The Judas Cloth (51 page)

The shrunken state tottered on as best it could. Cardinal Antonelli compared it to a dwarf’s body trying to sustain a giant’s head, and indeed Rome’s needs had swollen, for its ministries were as active as ever and salaries still being paid to hordes of civil servants who had fled from the lost provinces and converged on the capital. What with refugees and plotters and foreign defenders, the city was crammed and the most illustrious asylum-seeker, the deposed King of Naples, was all three in one, like an unholy Trinity. He had come with his court, as if to reclaim the old debt incurred by Papa Mastai when he found shelter with the King’s father, Bomba. And he was plotting. Spending a fortune on it. Men in his pay went out regularly to stir up trouble in his and the Pope’s lost dominions. But most of these agents were bandits and did the loyalist cause more harm then good.

Meanwhile, counter-plotters wanted Rome for Victor Emmanuel, to whom an address on the occasion of his coronation as Italy’s first king was stealthily circulating. It begged: ‘Sire, if a nation has a right to choose its capital … Rome cannnot be denied to Italy. Rome awaits you, sire; she opens her arms to you and calls for your flag, the flag of Italy, to fly over the Campidoglio.’

Father Passaglia had written it. Through living in Turin, he had lost touch with Rome – but had the illustrious philosopher ever known ordinary folk anywhere? – and supposed citizens would sign it. Few did. On the other hand, the papal police could not get their hands on a copy. Neither signing nor squealing, the
populus
romanus
was lying low.

Cardinal Amandi had driven north to his diocese, in a convoy of drabbed-down carriages from which the red bits had been painted out and the panel crests removed.

Back in Rome, Nicola tidied His Eminence’s affairs and received visits on his behalf. One was from a man whose finger-nails were as black as his cassock.
Il
Canonico
Reali was in mourning for many things – including perhaps his sanity.

‘It’s over!’ These were his first words on being introduced into the drawing room.
‘Non
possumus
is the watchword from now on. We – that’s to say Pius – can’t and won’t budge! No argument.
Finis
!’

He was dripping sweat. ‘What’s that opera of Signor Verdi’s?’ he asked. ‘
Un
Ballo
in
Maschera
!
That’s what we’re all in. Dancing to
his
tune.’ The canon’s mouth slid sideways and one saw that this
tic
douloureux
was the ghost of a habitual smile. He was – no,
had
been,
and the correction set off the rictus once again – a canon of the order of the
Canonici
Lateranensi
but had been expelled, and news of this had been prematurely published in the
Gazzetta
Officiale
,
which was a violation of the rights of canons!

‘Hihih!’ The ex-canon’s mirthless whinny skirled and he wiped foam from the corners of his lips. He had heard that the thing had been done at the Pope’s personal behest!

‘Forgive me. I should have introduced myself: Don Eusebio Reali at your service. Forgive my emotion. I’ve had a shock. May I sit down? If you’ll bear with me, I’ll disarm your distrust. You see before you a loyal Catholic. Sincere, obedient, I submit my judgment to that of the Head of our Church. With the docility and humility of a son! Yes. I assure you that I do, when it is his judgment, Monsignore! His! But how can I believe it to be that when he speaks in the accents of that foul rag? You know the one I mean? Of course you do! For twelve years the compilers of the
Civiltà
Cattolica
have been exploiting the majesty of the Supreme Pastor for the benefit of their own clique. I show this in my book which is now to be put on the Index. I’ve been warned in confidence by a clerk. Only the lowly know things in today’s Rome. One has to crawl on one’s belly to lick up news. Keep one’s ear to the ground. Nuzzle in muck! And the muck is rising, Monsignore! It’s rising! Adam was made from clay. And when Christ’s Vicar turns religious questions into personal ones, he ceases to be the Vicar and reverts to being the man of mud!’

The canon apologised, sweated, coughed and accepted a glass of
water. No, thank you. Nothing more. Sorry, Monsignore. He knew what a wretched figure he was cutting – but who was to blame? His persecutors. The Jesuit clique. Cardinal Amandi would vouch for him. Reali would have come to
him
if he had been here. As it was, knowing Monsignore’s friendship for His Eminence, he had taken the liberty of throwing himself on his mercy.

He produced a document issued by the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars stating that as he, Eusebio Reali, had returned to his vomit, the Pope felt obliged to isolate the mangy sheep –
ovem
morbidam
– from his fellows.

