The Translation of Father Torturo

by Connell, Brendan

  “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.

  The Primate of Italy, in his costume looking more like pimp than Pope, strode along in sanguine spirits. There was little he enjoyed more than walking in the open, without the frenzy of the Vatican around him. The gears of his mind were grinding away, forming and refining plans, vast campaigns: There were a number of people to excommunicate, certain powerful men who threatened his position. The canonico-legal traditions that, in the twenty-first century, made the church appear almost ridiculous in the eyes of any well-educated person, required drastic reform. The famine stricken millions in Africa should be tended to. It was time to carve away a bit of the fat from Europe and America and distribute it to the awaiting jaws of the underprivileged. The Bull ‘Benedictus Deus’ which Benedict XII had issued due to John XXII’s wishy-washy behaviour needed to be revoked. Both men’s notion of the Beatific Vision were absurd in the extreme. The ecclesiastico-political theorists who threatened Europe with their doctrines of separatism and were stoking the fires of non-tolerance and hatred needed to be put in their places. Young, vigorous blood needed to be pumped into the Church and the spoiled, dull old fellows tossed away, composted like used coffee grounds.

  “Yes,” Torturo thought, sticking his last cigarette in his mouth and lighting it. “There is much work to be done in order to reform this Catholic religion, to return it to its rightful state and make it more than a mere plastic mask.”

  He walked along the via le Bastione de Michelangelo and, at the Piazza del Risorgimento, turned left, making his way through the small streets that lie between the via Cola di Rienzo and the viale Giulio Cesare. At a newsstand he stopped to buy a fresh pack of Parisiennes. He noticed a familiar looking man buying plums at a fruit seller’s just a half a block away. The man was dressed in blue sweatpants, a green shirt, a fishing cap and sunglasses.

  “That fellow was walking behind me at Bastione,” Pope Lando thought.

  Yes, he was being followed, that was obvious.

  “Undoubtedly some trick of Gonzales’s,” he murmured. “He is more clever than I thought.”

  He walked along the via Caio Mario, turned the corner at the via Degli Scipione, advanced a few paces and then stopped.

  “We will see what this man wants,” he said, grinding his fist into the palm of his hand and smiling.

  Several seconds passed, but no one turned the corner. Just as he was about to step forward and peer around the edge of the building, the disguised Pope heard a sound behind him. He pivoted. From the alley to his left, an apparent passage to the via Caio Mario, a dark, hulking shape lunged rapidly forth and struck out. The Pope fell, reeling, blinded by a burst of swimming red light. He could feel his fingernails scrape on the brick pavement. He lifted his head. Another flash of pain; his face covered, burning suffocation; and then blackness.

  ***

  “How do you feel?”

  He only knew everything was dark and all was throbbing misery.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Wonderful.” The membranes of his nostrils were on fire.

  There was silence. Torturo tried to move. He could not. He strained his hands without success. They were apparently tied together, as were his legs.

  “You are tied.”

  “It seems so,” he murmured.

  “Does your head hurt?”

  “Somewhat.”

  “Good.”

  He heard a chair move, a door open and close, and then the hollow sound of footsteps receding down a passage. He tried again to move his limbs, but they were secured fast. He could feel that his trousers were wet. He had obviously been left to wallow in his own filth. His head throbbed with pain.

  “I have been kidnapped,” he murmured. He tried to evaluate the situation, to put together a rapid plan for escape, but his mind was foggy. His thoughts, like untranslatable hieroglyphics, strange logographs, danced before him, refusing to fall into any kind of comprehensive order. Squirming like some underwater creature, a squid or wounded manta, his understanding sank in churning blackness, and receded back into the tunnel of unconsciousness.

  When he came to again, water was being poured down his throat, but he was still blindfolded.

  “How you feel?”

  “Fine.”

  “How you feel, Patriarch of the Western Church?” (With distinct sarcasm.)

  “Fine.”

  “Do you recognise my voice?”

  “I do.”

  “You do?”

  “At first I did not, but now I do.”

  “You like it?”

  “Yes Doctor. I find your slightly incorrect Italian positively charming.”

  “I am living.”

  “That is a comfort.”

  The blindfold was removed. Torturo blinked and looked around. He was in a moist, windowless room, which was most likely the basement of an old house. The walls were of unfixed stone, the floor of dirt. The only light came from a tiny blub over the door. The only piece of furniture in the room was a chair, on which sat the doctor, twisting a strip of cloth, the blindfold, in his hands. He looked the same, except that his huge moustache was now salted with white and his hair, which had been cropped short, was now long and hung down to his shoulders. It too, with a few gray streaks, showed signs of recent stress.

  “Good afternoon,” he grinned.

