The Translation of Father Torturo

by Connell, Brendan

  “Kc – Kch – Gkch!”

  Like a dying rook; and then he peeled back his eye-lids. His entire body throbbed with a dull and terrible pain, which gnawed at him like a tribe of toothless cannibals. The truth slowly crept into his dis-jointed thoughts.

  “Gkchh,” he murmured. “Hhhh-kch!”

  He tried to lick his lips, but simply felt a smarting twitch of muscle; a sensation that was repeated when he attempted to touch his tongue to the roof of his mouth. His gums ached. He tried to wriggle his finger tips, but could not detect any sensation. He tried to wiggle his toes, but his brain failed to find any such appendages. Torturo was in a state of depressed alarm. He was alive, but he had no joy for life. It was a simple syllogism, and the doctor had clearly stated his mode of revenge. The patient, Xaverio Torturo, Pope Lando the Second, had been raped of not only his limbs, but his tongue as well, – at least the tongue that he had been so successfully using. The majority of the teeth of his bottom jaw had been knocked out in the doctor’s impetuous struggle to uproot that organ of speech. Torturo’s face was butchered. He resembled maggot as much as man.

  “And why am I not dead?” he thought. “Why did Dr. Štrekel not kill me?”

  Of course the answer came to him quickly enough: The doctor wanted him to feel his own degradation. There would be no use going to so much trouble if he was not able to savour Torturo’s misery. Giving the priest a quick and painless death never so much as occurred to Dr. Jure Štrekel, whose entire career had been spent alternatively moulding and butchering the clay of human flesh.

  Torturo, regaining his senses to some degree, realised that he was not tied up at all; – he was simply bereft of tongue and limb and therefore presumed to be harmless. He wriggled the butt of his thighs and felt their throbbing soreness. They were hardly healed, and he knew that a lesser man would surely not have survived such physical privation; such gross systematic shock.

  Torturo heard steps in the passage, closed his eyes and feigned unconscious. He heard the doctor come in and then felt the man’s hand, his thumb press against his throat, his jugular vein.

  “Ah good,” the doctor murmured. “The devil is still alive.”

  Then once more alone. A constant, monotonous throbbing, both within and without. His face felt as if it were being licked with flames and there was no tongue to find relief in gnawing. But he was not yet dead, and he knew that while he had this small bit of strength he should act, because before long it would certainly be too late. He tried to clear his mental facilities and let his breath flow with ease. And he waited, letting the air slowly tickle his ravaged nostrils.

  Finally the sound of footsteps could be heard coming down the passage. The doctor walked in and advanced towards the prostrate torso. He stood over it for some moments and then bent down.

  “If he is still alive I might just pull out his internals.”

  Then there were those jaws catching his neck. The man cried out in alarm, and pulled back, but two incisors were firmly attached. Torturo sunk his teeth, the two canines he still had, deep into the meat, biting more savagely than any mad dog. The doctor writhed, struggled and managed to partially free himself, though not without losing a significant chunk of soft tissue from his neck.

  Torturo, well realising that the opportunity before him was unique, mastered every muscle in his body and, like a serpent, arced his spine and jettisoned his body forward, jaws open for revenge. He hit pay-dirt, clamping down on the side of the doctor’s naked throat. Štrekel attached his powerful hands to Torturo’s torso, trying to wrench himself free. The latter sunk the hard white structures that still lined his top jaw deep into the tough meat of the neck. He could feel the doctor’s beard scraping against his cheek and hear the man’s curses and screams crash into his right ear. He clamped down harder, pressing with his lower gums till they felt near rupture. The jugular vein was pierced and hot fluid came spurting forth conjoined to the doctor’s cries of agony and terror. The blood sprayed over Torturo’s face and gurgled up over his lips and chin, the liquid filling his strained mouth, a rich and repugnant taste touching his palate. He coughed, freed himself and rolled back, hacking up blood and gasping for breath. The doctor made a vain, spasmodic attempt at movement and gave vent to a few pulpy, uncertain attempts at speech. A droning in Torturo’s ears, stillness, and with eyes still open, Štrekel was dead.

