“From your mouth to God’s ear.”
“That can be arranged,mio amico.”
Donati stepped into the open doorway, revealing himself to the crowd below.
It was pandemonium.
***
One of his predecessors had made a habit of kissing the ground upon reaching his destination, but Donati merely blessed the crowd with two regal motions of his right hand. Then the security detail encircled him, with the Polizia di Stato providing the outer ring of protection and the Swiss Guard the inner ring. Gabriel, having positioned himself in the Holy Father’s proverbial hip pocket, was the last line of defense.
His Holiness greeted the assembled dignitaries first, beginning with Lampedusa’s mayor, who was so starstruck that Gabriel feared the man might faint. Everyone received a moment of Donati’s undivided attention, a moment they would never forget. He embraced them, he laid hands upon them. And if they insisted, he allowed them to kiss the Ring of the Fisherman, though it was widely known that he despaired of this most ancient of papal rituals. One of the dignitaries, a woman in her thirties, was confined to a wheelchair. So overwhelming was the impact of Donati’s blessing that Gabriel thought she might rise to her feet and walk again.
The official schedule called for the motorcade to depart the airport immediately following the tarmac meet-and-greet. His Holiness, however, headed for the metal barricades instead. The concentric rings of security tightened as the now delirious crowd surged forward. He blessed their rosaries and their crucifixes and their children, and they tugged at the hem of his white garment and pressed their lips to the heavy ring of gold on his right hand. Gabriel’s right hand rested protectively against the fascia wrapped around Donati’s waist. Twice he had to retrieve the fallen papal zucchetto.
Finally, fifteen minutes behind schedule, His Holiness headed for the waiting motorcade and squeezed into the back seat of a tiny all-electric Fiat. Gabriel climbed in next to him, and Father Keegandropped into the passenger seat. The driver was a handsome, square-shouldered Helvetian. Gabriel rapped a knuckle lightly against his window. It was ordinary vehicle glass.
“Well?” asked Donati as the motorcade jerked forward. “Was it what you expected?”
“No, Holiness. It was overwhelming.”
“But this isn’t your first rodeo, as our American friends like to say. You’ve seen the adulation that comes with the job.”
“That’s true. But you’re different.”
“Wait until we get to Palermo.” Father Keegan handed him a disinfectant wipe, which he used to clean the Ring of the Fisherman. “I really wish they wouldn’t kiss it.”
“You can’t blame them, Holiness. It’s tradition.”
“So was burning heretics at the stake. But we don’t do that anymore.”
Gabriel and Father Keegan checked their phones.
“How bad is it?” asked Donati.
“Ten on the Richter scale,” said Gabriel.
“Pompeii,” seconded Father Keegan.
Donati sighed. “In that case, I suppose I have no choice but to change the subject.”
***
The rickety twenty-meter fishing trawler had set sail from the Libyan port of Misrata. On board were nearly five hundred migrants from Eritrea, Somalia, and Ghana who had each paid $3,000 to a human trafficking network to smuggle them to Europe. On the moonless night of October 3, 2013, after spending two days adrift on the Mediterranean, the trawler approached Lampedusa’s southern coast.When no one on shore spotted the vessel, a passenger set fire to a blanket, hoping it would attract notice. Instead the burning blanket ignited canisters of gasoline, and soon the ship was ablaze. Most of the migrants, many of whom could not swim, hurled themselves into the sea. The remaining passengers were cast into the water when the vessel capsized. The Italian Coast Guard, with the help of Lampedusa’s fishing fleet, would eventually recover the bodies of 368 people, including a baby who had been born aboard the doomed boat. The dead were laid out dockside in Lampedusa’s harbor, an image that, more than a decade after the disaster, remained seared into the memories of the island’s inhabitants.
The shipwreck had occurred less than a kilometer from Lampedusa’s famed Spiaggia dei Conigli, one of the world’s most popular beaches. His Holiness traveled to the spot aboard a Coast Guard patrol boat, accompanied by a flotilla of fishing vessels that had taken part in the rescue and recovery efforts. He dropped a wreath of flowers into the sea and prayed for those who had perished—and for those who were all but certain to die as war and famine compelled ever-greater numbers of the world’s poorest people to seek a better life in the West. Then the boats sounded their horns in unison. It sounded to Gabriel like the desperate cries of the drowning.
The survivors of the shipwreck were taken to the Lampedusa immigrant reception center, where Donati headed next. As was often the case, it was overwhelmed by new arrivals, many of whom were camped in the surrounding streets or in an adjacent field. Donati walked among them, a towering figure in white, dispensing blessings and parcels of food and clothing. Inside the overcrowded center he delivered his remarks, which bore no resemblance to the ones that had been written for him by the Curia. The message of the Gospels, he said, compelled Christians to show kindness and compassion tostrangers, regardless of their religious faith or the color of their skin. Therefore, one could not possibly call oneself a Christian and behave with indifference toward the suffering of others. He reserved his harshest criticism, though, for the politicians of the far right who pursued power by stoking anti-immigrant resentment among their followers. Roundups and mass deportations, he declared, were not only inhumane, they were unchristian. Jesus would not have remained silent in the face of such cruelty, and neither would his Church. It was, thought Gabriel, yet another declaration of war.
Not far from the reception center was a barren field strewn with the carcasses of hundreds of broken and dilapidated migrant ships. Donati was moved to despair by the piles of abandoned shoes and clothing, all that remained of those whose desperate attempt to reach Europe had ended in death. Emotionally exhausted, he crawled into the back of the tiny Fiat for the short drive back to the airport. The sight of jubilant crowds lining the road temporarily lifted his spirits.
“Stop the car,” he commanded. “I want to walk.”
“Please don’t,” said Gabriel. “They haven’t been screened for weapons.”
“I will not ride in this car while women and children are huddled in a nearby field without adequate food or shelter.”
Gabriel raised his wrist mic to his lips and informed Alois Metzler of the Holy Father’s intentions. Then he looked at Donati and said, “No crowd surfing, Holiness.”
