parish, your students. Oh, and I still love you.
All this mental diarrhea stopped when she heard Francesco’s voice from the other room.
‘Oh! I think you better come here, Sarah.’
Sarah wiped her face with water and dried it on a towel. She came out and saw Francesco at the door.
‘What is it?’
She approached the door and saw a young prelate in a black cassock. He had dark skin with a circumspect expression.
‘It’s for you,’ Francesco explained.
‘Good evening,’ Sarah greeted him.
‘Good evening, Miss Sarah. I was asked to pick you up.’
‘You were asked? By whom?’ It was very strange.
‘I am not authorized to say. I’m sorry,’ the young priest apologized.
Her journalistic curiosity overcame her fear. She put on her shoes and grabbed her coat.
‘I’m coming.’
‘Do you want me to go with you?’ Francesco volunteered.
Sarah looked closely at the young cleric and thought about it for a few moments. ‘No. This is fine.’
They took the elevator down to the reception area. It was already night. She looked around and didn’t see anyone. Even at the reception desk, where there was almost always someone behind the counter ready to attend to the most demanding guest. The hotel seemed empty. As if the world had stopped for a few moments and been depleted of people.
Sarah and the cleric didn’t exchange a word. She preferred it that way, and it was a blessing to have an escort who also liked silence. Clearly he followed orders scrupulously and didn’t want to be questioned about things he shouldn’t or couldn’t mention. They went outside. It was cold, but not disagreeable. She could tolerate it. She thought about Rafael. Was he the one calling for her? It couldn’t be anyone else. This was why she felt so carefree. A car was in front of the hotel at the bottom of the steps. A Mercedes with tinted windows.
The young cleric opened the door of the vehicle, and Sarah looked inside. Her jaw dropped. Inside, comfortably seated and smoking a cigar, was a man in scarlet vestments, a gold cross hanging on his chest, his cardinal’s cap on his lap.
‘Good evening, Sarah Monteiro,’ he greeted her. ‘Let’s take a ride, shall we?’
13
Conversations between friends are continuous. Even if they are years apart, they always resume them, as if they had just seen each other only the day before. And the day before in some friendships could have been three and a half years earlier. Hans Schmidt and Tarcisio enjoyed this kind of friendship.
An immediate embrace followed their handshake. Then two kisses. Tarcisio let his eyes fill with tears, but none dared to spill down his face. Schmidt was not so overcome, but that didn’t mean he had not missed his friend. He was simply less demonstrative. He had always been called ‘the Austrian iceman.’
‘How are you, my friend?’ Tarcisio examined his friend closely with a smile.
‘As God wishes,’ Schmidt replied, looking at his friend.
‘Sit down, sit down.’ Tarcisio pointed to an old brown leather sofa. ‘You must be tired. Did you have a good trip?’
‘Very pleasant,’ Schmidt said, accepting Tarcisio’s invitation to sit and letting his body rest on the sofa. He crossed his legs. ‘Without delays or problems.’
Tarcisio sat down next to him. They were in his office, which Schmidt had never been inside before. Very spacious, a large oak desk next to one of the wide closed windows that separated them from the Roman night outside.
A tense silence settled in. The small talk was almost exhausted.
‘Did you have dinner? Do you want something to eat?’ Tarcisio offered.
‘I’m fine, Tarcisio, thank you.’
Schmidt rarely felt hungry. Often during the time he was assigned to Rome, which seemed like ages past, he forgot to eat. He would faint from weakness. Schmidt was obstinate and dedicated himself completely to the tasks he was given, whether they were his studies or, later, his pastoral functions. For some years he was removed from these duties that gave him so much pleasure, helping Tarcisio with the more administrative and episcopal duties he knew were necessary, but didn’t fulfill him. Whether he liked them or not, he performed them proficiently. Tarcisio had enormous appreciation for him as a man, a cleric, and above all a friend.
‘Are we going to talk about your problem?’ Schmidt inquired. His approach to problems was simple and direct; he didn’t avoid them or turn his back to them. If they existed, they had to be solved at once, so that they did not return to defeat him. God protects the audacious.
Tarcisio looked at the floor to find the right words, but feared words were fleeing him like water through his fingers. He decided to be direct, like his friend. Schmidt would not permit any other way.
‘The Status Quo was broken.’ He got it off his chest, and lifted his gaze to an indefinite point on the wall where there was a large portrait of the Supreme Pontiff, his face with a neutral expression. He waited for Schmidt’s reaction.
‘Lay it all out’ was the only reply, with a German accent to his Italian, normally flawless.
Tarcisio needed his friend’s sharp, lucid mind. No solution presented itself unless all the facts were at hand. Tarcisio opted again for the concise, cold recounting of the elements, no matter the cost.
‘They killed Aragones and Zafer, and Sigfried has disappeared; so have Ben Isaac and his son.’ He threw out the names and facts point-blank, as if mentioning them freed him from them or transferred them to Schmidt. He felt selfish for a moment, but it passed.
‘When did they die?’ Schmidt questioned him without emotion. If he felt anything, he didn’t show it.
‘During the week. Aragones on Sunday, Zafer on Tuesday, and Sigfried disappeared on Wednesday. We don’t know when the Isaacs disappeared.’
‘Did the entire family disappear?’ Schmidt wanted to know.
‘Yes, the wife and the son also,’ Tarcisio concluded.
‘Who’s going to handle this?’
‘Our liaison officer with SISMI and a special agent.’
‘Who?’
‘Father Rafael. Do you remember him?’
‘Of course. Very competent. You don’t need me,’ Schmidt remarked. ‘The situation is in good hands.’
Tarcisio did not seem convinced, to the contrary. He was nervous and agitated, tapping his foot on the floor.
‘If this explodes in our face…’
‘The church always survives everything and everyone,’ Schmidt offered. ‘I don’t see any reason it shouldn’t survive now.’
‘You don’t see? They’re after documents that prove — ’
‘That don’t prove anything,’ Schmidt deliberated. ‘No one knows who wrote them or with what motives. They’re only words.’
‘An order in words wounds and kills,’ Tarcisio objected.
‘Words only have the power we give them,’ Schmidt disagreed without altering the tone of his voice.
‘Is this your defense now?’
‘Nothing needs my defense. Much less the church.’
‘Tarcisio got up, irritated, and began to pace back and forth with his hands behind him.
‘We’re at war, Hans.’
‘We’ve been at war for two thousand years. I’ve always heard this war talked about, and we don’t even have an army,’ Schmidt said ironically.
‘Can’t you see what will happen if these documents fall into the wrong hands?’
