At the time, he had no idea what that turn meant. He had no idea that the turn, far from being innocent, was the decisive moment in the oggi that Fra Mario had mentioned only a few hours earlier. It was only later that Malory discovered that a key part of his inheritance, along with Settimio and the Driver and the Chapbook with Newton’s declaration of his discovery of the One True Rule, was the rank of cardinal. It was only later that Malory discovered that the honor came with neither church nor notoriety, but with the right to wear the same scarlet cap and cape, although since the title was shrouded in secrecy, Malory was only allowed to wear them in the privacy of his own room and not even in the presence of Settimio or the Driver.
Much more importantly, Malory had inherited the unique power to cast the deciding vote in a deadlocked conclave. After seven ballots, the papal conclave was still unable to decide on a successor to poor John Paul I. They had called Settimio. Settimio had brought Malory. And Malory’s turn, the turn of the unknowing, untutored Secret Cardinal towards what was, in fact, a perfectly tuned organ, would in the future be known as The Turn and become enshrined in legend and archive of Vatican history. As he turned, Malory found himself looking into the sympathetic face of the Polish cardinal, who had the great good fortune to be standing between Malory and the organ. Malory’s turn, his pivot, his awkward pirouette, his random ecclesiastical spin-the-bottle, chose this Polish Cardinal Wojtyla as the new Bishop of Rome, the soon-to-be John Paul II, as neatly as Louiza had found the Pip.
Such knowledge only came to Malory gradually. His official work done, Malory’s innocent walk to the organ was gently deflected towards a door in the back of the chapel. Another set of arms, these ones clad in the somber shade of deepest black of the Vatican functionaries, now put in motion the machinery designed to trumpet the announcement of the new pope to the visible world. They led Malory down a marble passageway and around to an ancient lift. Malory stepped forward into the cage and once again turned to find the chosen cardinal, the smiling Pole. The rest of the old men, the cardinals, stayed behind, or, as Malory was to discover later, went directly to the balcony of the basilica overlooking the piazza to await their new pastor.
The Pole smiled. Malory smiled back but looked over his shoulder, searching for Settimio. Alone, the two men descended through a hole in the floor that gradually became the hole in a cupola of another chapel. The elevator stopped. Another black-clad functionary opened the gate. Together, still smiling, Malory and the Pole walked from the elevator. He knew where he was, he recognized this statue, this Michelangelo, knew this mother, this boy, this dead child cradled in his mother’s arms. He stood for a moment, stripped hopeless with love and memory. The memory of Louiza, the warmth of her body against his as he dashed from basilica to hospital, mixed with a longing for another lap. He imagined a return to a lap and a mother that he must, once upon a time, have known, a beginning when there was no difference between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the mundane and the miraculous. Malory’s longing for this original enlapment pierced him so thoroughly that he could have wished for death if death were the requirement for such a peace.
But the functionaries had other plans for him. Two of them brought a cape, a green cape in a color that reminded Malory of that childhood garden in the South of France. Two others reached to remove his corduroy jacket and his Kit Bag. But Malory was not going to be parted from the Pip again and tugged back. It was the struggle of a second. But in that struggle, it wasn’t the Pip, but the book, the Newton Chapbook, the strange diary that Malory had received from his grandmother on that March afternoon in the second pew of St. George’s Church, Whistler Abbey, that flew from the Kit Bag into the hands of the smiling Pole.
Gently, the Pole examined the book. Malory wondered what the Pole made of what he read — wondered whether he read Italian? Whether he read English? Did he know enough maths, enough physics, did he know enough history and even religion to realize the importance of Newton’s declaration:
I have found the One True Rule that guides Mathematics, the One True Rule that guides Science, that guides the Universe. I have found the One True Rule. But the Rule is too weighty to fit on one page of this Chapbook.
Gently the Pole led Malory, in green cape and hiking boots, from the Pietà into the center of the nave of the basilica. And gently the Pole placed one of Malory’s palms upon the Newton Chapbook and raised the other.
“I’m afraid,” Malory whispered to the Pole.
“I too,” the Cardinal said. “I am also afraid.”
“I’m afraid,” Malory continued. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” The Cardinal smiled. Malory felt a moment of calm. “I hope that if I make a mistake, you will correct me.”
The Polish Cardinal thought for a moment. And then, with a gentle touch on the shoulder, he pressed Malory down onto his knees, onto a purple stone set into the floor of the basilica, into the center of a perfect circle of porphyry.
It was only later that Malory discovered that the perfect circle of porphyry just inside the entrance to St. Peter’s was the very stone on which, nearly twelve hundred years before, his great-great ancestor, Charlemagne, had knelt before Pope Leo III. It was only later that Malory learned all the various titles that his inheritance, leading from his grandmother back to Charlemagne, and through Charlemagne’s son-in-law back to King David himself, had brought upon him, including Holy Roman Emperor, King of the Jews, and King of Septimania. For now, as he listened to the Polish Cardinal, the man whom he, by his innocent Turn, had crowned Pope John Paul II, as he repeated oaths in several unintelligible languages, one hand on the Chapbook and the other in the air, Malory merely felt that this extraordinary day must, in some way, be a prelude to a new life, with Louiza and her — could it really be their? — baby. Somewhere, he hoped, if not in the vastness of St. Peter’s or the howl of the crowd waiting in the piazza, his mother, his grandmother, and Sir Isaac were watching him.
“Mazel tov,” the Polish Cardinal said, raising Malory up and kissing him on both cheeks.
“Excuse me?” Malory said.
“Ah, my poor boy,” the Pole sighed. “I know very little. But you know even less.”
And thirty minutes later, when Malory arrived at the Ospedale Fatebenefratelli and, despite the assistance of Settimio and the Driver, could find no trace of Louiza, La Principessa, Tibor, or the red-haired American, Malory — the newly crowned king of kingdoms he never knew existed — knew even less than that.