Chapter Two: Miracle!
Archbishop Michel Abruzzi sat at his desk in the far corner of his more than ample office. The old maple desk was intricately carved with sufficient overhang in the front for two visitors to pull up chairs and have room to write. There was a large Spanish oak table in the center of the room with nine chairs where he would work with small groups, four chairs on each side and a single chair at one end. The end chair was clearly for the archbishop; by construction and position it said I am the superior of all who sit here.
The high-backed chair at the desk was even more ornate and bespoke grandeaur that was, for the new archbishop, discomforting. Its arms were carved panthers and the leather seat cushion was wide and well-padded. Though the size of the chair was suitable, he filled it well, though there was not too much fat on his forty-year-old. When he was elevated to Archbishop six months before, he moved into the residence of the recently deceased Phillipe Cardinal Benetois and inherited the office. Afer having the books and papers boxed and stored, Michel had the inlaid gold filigree of the chair back covered with leather cushioning, leaving Anna Maria, the housekeeper, to wonder why he would hide so rich scrollwork.
"Anna Maria, has it come yet," he called to her. She came to the office door from the kitchen where she had been preparing something to serve Father Montaire who had a three o'clock appointment. "Not yet. Father Montaire should be here soon. Should I bring it to you while you are meeting with him?" Anna Maria was in her 60’s, under five feet tall, and had been with housekeeper in the residence for twelve years. Her gray hair was pulled tightly back into a bun, and Michel had yet to see her without an apron, the ties of which were wrapped twice around her tiny waist.
"No, that can wait until after Montaire leaves."
Anna Maria had already learned that the new archbishop was what she called “a deux.” His outer persona, in his office and out among the people of his flock, was outgoing and even flamboyant. But upstairs was the small apartment where he read and slept. When he entered there he was different. There he seemed sullen, and she felt a bit uncomfortable knocking on the door if she knew him to be inside.
Michel had all the furniture in his chamber removed and sold. The replacement furniture was a simple closet for his clothes and a few other well-worn plain pieces. The bed was little more than a cot. It was a room suited for a monk from the strictest order, not typical of a secular priest, which Michel was. The bathroom, which had modern plumbing, was originally tiled in white and had a row of ornate pieces at eye level which ran around the room. Each of them had a red fleurs-de-lis baked on a white background. Michel had them removed and replaced with ordinary white ones. The new tiles did not quite match and looked rather like a patch job, which is what it was. Michel was pleased and Anna Maria perplexed.
It bothered her to see what was hanging on a hook the on the side of the closet. It was a woven leather handle with five leather straps attached. Each strap was knotted several times along their length. Each knot had a metal barb inserted in it. Anna Maria had seen these whips a few times in books and knew what they were used for, but seeing it hanging there next to Michel’s simple clothes was chilling. Of course, she was unsure it were ever used and hoped it wasn’t. Self-flagellation was, after all, something religious people did centuries ago and was certainly unexpected of a modern Archbishop of Paris.
The doorbell rang. It was the postman and Father Montaire at the same time. Father came in and greeted Anna Maria as the postman handed her the day's mail. Montaire had only to cross the street from the Offices of the Archdiocese of Paris to the residence, but it was a bitter day in January and even the short walk across the street was out of the question without a coat, which he hung up on the coat rack in the vestibule. Anna Maria brought the large manila envelope to Michel who slit it open as he swung around with his back to the door. He pulled out a copy of Time magazine, in English.
“Father Montaire has arrived,” she said of the prelate who stood in the doorway to Michel’s office waiting to be invited in.
"Stupide Americains!" Michel blurted out, and with a sweeping motion raised the magazine and slammed it on the desk. He kicked his desk hard then picked up the magazine in his thick hands, twisted it, and threw it across the room. It slammed against the window and landed splayed with its covers facing up in the sunlight.
It was the current December 7, 1979 edition. On the cover was a picture of Ayatullah Khomeini with a banner under the word Time proclaiming Khomeini “Man of the Year.”
Anna Maria hurried out of the room and Montaire quipped, “So, what’s new?”
Michel turned to his friend who was grinning like a boy.
"Did you see this?”
"Yes, it’s glowing in the sun. Nice likeness."
“Time's MAN OF THE YEAR!” exclaimed Michel.
"So?"
"So? Time just canonized Khomeini for the Muslim world. That cover,” he said pointing to the magazine, “will be reprinted in every paper in every Muslim community in the world. It will be translated in every local language.” Michel’s narrow eyes grew even tighter. “None of the Time article will be reproduced, of course, but articles will proclaim that even the American infidels recognize how great and holy is the Ayatollah.”
Montaire fetched the magazine.
“One of the most dangerous men in the entire world,” continued Michel, “and the Americans think that because they are an ocean away, this menace will not touch their soil. How naive can they be?”
“That’s their charm,” offered Montaire. “Of course, it will be worse for us here.” Montaire, only a few years older than Michel but with a full head of salt and pepper hair and looking much younger, was his closest friend and confident.
“Of course it will --- stupid American press.” Montaire handed the magazine to Michel who flipped it on his desk disgustedly.
Michel had seen hours of the televised Iran Contra affair and recalled Oliver North’s being pummeled for spending public money on a elaborate security system for his own home. North said it was necessary because he knew that he was on the hit list of the most dangerous man it the world. When asked who that most dangerous man might be, he answered, “Osama bin Laden.” Most of the congressmen did not know then who that was.
"They can't even identify their real dangers,” continued Michel. “Bin Laden's tentacles will one day reach into the very heart of America. And they lionize Khomeini!”
Montaire was silent.
“Let's get started." The two clerics sat down to discuss the business at hand, which did not include Michel’s own experience with the Ayatollah.
Khomeini was at that time living in Paris in exile from Iran. He was preaching openly to stir Iranian Muslims back home and to provoke the deposing of the Shah. When Michel was raised to archbishop, nearly every major religious leader from Paris and even some from neighboring countries came to visit and congratulate the young bishop on his appointment. Catholics for sure came, but so did every denomination of Protestantism in Paris. Rabbis came as did a contingent of Hindus. They were photographed with Michel on the front steps of the residence shaking hands, and Paris papers carried the news.
There was no contact from Khomeini, and when Michel’s office invited him, Michel was informed that the Ayatollah found no reason to chat with the "local leader of the infidels."
Montaire, as was his wont, put a positive spin on the snub by pointing out that it is best to know one’s enemies and even better to keep them from one’s friends lest the one taint the others.
Michel genuinely admired Father Montaire because he was a sincere and loyal friend. He had entered the seminary after a few years in the business world, but Michel found him rather less assertive than his intelligence demanded. He was a piece of American white bread, and a bit soggy at that, who was happy taking any side in a discussion. For Michel who loved him, Montaire lacked the crust of French bread. Aside from his priestly pious attitude and his lack of backbone, there was one feature in him that could not be denied. Montaire was a very good finance man. A graduate from La Sorbonne with honors, he was invaluable to the diocese and to Michel personally.
