A Season for the Dead

by David Hewson

  ‘And that,’ Marco said, banging his glass on the table, ‘is the wisdom of dogs.’

  ‘Which is ignorance!’ Sara declared. ‘Surely you can see that? A dog has no comprehension of time. Of seasons. As far as it is concerned life is like a light switch, either on or off.’

  ‘And isn’t it?’ Marco demanded, teasingly.

  ‘No.’ She looked at Nic for support.

  ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘It’s a bad comparison.’

  ‘What you mean is,’ Bea suggested, ‘they never read Ecclesiastes. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.’

  ‘A time to love,’ Marco continued. ‘And a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. You’re right, Sara. An animal knows nothing of the seasons and that’s what defines him. Are we that different? It was the knowledge of our mortality that informed all those early Christians buried along that old road out there. Today we make death the uninvited guest who sits in the corner, in perpetual darkness. We pretend he doesn’t exist until finally he proves us wrong and then we are shocked – we are offended! – by his presence.’

  Nic waved a defensive hand at him. ‘Point taken. I understand what you mean.’

  ‘Not at all!’ Marco insisted. ‘That was aimed at me more than you, son. I’ve let this damned thing wear me down so much I took the opposite view. I thought there was nothing but death around me. A time to plant, a time to pluck up that which is planted. This is a farm, remember? Until this blasted disease we fed ourselves from those fields. We turned the land, we grew, we harvested. And look at it now. Bare, barren earth. And for what reason? Because I forgot. Because, like a child, I believed I was the world and without me nothing existed which is, I think, the greatest sin a man can commit.’

  There was silence. The mood of the evening pivoted around Marco’s confession, and each of them knew it could easily disintegrate. Then Sara asked, ‘What was this like as a farm?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Nic replied, smiling, grateful that she had chosen the moment. ‘We could grow anything then. I remember …’ His head filled with the recollection of artichoke heads nodding in the breeze, tall rows of tomatoes, verdant clumps of zucchini. ‘I remember how green it was.’

  ‘Why do you think he eats what he does?’ Marco asked. ‘He gave up meat when he was twelve. Said there was no point.’

  ‘There wasn’t. And what we grew was ours. It came from us.’

  Marco wheeled himself to the front door. They followed, watching as he unlatched the huge slab of wood, threw it open and turned on the floodlights which illuminated the front of the farm. The cigarettes of the men at the gate winked back at them like tiny fireflies. The earth stood arid and solid under the harsh lamps.

  ‘And the best part,’ Marco said, ‘was the unexpected.’

  Around now, he said, they would plant the black Tuscan kale cavolo nero for the winter. Sara watched the way his eyes glittered when he spoke about how they were his favourites for the very reason most people would avoid them: their sluggish, steady growth, from seedlings at the waning of summer, through the lean, cold winter months, reviving again, to give nourishment, in the spring. This was a rebirth of a kind, a token that the world began anew each year, whatever happened. A seedling planted in the earth in July knew nothing of the future that would embrace it when the warmth returned the following Easter – that is, if it survived the winter. This was a peasant’s faith, and one that Marco Costa loved, the fundamental belief that the seasons always returned and good husbandry would be repaid. It was inevitable that the chain would be broken. Some years the crop would fail. Some years the gardener would fail to return to tend the land. Nevertheless, it was the act itself which mattered: the planting, the nurturing, the tilling of the soil.

  There had been no winter crop that year. Marco’s faith had failed him, crushed by the disease.

  She watched the old man eyeing the earth. ‘I want to see things growing there again,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow … I’ll send for help.’

  Sara looked at Bea and the two women exchanged glances. ‘What’s wrong with us? We can dig. We can plant seeds.’

  Marco laughed and waved a dismissive hand at them. ‘This isn’t work for women.’ They screeched at him.

  ‘Peace, peace,’ Nic said. ‘They can start in the morning. Later, when I’ve time, I’ll do my part too. You can just sit and watch and bark orders.’

  ‘It has to be done properly,’ Marco insisted.

  ‘It will be,’ Nic replied. ‘I promise.’

  They looked at one another and fell silent. The storm never broke. Marco had made his point.

