‘It’s looking grim,’ he admitted. ‘In a murder case it’s rare for a witness to enter the box determined to falsely swear away the life of an accused person, unless, of course, they have an axe to grind or are themselves guilty. What possible reason could a harmless old cobbler — or the other man — have to destroy Sybilia?’
They’re lying bastards,’ I said. ‘This is far worse than I’d imagined.’
Quinel shrugged. ‘I’ve tried again for bail, but it’s no.’
I walked into the anteroom of the court to find Jules and Ursuline waiting for me. Jules’s eyes were blazing with fury. He had his arm protectively around Ursuline. When a photographer tried to snap them, he threatened to throw a punch at the man.
Ursuline was crying. ‘They’re saying she did it because Grandpa wouldn’t give me a dowry. If only I could help her. I’d do anything… anything…’
‘We all feel that way, Ursuline,’ I said sadly. ‘There’s no reasonable defence against the murder charge. We’re all fumbling in the dark. Why the lies? That’s what I don’t understand.’ I wished I could help her children, but I couldn’t think of a single comforting word.
The afternoon’s proceedings were as bad as the morning’s had been. In turn a succession of witnesses — Leca, Padovani and Giacobbi — swore that Sybilia was a whore, violently disliked by the family, while Xavier Rocca was a tolerant and compassionate man.
I could not banish a sense of horror as witness after witness pushed Sybilia inexorably toward the guillotine. I felt powerless to help her and desperately afraid. It all seemed so alien as witnesses gave way to emotional outbursts under the skilful tutelage of the eloquent prosecutor, who seemed to revel in their excesses.
Next the prosecutor called Inspector Rene Hiller. He mounted the witness stand wearing a shiny grey mohair suit immaculately pressed and a red-and-white-striped silk shirt with a starched white collar and all the trimmings. His straight black hair was plastered flat on his skull and shone like a mirror.
‘Inspector,’ Duval began, ‘would you say that the murderous system of punishment known as the vendetta still lingers in isolated areas of Corsica, in spite of the French government’s efforts to end it?’
‘Hah!’ he snorted. ‘Not just the French. The Romans tried to do away with the vendetta; then the Genoese. In those days it was already deep-rooted. For thousands of years, successive governments have tried to do away with this terrible system. They never succeeded any more than we did. As a matter of fact, I’m something of an expert on the vendetta.’
‘You are?’ The prosecutor suppressed a smile. ‘Would you describe to the court exactly what it is?’
‘It’s a sledgehammer method of enforcing good behaviour among primitive people. It leads to the most frightful sequence of killings: men, women, and children. No one is spared.’
‘Would you say that the crime for which Sybilia Rocca is being tried is in fact a vendetta?’
‘Without a doubt.’
‘Have you any idea why she killed her father-in-law?’
‘The Corsicans are notoriously closemouthed about their vendettas. Their reasons for killing are not always obvious to outsiders. Some years back seventeen men were killed over a dispute about the ownership of a chestnut tree growing out of a wall. A savage spate of killings was set off quite recently by the death of a neighbour’s dog. However insignificant the trigger, once passions have been unleashed by a vendetta there is total mobilization. Entire families can be wiped out. There’s no distinction allowed between the innocent and the guilty. Half the time they don’t even know what started it — a cow, a pig, a goat, a tree.’ He shrugged contemptuously.
‘And how do you think the rest of the world should view the vendetta?’
‘As the worst form of terrorism. Those who perpetuate this hideous crime are terrorists. The vendetta must be terminated at all costs.’
‘Thank you, Inspector Hiller.’
Once again Quinel declined to cross-examine the witness, and when Hiller stepped down the court was adjourned until the following morning.
I watched Sybilia being led away with terror sinking into my bones. What chance did she have? If only she would change her attitude and at least plead her case in court. I’d been trying to see her for days, unsuccessfully. There and then I decided that I must see her. Surely someone would help me.
