Conclave

by Robert Harris

And only when she dared to protest again did he at last swing round and give her a look of such freezing authority that even she, before whom three Popes and at least one African warlord had quailed, bowed her head and backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

O God, he prayed, give me the strength and the wisdom to help this poor woman and to find out what I need to know, so that I may fulfil my duty to You.

It was then that he had an inspiration. Afterwards he would always believe that God had come to his aid. “Would you like me to hear your confession?”

He recovered his equilibrium sufficiently to glare at Lomeli, and for one moment longer the edifice remained in place—defiant, wounded, magnificent: he would have made a tremendous figurehead for the Church, Lomeli thought. Then something seemed to give way and he sat down abruptly on the edge of his bed and clasped his hands on the top of his head.

“So that is it? I can never be Pope?” “Your Eminence, you cannot be anything.” Adeyemi seemed unable to raise his gaze from the floor. “What shall I do, Jacopo?” “You are a good man. You will find some way to atone. God will know if you are truly penitent, and He will decide what is to happen to you.” “And the Conclave?” “Leave them to me.”

And so the two men got down on their knees under the electric light in the sealed room that was sweet with the scent of aftershave—got down easily in Adeyemi’s case, stiffly in Lomeli’s—and prayed together side by side.

Lomeli would have liked to have walked to the Sistine again—to have inhaled some cool fresh air and turned his face to the mild November sun. But it was too late for that. By the time he reached the lobby, the cardinals were already boarding the minibuses, and Nakitanda was waiting for him by the reception desk. “Well?” “He will have to resign all his offices.” Nakitanda’s head dropped in dismay. “Oh no!” “Not immediately—I hope we may avoid a humiliation—but certainly in a year or so. I’ll leave it up to you to decide what you tell the others. I have spoken to both parties and I am bound by vows. I cannot say any more.” On the minibus he sat at the very back with his eyes closed, his biretta on the seat next to him to discourage company. Every part of this business sickened him, but one aspect in particular had started to niggle away in his mind.

“I don’t understand why you agreed to come. Why would you leave your home in Africa and travel all this way?” Her answer pierced him almost more than anything else she said: “Because I thought it might be Cardinal Adeyemi who had sent for me.”

One had to hand it to Adeyemi. The Nigerian cardinal comported himself with the same dignity and gravity he had shown at the end of the third ballot. No one watching him as he entered the Sistine Chapel could have guessed from his appearance that his manifest sense of destiny had been in any way disrupted, let alone that he was ruined.

To a man, on their way back from casting their ballots, they averted their eyes from the Nigerian. They were like members of a jury filing into a courtroom to deliver their verdict, unable to look at the accused they were about to condemn.

To think that if they hadn’t broken for lunch, Adeyemi might by now be Pope!

The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance happen to all…

In modern times, they usually had a Pope by the fifth ballot.

An election completed in five ballots was what Lomeli had secretly prayed for—a nice, easy, conventional number, suggestive of an election that had been neither schism nor coronation but a meditative process of discerning God’s will. It would not be so this year. He did not like the feel of it.

Studying for his doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical Lateran University, he had read Canetti’s Crowds and Power. From it he had learnt to separate the various categories of crowd—the panicking crowd, the stagnant crowd, the crowd in revolt and so forth. It was a useful skill for a cleric. Applying this secular analysis, a papal Conclave could be seen as the most sophisticated crowd on earth, moved this way or that by the collective impulse of the Holy Spirit. Some Conclaves were timid and disinclined to change, such as that which elected Ratzinger; others were bold, like the one that eventually chose Wojtyła. What worried Lomeli about this particular Conclave was that it was beginning to show signs of becoming what Canetti might call a disintegrating crowd. It was troubled, unstable, fragile—capable of suddenly heading off in any direction.

