The Confessor Page 5

  Gabriel peered into the storage room. It was little more than a closet, some four feet wide and six feet deep, and it reeked of linseed oil and damp. A rusted bicycle frame with one wheel, a pair of ancient skis, unlabeled cardboard boxes stacked to a water-stained ceiling.

  He removed the broken bicycle and the skis, and began searching through the boxes of Benjamin’s things. In several he found bound stacks of yellowing papers and old spiral notebooks, the flotsam of a lifetime spent in the lecture halls and libraries of academia. There were boxes of dusty old books—the ones, Gabriel supposed, he deemed too unimportant to place on the shelves in his flat. Several more held copies of Conspiracy at Wannsee: A Reappraisal, Benjamin’s last book.

  The final box contained the purely personal. Gabriel felt like a trespasser. He wondered how he would feel if the roles were reversed, if Shamron had sent someone from the Office to rummage through his things. And what would they find? Only what Gabriel wanted them to see. Solvents and pigment, his brushes and his palette, a fine collection of monographs. A Beretta by his bedside.

  He drew a long breath and proceeded. Inside a cigar box he found a pile of tarnished medals and tattered ribbons and remembered that Benjamin had been something of a star runner at school. In an envelope were family photographs. Benjamin, like Gabriel, was an only child. His parents had survived the horrors of Riga only to be killed in a car accident on the road to Haifa. Next he found a stack of letters. The stationery was the color of honey and still smelled of lilac. Gabriel read a few lines and quickly put the letters aside. Vera . . . Benjamin’s only love. How many nights had he lain awake in some wretched safe flat, listening to Benjamin complain about how the beguiling Vera had ruined him for all other women? Gabriel was quite certain he hated her more than Benjamin had.

  The last item was a manila file folder. Gabriel lifted the cover and inside found a stack of newspaper clippings. His eyes flickered over the headlines. ELEVEN ISRAELI ATHLETES AND COACHES TAKEN HOSTAGE IN OLYMPIC VILLAGE . . . TERRORISTS DEMAND RELEASE OF PALESTINIAN AND GERMAN PRISONERS . . . BLACK SEPTEMBER . . .

  Gabriel closed the file.

  A black-and-white snapshot slipped out. Gabriel scooped it off the floor. Two boys, blue jeans and rucksacks. A pair of young Germans spending a summer roaming Europe, or so it appeared. It had been taken in Antwerp near the river. The one on the left was Benjamin, forelock of wavy hair in his eyes, mischievous smile on his face, his arm flung around the young man standing at his side.

  Benjamin’s companion was serious and sullen, as though he couldn’t be bothered with something as trivial as a snapshot. He wore sunglasses, his hair was cropped short, and even though he was not much more than twenty years old, his temples were shot with gray. “The stain of a boy who’s done a man’s job,” Shamron had said. “Smudges of ash on the prince of fire.”

  GABRIEL WAS not pleased about the file of newspaper clippings on the Munich massacre, but there was no way he could smuggle so large an item past Detective Weiss. The snapshot was different. He wedged it into Herr Landau’s expensive wallet and slipped the wallet into his coat pocket. Then he sidestepped his way out of the storage room and closed the door.

  Frau Ratzinger was waiting in the corridor. Gabriel wondered how long she had been standing there but dared not ask. In her hand was a small padded shipping envelope. He could see that it was addressed to Benjamin and that it had been opened.

  The old woman held it out to him. “I thought you might want these,” she said in German.

  “What are they?”

  “Benjamin’s eyeglasses. He left them at a hotel in Italy. The concierge was good enough to send them back. Unfortunately, they arrived after his death.”

  Gabriel took the envelope from her, lifted the flap, and removed the eyeglasses. They were the spectacles of an academic: plastic and passé, chewed and scratched. He looked into the envelope once more and saw there was a postcard. He turned the envelope on end, and the postcard fell into his palm. The image showed an ocher-colored hotel on a sapphire lake in the north of Italy. Gabriel turned it over and read the note on the back.

  Good luck with your book, Professor Stern.

