The Translation of Father Torturo (20 page)

“Let me introduce you,” Clara said with a smile. “Gina, Gabriella and Temple.”

“Very nice,” he said, shifting on his knees.

Gina gave a contemptuous sneer at the elderly man, his chest rife with grey hair and the nostrils of his noble, aquiline nose flaring with obvious desire. Gabriella laughed, her hefty bosom jiggling. Temple stared blankly at him, as if he were no more than a piece of furniture, rather than a naked, lust-filled cardinal.

Zuccarelli gave Gabriella a pleading look. She smiled at him, showing a set of glistening white teeth, slightly smeared with lipstick.

“I see you like Mistress Gabriella?” Clara laughed.

“Yes.”

“What is it you like about her?”

“Yes, what is it you like about me?” Gabriella lisped in Venetian dialect.

“I like your hair Gab—Mistress Gabriella.”

“You like sluts?” she lisped. “Do you like fat girls?”

“Yes. I like fat girls.” His chin trembled.

“Are you a
stallone
?” she asked, approaching him. “Are you a stallion?”

“I will be . . . If you want me to, I will be.” He chewed at his bottom lip.

She straddled his back and struck him in the side with the crop. He laughed weakly. He felt her full flesh, her weight intense, as if it were about to break his spine in two. He groaned with obvious satisfaction. She laughed wildly.

Gina shrugged her shoulders impatiently. She sneered with undisguised contempt at the spectacle.

“Gina,” Clara said. “Go ahead Gina.”

“As you want.”

The young woman, standing hip-shot, cracked her whip, the tip of it just nipping Zuccarelli’s ear. A single drop of blood fell to the ground. He gave a little scream of mingled excitement and pleasure. Gina’s face was stolid. She raised her eyebrows slightly.

Gabriella struck him on the neck with the riding crop, accompanying the gesture with a violent, predatory cry. Zuccarelli screamed and bucked in consternation.

“Do you like that?” Gabriella asked mildly.

“My god,” he replied. “Its too rough!”

Clara laughed. “Get off him Gaby,” she said. “He’s a string bean. You’re too heavy for him.”

Chuckling and smacking her hungry lips Gabriella dismounted. Gina, still standing with complete composure, flicked the whip, again nicking his ear.

“Too rough!” he cried in a somewhat demanding voice.

“See, he’s a man,” Clara laughed.

“So he is,” Gabriella said and pinched his cheek.

He smiled and looked up at Temple. He wondered when she would join the game. She bat her eyelids and opened her mouth slightly, but otherwise showed no awareness of her surroundings. He suddenly found her immensely attractive. Her abnormally white skin, the stupid vacancy of her face and the coolness with which she viewed the cardinal’s degraded position was more than enough to inflame his desire.

Gabriella was the most active. She would not leave the cardinal alone. She smacked him, pinched him and was constantly circling him, pressing her heaving flesh up against his gaunt, kneeling figure.

“You like this?” (Hitting him on the backside with her riding crop.)

He squealed with delight. “Oh, yes!”

She struck him on the shoulder and he cried out in pain. She struck him again, this time much harder and put her boot against his chin. Pushing his head back with her heel, she struck him savagely on the throat.

“Stop!” he cried, gasping for air. He did not mind the humiliation, but felt that the pain was getting to be a bit too extreme. He rubbed his neck while Gabriella loomed over him caressing the handle of her riding crop.

“Is she rough
schiavo
?” Clara smiled. “Is she too rough slave?”

“Yes. Please. Tell her to stop.”

“Would you like Temple to help you?”

“Yes. Please.” (Looking up at the young, pleasant faced woman with pleading eyes.)

“Temple,” Clara said. “Go ahead Temple.”

Temple did not reply. She minced forward, the tapers waving in her hands, kneeled down near the cardinal and kissed him on the cheek. His mouth became moist with delight and he murmured a few words of pleasure. After the rough strokes of Gabriella he found the feathery touch of Temple extraordinarily agreeable. She bat her eyelids vacantly and then, raising the tapers above the cardinal, began to slowly drip wax on his naked back, letting it build until a few drops slid down his side.

“That feels superb,” he murmured.

