The Translation of Father Torturo

by Connell, Brendan

  As the train pulled into Padua, which is less than an hour’s ride beyond Verona, he peered up from his paper and out the window of the second class carriage. The sky was grey and softly lit, depositing drizzle which slid down the window like tears. Several passengers boarded the train, but none sat in the four empty seats of his carriage.

  “We’ve been so lucky to have this compartment to ourselves,” the woman across from him said in English. “I just hate it when it’s full.”

  He gave an indulgent smile over the edge of his paper and shrugged his shoulders, signifying that he did not understand a word she said, though he understood her perfectly.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she smiled. “You don’t understand English. I thought you did – The baseball cap you know.”

  “Si, si!” and then turning back to the journal, which was quite obviously written in Italian: “Permesso.”

  She bit her bottom lip and gave him a moist American stare.

  Though his ticket would take him all the way to Venice, he got off at Mestre, the previous stop. With long, almost imperial strides he made his way to the opposite track and boarded the train for Trieste, which pulled out just seconds after the door shut behind him. He sat alone in a first class carriage (ticket purchased three days previous at the Verona station), his luggage, which consisted of two Samsonite suitcases, stowed neatly overhead. The trip was uneventful. He looked out the window at the cows grazing in the wet, lush meadows. The farmers moved around their fields and barns, wearing broad-brimmed hats to keep the rain off their faces. After Monfalcone, the train ran along the Gulf of Trieste and Torturo looked out at the calm, though somewhat dismal Adriatic Sea, the waters appearing almost black in the morning light. Sloping down from his left were the hills of Slovenia. Behind him was the mass of Italy. He looked at his watch. It was 9:30. A quarter of an hour later the train pulled into the Trieste station. He deboarded, headed straight for the restrooms, which were completely empty, abandoned his wig and changed his clothes. The cap, jogging pants and jumper were stuffed in the trash receptacle, the sacerdotal robes resumed.

  Despite the drizzle, which still persisted outside, he made his way on foot, a suitcase in each hand, to the local stop, some four blocks away. As luck would have it, he only had to wait for some five minutes before the small red trolley arrived, though he was fairly soaked through by the time he boarded. The three or four people who were on the transport nodded to him respectfully, their reverence being inspired not so much by his moist appearance as by the garments he wore. He sat down in one of the antique wooden seats, towards the front, where the sign still read, ‘Reserved for Veterans of the War,’ an indication of the age of the little trolley, which jolted into motion and wound through the empty streets of Trieste, past the rain dimpled harbour, which contained mammoth cargo ships, with dirty white characters inscribed on their sides, mostly in Russian and other Eastern European languages. The trolley reached the edge of town and gained grade, climbing up the steep hills towards the frontier, down below the harbour a gorgeous blue-grey against the gouged out blocks of buildings and the rich green, mist wreathed hills. At the gorge it stopped, and funicular lines were attached. It continued airborne for a short distance and then resumed its route on tracks, to Villa Opicina, which was the end of the line.

  Getting off the train, the conductor, a small, balding man, helped him with one of the suitcases, obviously considering it an act of devotion.

  “Quite light,” he commented, setting it down in the station bar.

  “Yes,” the father replied with a half smile. “I left my Bibles at home.”

  He then went to the phone booth, made a brief call, and returned to the station bar to have an espresso. He chatted casually with the fat woman behind the counter, complemented her on her Italian (she was Slovenian), had a second espresso and stepped outside. He smoked two cigarettes, paced back and forth for a quarter of an hour and then, just as he was lighting a third, Dr. Jure Štrekel pulled up, in a small white car with Slovenian plates.

  The doctor, a man even larger than father Torturo, with an extraordinarily thick frame and a huge black moustache spiking out of his pale, fat face, stepped out of the car, cracked his knuckles, opened the trunk and flung the two suitcases inside, a jaunty greeting flying off his lips.

  “So, glad to have you back,” he grinned as they drove away, his Italian heavily tainted with an Eastern accent. “I thought you might be indisposed for a while after our last meeting.”

  “No,” the father replied. “You did an admirable job and, thanks to my strong constitution, the negative effects were quite brief.”

