The Miracle.

Irving Wallace.

For Elijah.

'They say miracles are past"

-SHAKESPEARE, C.1602.

"The Age of Miracles past.

The Age of Miracles is forever here"

-THOMAS CARLYLE, 1841.

"For those who believe in G.o.d, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe in G.o.d, no explanation is possible."

-REV. JOHN LA FAROE, S.J.

THE MIRACLE.

The Third Secret.

It had been a dark night, gradually graying, the darkness before the dawn, and it was six o'clock in the morning when the small, pretty peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, came down from the hill to the cave gouged out of rock, the grotto of Ma.s.sabielle. There were already 150 people waiting for her, watching her, waiting for what would happen next.

Bernadette, wearing a white capulet, a patched second-hand dress, and wooden clogs, put a light to her candle, took the rosary from her pocket, and with a smile, bowed toward the vision that she expected to see.

Twelve days earlier, while standing near this spot, she had seen the apparition in the grotto, "a Lady dressed in white" as Bernadette would later recall, a mysterious young Lady wearing "a white dress, a white veil, a blue sash, and a yellow rose on each foot." There had been seven visits by Bernadette to the grotto in those twelve days, and the Lady had appeared before her on six of these occasions, the Lady who would eventually, after fifteen appearances, identify herself as the Immaculate Conception, the Virgin Mary.

This dark Tuesday morning of February 23, 1858, was Bcmadette's eighth visit to the grotto. At the grotto, with a smile, she awaited the return of the Lady who would soon identify herself as the Virgin.

Among the 150 persons present, there was at least one cynic, Jean-Baptiste Estrade, a tax official and an important man in the nearby market town of Lourdes.

Estrade had brought his sister, Emmanuelite, and several of her curious women friends to witness the much discussed spectacle. On the way to the grotto he had joked about this superst.i.tious nonsense. "Have you brought your opera gla.s.ses?" he had asked his companions. Now, joined with the spectators, he watched the peasant girl on her knees fingering her rosary. Afterward, he would record what he witnessed: "Whilst she was pa.s.sing the beads between her fingers she looked up toward the rock as though waiting for something. Suddenly, as in a flash of lightning, an expression of wonder illuminated her face and she seemed to be born into another life. A light shone in her eyes; wonderful smiles played upon her hps; an unutterable grace transfigured her whole being . . . Bernadette was no longer Bernadette; she was one of the privileged beings, the face all glorious with the glory of heaven. . . .

"The ecstasy lasted for an hour; at the end of that time the seer went on her knees from the place where she was praying to just below the wild rose tree hanging from the rock. There, concentrating all her energies as for an act of worship, she kissed the earth and returned still upon her knees to the place which she had just left. A last glow of light lit up her face, then gradually, almost imperceptibly, the transfiguring glory of the ecstasy grew fainter and finally disappeared. The seer continued praying for a few moments longer but it was only the face of the little peasant child which I saw. At last Bernadette got up, went to her mother, and was lost in the crowd."

Climbing the hill toward home with her mother, Bernadette repeated a portion of the conversation that she had just had with the mysterious Lady. During the apparitions, the Lady had confided three secrets to her, and this morning she had revealed the third and last of them.

Shortly after, when the converted cynic, Estrade, had become Bernadette's friend, he had asked her "what the Lady had said to her during the seventh Appearance," and he learned "that three secrets had been entrusted to her but that they concerned n.o.body but herself. The seer added that she could not reveal these secrets to anyone, not even to her confessor. Inquisitive people have often tried by insinuations, by trickery, or by promises, to get these revelations of the Virgin out of the child. But all attempts failed and Bernadette carried her secrets with her to the grave."

On another occasion, a young lawyer from a nearby town, Charles Madon, dared to bring up the subject once more.

"And your secrets? What are they about?"

"They concern only me."

"If the Pope were to ask you for them, would you tell them to him?"

"No."

