Apocalypsis I

by Mario Giordano

  What a wonderful laugh you have, Maria. Please, never ever stop laughing!

  Someone was waiting for him. As Peter entered Don Luigi’s living room, Maria was embracing an elderly couple. Sophia Eichner was wearing her hair down, something that she had never done before. Franz Laurenz was not dressed in the white cassock of the pope but in a dark suit with a light-colored, open-collar shirt. He did not look at all like the erstwhile most powerful man in the Catholic Church, more like a retired politician who had just returned from his first vacation in years.

  Maria extricated herself from Franz Laurenz’s embrace and cleared her throat.

  »Peter,« she said. »I would like you to meet my parents.«

  EPISODE 11

  THE THING UNDER THE ROCK

  Lübbe Webnovel is an imprint of Bastei Lübbe GmbH & Co. KG

  Copyright © 2011 by Bastei Lübbe GmbH & Co. KG, Cologne, Germany

  Written by Mario Giordano, Cologne

  Translated by Diana Beate Hellmann, Los Angeles

  English version edited by Charlotte Ryland, London

  Editors: Friederike Achilles/Jan F. Wielpütz

  Artwork: © Dino Franke, Hajo Müller

  E-Book-Production: Dörlemann Satz, Lemförde

  ISBN 978-3-8387-1469-1

  All rights reserved

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  LXXVII

  ONE YEAR EARLIER …

  September 10, 2010, Gulu, Northern Uganda

  The hyena had been prowling around the camp for days. Despite the fact that the animal was keeping a respectful distance from the huts and the improvised tents, nothing could chase it away, neither the children throwing stones, nor the occasional warning shots of the Blue Helmet soldiers. For some reason, the hyena had been separated or abandoned by its pack. It did not look hurt. It was neither limping nor showing any wounds that could have been the result of a fight with a lion. But the animal was alone, emaciated and dangerous. So far, it had not attacked anyone. It almost appeared as if it had only come to starve to death; like anyone else who was living here. The Acholi people in the camp did not seem particularly frightened by the animal and called her respectfully Maama Empisi, Mama Hyena. After all, since the arrival of the hyena there had not been any further assaults by the LRA. This was why some of the older Acholi people thought of her as the camp’s guardian spirit. At night, they could hear her hoarse bark and during the day they watched her trudge through the dust and the dreariness along the outskirts of the camp. Maama Empisi never crossed the wide street that divided the camp into two sections, leading in one direction to Gulu and in the other direction to certain death. A mysterious animal, this hyena, constantly on the search for something. Or someone.

  From the spot where Maria was sitting right now, she could see that Maama Empisi was lying down in the shadow of a withered Umbrella Thorn Acacia. For a brief moment, she thought that the hyena was staring at her. As if she had a message for Maria that she had to deliver in person as soon as the chance presented itself.

  Maria turned around and looked back at twelve-year-old Joan.

  »You don’t have to be scared. Everything will be fine.«

  »And what if they don’t want me anymore? I wouldn’t want myself either.«

  »God is with you, Joan. God will give you your family back.«

  Maria said that, but she was not sure whether it was really true, whether Joan’s family would really take her back. For Joan had killed. She had killed many people; some of them she had slaughtered in the most horrific ways. Four years earlier, troops of the Lord’s Resistance Army had attacked Joan’s village. They had dragged Joan’s parents out of the hut and then they had forced the eight-year-old girl to kill her parents. But today no one cared about the despair and the anguish that Joan had suffered. Today no one cared that Joan had spent the following four years being raped by LRA rebels. No one cared about the living hell that she had endured, in constant fear of her life. Because the fact was: she had killed her parents. The fact was: she had served in the LRA for four years. Under the influence of drugs, the so-called gun-juice, she had participated in regular raids on villages and refugee camps, killing dozens of people in a state of frenzy. Sometimes just for a pair of rubber boots or for a T-shirt. But it was also a fact that Joan had never lost her faith. Every night she had prayed to God and begged Him for forgiveness. Until God had shown mercy and made it possible for her to flee. God, Joan was convinced of that, had shown her the way to the camp for traumatized child soldiers. God had led her to Maria, who was now bringing her back to her family. Or to what was left of her family.

