Sign of the Cross Read online

  ‘When was the last time you took confession?’

  The answer should have been, it’s none of your business, but instead he said, ‘A long time.’

  ‘Would you like to confess now?’

  ‘What, here?’

  ‘If you close the doors, no one will enter.’

  On the face of it, it seemed thoroughly bizarre. Here he was, a Vatican-commissioned examiner with the heart of a professional skeptic, being turned around by a baby-faced priest. Yet, unaccountably, he found himself wanting to confess, even needing to confess.

  He closed the lounge doors and moved his chair to within a few feet of the priest.

  ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, my last confession was twenty years ago.’

  It wasn’t a long confession and it wasn’t terribly detailed. On the spur of the moment he could hardly have been expected to produce a full and fair account of two decades of sins. So he covered the high points: the aimless womanizing, the drinking, the abandonment of faith.

  There was a faint knock on one of the doors. The priest asked the nun to wait a few moments.

  ‘I think I’m finished anyway,’ Cal said. He was sweating.

  The priest absolved him and gave him a light penance at which point he told Sister Vera to enter.

  Tellini came in, looking puzzled that they had sequestered themselves.

  ‘Did you find anything?’ the priest asked.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ the doctor said. ‘No noxious chemicals of any kind.’

  Cal stood. His legs felt rubbery.

  ‘I think we’re done,’ he said. ‘I want to thank you for giving us your time, father. If we have any further questions, I hope we can call you.’

  The priest used his elbows to push himself from his chair. ‘Of course. I hope you will have a safe journey to Francavilla.’

  ‘We didn’t say we were going there,’ Cal said.

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  It was then the priest approached Cal and unexpectedly threw his arms around him.

  The effect was immediate.

  Later, Cal would liken the effect to electrocution.

  A powerful jolt ran through his body, arching his back. It wasn’t painful. It was an intense, somatic, trumpet-call heralding what came next.

  A face.

  A fleeting vision of a face with fine, delicate features, appeared but disappeared too fast to register, and with its passing, the electricity dissipated and his body relaxed. Was it male or female? Young or old? Friend or stranger? When it was gone, Cal felt a longing akin to catching a whiff of perfume from a passing beauty he might never see again.

  Giovanni released Cal from the hug and when he did they both saw a trickle of blood running down both of the priest’s palms. The young man quickly circled around to inspect the back of Cal’s blazer.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve gotten blood on your jacket.’

  SIX

  Buenos Aires, 1973

  The flight attendant made the announcement first in German, then in Spanish. Lufthansa flight 433 from Munich to Buenos Aires would be landing in fifteen minutes.

  The 747 banked gently, bringing the coast of Argentina into full view. Eight men had flown together in the comfort of business class. The youngest two sat together, enjoying the rich food and the excellent wine. Although they had been warned not to get drunk, both were a little tipsy and in high spirits.

  Oskar Hufnagel was thirty and this was his first time on an airplane. His seatmate was twenty-nine and was considerably more worldly and well-traveled.

  ‘Let me have a look,’ Oskar said, pushing the other man back in his seat so he too could see out the window.

  ‘It’s just a coastline,’ Lambret Schneider said. He tried to sound nonchalant but he was excited. This was the first time he’d been to South America since he was a boy.

  ‘Yes, but there’s a beach,’ Hufnagel said. ‘Where there’s a beach, there are girls.’

  ‘We’re not here to see girls,’ Schneider said.

  Hufnagel shook his head. ‘You’re sounding like Kempner more and more every day.’

  Klaus Kempner, the expedition leader, was in his sixties. To call him stern would be a great understatement. He was ex-Waffen-SS, formerly one of Himmler’s favorite junior officers, and a grim survivor of the Russian siege of Berlin who had simply removed his uniform in May of 1945 and melted into the chaos of post-war Germany. Schneider had never seen him smile, never heard him tell a joke. He had once asked Bruckner, another older member of the team, how many men Kempner had killed during the war and was told, ‘More than all the steaks you’ll ever eat.’

