The Abomination Read online

  For a moment the girl looked as if she was tempted. Then she pushed the card back across the table. “Thanks, but if I do that I’ll lose everything I’ve saved, and they’ll still come after me. It’s better to do it their way. Then when I go home there’ll be no video in the post, no attacks on my family, and I’ll be able to pretend I’ve just been a nanny, like they thought.”

  “What if your pimp sells you again?” Kat said gently. “Have you thought of that?”

  “I don’t think he will,” she said. “I don’t think he’s as bad as the others.”

  “Keep the card, anyway,” Kat said, leaving it on the table. “Keep it somewhere safe.”

  Around eleven, as the bars were getting noisier and the pimps more threatening, Piola came to find her.

  “I thought you might want some company. If only to watch your back.”

  “What I want,” she said wearily, “is to get the hell out of here.”

  “Shall we eat?”

  She shook her head. “Let’s go home.”

  In her apartment she kissed him, feeling the solid warmth of his body. She started to undress him – only to stop, suddenly, at the thought of a girl from Bosnia who’d thought she was going to be a nanny, who was shown pornographic videos and told to copy what she saw in them.

  She said, “I can’t do this.”

  “I understand,” he said gently. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

  He got her under the shower, then took her out and dried her, making her kneel between his legs so he could rub her hair with a towel. It was how her papà used to do it when she was a child.

  He put her to bed and pulled the covers up over her. “Shall I go?”

  “No,” she said. “Stay for a bit.”

  He climbed in, fully dressed, and held her. But sleep still wouldn’t come.

  She told him about Nevena. “And what does the law say about Nevena?” she said furiously into the dark. “That she’s a criminal. That she isn’t even one of our citizens. That she doesn’t have any rights. And so she has to keep screwing for money, because we won’t help her.”

  “And all the time the Mafia takes its cut.”

  “Just like everything else in this city.”

  “You know, when I started, it wasn’t this bad. But now . . . I know for a fact that every single gondolier has to pay the pizzo. Every croupier in the municipal casino is a Mafia placeman. Half the hotels are laundering drugs money, and a kid straight out of school can set himself up with a handgun and a kilo of cocaine on easy credit. And what do the police do? We say: let’s focus on the important stuff, the murders and the crimes against property. The prosecutors look the other way, jury service is like winning the lottery, and the judges go along with it or get blown up. And that isn’t the important stuff?” He was silent a moment. “The thing I keep asking myself is, why Italy?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why is it that our country is so especially corrupt, when others aren’t? Spain, Greece, Portugal, France . . . Poorer countries, some of them, yet none of them have an organised crime problem like ours. What’s so unique about Italy, that we haven’t been able to root it out?”

  “Maybe it’s just one of those things.”

  “Maybe. Or perhaps it’s something about us. Our national character. Perhaps we’ll never be free of it.”

  “Don’t be a pessimist. Even Nevena has hope.”

  “Nevena was fed hope,” he said. “That’s what makes it worse. They’ve got it down to a fine art, haven’t they? They used to give the girls a little bit of smack to keep them docile. But hope is cheaper, and just as effective. The most obedient whore is the one who thinks she’s working her way out of whoring. Capitalism, the pimp’s best friend.”

  “You think she’ll be sold on again before she can pay off her debt?”

  “I’d bet my life on it. Sorry.”

  They both dozed a little. Later she woke him up and they made love in the dark, slowly and gently, and she thought how extraordinary it was that this act could be so wonderful and yet at the same time so terrible; that it could keep women like Nevena in debt bondage and yet, between her and Aldo, mean so much, and comfort so profoundly.

  Thirty

  FROM THE MORNING edition of La Nuova Venezia:

  “BLACK MAGIC MURDERS” SNARE FOREIGN TOURISTS

  • Woman’s body was “dressed in Catholic robes”

  • Prosecutor warns of “depraved world of occult”

  • “Illegal” website implicated in deaths

  The body of an East European woman found near Santa Maria della Salute during La Befana was dressed in the robes of a Catholic priest, prosecutors confirmed yesterday.

