by Ulf Wolf
And here they came again with their crosses and sanctimonious faces pleading again and again—what hypocrites—that he would recant and so avoid the eternal flames of hell. Ah, if he could only spit.
And all of this in perhaps ten or twenty donkey clip-clops toward the still distant square.
:
The animal rocks a little one way, and then the other, as it lifts and then brings down yet another hoof, clip, and then another, clop, and now Mademoiselle Francoise Solanges appears for him: the only woman he truly loved.
And the one woman he never took to bed.
“I want your instructions to set them dreaming,” she had told him when they first met. She was referring to the girl students in her charge, which he had agreed to tutor. But Bruno, blinded and deafened by her beauty, had not registered those words and still did not hear, though she was still talking: “I want you to open a garden in which they can walk for the rest of their lives.”
Finally, he found the thread of her request, and then his voice, “And what makes you think I can do that, Mademoiselle?”
“Monsieur Gorbin calls you a cloud walker,” she said. “And I would like you to take my girls on a walk among them, and then through the blue beyond, and then to the stars even father beyond.”
“Why?” he heard himself ask.
“They need a future of hope.”
When he looked perplexed, she laughed, and her laughter sounded to him like silver bells that rang as with understanding of what he had to give. And then he, too, understood what he was to give.
And so he gave, as often as he could, her charges all the wonder, all the knowledge, and all the fascination he possessed; and she, often as not, would sit in a corner, listening in, smiling to him, smiling to herself. By all accounts happy with his gifts.
In the end, when he could no longer contain his love for her—for it threatened to rupture him would it not reach air; when he could no longer suppress his honest passion for this woman, he declared it, to another of her beautiful smiles and slow movement back and forth of her head. “My dearest friend,” she said, taking his warm, moist hand in her two fine and cool ones, “there is no place in my life for a man. My needs, and gifts, are different.”
“I don’t understand.”
Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she unclasped a silver chain from around her neck, and, after another brief hesitation, unfolded her hand to show him the chain and its famous medallion, marking her as, yes, he knew all about the medallion and what it meant: a Cathar.
He nodded—or, rather, felt himself nod. He did not want to understand, but he did.
Beside him, still holding his hand in hers, sat one of the few to survive the intense massacres launched by Pope Innocent III, and the subsequent and thorough extermination efforts by the Inquisition; though not thorough enough, never thorough enough. Pockets had survived. Always do.
She was one of the survivors.
“Now I have entrusted you with my life,” she said. “For truly, I do love you.”
At that he had cried, for the first time and last time as a grown man, cried like a child cries when overcome with incomprehensible loss, for he realized that he would never possess this woman, and in that moment, counter to every one of his physical fibers, he no longer wanted to possess her, for he, in turn, loved her too much.
He had laid his head in her lap then—child in mother’s, the only thing he could do to ease the pain—and she had cradled it with her hands, and perhaps she had even hummed some comforting melody or incantation, for he felt surrounded by more than tender fingers and warm cloth.
Here comes more wood shoved in his face, stirring him back to the present. “Please, please, I beg of you,” shouts the monk holding the cross, no more than a boy, “repent. Save your soul.”
Oh, how he wishes he could spit in the ugly youth’s face.
The boy—as if startled by his thought—withdraws the crude symbol and leaves him to his reverie.
Leaves him to return to Nola, his childhood town, which comes rushing back, pushing aside crosses and throngs and jeers and trumpet blasts up ahead, while the square draws nearer with each clip, with each clop.
Nola, by the foot of his beloved mountain—Mount Cicala they called it; Nola, the little town gifting him its name: for he was to be known as “The Nolan.” The little town where life was lived before trouble grew too dense and clawy to be survived.
He could smell, taste even—despite wooden splinters piercing lips and cheeks and tongue—olives, chestnuts, poplars, rosemary, vines, elms, myrtle, even the earth itself out of which Cicala sprung like a vast but guarding spirit. He was running across fields with his friends, fresh wind in his face, re-living the exploits of his soldier father (always away, it seemed). And here, in this land of memory, the sun always stood high in the sky, sweeping away any cloud before it. There was no shadow upon those days. No shadow.
:
He had been a brilliant student—at least in his own estimation, though none disagreed with that assessment. But his family was poor, and there was no question of higher schooling for the bright boy. A soldier’s pay did not go far; the funds were not there.
Were he to study further—something he deemed his God-given right—he had only one option: The Church, which, in his opinion, was the far lesser of the two relevant evils.
The other, far greater evil, was to forfeit his education and settle for a menial life. This was out of the question.
Thus, just turned seventeen, he also turned monk.
If only he had learned to hold his tongue well enough to actually hold it.
He was not pious, nor did he claim to be. Not even to appease his teachers, most of whom saw and accepted him for what he was: a young man ambitious for learning, for that was all it took—in their estimation and experience—to fashion, in the end, an obedient monk, true to dogma and the Holy Church: a useful instrument.
He would, however, soon topple their complacent views for they had misjudged his desire for learning, which was by no means limited to orthodox teachings, but was a deep and irrepressible desire to know the truth; and truth, he was soon to realize, was not constrained by the codex of canon law and the constitutions of his order.
