Necropolis (13 page)

Walter gave up going out on the streets to spread the word, because he didn't have the time. All those meetings and services and journeys to other cities monopolized his schedule, so he himself said to me, you're going to take charge of the hardest part, you'll be my shepherd of souls, you'll have to bring them from the bottom of the well up to where I can save them, José, gather them together, be strong, it's the greatest responsibility there is in this Ministry and I give it to you, comrade, you're the oldest and most experienced of us, you believe in me and you'd be capable of giving your life blindly for Christ, that I know.

The separation became even greater. I'd observe him from my cabin, and I saw many things.

I saw that the lights in the tower, where Walter had moved his private rooms since the last refurbishment, were on until late, and sometimes I'd see frenzied silhouettes projected on the window. If somebody opened a window you could hear music and laughter. I stayed there in silence by my own window, spying on the movements in the tower, although sometimes I didn't even look; I only thought and thought about what Walter had come to do in the world and how little I understood of his mission, poor wretch that I was, so I said to myself, continue with your education and one day you'll understand, and I went back to my books, the poetry and the religious writings and the biographies, and I started to devour them again, and that way life got back on an even keel.

One evening, one of the Italian lawyers told him that the best way to spread his word nationwide was television, why had he never thought of it before? He ought to build a studio in his house, buy air space and hire a team of communicators to help him, and that was what he did, because Walter was extremely impressionable. He was won over by the idea of expanding, like everyone. Don't you think so, my friends? Doesn't a human being naturally prefer to have two of something rather than one? That was how Walter began his second stage as a businessman and
The Ministry of Mercy in Your Home
went on the air, for which he developed a different method. His advisers persuaded him that the style and esthetics of his concerts, with red lights and bulging muscles, wouldn't work on TV, because all those action series had set the bar really high when it came to convincing the viewers, and what he was doing would look like a children's game. That's why he thought up a kind of spiritual call center, with a theoretical part presented by Walter and another part where he was joined by Miss Jessica and they'd answer questions from viewers, using Biblical passages and other religious examples to get across their points.

Within six months the show was generating more money for the Ministry than all those exhausting national tours, and again there were changes. He didn't entirely stop going out on the streets, because, as he always said, nothing could replace direct contact with reality, grappling at first hand with a person desperate to find a direction in life, and I'd think, oh Walter, you haven't been in touch with reality for a long time now, but I only thought it, I didn't say it. At that time there were a lot of things I didn't dare say.

One night I was alone in my cabin, drinking tonic water and reading Pindar, when I heard heavy breathing in the garden, the noise of footsteps, dead leaves being crushed underfoot, what was it? I went to have a look and was stunned to see that a group of women had climbed over the railings and was heading for the house. I followed them at a distance to see what they were going to do . . . They wanted to see Walter, so they tried to force open a couple of doors, and, when they didn't succeed, they broke a window and got into the house that way. That worried me, so I said to them, hey, ladies, cool it, but they didn't listen to me, they seemed possessed; there was blood on the glass, so now I was really worried, but I didn't know what else to do except follow them, and I said to myself, where the fuck are the bodyguards? now that we need them they're nowhere to be seen, although I also thought, it's better this way, those savages might hurt one of the old ladies and then it'd be goodbye Ministry, big scandal, so we had to be careful. The women realized that Walter might be in the tower, because they saw lights, and looked for the staircase. I ran up the service stairs and got there before they did, to warn Walter. I saw that his apartment was open. I nervously approached the door and half-opened it, and light spilled out into the corridor.

The scene I saw gave me goose bumps

The young athletes and Walter were stark naked on the couches, having sex in a variety of incredible positions, sucking cocks and balls, the whole thing kept afloat with whiskey and gin, and with a smell of grass that knocked you back; as I was trying to recover my composure I heard a loud nasal snort, and looking to the side of the room saw Miss Jessica lifting her face from a mirror covered in coke, and I don't know if I dreamed it, but I had the impression that somebody was fucking her in the ass, because what I do remember is that she was in a G-string and her tits were bobbing up and down. I couldn't speak. I was petrified, I walked to the opposite wall and heard the intruders coming up the main stairs. By a miracle there were already two guards struggling with them, hitting them in the ribs with stun batons, but the women kept coming up. I saw it all unfolding in front of me like someone seeing death, my friends and listeners.

