by David Hewson
Piero Scacchi hated the thing as much as the dog did.
He listened again. There’d been a human sound floating down from the island. Now it was gone. All he could hear was the iron angel wheezing over the blast of the wind, choking and popping as the fiery torch flared erratically.
He knew nothing about gas. He was the night boy, the lackey, someone who carried and cleaned, tapped gauges to make sure they weren’t hitting the red, and called on Uriel, poor, sad Uriel, locked in his office with a grappa bottle for the night, should something appear wrong. Piero Scacchi understood little about the various contraptions inside, only what he’d seen from watching Uriel work them, flying at the wheels and switches without a word, throwing in kindling, adjusting the all-important fires to his Arcangelo will.
But Scacchi was wise enough to understand when something was wrong. The wind could, perhaps, extinguish the flame of the angel’s stupid torch, sending raw inflammable gas out into the Murano night. Except that the problem seemed to be a lack of gas, not an excess of it. As he watched, wondering, the torch died suddenly, expiring into itself with a sudden, explosive blowback.
The dog whined, looked up at him and wagged its feathery tail.
He’d every reason to go. He wasn’t even supposed to be there. Scacchi had stopped by only to save himself some work the following night. The Arcangeli got their money’s worth, always.
Then the hunter in him caught another sound. A human voice again, indistinguishable, whisked away by the sirocco before he could interpret it.
“Xerxes—” he said, and never finished the sentence.
Something roared into the night from the quay above him. A long fiery tongue, like that of some enraged dragon, extended into the black sky for one brief moment. The spaniel shrieked. Piero Scacchi threw his jacket over the small, trembling form, then fought his way up the slippery treacherous ladder next to the mooring, hearing the sound of a man’s screams grow louder with every step.
THE FLAMES IN THE FURNACE LOOKED WRONG. SO DID the smoke, a sooty black swirl escaping from the kiln’s mouth, then spiralling upwards towards the shaking roof. Uriel knew how the furnace was supposed to look. He could judge the state of the fire just from the intensity of its heat on the cracked veins in his cheeks.
There was something foreign now in the maw of the beehive structure, behind the crock of forming glass, something burning with a bright, smoky fury. He racked his half-drunk head, searching for an explanation, wondering what to do. Uriel Arcangelo had worked in here since he was twelve. The process was so familiar he scarcely thought about it anymore. Around five on a working afternoon he would load wood and raise the gas burner to 1250 degrees centigrade before placing the first crude load in position. Throughout the early evening, he or Bella would return from time to time to see the furnace rise steadily to 1400 degrees, adding wood according to his father’s specifications, until the furnace was hot enough to allow any bubbles to escape from the glass. Then around three, Uriel, and he alone, as omo de note, would make his final visit and begin to lower the temperature gradually. By seven in the morning the glass he’d created would be sufficiently malleable for Gabriele to begin making the expensive and individual goblets and vases that bore the foundry’s trademark, the mark of a skeletal angel.
Nothing, in all his decades of attentive nighttime activity, fitted with the sight that lay before Uriel now: a furnace racing inexplicably out of control.
“Bella?” he called out, over the roar of the kiln, half hoping.
No one answered. There was only the call of the fire.
Uriel Arcangelo took a deep breath, knowing the decision that faced him. To close down the furnace would mean an entire day of lost production. The family was broke already. They couldn’t afford the blow.
Except . . .
There was always a lone, bitter voice at the back of his head when he’d been drinking. Except they’d scarcely sold anything at all of late. All they’d be losing was another set of unwanted items to store in the warehouse, alongside boxes and boxes of identical glass pieces of expensive, beautiful—they were beautiful, he still believed that—works of art.
Uriel looked at his watch and wondered whether to call his brother. It was now approaching three. The loss of a run was bad, but not so terrible that it was worth risking Michele’s wrath. Besides, Uriel was the omo de note. He was employed to make these decisions. It was his role, his responsibility.
He walked over to the tangle of old methane pipes and the single giant stopcock that controlled the gas supply to the burners. It was possible he could adjust the temperature manually. He ought to be doing this by now in any case.
