Veritas (Atto Melani)

by Monaldi, Rita

  He was taken to the inn of the Black Eagle, where he was able to rest for a few hours, after which he delivered some letters he had with him, and he recounted to the Ambassador of Portugal and to other Noblemen who had called to visit him in what fashion he had set off from Lisbon at six in the morning the previous day in the Flying Machine of his own invention, what great difficulties and adventures he had experienced with eagles, storks, birds of Paradise and other species, with which he had been forced to combat unceasingly, declaring that without the two shotguns and the four rifles that he had with him, and which he had had to use constantly, he would not have survived.

  When he passed close to the moon, so he recounted, he realised that he had been sighted himself, which aroused a great tumult on the Moon; and since his flight had brought him very close to the Lunar Planet, he was able to see and distinguish everything and, as far as his haste permitted him, he noted that on it there are mountains and valleys, lakes and rivers and fields, and even living creatures, and men who, so he said, have hands like men down here, but no feet, and who slide on the ground like snails, and bear on their backs a shield like that of tortoises, into which they can withdraw their whole body and take shelter. And since in this way they have no need of any dwelling space, he thought that it was for this reason that on the planet Moon there is not a single house, nor a castle. According to him, if the Kingdom of the Moon were attacked with forty or fifty Flying Ships like the one he had invented, each with four or five armed men, it could be conquered with great ease, and without encountering great resistance. It will be seen later whether His Royal Majesty of Portugal will wish to undertake such a conquest.

  I will make known with the next courier what else I can find out about this new Theseus. His Machine has been taken to the arsenal.

  P.S.

  I have just been informed that the so-called Flying Navigator has been incarcerated, as a Magician and Sorcerer of the first rank, and it appears that he will be burned with great urgency together with his Pegasus; this is perhaps to keep his art secret, since if it became common knowledge it could cause great trouble in the world.

  I asked him if the winged sailing ship which lay abandoned in the Place with No Name was really the glying ship spoken of in the dispatch. By way of answer Frosch handed me another piece of paper. This time it was an illustration taken from an old issue of the Diary of Vienna.

  There was not the shadow of a doubt: it was a faithful drawing of the ship. It was accompanied by a short account dated 1st June 1709:

  There has arrived here at the Caesarean Court from Portugal a courier with letters of 4th May and the present illustration of a device for flying, capable of travelling two hundred miles in twenty-four hours and with which war troops, letters, reinforcements, provisions and money could be sent even to the farthest lands, and in addition places under siege could be supplied with all necessities, including goods and commerce. A document has been shown which was presented to His Majesty the King of Portugal by a Brazilian priest, inventor of the aircraft. On 24th June next a trial flight will be essayed in Lisbon.

  I felt a jolt in my heart: had that sailing ship really flown, as I had believed it to be doing in my desperate agitation?

  It was no surprise that the ship had come from Portugal, Frosch went on to explain: just a year earlier, in 1708, the king of that country had married one of Joseph’s sisters, Anna Maria. The ship had remained for a few months in the city arsenal, until the emotions aroused by its arrival had calmed down. Meanwhile the city authorities, as was reported in the gazette, had done all they could to hush the matter up. Nothing had been recounted to the Emperor: Joseph was very young, lively in spirit and enterprising; he had already become overexcited at the sight of the drawings brought to him by the Portuguese courier. He would certainly have wanted to see and study the diabolical invention, and this, in the opinion of the old ministers, was to be avoided at all costs. No one must know. The Flying Ship was dangerous, and could provoke turmoil and disorder.

  I was amazed at these words: had not man dreamt for centuries of cleaving the air like a bird? It was no surprise that Frosch’s gazette compared the Flying Ship to the mythical Pegasus, the winged ship from the ancient Greek sagas, and its pilot to the heroic Theseus, slayer of the Minotaur. Nonetheless, the gazette openly condemned the poor aerial wayfarer, who had even been incarcerated. I myself would have given my own soul to find out how he had flown, and where he had obtained his knowledge. I asked the keeper if he knew anything. He shook his head.

