The Vatican Games

by Alejandra Guibert

  Whilst Vera had been born against all odds, the alignment of the planets could not have been more harmonious. Easy aspects prevailed without any tension between them at the time of her birth. They revealed night and day, consciousness and unconsciousness. Nothing submerged or shut away. Emotions and needs out in the open. An exceptional awareness. Something which should make life easy and lucky for her. The extraordinary combinations and coincidences matched to produce an astral chart that was one in a million. Like tossing fifty coins and all of them falling the same way up. Heads or tails. She did not feel lucky that afternoon when she got home and found Galo hanging from a rope. Almost motionless were it not for the slight rhythmic swinging of his lifeless body.

  They took magnetic prints and video. The police removed the body and left Vera with the care assistant, who explained the procedure and noted her wishes regarding the disposal of the remains. Just as he knew her in every feature, each gesture, Vera also knew that Galo would have wanted it to be her who gave him that final embrace. Before the officers, the experts, the assistants, the forensic scientist and their procedures. Before they processed the death of the beloved body. She climbed onto the trunk into which they had thrown the games. Galo had dragged it to the window in order to reach the beam which had served as a support for the final jump. When Vera cut the rope, Galo’s body slipped gently into her arms. Sitting on the trunk, Galo lain across her lap resembled Christ in the painting in the convent’s sacristy, the red cloth now covering his face.

  Like Vera, Galo had no close family. Millions of people of their generation had lost parents and relatives. Galo did not know whether his father had left him at the orphanage having lost heart on losing Galo’s mother, or because he had wanted to move on in order to leave behind a place he needed to forget. All Galo knew was that his father had never again got in touch. Vera could easily have found him on the Mother Hub. She had suggested this to Galo on several occasions. Although he had hundreds of questions, Galo did not dare to ask. Vera could not understand him. She herself was very curious about who her father was. She had asked Benedita, who had briefly talked to her about her mother. Benedita had drawn out the conversations, broadening what little she knew so that Vera would have a positive image of her mother. She dressed up what seemed dubious and responded evasively about what might be murky. She tried hard to make happy moments of their sporadic conversations on the subject of Vera’s mother and was always ready when questions came up unexpectedly. On the other hand, Vera had interrogated her in vain about her father. It was as if he had never existed. Although perhaps he was around somewhere, as alive as she was.

  Galo could hardly remember his father’s face. He chose to leave him lost in the Mother Hub. What would be the point of finding him now, Vera asked herself, to announce to him that his son had died. Vera was certain of that and of one other thing. She knew where to spread Galo’s ashes, although they had never talked about this, hoping that, by ignoring the subject, it would never happen. Those two certainties gave her peace to organise what she could no longer postpone. For the time being she had to put her feelings aside to attend to police, funerary and administrative procedures. The three customer care assistants of each of the departments helped her deal with the bureaucracy. She found it difficult to get rid of the personal care assistant, who pursued Vera for hours each day prior to the cremation, determined to ensure that Vera would overcome the loss. She had been specially trained. Vera’s age group was assigned special services, whether Vera liked it or not. She belonged to the group of women under thirty-five of child-bearing age. She deserved a new opportunity to start a family, whether she wanted to or not. Vera was also in a preferential subgroup, having never given birth.

  ‘Our priority is you,’ the care assistant insisted. ‘We’re here to make the process easier for you. Reintegration into normal life. My job is to listen to you, understand you, heal you. If you need somebody to talk to, I’ll arrange it.’

  Proposals to organise her future for her forced Vera to face a reality from which she and Galo had decided to abstain. They had deliberately tried to avoid a life of conditioning. For her part, the woman made a real effort to follow the stages described in her instruction manual, while Vera wanted to tell her that it was not what she wanted. There were times when it was pointless to say anything.

  ‘You haven’t had any children. I’m so sorry. You mustn’t despair. You’ll have them soon. We will run a fertility test when you’re ready. We’ll call you so that you don’t have to worry about it. Once you have someone in your life again you can go on the fertilization scheme right away. If you don’t find someone within a year, we can also help you. You know there are other options.’

  The assistant was there with her team to help her do what could not be put off any longer.

  The safety guarantees took care of a world that was weakened in terms of numbers and birth rates. Studies showed a systemic fragility that needed addressing. It was not just that the sperm count had been reduced to less than half. Tests showed that only half of those counted were actually alive. Of those, only ten percent swam forwards. Ninety percent of the sperm of the post-cataclysm male population swam backwards. The tiny, invaluable cells were refusing to collaborate with the World Government’s plan to increase the population. It had become as difficult a task as the forgotten pre-cataclysmic need to reduce it.

  New methods of fertilization arose and with them the creation of a new field of employment.

  Selection was rigorous. The condition was that employees should subject themselves to a strict health plan. They were monitored weekly. The ‘super sperm suppliers’ achieved sperm counts of almost thirty million, their work recognised as the new priesthood. They represented the statistical and true possibility of avoiding the progressive extinction of the human species.