Seeing this, he deeply and honestly rebelled against the diktat that he adopt and exclusively subscribe not only to the Gospel truths—as found in the Good Book itself—but to every and minute interpretation of those truths by Roman Authority, boringly and at length spelled out in crabbed Latin by long dead theological scholars. This is the truth, decreed his order, and there is no other, down to the very last holy inflection, comma and period.
Without variation, world without end, amen.
Not to his taste.
Oh, if only he had learned to hold his tongue.
And to tolerate stupidity.
And to hide things better.
The drop to finally overflow this rebellious cup of dissent was his illegal acquisition of Erasmus of Rotterdam’s commentaries on the works of Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Jerome. Erasmus, as he well knew, was on the Index of forbidden books, but a brother from Venice had whispered his name, had told him of truths told by Erasmus but denied by the Church, had offered to smuggle him a copy of his book and Bruno had agreed, of course, his thirst would have it no other way.
He had hidden the book in one of the monastery privies, well concealed, he thought. But before too long it was found, and eventually traced to him, led there by his own stupidity: Too anxious to prevail in debates, and too eager to display his brilliance, he had taken to quote from this forbidden book—not by name, obviously, but most certainly verbatim (his excellent memory, already in evidence, had seen to that). And most certainly to the recognition of those elders who did not look upon him too kindly, for they, too, had read Erasmus, the better to expose the errors of the heretic’s views. And so, hearing young Bruno expound upon something or other with the help of Erasmus, it was clear to them who had hidden the book in the
privy.
And after this it was not long before the Prior asked to see him, again, and this time told him that the Neapolitan Inquisition had now initiated judicial process against him. He was charged with insubordination to the monastic authorities, and with heresy. He was urged to reflect long and hard upon his misdeeds.
The impatient young man reflected only briefly.
Then he fled.
:
Into years of exile.
Ever searching, ever seeing, ever finding, ever writing, ever fleeing, ever moving on when the Church hounds picked up his scent and alerted their masters to his whereabouts.
Against the ceaseless clip-clops below, the many cities parade before him, each at first a welcome, each in the end an unwelcome: Rome, Genoa, Turin, Savona, Noli, Venice, Milan, Chambery, Lyons, Geneva, Toulouse, Paris, London, Oxford, Marburg, Wittenberg, Prague, Frankfurt, where his traitor-to-be, Giovanni Mocenigo, finally reached him with an invitation to return to Venice, offering him both work and protection, which Bruno—homesick by now, and weary of constant flight—could not resist.
A few months later, Mocenigo—thirty silver pieces richer—handed him over to the Inquisition as a heretic.
Seven underfed and miserable years later. Many, many visits to the rack later. Many failed attempts to make him recant later. All these now see him tied to the back of a donkey choking on wood, and now nearing the Campo dei Fiori.
He caught the drifting song of oil drenched kindling mixed with the thirst for blood of the growing throng, of end approaching.
And still they shoved the cross in his face. Pleading, as if they had the faintest clue about what they were asking.
:: 6 :: (Renaissance Rome)
Donkey hoofs no longer clip-clop. They have come to rest.
He can hear, and feel—in his arms, in his chest—the slow breath of the animal. He can hear the soft swish of tail, as it chases some early-riser flies away. He listens to this for several heartbeats, and for a time—although he cannot bend his head to see—all that takes place in the here and now is the graceful flicking of the mule’s tail.
He tries to hold on to this moment (and so many other moments like it that now comes rushing to the rescue), tries to make it last and last and take the place of all other moments. Then comes another cross near his face and another eager-to-please monkish face, and here comes the rising susurrus of the anticipating crowd. The square then. They have arrived.
The animal chooses this moment to bray. Loudly to those nearby, louder still to Bruno, ear pressed against the braying neck, issuing the grating howls first as rumbling earth within the thick, redolent hide—he is still in two minds about whether the strong scent is comforting or disgusting—then as hissing forth through windpipe and maw, then out into air as scream.
And again, and again, as if a trumpet now, heralding arrival.
Then the animal has had its say; it is still now. Waiting, it knows not for what, but waiting. Waiting, like Bruno.
A new eternity.
Or a small bouquet of heartbeats.
Hands now, a forest of fingers trying to untie the not yet wholly dried leather thongs, trying and trying but failing to. Now a discussion, much of which eludes Bruno, but it must have to do with finding something to cut the thongs with. A knife, a sword, anything sharp enough. Suggestions are offered, attempts are made, the words “not sharp enough” are repeated by someone to his right—he can sense a priestly figure, pointing, piping (voice like an old organ) “not sharp enough” and much casting about for another implement.
More commotion, further attempts, and finally: someone brought something “sharp enough” and his compulsory grip on the donkey’s neck slips to his left as he falls to his right and someone catches him, then drops him as the same “sharp enough” severs the thong for his feet and he tumbles to the ground.
More hands and fingers among other crosses. He is heaved to his feet.