  The old man sniffed the air. ‘There’s autumn inside that heat,’ he said. ‘You can smell September on the way. I love the autumn. The colours. Sitting round the fire, burning a few chestnuts. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else when the leaves start to fall.’

  Nic walked behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Marco’s fingers gripped his. Nic felt his eyes begin to sting and was grateful for this moment.

  ‘Old reds like me don’t believe in Hell,’ Marco said. ‘But if I did, do you know what it would be? A place where nothing grows. A place where no one knows the seasons. God save us all from that, if you’ll pardon the expression.’

  FORTY-FIVE

  Rossi cursed himself. It was so obvious when he thought about it. They’d found just one blurry picture of Gino Fosse and here, he now knew, was the same face, covered in white powder trying to pretend to be a statue. He grappled inside his jacket, trying to get the gun out, yelling at Cattaneo, yelling at the TV jerk, telling them to get down, to keep out of the way because Brutus wasn’t Brutus at all, he was some crazy, bloodthirsty priest who didn’t know when to stop. At least Cattaneo seemed on the ball then. He dragged Valena into the massing crowd by the scruff of his neck. Rossi turned and watched the two of them tumble into the mass of bodies then fell back, trying to follow them.

  His hand felt greasy. His mouth went dry. By the time his fingers reached the butt of the weapon Brutus had leaned forward on his crate. The hat had fallen from his hands, Luca Rossi’s few coins were rolling on the ground making a precise, musical sound oddly audible over the animal racket of the crowd. Maybe the metallic chink of the coins was, the big man thought, the last thing he’d ever hear.

  Then the swarm of people closed around him and Rossi was fighting to clear his head. Shoulders jostled him. Tourists yelled abuse. He held up his gun, high above the mass, trying to make them see some sense. Not knowing why – not even understanding whether this was a conscious action – he fired a single shot into the air and sent some small slug of lead flying out of Bernini’s piazza, spinning wildly towards the bright moon set in a black velvet sky.

  Someone nearby screamed. He saw a woman’s bulbous, gaudily made-up eyes and they reminded him of the look he once saw on a bull as it went into the slaughterhouse.

  ‘Luca!’ It was Cattaneo yelling. He held Rossi by the arm. Valena was firmly attached to the other. Luca Rossi felt like a jerk. He’d always hated Cattaneo. Always thought him a loser. And here they were, rolling around inside some steadily panicking mass of people, not knowing where they were going or what was on their trail.

  Cattaneo was barking something into the radio. Rossi raised his hand again, let the gun pump upwards once more. It felt good. It felt like a statement, something even a warped priest with blood on his hands and a penchant for women’s heads might begin to comprehend. Then a big figure in a Stars and Stripes T-shirt pushed hard into him. Rossi felt the breath disappear from his chest, a sharp pain rising underneath his ribs. The strength left him, just for an instant. It was enough for the gun to slip from his grip, out from his fingers, tugged down by the nagging force of gravity into the sea of stampeding legs at his feet.

  Rossi bent over, gasping for air, noting as he did so that some space appeared to be growing around him. When he had his senses back – as much as he could muster – he pulled
himself upright. Brutus was there, smiling in front of him, with a semi-circle of scared tourists at his back. He looked like a bit-part actor suddenly thrust into the limelight. He had something in his hand, something small and light and deadly.

  Luca Rossi stared at it, saw Cattaneo racing to his side. He said, simply, ‘Shit.’

  The weapon shrieked once, jerked back in Fosse’s fingers, then changed direction, just as Rossi’s sight was beginning to fail him and a thick, stupid pain started to cloud his ears.

  The last sound was thunder repeating itself, a muffled, echoing roar through which Luca Rossi wished to make some final point, about living and dying and what ought and ought not to be accomplished. Except it was impossible. Something stole away his thoughts, left him helpless, unable to speak. There was a hand on his shoulder and he knew it was Cattaneo’s. The idiot was dragging him down to the hard stone ground of the piazza. He fell with an extraordinary, irresistible momentum, down towards the red pool running into the cracks of the cobblestones like a sluggish river, growing, turning into a flood.

