The Tribulation Squad had found the heckler under some dense bush, where he was trying to light a joint with a damp match, and set about stuffing a leather-upholstered cudgel into his mouth lest he utter again the demonic phrases that had brought the poor wretch to justice in the first place.
Cardinal Ngonyama was hot and flustered. It had been a long chase, and his purple robes were dusty and festooned with copses of blackjacks. Someone would pay. Taxpayers, probably. He plucked a burr from his sleeve and fingered the cross that hung about his neck, upon which hung a tiny likeness of Brother Yengeni.
“Why did you run, my child?” he asked, dropping on to his haunches so that he might look the Beast in the eye and show it that he and the party were unafraid. The heckler squirmed as the cudgel was unscrewed from his mouth, and his eyes were wide and rolling as the Cardinal’s little black leather bag was brought up from the rear. Something inside it clinked and gleamed for a moment.
“I thought …” gasped the heckler, “I thought you were Child Maintenance. There’s a girl, and she had a baby, and …”
“Silence, fornicator!” boomed the Cardinal. “Do not sully my shell-like ears with tales of your sweaty devotions to Pan! We are chaste men here, having higher concerns than the flesh. We are not … not …” He groped at the air, looking for something abject enough to illustrate the moral decrepitude that writhed naked in the boudoirs of his strictly policed imagination.
“Chief whips?” offered the heckler.
“Heresy!” screamed the Tribulation Squad, flinging themselves to the ground and writhing in the dust. “Our burning ears! The demons of liberalism claw at our eardrums! Silence him, my lord!”
But the Cardinal had seen worse. Indeed, he had been present that day at the stadium in Durban, that day on which Satan’s legions had shrieked their heresies at his lord and master; and he calmed his men.
“This toad and his warty tongue cannot hurt us, brothers,” cooed the Cardinal. “He is lost where we are found. He is fallen where we are raised up. He serves the mining barons and their lackeys, where we serve …” — he paused and lifted his face to the heavens — “Structures. Never forget, my brothers, that there are Structures in place to facilitate our ultimate democratic rapture.”
“Amen!” cried the Tribulation Squad.
“Can I go now?” asked the heckler, and Cardinal Ngonyama laughed and began delving into his little leather bag. Slowly, sensually, he pulled out something that resembled a child’s toy, some sort of mechanical amusement. It was roughly spherical, but seemed to have a seam running across its width…
“Ingenious, no?” said Ngonyama. “We call it Tony de Torquemada.” He held it closer, and the heckler saw that the front half of the sphere was decorated with a particularly cheerful portrait of Tony Leon.
“Wha … why does it look like his mouth can open?” whispered the man.
“Because it can!” cried the Cardinal gleefully. “And do you know what’s inside his mouth?”
“Teeth?”
“Razorblades! My child, it would be best for you to tell me now what you said about our Lord Mbeki. Do you wish to confess that you are in league with dark powers? Will you wash your immortal soul in the cleansing streams of party redemption and tell your Brother in Mbeki that you have consorted with the infernal heretics of the Zuma camp?” His men hissed and crossed themselves as the name was spoken. He stroked the heckler’s cheek. “It will go ill with you if you resist, my child.”
But the heckler was deaf, all his senses focused sharply on the grinning Tony de Torquemada that dangled before him. “What happens if I don’t confess?”
“Well,” sighed the Cardinal, “we wind up Tony like so …” — he began to turn a hidden ratchet somewhere near the back of the head — “…and then we toss it down the front of your pants, and Tony chews off whatever parts of your manhood are still intact, after your life of wretched carnal excess.”
“And if I confess?”
The Cardinal beamed. “Then all shall be well, and you will be burned at the stake, your soul free to join the celestial cadres who inhabit the great structures in the sky, where you will learn that even the solar system is aligned according to the policies of the ANC, for it revolves around the sun and is therefore revolutionary …” He became solemn. “My child, speak now. In the name of the Holy Trinity — Mbeki, Nzimande, and Vavi — I call upon you to confess that you did yell ‘Boo’ at our Lord Mbeki, and that you did sing ‘Awlethu’ mshini wam‘ outside the …”
“Hang on!” cried the heckler. “I’ve never …”
“Get a pole,” snapped the Cardinal to a burly lieutenant. “And some rope. And matches.”
“I don’t know if we brought paper for kindling, sir,” said the officer smartly.
“My Beemer,” said the Cardinal. “Glove compartment. There’s a Constitution in there somewhere. Just tear out the bits about freedom of political expression. We’ll have him toasty in no time.”