DEATH AND RESTORATION
A Jonathan Argyll Mystery
by Iain Pears
To Ruth
1
Business meetings are more or less the same all over the world, and have been since the beginning of time. There is the man in charge; the man supposedly in charge; the man wanting to be in charge; their minions, their enemies and those waverers who float gently downstream, hoping things won’t get too choppy. And there is always a dispute, which serves the purpose of making half-felt antagonisms real. Sometimes these are of importance and justify the energy expended on them. But not often.
So it was one afternoon in September in a large but utilitarian room in a shambling, run-down set of buildings in that section of Rome loosely known as the Aventino. There were twenty people, all men of between thirty-five and seventy-five years old; fourteen items on the agenda, and two factions, each determined to sweep all before them and rout the forces of (on the one hand) dangerous and puerile innovation and (on the other) hidebound traditionalism irrelevant to the needs of the modern world. It was, the chairman thought as he took a deep breath, going to be a long afternoon. He only hoped that the two hours they had just spent praying together for God’s wisdom to infuse their collective decision would stop the imminent debate from getting too acrimonious.
But he doubted it, somehow. Much as he felt himself teetering on the brink of heresy in even considering the idea, he did sometimes wish the Lord could make his wishes just a bit plainer: then his fear might not be realized that he, Father Xavier Munster, thirty-ninth head of the Order of St John the Pietist, might also be the last. His heart sank as he saw the glitter of battle in the eyes of those souls nominally submissive to his total authority. Above all Father Jean, organizing his papers in front of him like so many divisions of tanks, waiting for the moment to advance. Determined to oppose, mindless of the problems he had to face. Although, in the circumstances, that was just as well. “Perhaps,” Father Xavier said with determination to the assembled collection of his order presently in Rome. “Perhaps we might begin?”
Five hours later, it was at an end, and the shattered brothers staggered out. Ordinarily, there were aperitifs on the terrace after such a meeting; this time only a few people, those who had not become too involved in the unseemly brawling, turned up. The rest went to their cells (such they were called, although they were little different to the sort of rooms students occupy) to meditate, pray, or fume with rage.
“I’m very glad that’s over,” murmured one of the most youthful of the brothers, a tall, handsome man from Cameroon called Paul. It was selfless of him to say it so mildly; he had hoped that his own concern might have been dealt with. But, yet again, his little problem was too far down the list to be discussed.
The words were addressed to nobody in particular, and were heard only by Father Jean, an old man who had stationed himself next to the Pernod bottle at the table. He peered upwards in the general direction of Father Paul’s face—which was a good eighteen inches above his own—and nodded. He was exhausted; that sort of combat does use energy and sometimes even he was surprised and alarmed at the deep sources of hatred that Father Xavier’s efforts at reform had stirred up in his usually placid soul. He had not come on to the terrace to be social; unusually for him, he was there because he needed a drink.
In the past he had always refused to be sucked into such disputes and still could not quite believe his new role as leader of the opposition. It was not what he had wanted; not his ideal way of spending his declining years. He still thought of himself as a natural loyalist. So he had always been ever since he was plucked out of village school at the age of twelve by a priest who had spotted his qualities.
But not this time, although the vehemence unleashed by the contest between himself and Xavier appalled him. Even at the height of the doubts and anguish thrown up by the great Vatican Council, he remembered nothing which could compare with the sheer unpleasantness the meeting room had witnessed that afternoon. But there was nothing to be done about it: the soul of the body was at stake; of that he was absolutely sure. Xavier was a good man, no doubt; a courageous one, even. And many saints had been as ruthless and determined to follow their vision, despite all opposition, as he was. Look at St Bernard; look at St Ignatius. Neither were exactly known for their ability to see all sides of an argument. But this was not the Middle Ages, nor the seventeenth century. Other techniques were required. Patience, tact, persuasion. And none of them were Xavier’s speciality.
So Father Jean nodded sadly to himself. “Over? Only for the time being,” he said. “I fear we have not seen the last of this dispute.”
Father Paul arched his eyebrow. “What more is there to say? It’s settled, isn’t it? You got your way. Surely you should be happy.”
Paul could speak with little heat because he, almost alone of the brothers, had not taken sides. Indeed, he wasn’t entirely certain what the dispute was about. He understood the occasion, of course, but the underlying cause meant nothing to him. All he understood was that it wasted a lot of energy that, surely, could be better spent.
“It was only defeated by one vote,” Jean replied. “Only by one vote. Last year-what did he try to do then? I don’t remember—he was turned down by five votes. Which means this will be taken as an encouragement, rather than as a defeat. You just wait.”
Father Paul poured himself an orange juice and sipped thoughtfully. “Oh dear. I do wish I could go home. I hardly seem to be doing the Lord’s work here.”
“I know,” Father Jean said sympathetically, wondering whether a second Pernod would be permissible. “You must find us shocking, and you’re probably right. And I’m sorry we’ve put off discussing the business of your going home yet again. Next time, perhaps; when tempers have cooled, we might bring the subject up. I will do my best, if that’s any help.”
A few kilometres away, in the very centre of the city, a quite different, more worldly, organization was ploughing its quietly effective way through life. The main door (newly electrified at hideously unnecessary expense) swished to and fro as eager policemen walked purposefully in and out. In small, windowless rooms technicians and filing clerks pursued their careers with keen concentration and devotion to duty. Further up the building greater harmony reigned, as detectives in their offices read, telephoned and wrote in their determined pursuit of Italy’s stolen artistic heritage. And from the top floor, from the room which was frequently described in the more respectful press as the brain centre of Italy’s Art Theft Squad, came a low rumble which was disturbed only by the persistent buzzing of a large, fat bluebottle.
The efficient machine was on autopilot; the brain was off duty. It was a hot afternoon and General Taddeo Bottando was fast asleep.
Not that this mattered, normally. Bottando was handsomely into his sixties and even he was now ready to agree that youthful sprightliness was no longer one of his dominant characteristics. Experience more than made up for this loss, however. So what if he husbanded his resources now and then? His overall strategic grasp was as good as ever, and his organizational powers unfaded by the years. Everybody knew what they were meant to do, and they got on with the business of doing it, without any need for him to supervise them day and night. And if something happened when he was not around (so to speak) then one of his team, such as Flavia di Stefano, was fully able to deal with the situation.
Such had been the way in which he had described his role that very lunchtime, to a pair of senior civil servants who had taken him out to a fine, excessively fine, restaurant to make up. For reasons which he couldn’t quite understand, Bottando had suddenly become popular, after years of battling for money and continued existence. Now, perhaps due to a major success a few months back, everybody loved him, everybody had always loved him, and everyone had always been his secret supporter against the machinations of others. All those years, and Bottando had never noticed. He had all but purred with pleasure, and had permitted himself to wallow in complacency as he played a significant role in the destruction of a second, then a third bottle of good Chianti.