  For more than twenty years, Joseph Kony had been bombarding the northern part of Uganda with inconceivable terror, largely executed by children soldiers on gun-juice. In order to protect the Acholi people from this rebel militia, which was known for being the most violent in all of Africa, the Ugandan government had resettled two million people in gigantic refugee camps. Unfortunately, though, life in these camps threatened the Acholi people even more than the LRA terror. Without water, food and medical supplies, away from their ancestral farmlands, and only provided with minimal support by the international aid organizations, they were simply perishing there. Unless the LRA got there first and slaughtered them.

  For Maria, Satan had a face; the face of Joseph Kony. So, she thanked God even more for having made it possible for Joan to flee from Kony’s hell and to be willing to face her family again. This time, however, God’s help would not be enough. A reconciliation ceremony was needed. A Mato Oput.

  Maria took the hand of the trembling girl and led her to a squat clay hut, which would be washed away by the next rain like all the others before. Joan’s grandparents were waiting in front of the hut with one of her uncles, his sons, and an old female shaman by the name of Nafuna who was preparing the ceremony. At first, Joan’s family had refused to take her back. They were afraid of Joan. But then Maria, the Catholic nun, had suggested a Mato Oput. Maria had already been working for four years as a missionary sister in the African bush but she was still amazed at the African tradition of forgiveness and reconciliation. The most serious crimes could be forgiven through simple rituals and the parties involved made unconditional peace. One of these rituals was the Mato Oput.

  »I bring you Joan,« Maria said. »Joan has killed many people. But she never lost her faith in God and there is nothing she wishes more than to return to her family. She is asking for forgiveness.«

  Upon a signal from the shaman, Joan placed a raw chicken egg in front of her on the ground and smashed it with her foot. After stepping over a tree branch that was lying between her and the hut, she drank the bitter root, an herbal brew that the shaman had prepared and poured into a huge bowl at the entrance to the hut. When Joan had finished the bowl with the disgusting brew down to the last drop, the members of her family applauded her briefly, and Joan wept as she embraced Maria. Then her grandmother offered Joan her hand and led her into the hut. The ceremony was over. Joan’s family had taken her back. They had forgiven her for killing her parents and many other members of their tribe.

  Nafuna rose to her feet and came walking towards Maria. Maria greeted the old woman respectfully, bowing as she said in Luganda: »Oli otya, Nafuna?«

  »Bulungi,« the old woman replied. She touched Maria’s cheek and pointed into the distance. »Look!«

  Maria turned around and saw Maama Empisi at some distance. The hyena was just standing there, staring at Maria.

  »She is waiting for you.«

  »Why is she waiting for me?«

  »She has heard that you can turn evil spirits into good spirits. She has heard that you have great power, Maria.«

  »Nafun
a, I am just a nun!«

  »No, Maria. You are much more. There is a great spell inside you. Maama Empisi wants you to redeem her and give her salvation.«

  Maria had spent enough time in Africa to know that it would not make any sense to argue with a shaman about the Christian ideas of redemption and salvation. She understood that Nafuna wanted to tell her something.

  »Tell me, Nafuna, how I can help Maama Empisi.«

  The shaman woman spat on the ground.

  »Come with me.«

  Nafuna led Maria through the camp to a stretch of barren wasteland. The clayey soil was rutted with tire tracks that looked like the random scribbling of a maniacal deity. The sun stood high in the sky, and in the distance heavy clouds were gathering, announcing that the drought would soon be over.

