Veritas (Atto Melani)

by Monaldi, Rita

“Did he say that? I don’t think –” stammered Atto.

  “Word for word, I remember perfectly. He gave you a little coffer and you gave him a little bag of money.”

  “Oh it was nothing important, just a –”

  “No, Signor Atto. Let’s put aside the usual nonsense, if you want me to trust you. Otherwise I’ll turn around and leave you. And to the devil with you and the Grand Dauphin.”

  “Very well, you are right,” he admitted after a few moments’ silence.

  His hands groped the knob of the drawer closest to him. He opened it and took out the little coffer he had received from the Armenian.

  “Here it is. I’ll give it to you, to show that your trust in me is not ill-founded,” he said, handing me the little container.

  I tried to open it, but in vain. It was locked.

  “I’ll give you the key before I leave. I swear it.”

  “I’ve already had experience of your oaths,” I retorted in a sceptical tone.

  “But you can open it whenever you want! You just have to force it. I only ask you not to do so now. I’ll trust you,” he added in a solemn tone, “if you’ll trust me.”

  A great sophist, Abbot Melani, when it came down to trust. But I had to acknowledge that this time I had something concrete in my hands.

  “All right,” I said. “What do you want in exchange for the coffer?”

  “That until you open it you ask me no more questions about the Armenian.”

  “When do you intend to leave again?” I asked after pocketing the coffer.

  “As soon as I have understood who the shadow-man is.”

  “The shadow-man?”

  “The man who acts as intermediary between the killers of His Caesarean Majesty and the Grand Dauphin and the instigators.”

  “A secret agent?”

  “There is someone in Vienna who superintends and organises the moves of the perpetrators, whoever they are. It cannot be otherwise.”

  The shadow-man: Atto Melani was all too familiar with this role! Wasn’t it the role I had always seen him play? Who, eleven years ago, had organised the conspiracy that had caused the war of succession to break out? Atto Melani was neither the instigator (France) nor the perpetrator (a simple scribe). But he had organised and guided the diabolical machine that had forged the will of a king, led three cardinals to betray the Pope in person and even obtained the election of one of the three traitors as the new pope.

  Now for the first time I was seeing the Abbot wrong-footed by a new Atto Melani. Someone, who was of course much younger than him, and in the pay of other powers – Holland, England or who knows who – had taken the old castrato’s place and was setting a fatal and ingenious trap for the Emperor.

  “Maybe this shadow-man,” I remarked, “is spying on our moves. He might be behind the murder of Dànilo, Hristo, Dragomir and, perhaps, Koloman.”

  “If so, it would be good to unmask him before we find him behind our backs.”

  For once we allowed ourselves a little comfort. Abbot Melani would certainly not be able to reach Neugebäu on foot, or in our miserable chimney-sweep’s cart. So Simonis engaged the Pennal, who transported us all much more commodiously and swiftly. Some obscure foreboding had induced me to leave our little boy at Porta Coeli, in the care of Camilla, who had generously agreed to look after him until either Cloridia or I returned.

  As Penicek’s cart made its jolting way towards our destination, I found myself picturing the corpses of those poor lads: Dànilo’s agonised expression, Hristo’s swollen blue face, Dragomir’s mangled pudenda, and finally Koloman impaled on the pikes. I squeezed my eyelids tight and shook my head, trying to expel from my breast the wave of nausea and anguish surging within me. Death had reaped a rich harvest from the small group of students. Whose turn would it be next? Penicek? Or perhaps Simonis? Or Opalinski? I looked at my assistant sitting opposite me; his dull eyes were fixed inertly on the horizon, as if he had no worries. But it was just an act: I knew that, were he to be assailed by the most tremendous tempest, his gaze would remain the same. Penicek sat on the box seat. No one was questioning him and so he kept quiet, locked in his grim Pennal’s cage, condemned to serve the Barber for one year, six months, six weeks, six days and six minutes. Finally I thought of Opalinski again: he too had trembled at the appalling sight of his Hungarian friend. And to think that until a short while ago Jan Janitzki had shown no fear. Inexplicable behaviour, in the light of subsequent events. I asked Simonis about it.