  Gino Fosse stood back, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at the two stupid cops prone on the ground, not moving. The crowd was going wild. They were screaming, fighting to get away from this white figure, his fake toga now stained with the splash-back of Luca Rossi’s blood.

  Only Arturo Valena didn’t run. The fat TV presenter stood there, cowering, unable to move, alone in a circle being created by the fleeing bodies around him.

  Fosse walked up and held the revolver tight against Valena’s sweating temple.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘Quickly, by my side. Right now.’

  Valena nodded.

  A minute later the dogs had company.

  FORTY-SIX

  She stood outside the main door, beneath the vine veranda, marvelling at the evening. The heat of the day had dissipated. Fireflies now danced through the twisting shapes of the olive trees that crouched on the moonlit horizon. The champagne had been followed by white wine, then red. They were all quite drunk, even Marco. It was as if the house had infected them with its spirit, as if its rich, hidden memories had woken from some dream and come to inhabit them. The coming day would exorcize these happy ghosts. She knew that had to happen. Still, Sara Farnese was grateful for the fleeting gift they had each received at Marco’s prompting. The timing was welcome. The nightmare of the city was still real. There were hardships and trials ahead but they were not insurmountable. There was hope. There was the possibility of redemption in the light which shone in all their faces that night.

  Bea took Marco to his bedroom and did not emerge again. Nic, perhaps to cover his embarrassment, had dragged the sleepy, stiff Pepe out for a final walk around the grounds. Sara could hear him talking to the men at the end of the drive: slow, lazy chatter, not the whispered, feverish talk men had when things were going wrong. They all deserved a respite from Gino Fosse. It wouldn’t last. That was impossible. Yet even the shortest break seemed like a miracle. It gave her space to think, to breathe. Here, beyond the grip of the city, safe in the cool darkness of the farmhouse, surrounded by people who didn’t judge her, didn’t look at her as if she were a different kind of creature, Sara felt briefly content in a way she did not wish to analyse.

  Marco himself had said it: nothing stayed the same. The world was in flux, always. This was its gift; this was its burden too.

  She stepped onto the dry, hard ground and kicked at it with her shoe. It was impossible to believe anything could grow in such conditions. She knew nothing about gardening. Bea was probably just as ignorant. But with Marco’s guidance, which would, she felt sure, be exact and exacting, something would take root here. It would become fertile and one day bring forth produce, though she knew she would never be there to witness it.

  Nic stepped out of the darkness, from behind one of the few living things near the house, an old, wizened almond tree. The leaves rustled lightly in the breeze. He looked happy. She was glad, for him and for Marco. Something had passed between them, some unspoken pact, that night. There was no news from the policemen at the gate. Perhaps the distant city was quiet. Perhaps Gino Fosse slept easy, the demons gone from his head, if only for a little while.

  The dog stepped forward, cocked a leg and peed profusely on the trunk of the tree. They laughed.

  ‘The wisdom of dogs,’ Sara said.

  Pepe came to sit tamely at their feet. ‘Or the ignorance,’ Nic answered. ‘He doesn’t know what lies ahead. He doesn’t understand what there is to anticipate.’

  ‘And because we do that makes us wiser?’

  ‘I think so. Not happier perhaps.’

  The dog’s eyes closed behind dry, wrinkled lids. He looked old like that, she thought. He looked like Marco: grey and wasting.

  ‘It’s not enough for them to be alive,’ she said, patting the old fur. ‘They need to live. Happy birthday, Pepe.’

  The dog stared at them both then fixed its gaze on the door with a firm deliberation.

  An awkward silence fell between them. Sara turned and let them in. The dog ambled across the threshold, found its bed in the kitchen and curled its frail body into a lazy apostrophe.

  She watched the animal settle, knowing Nic couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  The dog catcher’s van was parked inconspicuously outside the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina in a small piazza north of the parliamentary area where Alicia Vaccarini had dined with Gino Fosse the day before. The site had been associated with the martyr Lorenzo since the fourth century though a temple, probably to Juno, had existed here long before, its columns, crowned by medieval capitals, re-used in the dark portico that gave onto the square. The delicate illumination of the piazza now outlined the plain triangular pediment and the Romanesque bell tower, much like the one on Tiber Island, behind. In spite of its location next to the Via del Corso, the church retained a modest, fetching dignity. Gino Fosse was unable to forget the place for entirely different reasons.

