Chapter Text
16 But Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God.
17 Where you die, I will die, And there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, If anything but death parts you and me.”
— Ruth 1:16-17
You know the way Jesus
rips open his shirt
to show us his heart, all flaming and thorny,
the way he points to it. I'm afraid
the way I'll miss you will be this obvious.
— Nick Flynn, “Emptying Town”
“Acceptasne electionem de te canonice factam in Summum Pontificem? ”
Thomas Lawrence, the only seated man in the entire chapel, can only help but to stare at his friend right in front of him as if in a dream. For a moment of pregnant silence, Thomas looks away, searching the crowd of cardinals.
Vincent Benítez, almost tucked away between the taller men around him, does not know what Thomas expects to find.
Suddenly, Thomas’ half-lidded eyes meet Vincent’s and they open like a bloom. Struck back from his daze, Thomas returns to face Cardinal Bellini again.
“Accepto,” says the dean. His clear voice echoing inside the Sistine Chapel.
The hole on the roof illuminates his features white and bright, erasing the marks of age on his mature face. For a second, Benítez doesn’t imagine, but sees him as a young man. His handsome profile turned perennial, though only ephemerally. Benítez' throat hitches, it feels like grace.
A collective murmur of relief —pleasure— erupts around him, the warble of a human river. Cardinal Bellini pats his own heart in reassurance. A long smile stretches his face gladly.
“Quo nomine vis vocari? ” Bellini asks his friend with a knowing expression.
Thomas stands.
“Ioannes.”
A traditional name, the name of a long line of servants. Applause sparks instantaneously —the approval unanimous. Pride and delight swell inside Benítez.
Using the table where the Scrutineers counted the ballots for support, Bellini kneels before the new Holy Father.
John XXIV is neither joyous nor forlorn, simply solemn. His Holiness turns to face the cardinals once more, now with purpose, and his eyes pause again in front of Benítez —plucking him with a glance from a field of faces. Before the applause stops and the Holy Father is taken away, the two men look at each other, their gazes fixed; this too is a matter of seconds.
After his speech in the aula of Casa Santa Marta, Vincent is surprised to find out that he had developed, not only a following, but one large enough to almost run with the whole conclave —much to his own embarrassment. Now his peers ask for his opinion on many things or look for him just to share the same relief about the election of Pope John.
“Cardinal Benítez, I’m sorry to interrupt you…”
Vincent turns away from the small group of cardinals he was chatting with.
The origin of the voice is no other than Monsignor O’Malley, one of the Holy Father’s confidants and most valuable allies in the Holy See if their discreet meetings are to be believed. He wonders idly if now that Pope John is in charge, O’Malley will be raised to the rank of Cardinal.
Benítez’ smile is kind and welcoming, “It is no trouble, Monsignor.”
O’Malley nods, perhaps too briskly. His smile is terse and despite him being the one who called for Vincent, he doesn’t meet his eyes. There’s something troubling him, though the cardinal cannot imagine why.
“His Holiness, Pope John,” O’Malley blurts, “would like to speak with you in the Room of Tears. Privately.”
Benítez’ lips part, but only slightly. He remembers the Holy Father’s previous admission in the privacy of Benítez’ room, his difficulty with prayer. Perhaps, the pope is having second thoughts, feelings of unworthiness. But is anybody truly fit, truly ready, for such responsibility? Benítez mouth extends into something not quite a smile as he recalls that it is not labeled the “Room of Tears” for no reason.
John XXIV would not be the first pope to doubt if truly it was him who ought to sit in St. Peter’s throne. To Vincent who was almost —just by a handful of votes— chosen to be in His Holiness place… It was overwhelming only to imagine it.
“Lead the way, my friend,” the cardinal finally replies.
Behind the door across the sacristy, His Holiness John XXIV sits on a narrow bench. The walls in the Room of Tears are painted red like a heart. Inside, the pope looks pensive, lost in thought. It doesn’t escape Vincent that the Holy Father still wears the cardinal robes while the pure papal white lies next to him —already selected for him, but still untouched.