  The woman was believed to have been killed while trespassing on Poveglia, an island declared unsafe for visitors by the Commissary of the Lagoon. A second body, belonging to an American woman of East European extraction, was later found in the rio below the hotel room they shared. A hotel chambermaid has said she heard the couple arguing violently on at least one occasion.

  It is believed that the women were accompanied to the island by local fisherman Ricci Castiglione, 37, also found dead on Monday in circumstances that a source close to the investigation described as being “consistent with suicide”.

  The prosecutor, Marcello Benito – widely regarded as one of the city’s most effective – said yesterday in a statement, “It’s much too early to draw any definite conclusions. However, I can confirm that occult symbols were found at the first murder scene. Of course, such matters were for a long time considered extremely dangerous, and even from our modern perspective we can see that there may be good reasons for that.”

  He added, “If a local person has been drawn into this unpleasant affair, and has taken his own life as a result, then that only underlines just how real these dangers still are.”

  Asked if there were indications that the two women were lovers, a Carabinieri spokesperson said “No comment”.

  In a further twist, it appears that the pair may have bragged of their activities on a controversial website. Carnivia.com, which is based in Venice but attracts online visitors from across the world, allows users to exchange messages and even video material anonymously. Amid concerns that it could be used by pornographers and occultists, the Italian government recently applied for access to Carnivia’s servers under anti-secrecy laws. The site’s owner, Daniele Barbo, is currently awaiting sentencing for refusing to cooperate.

  Barbo had not responded to requests for a comment as this edition went to press.

  “So Ricci Castiglione committed suicide,” Kat said disgustedly.

  “Apparently,” Piola said. “Drowned himself in a tank full of his own crabs in remorse at having murdered two gay East European witches. Impressive.”

  “You said yourself, Marcello’s good at this. There’s almost nothing in this account that doesn’t fit the evidence, with a little shoehorning.”

  “Until you know what it leaves out,” Piola agreed.

  It was mid-morning, but the operations room was quiet. Overnight, half of the officers on their investigation had been reassigned to other cases.

  Piola sighed. “The trouble is, we don’t have anything concrete to offer as an alternative. There are so many elements that seem suggestive – but when we chase them, they turn into will-o’-the-wisps.”

  “Don’t worry,” she told him. “We’ll get there. Something will give, I’m sure of it.”

  After the discovery that the tattoos on Jelena’s body were Catholic in origin, Kat had sent a second email to “Karen”, the woman who’d called herself a priest. She’d heard nothing back at the time, but now, out of the blue, there was a message waiting in her inbox.

  Log on to Carnivia now. Meet me in Campo San Zaccaria. Come alone.

  She did as she was told, except for one small thing: while in Carnivia her avatar appeared to be alone, in reality Piola was standing next to her at the computer, fascinated but confused.


  “So this is a kind of computer game?” he asked, as she hurried through the virtual equivalent of Venice to Campo San Zaccaria.

  “Malli tells me it’s technically a mirror world, which in turn is a kind of MUSE – a multi-user simulated environment. They’re huge in cyberspace. Second Life, World of Warcraft . . . there are tens of millions of users on those sites alone. My brother used to be obsessed with a mirror world called Twinity. He spent hours every day interacting with it. Niche players like Carnivia are tiny by comparison.”

  “So they’re mainly for teenagers?”

  “Some are. But Carnivia’s a bit different, because everyone wears masks. Your Carnivia persona can effectively be used to shield all your activities on the internet, if you want it to.”

  As Columbina7759, she crossed a perfect simulacrum of Piazza San Marco, walked along the Riva degli Schiavoni, and turned north into Campo San Zaccaria.

  “Here we are.”

  It was strange, to be both sitting in a building and seeing a perfect replica of it on the screen, right down to the slight crack in the pediment above the door.