  Once the matter had been hushed up, he continued, the caravel of the air was secretly transported outside Vienna, to the abandoned castle. Nobody was likely to go snooping around there. And if it were to be needed one day, it could always be salvaged.

  I walked around the boat, and then boarded it, clambering up on one of the wings, which were carved in wood like the tail and the bird’s head, and which served almost as gangplanks.

  Overhead were ropes supported by four poles, two at the prow and two at the stern, similar to the cords one uses to hang washing. Only it was not clothes that were hung from them, but stones. They were little yellow things that sparkled, and they were secured to the ropes with little pieces of string. Not being able to reach them with my hand, I screwed up my eyes, trying to make out what material they were made of, and suddenly I realised:

  “Amber. It’s amber. Good Lord, it’s beautiful, it looks like good quality. It must cost an arm and a leg. Why on earth have they been put there . . .”

  Once again I glanced at Frosch; I could tell from his face he had no idea what purpose the stones served.

  I climbed down and examined the mysterious vessel again. The curious machine, to tell the truth, was not in the pitiful state to which a prolonged exposure to rain, wind and sun might have reduced it. The wood was actually in good condition; it was as if, every so often, someone had rubbed it over with a protective oily varnish, like the one I had seen fishermen brush their boats with on the Tiber in Rome. Then I noticed that the surface of the hull was not flat and smooth, like the fishing boats. It was made up of rectilinear tubes that ran the whole length from prow to stern, as if the craft were nothing more than a bundle of pipes.

  I tapped my knuckles on one of the tubes. It sounded hollow, as did the others that I tried. The tubes had moulded openings towards the prow as if they were supposed to collect something. At the stern – which is to say, at the tail end of these tubes – were trumpet-like openings, which appeared to be made to channel upwards – and so towards the sail that covered the whole boat – what was collected at the prow.

  I had a look at the mast, which was still upright, at the proud prow, and at the small graceful deck. Here and there planks had been replaced, cracks patched up, loose nails fixed. Under close inspection, the small ship did not appear damaged or derelict. It was just out of commission, as if in the Place with No Name it had found a dock where it could be fixed, and perhaps also an attentive ship-boy to look after it.

  “It’s a small ship in every sense,” I remarked, as I stroked the keel meditatively, which was not at all worn.

  “Right, a ship of fools!” quipped the keeper with a coarse laugh.

  At those words I gave a start.

  I wanted to get away. The afternoon’s events had prostrated me. What was more, I was now on foot: Simonis had fled with the cart to take my little boy to safety. I had a long walk ahead of me. I would come back the next day to start work. I told Frosch so, asking him to look after the chimney-sweeping tools that I had left in the cellar when I took to my heels.

  Before leaving, I gave a last look at the building we were in. As I had already noticed, it had no roof. But it was only then that I realised how enormous this space was – as broad, long and tall as an entire palace.

  “What is . . . What is this place?” I asked in surprise.

  “The ball stadium,” answered Frosch.

  And he explained (although, I repeat, it was not always easy for me
to follow his idiom) that in the days of Emperor Maximilian, the founder of the Place with No Name, the ball game imported from Italy had become popular among the great lords. In this recreation the players faced one another with a sort of wooden sheath on their arms, with which they competed for a leather ball, slamming it vigorously, like cannon shots, trying to get the better of their adversaries. Frosch added with a snigger that wearing your guts out over a ball was ridiculous, and unsuited to the court of a Caesar, and a game of this sort was bound to be forgotten forever, and this, indeed, was what had happened; but in those remote times the pastime must have had quite a following, because otherwise such a generous space would not have been set aside for it.

  Frosch was a wild-looking man with a big pear-shaped face, which was grey down to his nose and rubicund below the cheeks, with a greying moustache, pale eyes, a large belly and hands as large and rough as shovels. He was not likeable, I thought, but nor was he bad. He was a man to be treated with circumspection, like his wild animals: animals are capricious by nature, man becomes so through a thoughtless love of alcohol. Frosch could tame lions, but not his own thirst.

