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After all, it wasn’t every day you arranged to meet the pope. “Excellens,” he answered, and the man in the fedora smiled. Their meeting place was a tiny café with strong espresso, surly waitstaff, and an excellent view of the Place du Tertre, a cobblestoned square ringed by small shops topped with tidy red awnings. Strung through the bare branches of trees all around were tiny blue lights, and sparkling white along curbs and windowsills was a confectioner’s dusting of snow. In spite of the hour and the dropping temperature, the square still buzzed with shoppers and diners and row after row of artists with easels, hawking portraits to all the tourists. This close to Christmas everything stayed open late. To the slight, smiling man in the fedora and cloak sitting across from him at the sc
- Writer
