On the back of the bathroom door was a full-length mirror. He switched on the stuttering light and checked himself in the bluish glow: front first, then his left side, then his right. His profile had become beaky with age. He thought he looked like some elderly moulting bird. Sister Anjelica, who kept house for him, was always telling him he was too thin, that he should eat more. Hanging up in his apartment were vestments he had first worn as a young priest more than forty years ago and which still fitted him perfectly. He smoothed his hands over his stomach. He felt hungry. He had missed both breakfast and lunch. Let it be so, he thought. The pangs of hunger would serve as a useful mortification of the flesh, a constant tiny reminder throughout the first round of voting of the vast agony of Christ’s sacrifice.
At 2.30 p.m., the cardinals began boarding the fleet of white minibuses that had been queuing all afternoon in the rain outside the Casa Santa Marta.
The atmosphere had become much more sombre in the time since lunch. Lomeli remembered it had been exactly the same at the last Conclave. It wasn’t until the moment for voting arrived that one felt the full weight of the responsibility. Only Tedesco seemed immune to it. He was leaning against a pillar, humming to himself and smiling at everyone as they passed. Lomeli wondered what had happened to improve his mood. Perhaps he was indulging in some kind of gamesmanship to disconcert his opponents. With the Patriarch of Venice, all things were possible. It made him uneasy.
Monsignor O’Malley, in his role of Secretary of the College, stood in the centre of the lobby holding his clipboard. He called out their names like a tour guide. They filed out to the buses in silence, in reverse order of seniority: first the cardinals from the Curia, who made up the Order of Deacons; then the cardinal-priests, who mostly comprised the archbishops from around the world; and finally the cardinal-bishops, of whom Lomeli was one, and who also included the three Eastern patriarchs.
Lomeli, as Dean, was the last to leave, immediately behind Bellini. They made eye contact briefly as they hoisted the skirts of their choir dress to climb up on to the bus, but Lomeli didn’t attempt to speak. He could tell that Bellini’s mind had elevated itself to some higher plane and was no longer registering – as Lomeli’s did – all those trivial details that crowded out the presence of God: the boil on the back of their driver’s neck, for example, or the scrape of the windscreen wipers, or the awful slovenly creases in the mozzetta of the Patriarch of Alexandria…
Lomeli made his way to a seat on the right, halfway down, away from the others. He took off his biretta and placed it in his lap. O’Malley sat beside the driver. He turned to check that everyone was on board. The doors closed with a hiss of compressed air and the coach pulled away, its tyres drumming over the cobbles of the piazza.
Flecks of rain, dislodged by the motion of the bus, streamed diagonally across the thick glass, veiling the view of St Peter’s. Beyond the windows on the other side of the vehicle, Lomeli could see security men with umbrellas patrolling the Vatican Gardens. The coach drove slowly around the Via delle Fondamenta, passed under an arch and then came to a halt in the Cortile della Sentinella. Through the misty windscreen the brake lights of the buses up ahead glowed red like votive candles. Officers of the Swiss Guard sheltered in their sentry box, the plumes of their helmets bedraggled by the rain. The bus inched forward through the next two courtyards and turned sharp right into the Cortile del Maresciallo, pulling up directly opposite the entrance to the staircase. Lomeli was pleased to see the bins of rubbish had been removed, then irritated by his pleasure – it was another trivial detail to disrupt his meditation. The coach door opened, letting in a gust of chilly damp air. He replaced his biretta. As he climbed out, two more members of the Swiss Guard saluted. Instinctively he glanced up, past the high brick facade, to the narrow patch of grey sky. He felt the drizzle on his face. For an instant he had an incongruous mental image of a prisoner in an exercise yard, and then he was through the door and climbing the long flight of grey marble steps that led to the Sistine Chapel.
According to the Apostolic Constitution, the Conclave was required to assemble first in the Pauline Chapel, next door to the Sistine, ‘at a suitable hour in the afternoon’. The Pauline was the private chapel of the Holy Father, heavily marbled, gloomier and more intimate than the Sistine. By the time Lomeli arrived, the cardinals were already seated in their pews and the television lights had been switched on. Monsignor Epifano was waiting beside the door, holding the dean’s scarlet silk stole, which he draped carefully around Lomeli’s neck, and together they walked towards the altar, between Michelangelo’s frescos of St Peter and St Paul. Peter, on the right of the aisle, was depicted being crucified upside down. His head was twisted in such a way that he seemed to stare out in angry accusation at whoever had the temerity to look at him. Lomeli felt the saint’s scorching eyes on his back all the way to the altar steps.
At the microphone, he turned to face the cardinals. They stood. Epifano held up before him the slim volume containing the stipulated rituals, open at section two, ‘The Approach to the Conclave’. Lomeli made the sign of the cross.
‘In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.’
‘Amen.’
‘Venerable brothers in the College, having completed the sacred acts this morning, now we enter into the Conclave in order to elect our new Pope…’
His amplified voice filled the small chapel. But unlike the great Mass in the basilica, this time he felt no emotion, no spiritual presence. The words were words only: an incantation without magic.
‘The entire Church, which is joined to us in common prayer, begs the immediate grace of the Holy Spirit that a worthy pastor for the whole flock of Christ may be elected by us.
‘May the Lord direct our steps in the way of truth so that with the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saints Peter and Paul and all the saints, we may act in a way that is truly pleasing to them.’
Epifano closed the book and removed it. The processional cross by the door was lifted by one of the trio of masters of ceremonies, the two others held aloft lighted candles, and the choir began to file out of the chapel singing the Litany of the Saints. Lomeli stood facing the Conclave with his hands clasped, his eyes closed, his head bowed, apparently in prayer. He hoped the television cameras had cut away from him by now, and that the close-ups hadn’t betrayed his lack of grace. The chanting of the saints’ names grew fainter as the choir processed across the Sala Regia towards the Sistine. He heard the cardinals’ shoes shuffling down the marble aisle to follow them.
After a while Epifano whispered, ‘Eminence, we should go.’
He looked up to find the chapel had almost emptied. Leaving the altar and passing St Peter’s crucifixion for a second time, he tried to keep his gaze fixed on the door ahead. But the force of the painting was irresistible. And you? the eyes of the martyred saint seemed to demand. In what way are you worthy to choose my successor?
In the Sala Regia, a line of Swiss Guards stood to attention. Lomeli and Epifano joined the end of the procession. The cardinals were intoning their response – ‘Ora pro nobis’ – to the chanting of each saint’s name. They passed into the vestibule of the Sistine Chapel. Here they were obliged to halt while those queuing ahead of them were shown to their places. To Lomeli’s left were the twin stoves in which the ballot papers were to be burnt; in front of him the long, narrow back of Bellini. He wanted to tap him on the shoulder, lean forward, wish him good luck. But the TV cameras were everywhere; he didn’t dare risk it. Besides, he was sure Bellini was in communion with God.