It took twenty minutes to print the copies and another twenty to collate the pages and staple them together. They worked alongside one another in silence. At one point a nun came in to use the computer, but Sister Agnes told her sharply to leave. When they were done, Lomeli asked if there were enough envelopes in the Casa Santa Marta to enable each report to be individually sealed and delivered.
‘I’ll go and find out, Your Eminence. Please sit down. You look exhausted.’
While she was gone, he sat at the desk with his head bowed. He could hear the cardinals making their way across the lobby to the chapel for morning Mass. He grasped his pectoral cross. Forgive me, Lord, if today I try to serve You in a different way. . . A few minutes later, Sister Agnes returned carrying two boxes of A4 Manila envelopes.
They started inserting the reports into the envelopes. She said, ‘What do you want us to do with them, Eminence? Shall we deliver them to each room?’
‘I want to be sure every cardinal has a chance to read it before we leave to vote – I fear we don’t have the time. Perhaps we could distribute them in the dining room?’
‘As you wish.’
Accordingly, when the envelopes had been filled and sealed, they divided the pile in two and went into the dining room, where the nuns were setting the tables for breakfast. Lomeli worked on one side of the room, placing the envelopes on the chairs, and Sister Agnes on the other. From the chapel, where Tremblay was celebrating the Mass, came the sound of plainsong. Lomeli could feel his heart pounding; the pain behind his eyes throbbed in unison with each beat. Nevertheless, he pressed on until he and Sister Agnes met in the centre of the hall and the last of the reports was gone.
‘Thank you,’ he said to her. He was touched by the sternness of her kindness and held out his hand, expecting her to grasp it. But to his surprise, she knelt and kissed his ring. Then she rose and smoothed her skirts, and walked away without uttering a word.
After that, there was nothing for Lomeli to do except take a seat at the nearest table and wait.
Garbled accounts of what happened next were to emerge within hours of the end of the Conclave, for although there was a strict injunction of secrecy on every cardinal, many could not resist talking to their closest associates when they returned to the outside world, and these confidantes, mostly priests and monsignors, gossiped in their turn, so that very quickly a version of the story appeared.
Broadly speaking, there were two categories of eyewitness. Those who were among the first to leave the chapel and enter the dining room were struck by the spectacle of Lomeli sitting alone and impassive at one of the central tables, his forearms resting on the tablecloth, his gaze fixed ahead, unseeing. The other thing they recalled was the shocked quiet that fell as the cardinals discovered the envelopes and started reading.
In contrast, those who arrived a few minutes later – the ones who had chosen to pray in their rooms rather than attend the morning Mass, or who had lingered in the chapel after receiving Communion – they remembered most clearly the hubbub in the dining room and the cluster of cardinals who by that time had gathered around Lomeli demanding explanations.
Truth, in other words, was a matter of perspective.
In addition to all these, there was another, smaller group, whose rooms were on the second floor, or who had descended via the two staircases from upper storeys, and who had noticed that the seals on the papal apartment were broken. Accordingly, a new set of rumours started circulating, as a counterpoint to the first, that there had been some kind of burglary during the night.
Throughout it all, Lomeli never moved from his seat. To all the cardinals who came up to him – Sá, Brotzkus, Yatsenko and the rest – he repeated the same mantra. Yes, he was responsible for the circulation of the document. Yes, he had broken the seals. No, he had not taken leave of his senses. It had been brought to his notice that an excommunicable offence might have been committed, and then covered up. He had felt it his duty to investigate, even if that had meant entering the Holy Father’s rooms in search of evidence. He had tried to handle the matter responsibly. His brother electors now had the information in front of them. Theirs was the sacred duty. They must decide what weight to attach to it. He had merely obeyed his conscience.
He was surprised both by his own sense of inner strength and by the way this conviction seemed to radiate out from him, so that even those cardinals who approached him to express their dismay often ended up going away nodding in approbation. Others took a harsher view. Sabbadin bent as he was passing on his way to the buffet table and hissed in his ear, ‘Why have you thrown away a valuable weapon? We could have used this to control Tremblay after his election. All you have succeeded in doing is strengthening Tedesco!’
And Archbishop Fitzgerald of Boston, Massachusetts, who was one of Tremblay’s most prominent supporters, actually strode over to the table and flung the report towards Lomeli. ‘This is contrary to all natural justice. You have given our brother cardinal no opportunity to lay out his defence. You have acted as judge, jury and executioner. I am appalled at such an unchristian act.’ Several cardinals, listening at the neighbouring tables, murmured agreement. One called out, ‘Well said!’ and another, ‘Amen to that!’
Lomeli remained impassive.
At one point Benítez fetched him some bread and fruit and beckoned to one of the nuns to pour him coffee. He took the seat beside him. ‘You must eat, Dean, or you will make yourself ill.’
Lomeli said in a low voice, ‘Did I do the right thing, Vincent? What is your opinion?’
‘No one who follows their conscience ever does wrong, Your Eminence. The consequences may not turn out as we intend; it may prove in time that we made a mistake. But that is not the same as being wrong. The only guide to a person’s actions can ever be their conscience, for it is in our conscience that we most clearly hear the voice of God.’
It wasn’t until just after 9 a.m. that Tremblay himself appeared, stepping out of the elevator nearest the dining hall. Someone must have taken him a copy of the report. He was holding it rolled up in his hand. He appeared quite composed as he walked between the tables towards Lomeli. Most of the cardinals stopped talking and ceased eating. Tremblay’s grey hair was coiffed; his chin jutted. If it hadn’t been for his scarlet choir dress, he might have been a sheriff on his way to a showdown in a Western.
‘A word with you, Dean, if I may?’
Lomeli put down his napkin and stood. ‘Of course, Your Eminence. Would you like to talk somewhere private?’
‘No, I would prefer to speak in public, if you don’t mind. I want our brothers to hear what I have to say. You are responsible for this, I believe?’ He waved the report in Lomeli’s face.
‘No, Your Eminence, you are responsible for it – because of your actions.’
‘The report is entirely mendacious!’ Tremblay turned to address the room. ‘It should never have seen the light of day – and it wouldn’t if Cardinal Lomeli hadn’t broken into the Holy Father’s apartment to remove it in order to manipulate the outcome of this Conclave!’
One of the cardinals – Lomeli could not see who it was – shouted out, ‘Shame!’
Tremblay went on, ‘In these circumstances, I believe he should step down from his office as dean, since nobody can any longer have confidence in his impartiality.’
Lomeli said, ‘If the report is, as you say, mendacious, perhaps you could explain why the Holy Father, in his last official act as Pope, asked you to resign?’
A stir of astonishment went through the room.
‘He did no such thing – as the only witness to the meeting, his private secretary Monsignor Morales, will confirm.’