Blood Crime

by Sebastia Alzamora

  “Come in,” he said distractedly.

  The door opened and Sirga appeared, a grimace of alarm on his pock-marked face.

  “Comrade Escorza,” he said, clicking his heels together. “We’ve had word from the convent. From the mother abbess.”

  “Right,” sighed Manuel Escorza, setting his pen down on the table. “What’s eating the good sister now?”

  “A strange occurrence has taken place at the convent. The mother abbess requests a meeting with you, Comrade.”

  “Again? What happened?”

  “It’s the pigs, Comrade Escorza. The two pigs you had sent over to the convent. They were found dead this morning. It appears they were attacked by some kind of animal. A wild beast, it seems.”

  Manuel Escorza’s eyes darkened. “What you’re saying makes no sense at all, Sirga.”

  “That’s what I thought, Comrade Escorza, but the mother abbess insists that they were bitten to death. They were found in their pen, the blood drained from their bodies and with wounds to their necks and heads.”

  “And the bishop?”

  “I inquired after him. He’s safe and sound, comrade.”

  Manuel Escorza huffed. “It’s essential that the bishop’s safety continue to receive the utmost priority. Orders from high up. They want to exchange him for some head honcho on the Republican side, and if anything happens to him, we’ll be taken to the woodshed.”

  “Yes, comrade. I am aware of that.”

  Escorza became withdrawn, adopting an expression that made it seem as though thinking was a great effort. Finally he said, as if talking to himself: “It is impossible for anyone to break into the convent—the place is like a fortress. It must have been someone inside. And this has given me an idea.”

  “Bravo, Comrade Escorza,” said Sirga, obsequious.

  “Tell the mother abbess I’ll call on her this evening. Right now we have work to do—Here.” He handed Sirga the arrest warrant. “Give this to Aureli Fernández so he can take care of it at once.”

  •••

  Sister Concepció thought she might have found a method of composition that would at least allow her to begin work on the Stabat Mater. Bishop Perugorría’s assignment had become an obsession, a heavy weight that oppressed her in body and spirit, mortifying her like a cilice. And things had gotten worse after the episode with the two dead pigs and since the mother abbess had meted out her punishment for having abandoned her cell without permission. She was not allowed to leave her cell until further notice, and the other nuns had been banned from entering her room to visit or talk to her. They were to limit themselves to two knocks on her door when they left her food, nothing more. This ordeal had already lasted a day and a half. The complete seclusion—her only company the few little sounds that reached her—deepened her anguish over the task she had been assigned. Her mind often filled with thoughts of Saint Eulàlia pasturing her geese amid the trees of the Desert of Sarrià, which had been cypresses until an angel transformed them into palm trees, a sign that the little girl had been chosen by Heaven. Singled out for torment.

  The harder she tried to concentrate on the task at hand the more lost she felt, and it occurred to her that chance might help her find a way to begin. She considered tackling the Stabat Mater in C-sharp minor—Beethoven’s Clair de Lune as a reference point—but she was all too aware that it was an odd choice, which made it more attractive but at the same time filled her with self-doubt. She also debated working in A major, a key that Schubert—she recalled from her lessons with Master Millet—had described as the best suited for expressions of youthful joy and faith in God, which is what she supposed His Excellency the bishop expected of her piece. But what youthful joy could she feel or convey, isolated and sequestered as though in a prison?

  She was incapable of making a choice, and so decided once again to disobey the mother abbess. She had been banned from leaving her cell, but, curiously, the door had not been locked. It was as if the Mother Abbes wanted to test her, and Sister Concepció decided to use the test to her advantage. She would go to the chapterhouse and resort to the vase method: if she got a bean, C-sharp minor, if an almond, A major. Once the initial hurdle was overcome, perhaps she would find a thread she could follow to help her fabricate a suitable receptacle for the words of Jacopone da Todi.