  This was, he knew, where the cycle began, where the doubts which first rose in his head in the dark belly of San Giovanni hardened, became real and demanded action. One week ago to the day Brendan Hanrahan had phoned him, sounding amiable, sympathetic, wondering why Denney had reacted so ruthlessly to what was, in truth, a minor infraction. Hanrahan suggested they meet, take a short tour of the city, visit some places which would, he believed, intrigue him.

  Thirty minutes later the Irishman pulled up outside the tower in the Clivus Scauri inside one of the black Mercedes Gino Fosse knew so well. Then, as a chauffeur drove them around the city, the Irishman introduced him to Lorenzo’s tale. In the van with Arturo Valena screaming pointlessly to the howling of the dogs beside him, he could still recall the moment the poisonous worm locked its jaws hard into his soul. Perhaps Hanrahan had noticed it. The Irishman missed very little. Perhaps he had wanted it there, feasting.

  It was a scalding, airless day, the first to give a hint of the heat wave that was to come. Hanrahan ordered the driver to take a circuitous route passing the Villa Celimontana, the public park close to the Clivus Scauri.

  ‘The man has a terrible temper sometimes,’ he confided. ‘Denney, I mean. I imagine he blames it on the stress, Gino. But we’re all under stress now, aren’t we?’

  He had dead eyes, a dead face. Gino Fosse knew why they used him to fix things. Nothing was beneath Hanrahan. He was relentless, patient, forever planning.

  ‘Note the fountain,’ Hanrahan indicated as they rounded the park entrance. He had admired the stone boat with its generous water spout, uncertain about Hanrahan’s intentions.

  ‘An old priest from Limerick took me on this tour when I first came to Rome. Now I wish to return the favour to you. To take you through an entire episode of our glorious history, Gino,’ Hanrahan declared. ‘I’m a bureaucrat, not a churchman, so pay attention and forgive any errors, though I think I know this story well enough to be true to it throughout.

 
; ‘Let’s imagine,’ he said, in the manner of a teacher, ‘that today is August the sixth in the year of our Lord 258. The emperor is Valerian, no friend to the Church at all. Lorenzo, a Spaniard and one of the six Christian deacons of Rome, is standing on the grass over there handing out money to the poor, money he has gained from selling some of the Church’s gold. Valerian has heard of this, decided he wants to wet his beak too, and demanded that Lorenzo show him the remainder of the Church’s rich treasures so that he may claim his imperial share.’

  Fosse had not been sleeping soundly. The incident which led to his banishment from the Vatican continued to puzzle him. He had behaved no more badly before. Hanrahan was right. The punishment seemed out of kilter with the crime.

  ‘For three days Lorenzo has assembled a crowd close to where the fountain now stands and is giving out alms. He’s surrounded by the poverty-stricken and aided by supportive fellow Christians. When Valerian’s soldiers come and ask him for the emperor’s gold, he gives them not a penny. Instead, he points to the assembled crowd and declares, “See! Here is the treasure of the Church.”’

  ‘Sounds like he was asking for trouble,’ Fosse observed.

  ‘Quite,’ Hanrahan agreed. ‘And he got it.’

  He pointed to the Palatine passing to their left, on the opposite side of the road. ‘Had we time, we could still follow Lorenzo along every stage of his impending martyrdom. He was dragged through the Cryptoporticus passage, up there, which you may walk today, to a trial, the verdict of which was already decided. We could go to the church of San Lorenzo in Fonte, in the Via Urbana, see the cell in which he was incarcerated and the fountain he used to baptize his fellow prisoners. After that we could visit San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, built over the humble chapel Constantine himself erected to mark the martyr’s burial place. In San Lorenzo in Panisperna, close by, we could stand on the site of his death and admire a vivid fresco of him receiving the martyr’s reward, though this is a work that’s perhaps a little too realistic, I think, for a young man’s taste.’