The Eye Stone

by Roberto Tiraboschi

  Edgardo raised his head from the parchment and examined his work. He was still a modest copyist, despite that heavy contraption in front of his nose.

  Segrado approached and bent over the page. “These are the words I dictated to you . . . ?”

  “Yes, Maestro.”

  He shook his head, incredulous. “The canker take me. Did I really say all that?”

  Edgardo nodded with satisfaction.

  “You’re a talented copyist,” Segrado exclaimed. “Listen, could you add my name at the bottom of the formula? My name is Angelo Segrado, glassmaker.”

  Edgardo was about to transcribe the signature, but stopped. “Would you like to do it yourself, Maestro?”

  “What do you mean? You know I can’t write.” He sounded vexed.

  “I’ll guide your hand.”

  Segrado was suddenly agitated, and anxiously looked at his hand, almost as though he had been asked to lay it on the fire. “Really? Could you do that?” He had the same childlike tone Kallis sometimes had.

  Edgardo stood up and gestured to Segrado to sit in his place. He placed the quill in his hand, put his own hand over it, and started guiding it. He noticed with surprise that the large bear paw could move with the delicacy and lightness of glass itself.

  “Angelo Segrado,” the scribe spelled out.

  As by a miracle, a black arabesque appeared on the parchment. A subtle, refined miniature. Segrado’s toothless mouth opened into a great big smile he had never seen before. He was so happy, admiring his work with an entranced expression, that at that moment it struck Edgardo that he did not care if Segrado killed him. He removed the discs from his nose and placed them delicately on the workbench.

  “And now, Maestro, may I ask you a favor?”

  Segrado seemed taken aback.

  “I’m asking you to set Kallis free. I want to make her my bride.”

  Segrado’s face tensed. He seemed wounded, at a loss. “Kallis . . . your bride? Dear God, what are you saying? Kallis is very different than how she appears. It would be a serious mistake. You don’t know anything about her . . . Wait, it’s time to reveal the truth to you.”

  At that moment, the door was flung open, and the scirocco wind enveloped the furnace, blowing on the fire. At the door, barely lit by the gray hues of a dawn stifled by the storm, Kallis stood motionless, staring at them.

  She was shaking and her eyes were wild, her face moist with sweat. Her body, wrapped in a cloak swelled by the wind, seemed gigantic. The door kept slamming and the flames undulated in the furnace, casting sinister shadows on the walls.

  Edgardo looked at her, puzzled.

  “Have you already transcribed the formula?” Kallis asked, panting.

  Edgardo lifted the sheet of parchment.

  “No!” she screamed. “No . . . Why did you do it? Merciful God. Why?” She covered her face with her hands.

  XXIX.

  THE BATTLE

  A powerful gust of wind shook the roof. The walls creaked and the fire in the furnace went out, leaving just two dark shadows in the room. Their bodies gave off the wild smell of animals shut in a cage. The cage of their faults, their fears, their regrets.

  As though she had suddenly regained her sense of balance in the dark, Kallis slowly closed the door behind her, took a small step to the side and, with an artificially calm voice, said, “I’d asked you not to write down that formula. Why did you do it?”

  Her words resounded in the dark like arrows shot by invisible bows.

  Instinctively, to avoid being hit, Edgardo took a step back and, still clutching the parchment, moved away from Segrado, who remained rooted to the ground—a mass of heavy, shiny granite, which nobody could dent.

  “In exchange for this favor, I’ve asked the maestro to set you free, to let you go.” Edgardo was surprised by the calmness and steadiness of his own voice. He turned to Segrado. “You mustn’t fear. I’ve sworn I will never divulge this formula to anyone. I’ve already forgotten it. There’s no point in killing me. Let us go. I only want to take Kallis away.”

  There was a clanging of irons rolling on the floor. Segrado’s huge shadow had moved back, as though he had lost his balance.

  “Kill you?” His voice was broken, filled with sadness. “Why would I kill you?”

  Edgardo desperately sought Kallis’s face in the darkness, hoping for a sign, a word. He sensed a quiver through the air, the flapping wings of a lost illusion.

  “Edgardo, I beg you, destroy that parchment. Throw it into the fire.” Kallis’s voice was metallic. The tone of request concealed an order that admitted no refusal. “Now he doesn’t need you anymore, you’re just a witness, and he’ll kill you.”

  “What are you saying? You’re lying!” Segrado’s voice rose, powerful, and echoed across the room, above the noise of the wind. “I never thought of getting rid of him.”

  Edgardo stopped, seized by a realization. His body shook, giving off a scent of deep sadness. He took a step toward Kallis.

  “It’s you who doesn’t want there to be a written-down formula, isn’t it? You don’t want the formula to end up in somebody else’s hands. It’s true, isn’t it? Confess . . . ”

  A long silence stifled the illusion of a reply. In the dark, Edgardo tried to find the features of her face, the beating of her heart. He moved toward her, seeking the warmth of her body, yearning for a confirmation that would bring some peace and hope to his tormented thoughts.

  “Is that true, Kallis? Is this formula really so important to you?” Edgardo lifted the parchment. “I don’t understand. Why?”

