Presently there was a knock at the door.
“Avanti,” Marco called out despondently.
Father Massimo walked in, a wide grin upon his face.
“I am glad to see you are up and about,” Marco said seriously, rising from his chair. “You gave us a terrible fright the other day.”
“But there was a death,” the other laughed.
“Yes.” Marco found the laugh positively disgusting. “My friend . . . My friend was unfortunate.”
“It is strange, is it not?”
“Strange?”
“That he died; – when I was presumed dead?”
“I suppose it is strange.”
“Where do you think his soul flew to?”
Marco flushed. “I – I would hope into the loving embrace of his maker.”
“I think not.”
“Excuse me?”
“I think it flew elsewhere.”
“That is an impertinent comment.”
“Who is the most impertinent man you ever knew?”
There was a silence.
“It is me Marco.”
The young priest looked at Marco with sparkling eyes.
“It is who?”
“You know very well who.”
A chill ran through the Bishop of Padua. The manner of Father Massimo was far different from what he had known it to be – Yet it was not unfamiliar. Intellectually he could not comprehend; emotionally he understood perfectly.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said in a low voice.
“You do not want to know?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know the man who was once Pope Lando the Second, the Vicar of Christ Upon Earth; the man who was once your cousin, Father Xaverio Torturo?”
“Impossible! – The Pope – My cousin is dead! – Impossible! Impossible!”
“Improbable, yes; impossible, no. – Both before and after the flood, there have been illustrious men who have risen above the laws of the mundane.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the one who inhabited this body died and I, I who was the priest Xaverio Torturo, I who was Pope Lando the Second and later the nameless cripple, transferred my consciousness into his discarded shell.”
Marco broke into a sweat. He took a swallow of ginger ale and sat down heavily. The young priest pulled up a chair, the same uncomfortable one that Torturo had always sat in in Vivan’s time, and seated himself, crossing one leg over the next.
Father Massimo spoke: “The knowledge of this Art was first imparted to the half brother of Adam by the Holy Spirit. It and other mysteries were engraved on two stone tablets. The story is that after the flood, Noah, otherwise known as Hermes Trismegistus, found one of these tablets at the foot of Mount Ararat. Since then it has travelled in obscurely through the world; through Egypt, Persia and Chaldaea; through India and Tibet. It has been hinted at in the Kaballah and in the writings of the Magia; Tibetans such as Marpa the Translator and, more recently I suspect, Christians such as Comte Louis de Chazal and the Abbess of Clermont, Leona Constantia, have been masters (or in the latter case a mistress) of the art. In the Testamentum novissimum of Raymond Lulle there are vital hints. To understand the mystery of death has always been the labour of the true philosopher. My sword wore out its sheath; this body you see before you was a fit and useful tool, an opportunity that I could not let slide.”
“So . . . So, it is you then Xaverio?”
“No, it is Father Massimo. – It is Father Massimo, yet with the consciousness of Xaverio Torturo. I have the physical body of the former, whole and handsome, and the latter’s soul and thought processes – his memories and will.”
“It sounds like a horrible sin!”
“I do not believe it is. – When I transferred my consciousness to this body, the proprietary soul had already flown its cage. – I see you look at me with mingled disbelief and disapproval. As you are one of but few beings who helped me in my time of true need, I will do you the service of uttering a brief explanation. – The manuscript I gleaned this practice from was discovered in an old German Bible in the University library. That such things existed, or were said to exist, I well knew. As I said, in the tradition of the Tibetans, the practice, under the title ‘forceful projection’ was once common enough. The teacher of Gampopa was the famous Milarepa, whose teacher in turn was Marpa, the translator, who was an expert at it. He received his instruction from Naropa, a remarkable Indian adept, and in turn imparted them to his own son Dharma Dodey. Thus, in the Indian-Tibetan system, the art makes up one of the eight yogas of Naropa, though it was to them unfortunately lost when Dharma Dodey ejected his consciousness into the body of a dead pigeon . . . But it was not lost to the world. – That there has long been a mystical branch of Christianity networking, encompassing the civilised globe is simple fact. That this art was known of by men such as Paracelsus and Albert le Grand, is certain. I laboured over my manuscript and entered into the great meditation, training my consciousness to travel wilfully through the body’s spiritual conduits; training, preparing myself for the inevitable eventuality. That I managed to understand the method, to cultivate the art, is provable by my present condition.”
