The Holy Machine

55

After I’d lost Lucy to the fire, I wandered for a long time with no purpose, without any sense of myself as an individual person who acted and made decisions in the world. Yet things still happened. A month or so afterwards, someone stole my car in the port of Patras. The loss of it troubled me, yet I had left it unlocked, as if part of me wanted to lose it. Something inside of me sought to rid myself of everything, to tear away the surface and expose the cowering thing inside, like Lucy tearing away her irrelevant flesh.

I went to the docks and bought a ticket for the first ship to sail. It was going north, to the Ionian islands, just across the water from where my journey began.

I arrived late at night in Corfu. I needed somewhere to rest and I found a sailors’ hostel near the port, where I’d have to share a room.

My roommate didn’t get in until two in the morning. He was an elderly Venetian seaman. He had just been paid and had been out in the Old Town drinking. He had finished off by visiting a prostitute. Now he was feeling disgusted with himself.

‘It seems so delicious in anticipation, doesn’t it?’ he grumbled, when he found that I was still awake and could speak Italian. He undressed noisily in a gust of garlic and booze and sweat. ‘And then afterwards you feel ashamed.’

He belched mournfully as he climbed into bed.

‘Never mind. I’m truly repentant, so I’ll confess to a priest in the morning and God will forgive me.’

He rolled to and fro, looking for a comfortable position in the hard, damp bed.

‘You could do with a wash, my friend,’ he muttered as he settled down.

But I was fascinated by his ability to manage his conscience.

‘You can really do that, can you?’ I asked him. ‘Any time you do something bad, you can go to a priest and confess and be forgiven.’

‘Of course,’ the Italian answered drowsily.

‘But why does it work?’

The sailor sighed, drew breath and then explained slowly as if to a child: the human race was given free will so that it could chose good or evil. But Adam and Eve made a wrong choice and, as a result, humans have been sinful ever since, so that really all of us deserve to burnt for the rest of eternity in hell. Luckily, God was merciful and sent his only son to be crucified to pay the price of human sin. As a result, though all human beings were still sinners, they could be saved from the fire if they believed in Jesus and repented their sins.

With that the sailor rolled over and once more prepared himself for sleep.

‘But do you really believe in this?’ I asked him.

‘Of course!’ the Italian protested indignantly. ‘Now, will you let me sleep?’

‘But I thought that God was omnipotent. If he wanted to change his own rules, why didn’t he just change them? Why did he have to punish his son?’

‘These things are mysteries,’ muttered the Italian.

I considered.

‘What happens if people sin in heaven?’

He sat up.

‘Please, enough. I want to sleep. No one sins in heaven. Everyone knows that!’

‘Don’t they have free will anymore in heaven?’

‘Of course.’

‘But I thought free will meant people could choose.’

There was a brief silence. I had clearly over-taxed the sailor’s skills as a theologian.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘in heaven they just know the right thing to do.’

‘Didn’t Adam and Eve?’

The Italian growled.

‘To cast doubt is also a sin you know,’ he said, lying down again, ‘and now, if you have any more questions, save them for the morning and go and see a priest.’

And with that he sank down into loudly snoring sleep, leaving me lying awake, as I did every night, going over and over in my mind the moment when I had betrayed Lucy.

It wasn’t an accident, that was what haunted me, it wasn’t just a slip of the tongue brought on by too much raki. I had made a choice. I had arranged on purpose for her to be destroyed.