  “He’ll kill you, he’ll kill you,” Kallis repeated.

  Segrado approached Edgardo. “All right . . . Let’s make a deal. Take her away . . . Leave me the parchment, take Kallis and go away together, far away. Isn’t that what you wanted, scribe? There. You’re free. Free!” His tone grew more intense, filling the foundry. “You’re free, Kallis, finally free. Go away. Go away with your scribe.”

  There! Destiny had been fulfilled and nothing else mattered. The battle was won. Edgardo went up to Kallis and took her hand. It was stiff and cold.

  “Did you hear? Let’s leave. He won’t stop you. He won’t kill me. We’re free.” He put the parchment on the workbench.

  “Stop!” Kallis screamed. “This parchment belongs to me!”

  “So now you understand,” Segrado said in a deep, ailing voice. “You heard her with your own ears. She doesn’t care about you. She doesn’t want her freedom. She’s always been free. What matters to her is the formula, the secret, power . . . Isn’t that true, Kallis?”

  “Deny it, I beg you, dispel all my doubts, look into my eyes, and give me hope,” Edgardo whispered a final prayer to himself. Enclosed in her armor, Kallis was preparing for battle. Her nerves were tense, ready to spring, her features like threads of iron.

  “Segrado, you know this parchment belongs to me, just as all this belongs to me.” She indicated everything in the foundry. “It’s mine by right—a right you refuse to acknowledge. I’ve learned your art by living at your side all these years, by spying on your every move, your every attempt. I’ve suffered your failures with you and rejoiced in your discovery of crystalline glass, but always in silence, obeying, working like a mule, enduring beatings, bearing your insults . . . ” Kallis’s eyes were filled with sadness. “And, in return, you have always favored others over me. You raised garzoni as your disciples, treating them like your sons, while I have never been anything to you. You see, even now, you chose to have the formula written down so it can be passed on to some learned glassmaker who can also read, and you didn’t even spare a thought for me. For you I don’t exist. I am nothing. Just a bastard slave with no rights, no soul, and no heart. I’m taking all that’s mine.”

  “You’re wrong,” Segrado replied. “Nothing belongs to you. You have no rights.”
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br />   “I’m telling the truth.” Kallis’s tone was so calm, her voice so gentle, it sounded unreal. “Have the courage to admit it, Segrado. At least once, utter that word before an innocent bystander, utter it for the love of God.”

  Segrado huffed and grunted, expelling air from his nostrils as though with bellows, but said nothing.

  “You’re a coward. I’ll tell the truth, then.”

  Kallis approached Edgardo so that their faces were almost touching. He could hear her raucous breathing.

  “I’m his daughter . . . his daughter . . . his daughter!” she screamed. “Isn’t that true, Segrado? Have you got the courage to deny it? I’m the heir to your art—me, the repository of your secrets. I’m your family, your blood, your name . . . whether you like it or not.”

  The master’s voice tore through the air like an arrow, and stuck into Kallis’s heart. “You’re not my family. You’re nothing to me . . . You’re just a slave, the daughter of a slave.”

  “It’s the truth!” Kallis shouted. “A slave, the daughter of a slave you got pregnant without any compassion. After using her and exploiting her, you beat her to death, like a dog, because she was no longer any use to you. She was old and tired, so you replaced her with a fresh young slave. You didn’t care that she was your daughter.”

  Segrado swayed. A gust of wind whistled through the reeds.

  “He killed her without pity.” Kallis brushed Edgardo’s arm. “Just because she didn’t obey an order.”

  “I didn’t want to kill her, I swear.” For the first time, Edgardo heard genuine pain in Segrado’s voice. “Anger betrayed me and took over my mind. I lost all sense of reason. But I really didn’t want to. I’ve been oppressed with guilt for years. I’ve atoned . . . Only now has God sent me a sign of His forgiveness. When I obtained crystalline glass, I had the proof that my soul had become pure again. The cruet containing Christ’s blood is already displayed on the altar in the basilica. I’ve paid . . . and now I’m setting you free. Go with your scribe. Go on your way. But this,” he indicated the parchment, “cannot belong to a slave, to a woman.”

  Kallis took a step toward the workbench and stretched out her hand.

  Something glistened. Edgardo saw a flash of steel at his side. Kallis’s hand was clutching a long, thin dagger, the point aimed at her father.

  “Do you want to kill me?” Segrado asked calmly. “See this, scribe, now who is ready to kill? That’s right, you must kill me if you want to be the only one to know the secret of crystalline glass. You must kill me—like you killed the others . . . ” He put out his hands, as though searching for Kallis in the dark. “It’s true, isn’t it? It’s clear to me now. You eliminated Balbo, my first garzone, then Niccolò, because they both knew too much, they stood between you and me, they knew my secrets, they’d seen everything . . . That’s why you gouged their eyes out and replaced them with glass ones, so skillfully crafted. It was a message for me, to show me how expert you’d become.”