Then he remembered what he seemed to see when he stared inside the furnace’s belly, and turned to look at the spiral of smoke still working its way to the stained moon visible through the roof. Something was out of place here. And without understanding what it was, he found it impossible to assess the full degree of the danger. He couldn’t take risks with the furnace. If something damaged the beast itself, it would mean more than a lost day’s production. An extended closure could spell the end of the business entirely.
He gripped the wheel with both hands, fingers tight around the familiar marks, and began to turn, looking for ninety degrees to shut off the supply completely. Michele could complain all he liked in the morning. This was a decision that couldn’t wait.
Uriel Arcangelo heaved at the metal with increasing pressure for a minute or more. It was so hot it burned his desperate hands. It didn’t move, not the slightest amount.
He coughed. The smoke was getting heavier, becoming so thick it was starting to drift back down from the ceiling. His head felt heavy, stupid. He tried to run through the options in his mind. The only working phone in the foundry was by the door. The Arcangeli didn’t believe in cell phones. If matters took a turn for the worse—and he had to consider this now—he would have no choice but to call Michele and the fire station, get out of the building and wait.
Becoming desperate, he lunged at the wheel one more time. It was immovable. Something—the heat itself perhaps, or year after year of poor maintenance—had locked it into position.
He swore under his breath and with one last, somewhat fearful look at the furnace, started to walk to the door.
He was halfway there when he felt something move on his apron, an odd, hot finger tickling at his chest. Uriel Arcangelo looked down and refused to believe his eyes. A fire was sprouting out of the fabric over his midriff. A healthy, palpable tongue of flame, like that of an oversize candle, was emerging from beneath the vest as if his own body possessed some kind of internal burner beneath the skin. And it was growing.
The flame flickered upwards, outwards. He stamped at it with his sleeve, only to see the fire catch the fabric there, dance along his arm, mocking him, like the furnace itself, which was now wheezing at his back, louder and louder . . . .
Uriel. Uriel.
The air shook. Instinctively, he knew what had happened. One of the burners had crumbled into dust. The searing heat had worked its way back through the pipe, towards the dead stopcock, feeding on the flammable carbon gas, devouring it every inch of the way.
The explosion hit him full in the back, so hard he fell screeching to the timber floor. He felt his teeth bite on the fossilised wood, felt something shatter in his mouth, sending a pain running into his head where it met so many other messages: of fear and agony and a dimming determination that he could survive all this, if only he could reach the door and the key, the magic key he’d had the foresight to leave there only a few long minutes before.
PIERO SCACCHI CLAMBERED UP THE RUSTY LADDER, STAGGERED onto land, then found his own momentum sent him tumbling onto the hard, dusty stone of the island’s tiny quay. He crawled on all fours, holding his breath against the force of the hot wind. His mobile phone was still in the boat. He’d no idea how to alert anyone nearby quickly, though someone, somewhere, would surely notice, even in this backwater of Murano,
on an island that kept its little footbridge to the outside world permanently locked now there was no public showroom for visitors to see. And if the fire were to spread to the palazzo, it would threaten to move on to the house itself, where the rest of the Arcangeli tribe were sleeping, in their separate bedrooms spread throughout the capacious mansion.
The burst of flame that had raged over the Sophia had died quickly. That, at least, seemed a mercy. But the cobbled stones of the broad jetty outside the foundry were now strewn with shattered glass and glowing embers of smouldering timber. Already he’d cut his hands stumbling into the shards and felt the burning stab of scorching splinters bite into his skin.
Cursing, he climbed to his feet and lumbered towards the half-shattered foundry windows, trying to locate the human sound he’d heard earlier. The frames ran to the ground to allow spectators outside to watch the process within. Now a miasmic storm of dust and smoke poured out of the chasm the blast had made in the centre. He shielded his eyes against the black, churning cloud and tried to imagine what force could have wrought such terrible damage.
Scacchi had no experience of fire. It rarely happened on Sant’ Erasmo, was scarcely worth considering on the boat. With its scorching breath in his face, he felt ignorant and powerless against the inferno’s might.
The old hosepipe was where he remembered, against the brick wall next to the double doors, curled like a dead serpent slumped against a hydrant that looked as if it hadn’t been used in decades.
Then he heard the hiss of escaping gas, and behind it the sound he’d heard before, magnified, a pitch higher: a human being, screeching in agony.