Chapter 81
I had to bribe my way into Sybilia’s cell that night. It had cost me a great deal of money and time, but I had to see her. There was so much that I wanted to know. The trial was going badly. She must realize that. Perhaps at long last she would explain, or so I persuaded myself. The truth was I didn’t know if she would agree to see me or turn me away, but the look in her eyes when the door swung open made me thank God that I had come.
‘How long do we have?’
That was all she said as the door clanged shut behind me. I heard the key turn, the peephole slide back in place, and I felt some of the horror of the caged animal that Sybilia had become.
‘An hour,’ I said.
She was dressed in a shapeless grey prison dress. She looked so young and so lost. A small wild creature, snared and doomed, could not have wrung more pity from me. She was frightened and deathly cold. I felt my love reach out and grab hold of her, wrap itself around her like a warm cloak.
‘Jock,’ she stammered. Her teeth were chattering. ‘It’s so cold.’
I tried to warm her by rubbing her arms and wrapping her in a blanket, but she remained as cold as death. ‘I feel sick,’ she complained. I stared at the remnants of a warm and vibrant woman. ‘The doctor’s been three times. He says it’s in my mind. There’s nothing wrong with me.’
Little wonder. She was so ashamed, being held up to public examination and loathing. Her humiliation had become physical self-loathing to the point of nausea.
‘I wish it were all over,’ she whispered. ‘I wish… but no, I won’t spoil this hour.’ She smiled, and that was worse than when she looked sad.
I had never before seen her without a light in her eyes: that special glint, sometimes warm, sometimes reckless, shining with laughter or compassion or even anger. But it had always been there. Now it was extinguished. It was as if her soul had been taken away, leaving a living death. ‘I love you,’ I said. ‘I’ve always loved you, it took a long time to realize that. Now I love you more than ever before.’
‘Warm me,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t blame yourself. Just love me now. I need your warmth. I need your life, here, inside me. I feel… I feel already dead… strange… as if the spirit of life has abandoned me.’
I could feel it, too. Outside the moon was lustrous, the night throbbed with life and fertility. The air was vibrating with the richness of being. But here… Oh, God, it was like a dark pit. ‘No, never,’ I lied. ‘Never believe that. Don’t say those terrible things.’
I grasped her, too hard, deliberately hurting her, but she did not respond. Then I tried again to warm her, rubbing her arms, her feet, her back; but she remained ice cold. Yet her cell was warm.
But she had taken a gun and killed a man.
To me she seemed like a flower, plucked and carelessly discarded. She would shrivel and die. The pupils of her eyes were dilated, and her skin dry. She pushed her head against my shoulder, put her arms around my waist, and hung on tightly. So tightly — like a drowning woman.
A moth came into the cell, attracted by the naked light bulb. It dashed against the bulb, burning itself, and fell to the floor.
‘Poor moth,’ she whispered, and shuddered. ‘Night after night, more and more. I can’t put the light out. I can’t even cover it, it’s so high. I am helpless here. I die with each one of them.
‘Will you…’ she began timidly. Then she hid her face against my shoulder. ‘If only… if we could only have one afternoon on the beach, at your cottage. Just one hour.’
‘We have this hour,’ I said gruffly. I wound my arms around her and kissed her eyelids, smoot
hed her hair back from her face, wiped away the cold sweat that kept gathering on her forehead.
‘Would you… Please… could you make love to me here?’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘It would mean so much to me.’
There was no sound of footsteps. I could not hear the guard. The prison seemed very quiet. Was she the only living thing in this pitiful row of cells?
How could I make love to her in this deathly place? It could be a mausoleum and she a corpse.
Her coldness was seeping into me, and with it came her fear. It was a small thing at first, but it grew… a fear that knotted my stomach and my throat, dampened my hands and the soles of my feet. Yes, my feet were sweating like those of a frightened animal.
How could I? Yet I ached with the need to comfort her. Some of my life-force must be pumped into this cowed, defeated woman. I took off my clothes and then hers. We both shivered. ‘Come,’ I said, and gathered her into my arms.
