The episode of the ghost left her indifferent, but she planned to discuss it with Lieutenant Ramírez in the morning. She was convinced it was a nasty prank among soldiers that, unfortunately, had ended badly.
As the first light of dawn was coming in through the window, however, Estrella appeared and told her that there was a priest in the anteroom who needed urgently to speak with her. She got up and went to meet him.
She’d never seen this priest before. He was rather young, had wild eyes, and was decked out in a stole and holding a holy-water bucket and aspergillum. He didn’t greet her, but only stared fixedly at her.
“Quién es Usted?”
“I am Don Scipione Mezzatesta, the new palace chaplain. Don Asciolla was reassigned.”
“Qué quiere?”
“The key to the room where your husband’s mortal remains lie.”
“Por qué?”
“I believe it is my duty to undertake the immediate burial of the deceased. The ghost who appeared this evening is clearly your husband, who is wandering about bewailing that he has not yet been granted a Christian burial.”
Black flames flashed in donna Eleonora’s eyes.
“Fuera de aquí!”
“I shall have to notify his excellency the Bishop that—”
“Fuera de aquí!”
The priest turned his back and went out.
That same morning the bishop sent word to all the local parish priests to inform their congregants that at noon the following day, Saturday, he wanted everyone gathered together in the Cathedral because he planned to celebrate a Mass for the troubled soul of don Angel, after which he would deliver a special sermon. And then on Sunday morning there would be a solemn funeral procession that would leave from the Cathedral and march to the viceregal palace.
At midday on Saturday in the great church, there wasn’t room left for so much as a needle. A great many people remained outside, not having been able to enter.
To ascend to his pulpit the bishop had to wend his way through the crowd, which overflowed onto the stairs leading up to it.
He knew that he had started a battle with donna Eleonora that could only end with the disappearance, in one way or another, of one of them. And he’d decided to speak without casting any anathemas, and to try to use only words that touched the heart.
He opened by declaring that all the gold in the world would never persuade him not to say the words he was about to say. In addition, these words, if taken the wrong way, could lead to grave charges against him, namely that of having rebelled against the representative of the power of our beloved sovereign, the King of Spain.
So why, then, was he speaking?
Not in obeisance to a higher order, but only to give voice his own conscience as a pastor who had to find ways to make his entire flock follow the holy precepts. And among these holy precepts, there was one in particular that must not be transgressed: the injunction to bury the dead.
“My little brothers and sisters, my sons and daughters, has it ever once crossed your minds not to give a Christian burial to one of your loved ones? To your father? To your mother? It never has, I am sure of it. And one who does not want to bury the dead, what kind of person is that? A man or a beast? A beast, you will say. But, be careful, my little brothers and sisters: there are people who have the appearance of human beings and the feelings of beasts. And these people can only be either possessed by the demon or incarnations of the devil himself. And right here, in Palermo—and my heart weeps to say it—there is a woman who, if she is not the demon herself, belongs to him. Do you know of whom I speak?”
“Yes!” said a thousand or so voices.
“This woman,” the bishop resumed, “refuses to bury her husband, and keeps his dead body in her house. Why is she doing this? Is it perhaps—and the mere thought of it makes me tremble—because she needs that body for some of her devilish black magic? And the other night, as you all know, the deceased’s poor soul started wandering from room to room groaning and pleading for help. Because his wife will not grant him the peace that is his due.”
“The woman is cursed!” cried a very shrill, almost hysterical voice.
“Cursed! Cursed!” hundreds of voices repeated in unison.
“And do you want to know something else?” the bishop continued. “Yesterday morning she dared throw out the priest who wanted to bless the deceased just to grant him a little peace!”
There was a long murmur of shock and disapproval.
At this point all it took was for one woman to fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth, for dozens of others to follow suit. Some knelt and beat their chests with their hands, some tore at their hair, some writhed on the floor, eyes rolling back into their heads . . .
With all the power in his lungs, the bishop announced that the solemn procession would leave from the Cathedral at nine the following morning, and then he stepped down from the pulpit.
He was pleased with his effort.
And since in a short while the content of the bishop’s sermon came to be known at the palace, Lieutenant Ramírez, weighing his options, requested that the number of soldiers guarding the building be tripled and was granted his request.
The bishop, too, for his part, held a long meeting with Mezzatesta and four other trusted priests, during which they worked out all the details of the next day’s procession and of what would follow the procession.
In the early afternoon, a worried don Serafino raced to donna Eleonora to warn her that there was a great deal of uneasiness in the city over the question of her unburied huband and the supposed ghost in the palace. And as he knew nothing of what had transpired, since he hadn’t been to the palace since the previous Tuesday, he was filled in on everything. Afterwards, he sat for a few minutes in silence, then asked donna Eleonora for the key to the room with the catafalque. The marquesa gave it to him without any questions.