  The seats in front of them began to rock slightly and Schneider heard low voices. He peeked through the crack between the seats and swore. The men in the next row were Orthodox Jews and they were praying.

  ‘They’re at it again,’ Schneider whispered.

  Hufnagel shrugged.

  ‘Did you see their passports?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘Israelis,’ Schneider spat.

  ‘Lot of Jews there, I hear,’ Hufnagel said, laughing at his own joke.

  Schneider clenched his jaw and didn’t release it until the stewardess came by to remind him to put his seat forward for landing.

  At baggage claim, the eight men were met by a laconic German driver who led them to a Mercedes van parked outside the terminal. They were driven to a spacious, walled villa in the leafy Belgrano district where they were each assigned bedrooms.

  ‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ Kempner growled. ‘This will be the last time on the journey you will have such luxury. We meet for supper at six p.m. sharp.’

  Schneider was hoping to learn more about their mission that evening. All the prior meetings had been woefully uninformative.

  Kempner had approached him several weeks earlier. The two had met only once before on the occasion of Schneider’s graduation from the University of Mannheim, where he had studied business. His mother had died within two years of his father’s suicide. His only family at the ceremony was the uncle and aunt who had raised him.

  When Kempner had introduced himself, Lambret’s uncle immediately pulled his wife away for a walk. He seemed to know who this man was.

  ‘I knew your father quite well,’ Kempner had said stiffly. ‘He was a great man.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  An envelope had appeared from an inside jacket pocket and was presented to the graduate. ‘This is a gift from an organization to which your father belonged.’

  ‘What organization?’

  ‘It is better you don’t know.’

  A peek revealed a small fortune in large-denomination Deutsche Marks.

  ‘I can’t,’ the young man had said before trying unsuccessfully to hand it back.

  ‘You can and you will. One day you’ll see me again. Then I will tell you more.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  With nothing more than a curt nod, Kempner had taken his leave.

  Their second meeting had been no less enigmatic. Schneider had just gotten off work at a commercial insurance company in Koblenz when Kempner collared him in the employee parking lot.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ Kempner had asked.

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘In six weeks’ time you will join me and six other men in a mission of great importance.’

  ‘Mission? What mission?’

  ‘I cannot say until we are on our way.’

  Schneider had laughed. ‘You sound like I don’t have a choice.’

  Kempner’s square jaw hardly moved when he spoke. ‘You don’t,’ he had said. ‘It’s your father’s command from the grave.’

  ‘How long will I be gone?’

  ‘Approximately one month.’

  ‘I don’t have that much holiday time. I’ll be fired.’

  ‘Your organization will find you a better job when you return.’

  ‘I don’t belong
to an organization.’

  ‘Yes you do. You have always been a member. You just didn’t know.’

  ‘But I’m married. What will I tell my wife?’

  ‘You will tell her nothing because you will know nothing. Feel free to make up a suitable story.’

  So that night in Buenos Aires, after a typical German meal prepared by unseen kitchen staff, Schneider sat among his new colleagues and eagerly listened to Kempner’s speech.

  ‘Bruckner knows the truth of this mission but the rest of you do not,’ Kempner began. ‘We are here today because of the bravery of a band of German submariners, who were selected for a secret mission in the last days of the war. In the spring of 1945, Himmler and the Führer both recognized the inevitable … that the Reich would be defeated. Knowing this, they refused to let certain precious artifacts of the Reich fall into the hands of the enemy. Therefore, an elite force of soldiers and sailors was commissioned by Himmler to transport these items to a remote and secure fortress, which had been prepared years earlier in case it was ever needed. A U-boat, U-530, left Kiel harbor on the thirteenth day of April 1945. The code name for this mission was Valkure Zwei.’

  Lambret was listening with rapt attention when he was blindsided by Kempner calling out his name.

  ‘Schneider, you’re the youngest so you’d better get used to doing the shit work. Clear the table.’

