The Judas Cloth (53 page)

Monsignor Ferrari took back the paper, put it in a drawer and turned the key. ‘His Eminence fears that forces hostile to himself could be planning to make something of this. Since you are now a dependant of his, it could be a repetition of the Fausti case.’

Nicola felt a chill.

Fausti, a childhood friend of Cardinal Antonelli’s and a member of his household, was serving a twenty-year sentence on an implausible charge, and many believed his innocence to be the reason for his conviction. He had always been a fanatical supporter of the papacy, yet when Costanza Diotallevi accused him of plotting against it, he was arrested and Monsignori Pila and Matteucci – respectively Minister for Justice and Director of Police – rigged a trial designed to strike terror into the cardinal’s camp by displaying their own power and the erosion of his. Their tactic had worked too, for His Eminence made no move to save his friend.

The Treasurer’s knuckles were the colour of milk. La Diotallevi’s proofs had been arrogantly flimsy. To be sure, her accusations were backed up by compromising papers found in envelopes addressed to Signor Fausti. But this proved nothing, since plotters regularly put respected names on their missives in case their courier was stopped by the police. Normally, the outer wrapping was discarded before reaching their addressee. The fact that this had not been done in Fausti’s case was proof of the intention to discredit him. Indeed, the police had probably concocted the letters in the first place.

‘They’re vermin!’ whispered Ferrari. Emotion – a novelty? – and
solidarity with Fausti were carrying him away. Mérode had perhaps overreached himself, for how,
now,
could the most ardent papist feel safe? And why, feeling unsafe, should he be loyal? ‘I’m assuming there’s no truth in this story either.’ Monsignor Ferrari indicated the closed drawer. ‘Go and see the cardinal.’

Nicola lingered. ‘Surely Monsignor de Mérode himself would not collaborate on such a scheme?’

Ferrari shrugged. ‘He needn’t know! Pila and Matteucci …’

‘I see.’

‘Besides’ – Ferrari’s breath was so close that Nicola was breathing it in – ‘soldiers, being absolutists, can lack scruple. His Eminence, thank God, deals in the relative. My experience,’ Ferrari, breathing hotly, conveyed wisdom in the ardent manner of the Holy Spirit, ‘is that, compared with our colleagues in – to take an example – the Holy Office, we in the Treasury are honesty itself. Keeping accounts is a salutary exercise. Why do you think Justice carries a scale?’

Cardinal Antonelli’s apartment in the Vatican was above the Pope’s, and Pius was known to amuse himself by invoking ‘the one above’, to the bewilderment of hearers who could not tell whether he meant God or Antonelli. ‘
He
decides,’ Pius would add, compounding their confusion and, if his visitors were supporters of Monsignor de Mérode, pique. He did this with a jocular slyness aimed at shuffling off responsibility for unpopular measures, and had been so successful that the image of an unworldly pope being misled by a wicked Antonelli had wide currency.

‘Don’t believe it!’ Amandi had often told Nicola. ‘Taking the blame is one of Antonelli’s duties.’

This, he had argued, was why he and Nicola should take some of the burden off the Cardinal Secretary by secretly resuming the
correspondence
which had been let lapse after Cavour’s death.

Nicola, who had expected to be kept waiting, was instead introduced so quickly into Antonelli’s presence that he had no time to settle his countenance. The apartment was simple – four rooms – because the cardinal had his own palace elsewhere, but no doubt also because a fine simplicity spoke in his favour.

‘Monsignor Santi.’

His Eminence’s tone gave nothing away and Nicola, kneeling to kiss the proffered ring, was unable to check his superior’s face for ambushed bad feeling. Raising his head, he met a large-eyed, level gaze. Before
the ring-kissing, the cardinal had been tending a potted orchid.
Returning
to it with a graceful movement, he invited his guest to consider the flower.

‘Frail!’ he pronounced. ‘Exquisite but frail! I raise them in my own palace and sometimes bring one here to keep me company, but they don’t survive well. Sit down, Monsignore.’ The cardinal sat. ‘Is what that rag says true?’ Then, as Nicola hesitated: ‘We can’t wait for Cardinal Amandi’s
nihil
obstat
to your avowals. We must trust each other. Shall I take silence for consent?’