Years later, when Bernadette had become a nun in the convent of Saint Gildard-in Nevers, in central France-her harsh and distrusting superior, Mother Marie Theiese Vauzou, the Mistress of Novices, had posed the question about the secrets once more. Bernadette had again refused to reveal the secrets.

"Suppose the Pope required you tell under obedience," Mother Vauzou had demanded.

"I can't see how it could be any concern of his," Bernadette had replied.

After reading this historical report from the Lourdes Commission, Pope John Paul III, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, lowered the pages and chuckled. "But now, suddenly, almost 130 years later, those secrets are the concern of a pope."

"Yes, Your Holiness," said his secretary of state. "Especially the final secret given to Saint Bernadette during the seventh apparition."

They were in the Pope's s.p.a.cious and ornate private office on the top floor of the Vatican. From his high-backed white satin chair, behind the neat papal desk, Pope John Paul III stared past the gold damask drapes framing the clear recessed windows that overlooked St. Peter's Square. He turned back to the cardinal, his secretary of state, who sat in one of the red satin armchairs across from him.

"And now," said the Pope, "we know all three of Bernadette's secrets. Of that you are certain?"

"No question," said the cardinal. "The full doc.u.mentation, from the Commission of Lourdes, is in your hands."

"This is absolutely authentic?"

"As you will see, Your Holiness, the first two secrets are minor, and have come to pa.s.s, and are of no interest to us. The third secret, the last, as you have agreed, could be momentous. All that remains is for Your Holiness to decide if we should disclose the third secret to the world."

The Pope was thoughtful. "When must I give my decision?"

"By week's end, it is hoped, Your Holiness. The Commission of Lourdes will remain in session until you inform them of the course to take. The Great French National Pilgrimage is to begin in three weeks."

"The commission-" said the Pope. "Does the commission have a recommendation?"

"They have put it entirely in your hands, Your Holiness," said the cardinal. He hesitated. "I happen to have heard from Father Ruland in Lourdes that a few of the clergy and all of the local merchants on the commission favor disclosure. They insist that any announcement will heighten interest in the holy shrine, and that the entire community, in fact the entire world, will benefit from this. The other members of the commission, all clerics, are either against disclosure, or reluctant to have it made, lest Bernadette's secret rebounds and fails to serve the best interests of the Mother Church. But Bishop Peyragne, who heads the commission, told me quite correctly that the final word must be your own."

The Pope nodded, considering the doc.u.ments before him. "I will study what is here. I will meditate upon this discovery. I will pray for wisdom. Certainly you shall have my decision by week's end, by Friday."

The secretary of state came briskly to his feet. "Very well." Before turning away, he gazed intently at the Holy Father. "If I may inject a comment of my own-"

"Please."

"There is grave risk in this, Your Holiness."

The Pope smiled. A worldly man, he replied cheerfully, "G.o.d will know the odds."

When the discovery had been made, and purchased secretly by the church, Bishop Peyragne of Tarbes and Lourdes had seen fit to appoint a commission of inquiry-the Lourdes Commission, the weekly local newspaper L'Essor Bigourdan called it, and reminded readers that this was the second time in the city's modern history that there had been such a board of notables. The editors and readers wondered about the reason for the appointment of such a commission, having been told only that the members were to discuss "a historical discovery of great significance." Speculation ran rampant, but no one outside the commission had even the faintest idea of what was going on.

The first commission of inquiry, appointed by an earlier bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, Bertrand-Severe Laurence, in November of 1858, had been const.i.tuted with a clear purpose. Its nine members had been selected to investigate the young Bernadette's experience and determine if, indeed, she had received a vision from G.o.d. After four years of study, a decision had been arrived at, and the bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes had announced it to the world: "We judge that Mary the Immaculate Mother of G.o.d, did really appear to Bernadette Soubirous on the 11th February, 1858, and on certain subsequent days, eighteen times in all, in the grotto of Ma.s.sabielle near the town of Lourdes; that this apparition bears every mark of truth; and that the belief of the faithful is well grounded. . . . We authorize the cult of Our Lady of the Grotto of Lourdes in our diocese."

