He struck the table with his fist. “No!”
I was uneasy. Was the Holy father always so frank? Did he single me out because I was a stranger? Was he attempting to draw me out? What was his ulterior motive?
“No!” he repeated. “The Roman Empire prospered without a special religion. Greece flourished on skepticism. What is needed is a strong hand and a cool head. Life is not an affair of prayer and fasting, Count. If we followed the example of the Saints we would be barefooted, ragged and ignorant.”
“It is not a question of this world, Your Holiness, but of the next. ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?’ ”
“Tut, tut! The soul? What is the soul?”
I remembered suddenly Pilate. ‘Truth? What is truth?’
“Is there no soul, Your Holiness?”
“The soul is an illusion engendered by man’s fear of death. The sane man squeezes out of the earth all the pleasures it is capable of offering. Carpe diem!”
I remained silent.
“What is the soul, Count, compared to the senses—to the exquisite intelligent senses? You ought to know what I mean. You have traveled much and if your name belies you not—loved much.”
How much of my history did he know? This man was truly uncanny.
“I have traveled a little, it is true.”
He laughed. “Is it a little to travel through China and India?”
I smiled. “It is not possible to dissimulate before you, Your Holiness.”
“The cup comes from China. Of course, no one save you and I must know it. You speak to your valet sometimes in an African dialect. And a man like you would not miss India—the home of all cults and plagues.”
A Cardinal entered, red-faced and important.
“Well?” Alexander asked.
“The royal ambassadors are impatient, Your Holiness.”
“That is well, Monseigneur. They will accept our terms. Bring me the map.”
The Cardinal bowed and walked out.
“The Chinese understand life and know how to turn excruciating pain into exquisite pleasure. You certainly,” he leered lewdly, “must know the secret of unendurable pleasure indefinitely prolonged…?”
Each word rolled upon his tongue like a delicate morsel.
I stared, amazed. Did there exist, perhaps, some organization or brotherhood of voluptuaries throughout the world, which initiated its members into the secret of unendurable pleasure indefinitely prolonged…? Was Alexander VI a member of this fraternity?
The Cardinal returned with a large map. The Pope bent over it, then taking his goose-quill, drew several bold lines, dividing the world between Spain and Portugal.
“Summon the ambassadors.”
The ambassadors appeared. His Holiness showed them the map. Pointing his stubby forefinger to the map, he said: “Henceforth, these lands and these seas belong to His Majesty, the most Catholic King of Spain, and these to His Majesty, the most Christian King of Portugal.”
The ambassadors looked startled.
“Whatever new or old lands Colón and his followers may discover, I likewise allot to Spain.”
“But Your Holiness,” the Portuguese Ambassador ventured, “my exalted sovereign– —”
Alexander continued, without heeding the interruption: “Except these islands, which by right of conquest appertain to His Majesty, the King of Portugal and his descendants forever.”
The Ambassador repeated timidly, “Your Holiness…”
Alexander raised his finger. “Peace! Peace! The Vicar of Christ has spoken. Neither the word nor the sword shall erase the faintest line that his hand has drawn.”
His Holiness extended his hand. The two ambassadors kissed the ring obsequiously and walked out, their backs to the door.
“God speed,” Alexander pronounced, making the sign of the cross.
The Pope rang a small gold bell. An officer entered.
“Captain, relieve the Count of his armor.”
The Pope caressed the Holy Grail.
“Captain, place the armor in the corner.”
The officer obeyed, waited a moment, and left.
“Sit down, Count.”
I seated myself.
“Clothes shape our personality. In that armor, you were Count de Cartaphile who fasted for seven years that he might possess the Holy Grail which his ancestor had obtained from the hands of our Lord.” He looked at me, and smiled. “Now you are a gentleman, relieved of the burden of piety and sanctity—a scholar, a master of wit.”
I nodded.
“And my guest.”
What was the sinister meaning of the word “guest”?
“This cup is too exquisite for the coarse lips of the multitude, but the Church needs money. We shall remember your deed and weave a beautiful legend about the myth of your ancestor. Posterity could do no more—even for Jesus.”
“But Jesus was not a myth, Your Holiness!”
“You believe in the historical existence of Jesus?” the Pope asked with unconcealed amazement.
“Of course, Holy Father.”
He laughed. “Have you never heard of the Hindu god Krishna? Is not Krishna—Christ?”
“But Jesus, Holy Father, actually existed. He was crucified and– —”
“And resurrected too?”
I gazed open-mouthed at the Vicar of Christ, refusing to be entrapped.
“His birth and his existence,” the Pope calmly continued, “are as true as his death and resurrection. The cross itself is a priapic symbol worshiped hundreds of years before Jesus. What warrant have we of Christ’s life? The gospels, written centuries after his supposed death, are a compilation of preposterous nonsense that even a child, allowed to think freely, could puncture and ridicule with ease.
“The Roman writers of the period, addicted to gossip and exaggeration as they were, and ready to pounce upon any picturesque incident, never allude to Jesus. Josephus, the most meticulous of historians, ignores him entirely. Whatever mention of him is found in the later editions of his books, is a clumsy and all too evident interpolation.”
“Your Holiness, can a legend subsist without basis of fact?”
“Imagination is a great architect. The flimsiest material suffices for a magnificent structure. How can a philosopher accept the multitudinous contradictions of the Holy Book? How can he accept an absurdity as colossal as the Trinity?”
He laughed. “There is a tribe in the jungle of Africa, with a triune divinity. The father is a man, the mother a camel, the son a parrot. Their religion is as rational as ours…”
“What is the name of this strange divinity, Holy Father?” I asked, laughing.
“I do not remember. Something like Pha-ta-pha—Yes, it must be that. The words read the same backwards as forwards. That proves the god’s perfection, does it not?”
We laughed.
“Such flimsy pretexts are the foundation of all religions, Count.”
We remained silent.
“How,” the Pope asked suddenly, “could Satan with his poor bag of tricks tempt the Son of God? Why must the Only Begotten Son remind his Father, omniscient and omnipotent, that He is forsaken at the critical moment? ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me!’ I could wring the neck of the idiotic monk who, transcribing the Bible, did not have sense enough to erase from it this unpardonable offense, both against Jesus and Yahweh! The whimpering son of an absent-minded father!”
He struck the table with his fist. The Holy Grail tottered on the Decameron.
“Is a legend strong enough to uphold the Church?”
“The Church is an organization, Count—a vast Empire, composed largely of children. The average man is always a child. For his good, we invent fables and legends and promises, ridiculous and vain. Thus the favorite few may cultivate in peace and ease the fine arts and philosophies. The Church is the guardian of civilization…”
His logic was invincible. I would have gladly agreed with him. Alas, I knew differently! Once more reason failed. The irrational was the truth! Like the sudden flash of lightning which rends a clear sky, I saw before me Jesus, his trial, his crucifixion. And like the thunderclap which follows, I heard: ‘Tarry until I return.’ I closed my eyes. My head turned.