Montaire, of course, knew quite a bit about Michel Abruzzi, some things that no one else knew. He knew that Michel's grandfather Abruzzi came from Italy as a young man with a good education, lots of ambition and little else. He started working for a very small French bank and married a French girl. After a few years he started his own bank. It was not clear to Michel’s father where the starting money came from, but supposedly it was provided him by family in Italy. In any event, when the grandfather died, Michel’s father, Albert, inherited the business. As it became clear that neither Michel nor his younger sister, Michele, had any interest in banking, Albert decided to sell his interest in the bank. It was a simple move: he took the bank public, then liquidated his personal holdings. Before the transaction, however, Albert had made both Michel and his sister partners in the bank. Upon the bank’s public offering, Albert set up trust funds for each child in a Swiss bank. The siblings then each had nearly twenty million American dollars in a trust fund managed entirely and secretly from Switzerland. That enabled Michel to to finance from his own funds a number of local efforts to help the Parisian poor and establish a scholarship for needy high school graduates. Montaire would in time see more charity from the Archbishop as he handled all of Michel's personal finances as well as those of the Diocese of Paris.
l
After nine years as Archbishop Michel was comfortable with his office. On this day he came down to say daily Mass at precisely six thirty, his usual time. Anna Maria waited at the bottom of the stairs to remind him that she would not be there in the afternoon as one of her children was coming from Bologne to visit. His footsteps were heavy as he rumbled down toward her.
When the Archbishop moved into the residence years before he had the carpet changed in the main entrance and on the stairs to the second floor. He had the first flight of stairs carpeted to match the entrance, but left the bare wood on the landing and top two flight of stairs. From the entrance one could not see the uncarpeted floor. Ascending the stairs gave Michel the feeling that he was going into another dimension where only God and the angels accompanied him. Anna Maria thought he did not carpet the top flights to save money, but she knew, as did so many others in Paris, that he give huge sums to charity. Money was certainly not the reason for his omission.
"You’re here early, Anna," he said matter-of-factly.
"You remember that I won't be here this afternoon. I came in to clean before I go."
"That’s not necessary. We can do without it for a day."
"No we can't."
"Of course,” he said with a smile. “Thank you for coming in. If I don't see you later, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Breakfast will be ready when you come back from Mass."
He went to the tiny chapel in the back of the residence to say his private Mass followed by a half hour of meditation. More and more his meditation focused not only the Church of Paris but on the spreading evil that attacked the Church worldwide. Catholics were slipping away from the Church in great numbers, secularism and agnosticism were already wide spread, and the physical as well as spiritual attacks of Islam were growing. The leadership of the Church would have to shift gears from vigilance to proactive action against its enemies. "Archangel Michael, please help me lead the way," he prayed.
His breakfast was the ordinary baguette or two with jam and black coffee, but it was the dinners he ate at the several weekly affairs his office required to which he attributed his weight. There would be another fund raising dinner at eight that night, and that meant another large meal tempting him beyond his control, and he would once again retire to his bed with a full and uncomfortable stomach. He had resolved to show at least some restraint that night.
Michel started taking his walks a few years earlier in the belief that the exercise would counteract the dinners; however, despite their increase, the length of his walks did nothing to decrease the length of his belt.
Before slipping out the side door leading to the alley, Michel would tell his secretary, Herbert Mintz, that he would be out taking his constitutional and that Father Herbert should “save the Church in my absence” or some like comment.
Michel enjoyed wearing layman’s clothes and passing on the street unnoticed. No one saw a middle-aged somewhat round man with a tonsure, “naturally provided” he liked to say, walk along the boulevards and side streets of the most beautiful city in the world.
Aside from the exercise his walks provided, Michel enjoyed the feel of the street, its people, its shops, and its buildings with old balconies and fascinating masonry. Even walking through poor neighborhoods where violence was not unknown, Michel felt a communion with the workers hurrying about and the vendors hawking their wares. The smells and sounds of the city seemed real in those neighborhoods, and while Michel was not of those people, he felt closer to them being where they lived their lives, most of them in just a few square blocks.
Once he took Montaire with him along the Rue des Mains, a street where anything could be bought at any price. Row upon row of carts lined the narrow sidewalk, and the two men interrupted their conversation as they neared two women screaming at each other. The younger woman was accused of having taken a scarf without paying. At the same time the older woman’s husband came running from around the stand to grab the younger woman and keep her from running off. Few other shoppers or venders paid them any attention.
“Nice place you’ve taken us, Monsieur Archbishop,” said Montaire taking his friend’s arm.
“Don’t be afraid, my man,” said Michel with a grin. “I’ll protect you from that screech owl.”
“It’s not the owl I’m afraid of. We’re getting too sedentary for a mob scene.”
“Then pray to St. Michael the Archangel to protect you.”
On another day, Michel walked alone along the Rue De Pais, a broad avenue favored by tourists. The avenue abutted a small inlet with a few piers for fishermen to bring ashore their catches. Seagulls swirled above, waiting for fishermen to filet their flounders or throw over their chum, and local restaurants, famous for their fresh fish, sent out their chefs to buy right from the docks. It was impossible, even on rainy days, not to have at least a handful of tourists watch the boats, the sales, and the filleting all to the tune of laughing gulls waiting their turn. The locals bought the filleted flounder and sole that lay like prizes on the well-worn fishing boats, and once or twice, so did Michel.
Aside from the idyllic scene played out every day of the year on the Rue de Pais, Michel was taken by the different languages he heard spoken along the avenue and down the side streets to the piers. What Michel lacked in a musical ear, he more than compensated for by his ear for language. He could speak fluently in five languages, and his hope was that before he died he would be able at least to understand all the languages spoken at the docks of the Rue de Pais. But there was little chance. He knew French, Italian, and English, of course. He was better at Dutch than German, but did reasonably well in both. He could get by in Spanish but not Portuguese. His problems were the Eastern languages. He understood only some Russian and Farsi, but Mandarin and Cantonese were more than a bit troublesome, and Korean was out of the question. Of course, there was Latin.
On this summer’s day, the normality of the hustle bustle which comforted Michel on his walks would be different. It was late June and it was hot, but it was not yet the dreaded, humid days of August which so many natives of Paris managed to escape. He decided to walk around to the north side of the inlet where there were private homes and piers for their boats. No business was conducted there, and locals, keeping away from tourists and fishermen, walked their dogs and jogged in relative peace. Michel wondered what it would be like to live in one of the charming homes overlooking the inlet, to get up in the morning, walk down to the dock, and take your boat out on the Seine. It would be a good life, he thought, simple and natural, the way it had been for centuries. The smell of the salt air was invigorating and a welcome change from the indoor life that was his lot.
The docks were newly painted for the season, and the sun glared off the whitened wood planks. This section of the dock could accommodate about ten small boats. Most were small power boats large enough to seat four or six. Not more. A few sailboats were mixed in the lot.
Michel walked to the edge of the dock and shielded his eyes with his hand to better see a small sailboat with a red triangle on its mainsail trying to make it back to the dock. It was a good wind for sailing, but the gusts made it a little tough for the young sailor who seemed no more than twelve. He was now about three meters from the dock and standing at the mast. He was trying to furl the lowered mainsail around the boom, but the boom was swinging about too much. The other person, the captain, was clearly the boy's mother. She sat in the back of the boat at the helm, one hand planted on the stern rail, shouting directions that Michel thought were less than helpful: "That's not the way he does it! Tie that rope to that metal thing on the side" she barked.
Michel smiled. Clearly the ferocity of the mother was having no effect whatever, and the boy continued to grapple with the uncooperative sail that flapped in the wind.
Two things happened at once, and Michel was never sure which came first. A power boat passed close to the sailboat at a speed too fast to be considered a polite approach to a dock area, and a gust of wind came up the inlet. The sailboat rocked unsteadily as the wind nudged the boom which had not been properly secured. The boy who had crouched to gather the flapping mainsail straightened up just as the boom swung, hitting the boy’s with a sickening thud. Michel gasped as the boy was knocked overboard. The woman began screaming and the boy went under.
