Sarah recognized him as the man in his sixties who had led her to this basement.
‘You?’ Phelps offered this scandalized doubt.
‘Me indeed,’ the man answered. He turned to Rafael. ‘Who are you?’
They stared at each other without blinking. They measured forces, studied each other. Every gesture counted, thus the appearance of calm. Rafael seated with his elbow on the table supporting his chin as if he didn’t have a care in the world. The unknown man leaning in the doorway, a cigarette in his mouth.
‘You know who I am.’
A smile filled the Russian’s mouth. Straight white teeth.
‘Does the pope know you are here?’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘Maybe I will.’
He took a drag on the cigarette and adopted a meditative expression, an empty look, supported by the silence of the moment.
‘I have many questions for you, Father Rafael Santini.’ A slight mocking look shone in the Russian’s eyes. It was time to show the cards.
‘I haven’t come to answer but to ask questions… Barber Ivanovsky.’
58
Inside every border there is an elite with limitless access to all corners of the territory. They are in control over the population whether the regime is democratic or dictatorial. The few that control the many, a minority who clap their hands and see one pair of hands turn into an immense national applause. Beyond the greedy ones of national influence, there are others who go beyond the borders of their own country and manage to make the greater part of other populations dance to the sound of their music. These are the elite of the elite, and of course they exist, since everything can be subdivided infinitely.
Marius Ferris could be considered one of these privileged few, someone who crosses borders without being inconvenienced, who enters countries through a special door without the necessity of explanations.
Work or pleasure? is what some border guards ask recent arrivals. A phrase Marius Ferris never hears. One word, one word alone, is what they tell him: Welcome. They don’t even take his diplomatic passport with the Vatican seal. It’s enough when they see it at a distance in the hand of a man of the highest importance.
He had arrived on a commercial night flight, business class, of course. He has enjoyed the privilege of a Famous Grouse whisky, earphones to listen to music or add sound to the images on his individual monitor, an orthopedic pillow to sleep a little. After all, it was two hours and forty minutes in the air, and sleep has to be regularized. Twenty minutes’ delay from the scheduled arrival to the actual time the plane touched down on the asphalt of Leonardo da Vinci Airport at Fiumicino.
He headed immediately for the place of his personal pilgrimage. His bedroom in the Casa di Santa Marta could wait.
He found a young driver waiting for him with a paper showing the letters MFOD.
Marius Ferris, Opus Dei. The prelate smiled.
‘That’s me. Good evening.’
‘Good… good evening… Your Eminence.’
He could have corrected him and told him that he was not yet ‘Your Eminence,’ but he liked the deference to religious authority. In the final account he and his colleagues were the border that separates the believers from God. And nobody got to God without passing through people like him. It was worth all the money extracted from the faithful, more or less wealthy, who deposit fortunes in their hands… in the name of God.
The driver offered to take the small silver-gray briefcase he carried.
‘Don’t bother. I’ll carry it,’ he refused arrogantly. ‘Show me to the car, please.’
The car was right at the door of the arrivals terminal, a rare case today, explicable because the passenger was who he was.
Once settled into the immense backseat of the Mercedes, top line, with his briefcase in his lap, Marius Ferris sighed. A sigh of relief, of peace with himself. Things were coming together again.
‘To Saint Peter’s, Your Eminence?’ the driver asked, looking at him in the rearview mirror.
‘No. No. Santa Maria Maggiore.’
He had to go now. He couldn’t wait any longer.
The young man drove off wiping away the drops of sweat from his face. It seemed strange the bishop wanted to go to Santa Maria della Neve. The basilica was closed at that hour, like all the sacred places in Rome. Even the saints have a right to the same nocturnal rest as the living. Thank God.
There was little traffic on the expressway at that hour of the morning. The airport itself had been empty when he arrived, only the late arrivals, the distracted, the disoriented, who didn’t understand Italian or English, those who’d lost their belongings or those who’d come from late-night flights like that of Marius Ferris.
The straight fast lane with guardrails less than a yard from the outer edge on the shoulder didn’t intimidate the drivers who used it. Least of all this nervous young man, who, at the wheel, at sixty-five or seventy miles an hour, forgot his anxieties with nothing on his conscience. The left lane was for speed, and he didn’t change lanes until he entered the Fiumicino — Rome freeway, except on one occasion to let a faster BMW pass.
At least he’s efficient, Marius Ferris thought. Driving over the speed limit didn’t bother him. The faster the better.
Without delay they entered the great imperial city. Marius Ferris looked at his watch. Two-twenty. It wasn’t a decent hour to enter this basilica or any basilica or church in Rome or anywhere else.
They turned onto the Lungotevere di San Paolo, ignoring the first of four basilicas in Rome, San Paolo Fuori le Mura. It was not the one that mattered, we well know, or the greatest. Destiny marked Santa Maria Maggiore as the most important tonight.
‘The basilica is closed at this hour,’ the driver dared to say in an attempt to start a conversation. He was visibly much calmer.
‘For you,’ Marius Ferris only replied, stressing his superior importance.
The young driver had thought this would be a quick trip, picking up a priest at the airport and taking him to Saint Peter’s. He’d have time to stop by Ramona’s house on the Via dell’Orso and give her a good-night kiss, maybe something more. But this detour wouldn’t allow him time for that. He should cross himself and ask forgiveness for thinking sinful thoughts of lust, but he was ashamed because of the presence of the prelate in the backseat. He was afraid he’d read his thoughts. Little did the young driver know that Marius Ferris had more things to think about than his driver’s sexual fantasies, although what the old man felt, now that they’d left the Via dei Fori Imperiali and drove up Cavour, could be compared to the pleasure of carnal relations, applied to the spiritual. Marius Ferris, apparently calm, felt anxious with butterflies in his stomach, just like the blessed that look forward to an amorous encounter, a kiss on the lips, a smile.
Once on Via Cavour they turned right toward the Via di Santa Maria Maggiore. It was a steep climb that leads to the Via Liberiana. The driver eased up with the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore on the left.
Marius Ferris opened the door with the vehicle still in motion, forcing the young man to brake hard.
‘Wait for me here,’ he ordered, closing the door immediately and walking in the direction of the side door for authorized persons only to the right side of the basilica.
The driver closed his eyes in frustration. Hell. He hated the idiotic phrase Wait for me here. He hated it. Oh, Ramona, beautiful Ramona, you will have to wait another night for him to throw pebbles against your window.
But it’s Marius Ferris who interests us. He approached the side door for deliveries and employees. He rang the bell for fifteen minutes before someone appeared. For the last five minutes he never stopped pressing the button. The person who finally opened the door was a Redemptorist brother, roused out of bed by the violent, constant buzzing.