The Translation of Father Torturo (6 page)

“What can it be now,” the bishop pouted. “Are my duties never done? Cannot I enjoy a peaceful cup of tea with one of my brethren? Come in,” he called out, leaning back in his chair with the air of a Caesar.

An old woman of minute stature, crowned with a net of frosty white hair crept into the room. Her glazed eyes sought out Vivan.

“Mother!” he shouted, rising from his seat, cheeks flushed like coddling apples.

The woman muttered some words of apology for her intrusion, advanced to the bishop and, as he bent over and clasped her, planted a kiss on each glossy cheek.

“What a nice boy he is,” she said, turning to Father Torturo, who had also risen and stood like a pillar several feet from the others, his cup still in his hand.

“The nicest,” he said, with complete composure, softening his features with a staid and understanding smile.

The mother and son began to talk on subjects near and dear to themselves. Torturo swallowed his tea and, after giving a few well turned compliments to Vivan’s mother, took his leave.

“What a wonderful speaking voice your friend has,” Signora Vivan remarked to her son when Torturo had left.

“Yes, I noticed it myself for the first time today. It is rather odd, I have known the man for a great while, but not until today did I realise what a luxurious voice he has. It is so handsome! I put it down to a blessing received from a vow a silence he recently took.”

“He is a holy man,” Signora Vivan smiled. “This morning, on my way to the market I saw him preaching to the fishes.”

“Oh, mother!” Vivan laughed, kissing her on the forehead. “You do get such outlandish ideas!”

“That may be – but I am certain it was him I saw
standing on the bank of the Bachiglione River and preaching to the fishes. He must have been preaching on Matthew, because he said something about the land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim. Your friend has quite a distinctive appearance, and as you yourself admitted, his speaking voice is something special; – He is a nice friend for you to have Sebastianino – He is like a regular saint.”

The man secured the button of his pants, looked down at the filthy receptacle, as unpleasant as any in Italy, ground level porcelain, muddied by the refuse of man, and ejected himself from the closet, onto the open courtyard. His hairline was much too low down on his forehead, and his countenance, if seen at close proximity, bore the unhealthy lustre of face paint. He walked across, through the door opposite and the kitchen area beyond, which was stacked high with sacks of flour and sugar. His half finished cappuccino was still sitting on the table of the mirror lined shop. He picked it up and drained it in a swallow, smacking his lips at the bitter-sweet flavour.

“How much?” he asked, approaching the counter.

“One euro, fifty.”

He handed the shop attendant a five euro bill and received the change.

“
Grazie
.”

“
Grazie a lei
.”

He observed the chocolates ranged in the glass showcase below and, as he moved towards the exit, lingered at the freezer near the door, noting the sorbet stuffed lemons and oranges within, as well as the bright ice-cream, sculptured into red roses and small yellow ducklings.

“Anything else I can get for you?” the shop attendant called.

“No,” the man answered and pushed open the door onto the street. He adjusted his tie, which strangled as if it had been a snake around his neck, took out a pack of Parisiennes and, lighting one, made his way along the via San Vittore to the via Carducci, which he crossed at a trot, avoiding a scooter which bore down on him with aggressive insistence. With long, virile strides he passed between the twin towers of the Museum of Torture, the perfume of cheap tobacco wafting around him, and proceeded into the courtyard, the walls of which were embedded with plaques and bits of sculptured marble dating back to Roman decadence. Flicking away the half consumed cigarette, he hastened into the left-hand door of the Church of St. Ambrose.

Half darkness; the indistinct smell of religion; cool as a tomb. He chuckled to himself and listened to his own footsteps click along the tiled floor of the church.

***

The city of Milan was in a state of emergency. Rome quaked. Italy roared. The entire Catholic world seethed with indignation. Television reporters formed an airtight barricade around the points of outrage. Helicopters swept through the sky, growling and marring it with their black profiles. The president of the United States said he was ‘shocked at the inappropriate behaviour’ of the criminals and mispronounced the names of three saints, two countries and his own Chief-of-Staff. The Pope put all his energy into a five minute speech, twelve words of which were articulated clearly enough to be paraphrased by every news agency from New Delhi to New York. The disappearance of St. Anthony’s tongue had been generally regarded as a horrific prank, a grim occurrence, the equal of which would not likely occur again in any Christian’s lifetime. This newest event, the ransacking of both the Basilica of Sant’Eustorgio and Church of St. Ambrose was regarded in all quarters in the light of a conspiracy. Detectives were imported from both France and England and given carte blanche status. Meanwhile the Italian police force enacted measures in and around the city of Milan not seen since the days of Mussolini. At the border of Ponte Chiasso searches were made, though primarily of male youths of non-European origin. A few sachets of marijuana were discovered, as well as a stash of zoophiliac photos, but nothing more.

In the city itself, detectives mulled over the evidence, which was actually quite sparse:

The tomb of St. Ambrose had been broken into, the bars severed by means of a simple hack-saw. The fore-arms of the saint had been forcefully removed. The two saints which lay on either side of Ambrose, St. Gervaso and St. Protaso, had each had a their carpals abducted. The precious regalia of the three had been taken and their robes left in disarray, but undamaged. The nearby tomb of s.s. m.m. Naboree and Felice had been pried open, the weighty marble lid let crash to the ground. The ancient remnants of each lay strewn about, fibulas and tibias distinctly missing. The glass tomb of St. Savina was broken, femurs gone, skull pushed to one side and gold mask cast to the ground, slightly dinged. The tombs of St. Satio and St. Marcellina, the brother and sister of St. Ambrose, had been violated in turn, portions of each corpse missing, most items of obvious pecuniary value left behind, aside from the ring which had adorned St. Satio’s finger.