The pope barely turns to them, languidly, a small rueful smile on his face. “Thank you, Your Eminences, for taking heed of my untimely imposition.”
Neither Benítez or O’Malley say anything, instead they bow.
“Ray,” he says, and there is a hint of fondness in his voice, “may I ask you to leave us so I can speak to Cardinal Benítez alone?
Surprised, O’Malley opens his mouth and immediately closes it, giving Vincent what he can only describe as a sideways glance. Vincent chuckles despite himself.
The cardinal bows quickly and leaves, closing the faded purple doors behind him.
For a moment, both men remain in silence. The white, cloudy light of day that travels through the minute window is not enough to dispel the shadows of the small scarlet vault.
It is Pope John who breaks their quietude. “Please, sit.”
Vincent hurries towards the cushioned bench, from which John lifts the papal cassock next to himself and folds it in half, placing it on his lap.
“For transparency’s sake, I confess that I know about the treatment at the clinic in Geneva.”
This time, Pope John looks at Benítez directly, and the cardinal holds his blue gaze back.
“Ah”, Vincent smiles gently, “so it is about this.”
“Only to an extent,” His Holiness says. But before Vincent can inquire further, the Holy Father speaks again.
“I was informed by Monsignor O’Malley, albeit broadly. I was hoping you could explain to me the specifics of the treatment, so I may understand your situation better.”
Vincent notices that despite sitting side by side in that tiny seat, their knees don’t quite touch.
“It was called a laparoscopic hysterectomy.”
There is a beat between them, Benítez thinks about an expression in Spanish when there is a sudden silence in the conversation: ha pasado un ángel. An angel has passed.
“In my late thirties, I had an operation to remove my appendix. And that was when the doctors discovered that I had a uterus and ovaries.”
The Holy Father places his right hand atop one of Vincent’s knees. It’s broad, much broader than Vincent’s. He squeezes it softly, then let goes. “It must have been difficult.”
“It was a very dark time for me. I felt as if my entire life as a priest had been lived in a state of sin.”
“Did the Holy Father…?”
“Yes, he knew.” The way that Pope John phrases the question amuses Vincent in a way: Thomas is the Holy Father now, or at least he will be in an hour at most. “We considered surgery to have what you might regard as the ‘female’ parts of my body removed. But the night before I was due to fly I realised I was mistaken.”
Vincent turns towards Pope John, “I was who I had always been. I am what God made me.”
Even Vincent can feel the resolution in his voice and eyes when he states that. One that makes His Holiness blue eyes dawn like a cloudless day, as if he was regarding him for the first time.
There’s something painful for Vincent in that naked stare, though he doesn’t know why. His cheeks sting with sudden warmth and so, he looks away towards the doors.
Another angel passes, and Vincent’s heart hammers inside his ribcage. For a second, his thoughts turn towards possible catastrophes. Perhaps he’ll ask for my resignation. And where would he go from there?
But, no, Vincent doesn’t want to contemplate that for a single second, so he instead speaks without thinking, “It must come as a blessing that it was not me who was elected.”
“No,” says Pope John abruptly, which surprises Vincent enough to snap his head back at him. “That is the furthest thing from the truth.”
“When we were in the aula after the bombing, and you spoke against what Tedesco said…”
The Pope swallows.
“Your words moved me greatly,” and John places his hand above Vincent’s, the Holy Father’s thumb, calloused by age, caressing Benítez soft skin only once.
“I thought: this is one I would follow,” and His Holiness grins warmly and genuinely, as if recalling a cherished memory.
Benítez cannot recall the other man ever casting such a freed expression in the short time he had known him, as if he was suddenly released from a great and ancient weight —the image of the man tied to a sisyphean burden in a pale, lifeless desert grips him in some kind of sweet pain, sears over his heart.
“…And when the time to vote came, I casted mine with you.”
