Black Mountain

by Venero Armanno

  The boy was in a white hired sedan and he was neither tall nor short, light nor dark. Simply a neat young man without any particularly distinguishing characteristics, who might pass unremarked and unnoticed by customs agents and through airport terminals. His accent was neutral: he could have been German, Italian, British or North American.

  With a new syringe he bled me of two vials of blood, sealed them, labelled them and packed them in ice. Then he produced a pair of scissors and helped himself to substantial cuttings of my hair. Finally he took out a razor-sharp scalpel and plenty of cotton gauze and disinfectant. To make the job easier I cut a nice piece of meat out of my palm for him, from the fleshy part of my left hand. Justin Blackmore placed the bloody lump into a small glass container and sealed, labelled and packed it away into a snap-lock valise.

  ‘I hope I’ll get to meet you again, Mr Montenero,’ he said.

  That brief visit so long ago caused me to do two things.

  The first was that I went to the refrigerator and took out the small airtight plastic tub that contained Celeste’s lock of hair, her nail cuttings and the vial of blood. I had an overwhelming desire to kiss the cold plastic, and so I did. A feeling of warmth flooded through me; it was undeniable, as if Celeste’s essence had remained, something of her that was greater than these sad contents so carefully sealed away. I kissed it again and again, then, holding the tub up to the light, I saw how the strands of gold still shone.

  I also saw that the drops of blood had of course long-since dried. I wondered if that rendered them useless. Her ashes had been scattered among the trees of our patch of forest out back, and this in my hand was all that physically remained of my wife. Doctor Vliegan and his associates would never have it, they would never have her, so now what could I do? Put the container in the trash, bury it in the dirt?

  I replaced her remains lovingly in my refrigerator.

  Despite what I’d said to Doctor Vliegan, one never can tell what might still lie ahead, isn’t that correct?

  The second thing is that from this point I took up a pen and tried to write again. It was the first time since Bruno Pasqua had taken me to Paris with him. Maybe I did it to try to fight loneliness; maybe I was trying to rediscover my worth. It only struck me later, far into the neverending process, that I was writing to the line that would come later.

  To you, and for you, whomever you might be.

  It was what Vliegan the Third had suggested I not forget, their motto: From one hand to the next.

  It strikes me now that if the new Kristof Vliegan is to be believed, the present fixation is on such profitable attributes as longevity, looks and health, but once these are conquered then surely there must come the next steps: how to make people wiser, or more artistic, or more mathematical, or more benevolent, or more industrious, or calmer, or more musical, or quieter – and, if so required in order to cull the chaff of inevitable failures, how to make the discards and the misfits better resiled to their mortality.

  The possibilities are, of course, endless.

  So here is my memory, my consciousness, for whatever good it might do the next new people.

  For whatever heart it might give you, friend.

  Godspeed.

  Epilogue

  Pain woke him. Either pain or something else, something outside. Maybe both. The pain was in his belly, to one side, and it travelled down into his groin. Yet when he opened his eyes the hurt disappeared and some remnant of a nightmare he couldn’t recall still clung to him. At first he was confused, but he knew exactly where he was; at first he was uncertain, but the living room was quiet and unthreatening; at first he was unsure of his own name, but beneath his breath he said: I am who I am and nothing else.

  He listened to the house. Silence. Or silent steps.

  Still curled up in the deep sofa where he’d fallen asleep, Mark’s eyes were open even though he couldn’t bring himself to move. Montenero’s books had settled inside him. He’d fallen into a deep slumber with the great fire blazing and now all the lumps of firewood were down to embers. The light of day was in the sky. Friday? Saturday? It felt as if weeks or months had passed.

  Mark stayed where he was, dazed, disbelieving, relieved. All at the same time.

  The ramblings of a crazy old man or the road into himself. Mark didn’t know which he’d found. So many of those words and sentences written in blue ink continued to sing through his mind that he couldn’t seem to separate his own thoughts from Montenero’s. This morning the ghostly old mansion enveloped him; so did the old writer’s story.

  Mark glanced toward the coffee table by the sofa. The diaries were strewn across the polished oak. Two black covers, then blue, green, turquoise, more. He pushed himself into a sitting position, his spine and neck rebelling because of the cramped position he’d been in. He stretched one arm then the other. His clothes were filthy from the digging. He’d scrubbed his hands but there was soil beneath his fingernails. The last diary was still open and there was its last word: Godspeed.

  He put his hands to his face and wept. Only a moment. When he pulled himself together he flicked those last pages with his wet fingers, scanning random sentences. His eyes lingered on that one there: Despite what I’d said to Doctor Vliegan, one never can tell what might still lie ahead, isn’t that correct?

  Was he supposed to be what might lie ahead?

  The old writer had written those words in the context of Celeste. Mark thought about that, then he wondered if he could find out fast just how much of this tale Montenero had dreamed up. He made himself get to his feet and stood shivering even though the morning wasn’t all that cold. He found himself wishing that the three dogs hadn’t been whisked away. It would have been good to have their untroubled companionship.

  The kitchen. The place to try first.

