‘There is no precedent for this,’ he pronounced. ‘I feel, therefore, that I should refer you to my immediate superior, Cardinal Ponthez de Cuera. I will speak to him immediately.’
The Cardinal, it transpired, would see von Igelfeld without delay. A young priest was summoned and he led an increasingly miserable von Igelfeld out of the Office of Holy Affairs, back down the corridor, and up a rather intimidating flight of marble stairs. At the head of the stairs he knocked at a large set of double doors, which were shortly opened to admit von Igelfeld to a large, airy room with a view over St Peter’s Square.
The Cardinal was reading a book when von Igelfeld was admitted. He rose to his feet graciously, straightened his scarlet cassock, and shook hands politely with his visitor.
‘I am so sorry to disturb you, Your Eminence,’ began von Igelfeld in Portuguese. ‘I am Professor von Igelfeld from Regensburg.’
The Cardinal beamed. ‘Professor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, author of Portuguese Irregular Verbs? The very same?’
For the first time that day, von Igelfeld felt the cloud of depression that had hung over him lift slightly. He acknowledged his identity and the Cardinal clapped his hands together with satisfaction.
‘But I have long admired that book,’ he exclaimed. ‘My principal academic interest, you see, is the philology of the Romance languages. And there is nobody who understands the history of our dear Portuguese language better than yourself, dear Professor von Igelfeld.’
Von Igelfeld could hardly believe his good fortune. From the role of criminal, he had been transformed into his proper status, that of the author of Portuguese Irregular Verbs. The relief was overwhelming.
‘And see!’ said the Cardinal, pointing to a large, glass-fronted bookcase. ‘There is your book. In pride of place.’
Von Igelfeld glanced at the bookshelf and smiled. There indeed was Portuguese Irregular Verbs.
‘But my dear Professor,’ went on the Cardinal, ‘what brings you to the Vatican, and to my fortunate door?’
Von Igelfeld described the events of the previous day and the Cardinal listened intently.
‘So I should like somehow to apologise to His Holiness,’ finished von Igelfeld.
The Cardinal nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘A very good idea. I’m sure that the Holy Father will not hold it against you. But it would be nice to be able to say sorry in person.’ He paused, looking down at his watch. ‘Why don’t we try to get him now while he has his coffee?’
Von Igelfeld was astonished. ‘You mean . . . now. In person? I had not thought of seeing him; I merely wanted to write a note.’
‘But I’m sure he would appreciate a visit,’ said the Cardinal. ‘Look, you wait here while I nip through and check. He’s only a few doors down the corridor.’
Von Igelfeld spent a few nervous minutes before the Cardinal returned and announced that the Pope would receive him for coffee.
‘I’m afraid it will just have to be the two of you,’ the Cardinal explained. ‘I am terribly behind on some correspondence and must get it done. But perhaps you and I could meet for lunch afterwards? We’ve got a terribly good Italian restaurant downstairs.’
A Swiss Guard escorted von Igelfeld from the Cardinal’s office. They walked down a corridor and through another set of high double doors. Now they were in an ante-room of some sort, at the end of which was a further set of double doors surmounted by the keys of St Peter. Two further guards, standing outside these doors, now moved smartly aside to allow von Igelfeld to pass and to enter the room beyond.
The Pope was sitting at a small coffee table, reading a copy of the Corriere della Sera. When he saw von Igelfeld enter, he rose to his feet and waved.
‘Come over here, Professor von Igelfeld,’ he said. ‘The coffee is still warm.’
Von Igelfeld moved over to the table and reached out to take the Pope’s hand. Then, still holding the papal hand, he bowed slightly.
‘Good morning,’ said the Pope warmly. ‘Good morning, and blessings. Please sit down and I’ll pour the coffee.’
Von Igelfeld sat down.
‘I’ve come to say how sorry I am about that regrettable incident yesterday,’ he said. ‘I had no idea it was Your Holiness.’