The smile softens, though it remains on his face. “It was the only time in the entire conclave where I felt I was making the right choice.”
“Grace,” he whispers, but the smile disappears slowly; replaced by something fragile in his wizened, watery eyes. Vincent can see it in the shivering shimmer of the sclera: Pope John sinks somewhere cold. A burial at sea.
“Still, it wasn’t enough,” the Bishop of Rome mutters in a leaden voice.
“Your Holiness,” Vincent manages to breathe out, overcome with feeling.
The Pope laughs, but this time is bitter and dark. “Please, not that. Thomas, Lawrence, anything. I have yet to be officially proclaimed, so please, Vincent, allow me one last hour on Earth as myself.”
The Pope —Thomas— rubs a hand across his eyes and Vincent is stricken about how tired he seems so suddenly as he bends his back onto himself.
“Tomás,” Vincent whispers and stands up, taking the hunched man into a hug. The robes are cold, the body underneath still emits a semblance of warmth. “Of course, dear Tomás.”
Thomas is stiff under Vincent’s arms. Slowly, very slowly, he lets his head rest, just so, where Vincent’s collarbone should be under his cassock. The solideo over his head slips slightly as Thomas drags down his senescent brow over Vincent’s chest —right where his heart hums achingly.
Thomas’ receding hairline reminds Vincent of an infant’s crown —both sparse with thin, short hair. How we return to that forgotten helplessness with age, with life. The thought fills Vincent with tenderness, and he represses the impulse of caressing the other man’s temple.
“You speak about the announcement as if it were your execution,” Vincent jokes, though there is no malice or reproach in his voice. Just compassion.
“Perhaps,” Thomas confesses, so low Vincent can barely make it out, “Perhaps it is.”
When Thomas speaks to Vincent’s chest, he can fill the ripples of his rich, baritone voice vibrating across his body.
Just as carefully as he bent his neck, Thomas retrieves himself from the embrace; enough so he may speak to Vincent face to face.
“I don’t believe I can do it,” he admits. “I don’t believe it should be me.”
Vincent grabs the top rail of a nearby chair and sits in front of him. It’s his turn now to extend his hand and place it upon Thomas’. “Why not?”
“How can a pope that struggles with doubt and prayer not be a mistake?” he snarls with the sharpness of a saw, though Vincent knows it’s not against him. It’s against himself, against the world, against God even. “How can it not be some kind of sin?”
Vincent can feel Thomas’ hand tremble under his own. He does not grip it harshly for him to stop, he just holds it, allowing the quaking to be released.
“How does that not make you lose heart?” Thomas asks Vincent. His eyes are vitreous —the blue iris and brown corona around the pupils conjure Vincent images of stained glass—; and this is less a question than a cry for help.
“I think,” Vincent’s mouth feels dry, “that losing heart makes all the sense in the world. There is every reason to despair, dear Thomas.”
Thomas looks at him like a shipwreck. His mouth is halfways parted, but he doesn’t manage to say anything. Maybe there is no air left in his lungs.
“But Thomas, listen to me,” and Vincent’s voice has the sureness of an anchor. “I know it. I’ve seen it in Veracruz, Congo and Kabul. The fact that people in this world die and fall to despair constantly while hoping, while longing, while crying out for justice. The fact that we may work, day and night, and still find ourselves struggling in the exact same way. The fact that our loneliness may be met with nothing but more loneliness.”
This time he does squeeze Thomas’ hand with a force that is almost painful. He presses against it, once, twice, in the manner of a chest compression. Guiding Thomas alive and awake.
“The truth is that I don’t know if God will really answer me if I call out to Him day and night. If my failures and my sin will be transformed into holiness.”
Vincent smiles tremblingly and honestly. “Against all those facts, because they truly are facts, enters God and His fiction, asking us to see beyond what we accept as true. To probe for alternatives not available to us yet. To open way for transformation and newness.”
