A Dark Song of Blood (28 page)

“Cardinal Hohmann has been found murdered. Come down at once.” An address in the center of Rome followed, which Bora heard through his astonishment as from a hollow, fearful distance.

Via della Pilotta was an old street behind the Trevi Fountain, perpendicular to the axis of the monument; low archways crowned its length, seemingly buttressing the sides of it. Bora was not familiar with the place, and identified the doorway only by the presence of Dollmann's car and a police van. The stairs inside were dark. Bora had to grope his way to the landing, where Dollmann waited for him in the ribbon of light from the flat's accosted door.

“It's a bad affair, Major. Go to the bedroom.”

Bora went past him to enter, and at once the stench of blood washed over him. A glance into the bedroom sufficed him, before the flash from a police camera made it into a blind space of muffled sounds. When Dollmann followed, the policemen were insisting that nothing be moved, but Bora was covering the cardinal's body with a robe he'd grabbed at the foot of the bed.

“Please don't touch the woman, Major,” the policemen warned.

“Do as they say, Bora,” Dollmann added. “You see how bad it is.” Across the bed, the SS faced him, given away – even as Bora was – by his pallor. Together, they walked back to the landing, where they stood and lit cigarettes. “What are we going to do? This is a bad mess to cover,” Dollmann muttered. “The
scandal.
And on Good Friday of all days.”

It had taken this long for Bora to succeed in saying anything. “Who is she?” he asked.

Dollmann groaned. “One of the Fonsecas. A fine woman, I thought... What an ugly business this is. Of Borromeo we knew, but who'd have thought it of our own Hohmann?”

“I don't believe it.”

“Now, Bora. It's only because he was your teacher. The evidence is there.”

To Bora the smell of blood gave a kind of fever, and out of that discomfort, felt so many times before, he wanted to know, “How did you find out about it?”

“Entirely by accident. I was to meet the cardinal at Babington's yesterday afternoon to discuss the Easter concert. When he did not appear, I thought it strange, as he's the soul of punctuality. I sought him in the usual places, with no luck. Well, I thought, could he have taken sick? No one was at his residence, by which I assumed his secretary had already gone home, as indeed he had, in order not to violate the five o'clock curfew.” Dollmann glanced back toward the crack in the door, from which the muffled voices of the policemen came. “The appointment at
Babington
's was at four forty-five – I was to drive the cardinal home afterwards – but by the time I did the telephone rounds and tracked down his secretary, it was nine o'clock. The fellow told me Hohmann had gone to a one o'clock appointment with Baroness Fonseca, location undisclosed.”

“How so?” Bora interrupted.

“Just so, and it wasn't the first time that Hohmann didn't say where he was meeting her. Not seeing him return to his residence, the secretary resolved that the cardinal had come directly to Babington's. I disabused him of that opinion, demanded to be given the Fonseca address and telephone number, and called this place. I received a busy signal, and after several attempts over an hour and half, I suspected the phone was off the hook, which incidentally it was. So – you know me, I like to find out what goes on – eventually I decided to come here in person. This I really did not expect.”

Having finished his cigarette, Bora held the stub between his fingers as if wondering what to do with it. “How long do you think they have been dead?”

“The police say six to seven hours, and the phone had been off the hook at least since nine thirty, when I first tried to call. As far as I can tell, she shot him and then herself. And as far as what they were doing, there can be no doubt in anybody's mind.”

“Oh, for the mercy of God. It's entirely out of character, Colonel!”

“How would you know? Do you
know
?” Dollmann was placing another cigarette in his mouth. “We're all moral icebergs – tips showing, and that's all.”

“I don't believe it of Cardinal Hohmann.”

Inside, the policemen had nearly finished their preliminary work. Newly arrived medics were with difficulty bringing stretchers up the narrow stairs. Against Dollmann's advice, Bora told them to wait below, and walked back into the Fonseca doorway. For a time, he spoke to the policemen – a uniformed man who
was checking the bathroom for clues, carefully stepping over a scattering of minute glass splinters, and a plain-clothes man with the camera – and it was in the middle of the conversation that the SS reluctantly joined them.

The uniformed officer was saying, “There's no question that blood flow and the pattern of stains indicate it happened right here on the bed, and that the old priest,” (was he being coy, as the scarlet robe lay visibly on the rug at the side of the bed, or had he decided not to draw conclusions from that?) “... well, the old priest was
with
her when it happened.” A slender man with a thoughtful face and a Lombard accent, he looked around the room for a time, then added, “If a note is found we might learn of a motive. My experience is that with crimes of passion, though, everything can happen unexpectedly and with little or no premeditation. The pistol is a 1915 army Beretta, such as officers carried in the Great War. Tracing it to either one of the victims would help.”

Averting his eyes from the nakedness the officer had uncovered again, Bora said. “You had better communicate at once with Assistant Secretary of State Montini,” and to Dollmann, in German, “What will be the official version?”

The colonel looked as though he'd taken ill-tasting medicine. “They'll likely claim illness or derangement, and won't broadcast it until after Easter, if they can manage it. It'd be an even more grievous scandal if it came out now, as she was the darling of charity circles. The question is, if the lay press learns of it, there'll be no stopping the mudslide.”

Sternly the Germans watched the policeman call the Vatican, and vaguely mention a dreadful accident to a prelate. “Quit mulling about this,” Dollmann told Bora afterwards, easing him ahead of himself out of the bedroom door. “It's what it looks like, so reconcile yourself with it.” On the landing, out of his breast pocket, he took an envelope which he passed on to his colleague. “She did write a suicide note, clear as the light of day. It was on the bed table when I arrived here. I took it upon

myself to remove it before the police joined me, whatever good it'll do. I'm giving it to you only so that you won't be tempted to look into some alternative explanation that sadly isn't there.”

