leaving the corners flooded in shadowy phantasmagoria.
The room had no windows. A white wooden door was the only way in. Time had worn down the original color of the walls and door with dark stains.
A violent kick threw the door open, adding another dent to countless others. At this precise moment the bulb went out, as if in protest.
‘Shit,’ the attacker swore, turning the light switch on and off impatiently.
After a while the capricious bulb flicked back on.
‘I was about to give up,’ he growled.
He entered the room with a show of power. I want, I can, and I command. A very confident attitude, since he knew of no one who could stop him.
He approached the chair, grabbed the back, and lifted it. Then let the legs of the chair hit the floor in unison. It would support him.
Next to the chair was a small black bag the attacker glanced at. Everything was ready.
He went out and left the door open. The bulb threatened to go out, but when the man returned, it was illuminating the chair as it should. He was dragging someone who appeared lifeless, and sat him in the chair. It was an old man, badly beaten. At first it was difficult to keep him seated, since he didn’t have the strength to support himself, and tended to fall forward. The attacker steadied him with a hand on his head. He had time. While the old man recovered consciousness, he would pull himself together.
A blindfold prevented him from seeing the place or his tormentor. Dried blood smeared his lips, a remnant of recent beatings. A bruise marked his neck. This old man had been tortured methodically and brutally.
He coughed a little to open his throat passages, but even that was difficult. He was in pain all over. The attacker interpreted the cough as a return to consciousness, and he was ready. He bent over the sack and opened it.
‘Who’s there?’ the old man asked in a startled voice. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’
He was so naive. He had attended to the request of a friend who knew someone who needed a translation of a parchment. The next morning he caught a plane, and when he landed, instead of characters written on a parchment, he saw the floor a few inches from his face. A hard blow to the neck dropped him to the ground. He never even saw who attacked him. They blindfolded him and continued to beat him. He couldn’t say how many there were, maybe only one, or what the motive was. He offered money, the little he had, but apparently they weren’t after money. In the midst of his desperation, he tried to maintain lucidity. His mental faculties were all he had left, but even those he lost momentarily from a harder blow. He regained consciousness sitting in a chair with someone rummaging around in something at his feet.
‘I don’t have anything that could be of interest. I’m a professor, l live an honest life. Have mercy.’
The attacker got up. He had a syringe and a glass container in his hands. He inserted the needle into the plastic top of the container and drew up the colorless liquid. He expelled the air, pressing the handle until a drop appeared at the point of the needle. He let the container fall and it shattered into shards of glass. He stared at the blindfolded old man, who was silent, as if expecting the worst.
‘The rules are simple. I ask and you answer. Any exception to this rule will have consequences, understood?’ the attacker recited.
6
‘Two books published?’ Francesco asked her, rolled up in the sheets of the bed in a suite on the eighth floor of the Grand Hotel Palatino in Rome.
‘Sure. They let anyone publish a book these days,’ she joked, downplaying the importance of the question.
‘How did you get such important information about the Vatican?’ Francesco asked, looking at the white ceiling. ‘You must know someone inside with excellent contacts.’
Sarah thought about the last two years. They had been too intense. She’d discovered things she would never have imagined about subjects that, until now, hadn’t interested her in the least. She could consider herself an expert on Vatican affairs, well versed in John Paul I and II, without ever having lifted a finger to make it all happen. Life could reveal itself in strange ways, certainly. She was at the top of the list of competitive television commentators and print journalists when the subject was the Holy See. Her opinion was so respected that some even nicknamed her the pope’s lover behind her back, since much of what she knew could come only from him. It was ironic that the opinion of a woman, highly suspect within the sacred walls, was most respected outside them.
She thought about Rafael, his strength, his sense of duty, his beauty, and what they had gone through together.
It was six months since they had talked. Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. She had done all the talking, and Rafael didn’t say a word.
They were in London, where Sarah lived. They met in Walker’s Wine and Ale Bar. He arrived first and ordered a Bud. Later, when she got there, she ordered an Evian over the noise of the popular bar, but didn’t wait for it to be served. She started suddenly on the subject that had brought her to this meeting.
‘What do we have between us, you and I?’
Rafael looked at her as if he hadn’t understood.
‘What do we have together, you and I?’ Sarah repeated. ‘I know you’re a priest… that you have a relationship with…’ She felt confused. God, Christ, the church? All at the same time? ‘Huh… but I also know I’m not indifferent to you.’ Here Sarah looked at him to get some reaction. Rafael remained impassive, listening to her. He could be a bastard when he wanted. Sarah felt increasingly nervous. ‘I know we got to know each other under unfortunate circumstances.’ She plowed on, or so she thought, ‘I know that we went through a lot, our lives in danger, and that probably that gave me the opportunity to know you better than anyone. That made me fall in love with you.’ When she realized what she’d said, the words had already left her mouth. She thought he would have something to say, but she didn’t hear anything from him. Should she have declared, clearly and out loud, what she felt? She stared at him even more intently to find some reaction. What she saw was the same Rafael as always: calculating, unemotional… impervious.
At a certain point a roar of delirious, shouting voices was heard from inside the bar. The ‘blues’ team had just scored a goal at Stamford Bridge and some of those present had been swept away by the images repeated on the television screens throughout the bar.
At that instant the waitress brought the water, after a long wait. Or at least to Sarah it seemed so, an eternity, hours. Really only a few minutes had passed, but when you’ve stuck your hand in the fire, a brief time seems much longer.
‘It’s not an ordinary situation, I know. Nothing is with us,’ Sarah went on after wetting her lips. ‘I’m not asking you to divorce God. I’d never do that, but I had to tell you. I know you’re perceptive enough to have already noticed.’ She looked at him again. ‘Anyway, let’s return to my first question. What is it that you and I have for each other? You’re not indifferent to me, are you?’ It hadn’t occurred to her until that moment that she could be hasty. Rafael might simply not feel anything for her. Seeing him take another sip of beer without offering a word made her feel even smaller, like a girl who confesses her love and gets her first rejection. Not verbally in this case, which made it harder. Had Sarah misunderstood everything? Had she deliberately exaggerated the signs? No way. She was intelligent, successful, the editor of international politics at the Times, author of two highly regarded books. Had she been deceived by her feelings? Now it was too late. She couldn’t do anything. She’d revealed herself. She had to stay firm until the end.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything, Rafael?’
Only another sip of beer.
‘You let me do all the talking and say nothing? Aren’t you going to stop me? Put me in my place?’
Rafael wanted to talk badly, and he spoke, but Sarah didn’t hear him now. She was leaving after throwing down a ten-pound note to pay for the Evian she’d hardly drunk.
‘It’s good we had this conversation,’ Sarah declared. ‘Now I can go on with my life and put this behind me.’
