The Gemini Contenders (55 page)

“Tell me about Annaxas,” said Adrian, sitting down opposite the priest.

The monsignor looked away from the wall, startled. Not by the name, thought Fontine, but by the intrusion. His large, penetrating gray eyes under the dark brows were momentarily unfocused. He blinked, as if remembering where he was.

“Theodore Dakakos? What can I tell you? We first met in Istanbul. I was tracing what I knew was false evidence. The so-called destruction by fire of the Filioque documents. He found out I was there and flew up from Athens to meet the interfering priest from the Vatican archives. We talked; we were both curious. I, why such a prominent man of commerce was so interested in obscure theological artifacts. He, why a Roman scholar was pursuing—
allowed
to pursue, perhaps—a thesis hardly in the Vatican’s interests. He was
very knowledgeable. Each of us manuevered throughout the night, both of us finally exhausted. I think it was the exhaustion that caused it. And the fact that we thought we knew one another, perhaps even liked one another.”

“Caused what?”

“The train from Salonika to be mentioned. Strange, I don’t remember which of us said it first.”

“He
knew
about it?”

“As much, or more, than I. The trainman was his father, the single passenger; the priest of Xenope, his father’s brother. Neither man ever returned. In his search he found part of the answer. The police records in Milan contained an old entry from December 1939. Two dead men on a Greek train in the freight yards. Murder and suicide. No identification. Annaxas had to know why.”

“What led him to Milan?”

“Over twenty years of asking questions. He had reason enough. He watched his mother go insane. She went mad because the church would give her no answers.”

“Her church?”

“An arm of the church, if you will. The Order of Xenope.”

“Then she knew about the train.”

“She was never supposed to have known. It was believed she didn’t. But men tell things to their wives they tell no one else. Before the elder Annaxas left early that morning in December of 1939, he said to his wife that he was not going to Corinth, as everyone believed. Instead, God would look favorably on them for he was joining his brother Petride. They were going on a journey very far away. They were doing God’s work.”

The priest fingered the gold cross hanging from a cord on the cloth beneath his collar. His touch was not gentle; there was anger in it.

“From which he never came back,” said Adrian quietly. “And there was no brother in the church to reach because he was dead.”

“Yes. I think we can both imagine how the woman—a good woman, simple, loving, left with six children—would react.”

“She’d go out of her mind.”

Land let the cross drop, his eyes straying back to the wall. “As an act of charity, the priests of Xenope took the
mad woman in. Another decision was made. She died within a month.”

Fontine slowly sat forward. “They killed her.” It was not a question.

Land’s gaze returned. There was a degree of supplication in his eyes now. “They weighed the consequences of her life. Not against the Filioque, but in relation to a parchment none of us in Rome ever knew existed. I’d never heard of it until this evening. It makes so many things so much clearer.”

Adrian got out of the chair and walked back to the window. He was not ready to discuss the parchment. The holy men no longer had the right to direct inquiries. The attorney in Adrian disapproved of the priests. Laws were for all.

Down in Central Park, along a dimly lit path, a man was walking two huge Labrador retrievers, the animals straining at their leashes. He was straining on a leash of his own, but he could not let Land know it. He turned from the window. “Dakakos put it all together, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” replied Land, accepting Adrian’s refusal to be led. “It was his legacy. He vowed to learn everything. We agreed to exchange information, but I was more forthright than he. The name Fontini-Cristi surfaced, but the parchment was never mentioned. The rest, I assume, you know.”

Adrian was startled by the priest’s words. “Don’t assume anything. Tell me.”

Land flinched. The rebuke was unexpected. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew. Dakakos took over the responsibility of Campo di Fiori. For years he paid the taxes—which were considerable—fended off buyers, real-estate developers, provided security, and upkeep—”

“What about Xenope?”

“The Order of Xenope is all but extinct. A small monastery north of Salonika. A few old priests on diminished farmland, with no money. For Dakakos, only one link remained: a dying monk at Campo di Fiori. He couldn’t let it go. He extracted everything the old man knew. Ultimately, he was right. Gaetamo was released from prison; the banished priest, Aldobrini, came back from Africa dying of assorted fevers and, finally, your father returned to Campo di Fiori. The scene of his family’s execution. The terrible search began all over again.”

