The Third Secret

"Take the children, Sister. And see to Dumitru's therapy."

The nun scooped the young boy into her arms and herded them down the hall. Father Tibor spit out instructions in Romanian, some of which Michener understood, but he wanted to know, "What kind of therapy does the boy receive?"

"We simply massage his legs and try to get him to walk. It's probably useless, but it's all we have available."

"No doctors?"

"We're lucky if we can feed these children. Medical aid is unheard of."

"Why do you do this?"

"A strange question coming from a priest. These children need us."

The enormity of what he'd just seen refused to leave his mind. "Is it like this throughout the country?"

"This is actually one of the better places. We've worked hard to make it livable. But, as you can see, we have a long way to go."

"No money?"

Tibor shook his head. "Only what the relief organizations throw our way. The government does little, the Church next to nothing."

"You came on your own?"

The older man nodded. "After the revolution, I read about the orphanages and decided this was where I should be. That was ten years ago. I have never left."

There was still an edge to the priest's voice, so he wanted to know, "Why are you so hostile?"

"I'm wondering what the papal secretary wants with an old man."

"You know who I am?"

"I'm not ignorant of the world."

He could see Andrej Tibor was no fool. Perhaps John XXIII had chosen wisely when he asked this man to translate Sister Lucia's note. "I have a letter from the Holy Father."

Tibor gently grasped Michener by the arm. "I was afraid of that. Let us go to the chapel."

They stepped down the hall toward the front of the building. What served as the chapel was a tiny room floored in gritty cardboard. The walls were bare stone, the ceiling crumbling wood. The only semblance of piety came from a solitary stained-glass window where a colored mosaic formed a Madonna, her arms outstretched, seemingly ready to embrace all who sought her comfort.

Tibor motioned to the image. "I found it not far from here, in a church that was about to be razed. One of the summer volunteers installed it for me. The children are all drawn to her."

"You know why I've come, don't you?"

Tibor said nothing.

He reached into his pocket, found the blue envelope, and handed it to Tibor.

The priest accepted the packet and stepped close to the window. Tibor ripped the fold and slipped out Clement's note. He held the paper away from his eyes as he strained to read in the dull light.

"It's been a while since I've read German," Tibor said. "But it's coming back to me." Tibor finished reading. "When I first wrote the pope, I was hoping he would simply do as I asked without more."

Michener wanted to know what the priest had asked, but instead said, "Do you have a response for the Holy Father?"

"I have many responses. Which one am I to give?"

"Only you can make that decision."

"I wish it were that simple." He cocked his head toward the stained glass. "She made it so complicated." Tibor stood for a moment in silence, then turned and faced him. "Are you staying in Bucharest?"

"Do you want me to?"

Tibor handed him the envelope. "There is a restaurant, the Cafe Krom, near the Pia ta Revolu tiei. It's easy to find. Come at eight. I'll think about this and have your response then."

FIFTEEN

Michener drove south to Bucharest, wrestling with images of the orphanage.

Like many of those children, he'd never known his natural parents. He learned much later in life that his birth mother had lived in Clogheen, a small Irish village north of Dublin. She was unmarried and not yet twenty when she became pregnant. His natural father was unknown--or at least that's what his birth mother had steadfastly maintained. Abortion was unheard of then, and Irish society scorned unwed mothers to the point of brutality.

So the church filled the gap.

Birthing centers was what the archbishop of Dublin labeled them, but they were little more than dumping places, like the one he'd just left. Each was run by nuns--not caring souls like back in Zlatna, but difficult women who treated the expectant mothers in their charge like criminals.

Women were forced to do demeaning labor up to and after giving birth, working in horrid conditions for little or no pay. Some were beaten, others starved, the majority mistreated. To the Church they were sinners, and forced repentance was their only path to salvation. Most, though, were mere peasant girls who could ill afford to raise a child. Some were the other side of illicit relationships that the fathers either did not acknowledge or wished to keep private. Others were wives who had the ill fortune to become pregnant against their husbands' wishes. The common denominator was shame. Not a one of them wanted to bring attention to herself, or to her family, for the sake of an unwanted child.

After birth, the babies would stay at the centers for a year, maybe two, being slowly weaned from their mothers--a little less time together each day. The final notice came only the night before. An American couple would arrive the following morning. Only Catholics were allowed the adoption privilege, and they had to agree to raise the child in the Church and not publicize where he or she came from. A cash donation to the Sacred Heart Adoption Society, the organization created to run the project, was appreciated but not required. The children could be told they were adopted, but the new parents were asked to say that the natural parents had died. Most of the birth mothers wanted it that way--the hope being that the shame of their mistake would pass in time. No one needed to know they'd given a child away.

Michener recalled vividly the day he'd visited the center where he was born. The gray limestone building sat in a wooden glen, a place called Kinnegad, not far from the Irish Sea. He'd walked through the deserted building, imagining an anguished mother sneaking into the nursery the night before her baby would leave forever, trying to muster the courage to say goodbye, wondering why a church and a God would allow such torment. Was her sin that great? If so, why wasn't the father's equal? Why did she bear all the guilt?

And all the pain.

He'd stood before a window on the upper floor and stared down at a mulberry tree. The only breach of the silence had come from a torrid breeze that echoed across the empty rooms like the cries of infants who'd once languished there. He'd felt the gut-wrenching horror as a mother tried to catch a final glimpse of her baby being carried to a car. His birth mother had been one of those women. Who she was, he would never know. Rarely were the children given surnames, so there was no way to match child to mother. He'd only learned the little bit he knew about himself because of a nun's faded memory.

More than two thousand babies left Ireland that way, one of them a tiny infant boy with light brown hair and bright green eyes whose destination was Savannah, Georgia. His adoptive father was a lawyer, his mother devoted to her new son. He grew up on the tidewaters of the Atlantic in an upper-middle-class neighborhood. He'd excelled in school and become a priest and a lawyer, pleasing his adoptive parents enormously. He'd then gone to Europe and found comfort with a lonely bishop who'd loved him like a son. Now he was a servant to that bishop, a man risen to pope, part of the same Church that had failed so miserably in Ireland.

He'd loved his adoptive parents dearly. They fulfilled their end of the bargain by always telling him that his natural parents had been killed. Only on her deathbed had his mother told him the truth--a confession by a sainted woman to her son, the priest, hoping both he and her God would forgive her.

I've seen her in my mind for years, Colin. How she must have felt when we took you away. They tried to tell me it was for the best. I tried to tell myself it was the right thing. But I still see her in my mind.

He hadn't known what to say.

We wanted a baby so bad. And the bishop told us your life would have been hard without us. No one would care for you.

But I still see her in my mind. I want to tell her I'm sorry. I want to tell her that I raised you well. I loved you as she would have. Maybe then she could forgive us.

But there was nothing to forgive. Society was to blame. The Church was to blame. Not the daughter of a south Georgia farmer who couldn't have a child of her own. She'd done nothing wrong, and he'd fervently pleaded with God to grant her peace.

He rarely thought about that past anymore, but the orphanage had brought it all back. The smell from its fetid air still lingered, and he tried to rid the stench with the cold wind from a downed window.