Conclave by Robert Harris Page A

From what Lomeli could pick up – standing nearby, smiling, nodding, and all the while listening keenly, just as he had learnt to do when he was a diplomat – Benítez’s ministry in Africa had been like his street work in Manila: active and dangerous. It had involved setting up clinics and shelters for women and girls who had been raped in the continent’s civil wars.
    The whole business was becoming clearer to him now. Ah yes, he could see exactly why this missionary-priest would have appealed to the Holy Father, who had so often stated his belief that God was most readily encountered in the poorest and most desperate places on earth, not in the comfortable parishes of the First World, and that it took courage to go out and find Him.
If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it . . .
Benítez was precisely the sort of man who would never rise through the layers of Church appointments – whowould not even dream of trying to do so – and who would always be awkward socially. How else then was he to be catapulted into the College of Cardinals except by an extraordinary act of patronage? Yes, all of that Lomeli could understand. The only aspect that mystified him was the secrecy. Would it really have been so much more dangerous for Benítez to have been publicly identified as a cardinal than as an archbishop? And why had the Holy Father not taken anyone into his confidence?
    Someone behind him politely asked him to move out of the way. The Archbishop of Kampala, Oliver Nakitanda, was holding a spare chair and a handful of cutlery he had retrieved from a neighbouring table, and the cardinals were all shifting round to make room for Benítez to join them. The new Archbishop of Maputo, whose name Lomeli had forgotten, beckoned to one of the sisters to bring an extra serving of soup. Benítez refused a glass of wine.
    Lomeli wished him bon appétit and turned to go. Two tables away, Cardinal Adeyemi was holding forth to his dinner companions. The Africans were laughing at one of his famous stories. Even so, the Nigerian seemed distracted, and Lomeli noticed how from time to time he would glance over at Benítez with an expression of puzzled irritation.
    *
    Such was the disproportionate number of Italian cardinals in the Conclave, it required more than three tables to seat them. One was occupied by Bellini and his liberal supporters. At the second, Tedesco presided over the traditionalists. The third was filled with cardinals who were either undecided between the two factions or who nursed secret ambitions of their own. At all three tables, Lomeli noted with dismay, a place had been saved for him. It was Tedescowho saw him first. ‘Dean!’ He indicated he should join them with a firmness that made refusal impossible.
    They had finished their soup and had moved on to antipasti. Lomeli sat down opposite the Patriarch of Venice and accepted half a glass of wine. For the sake of politeness, he also took a little ham and mozzarella, even though he had no appetite. Around the table were the conservative archbishops – Agrigento, Florence, Palermo, Perugia – and Tutino, the disgraced Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, who had always been considered a liberal but who no doubt hoped that a Tedesco pontificate might rescue his career.
    Tedesco had a curious way of eating. He would hold his plate in his left hand and empty it with great rapidity using a fork in his right. At the same time, he would glance frequently from side to side, as if fearful that someone might be about to steal his food. Lomeli presumed it was the result of coming from a large and hungry family.
    ‘So, Dean,’ said Tedesco, through a full mouth, ‘your homily is prepared?’
    ‘It is.’
    ‘And it will be in Latin, I hope?’
    ‘It will be in Italian, Goffredo – as you well know.’
    The other