The first moments passed in astonished recognition. There was a jolt of recognition as he moved closer to her smell, the shape of her arm and the softness of her neck. He pressed his face into her.
“You made it, Ariel. I knew you would.”
“I didn’t exactly make it. They put me here.”
“We’re here; that’s all that matters.”
“You soft git.” She stroked his hair, delighted in spite of herself, but also hurried. “I’m sorry but there’s very little time. We have to prepare; we’ll have time to talk another day. Let go of me, let go of your life, Michael. There’s no escape, there’s no way out of this and not even an ending. Soon our little friends above will lay on a procession for us with singing and music,” she said. “They’ll come down here and take us away to the stripping room. Then empty us, hang us up to dry off, roll us up in coffins and leave us for a couple of hundred years. As a special privilege, they said, they’d put us in the same box. Isn’t that touching?” When she saw his horrified face, she added: “Don’t worry. It sounds a hell of a lot worse than it is. To be honest, I was glad to wake up in Purissima’s kitchen sofa. I needed to find you, Michael; I had to talk to you and say sorry. If it hadn’t been for that I’d rather have stayed where I was. In the end that’s the really sad part about maggot people. They find life such a pain. They can’t bring themselves to admit it, but they’d really prefer to be rolled up in a coffin, off and away in their dream worlds. The dutiful ones, like those two fellows you’ve been knocking about with, try to make some kind of coherent ideology of it all… but the bottom line is they can’t wait to get their heads down.”
Michael felt a sting of pain at the thought of Giacomo and Paolo, their pleasant banter over many a breakfast. He remembered first setting eyes on Giacomo behind the secret door in the priory. His quick and salty wit had given him vital sustenance. In many ways Michael actually loved Giacomo, also his faithful Paolo.
“You mustn’t be taken in by their humanity, Michael; it’s only skin deep,” said Ariel and gave his hand a little squeeze. “What we have, my darling, is something few others of our kind will ever experience. We love each other; they don’t know what that means.”
“And that’s another reason for putting us into storage?”
“Correct. It’s a contributory reason. As far as they’re concerned, this is our chance to have a little chat before we’re put to sleep. Then once they’ve polished off the human race, killed off the cities, and mopped up any remaining strays, they’ll bring us back. Probably they’ll even give us a little pension, enough to take a suite at the Cannes Carlton and drink champagne cocktails for breakfast.” Leaning forward, she whispered, “Until the end of time,” and placed a puckered kiss on the end of his nose. “So that’s the theory. In practice, they forget about you, they always do. The brass plate on your coffin grows dusty; from time to time if you’re lucky some archivist gives it a polish and looks up your name in a book and says ‘Aha’, and you rattle around in the vaults for a few hundred years more and then when your time comes you’re chucked in the maggot tank. Before you know it you’re standing on your own two legs again, wondering what the hell that was all about.” She laughed. “And that’s the only good point about these Gnostic bastards. Suddenly the people who salted you away are also decommissioned. A new generation takes over… with a new set of hang-ups. That means you probably won’t have to deal with the same cunts who gave you a hard time in your last life. Of course you could be unlucky — you could wake up and find the same tossers still running the place.”
“Tell you what,” he said, “before those candles burn down, let’s give them a real surprise. Let’s get out of here.”
“Funny.”
“I did it once before, remember? You told me to do it; you could tell me again.”
“Michael, it’s time to settle up!” Her green eyes shone with agitation. “You have to understand most maggot people are just slithering sacks with a semi-vegetal brain on top and a gnawing urge to fuck. They couldn’t punch their way out of a paper bag, let alone an underground dungeon. You may not like to hear this, but you’re going to have to face up to it. You’re not so different. And neither am I.”
32
The subterranean Gnostic basilica was filled to bursting with dignitaries watching with outraged disbelief as Cardinal O’Hara, once the most outspoken of all maggot critics, lifted the Holy Grail to his lips and, visibly disgusted, swallowed its squirming contents. The congregation seemed to hold its breath as he struggled against the gagging reflex. The sound of his gulp, with the movement of his Adam’s apple, drew wails from the back pews — where his most dedicated supporters had gathered. When the ceremony was over, the top brass retired to the da Vinci Chambers — a room designed to be an exact replica of the artist’s Last Supper painting, with a long table on a dais at the front. Here sat the replica Apostles, slightly elevated above the lesser ecclesiasts at rough trestle-and-board tables. Bread and wine were served, but it wasn’t quite as impoverished as it seemed; the bread was stuffed with beluga or veal. The wine was sublime, transubstantiation in its own right.
Not ten minutes into their supper, O’Hara clattered his jeweled goblet and stood up. “May I humbly ask,” he said pompously, “for a few moments of your precious time?” Silence fell in fits and starts. O’Hara looked down on his enemies and bared his teeth in a ferocious, reflective smile. “We all know that in our congregation there has always been a lot of quarrelling between friends. This is inevitable. When people care about things they are always bound to see different solutions… and resolutions…” he blundered.
“Nicely put, Cardinal,” someone roared.
There was scattered laughter. Who the heck did this O’Hara shit think he was, coming here and drinking from the Holy Grail and behaving as if he had some sort of authority? O’Hara swallowed hard, looking out over a sea of hostile ecclesiasts nodding and conferring amongst themselves while knocking back huge amounts of red wine. Waiters sprinted round with ten-liter flagons, continuously refilling the carafes on the tables.
My God, he thought. This is not a Christian congregation; this is something diabolical. I must steel myself. He raised his hand and soldiered on. “The quarrel in our beloved Church has always been this: should we make Eden, or should we pray for it. And the answer, my dear friends, is that… I no longer know.” He raised his hand. “But I will say this…”
Giacomo stood up abruptly, with a scrape of his heavy chair. “Thank you, Brother O’Hara, for sharing your uncertainties. Now if you wouldn’t mind shutting up for a moment.”
This time there was a roar of laughter. Then to his right, a bishop from Trieste, in the very action of raising his goblet to his mouth whilst fiercely cackling at Giacomo’s retort, was struck instantly dead. His stare grew glassy as he slumped forward and spilt his wine over the table.
So silent was the room that, as the wine dripped onto the flagstone floor, each drop seemed like a spurt of blood from a severed artery.
And yet there was something routine about this death.
A group of waiters came running in. By their combined efforts they had soon removed the dead bishop and even wiped the table where his crumbs now seemed an offense against decency.
Slowly, conversation resumed everywhere; muttered words, small-talk… all trying with every fiber in their beings not to give in to panic.
Giacomo frowned deeply, lingering on the spot where the bishop had sat alive and well not ten minutes ago. In the last month, he had lost three abbots, one bishop, a cardinal and close to twenty priests in Italy alone.