The Translation of Father Torturo (5 page)

“They are only metaphorically your neighbours. You have been brought up to perform a certain task; – That is the blade of reality.”

“But . . . But, living without morality: It sickens me!”

Torturo took a sip of his wine.

“A certain English psychologist once said that nature’s order is far older and more established than our civilised human morality.”

“Nature’s order?”

“Certainly: by killing, you are following the dictates of nature.”

Marco sighed. “You are smarter than me,” he said, “but that does not make you right.”

“No; it only makes me easy as to the ultimate fate of your soul.”

Torturo lit a Parisienne and crumpled the empty pack in his palm.

“I wish I were a priest like you,” Marco said.

Torturo smiled grimly. “And sometimes I wish I were a hired gun like you,” he murmured.

The waiter, a young, spectacled man in his early twenties, approached the table.

“One . . . You can have one more,” he said awkwardly. “We . . . You see, we close in thirty minutes. So, if . . . If you want another you can have it.”

“Yes; one more glass Baldo and then we will go.”

“Another . . . Another house red?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, two more reds and a pack of Parisiennes.”

***

Baldo walked off and soon returned with the wine and tobacco.

It was 2 a.m. when Baldo Sorrissi stepped out onto the via Guazzo, and closed and locked the door behind him. The restaurant, the Trattoria Potenza, a business he and his college mates had opened the year before, was going well and he had every reason to believe that the profits derived from polenta, spaghetti and baccala would see him through to a Bachelor’s Degree. He walked lightly along the cobbled street, mincing his steps with an air of importance.

It was a chilly January night. A nearly full moon swung overhead, occasionally obscured by sailing smudges of cloud. It had rained earlier in the evening and puddles had formed in the potholes along the narrow lane, which glinted with an oily light. Baldo lit a cigarette and turned up the collar of his jacket, in order to protect his sensitive neck from the cold. Grey smoke billowed from his nostrils and twisted from the cigarette end.

He turned right on the via Cappelli, past the closed shop fronts, with their spray-painted metal shutters drawn down, the soles of his shoes sounding crisp against the wet pavement. He flicked away his cigarette butt and stopped of a sudden to light another. As he stopped, he thought he heard the echo of footsteps behind him. He turned, but the street was black and empty. Adjusting his glasses, he smiled into the darkness, as if to show the person who was not there that he was at his ease, and then continued on his way, the perfume of a fresh cigarette pluming from his mouth. With moist, bud-like lips he gratified himself, inhaling deeply of the fragrant stream: the stalk of cheap tobacco which he imagined imbued him with a sort of offhand elegance. It was at times like these, when he was alone with no one about to provoke him into speaking, to hear the hesitating strains of his voice; it was times like these that he cherished: The night chill, black and romantic around him, his mind and mouth full of maleness, full of plans and possibilities, as the clouds sailed overhead, skirting before the moon.

He turned down the via Gorizia, a certain measure of jauntiness apparent in his aspiring step, as if the empty street, which he was walking down the middle of, was some kind of high profile catwalk with flash bulbs dazzling at every angle. The truth was however that the street was dark, dirty and unglamorous in the extreme. Notorious it was, but for the historian, not the paparazzi. In 408 Alaric I had made it wet with Italian blood, letting the guts of man, woman and child feel the smoothness of Gothic cutlery. Shortly thereafter, in the year 452, the king of the Huns,
Attila, dubbed the Scourge of God, more or less levelled the same street on his way to Rome. Indeed, it had always been a place for cruelty to deposit its gore, being a meeting place for the screams of the populace every time the tumultuous city of Padua changed hands, was conquered or reconquered. The fact that this was the battleground of kings did not in the least hamper Baldo’s mincing gait.

He flicked away his cigarette butt and watched it arch up, trail through the air and expire in a damp gutter. He licked his lips. A whisper met his ears that made his breath stop.

He wheeled around.

“Baldo.”

“Oh,” Baldo said with some relief. “It’s only you.”

“Do you love me? You don’t act like you love me any more.”

“I do
babbo
, but—”

The blade ran easily through the synthetic material of his jacket, pierced his belly and tickled the inside of his spine. It was rapidly withdrawn, and then continued its eager, blood spilling explorations, rising and falling again and again into the young man, pricking out his life. At first Baldo struggled feebly and let out a few low but horrific screams. Then, fallen to the wet pavement, he consigned himself to the rest of death and let the blade rape away his life . . . The rustle of a robe, the rapid, decided footsteps withdrew, leaving the body twisted in the centre of the street, the rain admixing its fluid with fierce history.

After doing fifty knee bends, twenty-five on each leg, hams lowered until they pressed firmly just above the heel, Father Torturo proceeded to do a set of one-hundred push-ups, an amount he reiterated three times daily. His thick, muscular brown body jack-knifed up and down on the floor, his chin and pectorals just barely gracing the ground before being thrust upward once more. An oily sweat added shine to his skin. An equal number of sit-ups followed, and he then poised himself in a shoulder stand for a quarter of an hour before advancing to a neck stand, a position he maintained unflinching for a full ten minutes. Arising, he bathed his hands and face in a basin of water, wiped his body with a moist towel, rubbed it down with Carapelli olive oil, and then proceeded to invest himself with cassock, his bearing maintaining an almost religious solemnity.

His room was furnished simply: A single, spring bed with a wooden cross nailed over it; a wooden table, which acted as desk; a small dresser whereon sat a rosary and an oval mirror the size of his hand; and a book shelf, filled with a number of volumes, many of them with their spines torn off.