  Sister Concepció waited until after Night Prayer, and around eleven o’clock, when the whole convent was asleep, she cracked the door and slipped silently down the hall. She descended the stairs in the dark, crossed the refectory, went out into the vegetable garden, and from there she dashed in the direction of the cloister. She passed the pigpen and was unable to avoid a shudder. The night was luminous and placid under the full moon, as though the war had long been over. Unhurried and aloof, the cats that roamed the cloister turned for an instant to observe Sister Concepció as she passed.

  The great door to the chapterhouse was locked and bolted, but her thin white arm had no trouble slipping between the latticework of the window that gave onto the cloister and releasing the latch. Sister Concepció climbed onto the windowsill, jumped down, and carefully shut the window behind her. The moonlight that streamed through the jalousie allowed her eyes to quickly adjust to the darkness. The great table in the center of the room resembled a large sleeping beast. She walked past it and went straight to the glass cabinet that held the two black-clay urns; she opened it and chose the same vase she recalled the mother abbess taking on the day of their interview. She could tell there was something inside the container and fished out the bean and the almond that were to help her decide the key of her Stabat Mater.

  Suddenly, the doorknob made a sound. It had to be the mother abbess—she was the only person who had the keys. Sister Concepció felt her heart climb to her mouth; as fast as she could, she returned the vase—the almond and bean back inside—to the cabinet, shut the glass door, and frantically scrambled in search of a hiding place. The only one she could find was beneath the long, dark, austere center table.

  She curled up like a dog in front of a lit fireplace and, from her hideout, she trained her eyes along the floor and toward the entrance; the door opened slowly, with a certain affected solemnity and not a single creak. It was, indeed, the mother abbess who entered. Sister Concepció glimpsed the purple strip along the hem of her black habit, the unmistakable shoes, also black, her feet curiously small for a woman of her height.

  The mother abbess was not alone. Behind her followed a pair of shapeless boots, greasy, raised on enormous lifts, which dragged clumsily across the tile floor driven by a pair of crutches. Terrified, shrinking more and more into herself, it occurred to Sister Concepció that those feet could have been Saint Eulàlia’s after her martyrdom, but she tried to quiet her mind by thinking they had to belong to a man. A man she had never seen before. Perhaps he was the one who had killed the pigs the other night?

  The mother abbess’s small feet and the stranger’s disturbing hooves approached the table without a sound. Sister Concepció saw a chair being dragged backward and heard the mother abbess’s voice: “Please, sit.”

  She heard the stranger huffing as he heaved himself into his chair. When the man’s body finally settled into it, it moaned like a branch of a tree breaking. The mother abbess walked around the table, pulled out another chair and sat down facing the stranger. Her small feet and his bulky ones rested on the floor just a few centimeters from Sister Concepció’s head. The light-colored wood of the stranger’s crutches, which rested against the table, was also visible from beneath the table. Afraid that her breathing would give her away, Sister Concepció tried to hold her breath, taking in air only through her nose. Aside from a small tremor that coursed up and down her body, the novice didn’t have to make any effort to hold completely still. She was paralyzed by terror.

  “So? What is it you want from me now, little sister?”

  The voice sounded rasping yet wat
erlogged, as though the stranger was grinding his teeth as he spoke, his mouth full of foam. Sister Concepció had never heard anything like it. It was repulsive.

  “You already know the answer, Manuel,” said the mother abbess, her voice quiet despite the stranger’s forcefulness. “I want you to remove him. He can’t stay here.”

  A few moments of silence followed. Then came that rasping sound again: “You’ve always been a bore, little sister.” The growl created a faint echo inside the chapterhouse. “What’s the matter, or did I not make myself clear the other day? I thought I expressed myself well enough.”

  “I beg you, Manuel.”

  “I’ll remove him when the moment comes, and I’ll be the one to decide when that is. There is no use insisting.”

  “The man is unwell, Manuel. He will bring us trouble. Actually, he already has.”

  Sister Concepció heard bubbles bursting and identified the sound as the stranger’s laughter. “What has he done now?” he snarled. “Has His Excellency taken to chasing nuns behind the confessional?”