  The doctor peered into the other’s mouth as he spoke.

  “Yes. It’s natural. Very natural.”

  “Eyes on the road please.”

  The car sped on, barely missing dogs, elderly women and baby carriages, crossed through the frontier without incident, their passports not so much as checked, and on into the wild countryside in the vicinity of Sezana. The dark, gnarled oaks sat near the edge of the road and, further on, past the thickly grassed meadows were the forests which rolled over the hills, rich and evergreen, a mask for prowling wolves. Off to one side was the ruined castle of Štanjel, the surrounding town like a horseshoe cast on the top of the low mountain, small vineyards, bereft of growth, levelling off into the valley below. The car wound up the road and through the portal of the bombed out watch-tower, the doctor violently sounding the horn as he made his way, at an extremely unsafe velocity, through the narrow opening. Then up, past the medieval church they went and through the narrow lane of mostly abandoned, gutted houses; the few that were inhabited having measly kitchen gardens in front, severe peasant women bent over ailing cabbages. The doctor lived at the far end of the village, in a refurbished villa with a courtyard.

  “Ah, Žnidaršič!” he said affectionately, petting the slobbering dog that leaped on him as he got out of the car. Looking up at the priest, the dog’s head sunk between its shoulder blades and it slunk off with a guilty look, a low whine issuing from its mouth.

  “Ah, Žnidaršič respects you,” the doctor said. “It shows you are a powerful man. Animals sense that.”

  “It is a shame humans, generally speaking, do not.”

  The two men walked through the courtyard, which had a pine tree on one side, and an old well in the centre. Torturo plucked a few needles from the pine tree and stuck them in his pocket. Inside the villa, he was greeted by Nassa, the doctor’s plump, blonde wife, who unfortunately did not speak a word of Italian.

  “Dobar dan, me veseli,” she said.

  “She says she is glad to see you,” the doctor translated with a smile, showing his fine white teeth. “She likes good business for her husband.”

  “Was she with you in America?” the father asked.

  “No; I got her when I came back,” the doctor replied seriously. “American women are no good. They don’t like to work, or respect the husband. Life with Slovenian women is good. The women in America are no good. They call me criminal because I do good business.”

  “But you got caught in your ‘good business.’”

  “Life in America is like a mealy apple,” the doctor said gravely. “It looks nice on the outside, but inside it is bad fruit. There some men who like to have funny things. They like the fetishes. Some like to have their legs sawed off. I am a good doctor, but if a weak man cannot live, it is not fair that I should get the blame. As you know father, I am a very good doctor.”

  “Of course you are – That is why I am using you.”

  Nassa put down a plate of ham and freshly baked bread on the table, as well as an old Sprite bottle filled with black wine.

  “Come,” the doctor said motioning the priest to sit. “We eat and drink a glass of teran, the black wine, and then we do business. That is our custom you know; we always drink a glass of wine before business.”

  “An admirable custom,” father Torturo said as he watched his glass fill with the rich, dark
liquid, the very blood of the earth.

  “To your health.”

  “To your health.”

  The two men drank, each savouring the spectacular beverage. The doctor talked volubly, about wine, farming, his experiences as an unlicensed surgeon, and European politics. Torturo listened, or affected to listen, sipping gladly at his wine and every now and again slipping a bit of the delicious, fatty ham into his mouth. He found the doctor’s physiognomy interesting: The large head, bristling with short, black hair; a small nose mounted above a ferocious moustache; the large, pink mouth, glowing with healthy teeth; – and then the eyes: soft, intelligent, almost feminine eyes! In some respects he reminded the priest of a great, trustworthy, clever dog. – In any case, the doctor certainly had two commendable qualifications: a definite quantity of mad genius, and enough self interest to produce a moderate level of loyalty.

  “Do you have eggs?” Torturo presently asked.

  “Certainly. In the country we keep chickens, and they make good eggs; wholesome eggs. We consider our Slovanian eggs to be wholesome eggs. Would you like some?”

  “Yes. One please.”

  “Fried, scrambled?”

  “Hard boiled.”

