The Translation of Father Torturo (15 page)

The eight youths stood up when they saw the Pope walk in. They were shy. They bowed. Dario, the boy with the snakeskin suit, blushed to the roots of his hair.

“What is this?” the Bishop of Rome asked, striding forward. “All dressed in green?”

“Yes,” Vivan cried in a high-pitched voice. “Isn’t it a jolly idea? Yesterday we had lavender day and today we are having green day! Tomorrow I wanted to have blue day, but Walter said he looks terrible in blue, so we might do pink instead.”

The boy with the cape on looked down and bit his bottom lip. It was obviously Walter.

“Yes, blue does not suit redheads,” the Pope said.

Walter opened his mouth. His lips trembled. “Thank you, Your Holiness,” he whispered, not daring to raise his eyes.

“And what have we here?” Lando the Second took in the table at a glance.

Vivan giggled. “As I said, it’s green day, so everything is green – Not only the boys and I, but the food too! See,” (extending a finger towards the various dishes), “we have green oysters, asparagus soup, crayfish swimming in lime sauce, rabbit with spinach, artichokes, ostrich in capers, and a lovely tossed salad.”

“And this one?” the Pope asked, pointing to a magnificent sea green majolica bowl by Flaminio Fontane, which he recognised as belonging to the Vatican treasury. The bowl was nearly brim full of a dark grey slop, the odour of which distinctly reached his nose from where he stood, a meter away.

“Oh, yes, I cheated on our little colour rule for Dario’s sake. This dish has become his favourite: mullet’s viscera with black truffles. He is absurdly fond of truffles. Would you like to try it? I am sure the lad wouldn’t mind.”

The Pope, on the plea of having recently eaten, excused himself. He was far from trusting the affects of gormandising, knowing that it was salubrious to neither body nor mind. Rich foods, he believed, made one both weak and stupid. He asked Vivan for a moment of private intercourse. The two men walked to one side of the room, to the enclosure of a window, where their words could not be overheard.

“What is on your mind?” Vivan smiled. “You look very serious this afternoon. Did you get another one of those unpleasant letters from the Prime Minister of China?”

The successor of Saint Peter did not answer.

“You have been busy?” he asked.

“Oh, yes! So nonsensically busy! Busier than ever in my life I think. The amount of social intercourse I engage in is simply astounding!”

“Yes, you seem to be profiting well by the legend of Christ,” the Pope said with quiet gravity.

Vivan cocked his head and raised his eyebrows.

“Excuse me?” he said. He either did not understand or did not choose to understand.

“It is obvious that you have not disdained the luxury that your position allows you access to,” the Pope continued. “I can possibly tolerate this. But a few trivial tasks I asked you to perform have been neglected.”

“Neglected?” Vivan blushed.

“Yes. My
Treatise on the Precious Blood
which I asked you, two days ago, to send to the translator so that it could be rendered into English, Japanese and German: I saw it on your desk this morning, apparently neglected. Last week I asked you to see that sixty-thousand euros were wired to Cardinal Emmanuel Shiv in India for relief of the poor. He called me, not two hours ago, saying that the money has not yet been received.”

Vivan turned towards the window. It was covered with silk and he could not see without.

“I must have forgotten. I will attend to it.”

“Please do.”

Presently the doors opened at the far end of the room. The Pope and Vivan both looked over. A man and a woman walked in, the former holding an acoustic guitar, the latter a tambourine.

“I will leave you now,” the Pope said.

“Oh, but the musicians are just arriving!” Vivan cried gleefully. “Won’t you stay and enjoy the show? Today we have ‘folk’ music from America.”

The musicians had seated themselves on chairs off to one side of the room. The man was tuning his guitar. The woman stared brazenly at the Pope, one hand pushing her oily blonde hair away from her eyes.

“So you will stay?” Vivan asked again, gently rubbing the Pope’s elbow.

“No, thank you,” the other replied, pulling away. “Unfortunately my time is not my own. Unfortunately as
Servus servorum Dei
, as the Servant of the Servants of God, my time is not my own.”

The Pope took his leave, nodding to the young men and walking out with brisk steps. The sound of the guitar and the twangy female voice of the American woman followed him out of the room.

