on television.’ He made a broad sweep with his arm. ‘Out there it is different. Censorship is almost non-existent in the West. You will see and hear things which will make you wonder what has happened to civilisation.’

She said, ‘Father, I have been cloistered all my life but I’m not unaware of trends in the Western world. You asked me if I had lay friends and my answer was no. My friends are, and always have been, women like myself. Sometimes, Father, I have regretted that because I am curious about the other world . . . but I have been studying continuously. I believed that my curiosity would be satisfied in the future. So I am grateful now for this opportunity.’

‘Good.’ He opened a file, studied it for a moment then, all business, said, ‘Ania, you’re a very accomplished linguist. Now tell me, what is the Russian word for “fuck”?’

He saw her recoil in her chair, her eyes wide in shock. Then the shock turned to anger at herself as she realised she had failed this first test. He stayed silent, letting the lesson sink in. She leaned forward and said, ‘Father, I was schooled by the Order. They didn’t teach us such things . . . but . . . I know the word for copulate.’

‘Brilliant.’ With a clatter he tossed the paper knife back on to the desk and gestured again with his arm. ‘You tell someone out there to “copulate off” and they’re going to get suspicious.’ He leaned forward, made a note on the file and said, ‘We are going to have to extend your vocabulary. That will be embarrassing for one of our linguists here . . . but then he doesn’t have to control or conceal it.’ He tapped the pen and looked at his watch. ‘Do you have any questions, Ania?’

She nodded. ‘Just one, Father. His Eminence, Cardinal Mennini, told me that this man I am to travel with . . . impersonating his wife  . . . is an evil man. Will there be much danger for me on this journey?’