The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmán

by Louis de Bernières

  He bowed to the applause, and then Misael and Pedro drove Cacho Mocho onto the platform and closed up the side. ‘Buena suerte, Cacho Mocho,’ they cried, and the leaders of the city laid their hands to the windlass. It was enough to wind the heavy rope only four times around it to gain sufficient friction to set the cage in motion. It creaked loudly, and breaths were held, but then it slowly began the descent. Profesor Luis gazed over the edge, and after what seemed like an age dropped his hand as a signal that the mighty bull that had lent his strength to make the project possible had arrived at the bottom. A universal sigh of relief went up to the heavens, and then a new team took over to wind the cage all the way back up to the top.

  As a reward for Cacho Mocho they draped him with flowers and shut him into a corral full of heifers. As a reward to themselves they held a fiesta that continued day and night for a week. Many were the god-saints that attended and blessed the machine in dance and song, many were the jaguars splattered with unanticipated spouts of chichareeking vomit. Father Garcia summoned Sandalphon, archangel of earth, to be guardian in perpetuity of the great contraption. The False Priest blessed it with purportedly mystical gestures and the words, ‘Non tam latera ecfututa pandas ni tu quid facias ineptiarum,’ which is to say, ‘You would not display such utterly fucked flanks if you were not doing something foolish.’ In secret Aurelio called down the blessing of Viracocha, of Pachamama, of Tunupa, and in this way Profesor Luis’ brainchild became the personal concern of a veritable pantheon, plus the benign ghost of the earthy Catullus.

  The plateau grew rich within a year; it was at exactly the right altitude to grow virtually everything without fear of frost or desiccation. Soon there were other means of descent as ropes were angled out over the plain and fastened to trees so that baskets of papaya and mango, guava and lime, melons and cassava, could be hauled to the heights. Some intrepid souls sped downward like commandos on straps and wheels, and eventually smaller cages were made to carry people more safely by the same route. In the end the original machine was used only for heavy loads, and it was wound up by the same huge diesel engine that was to generate electricity for the whole town.

  But all this was in the future. In the meantime a special order of merit was created so that Profesor Luis might be the first recipient of it; it was called ‘The Supremely Elevated Order Of The Apparatus’. The ex-alcalde made another speech comparing Profesor Luis to a he-goat, and in the torchlight of the plaza Felicidad, feeling shy for the first time in her life, took Don Emmanuel’s hand and squeezed it.

  9 The Submission Of The Holy Office To His Eminence (2)

  Hear the word of the Lord, O Israel;

  for the Lord has a charge to bring

  against the people of the land.

  Hosea 4:1

  YOUR EMINENCE, WE consider that there are two varieties of lost sheep in this country; those who ought to know better, and those who cannot in good faith be blamed. In the first category we would find, for example, men of the cloth who take concubines and use their office to create wealth for themselves.

  We intend to deal, however, with the second category first. We point out that in the last ten years (a period corresponding with your own tenure of office, but we do not say connected with it) the evangelisation of the heathen and of the uninformed has come to a precipitate halt.

  There are in the sierra and in the jungle numerous groupings of indigenous Amerindians who live without the light of Christ. These can be divided into two categories also, the first being those who have never had the opportunity to hear the Word, and who therefore cannot be reproached for not living by it. There will be no prospect of improvement in this situation until adequate funding and support can be made available for missionary activity. We further point out that considerable inroads are being made by various Protestant evangelical North American sects funded by powerful organisations of undoubted idealism, but, in our opinion, of misguided fervour. You will be aware of the agreements that we have made with our government over the years, that our missionary activity should not be unduly disruptive of indigenous cultures, and confine itself to programmes of literacy, agronomy, and hygiene. This was in fact the de facto situation already obtaining, as, ever since the early Jesuit missions in Paraguay, pastoral care was more prominent than conversion. Your Eminence will note that forcible conversion used to be the policy of the secular authority rather than of the temporal, and that even in the time of the Inquisition in Peru, Amerindians were not held accountable for their beliefs since they were not considered to be fully human. Many of our own Catholic missions have now closed down, leaving the field open to those enthusiastic sects whose presence in remote districts has led to what can only be described as cultural disaster. The prevailing attitude of converts in those areas is that baptism leads to superior social and material status, and tribes devote their time to the manufacture of souvenirs of diminishing quality for sale abroad. Thus there are those in the mountains who still worship Viracocha, Pachamama and so on, and in the jungles are numerous animistic religions worshipping jaguar and tapir gods and living in mortal fear of demons which they believe will take away their virility or their health; and there are those who have been converted superficially by those whose creeds we consider, even in these ecumenical times, to be either false or deleterious, or both. These innocents are not to be blamed.

  Nor, furthermore, do we consider blameworthy those amongst the general population both urban and rural who have either never heard our beliefs coherently explained, or who have fallen from grace through the trials of circumstance. In the first case we establish the cause to be the withdrawal or silencing of priests and nuns whose opinions were thought to be ‘political’; no one has taken their place. In the second case we include those whose dire need, often but not always coupled with ignorance, has diminished their freedom of choice and of action to such an extent that they cannot be considered responsible.

