The Devil Will Come Read Online Free

good hour or more and the Pope was able to take a bowl of thin soup. He had an urge to rise and take advantage of this rare surge of energy. He rang his buzzer and Sister Emilia appeared so quickly that he asked her jokingly if she’d had an ear pressed against his door.
    ‘Get Fathers Diep and Bustamante. Tell them I want to go downstairs to my office and my chapel. And get Giacomo to come and help me get dressed.’
    ‘But, Holiness,’ the nun demurred, ‘shouldn’t we ask Dr Zarilli if this is wise?’
    ‘Leave Zarilli alone,’ the Pope growled. ‘Let the man have dinner with his family.’
    Giacomo Barone was a layman who had been in the Pope’s employ for twenty years. He was unmarried, lived in a small room in the Palace and seemed to have no interests beyond football and the pontiff. He spoke when spoken to and when the Pope was deep in thought and disinclined to chat idly they might spend half an hour in silence as they worked through ablutions and robing.
    Giacomo came in with a heavy stubble on his face. He smelled of the onions that he’d been cooking.
    ‘I want to wash and get dressed,’ the Pope told him.
    Giacomo bowed his head obediently and asked, ‘What do you want to wear, Holiness?’
    ‘Just house dress. Then take me downstairs.’
    Giacomo had powerful arms and shoulders and moved the Pope around his chamber like a manikin, sponging and powdering, layering garments, finishing with a white cassock with fringed white fascia, a pectoral cross, pliable red slippers and a white zuccetto in place of the knitted cap. The act of dressing seemed to tire the pontiff but he insisted on carrying out his wishes. Giacomo lifted him into his wheelchair.
    They took an elevator to the second floor where two Swiss Guards in full blue, orange and red-striped regalia stood at their traditional posts outside the Sala dei Gendarmi. They seemed shocked by the presence of the Pope. As Giacomo rolled the wheelchair past, the pontiff waved and blessed them. They made their way through empty official rooms of state to the Pope’s private study with its large writing desk, his favored place to work and review papers.
    The desk was really a large mahogany table, several meters in length, placed before a bookcase which contained an eclectic mix of official documents, sacred texts, biographies, histories and even a few detective novels.
    His two private secretaries, one of them a Vietnamese priest, the other a Sardinian, were waiting at quiet attention with smiles on their young faces.
    ‘I’ve never seen the two of you so happy to be called to work at night,’ the Pope said lightly.
    ‘It’s been a great while since we’ve been able to serve Your Holiness,’ Father Diep said in his sing-song Italian.
    ‘Our hearts are full of joy,’ Father Bustamante added with touching sincerity.
    The Pope sat in his wheelchair and surveyed the piles of papers littering his once-tidy desk. He shook his head. ‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘It’s like an unattended garden. The weeds have overtaken the flower beds.’
    ‘Essential business continues,’ Diep said. ‘Cardinals Aspromonte and Diaz are co-signing the day-to-day papers. Much of what we have here are copies for your review.’
    ‘Let me use what small abilities I have tonight to tend to one or two vital ecclesiastical issues. You choose what is suitable. Then I want to pray in my chapel before I’m once again confined to bed by Sister Emilia and Dr Zarilli.’
    The wine was from Aspromonte’s brother who had a vineyard and regularly sent cases to the Vatican. Aspromonte was known for his liberal pouring habits and for giving away bottles as presents.
    ‘The Sangiovese is excellent,’ Diaz said, holding up the glass to the light of the chandelier. ‘Compliments to your brother.’
    ‘Well, 2006 was a marvelous year for him and really for everyone who grows in Tuscany. I’ll send you a case if you like.’
    ‘That would be grand – thank you,’ Diaz said.