  Giancomo

  DETECTIVE WEISS insisted on driving Gabriel to his hotel. Because Herr Landau had never before been to Munich, Gabriel was forced to feign awe at the floodlit neoclassical glory of the city center. He also noted that Weiss skillfully made the trip last five minutes longer than necessary by missing several obvious turns.

  Finally they arrived in a small cobbled street called the Annastrasse in the Lehel district of the city. Weiss stopped outside the Hotel Opera, handed Gabriel his card, and once more expressed condolences over Herr Landau’s loss. “If there’s anything else I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “There is one thing,” Gabriel said. “I’d like to speak to the chairman of Benjamin’s department at the university. Do you have his telephone numbers?”

  “Ah, Doctor Berger. Of course.”

  The policeman removed an electronic organizer from his pocket, found the numbers, and recited them. Gabriel made a point of jotting them down on the back of the detective’s card, even though, heard once, they were now permanently engraved in his memory.

  Gabriel thanked the detective and went upstairs for the night. He ordered room service and dined lightly on an omelet and vegetable soup. Then he showered and climbed into bed with the file given to him that afternoon by the consular officer. He read everything carefully, then closed the file and stared at the ceiling, listening to the night rain pattering against the window. Who killed you, Beni? A neo-Nazi? No, Gabriel doubted that. He suspected the Odin Rune and Three Sevens painted on the wall were the equivalent of a false-flag claim of responsibility. But why was he killed? Gabriel had one working theory. Benjamin was on sabbatical from the university to write another book, yet inside the flat Gabriel could find no evidence that he was working on anything at all. No notes. No files. No manuscript. Just a note written on the back of a postcard from a hotel in Italy. Good luck with your book, Professor Stern—Giancomo.

  He opened his wallet and removed the photograph he’d taken from the storeroom. Gabriel had been cursed with a memory that allowed him to forget nothing. He could see Benjamin giving his camera to a pretty Belgian girl, feel Benjamin dragging him to the rail overlooking the river. He even remembered the last thing Benjamin had said before throwing his arm around Gabriel’s neck.

  “Smile, you asshole.”

  “This isn’t funny, Beni.”

  “Can you imagine the look on the old man’s face if he saw us posing for a picture?”

  “He’ll have your ass for this.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll burn it.”

  Five minutes later, in the bathroom sink, Gabriel did just that.

  DETECTIVE AXEL Weiss lived in Bogenhausen, a residential district of Munich on the opposite bank of the Isar. He did not go there. Instead, after dropping the Israeli at his hotel, he parked in the shadows on an adjacent street and watched the entrance of the Hotel Opera. Thirty minutes later, he dialed a number in Rome on his cellular phone.

  “This is the chief.” The words were spoken in English with a pronounced Italian accent. It was always the same.

  “I think we may have a problem.”

  “Tell me everything.”

  The detective gave a careful recitation of the events of that afternoon and evening. He was experienced at communicating over open phone systems and was careful not to make any specific references. Besides, the man at the other end knew the specifics.

  “Do you have the resources to follow the subject?”

  “Yes, but if he’s a professional—”

  “Do it,” snapped the man in Rome. “And get a photograph.”

  Then the connection went dead.

  5

  VATICAN CITY

  “CARDINAL BRINDISI. How pleasant to see you.”

  “Your Holiness.”

  Cardinal Secre
tary of State Marco Brindisi bent over the proffered fisherman’s ring. His lips did not linger long. He stood upright and stared directly into the Pope’s eyes with a confidence bordering on insolence. Thin, with a pinched face and skin like parchment, Brindisi seemed suspended above the floor of the papal apartments. His cassock was handmade by the same tailor near the Piazza della Minerva who made garments for the popes. The solid gold pectoral cross attested to the wealth and influence of his family and patrons. The glint of white light on the small, round spectacles concealed a pair of humorless pale-blue eyes.