  Such, Your Eminence, would be the numerous population of the capital’s sewers. Most of these are juveniles; they are homeless and jobless, and therefore turn to larceny, scavenging, and prostitution. Their average life expectancy is eighteen years. They succumb invariably to disease such as cholera, typhoid, puerperal fever, yellow fever, and their general level of health is so low as to make them vulnerable to measles, and to the alligators which share the sewers with them, and which have been known to carry off infants in their jaws. In this category we also include the majority of prostitutes; these are underemployed women faced with no alternative, who only practise the trade at times of extreme financial distress. Additionally we include amongst the blameless the countless hordes of those living in squalid conditions in the favelas that ring our major towns, who are the victims of rural mechanisation and the ill-advised reorganisation of encomiendas by irresponsible landlords. We are of the opinion that the spiritual advancement of such people is impossible until such a time as circumstances cease to oblige them to be wholly preoccupied with the material business of daily survival. Additionally there has been much discussion amongst ourselves as to whether or not we should include in this category the victims of the trade in cocaine.

  As you will know, Your Eminence, there has recently developed a policy whereby a proportion of the cocaine production has been refined into a cheap but highly addictive confection named ‘basuco’, and pumped into the domestic market. The coca caciques appear to be using this as an insurance against losing foreign markets. Addicts desperate for supplies are prepared even to kill, and there has been a marked increase in crimes of theft and violence in basuco areas, as well as corruption at all levels of society there. The majority of us at the Holy Office believe that this drug satanically removes the free will granted to us by God, and we have concluded that therefore such people cannot be held accountable. Your Eminence will note that the stand against the coca cartels has been taken by judges, mayors, some police chiefs, and by such people as the famous Dionisio Vivo. This latter is a secular philosopher, and we consid
er it very damaging to the Church that so far no effort has been made by us to join the moral leadership against the robber barons. We consider it a priority that no priest should consent to become chaplain to one of these men, and that churches should steadfastly refuse to accept donations from them. The late Pablo Ecobandodo was a liberal patron of the Church, and churches in the Ipasueño area became dependent upon him for such things as refurbishment. Such churches are no more than whited sepulchres.

  Your Eminence, we move on at this point to the first variety of lost sheep, namely those who can be blamed and would no doubt be found guilty upon the Day of Wrath. We provide the caveat however, that in between these two categories lies a very large area that can only be described as neither one nor the other.

  We begin by drawing to your attention the disturbing fact that there are literally millions of people who are Catholic to all outward appearance, but in fact practise the ancient polytheism of West Africa. This polytheism was carried to our shores in the slaveships, and is known as ‘santeria’. There is no hierarchy over and above that to be found within individual groups, and therefore the religion remains surreptitious and inconspicuous, managing to prosper extraordinarily despite past attempts, such as those in Brazil many years ago, to discourage it and to educate people out of it. Superficially the cult appears to be the worship of saints, but the fact is that, for example, St Barbara is really a male god by the name of Chango, and Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes is construed as Obatala, Father of the Gods. The adherents of this religion hold wild revels where sacrifices are made, idols are venerated, possession occurs, magic is performed, and there are great scenes of lewdness, drunkenness and overindulgence. Even worse than this, there is a deliberately demoniac variety known as ‘brujeria’, ‘palo monte’, or ‘palo mayombe’, which involves enchantments cast with truly revolting ingredients, almost invariably for nefarious purposes. It is noteworthy that there is a god named Eshu who is said by some to correspond to Satan, and who is always the god invoked first. We execrate this religion in particular because it masquerades as Catholicism, but uses Holy Water and The Host for magical purposes. Its adherents have an enviable knowledge of the saints, and therefore can only be accused of cynicism.

  We excoriate also the surprisingly common phenomenon amongst the faithful of perceiving their religion as a form of magic, and priests as magicians and sorcerers. We find that some priests even collude in this delusion, as for example the case of the priest in Santa Maria who gives the Host as security against loans, saying that this will automatically bring in sufficient money for the redemption of them, without him having to do any other thing. We find that women believe that if they kiss someone with the Host in their mouth, then that person will fall in love with them; that it is believed that possession of the Host prevents drowning; that baptism is a sure cure for gout. There is a feverish collecting of talismans that is only too often encouraged by priests who willingly bless them. We find that the number of superstitions current amongst supposed Catholics would exhaust the resources of an encyclopaedia the size of an entire monastery. These superstitions are mostly concerned with the warding off of misfortune, and we believe that they may only be abated by a diminution of the precariousness of life in this country, whilst at the same time we condemn those Catholics who should know better than to believe in them.