  Speaking rapidly the doctor instructed his wife to boil eggs. She complied without the least objection, apparently finding it quite natural to cook to order.

  Father Torturo poured himself a fresh glass of wine and sat back, spilling the liquid into his mouth and letting it run over his tongue: – Or, in any case, the tongue that was in his mouth.

  In 1263, when the vault containing the body of St. Anthony was opened, thirty two years after its original internment, the flesh had turned to dust, but the tongue was in a perfect state of preservation, fresh and ripe as a red pepper. “O Blessed Tongue,” St. Bonaventure had said, taking up the glossy morsel in two fingers and holding it high. “O Blessed Tongue that always praised the Lord, and made others bless Him, now it is evident what great merit thou hast before God.”

  Father Torturo, when he found himself in possession of this precious relic, the tongue of the man they called the Malleus hereticorum, the Hammer of the Heretics, was overjoyed. He filled a small mayonnaise jar with his own blood, draining it from an incision he made in his left palm, placed the tongue in the jar along with a silver amulet inscribed with the name Eresgichal written in Greek characters, sealed it and brought it with him on his first visit to Doctor Štrekel, who was less surprised at the priest’s request than might be expected.

  “Of course, the thing might rot in your mouth,” was his only objection.

  “I have no fear on that score,” Father Torturo had replied. “It has remained a healthy, living thing for nearly eight hundred years, so I imagine it can subsist a while longer rubbing against my palate.”

  “Oh, look how it wiggles in my fingers!” the doctor remarked, taking it out of the jar.

  “Yes, it will graft beautifully. I have every confidence that it will graft beautifully.”

  The eggs were finished, and Father Torturo stuck one in his pocket. The two men, after draining their glasses of wine, walked across the wet courtyard, each carrying one of the suitcases, to the doctor’s studio, which was not directly accessible from the house.

  “Have you had much work since I last saw you?” Torturo asked, setting his luggage down on the floor.

  The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “No, not much. Some nose jobs and one or two breast implants. One fellow came, nastily burned from a fire. I did a good skin graft. He had no money, so he paid me with a pig. We kill it soon and make good ham of the legs; nice roast of the loin. – Really though, that is about all. Not much work. – Not much work that’s good for me.” He grinned.

  “Are you ever worried about botching a job? . . . Or, I should say: another job.”

  “Father please,” the doctor said with a hurt look on his large round face. “I was top student at the University of Leningrad. I am best surgeon. If I need confession I will come to you and trust you with my soul. So, as a personal favour, trust me in my job.”

  “You might trust me, in my capacity as priest, with your soul,” the priest replied, “but I am trusting you with my body, which, here on earth, is often considered the more valuable of the two assets. But, believe me, I would not be using you if I judged you to be in the least bit incompetent.”

  “So, we set to work?”

  “Certainly. Let me first just attend to a few matters – Alone.”

  “You want I should go?”

  “If you don’t mind – For three-quarters of an hour.”

  Left to himself, Torturo took the boiled egg from his pocket, cracked it on the edge of the table and peeled away its shell, leaving a glossy white oval in his palm. He set it down, took a pin knife from the same pocket and pricked his thumb. Dipping the pine needle in the drop of blood, he wrote on the egg the word ‘Adad’ and then, in a single swallow, took the hen’s ovum into his stomach.

  Clearing the work table of its contents, he drew on the whole, with a marker near at hand, a large circle. At each corner of the table he drew mystical symbols. Along the outer perimeter of the circle he wrote the twelve simple letters héh, vau, zain, cheth, teth, yod, lamed, nun, samech, oin, tzaddi, and qoph; along the inner perimeter he wrote the seven double letters beth, gimel, daleth, kaph, peh, resh, and tau. His hand worked fast and skilfully, without the least bit of hesitation. In the centre of the circle he wrote the word ATzLH.

  He opened one of the suitcases. Inside were the incorrupt arms of Saint Ambrose, the metatarsals and phalanges of s.s. m.m. Naboree and Felice, the carpals of s.s. Gervaso and Protaso, and bones of St. Savina, St. Satio and St. Marcellina. He arranged the relics on the table and, waving his hand over them whispered a certain incantation, a certain formula bereft of sibilants.

