Now, though, as he made his way across the lobby to the elevator, he found to his dismay that although he was receiving some friendly acknowledgement – the occasional pat on the back, a few smiles – this came entirely from the liberal faction. At least as many cardinals who were listed in Lomeli’s file as traditionalists frowned or turned their heads away from him. Archbishop Dell’Acqua of Bologna, who had been at Bellini’s table the night before, called out, loudly enough for the whole room to hear, ‘Well said, Dean!’ But Cardinal Gambino, the Archbishop of Perugia, who was one of Tedesco’s strongest supporters, ostentatiously wagged his finger at him in silent reproof. To cap it all, when the elevator doors opened, there stood Tedesco himself, red-faced and doubtless on his way to an early lunch, accompanied by the Archbishop Emeritus of Chicago, Paul Krasinski, who was leaning on his stick. Lomeli stepped aside to let them out.
As he passed, Tedesco said sharply, ‘My goodness, that was a novel interpretation of Ephesians, Dean – to portray St Paul as an Apostle of Doubt! I’ve never heard that one before!’ He swung round, determined to have an argument. ‘Did he not also write to the Corinthians, “For if the trumpet give forth an uncertain note, who shall prepare himself to the battle?”’
Lomeli pressed the button for the second floor. ‘Perhaps it would have been more palatable to you in Latin, Patriarch?’ The doors closed, cutting off Tedesco’s reply.
He was halfway along the corridor to his room before he realised he had locked his key inside. A childish self-pity welled within him. Did he have to think of everything? Shouldn’t Father Zanetti be looking after him just a little better? There was nothing for it except to turn around, descend the stairs and explain his foolishness to the nun behind the reception desk. She disappeared into the office and returned with Sister Agnes of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, a tiny Frenchwoman in her late sixties. Her face was sharp and fine, her eyes a crystalline blue. One of her distant aristocratic forebears had been a member of the order during the French Revolution and had been guillotined in the marketplace for refusing to swear an oath to the new regime. Sister Agnes was reputed to be the only person of whom the late Holy Father had been afraid, and perhaps for that reason he had often sought out her company. ‘Agnes,’ he used to say, ‘will always tell me the truth.’
After Lomeli had repeated his apologies, she tut-tutted and gave him her pass key.
‘All I can say, Your Eminence, is that I hope you take better care of the Keys of St Peter than you do of the keys to your room!’
By now most of the cardinals had drifted away from the lobby, either to go to their quarters to rest or meditate, or to have lunch in the dining hall. Unlike dinner, lunch was self-service. The clatter of plates and cutlery, the smell of hot food, the warm drone of conversation – all were tempting to Lomeli. But looking at the queue, he guessed that his sermon would be the main topic of conversation. It would be wiser to let it speak for itself.
At the bend in the stairs, he encountered Bellini on his way down. The former Secretary of State was alone, and as he drew level with Lomeli he said quietly, ‘I never knew you were so ambitious.’
For a moment Lomeli wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. ‘What an extraordinary thing to say!’
‘I didn’t mean any offence, but you must agree that you have… how should one put it? Stepped out of the shadows, shall we say?’
‘And how exactly is one to remain in the shadows if one has to celebrate a televised Mass in St Peter’s for two hours?’
‘Oh now you’re being disingenuous, Jacopo.’ Bellini’s mouth twisted into an awful smile. ‘You know what I’m talking about. And to think that only a little while ago you tried to resign! But now…?’ He shrugged, and the smile twisted again. ‘Who knows how things may turn out?’
Lomeli felt almost faint, as if he were suffering an attack of vertigo. ‘Aldo, this conversation is very distressing to me. You cannot seriously believe I have the slightest desire, or the remotest chance, of becoming Pope?’
‘My dear friend, every man in this building has a chance, at least in theory. And every cardinal has entertained the fantasy, if nothing else, that one day he might be elected, and has selected the name by which he would like his papacy to be known.’
‘Well I haven’t…’
‘Deny it if you like, but go away and search your heart and then tell me it isn’t so. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have promised the Archbishop of Milan that I will go down to the dining room and attempt to make conversation with some of our colleagues.’
After he had gone, Lomeli stood motionless on the stairs. Bellini was obviously under the most tremendous strain, otherwise he would not have spoken to him in such terms. But when he reached his room, and let himself in, and lay on his bed attempting to rest, he found he could not get the accusation out of his mind. Was there really, deep within his soul, a devil of ambition he had refused to acknowledge all these years? He tried to make an honest audit of his conscience, and at the end of it his conclusion was that Bellini was wrong, as far as he could tell.
But then another possibility occurred to him – one that, however absurd, was much more alarming. He was almost afraid to examine it:
What if God had a plan for him?
Could that explain why he had been seized by that extraordinary impulse in St Peter’s? Were those few sentences, which he now found so hard to remember, not actually his at all, but a manifestation of the Holy Spirit working through him?
He tried to pray. But God, who had felt so close only a few minutes before, had vanished again, and his pleas for guidance seemed to vanish into the ether.
It was just before 2 p.m. when Lomeli finally roused himself from his bed. He undressed to his underwear and socks, opened his closet and laid out the various elements of his choir dress on the counterpane. As he removed each item from its cellophane wrapping, it exuded the sweet chemical aroma of dry-cleaning fluid – a scent that always reminded him of his years in the Nuncio’s residence in New York, when all his laundry was done at a place on East 72nd Street. For a moment he closed his eyes and heard once more the ceaseless soft horns of the distant Manhattan traffic.
Every garment had been made to measure by Gammarelli, papal outfitters since 1798, in their famous shop behind the Pantheon, and he took his time in dressing, meditating on the sacred nature of each element in an effort to heighten his spiritual awareness.
He slipped his arms into the scarlet woollen cassock and fastened the thirty-three buttons that ran from his neck to his ankles – one button for each year of Christ’s life. Around his waist he tied the red watered-silk sash of the cincture, or fascia, designed to remind him of his vow of chastity, and checked to make sure its tasselled end hung to a point midway up his left calf. Then he pulled over his head the thin white linen rochet – the symbol, along with the mozzetta, of his judicial authority. The bottom two-thirds and the cuffs were of white lace with a floral pattern. He tied the tapes in a bow at his neck and tugged the rochet down so that it extended to just below his knees. Finally he put on his mozzetta, an elbow-length nine-buttoned scarlet cape.
He picked up his pectoral cross from the nightstand and kissed it. John Paul II had presented him in person with the cross to mark his recall from New York to Rome to serve as Secretary for Relations with Foreign States. The Pope’s Parkinsonism had been terribly advanced by then; his hands had shaken so much as he tried to hand it over, it had dropped on the floor. Lomeli unclipped the gold chain and replaced it with a cord of red and gold silk. He murmured the customary prayer for protection (Munire digneris me…) and hung the cross round his neck so that it lay next to his heart. Then he sat on the edge of the bed, worked his feet into a pair of well-worn black leather brogues and tied the laces. Only one item remained: his biretta of scarlet silk, which he placed over his skullcap.