The Pope laughed. ‘Oh that! Think no more of that. It’s good of you to come and apologise. You know, there are so many who expect us to apologise to them. They ask us to apologise for the Inquisition, to apologise for the over-enthusiasms of missionaries of the past, to apologise for all sorts of terrible things that happened a long time ago. And nobody ever comes to apologise to me! Except you. It’s really quite refreshing.’
‘Well,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I am very sorry indeed.’
‘No need to say any more,’ said the Pope. ‘It’s very good to have the chance to chat to you. I have a wretchedly boring time for the most part. You’ve got no idea what a tedious life it is being Pope. I’m totally isolated from the rest of humanity. You saw me yesterday on one of my rare busy days. Do you know how many social invitations I received last year? No? Well, I shall tell you. None. Not one. Nobody dares to invite the Pope to anything. They all assume that I would never be able to come, or that it would be presumptuous to invite me. So I get none. And I sit here most days and play solitaire. That’s what I do.’
The Pope pointed to a table at the side of the room and von Igelfeld saw that it was covered with cards in a solitaire pattern.
‘Do you play solitaire yourself?’ asked the Pope.
‘No,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I used to. But not any more.’
The Pope nodded, looking slightly despondent. He took a sip of his coffee and stared out of the window. For a few minutes nothing was said and the only sound in the room was that of ticking from a long-case clock behind the Pope’s chair. Then the Pope sighed.
‘I look out of my window and see the Vatican gardens,’ he said. ‘The trees. The greenery. The paths where I take my walks. The fountains. And I remember a field behind my house in my native village. And I remember the river beyond it where we used to swim as boys. We had a rope tied on to the branch of a tree and we used to swing out over the water. And I’ve never had any greater pleasure since then. Never. And I’ve never had any better friends than I had then. Never.’
‘We all have a land of lost content,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I used to go and stay on my grandfather’s estate near Graz. I liked that. Then, a bit later, when I was a student, my friend Prinzel and I used to go walking along the river and drink a glass of beer in a riverside inn. That’s what we used to do.’
The Pope said nothing. But, after a moment, he spoke in a quiet voice: ‘Now I have my solitaire. I suppose that is something.’
The clock chimed. ‘Heavens,’ said the Pope. ‘That’s the end of the coffee break. I must get back to my solitaire. Could you possibly show yourself out? The Swiss Guards will direct you.’
The Pope rose to his feet and ushered von Igelfeld to the door.
‘Goodbye, dear Professor von Igelfeld,’ he said. ‘Goodbye. We shall not meet again in this life, I fear, but I have enjoyed our brief talk. Please remember me.’
And with that he turned and went back to his solitaire table, leaving von Igelfeld in the care of the guards.
The Prinzels insisted on being told every detail of von Igelfeld’s remarkable day. Ophelia quizzed him closely as to the decoration of the Pope’s private apartment and as to the precise exchange of views which had taken place between them. Prinzel was more interested in the geography of the Vatican and in the mechanism of obtaining an audience; it had seemed so easy for von Igelfeld, but surely it could not be that easy for others. Perhaps all one had to do was to insult the Pope first – if one had the chance – and then insist on an audience of apology.
But there had been more to von Igelfeld’s day. After he had left the Pope’s apartment he had returned to the Vatican Library for some time before the Cardinal had come to collect him for lunch. Then they had gone downstairs to a rema
rkable restaurant, patronised only by clerics and their guests, where a magnificent Roman meal of six courses had been served. He and the Cardinal had got on extremely well, discussing a variety of philological matters, and von Igelfeld had enjoyed himself immensely. But just as the last dish was being cleared from their table and coffee and liqueurs were about to be served, von Igelfeld had seen a familiar figure enter the restaurant. It was the Duke of Johannesburg. The Duke, who was in the company of an elegantly attired monsignor, had not seen him, and von Igelfeld had been able to make a quiet enquiry of his host.
The Cardinal had turned his head discreetly and glanced at the ducal table.
‘The cleric,’ he said, ‘is none other than Monsignor Ernesto Pricolo. He is the head of an office here which deals with relations with our dear misguided Orthodox brethren. Personally, I find his activities to be distasteful.’
Von Igelfeld shivered. ‘Distasteful?’
