“In fact that is not quite right. I would actually like you to…” He stopped. “I think you know what I’d like you to do.”
“Shoot him?”
“Return the favor, let’s say.”
“I didn’t want to be O’Hara’s instrument and not yours, either. I want to be my own person.”
Giacomo chuckled. “Goodness me, you’ve been saturated in twenty-first century Western political mythology. You are a pile of organic tissue animated by a life force that comes from God. Humans will always be parasitic on God, Michael, and they will tell you an awful lot of lies as they set about demolishing this planet of ours, for the sake of their mimetic creation of filth.”
“Wow,” said Michael. “You don’t think much of us, do you?”
Giacomo took a deep breath, trying to cool himself; then changed the subject. “I am entrusted with all this, everything you see here. But even I can’t just throw sleepers into the tank at the drop of a hat. Everything has to be done with proper regard for ceremony and the blessing of the Council.” Then his voice dropped, and with a gentle movement he gripped Michael’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, my son. Time slips by very quickly once you’re oblivious.”
Michael closed his eyes. Patience, he told himself. Patience is the only way here. Slowly I will burrow my way into them and begin to understand them. In the mean time I will appeal to them, I will reflect their desires and motivations.
“Let’s eat, Giacomo.”
The abbot brightened. “That’s better, young Michael. Your cleverness is most appealing; your reflective, adaptive personality. You don’t fool me for a moment, but ambition has always struck me as a good thing, as long as it does not only tend towards self-importance. I have no self-importance, you see. If I could choose freely, I should like to be alone, far away, in some small, inconsequential town where I had no friends and no duties, and I’d sit on the balcony in the mornings, reading books and minding my own business and never going to church.” He smiled fondly. “Although obviously I’d bring Paolo to cook my breakfast and provide a convenient target for irritability. Really, I think that man has been a better companion than any wife could ever have managed; pity he’s so inordinately fat or I might have married him.”
“I am not ambitious,” said Michael. “But I do have desires for my life… which is quite different.”
“You’re a bit of a spin doctor,” said Giacomo. “Even this is a good thing, it is very much the spirit of the age to be a relativist and not have any firm views on anything. I really do think I’ll keep hold of you. But first you have to help me clear up this O’Hara nonsense. You’re the perfect choice; you’re the boomerang.”
“The boomerang that hits its target does not come back. If you want to keep hold of me, I know a better way to deal with O’Hara,” said Michael with a sinking feeling, which he later identified as guilt. “We can use Honey. It’ll be like bread and butter to her.”
28
An hour later, having picked up Paolo and Honey from the empty chapel, they were sitting in Giacomo’s ample kitchen in the Vatican City, where Paolo had again stripped down to his underwear to keep his robes from staining, and was frying half a bucketful of small green crabs in oil, tomato, and garlic while a great vat of pasta steamed beside him.
Honey was in a bad mood, confessing to a sudden horniness greater than anything she had ever known. “I can’t sleep,” she complained, “without visualizing a bulging cock coming towards me. I used to hate cocks, you know. I was sick of the sight of them, ugly things with little leery mouths looking at you and always standing to attention like fucking troopers. But now all this has happened to me I almost feel like going back to Barcelona. Except I reckon you’re going to tell me I can’t do it now I’m a maggot?”
“Stay here a while,” said Michael, with a meaningful look at Giacomo. “There are things you could do here for us. You could make a lot of money for yourself, too, enough to buy yourself a little flat.”
Paolo slammed the pasta saucepan down on the table. “First she eats,” he said irritably, turning to Honey. “And remember, if you do go out to find yourself a man, he must be brought back here for safekeeping in the cellar until he flowers. And then we have to take proper care of him. We’re not animals!” He brought out a large pasta fork and started ladling out gargantuan portions, while at the same time gently shaking Honey by the arm. “And then you have to be chaste after that, fill yourself with drugs and drink, or just eat enormous quantities of food as we do. Of course you must also spend a great deal of time in prayer. I will teach you the prayers.”
“Save it, father; sounds like a bore to me,” said Honey, her mouth full of oil-soaked bread. “The only priest I ever liked was Father Tuck, you know him? I hate these goddamn maggots, and I hate you, Michael, for infecting me in the first place.”
“Infecting, that’s a big word!” said Michael. “You were like a skeleton when I saw you; frankly, you were already diseased — that’s one of the reasons I chose you. A good maggot always selects his targets, you know. Now you have hundreds of years of life ahead of you; is that so bad?”
“Or a few weeks, depending on how you behave yourself,” Giacomo added laconically.
“So what? At least I was enjoying myself.” She pointed a bony finger at Michael. “You took everything from me; I can’t even take a decent shit any more. I just sit there while a couple of pellets come out of my ass. Who wants to knock around for hundreds of fucking years, anyway? What you supposed to do with yourself, play poker all day or take up knitting?”
“Why all this negativity?” Giacomo threw in. “I have known maggots who get interested in gambling or horse racing and find that it keeps them busy and satisfied for centuries. Or money-making, that’s a very good one. If you take out a really good investment plan and bribe one of the people downstairs to book you in for rebirthing in fifty years, you’ll be awake before you know it and then you cash in your bonds and go on holiday. How’s that?”
“I’d rather be a corpse, and so would you lot if you weren’t such pussies.”
There was some truth in what she said.
Awkwardly they changed the subject.
Giacomo stuck his finger into the sugo and tasted it, then gulped a mouthful of his beloved Piedmonte wine before Paolo jostled him away from his stove. “In fact, my dear girl, this gives me an excellent idea. You are very fresh and your host is feeling very boisterous right now. You need to cleave to its requirements.”
“Put that in plain fucking English, will you!”
“I’d be glad to. You have to do what they want or they’ll eat you alive. Right now they want to swarm. You can either choose to go and find yourself a sad rover and bag him; or, if you’re more enterprising, track down a fallen cleric who shouldn’t be screwing in the first place.”
“Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. Michael told me all about O’Hara, I even saw him; he’s a seedy little swine.”
“I didn’t know you’d been briefed.” Giacomo’s eyes flickered in Michael’s general direction. “Thanks, dear boy.”
“Is it because I’m a hooker?” said Honey. “You think hookers don’t understand things? We’re quick as lightning, if you want to know. And we have a fucking state-of-the-art asshole alarm and right now it’s ringing in here, very loud.” She tapped the side of her head. “By the way this crab tastes like shit.”
Giacomo watched her mawkishly, but again chose to ignore her outburst. “Cardinal O’Hara says his murderous instincts aren’t his fault. He says it’s the Devil making him do it.”