  Torturo was silent. He tried to manipulate his hands free.

  “I am alive,” the doctor continued, giving his prisoner a truly evil look. “Your friend: He shot me but did not kill me. He shot my wife and killed her – He killed Žnidaršič . . . But me – the bullet went in my neck and out the side, not even touching the mandible, not touching th
e carotid. You see,” he said, pointing to a scar below his right ear. “You see, it did not kill me!”

  The doctor got up, stuffed the blindfold in his pocket and cracked his knuckles.

  “What you think?”

  “I think that I could endure listening to you much better if I had a cigarette and my hands were free.” He knew that, were his hands free, he would have little trouble freeing his body. He was strong and his hands, like Jacob’s, were the conduit of his powers.

  The doctor wheeled around and, though he was about to kick him in the side, refrained.

  “You will listen,” he murmured, and resumed his seat. “Your friend, he shot up my family. Deep into the dry well he threw us all. I woke in the rain and felt the breast of my dead wife. My neck was stiff and I felt much pain. Žnidaršič’s bloody tongue slept on my cheek. It was night. I called out many times. My voice echoed in the well. No one came. I have no power and go to sleep. Then it was light again. I saw the blue overhead. I called. No one came. I struggled, but fell back. I was hungry and again lost consciousness . . . Then it was once more dark, but I was not dead. I was so hungry. I chewed at Žnidaršič’s tongue. It was good, wholesome meat. I eat and sleep. Then it is day again and I spent the time looking at the blue Slovenian sky. I was many days in the hole. I was not ready to depart this life. So I push the dead ones away. I braced my back against one side of the well. I braced my feet against the other. Slowly, I worked my way out; – I am not a stupid incapable man, eh? I have power?”

  “Yes, you are a clever fellow.”

  The doctor gave a short laugh and continued: “I got up to the edge of my well, and climbed out. I staggered to the house. Inside I took notice of my wound. It was a small amount infected. I spilled Russian vodka on it and then drank three glasses of the teran. It revived me, restored my vital powers. Out the window I saw the sun coming up; – I was amazed how the time had gone and slipped away! I walked outside, into the courtyard. I looked over and saw movement – When I step nearer I see all my nice pork, moving with white worms. They eat up all my nice pork; – wholesome, Slovenian meat . . . I got Nassa, my wife, out of the well and the dog Žnidaršič. They looked not good – They smell awful – I took them to the field and buried them, deep in the dirt near the vineyard; near the vineyard where I grow my teran, the grapes for my black wine. I cried many tears and ripped much hair from my head. I buried them and swore I will make the priest suffer. I will make the priest Torturo suffer and then get his friend, and kill him dead.”

  Both men were silent. Torturo looked thoughtful, dim.

  “What you think?” the doctor asked.

  “That you were surely not pleased to see me, the priest, elevated to the highest position.”

  “Pleased? Oh, it made things more clear. I saw it would make you harder to get at; but the revenge more sugary.”

  “But, you did manage to get at me.”

  “Yes. I came. I watched. You like to walk. You told me you did. You are a fit man, and I guessed you would be walking from time to time.”

  “So you saw me leave the Vatican?”

  “On many occasions. I watched you on many occasions.”

  “The disguise?”

  “At first it fooled me. But then I thought about how almost every day I am seeing a man with funny red hair and a not in fashion suit coming out of the Vatican City. It doesn’t fit and I follow you and I know you.”

  “How much gold do you require to release me?”

  “Gold!” Štrekel cried, shooting to his feet. “I require the red gold of your blood!”

  The doctor struck him twice with his open hand and then there was the cloth, hot vapours and rolling back again into churning blackness.

  Chapter Twenty

  When Torturo regained consciousness he was lying, tied to a steel framed bed, with a piece of ply-wood in place of the mattress. His limbs were secured with cord and his whole body tied to the bed frame. The doctor stood over him, with his shirt off, his broad hairy chest glistening with sweat. A bright but uneasy phosphorescent light flickered overhead. To one side sat a small table laden with metallic instruments, objects with throbbing glints, many of which were obviously not originally intended for medical use: curving, serrated blades, heavy chisels, pincers, scalpels, points of steel bristling from jars, – A display certainly not fashioned to set the helpless victim’s mind at ease.

  “Oh, you are come to,” Dr. Štrekel said. “Excellent, now I can begin.”

  Torturo felt sick to his stomach. His gaze fastened itself on the ominous table by his bedside.

  “Begin?” he murmured.

  “Yes; – the recant.”

  “Recant?”

  “I have decided to recant my operations.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You did not fulfil your obligation for services rendered, so I am going to rescind those services.”