“
How many roads must a man walk down
,” the singing went.

Chapter Fifteen

Pope Lando the Second stood atop the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II, looking over the city of Rome stretched before him. The monument was majestic, pompous, just like the man it was dedicated to. The charioteers seemed more symbolic of the King of Piedmonte’s moustache than anything else; the colossal cavalier, in the very centre of the monument, an abstraction of his goatee. The sun was set and the Pope was disguised in a shabby wool suit and red wig. He had needed exercise and freedom of movement and had snuck out of the Vatican thus disguised. These secret tactics had become a habit of his; he treasured these incognito hours when his mind flowed smoothly and his most ingenious thoughts were born.

“This city is mine,” he thought to himself as he gazed over the vast surface of antique houses, bits of old ruin and glorious palazzos.

Feeling a sense of supreme dominance within him as his eyes met the dome of St. Peter’s rising in the distance, he ejected a cigarette from his pack and lit it, breathing in the ill but flavourful smoke with joy. He stalked down the steps to his right, past the Palazzo Nuovo and onto the Piazza del Campidoglio, the beautiful square designed by Michelangelo which sits like a nest atop Rome. A woman in flowing but tasteless wedding garments and a man, stiff in a rented tuxedo, were poised by the fountain, smiling into a half dozen cameras which snapped away at them. A rather dubious looking individual, dressed in blue sweatpants, a green shirt, a fishing cap and sunglasses stood near the grand steps, the Cordonata. Lando gazed at the newlyweds. They displayed two sickeningly sweet smiles. He turned his eyes towards the steps. The man in the fishing cap showed him his back and proceeded to urinate against the base of one of the mighty statues which stood at either end of the steps.

“
Basta
!” the Pope murmured to himself as he escaped, towards the Temple of Jove. “Humans are a perverse species and certainly only a few of us deserve to have power in our hands.”

Whether he deserved his position or not, Lando the Second, both young and intelligent, did seem exceptionally capable of handling the burden of power. He had a remarkable capacity for work and, in a short period, managed to get much accomplished. He rearranged matters of the treasury and, in order to curtail expenses, reduced the Vatican staff by ten percent. Energetically he suppressed unnecessary offices and enacted rigorous penalties for the misappropriation of church funds. He patronised learning, establishing chairs of Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac at all Catholic universities and founding a school of ancient Greek in Jakarta where he proposed to maintain a thousand students at his own expense.

His reputation as a man of wonders grew daily. The miracles he had performed at Padua were on every tongue and the incidents that had occurred since his coronation served well to add fuel to the fire of fanaticism. Lando did have to smile when he thought of all the freaks that found him. While delivering a discourse the previous week in Orvieto, half a dozen farmers had made their way into the church with a hog. The creature, of enormous proportions, tusked and rippling with pink fat, was bound with heavy ropes and it was all the men could do to keep it from bursting forth and running rampant through the congregation. The hog’s eyes were bloodshot, its mouth foamed and its swollen tongue hung all the way to the floor. It snorted and howled hideously. The farmers stated that the pig had killed all the others in the herd and was possessed by a devil. The Pope stepped down from the pulpit and told them to release it. They did so with hesitation and then fled, as did the greater part of the congregation.

“You do not alarm me, devil,” the Pope informed the sow in Latin. He stretched forth his hand. “Huge though your present body be; whether you inhabit a fox or a camel, you are just the same.”

The brute, raging and looking as if he would devour Lando, approached, sheets of thick, white saliva hanging from his jaws. He pawed the ground, as if preparing for attack, but instead immediately collapsed, laying his head on the ground. To the amazement of all present, the swine suddenly exhibited as much tameness as it had ferocity before.

Di Quaglio was forced to send away delegations of sick on a daily basis. The Pope simply did not have time to lay hands on every cripple that walked through the doors of St. Peter’s. These sick however were not to be put off. They would wait until Lando was to make a public appearance and then way-lay him, thrusting before him their grievances and ills.

“It is most troublesome,” Di Quaglio commented. “Your Eminency is getting something of the reputation of a faith healer.”

“And why is that troublesome, if it raises confidence in the power of God?”

“Well – because many say it is not respectable.”

