The Book of Thomas - Volume One: Heaven

by Robert Boyczuk

  They sat there, looking not so much as listening, running their eyes over the boys in the choir with hard, calculating gazes, appraising us the way they might judge the quality of a heifer.

  At the very end, I stepped forward for my solo, Ave Maria. When I finished, there was complete silence.

  A dissipated man in a brocaded greatcoat stood up and pulled out a leather purse. “I’ve more than a few silver bishops aching to be liberated.” He shook the purse and the coins jingled. The man’s eyes were on me.

  Father Paul paled, and propelled himself to his feet. “Not here,” he rasped loudly, waving his hands and scuttling over to the man, darting glances at the vaulted ceiling as if God might be watching. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder and levered him to a side door that led to the rectory. “All of you, please, this way.”

  I departed San Savio that day, bound-out. Not to the man who’d shown his purse. Instead, it was an obese man who’d sat quietly in the back during the performance, the least decadent of those assembled, wearing a plain brown cloak and mud-stained leather boots.

  “Be thankful, boy,” the fat man said as Brother Finn closed and barred the gate behind me. He held a rope in his sausage-like fingers that was looped around the neck of an overburdened jenny-mule. “If Georgie had another few bishops to his name, he’d have had you three times in three different back streets on the way to his brothel, then once more in his own chambers for good measure, before sending you to the front room for the pleasure of the hoi polloi.” He eyed me. “If he dressed you up just right, say in that choirboy’s outfit you were wearing, why I’d reckon he’d have made a pretty penny, too.” He laughed a raucous, obscene laugh, and his jenny brayed in kind, which made him laugh even harder. He sobered and spat on the ground, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “But I have plans of a different sort for you. Pray you’re worth the price I paid.” Then he turned and clicked his tongue at the mule in a way that bespoke of a well-worn habit. Man and mule turned as one and ambled toward the mouth of the alley, their buttocks swaying in unison.

  “Follow me, boy,” said the fat man over his shoulder, “if you ever wish to see Heaven.”

  The Society of Jesus

  Rather than risk the deepening gloom of the streets of Los Angeles Nuevo, we stayed that night at a ramshackle brothel not far from the orphanage at San Savio. After loosing a brass deacon from his purse and passing it over to the establishment’s wary-eyed mistress, my new master instructed me to stable the mule around back. We didn’t keep large animals on my father’s estate, so I wasn’t quite sure what to do—but I’d heard stories and thus knew enough to give the animal’s rear legs a wide berth. She was docile, though, and I managed to unburden her without incident. After much fumbling with the buckles and straps in the fading light, I also freed her from her bridle and harness. As I did this, I noticed her long ears swivelled around sedately, inquisitively, and her tail hung loose, not twitching—both of which I later came to recognize as signs of contentment. After I finished, I stroked her snout, which she seemed to like.

  Free of her encumbrance, I saw the mule bore another burden, one of which I could never relieve her: her coat had a whitish line running from her mane along her spine to her haunches and intersected a similar line across her withers, as if a crucifix had been painted on her back.

  “Her name is Cross, though she’s anything but.” The fat man stood at the entrance to the stall, a steaming wooden bowl in his hand. “You need to brush her, too. Give her a lick of salt and some grain. But not too much. Overfeeding will make her sick. Mules were bred for the desert, and like desert food, so never anything rich.” He handed me the bowl, from which rose a smell that made my stomach rumble—and I realized that in preparation for the concert, I’d somehow missed supper, and was now ravenously hungry. “And make sure there is enough clean water in the trough for her to drink.” He scratched the mule on her snout affectionately, then pulled a carrot from his pocket and allowed her to nibble on it. “Give her a carrot every day if you wish her to be your friend.” The fat man glanced around the rickety stable, at the saddlebags and packs I’d stacked in a corner. “There’s not a great deal of value in those bags, but it would irk me to loose them nonetheless.” He kicked one. “There’s a blanket in this one if you get cold.”

  With that he turned and ambled away.