Michel moved by instinct. He striped off his jacket, pulled off his shoes and dived into the water. In short, powerful strokes he reached the boat and reached down down for the completley overwhelmed boy. He could not reach him. Michel drew a breath and dived like a snorkler for a conch. The water was cold, more than three meters deep, and clear enough to see the boy, his hair straight above his head. Michel grabbed for it and pulled him up such that it allowed him to get under the boy and push him to the top. As Michel reached the surface, he drew in water with his gasp and began choking.
The woman was screaming uncontrollably. “Davide! Davide!”
Michel tried to say he had the boy, but all he could do was cough up water. He was able finally to draw a clear breath when the hull of the boat knocked him on the head and the boy slipped from his hands. Michel grabbed for him again, but it was in vain, and Michel lost sight of the boy.
“He’s behind you,” screamed the mother, but Michel heard nothing. The boy was barely conscious but was able to move his legs keeping his head bobbing in and out of the water.
"Hold on old man," heard Michel as he tread water. Somehow there were two men in the water. One said to the other, "Let him go, I've got him."
In a swift move the man rolled the boy so that his head and body were on his own chest. One hand on the boy and the other stroking, he made for the ladder on the dock.
"Are you all right? You’re doing fine. Hang on to me,” the the voice from behind.
“The boy,” said Michel.
“They got him. Are you all right? Do you think you can make it to the ladder?”
“Yes. Yes,” answered Michel. “Good. Take your time. That way,” said Michel’s rescuer pointing him to the dock ladder. “I’m right behind you. You did great.”
Michel managed his way up the ladder and sat on the pier. The boy was on his back getting artificial respiration, unneeded since he was breathing fine, and his mother was still screaming from the boat, its boom swinging back and forth.
“Someone tie up that boat before she has a heart attack,” said Michel’s rescuer. “I don’t need any more trouble.” He was wringing his pants legs. “New pants,” he said to himself shaking his head disgustedly.
“Thank you, young man,” offered Michel watching the water in rivulets run down his tan slacks.
“Not at all,” said the young man still busy with his pants. “I’m glad I could help.”
“Here, to pay for those pants,” said Michel offering the cash he had in his pocket. “I’m afraid it’s a bit wet.”
“Oh, no, sir. I’ll just have them dry cleaned.”
“Then this will pay for it,” said Michel with a smile. “I have plenty; take it.”
“That’s nice of you,” said the young man returning the smile. “My name is Alex,” he said taking the money and holding out his and for a shake.
“I’m Michel. You did a good thing, Alex,” he answered shaking the man’s wet, narrow hand.”
“You saved the boy. I saw you jump in from down the promenade.”
“And you saved me,” said Michel, feeling strong enough to stand.
“Maybe you better wait for the ambulance. It’ll be here in a minute. They called as soon as they saw you jump in.”
“I’m really all right,” objected Michel. It was only a few minutes before two ambulances made their way to the pier.
But Michel was dizzy, and the cold was finally making an impression, and though he objected once again, he was convinced to get in. Before the ambulance left Michel heard some men talking to a police officer who had just come on the scene.
"What happened?" the officer asked.
"The kid fell out of his boat,” he said pointing to Davide who has on a stetcher being wheeled into one of the ambulances. “He couldn’t handle the sail. It hit him good. The old man jumped in to save the kid and nearly got himself drowned. Kids that can't sail shouldn't sail without their father, and old, fat men shouldn’t try to be heroes."
The officer walked slowly to the ambulance where the mother was holding her son’s hand. He would get all the names, file a report, and that would be that. Case closed, he thought. Michel, who was already angry with himself for being talked into the ambulance, saw the officer getting the woman’s name as he was taken to the hospital.
It was run by The Sisters of Mercy, and one of the nuns in the emergency room checked Michel's pulse, blood pressure and temperature. She gave no indication that she recognized him and continued her duties as if he were any other patient. When asked for his name he said Michel Abruzzi. No one seemed to attach any significance to the name.
“The miracle” began to unfold before Michel’s eyes. Four men came running in pushing a gurney, rushing with glazed eyes to the main operating room. A man followed carrying a crude bucket that looked to Michel as if it had come from a construction site.
Michel sensed from the faces of the EMT’s that this was a special emergency and asked the nun, who had come in with them but who now stood behind as the emergency room door closed behind the gurney, what had happened. "He was working on the building project down the street. He fell into a big fan, the kind used to dry cement. It cut off his hand."
A young reporter came in, a PRESS card chained around his neck. A distraught woman being helped in followed, her head down and sobbing. Nurses ushered her to a chair and a nun sat with her, holding her like a mother would hold an injured child. The reporter, standing over them with pen and pad, asked questions.
It was a half hour before Michel was released from the hospital, and asked at the desk for a taxi. It would be a few minutes. Michel went to the wife and said: "I am sorry." His arm on her shoulder he added, "All we can do now is pray."
The woman looked up at him and saw only a tired man in damp, crumpled clothes. He certainly was not a doctor.
“Can I help you?” asked the reporter trying to protect the dsitraught woman from the seedy looking archbishop. Michel shook his head and started toward the door to wait for his cab. He heard a doctor introduce himself, and Michel turned to the wife whose head turned up to the doctor with plaintive, crying eyes.
"I’m Doctor Fournier. I'll be operating on your husband.” He was tall and distinguised, and his voice was soft and deep. “I have to tell you there is little chance of saving the hand, but we will do the very best we can for him." The woman closed her eyes in pain and nodded.
Michel instinctively joined his right index finger to his thumb and made a small cross toward the Doctor's back as he walked away. The reporter noticed the oddity.
"Who is he," asked the reporter in a voice to nobody in particular but to all who where standing with him.
A nun said: "I don't know, but I’ve seen him before. He looks a little like… but I’m not sure … it can’t be."
"Who can’t it be?"
"He looks something like the …, but it can't be him."
"Can't be who?"
"The Archbishop."
The reporter just stared at her.
"Bishop Abruzzi, Michel Abruzzi?” demanded the reporter.
“Yes. I think that’s who it is."
"Did he show any identification when he checked in, if he checked in?"
"I didn’t check him in. You’ll have to ask at the window,” she said pointing over her shoulder.
Michel was at the door when the taxi pulled up.
“Is that your cab?” called the reporter as he hurried over to him.
“Yes it is,” said Michel not looking back. "Let me get the door, sir," he said.
He opened the door with his back to the glass so that he was facing Michel as he opened it. He looked closely at him, seeing up close his dark, joyless eyes and Italian nose. He was the archbisop, and this was very possibly a story thought the young, reedy reporter.
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The charity-dinner gala that night gave Michel no joy. He was exhausted physically and emotionally, yet he shared the experience with no one. His secretary sitting by his side at the large table at the Cotillion Terrace where such functions were often held, mentioned that Michel looked piqued and asked if he were all right.
“Of course,” said Michel. “It’s just that I lack the spirit for these things; they are tedious.”
“Monsignor Benette sent the books this afternoon,” mentioned Father Mintz. Then he added as if to prompt the prelate to tell him of his whereabouts, “You were out for some time.”
“Remarkable observation, Herbert. I must remember to write you a commendation."
“Forgive me Archbishop,” replied the secretary without looking up.
The next day by seven he had been to mass and was sitting in the dining room at breakfast flipping through Le Monde. It was surprising that there was no mention of the events of the day before --- nothing about the boy or the man who lost his hand.
“Anna Maria,” he called. “See if you can get me Humanite, and Figaro. Both dailies had small stories about the severed hand but nothing about the boy and no mention of the outcome of the operation.