The pundits hired by the television channels professed themselves surprised by the Conclave’s failure to agree. Most had predicted that the new Pope would have been elected by now, and the U.S. networks were on standby to interrupt their lunchtime schedules to show the scenes in St. Peter’s Square as the victor appeared on the balcony. For the first time the experts started to express doubts about the strength of Bellini’s support. If he was going to win, he ought to have done so by now. A new collective wisdom began to rise out of the debris of the old: that the Conclave was on the verge of making history. In the United Kingdom—that godless isle of apostasy, where the whole affair was being treated as a horse race—the Ladbrokes betting agency made Cardinal Adeyemi the new favourite. Tomorrow, it was commonly said, might at last see the election of the first black Pope.

Lomeli assumed that O’Malley, as the Secretary of the College, must know the results of the afternoon ballots, if only because it was his task to collect the cardinals’ notes in order to destroy them—and O’Malley was not the kind of man to avert his eyes from a secret.

Lomeli beckoned at the security guard and gestured to the deserted courtyard. “I seem to have been left behind. Would you mind?”

So tell me: am I supposed to go around like some witchfinder general, searching for my colleagues’ lapses of more than thirty years ago?”

“I am beginning to discover,” continued Lomeli in a quieter voice, “that the Holy Father may not have been entirely himself in the last few weeks of his life. Indeed, from what Cardinal Bellini has said to me, I gather he had almost become—I speak to you in absolute confidence—slightly paranoid, or at any rate very secretive.”

Lomeli realised he was whispering. He laughed. “Listen to me—I sound like a typical old maid of the Curia, gossiping in darkened corners about appointments!”

Löwenstein raised his eyebrows and glanced briefly at Jandaček. “If it drags on much longer, I wonder what the actuarial odds are that one of us will die before we find a new Pope.” “You might mention that to a few of our colleagues.” Lomeli smiled and gave him a slight bow. “It may concentrate minds.

Not a sound came from within. The contrast between this deep silence and the laughter and excitement of the previous evening was awful to him.

He saw for the first time how God willed destruction: that it was inherent in His Creation from the beginning and that they could not escape it—that He would come among them in wrath. See what desolations He has brought on the earth…!

And if we believe that the Holy Spirit is operating through the Conclave, we have to accept that God—improbable as it may seem—wishes us to give the Keys of St. Peter to Joe Tremblay.” “Perhaps He does—although it’s strange that until lunchtime He also seemed to want us to give them to Joshua Adeyemi.”

“Seriously, let us not forget that the oath we swear is to cast our ballot for the candidate whom before God we think should be elected. It’s not enough for us just to vote for the least-worst option.” “Oh really, with respect, Dean, that is sophistry!” scoffed Sabbadin. “On the first ballot, one can take the purist view—good; fine. But by the time we reach the fourth or fifth ballot, our personal favourite is likely to have long since gone, and we are obliged to choose from a narrowed field. That process of concentration is the whole function of the Conclave. Otherwise nobody would change their mind and we would be here for weeks.”

As Gambino turned away and pressed the button for the elevator, Adeyemi lingered for a fraction longer, staring at Lomeli. You think I am finished, his face seemed to say, but you can spare me your pity, for I am not without some power, even yet.

Adeyemi’s influence had been entirely overlooked in their calculations, he realised. The Nigerian had still received nine votes in the last ballot, even though by then his candidacy was plainly doomed.

For a brief instant Lomeli was affronted—was he, a former Secretary of State and Dean of the College of Cardinals, to be given lessons in how to pray?—but the offer was clearly sincere, so that he found himself saying, “Yes, I would like that, thank you.”

He said patiently, “Well, twelve successive days of balloting and discussion, all of it in secret, with half the world’s media camped in Rome, would be seen as proof that the Church is in crisis—that it can’t agree on a leader to guide it through these difficult times. It would also, frankly, strengthen that faction of our colleagues who want to take the Church back to an earlier era. In my worst nightmares, to speak absolutely freely, I wonder if a prolonged Conclave could herald the start of the great schism that has been threatening us for nearly sixty years.”

Lomeli laughed. “I’m sure he has!” He regretted his sarcasm at once. “You want me to vote for a man you regard as ambitious?” Benítez looked at Lomeli—a long, hard, appraising look that made him feel quite uncomfortable—and then, without speaking further, began putting on his shoes. Lomeli shifted in his seat. He didn’t care for this lengthening silence.