The words ‘vomit’ and ‘mangy’ incensed the ex-canon who explained that his ‘vomit’ was Liberalism and the return to it the publication of his book,
Freedom
of
Conscience
with
Regard
to
the
Temporal
Power
of
the
Pope.
Now that one Congregation had stripped him of immunity and privileges, another, that of the Index, was about to condemn his ‘vomit’.

Reali bent towards Nicola so that his breath revealed the labouring anguish of his insides.

‘The truth is, Monsignore, that the Ultras don’t trust the Pope and are trying to get him to alienate Liberal opinion. Then he will have nowhere to turn but to them!’ To Nicola’s relief, he leaned away and confided that Padre Passaglia’s work on the same topic was under the same threat. Indeed – Reali had this from an impeccable source – it was to be condemned as anonymous so as to deny its author the right to
self-defence
conceded by
Sollicita
ac
of Pope Benedict XIV’s Bull,
Provida.
Why? Simply and solely because, as all Rome knew, no theologian could get the better of Passaglia, so none dare face him! Reali laughed bitterly. See what we had come to! Again he leaned forward.

Cardinal d’Andrea was Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation and Monsignor Stanga a consultor. Would Monsignor Santi solicit their good offices? Put in a good word?

Nicola’s first thought was, This man has been sent to trap me into an indiscretion! Then he felt ungenerous. Then, once more suspicious. He said he would need to think about this. Reali, looking knowing, said he understood.

Leaving, he paused in the doorway. ‘People will ask whether it is wrong to try to reform our house when it’s under attack. But, if we don’t, is it worth saving?’ He wiped his face with a red check
handkerchief
which seemed to have been wrung out and re-used. Then his fist closed tremulously on the cloth which, for a moment, had the look of
something live. When he had gone, a whiff lingered as if he had been dossing down in insalubrious places.

Distaste drove Nicola to help Reali. Also pity, since the ex-canon would probably antagonise most of those to whom he made his appeal. Could Passaglia too be like this? Rabid and a little mad? It seemed unthinkable – yet, the theologian, who had begun as a conciliator, was now a propagandist for our enemies. Why? Could it be that men without roots become magnetised by whatever factional flotsam came their way? The thought was alarming and meant that, nowadays, the risk on leaving the fold was not of being eaten by wolves but of becoming one.

Cardinal d’Andrea proved receptive to Nicola’s appeal. He was an impetuous man and, on this account, thought dangerous to know, for he talked too openly, being a relic from the days when great aristocrats had been a law unto themselves. Also, as a southerner, he lacked that sly, affable, two-faced Roman caution.

Son of a marquis who had been Finance Minister to the Royal House of Naples, His Eminence had the genial vivacity of a man who, after being educated in France, had received the red hat at forty – eight years ago now. He assured Nicola that he would do anything he could to remove the blinkers from the droves of clerical mules and donkeys surrounding the Holy Father. Men who stood on their own two feet were a rarity and needed protecting. He was ready to resign from the
Congregatio
Indicis
rather than condemn Passaglia. Reali too, though a less likeable figure, deserved support.

‘We are not monks,’ said His Eminence, ‘so preaching monastic humility at us is hypocritical. If the Curia wants power, which it does, then it must try to understand it. Ergo, it must tolerate some freedom of debate. I don’t say Reali is right, only that he should be
heard.
He’s not turning the other cheek – but then the Holy Father doesn’t set us an example of humble pacifism, does he?’

The cardinal said all this in loud, easy tones, taking no notice of his own footmen who stood, as if carved, here and there in the suite of saloons through which he chose to reaccompany Nicola. ‘I’m told H.H. has had a vision of St Philomena. That may explain why the Holy Spirit is failing to make itself heard! Too much traffic in the holy head, eh?
I’m glad,’ he said with amiable condescension, ‘that you came to see me.’

Prospero was less glad. His smile was forbearing. Nothing I say can be new to you, reproached the smile, and it is tedious of you to make me say it. At the same time, it delivered a quite opposite message, which one would miss if one were to close one’s eyes. The glow of Prospero’s charm led people to ascribe to him a cordiality which was in fact in
them.
It was their response to his good looks. He began to lecture Nicola about corporate loyalty to the Temporal Power.

‘But if it’s nearly gone, surely one must deal with reality?’

‘One must deal with principle. I cannot be a party to an act alienating something for which I am answerable to another.’