  “Well, Signor Master, it’s due to his occupation. Outside study hours, that is, of course.”

  “And what is it?”

  “It’s a little complicated, Signor Master. Do you know what the ‘right of quarters’ is here in Vienna?”

  Since ancient times, Simonis explained, the Emperor had had the right to claim all rented property for himself and for the court. Ever since the ancient Caesars, travelling through their lands, had entrusted the Court Marshal with the task of requisitioning the lodgings needed for overnight stays. This custom, which takes the name of the right of quarters, had spread to Vienna as well, as the city became the seat of an increasingly large and important court, and of a growing number of functionaries, chancellors, musicians, copyists, dancers, soldiers, stewards, cantors, poets, servants, cooks, footmen, retainers, assistants, assistants’ assistants, and parasites of all sorts.

  “Many think that having an imperial functionary as tenant is both elegant and desirable. Quite the contrary!”

  This was how things went. One fine day an imperial functionary would knock at the door and, with a decree in his hand, announce that from that moment on the apartment was at his disposal. In the space of a few days the owner and his family either had to accept cohabitation or move out. If the owner refused, they would forcefully requisition the whole of his house, or his shop, or even the entire palace, if it belonged to him. After this, without any bargaining, a derisory rent would be set by the imperial chamber. The imperial functionary, not content with this result, instead of using the confiscated apartment, would sublet it.

  “And is that allowed?” asked Abbot Melani.

  “Of course not. But in the shadow of the Caesarean court anything can be done,” sneered Simonis.

  The poor owner would thus find his apartment invaded by mysterious strangers who would carry off his furniture, rip out doors and windows, and often sublet in turn to the most disreputable types. The beautiful apartment would end up as a stinking den, a home to all sorts of shady business, including prostitution, sometimes even murders. There were even cases in which the occupiers, too slovenly to light the fire in the hearth, would make a big bonfire on the wooden floor, and the whole apartment would go up in flames. Meanwhile the imperial chamber, permanently in debt, would not even pay the rent. And if the owner protested the imperial functionary could actually follow the ancient custom of stoning him.

  “This malpractice can become so bad,” my assistant went on, “that at times it is the emperors themselves who evict the occupiers. Ferdinand I had an entire palace next to the royal palace emptied, because the functionaries who had settled there were always drunk and made so much noise that they disturbed the imperial sessions, and they were so incompetent in handling the stoves and fireplaces that they risked setting alight both their own building and the royal palace.”

  “And what does Opalinski have to do with all this?” I asked at the end of the explanation.

  “It’s simple: he acts as intermediary for the subletting agreements.”

  “Didn’t you say they were illegal?”

  “Certainly. In fact, they can present real risks: for example, when the owner of the apartment has friends at court and decides to get his own back on the functionary who expropriated him, or on the intermediary himself. Opalinski is used to risks, familiar with fear. It must be acknowledged: Jan is truly a courageous Pole. It’s only now, after what happened to Koloman, that I’ve seen him get really nervous.”

  Meanwhile we
had arrived in Neugebäu, greeted by the dazzle of its white marble. As a good son does with his tired father, I would have liked to show Atto, had his eyeballs not been deprived of light, Maximilian II’s majestic building, its gardens, its generous fish ponds, its towers, the seraglio of the ferocious animals and the unconfined view that could be enjoyed from the northern terrace. Prior to entering the Place with No Name I had given him a brief description of its treasures and history, so that he did not arrive completely unprepared in this trove of memories, suspended between the tragic past of Maximilian and the present, no less sinisterly shaded, of the young Joseph. I had summarised Maximilian’s struggles with the Turks, the birth of Neugebäu as a parody of the tent of Suleiman the Magnificent, the tragic death of the Emperor and the plots woven against him. I had of course said nothing of the only detail which he would never have believed: the Flying Ship and the supernatural wonders that Simonis and I had witnessed.

