A manager. . .
After a while he went into the bathroom and poured himself a glass of water.
Very well then, he thought. Manage.
The doors of the Casa Santa Marta were scheduled to close at six. No one would be admitted after that. ‘Come early, Your Eminences,’ Lomeli had advised the cardinals at their last congregation, ‘and please remember that no communications with the outside world will be permitted after you’ve checked in. All mobile telephones and computers must be surrendered at the front desk. You will have to pass through a scanner to make sure you have not been forgetful. It would speed up registration considerably if you simply left them behind.’
At five to three, wearing a winter coat over his black cassock, he stood outside the entrance, flanked by his officials. Once again, Monsignor O’Malley, the Secretary of the College, and Archbishop Mandorff, the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations, were with him, along with Mandorff’s four assistants: two masters of ceremonies, one a monsignor and the other a priest, and two friars of the Order of St Augustine who were attached to the Papal Sacristy. He was also permitted the services of his chaplain, young Father Zanetti. These, and two doctors, on standby in case of medical emergencies, were the sum total of those who would supervise the election of the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.
It was getting cold. Invisible but close in the darkening November sky a helicopter hovered a couple of hundred metres above the ground. The drone of its rotors seemed to come in waves, rising and falling as either it or the wind changed direction. Lomeli scanned the clouds, trying to work out where it was. No doubt it would belong to some television network, dispatched to take aerial pictures of the cardinals arriving at the exterior gates; either that, or it was part of the security forces. He had been briefed about security by the Italian Minister of the Interior, a fresh-faced economist from a well-known Catholic family, who had never worked outside politics and whose hands had shaken as he read through his notes. The threat of terrorism was considered serious and imminent, the Minister had said. Surface-to-air missiles and snipers would be stationed on the roofs of the buildings surrounding the Vatican. Five thousand uniformed police and army personnel would openly patrol the neighbouring streets in a show of strength, while hundreds of plain-clothes officers mingled with the crowds. At the end of the meeting the Minister had asked Lomeli to bless him.
Occasionally above the noise of the helicopter floated the distant sounds of protest: thousands of voices chanting in unison, punctuated by klaxons and drumbeats and whistles. Lomeli tried to distinguish what it was they were complaining about. It was impossible. Supporters of gay marriage and opponents of civil union, pro-divorce advocates and Families for Catholic Unity, women demanding to be ordained as priests and women demanding abortions and contraception, Muslims and anti-Muslims, immigrants and anti-immigrants. . . they merged into a single undifferentiated cacophony of rage. Police sirens cried out somewhere, first one and then another and then a third, as if they were courting one another from opposite ends of the city.
We are an Ark, he thought, surrounded by a rising flood of discord.
Across the piazza, in the nearest corner of the basilica, the melodious clock chimed the four quarter-hours in quick succession; then the great bell of St Peter’s tolled three. The anxious security men in their short black coats strutted and turned and fretted like crows.
A few minutes later, the first of the cardinals appeared. They were wearing their everyday long black cassocks with red piping, with wide red silk sashes tied at their waists and red skullcaps on their heads. They climbed the slope from the direction of the Palace of the Holy Office. A member of the Swiss Guard in his plumed helmet walked with them, carrying a halberd. It might have been a scene from the sixteenth century, except for the noise of their wheeled suitcases, clattering over the cobbles.
The prelates came closer. Lomeli squared his shoulders. He recognised two from his briefing book. On the left was the Brazilian Cardinal Sá, Archbishop of São Salvador de Bahia (aged 60, liberation theologian, a possible Pope, but not this time), and on the right, the elderly Chilean, Cardinal Contreras, Archbishop Emeritus of Santiago (aged 77, arch-conservative, one-time confessor of General Augusto Pinochet). Between them walked a small, dignified figure it took him longer to place: Cardinal Hierra, the Archbishop of Mexico City, of whom Lomeli remembered nothing except his name. He guessed at once that they had been lunching together, doubtless trying to agree on a common candidate. There were nineteen Latin American cardinal-electors, and if they were to vote in a block they would be formidable. But one had only to observe the body language of the Brazilian and the Chilean, the way they refused even to look at one another, to realise that such a common front was impossible. They’d probably struggled even to agree on which restaurant to meet in.
‘My brothers,’ he said, opening his arms, ‘welcome.’ Immediately, the Mexican archbishop began complaining in a mixture of Spanish and Italian about his journey across Rome – he showed his arm: the dark fabric was covered in spit – and about their treatment at the entrance to the Vatican, which had scarcely been better. They had been obliged to present their passports, submit to a body search, open their luggage for inspection: ‘Are we common criminals, Dean, or what is this?’
Lomeli took the archbishop’s gesticulating hand in both of his and clasped it. ‘Your Eminence, I hope at least you have had a good lunch – it may be your last for some time – and I am sorry if you felt your treatment was demeaning. But we must do our best to keep this Conclave safe, and I fear a certain inconvenience is the price we shall all have to pay. Father Zanetti will show you to reception.’
And with that, and without letting go of his hand, he gently steered Hierra towards the entrance of the Casa Santa Marta, then released him. Watching them walk away, O’Malley marked their names on his list, then turned to Lomeli and raised his eyebrows, at which Lomeli returned him a look of such reproof that the monsignor’s capillaried cheeks turned even redder. He liked the Irishman’s sense of humour. But he would not have his cardinals mocked.
In the meantime, another trio had started making its way up the hill. Americans, thought Lomeli, they always stick together: they had even given daily press conferences together until he put a stop to it. He guessed they would have shared a taxi over from the American clergy house, the Villa Stritch. He recognised the Archbishop of Boston, Willard Fitzgerald (aged 68, preoccupied with pastoral duties, still clearing up the mess of the abuse scandal, good with the media); Mario Santos SJ, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston (aged 70, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, cautious reformer), and Paul Krasinski (aged 79, Archbishop Emeritus of Chicago, Prefect Emeritus of the Apostolic Signatura, traditionalist, strong supporter of the Legionaries of Christ). Like the Latin Americans, the North Americans wielded nineteen votes, and it was widely assumed that Tremblay, as Archbishop Emeritus of Quebec, would pick up most of them. But he wouldn’t get Krasinski’s vote – the Chicagoan had already endorsed Tedesco, and in language calculatedly insulting to the dead Pope: ‘We need a Holy Father who can restore the Church to her proper path after a long period when she has been lost.’ He walked with the aid of two sticks and waved one of them at Lomeli. The Swiss Guard carried his big leather suitcase.
‘Good afternoon, Dean.’ He was gleeful to be back in Rome. ‘I bet you never expected to see me again!’