  The cripple lay immobile, in a state of slight emotion. Gradually he recovered himself and rose up, onto his buttocks. After looking with hatred at the dim chamber and the corpse, he crawled out the door, along the passage and then, with great difficulty, using his chin as a prop, up the stairs. The stumps of his limbs ached terribly. They were far from properly healed, and in no condition to be strained.

  “This will not do,” he thought.

  Like a sick, dangerous animal he prowled around the apartment, crawling, squirming. The place was small: a bathroom, bedroom and kitchen. The only furniture in the kitchen was a table, with a Sprite bottle full of wine sitting on one corner, and two chairs. A pot sat on the stove, simmering. The bedroom smelled vile. Soiled garments and rags lay scattered on the floor, which was stained with gore. The bed itself, though it now had a mattress, was without dressing. Pushed against one wall was the little table. The metallic instruments, many of them encrusted with dried blood, were scattered in disarray.

  He looked at the scene in disgust. The room carried with it all the harrowing visions of his torture, memories shaken frantic by the galloping horror of true nightmares, which made him faint to recall. Reduced to a worm-like state, traumatised and throbbing in the aftermath of the incident, and with the corpse of his tormentor still warm in the basement, it took all Torturo’s courage not to give way to gnawing despair.

  The aroma from the pot in the kitchen attracted him. Using his mouth, he turned off the burner. He clasped the pot-handle in his jaws and attempted to lift it to the floor. He was unsuccessful. It fell, and overturned. A pile of beans, a semi-liquidy yellow-brown mound, sat steaming on the floor. He stuck his face in the beans and ate. He was starving and they were delicious. The doctor had seasoned them heavily with salt and garlic. Torturo took several mouthfuls and, after swallowing them each in haste, came up for air. He repeated the process fourteen times, until the beans were gone, and then sought out drink.

  The Sprite bottle was on the edge of the table, near one corner. Torturo, by pressing himself up against the table’s leg, could mount to the height of his nose. He did so, and with his forehead knocked the bottle to the floor. It was plastic and did not break; it was capped and did not spill. He secured the bottle in his crotch and undid the top with his mouth.

  He nursed at the bottle, swallowing mouthful upon mouthful of the rich black liquid, the teran, which the doctor, like all Slovenians, prized so highly. The liquid stung his gums and the raw place where his tongue had been, filled his nose with its fruity overtures and then slid away down his throat, taking with it a few grains of his misery. – Though he was reduced, he mused, at least he was not dead.

  He crawled into the bathroom. There was a brush and a toilet plunger next to the toilet. Taking the toilet plunger in his jaws, he brought it to the kitchen. One of the shirts from the bedroom he ripped into strips with his jaws. He stuck the stump of his right forearm in the rubber half of the plunger. Using his mouth, and the pressure available between his jaw and shoulder, he managed to fasten the plunger tight with the strips of cloth. The result was a crude limb.

  He knocked over one of the chairs and, using the pressure of his buttocks, managed to break off three of the four legs. Using strips of cloth, he secured two legs to the front of each of his thighs – the swollen stumps that remained – and one to his left shoulder and nub of forearm.

  With his back arched, he moved about the room. His condition was deplorable, but it was slightly less deplorable than it had been two hours earlier. He had been confined for he knew not how long and felt the need for fresh air – the need to storm the Vatican
and reclaim his position.

  Without hesitation he made his way to the door, turned the handle with his jaws and squirmed through. The door shut behind him. It was late morning and the streets were alive with people. They passed him by, not so much as turning their heads or bestowing an astonished glance on the reduced creature. This was Rome, the greatest city on earth, which, like New York, London and Paris, has the particular quality of extreme Stoicism. In the grand metropolises of the world it takes more than being a scarified cripple to command attention. City dwellers pride themselves on having seen everything. To be startled is considered a breech of proper conduct. Torturo, now truly a mutant, crawled through the streets of Rome; without a tongue, thus unable to speak a few words; without limbs, thus unable to act as he would. Far from being recognised as the rightful bearer of the triple crown, the Chief and Supreme Pastor of the Universe, Vicar of Christ upon Earth, Primate of Italy and the adjacent islands and Patriarch of the Western Church, Torturo found himself deemed not even worthy of so much as a ‘good day’ or a disdainful stare.

