35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

110
EMPIRE OF THE SOUL
The basilica’s interior seemed rather vast and bare. In the poor
light only the altar, a shimmering block of gold, stood out at first.
Xavier’s body rested in a side chapel, on a raised platform and encased
in glass. We joined a short and highly excited line of people, Indian
Christians presumably, yet scarcely distinguishable from the
devotees who thronged around the courtyards of Hindu temples
waiting to glimpse jewelled idols, dripping lingams, sacred bulls.
Before long, we’d reached the glass case. The ‘incorruptible body,’
I noticed, was somewhat less incorruptible than it had been back in
1554. It was almost entirely draped in worn, dusty, ancient and
elaborate robes, like those a pope might wear on special occasions,
only the head, feet, and one hand visible. His entire right arm seemed
to be thrust out of sight behind his back. And these parts were barely
more than a skeleton covered with what resembled the skin of an
incredibly old and dessicated prune. He lay in a violently vulgar
gold casket. Saint Francis must have had dreadful dental problems.
Besides being the colour of a chain-smoker’s, his teeth were so
chipped he could have been chewing the Rock of Ages with them.
Next to the saint’s display case was another, much smaller one.
Scarcely larger than a shoe box, it contained what looked like the
petrified faeces of some small creature. I asked the seedy, well-fed
cleric who had cheerfully taken our rupees what the objects in the
second case actually were.
‘They are toes of the Saint Francis,’ he answered.
‘Toes?’
‘Correct.’
‘Why are his toes not attached to his feet? If you don’t mind me
asking.’
‘They are being bitten off by a nun.’
‘A nun?’
‘A nun in ecstatic state.’
In fact, I learned later, one of the toes was bitten off by a lady
called Isabela de Carom when Saint Francis still lay in Saint Paul’s
chapel. The annals record that she ‘bit off a toe which she carried
away in her mouth as a relic.’ Some years later another toe was
missing. I even met someone whose family still possessed one of
Saint Francis’ toenails.