The Translation of Father Torturo (19 page)

The boy lapped frantically at the air. His eyes were bloodshot. The mother, several strands of her salt and pepper hair now disengaged from the bun, clenched her fists before her eyes and moaned with savage emotion.

The Pope’s voice trembled with an oratory flourish, “It is hard for you to kick against the goad. The longer you delay, the heavier your punishment shall be; for it is not men you are condemning, but rather Him who rules the living and the dead, who is coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire. Give place to the Holy Spirit, who by His blessed apostle Peter openly struck you down in the person of Simon Magus; who cursed your lies in Annas and Saphira; who smote you in King Herod because he had not given honour to God; who by his apostle Paul afflicted you with the night of blindness in the magician Elyma, and by the mouth of the same apostle bade you to go out of Pythonissa, the soothsayer.”

The boy, still shaking violently, fell to the ground where he writhed for a few moments and then threw up a sticky, brightly hued and unpleasant substance, his face pale and eyes blazing.

“Mama,” he said, tears flowing from his eyes. “Mama!”

“It’s gone, it’s gone!” the woman shouted in a frenzy. “The devil is gone from my boy!”

She grasped the arm of the massive, ape like child and helped him up. His face was white, but he smiled. He scratched himself and waved to the audience.
A thrill ran through them.

The entire crowd was ecstatic, those in the VIP section certainly no less so than the others. Women, well positioned in society, rose from their chairs and shouted praises to God, Lando the Second and the Church, though in varying order. They cared not if they compromised themselves by their unseemly behaviour: the Spirit was in them and they could not help but let it manifest in gyrations of their hips and untame, hyena like cries.

The Pope, the Vicar of Christ Upon Earth, gazed gravely over his flock. He stepped forward, his finely wrought features distinct, even from a distance. A rumbling came from the darkened sky and wind swept through St. Peter’s Square.

He spoke:

“You wanted divine mysteries, now smell their incense; you want divine union: have it! – Hear my Bull and be baptised in its blood! – Feel the Holy Ghost!”

He flashed his hands forward, rapidly opening the fingers as if flecking the audience with water. They surged back, as if struck by a powerful wave. The first three or four rows of people fell to the ground, in a simultaneous swoon, where they quivered and shook with spasms.

“The Holy Ghost has me! The Holy Ghost has me!” one man shouted at the top of his voice. A woman writhed wildly on the ground like a severed worm.

“I feel His Love!” she shrieked. “He is giving me His Love!”

At this point it began to rain; first just a few drops came down, large and scattered. People raised their hands up towards the heavens as if they were receiving a blessing. The fanatical youth turned back their heads and stretched forth their tongues, as if for the sacrament. The drops fell more briskly. The old men ran for shelter. The rain thickened, grew to a torrent and began to soak and partially disperse the crowd.

“It is a baptism,” some said in reverent voices. “It is a Holy Baptism!”

Gonzales stalked away to his chambers, thoroughly sickened by this ostentatious display of religion. If ever there was a false prophet, he told himself, Lando the Second was it.

“The man seems to be a specialist at mass hypnotism,” the old cardinal hissed between his teeth.

There was no question in his mind that the face of the church was changing, changing rapidly and for the worse.

The next day, the majority of news services exaggerated rather than reported the events. One Catholic paper said that, previous to the storm, the sun had appeared to be suffused with blood, and many stars were visible in the daylight. Another boldly asserted that orange flavoured rain had fallen from the sky, while a third spoke of ‘a shower of pearly golden corpuscles.’ In general, the consensus was that there had been an unexplainable atmospheric phenomena.

Chapter Eighteen

“No I have not seen him. Did you check the Sala degli Arazzi?”

“I have checked everywhere. The Pope is now utilising Di Quaglio as his secretary, but I cannot get any information from the latter as to how he arrived at the situation, whether it is permanent or merely temporary. No one has seen or heard of Vivan for the past week. He has simply disappeared. It is as if someone had kidnapped or done away with him.”

“Yes, I can understand how you might think it a bit queer,” O’Malley said with a somewhat forced smile. “But things have changed since Alexander VI’s time. We don’t go in for heavy intrigues these days.”

“But the last he was heard of was when he was lunching with the Pope,” Zuccarelli pointed out.