  The mother abbess’s tiny feet twitched as though with a life of their own, and Sister Concepció had to lie flat so they wouldn’t bump into her. She breathed in deeply and tried to recite a Hail Mary, praying she wouldn’t be discovered.

  “I explained the incident with the pigs over the phone. That’s the reason I asked you here. You know I do my best not to bother you.”

  “Do you mean to tell me, dear sister, that our beloved bishop polished off two fat pigs in a couple of bites?”

  “You can poke fun all you want, but I’m not able to come up with any other explanation. We haven’t detected the presence of any other animals, and it’s impossible for someone to have entered the convent from outside.”

  “Are you in the middle of a fast? Perhaps the dinner you served left some of the sisters hungry . . .”

  “Furthermore,” the mother abbess continued, ignoring the comment, “there is still the problem with the novice I mentioned. I’ve been forced to place her in isolation and have forbidden her to leave her cell. But I had her key left in the lock in case she had to flee. He hasn’t stopped stalking her and doesn’t even bother to conceal the fact anymore. It’s like a fixation.”

  Sister Concepció had to bite the insides of her cheeks to prevent a scream from escaping her mouth. The man let out a boorish laugh.

  “I’m frightened, Manuel. Something is going to happen, I just know it. I’m asking you, no, I am begging you once again to remove him. Please.”

  The stranger’s voice grew deep.

  “I think you’re forgetting the fact that you are in no position to ask for anything, little sister. Not even to beg. You and your fanatics don’t even exist, remember? You wanted a life of enclosure and sacrifice. Well, that’s what you got.”

  “Precisely,” replied the mother abbess, her barely-contained rage unprecedented as far as Sister Concepció was concerned. “It would be easy enough to let people in the city know we are here, that the great Manuel Escorza has betrayed his revolutionary principles to hide away the bishop of Barcelona in the very convent that houses his sister the nun.”

  Silence.

  “Careful, little sister,” said the stranger, dragging out each syllable. “It wouldn’t take much encouragement to send a group of trigger-happy militiamen your way. You’d all end up like those mummies you’ve got buried who knows where, but before that you would endure a long, unpleasant ordeal. And that includes you, the bishop, and that little girl you have locked in her cell.”

  More silence. Big, warm tears rolled down the novice’s cheeks. She was hardly breathing; she could feel the beginnings of a burning sensation in her chest.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” added the man, squeaking like nails on a chalkboard. “I’ve already said I will not take the bishop, but neither am I particularly keen to see you get killed. For the time being at least. What I can do is place the convent under surveillance. You’ll get the Catalan police, no less; after all, they are under my command. What do you say to that, little sister?” The mother abbess said nothing. “That should also help us verify what happened with the pigs. You can’t complain, now can you? Go on then, help me up, little sister. I have a lot to do and war waits for no one.”

  Sister Concepció did not take another breath until she heard the key turning in the lock. She let out the air she had been holding and began to pant like a castaway suspended between life and death.

  “The basic idea,” explained a circumspect Judge Miquel Carbonissa, “is to take advantage of the cycle that follows the arc of nature. Continually, from dead bodies new ones are born—living bodies. The earth is nourished by animal and human carrion, by the remains of trees and vegetables. Bury a body, plant a seed above it, and soon you will see a tree growing. In a way, that’s what we’ve done with Hadaly.”

  The words of the magistrate ricocheted through the walls of the grotto and vanished into the dampness beneath the natural vault. With a look of awe, Superintendent Gregori Muñoz listened as the judge spoke; Doctor Humbert Pellicer observed both men with growing impatience. A few steps from the three men, the great black horse, illuminated by the glow of the lanterns, cut a haughty, indifferent figure.

  “What the judge has done here,” said the doctor, “is take human remains and give them new life by means of electric devices. It is life itself that has benefitted from our experiment.”

  “Life . . .” murmured the superintendent, not addressing anyone in particular. He contemplated the animal, transfixed, without daring to approach it.