  Throughout our conversation I had kept an eye on Mustafa, incredulous that such an enormous beast, however poorly in appearance, was allowed to stay outside a cage. He tore his meat to pieces, ravaging it with his fearsome fangs and claws; only an attentive eye revealed his advanced age and the lack of that vital force which, had it still been present, would have been the end of me just a few minutes earlier.

  Pulling the lion by his chain, the keeper led him out of the stadium. He announced that before I set to work it would perhaps be prudent if he showed me around the place and the other beasts locked up there. He suggested that we should take a short tour, so that I would avoid any other nasty surprises tomorrow. I agreed, although with a touch of anxiety at that word “prudent”, which Frosch had stressed.

  “No one ever comes to check up on things here,” remarked the keeper disconsolately.

  Unfortunately it was very rare for an imperial commissioner to come and visit the collection of exotic animals in the Place with No Name, Neugebäu. At the court, explained Frosch sadly, this place, which had once been so splendid, had been forgotten about by everyone – at least until the advent of beloved Joseph I. Now the feeding expenses for Mustafa and his companions were paid more regularly, as were their keeper’s wages, and this had made him hopeful for the future of Neugebäu. In particular, three years earlier, in 1708 – it had been the afternoon of Sunday 18th March, Frosch remembered it clearly – the Emperor, together with a great suite of ladies and gentlemen of the court, had accompanied his sister-in-law, Princess Elizabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wofenbüttel, to the Place with No Name. As his brother Charles was in Barcelona staking his claim for the Spanish throne, Joseph had represented him at the marriage celebrated by proxy between Charles and the German princess in Vienna. Then, shortly before she herself set out for Spain to join her husband, Joseph had chosen, as an act of homage, to show her the wild animals kept at Neugebäu, especially the two lions and the panther, which had only recently been acquired. This had been a memorable event in the poor keeper’s forgotten life; with his own eyes he had seen His Caesarean Majesty strolling the avenues of the garden and with his own ears had heard him announce, in youthful, vigorous tones, that the place would soon be restored to fresh life. But time had gone by since then; it was already six years since Joseph I had ascended to the throne and the castle was still in a pitiful state.

  “Well, what can we do?” Frosch grunted sadly.

  Those days were over, I asserted. Now Emperor Joseph wanted to put everything to rights again; I myself had been summoned to start inspecting the flues and the chimneys. Restoration work would soon get under way.

  Frosch’s eyes gleamed with something similar to joy and hope, but a moment later he was staring vacantly again.

  “Well, let’s hope for the best,” he concluded dully.

  Without adding anything he turned his flask upside down and noted with disappointment that it was empty. He mumbled that he had to go back and see someone called Slibowitz, or some such name, and get it refilled.

  Such is the pessimistic nature of the Viennese: subjected for centuries to the same imperial authority, they are always sceptical of any good news, even when it is what they long for. They prefer to renounce all hope and prepare themselves with philosophic resignation to undergo inconveniences they consider inevitable.

  As we proceeded I grew aware of a filthy and nauseating stink, and a sort of low-pitched, hostile growling. A little further on a barred fence blocked the way; beyond it was a ditch. Frosch signalled to me to stop. He led the lion forward, drew from his trousers a set of keys, opened a narrow gate in the railing and pushed Mustafa inside. Then he locked it again, turned back to me and led me into a colonnade, which looked down to the right onto a series of ditches, from which came the stink and the grunts. I shuddered as soon as I could peer down: in addition to Mustafa, the ditches held more lions, tigers, lynxes and bears, such as I had only ever seen in book engravings. Frosch was clearly satisfied by my expression, which was one of both amazement and terror. I had never thought to see so many beasts of that size assembled together. From one of the ditches, a tiger cast a suspicious and hungry look up at me. I shivered and instinctively drew back, as if trying to hide behind the railing that protected the visitor from falling into that abyss of jaws, fangs and claws. From each of the ditches rose palpable waves telling of torn flesh, bloody cravings and murderous desires.