The leather thongs are still welded to his wrists and ankles and he realizes he can feel neither hands nor feet, what blood normally comes and goes there has lost access. Still, with the help of many hands, he stands on feet that, for all their numb silence, still seem to serve.
How long, he thinks, how long, precisely, am I for this world? Drink, he tells himself, drink what there is to drink, even if this wine be foul and painful, it is wine nonetheless and is better than no wine at all, for now he is suddenly very afraid to die, and would recant anything, everything; would assume all the sins of the world, and trade them for eternity in hell, if only he could live one more day. One more day.
The animal brays again, but this time nowhere near as loudly. Almost kindly. This time it brays for him, he thinks, a goodbye, and he looks over at the animal, but it is being led away now, all he sees is the rump and the swish of tail. Still, the bray was meant for him, this he suddenly knows and he is flooded with remorse for not loving this animal until now.
He tries again, but still cannot feel his hands. Nor his feet. Looking down he sees they are blue with trapped blood, spindly and blue and not such good instruments for standing, and so he buckles again, but this time he is caught before finding ground. Pulled up, supported now from all sides.
Other hands—many pairs, and with what eagerness—now begin pulling at his sack, his only clothing, and with many words exchanged between pullers and supporters the garment finally rises—catching first on the wooden block in his mouth, then scraping his nose and forehead—and frees itself of its charge. Tossed then—he cannot see in which direction—it leaves him naked. His only clothing now the constricting leather thongs on wrists and ankles.
And here the voice again, the “not sharp enough” voice. It makes a reference to the thongs, and an attempt is made to remove these little too-tight nooses, but after a while the voice loses patience and changes its mind and instead orders the many hands to lead him forward, toward.
Toward.
Toward the stake driven into ground for the purpose of purifying souls and now surrounded by kindling and much wood. The reek of oil rises anew as if to signal to him its willingness to burn. Toward this stake, and he cannot feel his feet touching ground. Perhaps he is lifted rather than walking, and then there is no more toward left.
Only stake.
Hands now press his back against the rough wood and twist his arms back for new thongs. He can feel, in the same manner you hear underwater, rope secure his hands and arms the far side of the bole, and someone else is making sure that his feet—which he still cannot feel, and which still, as he glances down, are blue—will not stray. So much binding for such a small man. That is his precise thought, and if the wooden block did not fill his mouth into forced rictus he would have smiled at that. Smiled, that he could still think lucid, even amusing—if not very helpful—thoughts.
They place a metal ring—fastened by a chain somewhere above him—around his neck, and—his faculties ever alert—he works out why: to keep him erect once the rope that ties him to the pole has charred and crumbled.
The ring is tight; it is more like a metal noose than a necklace. He swallows. Can. Barely. Swallows again, or tries to. His throat is too dry for a second swallow.
And so they are done. Many fingers, and parent hands and arms, retreat. He is safely secured.
Many hands now push wood and the kindling up against him, closing the path that gained him access to this, his final spot on Earth.
A tall monk in white robes raises a Bible for him to see. Bruno looks away. The monk speaks. Bruno does not listen. The monk moves himself and the Bible into Bruno’s line of vision. Bruno looks away again, averting the detestable thing that has brought this about—though, of course, he knows the book is not to blame, but the surrounding imbeciles who—slaves to the word—know no better.
The tall monk moves again and speaks again, and again Bruno refuses to listen—turning nearly shouted words into unintelligible sounds—and refuses to look. Instead, he closes his eyes, firmly, deciding never to
open them again.
A short-lived decision, for the sudden crackle of flame swings them open, morbidly curious. Smoke rises, acrid, black, oil-fed. Straight up into still morning air, and Bruno follows its rise against pale sky where curious stars still shine, wondering what on Earth?
Talking among themselves, speculating, glittering, distantly.
Beckoning?
Curious little things they are—or not so little, he reminds himself. Only distant. Distantly curious greeting the ever-thickening smoke as it rises and rises and now begins to obscure the throng the far side of it.
Bruno looks around, a little stunned. So many. From what he can see the square is full, and none of them well-wishers. Another Bible is calling for attention, or is it the same one? He cannot tell for the ever-thickening smoke. He shuts it out and listens instead to the greedy flames, innocent in their collaboration. They know not what they are doing, though the asses in long white frocks sprouting Bibles know perfectly well. They are protecting territory, securing coffers, removing competition, is precisely what they are doing, and what they will never forgive him for pointing out.
And now he registers heat. Something—he muses, and again he wishes he could smile at his sardonic path of thought—he will soon come to know quite intimately.
Someone he had not seen or sensed approach strikes his left ankle from behind sending a sharp pain up through his calf and sings of more to come. He looks down, his neck straining against the iron noose who wants to keep his feet a secret. He does manage to look down, the iron noose cutting and most likely drawing blood (he reflects), but has trouble seeing, then sees. Then sees no hand, no stick, no weapon, but flames. Making their way from behind they are the first to reach him, and now they lick his calves again, and then his legs, and then the chorus of pain rises into the screaming of more and more and more until he is surprised he is still alive, and still feeling, still capable of having ever more pain poured into him.