Prince of Peace (34 page)

Spellman shook his head. "We are mere instruments,
n'est-ce pas?
We owe our success to Providence."

Thuc nodded, patting Spellman's hand. "And to Our Lady."

"With a little help from the U.S. Navy," Monsignor O'Shea put in gruffly. Spellman withdrew his hand from Thuc's and laughed, as O'Shea knew he would. As a cigar-chomping, tough-talking Irish ex-chaplain, O'Shea took more latitude with the cardinal than most priests, but that was why Spellman liked him. Frankly, Archbishop Thuc's deference bordered on the overweening and that never went far with Spellman. What O'Shea and Spellman knew was that if the Catholics of Vietnam had been delivered by Our Lady, she had made damn good use of the navy ships that brought a million of them from North to South after Dien Bien Phu. Tom Dooley, whose books had made that exodus famous, and had made the support of Catholics in Vietnam good politics in America, had begun as a navy doctor.

Spellman pointed to O'Shea. "And, I might add, a little help from Monsignor's Catholic Relief Service. How much do you calculate CRS put up for the early refugees, Monsignor?"

"Thirty-five million dollars, Your Eminence."

Spellman looked at Thuc. "And now the U.S. government has asked CRS to oversee the increased aid the president promised."

"Food, clothing and supplies," O'Shea said. "But also money. Some people aren't wild about the idea."

Thuc leaned toward O'Shea. "But we need those things. Our people
need
them."

"I know that, Your Excellency. But some people are a little nervous about our serving as a government channel. We've been raising our own funds up to now, as you know. In America we have this little thing called separation of Church and State."

Spellman grunted. "Forgive Monsignor O'Shea, Archbishop. He has an immigrant's zeal for American institutions." Spellman chuckled. "We natives understand there's a certain flexibility."

Thuc shrugged. "It is only sensible to use the Church for aid. In my country only the Church is everywhere."

"That's the point," O'Shea said. "That's why we've agreed."

"And I'm going to depend on you, Peter Martin..." The archbishop's Western name jarred Michael, but he realized at once it shouldn't have. It was his version of an Oriental's plastic surgery on his eyes. "...to see that all goes well. President Kennedy does not want any confusion, any scandal. He wants to make an impact on the problem, and fast. That's why they're not waiting until the aid distribution structures are established between the governments."

"You can depend on me,
Eminenza.
And on my family. You know that."

Spellman nodded. "I told our secretary of state that Vietnam would be the only country in the world where the ruling class didn't get rich off Uncle Sam. He said to me, 'How can you be so sure of that, Cardinal Spellman?' And I said, 'Because Diem and his supporters are my people.' I told him, 'The Ngos are a great and ancient Catholic family. They're not lackey converts who submitted to baptism to win favor from the French.' I said, 'The Ngos are real Catholics, Mister Secretary. They're incorruptible men of their word, absolutely trustworthy.' And do you know what he said to me? He said, 'Your Eminence, your endorsement carries a lot of weight in this office.'"

Monsignor O'Shea gestured with his unlit cigar. He was dying to smoke it, but Spellman wouldn't have it in the car. "Your Excellency," he said, "what the cardinal intends to emphasize, if I may speak..." O'Shea looked quickly at Spellman, who nodded. "...is the delicate position we are in. The new administration—a Catholic administration—has asked for assurance that the emergency aid program can efficiently and securely be administered through the structures of the Catholic Church. The last thing Jack Kennedy needs is a Church-related snafu, if you'receive my meaning. And no black market. We want
your
personal assurance, Excellency. You should understand Cardinal Spellman's position with his own government. We are talking tens of millions of dollars here. Cardinal Spellman is depending on your government and on your family, Excellency. But first he is depending on you. Does that state the case fairly, Your Eminence?" O'Shea plugged his mouth with his cigar.

Spellman nodded briskly. "I go from here to Rome for Vatican approval. Caritas International will be the umbrella agency you'll relate to. It will be a Vatican-sponsored operation, but we'll all know where the relief is coming from. No one will mind the Church involvement if the hungry are fed and the naked clothed. Monsignor O'Shea will coordinate from our end. I have a meeting with Secretary Rusk as soon as I return. He wants my answer."

"By all means,
Eminenza.
I give you all assurance you ask. My brothers and I already discussed this. We had indications you might be speaking of such subjects. We are agreed. Aid will continue to be distributed through the Church, under my supervision."