“I believe in God, Your Eminence. And in God alone. Which is why I don’t share your alarm at the idea of a long Conclave—or even a schism, come to that. Who knows? Perhaps that is what God wants. It would explain why our Conclave is proving to be such a conundrum that even you can’t solve it.” “A schism would go against everything I have believed in and worked for throughout my entire life.” “Which is what?” “The divine gift of the single Universal Church.” “And this unity of an institution is worth preserving even at the price of breaking one’s sacred oath?” “That is an extraordinary allegation. The Church is not merely an institution, as you call it, but the living embodiment of the Holy Spirit.” “Ah, well here we differ.

Benítez stood and extended his hand. “I meant no offence, Dean, and I am sorry if I have given it. But I cannot vote for a man unless he is the one I deem most worthy to be Pope.

As he did so, he noticed the little kit of toiletries that O’Malley had provided for Benítez on the night of his arrival—a toothbrush, a small tube of toothpaste, a bottle of deodorant, and a plastic disposable razor, still in its cellophane wrapper.

Bellini was sitting over in the far corner. He seemed to have given up trying to influence the undecided and was indulging himself for once by taking his meal with his fellow theologians, Vandroogenbroek and Löwenstein, no doubt discussing Thomism and phenomenology, or some similar abstractions.

The remains of St. Catherine Labouré and St. Louise de Marillac were buried in its chapel. Its members had not given up their lives in order to become waitresses for cardinals. Its charism was supposed to be service to the poor.

His dialogue with Benítez had disturbed him profoundly. He was unable to get it out of his mind. Was it really possible that he had spent the past thirty years worshipping the Church rather than God? Because that, in essence, was the accusation Benítez had levelled against him. In his heart he could not escape the truth of it—the sin; the heresy. Was it any wonder he had found it so difficult to pray? It was an epiphany similar to that which had struck him in St. Peter’s while he was waiting to deliver his sermon.

There was a muted chorus around the table of “Goodnight, Dean.” Lomeli walked towards the lobby. Few noticed him. And of those few, none would have guessed from his dignified tread the clamour resounding in his head. At the last minute, instead of going upstairs, his footsteps suddenly swerved away from the staircase towards the reception desk.

The blinds were down. The only light came from a desk lamp. On the table was an old-fashioned radio-cassette machine, playing a Gregorian chant. He recognised Alma Redemptoris Mater: “Loving Mother of our Saviour.” The evidence of her piety touched him. That ancestor of hers martyred during the French Revolution had been beatified, he remembered.

She stared him out with those indomitable blue eyes. She could be guillotined or burnt at the stake; she would not yield. If I had ever married, he thought, I would have wanted a wife like this. He said, gently, “Did you love the Holy Father, Sister Agnes?” “Of course.” “Well, I certainly know he had a special regard for you. In fact I think he was rather in awe of you.” “I don’t know about that!” Her tone was dismissive. She knew what he was doing. And yet a certain part of her could not help but be flattered, and for the first time her gaze flickered slightly. Lomeli pressed on. “And I believe he may have had some small regard for me as well. At any rate, let’s say that when I tried to resign as dean, he wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t understand why at the time. To be honest, I was angry with him—may God forgive me. But now I believe I understand. I think he sensed he was dying and for some reason he wanted me to run this Conclave. And, with constant prayer, that is what I’m trying to do—for him.

For at least a minute she did not reply. Eventually she said, “I promised the superioress I wouldn’t say anything. And I shan’t say anything. You understand?” And then she put on a pair of spectacles, sat at her computer terminal and began to type with great rapidity. It was a curious sight—Lomeli would never forget it—the elderly aristocratic nun peering closely at the screen, her fingers flying as if by their own volition across the grey plastic keyboard. The percussive blur of clicks built to a crescendo, slowed, became single beats, until with a final aggressive stab, she lifted her hands, stood, and moved away from the desk to the other side of the office.

