Papal decree

40

Ben Isaac had a maxim he’d used for a long time in life, especially in business: everything has a price. An object, a jewel, a house, a business, a man, everything could be bought and sold. All you needed was capital, and Ben Isaac had more than enough money. But tonight the Israeli banker would learn a lesson that would strike down that maxim. There are people no amount of money can buy, even if all the coffers in the world are emptied. Ben Isaac had dealt with such a person only once before in his life, and it had not gone well. He felt lost, disoriented, and could think of nothing but his son, tied to a chair, mistreated, bloody, and beaten. Just the idea made him shiver, heartsick, and panic flooded his veins. He remembered Magda, his daughter, dead in the womb, and how he had not been there when she died. Some deal or some excavation, something more important, had required his attention at the time.

Myriam, alone in London so often, watching the rain fall or freeze, or the weak sun rising, without her husband. A day or two, a week. A phone call from Tel Aviv, another from Amman, an unexpected negotiation in Turin, a meeting in Bern, a meeting with the excavation team, who knows when and where, another with the team in a university in the States, to deepen his knowledge of something excavated, no big deal, he’d be back as soon as possible, a kiss.

Myriam never lacked money, not a penny to buy anything she wanted. Ben made sure of that. Myriam sometimes thought that for him money was a more sacred bond than the one by which God united them. On bad days she wished Ben weren’t so successful, that he’d fail, and on the worst days, that he’d go bankrupt.

Their daughter, Magda, died on November 8, 1960. His hands were trembling when he called the house from hundreds of miles away to say he’d be home that night. He finally had an agreement in his pocket that Myriam never suspected or would suspect.

Myriam didn’t answer that phone call or the others that followed insistently. Ben would find her in a hospital bed at St. Bart’s, sound asleep from the strong sedatives prescribed by the staff doctors. She remained that way for several days and nights, without regaining consciousness, breathing quietly, her face as white as a corpse. The doctor on call explained nothing to Ben Isaac, deferring to his superiors. It was not his place to say what was happening to the patient; her own doctor had left this instruction.

The young, prestigious banker, used to doing and undoing, ordering and contradicting both his subordinates and heads of state who clamored for the money he had and they didn’t, waited by the bed for her personal physician to deign to appear.

‘Myriam tried to commit suicide,’ was the doctor’s greeting. ‘I can’t stay. I’m getting married,’ he explained.

Ben Isaac was unable to say anything. He couldn’t even make a gesture. He stared silently at the doctor, subdued, disgusted, with a three days’ growth of beard.

‘She didn’t eat for days and filled her stomach with barbiturates. She repented and called an ambulance. While she was waiting for the paramedics, she was probably anxious and inattentive, and she tripped on the stairs and fell. When she arrived here, she was crying out… for Magda.’

Tears ran down the face of young Ben Isaac, the multimillionaire whose wife was so unhappy to want to kill herself and the daughter she carried in her womb.

‘I’m very sorry, but we weren’t able to save Magda.’

Ben Isaac covered his face in his hands and trembled with a smothered wail. Sorrow exploded in his chest and punished him with blows of agony and disgust.

‘When are you going to stop sedating her?’ he managed to ask.

‘Myriam isn’t under sedation now,’ the doctor informed him.

‘But she’s still sleeping!’

The doctor sighed and leaned toward Ben Isaac. ‘Myriam will wake up when she understands… when she feels ready. Help her. She’s going to need it.’

The doctor murmured ‘Good luck’ before leaving the couple in the cold hospital room, on his way to church to a ceremony that would seal a sacred compact, not necessarily infallible, even if marriage were not a human invention.

It took seven days for Myriam to wake up, and when she did, it was as if he were not there at all. She didn’t say a word, didn’t respond to his encouragement or questions, excuses or promises, or love. Ben Isaac would not hear her voice for the next nine years. The absences that he’d curtailed resumed, but it didn’t bother Myriam, who was involved with her garden, her friends, her book club, exhibits, tea parties, the theater, the culture that London offered, faithfully, without fail. She didn’t share any of this with Ben. It was as if she were living two lives and were two women, Ben’s wife when he was home and Ben’s wife when he was absent.

One Saturday lunch Myriam said to Ben Isaac, ‘I’d like to get to know Israel, Ben.’ It was as if they’d been talking about it just yesterday, seconds ago, forever, without the hiatus of almost a decade in which Ben had not heard a syllable, an interjection, a complaint, or even a sob.

Ben Isaac took her to Israel, Cyprus, Italy, Brazil, and Argentina, and they talked all day about the things normal couples who have a lot of money, and normal couples who don’t, talk about. They smiled, laughed, made love again, kissed, felt their bodies breathing, felt the other’s sweat — everything a couple feels or ought to feel, except Magda. They never once talked about her. She was a sealed subject, forbidden, taboo.

