The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell [86]
The Father General nodded to Voelker, who placed a tablet in front of Sandoz, the surface blanked. This, Voelker thought, is going to be exceedingly interesting to watch.
"But our first order of business, I’m afraid, is to deal with the very troubling allegations made by Wu and Isley." Emilio looked up, and Giuliani was forced to stop and consider him for a moment. The puzzlement looked genuine. "We have, naturally, waited until you were strong enough to speak in your own defense. Rakhat is far beyond any civil jurisdiction. No criminal charges have been brought against you but the accusations are disturbing, and there have been serious repercussions even in the absence of trial or proof." Voelker leaned over the table and brought up the display. Giuliani spoke again. "These allegations were sent by radio, so they arrived and were made public over twelve years ago. Please take your time and read them carefully. We are hoping to hear you refute them."
IT TOOK EMILIO about ten minutes to make his way through the document. Toward the end, it was difficult to see clearly and he had to reread portions to be sure he understood, which was distressing.
The Contact Consortium’s story didn’t take him completely by surprise. "We know about the child," John had said, "and we know about the brothel." But it was so absurd, so unfair, that he hadn’t taken in the implications, not really. The mind tries to protect you that way, he supposed. Until this day, he had not known what everyone else in this room, what the whole world had heard over twelve years earlier, nor could he have imagined how damning it would sound.
And yet, it explained some things, and for that Emilio was grateful. He’d begun to wonder if the headaches were because of a brain tumor, because there was so much that made no sense to him. This, at least, made the animosity and revulsion explicable: the way Isley and Wu looked at him, what they must have been thinking ... But he found other parts of the report both mystifying and an outrage. He tried again to make sense of it all and wondered if he’d said something wrong or had been misunderstood. There is a clue here somewhere, Emilio thought, hoping to remember that later, when things were not so pressured. Then the headache tightened its grip and things began to flicker past his mind.
Often in the past months, he had found himself suspended between screaming hysteria and black humor. Screaming, he had determined on the voyage back, only made the headaches more devastating.
"It could be worse," Emilio said at last. "It could be raining."
Black humor, on the other hand, made everyone else angry. Giuliani and Reyes were not amused. Voelker was outraged. John got the joke, but even he thought the timing was pretty poor. Emilio, his vision very distorted now, looked for Edward Behr but saw only that the man was no longer next to the window.
"It is time that someone explained to you, Sandoz, that this is not simply your private disgrace," Voelker rapped, his voice hammering in Emilio’s ears. "When these charges were made public, the reputation of the Society was all but destroyed. We now operate only fourteen novitiates worldwide! And there are hardly enough new men to fill even those—"
"Oh, come on, Voelker! That’s the worst kind of scapegoating!" It was John’s voice shouting back. "You can’t blame Emilio for every problem we’ve had for—"
Then Felipe’s voice added to the din, and Emilio began to feel that his head would shatter, that the bones of his skull would go to pieces. He tried to escape from the yelling somehow, to go inside himself away from all this, but found no place to hide. For weeks, he’d prepared single-mindedly,