  The lonely, skinny hyena followed the two women at a safe distance until they reached a flat rock that protruded from the earth like a huge eye made of stone. Nafuna took Maria’s hand, led her to this rock and wiped the dust from one part of the stone. Maria saw that symbols were carved into the rock. Symbols that she recognized.

  »This is a holy stone,« Nafuna said. »Everything was created from this stone, the entire world, the bush, the trees, the grass, the animals and the people. And when the stone gave birth to the world, it also gave birth to a spell, to a powerful spell that gives the gift of life and also brings death. Afterwards, the stone was exhausted and that is why it is sleeping now.«

  »Who carved these symbols into the stone?«

  »The spirits of our ancestors,« Nafuna answered. »They did it to warn us.«

  »Warn you of what?«

  »Of the thing that is sleeping underneath the rock.«

  »What did she mean by that?« Don Luigi asked later that evening.

  »She called it the poison of the earth,« Maria told him. »Evil spirits. It is strange but I have known Nafuna for quite some time now and she has always kept her distance, to me as well as to the other missionary sisters. It was only when the hyena started roaming around the camp that Nafuna began to change. She started almost to seek out my company.«

  Without saying a word, Don Luigi sipped on his ice tea. He was sweating in his khaki hiking pants, khaki shirt and hiking boots, and the whole outfit made him look like some B-movie adventurer. Maria was wearing her light gray habit again as well as the coif that she never took off, despite the heat.

  »Why, do you think, did she show you the rock, Sister?« Don Luigi wanted to know.

  Maria shrugged her shoulders. »She didn’t tell me. She said that Maama Empisi had wanted me to see the stone.«

  They were sitting on the patio of the mission station where Maria had spent the last two years taking care of child soldiers who had managed to escape the LRA. The mission was located on the Kidepo-Gulu Road in the center of Gulu, the capital of the Gulu District in Northern Uganda. Close to 150,000 people, most of them Acholi people, lived in this dusty city with its squat houses and broad streets. Most of the houses could barely be seen from the road, as they lay hidden behind small vegetable gardens. Cell phone stores, small bazaars, bars, beauty salons, car repair shops and shabby gas stations lined the three main roads, which barely saw any traffic. Most people moved on foot or on ancient bicycles. And it felt to Maria as if people were always on the move in this country. Right now, for instance, shortly before sunset, thousands of children moved out of the camps and into the city to spend the night in a safe environment. Out of fear that the LRA would come at night to attack and kidnap them, these night commuters took it upon themselves to walk for hours and miles on end. At night they went into the city, and in the morning back to the camps. Maria saw these children as they walked along the road past a bar, these children who had nothing left in this world and who would later sing each other to sleep. Pop music drifted from the bar. The parked SUVs and the security officers at the entrance were clear signs that this bar was reserved for the staff members of the international aid organizations and for the soldiers of the small contingent of UN protection forces. There they had hamburgers, steaks, beer, coke – and all of it in abundance.

  Don Luigi took another sip from his ice tea. »What else did Nafuna say?«

  Maria gave the Padre a suspicious look. For the past six months, the chief exorcist of the Vatican had been serving as a special papal envoy, traveling the world, especially Africa. This time, he had accompanied the Pope and his delegation on their trip to Africa. Without announcing his visit, he had landed in Gulu in the afternoon, in a UN helicopter, and had brought her brown bread and homemade cookies from her mother. At this point in time, Maria did not know him very well, Don Luigi was just a passing acquaintance, but she knew enough about the mysterious Jesuit priest to be sure that he had not come to be her personal cookie boy. And Don Luigi had barely arrived when he started asking her about unusual encounters with shamans.

