The Baron stared at him penetratingly, and said nothing.
The young man elaborated. “I feel ready to tread this path, and I have no fear of any entity I may encounter. I feel strong enough to master it. But I can’t just do it for my own sake.”
“Why not? For whom else would you do it?”
“For the world!”
Emanuele was silent but appraising. The zeal of the Spaniard, almost palpable, was the only reason he had not dismissed him yet. “Like many of the group,” the young man went on, “I’m a traditional Catholic, and see no conflict between my faith and the esoteric tradition that you represent. St. Bernard’s fathering of the Templars only strengthens my conviction. But I haven’t found my mission, and I know that I have one, maybe of the greatest importance.”
“That could be a dangerous illusion,” said the Baron, finally passing judgment.
“I don’t say it lightly. But I submit myself to a higher power. I’m going to Santiago de Compostela. I will pray for guidance where so many pilgrims have prayed before.”
“That might be the right course of action. I have a profound respect for the sacred sites of Europe, and for the influences that may still be effective there. As a believer, you may find better guidance there than I can give you. Go with my blessing.”
“Thank you, Barone.”
The Baron, his face unusually flushed with a solemn exultation, made his way slowly down the horse chestnut path to the car park, got into his Lancia and headed for the hunting lodge, where Angela was awaiting him, as arranged.
The easel now stood empty and the palette caked with dried oil paint; the Baron had discarded his painterly preludes in favor of a more powerful ritual, and sacrament, of sexual alchemy.
His former practice had been a kind of slow-motion archery. The hour of preparation was like a gradual bending of the bow to the point of maximum tension, until the release of orgasm carried his will to the target which he had held, the whole time, in his imagination. Today, and conveniently for his purposes, Angela was menstruating. If she felt any discomfort in the procedure, which was more than usually clinical, then she did not show it. Her deportment was as detached as a sleepwalker’s.
Emanuele entered her and, in time, ejaculated; this was merely the initial phase of the ritual. His next action required contortions that were awkward, and which Angela in her normal state would have found grotesquely comical. But now she lent herself to them with the grace of a priestess, as he gradually sucked in to the last drop the mixture of “solar” and “lunar” fluids to be found around her labia, inside her vagina and wherever they might trickle. Finally, Angela wrapped herself in a duvet and went to sleep.
After adjusting his ritualistic garb, Emanuele seated himself in a straight armchair. He assumed the pose of an Egyptian statue, his hands resting on his knees, his eyes open but his vision turned inward. He visualized his stomach as an alchemical alembic containing rubedo and albedo, or more precisely, two dragons, red and white. Below it, in the region of the bowels, he imagined a fire. As the vessel heated, the dragons twisted and squirmed, clawing and biting each other, and their mingled blood, red and white, seethed and foamed. It reached a critical state that threatened to shatter the vessel, and, in earlier stages of his practice, had often done so, causing a fit of uncontrollable vomiting. Then the chaos subsided, leaving nothing but a vague silvery cloud, shot with gold.
Having now digested the potentized substances, Emanuele passed in review each of his inner circle of disciples. They would have been surprised to know how clearly he could visualize each one, and even more surprised to know that he was now, in his imagination, sodomizing them one by one.
Emanuele had no homosexual tendencies, but the ritual required him to implant a subtle seed in them, which would grow like a fetus, or rather a parasite, and subject their will to his.
With this, the sacrament was concluded. It had taken a few hours. Angela had awakened, cleaned up with incongruous cloistral modesty, and already left on her Vespa. Emanuele, drained but triumphant, looked forward to a restful night of sleep.
NINE
Leo learned about what had happened in Spain when he glanced at his newsfeed during a break from research. Apparently a bomb had gone off inside the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, near the statue of Santiago Matamoros, Saint James the Moor-Slayer. Leo and the world held their breath. Was this another San Petronio? Was the world going mad? What next?