He knows, thought Nicola. He must. Amandi had guessed that Antonelli would want a channel kept open for eventual use or denial, according to how things would turn out. Indeed, how could their activities have escaped detection by the spy-network which, having once extended over the whole state, must now be as tight-meshed as a shrunken sock?

‘I think Your Eminence already knows. I forwarded letters. I doubt if there was much in them. We were a means waiting to be used; a bridge. I believe our contacts in Turin felt the same way.’

‘A floating bridge? Disconnected at both ends?’ The cardinal held Nicola’s gaze for a moment, then appeared to make up his mind. ‘Very well,’ he said briskly. ‘But now it must be sunk. Scuttled. Understood? We shall deny it ever existed and so, I imagine, will Turin.
Roma
O
Morte,
luckily, enjoys little credibility and, the better to give its story the lie, your move to the Treasury must be seen as a promotion. Officially, you will be second-in-command to Monsignor Ferrari. In reality, your responsibility will be limited and you are to take no secret initiatives. Can I trust you?’

‘Absolutely, Eminence.’

Nicola felt remiss, forgiven, deeply grateful and somehow possessed by the cardinal whose physical presence was powerful and impressive. Dressed as a cleric – and very elegantly so: his cape and soutane were beautifully tailored – he had an extra animal charge, due either to the rampancy of unconsecrated flesh or the natural cast of his features which were bulky, a little African, but even and strong.

To finish with the scandal, said the cardinal, it was true that, from time to time, we were obliged to make use of secret channels of communication with Italy – if only to discuss such matters as vacant dioceses. Every third one in the kingdom was vacant. Flocks could not be left without pastors. We
had
to negotiate. At the same time, we must not give our French defender any pretext for abandoning us. ‘Rome,’
said the cardinal, ‘is like a raped woman. She must not be seen to have any understanding with the rapist. It follows that a go-between who is unmasked must either be denied – like Padre Passaglia – or, as is possible in your case, whitewashed.
You
are lucky and so owe us extra loyalty!’ The cardinal looked keenly at Nicola. ‘Yes? Yes. So now you will be working for a near-landless Church whose lifeblood is real money. You and Monsignor Ferrari must try and get your hands on some. I say ‘real’ because your task will be to assess very coolly the promises of this Belgian financier, for whom your friend, Duke Cesarini, is working.’ Antonelli’s eye was vigilant and disabused. ‘You should know that we normally prefer
not
to deal with Catholic saviours whose enthusiasm can be detrimental to their business sense. Monsieur Langrand-Dumonceau is far from being the first to propose his services. The reason why we may be obliged to turn to him is that the Rothschilds, with whom we have dealt satisfactorily until now, have begun making unacceptable political demands. Are you a practical man, Monsignor Santi?’

‘I seem not to be.’

‘Self-abasement,’ said the cardinal a touch brusquely, ‘is not useful in human relations. Keep it for those you have with God. You made a mistake – you or Minghetti. That means that one of you has a false friend or confessor. Beware of both from now on.’

And, said His Eminence, bear in mind that this state’s current annual deficit was about thirty million francs and the national debt alarming. The Treasury was planning to float a new fifty-million-franc loan like the one the Rothschilds had floated for us in 1860. ‘
They
sold thirty-six million bonds at par and fourteen million at 77‧5‧ We shall expect our Catholic financier to do at least as well. What you must ensure is that he helps us rather than himself, and God rather than Mammon. Be assured that he will express great piety, which the Rothschilds, thank God, spared us, while thinking of his profit. Be alert. Be suspicious.
Remember
that we are short of time and that if he can buy us some, anything may happen. The kingdom of Italy may collapse and God put an end to our trials.’

Nicola left the room in a state of exalted and exhilarating loyalty which, it seemed to him now, was something he had always wanted to feel. And as Amandi too admired Antonelli, there was no conflict.

Gossip continued to chase after reality. A staple topic was the band of mercenaries whom the ex-King of Naples did or did not pay to burn and pillage his lost lands. They wore old French uniforms so as to discourage regular troops from shooting them, and many people claimed to know the address in Rome where the uniforms were kept. Other staples were the imminent conversion to Catholicism of various members of the British royal family and their offer of Malta as an asylum to the Pope, the Mérode/Antonelli row and, more topically, one between the French Ambassador and an English agent over the Malta offer which must therefore have really been made and, perhaps, provisionally accepted by the Pope, whose epilepsy, by the way, was leading him a dance.