  As secretary of state, Brindisi controlled the internal functions of the Vatican city-state along with its government-to-government relations with the rest of the world. He was in effect the Vatican’s prime minister and the second most powerful man in the Roman Catholic Church. Despite his disappointing showing at the conclave, the doctrinaire cardinal maintained a carefully cultivated core of support within the Curia that provided him with a power base rivaling even the Pope’s. Indeed, the Pope was not at all sure who would prevail in a showdown, himself or the taciturn cardinal.

  The two men had a regular lunch date every Friday. It was the part of the Pope’s week he dreaded most. Some of his predecessors had relished the minutiae of Curial matters and had spent hours each day slaving over mountains of paperwork. During the reigns of Pius XII and Paul VI, the lights in the papal study had burned well past midnight. Lucchesi believed his time was better spent on spiritual matters and detested dealing with the day-to-day affairs of the Curia. Unfortunately, he did not yet have a secretary of state whom he trusted, which is why he never missed lunch with Cardinal Brindisi.

  They sat across from each other in the simple dining room in the papal apartments, the Pope clad in a white soutane and white zucchetto, the cardinal in a black cassock with a scarlet fascia and zucchetto. As always, Brindisi seemed disappointed with the food. This pleased His Holiness. The Pope knew Brindisi was a gourmand who enjoyed spending his evenings partaking of the gastronomic delights of L’Eau Vive. As a result he always asked his nuns to prepare something particularly offensive to the palate. Today the menu consisted of a consommé of indeterminate origin, followed by overdone veal and boiled potatoes. Brindisi pronounced the food “inspired” and made a brave show of it.

  For forty-five minutes, Brindisi held forth on a variety of Curial matters, each one more tedious than the last. A staff crisis in the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. A dustup in the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People. A report on the monthly meeting of the Vatican Bank officers. Allegations a certain monsignor from the Congregation for the Clergy was misusing his motor-pool privileges. Each time Brindisi paused for a breath, the Pope murmured, “Ah, how interesting, Eminence,” all the while wondering why he was being informed of a problem at the motor pool.

  “I’m afraid I need to discuss a matter of some”—the fussy cardinal cleared his throat and patted his lips with his napkin—“shall we say, unpleasantness, Holiness. Perhaps now is as good a time as any.”

  “Please, Eminence,” the Pope said quickly, eager for any change of subject that might soften the drumbeat of Curial monotony. “By all means.”

  Brindisi laid down his fork like a man surrendering after a long siege and clasped his hands beneath his chin. “It seems our old friend from La Repubblica is up to no good again. In the course of preparing a long profile on Your Holiness for the newspaper’s Easter edition, he has uncovered some”—a reflective pause, a glance toward the heavens for inspiration—“some inconsistencies about your childhood.”

  “What sort of inconsistencies?”

  “Inconsistencies about the date of your mother’s death. How old you were when you were orphaned. Where you stayed. Who cared for you. He is an enterprising reporter, a constant thorn in the side of the secretariat. He manages to uncover things that we’ve done our best to bury. I have reiterated to my staff that no one is to talk to him without the approval of the Press Office, but somehow—”

  “People are talking to him.”

  “That appears to be the case, Holiness.”

  The Pope pushed away his empty plate and exhaled heavily. It had been his intention to release the full details of his childhood in the days after the conclave, but there were those in the Curia and the Press Office who thought the world was not ready for a street-urchin pope, a boy who had lived by his wits and his fists until he was drawn to the breast of the Church. It was an example of the very culture of secrecy and deceit Lucchesi so despised about the Vatican, but in the opening days of his papacy he had been unwilling to waste valuable political capital, so he reluctantly agreed to paper over some of the less saintly details of his upbringing.

  “It was a mistake to tell the world that I grew up in Padua, in a loving home filled with much devotion to Christ and the Virgin, before entering the seminary at fifteen. Your friend from La Repubblica is going to find the truth.”

  “Let me deal with La Repubblica. We have ways of bringing wayward journalists into line.”

  “Such as?”

  “Banning them from accompanying Your Holiness on foreign trips. Locking them out of press briefings. Revoking their privileges at the Press Office.”