The court physician went and spoke with the Chief of Ceremonies.
“I wanted to ask you about what happened the other night.”
“When I saw the ghost?”
“I’m not interested in the ghost.”
“Then what do you want to know?”
“Where the cries were coming from.”
“Definitely from the room with the viceroy’s casket.”
“Is it true that the lieutenant asked the person crying if he needed any help?”
“Of course. And the person said yes. I heard him with my own ears. And the voice was coming right from there.”
“I’m told that there’s a second door there.”
“That’s true.”
“Who has the key to it?”
“I don’t know.”
He thanked the Chief of Ceremonies, went and opened the door to the mortuary chamber, went in, and closed it behind him.
Don Serafino didn’t believe in ghosts. The four candlesticks gave off sufficient light. He looked around.
And he noticed that in the wall on the right-hand side of the room there was a large recess, the sides of which were carved into trompe-l’oeil columns supporting an arch. Surely in the past the room must have been a chapel.
He approached the door at the back, which was large and old, and studied it long and hard, examining the lock in particular.
He was starting to form an opinion, but he needed to ask a few questions.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Processions, Clashes, Talking Corpses,
Ghosts, and Other Things
Don Serafino went down to the chapel on the ground floor. The door was ajar. He pushed it open and went in. There wasn’t a soul inside. He slipped into the sacristy, but there wasn’t anyone there, either.
He was on his way out, intending to come back later, when he heard some sounds from the little door that led from the sacristy to the apartment reserved for the chapel pr
iest.
He went in there and found Don Asciolla packing some clothes into a bundle. Don Serafino had known him for years and admired him. He’d always seemed to him a man who minded his own business, discreet and concerned with doing his job as a priest and nothing more. They exchanged a warm greeting.
“I hear you’ve been replaced,” don Serafino began.
“Indeed. After twenty years here. I’ve seen a few viceroys come and go! And never once . . . but, never mind.”
“I’m sorry. But why the replacement?”
Patre Asciolla threw up his hands.
“His excellency the bishop didn’t deign to give me an explanation. And I’ve no choice but to obey. The Lord’s will be done. It was only by chance you found me here. I’d just come to get my belongings.”
“And where’s the new chaplain?”
“At the bishopric with the bishop. He and his excellency are hand-in-glove, if you know what I mean. They’re busy preparing the funeral procession. But my question is: What’s wrong with this poor Christian widow wanting to bury her husband in Spain? I performed the service for the dead on him myself, and gave my blessing. Therefore, from the point of view of the Church, everything’s in order.”
“Do you know when your replacement will be back?”
“I wouldn’t know. All the same, I don’t think he’ll be back here before tomorrow afternoon.”
“Tell me something. Since you’ve been here at the palace for twenty years, it’s something you ought to know. That room in the private apartement where don Angel’s casket is now, what was it used for before?”
“It was the chapel. Then, a year before I got here, this chapel here, which is larger, was completed. All the stuff that was in the other one was brought here, and the old chapel became just another room.”
“How many doors did the old chapel have?”
“There were always two. The viceroy and his family would come in through the door to the private apartment, while everyone else, including the chaplain, would use the second door, the one on the landing, which has been locked ever since.”
“Do you know who has the key to this second door?”
“Of course. It’s right here.”
He went over to a piece of furniture, the upper part of which featured a great many little drawers, opened one, took out a large key tied with string to which was a attached a piece of paper with the words: old chapel key.
“Could I borrow it? I’ll bring it right back.”
“All right, but be quick, because I’m about to leave.”
He went upstairs to the second floor, stopped outside the door, inserted the key, turned it, but it wouldn’t move. The lock was stuck. He tried again to turn it, harder this time, but there was nothing doing.
There were two possibilities: either the lock was too rusted to function, or that was not the right key.
Or it might also be a case of . . .
He pulled his shirt out his breeches, took one tail, rolled it up tight and, standing on tiptoe, stuck it into the keyhole, pushing it as far inside as he could.
When he pulled it back out, it was all stained.
Not with rust, but with oil.
He went back downstairs and returned the key to the priest. Then he asked him the logical questions.
“What is the name of the priest who has taken your place here?”
“Don Scipione Mezzatesta.”
“Does he know the story of the old chapel?”
“Yes, he said his excellency the bishop told him about it. In fact, when he arrived he asked me where the key to it was.”
“And did he try it?”
“No, sir. Why should he try it? He only wanted to see it.”
Don Serafino left the chapel feeling satisfied.
He was absolutely certain he’d guessed right. And he wanted to go at once and tell donna Eleonora. Which he did. He also explained to her what he had in mind to do, and she gave him free rein.