That had been the verdict of the first Lourdes commission of inquiry in 1862.

Now, so long after, the sixteen members of the second Lourdes commission of inquiry were gathering in a conference room of the Town Hall not to make a decision but to hear the decision made by the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church in Vatican City. After six fruitless weeks of debate, the members had been unable to reach a decision of their own.

Unable to get a majority on one side or the other, the bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes had forwarded the findings, and the authentication, to the archbishop in Toulouse, who had advised that in a matter so divisive and controversial, the final decision must be left to His Holiness, the Pope, in Rome.

And now, having been alerted that the Pope would have word for them this very morning, the members of the commission had a.s.sembled. While the members were largely religion-minded, the setting -- the conference room of the Town Hall-was secular, a delicate arrangement made by the bishop at the suggestion of Father Ruland, the Lourdes historian, who himself professed to be neutral in the matter to be decided.

Even though their arguments were no longer meaningful, members of the commission were still embattled when the telephone had rung in Mayor Jourdain's next-door office. Father Emery, one of the ten parish priests in Lourdes, was saying, "To make such an announcement presents a danger to the church, to the faithful, to the town. Any failure can invite disillusionment and mockery, and discredit what we stand for. I say let things be as they are." His opposing number across the long table, Jean-Claude Jamet, owner of an important tourist restaurant in Lourdes, was responding as before, "We must make this announcement, and thereby create a revival of interest in religion and also encourage in pilgrims a desire to come here in great number. By making this announcement, we can halt the falling away in faith."

The telephone call in the adjacent office had put a restraint of silence on any further debate. Mayor Jourdain had left the conference room to take the call, then momentarily returned to summon the bishop and Father Ruland.

For the members, the wait had seemed interminable, but in fact it had lasted no longer than two minutes.

Again, the tall, rangy bishop was at the head of the table. In his stark black ca.s.sock, he resembled an austere authoritarian figure who had stepped out of an El Greco canvas.

His voice was low and strong, his words clipped and firm.

"The Pope wishes us to arrange to have Bernadette's secret announced to the world-yes, announced to the world-at once. Not to do so. His Holiness remarked, would be a profession of lack of faith. His Holiness added, one a.s.sumes jocularly, that he, for one, remains a true believer."

The bishop paused, and glanced about the room. With the decision, disagreement had evaporated. They were all in this together, and excitement was evident.

"That settles it," resimied the bishop. "I shall notify the archbishop in Toulouse to proceed immediately with arrangements for a public announcement by Cardinal Brunet in Paris." He offered a frosty smile. "The crucial eight days, beginning three weeks from now, will be the most momentous and critical in Lourdes" history since that afternoon when Bernadette heard the sound of a gust of wind and saw the Lady in white materialize in the grotto. And, I am certain, the announcement will be momentous and critical for the many people on earth who will hear it and make their way to our beloved Lourdes."

Usually, when Liz Finch drove her second-hand Citroen from the Place de la Concorde up the Champs Elysees in the mad and unruly Parisian traffic, she remained keenly aware of the magnificent structure of the Arc de Triomphe far ahead. The n.o.ble Arc was for her the symbol of everything that Paris offered-cla.s.sical beauty, wonder, excitement, and support and promise for the life she wanted to live here.

The Arc translated her dreams and ambitions into reality. It helped her see herself in tomorrow's Paris: a highly paid and renowned yet literary foreign correspondent, such as the admirable Janet Flanner had been; a sophisticated hostess with an exquisite apartment on the Ile St.-Louis, the envied wife of a mature, wealthy, and handsome French business executive (of worldly intellect and devoted s.e.xuality, who possessed admiration for America and who had brought to the marriage an incredible collection of French primitive art); the mother of two brilliant children, who played in the Luxembourg Gardens under the supervision of a warm and intelligent British nanny. When Liz Finch saw the Arc ahead, she saw beneath its soaring curve this life for herself, and even the leisure to absorb and charm friends of the international set, each a "Name" in his or her field, during her weekly Sunday salons.

