Secretum

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  "Whoever could have imagined that?" said Atto, whose familiarity with antiquities I had known since the time of our first encounter. "The Baths of Aggripina. I'd never have expected that I might have to look for people as foul as the cerretani in so noble a place."

  He was moving among those ancient imperial ruins almost on tiptoe, as though he feared that he might, by tripping up, damage some centuries-old brick; he looked all around him with caution and an imperceptible strain of melancholy in his voice. Seventeen years previously, I had seen him recognise and admire a subterranean Mithraeum and I knew that he had written a guide to Rome for lovers of fine antiquities. Despite all the time that had passed, he had not, it seemed, lost his former predilections.

  "We have arrived," said Sfasciamonti, pointing in front of us. "Here is the place."

  At the end of the row of caves, before the last stretch of the convent wall, dark and impassive, there stood a tower.

  This was one of the numerous pinnacles that had once made of Rome an Urbs turrita, in other words, a city adorned with many towers, steeples and turrets: lookout and defence positions from the Middle Ages, which gave the place an old-fashioned, warlike look. This one was not high: it must have been topped, as often happened during the barbarian invasions, or else the upper part had collapsed in some fire.

  "No one will stop you," Il Roscio had added enigmatically when furnishing us with details of the German's lair. "If anything, it is you who will decide to go away."

  We had a first confirmation of these words when we arrived in front of the tower. We circled it, looking up at all the walls. The windows were all barred. At the foot of the structure, we found a sort of hut which contained the entrance. It was made of wood, creaking and decrepit. We pushed on the door. It was open.

  Once inside, we found ourselves in a large, dark, evil-smelling space. Rats and strays of all sorts seemed from time immemorial to have chosen the place for their dejections. The light of our lantern enabled us to avoid the colossal cobwebs which hung throughout the length and breadth of that dungeon, and the foul matter (scrap, rubble, rubbish) that covered the floor.

  Suddenly I came close to tripping heavily against a solid mass, well secured to the ground. I rubbed my sore toe. It was a step.

  "Signor Atto, a staircase!" I announced.

  I shone light on the place with the lantern. A stairway climbed the right-hand wall towards a door.

  Here too, neither lock nor chain barred the way.

  "Il Roscio was right," observed Sfasciamonti, "there are no obstacles or security measures to impede us. How very interesting."

  Behind the second door, another stairway awaited us; this time, exceedingly steep. Melani often stopped to catch his breath.

  "But when are we going to get there?" he wondered disconsolately, trying in vain to look behind him and see how far we had come.

  "We are climbing to the top of the tower," I answered.

  "That, I had surmised for myself," retorted Atto acidly. "But tell me where the deuce the German's lair could be. On the chimney-pots?"

  "Perhaps the German is a stork," joked Sfasciamonti, stifling a laugh.

  I in the meanwhile was returning in memory to that time, years ago, when Atto and I had spent entire nights exploring galleries and catacombs in the dark underbelly of the city, encountering all manner of perils and fending off dangerous ambushes. Now we were back in the same pitch darkness, but climbing heavenward, not down into the bowels of the earth.

  For several minutes, we continued in a straight line, by the faint light of our lantern, until we reached a little quadrangular cavity. The floor was covered with an iron plate. In front of us, a few steps led to a little door which looked very much as though it led to an even higher level. We looked at one another suspiciously.

  "I do not like this one bit, corps of a thousand bombards," commented Sfasciamonti.

  "Nor I," echoed Melani. "If we go up there, it will be impossible to beat a quick retreat and get out again."

  "If only there were a window in this tower, even a slit, perhaps we might be able to work out how high we've climbed," said I.

  "Come, come, 'tis pitch dark outside," retorted the Abbot.

  "What are we to do?"

  "Let us go on further," said Atto, advancing into the little room. "How strange, there's a smell here like. . ."

  He broke off. It all began at that moment and happened too fast for us to have any control over events. As we followed Melani, we felt the platform resound slightly and, with a discreet but quite distinct click, descend about half a palm.

  We started, aware of imminent danger.

  "Get back! 'Tis a trap..." screamed Sfasciamonti.

  It was already too late. A massive and immensely heavy wooden and iron trapdoor slammed thunderously behind us, cutting us off from the stairway from which we had come and brutally striking the ground, like a peasant's hoe biting into the bare and arid earth. Fortunately, the lantern had not gone out, but what the light was about to reveal to us was enough to make us wish for the blackest darkness.

  Tongues of infernal fire flickered before and around us, illuminating us with their horrid light and making our faces seem like those of damned souls. Once they touched our skin those fiery daggers would surely inflict unspeakable suffering upon us.

  "God Almighty help us! We have ended up in hell," I exclaimed, overcome by panic.

  Atto said nothing: he was trying to keep those demonic fireflies from his face, hitting out at them as one strikes at mosquitos, but with thrice the force and thrice the desperation.

  "Damnation, my feet!" cried Sfasciamonti.