At a reception in the Belgian Embassy, Nicola was approached by Father Grassi who made a remark which, though it sounded at first like the other pious fancies floating about their ears, later struck him as odd. Something to do with how the pronouncements of the little thaumaturge at Lourdes had been put to use. Did Nicola remember what the Madonna had said to her? She had said, ‘I am the Immaculate Conception!’ Four years earlier, noted the Jesuit, His Holiness had defined that doctrine by himself which, according to many experts, he had had no right to do. It was, they claimed, a usurpation of his bishops’ powers. And note who his adviser had been: Padre Passaglia! Grassi’s black eyes gleamed and he began, quite shockingly, to laugh. ‘But who could complain once he had the support of the Madonna! Eh, Monsignore?’

Nicola could not tell who was the butt of this merriment. Himself? The Madonna? Could Grassi be losing his mind? He said dampeningly, ‘I can’t believe you are criticising the Holy Father.’

‘Would you be troubled?’ Grassi drew closer. ‘People’s minds are on the succession. His health is so poor.’

‘Father Grassi,’ Nicola spoke carefully, ‘I hope you will forgive my
supposing that you are trying to trap me into an indiscretion. The only alternative is to suppose you disloyal – which, obviously, I resist. In the light of your known devotion to the Holy See …’ Irritably he mumbled on, unsure how much of this was a charade. A group close by was discussing the expedition to Mexico. Markets and raw materials would be opened up, said an enthusiast. A Catholic empire would … But he lost the rest.

Grassi nodded, as though congratulating Nicola on his perspicacity. He wore a small, approving smile.

‘Anyway.’ Nicola felt offended. ‘I heard His Holiness’s health was better.’ Testily, he snatched a water ice from a passing tray. He needed to cool down.

‘It’s precarious!’ The Jesuit whispered, ‘The Emperor has been taking soundings. He,’ Grassi paused, ‘wants a conciliator and many people’s minds turn to Cardinal Amandi.’

‘Who is out of favour.’

‘What would you expect?’

‘… to stop,’ cried the Catholic imperialist, ‘the expansion of the United States!’

‘I would expect
you
to back a conservative,’ said Nicola.

‘Cardinal della Genga? But he died and the Church needs unity. If I am driven to making an alliance with you, Monsignore, what will you have against me? That I am a turncoat? That is another word for “convert”!’ Smiling that ambiguous, encouraging smile, he whispered: ‘I have a warning for you. Your connections – the duke and his business friends – are dangerous. Beware, Monsignore. A scandal could damage all our plans.’

‘The Belgian Midas is courting us.’ Monsignor Ferrari handed Nicola a parchment scroll. It was long, sealed, ribboned and headed ADDRESS TO THE HOLY FATHER. ‘Skip the flourishes,’ directed the
Treasurer
. ‘It is astonishing how laymen like to preach.’

Nicola skipped with difficulty, for the text was a web of wordiness. ‘“If humbly prostrate at Your Holiness’s feet … we submit to Your attention our project for the establishment of a UNIVERSAL CATHOLIC FINANCIAL POWER, it is not because we suppose that, without it, the Church or the Holy See would perish …”’

‘Skip! Skip!’ Ferrari cracked his knuckles. ‘Some tame
abbé
wrote it. Can you find anything into which we can get our teeth?’

‘“… we conceived the idea of a UNIVERSAL CATHOLIC FUND and of a CATHOLIC FINANCIAL POWER: (
ideam
UNIVERSALIS
CATHOLICI
FUNDI
et
PECUNIARIAE
POTENTIAE
CATHOLICAE
conceperimus
…)”’

‘Blessed if I can,’ said Monsignor Ferrari.

‘“One need but look at the state of finance in our time to see the heavy monopoly (
premens
dominium
)
exercised … by Jews and Protestants, both adversaries of the Church.

‘“Even Catholics invest with them! And recent examples show how ready such bankers are to use investors’ money to help governments hostile to the Church: such as that of Italy.