  The lights in the room wavered momentarily, and then turned slightly blue.

  “O'ôbôth yidde'onim,” he murmured.

  There was a low hissing sound. A hazy film seemed to momentarily surround the table and a smell, like that of semen, filled the air. Torturo stood silent. Presently he bent down and placed the palms of his hands on the floor while keeping his knees locked. He arose, rolled his neck and then, stepping to the door and opening it, called to the doctor.

  “Just coming,” the latter said, who was in the courtyard playing catch with his dog. “Good boy Žnidaršič! Good boy.”

  Torturo, inside, was unbuttoning his shirt.

  The doctor went to the sink and proceeded to wash his hands. He looked over his shoulder, grinning, “You want that I should get the anaesthetic like before? – Little anaesthetic?”

  “Yes. An anaesthetic would be fine.”

  “You are a fit fellow,” the doctor said, admiring the priest’s physique.

  “I exercise and walk every day – I can hardly abide a day without walking.”

  “You walk much then?”

  “A minimum of six kilometres per day.”

  “You are a powerful man!”

  “My body is earthly,” said Torturo quietly. “Even animals like Žnidaršič suffer the pleasure of having one. My thoughts and reason on the other hand, as a human, should and do rest with God. There is kinship with the dead. There is kinship with the divine.”

  The doctor shrugged his shoulders. He dried his hands, cracked his knuckles and, picking up his scalpel, said, “Ok: we ate, we talk, we play: now we work.”

  ***

  That afternoon Dr. Jure Štrekel performed a rather complex operation. Midway between the cephalic vein and radial nerve, he made an inch and a half wide incision, cutting cleanly through the epidermal tissue while carefully avoiding the musculature and lateral antibracheal cutaneous nerve beneath. By means not dissimilar to those used by the Jivaro Indians of Southern Ecuador, in the preliminary phases of producing a shrunken head, the bones of the arm were removed, leaving it a limp bag of flesh that resembled a large olive coloured worm. To reassemble the framework, using humerus, ra
dius and ulna foreign was the larger challenge. The cephalic vein was lifted with tenacula. Making use of the living gristle of his patient, Dr. Štrekel articulated the pulley-like trochlea, the distal end of the humerus to the ulna.

  The doctor believed himself to be one of the most brilliant, though admittedly despised, medical men in the whole of Eastern Europe, and was more than willing to attempt the dangerous and tamper with the impossible. If he made a mutant, it would not be the first; if it was otherwise, than it would simply mean further prosperity, additional gold in his purse from the future operations the Italian priest had planned.

  Doctor Štrekel was not timorous when it came to digging in open flesh, and feared not to go against either the laws of man or nature. That the spirits of the dead inhabit not only the hollows of trees, dark forests, graveyards and rocks, but their very bones discarded of flesh is certain. The doctor was surprised at how smooth and rapid the operation proceeded. He worked with agility. Bones and bloody tissues sprang in his hands like sprightly, self-willed children. He was under the misapprehension that the work was all his own. He did not realise that there, in that village on the Slovenian border, in his own home, the supramundane had been invited.

  Chapter Eight

  It was early morning and still dark out when young Pepito stepped into Santa Giustina to pray, as was his custom. He went to one of the pews near the front, crossed himself, and then knelt down on one knee, lowered his head and pressed his palms together. His corral lips began to move, letting out low, sonorous tones, and his handsome, slightly feline face took on an angelic look. He was thoroughly abstracted in his communion with the supreme being – too much so to see the figure that had entered shortly after him and lurked silently in the shadows.

  Presently the figure stepped forward, moving slowly, noiselessly, and worked its way around the nave, to the pew immediately behind Pepito. It stopped, wavered back and forth like a pliant tree in a breeze, and then dramatically dropped to its knees and began to crawl along the floor. The young acolyte raised his head, looked around slightly and then settled back into prayer. The figure paused for a few moments, and then continued to creep along the pew, until directly behind Pepito. The young acolyte murmured a few words louder than the rest. The figure rose up behind him and, producing a fuller’s club from the folds of its garments, brandished it high.