Nakitanda said, ‘One of the nuns serving our table started talking to Joshua. He tried to ignore her at first. She dropped the tray and shouted something. He got up and left.’
‘What did she say?’
‘We don’t know, unfortunately. She was speaking in a Nigerian dialect.’
‘Yoruba,’ Mwangale said. ‘It was Yoruba. Adeyemi’s dialect.’
‘And where is Cardinal Adeyemi now?’
‘We don’t know, Dean,’ said Nakitanda, ‘but clearly something is wrong and he has to tell us what it is. And we need to hear from the sister before we go back to the Sistine to vote. What exactly is her complaint against him?’
Zucula seized Lomeli’s arm. For such a seemingly frail man, his grip was fierce. ‘We have waited a long time for an African Pope, Jacopo, and if God wills it to be Joshua, I am happy. But he must be pure in heart and conscience – a truly holy man. Anything short of that would be a disaster for all of us.’
‘I understand. Let me see what I can do.’ Lomeli looked at his watch. It was three minutes past one.
To reach the kitchen from the lobby, Lomeli had to walk all the way across the dining room. The cardinals had been observing his conversation with the Africans, and he was conscious of his progress being followed by dozens of pairs of eyes – of men leaning across to whisper to one another, of forks poised in mid-air. He pushed open the door. It was many years since he had been inside a kitchen, and never one as busy as this. He looked around in bewilderment at the nuns who were preparing the food. The sisters closest to him bowed their heads.
‘Your Eminence…’
‘Your Eminence…’
‘Bless you, my children. Tell me, where is the sister who had the accident just now?’
An Italian nun said, ‘She is with Sister Agnes, Your Eminence.’
‘Would you be kind enough to take me to her?’
‘Of course, Eminence. Please.’ She indicated the door that led back out to the dining room.
Lomeli shied away from it. ‘Is there a rear exit we can take?’
‘Yes, Eminence.’
‘Show me, child.’
He followed her through a storeroom and into a service passage.
‘What is the name of the sister, do you know?’
‘No, Eminence. She is new.’
The nun knocked timidly on the glass door of an office. Lomeli recognised it as the place where he had first met Benítez, only now the blinds had been lowered for privacy and it was impossible to see inside. After a few moments he knocked himself, more loudly. He heard the sound of someone moving, and then the door was opened a crack by Sister Agnes.
‘Your Eminence?’
‘Good afternoon, Sister. I need to speak with the nun who dropped her tray just now.’
‘She is safe with me, Your Eminence. I am dealing with the situation.’
‘I am sure you are, Sister Agnes. But I must see her myself.’
‘I hardly think a dropped tray should concern the Dean of the College of Cardinals.’
‘Even so. If I may?’ He gripped the door handle.
‘It’s really nothing I can’t deal with…’
He pushed gently at the door, and after one last attempt at resistance, she yielded.
The nun was sitting on the same chair Benítez had occupied, next to the photocopier. She stood as he entered. He had an impression of a woman of about fifty – short, plump, bespectacled, timid: identical to the others. But it was always so hard to see beyond the uniform and the headdress to the person, especially when that person was staring at the floor.
‘Sit down, child,’ he said gently. ‘My name is Cardinal Lomeli. We’re all worried about you. How are you feeling?’
Sister Agnes said, ‘She’s feeling much better, Eminence.’
‘Could you tell me your name?’
‘Her name is Shanumi. She can’t understand a word you’re saying – she doesn’t speak any Italian, poor creature.’
‘English?’ he asked the nun. ‘Do you speak English?’ She nodded. She still hadn’t looked at him. ‘Good. So do I. I lived in the United States for some years. Please, do sit down.’
‘Eminence, I really do think it would be better if I-’
Without turning to look at her, Lomeli said firmly, ‘Would you be so good as to leave us now, Sister Agnes?’ And only when she dared to protest again did he at last swing round and give her a look of such freezing authority that even she, before whom three Popes and at least one African warlord had quailed, bowed her head and backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Lomeli drew up a chair and sat opposite the nun, so close to her that their knees were almost touching. Such intimacy was hard for him. O God, he prayed, give me the strength and the wisdom to help this poor woman and to find out what I need to know, so that I may fulfil my duty to You. He said, ‘Sister Shanumi, I want you to understand, first of all, that you’re not in any sort of trouble. The fact of the matter is, I have a responsibility before God and to the Mother Church, which we both of us try to serve as best we are able, to make sure that the decisions we take here are the right ones. Now, it’s important that you tell me anything that is in your heart and that is troubling you in so far as it relates to Cardinal Adeyemi. Can you do that for me?’
She shook her head.
‘Even if I give you my absolute assurance it will go no further than this room?’
A pause, followed by another shake of the head.
It was then that he had an inspiration. Afterwards he would always believe that God had come to his aid. ‘Would you like me to hear your confession?’
11 The Fourth Ballot
ROUGHLY AN HOUR later, and only twenty minutes before the minibuses were due to leave for the Sistine for the start of the fourth ballot, Lomeli went in search of Adeyemi. He checked in all parts of the lobby first, and then in the chapel. Half a dozen cardinals were on their knees with their backs to him. He hurried up to the altar to get a look at their faces. None was the Nigerian’s. He left, took the elevator to the second floor and strode quickly down the corridor to the room next to his.
He knocked loudly. ‘Joshua? Joshua? It’s Lomeli!’ He knocked again. He was about to give up, but then he heard footsteps and the door was opened.
Adeyemi, still in full choir dress, was drying his face with a towel. He said, ‘I shall be ready in a moment, Dean.’
He left the door open and disappeared into the bathroom; after a brief hesitation, Lomeli stepped over the threshold and closed the door after him. The shuttered room smelled strongly of the cardinal’s aftershave. On the desk was a framed black-and-white picture of Adeyemi as a young seminarian, standing outside a Catholic mission with a proud-looking older woman wearing a hat – his mother, presumably, or perhaps an aunt. The bed was rumpled, as if the cardinal had been lying on it. There was the sound of a lavatory flushing, and Adeyemi emerged, buttoning the lower part of his cassock. He acted as if he was surprised that Lomeli was in the room rather than the corridor. ‘Shouldn’t we be leaving?’
‘In a moment.’
‘That sounds ominous.’ Adeyemi bent to look in the mirror. He planted his zuchetta firmly on his head and adjusted it so that it was straight. ‘If this is about the incident downstairs, I have no desire to talk about it.’ He flicked invisible dust from the shoulders of his mozzetta. He jutted out his chin. He adjusted his pectoral cross. Lomeli maintained his silence, watching him. Finally Adeyemi said quietly, ‘I am the victim of a disgraceful plot to ruin my reputation, Jacopo. Someone brought that woman here and staged this entire melodrama solely to prevent my election as Pope. How did she come to be in the Casa Santa Marta in the first place? She’d never left Nigeria before.’
‘With respect, Joshua, the issue of how she came to be here is secondary to the issue of your relationship with her.’