A few hours later, a more detailed version of the facts was broadcast. The attack had not been as devastating as the one in Bologna. The cathedral was largely undamaged, but a baroque statue of Saint James on horseback, slashing with a sword into a group of Moors, had been blown to smithereens. The human cost was still unclear. Many had been wounded directly by the explosion; many more, though the exact number was not yet known, had been injured and outright killed in the resulting stampede.
The worldwide repercussions of this new act of terror were enormous, and in Europe the reactions were severe. The four hundred Islamic places of worship in Spain, ranging from mosques to garages, felt under threat, and with good reason. In Santiago itself, a mob stormed into the park where a mosque was under construction, and set fire to the building site, damaging the bulldozers and cranes before the police half-heartedly dispersed them. The question of who was responsible for the bombing was scarcely considered by the authorities, or anyone else. The days around the July 25 Festival—the Apostle St. James’s Day, the Patron Saint of Spain—had been as frenzied as ever, with tens of thousands of pilgrims, tourists young and old, students and loiterers crowding the narrow streets of the small medieval city. It was assumed that the perpetrator had secreted the bomb by the statue, and got away unobserved in the confusion.
Work on the Santiago mosque was suspended indefinitely, as on others throughout Europe. The official explanation for such a drastic measure for once did not evade the issue: they were breeding grounds for terrorists. And that was not all: plans to admit Turkey as a member of the European Community, already advanced in spite of massive public opposition, were also suspended. The nationalist parties of every country redoubled their challenge: “Assimilate or leave!”
****
Every summer, towards the end of July, Baron Emanuele was in the habit of giving a dinner party. This year he had asked Orsina to organize it, and had invited most of the neighbors. His niece had done things in style, and within a week twenty guests were having dinner with them under the cherry tree on a grand mahogany table purposely moved from the dining room. More staff had been hired for the occasion, and hundreds of candles had been lit. They struggled with the breeze, but it was never strong enough to blow them out. The full moon contributed to the illumination with its benign rays. Nigel had provided dozens of bottles of the Amarone that, so far, he had picked as his favorite.
The Baron sat at the head of the table, Orsina to his right, Angela to his left. His cycle of lectures had finished a couple of days before, and he seemed drained of his energies. His mind, however, was far from inactive. He observed each of his guests, and passed judgment on them all. “Noble rot,” he said to himself, a sip of wine lingering on his palate.
The Amarone is made by harvesting ripe grapes and drying them on straw mats, which concentrates the remaining sugars and flavors. Depending on the weather, the wine is influenced by “noble rot,” the benevolent form of a grey fungus. But from the Baron’s perspective there was nothing benevolent in his guests. They were all struggling, he knew, to keep their villas or palaces, all competing in the bourgeois world by working in ordinary offices and striving to make ends meet with petulant wives and insolent sons and daughters. Would their ancestors have been proud of them? Of course not. He considered them a putrefying subspecies. “Noble rot” was the perfect epitaph. His nieces, fortunately, represented an exception: Angela, whom he knew intimately, and Orsina, who was clearly the more gifted of the two.
The dinner party was a success; Orsina had organized i
t brilliantly. The Baron, however, excused himself before the dessert, and withdrew to the library. Might the Corriere della Sera have something more interesting to offer than his guests?
Emanuele took off his reading glasses. He had just read an op-ed article by the last surviving Colonel of the Fascist era, reflecting on the church bombings and the violent popular reaction to them. The old warrior (he must be 100 by now!) deplored the violence on both sides, of course, but predicted a new European solidity as the “unexpected fruit of tragedy.” Every such incident, he wrote, would simply bring Europe closer to its moment of awakening. We should look forward to it.