Spellman stared at Thuc.

Until Thuc added, "Not through the party."

Spellman nodded. It was then Michael realized that this was the assurance the cardinal wanted. Michael didn't know it yet, but the party, the Revolutionary Personalist Labor Party of Vietnam, was the personal fiefdom of Diem's neurotic brother Nhu and already there were fears in Washington that he could not be controlled. The idea was to keep power tilted as much as possible away from him, even then. Thuc was seen to have a certain independence and they wanted to reinforce it.

Michael had assumed that at some point during that car ride he'd be introduced to Thuc, but he wasn't. He was just the junior ADC in the front seat, the guy with the chauffeur. He wasn't supposed to contribute to the conversation, and he wasn't expected to listen. But he had listened, carefully. This was the beginning of his education in new realities.

He felt somewhat awed when he realized what subtle brokering had been going on, and it excited him to see men like himself—
Churchmen
—in the thick of international power politics. Vietnam may have been a remote, backwater country, but it was a hell of a long way from Inwood. The more he saw of Spellman the more impressed he was. There was more to the man than the Saint Patrick's Day parades he presided over. If Diem had begun as his protege, wasn't it admirable that Spellman was still working to get him what he needed to succeed? This maneuvering had been going on for a decade or more. While Americans, including Michael, had regarded Spellman as an affable but essentially parochial builder of schools and hospitals, he had been building a nation. And Spellman now was like an architect returning for a supervisory check on the structure he'd designed and which was nearly complete. A new nation, and its symbol, a basilica, in fact. Yes, the architect, Michael saw. Tom Dooley was the patron saint. And because of the support generated by the cardinal and the doctor together, the guarantor of that Vietnamese triumph-in-the-making was now John Kennedy.

The worldwide defeat of Communism would follow quickly upon the heels of the eradication of poverty and hunger, and this generation of Americans and Churchmen had made that their priority.
That
was why Kennedy excited men like Michael; he represented a country and a Church reinvigorated and on the move. He was the world's equivalent of Pope John. Pope John's hope and John Kennedy's urbane optimism infected the age, and the two strains they represented came together no more elegantly than in one movement, Tom Dooley's movement, and in one man, Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam. Michael remembered how, at his inauguration, just two days after Dooley's death, President Kennedy gave perfect expression to the ideals of the CRS and Medico and activist priests, he suddenly saw, like Spellman, O'Shea and even himself. They would go anywhere, to fight any foe, to pass on the torch of freedom, that God's work on earth might truly be their own.

 

The convoy slowed as it approached the outskirts of Quang Tri.

"Good Lord," Monsignor O'Shea said. The car had just rounded a curve leaving the thick green tangle of jungle behind. The land on either side of the road had been cleared for planting, but the fields were jammed with Vietnamese, thousands of them. The rain poured steadily off their conical hats, veiling their faces with sheets of water. The people waved and cheered, holding aloft rosaries and crucifixes, medals of the Virgin and rain-streaked pictures of the Sacred Heart. The closer the convoy drew to the city, the more solidly packed the crowd was and the louder their cheers became. Umbrellas began to appear as city-dwellers began to outnumber the peasants.

Monsignor O'Shea twisted in his jump seat to touch Michael's shoulder. He said, as if an emotion had taken him by surprise, as if the others were not there, as if he had the right to speak so intimately, "When those moments come, Michael, and come they will, when you wonder whether the life you've chosen is worth it..." Monsignor O'Shea paused to make the full weight of his feeling felt. His eyes were fixed on the grateful faces of the Vietnamese ... remember this. Carry this scene, son, in your heart."

Michael nodded, though in fact he was embarrassed. He'd wanted to be included in the worldly talk before. He wasn't up for O'Shea's pieties. He said feebly, "It must have been like this going into Paris with Ike."

The monsignor snorted and turned to Spellman. "Don't you love him for that comparison, Your Eminence? He's comparing you to Ike."

"If I'm Ike, Tim, that makes you George Patton, and you'remember what happened to him."

O'Shea winked and pointed his unlit cigar at Thuc. "And that makes your brother Charles de Gaulle."

Thuc grinned and shook his head. "No, thank you, Monsignor. One Charles de Gaulle is quite enough."