Sunday was uneventful, but on Monday morning when he sat down to have his two croissants and coffee, Anna Maria handed him a copy of Figaro. There was his picture from their archive and a banner headline across the page reading "Archbishop Performs Miracle!"
“There are reporters outside the residence. They’re asking for an audience,” said Anna Maria with consternation. “There’s a crowd.”
“Where’s Father Mintz?”
“He hasn’t arrived yet.”
“When he does, tell him to send the reporters away and then see me.”
The article was written by Pierre Langone, the reporter from the hospital. Michel read the story twice, underling some sentences and phrases as he went through it a second time. His phone call to Mintz went unanswered and Michel left a message instructing that he wanted to meet with him and a few others to discuss the article in the paper.
At the top of the article Langone quoted Dr. Fournier: “It was certainly a miracle that he has any movement in his fingers." He explained that the hand had been completely severed in an industrial accident and that Dr. Fournier reattached it in an eleven hour surgery involving two other specialists and dozens of medical aids and nurses. On the second day after the surgery the workman had slight movement of his fingers.
The article went on to say that Archbishop Abruzzi, who had been treated at the hospital the day the workman had been brought in, was seen by several people including the reporter, make “a special sign” on the workman’s body and “whispered an invocation under his breath.” According to a hospital spokeswoman, the Archbishop had been brought to the ER as a precautionary measure after he had dived into the Pais Inlet to save a drowning boy.
Langone had the basic facts correct: Michel had jumped into the water to help a boy who fell in, got taken to the hospital, gave a blessing to an injured workman, and left. As for the rest, Langone ventured into creative reportage. In truth, the reporter had interviewed some people at the pier and managed to talk to one of the men that jumped in the water to help.
But ther hungry reporter gave Michel a larger part in the rescue than he actually had. The article described the Archbishop as comforting the injured man's wife and praying with her. He was said to have blessed the doctor before he went into the operating room and to have blessed the room itself from outside the doors.
Langone's article reported:
"The Archbishop appeared in the hospital in the clothes of a simple shepherd and an unidentified orderly reported that Michel’s body showed a bright blue light around his head when he gave his blessing. No one else was said to see the glow."
At the meeting with his staff Michel was decisive. He would hold a press conference that afternoon at two to set the story straight. That would give him enough time to craft precise phrases that would likely become soundbites that very well could be heard all the way to Rome.
The diocesan meeting room was dark, paneled, and smoke-filled. The two large Venetian chandeliers were ornate and certainly not practical for reading, but the chairs were well-padded and helped some of the older men sneak micro naps during some of the marathons. The only change Michel had made to the room was to hang a large tapestry of Elmo’s fire surrounding a schooner at sea. As a lad he read about St. Elmo, the patron saint of sailors, and admired him. On that day it seemed a propos.
“We must make sure someone from Le Monde is there. The tabloids are a disgrace,” Michel told the priests. What he did not say that Le Monde was read world-wide and published in six languages, including Farsi, and that insured that the growing Muslim sector in Paris would see the story. “Also send a memo to the diocese that there will be a meeting here at four.”
“We have an appointment with…” started Mintz.
“Cancel all appointments today. We have a mess here and we can’t let it get worse.”
“We are going to need something in the Sunday bulletins. Father DuTale, see if you can get the pastors to give us space --- every church-- and meet with me at six. We’ll put together a few paragraphs.”
“Now, we must consider TV.” Michel asserted. “They’ll want interviews.” But after a few minutes of discussion it was decided that appearing on TV might be seen as a self-promoting.
“So they’ll have to make do with the press conference. Finished.”
The press conference was held in the conference room, and when Michel made his entrance an appropriate fifteen minutes late, he found the room lit with 500W klieg lights, six microphones, two cameras, and packed with noisy reporters. He wore a plain cassock and his usual crucifix, a simple piece made of two grapevine stems wrapped at the joining by thin vines. It hung around his neck by a tightly woven, heavier trio of grapevines. His purple cap, covering his bald spot, was surrounded by thin, close-cropped gray hair. Michel made an elaborate sign of the cross to the congregation and stood at the head of the conference table making eye contact to as many of the reporters he could. The room was silent in seconds.
“Thank you for coming,” he said barely above a whisper as he lowered himself deliberately into the bishop’s intricate Luis XIV arm chair. “Would you kindly close the lights and cameras.” Almost immediately questions were called out, but Michel held up his hand to stop them.
“There will be no cameras,” he said firmly and waited for the klieg lights to go out. “If you don’t mind, I would prefer not to take questions at this time. Rather I would like to tell you in my own words what transpired both at the inlet and the hospital. This will be most helpful in writing your stories.”
“But we were told this would be a press conference,” called out one of the reporters.
“You were misinformed,” said Michel sternly. He held his left fist in his right hand on the table. “I would prefer no interruptions.” It was clear that Archbishop Michel Abruzzi was in charge.
He spoke without notes, easily, frankly, and without hesitation, and no one could suspect that he was delivering a well-rehearsed commentary on Friday’s events.
Michel started by saying there was no miracle at the hospital, stating that a miracle in the eyes of the church was something that could not be explained by any ordinary means and that only the Church investigators after a great deal of research could pronounce a miracle. A successful operation, even with extraordinary results, is more likely the result of the extraordinary skill of a very gifted surgeon than a miracle in the eyes of the Church. Each of us, he explained, experiences things in our lives that are unexpectedly good outcomes for which we or others prayed. These are answers to prayers and should encourage us to appreciate the effect of God's beneficence in our daily lives. In this situation God acted through the surgeon. The miracle worker, in the vernacular, was Dr. Fournier. He and his colleagues, through the Lord, were the ones who deserved our thanks and praise.
Michel pointed out that he was not dressed in “shepherds clothes” as has been reported but merely in the ordinary dress of an ordinary man. As for his jumping into the water to save a drowning boy, that was what any Frenchman would do under the circumstances. Then he smiled sheepishly, “You know, we old men think of ourselves as forever young and certainly able to swim as well as when we were stronger.” The reporters laughed, admiring his modesty.
“And now,” said Michel sensing he had won his audience and rising from his seat, “this old man has much work to do, so I thank you for coming and for your patience. Go with God.” He blessed the group and ignored the few reporters who insisted on asking further questions.
That night Michel went to the kneeler in his room as he always did before he retired. It was a plain wooden piece with no pad to cushion his knees. In front of it, hanging on the wall was a crucifix with a relief of Jesus, in pain and bleeding from his wounds. Michel knelt and prayed, but soon began to cry, a few tears at first, then a flood of sorrow, grief and self-loathing. This day he had acted in the interest of Michel Abruzzi, not the Jesus hanging in pain for Michel’s sins on the cross.
Michel knew well the effect his words to the press would have; he planned for it, and wanted it. But there was no joy. God had given him the gift to persuade, and Michel was not using it in His service but to further his own career. Was it the office which made him the calculating fox, or was it his own pride? His was a gifted intellect with impure motives. His words to the press would help the Church in a number of ways, but they could not mask the thread of ego and its attendant desire that lurked deep inside.
Michel tried to pray but it was impossible. God would not be moved as long as the flame of desire burned in his chest. He tapped his heart and repeated his unworthiness, but God would grant him no peace. "Eli, Eli lama sabacthani," the words Mathew wrote in the original Aramaic, attributing them to the dying Christ on the cross. "My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?"
He would have to atone for his damnable hubris even if it meant that it be beaten out of him. He walked to his closet, tears filling his eyes, and reached up without looking. His hand felt the leather, and soon the leather felt his back.