  We particularly express concern, however, about what appears to be transpiring amongst the educated and affluent in our society. We believe that amongst these most powerful people some terrible sicknesses are becoming enracinated. We cite for example the indubitable fact that amongst high-ranking members of the Armed Forces, freemasonry is now so widespread as to be almost obligatory. We find this paradoxical, since this class has traditionally been the most conservatively Catholic; but the fact is that this class shares with all the others an extraordinary ability to believe in incompatibles without perceiving any contradiction. We realise that the military have always shown a predilection for arcane rituals, the proliferation of strange honorifics and unearned medals, and we realise that they are enamoured of secrecy and hierarchy. But at the same time it seems to us that the cosmology and ritual of freemasonry is incompatible with the faith, and is really a form of occultism.

  Occultism proper appears to be widely practised in the citadels of government. Your Eminence will be aware that in the past many prelates and popes have succumbed to its attractions, and that in modern times many Cubans have attributed Fidel Castro’s political longevity to the practise of magic. We have sources in the government that suggest that both His Excellency, President Veracruz, and the Foreign Secretary Lopez Garcilaso Vallejo are involved in a form of occultism which involves impersonating various pagan gods, Chaldean, Egyptian, Norse, Roman and Greek. Thus disguised they perform sexual intercourse, and at the moment of crisis they vividly make a wish, which they then expect to come true. The Minister of Finance, Emperador Ignacio Coriolano, is reputed to employ oral stimulation to the same purpose. His Excellency is said to practise Rosicrucian alchemy, the Foreign Secretary has published numerous books on the occult (‘dictated by the Archangel Gabriel’) under a pseudonym at public expense, and the Minister of Finance apparently dowses with a pendulum over maps of the country in order to locate the mythical city of El Dorado, at His Excellency’s behest. We find all this deeply disturbing in a country where the constitution explicitly states that there is a right to practise all religions which are ‘not contrary to Christian morality or subversive of public order’.

  Lastly we report to Your Eminence that the Islamic faith is growing rapidly in this country. For some reason everybody refers to them as ‘Syrians’. They do not proselytise, but gain converts on account of their upright behaviour and their lack of hierarchy. Constitutionally their position is unassailable, but historically the Church has always regarded their faith as heretical. In the third and final part of our report we deal fully with the issue of heretical belief.

  10 Of Dionisio Vivo And Profesor Luis

  IN ORDER TO become more truly himself, Dionisio Vivo gave up teaching at Ipasueño College; ‘If anyone wants to learn anything from me,’ he said, ‘they can come and ask.’ With the aid of Misael, Pedro the Hunter, and a recua of five mules, he moved all of his possessions to Cochadebajo de los Gatos, with the exception of his ancient automobile, which he left at the Indian village of Santa Maria Virgen, the nearest pueblo supplied by a road. There it was lovingly tended by the two chola girls whom he had once found abandoned in his front garden, battered and raped by the coca thugs, and whom he had succoured and returned to their village.

  The two girls memorised his instructions, and every week they topped up the radiator, inspected the level of oil on the inspection stick, and filled with dew the battery. They dusted it with feathers, washed it with water from the stream, and on feast days polished it with their own hair. Because people said that it was so old that it could run only on magic, the two girls crossed themselves before ministering to its needs, and would rub the bellies of their hens upon its shabby paint in order to make them more fertile. They kept it behind their choza in its own garage of palm, and charged ten pesos to anyone who wanted to come in and see it. In this way they managed to attain the ambition of every poor peasant, which is to install a concrete floor and a septic tank. Like most people they referred to Dionisio Vivo as the Deliverer, because he had killed Pablo Ecobandodo.

  Dionisio himself was unsusceptible to his own myth for the very good reason that to be himself was merely normal. To him it seemed that the events of the recent past were an inscrutable reverie, from which he had not even yet entirely returned to consciousness. The sensation that he felt was the very same as one feels when something bizarre happens during a lucid dream, and he was perpetually astonished.

  It was as though Eshu had played tricks upon him and turned the world upside-down and inside-out. He had been merely a teacher of secular philosophy in a provincial town, convinced of nothing except his own scepticism, an
d resigned to spending the rest of his life discussing Kant’s ideas about the a priori Forms of Intuition with febrile post-adolescents who were confused by their loss of faith in their parental Catholicism. He had been an averagely sensual man who compensated for slack periods in his romantic life by taking to the arms of Velvet Luisa in Madame Rosa’s whorehouse; he had been merely another morsel of flesh destined to live out his little span and then return unremarked to the Andean soil, his grave marked by a cross and small pile of stones that would have diminished as they were stolen by relatives of other dead to build up other graves.

  But he had been caught up in the tidal wave of anarchy set in motion by the coca caciques; the woman he loved above all others had been butchered by the worst of all of them, and he in turn had found himself the executioner of the culprit. He had discovered inside himself a deep well of violence and hatred, and a praeternatural ability to survive the wiles of conspiracy and fate. He had found himself the father of dozens of children by different mothers, all of them unaccountably individual and extraordinary, and his philosophy of life had shrunk to the two certainties that all that mattered was to oppose barbarism and to foster that common bond of love that binds each to each.