Father Torturo looked at himself in the mirror, combed his hair with a hard rubber comb and, taking up the rosary which sat on the dresser, left the room.

***

Bishop Vivan sat at his desk, silently absorbed in a book. Every now and again he would reach down into the slightly open drawer and remove a brown chip of kinder-surprise, letting it drift into the open pink of his mouth, to melt upon the soft surface of his tongue. A smile crossed his lips every time he read some particularly delightful passage in his literature, and an occasional agitated frown, when the drama became awful.

There was a knock at the large oaken door.

“Come in,” the bishop said with a sigh, placing a floral patterned bookmark between the leaves of his volume.

Father Torturo entered. His face was grave and his piercing eyes quickly scanned the room and took in the bishop opposite, a last piece of chocolate flitting between his lips.

“You requested my presence Your Eminency,” Torturo said thickly.

“Yes, I did,” Vivan replied, laying down the book on the desk. “First of all, I would like to commend you on your vow of silence. Though it was only for a short while, it was a noble thing, and, in my opinion, marks you out among your fellows.” He cleared his throat and licked his lips. “But, I must say that I was disappointed at your lack of courtesy the other day when Cardinal Zuccarelli and myself passed you on the Prato della Valle. He was a bit upset. I defended you of course. – But, in all truth, a slight lack of breeding was displayed on your part. I need not point out that being in the Cardinal’s good graces can do you no harm, but could do you all the good in the world.”

“I thank Your Eminency for your interest,” Torturo said solemnly. And then, without in the least changing his expression: “You yourself are a perfect model of manners and, in the future, I would without doubt be wise to imitate you.”

“Well then, enough said,” the bishop replied with a magnificent flourish of his hand. “I don’t like to be a prig you know; – but I figured a little advice was in order – But please, sit down. I have been dying for a sympathetic man to talk to. You look flushed Torturo. Let me order us some tea. The refreshment will do you wonders.”

The father seated himself on an uncushioned wooden chair, the most uncomfortable in the room, crossed one leg over the next and glared down, almost contemptuously at the bishop’s small, effeminate form. Vivan looked up with his watery-blue, innocent boy’s gaze.

“Your eyes are quite red,” he said, in a hushed voice.

“You’ll have to excuse me. I did not sleep much last night.”

“Perusing some quaint, curious tome no doubt,” the bishop giggled. He picked up the telephone, rang the outer office and ordered tea. “I myself,” he continued. “I myself have been reading this marvellous little book.” He lay his hand reverently on the cover. “There is a whole series, of literally hundreds of volumes, all dealing with these two delightful young men, Frank and Joe Hardy – brothers. They are honest, clean, god-fearing American boys of the sweetest water. The book we have before us, titled
Slip, Slide and Slapshot,
which, mind you, I am reading for the third time over, has a most fabulous plot
.
There is a girl named Jamie, a most atrocious little heretical wench, full of the folly of pride: Pride in being the star figure skater. – Naturally you can imagine this young woman, entrapped in the sin of narcissism and unjustly outraged at Joe because he accidentally chucks a shot right into her precious little ankle! So, imagine, she tries to get Joe excommunicated from the team! Thank God Frank and Chet – Chet is a magnificent young man (I imagine him an out-and-out blonde) – intercede. Then, inspired by the very Devil himself, Jamie accuses Joe of stealing her fuzzy white seal. – Oh, but I see I’m saying too much! Of course you want to read the book yourself and make your own discoveries. You will be enchanted. I will lend it to you when I am done. It might not be in Latin, but it none the less abounds in merit. Indeed,” he concluded seriously, as if he was stating the most profound truth, “when it comes to simple God-honest purity of heart, we have much to learn from these Americans.”

“Yes,” Father Torturo said ironically, “they have many of the qualities of children.”

Vivan smiled, obviously quite pleased with the conversation.

There was a soft tapping on the door.

“Ah, here is Pepito with the tea.”

A young, handsome acolyte walked in carrying a tray on which sat tea for two and a plate of biscuits and crackers. Father Torturo scanned him from tip to toe: the rich black hair, corral lips, the slim, fit figure apparent even beneath ecclesiastic garments.

“You can set it down here, on my desk Pepito,” the bishop smiled.

“Yes, Your Eminency,” the young man said quietly, slightly bowing, his eyes shining with an inward fire. He set the tray down gently, poured the tea and, with noiseless gait, departed.

“A beautiful, Catholic example of Christianity,” the bishop sighed, dropping two lumps of sugar into his cup.

“A pleasant young man,” Torturo murmured into his own unsweetened beverage.

“My dear priest,” said Vivan presently. “Do you like fine things?”

“Fine things? I do not approve of jewellery or ostentatious show of wealth if that is what you are referring to.”

“No silly! I mean food.”

“Well, as you know, I enjoy a glass of good wine, or a slice of quality cheese as much as the next man. But I am not one to much indulge my appetite.”

“Oh! Wine; cheese!
Well – I have something for you anyhow!”

The bishop fished around in the drawer of his desk.

“Here, for the crackers,” he said, producing a jar of caviar. “This one is quite splendid. I purchased it just this morning. Delicious Russian salmon roe!”

Thirty seconds later:

“And here: A pâté; a pâté de foie gras from France! With plenty of truffles I assure you.”

“Bishop Vivan,” Torturo said with mock-archness, “are you by any chance a gourmand?”

“Oh, Torturo! But you know I like fine things to taste! – Do you think we have enough crackers, or should I call Pepito for some more?”

There was a low knock on the door.