Ah, he thought, but he was something, this Cardinal Tremblay! A North American who was not an American, a French-speaker who was not a Frenchman, a doctrinal liberal who was also a social conservative (or was it the other way round?), a champion of the Third World and the epitome of the First—how foolishly Lomeli had underestimated him! Already he noticed the Canadian did not have to fetch his own coffee any more—Sabbadin collected it on his behalf—and then the Archbishop of Milan accompanied Tremblay over to a group of Italian cardinals, who deferred to him at once, widening their circle to admit him. Lomeli sipped his coffee and bided his time. He wanted there to be no witnesses to what he needed to do. Occasionally a cardinal would come over to speak to him, and he would smile up at them and exchange a few pleasantries—nothing in his face betrayed the agitation in his mind—but he found that if he did not stand, they soon took the hint and moved away.

He turned away, smiling to himself, and walked towards the stairs. Immediately Lomeli tried to intercept him. There was a moment of near-comedy as he discovered his legs had stiffened and he could barely get up from his chair. But after a struggle he managed to rise and limped on stiff legs in pursuit. He caught the Canadian just as he put his foot on the bottom step of the staircase.

“It isn’t libel, it’s the truth. The Holy Father gave me the name of a sister in Africa and asked me, as Prefect for the Evangelisation of Peoples, to make a private request to the Daughters of Charity to bring her to Rome. I asked no questions. I merely obliged him.”

O Lord, You have charged me with the care of this most sacred Conclave…Is it my duty merely to arrange my colleagues’ deliberations, or do I have a responsibility to intervene and affect the outcome? I am Your servant and I dedicate myself to Your will…The Holy Spirit will surely lead us to a worthy pontiff regardless of any actions I may take…Guide me, Lord, I beg You, to fulfil Your wishes…Servant, you must guide yourself…

Twice he rose from the bed and went to the door, and twice he returned and lay down again. Of course, he knew there would be no flash of insight, no sudden infusion of certainty. He did not expect one. God did not work that way. He had sent him all the signs he needed. It was for him to act upon them. And perhaps he had always suspected what he would have to do in the end, which was why he had never returned the pass key but had kept it in the drawer of the nightstand. He got up for a third time and opened the door.

Do not tell others what is on your mind but seek advice from someone who is wise and fears God. Keep company with young people or strangers sparingly. Do not admire the wealthy, and avoid the company of celebrities. It is better to keep company with the poor and simple, the devout and the virtuous…

But the Pope’s spectacles and alarm clock were still on the nightstand, and when he opened the closet, two white cassocks hung ghostlike from the rail. The sight of these simple garments—the Holy Father had refused to wear the more elaborate papal vestments—seemed to break something inside Lomeli that had been pent up since the funeral. He put his hand to his eyes and bowed his head. His body shook, although no tears came. This dry convulsion lasted barely half a minute, and when it passed, he felt curiously strengthened. He waited until he had recovered his breath, and then turned and contemplated the bed.

It was formidably ugly, centuries old, with big square posts at all four corners and carved panels at the head and foot. Alone of all the fine furniture to which he was entitled in the papal apartment, the Holy Father had chosen to have this ungainly object shipped to the Casa Santa Marta. Popes had slept in it for generations. To get it through the outer door must have required taking it apart and then reassembling it. Carefully, as he had on the night the Pope died, Lomeli lowered himself to his knees, clasped his hands together, closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the edge of the mattress to pray. Suddenly the terrible solitariness of the old man’s life seemed almost too unbearable to contemplate. He reached out his arms in either direction along the wooden frame of the bed, and gripped it. How long he remained in this position he could not afterwards say with certainty. It might have been two minutes; it might have been twenty. What he was quite sure of was that at some point during this time, the Holy Father entered his mind and spoke to him. Of course, it could have been a trick of the imagination: the rationalists had an explanation for everything, even for inspiration. All he knew was that before he knelt he was in despair, and afterwards, when he scrambled to his feet and stared at the bed, the dead man had told him what to do.

He tried lifting the mattress, even though he knew it was a waste of time: the same Holy Father who beat Bellini at chess most evenings would never have done anything so obvious.