Giacomo Sartori - I Am God

Now the president turns the screen back around so it faces the herd of bovines and the sunset out the window, exhaling from his nose, himself a bull collecting his thoughts. He stares at her without saying a word. At long last he’s free to express all the male chauvinist disapproval he harbors, which, mixed as it is with sexual desire, is formidable and highly impulsive. There are at least a couple of actionable offenses here, he declares. Breaking and entering and burglary , he says, counting on his enormous fingers. She thinks she may faint. Nothing like this has happened to her for what feels like a lifetime. This sensation of being at the mercy of the enemy, at risk of being annihilated, she first encountered when she went to the nuns’ boarding school/prison in elementary and middle school. By high school she had learned how to use her scholastic achievements as a defense weapon.

Not even a mentally deranged person would consider stealing crucifixes , says the Minotaur. The more he thinks about it, the more enraged he seems. In fact he’s not a practicing Catholic and even less a believer, and never mind about the details of his so-called private life. Still, the more indignant he acts, the more indignant he becomes. He scuttles across the office and back, his pacing indignant, his nostrils bristling with outrage, and all his pores too. What shall we do then? Shall I call the police or the carabinieri? he says, staring fiercely at the telephone on his desk. He seems to think he’s on a stage.

The beanpole is unable to say a word, she’s drenched in cold sweat. She would like to signal no with her head, but she’s paralyzed. It isn’t just shame, but the sensation she’s being totally crushed, physically and morally. Her ever-efficient brain tells her that soon the carabinieri—only a fool would think this is a matter for the police—will arrive and drag her down to the station. They’ll search the old fishmonger’s and find the big woven plastic sacks full to the brim with stolen goods. All those dozens of friars and parish priests who have filed suit to get their lost St. Josephs or Three Kings back will rub their hands with glee and demands for compensation will rain on her head like confetti. And then they’ll find her computer and discover the secret data she’s hacked into. The news will make the papers: Crucifix- and Virgin-burglar arrested; search of her home computer turns up top secret Vatican documents. When she gets out of prison she’ll be sleeping on the street, wheeling around town with a supermarket cart full of rags. And right now there is nothing she can do to get herself off the hook. [37] One of the great problems non-believers face, when push comes to shove, is that there’s no one to turn to. Reason and Science never came to anyone’s aid in a pinch. And why should they?

I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve come to a decision. This has to stop. Without of course all the drama and tear-jerking that a human being would indulge in if (s)he were in my place. This is a titanic struggle; in some ways I’m like a volcano ready to erupt—but there must be no thunder and lightning, no earthquakes and whirlwinds to blow off steam, no massacres of innocents. A god shows his mettle even in the most difficult circumstances, indeed above all in the most difficult circumstances. I am God, as I say.

To cancel the lanky one from my thoughts and be just God, period, seems to me the most merciless sentence imaginable, the cruelest. A fate worse than that recent asteroid in free fall, worse than a helpless guppy about to be devoured by a bigger fish, gobbled up in turn by a bigger. But I have a plan. I’m smitten, I couldn’t be more smitten, but I’ve decided, and when a god decides, we’re done.

I’ve decided I’ll help her, then return to being Me. It’s not my place to play the algorithm for an online dating site, but I’m going to find her a boyfriend. Indeed, I’ll show my divine magnanimity by finding her a guy who’s close to perfect: attentive, accommodating, easygoing, simpatico. A guy who’s not obsessed with sex, who doesn’t think of that and only that, unlike the climatologist. A lad who feels the desire to couple from time to time, like a normal human being, and is even capable of respecting that commandment about thy neighbor’s wife.

They’ll meet by chance and discover they’re made for each other . Ka-pow! Love at first sight . It will be the just conclusion of this business, the only outcome that’s suited to my status. But first I have to take care of all the side issues. One thing at a time. There’s no big hurry for this boyfriend, right?

The hunky Vittorio has already been dispatched to the land of kangaroos and descendants of British pickpockets. I arranged for his eye to fall on an ad for a job at an Australian university; they were looking for a research professor with just his profile. On a lark—the salary was unbelievable —he sent off an application, never dropping his usual ironic nonchalance. The reply came right back: he was just the person they were looking for. Due to unforeseen circumstances a certain project had been seriously delayed and so they were in a hurry.

After he’d read over the compensation clause of the contract five or six times, not a whiff of his dopaminic ardor for Daphne persisted. The fickleness of men never fails to amaze me. He didn’t even go over to wish her farewell in person, the miserable cad; he just sent a shower of faux-comical text messages. I was tempted to mete out some small, suitable punishment, but instead I helped him with his preparations, and I even put his elbow right—in two days it was working like new—to facilitate his departure. And thus he and his irresistible smile did really take off, and on the airplane he made friends with a Tyrolean damsel wearing a push-up bra and a Pentecost-purple headset. Sorry, but from now on, this diary will feature one character less, and you’ll have to make do with the ones who are left.

The Minotaur picks up the phone and slowly dials three digits. Police , thinks Daphne, who isn’t at all surprised he’s made the stupid choice. While he waits he’s drumming his Picassian fingers on the desk as he readies himself to explain the situation. He’s still waiting. Then suddenly he puts the phone down, as if seized by a raptus. Okay, I’m not going to pursue this, but don’t you ever set foot in here again , he shouts, waving his arms as if she’s an annoying animal to be chased away. Out! he screams. And don’t think you’ll ever work as an inseminator again , he yells at her back as she grabs the door handle, as if the thought had just occurred to him. Not even in Basilicata!

When the secretary with the heels and the Byzantine-Egyptian prostitute makeup sees her appear, she trains her triumphant eyes on her, she too playing the defender of the Catholic faith. When in fact for the past two years and two months—if we want to dot our I’s and cross our T’s—she’s been indulging in adulterous afternoon sex on the presidential armchair. That’s a fact that the beanpole would never suss out even in normal conditions, however, and certainly not today.

Back on the street without knowing how and why she got there, she feels like she’s drunk. She’s crying without knowing she’s crying. I must admit that I, too, am somewhat upset. Of course I knew about the security cameras that recorded her stealing the crucifixes, I knew that’s why she’d been called in, and I even knew he’d put the phone down without talking to the law. But it’s one thing to know what’s going to happen, another to witness it happening, as it were, in first person . Feelings can confuse you. I was almost expecting the police to answer the phone and send over a patrol. And right now I almost have a lump in my throat watching her weep like that. Omnipotence: it also means having a lump in your throat without having a throat.