The Maggot People (15 page)

She eyed him fiercely. “Something's going on and you're not telling me.”

“I don't quite know myself. I'm too ashamed to tell you,” said Michael. “And anyway you'd never believe me if I told you the truth.”

“Yeah, right!” said Honey. “That's what every liar says.”

27
.

As ever, Rome was luxuriating in the velvety folds of its history. Past midnight, their tinted-glass limousine dropped them at the edge of an enormous plaza, empty but for lunar shadows cast by the columns. In the background lay the floodlit bulk of St. Peter's, a huge illusory shape set against the sky.

Giacomo stretched his back. “Ah, how good to be home.” He genuflected towards the dome, without any excessive show of emotion.

Paolo, on the other hand, grabbed his rosary and, with mumbled incantations, fell to his knees.

Honey would not leave Michael's side; she was due to come into full flower that day. He sensed her tremulous presence just behind him, then her hoarse voice whispering into his ear:

“Where the fuck are we going? What is this place?”

“St. Peter's. Heard of it?”

“Not really. Some church. Who gives a shit?”

Giacomo interceded, slipping his arm under her elbow and leading her on at a brisk pace. “Come child. Time to disseminate.”

As they marched into deep shadow on the west side of the façade they saw men in dark suits and ear-mussels standing by the entrance to the crypts. Respectfully they got out of the way as Giacomo walked confidently towards them, brushing aside a dawdler on the stairs. Once inside, Giacomo and Paolo headed for the wardrobe, where they left their coats and trousers with a girl who gave them ceremonial robes.

“I thought you'd been excommunicated,” said Michael.

“Up there I have but not down here,” said Giacomo. “Our existence would be too disturbing for the world so we keep it to ourselves. We're very considerate people.” He looked at the wardrobe girl and said, with a nod in Michael's direction: “I'd say he needs an alb and a black stole, wouldn't you? With some nice decoration… Ah yes, that one with the fish will be just fine, thank you, my dear.”

“What do you do down here? Worship golden calves or something?” said Michael, nervously putting on his robes as he jogged along behind him.

“For now, just be aware of this:
‘Ecce ipsi idiote rapiunt celum ubi nos sapientes in inferno mergimur
. The unlearned themselves take heaven by force, while we wise ones are drowned in hell.' St. Augustine, in case you were wondering.”

“Don't I get some clothes as well?” moaned Honey.

Paolo, to keep her quiet, gave her a white cotton gown.

They entered a candlelit vault, whose groaning pillars bore the full weight of the Basilica above them. There must have been a thousand people in the dim subterranean chapel. Their silence seemed to take the oxygen out of the air.

The priest and his acolyte stood with their backs to the congregation; busily, they sprinkled holy water on the altar, accessed via a small bridge across a cistern of black undulating water reaching from one transept to the other.

An unseen choir filled the air with wailing dirges. Not pleasant at all, thought Michael. As they were seated in the front pew, he noticed O'Hara at the back inside an island of men in purple robes. He stared bleakly at them across a sea of heads.

The situation was already disturbing enough. But when Giacomo and O'Hara bowed respectfully to each other, it grew stranger still. “What are they doing?” Michael whispered to Paolo, who elbowed him jocularly and said:

“Down here, we try not to be trivial.”

“That man tried to kill us, and he'll probably try again.”

“So what?” said Paolo. “In killing us he would have been doing us a favor. Anyway, we would have come back another day.”

“Some of us don't believe in all that.”

“Some of us are about to have their illusions shattered.”

Honey pressed herself against him as hypnotic singing rose up from the cistern at the other end. “I've never seen a fucking church like this before. It's like a nightmare; like a goddamn Tom Cruise movie.”

A ceremonial golden barge came gliding in. Seven maidens in white tunics stood singing in it, holding out their hands imploringly towards the congregation, then lifting their tunics and revealing their dark, triangular pudenda.

“What are they doing?” Michael whispered to Paolo.

“Praying for fertility, which shall be denied the little slaves.”

“So give them rubbers and they'll be fine,” said Honey with a smirk.