‘I want to feel hot with love.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘I want to feel passion. I want it to surge through my body, I want to live, one last time. How you used to want me. I wasted all that loving. Do you remember?’
‘I remember. I’ll never forget.’
Why had I said that? It sounded like an obituary, and now she was shuddering at my words.
Never forget you… never forget… when you’re gone… No, goddamnit. No!
‘If you love me, Sybilia, tell me why you did it. Tell me, or we’re both lost.’
She turned away and shook her head. ‘It all seems very long ago,’ she whispered.
I had a sudden moment of doubt. Perhaps she was mad. Perhaps she had taken the gun and shot Xavier and didn’t know why or couldn’t even remember.
‘Don’t think, just love me,' she said softly.
I reached out and touched her cheek, and a strange vibration seemed to flow between us, a warm tingling that turned my skin into goose pimples. I could see from her face that she felt it, too. Her eyes became dreamy, her lips fell slack and half-open, her breasts rose and fell. Trembling, I laid her back upon her cell bed and pressed my lips over her breasts and stroked the soft white skin of her thighs.
I was becoming aroused. Unbelievable, but true. I bent swiftly and ran my tongue over her belly, heard the swift, sharp intake of breath and a half-formed cry, ‘Robin,’ quickly stifled as she flung her hand over her mouth.
I stiffened with anger and aggression. I was being used. I was only a surrogate for another man — the man she had loved to distraction. Still loved! Now it was all over. Everything she had ever wanted had been taken from her, first her freedom and then her life. So she wanted one last remembrance, by making love to me — or anyone? I pulled back and stared down at her.
Was that all I had ever been? An attempt to recapture Robin? And did it really matter? At that moment it seemed whatever she felt for me was trivial. I loved her — that was real and enduring, and she was imploring me to expunge her wounds.
‘Jock, help me.’ A lost voice in the darkness of the night.
I leaned forward again and kissed her tenderly, felt her quiver and relax. I soothed her, stroked her, whispered promises and hopes.
Now she was stirring, her skin becoming moist and her breathing deeper; she closed her eyes and sighed with contentment.
Oh, God, Sybilia, I love you. I want to help you and understand you.
I sensed how much was being compressed into this one last act of love. It was as if she had risen out of the cold dark earth, quivering with the ecstasy of sensation, groping blindly for the light and warmth of life. She had uncoiled the bud of her womanliness for this one night. This night she would be reprieved.
So she gave herself to me, or Robin, fully and joyfully. Exalting in our shared ecstasy, we made love with an intensity of feeling I had never known before.
We only had an hour, and it was soon over. The scent of our love filled the room. That was all that was left. I sheltered her in my arms and tried to make the magic last, but it was seeping down into the stone floor.
Her body became colder. Then she shuddered. I dressed her and wrapped the rug around her. I felt that she was slipping back into her hell of fearful premonitions.
Afterward I could not remember all the promises I had made to try to cheer her. All I could see was the look in her eyes when I had to leave.
Chapter 82
The next day, Sybilia was not the same woman I had comforted in the cell. Her eyes deadened, her face rigid, she looked ill, but not afraid. She was wearing a black suit with a white blouse. I remembered when she had bought the outfit. It had taken me a long time to talk her into choosing it. Now it brought a lump to my throat.
I turned my attention to the proceedings and tried not to remember the past.
‘Call Maria Rocca.’
There was an excited whispering in court as Maria approached the stand, leaning heavily upon her stick. There was hardly a person there who did not know that Maria was a mazzeri. With her long black hair, streaked with white, hanging down over her shoulders, she looked the part. Several people crossed themselves as she took the stand.
When the formalities were completed, the prosecutor said: ‘Madame Rocca, you lived with the prisoner in your house for more than twenty-two years. That must have been a burden for you.’
‘No, why should it have been?’