Archbishop Michel Abruzzi sat at his desk in the far corner of his more than ample office. The old maple desk was intricately carved with sufficient overhang in the front for two visitors to pull up chairs and have room to write. There was a large Spanish oak table in the center of the room with nine chairs where he would work with small groups, four chairs on each side and a single chair at one end. The end chair was clearly for the archbishop; by construction and position it said I am the superior of all who sit here.
The high-backed chair at the desk was even more ornate and bespoke grandeaur that was, for the new archbishop, discomforting. Its arms were carved panthers and the leather seat cushion was wide and well-padded. Though the size of the chair was suitable, he filled it well, though there was not too much fat on his forty-year-old. When he was elevated to Archbishop six months before, he moved into the residence of the recently deceased Phillipe Cardinal Benetois and inherited the office. Afer having the books and papers boxed and stored, Michel had the inlaid gold filigree of the chair back covered with leather cushioning, leaving Anna Maria, the housekeeper, to wonder why he would hide so rich scrollwork.
"Anna Maria, has it come yet," he called to her. She came to the office door from the kitchen where she had been preparing something to serve Father Montaire who had a three o'clock appointment. "Not yet. Father Montaire should be here soon. Should I bring it to you while you are meeting with him?" Anna Maria was in her 60’s, under five feet tall, and had been with housekeeper in the residence for twelve years. Her gray hair was pulled tightly back into a bun, and Michel had yet to see her without an apron, the ties of which were wrapped twice around her tiny waist.
"No, that can wait until after Montaire leaves."
Anna Maria had already learned that the new archbishop was what she called “a deux.” His outer persona, in his office and out among the people of his flock, was outgoing and even flamboyant. But upstairs was the small apartment where he read and slept. When he entered there he was different. There he seemed sullen, and she felt a bit uncomfortable knocking on the door if she knew him to be inside.
Michel had all the furniture in his chamber removed and sold. The replacement furniture was a simple closet for his clothes and a few other well-worn plain pieces. The bed was little more than a cot. It was a room suited for a monk from the strictest order, not typical of a secular priest, which Michel was. The bathroom, which had modern plumbing, was originally tiled in white and had a row of ornate pieces at eye level which ran around the room. Each of them had a red fleurs-de-lis baked on a white background. Michel had them removed and replaced with ordinary white ones. The new tiles did not quite match and looked rather like a patch job, which is what it was. Michel was pleased and Anna Maria perplexed.
It bothered her to see what was hanging on a hook the on the side of the closet. It was a woven leather handle with five leather straps attached. Each strap was knotted several times along their length. Each knot had a metal barb inserted in it. Anna Maria had seen these whips a few times in books and knew what they were used for, but seeing it hanging there next to Michel’s simple clothes was chilling. Of course, she was unsure it were ever used and hoped it wasn’t. Self-flagellation was, after all, something religious people did centuries ago and was certainly unexpected of a modern Archbishop of Paris.
The doorbell rang. It was the postman and Father Montaire at the same time. Father came in and greeted Anna Maria as the postman handed her the day's mail. Montaire had only to cross the street from the Offices of the Archdiocese of Paris to the residence, but it was a bitter day in January and even the short walk across the street was out of the question without a coat, which he hung up on the coat rack in the vestibule. Anna Maria brought the large manila envelope to Michel who slit it open as he swung around with his back to the door. He pulled out a copy of Time magazine, in English.
“Father Montaire has arrived,” she said of the prelate who stood in the doorway to Michel’s office waiting to be invited in.
"Stupide Americains!" Michel blurted out, and with a sweeping motion raised the magazine and slammed it on the desk. He kicked his desk hard then picked up the magazine in his thick hands, twisted it, and threw it across the room. It slammed against the window and landed splayed with its covers facing up in the sunlight.
It was the current December 7, 1979 edition. On the cover was a picture of Ayatullah Khomeini with a banner under the word Time proclaiming Khomeini “Man of the Year.”
Anna Maria hurried out of the room and Montaire quipped, “So, what’s new?”
Michel turned to his friend who was grinning like a boy.
"Did you see this?”
"Yes, it’s glowing in the sun. Nice likeness."
“Time's MAN OF THE YEAR!” exclaimed Michel.
"So?"
"So? Time just canonized Khomeini for the Muslim world. That cover,” he said pointing to the magazine, “will be reprinted in every paper in every Muslim community in the world. It will be translated in every local language.” Michel’s narrow eyes grew even tighter. “None of the Time article will be reproduced, of course, but articles will proclaim that even the American infidels recognize how great and holy is the Ayatollah.”
Montaire fetched the magazine.
“One of the most dangerous men in the entire world,” continued Michel, “and the Americans think that because they are an ocean away, this menace will not touch their soil. How naive can they be?”
“That’s their charm,” offered Montaire. “Of course, it will be worse for us here.” Montaire, only a few years older than Michel but with a full head of salt and pepper hair and looking much younger, was his closest friend and confident.
“Of course it will --- stupid American press.” Montaire handed the magazine to Michel who flipped it on his desk disgustedly.
Michel had seen hours of the televised Iran Contra affair and recalled Oliver North’s being pummeled for spending public money on a elaborate security system for his own home. North said it was necessary because he knew that he was on the hit list of the most dangerous man it the world. When asked who that most dangerous man might be, he answered, “Osama bin Laden.” Most of the congressmen did not know then who that was.
"They can't even identify their real dangers,” continued Michel. “Bin Laden's tentacles will one day reach into the very heart of America. And they lionize Khomeini!”
Montaire was silent.
“Let's get started." The two clerics sat down to discuss the business at hand, which did not include Michel’s own experience with the Ayatollah.
Khomeini was at that time living in Paris in exile from Iran. He was preaching openly to stir Iranian Muslims back home and to provoke the deposing of the Shah. When Michel was raised to archbishop, nearly every major religious leader from Paris and even some from neighboring countries came to visit and congratulate the young bishop on his appointment. Catholics for sure came, but so did every denomination of Protestantism in Paris. Rabbis came as did a contingent of Hindus. They were photographed with Michel on the front steps of the residence shaking hands, and Paris papers carried the news.
There was no contact from Khomeini, and when Michel’s office invited him, Michel was informed that the Ayatollah found no reason to chat with the "local leader of the infidels."
Montaire, as was his wont, put a positive spin on the snub by pointing out that it is best to know one’s enemies and even better to keep them from one’s friends lest the one taint the others.
Michel genuinely admired Father Montaire because he was a sincere and loyal friend. He had entered the seminary after a few years in the business world, but Michel found him rather less assertive than his intelligence demanded. He was a piece of American white bread, and a bit soggy at that, who was happy taking any side in a discussion. For Michel who loved him, Montaire lacked the crust of French bread. Aside from his priestly pious attitude and his lack of backbone, there was one feature in him that could not be denied. Montaire was a very good finance man. A graduate from La Sorbonne with honors, he was invaluable to the diocese and to Michel personally.