  “That seems awfully harsh.”

  “I doubt it will come to that. I’m sure we can convince him of the truth.”

  “Which truth is that?”

  “That you were raised in Padua, in a loving home filled with much devotion to Christ and the Virgin.” Brindisi smiled and brushed an invisible bread crumb from his cassock. “But when one is battling this sort of thing, it can be helpful to have the complete picture so that we know what we’re up against.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “A brief memorandum. It will be seen by no one in the Curia but myself and will be used by me only in the preparation of a defense—should one be warranted.”

  “Did you learn those tactics studying Canon Law, Marco?”

  Brindisi smiled. “Some things are universal, Holiness.”

  “A memorandum will be forthcoming.”

  The Pope and the cardinal stopped talking as a pair of nuns cleared the table and served espresso. The Pope stirred sugar into his coffee slowly, then looked up at Brindisi.

  “I have something I wish to discuss as well. It concerns the matter we discussed some months ago—my initiative to continue the process of healing the rift between the Church and the Jews.”

  “How interesting, Holiness.” A man who had spent his career climbing the bureaucratic ladder of the Curia, Brindisi’s tone was skillfully noncommittal.

  “As part of that initiative, I intend to commission a study of the Church’s response to the Holocaust. All relevant documents in the Secret Vatican Archives will be made available for review, and this time we will not tie the hands of the historians and experts we select for this project.”

  Cardinal Brindisi’s already pale face shed any remnant of color. He made a church steeple of his forefingers and pressed it to his lips, trying to regain his composure before mounting his challenge. “As you well remember, Holiness, your predecessor commissioned a study and presented it to the world in 1998. I see no need to repeat the work of the Pole when there are so many other—and I dare say more important—issues confronting the Church at this time.”

  “We Remember? It should have been called We Apologize—or We Beg Forgiveness. It did not go far enough, neither in its soul-searching nor in its search for the truth. It was yet another insult to the very people whose wounds we wished to heal. What did it say? The Church did nothing wrong. We tried to help. Some of us helped more than others. The Germans did the actual killing, not us, but we are sorry in any case. It is a shameful document.”

  “Some might consider it shameful that you are speaking this way about the work of a predecessor.”

  “I have no intention of condemning the efforts of the Pole. His heart was in the right pla
ce, but I suspect he did not have the full support of the Curia”—from men like you, thought Lucchesi—“which is why the document ended up saying little if anything at all. Out of respect for the Pole, I will portray the new study as a continuation of his good work.”

  “Another study will be seen as an implicit criticism, no matter how you attempt to render it.”

  “You were on the panel that drafted We Remember, were you not?”

  “I was indeed, Holiness.”

  “Ten years to write fourteen pages.”

  “Consideration and accuracy take time.”

  “So does whitewash.”

  “I object to—”

  The Pope cut him off. “Do you oppose revisiting the issue because you fear it will bring shame upon the Church, or because you calculate it will damage your chances of taking my place when I’m gone?”

  Brindisi lowered his hands and lifted his eyes to the ceiling for a moment, as if preparing himself for a reading from the Gospel. “I oppose revisiting the issue because it will do nothing but give more ammunition to those who wish to destroy us.”

  “Our continued deception and evasion is more risky. If we do not speak forcefully and honestly, the work of our enemies will be accomplished by our own hand. We will destroy ourselves.”

  “If I may speak forcefully and honestly, Holiness, your naïveté in this matter is shocking. Nothing the Church can say will ever satisfy those who condemn us. In fact, it will only add fuel to the fire. I cannot allow you to tread on the reputation of popes and the Church with this folly. Pius the Twelfth deserves sainthood, not another crucifixion.”

  Pietro Lucchesi had yet to be seduced by the trappings of papal power, but the blatant insubordination of Brindisi’s remark stirred his anger. He forced himself to speak calmly. Even so, there was an edge of rage and condescension in his voice that was plain to the man seated on the other side of the table. “I can assure you, Marco, that those who wish for Pius to be canonized will have to pin their hopes on the outcome of the next conclave.”