The Thirteenth Apostle (16 page)

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The Rector rose, followed by the ten apostles. They slowly held out their arms until their fingers were touching.

Facing the bloodstained crucifix, the ten men, their arms held out as if on a cross, gazed at their brother who rose to his feet. He was no longer trembling: when Jesus had stretched out on the wood, he had not trembled.

The Rector raised his voice and said, in neutral tones:

“My brother, the three Persons of the Trinity know with what dedication you have served the cause of one of them. They welcome you to their company, in that divine light that you have not ceased to search for throughout your life.”

Slowly, he picked up the liqueur glass from the table, raised it for a moment like a chalice, and then presented it to the old man.

With a smile, he took a step forwards, and held out his bony hand to the glass.

37

“Welcome to San Girolamo! I am Father John, the hosteller.”

On emerging from the Rome express, Nil rediscovered his bearings from his days as a student, and unhesitatingly set off for the bus stop where he could catch a bus to the Catacombs of Priscilla. He was so happy to be seeing the city again that he forgot the odd events that had taken place on his journey.

He got off just before the terminus, at the stop of the sloping Via Salaria. The San Girolamo Abbey, situated in a still green and leafy spot, is an artificial creation of Pope Pius XI, who wanted to bring together Benedictines from all over the world to establish a revised version of the Bible – but in Latin.
The Society of St Pius V kept a close eye on each of these monks, until they were obliged to admit that Latin was now spoken only in the Vatican: the modern world condemned their labour. Ever since then, San Girolamo had been living on its memories.

Nil set down his suitcase at the entry to the dingy yellow cloister, adorned in the middle by a basin over which hung a melancholy clump of bamboos. A faint whiff of pasta and oleander were the only signs that the visitor was in Rome.

“The Congregation told me yesterday that you would be arriving. At the beginning of the month, we received the same request for your Father Andrei, who stayed here for several days…”

Father John was as voluble as a Roman from Trastevere. He guided the new arrival to the staircase that led to the upper floors.

“Give me your case… Phew! It's heavy! Poor Father Andrei, nobody knows what came over him, but he left one morning without telling anyone. And he packed his bags in a hurry, since he left several of his things in his room. I left them there – it's the room you'll be occupying. Nobody's set foot in there since the sudden departure of your unfortunate colleague. So, you're here to work on Gregorian manuscripts?”

Nil had stopped listening to this torrent of words. He would be staying in Father Andrei's room!

As soon as Father John had finally left him to himself, he surveyed the room. Unlike the cells in his abbey, it was filled with several articles of furniture. A big wardrobe, two sets of bookshelves, a mattress-and-frame bed, a huge table with a chair, an armchair… The indefinable smell of monasteries hung in the air, an odour of dry dust and wax polish.

The objects left by Father Andrei had been placed on one of the bookshelves. Shaving equipment, handkerchiefs, a plan of Rome, an appointments diary… Nil smiled at the latter: a monk didn't have many appointments to note!

He heaved his suitcase up onto the table. It was almost entirely filled with his precious notes. He was about to arrange them on the bookshelf, but then thought better of it: there was a key in the wardrobe. He placed the papers in there, pushing the negative from Germigny right to the back. Then turned the key in the lock and pocketed it, without conviction.

Then he stopped: on the table, there was an envelope. Addressed to him.

A broad smile lit up his face.
Remby
! So he was the man he was here to help! He might have guessed as much, but he hadn't seen his friend from their student days in Rome for over ten years, and the idea that he might be summoned to Rome by him had never so much as crossed his mind.
Remby, what a pleasure!
This trip would at least allow them to catch up with each other.

Then he reread the letter: Leeland seemed every bit as surprised as he was himself.
I never asked them…
It wasn't Leeland who had asked him to come.

So who was it?

38

The old man in the white alb took the glass proffered to him by the Rector, raised it to his lips and swallowed the colourless liquid in one draught. He grimaced and sat down on his chair.

It was very quick. In front of the eleven apostles, their arms still extended as on a cross, the man hiccuped, then bent double with a groan. His face turned purple, contracted into a horrible rictus, and he collapsed on the ground. The spasms lasted for about a minute, and then he stiffened for the last time. From his mouth, opened as if to gulp the air, a thick trail of slime trickled down his chin. His wide-open eyes stared at the crucifix above him.

Slowly, the apostles lowered their arms and sat down. In front of them, on the ground, the white shape was motionless.

The brother who was furthest from the Rector on his right stood up, a cloth in his hand.

“Not yet! Our brother must hand on the torch to the man who is to succeed him. Be so kind as to open the door, please.”

In the half-light, a white shape was standing there, apparently waiting.

“Come forwards, my brother!”

The new arrival was dressed in the same alb as those already present, his cowl pulled over his head and the white veil fastened to either side of his face. He took three steps forwards and then stopped, seized by horror.

“Antonio,” the Rector reflected, “such a charming young man! I feel sorry for him. But he must take up the torch, it's the rule of apostolic succession.”

Faced with the spectacle of the old man whose brutal death had convulsed his body, the new brother's eyes remained wide open and staring. They were curious eyes: the iris was almost perfectly black, and his pupils, dilated by his sense of revulsion, gave him an odd appearance, which was made even odder by a pale matt brow.

The Rector beckoned him across.

“My brother, it is you yourself who must cover this apostle's face, as you are today to succeed him. Look closely at his features: they are those of a man totally dedicated to his mission. When he ceased to be capable of fulfilling that mission, he willingly brought it to an end. Receive his torch from him, so that you may serve as he served, and die as he died, in the joy of his Master.”

The new arrival turned towards the man who had opened the door to him and was now handing him the cloth. He seized it and kneeled next to the dead man, whose purple face he contemplated for a long time. Then he wiped away the foam that stained his mouth and chin and, lying prostrate, gave to the lips that had turned blue in death a lingering kiss.