Montaire, of course, knew quite a bit about Michel Abruzzi, some things that no one else knew. He knew that Michel's grandfather Abruzzi came from Italy as a young man with a good education, lots of ambition and little else. He started working for a very small French bank and married a French girl. After a few years he started his own bank. It was not clear to Michel’s father where the starting money came from, but supposedly it was provided him by family in Italy. In any event, when the grandfather died, Michel’s father, Albert, inherited the business. As it became clear that neither Michel nor his younger sister, Michele, had any interest in banking, Albert decided to sell his interest in the bank. It was a simple move: he took the bank public, then liquidated his personal holdings. Before the transaction, however, Albert had made both Michel and his sister partners in the bank. Upon the bank’s public offering, Albert set up trust funds for each child in a Swiss bank. The siblings then each had nearly twenty million American dollars in a trust fund managed entirely and secretly from Switzerland. That enabled Michel to to finance from his own funds a number of local efforts to help the Parisian poor and establish a scholarship for needy high school graduates. Montaire would in time see more charity from the Archbishop as he handled all of Michel's personal finances as well as those of the Diocese of Paris.
l
After nine years as Archbishop Michel was comfortable with his office. On this day he came down to say daily Mass at precisely six thirty, his usual time. Anna Maria waited at the bottom of the stairs to remind him that she would not be there in the afternoon as one of her children was coming from Bologne to visit. His footsteps were heavy as he rumbled down toward her.
When the Archbishop moved into the residence years before he had the carpet changed in the main entrance and on the stairs to the second floor. He had the first flight of stairs carpeted to match the entrance, but left the bare wood on the landing and top two flight of stairs. From the entrance one could not see the uncarpeted floor. Ascending the stairs gave Michel the feeling that he was going into another dimension where only God and the angels accompanied him. Anna Maria thought he did not carpet the top flights to save money, but she knew, as did so many others in Paris, that he give huge sums to charity. Money was certainly not the reason for his omission.
"You’re here early, Anna," he said matter-of-factly.
"You remember that I won't be here this afternoon. I came in to clean before I go."
"That’s not necessary. We can do without it for a day."
"No we can't."
"Of course,” he said with a smile. “Thank you for coming in. If I don't see you later, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Breakfast will be ready when you come back from Mass."
He went to the tiny chapel in the back of the residence to say his private Mass followed by a half hour of meditation. More and more his meditation focused not only the Church of Paris but on the spreading evil that attacked the Church worldwide. Catholics were slipping away from the Church in great numbers, secularism and agnosticism were already wide spread, and the physical as well as spiritual attacks of Islam were growing. The leadership of the Church would have to shift gears from vigilance to proactive action against its enemies. "Archangel Michael, please help me lead the way," he prayed.
His breakfast was the ordinary baguette or two with jam and black coffee, but it was the dinners he ate at the several weekly affairs his office required to which he attributed his weight. There would be another fund raising dinner at eight that night, and that meant another large meal tempting him beyond his control, and he would once again retire to his bed with a full and uncomfortable stomach. He had resolved to show at least some restraint that night.
Michel started taking his walks a few years earlier in the belief that the exercise would counteract the dinners; however, despite their increase, the length of his walks did nothing to decrease the length of his belt.
Before slipping out the side door leading to the alley, Michel would tell his secretary, Herbert Mintz, that he would be out taking his constitutional and that Father Herbert should “save the Church in my absence” or some like comment.
Michel enjoyed wearing layman’s clothes and passing on the street unnoticed. No one saw a middle-aged somewhat round man with a tonsure, “naturally provided” he liked to say, walk along the boulevards and side streets of the most beautiful city in the world.
Aside from the exercise his walks provided, Michel enjoyed the feel of the street, its people, its shops, and its buildings with old balconies and fascinating masonry. Even walking through poor neighborhoods where violence was not unknown, Michel felt a communion with the workers hurrying about and the vendors hawking their wares. The smells and sounds of the city seemed real in those neighborhoods, and while Michel was not of those people, he felt closer to them being where they lived their lives, most of them in just a few square blocks.
Once he took Montaire with him along the Rue des Mains, a street where anything could be bought at any price. Row upon row of carts lined the narrow sidewalk, and the two men interrupted their conversation as they neared two women screaming at each other. The younger woman was accused of having taken a scarf without paying. At the same time the older woman’s husband came running from around the stand to grab the younger woman and keep her from running off. Few other shoppers or venders paid them any attention.
“Nice place you’ve taken us, Monsieur Archbishop,” said Montaire taking his friend’s arm.
“Don’t be afraid, my man,” said Michel with a grin. “I’ll protect you from that screech owl.”
“It’s not the owl I’m afraid of. We’re getting too sedentary for a mob scene.”
“Then pray to St. Michael the Archangel to protect you.”
On another day, Michel walked alone along the Rue De Pais, a broad avenue favored by tourists. The avenue abutted a small inlet with a few piers for fishermen to bring ashore their catches. Seagulls swirled above, waiting for fishermen to filet their flounders or throw over their chum, and local restaurants, famous for their fresh fish, sent out their chefs to buy right from the docks. It was impossible, even on rainy days, not to have at least a handful of tourists watch the boats, the sales, and the filleting all to the tune of laughing gulls waiting their turn. The locals bought the filleted flounder and sole that lay like prizes on the well-worn fishing boats, and once or twice, so did Michel.
Aside from the idyllic scene played out every day of the year on the Rue de Pais, Michel was taken by the different languages he heard spoken along the avenue and down the side streets to the piers. What Michel lacked in a musical ear, he more than compensated for by his ear for language. He could speak fluently in five languages, and his hope was that before he died he would be able at least to understand all the languages spoken at the docks of the Rue de Pais. But there was little chance. He knew French, Italian, and English, of course. He was better at Dutch than German, but did reasonably well in both. He could get by in Spanish but not Portuguese. His problems were the Eastern languages. He understood only some Russian and Farsi, but Mandarin and Cantonese were more than a bit troublesome, and Korean was out of the question. Of course, there was Latin.
On this summer’s day, the normality of the hustle bustle which comforted Michel on his walks would be different. It was late June and it was hot, but it was not yet the dreaded, humid days of August which so many natives of Paris managed to escape. He decided to walk around to the north side of the inlet where there were private homes and piers for their boats. No business was conducted there, and locals, keeping away from tourists and fishermen, walked their dogs and jogged in relative peace. Michel wondered what it would be like to live in one of the charming homes overlooking the inlet, to get up in the morning, walk down to the dock, and take your boat out on the Seine. It would be a good life, he thought, simple and natural, the way it had been for centuries. The smell of the salt air was invigorating and a welcome change from the indoor life that was his lot.
The docks were newly painted for the season, and the sun glared off the whitened wood planks. This section of the dock could accommodate about ten small boats. Most were small power boats large enough to seat four or six. Not more. A few sailboats were mixed in the lot.
Michel walked to the edge of the dock and shielded his eyes with his hand to better see a small sailboat with a red triangle on its mainsail trying to make it back to the dock. It was a good wind for sailing, but the gusts made it a little tough for the young sailor who seemed no more than twelve. He was now about three meters from the dock and standing at the mast. He was trying to furl the lowered mainsail around the boom, but the boom was swinging about too much. The other person, the captain, was clearly the boy's mother. She sat in the back of the boat at the helm, one hand planted on the stern rail, shouting directions that Michel thought were less than helpful: "That's not the way he does it! Tie that rope to that metal thing on the side" she barked.
Michel smiled. Clearly the ferocity of the mother was having no effect whatever, and the boy continued to grapple with the uncooperative sail that flapped in the wind.
Two things happened at once, and Michel was never sure which came first. A power boat passed close to the sailboat at a speed too fast to be considered a polite approach to a dock area, and a gust of wind came up the inlet. The sailboat rocked unsteadily as the wind nudged the boom which had not been properly secured. The boy who had crouched to gather the flapping mainsail straightened up just as the boom swung, hitting the boy’s with a sickening thud. Michel gasped as the boy was knocked overboard. The woman began screaming and the boy went under.
