The Translation of Father Torturo (23 page)

“Ah, he will surely recognise me!” thought Torturo with a sudden thrill of hope. “He was always a loyalist.”

Di Quaglio approached the scene, but did not so much as turn his gaze toward the cripple.

“Aeckh,” Torturo belched. “Aeckhhhaagghh!”

Di Quaglio looked down at him with undisguised disgust.

“What is this?” he asked Meier.

“A beggar sir,” Meier answered stiffly.

“Well, see that he is removed. It hardly gives a desirable impression to have his sort lingering out front.”

Di Quaglio entered the Vatican City and made his way to his own offices. Since the disappearances, of Vivan, Zuccarelli and then the very Pope himself, an enormous burden of responsibility had fallen on the shoulders of the plump little cardinal. His desk was piled high with papers, innumerable documents to sign, countless requests, policies to consider and questions of grave importance to be dealt with.

He sighed as he looked at the mess before him. Aside from letters, a number of parcels sat off to one side to be opened. He decided to deal with these first, as their bulk seemed of greater interest than the minutia of documents.

One package was larger than the rest. It was a good-sized cardboard box, with the return address being of a certain convent on the outskirts of Rome. The cardinal tore away the tape, ripped at the cardboard and looked within. It contained two arms, two legs and a tongue in a plastic bag. On the ring finger of the right hand of the right arm was the fisherman’s ring. Though the package had been posted some days earlier, and the contents were most likely a good deal older than that, there was no unpleasant odour or signs of decay.

Di Quaglio was horrified. He immediately telephoned the prefect of the papal household.

“The Pope is dead!” he cried “Lando the Second is no more!”

The prefect of the papal household informed the Camerlengo who, in the presence of the papal master of ceremonies, the cleric prelates of the Apostolic Camera, and the secretary of the Apostolic Camera verified that the limbs did indeed appear to be those of Lando the Second. The Camerlengo, according to tradition, called out the name of the Pope three times. The limbs lay still; the tongue did not respond. The secretary of the Apostolic Camera drew up the death certificate. The Camerlengo then informed the Vicar of Rome. The vicar, through an address over the Vatican radio, informed the people of Rome and the world. Meanwhile the prefect of the papal household met with the dean of the college of cardinals who informed the rest of the college, the ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, the presidents of Italy and the United States, as well as the Prime Minister of England.

The Camerlengo had all the property of Lando the Second removed from the
Sistine
Chapel and locked and sealed in private chambers. A will was looked for, but none was found. The Pope’s fisherman’s ring and his seal were broken to prevent forgeries. Arrangements were made for the papal funeral rights, and the nine days of mourning begun. The reign of Lando the Second was at an end.

On October twenty-first of the same year he was canonised a saint. His limbs and tongue, after being bathed in rape seed oil, were removed to the Santa Maria Maggiore and placed in windowed golden caskets in the Cappella Paolina, on display for all the pious to see. The oil, oleum martyr, was divided into ten-thousand flasks inscribed with the words
Eulogia Tou Agiou Lando
. These were distributed to the faithful as a remedy against sickness.

The cripple watched Di Quaglio disappear inside the Vatican City and then felt the hands of the two Swiss guards, Betschart and Meier, take him up and deposit him some distance away. He felt sickened with helplessness. One thing was obvious: He needed to get out of Rome. In his present condition, survival was too difficult in the city. He could hardly hope to ever gain admittance into the Vatican, and even if he were to, who would recognise him, or want to? He knew of only one person in the world whom he could fully trust, and that was his cousin. His cousin was in Padua. Torturo could not call him, because he could not speak. He could not write, as he had not hands to write with.

Slowly he crawled along, over the Tiber, along the via Cavour. He made his way through the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, through the knots of ostentatious whores that were already there even though it was just past two in the afternoon, and then crossed the via Giovanni Giolitti, to the train station. As usual it was busy, filled with pimps, pickpockets garbed as respectable citizens, businessmen and slovenly dressed tourists.