She said nothing. In the puddle of soft, hot wax that had formed on his back she placed one candle. Meanwhile Gina strutted before him, occasionally adjusting her blonde hair, fingering her whip, the pink leather of her costume tight about her and glistening as if wet. Temple kissed his neck. Gina, obviously eager to make him suffer, cracked her whip quite near his face.

“Keep her away,” he said. “Keep Mistress Gina away.”

“You like Temple more?” Gabriella asked.

He did not answer.

“You like Temple more?” Clara asked, her words hard.

“Yes. She is more gentle.” Zuccarelli said, delighted with the role he was playing. Nothing pleased him more than to be like a submissive dog before these dominant women.

“Temple,” Gabriella said, handing her a jar.

Temple, placed her second taper between her pressed together thighs, and, taking the jar, emptied a portion in the palm of one hand. She began to rub the jelly on the cardinal’s shoulders, down to the middle of his back, where the candle burned upright.

“Very nice,” he murmured. “This ointment is very nice.”

Gabriella winked at Clara. Gina strutted about impatiently, with a saucy, contemptuous look on her beautiful face.

“What a wonderful evening,” Zuccarelli purred; and then, looking up at Temple: “Rub my body ma’am.”

The young woman gazed at him with her limpid blue eyes, blinked and dispensed more of the jelly onto her palms; she proceeded to rub his neck and head and saturated his close cropped hair.

“Very nice indeed,” he murmured. “What is it?”

“Temple!” both Clara and Gabriella said simultaneously.

The young woman took the taper from between her thighs and, calmly, looked at Zuccarelli, her extraordinary sky blue eyes without emotion.

“It has a familiar odour, like—”

Gina gave a frigid little laugh.

“Temple!” Clara shouted.

“Fuel,” the cardinal said, raising himself on his elbows. “It smells like some kind of gas.”

“Temple!”

With just the flicker of a smile, the young black haired woman set the flame of the candle to his hair, lighting it, turning it into a blazing crown that quickly flashed down his neck and back as he leapt to his feet. He arched his spine, letting out a horrendous, pain laden scream. For a moment, a brief instant, he caught sight of himself in the mirror opposite, his eyes rolling red balls, his lips pulled back to the roots of his gums and a shivering tongue stretching forth.

While Temple herself was silent, as she had been since her entrance, the other three women were fully indulging in laughter, both Clara and Gabriella, uncontrolled, uproarious; Gina with a sinister giggle, her top teeth showing like pearls over the vermilion of her bottom lip, which she bit. He was suffering terribly, this lecherous old cardinal, and finally she showed signs of satisfaction.

“Quick!” Clara cried, pointing towards the restroom door. “Into the bath. It is the only way to cool off!”

Zuccarelli leapt rather than ran through the door, his head and back still ablaze, crackling somewhat and sending up a good deal of black smoke. The fleeing soles of his feet disappeared through the entrance to the bathroom. There was the sound of a splash, of a whole body hurling itself into liquid, which was instantly followed by a cry so horrendous, so deafening, that the women were forced to put their hands over their ears – and even then they could not make themselves deaf to the nauseating exhalations of pain . . . Upon removing them, those paws adept at vice, the women only heard a steady sizzling, like garlic sauteing in a pan. An odour, sulphurous, unpleasant, like a preparation of egg salad in bulk, reached their noses.

“Ooh!” Temple said, moving out of the room. “The stink is terrible.”

Chapter Nineteen

“You don’t need to worry,” he said slowly. “If there is one thing I know it is how – how to do a clean job.”

“Believe me, I trust you fully,” the Successor of Saint Peter said with a nonchalant gesture of his hand.

There was a minute’s silence. The Pope still paced thoughtfully about the room. Marco stood, almost motionless in the same place.

“Please, sit down,” the Pope finally said, seeming to just notice that the other was still standing.

“Do you think it was necessary?” Marco asked, remaining upright, but lowering his head.

“Vivan and Zuccarelli?”

“Yes. Do you think it was just?”

The Pope smiled:

“Oh, I think I did them full justice. Really, they got more than they deserved. Instead of being crudely executed, they were done away with in a manner that suited to each his own particular predilection. Mighty generous punishment if you ask me. They indulged in luxury, they forgot God, and were tortured in like manner.”

“Yes, but the punishments were far worse than the crimes!”