‘“The World is divided between Protestant and Jewish financiers … and Catholic wealth and the forces of conservatism …”’

‘Preach, preach!’ said the irascible Ferrari. ‘Do they think we need telling?’

‘“The first … induce Catholic princes to assign key posts to … enemies of all religion, so as to turn humanity towards temporal delights and to keep it under their financial yoke … Catholics, investing with infidels, nourish in their bosoms … to free them from bondage … a CENTRAL UNIVERSAL CATHOLIC FUND must be set up … if the Holy See, by giving its apostolic blessing to the project, would recommend it to Catholic rulers and priests … we have found a man who is truly Catholic, zealous and devoted to the Holy See … Monsieur André Langrand-Dumonceau …”

‘There’s nothing about money for us,’ said Nicola.

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Ferrari. ‘It is a request disguised as an offer.’

Passing a photographer’s window, Nicola’s attention was solicited by ogling models wearing the costume of the Roman Campagna. Stuck in cheap frames, the photographs were souvenirs for an undiscerning clientele: for French soldiers perhaps or foreign governesses. He dismissed them, then saw, in after-image, that one ogle was, after all, for him. The eyes were Maria’s. And so was the rest: a ruined mnemonic. He turned. It was indeed she – which meant that so, from the neck down, had that other scandalous photograph been, since, clearly, she was a model and here was the missing face, faded like an old flag, but smiling gallantly, although its mouth was in the harsh custody of two wrinkles.

He pushed open the photographer’s door. A bell jangled and a youth in an apron, answering from the gloom, gave an address which dispelled all doubts. La Diotallevi, said he, had provided those photographs and would know the models.

So off went Nicola to lay a ghost and perhaps find luck for the papal loan: a mixture of motives which drew him like a rope.

La Diotallevi and he assessed each other in her small hallway, for he had found her cloaked and bonneted and unsure whether she could spare him a minute. Relenting, she said he might walk with her to the ferry, so they took a narrow path along the river, but were held back by a cart lumbering ahead of them, which, being laden with stones, swayed slowly from side to side.

Nicola showed her the photograph he had bought and explained that he did not want to meet the model but only to have the address of her parish priest. The reasons concerned an old debt.

‘Ah!’ smiled la Diotallevi, perhaps remembering old adventurings of her own. A teasing gleam came to her eye and she laughed girlishly and quickened her step – but just then the carter in front of them came to a dead stop because of some difficulty with his horse.

Impatiently, she asked, ‘Shall we try and get by?’ Not waiting for an answer, she skipped up the grassy slope and passed the cart, which suddenly – had she startled the cart-horse? – swerved, tipped over and, borne down by its load, hurtled into the river. Trapped in its harness, the animal gave a bone-chilling, equine scream. The carter too let out a howl, then everything sank under the swell of racing yellow waters. It was astounding: a moment of suspended time. Then Nicola was down the slope. Slithering and scrambling, he hung onto some willow saplings with one hand, while edging out in the water to where the carter was thrashing and gulping, and, by extending a stick to him, slowly eased him back to safety. Hauling laboriously, while skinning the hand which still grasped the willow, he got him up the bank. Then, for moments, they both lay there, gasping with delayed terror.

‘I confess …’

It was some time later and Nicola and la Diotallevi, drawn close by shock, had warmed and soothed themselves with hot cinnamon wine.

‘… to Blessed Mary …’ Her voice produced the blunted words with a renovating vigour. ‘… that I have sinned grievously.’

She had. To start with, she admitted to having made a number of false confessions. This, she swore, was a true one.

Nicola, whose wrung-out cassock was hung somewhere to dry, sat wrapped in a blanket, wondering if he was being unwise. She had insisted on her dire and present need of spiritual succour and he was unsure whether this was what she did want. Possibly, he had to allow, after the brush with sudden danger, she had felt a need to get close to the only man to hand and taken this way of doing so. If so, God’s strategy might have her in its grip. No doubt her ears, like his, were throbbing with the cries of the rescued man who had gibbered and mourned his dead horse and seemed to be in such despair that he had had to be spoken to firmly and given money and ordered to go and change his clothes. Else, as he kept threatening, he might have jumped back into the river.