  Atto had listened to my whole account of the dark history of the Place with No Name with extreme interest, nodding at those parts he already knew, prudently remaining silent during those that were new to him.

  I could not, with my feeble oratorical powers, render the greatness of the place denied to him by his blind eyes, and I knew – or at least I felt – that he was afflicted by it to the depths of his soul, because this was the definitive proof of his decline: twenty-eight years earlier I had known him to be thirsty for all aspects of learning, every curiosity, every secret, and intent even on writing a guide to Rome in his spare time, so as to satisfy his creative bent and his appetite for knowledge. Now that his body betrayed him, his inner faculties were all slaves to circumstances; curiosity had to yield to resignation, haste to patience, intelligence to ignorance. Atto would never see Neugebäu.

  Once we had reached our destination, after bidding farewell to the Pennal (he would come by to pick us up later), we went first of all to introduce our bizarre party to Frosch. The keeper of the Place with No Name, who had been surprised to see us arriving in Penicek’s gig, cast a sceptical eye at Abbot Melani.

  “Is he a new apprentice, replacing the little boy?” he laughed with coarse, bold humour, pointing at Atto.

  Frosch asked us no questions about our previous day’s work at Neugebäu. If he was not a skilful dissimulator (and drunkards generally are not), this meant he had not seen us take off in the Flying Ship, nor indeed land in it. I heaved a surreptitious sigh of relief: I certainly did not want to share with the drunken Cerberus the incredible secret of the flight that Simonis and I had undertaken.

  We passed in front of the ball stadium and I cast a silent glance at the Flying Ship. It was where we had left it, lying limp on the ground. Its birdlike features, as awkward as they were bizarre, gave no intimation that it was capable of soaring lightly and nimbly among the clouds. I looked sidelong at Simonis: at the sight of the ship his doltish eyeballs seemed to grow wide and cloud over with emotion. Even Abbot Melani, unconscious of everything and locked in the darkness of his blind eyes, as he passed in front of the ball stadium, turned his head imperceptibly towards the Flying Ship, as if it had sent out an invisible, magnetic summons. “The power of blindness!” I thought. Those unable to see perceive what is invisible to the rest of us.

  In the ball stadium only one detail had changed from our previous visits: at the far end of the great rectangular space were stacked the birdcages, full of their vociferous occupants. Atto heard the chattering noise and asked me about it. I turned and asked Frosch.

  “Martens. Last night they did away with half a dozen Indian pullets.”

  The keeper explained that he had put the cages in the ball stadium because the stable door had been broken, and the predators had immediately taken advantage of the accident. Tonight the birds of the Place with No Name would sleep safely: the stadium, whose doors were in good condition, presented no such risks. As soon as the stable door had been mended, the cages would go back there. For the moment, since the weather was now quite warm, the birds could even sleep in the open.

  Atto was greatly struck when he heard the racket made by the lions, panthers and other fierce beasts: it was their meal time, and the hungry animals let out slavering howls. I briefly described the appearance and attitude of each carnivore, depicting how they gripped and tore at the red meats distributed to them by their keeper. He asked me if there was any risk of them escaping. I then told him of my encounter with Mustafa, on my first visit to the Place with No Name.

  “Being blind, I wouldn’t have a chance to escape from the lion. But then he’d find my bones getting stuck in his teeth, ha ha!” he joked.

  During our first hour of work everything went smoothly. Abbot Melani remained at a prudent distance from us, sitting on a stool, taking great care not to get dusty: as soon as any dirty cloud reached his nose, amid sneezes and imprecations he would ask to be placed a little further off to spare his clothes, which were the usual green and black. It was surprising, I thought, how attentive the Abbot was to his outward appearance, even though he could not see himself in the mirror.

  We took up our work at the point where we had left off the previous occasion. We entered the mansion by the main door and once again started with the large rooms on the ground floor. On the previous occasion we had finished the central entrance hall and the two side rooms. We went to the left, crossed the great terrace and reached the western keep, access to which was by a door. It was locked.