Yes, Europe was fast asleep, and the house was full of burglars, thought the Baron. He looked out of the window over his moonlit box hedges, rococo statues, venerable trees. He thought of his other ancestral home, the Palazzo Riviera on the Grand Canal, and of the generations that had won the right to live as such men were supposed to live. His mind went back to the eve of his wedding, when his father had initiated him, as the eldest son, into the mysteries of the family:
“The Riviera is one of the most ancient families in Europe. We are descended from the Gens Rivalis, ancient settlers on the banks of the River Adige. From them came a clan of heroes, whose exploits are glorious in the annals of war and peace.” Various examples had followed. “But our heritage is more than blood alone. We are the hereditary guardians of ancient secrets. We know the means by which heroes are made, and by which, after a triumphal death, man makes himself immortal.
“On our heraldic shield appears the Tree of Life. We know the secret of this tree, and the Paradise from which man was never expelled but through his own weakness. We know how to nourish the tree, and how to make the River of Life flow from its roots. Through this knowledge, the Gens Rivalis has always flourished, and always brought forth heroes. These heroes are still with us. From their Olympian splendor, they watch over us, waiting to welcome those who prove worthy to join them.”
Then his father had presented the book, The Magical World of the Heroes. “Take this book, written by our ancestor Cesare Della Riviera. Cherish it; study it; master it. It is a cryptic work, impenetrable to the common man, but if you can learn to read it, you will tread the secret paths that other Riviera have trodden before you. I repeat: Cherish it; study it; master it, and you will find the hidden stone.” The last words had been in Latin: invenies occultum lapidem.
Had he not obeyed them? Had any Riviera applied himself more assiduously to the study of the ancestral book? The Baron thought not. He had found the secret paths, had performed the rites that ensured the continuation of the clan. Or had he? To his great sorrow, he had not performed the simple rite of propagation on the physical plane. “A congenital sterility of the seminal fluid,” the specialist had said, after a ten-year marriage had failed to produce offspring.
Who would keep the Gens alive after him? As with many great dynasties, the family line had contracted to almost zero, and ended now with only two young women: Orsina and Angela.
Emanuele’s gloomy thoughts turned back to Europe. It needed a spiritual impetus to awaken the continent, even one at the level of popular religion. For better or worse, Christianity had become the religion of Europe, after shedding much of its Middle Eastern peasantlike baggage. It had been the spiritual mainspring of the Holy Roman Empire, of the Knights Templar and other orders of chivalry, of the Courts of Love in which European art, literature, and music came of age. It had toughened the warrior caste through the Crusades.
Yes: it was time for another Crusade, thought the Baron, and the Infidels were not across the Mediterranean now: they were right here, battering on the door. How could anyone stay asleep at such a time?
On second thoughts, Emanuele concluded, what Europe needed was a new Reconquista, and maybe it was already starting in Spain—again. St. Ignatius Loyola, the Spanish founder of the Society of Jesus, had been a warrior. As there were no more crusades, and the Moors had recently been expelled, his ambition was the conversion of Muslims to Christianity.
“Good,” the Baron mused, with a dry smile. “We might recruit the Jesuits too for the Reconquest. It wouldn’t be the first time they oppose the Pope.” That American of Jesuitical leanings he had recently hosted—that friend of Orsina’s—came to mind: Professor Kavenaugh. And the mere thought made the Baron break into laughter: he, a warrior? He laughed again, heartily.
In the early afternoon of the next day, Giorgio announced that a young man had come to the villa and was requesting a private interview.
“Do we know him?”
“Yes, Baron, he has attended some of your lectures.”
“Which ones, can you recall? The ones held behind closed doors?”
“Yes, some of those too.”
“I see. Very well, show him to the library. I’ll meet him there.”
Felipe stood in front of him, anxious, shortish and skinny. The young Spaniard, the Baron learned, had felt compelled to resume the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela that he had interrupted halfway through to attend the lectures. He had gone by the traditional route, on foot, but returned by train immediately after the bombing. At this point, Emanuele expected the worst kind of emotionalism, and called Giorgio. He was ready to have the young man escorted out. But as Giorgio was answering his call, Felipe surprised him. The library became charged with an electrical intensity as the Spaniard told his story.
