The Devil Will Come

‘Get Fathers Diep and Bustamante. Tell them I want to go downstairs to my office and my chapel. And get Giacomo to come and help me get dressed.’

‘But, Holiness,’ the nun demurred, ‘shouldn’t we ask Dr Zarilli if this is wise?’

‘Leave Zarilli alone,’ the Pope growled. ‘Let the man have dinner with his family.’

Giacomo Barone was a layman who had been in the Pope’s employ for twenty years. He was unmarried, lived in a small room in the Palace and seemed to have no interests beyond football and the pontiff. He spoke when spoken to and when the Pope was deep in thought and disinclined to chat idly they might spend half an hour in silence as they worked through ablutions and robing.

Giacomo came in with a heavy stubble on his face. He smelled of the onions that he’d been cooking.

‘I want to wash and get dressed,’ the Pope told him.

Giacomo bowed his head obediently and asked, ‘What do you want to wear, Holiness?’

‘Just house dress. Then take me downstairs.’

Giacomo had powerful arms and shoulders and moved the Pope around his chamber like a manikin, sponging and powdering, layering garments, finishing with a white cassock with fringed white fascia, a pectoral cross, pliable red slippers and a white zuccetto in place of the knitted cap. The act of dressing seemed to tire the pontiff but he insisted on carrying out his wishes. Giacomo lifted him into his wheelchair.

They took an elevator to the second floor where two Swiss Guards in full blue, orange and red-striped regalia stood at their traditional posts outside the Sala dei Gendarmi. They seemed shocked by the presence of the Pope. As Giacomo rolled the wheelchair past, the pontiff waved and blessed them. They made their way through empty official rooms of state to the Pope’s private study with its large writing desk, his favored place to work and review papers.

The desk was really a large mahogany table, several meters in length, placed before a bookcase which contained an eclectic mix of official documents, sacred texts, biographies, histories and even a few detective novels.

His two private secretaries, one of them a Vietnamese priest, the other a Sardinian, were waiting at quiet attention with smiles on their young faces.

‘I’ve never seen the two of you so happy to be called to work at night,’ the Pope said lightly.

‘It’s been a great while since we’ve been able to serve Your Holiness,’ Father Diep said in his sing-song Italian.

‘Our hearts are full of joy,’ Father Bustamante added with touching sincerity.

The Pope sat in his wheelchair and surveyed the piles of papers littering his once-tidy desk. He shook his head. ‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘It’s like an unattended garden. The weeds have overtaken the flower beds.’

‘Essential business continues,’ Diep said. ‘Cardinals Aspromonte and Diaz are co-signing the day-to-day papers. Much of what we have here are copies for your review.’

‘Let me use what small abilities I have tonight to tend to one or two vital ecclesiastical issues. You choose what is suitable. Then I want to pray in my chapel before I’m once again confined to bed by Sister Emilia and Dr Zarilli.’

The wine was from Aspromonte’s brother who had a vineyard and regularly sent cases to the Vatican. Aspromonte was known for his liberal pouring habits and for giving away bottles as presents.

‘The Sangiovese is excellent,’ Diaz said, holding up the glass to the light of the chandelier. ‘Compliments to your brother.’

‘Well, 2006 was a marvelous year for him and really for everyone who grows in Tuscany. I’ll send you a case if you like.’

‘That would be grand – thank you,’ Diaz said. ‘Let’s pray that conditions are favorable for him this year.’

‘The rains have to stop first,’ Giaccone grumbled. ‘Today’s been mostly clear but, dear God, the last three weeks have been biblical. We should be building an ark!’

‘Is it affecting your work?’ Aspromonte asked.

‘I just came from a meeting of the Pontifical Commission and I can tell you that the archeologists and engineers are worried about the integrity of the catacombs on the Via Antica Appia, particularly St Sebastiano and St Callixtus. The fields above them are so saturated that some trees were uprooted by wind gusts. There’s fear of sinkholes or collapses.’

Diaz shook his head and put down his fork. ‘If only that was all we had to worry about.’

‘The Holy Father,’ Aspromonte said quietly.

Diaz said soberly, ‘Many are looking for us to be doing the right things, to be making preparations.’

‘You mean planning for a Conclave,’ Giaccone said bluntly.

Diaz nodded. ‘The logistics aren’t trivial. You can’t just snap your fingers and assemble all the Cardinal Electors.’

‘Don’t you think we have to tread lightly here?’ Aspromonte asked, chewing the last of a mouthful of beef. ‘The Pope is alive and, God willing, he will remain so. And we must be mindful not to appear to have any personal aspirations.’

Diaz finished his glass and let Aspromonte fill it again. He looked over his shoulder to make sure they were alone. ‘We’re friends. We’ve worked shoulder to shoulder for the better part of three decades. We’ve taken each other’s confessions. If we can’t talk frankly, who can? We all know the chances are good that the next Pope is sitting at this table. And, in my opinion, I’m too old. And not Italian enough!’

Aspromonte and Giaccone looked down at their plates. ‘Someone had to say it,’ Diaz insisted.

‘Some say it’s time for an African or a South American. There are some good men who bear consideration,’ Giaccone said.

Aspromonte shrugged. ‘I’m told we have some excellent peach gelato for dessert.’

The Pope was alone in his private chapel. Father Diep had wheeled him in and placed him in front of his usual bronze-clad meditation chair. The ceiling glowed with stained-glass backlit panels, contemporary in style, heavy in primary colors. The floor was white Italian marble with black streaks, also a modernist pattern, but softened by a lovely old brown rug in the center. The altar was simple and elegant: a white lace-covered table holding candles and a Bible. Behind the table a golden crucified Christ floated in the concavity of a floor-to-ceiling installation of red marble.

The pontiff’s hip started aching and the pain intensified. He had begun to pray and didn’t want to return to his sickbed just now. His infusion pump of morphine was fixed to a pole on the wheelchair but he was especially loath to medicate himself in the presence of this beautiful representation of a suffering Christ.

He fought the pain and kept the prayers flowing wordlessly for only God to hear.

Suddenly, a different pain.

It seized his throat and upper chest.

The Pope looked down with the irrational thought that someone had sneaked up and was pressing heavily on his chest.

The pressure made him contort his face and close his eyes.

But he wanted to keep them open and fought to do so.

It was as if a flaming arrow had pierced his breast, burning through layers of flesh.

He couldn’t call out, couldn’t take a good breath.

He struggled to keep his gaze fixed firmly on the face of the golden Christ.

Dear God. Help me in my hour of need.

Monsignor Albano entered Cardinal Aspromonte’s dining room without knocking.

Aspromonte could tell from his drained face that something was amiss.

‘The Pope! He’s been stricken in his chapel!’

*

The three cardinals rushed up the stairs and hurried through the formal rooms until they entered the chapel. Fathers Diep and Bustamante had moved the Pope’s slumped body from the wheelchair onto the rug and Zarilli was kneeling over his one and only patient.

‘It’s his heart,’ Zarilli mumbled. ‘There’s no pulse. I fear—’

Cardinal Diaz cut him off. ‘No. He’s not dead! There’s time to administer Extreme Unction!’

Zarilli began to protest but Giaccone cut him off and issued sharp orders to Fathers Bustamante and Diep who hurriedly fled the chapel.