Kaleidoscope

By Pieter Retif Kenealy

In the last decade of the twentieth century in Suvrinia — a small, independent country situated between Greece and the former Yugoslavia — a priceless painting disappears from the Monte Venero monastery and arts academy.

Was it taken by Lucia Bambolini, once-famous sex symbol of the Italian cinema, whose presence at the academy has not exactly been welcomed? Or was it Pussy Peebles, the rotund Irish orphan who holds a rather large grudge against the Catholic church? Or perhaps it was one of the other colorful denizens of this irreverent outpost.

In this rollicking tale, a cast of eccentric, not-entirely-fictitious characters make finding the culprit—and sorting out the consequences—a page-turning, kaleidoscopic delight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781387944163

Book preview

Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope

A Divertissement

Pieter Retif Kenealy

Cover designed by Mario Rodas Azañón

Frontispiece by Hélène Awad Wahba

Copyright © 2018 Pieter Retif Kenealy. All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-387-94416-3

To my two muses with a talent to amuse, Lisa and Marianna

and to Hélène with love.

Kaleidoscope

ka·lei·do·scope

A constantly changing pattern or sequence of objects or elements.

~

This story takes place in the last decade of the twentieth century in Suvrinia, a small, independent country situated on the border of Greece and the former Yugoslavia.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

In order of appearance:

Vittorio Cingarelli, eccentric Italian millionaire of Bolivian origin

Lucia Bambolini (Lulu Bam-Bam), once-famous sex symbol of the Italian cinema

Padre Francesco, Dominican monk and administrator of the Monte Venero Music Academy

Werner Von Bismarck, Cardinal of the Church, and Rosaria’s twin brother

Rosaria Von Bismarck, Artistic Director of the Monte Venero Music Academy, and Werner’s twin sister

Henriette, pious widow in search of salvation, who lives at the Monte Venero Music Academy

Queen Mobuza, benevolently despotic ruler of Wozaland, a small country surrounded entirely by South Africa

Charlemagne Karlmarx, grandson of Queen Mobuza

Young-sick Park and So-ill Lee, voice students from South Korea

Aurora Borealis, née Bizerka Bonc, famous diva of the Metropolitan Opera

Declan O’Leary, Director of the Organization for Agriculture and Food

Pussy Peebles, Declan O’Leary’s secretary

Ekaterina, Padre Francesco’s secretary at the Monte Venero Music Academy

Dimitry, young waiter at the main hotel in Suvrinia

Arcangelo Pallavicini, son of an old Italian aristocratic family

PROLOGUE

Hollywood, USA, 1934

A wealthy Californian vintner decided to add a new sparkling wine to his catalogue, and name it for his favorite sex goddess (despite the ironic fact that Mae West never touched alcohol). He christened the wine ‘Beulah Mae,’ in honor of West’s most famous utterance: Beulah, peel me a grape. The wine’s popularity added to his already considerable millions.

His success was such that he made the disastrous error of expanding his business into the drug industry, which led to a precipitous flight to Bolivia with the California police in hot pursuit. In Bolivia he married a dusky voluptuary even more sumptuous than his original Hollywood idol, and sired eight sons.

On his father’s death, his youngest son, Vittorio Cingarelli, decided to take his considerable inheritance to Italy and try his luck in that country’s then-thriving movie industry.

Once in Italy, Vittorio set out to fulfill another of his ambitions: to become the fattest man in Europe. In Rome he had a contest with Orson Welles to determine who could eat the most. Both claimed victory, and both needed two chairs, one for each buttock.

CHAPTER 1

At this point in his life Vittorio had already made good with the production of Italy’s first homegrown erotic movies, all starring Lucia Bambolini, or Lulu Bam-Bam to her fans.

A generation of Italian adolescents had gotten their rocks off, learned how to masturbate, discovered the guilty secrets of Eros in the dark of provincial movie theatres thanks to Lulu Bam-Bam.

Strictly a domestic product in the days when Loren and Lollobrigida were storming Hollywood, Lulu had been discovered by Cingarelli at Cinecittà, where she was working in the make-up department. Vittorio put most of his remaining fortune (much of which had already disappeared in unsuccessful speculation) into Lulu’s first film, Sexissimo, which caused a furor on its release. Panned by the Vatican, vilified by the clergy, it had made Lulu an overnight sensation.