Torturo looked at the board. There was a train departing for Milan, via Florence, in a quarter of an hour. From Milan, Padua was but a few hours journey. He had no money for a ticket and cursed his own stupidity for having neglected to secure the doctor’s wallet. – Still, as often as not the train attendants never even bothered to ask one for a ticket. It was undoubtedly an easy enough matter to attain ones destination without money. – And, in any case, he had little choice but to try. It was apparent that Rome offered him very little hospitality.

Working his way through the multitude of travellers, he crawled to the track designated on the board. He clambered up the steps and onto the train. No one offered him help and, with nothing to facilitate communication but a mouth full of croaking pain, he could ask for none. The train itself was full and no seats were available for those without reservations. People filled the isles and even stood in the luggage section and in front of the restrooms – the section which was for Torturo most convenient to access.

“With the train so crowded, they will most likely neglect asking for tickets,” he thought.

It was true that people stared at him, but the train nonetheless pulled out of the station without anyone questioning him. Soon he saw the grey sky flashing by through the windows and felt the tracks bouncing beneath him. The train, which was an intercity, began to make its stops, each one accompanied by a staticky announcement made over the speakers:
Stimigliano, Orte, Attigliano
.

As he sat in the corner, the evil smell of the latrine assailing his nose, his mind wandered back to that first lone train ride, when he was still a boy. He remembered saying goodbye to his cousin and uncle and how he afterwards took up his old-fashioned grip and boarded the iron beast. How exultant, how high-spirited he had been, flying over rivers and past lakes, with the snow-capped blue mountains behind them, and the words and teachings of Father Falzon as a foundation to live by.

Now he felt the throbbing pain of his tortured body and inhaled the stench of the toilet. Few beings had seen such highs and lows, experienced a stroke so severe. It was as bad as the hanging of Nuncomar; it was comparable to the downfall of Richard II. Huddled in his corner, sneered at by every being that passed him by, he suffered like an eagle fallen into a pit.

When the train pulled out of Montevarchi, he felt some relief. He was almost as far as Florence, which was halfway to Milan. From Milan he would make his way to Padua, where his cousin was installed in the role of bishop. Mentally and physically exhausted, he closed his eyes and tried to think of better things.

“You have a ticket?”

He felt something prodding him and looked. A man was nudging him with his boot; another looming menacingly behind him.

“A ticket? You have a ticket?”

He was silent.

“Ticket? Where is your ticket?”

He opened his mouth and croaked, the sound deep, resonant and disturbing.

“
Basta
!” the man cried. “Luigi! Give me a hand. This cripple doesn’t have a ticket!”

“Disgusting fellow – But damn he’s heavy!”

Torturo, the cripple, was hurled off the train as it pulled into Florence, his wooden apertures clattering against the stone platform. He looked up. A number of people were staring at him (overfed Northerners, their bellies protruding; solemn Florentines who gazed at him as if he were less than nothing). Others, in a rush, stepped hastily over him, almost on him. Cursing internally, he rallied himself and made his way through the station, to the exit. Outside it was raining: a fall rain, humid and heavy that left the streets deserted of pedestrians; the streets rushed with bubbling fluid that gathered swirling at the gutters. He stared out through the glass window, oppressed and undecided in what course to take.

“There is no loitering in here.”

This time it was a policeman – a young, fascist looking fellow with a closely trimmed beard and dispassionate black eyes.

“There is no loitering in here,” in a curt, authoritative voice. And then, opening the door and ushering the cripple outside: “Move on; the rain will clear up soon if you are lucky.”