  The doctor cracked his knuckles and picked up a rather dangerous looking saw from the table. Licking his moustache, he gazed down at his captive’s legs. Torturo pressed his chin to his chest and followed the direction of the doctor’s eyes. He shuddered. His pants’ legs were slit down the middle and his scarred but shapely limbs were secured taut, the naked, olive-coloured skin bright beneath the quivering artificial light. He tried to wriggle, to free himself, but the most he could do was to raise his pelvis a few inches off the bed. The doctor had done an excellent job with his knots.

  “Hold still.”

  “Damn you to hell!”

  Dr. Štrekel laughed and placed the saw blade against Torturo’s left thigh. The latter could feel the slightly prickly steel.

  “God help me,” he murmured.

  The doctor pulled the blade back and the tines dug through the epidermal tissue of the thigh. Torturo winced. The doctor pushed the saw forward, forcefully, and it dug deep, bursting the thin layer of fat, the tines of steel sinking like countless fangs into the priest’s flesh.

  “A sweet sensation that, eh?” the doctor laughed, his fine white teeth glittering in the lamp light.

  Torturo was silent, merely looking at the other with the utmost contempt. His jaw was set and his tongue pressed vigorously against the roof of his mouth, to keep from biting it, to keep from screaming.

  “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll be singing yet,” the doctor snarled and, bracing one arm against the man’s bound leg and grasping the saw firmly in the other, set to work with grim enthusiasm.

  His arm, the forepart like a raw ham, was strained to the utmost and his broad mouth, stretched to a wicked grin, glistened with two rows of immaculately white teeth. The serrated blade, as it ripped through Torturo’s thigh, gave the sensation of a locomotive screaming over piano strings, contacting the nervy muscle with frenzied violence. Torturo gasped and then involuntarily let out a slight cry. There was a coppery taste in his mouth, as if he were sucking on a penny. His teeth tingled and he ground them together. When he breathed in through his nose the air seemed to carry with it a particular odour, a ghastly perfume reminiscent of an abattoir.

  “It hurts, eh Papa?”

  “Damn it does!” Torturo gasped. “What is it – What in hell do you want?”

  “I want this leg.”

  The doctor’s powerful arm swung forward again. Torturo could distinctly feel each muscular fibre as it was severed and fancied he could hear them snap, with a sound like popping corn. He was incredibly dizzy. The room spun. He felt as if he were descending into a blistering chasm where bloodstained birds shrieked, fought for his liver and brutal claws dragged him down. To hell he fancied he was going, riding on waves of dancing fire and, encased in this horrid red hot film, he lapsed away.

  “Wake up Papa,” the doctor said and doused his face with water.

  Torturo licked at the liquid. “Done,” he murmured. “Are . . . Are you done?”

  “Done? – Don’t joke; I’m just beginning!”

  Yes, there was still the bright, uneasy light sizzling above him; the table l
aden with viperous instruments. There was pain and a mingled desire; a desire for life and vengeance, or mercy and death.

  “Mercy!” Torturo murmured in agony.

  Laughter.

  Dr. Štrekel set to work; wiping away the flowing fluid and with the use of clamps separating the tortured flesh. With a small, delicate saw he laboured over the bone. And every twist of its blade sent forth roars of pain which amplified, making all possible description the scattering of hollow shells. The operator obviously knew how to milk the utmost torment from his task. For Torturo the air was too heavy to breath; it was hot as fire. Like a drunken man he could not see straight; his vision was in bleary doubles. Hallucinating, he fancied the room was dripping with pink blood. The screams came spontaneously from his swollen throat. He dared not look and so shut his eyes, only to see the revolutions of countless brutish sub-beasts; concoctions sprouting from the core of his suffering. They scrambled, bubbling and ate at his face, devoured his nose amidst gloomy, acidic accents and gnawed away at his cheeks with all the glee of starving imps. He shuddered, wheezed and then lapsed once again into darkness.

  He opened his eyes. The doctor was there, as if standing at the end of a long, dimly lit tunnel. He heard Štrekel’s voice, unclear, incredibly distant,

  “Ah, he still breaths! What a constitution! When he breaths no more I will thoroughly dissect him.”

  Then there was darkness again; darkness mixed with more hot, ferocious dreams – nightmares in which he saw himself cleft in two and dragged apart; a spiking black moustache prodding him and poking his pain. He dived and swam in his misery and then groped without success. Through black, leafless forests he slid, the sharp, prodding branches festooned with strips of his own skin and mulched with his boiling flesh.

  “I’m still tied; I can’t feel my face,” he thought; and then he tried to speak.

  The taste was awful. His cheeks were ablaze; his head seemed to be floating in a halo of ignited gas.