The only piece of evidence introduced upon the scene by the culprits (for it was assumed to have been the work of a band) was a single cigarette butt, extinguished in front of Bernardino Luini’s painting of the Madonna and Saint Gerolamo.

The scene at the Basilica of Sant’Eustorgio was similar. The main altar had been raided, the pieces stored therein, those of the saints Eustorgio, Magno and Onorato filched. The bars of the Sarcophagus of the Magi had been sawn away, the venerable remnants of the three wise men sadly abducted. In the Capella Portinari the top of the marble arc constructed by Giovanni di Balducci had been pried open and let fall to the ground, where it had cracked in half, the magnificent sculpting badly damaged. A portion of the legs of San Pietro had been removed. Additionally, the monument of sacred relics just outside the tomb had been ransacked, a number of treasured bones taken.

***

He had caught the 5:25 train that morning from Milan Central Station bound for Venice, his costume consisting of jogging pants, a blue jumper and a New York Yankees baseball cap. His black hair was now a silvery blonde and, aside from his eyes, which had an impenetrable and cold depth, he looked quite jaunty. The only other person in the carriage was a youngish American woman, her hand continually straying to her long, straight blonde hair to adjust it or thrust it back away from her eyes, and whose ample derriere easily filled the limitations of her seat. She smiled and flashed her slightly orgasmic eyes at the disguised Torturo. He nodded his head and remained impassive.

The train churned off into the wet, dark morning, the buildings and street lamps looking particularly haunting at that hour, the former but vaguely illumining empty streets, and the latter shuttered up, in the ugly, inhospitable way Italian establishments are at night. The young woman crossed one leg over the next and closed her eyes. Torturo gazed out the window at the flying blackness. Forty minutes later the train squeaked into Brescia, before continuing on, towards Verona. Passengers, many who had boarded the train the evening before, in places as far away as Gemany and Belgium, began to emerge from the sleeping cars, yawning and scratching their backs and heads. The snack cart began to make its way along the side isle, serving biscuits and what the attendant naively referred to (though with a certain degree of pride), as ‘German coffee.’

“Café?” the attendant asked, poking his head in.

The young woman yawned and stretched her arms. “Yes –
Si, si
,” she said.

She paid the man, took out a book from her purse and, while sipping her coffee, read.

At Verona Torturo stepped off the train, made his way to the news kiosk in three strides, bought the morning edition of the
Corriere della Sera
, and was back on the train in less than two minutes. He ran his tongue over his teeth as he read the headlines and, continuing on into the leading article, noted what a poor range of vocabulary the writer, one Giuseppe Brilli, had. The word ‘shocking’ was used five times in the space of two paragraphs, and the phrase ‘the depraved criminals’ over a dozen in the entire article.

“Literacy is certainly the death of literature,” Torturo thought as he looked up and noticed the book the young woman was reading: King and Straub’s
Black House.

As the train pulled into Padua, which is less than an hour’s ride beyond Verona, he peered up from his paper and out the window of the second class carriage. The sky was grey and softly lit, depositing drizzle which slid down the window like tears. Several passengers boarded the train, but none sat in the four empty seats of his carriage.

“We’ve been so lucky to have this compartment to ourselves,” the woman across from him said in English. “I just hate it when it’s full.”

He gave an indulgent smile over the edge of his paper and shrugged his shoulders, signifying that he did not understand a word she said, though he understood her perfectly.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she smiled. “You don’t understand English. I thought you did – The baseball cap you know.”

“
Si, si
!” and then turning back to the journal, which was quite obviously written in Italian: “
Permesso
.”

She bit her bottom lip and gave him a moist American stare.

Though his ticket would take him all the way to Venice, he got off at Mestre, the previous stop. With long, almost imperial strides he made his way to the opposite track and boarded the train for Trieste, which pulled out just seconds after the door shut behind him. He sat alone in a first class carriage (ticket purchased three days previous at the Verona station), his luggage, which consisted of two Samsonite suitcases, stowed neatly overhead. The trip was uneventful. He looked out the window at the cows grazing in the wet, lush meadows. The farmers moved around their fields and barns, wearing broad-brimmed hats to keep the rain off their faces. After Monfalcone, the train ran along the Gulf of Trieste and Torturo looked out at the calm, though somewhat dismal Adriatic Sea, the waters appearing almost black in the morning light. Sloping down from his left were the hills of Slovenia. Behind him was the mass of Italy. He looked at his watch. It was 9:30. A quarter of an hour later the train pulled into the Trieste station. He deboarded, headed straight for the restrooms, which were completely empty, abandoned his wig and changed his clothes. The cap, jogging pants and jumper were stuffed in the trash receptacle, the sacerdotal robes resumed.

Despite the drizzle, which still persisted outside, he made his way on foot, a suitcase in each hand, to the local stop, some four blocks away. As luck would have it, he only had to wait for some five minutes before the small red trolley arrived, though he was fairly soaked through by the time he boarded. The three or four people who were on the transport nodded to him respectfully, their reverence being inspired not so much by his moist appearance as by the garments he wore. He sat down in one of the antique wooden seats, towards the front, where the sign still read, ‘Reserved for Veterans of the War,’ an indication of the age of the little trolley, which jolted into motion and wound through the empty streets of Trieste, past the rain dimpled harbour, which contained mammoth cargo ships, with dirty white characters inscribed on their sides, mostly in Russian and other Eastern European languages. The trolley reached the edge of town and gained grade, climbing up the steep hills towards the frontier, down below the harbour a gorgeous blue-grey against the gouged out blocks of buildings and the rich green, mist wreathed hills. At the gorge it stopped, and funicular lines were attached. It continued airborne for a short distance and then resumed its route on tracks, to Villa Opicina, which was the end of the line.