But this morning, possibly for the first time in her three years in Paris, Liz Finch's second self was not fixed on the Arc de Triomphe. Instead, when not concentrating on the insane traffic, she was studying the reflection of herself in the Citroen's not-too-flattering rearview mirror.

What Liz Finch could see of herself did little to kindle dreams. What she could see of herself dampened any hope of fulfilling her ambitions, of even remaining in Paris very much longer.

Because when Liz Finch had sneaked a look at the memorandum on Bill Trask's desk at Amalgamated Press International this morning, and then received her day's a.s.signment from Trask and learned the a.s.signment that her rival, Marguerite Lamarche, had been given, Liz realized that she had lost, or was losing. She was entered, she felt, in a beauty contest, not a talent contest, and when it came to beauty, she had no chance.

The private memorandum on his desk had come from New York. It had stated that New York demanded a retrenchment in the Paris Bureau of API to take effect in one month. The French force in the office, mostly clerical, would be cut in half. As for the editorial staff, instead of two feature correspondents there was room for only one. Since the two feature correspondents were Marguerite Lamarche and herself, one of them would remain, with greater responsibility and a more solid job, and the other would be cast out, in Liz's case to oblivion. While Trask had mentioned the necessity of a cutback, he had been vague as to details. But Liz knew the truth and it was threatening.

When Liz had come off that Wisconsin newspaper for a better position in API's Manhattan office, and then been a.s.signed to the prestigious Paris Bureau three years ago, her life had dramatically changed and had become thrilling and full of hope. She had, lately, even met a young business executive, Parisian and attractive, who found her interesting and even complimented her on her French. It was a relationship that might develop slowly, given a year or two. But a month? If she was fired, in a month, she would be forced to leave France and there would be no chance with Charles. And there would be no opportunity to develop her byline. She would be lucky to wind up doing routine work in Cedar Rapids or Cheyenne, and lucky to marry an insurance salesman, and have two cretins for children.

The whole thing, then, came down to beating Marguerite out for the single feature-writer job that would exist at API in a month. And that's where it came down to a beauty contest, and Liz didn't like her prospects. Liz knew that she was a more gifted reporter and writer than Marguerite, but less attractive. Liz was the office workhorse, covering drab bread-and-b.u.t.ter a.s.signments, everything from the French economy to the auto shows. Inevitably, Marguerite had been awarded the more glamorous a.s.signments, the fashion shows, interviews with famous politicians, authors, movie stars.

This morning's latest a.s.signments had proved it.

There had been a plum of a story waiting to be a.s.signed, and Liz had prayed to get it and prove herself as the basic whiz reporter the bureau must keep, but instead Trask had offered the plum to Marguerite Lamarche. It was way over Marguerite's frivolous head.

Bill Trask had got himself a lead-oh, he was good at those hot tips -- that the charismatic minister of the interior, Andre Viron, heading for the seat of prime minister, was teetering on the brink of disaster, a potential national scandal, having had some questionable dealings with a shady underground character named Weidman. Weidman, owner of a sleazy movie production company that fronted for his small-time cocaine ring, had managed to make a tie-in to float some fraudulent bonds for big money, and had obtained Minister of the Interior Viron's endors.e.m.e.nt. The money poured in, but the value of the bonds was undependable. The question was whether Viron had trusted Weidman and had acted as an innocent or whether he was in secret a.s.sociation with Weidman to line his akeady-gold-lined pockets. To Bill Trask, this smelled like another Stavisky Affair, which had so enlivened and disrupted France in the 1930s.