  He crawled along, practising his crutch-work, his stumps aching sore. Passing in front of a shop window, he looked over. A hideous face stared out at him; a repugnant being, mouth agape, goggled out from the glass. Torturo flushed with startled contempt at this mocking vision, this reflection of his own self, of what he had become.

  Shaking his gaze free from the mesmerising portrait of his own downfall, he moved on. Looking around, he recognised the street. It was the via Morgana. He crawled down it and past the monument of Vittorio Emanuele II, which rose up from his right, a mountain of bronze and stone. From his positioning, nearly at ground level, the two charioteers atop the sides of the semicircular colonnade seemed as if they were about to soar into space, the giant rider in the centre as if he was about to topple down and trample the cripple under his horse’s hooves. Torturo recalled the day he had stood up on the same monument, in his disguise, like a king going out to mix with the populace. At that time he stood easily, haughtily in the most exalted position on earth, and if fate were a fiend, this was surely its vengeance.

  Slowly and with great difficulty he traversed the backstreets of Rome, the via della Pace and via della Panico, avoiding the busy Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. He crossed the Ponte Sant’Angelo, Bernini’s winged statues which lined the way gazing down on him in an almost mocking manner as they floated effortlessly above the river Tiber, which wound slow and filthy through the city like an ever-present greenish brown snake. Passing the Castel Sant’Angelo, he made his way along the via della Conciliazione, and onto St. Peter’s square, that magnificent masterpiece of architecture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini which, to set foot upon is like stepping into some kind of universal eye, human bodies reduced to insectish insignificance, with minds aglow due to the sphere in which their limbs operate. The colonnade of three-hundred doric columns and countless manneristic statues rose up around him, like the rib cage of a giant skeleton. His wounds, much used, began to sting and suppurate. He looked up at the cathedral before him, St. Peter’s, behind which stood the Vatican City, the city which was his by right and law and which he was full ready to reclaim.

  The cripple dragged himself forward, through the centre of the piazza and past the Egyptian obelisk, that splendid upright block of phallic stone, which had once served as a turning post in the chariot races at the ancient Circus of Nero. Foot by foot he made his way to the gate. Two Swiss guards stood before him, blocking all passage. His heart was glad. He knew them both by name: Betschart and Meier; two young men who had always stood by him in awed deference. Torturo gazed up at them. They did not move. They stood immobile, looking slightly ridiculous in their sixteenth century style outfits of black, red, and yellow: black hats dangling with red string, legs sheathed in dark-yellow stockings and feet in buckled shoes.

  “Ckhhhaaggghh!” Torturo croaked.

  Meier, for a brief instant, glanced down, and then returned to his stance of statuesque indifference. The cripple approached Betschart and tried desperately to articulate his name.

  “Aeckhhhaagghh,” he croaked.

  The young man stared straight before him, not so much as flinching. He was obviously well trained.

  Torturo felt his brain boiling. Surely there must be some way for him to make himself known, for him to get inside his fortress and identify his holy presence. If Meier would only recognise him, how richly the young man would be rewarded; – Lando the Second would see to that!

  He turned and gazed over St. Peter’s Square. Tourists were scattered over it like exotic beetles, their figures, fat, hunched and ill dressed, looking thoroughly disgusting against the background of idealistic sculptures: finely wrought men and gracefully clad women. – One figure on the square however was not that of a tourist. Plump and sheathed in ecclesiastic garments, it made its way towards the entrance with short, rapid steps. There was no mistaking the man: It was Di Quaglio.

  “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 can
onised 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.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  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.