Clemente

Clemente

By Onur Saatçıoğlu

    He then uttered what he ought to have uttered all along, his Act of Contrition, while I leaned towards his side of the confessional to show my sincere interest. The paper-like curtains separating us would not prevent me from seeing his white, silk armor with gold embroidery, partially covered with a crimson stole. As I was trying to raise my aged eyes back to where they should be, I could not but help think about how much I detested this so-called house-dress. It made my stomach ache and it did not only do that but also made me want to vomit in an uncontrolled manner. A sudden silence filled the wooden box, when I realized it was my turn to talk, to repeat what I have been repeating for the past forty years,

    “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit.”

    My rusty voice, which had been worn out since last week’s cold weather, caused an unpleasant contradiction with his, for he, although slow, spoke most peacefully with the most elegant pronunciation. I was the first one to step out, to seek his descent to my level. My hands were tied in front, below my stomach. My back was aching while I kept my chin up and watched him take his careful steps. Every Sunday I would think to myself, “Will he fall this time? Will he just trip and hit his head on the concrete and just pass away?” with no shame visible from outside. Neither did I think something different in that fixed moment nor did his tiny feet finally take an ill step. Once completing the task of abandoning my confessional, he stood two steps away and stretched his hand towards me; expecting a kiss. It was his custom to make one kiss his hand before speaking unlike his predecessors, who were known to wait until the end of their meetings to make others feel inferior. I, without any hesitancy, did kiss that hand, which looked nothing like human to my senses. When I was done, he spoke to me, “My dear Clemente, you were very impressive as always. I am simply humbled to be able to confess in the presence of such a skilled Priest.”

    I instantly replied, “Please, Holy Father, such words from you would make me tremble.” His praise, similar to my reply, was far from coming off as a surprise. Also, there was a difference in our understanding when it came to conversing. He seemed like he completely lacked the skill of remembering his prior encounters while I, being the Clemente I have always been, seemed to never forget anything told to me. Who knows, maybe it was due to my job, maybe it was a curse; or a blessing. Before, I surely believed it to be a gift of God. Now, I see that even if it were a gift, it would be a mediocre one, for there were people similar to him in this world, and I was surrounded by them. After all, they were nothing but proud men overflowing with hubris, and to be around them at all times was not exactly pleasant.

    He, with all his inherent embracement, asked me, “The other day I decided to do something spontaneous, Clemente, and watched over my gardens. That evening I saw you walking around, all by yourself, for a good thirty or so minutes. Even though I spent an entire evening examining your figure, now I can not be so sure about whether it was you or not. Tell me, Clemente, it was you, was it not?”

    “It was me, Your Holiness. I am a keen admirer of evening walks.” Was I actually the one he was talking about? Yes, I obviously walked past “his” gardens with the simple intention of reaching my chamber, but I did not walk all by myself for a good thirty or so minutes. Still, it would have been tedious to correct him and I gladly accepted his accusation, merely for my self-comfort, which I valued more than his correctness. He was proud, “I knew it, my dear Clemente. You have a wonderful posture; you sure know how a priest should take care of his body.” These kinds of assertions were no stranger to his usual mode. Then, once again, he called the Royal Guards to fetch him from my humble presence; in a matter of seconds my lips converged with the placid hand of his and I saw his bright red moccasin shoes walk past the door. It was a known action for Pope Innocent the Ninth to suddenly abandon his subjects without making any further remarks; some considered it rude, some believed it emphasized his authority.

