Luis Rocha - The Last Pope

“Do you need anything? Can I help you?”

“No, thanks, I’ll be fine,” Rafael replied.

As they circled the airport, flying over the northern part of Sarah’s native land, she felt a renewed anguish suffocating her.

“Do you know the man who broke into my house?”

“Yes.”

Rafael kept silent again, just staring out the small window.

“Who was it?” Sarah insisted.

“It was an American Secret Service agent. Actually he was a Czech-born naturalized American, though that’s irrelevant. But other people connected with you have died recently. There was a Spanish priest named Felipe Aragón, and an Argentinian one, Pablo Rincón. Both of them received information concerning John Paul I’s papers.”

“Papers like mine?”

“On the night he died, the pope had various papers with him. The list that you got is only part of it.” Rafael seemed to want to talk.

“And they also received papers?”

“Probably, but they had worse luck than you. Father Pablo couldn’t manage to get away. And unfortunately, Father Felipe died of a heart attack at almost the same time.”

“If Father Pablo received any papers, then they must be in the P2’s hands now. If, on the other hand, he received only an indication, let’s say, as to the whereabouts of the remaining documents, the P2 could also have obtained that information before killing him,” Sarah reasoned.

“That may be, I don’t know. Your father might be able to clear all of this up for us.”

“How can you be acting like that, making decisions without sufficient information?”

“In my work, we’re all small cogs in a big wheel. What counts is for us to know our part and perform effectively. As for the whole puzzle, only its inventor knows.”

“And you aren’t curious?”

“Curiosity is very dangerous.”

The plane completed its approach, and moments later landed smoothly.

“We have just landed at Portela Airport in Lisbon,” the flight attendant announced, and repeated the usual litany.

“At least they didn’t attack us with missiles midflight,” Sarah joked, trying to shake off the gripping tension.

Sister Vincenza had been looking for Don Albino all afternoon. Walking the hallways of the Apostolic Palace, carrying a small tray with a glass of water and a pill on a saucer, she stopped by a window and saw him sitting on a bench in the gardens. The Holy Father was holding his head with both hands and seemed engrossed in disturbing thoughts.

“ Gethsemane,” Sister Vincenza said, almost reflexively.

The old woman descended the stairs leading to the wonderful gardens, and continued on one of the gravel paths toward the rotunda. Just on the other side, Don Albino was sitting in his pure white cassock, staring down at his shoes.

Sister Vincenza stood in front of him.

“The doctors recommended that you take walks through the gardens. They didn’t say you should sit in the gardens.”

There was a hearty smile on Don Albino’s lips as he looked at his loyal nurse.

“Yes. They suggested I go for walks to get rid of this swelling in my feet. But as it happens, with my feet so swollen I can’t walk. So, what can I do?”

Sister Vincenza, well acquainted with Don Albino’s unshakable logic, admitted that the doctors’ prescription wasn’t very practical.

Without a word, the pope took the pill and the glass offered by the nun, and after looking at the medication with a resigned sigh, he swallowed it, delighting more in the cool water than in the promised benefits of the pill.

“Did you know my father, Sister Vincenza?” Don Albino asked his nurse, still standing before him. “When I went to the seminary at eleven, my father spent two months without saying a word to my mother. She was a very devout woman, but my father-”

“Don Giovanni was a rebel,” Sister Vincenza said.

“No. Don Giovanni, as you call him, was a socialist. But, considering what is going on now, I don’t know if an immigrant, a laborer, or temporary worker who has always lived in misery can be anything else. In fact, when I entered the seminary, my father said, ‘Finally, a sacrifice has to be made.’ I’d say that, for being avidly anti-Church, he had a premonition almost like a spiritual vision. That’s what I was thinking about when you came.”

“God will help you carry this burden, Holy Father.”

Don Albino glanced benevolently at Sister Vincenza. No good could have come from his starting a conversation about the poor conduct of the directors of the Vatican Bank. What would this innocent nun think after being told that the Mafia’s money was being laundered through intermediate enterprises in the stock markets of Zurich, London, and New York? What would happen to Sister Vincenza’s simple faith if she learned that, since August 6, 1966, affable Cardinal Villot’s name appeared with the number 041/3 in the archives of the P2 Lodge? How could this venerable old nun sleep, knowing that her Don Albino didn’t head Christ’s Church, but a financial conglomerate that would end up exploding in his face if he didn’t fix it? And as for himself, how could he look that good woman in the eye, knowing that his Church had been converted into a den of thieves?

“I could bear this burden, Sister Vincenza,” he added finally, “but I don’t know if others would be willing to put up with me.”

“Put your trust in God, Don Albino,” the dear old woman said, turning back on the gravel path toward the Apostolic Palace. “Trust in God.”

John Paul I stayed a few minutes longer on that bench in the rotunda, engrossed in his thoughts and looking at his swollen feet. It was time to go back to his office. He had so much to do! With a resigned shrug, he got up, and a grimace revealed the pain in his ankles as he stood.

“ ‘Finally,’ as old Don Giovanni had said, ‘a sacrifice has to be made.’ ”

And he slowly walked back to his office, hands clasped behind his back.

Staughton was making a supreme effort to follow his boss’s orders. The fat man’s bad mood was obvious, but Staughton couldn’t allow himself that kind of luxury. Even though he hadn’t slept all night, he had no subordinates available to relieve him. And he didn’t have any family nearby to relax with. His parents were happily retired in Boston, and women could never put up with his work patterns. Anybody who worked at the agency was so committed that, little by little, duty became all-consuming, eventually disrupting family ties, even close friendships. A true secret agent had no relationship with the outside world, and that facilitated his performance.

In this regard, Staughton was no different from the rest, although he did maintain some ties with his parents and other family members. Recently he contacted his mother to tell her he was doing fine. To her, Staughton was a software specialist in the London office of an American company, a cover containing a grain of truth. His childhood friendships had been shrinking over time. Concerning women, Staughton did make an effort. Twice he came close to putting a ring on his finger, with the usual marriage commitment before the laws of God and country. He failed the first attempt on September 11, 2001. His fiancée couldn’t be faulted, because Staughton spent three months without returning to his country after the World Trade Center attack, and he limited himself to a skimpy weekly phone call, always promising he would be back the following week. The same was to happen with another woman in 2003, before the second Gulf War. The wedding was scheduled for April 9, the same day the combined forces reached Baghdad. But Staughton was, in effect, incommunicado for five months, during which he mailed an occasional letter to report his mental and physical well-being, and to say that he would be back the next month.