The Translation of Father Torturo Read Free Page A

like jolly fun.
    Luckily for his teachers he was a brilliant child, and they could give him passing grades without in the least fudging it. It was true that he often made sarcastic remarks that made the class giggle and themselves look like fools, but the boy was marvelous in Italian grammar and, when asked a question concerning history or mathematics he was rarely wrong.
    “He is intelligent,” Bruna said, “but not half so sweet as Marco.”
    These words, though casually spoken, put a good deal of consternation into Guido’s heart. He sincerely wished his son was not quite so sweet. He wanted him to be a bit rougher, a bit more like himself and less like his mother, whose qualities, though exemplary in womanhood, were not those he desired to see in a male, – particularly his own offspring.
    “What did you do after school today?” he would ask.
    “Played ball.”
    “With sides?”
    “Yes. My side lost.”
    “Lost?”
    “The other side cheated.”
    “But you didn’t cheat?”
    “No. Professor Lorenzo says that—”
    “ Per la miseria !” Guido interrupted, pinching the five fingers of his right hand together and waving them in front of his chin. “You need a real education. Get in a few fights. Fists are the best professors.”
    Meanwhile, he looked at his nephew, Xaverio, with a kind of awe. The boy was athletic, quick witted, and as naughty as could very well be wished.
    “Listen figlio mio ,” his uncle once told him, taking him on his lap. “It is obvious that, with your intelligence and spirit, a boy like you can grow up to be whatever he wants, either a criminal or a cardinal. In the history of our family we have many criminals, but not as yet a single cardinal. My confessor, Father Falzon, has agreed to tutor you and see if you are fit for the calling. By the Madonna, I hope that you are. If you lead a religious life it might help to exonerate me from some of my sins.”
    Father Falzon, a crusty old priest with a reputation for misanthropy, somehow found the boy to his liking. Unlike other children, Xaverio did not talk much. He also brought his tutor contraband tobacco with every visit and this, for a man who often had to resort to smoking stale cigarette butts for lack of funds, was like a gift from heaven.
    “Let me take a few puffs of this Saint Luis Rey,” said the priest, his eyes emitting a dull lustre, “and then we will pray to the Christ, there above my bed, before having our lesson.”
    Father Falzon instilled in the child the habit of prayer, the habit of attempted communion with God. From his tattered brevrey he began to teach Xaverio Latin, and was amazed with the rapid accomplishments of his student.
    “I have never seen anyone pick up the Latin tongue so quickly,” he told Guido. “A year ago he did not know the most basic elements of the language, and now he has already memorised the book of Genesis by heart.”
    What was even more amazing, was that, over the subsequent fourteen months, young Torturo memorised the entire rest of the Holy Bible, word for word, from Exodus all the way through Revelations. In less than two and a half years time, before he was yet a teen ager, he had become as good of a Latin scholar as Father Falzon himself, who was certainly one of the few priests in the city who could genuinely understand the dead language.
    In his own way, Xaverio became quite fond of the old priest.
    Father Falzon, in his youth, had written a book of poetry titled Un Cuore delle Erbe . The book had been much acclaimed, and had won several noteworthy prizes. It was his first and only published work, yet it was a minor classic.
    Now, as chance would have it, Xaverio’s school teacher, Professor Lorenzo, one day assigned the students to memorise one of the poems, Amato Basilico . Several boys gave vent to muffled laughter, and winked at each other.
    “What is it you find so humorous Romeo?” the professor asked seriously.
    “We know who wrote this,” Romeo replied.