    What do Cardinals talk about all the time? I would not be able to know exactly, as I have never been one of them and did not accompany any for longer than fifteen minutes, on a pious day, that is. Yet, I still am acquainted with one of their favorite questions; “When did the Holy Spirit illuminate you?” Cardinal Vasily would tell you about the crow that spoke to him, while Your Eminence Spencer was ever-ready to answer with his parents’ tragic passing away. Guillaume’s answer never changed; he even used the same words each time, as if they were written with utmost care; “I got lost as a child and, a bright white light led me back to my parents.” In short, in the Vatican, you did not speak of the weather; you spoke of your moment of illumination. I, myself, received this question several times, each in the same, monotonous manner; “What about you, Clemente? When did He, the Holy-Spirit come to you?” I could see in their eyes; they expected a most interesting answer from me, the man who became the youngest Confessor of the Vatican when he was only twenty-six. Only twenty-six! Unfortunately, so far, I have been unable to provide them with a crystal-clear answer, for I am not sure if I was ever illuminated. Did He ever come to me, or spoke to me, or guided me?  I am obliged to think not, as my conscience does not let me believe that I would not be able to recognize Him. Thus, in the presence of such a-priori beliefs, I shall think that I have never been illuminated. But be not compassionate for me, I beg, since I saw this as a strength, rather than a lacking, since the day of my assignment.

    When I first stepped in this chamber, with my young limbs and vivacious spirit, an unstoppable sensation wrapped my heart; “I was not chosen!” I mumbled in joy. It was not God who made my feet percolate onto these blessed marbles and, it indeed was not the Holy Spirit, nor the Son. I did not need any guidance on the path of total surrender. My turn to Catholicism did not require any illumination because God knew of my capabilities. Yet, I knew from the start that these Cardinals would not understand. These stories resembled business cards for them. Everyone had to have one. Hence I crafted one, just the way many of them did. The first one to ask was, of course, Secretary of State Dario Salvatore; he came up to me after our first absolution and asked me the question. I gave him an answer, benefiting from my years at the orphanage; using a memory of that one night when I experienced my first lunar eclipse. Then, I did not return his question, denying him the moment he had been waiting for; others needed me. They were waiting.

    Following my deprivation of the mere presence of our Holy Father, I was left completely alone with no further guests expected. There I stood; all by myself, having eluded him with splendid success. Was he aware of my thoughts at all? No, of course not. He was a miserable man on this particular account; interpreting people. With my newly replenished valiancy, I went back to my confessional. My only intention was to collect the piece of clothing I had forgotten there, but once I stepped in, an instant urge to sit on the other side of the curtain appeared within my soul. So I did exactly that, and for the first time in many years, was the one to take a seat of confession. But, unlike the hypocrites who usually sat on this seat, I was not seeking absolution. My intention was something truer to the human soul; I wanted to confess and only confess, to let the Lord know of my will. So, as I was still able to feel the warmth of Pope Innocent the Ninth through the seat, my lips began to flicker and my tongue began to writhe,

    “I know, Lord, that these are not the words you would wish to hear, but I shall speak anyways, and be capriciously honest with you. Lord! I will not whisper, nor stutter, nor will I speak my words agitated, for I am not, and I want you to know that after years of consideration, I am now content with my intention. Finally, my Lord, we are here; and finally, I am ready to tell you.” Until this instant, I was looking at my hands to see if they would shake, to see if my knees would tremble. They did not; they were as still as they could be. At that moment, I truly knew; “My intention, and it is an inevitable one, is to murder Your Grace, Pope Innocent the Ninth, my dearest God. I shall see his soul escape from his disgraceful body and I shall see it happen before my eyes. You and I, Lord, are completely different despite our common sentiments. They say you are all-forgiving, and I believe you actually might be, and I know that I am not. In my years of pardoning people from their sins; they thought it would not only be You, who would forgive them, but also me. Now, as you can see, they were only being persuaded by their own foolishness! Because at some point in my career as their Confessor, I have lost my faith, not in you, but in them; and instead of forgiving them, I began to recollect their wrongdoings every single night. At first, it happened without me even realizing, but once I did realize it, I could not stop; my conscience would not let me. I cannot stop thinking about Cardinal Egon, I cannot prevent myself from revisiting the words of Spencer; the way they walk into my welcoming presence, I cannot fathom. The look on their face changes the moment I speak my words; they experience the fastest recovery. Then, in the shortest of moments, all the guilt on their faces, which once appear as sincere, perishes; I have freed them from themselves. Only to last a week, or the next, if they had busy days. I know you would understand me, Lord, because I know that you are aware of what they do! What he does. In the ideal world, you would punish them all, you would not remain silent and torment me; but we both know you, unlike me, will not act. At last, after tens of years, I now know this. So I must do what I have within my power, God! And as far as my conscience goes, it is he, who deserves my punishment, not the others, since they are not him, and the rest are nothing but vulgars. Hence, I shall end his life, to prove your teaching, to cleanse these marbles of the blood he shed; to fix the hearts he had broken, and last but not least, to make you feel ashamed if you have the means to be ashamed, of course.”