Torturo obeyed, hobbling, crawling forward on his sticks, into the downpour. The liquid ran over his head, into his eyes, and down the back of his neck. It seemed that there was a certain breed of man who asked nothing better than to be able to push around, to harry weaker beings, revenge their stupidity on those without fists to fight. – The cripple spit into the rain. The bells of the city rang gloomily through the wet sky, tolling the hour of six. He was not lucky; the rain, instead of abating, increased dramatically in strength. By the time he had found shelter beneath an alcove, he was soaked through. He looked up at the grey, impenetrable heavens overhead and running street before him, heard his own stomach moaning with hunger and drank hard from misery’s cup. In these moments alone, stripped of more than his grandeur and title, stripped of his very limbs and features, his very tongue with which to articulate, the thoughts came – not with rapidity or precision, but as a haunting nightmare. His recollections and feelings were black, and more painful than any festering wound. He thought of his mentor, Father Falzon, and wondered whether the man were in heaven or hell, reborn as scavenging dog or roving demi-god. He had always considered himself to be in some way the avenger of that man’s neglected life; but from where he now grovelled, in the state of a limbless, creeping creature, he knew that his ambitions had miscarried and he was but little more than a despicable abortion. He recalled his own youth, spent in wicked trivialities and the pursuit of arcane knowledge. He had climbed to the top of the pinnacle of the Church and had fallen – fallen with shattering briskness, in a horrible, lightening-like flash. To have toppled from such a staggering height was devastating. His life was blasted; he did not repent; yet he was sorely disappointed. He thought of those whom he had healed and considered the irony of his situation. Others he had healed, but now had not the power to heal himself.

That night he spent without a roof over his head and without food in his belly, crawling around the wet city of Florence. He passed the sham house of Dante, and tasted hell on his palate. He crawled along the via Dei Calzaiuoli to the Piazza della Signora and saw the sculptures, those reproductions of Donatello and Michelangelo and the incomparable original of Cellini, mock him with their grandeur while a policeman eyed him with suspicion. Scurrying off, he found himself at the banks of the Arno. He crawled under the Ponte San Niccolo in the hope of finding there a dry place to sleep, but a group of young men were there drinking beer and smoking marijuana. They laughed, made obscene, cruel jokes and threw bottles at him. He fled and disappeared into the night like a wounded dog. He had no blanket but the late October drizzle.

The next morning he crawled through the central market, crowded with people and food on all sides: breads, cheeses, green and black olives, stacks of plums, apples and pears, prosciutto crudo and cooked ham, almonds, cashews, raisins and dates. The butchers sat behind counters well stocked with pink rabbits, joints of beef and pork and mounds of raw and roasted chickens, while the fish sellers dived their fists into barrels of muscles and oysters, trays of squids, prawns and fresh sardines glistening on all sides. At Nerbone, the famous market kitchen, the cripple saw workers sit down with great bowls of chick-pea soup, plates of macaroni and pitchers of the cheap but delicious house wine. He was starved and the sights and aromas made him feel faint. A woman, seeing his hungry eyes and thinking him a beggar, threw him a roll. It was warm and delicious and he ate it, in desperate haste, like a savage.

His existence was degraded, and he spent his days scrounging. Humbled by hunger, he felt as if he had a yoke of iron around his neck. He begged in front of the Santa Maria del Fiore. The tourists, ever ready to spend ten euros on a museum, one-hundred on a restaurant meal or a two-hundred on a hotel room, simply could not find it in their hearts to bestow a few coins on the cripple. His appearance disgusted people and they chose to stay as far away from him as possible, lest they catch whatever it was he had. Thus, for him, to even find basic sustenance seemed impossible.

He was lucky to get a piece of bread or an old bit of vegetable. Meat never crossed his lips. In dire need of nutrition, warmth and care, he had only hunger, the open sky and the yellow spit of obnoxious young men. After weeks of this, of begging, of sleeping on any dry patch he could manage to appropriate for an hour, he looked at the drizzling heavens, thought on God and considered his cruel divinity. Presently the rain stopped and he crawled along the sober cold bricks, his head spinning, filled with the pangs and darkness of sorrow. Crucified by sheer bodily weakness, he collapsed and let his eyes close against that chilly surface which had once been baked by fire.

Two figures approached him, their heads covered with black hoods, which had round holes cut out for the eyes, and their bodies draped with black robes of course cloth. They inspected the cripple, lying before them as one dead, a stinking heap of debased humanity, murmured to each other, and then hoisted him on their shoulders and carried him away. A quarter of an hour later he was set down in front of the outer precinct of the Sette Santi convent.