‘Yes,’ said the Cardinal. ‘He involves himself in their schisms. In fact, I believe he is currently attempting to destabilise the Patriarchy of Alexandria.’
‘The Patriarch Angelos Evangelis?’ asked von Igelfeld. ‘A tall patriarch with a beard?’
‘They all look like that,’ said the Cardinal. ‘I can never tell them apart. But, yes, that’s the one. He has terrible schism problems and our friend Pricolo does nothing to help. Personally, I can’t see what possible advantage there is for Rome in it all, but there we are. We are, I suppose, a state and we must do all the things that states do.’
Von Igelfeld succeeded in leaving the restaurant without being seen by the Duke of Johannesburg, but he felt that a cloud had come over the day. If the Duke of Johannesburg was on the side of the schismatics, then he must have deceived the Patriarch into thinking he was really a supporter of his. And if that were the case, then the Duke probably knew, or suspected at least, that the Patriarch had given the reliquary to him, and the schismatics would themselves know that. Which meant that even as he and the Prinzels went about their innocent business in Rome, they could be being observed by the scheming schismatics who would, he assumed, stop at little to retrieve the bones of Father Christmas.
The Prinzels listened carefully to von Igelfeld’s account of the lunch.
‘This is very serious,’ said Prinzel at last. ‘We shall have to redouble our vigilance.’
‘I suggest that we transfer the reliquary to my cupboard,’ said Ophelia. ‘They may know that Moritz-Maria has the bones, but they will not suspect us. After all, the Duke of Johannesburg never saw you or me, did he, Florianus?’
It was agreed that the reliquary would be transferred to the Prinzels’ room and hidden in a locked suitcase within their locked wardrobe. This was done, and the evening came to a close. Never had von Igelfeld experienced a more dramatic day: he had met the Pope and over lunch he had witnessed high-level ecclesiastical plotting taking place before his very eyes. In a curious way he was beginning to acquire a taste for this. He imagined that the life of a diplomat, or even a schismatic if it came to it, could be almost as fulfilling as that of a professor of Romance philology. Almost, but not quite.
For the next two weeks, von Igelfeld worked every day at the Vatican Library, only taking off the occasional afternoon to spend with the Prinzels in their architectural explorations. They had intended to visit, and annotate, every important Baroque church in Rome, allowing several days for the study of each church. It was a major undertaking, and already their notebooks were bulging with observations.
Von Igelfeld’s own work progressed well. He had unearthed several previously unknown manuscripts, thanks to the efforts of the Prefect, who had obviously been informed by the Pope that von Igelfeld was to receive special consideration. And indeed the Pope occasionally sent down a messenger with a small present for von Igelfeld, usually an Italian delicacy – panforte di Siena or amarettini di Sarona – to eat with his morning coffee.
Then, one evening after von Igelfeld had returned to the Garibaldi, he had found a telegram awaiting him. He opened it with some foreboding, as one does with any telegram received while away from home, and saw that the message came from the Patriarch. He was, he explained, in a monastery in the Apennines. For various reasons he was unable to come to Rome to collect the relics, and he wondered if von Igelfeld would be kind enough to come to the monastery to deliver them to him. The relics would be safe there, he assured him.
Von Igelfeld showed the telegram to the Prinzels, who immediately consulted their road atlas and found the town from which it had been sent. The telegram had emanated from Camaldoli, a small town in the mountains, some four hours from Rome.
‘If we leave after breakfast tomorrow,’ said Prinzel, ‘we shall arrive by noon. According to our guidebook there is an inn there. We can stay there and complete our mission the following day.’
The plans laid, they booked themselves out of the Garibaldi, on the understanding that should they wish to return after a day or two there would be no difficulty in finding them rooms. In fact, they were all ready to leave Rome. Von Igelfeld had effectively come to the end of his work in the Vatican Library and the Prinzels were running out of Baroque churches. It was time for a change of surroundings.