  “It takes a lot of meat every day. But it’s the Emperor that pays, ha ha ha!” laughed Frosch heartily, giving me such a violent slap on the shoulder that I swayed. Two bears, meanwhile, were fighting over an old bone. Only Mustafa remained all by himself in his pit. He was ill and detested the company of his fellow creatures; he preferred to take a walk every so often with his keeper, Frosch explained.

  We turned back. From one of the buildings alongside the spiral staircase I could hear an insistent and noisy chirping. I recognised it at once.

  As soon as I entered the building, the chirping grew deafening. It came from birdcages, and the noise and sight instantly took me back to those happy days when I had looked after the aviaries at Villa Spada, in the service of the Lord Cardinal Secretary of the Vatican State. I was well acquainted with the feathered race, and I felt a pang when I saw how Frosch cared for the poor creatures in the Place with No Name. Instead of the commodious aviaries that I had tended at Villa Spada, the cages here were cramped and smelly, only fit for chickens and turkeys. What sunlight there was came filtering in through the door and from a couple of windows. Every specimen was in danger of suffocating, crammed together with dozens of others in the same prison. I saw species I knew, but there were many I had never seen before: marvellous birds of paradise, parrots, parakeets, carpofori, dwarf-birds, birds that resembled bats and butterflies, with wings of gold, jute and silk. The vast cavernous space containing the wretched cages was worthy of attention and admiration: it was a huge stable, as Frosch explained, which someone had decided to embellish with grand Tuscan columns. The upper capitals, close to the ceiling, were linked by great transversal arches, which intermeshed creating a network of vaults, in which light and dark mingled in an artistic contest of honest and decent beauty.

  The poor birds, being extremely delicate (even the most robust bird of prey is so in captivity), clearly suffered from their cramped conditions. Frosch explained that these had originally been the stables of the Place With no Name and when the aviaries had fallen into disrepair, no one had troubled to build any new ones; at least in the stables the birds were sheltered from the excessive winter cold, and, as the door could be sealed hermetically, they were protected from the beech martens.

  Frosch asked me whether I wanted to visit the rest of the castle now that I was here, but the sun was already sinking and I remembered that I had to walk all the way home. I was also anxious to get back to Cloridia, wh
o – if Simonis had already recounted what had happened – would have fainted by now, at the very least.

  I remounted the spiral staircase, bade him a hasty farewell and said I would return the next day.

  On my way home, I gave free rein to my thoughts and my memories, which, from the moment we had left the Flying Ship, had been seething away in a corner of my brain.

  Could that strange rattletrap really have flown all those years ago? The gazette undoubtedly contained details of pure fantasy, like the sightings of the inhabitants of the moon. But it was hard to believe it was entirely mendacious; the author could have invented with impunity events that had happened in far-off, exotic lands (and God alone can say how many gazetteers have done such things!), but not the arrival of an airship in the very capital of the Empire, where the gazette, although originally written for a fair, enjoyed a wide circulation.

  But there was more to it than this. Frosch had described the device as a “ship of fools”. This had sparked off a number of memories for me.

  Eleven years earlier, in Rome, with Abbot Melani: a villa, abandoned just like the Place with No Name, which had the bizarre form of a ship (it was known, in fact, as “the Vessel”), had hosted a strange character dressed in black like a monk (just like the pilot of the Flying Ship), who had appeared before us hovering above the battlements of the villa, playing a Portuguese melody known as the folia, or “Foolishness”, and reciting verses from a poem entitled “The Ship of Fools”. Subsequently we discovered that he was not in fact flying. He was a violinist, and his name was Albicastro. He had gone off, one day, to enlist in the war. I had heard no more of him. Often, over the years, I had thought of him and his teachings and wondered what had become of him.