  “We’ll have to get the keys from Frosch,” I remarked. “Meanwhile we’ll try on the opposite side.”

  In the meantime I was trying to describe to Abbot Melani the wonders of the view that could be enjoyed from the terrace, the grandiose conception of the architect, the touching personal involvement of Maximilian, who must have followed the project from its outset to its realisation.

  As we walked away, I thought I heard, from a direction that could not be identified, a noise – a long, shrill rumbling sound that I had heard before. But it was such a vague sensation that I did not dare to ask the others for confirmation, lest they should take me for a visionary or a coward. So we re-crossed the three entrance halls, and then came out into the open air again, onto the terrace in the opposite wing, finally reaching the eastern keep. Here the door was open.

  Inside we found a broad space that resembled a large chapel.

  “I think it was to be set aside for divine service,” Simonis confirmed, “if only Maximilian had been able to finish it.”

  We set down to work. The job did not take long. As soon as it was over we went to the outside of the mansion and re-entered by the eastern keep. From here we visited the whole of the semi-basement floor. It was in the eastern keep, according to Frosch, that Rudolph the Mad had carried out his experiments in magic and alchemy. However, we found no obvious signs of ovens, alembics or other such devilries. If that had once been the place where Rudolph celebrated his follies, time must have mercifully cancelled all traces. The ghosts that the Viennese (but also the chimney-sweeps, my fellow countrymen) fantasised about had left no marks of their presence.

  Proceeding towards the central point of the house, we found the next room was a long gallery with round vaults, lit by broad, low windows that opened on the north side.

  “This was where Maximilian wanted to set up his antiquarium, his collection of marvels. On the walls he wanted to display triumphal monuments, statues, tapestries and trophies,” explained Simonis.

  All we could see, however, was a bare stone corridor, made just a little more graceful by the fine curves of the ceiling. Every stone, I was saying to myself, seemed to express melancholy at its unfulfilled destiny, when Abbot Melani interrupted my thoughts.

  “Did you catch that?”

  “What?” said Simonis.

  “Four times. It was repeated four times.”

  “A strange sound, right?” I said, thinking of the curious noise, halfway between an acute trumpet and a percussion instrument, which I had heard from the terrace.

&nb
sp; “Not a sound: a vibration. Like the firing of a cannon, but muffled.”

  Simonis and I exchanged glances. It was no surprise that Atto should have heard a noise that was imperceptible to us: blind people are known for the acuteness of their tympani. But it could be something else: bizarre perceptions could also be attributed, alas, to the wandering mind of an old man.

  Having completed our work of inspection and maintenance, we had come to the middle of the semi-basement. Just above our heads, on the ground-floor level, was the mansion’s main entrance. From the point where we stood a couple of ramps descended underground, leading to a door that gave onto the rear of Neugebäu. From there we had a view that took in the gardens and the large fish pond to the north, and which widened out gloriously to the fields and woods beyond.

  When we had finished our short reconnaissance, we went back towards the ramp and then towards the centre of the semi-basement. We began to explore the west wing. We had just begun to examine the southern wall when the strange phenomenon re-occurred.

  “Did you hear that?” asked Atto, perturbed again.

  This time I had heard something too. A hollow and indistinct thud, as if above and around us a giant had gently set a Cyclopic bass drum vibrating. Simonis, however, had not noticed anything.

  “We must finish the job,” said my assistant, vaguely vexed that his hearing was not sharp enough.

  “You’re right,” I agreed, hoping that I had been mistaken, or that work might magically wipe from my mind all memories of the arcane signal.

  Rummaging in a bag of tools for a broom, and groping among a thousand irons of all kinds, my fingertips touched a quadrangular-shaped object. It was Hristo Hadji-Tanjov’s chessboard, still wrapped in the little bag that its ill-fated owner had thrust it into.

  In order not to risk losing it, I had put it among our tools, which I always put away securely. I pulled it out and dusted off the object that had saved my life three days earlier, but unfortunately not that of its owner. Simonis and I exchanged mournful glances.