“Certainly. If the quantity of luxury and deceit fill but a thimble, let the torment fill a barrel. If a man indulge in luxury for one day, his torture should equal to a whole year. Therefore for all the crude luxury people indulge in, there is a great deal of torture to be undergone; – If not here, then in the hereafter. If we had left the task undone and not applied the appropriate remedies to these wounds of the Church, then God Himself would certainly have severed the rotten limbs and, as sure as the sun does shine, annihilated them with fire and sword.”

“But, don’t you consider this work, this theft of human life to be evil?”

Torturo looked steadily at his cousin. “Sometimes God uses evil, or what men call evil, to help along his own wise and mysterious purposes. And, in our case, it is not theft. Their lives were not their own to play folly with.”

“But . . . who will be next?” Marco asked with a pained expression. “If you only knew how I felt about the whole thing. I am so sick of dragging corpses around.”

“I know you do not like it cousin.”

“When you invited me here, and had me invested – I thought it was for other purposes – I thought that finally my life was to take a more spiritual turn.”

“It will Marco.”

“Truly?”

“Yes.”

“No more . . . liquidations?”

“No. None; – None that I will have you involved in. You disposed of Dr. Štrekel for me and for that I am perpetually grateful. You have helped greatly with the arrangements for Zuccarelli and Vivan, and carted off their bodies without previous complaint. You are my cousin, but that does not matter, because I refuse to commit nepotism. – What does matter is that you are loyal – You are loyal and as good as gold . . . You have been a priest for six months. You are over the age of thirty, born in lawful wedlock, you have no defects of the mind and, as far as I am concerned, are free from censure. The seat at Padua is open. I will make you a bishop and install you therein. Your only duties will be religious. You are the new Bishop of Padua.”

Marco was visibly overcome. “But . . . But don’t I need some kind of theological degree?” he murmured.

“It is true that you should be licensed in canon law or theology or, preferably, have the degree of Doctor. But the most important thing is that you are seen fit to teach others and I, the most high authority of your order, declare that you are so fit.”

Marco threw his arms around the Pope in joy. “I always told mother she was wrong about you when she said you were wicked,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “This news will please her tremendously.”

“My aim is always to please,” Pope Lando said seriously.

Several weeks after this conversation occurred, the Pope paced the length of the Sistine Chapel in restless agitation, his heels ringing against the
opus alexandrinum
floor. He had a thousand problems to solve, those which were simultaneously the burden and thrill of his office, and his mind never worked at its optimum level in an enclosed space, no matter how grand it might be. That he needed to give free reign to his limbs, let them operate in open, unconfined spaces, was obvious.

He retired to his dressing chamber, poured himself a glass of Chianti and drank it off at a swallow. Casting aside his skull cap, and divesting himself of the white soutane, he dressed in a slightly shabby wool suit, not at all in the latest fashion. He placed the wig upon his head, an unnatural red, slightly curly, covering the entire nape of his neck. He pressed his hand against one of the intricately decorated panels which covered the walls and a small door, dating from the time of Pius IV, opened near the dresser. He walked along the narrow passageway, which, designed by Pirro Ligorio, was meant to be an emergency escape route in times of danger, and wound his way beneath the Sala dei Ministri and the Cortile di San Damaso.

Coming out in the rocks of the Fontana dell’Aquilone, he snuck through the gardens, past the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and around the Leonine Tower. He moved on, through the oaks, past the marble blocks and pillars, and to the great wall which surrounded the Vatican and its precincts. Removing an elaborate gold key from his pocket, he approached a small door, barely noticeable due to the shrubbery which surrounded its vicinity and, after applying the key, opened it, stepped through and breathed in the air of the outside world. He was on the Viale Vaticano. There were a few pedestrians and many cars and scooters. He closed the door behind him, turned to the right and, with ample space to give to his long, virile strides the freedom of motion they required, proceeded along the street, unmolested and apparently unnoticed.

It was a beautiful fall day. It was hot. Clouds floated calmly through the blue sky. Tourists manipulated their magnificent, overfed torsos through the streets of the greatest city on earth, balancing precariously on pale, unexercised legs. They wiped the sweat from their foreheads and peered through camera lenses. The Roman shopkeepers stood by, unperturbed in the shade, devoting the minimum amount of effort necessary to life.