Michel moved by instinct. He striped off his jacket, pulled off his shoes and dived into the water. In short, powerful strokes he reached the boat and reached down down for the completley overwhelmed boy. He could not reach him. Michel drew a breath and dived like a snorkler for a conch. The water was cold, more than three meters deep, and clear enough to see the boy, his hair straight above his head. Michel grabbed for it and pulled him up such that it allowed him to get under the boy and push him to the top. As Michel reached the surface, he drew in water with his gasp and began choking.
The woman was screaming uncontrollably. “Davide! Davide!”
Michel tried to say he had the boy, but all he could do was cough up water. He was able finally to draw a clear breath when the hull of the boat knocked him on the head and the boy slipped from his hands. Michel grabbed for him again, but it was in vain, and Michel lost sight of the boy.
“He’s behind you,” screamed the mother, but Michel heard nothing. The boy was barely conscious but was able to move his legs keeping his head bobbing in and out of the water.
"Hold on old man," heard Michel as he tread water. Somehow there were two men in the water. One said to the other, "Let him go, I've got him."
In a swift move the man rolled the boy so that his head and body were on his own chest. One hand on the boy and the other stroking, he made for the ladder on the dock.
"Are you all right? You’re doing fine. Hang on to me,” the the voice from behind.
“The boy,” said Michel.
“They got him. Are you all right? Do you think you can make it to the ladder?”
“Yes. Yes,” answered Michel. “Good. Take your time. That way,” said Michel’s rescuer pointing him to the dock ladder. “I’m right behind you. You did great.”
Michel managed his way up the ladder and sat on the pier. The boy was on his back getting artificial respiration, unneeded since he was breathing fine, and his mother was still screaming from the boat, its boom swinging back and forth.
“Someone tie up that boat before she has a heart attack,” said Michel’s rescuer. “I don’t need any more trouble.” He was wringing his pants legs. “New pants,” he said to himself shaking his head disgustedly.
“Thank you, young man,” offered Michel watching the water in rivulets run down his tan slacks.
“Not at all,” said the young man still busy with his pants. “I’m glad I could help.”
“Here, to pay for those pants,” said Michel offering the cash he had in his pocket. “I’m afraid it’s a bit wet.”
“Oh, no, sir. I’ll just have them dry cleaned.”
“Then this will pay for it,” said Michel with a smile. “I have plenty; take it.”
“That’s nice of you,” said the young man returning the smile. “My name is Alex,” he said taking the money and holding out his and for a shake.
“I’m Michel. You did a good thing, Alex,” he answered shaking the man’s wet, narrow hand.”
“You saved the boy. I saw you jump in from down the promenade.”
“And you saved me,” said Michel, feeling strong enough to stand.
“Maybe you better wait for the ambulance. It’ll be here in a minute. They called as soon as they saw you jump in.”
“I’m really all right,” objected Michel. It was only a few minutes before two ambulances made their way to the pier.
But Michel was dizzy, and the cold was finally making an impression, and though he objected once again, he was convinced to get in. Before the ambulance left Michel heard some men talking to a police officer who had just come on the scene.
"What happened?" the officer asked.
"The kid fell out of his boat,” he said pointing to Davide who has on a stetcher being wheeled into one of the ambulances. “He couldn’t handle the sail. It hit him good. The old man jumped in to save the kid and nearly got himself drowned. Kids that can't sail shouldn't sail without their father, and old, fat men shouldn’t try to be heroes."
The officer walked slowly to the ambulance where the mother was holding her son’s hand. He would get all the names, file a report, and that would be that. Case closed, he thought. Michel, who was already angry with himself for being talked into the ambulance, saw the officer getting the woman’s name as he was taken to the hospital.
It was run by The Sisters of Mercy, and one of the nuns in the emergency room checked Michel's pulse, blood pressure and temperature. She gave no indication that she recognized him and continued her duties as if he were any other patient. When asked for his name he said Michel Abruzzi. No one seemed to attach any significance to the name.
“The miracle” began to unfold before Michel’s eyes. Four men came running in pushing a gurney, rushing with glazed eyes to the main operating room. A man followed carrying a crude bucket that looked to Michel as if it had come from a construction site.
Michel sensed from the faces of the EMT’s that this was a special emergency and asked the nun, who had come in with them but who now stood behind as the emergency room door closed behind the gurney, what had happened. "He was working on the building project down the street. He fell into a big fan, the kind used to dry cement. It cut off his hand."
A young reporter came in, a PRESS card chained around his neck. A distraught woman being helped in followed, her head down and sobbing. Nurses ushered her to a chair and a nun sat with her, holding her like a mother would hold an injured child. The reporter, standing over them with pen and pad, asked questions.
It was a half hour before Michel was released from the hospital, and asked at the desk for a taxi. It would be a few minutes. Michel went to the wife and said: "I am sorry." His arm on her shoulder he added, "All we can do now is pray."
The woman looked up at him and saw only a tired man in damp, crumpled clothes. He certainly was not a doctor.
“Can I help you?” asked the reporter trying to protect the dsitraught woman from the seedy looking archbishop. Michel shook his head and started toward the door to wait for his cab. He heard a doctor introduce himself, and Michel turned to the wife whose head turned up to the doctor with plaintive, crying eyes.
"I’m Doctor Fournier. I'll be operating on your husband.” He was tall and distinguised, and his voice was soft and deep. “I have to tell you there is little chance of saving the hand, but we will do the very best we can for him." The woman closed her eyes in pain and nodded.
Michel instinctively joined his right index finger to his thumb and made a small cross toward the Doctor's back as he walked away. The reporter noticed the oddity.
"Who is he," asked the reporter in a voice to nobody in particular but to all who where standing with him.
A nun said: "I don't know, but I’ve seen him before. He looks a little like… but I’m not sure … it can’t be."
"Who can’t it be?"
"He looks something like the …, but it can't be him."
"Can't be who?"
"The Archbishop."
The reporter just stared at her.
"Bishop Abruzzi, Michel Abruzzi?” demanded the reporter.
“Yes. I think that’s who it is."
"Did he show any identification when he checked in, if he checked in?"
"I didn’t check him in. You’ll have to ask at the window,” she said pointing over her shoulder.
Michel was at the door when the taxi pulled up.
“Is that your cab?” called the reporter as he hurried over to him.
“Yes it is,” said Michel not looking back. "Let me get the door, sir," he said.
He opened the door with his back to the glass so that he was facing Michel as he opened it. He looked closely at him, seeing up close his dark, joyless eyes and Italian nose. He was the archbisop, and this was very possibly a story thought the young, reedy reporter.
l
The charity-dinner gala that night gave Michel no joy. He was exhausted physically and emotionally, yet he shared the experience with no one. His secretary sitting by his side at the large table at the Cotillion Terrace where such functions were often held, mentioned that Michel looked piqued and asked if he were all right.
“Of course,” said Michel. “It’s just that I lack the spirit for these things; they are tedious.”
“Monsignor Benette sent the books this afternoon,” mentioned Father Mintz. Then he added as if to prompt the prelate to tell him of his whereabouts, “You were out for some time.”
“Remarkable observation, Herbert. I must remember to write you a commendation."
“Forgive me Archbishop,” replied the secretary without looking up.
The next day by seven he had been to mass and was sitting in the dining room at breakfast flipping through Le Monde. It was surprising that there was no mention of the events of the day before --- nothing about the boy or the man who lost his hand.
“Anna Maria,” he called. “See if you can get me Humanite, and Figaro. Both dailies had small stories about the severed hand but nothing about the boy and no mention of the outcome of the operation.