  It was dazzlingly bright with sunshine that flooded in far too directly. More than motes of dust hung in the air, it was a veritable storm. His eyes flinched from the glare and the sheen of the shiny surfaces and he had to turn his back from the window. Then he opened the refrigerator and freezer, digging around carefully, investigating, feeling slightly foolish, only discovering the sorts of things one man without very much appetite might want to eat.

  What about the pantry, that older, second refrigerator?

  He opened the door to the pantry, switched on the light, went inside. Scents of condiments and spice and loose onions in a bowl. He studied the full-size appliance quietly humming in a corner. Something about it was odd: in a moment Mark worked out what. He checked again. The main refrigerator in the kitchen was plugged into a normal mains socket but the second one was plugged into a small electronic board on the floor. Mark crouched down. He could see it was an automatic switching device. One light, currently illuminated green, was marked ‘Mains’. The second light, which was unlit, read ‘Generator’. There must have been an auxiliary generator somewhere on the property, probably in one of the tool sheds near the house. If mains power went out, it took over.

  What made it so important for the second refrigerator to have access to an uninterrupted power supply?

  Inside, there was a packet of rice flour that looked a hundred years old. Also a quarter-full bottle of eyedrops and a small sealed pail marked ‘arborio rice’. Nothing else. He closed the main door and opened the freezer, which was overcrowded. There was all the frozen dog meat he’d seen the day before. Dog bones too, plus plastic containers of what might have been frozen stews and soups.

  Mark shook his head. The old man had only wanted to protect important perishables such as meats and future dinners. Shifting things around a little more, he saw there was one mid-sized tub with contents he couldn’t quite identify.

  Mark took it into the brighter light of the kitchen. He held the tub to the sunshine. Indefinite. He prised open the cold lid, flakes of ice and frost falling away. So that was why he ha
dn’t been able to tell what was inside: it held a smaller, airtight plastic container. With the edges of his shirt he gently wiped off the plastic and held the container up to the streaming light by the window. That pure sun brought its contents alive. He shook the container a little, holding it up.

  My God.

  Nail clippings.

  A small cloudy vial of brown dots.

  Strands of gold hair that could still shimmer.

  They shouldn’t have meant anything; they could have meant anything; just a small memento of an absent wife that a loving husband might have treasured – but with a flood of warmth running through him Mark Alter kissed the iced plastic. Kissed and kissed it because the essence of Celeste was there, was still alive.

  His heart lifted. It had no right to. This was an old man’s pleasure, a forgotten husband’s tenderness. Not his own, but he felt it anyway.

  And, feeling it, he knew every word in Cesare Montenero’s diaries was true.

  Mark Alter fell to his knees.

  The great Amati mansion is crumbling, but it houses itinerants, passing travellers, pigeons and locals mammals seeking shelter. The roof has caved in at any number of places and the western wing’s main wall has collapsed, a lot of it falling inward, some outward. Weather and time have had their way. Even though the first sight of the old mansion had as much effect on him as staring at a dead dog in a ditch, he liked looking around at the abandoned pastures, liked imagining the young Cesare Montenero running with a ball and learning how to play with other children.

  The huge landholding itself hasn’t been completely abandoned, however. Mark sees that there are small stone homes with smoke whispering from their chimneys, and several hoed fields where asparagus, corn and maize crops prosper. Up above, the volcano is in one of its regular dormant phases. Like the nearby chimneys, only a breath of smoke floats into the sky. He decides that before returning home, he’ll make an expedition, maybe hope to see the magical smoke rings he’d read about.

  He walks down to the broken houses with his backpack over one shoulder, drinking water from his flask. Though he knows the direction and has planned out almost every step on his Michelin map, he wants to ask one of the younger workers if he knows the way to the country house of the people who used to live here.

  Mark consults his phrasebook and tries to get the words to make sense.

  The teenage boy in front of him interrupts his stammering and says, in accented English, ‘Which the ones you want to know?’ He’s chewing a mouthful of bread and cheese, hands large and hard, face dirty and sunburned. ‘The Amatis was first, then this bunch a bastardi called “Westenholz”. A famiglia Westenholz from Denmark. They gone broke. They just load their cars and drive away, 1953, 1954. Dunno. We call il abbannunamentu, you know?’

  ‘It’s the Amati family I’m interested in,’ Mark tells him.

  The boy sniffs hard. ‘Good. Amati. I ask.’

  He turns around and shouts something in Sicilian. Mark recognises the words ‘Nonna’ and ‘casa’ and ‘Amati’ and nothing else.

  Soon a very small, very old woman emerges. Dressed in black, with a shawl, ninety-nine years of age if a day. She looks at her grandson, sniffs, and sucks her few remaining teeth as she considers the question. Then she looks more closely at Mark Alter.

  And looks again.

  Gradually it dawns on her. She has cloudy eyes but she sees the Amati in front of her as clearly as she sees her own grandson. She spits at Mark’s feet.

  ‘Amati,’ she says with a sneer. ‘Domenico Amati. Tuo padre?’

