Diego Marani - God's Dog

He had not noticed how large his room was when he arrived that morning: there were ten good paces between bed and table. He threw open the shutters and breathed in the damp air. It had stopped raining, but the wind was getting up.

His room looked out on to a courtyard, with galleries and terraces. Puddles of water rippled beneath the pots of rhododendrons; water was dripping from the eaves. Beyond the roofs, in the lamplight, the side of the church was visible in the lamplight. Every so often, the sound of traffic would drift in. Down in the narrow streets, he could hear the sound of voices, calling each other, laughing. Domingo Salazar unzipped the inner pocket of his suitcase and took out an object which looked like a holy-water sprinkler. He unscrewed the cap, took out a cigarette holder from the handle and put a small Dutch clay pipe into his mouth. He kept his Afghan black in a small enamelled box, together with his ear-plugs. He filled the brazier, lit the resin and allowed himself a mocking grin. Disguising his pipe as a holy-water sprinkler gave him a sense of deep satisfaction. It was a pity that no one ever had the temerity to search an agent of the papal police force. At the sight of his badge, even the Swiss Guards would back off. He felt the better for his smoke. He closed the window, put his black exercise-book on the table, opened it, lit the lamp and began to write.

Every time I come back to Italy I am seized by a sense of puzzlement. Here they have not yet understood that, in the West, conversion is no longer the way to extend the Church’s power. Western man is no longer susceptible to conversion; he is like those germs which become resistant to antibiotics. He cannot believe, even despite himself; he is too sure of what he knows. We persist in trying to bring the Church closer to the people. We ought to be doing the reverse: making it more remote, not more accessible. Restoring a sense of mystery. But not so that man may experience a facile, all-absolving sense of beatitude. No, man must feel impelled to revere God, to placate his wrath. Fear is of the essence. We should go back to the root of religion, which is above all fear of God. We should begin by reintroducing sacrifice. Did not the ancient Jews slaughter lambs on the altar? The sacrificial victim which draws evil to itself is always an excellent nostrum for the masses. Joseph Ratzinger said as much in his catechism: ‘The Lord is to be worshipped with words of praise, and thanks, and supplication; and by the offering up of sacrifices.’ We have silenced the organs in our cathedrals and replaced them with guitars. But, by so doing, we have dispelled the fear of the numinous, and churches have become places of entertainment. Here in Italy, where the Church holds sway, the police are hunting down euthanasiasts; as though, by apprehending the odd suicide, atheism might be kept at bay. This is the mistake of those who delude themselves that they can win back a society which is completely lacking any sense of the divine. The curia fails to understand that the only way to re-establish the power of the Church is through immigration. Let us allow ourselves to be drowned out by the millions without any hope. That is how we shall hold sway over them. The strategy of the tenth parallel no longer makes any sense. It is useless to persist in defending a frontier between Christianity and Islam. That is no longer the line to be held. What we should be doing is getting out of the trenches, start fighting in the open. In Africa, our worst enemies are not the Muslims, but the Pentecostalists. So the way forward in reconquering the West is to import fresh masses of dispossessed humanity, Christian or otherwise, even the Polynesians with their pig god Kamapua’a. All that matters is that they be believers. Kamapua’a or Christ, for us it is immaterial, so long as there is faith.

While he was writing, a postcard had slipped out of the exercise-book; an old postcard, of the kind now found only on junk-stalls. Slightly faded, with wavy edges and a blue postmark. Salazar found himself peering at the little town of Veere, in Zeeland, at the little harbour, in whose still waters the imposing outline of the Grote Kerk was reflected. It looked like an overturned ship, covered with seaweed and shells. He lifted the postcard to his lips, reread the few words with a smile and slipped it back between the blank pages.

At that same moment, in a garage in Malagrotta, a man and a woman were getting out of a white van.

‘From tomorrow onwards I’ll be at Monte Spaccato. You’ll have to deal with the explosives on your own,’ said the woman, opening the van door.

‘We and the others will see to that. We’ve already made arrangements with Mirko. On Tuesday we’re seeing the Russians. We’ll be making two trips. They want to give us the components in two installments; for reasons of security, they say. They’re cautious people, but that’s no bad thing. Clearly, they know what they’re doing. The service area just before Civitavecchia, as usual. We’ll put everything together here in the basement. When will you have finished at San Filippo Neri?’ the man asked. He had turned off the engine. The light from the dashboard lit up his bearded face.

‘It depends on how things go. Usually I need three or four days. I’ll be doing the next one too, at the Gemelli. Then we’ll have to stop and lie low for a bit. Until things calm down.’

‘So, if all goes well, for quite some time!’ said the man with a nervous grin, locking the door of the van.

‘If all goes well…’ the woman murmured into the darkness.

Neither the black jacket, worn over a collarless grey shirt, nor the silver crucifix, sported in the buttonhole, could fool the sister on the palliative care ward. Despite his dress, she knew immediately that he was not one of those pilgrim priests who did good works for the Church in order to pay for their stay in Rome. But she proceeded as though she suspected nothing, checking the registration number he gave her on the computer. Then she nodded, and opened the door to the office. Dawn was just breaking. The neon lights in the corridors of San Filippo Neri were beginning to go out.

‘Sister, how many patients have you got on this ward?’

‘Twenty-seven. All stable. Nine unconscious.’

‘Atheists?’

‘Four. All open and above board. All paying the official atheism tax.’

‘And the others?’

‘Twenty Catholics. Three Muslims.’

‘Do they receive visits from an imam?’

‘Every Friday.’

‘What time do you celebrate lauds for the Catholics?’

‘At seven every morning.’

‘Do their relatives attend regularly?’

‘All except for three. But the chaplain is authorised to act as proxy; and they pay the fine.’

‘Are their ecclesial documents up-to-date?’

‘We check them every time they come. All relatives have attended the requisite number of masses. But there have been lapses in the past, and they have been noted down.’

‘Thank you. Tomorrow I’ll need a list of the names and addresses of all the patients and their civil status. I’ll leave it here with you; but it must always be available.’

‘Very good.’

‘Are we still in time for lauds?’

‘The chaplain is waiting for me. Come this way.’

Salazar followed the sister through the glazed door. Several empty camp beds stood in the corridor, over whose light brown linoleum a cleaning woman was wearily pushing a mop. The smell of the detergent mingled with the scent of coffee and cut flowers; some rooms were full of them. As he entered the large room, Salazar was instantly struck by the winking of bubbles in innumerable drips, the only things in that whole space that moved at all. Heavy white globs, they rose to the surface, then sank down again, unceasing in their regularity. The beds were arranged in two rows in front of an improvised altar, rigged up on a piece of furniture originally from a chemist’s shop. Several stretcher-bearers had just brought in the most recent arrivals, and were now quietly leaving. The relatives remained, like so many unmoving sentinels. Filtering in through the curtains, the daylight could not contend with the soft, tenacious shadow. Some patients were groaning, dark hands moving spasmodically over the dense white of the sheets. But the chaplain soon drowned the sound out with his prayers.