The Descent Part 27

The troupe filed deeper into the vault, following Parsifal and the two friars into an even larger room. The room was kept dark until everyone was inside. Then the lights blazed on.

The Shroud hung before them, almost five meters high. From darkness to radiant display, it made a dramatic first impression. Just the same, even knowing its significance, the relic appeared to be little more than a long, unlaundered tablecloth that had seen too many dinner parties.

It was singed and scorched and patched and yellowed. Occupying the center, in long blotches like spilled food, lay the faint image of a body. The image was hinged in the middle, at the top of the man's head, to show both his front and back. He was naked and bearded.

One of the carabinieri could not contain himself. He handed his weapon to an understanding comrade and knelt before the cloth. One beat his breast and mumbled mea culpas.

'As you know,' the older Dominican began, 'the Turin Cathedral suffered extensive damage from a fire in 1997. Only through the greatest heroism was the sacred artifact itself rescued from destruction. Until the cathedral's renovation is complete, the holysydoine will reside in this place.'

'But why here, if you don't mind?' Thomas asked lightly. Wickedly. 'From a temple to a bank? A place of merchants?'

The older Dominican refused to be baited. 'Sadly, the mafiosi and terrorists will stoop to any level, even kidnapping Church relics for ransom. The fire at Turin Cathedral was essentially an attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate this very artifact. We decided a bank vault would be most secure.'

'And not the Vatican itself?' Thomas persisted.

The Dominican betrayed his annoyance with a birdlike tapping of his thumb against thumb. He did not answer.

Bud Parsifal looked from the Dominicans to Thomas and back again. He considered himself today's master of ceremonies, and wanted everything to go just right.

'What are you driving at, Thomas?' asked Vera, equally mystified.

De l'Orme chose to answer. 'The Church denied its shelter,' he explained. 'For a reason. The shroud is an interesting artifact. But no longer a credible one.'

Parsifal was scandalized. As current president of STURP - the semi-scientific Shroud of Turin Research Project, Inc. - he had used his influence to obtain this showing. 'What are you saying, de l'Orme?'

'That it's a hoax.'

Parsifal looked like a man caught naked at the opera. 'But if you don't believe in it, why did you ask me to arrange all of this? What are we doing in here? I thought -'

'Oh, I believe in it,' de l'Orme rea.s.sured him. 'But for what it is, not for what you would have it be.'

'But it's a miracle,' the younger Dominican blurted out. He crossed himself, incredulous at the blasphemy.

'A miracle, yes,' de l'Orme said. 'A miracle of fourteenth-century science and art.'

'History tells us that the image is achieropoietos, not made by human hands. It is the sacred winding cloth.' The Dominican quoted, '"And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb."'

'That's your proof, a bit of scripture?'

'Proof?' interjected Parsifal. Nearly seventy, there was still plenty of the golden boy left in him. You could almost see him bulling through a hole in the line, forcing the play. 'What proof do you need? I've been coming here for many years. The Shroud of Turin Research Project has subjected this artifact to dozens of tests, hundreds of thousands of hours, and millions of dollars of study. Scientists, including myself, have applied every manner of skepticism to it.'

'But I thought your radiocarbon dating placed the linen's manufacture between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.'

'Why are you testing me? I've told you about my flash theory,' Parsifal said.

'That a burst of nuclear energy transfigured the body of Christ, leaving this image. Without burning the cloth to ash, of course.'

'A moderate burst,' Parsifal said. 'Which, incidentally, explains the altered radiocarbon dating.'

'A moderate burst of radiation that created a negative image with details of the face and body? How can that be? At best it would show a silhouette of a form. Or just a large blob of darkness.'

These were old arguments. Parsifal made his standard replies. De l'Orme raised other difficulties. Parsifal gave complicated responses.

'All I'm saying,' said de l'Orme, 'is that before you kneel, it would be wise to know to whom you kneel.' He placed himself beside the Shroud. 'It's one thing to know who the shroud-man is not. But today we have a chance to know who he is. That's my reason for asking for this display.'