By the time the convoy pulled into the city proper, all four of the clergymen had fallen silent and were simply watching the mass display. Hundreds of thousands of people, more than the entire population of Quang Tri, were standing in the rain, cheering or clapping mahogany sticks together or waving their yellow-and-white papal—not American—flags. The din of the rain on the automobile roofs and the incessant roar of the crowd made conversation impossible, and in any case the members of the president's party were too moved for talk by the time they arrived at the basilica of Our Lady of La Vang, a huge structure made of cinder block or brick and faced with bright yellow stucco. However much the people loved their leaders, though, they weren't allowed anywhere near them. Rows of soldiers banked the entrance plaza, even though the only people admitted to the basilica grounds as such were appointed lay representatives of each of the country's two archdioceses, eleven dioceses, and eight hundred parishes.

Inside the church all was cool, dry and silent, though it too was packed. The elite of the nation were there, perhaps two thousand of them, sitting in their pews, facing forward, absolutely still. From behind they were a sea of heads. The women's were covered uniformly with black mantillas, as if the pope himself were coming. The men's heads were all uncovered, but the uniformity of their black gleaming hair, sharply parted, was striking too. Though Diem, Nhu, the archbishop, the cardinal and their attendants arrived amid considerable commotion, no one in the church turned to look at them. They would be signaled when to stand and when to look. Aside from that commotion the only sounds were the occasional rattle of rosary beads or the crackle of pages turning in prayer books. This congregation, in its recollection, its "custody" of the senses, was the fulfillment of a nun's dream.

Cardinal Spellman would preside over the dedication ceremony, though the celebrant of the accompanying Solemn Eucharist was to be Archbishop Thuc. Serving him as deacon and subdeacon were a pair of Vietnamese prelates. Michael and Monsignor O'Shea vested in surplices to serve as chaplains to the cardinal. Michael's job was to be sure that the missal was open to the proper page every time Spellman needed it, and Monsignor O'Shea was responsible for the relic.

"What's that?" Michael had asked, eyeing the black chalice case that O'Shea had brought on board the airplane in New York. They hadn't left the runway yet.

"You wouldn't believe it."

"What is it? Your chalice?"

The monsignor shook his head. "It's Saint Joan's toenail."

"What?"

"Joan of Arc, you've heard of her?" O'Shea began to laugh despite himself, and so did Michael.

"Her what?" The two priests were still laughing when the stewardess asked them to buckle up.

"It's Spelly's gift to the people of Vietnam."

"Jeanne d'Arc's toenail?"

"We shouldn't mock it, Michael. Stop laughing."

"I always wondered, did she paint them?"

"Come on, Michael."

"Where the hell did he get her toenail?"

"Saint Joan's in the Bronx. They had two."

"Oh, Jesus."

"Come on, Michael. Cut it out."

"But, Monsignor, she
had
to paint them! It's Joan of Arc, right? She had to paint them with asbestos nail polish!"

She'd been burned at the stake, cuticles and all. O'Shea had blushed and said defensively, "Don't you believe in miracles?"

And now at the basilica Michael watched as Monsignor O'Shea solemnly handed the gold reliquary the size of a cigarette pack to Cardinal Spellman. With like solemnity Spellman placed the relic in the aperture in the stone slab of the high altar. Then the clergy stepped back while the stonemason—an unlikely-looking Vietnamese worker in white gloves and tails—closed the aperture with a fitted stone, then troweled cement over it.

"The bodies of the saints lie buried in peace," Spellman intoned in Latin, "but their names will live on forever." And the choir sang the verses of a Psalm while he incensed the altar.

Michael and O'Shea exchanged a glance, and for a moment Michael felt like an impish altar boy controlling his giggles. How could they believe in this crap? he thought. The toenail of Saint Joan, Christ! It was to purge the Church of such mumbo-jumbo that Pope John had recently called the Council.

Everyone around Michael, though, was profoundly moved. Archbishop Thuc was weeping openly while the other Vietnamese clergy lined up to kiss the stone. Saint Joan was their patroness, the warrior-woman, the heroine of all that was good in France. And Vietnamese Catholics, Michael saw suddenly, were as French as Roman, and that came as a shock. How Vietnamese were they? he wondered suddenly. It was a reservation, a first, small one, he wasn't ready to deal with. He veered from it.