Bora would not look at the note before getting back to his hotel. Aghast as he was at the events of the night, the contents made things worse.

My beloved sister, Cardinal Hohmann and I will have gone to our judgment by the time you receive this. Know that I was the material executor of this act, but that – terrible as it might seem – it is still less than the shame before God and man of our months of secretly sinning together.

Pray for us,

                              
Your sister Marina.

It was merciful that now, at four o'clock in the morning, there was just about enough time for Bora to wash thoroughly, change uniform, and go directly to work.

After the morning briefing, General Westphal made a guarded attempt at minimizing matters.

“Well, well,” he replied to Bora's news from his stance by the window, “the sad truth of things. What a way to be rid of our difficult contact with the Vatican. Borromeo must feel he's gone up a notch.” Below, workers were setting up stands for the Easter concert to be held in front of headquarters,
a gift to the Roman people.
“And how are the Fascists coming along with the interrogation of the Nazarene College students?”

Frowning, Bora gathered the general's mail. The sight of the bodies on the bed – even after all the death he'd witnessed – had made him physically ill, and he was running a fever because of it. Thinking of his angry last words to Hohmann, he said distractedly, “Kappler has them now.”

“Poor Kappler, it seems no one appreciates his tour de force at the caves. Even teenagers have the gumption to criticize him
in class.” Westphal turned, as if the thought had some humor in it for him. “It's good that the deportation of Roman males fell through – he'd have every housewife in town flying at him with rolling pin in hand.”

Bora had started opening envelopes and cut himself with the penknife. Westphal watched him take a handkerchief out and laboriously try to dab his palm. “You know, Bora, I'm getting worried about you. What does Chekhov say about men without women – that they turn clumsy?”

“He says they turn stupid.”

“That, you're not. But you wouldn't get so emotionally involved in things if you had something else going – even old Hohmann got himself some. No? Well, disbelieve it all you want, he had a lover and she blew his head off in bed. Oh,
never mind
the blood drops on the floor, that's what we have maids for.”

8 APRIL 1944

On Saturday, Cardinal Borromeo agreed to meet Bora after the yearly baptism of converts in St John Lateran.

“If you're coming to mourn Cardinal Hohmann, I hope you will not expect me to say anything but
parce sepulto.
”

“He was not one to need forgiveness,” Bora said testily. “No, sir, I came to confirm that the removal of troops I negotiated with the cardinal is completed.”

Borromeo looked a bit annoyed. “So, you don't want to talk about Hohmann? I'm surprised. Conceited though the poor man was, he had good words for you now and then.” Bora was really so grieved – and Borromeo could see it – it was cruel of him to speak as he did. He sipped from his demitasse as an anteater from the termite mound, with dainty draughts. “I know you've come to speak about him. Sit down, peace of angels. I can't understand why laymen think they have to speak in riddles to us – I can speak straight.” After finishing the coffee,
he balanced the cup in the hollow of its saucer, his eyes on Bora's bandaged hand. “To say that I'm sorry he died – that's immaterial now, isn't it? We're all just passing through, and all that. I regret the way he went, which reflects badly on all of us. But then we all have our failings. How weak the flesh is. It is a strange physiological fact how man's flesh gets weaker and weaker from the midriff down.”

Bora, who had read and reread Marina Fonseca's suicide note, looking uselessly for hidden messages that might give him a clue as to its veracity, was now dismally convinced it meant just what it said. Still, he kept his cool at Borromeo's words. “It's interesting that you accept uncritically that Cardinal Hohmann did in fact die as we are told.”

“Why, don't you? Heaven forbid that I should be curious about such unsavory details, but I saw the police report. It is
graphic.
You probably could add to that, as you were among the first on the scene.”

“I hope you're being so negative because you're distraught at the loss, Cardinal Borromeo. Surely you had the opportunity to appreciate how good he was.”

“Oh, I did. I did. The question is, how much did
you
appreciate him?”

Even in his grief, Bora was suddenly wary of Borromeo's words. Hohmann's political outspokenness had relegated him to the Vatican no differently than his own had landed him on Westphal's staff. How much was known here, he did not know. Borromeo watched him squirm, and then said, “Time will come for both of us to express our appreciation, each in our own way.” It was a quizzical statement, but Borromeo would add no commentary. “Anyway, you should know that Cardinal Hohmann was close to Marina Fonseca – charitable enterprises, of course. They were often seen together, lately more so than ever.”

Despite all evidence, Bora was tempted to leave in outrage. “He was nearly eighty. How much of an intimate relation could he possibly maintain?”

“Ha! You're naive for a soldier, and a doctor of philosophy.” Unexpectedly the cardinal laughed. “Speaking of lighter and better things, our dear Mrs Murphy tells me she saw you the other day.”

Bora felt instantly removed from the strain of the moment. An ineffably gratifying, wholly physical reaction made him bristle at the mention of her name, hearing that she had spoken of him to the cardinal. He was careful to say nothing, but Borromeo would not let him get away with silence. He rang a bell, and the ubiquitous little cleric appeared on the threshold with a second tray of espresso. “Her husband will return to Rome this afternoon, and Nora – she's well educated, you know, and lived in Florence as a child – will have to curtail her volunteer work. Young Murphy is to drive his father from the station.”

“
Drive
him?” Bora had no choice but to speak up. “She can't be old enough to have a grown son.”

“Mrs Murphy married a widower. He's quite old enough to have grown offspring – and not to wish for new ones.” Borromeo sipped from the second cup not differently from before, extracting the drink by silent suction. “It grieves her, I think. She
loves
children.” He stared at Bora, amiably. “But we all have our crosses to bear, eh?”