'The Son of G.o.d in human form,' said the younger Dominican.

The older Dominican cut a sideways glance at the relic. Suddenly his whole expression widened. His lips formed a thin O.

'As G.o.d is my Father,' the younger one said.

Now Parsifal saw it, too. And the rest of them, as well. Thomas couldn't believe his eyes.

'What have you done?' Parsifal cried out.

The man in the Shroud was none other than de l'Orme.

'It's you!' Mustafah laughed. He was delighted.

De l'Orme's image was naked, hands modestly crossed over his genitals, eyes closed. Wearing a wig and a fake beard. Side by side, the man and his image on the cloth were the same size, had the same short nose, the same leprechaun shoulders.

'Dear Christ in heaven,' the younger Dominican wailed.

'A Jesuit trick,' hissed the older.

'Deceiver,' howled the younger.

'De l'Orme, what in the world?' said Foley.

The carabinieri were excited by the sudden alarm. Then they compared man to image and put two and two together for themselves. Four promptly dropped to their knees in front of de l'Orme. One placed his forehead on the blind man's shoe. The fifth soldier, however, backed against the wall.

'Yes, it is me on this cloth,' said de l'Orme. 'Yes, a trick. But not of Jesuits. Of science. Alchemy, if you will.'

'Seize this man,' shouted the older Dominican. But the carabinieri were too busy adoring the man-G.o.d.

'Don't worry,' de l'Orme said to the panicked Dominicans, 'your original is in the next room, perfectly safe. I switched this one for the purpose of demonstration. Your reaction tells me the resemblance is all I'd hoped for.'

The older Dominican swung his wrathful gaze around the room and fastened the look of Torquemada upon that fifth carabinieri, haplessly backed against the wall. 'You,' he said.

The carabinieri quailed. So, thought Thomas, de l'Orme had paid the soldier to help spring this practical joke. The man was right to be frightened. He had just embarra.s.sed an entire order.

'Don't blame him,' de l'Orme said. 'Blame yourself. You were fooled. I fooled you just the way the other shroud has fooled so many.'

'Where is it?' demanded the Dominican.

'This way, please,' de l'Orme said.

They filed into the next chamber, and Vera was waiting there in her wheelchair. Behind her, the Shroud was identical to de l'Orme's fake, except for its image. Here the man was taller and younger. His nose was longer. The cheekbones were whole. The Dominicans hurried to their relic and alternated between scrutinizing the linen for damage and guarding it from the blind trickster.

De l'Orme became businesslike. 'I think you'll agree,' he spoke to them, 'the same process produced both images.'

'You've solved the mystery of its production?' someone exclaimed. 'What did you use then, paint?'

'Acid,' another suggested. 'I've always suspected it. A weak solution. Just enough to etch the fibers.'

De l'Orme had their attention. 'I examined the reports issued by Bud's STURP. It became clear to me the hoax wasn't created with paint. There's only a trace of pigment, probably from painted images being held against the cloth to bless them. And it was not acid, or the coloration would have been different. No, it was something else entirely.'

He gave it a dramatic pause.

'Photography.'

'Nonsense,' declared Parsifal. 'We've examined that theory. Do you realize how sophisticated the process is? The chemicals involved? The steps of preparing a surface, focusing an image, timing an exposure, fixing the end product? Even if this were a medieval concoction, what mind could have grasped the principles of photography so long ago?'

'No ordinary mind, I'll grant you that.'

'You're not the first, you know,' Parsifal said. 'There were a couple of kooks years ago. Cooked up some notion that it was Leonardo da Vinci's tomfoolery. We blew 'em out of the water. Amateurs.'

'My approach was different,' de l'Orme said. 'Actually, you should be pleased, Bud. It is a confirmation of your own theory.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Your flash theory,' said de l'Orme. 'Only it requires not quite a flash. More like a slow bath of radiation.'

'Radiation?' said Parsifal. 'Now we get to hear that Leonardo scooped Madame Curie?'

'This isn't Leonardo,' de l'Orme said.