“My dear Di Quaglio; I am not a banker or politician, but the Pope; what do I care for people’s respect!”

The truth was that the churches of Rome had never been fuller. The new Pope seemed to be re-popularising Christianity. His grave, handsome face attracted women and his athletic figure and manly bearing gained the respect of men. He was both a scholar and an able administrator who was considered to deserve not only praise but also the highest veneration.

***

The Vicar of Christ Upon Earth bent over and pressed the palms of his hands to the floor. Gradually he let the full weight of his body translate to the palms, while bending his elbows and resting his knees upon them. He nestled into the ‘crow’ posture, stayed thus a quarter of an hour and then slowly rose into a handstand. He stood in this manner, upside down, on his hands, with his body finely arched and the muscles of his back sharply defined, for a period, and then let his feet spill forward as he craned his neck, so his feet hovered just above his head. He was in the ‘scorpion’ posture, a position which he maintained for twenty minutes, afterwhich he lowered his feet so their soles rested fully on the top of his head. This posture he was quite prepared to maintain for some time, but that he was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“
Avanti
,” he said, quickly bouncing back to a normal standing position.

Di Quaglio walked in.

“What seems to be the trouble?” the Pope asked, rubbing his left pectoral.

“
Summus Pontifex
,” the small man faltered.

“Yes yes, what is it?”

“Although it pains me – Although I am hesitant to report the matter, seeing that it directly involves your residence, I do not see that I have a choice.”

“Go on,” the Patriarch of the Western Church said, knocking a cigarette from a pack which sat on the table and proceeding to light it.

“As per your instructions I have been monitoring all telephone calls to and from the Vatican, particularly those connecting to your outer offices. You requested me to inform you of anything out of the ordinary, or of a subversive nature.”

“I did.”

“There have been such calls.”

“That threaten my person?”

“Not through bodily harm, but through proximate taint.”

“By whom and to whom?”

“By . . . By the Secretary of State, Cardinal Zuccarelli.”

“And to?”

“To a number of different sources.”

“Such as?”

“I have prepared a list.”

“Let me see it.”

“As Your Holiness wishes.”

The Pope took the sheet of paper from the other’s hand and perused it.

“800-SNM-XXXX,” he read.

“I am afraid so
Summus Pontifex
,” Di Quaglio sighed.

“800-FOT-TERE.”

“Quite shocking.”

“And this other number: 57-555-12. It has been called dozens of times. Is there a reason that it is on the list?”

“Unfortunately yes. It is – I looked into it personally. It is the number of a kind of escort service.”

“Escort service?”

“Yes Your Eminency. An escort service is a variety of business, most improper, in which a lonely man, or sometimes woman, may, for monetary compensation—”

“Yes yes yes,” the Pope said impatiently, with a wave of his hand. “I know what an escort service is. I require details, not definition.”

“Certainly Your Eminency, details: This establishment, run by one Signora Gemma Lombardo, is, from what information I can glean, quite notorious amongst a certain breed of Romans. It specialises in renting out women – Renting out women for a man’s most base deeds.”

“You are referring to the act of human coitus?”

“I do not dare give it such a tame appellation.”

“So?”

“So . . .”

“It is not merely sex?”

“No. Not merely sex
Summus Pontifex
. Perversions.”

“I see. Very troubling.”

“It gets worse.”

“Do tell.”

“These creatures, these slinking harlots from the house of Lombardo; – Oh, but excuse my language!”

“No, please, do not apologise. It adds the necessary colouring to your discourse. Feel free to use what adjectives you will.”

“Thank you. As I was saying: These nasty, slinking harlots from the house of Lombardo have been seen entering the Holy residence, in the dark of night, sometimes singularly, but often enough in droves. They gain admittance through the private door near the Sala del Trono.”

“Through my private door? In droves? Who has seen them?”

“
Both
L’Osservatore Romano
and
Il Giornale
have had anonymous reports sent to them. Each paper was kind enough to refrain from printing them, since their existences largely depend on Your Holiness’s will, and simply forwarded the information to me. However, should such reports continue to get abroad, I cannot guarantee that they will be contained. As you know, we have many enemies, and many newspapers would not only be willing to print such information, but would pay for the privilege.”