  “Remarkable,” Piola breathed.

  In front of the Carabinieri headquarters a figure in a Domino mask was waiting. As Kat hurried towards it, a pop-up screen appeared above its head.

  DOMINO67980 WANTS TO CHAT TO YOU. ACCEPT?

  She clicked “Yes”.

  THANK YOU. YOUR CHAT WILL BE ENCRYPTED.

  A balloon appeared from the figure’s mouth.

  – Follow me.

  She followed. The figure led her to a quiet corner of the square.

  – What do you want to know?

  Kat typed:

  – Are you a priest? A real one, I mean?

  – You’ve started with a difficult one.

  There was a pause. Then Domino67980 wrote:

  – According to the Pope, I’m not. But the theology is actually on our side. It’s bishops who choose priests, not popes. And if a bishop decides to ordain a woman, then as soon as that woman has received the Sacrament of Holy Orders she is a priest, in the eyes of God. A heretic one, perhaps; even an abomination. The Church can excommunicate her. It can try her in an ecclesiastical court and defrock her. But according to the basic tenets of Catholicism, she has the “indelible mark” of priesthood on her forever, and there’s no reason why her sacraments and prayers, although illicit, are any less valid than any other priest’s.

  – Is that why you won’t give me your real name or location?

  – Exactly. The Church knows, or at least suspects, that we exist. It’s spending vast resources trying to track us down. And when it finds us, it persecutes us.

  – In what way?

  – It varies. There was a woman priest in Chicago, for example, called Janine Denomme. It was only after she died, in 2010, that the diocese found out she’d been ordained. It refused to let her funeral take place in a Catholic church, or for her to be buried in consecrated ground.

  – Why do you do it? If there’s such a risk, I mean?

  There was another long pause. Then:

  – I can’t answer for the others. But all Christians believe that receiving the Sacrament of Holy Orders changes a person – it leaves an indelible mark on their soul. That means it’s something you feel at the very deepest level of your being. If you’re called to the priesthood, as I was, then you don’t feel complete without it.

  – And the Church’s position?

  – Is simply wrong. Yes, canon law says that only a validly ordained man can administer the sacraments. But it’s long been accepted in legal circles that a phrase specifying the male gender can include the female. A “manmade disaster” is a disaster caused by the whole human race, not just the male half. When Christ said “No man is without sin”, he didn’t mean to imply that women are. The ban on women is simply misogyny and semantics. The whim of man, dressed up as the will of God.

  – In your last email you mentioned “catacomb ordinations”. What are they?

  – A catacomb priest is one ordained in secret, without Vatican approval. The term was used mainly of priests in communist Eastern Europe. Things were much more flexible there – it was accepted, for example, that a catacomb priest might be married, in order to deflect suspicion. There were a small number of female priests, too, before the Vatican woke up to the controversy they might cause. Some of those women eventually became bishops, and in turn ordained other women. It’s from them that the present “line” of women priests receives its Apostolic Succession.

  “Eastern Europe again,” Kat commented. “Everything leads back behind the iron curtain.”

  “Ask her about Poveglia,” Piola said.

  – Do you know anything about a Venetian island called Poveglia?

  – Yes. It’s a place of historic significance for our movement.

  Surprised, Kat typed:

  – Why’s that?

  – Because of Martina Duvnjak.

  – Who’s she?

  – Martina Duvnjak was a catacomb priest in the 1950s in what was then communist Yugoslavia. So far as we know, she was one of the very first women priests to be ordained. Martina ran great risks, deliberately getting herself arrested so she could minister to women in the communist regime’s prisons – lawless places where it was all too easy to disappear without trace. She heard confessions, celebrated Mass, gave Extreme Unction – all the duties any priest might administer to her flock.

  – What happened to her?