  I threw myself down next to the saddlebags and greedily scooped the stew from the bowl with a cupped hand, in my rush spilling as much as I ate on my ragged shirt. It was a wonderful concoction. Unlike the fare at San Savio, it had onions and carrots and peas that weren’t shrivelled and chewy, and boasted potatoes and chunks of chicken thick enough to chew. The sauce was beyond my wildest expectations, so good that I didn’t even care that I scalded my hand and my tongue and the roof of my mouth in my rush to eat.

  When it was all gone, I licked the bowl—and sat back to think.

  It had been my intention, at the first opportunity, to part company with my new master. Such a moment was upon me. I had feared I would be shackled, or at least closely watched. Not left on my own where escaping was as simple as walking out the gate, nor with the ample provisions the saddlebags might provide. In my callowness, escape seemed not only possible, but likely. My reasoning was thus: the city was of such formidable size that it would have been near impossible to find me. And I believed that my time at San Savio had hardened me sufficiently so that I was every bit as tough as the other boys in the orphanage. And, if they could make their way on the streets of Los Angeles Nuevo, why couldn’t I?

  Only I found myself reluctant to leave.

  As I sat there, I felt the twinge of incipient guilt. As if in fleeing I’d be stealing the price he’d paid for me. For the same reason, I knew I couldn’t bring myself to take anything from his baggage. To this day, I have never cheated or stolen from another person intentionally, even those who have stolen and cheated me. If I was going to escape, I wanted it to be clean, without debt.

  There was a second reason, as well: his simple gesture of affection toward his mule. It had made me realize that in my time at San Savio, I’d seen no such gesture pass between the boys and their teachers. There was something in me that hungered for that kind of effortless affection, the kind my father had once shown me. As foolish as it sounds, I was jealous of the mule, and in that moment he rubbed its snout, I would have given anything for him to tousle my hair with the same casual affection.

  Thus, I made my excuses to stay: Don’t be impulsive. Take advantage of a safe haven for the night. A good sleep. And perhaps on the morrow . . .

  I checked the gate at the end of the alley leading to the stable, making sure it was shut and barred, and gave the rest of the place the once over, until I was reasonably sure that no one would trouble me that night. Then I sat with my back propped against the saddlebags, clutching a cracked and greying axe handle I’d found, ready to defend my master’s meagre possessions, as he had bid me.

  From the brothel the sounds of revelry washed around me, rising in volume through the heart of the night. Twice I thought I recognized the boisterous guffaw of my master, and once a series of explosive grunts I imagined to be his. But it was only a guess, for business was good, and it wasn’t until the small hours of the morning that the sounds of rowdy ecstasy had diminished enough for me to drift off to sleep.

  I was awoken by a kick from my master. He held a small lantern that struggled to push back the pitch black. Behind him, the brothel’s windows were shuttered and dark. I had no recollection of curling up next to the mule on the hay, but my back was pressed against her warm spine.

  “I want to be out of the city by sun-on,” my master said, nudging the mule’s haunch with his foot, rousing it. The animal snorted in complaint, but tucked its legs under its belly and levered itself awkwardly erect. It sauntered over to the trough and dipped its head. “See if you can manage the bridle. Not too rough around her ears, though. Mules are particularly sensitive there, and if she get
s annoyed she’ll thrash her head and likely knock you silly.” A sheen of sweat covered my master’s brow, his eyes were bloodshot, and the smell of stale wine oozed from his pores. Hanging his lantern from a peg, he walked to the trough and bent over next to the mule, splashing water on his face. Then stood straight, stretched, and farted loudly. “Do what you can and I’ll be back to check your work in a few minutes.” Leaving the lantern, he ambled back into the house, rubbing his temples.