    When I got up, I felt a bitter blessedness for not wearing red; as the black suit I was in did not show the sweat my body had generated in the past few minutes. Upon lifting the velvet-like curtain, which was not transparent at all, I witnessed the most dreadful of sights; an unholy figure, standing right in front of me with two claret eyes that knew it all. The white light falling into the room was obscuring my view; nevertheless, I knew exactly whose shoulders those two narrow slopes were; even if I were to fail to recognize them, I would surely have recognized his shoes. “Ah, Lord, so you did hear!” I thought to myself, as I took a few steps towards the left. Now I was able to see his face with no obstacles in between. There were no royal guards and the abrupt astonishment I would have expected from him was nowhere to be found. The hands he had forged on his back seemed to be as stiff as his eyebrows and the non-existent lips he was so unfortunate to live with. No temper, no enthusiasm, no passion; he resembled an empty shell, a void. I did not salute him, nor did I say anything; I was, for the first time in years, overwhelmed by my own feelings; none of them was fear itself. “See, Lord, I knew it.” I thought as the divine will kept piercing through by my intervention to alter it; if he had not started talking, one would have been able to hear the boiling of my blood, 

    “I have never told this story to anyone, Clemente, but I will tell it to you now.” The man did not move at all; my eyes were now struggling to separate his figure from the blurry background, “When I was seven years old; a little boy, you might say, I had a little fish. It was one of those orange ones everyone had; its name was Napoli, named by my deceased father, who was very fond of football. Tell me, Clemente, did you have a fish similar to Napoli?”

    “No, dear Pope, I did not,” I answered. 

    “I had the most sincere love for Napoli; fed him every morning and night, cleaned its glass, changed its water from time to time. Its aquarium was in our living room, so when we were having one of our traditional movie nights, I would go near him and put my finger on the glass to see if it would respond, or, at least, realize what I was trying to do. Napoli, due to his primitive nature, always seemed to be irritated by my act of childish love.” At this point our encounter began to feel like a staring contest; the room was filling with a dark shade of purple that emerged from the union of our eyes. He went on, the tender voice he used fifteen minutes ago was no longer present; it had a thicker, a much more dignified tone, to say the least, “One morning, I took Napoli out of his assigned house and put him in the glass we always put him in while cleaning his water. After spending minutes of rubbing, it was finally ready to be inhabited again. So I took Napoli out of the coffee glass and as I was dropping him, felt a trivial pain on my seven-year-old thumb. After some seconds of close inspection, I realized that it was Napoli, who had bit me. Hence I, so very calmly, instead dropped it on our carpet and stepped on its tiny body.”

    The second his story was completed, he moved one of the two chairs in front of us with his foot (he used his ankle to not let dust on his shoe) and sat on it without even trying to protect the presentability of his sacred uniform. He then continued, after pointing out the chair that was opposite of him; “Surely this was the only occasion when I dared to end a life, and I deeply regret it to this day.” The ancient chair I was now sitting on was not particularly known for its comfort, “You see, Clemente, now we are even.”

    Our stances seemed as if they were replicates of one another, as upright as possible; “May I ask on what account, Your Holiness?” I asked him while I scoured my aching back.

    Pope Innocent the Ninth answered with a sudden relief in his voice, “You, knowingly or unknowingly, shared a secret of yours with me; perhaps the most important one, it was. And I, with the sole intention of not letting you be ashamed, shared one of mine. By doing so, I deemed us even, Clemente.”

