Read Online The Translation of Father Torturo by Brendan Connell - Free Book Online

stomach.
    Clearing the work table of its contents, he drew on the whole, with a marker near at hand, a large circle. At each corner of the table he drew mystical symbols. Along the outer perimeter of the circle he wrote the twelve simple letters héh, vau, zain, cheth, teth, yod, lamed, nun, samech, oin, tzaddi , and qoph ; along the inner perimeter he wrote the seven double letters beth, gimel, daleth, kaph, peh, resh , and tau . His hand worked fast and skilfully, without the least bit of hesitation. In the centre of the circle he wrote the word ATzLH .
    He opened one of the suitcases. Inside were the incorrupt arms of Saint Ambrose, the metatarsals and phalanges of s.s. m.m. Naboree and Felice, the carpals of s.s. Gervaso and Protaso, and bones of St. Savina, St. Satio and St. Marcellina. He arranged the relics on the table and, waving his hand over them whispered a certain incantation, a certain formula bereft of sibilants.
    The lights in the room wavered momentarily, and then turned slightly blue.
    “ O'ôbôth yidde'onim ,” he murmured.
    There was a low hissing sound. A hazy film seemed to momentarily surround the table and a smell, like that of semen, filled the air. Torturo stood silent. Presently he bent down and placed the palms of his hands on the floor while keeping his knees locked. He arose, rolled his neck and then, stepping to the door and opening it, called to the doctor.
    “ Just coming,” the latter said, who was in the courtyard playing catch with his dog. “Good boy Žnidaršič! Good boy.”
    Torturo, inside, was unbuttoning his shirt.
    The doctor went to the sink and proceeded to wash his hands. He looked over his shoulder, grinning, “You want that I should get the anaesthetic like before? – Little anaesthetic?”
    “ Yes. An anaesthetic would be fine.”
    “ You are a fit fellow,” the doctor said, admiring the priest’s physique.
    “ I exercise and walk every day – I can hardly abide a day without walking.”
    “ You walk much then?”
    “ A minimum of six kilometres per day.”
    “ You are a powerful man!”
    “ My body is earthly,” said Torturo quietly. “Even animals like Žnidaršič suffer the pleasure of having one. My thoughts and reason on the other hand, as a human, should and do rest with God. There is kinship with the dead. There is kinship with the divine.”
    The doctor shrugged his shoulders. He dried his hands, cracked his knuckles and, picking up his scalpel, said, “Ok: we ate, we talk, we play: now we work.”
    ***
    That afternoon Dr. Jure Štrekel performed a rather complex operation. Midway between the cephalic vein and radial nerve, he made an inch and a half wide incision, cutting cleanly through the epidermal tissue while carefully avoiding the musculature and lateral antibracheal cutaneous nerve beneath. By means not dissimilar to those used by the Jivaro Indians of Southern Ecuador, in the preliminary phases of producing a shrunken head, the bones of the arm were removed, leaving it a limp bag of flesh that resembled a large olive coloured worm. To reassemble the framework, using humerus, radius and ulna foreign was the larger challenge. The cephalic vein was lifted with tenacula. Making use of the living gristle of his patient, Dr. Štrekel articulated the pulley-like trochlea, the distal end of the humerus to the ulna.
    The doctor believed himself to be one of the most brilliant, though admittedly despised, medical men in the whole of Eastern Europe, and was more than willing to attempt the dangerous and tamper with the impossible. If he made a mutant, it would not be the first; if it was otherwise, than it would simply mean further prosperity, additional gold in his purse from the future operations the Italian priest had planned.
    Doctor Štrekel was not timorous when it came to digging in open flesh, and feared not to go against either the laws of man or nature. That the spirits of the dead inhabit not only the hollows of trees, dark forests,