When they heard the women screaming, the guys in the orgy froze and Miss Jessica came to the door, naked. She must have been so zonked out she didn't know what was going on; the guards looked at her in surprise, because in addition to everything else she was smiling and moving her head in time to a tune. My God, I thought, seeing her with her G-string around her ankles, her mound of Venus shaved, a blood-red circle on her buttocks, as if she'd been sitting on the edge of a wall, and completely out of it. I just wanted to jump out the window onto the ground below to blot out those images. My world had shattered into a thousand pieces and, like a shell floating in a whirlpool, I didn't know what to do, how to stop it, I wasn't even sure that all this wasn't one of Satan's dirty tricks, but no, it was quite real; I didn't have the courage to face it, so I went back down the service stairs, without anyone noticing me.

I had to stay away from the house. When, the next day, Walter and Jessica ordered increased security, including electrified fences, I realized that the days of the Ministry were numbered. God would destroy us soon and the only question was, how would he do it? Would He use nuclear warheads, which was the modern way, or would He throw a few thunderbolts? You could smell it in the air. Walter asked me if I'd heard anything the previous night and I said, no, I hadn't, I'd only woken up at the end, after the guards had intervened and the police had arrived. During lunch, he said that love sometimes took on a destructive form and had to be channeled somewhere; that was what had happened in the house, and we had to remember that. I said yes, shrugged, and went back to my cabin.

For Walter it was a hard blow, something that should have started his brain ticking over, because it threw a beam of light on his great contradiction. I would have liked it if he'd come and talked with me honestly about what was happening, because I could have helped him, but he didn't. He became reserved and false. His smile was false, and so were his words of optimism. The falsity of words is obvious from listening to them, my friends, prick up your ears and you'll see, it's like hitting a wooden surface when there's nothing behind, the sound bounces and echoes, that's how hollow words sound. That's what falsity is. And people must have noticed it, not only me, because things started to go downhill, the ratings dropped, went sharply up and down for a while, then flatlined. At this point, Walter took a couple of decisions that seemed lucid enough, but actually made matters worse, like giving a gold casket to a drowning man. In other words, the things might have been good in themselves, but they didn't do anything to stop the rot. One of them was the project to spread the word outside the country, going to meet my people on the brother continent, the Land of Delight, Latin America.

The idea was to start in Puerto Rico and travel to the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, and Colombia, sadly skipping over the supreme island, the summit of greatness and enjoyment, my beautiful Cuba, because my cousin the Supreme Bearded One wouldn't let anyone preaching the word of Christ come anywhere close, oh, what a pity! Walter threw himself into the plans for the journey, advised once again by the Italians, who told him, you have to have a commercial vision, you have to be managerial, efficient, you have to set targets, identify strategic objectives and base your operations on results, you have to optimize and find reliable indicators; Walter's eyes were opened, and he started to say, let's decide on objectives, let's lay down strategies, let's find reliable indicators. Another important question, according to the Italians, was the question of IMAGE! That was why they hired a small private jet, a Falcon, I think, and put the name of the Ministry on both sides, because one of the consultants said, the Church mustn't convey the idea of poverty, when did you ever see the Pope traveling economy class? the less you convey the idea of poverty, the more you'll be listened to, and if anybody criticizes you or talks about ostentation, remember, the word that lights a fire in people's hearts and cleanses their souls has an obligation to be universal and efficient, and that's the main thing, the objective; and Walter said: yes, let's go in the Falcon, let's be universal, we're going to cleanse souls. They contacted showbiz promoters in every country and hired sports stadiums, bought advertising space on radio and TV and in national newspapers. I helped write the advertising copy and select the photographs, my brothers, which was more amusing than useful.