    Now it was time to do the thing no one even thought of doing within the invisible walls of the Christian Church. Yes, it was the perfect opportunity to slap him, to see if he would turn his other cheek; “Holy Father, I hope this information will not offend you and, I deeply wish you will not resent me upon hearing it.” I was not going to lower my chin or look away, not even for a split second, “You have told me this story during the third year of your Papacy, asking for God’s absolution. Of course, considering that it has been twelve years, it would be perfectly understandable to forget such an occurrence, so please do not think of me as being wry.”

    The absence of astonishment on his face provided me with an irritating impression, one I had never sensed before; it felt like I was laying my eyes on a completely different silhouette, “And, Clemente, did you grant the absolution I was seeking that day? Tell me, will you.” The way he moved his lips had changed as well as the gestures he always made with his hands while speaking; the fingers he was known to swing had been replaced with a loose fist.

    “For this particular crime, I did absolve you, my dear Pope,” I answered his question; my back was, without a doubt, determined to continue aching. “What ill suffering you have released upon me!” I complained to God.

    “What about the others? You did ask the Lord for my forgiveness, did you not?” He asked me. 

    “That question I shan’t answer, Your Holiness, since you would know better than me. So it is I who must inquire, do you feel forgiven?” My blood was boiling, my worn heart was racing; I was in a such state of ecstasy I did not even realize the setting sun and how the whole room was now lit with a fading orange color, reminiscent of a dying candle.

    His hunch returned once our encounter proved to be lengthy, he uttered a vigorous sigh, with his weak fingers he grabbed the desk nearby, “In all honesty, I do feel forgiven. There is no night when I go to bed and fail to fall asleep in five minutes. Next morning I wake up, completely replenished, as well as possible; our Lord protects all, but it is apparent that he prioritizes me.” There I was, not listening to a word he was saying, thinking to myself: “How do those heavy rings stay on his scraggy fingers? They seem to melt every other day.”

“I understand, Holy Father, I am more than glad,” I told him; taking the life of an already dying man would have been grueling for a man of my temperament because then, I would have intervened with the order my Lord bothered to enact. Yet, here he was; telling me exactly what I wanted to hear. He was healthy, full of life, making my mission even more important than it was before.

    It took more than it should have for me to realize that he too, was looking at my face as if it was the first time he had seen my appearance; was I shaved properly? Were my eyebrows combed as well as possible? Maybe it was my sharp chin that caught him off guard or the wrinkle on my shirt. No, he was looking for something more subtle, something he knew he was not going to be able to see through my looks, or presence. His eyes were tediously searching my soul to find something that could ease his terror. At last, I knew what strange feature he was hosting on his face; it was dread, it was horror! His mask had fallen and my soul was shut for the likes of him with a complete lack of empathy. He, being a barren man of the clergy, resorted to the old ways of his fellow-men,

    “Clemente, forgive me if I had asked you this before but have you ever told me of your moment of illumination? If not, I would be very much interested in hearing it.” He asked me as a whistling wind passed between us, curling his robe up; the socks he had worn under were a pale kind of white; when I looked back at his face, my response was heard, 

    “I do not have one, Holy Father.”

    “What do you mean by not having one?”

    “I mean what I mean, Holy Father, I do not have a moment of illumination. I have never met the Holy Spirit, just like He had never met me.”

    “You do not have to be modest, Clemente, because I am not the others. I will not judge you by the magnitude of your invitation, even if it is an insignificant moment, you can tell me freely.”

    Instead of responding, I got up from my chair and walked towards the light switch near the entrance door. What more irritating action could I have taken? Walking back to my chair, I looked at the back of his head; it was still, surprisingly, intact. His hat was perfectly covering the round baldness he had accumulated in the past years. Accompanied by a mild grunt, I sat down, not yielding myself to his next question; 

    “Dear Pope, I did not receive a personal invitation from God because I did not need one; not even a tiny, insignificant one. I can imagine how hard it is for you to understand such a concept, yet I can assure you that it is completely true; I have joined the clergy upon my own will. I knew what I wanted, who I wanted to be; so the Lord did not need to remind nor or push me into his presence. Would you not call this a quality of true servitude, Your Holiness?”