  “See for yourself,” urged the doctor. “Your Honor, if you would kindly . . .”

  Judge Carbonissa approached Hadaly, felt the animal’s back for the switch, and flipped it. The animal’s eyes lit up at once; it stomped and moved its legs. It slowly made its way toward the end of the grotto, but seemed to change its mind and it turned around and returned to the judge’s side. It lowered its head tamely and allowed the man to caress it.

  “There you have it,” exclaimed Doctor Pellicer, smiling triumphantly at the police officer. “Isn’t it marvelous?”

  Superintendent Muñoz had gone from astonishment to consternation. “What is the origin of this monstrosity?” His curt tone earned him a reproachful glance from Judge Carbonissa.

  “It would take too long to explain,” replied Doctor Pellicer, who, in contrast, seemed utterly delighted. “Let’s just say that our friend Judge Carbonissa has dedicated many days of his life to the study of automatons and had long toyed with the idea of building one that would go a step beyond a merely mechanical engine and include organic matter in its makeup. As for me, you already know that my profession entails a quotidian dealing with death, and, over the years, this can become abhorrent even to the hardiest of spirits. I felt that contributing even modestly to Judge Carbonissa’s endeavor might help offset my malaise . . .”

  “But this is a monster!” repeated Superintendent Muñoz, pointing at the horse.

  “This notion of monstrosity seems to be a fixation with you,” said Doctor Pellicer, assuming a professorial expression. “That is understandable to a certain point, but our goal here is not to mimic nature, but to improve upon it. The word for it is science, superintendent. It is an application of reason, a sign of humanity’s capacity for progress. Even though our friend the judge would probably have something to add to this argument.”

  Judge Carbonissa smiled vaguely. “Let’s not confuse the superintendent further with our little squabbles, doctor,” he said somewhat condescendingly. “You entrust everything to the dictates of progress and science, which you practically sanctify as though they were a new religion. For my part, I will simply point out that in the tension between life and death, in the transition from one to the other, certain forces intervene which escape the boundaries of our rational understanding. It is a question of nuance, really, but
the nuance is significant because, in the end, we are speaking about what sets apart an inert body from an animated one—that is, what we conventionally refer to as the soul . . .”

  The superintendent hissed like an angry cat. “What on earth are you babbling about? So far, based on what you yourself have revealed”—he turned to Doctor Pellicer—“your . . .”—he hesitated—“your creature has already killed a man. This does not appear to be a very auspicious beginning, not for the progress of humanity, not for the knowledge of the soul.”

  Doctor Pellicer slowly lit the cigarette he had just finished rolling and made a grimace of distress. “It was an accident. The copper sheets inscribed with the synchronization of Hadaly’s movements include a self-protection command. The man must have somehow frightened the animal, and, sadly, he paid the consequences.”

  “Sadly. But what were you thinking when you allowed this beast to roam freely through the city’s downtown in the middle of an air raid?” inquired the superintendent.

  “That was precisely our intent,” Judge Carbonissa said softly, as Hadaly shifted its head as though listening. “We wanted to set a human feat, a proclamation of life’s supremacy over death—a proclamation, therefore, of hope—in the midst of the destruction and brutality by which our species debases itself. No doubt we allowed ourselves to be carried away by the euphoria that seized us after watching Hadaly gallop for the first time, but we had no intention of causing any harm. Just the opposite.”

  The superintendent, who was starting to look pale, cast a bitter look at Doctor Pellicer’s cigarette. “You are all crazy,” he said flatly. “I thought I had seen it all, but you take the prize. Completely looney.”

  “Exactly what Galileo was called after he declared that the Earth revolved around the Sun,” objected the doctor, smoking calmly. “And Paracelsus, too, when he described the causes of syphilis. Or Servetus, when he discovered the circulatory system by studying the lungs. I will not pretend I am not disheartened by your reaction, superintendent. I thought I would discover in you a keen intellect, but I was obviously mistaken.”