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Authors: Irving Wallace
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statement that Dr. Berryer had made: Even non-Catholics and nonreligious visitors had been blessed by cures.
Impressive.
Tikhanov sat still. Very impressive. He thought back to his childhood in the farmhouse outside Minsk. His worn mother had been an
orthodox Catholic, a cheerful one, and his father had paid lip service to this faith. Tikhanov remembered the small wooden church -- the candles, the priest, the Mass, the rosaries. Communion, holy water, the confessional. Growing up, he had grown away from the sweet, comforting mysticism, and as a mature intellectual had found a more acceptable faith in the preachings and writings of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, much to his mother's distress.
But once, in innocence, he had been a believer. Maybe it was not necessary to remind himself of this now, but it was a kind of credential.
Only a miracle. Dr. Motta had said.
It was a dangerous enterprise, a key Soviet official going to a Catholic shrine to abandon momentarily Marx for Mary. But it could be done in secrecy. He could work it out.
He would work it out.
My God, his life was on the line, and there were no other options. Only this one. Besides,
what was there to lose?
Venice, London, and Madrid
The last time she had taken a private motorboat from a wharf outside the Marco Polo Airport to the Hotel Danieli Royal Excelsior in Venice, it had been a dazzling sunny morning three years ago. Natale Rinaldi remembered that morning vividly. The wondrous ride in the motorboat past fields and swamps, mounds of islands, the turning into a canal, the moist dirty-gray buildings on either side, the emergence into the shimmering main lagoon, the rich umber of the Hotel Danieli with its array of miniature white balconies jutting out on every floor.
It had been strange coming back to Venice this morning in total darkness, although her Aunt Elsa had reassured her that the morning was as sunny as it had been during their last visit.
Darkness had permanently enveloped Natale's world one week after she had returned to her parents' apartment in Rome following the vacation in Venice three years ago. She had rehearsed all that afternoon and into the early evening at the Teatro Goldini for her role as the Stepdaughter in Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, part of the fall repertory and her first real opportunity, and she had come back to the apartment and her bedroom tired but stimulated by the director's predictions of what the future held in store for her. Going to bed, she had been comforted by the cozy beige print wallpaper surrounding her—she had known it since childhood—and then she had
blinked out the bed lamp and closed her eyes. When her alarm had gone off at nine o'clock in the morning, and she had opened her eyes, she was lost in darkness. At first, confused, she had been unable to understand, and then she had realized that she had lost her sight. Somehow, somewhere in the night she had become totally blind. And then she had screamed. It would be the first and last time that she would ever panic.
Her frenzied parents had rushed her to a hospital. Rome's leading eye specialist had been called in. There had been a slit-lamp examination. There had been the ophthahnoscopy. There had been weeks of examinations to determine the cause of her blindness. There had been discussion of an occlusion in the central retinal artery. There had, finally, been a verdict: optic atrophy, abrupt, with no possibility of restored vision.
Three years ago, it had happened. Natale had been frightened and deeply shaken, but not shattered. At twenty-one, before the sudden darkness had come, she had been a gay, cheerful, optimistic young woman, and like her Catholic parents she believed unquestioningly in God, His Son, and in the Holy Ghost. The Lord knew what was best and He would look after her.
From the onset of her blindness, Natale had refused to buckle under or wallow in despair and self-pity. She had resolutely determined to be as
Impressive.
Tikhanov sat still. Very impressive. He thought back to his childhood in the farmhouse outside Minsk. His worn mother had been an
orthodox Catholic, a cheerful one, and his father had paid lip service to this faith. Tikhanov remembered the small wooden church -- the candles, the priest, the Mass, the rosaries. Communion, holy water, the confessional. Growing up, he had grown away from the sweet, comforting mysticism, and as a mature intellectual had found a more acceptable faith in the preachings and writings of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, much to his mother's distress.
But once, in innocence, he had been a believer. Maybe it was not necessary to remind himself of this now, but it was a kind of credential.
Only a miracle. Dr. Motta had said.
It was a dangerous enterprise, a key Soviet official going to a Catholic shrine to abandon momentarily Marx for Mary. But it could be done in secrecy. He could work it out.
He would work it out.
My God, his life was on the line, and there were no other options. Only this one. Besides,
what was there to lose?
Venice, London, and Madrid
The last time she had taken a private motorboat from a wharf outside the Marco Polo Airport to the Hotel Danieli Royal Excelsior in Venice, it had been a dazzling sunny morning three years ago. Natale Rinaldi remembered that morning vividly. The wondrous ride in the motorboat past fields and swamps, mounds of islands, the turning into a canal, the moist dirty-gray buildings on either side, the emergence into the shimmering main lagoon, the rich umber of the Hotel Danieli with its array of miniature white balconies jutting out on every floor.
It had been strange coming back to Venice this morning in total darkness, although her Aunt Elsa had reassured her that the morning was as sunny as it had been during their last visit.
Darkness had permanently enveloped Natale's world one week after she had returned to her parents' apartment in Rome following the vacation in Venice three years ago. She had rehearsed all that afternoon and into the early evening at the Teatro Goldini for her role as the Stepdaughter in Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, part of the fall repertory and her first real opportunity, and she had come back to the apartment and her bedroom tired but stimulated by the director's predictions of what the future held in store for her. Going to bed, she had been comforted by the cozy beige print wallpaper surrounding her—she had known it since childhood—and then she had
blinked out the bed lamp and closed her eyes. When her alarm had gone off at nine o'clock in the morning, and she had opened her eyes, she was lost in darkness. At first, confused, she had been unable to understand, and then she had realized that she had lost her sight. Somehow, somewhere in the night she had become totally blind. And then she had screamed. It would be the first and last time that she would ever panic.
Her frenzied parents had rushed her to a hospital. Rome's leading eye specialist had been called in. There had been a slit-lamp examination. There had been the ophthahnoscopy. There had been weeks of examinations to determine the cause of her blindness. There had been discussion of an occlusion in the central retinal artery. There had, finally, been a verdict: optic atrophy, abrupt, with no possibility of restored vision.
Three years ago, it had happened. Natale had been frightened and deeply shaken, but not shattered. At twenty-one, before the sudden darkness had come, she had been a gay, cheerful, optimistic young woman, and like her Catholic parents she believed unquestioningly in God, His Son, and in the Holy Ghost. The Lord knew what was best and He would look after her.
From the onset of her blindness, Natale had refused to buckle under or wallow in despair and self-pity. She had resolutely determined to be as
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