Henning Koch - The Maggot People

“I thought you’d been excommunicated,” said Michael.

“Up there I have but not down here,” said Giacomo. “Our existence would be too disturbing for the world so we keep it to ourselves. We’re very considerate people.” He looked at the wardrobe girl and said, with a nod in Michael’s direction: “I’d say he needs an alb and a black stole, wouldn’t you? With some nice decoration… Ah yes, that one with the fish will be just fine, thank you, my dear.”

“What do you do down here? Worship golden calves or something?” said Michael, nervously putting on his robes as he jogged along behind him.

“For now, just be aware of this: ‘Ecce ipsi idiote rapiunt celum ubi nos sapientes in inferno mergimur . The unlearned themselves take heaven by force, while we wise ones are drowned in hell.’ St. Augustine, in case you were wondering.”

“Don’t I get some clothes as well?” moaned Honey.

Paolo, to keep her quiet, gave her a white cotton gown.

They entered a candlelit vault, whose groaning pillars bore the full weight of the Basilica above them. There must have been a thousand people in the dim subterranean chapel. Their silence seemed to take the oxygen out of the air.

The priest and his acolyte stood with their backs to the congregation; busily, they sprinkled holy water on the altar, accessed via a small bridge across a cistern of black undulating water reaching from one transept to the other.

An unseen choir filled the air with wailing dirges. Not pleasant at all, thought Michael. As they were seated in the front pew, he noticed O’Hara at the back inside an island of men in purple robes. He stared bleakly at them across a sea of heads.

The situation was already disturbing enough. But when Giacomo and O’Hara bowed respectfully to each other, it grew stranger still. “What are they doing?” Michael whispered to Paolo, who elbowed him jocularly and said:

“Down here, we try not to be trivial.”

“That man tried to kill us, and he’ll probably try again.”

“So what?” said Paolo. “In killing us he would have been doing us a favor. Anyway, we would have come back another day.”

“Some of us don’t believe in all that.”

“Some of us are about to have their illusions shattered.”

Honey pressed herself against him as hypnotic singing rose up from the cistern at the other end. “I’ve never seen a fucking church like this before. It’s like a nightmare; like a goddamn Tom Cruise movie.”

A ceremonial golden barge came gliding in. Seven maidens in white tunics stood singing in it, holding out their hands imploringly towards the congregation, then lifting their tunics and revealing their dark, triangular pudenda.

“What are they doing?” Michael whispered to Paolo.

“Praying for fertility, which shall be denied the little slaves.”

“So give them rubbers and they’ll be fine,” said Honey with a smirk.

The doors flew open at the back. A procession of singing children with candles in their hands moved slowly through the congregation, lighting up the gnarled faces of clerics and cardinals.

“They are the blessed ones,” Paolo explained. “They were never born.”

Again Honey disagreed. “Sorry, father, but they look born enough to me.”

The procession stopped when it reached the altar.

The barge began to pull away, while the women on it dropped to their knees, wrung their hands and pulled their hair. They called out to the singing children standing on the footbridge as their craft passed beneath and then glided out of view. The children fell silent and blew out their candles. Darkness fell over the subterranean church, offset by a single candle of massive girth, still burning on its pedestal in the middle of the altar.

Then, with ritual wails, the children filed out.

The congregation was left hovering in a sort of thunderous silence, before the heavy artillery, a group of robed men behind the sanctuary broke into sonorous song to mark the end of the ceremony.

Giacomo stood up and said briskly to Michael. “Would you like a tour before we go home?”

“Okay, why not.”

Leaving Honey and Father Paolo behind, Michael followed Giacomo into the atrium, where the worthies had gathered for conversation while wine and cakes were brought round. Unfortunately, O’Hara was waiting for them. Tall and dignified, intent on a bit of explication, he marched forward as soon as he clapped eyes on them.

“Giacomo, dear soul, will you forgive me,” he effused, offering his clammy hand. “I was lost; the Devil took me. If anyone knows the ways of the world, its pitfalls and traps, it must surely be you?”

The two men faced each other, each with a sort of hovering moral scrutiny imprinted on his face.

“So go with God, my brother,” said Giacomo ceremoniously, “and do not heed the Devil again.”

O’Hara frowned. “Yet the Devil tells me I must have you in the vaults where I can venerate your memory — here in the World you stand in my way, my friend.” O’Hara threw Michael a sour glance. “And I confess I am dismayed to see this instrument of mine in your hands. His face reminds me of my own transgression.”

“I’ll keep him, then,” Giacomo rejoined, with a glint of mischief. “As a reminder of your moral failings.”

Michael found himself grabbed by the scruff of his neck and marched out by Giacomo, whose face, by now, had turned scarlet.

“What’s going on?” Michael whispered.

“Bloody hypocrites. Using Satan as an excuse. They are not worthy of their robes or their beards.”

“What are those vaults he was talking about?”

Giacomo stopped and recomposed himself. “Ah, yes, the vaults. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t see them; I think you’re ready.” He pushed open a side door and they went through a warren of changing rooms and properties stores — Michael saw rows of costumes on rails, pikestaffs and weapons of all descriptions, a wire net filled with stuffed swans; even, vaguely glimpsed as they passed, a cage of monkeys, one of them a noble old orangutan staring forlornly at a twig, as if longing for its home, far away.

The virgins who had earlier exposed themselves and performed the ritual wailing, were now idly chattering, mere actresses removing their makeup in the dressing room.

Giacomo stuck his head in.

“Good work, girls. Excellent performances! You really caught the essence.”

“Thanks, Giaconino! Are you coming out with us tonight? We’re off to have clam spaghetti.”

“It’s the ceremony, girls; it’s sharpened your appetites. You’ve asked for fertility and now you’re going to hit the town. Your young human bodies are alive to the joys of temptation.”

“The old bugger’s jealous.”

“Poor old sod, he could probably do with a length of butifarra himself.”

Giacomo smiled. “Bless you,” he said. “Been there, done that and bought the cassock.”

Decked out in jeans, stiletto heels, and clutch handbags, the girls peered with interest at Michael:

“What about this one?”

“Are you hungry, sweetie? You don’t want to spend the night with this old stiff, do you? Come out with us.”

Michael twisted uneasily. “Sorry, I don’t have time.”

Everyone, Giacomo included, seemed to find his answer hilarious. The girls fell about the place laughing, then carefully mopped their tears to avoid smudging their makeup.

Once again Michael felt Giacomo’s proprietary hand clutching the back of his neck. “Good Lord. Is that the time? We can’t stay here all night.” They moved off through peals of renewed laughter, this time down a long corridor with fewer people in it, just a lot of security personnel.

“What was all that about?” said Michael. “I don’t get you people. I don’t get your jokes.”