  ‘Gesù,’ the grandson says with some feeling. ‘Nonna wants to know if some bastard name of Domenico is your fudder? So you better fuck off before we start remembering the bad days, okay?’

  Mark makes the trek in his own time, at the pace he likes. He can’t see any need to rush. The days are mild, turning warm. There might be no need to hurry, but he can’t really stop the excitement that continues to build inside.

  For the most part the terrain is easy to traverse and he takes every opportunity to climb slopes that look interesting and might offer better views of the dense forests surrounding him. Most of all, he likes seeing different aspects of the volcano’s slopes.

  One night he sleeps by a pond being fed by a running stream of water so cold it gives him a thrill to take off his clothes and wash himself down. As dawn breaks he stokes the small fire he’d built up for the night and surveys the silent forest landscape. He thinks it’s as gentle and untouched as it must have been on the first day. He imagines he’s been here before, done all of these things in earlier times, but maybe Cesare Montenero’s neat sentences in blue ink simply refuse to stop moving through him.

  Rabbits bound into a meadow. Clouds move across a foreign sky. He wants one more balmy night to sleep in the clear, clean open.

  He does it.

  Then there’s the long straight road into the grounds of the country house. He sees the place and it seems as familiar to him as his old shack at Prospect Point or Montenero’s mansion back in Godbless. He knows that if he rode a horse or drove a car he would be raising enough dust to alert anyone in that distant property that a visitor is coming, but he’s sure he now approaches unseen, and certainly unexpected.

  The excitement turns a little, becomes a small twisting of fear. All these days of wanting to find himself, now there’s that secluded country manor ahead.

  Mark Alter moves to the side of the dusty road and sits on a rock. He slings his backpack off his shoulders and takes out the diary he’s been keeping. More than two hundred pages have already been filled, and he finds room for one small annotation, perhaps the last:

  There’s a lot of things that have stayed in my mind, questions that went begging, answers that only seemed like they filled half a story. Where’s Vliegan; what’s Blackmore got to do with all this; why did Cesare Montenero send his dogs away for six months then tell that man the answer to what he needed to do would become clear?

  I feel like there’s more for me in this. Cesare Montenero’s last word was Godspeed. He didn’t write The End. So maybe the end hasn’t arrived yet. Maybe it never will.

  But those are all small things. I don’t let them bother me.

  The major thing to think about is the ongoing effect of what we are, of what we were meant for. I look like Domenico Amati. I get that now. But I think like myself. I like to be alone but I don’t have crazy dreams. I get a little pain every now and then. It doesn’t lead to anything. Then there’s all of this: the Don Domenico Amati of old could shoot two men as cleanly as if he’d been a trained marksman; Cesare Montenero could strangle a poor creature and put it into a fire; he could even take out his bloody revenge on a man named Batiste. And me, I could dream such horrors upon the world and its people. I proved that with what I twisted the creature No-Face into, in my screenplay.

  I know what I am.

  I don’t know that I have complete faith in the promise of renewal.

  Then again, maybe the facts are just ahead, right in front of me.

  The young man is stripped to the waist, working in a tomato patch, setting up trestles for the running vines, a cloth turned around his head like a turban. He looks up and sees Mark approaching, the surprise in his long face slowly dawning into disbelief. His garden fork drops from his hands.

  A woman is coming out the front door of the place that was once Don Domenico’s isolated country retreat. She has a plate of sandwiches and a pitcher of cold water to bring to her man. She’s in a yellow dress and her long blonde hair is tied back. Strands of gold catch the sun. He waves her over.

  ‘Look. Come here, see who’s visiting.’

  She goes to him, presses close to his wiry, perspiring frame. He takes the plate and the pitcher and lays them onto the deep-green grass. She’s wary, doesn’t know Mark Alter or even Domenico Ama
ti; neither does the baby in Celeste’s belly, a beautiful round belly as ripe to burst as any of Cesare Montenero’s fat fruit, or his rows and rows of sun-filled vegetables.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank the Literature Board of the Australia Council for its assistance in helping me complete this novel. Sincere thanks must also go to the State Library of Queensland, which in 2005 endowed me with its inaugural John Oxley Library Fellowship.

  Kate Cornfoot worked as my assistant and researcher and will always have my appreciation.

  The quote in ‘White Book’ is taken from the preface to Casanova’s Histoire de ma Vie.

  Warm thanks to Fiona Inglis, Madonna Duffy, Bettina Keil, Jim McCarthy, Giovanni Messina and most especially freelance editor Lindsey Moore.

  To the memory of Angelina Armanno, 1935–2008.

  First published 2012 by University of Queensland Press

  PO Box 6042, St Lucia Queensland 4067, Australia

  www.uqp.com.au

  © Venero Armanno 2012

  This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Cover design by Blue Cork

  Author photograph by Letchford Photography

  Cover photographs © Karen Ingham/Millennium Images; iStock Photo

  Typeset in 12.5/16pt Bembo by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

  Printed in China by 1010 Printing International Limited

  National Library of Australia cataloguing-in-publication data

  is available at http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

  Black Mountain / Venero Armanno