“It was when I entered the Moroccan suburbs,” Felipe was saying, “that my mission became clear to me. Think, Baron, an Islamic encampment on the very fringes of the sacred city!” By the time Giorgio turned up, the Baron sent him away with a single imperious glance.
“There was a park there,” Felipe added, “and right in the center they were building a mosque. I learned that the local politicians had given away the space to buy the immigrant vote.
“It looked like a white mushroom, and I realized that the goal of my mission was to destroy it.
“I have to confess that as a student I was a convinced Marxist, and I and my comrades made plans to attack various bourgeois targets.” The Baron frowned, but allowed him to continue. “We stole the ingredients to make bombs, and were almost ready for action when the engineer in the group got cold feet, and nothing came of it. But I can never forget the training we put ourselves through, the sense of purpose. And now I knew what it had all been for.
“But working alone, I couldn’t begin to make a bomb large enough to destroy the mosque. After long meditation and the offering of my own life, if need be, I received an answer.
“Do you recall, Baron, the phrase that you used: ‘If you meet the Buddha on the path, kill him’? I felt that Saint James himself was saying this to me. I was to kill his image, only his image, and he would do the rest. I made my plans so that the fewest possible people would be hurt, and trusted the Saint to ensure that no lives were lost. His statue would be destroyed, but it was only a statue. We would wake up the people, the Saint and I, and they would take over my mission.
“But you know what happened: there was a stampede, and twelve innocent Christians died. True, the mission has been launched, and grows stronger every day; but I feel guilty of deaths and injuries that I never intended to cause. I can’t take this guilt anymore; I must turn myself in.”
Felipe had looked at the Baron then, half fearful, half defiant, expecting him to pick up the phone and call the police. The young man was ready for martyrdom.
“What I have just heard,” said the older man, with Olympian calm, “is as though it were whispered to the reeds. In fact, I have never heard it. Clearly, you acted on an impulse not of your own; you were beside yourself, possessed, temporarily incapacitated. Therefore, you shouldn’t be held accountable. Now listen carefully, and take my advice: return to Spain, and do nothing unusual. Keep a low profile, make yourself inconspicuous. Is that clear? Take no initiatives and keep your impulses in check. In other words: keep your mouth shut, and do absolutely nothing.”
Felipe
was taken aback. This was not what he had expected. At the same time, his instinct of self-preservation came to the fore, and he was grateful. And there was more: he also realized belatedly what a disgrace he had been to the chivalrous ideal. The Baron had been magnanimous; he resolved to do exactly as he had been told. He bowed his farewell and left with a spring in his step.
Alone in his studio some time later, Emanuele was revisiting Felipe’s words in his mind, and gloating. “Is it my own magical activity that has caused such a catalytic event?” It seemed that no conscious effort could have come close to this. It could be a perfect illustration of chaos theory: the drop of rain that fell on a butterfly’s wing, and started a deluge. But the Baron, of course, did not believe in chaos theory.
TEN
Nigel stepped from the water-taxi to the dock of Palazzo Riviera. “I hardly got a look at this place when we were married,” he said to Orsina. “It’s even bigger than I remembered. It must get terribly damp in winter.”
“It does,” said Orsina. “That’s why I prefer Provence.”
The servants appeared and were quick to take their suitcases. Orsina greeted them: “Hello Bhaskar, hello Soma. How are your children back in Delhi? Are you going to be able to bring them over soon?”
Bhaskar was short and earnest, in an off-white Nehru jacket and narrow trousers. Soma, dressed in a blue-green sari, was an attractive woman in her thirties, plump and bustling in response to Bhaskar’s muttered orders in their own language. “Oh, Madam, thank you for asking, but it is very difficult.” Orsina listened attentively to his halting but formal English. “The air fares and maintenance for five children are so expensive, but we hope to bring them over in twelve months’ time.”
Nigel was looking around the androne, the hall at canal level that stretched from one end of the palace to the other. “Do you still use these gondolas?”
The Forbidden Book: A Novel Page 6
