What age was she? Young, old?’
‘Did you know her? Is that it? She said you were a stranger, that she had been out late and found you in a state of collapse.’
What age!?’
‘About forty, I think. Quite thin, she was quite thin. And smallish, not a tall woman. I’m sorry, I can’t remember. Perhaps one of the nurses ...’
Patrick lay back, helpless. Images of the dream that had followed his collapse were forming in his brain: dark water peeling back beneath the sharp prow of the gondola, stone steps thick with moss, a huge pig, bleeding, running in tightening circles, eyes flecked with gold behind a carnival mask ... He was frightened that the dream would pull him back into unconsciousness again. Desperately, he forced his eyes to stay open.
‘I miei vestiti... Where have you put my clothes?’
‘It’s all right, don’t worry,’ the nurse reassured him. ‘They’re in this locker by your bed. Everything’s safe, don’t fret.’
‘La mia giacca ... my jacket, please look in the pocket. A photograph ... there’s a photograph.’
The doctor looked up impatiently from his examination and motioned to the nurse.
‘Take a look while I finish this. It may help jog his memory.’
The nurse found Patrick’s jacket and went through the pockets carefully. Everything was there - wallet, passport, keys, money - everything except the photograph.
By mid-afternoon, Patrick’s head had cleared completely. Dr Luciani allowed him a little light food, and the nurse propped him up in a half-sitting position. They left him in a side ward, with nothing for company but a battered television permanently tuned to a children’s channel. He asked them to contact Makonnen at the hotel, and an hour later he arrived, anxiety written all over his face.
Patrick smiled and reached out a hand.
‘If I didn’t know better,’ he laughed, ‘I’d say you were looking pale.’
‘I am pale,’ Makonnen answered, sitting down. ‘I didn’t know what to do last night, when you didn’t come back to the hotel. You said you’d be back before midnight. I thought of contacting the police - but what could I tell them?’
‘I’m sorry. Things got a little ... difficult. I found ... Francesca’s father.’ He paused. ‘Assefa, I think they may be on to us. Someone was asking about me at the Contarinis’
‘How could they have found us so quickly?’
‘I don’t know. Anyway, we’d best move to another hotel. Or better still, find lodgings through your friend Claudio. By the way, what did his reporter friend have to say last night?’
Assefa shrugged.
‘Migliau is still missing. There has still been no demand for a ransom. It’s as though he’s vanished into thin air. The Carabinieri are growing frantic. The official view seems to be that he was kidnapped, but that something went badly wrong. They expect his body to turn up in a canal any time now. However...’
‘Yes?’
‘As I said, that’s the official view. Claudio’s friend has other ideas. His name is Aldo Siniscalchi. I’ve arranged for you to meet him. You’ll like him: he thinks, asks questions, gets impatient. For several years now, he’s been keeping a file on Migliau. Well, not just Migliau, but the Church in Venice generally.’ He paused. A nurse looked in, glanced curiously at the American and his visitor, and left again.
‘Patrick, did you know that three of the eight popes elected in this century have been patriarchs of Venice? As I told you before, some people think Migliau may be number four. He got to be what he is now chiefly through family connections, but Siniscalchi thinks there’s a lot more to him than a coat of arms.
‘He got interested in Migliau originally because of the Cardinal’s extreme right-wing stance. Migliau has never hidden his opinions: he has been consistently outspoken in his opposition to reform in the Church or, for that matter, in society at large. No birth-control, no abortion, no divorce, no married priests, no women priests - the usual stock-in-trade of an ecclesiastical reactionary.’
Patrick smiled.
‘I take it you don’t see eye to eye.’
Makonnen shook his head.
‘No. But I have no choice. God did not do me the favour of ensuring that I was born in Europe or America. From the Third World, things look very different. Don’t get me wrong - I’m actually quite conservative in many matters. I don’t approve of Claudio or the communism he has espoused. That’s not the answer. But the communists are right about some things. You can’t preach the Gospel to a man with an empty belly. You can’t enthuse about the Kingdom of God to someone living in daily fear of arrest by a right-wing death-squad. And I don’t think you can promote the growth of democracy by bolstering up dictatorships.’
‘And Migliau thinks you can?’
‘He doesn’t see the relevance. For him, the Church’s mission is to save souls, not lives. To rebel against the state, even if that state is steeped in injustice and bloody to its elbows, is a cardinal sin. To practise birth-control, even when you and your family are starving, is to contravene God’s eternal law.’
‘But that’s little more than the Pope himself has been saying for years anyway.’
Makonnen sighed.
“You don’t have to remind me. How do you think Migliau got to be Patriarch of Venice? But he wants to go further. If he had his way, he’d turn the clock back in ways you can’t imagine. Even I had no conception until last night.
‘He’d declare Vatican II invalid, abandon the principle of collegiality, reintroduce the Tridentine Mass. He’d ban all dialogue with other churches, prohibit relations with non-Christian religions, restate the dogma of Jewish culpability for the death of our Lord. With Migliau as Pope, the Church would take a major step backwards. There’d be an Index of Prohibited Books again, heresy trials, widespread excommunication.’
Patrick shook his head in disbelief.
‘You can’t be serious.’
Makonnen raised his eyebrows.
‘No? What makes you think I can’t? Compared
with thirty or forty years ago, the Catholic Church is positively giddy with modern thinking. And yet people like you - even people like myself - think it’s all but standing still. Men like Migliau are scared stiff. They see what the reforms have done, what they are still doing; they think forward another thirty or forty years, and in their imaginations they see the end of the Church as they know it: no Mass, no priesthood, no hierarchy, no papacy - perhaps not even a God. I think that’s an exaggeration, in fact I know it is - but try telling that to a hardliner like Migliau.’
Patrick shrugged.
‘So Migliau’s a Catholic fundamentalist afraid of change. What’s new? Conservatism and the Catholic hierarchy are scarcely strangers.’
‘Perhaps. But Migliau goes yet further. One of the cardinal’s greatest fears is that fundamentalist Protestants will start to negotiate for political influence in Europe just as they have been doing in the States. If that happens, they will draw away a lot of the God-fearing right whose support would be essential for a moral and religious revolution. Migliau knows he has to get in first.
‘Siniscalchi has evidence that the cardinal has had meetings with politicians from the extreme right, not just here in Italy, but in France, Spain, Germany, Austria, and possibly elsewhere. There are no documents, of course, nothing that l’Unita or any other paper can publish. But one report suggests that Migliau has offered to do a deal. If he becomes pope, he will instruct his bishops in each of those countries to see to it that their flocks vote for his candidates. Once in power, they will pledge political and legislative support for his campaign against modernism in all its forms. Migliau will be the first pope in centuries with more than encyclicals as his weapons. He’ll have a police state at his disposal.’
THIRTY-THREE
Patrick felt the breath thicken in his chest. It sounded plausible, too plausible.
‘You say Siniscalchi has evidence of this?’
‘Of a sort, yes. But hard proof, no.’