His fortune firmly invested in Lulu’s breasts and buttocks, Vittorio was able, after ten years, to buy a sizeable slice of Tuscany and retire to devote himself to another of his passions—wine-making.

Vittorio’s motto: Lo spreco, le gaspillage, waste.

Lulu’s subsequent decline was swifter than the sinking of the Titanic. A sequence of failed marriages, abortive comebacks, and ever-smaller roles, ending classically in a liaison with a man thirty years younger, who, between sexual acrobatics, managed to embezzle what was left of her once-considerable fortune, leaving Lulu with a mountain of debts and no way to pay them.

It was logical that at this time of crisis, Lulu should turn to her friend and mentor Vittorio Cingarelli for help.

CHAPTER 2

The Accademia Dell’Arte Lirica was a plaything of Vittorio Cingarelli. Who could tell why he had decided to invest in the mountain eyrie called the Monte Venero. A love of the arts? Certainly. A spiritual gesture; the possibility that in so doing he would help redeem his immortal soul? Possibly. A sense of adventure? Assuredly.

Monte Venero could be reached only by cable car or a very overgrown footpath. The place was run by Padre Francesco, a Dominican monk who had been granted a special dispensation by the Vatican, which allowed him to undertake this secular activity whilst still remaining in the brotherhood. Except on Saturday evenings, and on Sundays, when he took mass, he wore everyday clothes and was known to almost everyone as Francesco.

His enemies called him cunning, Jesuitical, and self-serving. However, his devotion to the strange mélange of people that had gathered on Monte Venero, and his lack of personal vanity, had made him indispensable to the isolated community perched atop some of the most spectacular scenery in Europe.

Padre Francesco was amongst the many who owed their sexual awakening to Lulu Bam-Bam’s alabaster domes.

CHAPTER 3

The telephone harshly blared in Francesco’s office at the Monte Venero.

Francesco, where the fuck is that whore of a sister of mine? You don’t know? Get your arse out of that chair and find her at once or I’ll make sure your balls roast in hell!

The voice at the end of the line was designed to strike terror, and usually succeeded.

"Yes, your eminence, subito your eminence, at once your eminence..."

And don’t ‘your eminence’ me. We’ve known each other for more years than I care to remember. My name is Werner to you.

Yes, your em… Werner. Francesco put down the phone and flew out the door in search of Rosaria Von Bismarck.

"Sorella mia. Werner’s voice softened as his sister Rosaria took the phone. I just received your message—it seems we have a problem."

"Absolument, mon frere, and it is not a small problem."

Rosaria and Werner had been brought up speaking four languages and would pass from one to another almost without noticing.

So, it is official, this … Bambolini is to take over the Academy?

"Fratello, it is more than a possibility and less than a certainty—you know the circumstances. Cingarelli is a kind man, but easily manipulated—he owes his wealth to Bambolini. He feels he has a debt to repay."

"Donnerwetter, dammit, what debt?!! He made her famous."

And she made him rich. This academy was founded with the money he made from her films.

"Porca troia!" Werner’s Italian obscenity expressed his frustration.

Werner Von Bismarck was phoning from his sumptuous quarters in the Vatican. Werner had decided at age twelve that his vocation was to join the Catholic church. Rosaria had fallen in love with everything theatrical on the evening she had been taken, at age three, to see Gerard Philippe playing Caligula in Paris. Born into an aristocratic and cosmopolitan family, educated in Switzerland, both Werner and Rosaria were accustomed to command.

"Sorella, she must be eliminated."

Werner, as always, we agree. But how?

Werner was pensive—the Bulgarian connection? But no—those solutions were too drastic, and Bambolini after all was only an ambitious fool, not a threat to humanity. Werner was, at heart, a kind man, and, in his own way, devout. Even those who condemned his colorful language admitted that he had never been known to take the Lord’s name in vain. The Pope had once described him, with gentle irony, as a true prince of the church.

"You know, of course, sorella, that Bambolini has been persona non grata with us for many years—causing young Catholics to turn their thoughts to lust and debauchery. I could talk to Monsignor Ratzinger—her presence on Vatican-owned territory would upset him deeply."

But Werner, Rosaria impatiently puffed on her Havana (an inveterate smoker, she was rarely seen without a Cuban cigar), "the Academy is a secular activity and you have already told me that