  Vera set off early on her bicycle with the urn in her backpack. It was Saturday. Not surprisingly, the streets were empty. She really wished she could see people on their way somewhere. She would have preferred it to have been a dull day, but the sun shone making stark the desolation of a land unnoticed, deprived of desire. She felt the warning of the cameras as she passed them. The only sound seemed to come from the oiled bicycle chain as it turned and the CCTV cameras which followed her one after the other as in a relay race. As if Vera were the only living thing defying the day. The only moving body. On a morning of special games on the national network around her there was nothing but diaphanous souls, thought Vera. She was not worried about the cameras. Neither did she approve of them recording her grief. She had jumped the perimeter fence. What an irony that Galo should jump with her, on her back. At least he would not have to answer if she were asked to explain herself. Once on the other side she lifted her arms in front of the cameras. What would they do to her: execute her for having chosen a place that was meaningful? For wanting to muddy her feet? Of course not. Those were words from the past. They existed solely in relation to the avatars who preferred historical games. The only executions were commercial or political ones. The only bullets, economic or public bans.

  There she was, with an urn full of ashes, facing the unacceptable. Galo’s living flesh had been transformed. His look and his skin, the external proof of his presence were simply impossible to hold on to except through memory. Vera’s humanity felt more frail than ever, with her knees firmly planted on the ground she so loved.

  She said goodbye to Galo in the same place where they had sensed each other for the first time. Lark’s Wood, they had called it. Where Vera had predicted he would be and had gone to find him. There was not much left of the wood where Galo had become lost. The perimeter had advanced more and more until it almost reached the space surrounding the lake. As if the wood were an island, surrounded by turbines scaring off the birds. Galo and Vera had returned again and again, even though it saddened them. Even if it were reduced to a single tree where they could sit and be themselves. It was the only place they felt belonged to them. If Vera left his ashe
s there at the foot of the tree on which they had carved their names, a lark would fly to it. To find him, so that Galo would no longer fear the woods. She sat down where they used to sit with the urn on the ground between her feet. She unscrewed the top and leant against the trunk, resting her head on her knees. Her mind was emptied of all thought. But she had not risen to a state of abstraction which might bring her peace. Her senses were dulled. Without any will. Her spirit anaesthetised. She felt nothing but a void. The moment she had chosen to say goodbye did not come. Her only sense was of a desert in the middle of the constant whirring of the turbines. Then Vera looked up. The sound had stopped completely. She stood up and turned around. Not a single wind turbine was moving. They had all stilled. After a few seconds of total silence the timid sounds of the wood came alive, one by one. She looked down at her feet as if she could share that unique moment with Galo in the urn. This was the moment. As Vera finished spreading the ashes at the foot of the tree, she barely had time to offer him the thoughts that were starting to form. It was the unmistakable flapping of wings that made her look up. There it was, alone as usual, outside its habitat; keeping them company before flying to the plains where the grain was. The lark which always came to the wood while they were there. From the lowest branch it hopped to the base of the tree. The lark. In an embrace as real as it was incorporeal, Vera wrapped her arms around the tree, her heart pounding.

  With her eyes on the rays of light which fell on her through the leafy treetop, she screamed just once, with the impotence of being unable to rise beyond. Of not being able, like so many times previously, to leave her body and travel. Even if only for a moment. To touch Galo on impulse.

  That morning during prayers in the chapel, Benedita suddenly lifted her bowed head and opened her eyes, as if she had heard Vera’s distant voice. It had been years since Vera’s last visit. Years since she herself had last been outside the convent. Not since the Mother Superior had died. With the scarcity of novitiates, it fell on her to take on additional tasks. There were only eight nuns left at the convent. Through the years, Vera and Benedita had exchanged a few messages through her friend Dugati. The newspaper no longer existed. Nobody needed it any more. Information was available online where most of life took place. Dugati now worked at the Digital Information Centre. Not only did he agree to meet her and record the video message for Vera, he also helped her wrap the box and he himself ensured that it was sent. After so many years of seclusion, Benedita made the effort to go out, though not far. The time had come.

  She had sent Vera a holographic message from the whole community. When Vera touched the membrane and saw Benedita’s placid face crystallise before her, she felt a peace that would later vanish as suddenly as it had arrived. Benedita still had the same smile but she had either aged unexpectedly or they had simply been out of touch for too long. The distance had become even greater. Neither of them had believed it would happen although everyone feared it might. Benedita had never forgotten the tight embrace of her protégé when she arrived each day from technical school. Vera’s absence had left her in a kind of limbo which she could almost remember in her bones. If Vera could not understand what had led Galo to such despair, neither did she have any explanation as to why Benedita had not come to see her. Instead she had sent her a box which would plunge her into much deeper confusion. It had arrived that morning when Carda’s harshness seemed less tangible.

  ‘Go home after the cremation. You have a week’s break,’ Carda had given her the electronic voucher. ‘It’s been assigned to you for your loss. I managed to book you three days in the Borneo reserve. It’s the most exclusive one. No-one will disturb you there.’