  At that moment, I felt it too: unbearable heat burned as though within my shoes. I had to raise one foot, then the other, then again the first, for keeping them on the ground was quite intolerable. Atto, too, and the catchpoll were leaping like madmen, brushing off the tongues of fire and struggling to keep each foot on the ground as little as possible.

  "Out of here, damn it!" screamed Atto, rushing with Sfasciamonti towards the little door that we had not wished to pass through but which had now become our only way out.

  Fortunately, like the other doors before it, this too was open. This time we were confronted by a series of rusty iron rungs. The catchpoll entered first. The opening was so tight that we had to bend almost until our noses touched our knees. We advanced breathlessly, one stuck to the other, our feet still half burned, while some of the malignant droplets of fire mockingly invaded our little hole. Thus, I found myself caught between Sfasciamonti's powerful bulk and Atto's more scrawny and weary body, trembling with fear and imploring Our Lord to have pity on my soul.

  "No!!"

  It was then, just when Sfasciamonti let forth that desperate scream, that I saw him disappear, engulfed by a sudden abyss and felt him grasp at my right arm, dragging me down the precipice with prodigious force.

  The invisible and natural mechanism that governs human actions in such upheavals moved of its own accord and caused me, willy-nilly, to grasp at Atto, who thus fell with me. Hanging onto one another in a wretched bundle of flesh and bones, we were sucked by an invincible force into a vertiginous and endless fall.

  "Et libera nos a malo" I had the presence of mind to gasp as the alien vortex almost robbed me of my breath.

  The fall seemed to last forever. We were piled up one on top of the other as though Lucifer's pitchfork had cast us among the damned and was bringing us before the judges of the Inferno.

  Sfasciamonti, motionless under me, was hunched up in terror as well as under the combined weight of Atto and myself. Melani was overcome by shock and pain and moaned, barely moving. With an immense effort I struggled out from under that double human carpet and gave thanks to the Lord that I was able to sit on the ground. The floor was no longer burning hot. A pungent and familiar odour, disquieting under those tragic circumstances, impregnated my skin and my clothing. I became aware of the environment surrounding me, and anguish gripped my soul.


  The lantern, of course, was broken. It was, however, possible to descry everywhere a weird luminosity, a mixture of fog and bluish half light, like that which glow worms dispense in gardens after nightfall, subtly pervading all things.

  Was I still in one piece? I looked at my hands and trembled. They emitted light, no, they seemed even to be made of light.

  I was no longer a man. An opalescent glow issued from every point on my body, as I could see when I looked at my legs and my belly. My mortal remains were elsewhere. In their place was a poor lost soul, a wretched effigy wandering in the Underworld, of substance translucent and immaterial.

  At that moment, Sfasciamonti rose to his feet and saw me.

  "You. . . you are dead!" he whispered in horror, his eyes fixed on what remained of me.

  He looked all around him with mad, bulging eyes. Then he looked at himself, his hands and his arms. He too emitted that bluish light which was everywhere, within us and without.

  "Then I too... all of us... oh, my God," he sobbed.

  Then came the apparition. A being of darkness, enveloped in a menacing black shroud, his face hidden by a great mystic cowl, was watching us from a niche in the wall, closed with an iron grate.

  Atto too rose from the ground and saw him. All three of us were suspended for long, interminable moments between breathing and breathlessness, between desperation and hope, between life and death. Other hooded figures appeared behind the figure in the niche, which must have been, or so it seemed, a little gallery. Evil emissaries of the infernal regions, they would soon be upon us. It was clear that they were about to seize and devour us.

  The grate rose. Now nothing separated us from the demons. Their leader, he who had appeared to us first, took a step forward. Instinctively, we drew back. Even Sfasciamonti, or rather the great bluish phantom who had taken his place, trembled like an autumn leaf.

  It all happened in moments. The satanic being extracted from his shroud a long, lurid orange object. It was a glowing dagger, in keeping with the white heat of the flames of Hades. This he pointed at us, as though casting an anathema. Soon, said I to myself, from it would issue the tongue of flame that consumes every residual mortal atom, reducing us (if our luminous manifestation still possessed any substance) to poor wandering ectoplasms.

  He pointed the dagger in my direction, in a gesture of condemnation. Whatever had I committed, I asked myself blubbering, to merit, not purgatory, but the irremediable horrors of hell? Four devils ran to me, seized me and forced me to the ground on my back, nailing me down with their horrid clawed arms. I did not scream: terror itself, choking my throat, prevented that.

  Besides, said I to myself in a flash of desperate humour, who can hear the lament of the damned?

  Their leader came to me. Even now, his face could not be seen, only the macabre hooked hand (likewise bluish and phosphorescent) brandishing the fiery dagger. Meanwhile, I knew not what had become of Atto and Sfasciamonti; I heard only an indistinct scuffling. Probably they too had been overcome in their turn.

  The angel of evil leaned over and was upon me. With his dagger, he aimed directly at my forehead. He directed the tip just above my eyes, in the middle. He was about to penetrate the bony covering (or its appearance) with the overwhelming force of fire. Then, twisting the blade in the hole, he would stir and fry the grey matter of my brain.