The doors flew open at the back. A procession of singing children with candles in their hands moved slowly through the congregation, lighting up the gnarled faces of clerics and cardinals.

“They are the blessed ones,” Paolo explained. “They were never born.”

Again Honey disagreed. “Sorry, father, but they look born enough to me.”

The procession stopped when it reached the altar.

The barge began to pull away, while the women on it dropped to their knees, wrung their hands and pulled their hair. They called out to the singing children standing on the footbridge as their craft passed beneath and then glided out of view. The children fell silent and blew out their candles. Darkness fell over the subterranean church, offset by a single candle of massive girth, still burning on its pedestal in the middle of the altar.

Then, with ritual wails, the children filed out.

The congregation was left hovering in a sort of thunderous silence, before the heavy artillery, a group of robed men behind the sanctuary broke into sonorous song to mark the end of the ceremony.

Giacomo stood up and said briskly to Michael. “Would you like a tour before we go home?”

“Okay, why not.”

Leaving Honey and Father Paolo behind, Michael followed Giacomo into the atrium, where the worthies had gathered for conversation while wine and cakes were brought round. Unfortunately, O'Hara was waiting for them. Tall and dignified, intent on a bit of explication, he marched forward as soon as he clapped eyes on them.

“Giacomo, dear soul, will you forgive me,” he effused, offering his clammy hand. “I was lost; the Devil took me. If anyone knows the ways of the world, its pitfalls and traps, it must surely be you?”

The two men faced each other, each with a sort of hovering moral scrutiny imprinted on his face.

“So go with God, my brother,” said Giacomo ceremoniously, “and do not heed the Devil again.”

O'Hara frowned. “Yet the Devil tells me I must have you in the vaults where I can venerate your memory—here in the World you stand in my way, my friend.” O'Hara threw Michael a sour glance. “And I confess I am dismayed to see this instrument of mine in your hands. His face reminds me of my own transgression.”

“I'll keep him, then,” Giacomo rejoined, with a glint of mischief. “As a reminder of your moral failings.”

Michael found himself grabbed by the scruff of his neck and marched out by Giacomo, whose face, by now, had turned scarlet.

“What's going on?” Michael whispered.

“Bloody hypocrites. Using Satan as an excuse. They are not worthy of their robes or their beards.”

“What are those vaults he was talking about?”

Giacomo stopped and recomposed himself. “Ah, yes, the vaults. There's no reason why you shouldn't see them; I think you're ready.” He pushed open a side door and they went through a warren of changing rooms and properties stores—Michael saw rows of costumes on rails, pikestaffs and weapons of all descriptions, a wire net filled with stuffed swans; even, vaguely glimpsed as they passed, a cage of monkeys, one of them a noble old orangutan staring forlornly at a twig, as if longing for its home, far away.

The virgins who had earlier exposed themselves and performed the ritual wailing, were now idly chattering, mere actresses removing their makeup in the dressing room.

Giacomo stuck his head in.

“Good work, girls. Excellent performances! You really caught the essence.”

“Thanks, Giaconino! Are you coming out with us tonight? We're off to have clam spaghetti.”

“It's the ceremony, girls; it's sharpened your appetites. You've asked for fertility and now you're going to hit the town. Your young human bodies are alive to the joys of temptation.”

“The old bugger's jealous.”

“Poor old sod, he could probably do with a length of
butifarra
himself.”

Giacomo smiled. “Bless you,” he said. “Been there, done that and bought the cassock.”

Decked out in jeans, stiletto heels, and clutch handbags, the girls peered with interest at Michael:

“What about this one?”

“Are you hungry, sweetie? You don't want to spend the night with this old stiff, do you? Come out with us.”

Michael twisted uneasily. “Sorry, I don't have time.”

Everyone, Giacomo included, seemed to find his answer hilarious. The girls fell about the place laughing, then carefully mopped their tears to avoid smudging their makeup.

Once again Michael felt Giacomo's proprietary hand clutching the back of his neck. “Good Lord. Is that the time? We can't stay here all night.” They moved off through peals of renewed laughter, this time down a long corridor with fewer people in it, just a lot of security personnel.