    “I indeed would, my dear Confessor,” he replied, to which I nodded in agreement.

    After moments of seamless consideration, the ultimate judgment had finally lit out through his unpleasant words; he was no longer waving his hands but keeping them on his knees as if he was going to leave any second. But no, this time, he was not leaving in the middle of our conversation; the topic at hand was too dear for him to do so, it was his own life, and he was beginning to understand thoroughly. 

    “Tell me now, do you think me a small fish, Clemente?”

    I knew he expected my voice to tremble, and I know when he heard that it did not, he understood that it was a mistake to turn his other cheek, “No, dear Pope, I do not think you a small fish. I have never thought about crushing you with my feet.” I told him, looking directly at the wrinkles of his ever-declining face.

    The man was no longer successful at hiding neither his dissatisfaction nor his inadequacy to make me regret my most recent words, “Then what is your opinion of me, my child?”

    “Unfortunately, I do not have an opinion on you, I only have a judgment; for I have never known you besides what you have told me, and you have told me such things I did learn that your persona outside the confessional is not one to trust. You see, Holy Father, I am not necessarily familiar with you, yet I am familiar with the things you have done; these might or might not be enough to have an opinion on you, but they sure were enough for me to craft a judgment for you.” I replied; from this moment on, there were no masks to be worn between us. No Papacy, no confessional; we were left completely naked, and I did not feel vulnerable in the slightest. He, on the other hand, was now wallowing in the guilt I had just granted him. As an attempt to annihilate me,

    “I shall excommunicate you, then,” said he, only to realize that would have been the ex-communication of us both since I was much beloved in the Italian press and the eyes of the public; they would have believed anything I have told. Little did he know, if he were to dismiss me from the Catholic Church, I would just pack up and silently leave due to my detestation for being in the public eye. Anyone else would have known it, all the Cardinals would have known it, but not the Pope Innocent the Ninth. So I asked him to get up and come with me; our steps echoed all around the room until getting absorbed by the temporary silence between us. He was a short man, unlike me; always having to walk with frequent steps. His underdeveloped legs always caused his body to quake from one side to another. We stopped in front of the northern window of the room, which resembled nothing but a casket for him, I understood by his fallen shoulders. The city of Rome now outspread ahead us with all its glory; a stage with three million actors it was. 

    “What do you see, Guido?” I asked him, graciously.

    “My hometown, Rome,” he answered, giving me the selfish answer I expected from his foul self.

    “I see God.” I protested, “And that is the precise reason why I believe you ought to be judged before me; at everything you lay your eyes on, you see yourself. But you are supposed to see God, Guido. You are supposed to see God.”

    In a matter of seconds, my hand grabbed that well-conserved back of his head and smashed his forehead into the window that kept us away from the five-meter fall the Pope could have had to endure; a rich sound filled my ears as he fell right in front of my feet with his hands around his hurt skull. Thinking how he did not even yell for his guards nor tried to leave me, I deducted he, although believing in the authenticity of my plan to take his life, trusted his non-existent ability to prove me wrong, to change my mind. “No, Guido, I do not fall for your red shoes anymore!” I detested him within my thoughts, as he remained silent besides some incomprehensible sounds. Some of his rings were fallen, I saw, once he removed his left hand from the bashed forehead and turned his body to face me. He did not call for help. He did not call for a savior; the man was experiencing the most real of terrors as tears were dampening his skin all the way from his cheeks to his white collar. He no longer was aware of the environment I dragged him into; the once-confident eyes of his were no longer claret but rather a sad tone of brown; the rotten self he hid underneath his fancy looks was now flooding along with his tears; “How long I have yearned for this!” I said audibly; the overflowing sense of pride was wrenching my gut.