  Schneider accepted the ribbing of his comrades with good humor and sped to move the plates, glasses and cutlery to the sideboard. When he was done, Kempner unrolled a map onto the table and used a thick forefinger to stab at a spot on the bottom of the world.

  ‘Here is where we are going, gentlemen.’

  Antarctica.

  ‘This is where we will recover the greatest treasures known to man. And when we do, we will be that much closer to the dawn of a new age, a new Fatherland, a new Reich.’

  SEVEN

  Cal closed the door on his small, charming hotel room. At the reception desk he turned in his key and asked for the bill.

  ‘How was your stay, signore?’ the owner of the Hotel Claila asked.

  ‘Very pleasant, thank you.’

  ‘You are American, no? Where are you from?’ she asked.

  ‘Cambridge, in Massachusetts.’

  ‘Ah, Harvard University, no?’

  ‘Yes, exactly.’

  ‘I would like for my son to attend their business school one day.’

  ‘You’re not alone in that. It’s a lot more practical than the divinity school where I teach.’

  Outside, the sun seemed to be chasing away the morning fog. Cal paused to admire the hotel; a white-washed, nineteenth-century building. It would not have been so remarkable, had it not been one of the few buildings in the town not leveled by Allied or Nazi bombs during the Second World War. Adjusting his shoulder bag, he followed the gulls toward the sea.

  The apartment was a third-floor walk-up on an unassuming block, a little too far from the sea for a view of anything other than another unassuming block of flats. Cal accepted the offer of a cup of coffee from the matronly, sad-eyed woman who called into the kitchen, where the voice of a younger woman replied, ‘Coming, mama.’

  Domenica Berardino, Giovanni’s mother, had asked Cal to hold his questions until her daughter came in. As he struggled through some small talk, he scanned the sitting room to get some sense of Padre Gio’s boyhood. His first impression was that the family had more dignity than money. The furnishings were humble but everything was immaculate. He had every reason to believe that if he were to run a white-gloved finger over the framed pictures of Giovanni, her late husband and the pope (Domenica’s trinity) that there wouldn’t be a speck of dust.

  He asked the woman if she’d ever been to Boston, expecting a no, but her answer surprised him. The farthest from home she had ever been was Rome and there, only twice.

  ‘Does everyone in Boston speak Italian so well?’ she asked.

  He started to explain how, not so long ago, you could walk down Hanover Street in the city’s North End and hear only Italian, but he stopped short when Irene Berardino emerged with a coffee tray. Irene made it abundantly clear, with a lemon-sucking pucker of her small mouth, that he wasn’t entirely welcome. Despite her obvious displeasure, he found it hard not to stare back at her. She was tall and proud with classic dark looks and shoulder-scraping black hair. Her creamy, olive skin would have been less perfect with make-up.

  ‘I’m Calvin Donovan,’ he said. ‘I …’

  ‘I know who you are,’ she said abruptly. ‘Do you take sugar?’

  He shook his head and took the espresso from her delicate hand.

  Domenica Berardino had the distressed look of a woman who would have scolded her daughter, if they spoke a language their visitor could not understand.

  Instead she said, ‘Signore Donovan has come a long way. Giovanni tells me the pope himself asked him to investigate his holy wounds.’

  ‘Don’t be fooled, the Vatican wants to discredit him, mama.’

  Cal sipped the coffee and said, ‘I can assure you, I have approached this task with a completely open mind.’

  ‘So, you’ve seen my brother,’ Irene said sitting on the sofa, demurely crossing her legs and pulling down her skirt. ‘Tell me what you think.’

  ‘My interview with him was only one piece of my investigation. I have a number of interviews to conduct before I form any opinions.’

  ‘We want to help Giovanni,’ his mother said. ‘We will answer your questions.’

  Cal asked for their permission to take notes and began. ‘When did Giovanni decide to become a priest?’

  ‘It wasn’t something he talked about when he was younger,’ Domenica said. ‘We went to Mass on Sundays and we were always respectful to the Church, but my husband and I weren’t devout. My husband was a very busy man, a baker. Work was more important to him than religion.’