Adrian thought. “Dakakos stopped my brother. He went
to extraordinary lengths to trap him, expose Eye Corps.”

“To keep him from the vault at all costs. The old monk must have told Dakakos that Victor Fontine knew about the parchment. He understood that your father would act outside the authorities, use his sons to find the vault. He had to. Weighing the consequences, there was no other course. Dakakos studied both of you. Actually he had you watched for several years. What he found in one son shocked him. Your brother could not be permitted to go further. He had to be destroyed. You, on the other hand, were someone he felt he could work with, if it came to that.”

The priest had stopped. He inhaled deeply, his fingers once again around the gold cross on his chest. Thought had returned to him and it was obviously painful. Adrian understood; he had experienced the same feeling in the mountains of Champoluc.

“What would Dakakos have done if he’d found the vault?”

Land’s penetrating gaze settled on Adrian. “I don’t know. He was a compassionate man. He knew the anguish of seeking painful answers to very painful questions; his sympathy might have guided his judgment. Still, he was a man of truth. I think he would have weighed the consequences. Beyond this I can’t help you.”

“You use that phrase a lot, don’t you? ‘Weighing the consequences.’ ”

“I apologize if it offends you.”

“It does.”

“Then forgive me, but I must offend you further. I asked your permission to come here, but I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to leave.” The priest got out of the chair. “I can’t stay. I’ll try to put it simply—”

“Simply
put,”
interrupted Adrian harshly, “I’m not interested.”

“You have the advantage,” replied Land quickly. “You see, I’m interested in
you
, in what you perceive.” The priest would not be stopped; he took a step forward. “Do you think doubts are erased because vows are taken? You think seven thousand years of human communication is somehow voided for us? Any of us, whatever the vestments we wear? How many gods and prophets and holy men have been conjured over the centuries? Does the number lessen
the devotion? I think not. For each accepts what he can accept, raising his own beliefs above all others. My doubts tell me that thousands of years from now scholars may study the remnants of what we were and conclude that our beliefs—our devotions—were singularly odd, consigning to myth what we think most holy. As we have consigned to myth the remnants of others. My intellect, you see, can conceive of this. But now, here, in my time—for me—the commitment is made. It’s better to have it than not to have it. I do believe. I am convinced.”

Adrian remembered the words. “ ‘Divine revelation cannot be contravened by mortal man’?”

“That’s good enough. I’ll accept that,” said Land simply. “Ultimately, the lessons of Aquinas prevail. They’re not the exclusive property of anyone, I might add. When reason is exhausted, at its last barrier, faith becomes the reason. I have that faith. But being mortal, I’m weak. I haven’t the endurance to test myself further. I must retreat to the comfort of my commitment, knowing I’m better with it than without it.” The priest held out his hand. “Good-bye, Adrian.”

Fontine looked at the outstretched hand and accepted it. “You understand that it’s the arrogance of your ‘commitment,’ your beliefs, that disturbs me. I don’t know any other way to put it.”

“I understand; your objection is noted. That arrogance is the first of the sins that lead to spiritual death. And the one most often overlooked: pride. It may kill us all one day. Then, my young friend, there’ll be nothing.”

Land turned and walked to the door of the small lounge. He opened it with his right hand, his left still holding the gold cross, enveloping it. The gesture was unmistakable. It was an act of protection. He looked once more at Adrian, then walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Fontine lighted a cigarette, then crushed it out. His mouth was sour from too many cigarettes and too little sleep. Instead, he went to a coffee maker and poured himself a cup.

An hour ago Land, testing the metal rim of the hot plate, had burned his fingers. It occurred to Adrian that the monsignor was the sort of man who tested most things in life. And yet he could not accept the final test. He merely walked away; there was a kind of honesty in that.

Far more than he had shown his mother, reflected Adrian. He had not lied to Jane; it would have been useless, the lie known for what it was. But neither had he told her the truth. He had done a far crueler thing: he had avoided her. He was not yet ready for confrontation.