Duval straightened up with a jolt as if he had been slapped. In prior examinations Maria had always seemed quite mad. Sometimes she raved about visions and the spirits throughout the investigation. For three consecutive days she had babbled on about revenge, which is what he had expected her to do this morning. Easy to send her over the edge again, he reckoned.
‘Were you, madame, a witness to the death of your husband, Xavier Rocca?’
There was a long silence. Maria was clasping and unclasping her hands and muttering to herself.
‘Did you, Maria Rocca, see your husband shot by this woman?’ He pointed dramatically to the dock.
Maria looked around at the faces in the court. She gripped the rail tightly with her hands and stared toward the prosecutor. ‘I see a boy on a wolfs back. I see him holding a gun. I see his finger tightening on the trigger. I see the rifle pointing at my head.’ Her high-pitched voice suddenly stopped, leaving the courtroom eerily silent.
The prosecutor made one last try: ‘Maria Rocca, did you see Sybilia kill your husband?’
‘They did not show me because of the lie,’ she tried to explain. ‘The lie in my head.’
I noticed the prosecutor was smiling. I was sure that he had intended to show the court how her son’s death and the resultant scandal had driven Maria insane. ‘No further questions,’ he said.
It was Quinel’s turn, and he hesitated momentarily. I could read his mind. In this state of confusion, was there any point in trying to get through to Maria?
‘Madame Rocca, this trial is a terrible ordeal for you, but I want you to try to remember when they first brought Sybilia to your house as a young bride. What was she like?’
‘She was lovely. Full of joy. It was a pleasure to have her in the house.’
‘And later, when they brought her back from Bastia, during the war, after her ordeal of imprisonment and torture, was she quite normal, do you think?’
‘Why, no. She went crazy for a while. She couldn’t be with people. She shut herself up for weeks. I had to keep Jules away from her. She couldn’t bear to see him or touch him. She’d suffered badly, and it took her months to recover."Would you say she was in need of psychiatric care?’
‘I don’t understand. She needed medical care badly.’
‘She was depressed. Do you think she was having a mental breakdown?’
‘Yes.’
‘But the fact is she never received any treatment after suffering a breakdown caused by terrible bodily torture?“How could she? The Boche controlled the hospitals.”Thank you, Madame Rocca. That is al
l.’
‘
‘Call Madame Francoise Cesari.’
She entered the witness stand like a prima donna taking a curtain call. With a pang of fear I recognized the dark, intent, Semitic features of the famous voceri who regularly tore her clothes and rolled around the cobbles at funerals, whether or not she knew the deceased. Today she was wearing a smart black dress and coat, with a veiled hat and matching gloves, but the gleam in her eyes was as savage as ever.
Under the prosecutor’s skilful guidance she explained how she had watched Maria’s health and sanity fail after the killing of Xavier Rocca right under his wife’s window. From time to time her eyes flickered triumphantly toward Sybilia.
Then it was Quinel’s turn.
‘Did you see Sybilia Rocca after she was rescued from the Italian prison?’
‘No. No one saw her. She remained shut up in her room for weeks. Then Captain Moore took her away. He said it was to a place where she would be cared for, but the truth was they were shacked up in Romanetti’s summer chalet. We all knew that.’
‘Why do you think Captain Moore didn’t take her to hospital?’
She laughed contemptuously. ‘We had no hospitals in the mountains. They were all around the coast in the hands of the Axis troops.’
‘So although she was suffering from a nervous breakdown, she received no treatment?’
‘That is correct.’
‘Could you describe Sybilia’s attitude toward the villagers after the war?’ Quinel asked softly.
‘Stuck-up. Although she should have been humble."Would you describe her as aloof? A hermit?’
‘Objection,’ Duval called out. ‘He’s feeding her the words he wants to hear.’
‘Objection sustained.’
‘I will rephrase. Did she fit into village community life?"Her? No, never. She kept to herself.’
She seemed reluctant to stand down when Quinel dismissed her.
The Corsican Woman Page 41