Ben Isaac lived with silent bitterness, tied up with the strong cords of guilt, resigned to getting through the day, losing himself in his work, filling the hours, attending to Myriam. He didn’t return to excavations. Magda served as warning, a punishment from the Almighty, a closed door he could not open again.

All this went through his mind as he read the message he’d received on the cell phone. If you want to see your son alive again, get rid of the journalist. Sarah and Myriam continued to look over the ancient documents, neglecting the papal agreements that held no interest for them, despite the fact that they were the only documents whose language they could understand. The rest exercised a hypnotic fascination on them. Ben Isaac had felt it several times. The characters, ornate, stylized, but without pretensions or arrogance, unlike the papal blazons, which in those days didn’t yet exist.

He couldn’t lose little Ben. He couldn’t lose another child. Where was divine justice? Would he always be punished for sticking his nose into something he shouldn’t have? No. He had paid an enormous price. Magda, Myriam, and nine years of sepulchral silence.

How could they possibly know about the journalist? The leak had not come from his side. He was absolutely certain. He remembered when Cardinal William had introduced him to Sarah. The leak came from the Vatican at the highest level, and that was serious. He had to get Myriam to safety and put an end to the situation.

‘Myriam,’ Ben called. ‘A moment, please.’

Myriam returned to her husband, who showed her the phone screen. She read the message and raised her hand to her mouth in shock. Sarah noticed.

‘No, Ben. We can’t,’ stammered Myriam shakily, her legs weak. ‘It’s not true.’

‘We have to do it, Myr. Ben’s life is at stake.’ Ben put both his hands on Myriam’s shoulders. ‘We have to do it.’

Both of them looked apprehensively at Sarah. She realized something had happened that had to do with her.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked timidly.

Ever since she’d entered the underground storage vault, her heart had been beating nervously. She knew what she had to do. William had been completely explicit in the Palazzo Madama. A sacrifice that would make all the difference for millions of the faithful.

Myriam collapsed on the floor, sobbing. ‘No, Ben.’

‘I’m sorry, Sarah,’ Ben said, approaching her slowly. ‘I have no alternative.’

Sarah backed up until she bumped against a showcase. It was now or never. Ben’s threatening attitude helped her make up her mind. Ben clicked a number on the phone and said something in Hebrew. He was calling security.

Sarah put her hand in her jacket pocket and took out the small, six-shot revolver that William had given her. She aimed at Ben.

‘Not one more step.’

Ben looked at her, surprised. How was it possib… Cardinal William. Who would have suspected the cardinal?

Myriam raised her head, analyzing the situation.

‘Give me the documents,’ Sarah ordered, her voice stronger than she felt.

‘Put away the gun, Sarah. You won’t get out of here alive. Besides, you’re not a killer,’ Ben warned. ‘You don’t have what it takes to kill.’

‘Myriam, get up and come over here.’ Another order.

Myriam got up with difficulty and approached Sarah suspiciously. As soon as she was within reach, Sarah grabbed hold of her, turned her around, and pushed the barrel of the gun into her right temple. Myriam closed her eyes.

‘Still don’t think I have what it takes?’ Sarah asked. She hated herself at this moment. ‘Now, give me the documents so Myriam and I can take a walk.’

‘Do you really want to do this?’ Ben asked very calmly.

Sarah trembled with the gun at Myriam’s head. She tried not to press too hard, to avoid hurting her. Myriam was actually calmer than she was.

‘Don’t do something you’ll regret,’ Ben pleaded in a low voice.

‘Give me the documents,’ Sarah insisted.

‘That’s not going to happen, Sarah. Understand this very well. It’s the life of my son at risk.’

Sarah was losing her options. She’d never pull the trigger. Her bluff was about to be called.

‘Lower the gun, Sarah. My men are almost here. They’re pros and — ’

‘Good evening,’ a male voice said in perfect English.

‘Hadrian,’ Ben called without looking for him. ‘Do me the favor of disarming the lady, who’s beginning to annoy me.’

‘I’m sorry, but Hadrian couldn’t come,’ the voice returned.

Ben Isaac looked at the man perplexedly. What was going on here? Who was he? One of the kidnappers? ‘Who are you?’

‘You can call me Garvis. I’m an inspector for the Metropolitan Police, and I’m here to help.’

‘To… help with what?’ Ben asked.

Sarah and Myriam were just as perplexed. Sarah kept the gun resting lightly at Myriam’s head.

Two men came in the vault. No one recognized them.

‘Lower the gun, ma’am. I’m sick of killings,’ he said in heavily accented English.

‘Who are you? How dare you invade my property?’ Ben Isaac was indignant and nervous.

‘Who am I?’ The man was scandalized. ‘Who am I?’ Then he looked at the second man. ‘Who am I, Jean-Paul?’

‘Inspector Gavache of the Police Nationale,’ Jean-Paul proclaimed like a herald.

‘And you can call this a surprise visit,’ Gavache added, taking a drag on his cigarette.