It was one of the dramas of adolescence. Certain bodily assaults one couldn’t foresee or avoid.
‘Pay no attention to it. He’ll have a lot also.’
‘It looks really bad,’ Mirella protested.
Her mother took her chin and turned her face toward her, like an object she owned, which was somewhat true, according to her point of view. She examined the irritated skin of her daughter’s face with a maternal expression. A small red spot could be made out on the right side of her chin, nothing serious.
‘This is nothing. It’s going to take some time before it breaks out,’ her mother declared. ‘You’ve got to learn to live with those.’
‘What did you do to get rid of pimples?’ Mirella asked, interested in the magical formula that, at times, mothers seem to possess.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ her mother answered. ‘Someday you’ll do the same,’ she finished with a smile.
The wise words of a mother or father, not always so wise, fall on deaf ears in anything related to the dramas of surviving puberty. Someday would Mirella stop worrying about the infamous pimples that broke out on her face just before her period? Never. Naturally, she wasn’t, at the moment, in possession of all the information about what her future life would be, no one is, it’s the rules of the game. If she were, she’d know that she’d never have to worry again about cutaneous eruptions, menstruation, classes, excuses, sensual seductions, joking, libidinous thoughts, worrying about conquests, feeling admired, the erections that her simple presence provoked, the calculated, suggestive smile, dinner with older men, her parents… or her life.
It was almost time, and Mirella went to the window to see if his car was already waiting there. She flashed a fascinating smile when she saw him there. He’d arrived five minutes early. A good sign. Romans were not punctual in any way. It was their style to arrive late for everything. Fifteen minutes to a half-hour didn’t seem bad to anyone.
‘I’m going,’ she called from the kitchen. ‘See you later.’
‘Don’t forget. Home by twelve at the latest,’ her mother reminded her, although the door had already closed, leaving Mirella free to go.
A mother’s anxious heart told her to go to the window and watch from behind the curtain the car her daughter got into at that moment, smiling, full of light, shining intensely. She felt a heavy heart, a disturbing anxiety, gloomy thoughts, nothing she should give importance to. She couldn’t see the driver’s face because of the dark, moonless night that had settled over the street. She thumped her chest to rid herself of the tightness. A few seconds later she felt relieved, her soul relaxing, the bad feeling had dissipated, everything was fine.
She left the window to go serve dinner, and left her daughter and the friend to follow the road in the privacy of the BMW.
44
It was time for the Farewell Procession in the Cove of Iria, when the Virgin Mary was carried in procession among the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims back to the Chapel of the Apparitions, where she would remain until the next year. A light mist marked the blessing of the act in this place central to the Catholic world, on a par with Saint Peter’s in the Vatican. Hundreds of thousands of white handkerchiefs waved in the air, marking the Immaculate farewell. People wept in prayer, with petitions for help, genuine or bizarre, because no one was there for no reason, out of a pure manifestation of faith and feeling for the Mother of Christ. There was always a request, a grace, Save my daughter. Help me in this business deal. Give me money and fortune…
To the right of the colonnade was the chapel of the Perennial Exposition of the Holy Sacrament, where the Congregation of the Religious Observers of Our Lady of the Sorrows of Fatima has prayed to the Sacred Heart of Jesus seven days of the week, twenty-four hours a day, since 1960. It’s a worthy act for forgiveness of worldly sins, according to the call of the Virgin in 1917 to the children, without requiring anything in return except peace on earth, no small thing, comparable to a miracle from Heaven. These were the teachings of Father Formigao’s disciples, whom the Virgin asked to forgive sins after the prayer. All this Marius Ferris experienced, kneeling in the last row of the chapel with the sister there in front of him finishing her turn at prayer.
After making the sign of the cross, Marius Ferris got up and left the chapel. From there, under the colonnade, he could see the sea of people crowding the vast enclosure, the processions in the back, on the way to their usual site, the exact place where the oak was found that sheltered the visions of Mary.
‘Do you believe that one of the bullets that threatened the life of the Polish pope in 1981 is in the crown of the Virgin of Fatima, Brother?’ The voice came from behind Marius Ferris.
‘That’s public knowledge,’ Ferris replied. ‘We know that Wojtyla was very devoted to Mary.’ He quickly bowed before the man confined to a wheelchair. ‘Your blessing, Your Eminence.’ He kissed one of his hands.
‘God bless you, my son,’ the other recited, concluding the ceremony of greeting.
The man was much older than Marius Ferris, near ninety you might guess. He was wearing a black suit and a large yellow gold cross hanging from a thick chain around his neck. A young cleric dressed in a black cassock, perhaps his aide, pushed the chair according to the old man’s wishes.
Marius Ferris rose after a few moments of prayer and looked at the old man in front of him.
‘I envy your physical fitness,’ the old man praised him.
‘Don’t be envious. I’ll never reach your age.’ A smile appeared on his face.
‘Only He knows that,’ the other observed. ‘Do me the favor of pushing my chair, Brother.’ It was a demand, not a request. With a gesture, he dismissed the young man. The conversation would be private now.
Ferris took the chair and pushed it smoothly along the colonnade toward the basilica. The voice of a prelate could be heard resonating from the loudspeakers inside. A polyglot expression of gratitude to all the pilgrims, directly from the altar placed in front of the basilica, at the top of the stairs, which was used in the international celebration of the Mass.
‘Is it the Roman envoy?’ Ferris asked.
‘Yes, Sodano.’
‘The one the pope forgot?’ A certain joking in the voice, a certain disdain.
‘He always finds a way to promote his position. Besides, the German has chosen a very bad secretary of state.’
‘Did he choose, or was that the only option they gave him?’ Ferris countered.
‘Could be. In any case the present pope knows what was agreed to in his election. If he should go back on the deal-’
‘What’s the deal?’ Ferris interrupted.
‘Whatever it may be, Brother. Draw in the Church, reassert the old dogmas, combat any menace of liberal reform, stop creating this constant circus in the media. Christ is not an amusement park.’ A certain flush showed how deeply he believed this.
‘A Church turned inward.’
‘How?’ the man went on, having just started his sermon. ‘If they followed the teachings of our Church, the only, the true one, we wouldn’t have half the problems society debates today. Abortion? Contraception?’ His irritation grew with each topic. ‘Ecumenism? Why? Interreligious dialogue? There is us and there is them. There’s no conversation. Yes, in some way, they attack us; we throw ourselves on them. It’s always been like that. Why are we bothering now with stupid diplomacy?’
‘It’s going to change,’ Ferris predicted.
‘I hope so. Otherwise we’ll have to do something about the German.’
‘I don’t think it’ll come to that.’
‘Is everything going as you planned?’ An almost imperceptible change of subject.
‘Until now, yes,’ Ferris lied. A small lie. He didn’t want to worry him with insignificant things that would be resolved shortly, perhaps already had been.