* * *
Some two thousand people were gathered outside the Cathedral, while inside there were another thousand or so. The parish priests had given it their all, threatening their flocks with excommunication, illness, and divine retribution if they didn’t attend. And every one of those present—between shouts, imprecations, insults, blasphemies and curses hurled at the viceroy, on top of the cries, wails, laments, Ave Marias, and Pater Nosters—made enough noise for three.
Some thirty-odd priests, conveniently placed both inside the great church and outside, were handing out crucifixes of varying size and hundreds of papier-mâché death’s-heads with the words Bury me! written on the forehead, which were to be borne aloft on spikes.
The nuns and friars of all the convents and monasteries of Palermo opened the procession by reciting the Rosary.
Following behind them were a hundred priests singing the prayer for the souls of the dead.
Just behind them came a baldachin borne by four priests, as people threw flowers and roses down on it from the windows and balconies above. Under the baldachin, in golden vestments, the bishop walked very slowly, holding before him, with both hands raised, the sunbeamed golden pyx with the Most Holy Sacrament inside.
Behind him a queue of another hundred priests recited the litanies of the service for the dead.
Then three thousand shouting people, men and women, waved crucifixes and death’s-heads in the air, spurred continuously on by some thirty-odd priests mixed in with their number.
“Louder!”
“Haven’t you got any air in your lungs?”
“Hold your skulls and crosses high!”
“Haven’t you got any strength in your arms?”
When the procession reached the great square in front of the palace, everyone could not help but notice the triple cordon of armed soldiers protecting it, and so the nuns and friars at the head of the cortege stopped a short distance away. All they could do was raise their voices, so that the Rosary could be heard all the way inside the palace.
Then, a short while later, the crowd opened up fanwise so that those carrying crucifixes and death’s-heads could come up to the front row and join together in a chorus of many voices—a chorus they’d practiced when they were all gathered inside the cathedral.
A first group chanted:
Get out of Palermo, woman of ill-fame!
Get out alone, the same way you came!
While a second continued:
Bury the dead in holy land,
unhappy woman, woman damned!
Then the two groups came together:
Woman, just bury the dead,
then off to hell you must head!
Then, after repeating the chorus three times, they stepped back and made room for the bishop, who came forward slowly, alone, without the baldachin but still holding the Holy Sacrament.
All present fell to their knees. The bishop recited a prayer that seemed never to end, but when he was done he made the sign of the cross three times in the air with the pyx of the Sacrament.
The procession now over, the bishop, after giving the people his benediction, went back to the cathedral, accompanied only by the four priests carrying the baldachin.
But the event didn’t end there.
All the nuns, friars, priests, and the three thousand people remained in the square, where four makeshift altars had been set up. Masses for the salvation of the soul of don Angel were to be recited without interruption until sunset.
The best part came when, that afternoon, half of Palermo left their homes to go and see what was happening outside the palace, and there soon wasn’t room for so much as a salted sardine. A few scuffles even broke out among the new arrivals, because there were some who sided with the bishop and others who instead claimed that donna Eleonora could have her husband buried whenever and wherever she b
loody well pleased.
As soon as the sun set and the Masses ended, the bishop came back to the square to commence the second part of the great protest against the failure to bury the viceroy, which consisted of a nocturnal novena, by torchlight, which would continue without interruption until five o’clock the following morning.
Shortly before midnight, Father Scipione Mezzatesta, who had been egging the faithful on all the while, went up to the bishop, said something inaudible to him, took his leave, and went into the palace through a secondary door, which was the one nearest the chapel.
Despite the great pandemonium outside, all was calm inside.
The only new development was that the soldiers standing guard on the first and second floors had been relieved earlier than expected by other soldiers that Lieutenant Ramírez had personally hand-picked.
After midnight, however, they too became sleepy and dozed off.
And this was what enabled the ghost, who materialized on the ground floor, to climb the stairs unseen and reach an open first-floor window. He appeared in the aperture and began shaking his arms in the air like someone desperately calling for help.
And since there was a torch right under that window, a number of people spotted him and started shouting:
“The ghost!”
And the cry spread, repeated from mouth to mouth:
“The ghost!”
Finally the bishop cried out:
“Do you see him? It’s the restless soul of don Angel! It’s that diabolical woman who has reduced him to this state!”
Everyone fell to their knees.
Meanwhile the ghost had withdrawn and gone up to the second floor, stopping outside the door to the former chapel.
He opened it noiselessly, went inside, immediately smelled the odor of death in the room—despite the fact that the court physician and the coffin-maker had done a good job—but hadn’t had time to close the door behind him before a hair-raising, sepulchral voice called out from the casket:
The Revolution of the Moon Page 13