    Thereat, under the glimmering light of the full moon, I was looking at Poor Guido, who had just begun to recollect himself, as heard from his remissive breathing. Due to the nature of this sudden encounter, I was also startled and was carefully evaluating the most sensible action to take; if I were to hit him again, then I would surely have had to take his life. While my eyes were away from him, directed at the beautiful seven o’clock landscape of Rome, I felt something crawling on my shoes. Then, the hands I only kissed thus far wrapped themselves around my legs, hugging them as if they were a plank in the midst of an ocean. The immediate urge to look down overpowered my will to not let him get the attention he was so miserably seeking, as the squeaking sounds of his sobbing were being heard all around the room. Looking at his eyes, I stumbled upon a man even I would not have expected to see; he was completely and utterly shattered, squeezing my left leg harder and harder with each passing second. When he finally gathered his courage to look up, our eyes merged again. As if the offensive despair on his face was not enough, he began to speak, often gasping for air, asking for my forgiveness, begging for his life in poorly structured sentences such as “O Clemente, I beg you do not end me!” These words, although rubbish, gave me a moment of clearance one I had never thought of experiencing before. This face, which was getting rubbed against my leg, was not the face of a faithful man; because a faithful man would have accepted God’s invitation and silently abided by his will after acknowledging the certainty of their death. Guido, on the other hand, despite being persistent on not calling the guards, was a man whose biggest fear was to die, it became apparent by the look on his face, along with the words he did not stop stuttering. “You!” I whispered at him, “You do not believe in God!” I cried at him: to which he did not respond and kept floundering on the freezing marble. From this moment on, I no longer had any doubts; so I shrugged him off of my legs, kicking him in the process. At last, we were separated, and I, who thought myself to despise this man, did realize that my previous sentiment was nothing but a mild distaste. The heat of true hatred was now filling my stomach in an uncontainable manner, so much so my head began to spin; “He did not deny my impious allegation, he did not even flinch!” I muttered, wiping the sweat on my forehead. The next moment I was walking in his direction, examining his struggling body; the man was hanging mid-air as he tried to get back up by pulling down the gold-detailed curtain. Following my arrival, I grabbed him and turned his powerless figure to face me; my fingers were wrapped around his collar as I furiously shook him. I have previously mentioned that he had an ever-declining face, I am sure, yet now it had reached a completely new level; his mouth was covered in his own mucus, and his lips were the palest of purples; the seventy-year-old man now looked as if he was centuries old. This poor image abruptly evoked a sensation within me: one that both objected to my hatred and accompanied it in perfect harmony. It was so sharp there could not have been a single route in which I ignored it; it was so lively that it made me perceive him as completely worthless. It was pity. Yes, I was pitying this man, who I thought did not deserve any feeling other than vicious ones. I was no longer able to see anything worthy to blame on his face, for he did not seem to be conscious of anything he did in his life, including being the Pope. This non-believer I was holding in my hands was not the man I thought I was going to murder; he was weak, unconscious, and lacked any kind of understanding concerning his actions. Sure, he was aware that he was the Pope, and he indeed used this in his favor thus far, but it became apparent to me that he was not a man who knew God existed and still chose to object him. Instead, he was an unfortunate man who did not experience his true moment of illumination despite desperately needing one. I was finally starting to understand that I was not there to take this man’s life. I was there to start it, to give him a second chance. I must have been his moment of illumination. I must have been sent by the Lord to do so! There, at that very moment, I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit; the wind that passed between us some moments ago was He, and from that moment on, my destiny had been definite. So I let go of Guido and helped him get back up. Fixed the positioning of his collar and his hat; he was in complete silence, not objecting, not being surprised at my change of attitude. The color of his lips had returned, his cheeks were once again dry, and the hunch he carried on his back had disappeared. Once he was completely clean and fixed, I bid farewell at his fading figure.

    Upon stepping on the other side of the door, accompanied by his Royal Guards, he turned towards me, in peace, and looked directly at my eyes; this short glance was more than enough for me to know that he, finally, did know the truth.