“What was all that about?” said Michael. “I don't get you people. I don't get your jokes.”

“That's because you're never been reincarnated.”

“And you have?”

“Many, many times, young fellow. Ah, where to begin? I've passed through the ages like a stick in a river.”

Michael sighed despondently. “I'm tired. I wish I could just go home.”

“And where would that be? Whether you like it or not, Michael, we are your home now. I am your home.”

“The fact remains that I don't have a clue what this place is.”

“When the top brass decided to commercialize public religion, they thought it would be smart to abolish reincarnation. That was at the Whitby Synod about twelve hundred years ago. We argued all night but there was no stopping them.”

“You sound as if you were there.”

“In fact I was there, Michael.”

“Twelve hundred years ago?”

“Indeed.”

“You must have tough maggots to hang around that long. I suppose you have them changed once a month?”

“Oh, certainly. But the human mind gets tired of life; it needs rest. And for this reason we put ourselves into storage from time to time.”

He showed an identity card to some guards, who scanned it in an electronic card reader then nodded them through. Heavy steel doors rolled open on thick wheels set into runners in the stone floor. Inside, the air was cool and they seemed to be in a warehouse of sorts. A couple of forklift trucks stood neatly parked along a wall. Shelving units loaded with coffins rose ten meters into the air. At the base of each stack was a list of occupants. “So,” said Giacomo, checking a clipboard hanging by a string from a metal strut, “here we have the remains of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a sweet soul filled with pity for the unfortunates of this world. And here lies St. Benedict, one of our Great Ones. Really he should not be here; he belongs further down.”

“Further down?”

“Yes. These depositories go very deep. Even I don't know how many levels there are. You, of course, do not understand why all these dead people are here. You don't comprehend that they're actually alive. Right now they are nothing but shriveled heads with their empty bodies rolled up beneath them and a small film of regularly replenished maggots supplying them with just enough oxygen and nurture to keep the brain alive. Dormant but alive, ready to be brought back at a moment's notice.”

He looked at Michael and let this sink in. “Historically speaking, maggothood was conferred on holy people as a reward. Reincarnation was no myth; it was a reality. But somehow the Holy Grail slipped out of our hands. The maggot found a way of escaping the clutches of the Vatican. Slowly, maggot people started popping up all over the place. In 1917, at a closed session of the Vatican Council, they set up an extermination unit. But even today after it's been beefed up a good deal, it rarely manages more than three thousand kills per year. The maggot was our holiest device, our timekeeper and guardian. Even Jesus lies below, in a sacred vault, with His Apostles all round him. But He sleeps very deeply. At various times there have been attempts to resuscitate Him, all unsuccessful.” He frowned, peering at Michael as if unsure whether to go on. “There's a war up here between us, Michael, as you have seen. The Pope will not risk a Second Coming of Jesus; he fears it would fail. And the women who enter His chamber to anoint Our Lord and sing for Him inform us that He is far, far away. They say He wouldn't wake even if we found a way of refilling Him. O'Hara, as you have guessed, is a hardliner. He claims that we disrupt spiritual reality. Many times he has refused to take the maggot and join us. He insists he'll meet his Maker in the Kingdom to come. He insists on a real death; he's set on Styx, the fool. Even worse, he's put together a powerful group with some influence in Vatican circles. In my humble opinion, heaven as a concept is a risky strategy. I am not the first to make this assertion, of course; I have been in this flawed world of ours for a long, long time. I am not about to leave it permanently for the sake of a misguided whim.”

For the first time Michael realized that there had always been something melancholic about Giacomo's forced hilarity. He patted the older man on the shoulder.

“Maybe there's also something good about the human race? Some tiny aspect?”

Giacomo peered at him with a dubious, pouting mouth. He leaned forward, his face furrowing with intensity. “Dream on, little brother, but do listen to me; I have more experience than you will ever have. Love is a temporary action, and you will learn this if you endure over time as I have. The emotion, however, lasts forever.”