  When he returned a ten minutes later, two bulging wine skins slung over his shoulder, he seemed surprised that I’d not only managed the bridle, but the pack saddle, too, and had almost finished loading the mule. When I’d unsaddled Cross the previous night, I’d memorized the positioning of the straps and ropes, and where and how they were knotted, as well as how the packs had been suspended from the harnessing. Cross had been cooperative, and I had replicated the whole arrangement with little difficulty. My master waved me away from the mule and eyed my work critically, tugging here and there on a strap, then nodded, looking pleased. “Seems you have more than just a pretty voice, eh?” He laughed, and slapped me on the back. “Now finish the job,” he said, unshouldering the wine skins and dropping them in my hands. “But pack these last, eh? Want to keep them handy. . . .”

  After I did this, my master, holding aloft his small lantern, led Cross down the alley and out onto the street in front of the brothel, the lonely clattering of hooves on the cobbles the only sound in the silent city to mark our passing.

  During the two hours it had taken us to wend our way through the city, we had seen only a handful of drowsy people, none giving us more than an indifferent glance. Now on the outskirts, we started to pass wains loaded with produce and livestock coming in to the city, whose drivers favoured us with the curt, wordless nods of the brotherhood of early risers. With the first intimations of sun-on, we reached the river demarcating Los Angeles Nuevo. It was as wide as the river I had crossed upon first entering the city, although this one was nowhere near as filthy. On the far side was a small city of tents and other hastily erected shelters, the threads of dozens of cooking fires streaking the morning sky. On both sides of the bridge were manned guard towers and earthworks. However, the guards were focused entirely on those petitioning to enter the city, and they gave us not so much as a glance.

  As we trekked into the countryside, the suns began to brighten. Lengthy shadows grew on our left, and so I knew we must be travelling north. It had been night when I’d first entered the city, almost a year ago, but I was pretty sure that the line of suns had been perpendicular to our route. Which meant that we had been moving in one of two directions: north or south. After the first sun-on at the orphanage, I retraced the twists and turns of that journey in my mind, and was able to determine that we had been travelling by-and-large north, which meant the Dominican monastery lay south of the city. It was a relief to know that we were now moving in the opposite direction.

  We stopped to break our fast an hour outside the city, near an attenuated, cloudy brook whose waters were nonetheless sweeter than anything I’d tasted in the last year. After sating myself, I doused my head and shook it, water spraying everywhere. Despite the few hours of sleep I’d managed, I felt more awake than I had in some time. My master didn’t look nearly as energized; his face was a pallid oval, and his hands shook as he unwrapped a cloth containing farmer’s cheese, a small loaf of bread, and a stick of cured salami. Using his knife, he cut portions, but ate only a little, leaving most for me. Then he poured himself a half-cup of wine, diluting it with an equal amount of water from the brook. Muttering, “Sanguinis Domini,” he downed it in one gulp.

  Blood of our Lord.

  I suppose my shock at his blasphemy must have been apparent because he squinted at me and mumbled, “Hazard of the profession.” Some colour had returned to his cheeks. He poured himself a second tot of wine, but didn’t dilute this one. “You can’t drink God’s Blood as part of your job everyday, and not develop a fondness for the taste, eh?” He tossed back the wine and started to laugh, which abruptly degenerated into a racking cough. He spat out a sickly gob of phlegm, then wiped the remaining strands from his lips with the back of his coarse sleeve.

  He began packing up the gear. “Before my fall from grace, I was Father Ignatius of the Society of Jesus.”

  A Jesuit. I had been bound-out to an ex-Jesuit. In the enlightened Spheres everyone knew them as “God’s marines.” They ran the colleges and seminaries with intellectual and physical rigour, and more famously served as missionaries, their duty to proselytize and defend the faith, to convince and ultimately to convert. It wasn’t uncommon for a Sunday sermon to be larded with an example of their courage and sacrifice. Many stories ended with their deaths. In my mind’s eye they were more than mere priests: they were selfless adventurers, heroically carrying the light into the unenlightened and Godless lands of the lower Spheres.