  »What exactly are you searching for?«

  »Why do you ask, Sister?« the Padre replied. »You know the answer. Demons. After all, that’s my job.«

  Maria sighed. »Nafuna talked about a spell. When the rock gave birth to the world, it also gave birth to this spell. A powerful spell that can heal and give life but can also take life away. This spell, she said, keeps the world in balance. But once every thousand years, the rock wakes up and the evil spirits that live underneath break out to seize the spell as their own.«

  Don Luigi nodded as if this sounded all too familiar to him. »I would love to meet Nafuna.« He was even smiling now. »By the look of it, I would say that she and I are colleagues.«

  September 11, 2010, Kampala, Uganda

  Kampala’s Nakivubo Stadium was bursting at the seams. Tens of thousands of people were crowding the balconies and stands and hundreds of thousands were pushing and shoving in the square in front of the stadium and in the streets. Crowds lined the road that led to the station, singing and chanting, waving yellow and white flags, and when the papal convoy and the Popemobile entered the stadium, the crowds erupted into deafening cheers. The city of Kampala had gone haywire and the reason was a man in pearly-white liturgical garments, a magnificently embroidered dalmatic and chasuble, with a white and gold miter on his head and the crosier in his hand, the pastoral staff of the Bishop of Rome. Like a pop star, Pope John Paul III was standing on the stage in front of an altar, blessing the wine and the bread, and saying to the cheering thousands in the stadium what he had also said during his previous three stops in Africa. Prodigious and simple words, which stood in clear contrast to his pompous appearance. Words which the Pope hoped would at last also be heard in Jerusalem, Mecca and Tokyo. A message that filled millions of people with hope and doubt alike. For days, the exact wording of the scandal had been reported across the world; breaking news that was discussed in special reports and newspaper editorials, words that had made him enemies among his own peers.

  »… we declare that the use of condoms for the prevention of deadly diseases or unwanted pregnancies is not contradictory to the teachings of the Church and the New Testa…«

  This time, he did not finish his sentence. For this was the moment when the gunshots rang out.

  LXXVIII

  May 17, 2011, Casina del Giardiniere, Vatican City

  Franz Laurenz extended his hand to him. »I am so glad that you are alive, Peter. I know that all this must seem like an ambush to you, but we have important things to discuss.«

  Peter stared at Laurenz, speechless. At the man who had ordered him to be thrown into a well. The former Pope. Maria’s father.

  Laurenz was still holding his huge hand out to him but Peter did not accept it. Laurenz understood.

  »It was never my intention to hurt you. I admit that I did not trust you. Back in Sicily, I had to find a way to neutralize you for a while because you had found me.«

  Sophia Eichner walked towards Peter and held her hand out, too. »We haven’t yet met, Mister Adam. But Maria has told me a lot of good things about you. Thank you for protecting her.«
<
br />   Peter accepted her hand, and it reminded him of his mother’s. A hand that was delicate, yet strong. He threw a brief glance at Maria, who was watching him nervously, and then he sat down opposite Laurenz on one of the sofas. Don Luigi came into the room carrying a tray of panini and a bottle of red wine. Maria seemed to be starving and did not waste a second in reaching for the sandwiches. Until this moment, Peter had not noticed how hungry he was. He took a ham panino. Don Luigi sat down slightly apart from them and lit an MS.

  »I bet you have a lot of questions,« Laurenz said.

  »Are my parents safe?«

  »Yes, they are,« Laurenz reassured him as he sat down. »You don’t need to worry anymore. Everything went well. You can believe me when I say that your parents are safe from Seth. You will be reunited with them as soon as possible.«

  »You can make this happen? As the ex-pope?«

  Laurenz nodded. »Otherwise you would not be sitting here today.«

  »And now you expect me to thank you, or what?«

  Laurenz sighed. »We should make one thing clear, Peter. I am your friend. And you don’t have many friends left.«

  Peter took a sip of Don Luigi’s red wine and turned to Maria.

  »Has your father always been such a jerk?«

  Suddenly Peter saw certain family resemblances between her and Laurenz. The slight bend in her pinkies. The small bump on the bridge of her nose. The color of her eyes. The expression of stubbornness and determination on her face that contrasted with the soft features she had clearly inherited from her mother. Exactly like her hands.

  Why didn’t you see this before?