The Last Pope Read Free Page A

continued his walk.
    He couldn’t avoid a feeling of ownership about everything around him. At a distance he saw Caligula’s obelisk, in the middle of Saint Peter’s Square. How ironic: a tribute to a psychopath right in the center of the most sacred place in Catholicism. He continued slowly, feeling the soft morning breeze on his face. Suddenly, something attracted his attention. To his left rose the Apostolic Palace, and on the third floor the lights in the pope’s bedroom were on. He looked at his watch: 4:40 A.M.
    “This pope wakes up early.” When Hans was coming back with his mother after dinner, at about eleven, the lights were on then as well. Vigilant, like any proud Swiss Guard, he decided to go back to the soldiers he had caught dozing off. Now they were talking to each other. The sergeant had cured them of their sleepiness.
    “Sir,” they greeted him in unison.
    “Tell me something, did His Holiness ever turn off his lights during the night?”
    While one of them hesitated, the other answered with assurance.
    “The lights have been on since I started my patrol.”
    Despite having caught them dozing, Hans knew they must have been inattentive for only a few minutes.
    “How odd,” he mumbled.
    “His Holiness usually turns his lights on at about this time. But last night he didn’t turn them off at all,” the guard added. “He must have been working on those changes people are talking about.”
    “That’s no concern of ours,” Hans answered, and changed the subject. “Is everything in order?”
    “Everything’s in order, sir.”
    “Very well. I’ll see you later. Keep your eyes peeled.”
    As he went back to the Swiss Guard building, he felt his eyelids finally getting heavy. He could still sleep for a couple of hours. He glanced again at the still-lighted pope’s quarters. No doubt things are going to change around here, he thought, with a half grin. Now he could sleep in peace.
     
     
    IT HAD BEEN fifteen minutes since Sister Vincenza had placed the silver tray on the small table by the door to Don Albino Luciani’s private quarters. It was time to go back and make Don Albino get up and take his medication.
    Again a chill went down her spine as she crossed the somber corridor. She would face Don Albino and stand respectfully but firmly until he had taken his blood pressure medication. It was too low, according to Don Giuseppe. The medication consisted of a few white, tasteless pills that the pontiff always took with a gesture of mock surprise. This was one of Vincenza’s responsibilities, as was giving him an injection to stimulate his adrenal glands before he went to bed. Sometimes she also had to make sure he had taken his vitamins after meals.
    Don Albino used to joke with Sister Vincenza and gently reproach her for being so punctual, coming “religiously” between four thirty and four forty-five every morning to administer the medication that kept his blood pressure at the appropriate level.
    Then Don Albino took his bath. Between five and five thirty he tried to improve his English with a taped correspondence course, a routine he resisted changing. After that, the pontiff prayed in his private chapel until seven. That simple routine was a remnant of life in his former residence, and afforded him some relief from the enormous burden the cardinals had placed on him.
    As the nun reached Don Albino’s quarters, she couldn’t help but show her distress. That morning the whole routine, maintained for years, was crumbling. The silver tray with the pot of coffee and cup and saucer was still in the same place she had left it a few minutes earlier. She lifted the lid of the coffeepot to see if it was still full. It was. In almost twenty years nothing like this had happened, and Don Albino Luciani had never failed to respond to her greeting with a kind “Good morning, Vincenza.”
    Actually, that wasn’t exactly right; some of the details had been altered. Before moving here, Sister