  Ignatius secured the food pack on the mule and turned to me. “I am an excommunicant, ferendae sententiae, sentenced by the ecclesiastical court.” He picked up Cross’s lead. “I no longer serve the Church as a cleric. But the Church, in its mercy, has seen fit to allow me to continue to serve in another capacity.” He pointed a pudgy finger at me. “By securing talented boys for their choirs.” He rubbed thumb and forefinger together in the universal gesture of anticipated coin. “For a lucrative finder’s fee, of course.” He laughed his raucous laugh, setting off a minor earthquake in his belly. “You see, I have an ear for these things. Before the Church and I parted ways, I was choir-master at the Capella Sixtina.”

  I found it hard to imagine this man, in his stained and frayed cloak, in such a sacrosanct setting, standing on the very same altar as the Pontiff did when celebrating Mass—and where the Conclave of Cardinals met after the Pope’s death to elect his successor.

  “You sing like you don’t know it, but you’ve got the goods, boy. You’re almost ready for the Sistine Choir. It’s not all there yet, but with some coaching, a great deal of practise, and a little more confidence, who knows? You might even make it to Heaven.”

  It had never occurred to me that there might be actual choirs, or any other human affectation, in Lower Heaven. I had always envisioned It as an ethereal place where Angels drifted serenely to and fro, fulfilling the unfathomable tasks God had set them. After I chewed on it a bit, though, it made sense that someone must take care of the mundane jobs that kept the Sphere functioning. But a choir?

  “Don’t look so gobsmacked, boy.” Ignatius turned and flicked the lead, man and mule ambling onto the road. “Heaven ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  For the next month we travelled from Parish to Parish and recital to recital, staying at brothels and, occasionally, at less dubious inns when no convenient brothel presented itself. Ignatius was greeted with familiarity at every establishment. I much preferred the inns because, other than their more acceptable moral character, they were invariably cleaner and quieter, and I was allowed to share the room when there was bedding enough for two. During this time, Ignatius didn’t see fit to purchase another boy. Indeed, at times he seemed agitated, and he left halfway through two of the recitals, muttering to himself.

  The journey itself was largely unremarkable, save for the unusually large number of travellers moving in the opposite direction, always towards Los Angeles Nuevo. Men, women, families. Even ragged children by themselves. All on foot, a few drawing wains packed with their meagre belongings. They were thin and stoop-shouldered, looking more than anything like beaten curs. Most didn’t raise their eyes as we passed, but those that did stared coldly at Ignatius’s girth and Cross’s stuffed bags.

  “This is an impoverished and troubled Sphere,” Ignatius told me. “Two straight years of drought. Five of the last ten. These migrants are largely those who worked the fields, but there is no work for them now that much of the crop withers before it can be harvested. So they head for larger cities, thinking their lot will be better there, but most will never
get past the poxy camps. Many will die there.”

  I could see this was a poor Sphere, certainly much poorer than the one where I’d been born. We’d had a few lean harvests in the last few years, but our fields and forests were hardy and green, and there was enough work that there were few migrants and certainly no camps—at least none I knew of. At San Savio I had mistakenly associated the miserly portions of food with the orphanage, not realizing the problem was endemic to this Sphere. Now that I was out of San Savio, the signs of hunger, and its attendant unrest, were unmistakable. In the city, beggars choked the streets; outside, the ragged masses huddled in seething camps, held at bay only by heavily armed Guardia. And beyond, where we now travelled, the most telling sign, the sere fields and wilting crops.

  Aside from the migrant workers, the only other travellers we encountered were patrols of young men, most mounted, a few on foot. Sometimes they were uniformed Guardia from the nearest city, under the disciplined command of a Hauptmann wearing the blue uniform and black beret of the Gardes Suisses. Other times they looked more like a rag-tag band of brigands, armed only with farming implements. Ignatius told me—and my own subsequent experience has borne this out—that wherever there are young men without work, trouble follows. So I suppose arming these young men and sending them out on patrol was better than leaving them idle, and risk having them foment violence in their own villages.

  For the most part, the patrols left us alone, probably because we looked respectable enough. But when they did stop us, Ignatius quickly produced a beautifully inked vellum from the Vatican, guaranteeing us safe passage. A few eyed it dubiously—but never the Suisse, who, eyes widening, seemed to recognize it immediately. In the end, though, all let us pass.