The journey to Camaldoli took them high into the mountains of Umbria. From a landscape of rolling hills and comfortable villas they ventured on to mountain roads and broad views of valleys and pine forests. Although it was still sunny, the air now had a sharp edge to it, and the streams which cascaded boyishly down the hillsides were icy cold. The inn was exactly as one might expect an old-fashioned Apennine inn to be; wood-panelled, with open fireplaces in which the evening log fires had been laid. Each room, which was simply furnished, had a view either of the mountain rising above or the valley falling away below on the other side.
The monastery, they were told, was about an hour’s walk away. It could not be reached by car, as it was tucked away on the mountainside above the town. It was too late to go there that afternoon, but they were told that unless an unexpected mist descended the following morning they could easily make the journey up and down before lunch. That night von Igelfeld slept with the reliquary under his mattress. He did not sleep well. From time to time he awoke to some sound and froze, thinking that there were schematics outside the door. But the switching on of his light dispelled such terrors, and he would eventually drift back into an uneasy sleep.
At breakfast the next day there was another message. The Patriarch had heard of their arrival and had sent a note with a boy who was making his way down the mountainside to collect bread for the monks. In the note, he explained that he would be down in the town the next day and that they should do nothing until then. ‘Please do not leave the hotel,’ he warned. ‘Even at this late stage, there may be dangers.’
They read and re-read the note, each more frightened than could be publicly admitted. It was decided that they would interpret the Patriarch’s warning liberally. As long as one of them was in the hotel at any one time, the others should feel free to wander about the small town or go for a slightly longer walk along the river.
Prinzel and Ophelia went for such a walk after breakfast, leaving von Igelfeld in the hotel. He was sitting in the cramped living room, paging through old Italian magazines and listening to the chatter of the kitchen staff, when the new guests arrived. He looked up to see who they were. Germans perhaps? They were. It was Unterholzer and his wife, and, following closely behind them, their unfortunate dog, with its prosthetic wheels.
There was a great deal of mutual surprise.
‘I thought you were all in Rome,’ said Unterholzer, pumping von Igelfeld’s hand enthusiastically. ‘We had no idea we would meet up with you. What a marvellous coincidence!’
‘Yes,’ said von Igelfeld reluctantly. ‘The Prinzels are here too. They have gone for a walk along the river.’
‘Wonderful idea,’ said Unterholzer. ‘We’ll just get everything sorted out and then perhaps you could come for a short walk with
us.’
They went off to sign the register and to receive their keys. Then, closely followed by the dog, they went up to their bedroom to unpack.
The Prinzels were late coming back but von Igelfeld decided to risk leaving the hotel before they returned. Since he was with the Unterholzers, he thought, he could hardly be in any danger. So they wandered off along a path that led into the forest, from which, at various points, they would be afforded a fine view of the valley below.
The walk was most enjoyable, and when they returned the Prinzels were already awaiting them. They were extremely surprised to see the Unterholzers, but if they felt any dismay they succeeded in hiding it effectively. Then it was time for lunch, and it was at this point that von Igelfeld made the dreadful discovery.
He went into his room to change the collar of his shirt. At first he saw nothing untoward but after a moment his eye fell on an object on the floor beside his bed. For a moment his heart stopped: it was the reliquary – and it was empty.
He fell to his knees with a cry, seizing the box and lifting it up. The mattress had been disturbed and the reliquary had been pulled from underneath it. He examined it closely: there were strange marks on it, marks which looked, to all intents and purposes, as if they were teeth marks! Some creature had come into the room, smelled out the reliquary, and gnawed it.
He rushed to the door and looked out into the corridor. As he did so, there came a bark from the next-door room. Unterholzer’s sausage dog! Without wasting a moment, von Igelfeld ran to the open door of the Unterholzers’ room and looked inside. Frau Professor Dr Unterholzer was standing in the middle of the rug, wagging a finger in admonition at the dog.
‘You are a naughty, naughty creature,’ she said severely. ‘Where did you get those bones? Now you’ve eaten them you will have no appetite for your lunch!’
Von Igelfeld stood where he was, his heart a cold stone within him. Unterholzer’s dog had achieved, in several quick mouthfuls, what an entire faction of schismatics had so singularly failed to do.