He heard footsteps in the corridor outside the lounge. He put his coffee down and walked to the center of the room. The door opened and Barbara entered, the door held for her by the scholar, still in his laboratory smock, his horn-rimmed glasses somehow magnifying his face. Barbara’s brown eyes, usually so filled with warmth and laughter, were sharp with professional involvement.

“Doctor Shire’s finished,” she said. “May we have coffee?”

“Sure.” Adrian went back to the table and poured two cups. The scholar sat down in the chair from which Land had risen just minutes ago.

“Black, if you please,” said Shire, placing a single page of paper in his lap. “Your friend has left?”

“Yes, he left.”

“Did he know?” asked the old man, accepting the coffee.

“He knew because I told him. He made his decision. He left.”

“I can understand,” said Shire, blinking his old eyes beyond the glasses in the steam of his coffee. “Sit down, both of you.”

Barbara took the coffee but did not sit. She and the scholar exchanged looks; she walked to the window as Adrian sat across from Shire.

“Is it authentic?” asked Fontine. “I imagine that’s the first question.”

“Authentic? As to time and materials and script and language … yes, I would say it will survive those examinations. I’m going under the assumption that it will. Chemical and prismatic analyses take a long time, but I’ve seen hundreds of documents from the period; it’s authentic on these points. As to the authenticity of the contents. It was written by a half-crazed man facing death. A very cruel and painful form of death. That judgment will have to be made by others, if it’s to be made at all.” Shire glanced at Adrian as he placed the coffee cup on the table beside the chair and picked up the paper on his lap. Fontine remained silent. The scholar continued.

“According to the words on that parchment, the prisoner who was to lose his life in the arena on the following afternoon renounced the name of Peter, given him by the revolutionary named Jesus. He said he was not worthy of it. He wanted his death to be recorded as one Simon of Bethsaida, his name at birth. He was consumed with guilt, claiming he had betrayed his savior.… For the man who was crucified on Calvary was
not
Jesus of Nazareth.”

The old scholar stopped, his words floating, suspended, as if broken off in midsentence.

“Oh, my God!” Adrian got out of the chair. He looked at Barbara by the window. She returned his gaze without comment. He turned back to Shire. “It’s that specific?”

“Yes. The man was in torment. He writes that three of Christ’s disciples acted on their own,
against
the carpenter’s wishes. With the help of Pilate’s guards, whom they bribed, they took an unconscious Jesus out of the dungeons and substituted a condemned criminal of the same size and general appearance, dressing him in the carpenter’s clothes. In the hysterical crowds the next day, the shroud and the blood from the thorns were sufficient to obscure the features of the man under and on the cross. It was
not
the will of the man they called a messiah—”

“ ‘Nothing is changed,’ ” interrupted Adrian softly, remembering the words. “ ‘Yet all is changed.’ ”

“He was involuntarily removed. It was his intention to die, not to live. The parchment is clear on that.”

“But he didn’t die. He
did
live.”

“Yes.”

“He was
not
crucified.”

“No. If one accepts the word of the man who wrote the document—under the conditions he wrote it. Barely on the brink of sanity, I should think. I wouldn’t accept it merely because of its antiquity.”

“Now you’re making a judgment.”

“An observation of probability,” corrected Shire. “The writer of the parchment lapsed into wild prayer and lamentations. His thoughts were lucid one moment, unclear the next. Madman or self-flagellating ascetic? Pretender or penitent? Which one? Unfortunately, the physical fact that it’s a document from two thousand years ago lends a credibility that would certainly be withheld under less striking circumstances. Remember, it was the time of Nero’s persecutions,
a period of social, political, and theological madness. People survived more often than not on sheer ingenuity. Who was it,
really?”

“The document spells it out. Simon of Bethsaida.”

“We have only the writer’s word for it. There is no record of Simon Peter’s having gone to his death with the early Christian martyrs. Certainly it would be part of the legend, yet there’s no mention of it in biblical studies. If it were so, and overlooked, it’s an awesome omission, isn’t it?”