  ‘Giovanni told me about him,’ Cal said.

  ‘He was very close to my husband. A papa’s boy, for sure. Alfredo’s death was very hard for him, hard for us all.’

  ‘I understand. As I told him, I also lost my father as a boy.’

  Irene squinted at him suspiciously as if suspecting he was playing them.

  ‘It’s a terrible thing for a boy,’ Domenica said. ‘He grew up quite lonely. He was always heavy and didn’t like playing football with the boys in the neighborhood. He enjoyed reading and video games. He was such a sweet and kind child. Wasn’t he, Irene?’

  ‘He is still sweet and kind, mama. It’s just that all the pain and unwanted attention is hiding his disposition.’

  ‘He always had time for a sick animal or a lonely child,’ Domenica said. ‘He was a good artist too and used to draw cartoons. That’s what he wanted to do. Make cartoons or become, what’s it called?’

  ‘A graphic designer,’ her daughter said.

  ‘He went to university for a year but didn’t like it so he stopped and got a job.’

  ‘What kind of job?’ Cal asked.

  ‘There was a marketing company in Pescara. They hired him to do small tasks. He thought he’d be able to become an artist for them, but when nothing happened he got frustrated and left. It was then that a school friend of his decided to go to the seminary. They talked and talked and Giovanni got interested. He decided to try it too. I didn’t think he would follow through with it because, well, his mind was often changeable, but he surprised me with his devotion to the calling.’

  ‘What was his friend’s name?’

  ‘Antonio Forcisi.’

  ‘He’s on my list.’

  ‘He’s a good boy too.’

  Irene challenged him. ‘Why is he on your list?’

  Cal answered, ‘He was in Croatia with Giovanni when the stigmata appeared. What did Giovanni tell you about the first time he developed the bleeding?’

  ‘He hid it from us. We only found out when he was in hospital after he collapsed,’ Irene said.

  His mother dabbed
at her eyes with a tissue. ‘He told us he was frightened. He didn’t understand why it was happening to him.’

  ‘And now that he’s lived with it for several months, what does he say about it?’

  ‘You should ask him that,’ Irene snapped.

  ‘I did,’ he replied gently. ‘Now I’m asking you.’

  ‘He accepts it,’ Domenica said. ‘He accepts that he has been chosen for some purpose. If he can help people find God, then his suffering is worth it.’

  ‘I assume it’s changed your lives too,’ Cal said.

  ‘I have become a stronger believer,’ Domenica said. ‘Yes, my faith is strong now.’

  ‘Is it the same for you?’ he asked Irene.

  ‘I don’t think that is any of your business,’ she said angrily.

  ‘Irene!’ her mother gasped.

  ‘I’m sorry, mama, but I find this interrogation inappropriate.’

  Cal felt a sharp pang of guilt. He was flying without radar. Perhaps it was an inappropriate question. ‘No, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You’re right. Your beliefs are none of my business.’

  Irene seemed taken aback by his climbdown. ‘I’m glad you understand.’

  ‘Can I ask you this; have either of you had any odd experiences in the presence of Giovanni or even in his absence?’

  ‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ Domenica said.

  ‘Any visions, anything of a spiritual or unexplained nature involving him.’

  The two women looked at each other and shook their heads.

  He carried on with another several minutes of questions, failing to find anything illuminating. As he was getting up to leave he asked if he might have a peek at Giovanni’s boyhood room.

  ‘It’s ok,’ his mother said. ‘Show him, Irene.’

  The small room with a narrow bed was a time capsule; a tribute to the awkward, talented teenager who used to live there. The walls were plastered with pairs of Star Wars and Star Trek film posters; one was real, the other, Giovanni’s own painted version, was distinctively different in a charming way. The bookcase held a hodgepodge of novels and schoolbooks. Cal scanned the room for any trace of religious devotion or iconography. There was none, not even a bible.