The Angel of Santa Sofia - excerpt
1
I observed the rays of the setting sun glimmer above the snowy peaks of the Alps: akin to a miracle.
Closer still, the sound of the Po (the river reflected the nocturnal city like a mirror) was a familiar voice that revealed to me an incandescent mystery emerging directly from the swollen heart of the earth. As evening descended, I approached Turin. The twilight sky was aflame like a furious fire.
2
Beyond the hotel restaurant windows, a few black pine trees were silhouetted against the bleeding sky: the light ebbed theatrically with the deliquescent rhythm of a Wagnerian opera.
A waiter then served me a bowl of soup. ‘Pesce cola,’ he said, winking at me. Shellfish. Submerged in the golden liquid was a red fish, its tail raised. As I ate the second dish (a cut of beef concealing its stringiness behind an ostentatious salad) a signore sporting an inquisitive gaze drew near.
‘My name is Aymerich. I shall be participating in the Conference, just as your esteemed self,’ he blared like a foghorn. I looked up from the steak and saw a man standing over me anxiously awaiting my response. For a few moments I considered feigning ignorance, of displaying overwhelming surprise, because dear sir, I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else. But I immediately realised that I’d only be encountering him over and over again in the lecture halls and corridors of the University, and that hoping to perpetually avoid him was foolish. Thus, I uttered: ‘That is quite correct. I also study the Devil and his works.’
The man’s gaze softened and we shook hands like two long-lost friends reuniting. And that was when I discovered, devoid of joy, that I’d have company at the Conference.
3
The following morning, before the baroque building of the University, an enraged mob vociferously opposed the Conference.
The crowd brandished placards saying such things as ‘ENOUGH LIES’ or ‘SOULS IN FLAMES’.
A couple walking past me on their way to the Conference commented: ‘They’re the parents of the possessed, demanding privacy and tact.’
The protesters’ raspy calls scraped and clawed at the air. A few of them clasped their children by the hand, all of them pale, puffy-eyed, and whimpering with enrapture. Below the baroque frontispiece, the University dean smiled saintlike as he greeted the conferees.
4
Professor Piombo was himself a Doctor of Philosophy and Theology, a specialist in the works of the Desert Fathers, and a fervent scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls. When he greeted me, his face (on account of the creases) had the appearance of an authentic palimpsest, as if traversed by the clouds of uncountable centuries but which had failed to erase his affectionate, almost infantile, smile.
He’s a saint, I thought at first. But then after closer consideration: He’s a man who hasn’t lost his social graces. Groups of conferees constantly flocked towards him. It was almost as if they wanted to touch him (was that man, equipped with impeccable language and immaculate hands, an apparition?) so he might cure them of some dreadful disease.
5
The Demonology Conference was the brainchild of Cardinal Orsini, founder of the Athenaeum of the Archangel Michael, an organisation dedicated to the dissemination of Angelology (a ‘Science linked to Music and Philosophy’, as the cardinal would vaingloriously proclaim, while conjuring up the lofty ideal of Dante’s Beatrice and listening – in his fanciful mind – to the lamentations of those condemned to the innermost chambers of Inferno), and staunch defender of the pre-eminence of the Church over the pathetic, crippled figure of the Devil. Nevertheless, the cardinal no doubt took pity on those poor souls possessed by the satanic spirit as they scratched the walls and tore at their rags along their spiritual voyage to the deepest of abysses.
Hence, it was the pot-bellied and chubby-cheeked Cardinal Orsini who presided over the Conference’s inaugural session.
6
‘Carissimi fratelli,’ he began, throwing himself forthwith into his curial, exemplary opening speech: the cold reason of Dogma and the familiar warmth of Tradition (not the reason of Intelligence, the beautiful incongruity) constituted his ecclesiastical rhetoric. Cardinal Orsini – a living symbol of scholasticism dressed up in the Dutch gold of condescension – filled the University of Turin’s Aula Magna with an unctuous, imperative verbosity that quoted Matthew, Peter, Luke and John as if those saintly men had personally revealed their secrets to him.
As the volley of words and sentences became increasingly cumbersome, subsequently losing their desired effect, his scholasticism slowly gave way to dramaturgy: a horror story, shrouded in an ashy mantle, in which Man first fights and struggles but is finally enslaved by the Devil, representing supreme arrogance and disdain; then came the good God, much like a benevolent echo resounding in the dark soul of night… The Cardinal played all parts cast in his impromptu play, moaning, pining, whispering, grappling with an invisible adversary, blinking like a startled moron, and reciting Saint Dionysus’ prayer to protect himself from the Enemy.
A handful of nuns wept with devout joy in the front row of the Aula, a Greek Orthodox bishop sighed heavily as he contemplated the painted ceiling (where sweet angels and a pristine starlit sky hovered above the human condition) before rapidly thrusting his jet black beard towards the travertine marble floor, and Father Filipetti, the Vatican’s eminent exorcist, sat saintlike with his eyes softly shut, immersed in the lethargy of profound meditation.
Floating in the form of background noise, the roar of the protesters and the cries of the possessed demanding justice could be heard. And that was when I suddenly recalled Apollyon’s first teaching: EX TENEBRAE LUX.