“Oh, come now Cardinal,” O’Malley laughed, putting his hand on the other’s elbow. “The lad is probably simply visiting his mother and doesn’t want to be bothered. He was always one for his mother and, if I were a betting man, that’s where my money would lie, – on him sitting around at his mother’s place for a spell and fattening up on her fine cooking.”

Half satisfied with this explanation, Zuccarelli nodded his head, expressing his hopes that the case were thus as well as his intention to investigate and determine if it were so.

“Well, give the lad my regards when you see him,” O’Malley said. “Tell him he’s missed at Vatican City.”

Zuccarelli, in an extremely pensive state of mind, made his way back to his own chambers, through the Portone di Bronzo and along the Scala Pia. He took the key from his pocket, opened the large oak door to his sanctuary and stepped in. The first room was an outer office. He sat down at his desk and called the telephone information operator in Padua.

“I want the number for Signora Vivan – Yes, as it is the only one listed it is bound to be right. Thank you.”

He called the number and asked the old woman if her son was at home.

“At home, here?” she cried. “I have not heard from him for nine days! And he usually calls me every Friday, Sunday and Wednesday! He is such a good boy; he simply cannot have forgotten me.”

She then went on to explain that she herself had been to the police, but they swore they could do nothing unless he had been missing for a longer period of time. She had called the Vatican and numerous officials, but always with unsatisfactory results. She had even tried to contact the Pope, but without luck.

“Please, see if you can find him,” she begged. “The shear worry is breaking my heart!”

“Yes, certainly,” Zuccarelli replied, in agitation. “I will do everything I can to locate him.”

He lay down the receiver.

“
Fava della Madonna
!” he murmured. “This is no good!”

That his destiny was somehow linked with Vivan’s was a fact he readily acknowledged. As dominant ecclesiastics they had lived in Padua, often strolling and dining together; mutually targeted by Torturo, they had risen in unison. Torturo, as Pope Lando the Second, was capable of anything – Zuccarelli was sure on that score. If Vivan was damned would he, Zuccarelli, be?

He thought not.

“I believe it is time to put a little distance between myself and Rome,” he said to himself. “There is no reason why necessity cannot impel me to make a sudden trip to Austria – or Sweden let’s say . . . I will pack my bags and be off. If Vivan turns up and the whole thing is a false alarm, then I can always return; – But if not, if my suspicions are correct . . .”

Without giving himself time to finish the thought, he swept into his bed chamber. – In half an hour he could have his bags packed and be on his way to the train station. – He stepped to the maple dresser, opened it and removed his white linen suit, deciding it would be best to travel incognito. He sat down on the antique, four-post bed which was placed square in the centre of the room, the walls of which were frescoed entirely red, with black trees upon which hung numerous fruits in the shape of naked men and women, twisted in immodest postures. He bent down and began to unlace his shoes.

“Do you have a rendezvous somewhere?”

The cardinal looked up. Clara was standing at the sitting room entrance. She was dressed in a tuxedo top, black shorts and black fishnet stockings, her feet sheathed in black, high-heeled leather boots. A large snakeskin purse hung from her shoulder.

“Yes. I was getting ready to go out. – How did you get here?”

“I just put one hoof in front of the other.”

“I mean into my rooms.”

“Why? Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“I have an appointment in Munich; I don’t have time for . . .”

“You don’t have time to be naughty?”

“Un – Unfortunately not – I would love to, but unfortunately not.”

She stepped up to him, her cellulose thighs bulging monstrously and stretching the shorts taut.

“Don’t you want to suffer?” she asked, pinching his chin. “Are you angry with me?”

“No, I am not angry – But I don’t have time.”

Clara slapped him briskly on the cheek.

“Don’t you want to suffer!” she screamed.

“Yes – Please, hurt me!” he burst out, throwing his arms around her waist and burying his face in her bosom. It was too difficult to resist the heat of her person, those fatty thighs sheathed in black fishnet.

“You old pervert,” she laughed, kneeing him away. “Here, put this on,” she said, reaching into her purse and pulling out a garment – a dress, like those worn by German housewives, of a sickly, greenish hue.

The cardinal deftly slipped out of his cassock and into the dress.

“You look charming.”