Really, it had been a perfect a.s.signment for Liz Finch to sink her teeth into. But an hour ago, it had gone to Marguerite Lamarche. And Liz, instead, had been given this unpromising religion a.s.signment, a press conference by Cardinal Brunet of Paris to be held in the Hotel Plaza Athenee. Some dopey nitpicking religious announcement to be covered. As if anyone who counted in the New York office would pay the slightest attention to it.

Marguerite had got the plum because she might seduce Viron into confiding the truth. Liz had been thrown a bone because nature had prepared her to seduce no one.

It was all reflected in her rearview mirror.

She saw the mop of red hair, become orange in the last rinse-and-color job. She saw the predator's beak of a nose that couldn't even be called Roman. The lips were two thin tight lines, the jaw undershot. Despite the fair, unblemished complexion, she was dismayed. She knew that what could not be seen in the mirror was even worse. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were unfashionably large and they sagged. There was too much hip and she was slightly bowlegged. In sum, her five-foot-three frame added up to disaster. The best part of her-and this was the real cruelty of nature -could not be seen: her mind. She was brainy, inventive, tenacious.

But this mind was also unsparing. Relentlessly, it conjured up Marguerite Lamarche floating through the city room. Marguerite, twenty-eight and four years her junior, had been made to be a model, and had indeed once been a model briefly. She was tall, slender, graceful, with glossy dark hair, the small perfect features of a pretty geisha, full pouting ruby hps, enviable small firm French b.r.e.a.s.t.s, long legs. And a ba.n.a.l brain. But who cared? It was just G.o.ddam unfair.

Then the thought came to Liz, as she turned her car into the Avenue Montaigne, that Bill Trask had awarded Marguerite the plum a.s.signment not because he wanted her to seduce Interior Minister Viron but because he wanted to seduce her himself. Maybe already had.

Liz Finch groaned inwardly. If her a.s.sessment was correct, and it probably was, her chances of winning the single API post in the next month were nil. Marguerite would have a big scandal, a beat, to showcase herself to the top bra.s.s. Liz would have dregs, such as she was going to now.

She pulled up before the Plaza Athenee, and braked to a stop. The uniformed doorman opened her door, greeting her with a courteous but not, unhappily, a flirtatious smile. Liz s.n.a.t.c.hed up her work purse, the bulging scuffed brown one, and hurried into the hotel. There were several fat and swarthy Mideastem types lolling about in the s.p.a.cious lobby, and not one gave her so much as a glance.

Heading for the elevator in the second smaller lobby, the gallery in which guests had afternoon tea, Liz tried to remember where in the h.e.l.l she was going. She had intended to go to the Montaigne Room downstairs, but before reaching the elevator, she remembered her destination and halted. When Trask had given her the a.s.signment, he had also handed her the telegram announcing that Maurice Cardinal Brunet, archbishop of Paris, would have an important announcement to make at a press conference in the Salon Regence of the Plaza Athenee hotel at ten o'clock this morning. So it was the Salon Regence, the most important of the hotel's public rooms. Liz spun about and started up the gallery toward the doorway of the salon. She tried to think what the Catholic Church could have to announce that was so important. It would likely be some minor canonical reform. Boring. Dead weight on the API wire.

Pa.s.sing through the open gla.s.s doors, Liz was mildly surprised at the large turnout this ecclesiastical press conference had attracted. The long, narrow, stately room, with its three grand chandeliers and carved brown paneled walls, was packed with reporters. Edging her way to the rear, to the table beneath the huge oil of Louis XV where coffee was being dispensed, Liz realized that there was a general stir in the room, that the conference was about to begin, and that those reporters still standing were taking seats.

Going for the nearest empty padded chair, Liz recognized Brian Evans, the cherubic Paris correspondent for the London Observer, whom she knew from countless c.o.c.ktail parties. "Brian," she called out, "whatever is going on here? Look at the crowd."

Evans came to her side, and said in an undertone, "I have it that the church is going to spring a super big story from Lourdes. No idea what, but since Lourdes doesn't do this often, it could amount to something. That's all I know."