‘Do you mean God?’ Nicola grew exasperated. ‘Don’t you see that you’ve made something mystic out of property? The Temporal Power is becoming the Eighth Sacrament!’ He shouldn’t have said it. Unlike Cardinal d’Andrea, Prospero was affected by words. Once said, they became hard, irreducible things and got between you and him for whom the word really was made flesh – or something which chafed the flesh, like a burr! He went cold now and bitter, so that Nicola was provoked to say worse and ended by shouting that, though Christ, by dying for us all, had made us spiritual equals, Pius was behaving towards men like Passaglia, with a feudal arrogance. ‘That’s the outcome of the Temporal Power!’

‘You’re shouting. You could be heard.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry,’ said Nicola, but knew that this would not mollify Prospero. ‘It’s not Passaglia’s fault that I shouted,’ he pleaded. ‘All he wants is freedom to speak his mind.’

‘But see how pernicious freedom is!’ triumphed Prospero. ‘The faithful have a right to be protected against errors which could make them lose their souls.
You
need protecting from them. Don’t mock!’ he raged, for Nicola was laughing. But it was only because his friend looked heroic when he grew heated and this amused him. Here was Prospero, a prig and a pillar of righteousness, benefiting from the chance fact that legions of painted – then widely copied – St Sebastians and Stephens and Aloysius Gonzagas and Christs had been endowed with his
particular
cast of North Italian features, pallor and fair hair. These, as a result, evoked aesthetic suffering, and it was likely that the faithful, who all over the world were now being urged to contribute to St Peter’s Pence and succour the ‘martyred pope’, pictured him as looking like Prospero.
Whereas, in reality, thought Nicola, martyrdom must often have reduced people to the sweaty ignominy of the ex-canon Reali on whose behalf he now made a last appeal.

‘All I ask is for your Congregation to hold its hand a while.’

‘I’m only a consultant.’

‘The Cardinal Prefect is sympathetic.’

Prospero’s jaw tightened and Nicola remembered, too late, that d’Andrea, being bound by an oath of secrecy, should not have told him this. He began trying to repair any damage he might have done, and when Prospero interrupted him, forced himself to listen submissively while his friend excoriated and blamed the wrong cardinal. Amandi, for some reason, drew his wrath. Did Nicola know that he, because of his culpable laxness, had been Cavour’s choice as the next pope? ‘It’s no recommendation! And I say that, even though he’s a cousin of mine!’

This, opined Prospero, was a time when personal ties should be set aside. ‘Even if he were your father …’ he told Nicola, who saw that he was being told that, in Prospero’s opinion, Amandi
was.
Although the notion was not new, it upset him in ways he hadn’t time to disentangle for – the St Sebastian now was himself – a multiplicity of arrowy reproaches were contained in it, among them the charge that he was loyal to a man rather than to the Church and hoping to benefit from Amandi’s possibly being the next pope. This, said Prospero, was being predicted in the more knowing sacristies of the city. Such talk was close to criminal. Consider the implications for the present pontiff’s safety! And Prospero recalled how two cardinals tipped for the succession – the conservative, Della Genga, and the Liberal, Santucci, had died suddenly, one from apoplexy and the other from a heart attack. He interpreted this to mean that someone was clearing the way for a still more Liberal candidate which – given that both had in fact met their end after, and possibly as a result of, fierce scoldings by the choleric Mastai – made no sense to Nicola. However, he did not argue. Instead, for the sake of Passaglia, d’Andrea and Reali, he kept his temper, let the exchange simmer down and, not wishing to leave on a sour note, asked after Prospero’s father.

‘How is he?’

‘As irresponsible as ever,’ he was told. ‘Pleased with the new regime. So is my brother. I doubt though that they’ll like the new royal taxes. They’re much heavier than the papal ones.’

Nicola’s forbearance turned out to have done little good for, though Cardinal d’Andrea resigned in protest from the Congregation of the Index, Passaglia’s and Reali’s books were then condemned and when Passaglia, who had returned to Rome in the – vain – hope of being allowed to defend himself, refused to submit to the decree, Mastai called him ‘an impious traitor’. Friends advised the ex-Jesuit to flee before an order for his arrest could be issued. Miss Foljambe, with whom he had been staying, got him a herdsman’s clothes and members of the National Committee smuggled him out in the early hours of the morning. Accounts of this event varied, the more lurid claiming that he was wheeled out in a barrow under cover of a malodorous load of cat meat.