  "No," I implored, I know not if with thought alone or with the whisp of voice that I had been allowed to retain from my earthly life.

  In the lightless abyss which was my executioner's hood, I thought I saw (the powers of darkness and their agents) a malign smile, which heightened my terror at the approaching end. The absurd heat of the blade dried my eyeballs (had I still any?). Only an animal lust for life still kept them open.

  The point of the incandescent blade was less than a hair's breadth from my forehead. It was about to strike. Now, in less than a second. Now, yes, Cloridia my love, my sweet little girls...

  It was then, as though in a gentle prelude to death, that I lost consciousness. Before fainting, heart and soul beat together for one last instant. Just long enough to hear:

  "One momentary: periculous blunderbungle."

  "What? Wretched imbecile, I'll blast you to bits!"

  Then, violent noises, as of a struggle, and the shot.

  "Take courage, hero, stand up."

  A smack. Rapid, violent and alarming as a bucketful of water in the face. It had awoken me, recalling me from the torpor of my swoon. Now I heard Atto's voice addressing me.

  "I. . . I do not. . ." I stammered, still prone, while my head seemed to be on the point of exploding. I coughed several times. There was a smell of burning, and smoke everywhere.

  "Return among the living," Melani chanted to me. We must leave here before we are asphyxiated. First, however, let me present you Beelzebub. You will, I think, be surprised to find that you have already met."

  Still trembling, I sat up. The bluish light no longer pervaded the cavern. Now all was yellow, red and orange: a torch had been lit, which illuminated the surroundings. I looked at my hands. I too no longer emitted that arcane phosphorescence.

  "I have reloaded," I heard Sfasciamonti announce.

  "Good," replied Atto.

  I opened my eyes wide. The scene moments before, faced with which I had believed myself to have bid life farewell, had changed utterly.

  In his right hand, Sfasciamonti brandished the dagger with which I was on the point of being put to death. He was pointing it at a little group of hooded demons, all huddled oh so quietly against the wall, without giving the faintest sign of resistance. Such discipline was not without cause: in his left hand the catchpoll held his ordnance pistol. Atto, for his part, grasped an improvised torch: a cone made up of sheets of paper which he had lit with the incandescent dagger and which now illuminated the narrow space in which we stood, while however spreading fumes that rendered the air unbreathable.

  "Up, you wretch, and get us out of here," said Atto to the chief of the demons, placing a handkerchief across his nose in order not to breathe in too much smoke.

  It was then that I recognised the leader of the infernal company. That foul, oversized covering, the odours of filth and decay spreading all around, those clawed hands.. .

  The cowl shifted a little. Once more I beheld that crumpled parchment of a face, that miserable patchwork of bits of skin held together only by inertia, that tumescent cankered nose like a mouldy carrot, the evasive eyes, bloodshot and deceitful, the few broken yellow-brown stumps of teeth, the wrinkles deep as ploughed furrows, the skeletal cranium and the yellowish scalp from which hung resignedly a few rare tufts of rust-coloured hair.

  "Ugonio!" I exclaimed.

  It is necessary that I should at this juncture make clear the nature and history of the personage in question, as well as his companions, with whom it was my fate to share no few adventures many years ago.

  Ugonio was a corpisantaro, one of those bizarre individuals who spend their lives searching Rome's subterranean innards for the relics of saints and of the first martyrs of the Christian faith. The corpisantari are truly creatures of darkness, whose time is spent grubbing with their bare hands underground, separating dirt from shards, earth from stones, splinters from mould, and exulting whenever this stubborn and meticulous labour of filtering reveals a mere fragment of a Roman amphora, a coin of the imperial age or a piece of bone.

  They are wont to sell for a high price the relics (or corpisanctorum, whence their name) which they find in the subsoil, exploiting the good faith, or better, the unpardonable ingenuousness of buyers. The piece of amphora is sold as a fragment of the cup from which Our Lord drank at the Last Supper; the little coin becomes one of the thirty pieces of silver for which Judas Iscariot betrayed the Son of God; the sliver of bone is palmed off as part of Saint John's collarbone. Of all the vile substances that the corpisantari glean under the ground, nothing is thrown away: a half-rotten piece of wood is sold dear as an authentic splinter of the
True Cross, a feather from a dead bird is auctioned as a plume from an angel's wing. The mere fact of spending a lifetime grubbing, piling up and archiving all that disgusting material has endowed them with a reputation as infallible hunters after sacred objects and thus guarantees them a large number of readily hoodwinked customers. Over a long period of time and thanks to the astute bribery of servants, they have accumulated copies of the keys to cellars and store rooms throughout the whole city, thus gaining access to all the most recondite recesses of subterranean Rome.

  Surprisingly enough, the corpisantari combine their execrable practices with a genuine, intense, almost fanatical religiosity, which surfaces at the most unexpected moments. If my memory does not betray me, they have asked several pontiffs for the right to form a confraternity; but there has never been any response to that request.

  So, Ugonio was one of their number. Being a native of Vienna, he spoke my language with inflections and accents which often made it difficult to discover any coherent sense behind the verbiage; hence his nickname, the German.