  Vera left the voucher next to the box on the table. The COS (certificate of security) label said it came from the convent. When she opened the plastic wrapping she found an old, yellowed shoebox. She instantly recognised the handwriting. ‘My dear, you will think this is not a good time to send you this treasure, which you won’t think of as such. In time you’ll come to understand. Your Benedita.’ The box did not even have a lid. Like the fine veil which had barely covered her head when she was born, the note served as a lid for a box of unfathomable surprises. With delicate fingers as if unwrapping priceless archaeological pieces, Vera lifted out one by one the objects she had been left by her mother. First the protective rubber helmet. Then the little vase, the candle, the figure of Saint Genevieve and the polaroid photo. Vera left the notebook at the bottom. She pulled the chair away and sat in front of the photo which she propped up against the rubber helmet. There she sat for hours until she fell asleep. With her arms for a pillow, in front of the photograph of her pregnant mother which she was seeing for the first time. From looking at her so long, she thought she felt on her head her mother’s hand resting gently over the bump that was her.

  She closed the notebook as if drawing a curtain over indecency. When Vera learned from the notebook who her father was, repulsion was her initial reaction. For her own body, almost. The idea that her flesh was part of that man. Her first thought was for her mother, whom she could not remember. Imagining her torment shook her out of herself. Her limbs went numb. Her head felt the size of a pin, almost non-existent and at the same time a ubiquitous presence. She skipped from one thought to another, as if her head had been thrown into a pinball machine. The awareness of all those facts engaged with her more immediate reality. Galo had killed himself? It weighed on her like a responsibility that had never been hers. They had each decided not to live. The one who had given life to her, and the other who had been her companion in life. There was some sign of responsibility or destiny in it. She asked herself why she had been born. Why is each person born. The end of the road came so easily. With no preparation. Almost without thinking. The purpose of being alive could not be the contaminated world. The new electronic world. The vast machinery organised for the organisation of life. With no purpose – the purpose was organisation itself. The idea was frightening. Perhaps that was what had pushed Galo and Alina to the limit. Could she hold it against them? In the desolation of the field littered with dead bodies just like her mother almost three decades earlier, she could do nothing but weep. It was not from her own loneliness but the realisation of those whom she loved.

  Perhaps time had not passed as quickly as Galo had hoped. The hours without Vera had become intolerable. Perhaps he could not cope with Vera coming home at night and sitting at the window in the moonlight. She had always gazed up at the moon. At times it seemed as if it was the moon who was watching her. As a child she used to ask it for things. Sometimes those things she asked for actually happened. Although she wished that Galo would come back, she knew that this time the moon would not please her. Vera sat gazing at the moon for longer than ever. She did not know whether it was her need to see it that made her unable to sleep, or if looking at it was what kept her awake. She felt no despair. It filled part of the empty void that overnight had been created by Galo’s absence. Now her dreams had also disappeared, and with them, her capacity to control them. She had been able to decide each night what she would dream. Vera had flown each night creating her own dreamworld, since she had no way of changing the real world which surrounded her. Now she could not even remember her dreams. Just like her mother, a mysterious internal darkness had taken her over.

  She got out of bed, her mind blank. She slept longer each time. Waking up to the surprise of still being in the world was more unexpected than the darkness of sleep. Galo had taken his own life? Her presence had not been strong enough. Nor had the universe they shared, full of meanings, of coincidences. What if he had not accepted the change of his schedule? Had his life been so delicately balanced that its preservation rested on this small change? The clarity which had always characterised her became fog. Although it was possible… Galo was not that straightforward. However many questions she tried to answer, what was mortifying her would not go away. She did not know what had disturbed him so much to deny himself and deny her and thus eliminate t
he cause. Of what? There was a veiled depth that however hard she looked would not become any clearer. For the first time the silence around her suspended her among inner voices.

  She took the hand control which Galo had used to break that silence. With her thumb she stroked the keys Galo had pressed. Almost as though he were telling her to, she pressed the On button. The display in front of her revealed the latest login. The frequency he had been listening to that very day. It also showed the time. The difference between that and the time of death reported by the forensic scientist was minimal.

  Had Galo had the forethought to switch off the station? Before killing himself? He had thought of her. Protected her against the cacophony of words, the voices Vera dispensed with. And his inert body? The atrocity of the surprise. The imprint of death on his pupils. Was it not necessary for him to protect her against that second in which blood freezes? Galo knew that rigor mortis would not shake her. The initial surprise would gradually turn into acceptance. The latter into understanding and then into harmony. Death for Vera was a stage in life. What would take time was the longing once she had understood the reason behind that act of violence.

  In a reflex action Vera switched off the station. The voice of The Other One was cut off after a string of phrases from the news. She stared at the control in her hand. With the words resonating like an inner echo: ‘wave of suicides… the wave of suicides…suicides’. She pressed On again and let the voices speak while she held her head in her hands and absorbed the news. Minutes, perhaps hours passed in this way.

  Vera did not want to let the alien world permeate hers. Now she spent hours hearing about things Galo knew. ‘… reporting the true figures… shot up by 30%… lists online… the fluoridation of the water… lithium… liability… register it online…’