"We'll see," said Liz doubtfully, and she sat herself down on the empty chair, snapped her purse open, and removed her pad and pencil.

She was just about organized, when she heard the tall gla.s.s entrance doors being shut and became aware that at the far end of the room someone on the small temporary platform positioned before the marble fireplace, someone in a clerical collar and surplice, was concluding a brief introduction. She heard, "Maurice Cardinal Brunet," and saw a bespectacled stout older man, also attired in clerical dress, come to the podium. He was carrying two sheets of paper and he placed them carefully on the lectern. He adjusted his horn-rimmed gla.s.ses.

"I have a brief statement to read," he said in French, in a loud, hoa.r.s.e voice. "After the statement, I will entertain ten minutes of questions from the floor."

At once, he began to read his statement: "Everyone in this room surely knows the story of Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, the story of the blessed Bernadette Soubirous and her visions of the Virgin Mary at the grotto of Ma.s.sabielle in Lourdes during 1858. In response to prayers at the grotto and the use of water from the spring found by Bernadette, cures of the disabled and ailing began almost immediately. In time, there have been nearly seventy sudden cures that the church has declared to be of miraculous origin. As a result, Lourdes is recognized as the leading miracle shrine in the world.

"In addition to the matters of faith which the Virgin Mary discussed with Bernadette, there were three secrets that were conveyed to her, and, indeed, Bernadette kept these three secrets to herself up to her very death. However, as it has recently been learned, Bernadette confided her secrets to a journal that she kept after she departed Lourdes to become a nun at the Convent of Saint Gildard in Nevers, and which she left in the safekeeping of a family relative in Bartres.

"Bernadette's journal has now been found. Its holograph contents have been scientifically authenticated.

"We now know that, in this journal, in her own hand, Bernadette recorded the three secrets told her by the Virgin Mary. Two of the secrets, minor ones, personal ones, have already come true. The third secret, the one imparted to Bernadette during the seventh apparition of the Virgin Mary on February 23, 1858, has not yet come true."

The cardinal paused and then resumed. "Bernadette recorded a date and time when she was told it would come true, and that time is three weeks from this day in this very year. At the instigation of His Holiness, Pope John Paul III, and with the approval of the Holy Father, that third secret conveyed to Bernadette by the Virgin Mary is being revealed to the world today.

"The Mother of Heaven's secret was this- "That She, the Virgin Mary, would reappear at the grotto of Ma.s.sabielle in Lourdes in the twentieth century. 'She told me,' wrote Bernadette, 'that She would reappear as I had seen Her, would make Herself known to another and effect a miracle cure. She told me not to reveal this secret to anyone while I was on earth, but before I ascended to heaven, I could leave word of Her visitation in writing if I wished. Therefore, I make this record in my private journal so that one day it will be read by others.' Then Bernadette noted the year and date of the Virgin Mary's reappearance. The year is this year, and the date is three weeks from now, and during the period of eight days that follow, between August 14 and 22, henceforth to be known as The Reappearance Time.

"This is the Holy Father's news for the world.

"The Blessed Virgin Mary is returning to Lourdes."

Liz Finch sat, her pencil in a hand which had frozen over her notepad. She sat unmoving, her mind utterly boggled.

Behind her desk, on the third floor of the API building on the Rue des Itahens, Liz Finch finished writing the weird news story, ran it off on the printer beside her word processor, then gathered up the pages and took them over to Bill Trask's gla.s.sed-in office.

Trask, in rolled-up shirt sleeves, his bulk solid in a wooden swivel chair, was marking possible leads in a copy of the latest edition of Le Figaro. As ever, Liz could not take her eyes off Trask's hair. He affected to comb his hair the way his journalistic idol, H. L. Mencken, had combed his in Baltimore in the 1920s. It was unbecoming. She wondered what his probable paramour Marguerite thought of it.