The advertising read:

 

He is coming, He is coming . . .

Open your heart to the Supreme Mystery . . .

Become part of the Great Ministry.

 

For peace, the conjunction of souls, and harmony . . .

Join the Ministry of Mercy.

 

If you are lost and cannot see the world,

if your eyes do not help you . . .

close them and hear the word

of Reverend Walter de la Salle.

 

They also had T-shirts, pencils, pamphlets, pennants, posters, and commemorative coins produced, and hired the best lighting, sound, and technical teams that specialized in concerts. Apart from the Italians, Walter invited Jessica and me to travel with him in the Falcon, and sent the samurai in a regular scheduled plane, which they didn't like one bit. To be honest, I'd have preferred to stay in Miami because I could see the Master's punishment coming, but I let myself be persuaded because of my desire to see my Land of Delight, which I couldn't even do in the end because I was too busy organizing the services. The whole thing, as I've already hinted, went badly. In Puerto Rico it wasn't too bad, but in Costa Rica there were three hundred and eight people at the first service and ninety-six at the second. In Panama we didn't even sell six hundred tickets, and as we'd hired a stadium that seated seven thousand Walter preferred to cancel. There was a scandal in the press and we had to refund the money. As you can imagine, my friends, things went from bad to worse, and Walter was once again a soul suffering in the shadows; if the souls of evil people are black, those of fragile people are gray. Jessica and I would say to him: it's normal, nobody knows you here yet, your word will reach them but it's going to take time, and he'd say, where are the management indicators? what did we do wrong? According to the Italians, our calculations for the tour had overestimated the role of the passive element, and he told himself that maybe we should have targeted those strata of society that were more developed from the spiritual point of view. But this was no consolation to Walter, who kept asking himself the same question: why does no one come to me here, whereas they do in the United States, if they're the same people? what accounted for the difference? why did the people up there never speak to the people down here? He was blinding himself, and would have sudden fits of anger; then he'd lock himself away in the suites rented for him for the tour, without anyone coming to the hotel to look for him or to take photographs or even give him their hand or touch him. The security guys spent their time drinking beer in the lobbies and eating peanuts, because there were never any fans to hold back, no screaming, let alone fainting, and that hurt Walter. God, he would say imploringly, where did they all go? why did you take them? what are you trying to tell me? And I'd say, he isn't trying to tell you anything we don't already know, Walter, it's a problem of space and voice, your voice should win people over, we've made a start, more will come, now let's talk about something else.

One of those nights, in Cartagena de Indias, as we were talking on the balcony of his suite in the Hotel Santa Clara, he grabbed me very hard by the arm and said, José, you're a good person and that's why you have to understand that, basically, I'm human, I have human pains and frustrations, nothing makes me different than the others, than any of those that come to hear me; I'm a son of the streets like you, it just so happens that people listen to me. Then he went to the bar and grabbed a quart bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, two glasses and a full ice tray, and said, I know you've distanced yourself from all this, but for tonight I want you to think of us as two friends who need to talk, two friends or partners or flesh and blood Latinos who have to level with each other, this won't damage you, you're strong, you have structure in your life; he poured the whiskey and I drank, and in my soul it was as if galleries were collapsing, and a kind of echo rose to the surface from deep inside; a taste of another life or an intense emotion, when you find something that can destroy you the more you long for it, whether love or just obsession. By the third glass, I was confessing my fears to him, saying: you're bringing down what you yourself created with effort, and all for what? What you get from your shitty life in that tower isn't much, compared with what you're putting in danger, but he retorted, you're wrong, José, if it wasn't much I wouldn't do it, I need it, period, I'm like you, I dream of pleasure and things hurt me, don't be deceived about me; I said: be careful, you're riding a tiger and if you dismount you're going to break your legs, and he said, trust me, we're having a downturn, but it'll pass, it'll pass, you have to believe me.