  – To begin with, the Vatican turned a blind eye to her work. But then it sent word via her bishop that she had to stop. Duvnjak questioned the decision, and in the 1960s the Vatican invited her to Rome to discuss her case. The journey, of course, was fraught with difficulty, since it involved crossing into the West. As a convicted criminal, she could never hope to get a visa, so she was smuggled into Italy via Croatia.

  – And?

  – Forgive me, I’m typing this in an internet café and occasionally I have to stop if someone passes too close. She got as far as one of the islands in the Venetian lagoon – Poveglia – where she was met by a delegation of clerics. When she refused to recant, they took her to a nearby mental hospital, where she remained locked up for the rest of her life.

  – That was the old hospital on Poveglia? She was imprisoned there?

  – Effectively. She had no rights, no passport . . . hardly anyone in the West even knew she existed. She was just an inconvenience. It suited them all to pretend she was mad. Eventually she died there, completely forgotten by the outside world. But to us she is a martyr; even one day perhaps, a saint.

  – Can you explain why a female priest might want to celebrate Mass there today?

  – Of course. For us, the place where she was incarcerated has become a place of pilgrimage. The priest was almost certainly saying a Missa Pro Defunctis, a Mass for the repose of Martina Duvnjak’s soul.

  “And Carnivia?” Piola said quietly.

  – Another woman, an associate of the female priest I mentioned, frequently visited Carnivia. Do you know why she might have done that?

  – Perhaps she was also part of our community.

  – Community?

  – We are very few in number, and spread all over the world. Most of us, of course, are active in the global movement to persuade the Vatican to legitimise female ordinations, but even amongst our fellow activists we have to be circumspect. To the outside world, therefore, we are altar servers, lay workers . . . But here in Carnivia, we can lay down the burden of our secrecy.

  – Do you mean that this is how you communicate with each other? Privately, as we’re doing now?

  – I mean much more than that. This is how we communicate with God.

  – I’m sorry, you’re going to have to explain.

  – Come with me. I’ll show you.

  Domino67980 turned and led Kat into the church adjacent to the Carabinieri headquarters, the Chiesa di San Zaccaria. A fifteenth-century fusion of Gothic and Renaissanc
e styles, it was, to Kat’s mind, one of the finest churches in Venice. And yet such was the surfeit of beautiful buildings in the city, it rarely attracted even a single tourist into its dark, echoing interior.

  The replica in Carnivia was identical, except for one thing. The church she stepped into was full. Masked figures stood facing the altar, where a figure in priest’s robes was holding aloft a golden chalice. The air was filled with the sound of singing – an all-female choir, as if the massed rows of avatars had themselves broken into song.

  – This is how we worship.

  “Of course,” Kat breathed. Her fingers danced over the keys.

  – And this is valid? Theologically, I mean?

  – Indeed. Amongst our number we have some of the most respected theologians in the world. They’re agreed that since the Holy Spirit is universal, a Mass held here is just as “real” as any other. So long as, somewhere, one of the participants is holding a physical host and physical wine that become the body and blood of Christ.

  – That’s ingenious.

  – The Vatican won’t be happy when they find out.

  – Why?

  – Think about it. In here, you only know someone’s gender if they choose to reveal it to you. If a woman inhabits a male avatar, does that mean she can celebrate a virtual Mass legitimately? It makes a nonsense of all their rules.

  – Do you think you might be in danger from them?

  – Physically? I doubt it, not from the Vatican. But bear in mind that in the old days of the Inquisition, it was never the Vatican itself that burnt witches at the stake. It was the civil authorities, to whom they were handed over. Indeed, it was customary for the Church to make a formal, hypocritical request for mercy, knowing it would be refused. Women priests who reveal themselves have been spat on, burnt out of their homes, ostracised from their communities and congregations, you name it. It wouldn’t surprise me if we were at risk of even greater physical harm from those who thought they were doing God’s work.

  – I’m sorry to have to tell you that the two women I’ve been asking about were both killed – murdered, that is.