It was then that
she
had taken charge, insisting that the dripping Nicola come back to her house. They were bound now by their adventure, while the irruption of mortality, even if only that of a horse, had apparently moved her to confess. It was now or never, she said and, on hearing of her past sacrilegious confessions, he was bound to believe her. She had, she pointed out, had little choice about these since what she had to confess was a history of denouncing the innocent and colluding to destroy them. Colluding with whom? She named
Monsignori
Matteucci and Pila. How, she asked reasonably, could she have safely made a confession implicating
them
?
Her faith in the secrecy of the sacrament was nil.

‘I trust you,’ she said, whereupon he distrusted her.

Amazed at his imprudence, he imagined the papal police bursting in to find him dressed only in a blanket with a known harlot on her knees before him. What if there were spies behind the foliate candelabrum or the Chinese screen? He feared a flash of light and being fulminated by Monsignori Pila and Matteucci. Reassuring himself, he recalled that the circumstances leading to this had been fortuitous. The photograph, the carter’s accident. No, no, if there was a design here it must, as she seemed to think, be God’s. Ashamed, he saw that her motives were purer than his own.

‘Why,’ he asked ploddingly, ‘confess at all if you couldn’t do so truthfully?’

Surprised, she reminded him that, to stay on the government payroll,
she must obtain an annual certificate proving that she had done so. She had, for the same reason, made a sacrilegious communion every year as well. Did he absolve her?

Only, said he, if she promised to put right the wrongs she had done. There were men in gaol – Fausti for one – because of her. How absolve her while they continued to suffer? Yet he knew that asking her to take back her lies was unrealistic. She had handed him a dilemma and he was stumped by it. Slowly, an idea dawned. Did she think, he asked, that Monseigneur de Mérode knew of the crimes perpetrated by his henchmen? If not, she should confess all this to him who would, on finding the sins on his own conscience, be obliged to deal with them – which he had the power to do.

She began to moan and protest.

‘But as a priest,’ Nicola assured her, ‘he’s bound to forget, on emerging from the confessional, what he learned within it. You don’t trust him?’

No, she trusted nobody, except, it seemed, Nicola himself, because of his selfless bravery just now in helping the carter who could, she pointed out, have dragged him under.

‘My heart was in my mouth!’ she said. ‘Seeing you on that slippery slope with nothing but a few willow twigs between you and – can you swim?’

He could not but hadn’t, he realised, been afraid at all. Too excited. But he was frightened now, feeling caught, like herself, in a web of dubiety. If
he
were to tell Mérode, he would still have to name her and … No, she implored. Mérode could have her re-arrested. He could revive the old charges of spying and falsifying the Queen of Naples’ photograph and …

‘But would he?’

Mérode, objected Nicola, was a gentleman and … But la Diotallevi knew too much about gentlemen to be impressed. Knew them up close, Monsignore. And as for moral codes, she knew how notions like the greater good, a just war, the interests of the Church, etc., etc., could be invoked to justify
anything.
‘Anything at all, Monsignore!’ She had seen it happen. Over and again! She knew.

Humiliated, Nicola asked, what if she were to write out several copies of her confession, sign and give them to him for use if anything happened to her? It would be a protection and …

‘And my salary? I have to live. He’d cut it off.’

‘I could ensure that you received one from the Treasury instead.’

She said she’d think about it and he gave her provisional absolution. Then he accepted some more hot cinnamon wine with a slice of lemon and a spoonful of sugar, and they sat quietly for a little, chatting as if they had known each other always. She had spirit. He liked her and would have liked – oddly – to be friends with her, but that, to be sure, was out of the question.

‘This is where the
barberi
are caught.’

‘Barbarians?’

Nicola laughed. ‘No, no, Barbary horses. They race here in carnival week. Without riders.’

Langrand-Dumonceau’s agents marvelled, and he explained that the animals were urged on by spiked metal balls which hung from their backs to prick and madden them so that they rushed down the city’s main street, known on that account as the Corso, to where a canvas was stretched to stop them. Was it true, asked the Belgian, that, formerly, leaders of the city’s Jewish community had run this race on foot? His smile acknowledged an ómen in men of God engaging in a temporal struggle and perhaps imperilling their health.