  “All children want to show their parents how good they’ve become.” There was a note of yearning love in Kallis’s words. “But you didn’t see me. You didn’t consider me, not just as a daughter, but even as a garzone . . . I was less than nothing . . . and I knew that sooner or later Balbo, then Niccolò would take your place, they would become your disciples, your heirs, and you would pass your knowledge and secrets to them alone . . . ”

  “And Zoto? Why did you kill him?”

  “I punished him. He’d spied on us. He’d told Tàtaro about the glass. I did it for you.”

  Segrado laughed. “For me? What are you saying? Didn’t you plan that one day my turn would come? By then you knew everything about crystalline glass, so if you’d killed me you would have been the only one to know the secret. But the copy of the formula upset your plans. Isn’t that true, Kallis?”

  “My God, how is this possible?” Edgardo thought. “Everything is crashing down . . . The angels are falling . . . Their wings are burning . . . They are turning into demons . . . Kallis, a murderess, responsible for those horrible deaths . . . God, take pity on me and wake me from this nightmare!”

  “I swore on my mother’s grave that I would avenge her,” Kallis said. “I was waiting for the right time but then there was a moment, when the two of us were left alone, when I almost started to believe, to hope that you would accept me as your daughter, that you would recognize me as your disciple, your heir. I prayed so much that this would happen. But then I realized that nothing had changed . . . That I was still Kallis the slave and bastard . . . And you were still the same, there was no hope, so . . . ”

  The remaining words remained stuck in her throat, trapped by sudden breathlessness. She reached out toward the workbench where Edgardo had put the formula.

  Segrado leapt on her, trying to take the dagger from her hand. A thread of wool in the paws of a bear. Despite her father’s powerful build, Kallis managed to resist him. She freed herself by pushing him to the side. Segrado lost his balance and went crashing against the door.

  “I can feel it snaking under my skin,” Edgardo thought, “twisting my guts, turning my blood to water. I can feel the all-enveloping fear that clouds the mind and paralyzes the limbs. Motionless, I am watching this fight without doing anything, without intervening, just like when I saw my brother’s blood flowing out. Edgardo the Crooked. Edgardo the Coward . . . ”

  He suddenly felt overwhelmed by a mysterious force. A light exploded in his chest and he saw his body stirring after a long sleep. He threw himself into the fray between the two fighting bodies without thinking. He tried to stop Segrado and remove the dagger from Kallis’s hand. He smelt the rotting odor of the fight, and saw the two bodies bend and break apart, and Kallis’s eyes, full of hatred.

  Then, like a gift from the sky, a hot flash pierced through his chest and something sweetly squirted all over his face. He swayed and realized he was slowly sliding down to the floor. With a final effort, he tried to hold onto the workbench, which he pulled down, along with glass, tools, and cruets.

  The eye discs slid off the table, circled in the air for a moment, as though held up by an invisible force. Finally, dragged down by a destructive hand, they fell heavily to the floor, but the glasses, protected by their wooden frame, did not break. Edgardo saw them sway, immersed in a rain of light, then heard the door fly open and glimpsed Segrado’s shadow running out, clutching the parchment in his hands, followed by Kallis.

  A gust of wind caressed his face. Then he closed his eyes and lost consciousness.

  XXX.

  CALAMITY

  Time stood still. He was shut in a dark, cold, silent cave, suspended between the earth and the sky. He felt no pain, had no thoughts, no feelings. Nothing but a simple, useless void. Except that he was waiting for something to happen. Years—or perhaps only a few moments—later, he was struck by a vortex that threw him out of the darkness. A light flashed through his mind, forcing him to half-close his eyes. Where was he?

  He was lying on the floor, not far from the overturned workbench. The foundry door was wide open. He remembered everything. He tried to get up, but the wound in his chest squirted blood and made him rock back in pain. He gathered all his strength, took the eye discs, held them in his fist like a talisman, slipped them into his pocket, and dragged himself outside. The landscape before him alarmed him.

  The world was upside down. Clusters of dark, swollen clouds were drifting across the sky, pushed by a strong wind, twisting like breakers, feeding off one another in a crescendo of power and intensity.

  The surface of the lagoon was strangely calm, flat and smooth, of a purple no sailor had ever seen before, even on long journeys to the Orient. The water level, driven by the wind, had risen rapidly, flooding a large part of the lower-lying lands. The saltworks were totally submerged, and an unnatural glow rose from under the surface like the light of a sunken volcano.

 
Edgardo took a few steps forward and let his eyes wander, hoping to see a trace of Kallis and Segrado. He did not know how much time had passed, or how long he had been unconscious.

  He managed to reach the mill. It was deserted. The water reached up to his ankles and grass and algae twisted around his feet. He walked behind the foundry toward the shoals that separated the built-up area from the tangle of canals, and saw something amid the logs tossed by the tide. He approached and saw two wooden statues floating in the water, the effigies of saints carried during a procession.

  Kallis was kneeling before a prostrate body wrapped in a watery shroud. He drew closer, held back by the mud and his wound.

  “She’s alive,” he thought. “Kallis is alive.”

  Segrado was lying in the water that lapped at his body. His face was uncovered, as was his side, where the dagger was sticking out.