“Oh, Clara,” he said, falling to his knees.

“Call me Sir.”

“Yes Sir.”

She kicked him.

“Will you be good?”

“Yes; – Yes Sir.”

Clara took a blindfold and coil of rope from her bag.

“Get up,” she said.

The cardinal rose to his feet and stood, tall and thin, his pale, hairy legs sticking awkwardly out of the frock. His face, with its hawk’s nose and penetrating eyes, looked rather serious, despite the ridiculous costume he had been made to wear.

Clara smiled wickedly at him. She tied the blindfold over his eyes.

“Can you see?” she asked.

“No. Not at all. Nearly not at all.”

“Good.”

Gently humming a romantic air, she began to tie his wrists together behind his back, with all the adept skill of a sailor. As he felt the sturdy ropes wind around his wrists, bind him, and smelled her perfume, Musk Koublai Khan, that never failed to thrill, all thoughts of worry truly slipped from his mind. His delectation provoked, he could only, like an animal, experience the present moment.

“That feels wonderful,” he murmured when the ropes were fixed.

“Do you like it?”

“Very much.”

“Good. Now bend over.”

He did as he was told.

“Good girl.”

“Am I?” he asked.

“Yes. You are being a very good girl”

He lay one cheek on the floor, proned his rump in the air and attempted to peer through the edge of his blindfold. He could see nothing, but could hear movement.

“I can see your fanny,” she said

He laughed.

“Ready?”

“Yes,” he replied in an unsteady voice.

A jolting pain hurdled through him, from the back forward. He screamed. The pain came again, with redoubled force, surging from his buttocks and through his spine like a galvanic shock.

“My god, you are rough today!” he cried.

“Don’t you like it rough?”

“Yes, but—”

“Don’t you like it rough?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Yes, what?”

(He felt a boot press against his spine.)

“Yes Sir. I like it rough Sir.”

There was a cough.

“Who is that?”

“Oh, it’s just me.”

“And that smell? Are you smoking?”

“Yes.”

“Then—”

Zuccarelli was about to make further comment, but, before he could, a brisk and incredibly powerful blow was delivered to his rear end, which sent him sprawling forth on the floor howling. Several more came, in rapid succession; potent, painful, sadistic. The dress was ripped from his shoulders and he felt a blow across his naked back. He clawed his way forward, like a hunted animal, until he reached the wall. Raising a shivering hand to his face, he partially tore away the blindfold. Through the corner of an eye he thought he discerned a strip of white retreating through the door.

“Who was that?” he mumbled.

“A surprise you naughty boy.”

Clara kneeled down next to him, petting his head and kissing his eyes and neck.

“Don’t you like surprises?” she teased.

“I must say, I am surprised at your strength. My nether region aches atrociously. Have you been going to the gymnasium?”

“Do you want your surprise mousy?” she asked, ignoring his question and petting him amorously. “You want to
feel lovely
? Do you want your surprise mousy?”

“I suppose so,” he replied, the soft dominance of her hand thrilling him. “Yes; I suppose I do.”

“Girls,” she said, rising and turning around. “Girls!” she called, clapping her hands.

The door to the sitting room opened. Three women walked in. One, slim, blonde, apparently in her early twenties was dressed in a pink leather policeman’s outfit, the only difference being that the legs, encased in white net hose, were exposed. She carried a blue leather whip with a beaded handle which she cracked in the air. Her lips were cruel and of an extreme, artificial red, which glistened like a bloody wound on her face.

The second was about forty years of age and quite heavy, with flaming, curly red hair which reached down to her derrière. Her clothing was of tight black silk with black, leather strips bound impromptu around her arms and thighs, her pale, white flesh curling up around them. Her tool was a riding crop which she wielded, swatting her palm meaningfully. Her breasts, which literally oozed out of her clothing, were over-ripe and her swollen lips appeared veterans of unnatural vice.

The third woman, scarcely twenty years of age, had straight black hair cut short and a pleasing, calm face which was made somewhat extraordinary by a set of sky blue eyes which stared vacantly before her. Her skin was literally white as paper, aside from a small patch on her neck which was raw and pink. Dressed simply, in tight black trousers and a red t-shirt, she carried two burning tapers, one in each hand.