Then he straightened up, spread the cloth on the face that was now slowly swelling, and finally turned to the motionless brothers.

“Good,” said the Rector warmly. “You have just undergone the final trial, and it has made you the twelfth of the apostles who sat at either side of Our Lord in the upper chamber in Jerusalem.”

Antonio had been forced to flee his native Andalusia: Opus Dei is very reluctant to allow its members to leave it, and a certain distance seemed wise. In Vienna, the collaborators of Cardinal Catzinger had spotted this taciturn young man
with his dark eyes. After several years of observation, his file was sent to the Prefect of the Congregation, who placed it, without further comment, on Calfo's desk.

It required another two years of close investigations led by the Society of St Pius V. Two years of tailing him, tapping his phone conversations, keeping his family and friends back in Andalusia under surveillance… When Calfo asked him to come to his apartment in Castel Sant'Angelo for a series of interviews, he definitely knew Antonio better than the Andalusian knew himself. In Vienna, a city of pleasures, they had tempted him in every way: he had resisted. Pleasure and money were of no interest to him – just power and the defence of the Catholic Church.

The Rector motioned to him. “Andalusian, Moorish blood,” he reflected. “Criticized the methods of Opus Dei. Arabic melancholy, Viennese nihilism, the disenchantment of a southerner: an excellent recruit!”

He told him: “Take your place among the Twelve, my brother.”

Facing the bare wall on which the only decoration was the bleeding image of the crucified, the Twelve were once more gathered around their Master in their full complement.

“You know our mission. You will start contributing to it straight away; you are to keep under close surveillance a monk who has arrived today in San Girolamo. I have just learnt that an outside agent almost interrupted a capital process concerning this monk, in the Rome express. This was a regrettable incident – he had received no orders to this end, and I do not control him directly.”

The Rector sighed. He had never met this man, but he had a full dossier on him. He remembered its contents.
“Unpredictable. A compulsive need to act out his ideas. When it's not a musical challenge, it's the excitement of danger. Mossad has withdrawn his licence to kill.”

“Here are your first instructions,” he said, holding an envelope out to the new brother. “The next ones will reach you when the time is ripe. And remember whom you are serving!”

He pointed with his right hand to the cross, the image on which stood out against its mahogany panel. The green jasper of his ring glinted.

“Lord! Never perhaps since the Templars have you been in such danger. But once your Twelve possess the same weapon as they did, they will use it to protect You!”

39

Cardinal Emil Catzinger motioned to his guest to sit down – a tall, slim man with a broad forehead over a pair of rectangular glasses.

“Please, Monsignor…”

Behind his glasses, Rembert Leeland's eyes were sparkling. He had the long face of an Anglo-Saxon, but the fleshy lips of an artist. He gazed interrogatively at His Eminence.

“You must be wondering why I have asked you here… First tell me this: do relations with our Jewish brothers occupy your whole time?”

Leeland smiled, which gave his face the expression of a mischievous student.

“Not really, Your Eminence. Luckily I also have my musicological studies!”

“
Precisamente
. That brings me to my point. The Holy
Father himself is extremely interested in your research. If you can demonstrate that the origins of Gregorian chant lie in the psalmody of the synagogues of the High Middle Ages, it will be an important element in our rapprochement with Judaism. So we've brought in a specialist to help you decipher the ancient texts you are studying… A French monk, an excellent exegete… Father Nil, from St Martin's Abbey.”

“I heard as much yesterday. We were students together.”

The Cardinal smiled.

“So you know each other then? It will be pleasant to mix business with pleasure – I'm always glad when friends get an opportunity to meet like this. He's just arrived – see him as often as you like. And listen to him: Father Nil is a fund of knowledge, he has a great deal to say, and you will learn a lot from him. Let him talk about his interests. And then… from time to time, just drop me a report on the tenor of your conversations. In writing – I'll be the one and only addressee. All right?”

Leeland opened his eyes in the greatest surprise. “What does that mean?” he thought. “He's asking me to get Nil to talk, and then to make a report on him? Who does he take me for?”

The Cardinal was observing the American's expressive features. He could read him like a book. He added with an avuncular smile:

“Don't be afraid, Monsignor, I'm not asking you to act as an informer. Merely to keep me abreast of the research your friend is doing, the things he is writing. I'm extremely busy, and I won't have time to invite him in. But I too am very curious to keep up with the most recent advances in
exegesis… You'll be doing me a favour if you can flesh out what I already know.”

When he saw that he had not convinced Leeland, his tone became sharper.

“I would also like to remind you of your position. We were obliged to bring you over from the United States to your appointment here, with the rank of a bishop, to draw a line under the scandalous polemic that you had provoked over there. The Holy Father will not tolerate anyone questioning his refusal – an absolute and justified refusal – to ordain married men as priests. And then it would be the turn of women – why not? He will tolerate even less a Benedictine Abbot, at the head of the prestigious St Mary's Abbey, publicly giving him advice on this subject. You now have, Monsignor, an opportunity to redeem yourself in the Pope's eyes. So I am counting on your discreet, efficient and total collaboration. Do you understand?”

His head lowered, Leeland did not reply. Then the Cardinal put on the tone of voice his father had used, in bygone days, when he returned from the Eastern Front.

“I have the painful duty to remind you, Monsignor, that it is also for
another reason
that we were obliged to make you leave your country as a matter of urgency and bestow on you the episcopal dignity that protects you at the same time as it honours you. Now do I make myself clear?”

This time, Leeland lifted to the Cardinal the eyes of a sad child, and nodded. God forgives all sins, but the Church makes its members expiate them.