'No? Michelangelo then? Pica.s.so?'

'Be nice, Bud,' Vera interrupted mildly. 'The rest of us want to hear it, even if you know it all already.'

Parsifal fumed. But it was too late to roll up the image and kick everyone out.

'We have here the image of a real man,' de l'Orme said, 'A crucified man. He's too anatomically correct to have been created by an artist. Note the foreshortening of his legs, and the accuracy of these blood trickles, how they bend where there are wrinkles in the forehead. And the spike hole in the wrist. That wound is most interesting. According to studies done on cadavers, you can't crucify a man by nailing his palms to a cross. The weight of the body tears the meat right off your hand.'

Vera, the physician, nodded. Rau, the vegetarian, s.h.i.+vered with distaste. These cults of the dead baffled him.

'The one place you can drive a nail in the human arm and hang all that weight is here.' He held a finger to the center of his own wrist. 'The s.p.a.ce of Destot, a natural hole between all the bones of the wrist. More recently, forensic anthropologists have confirmed the presence of nail marks through precisely that place in known crucifixion victims.

'It is a crucial detail. If you examine medieval paintings around the time this cloth was created, Europeans had forgotten all about the s.p.a.ce of Destot, too. Their art shows Christ nailed through the palms. The historical accuracy of this wound has been offered as proof that a medieval forger could not possibly have faked the Shroud.'

'Well, there!' said Parsifal.

'There are two explanations,' de l'Orme continued. 'The father of forensic anthropology and anatomy was indeed Leonardo. He would have had ample time - and the body parts - to experiment with the techniques of crucifixion.'

'Ridiculous,' Parsifal said.

'The other explanation,' de l'Orme said, 'is that this represents the victim of an actual crucifixion.' He paused. 'But still alive at the time the Shroud was made.'

'What?' said Mustafah.

'Yes,' said de l'Orme. 'With Vera's medical expertise, I've managed to determine that curious fact. There's no sign of necrotic decay here. To the contrary, Vera has told me how the rib cage details are blurred. By respiration.'

'Heresy,' the younger Dominican hissed.

'It's not heresy,' said de l'Orme, 'if this is not Jesus Christ.'

'But it is.'

'Then you are the heretic, gentle father. For you have been wors.h.i.+ping a giant.'

The Dominican had probably never struck a blind man in his entire life. But you could tell by his grinding teeth how close he was now.

'Vera measured him. Twice. The man on the shroud measures six feet eight inches,' de l'Orme continued.

'Look at that. He is a tall brute,' someone commented. 'How can that be?'

'Indeed,' said de l'Orme. 'Surely the Gospels would have mentioned Christ's enormous height.'

The elder Dominican hissed at him.

'I think now would be a good time to show them our secret,' de l'Orme said to Vera. He placed one hand on her wheelchair, and she led him to a nearby table. She held a cardboard box while he lifted out a small plastic statue of the Venus di Milo. It nearly slipped from his fingers.

'May I help?' asked Branch.

'Thank you, no. It would be better for you to stay back.'

It was like watching two kids unpack a science fair project. De l'Orme drew out a gla.s.s jar and a paintbrush. Vera smoothed a cloth flat on the table and put on a pair of latex gloves.

'What are you doing?' demanded the older Dominican.

'Nothing that will harm your Shroud,' de l'Orme answered.

Vera unscrewed the jar and dipped the brush in. 'Our "paint,"' she said.

The jar held dust, finely ground, a lackl.u.s.ter gray. While de l'Orme held the Venus by the head, she gently feathered on the dust.

'And now,' de l'Orme said, addressing the Venus, 'say cheese.'

Vera grasped the statue by its waist and held it horizontally above the cloth. 'It takes a minute,' she said.

'Please tell me when it starts,' de l'Orme said.

'There,' said Mustafah. For the image of the Venus was beginning to materialize on the fabric. She was in negative. Each detail became more clarified.

'If that doesn't beat all,' Foley said.

Parsifal refused to believe. He stood there shaking his head.