Thomas hangs onto every word like a handrail in the deep dark, there was nothing else but Vincent’s voice, Vincent’s face, Vincent’s touch to focus on.
“We, brothers and sisters of faith, have heard this fiction in all its fragility, all its uncertainty, and choose to awaken our foolish hope. Because the world is not enough, not yet. But how can we build it if we cannot allow ourselves to believe, to want the impossible? That life triumphs over death. That we can all be forgiven.”
Vincent pulls Thomas hand and holds it over his lap, atop the white vestments of the supreme pontiff that covers Thomas legs.
“You and I are the same, Tomás. We both doubt whether it is right for us to be in the place we have been called to… Tell me, knowing what you know now, would you have voted differently?”
“No,” replies Thomas immediately, his voice wet and shaky.
Vincent’s timid smile is beatific. “I wouldn’t either. At every opportunity, I have voted for you, and I will support you again every time from now. Because just as you have accepted me, I accept you. Your doubt, your vulnerability, your human weakness. Despite the facts pointing out against us, God has spoken a fiction, baseless and beautiful, about us. We are where God wants us to be.”
“Do you,” Thomas blurts out, his intonation precarious like a terrified animal that doesn’t know whether to hide or approach from its burrow. “Do you truly believe that?”
“Yes, I do. From the bottom of my heart, with every fibre of my being, I do. I have wagered my life on this fiction, all of our brothers and sisters have. This is why we are here today. But…”
Vincent bows his head, as if he were to request something shameful.
“But I need you. I too need you to believe in me, the same way I believe in you. To help me pray and not lose heart when the facts of the world drive me to despair.”
He lifts his brown face, so youthful, so vigorous despite his bodily age. “Do you think we could do that? To help each other believe?”
“I do, dear Vincent,” Thomas says, his remote eyes dancing with unshed emotions. “I want to.”
Vincent extends his free hand and brushes away a fugitive tear, rolling down Thomas cheek. “I do too.”
Thomas takes Vincent’s suspended hand and kisses its fingers. It’s dizzying and humbling, to be regarded with such care by the holy man Vincent knows Thomas to be. Even if he can’t see it yet.
When he lowers his left, Thomas doesn’t let go. They pile their hands together, like a prayer, over the pontiff’s hands.
“I hope,” Thomas dispels their silence, now audibly calmer, “that we can still remain in contact. Once you return to Kabul, that is.”
Kabul. Home. Vincent could never forget it, but so much has happened these weeks that even what passes for normalcy to the cardinal seems so impossibly far away.
“Your advice has been… simply invaluable.”
Thomas smiles a little coy like a mischievous child; Vincent chuckles at the sight of it. There are so many expressions that this mysterious man has yet to make. So much yet to know of him.
“I’d hate to do without it during my papacy.”
Vincent hums. “Of course, Thomas. I’d be honored.”
They both sit there for a moment, their hands entwined, smiling to each other. Thomas looks much younger like that and Vincent idly wonders what would it have been like, to know each other many lives ago. He wonders if they would have been friends as kids, had they met. If Thomas would have played fútbol with him, or if he, with that sagacious air about him, would have preferred to compare the new book each of them was reading.
A knock on the doors ends his reverie. Quickly, they let go, and Thomas is the first to stand up.
“Enter,” he allows.
The doors open, Father Haas comes into view on the threshold of the Room of Tears.
“I am sorry, Your Holiness. But it’s time. The faithful have gathered outside the balcony, waiting for your words.”
John XXIV bows. This too is solemn.
Cardinal Benítez closes the distance, touches the Holy Father's shoulder.
“I leave you to get dressed then.” His smile is comforting and understanding.
Thomas says nothing, instead he pulls Vincent into a short, but tight, hug. The pope wears no cologne, but there, in the crook of his neck, Vincent can smell the faint, clean smell of lemon and verbena.
The papal tailors enter like shadows alongside Father Haas. Cardinal Benítez leaves the room.