Sunday was uneventful, but on Monday morning when he sat down to have his two croissants and coffee, Anna Maria handed him a copy of Figaro. There was his picture from their archive and a banner headline across the page reading "Archbishop Performs Miracle!"
“There are reporters outside the residence. They’re asking for an audience,” said Anna Maria with consternation. “There’s a crowd.”
“Where’s Father Mintz?”
“He hasn’t arrived yet.”
“When he does, tell him to send the reporters away and then see me.”
The article was written by Pierre Langone, the reporter from the hospital. Michel read the story twice, underling some sentences and phrases as he went through it a second time. His phone call to Mintz went unanswered and Michel left a message instructing that he wanted to meet with him and a few others to discuss the article in the paper.
At the top of the article Langone quoted Dr. Fournier: “It was certainly a miracle that he has any movement in his fingers." He explained that the hand had been completely severed in an industrial accident and that Dr. Fournier reattached it in an eleven hour surgery involving two other specialists and dozens of medical aids and nurses. On the second day after the surgery the workman had slight movement of his fingers.
The article went on to say that Archbishop Abruzzi, who had been treated at the hospital the day the workman had been brought in, was seen by several people including the reporter, make “a special sign” on the workman’s body and “whispered an invocation under his breath.” According to a hospital spokeswoman, the Archbishop had been brought to the ER as a precautionary measure after he had dived into the Pais Inlet to save a drowning boy.
Langone had the basic facts correct: Michel had jumped into the water to help a boy who fell in, got taken to the hospital, gave a blessing to an injured workman, and left. As for the rest, Langone ventured into creative reportage. In truth, the reporter had interviewed some people at the pier and managed to talk to one of the men that jumped in the water to help.
But ther hungry reporter gave Michel a larger part in the rescue than he actually had. The article described the Archbishop as comforting the injured man's wife and praying with her. He was said to have blessed the doctor before he went into the operating room and to have blessed the room itself from outside the doors.
Langone's article reported:
"The Archbishop appeared in the hospital in the clothes of a simple shepherd and an unidentified orderly reported that Michel’s body showed a bright blue light around his head when he gave his blessing. No one else was said to see the glow."
At the meeting with his staff Michel was decisive. He would hold a press conference that afternoon at two to set the story straight. That would give him enough time to craft precise phrases that would likely become soundbites that very well could be heard all the way to Rome.
The diocesan meeting room was dark, paneled, and smoke-filled. The two large Venetian chandeliers were ornate and certainly not practical for reading, but the chairs were well-padded and helped some of the older men sneak micro naps during some of the marathons. The only change Michel had made to the room was to hang a large tapestry of Elmo’s fire surrounding a schooner at sea. As a lad he read about St. Elmo, the patron saint of sailors, and admired him. On that day it seemed a propos.
“We must make sure someone from Le Monde is there. The tabloids are a disgrace,” Michel told the priests. What he did not say that Le Monde was read world-wide and published in six languages, including Farsi, and that insured that the growing Muslim sector in Paris would see the story. “Also send a memo to the diocese that there will be a meeting here at four.”
“We have an appointment with…” started Mintz.
“Cancel all appointments today. We have a mess here and we can’t let it get worse.”
“We are going to need something in the Sunday bulletins. Father DuTale, see if you can get the pastors to give us space --- every church-- and meet with me at six. We’ll put together a few paragraphs.”
“Now, we must consider TV.” Michel asserted. “They’ll want interviews.” But after a few minutes of discussion it was decided that appearing on TV might be seen as a self-promoting.
“So they’ll have to make do with the press conference. Finished.”
The press conference was held in the conference room, and when Michel made his entrance an appropriate fifteen minutes late, he found the room lit with 500W klieg lights, six microphones, two cameras, and packed with noisy reporters. He wore a plain cassock and his usual crucifix, a simple piece made of two grapevine stems wrapped at the joining by thin vines. It hung around his neck by a tightly woven, heavier trio of grapevines. His purple cap, covering his bald spot, was surrounded by thin, close-cropped gray hair. Michel made an elaborate sign of the cross to the congregation and stood at the head of the conference table making eye contact to as many of the reporters he could. The room was silent in seconds.
“Thank you for coming,” he said barely above a whisper as he lowered himself deliberately into the bishop’s intricate Luis XIV arm chair. “Would you kindly close the lights and cameras.” Almost immediately questions were called out, but Michel held up his hand to stop them.
“There will be no cameras,” he said firmly and waited for the klieg lights to go out. “If you don’t mind, I would prefer not to take questions at this time. Rather I would like to tell you in my own words what transpired both at the inlet and the hospital. This will be most helpful in writing your stories.”
“But we were told this would be a press conference,” called out one of the reporters.
“You were misinformed,” said Michel sternly. He held his left fist in his right hand on the table. “I would prefer no interruptions.” It was clear that Archbishop Michel Abruzzi was in charge.
He spoke without notes, easily, frankly, and without hesitation, and no one could suspect that he was delivering a well-rehearsed commentary on Friday’s events.
Michel started by saying there was no miracle at the hospital, stating that a miracle in the eyes of the church was something that could not be explained by any ordinary means and that only the Church investigators after a great deal of research could pronounce a miracle. A successful operation, even with extraordinary results, is more likely the result of the extraordinary skill of a very gifted surgeon than a miracle in the eyes of the Church. Each of us, he explained, experiences things in our lives that are unexpectedly good outcomes for which we or others prayed. These are answers to prayers and should encourage us to appreciate the effect of God's beneficence in our daily lives. In this situation God acted through the surgeon. The miracle worker, in the vernacular, was Dr. Fournier. He and his colleagues, through the Lord, were the ones who deserved our thanks and praise.
Michel pointed out that he was not dressed in “shepherds clothes” as has been reported but merely in the ordinary dress of an ordinary man. As for his jumping into the water to save a drowning boy, that was what any Frenchman would do under the circumstances. Then he smiled sheepishly, “You know, we old men think of ourselves as forever young and certainly able to swim as well as when we were stronger.” The reporters laughed, admiring his modesty.
“And now,” said Michel sensing he had won his audience and rising from his seat, “this old man has much work to do, so I thank you for coming and for your patience. Go with God.” He blessed the group and ignored the few reporters who insisted on asking further questions.
That night Michel went to the kneeler in his room as he always did before he retired. It was a plain wooden piece with no pad to cushion his knees. In front of it, hanging on the wall was a crucifix with a relief of Jesus, in pain and bleeding from his wounds. Michel knelt and prayed, but soon began to cry, a few tears at first, then a flood of sorrow, grief and self-loathing. This day he had acted in the interest of Michel Abruzzi, not the Jesus hanging in pain for Michel’s sins on the cross.
Michel knew well the effect his words to the press would have; he planned for it, and wanted it. But there was no joy. God had given him the gift to persuade, and Michel was not using it in His service but to further his own career. Was it the office which made him the calculating fox, or was it his own pride? His was a gifted intellect with impure motives. His words to the press would help the Church in a number of ways, but they could not mask the thread of ego and its attendant desire that lurked deep inside.
Michel tried to pray but it was impossible. God would not be moved as long as the flame of desire burned in his chest. He tapped his heart and repeated his unworthiness, but God would grant him no peace. "Eli, Eli lama sabacthani," the words Mathew wrote in the original Aramaic, attributing them to the dying Christ on the cross. "My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?"
He would have to atone for his damnable hubris even if it meant that it be beaten out of him. He walked to his closet, tears filling his eyes, and reached up without looking. His hand felt the leather, and soon the leather felt his back.
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