Marco looked at the young man, the handsome smiling face and shining eyes across from him. There was something almost comic in the way he who had always been a mild mannered unboastful individual suddenly had all the mannerisms and bombast of Xaverio Torturo. The bishop did not know whether to be overjoyed or horrified. Was the universe really just a playground where those in the know could go skipping from body to body, one day a Pope the next day a deformity and from that to an athletic figure in its prime?
“God is truly great!” Marco sighed.
Father Massimo smiled. “In the end, he gives each one what they merit,” he said.
***
The sky was mostly blue, though scattered with a few peaceful, cottony clouds. The Tuscan hills, green and cool, smelled of spring: turned earth, the rich aroma of manure, fresh growth and flowers. The hills rolled along, shelved with grapevines sending out their first shoots; dotted with farms and palazzos.
Florence, that great Italian city, the birthplace of men like Michelangelo, Brunelleschi and Machiavelli, geniuses of all time, was in a quiet, cheerful state. The bulk of tourists had not yet come. The weather was fine and, in the afternoon, one could drink a glass of chilled frizzante in the shade.
At Sette Santi, the needy were being fed soup and bread. They sat at large tables set up in the courtyard and chatted to one another cheerfully while the nuns went from man to man, dishing out soup and placing pitchers of water flavoured with lemon and sugar on the table.
At the far end of one table sat a young priest, with a bible open in front of him from which he read, while slowly chewing bread pills.
The young nun, Sister Justina, approached him.
“Excuse me Father,” she said with a smile, “but this area is for the needy.”
He looked up into her hazel eyes. “I am needy,” he said.
She blushed. His gaze and voice seemed to be attempting to emphasise a meaning which she did not care to probe.
“I mean,” (her voice somewhat agitated). “I mean that this area is for beggars. You must be visiting? Please – come inside and you can eat.”
“Let me eat here. – If you don’t mind I would rather eat here. It is very pleasant in the sun.”
The nun shrugged her shoulders in exasperation. “As you wish,” she said and ladled out a portion of soup for the priest.
He ate it joyfully amongst the others – the poverty stricken, those dressed in rags, their straggling beards hanging in their food and wasted eyes shining with the simple delight of dining. He made conversation with these fellows, each with a life’s story ready for any ears willing to listen, and then, when the meal was over, began to take the dirty dishes from the table and carry them into the kitchen.
“Oh, please!” Sister Just
ina said, approaching him. “You don’t need to do that. It is my duty.”
“It is my pleasure Sister Justina.”
“You know my name?”
“Naturally.”
“How so?”
“Because you are the reason I am here,” he said, setting the dishes down in the kitchen sink. “I am on a particular mission from Padua to fetch you.”
“For what?”
“You are to perform daily services in Il Santo, in the Church of Saint Anthony. I am in the process of being made auxiliary bishop. You will be under my jurisdiction.”
Just then a sour aroma made him blink and turn. The sensual second chin of the abbess hung palpitating before him and the next moment her upper lip began to tremble.
What is this?” she said. “I have been waiting in my chamber for the past fifteen minutes for my left thigh to be massaged, and here you are conversing with a man!”
“He is a priest,” Sister Justina apologised.
“I am a priest of authority sent from Padua, with papers of notice from your Bishop of Florence.”
“Papers of notice?” she sniffed. “What papers of notice?”
“These,” he said, removing an envelope from his pocket. “This sister is being removed to our diocese.”
“Impossible, she will go nowhere! I need her here to attend to my gout!”
“My dear Mother Barbara,” the priest said with a playful smile. “I strongly recommend you apply a little oleum martyr, a little Oil of Lando, to those areas of your person which cause you discomfort. I have not the least doubt in the world that it will cure what ails you. As for Sister Justina, I will call for her and her belongings tomorrow morning – And this,” he said, turning to the nun. “And this is for you.”
Before either of the two women could say another word, the handsome priest had exited. Sister Justina looked in her hands. They held a blue, woollen cap that she well knew – that which she had woven for a detestable cripple.
The priest, Father Massimo, walked through the streets of Florence, with long, virile strides. His well polished shoes clicked along the bricks. His face wore an amused expression. He passed the Palazzo Vecchio and the historic fountain by Ammannati. The sun shone on the tops of buildings and onto the Piazza della Signoria. A cloud crawled before it and severed its rays.
The Translation of Father Torturo Page 20