Piero Scacchi swore angrily, ripped the hose from its fastenings, lugged it under one arm and tore at the huge industrial tap with his powerful right hand. It gave, after much effort. A stream of water, not a powerful one, began to make an unenthusiastic exit from the nozzle.
He edged towards the shattered windows, directing the flow at the nearest flames as they ate into the tinder-like woodwork, watching them diminish reluctantly into a hissing, steamy mass, allowing just enough scope to let him get closer. Scacchi edged in front of the glass and the bright, sunlike light streaming from the interior. The colossal heat made each brief, laboured breath agony, made his skin shrink tight and painful on his face. And then all thoughts of his personal predicament disappeared as Piero Scacchi found himself full of grief and sorrow for the human being he knew, all along, would be inside.
SCACCHI RACED to the old wooden doors, tugged up the handle and heaved backwards with all his weight. Nothing moved. They were locked, from the inside in all probability. He could feel the force of the mechanism holding firm against his strength. Uriel must have had the key, he thought. But he was too scared, too gripped by the flames, perhaps, to use it.
“Uriel!” he shouted, not knowing how his voice would carry in this strange, fiery world beyond his vision. “The door, man! The key!”
There was no human sound inside now, nothing but the triumphant roar of the inferno.
Scacchi threw aside the hose and looked around for something, some iron bar or timber, that he could use to pry open the entrance. The quayside was empty save for a few boxes of broken glass, ready to feed the new firings. Then he looked again at the windows and knew there really was no other way.
He’d saved a couple of lives on the lagoon before. Idiots from terra firma playing stupid games with boats, unaware of the dangers. If he’d been willing to risk his neck for them, there really was no excuse to stand back and allow a good man like Uriel Arcangelo to die in these flames.
“No choice,” he muttered, and grasped the pipe beneath his arm. “None . . .”
Scacchi’s attention fell to the cobbled terrace by the boat. The dog had left the boat to find him. The animal now stared back from the edge of the quay, its terrified eyes burning with the reflection of the fire inside, black fur shiny and slicked back against its skinny body. Xerxes must have swum the short distance to the steps by the bridge, away from the ladder where the subterranean entrance lay with the Sophia moored next to it. Swum there in spite of his fear.
The spaniel threw back its head and let loose a long, pained howl.
Scacchi looked at the dog. He’d brought it up since the day it was born. It did everything he asked. Usually.
“Bark,” he ordered. “Bark, Xerxes. Wake the dead, for God’s sake!”
Then, as the fevered yelping began to rise in volume, as the animal started racing back and forth along the waterfront, he tucked the hose beneath his arm and took a deep breath of the outside air, wondering how long it would last him in the ordeal ahead.
Cuts and bruises. Smoke and flame. In the end they didn’t matter much at all when a human life was at stake.
Piero Scacchi hammered out an entry route with the iron nozzle of the decrepit hose, widened it with his elbow. Then he launched himself through the remaining spikes and shards, feeling nothing because that would require a loss of concentration and, at that point, there was too much for one man to focus on. Everything—machines, walls, worktables, timber beams and pillars—seemed to be ablaze. He was entering a world that was not quite real, a universe of flame and agony where he felt like a dismal foot soldier fighting a lone battle against an army of bright fiery creatures.
One brighter, more animated, than the rest.
“Uriel,” he said again, this time quietly, unsure whether the words were of any use to the half man, half fiery spirit rolling and screeching on the ground in front of him.
The creature paused for a moment, looked back at him. He was, Scacchi instantly understood, not quite human at that point, beyond rescue, and knew it too.
THE AUTHORITIES HAD ARRIVED. Late as ever.
Piero Scacchi watched in quiet dismay as two jets of water, thick, powerful streams, nothing like his own pathetic effort, burst through what remained of the windows, brutally taking out the last of the glass, then worked their way into the hall, so forceful they raked debris from the brickwork and the blackened, fragile timber that still was trying to support the foundry roof.
A storm cloud of steam rose from the kiln to join the smoke, the flames hissing in fury at their impending demise. And Scacchi looked again at what remained of the dark form, like human charcoal, that lay in front of him now, trying to remind himself this had once been a man.
He liked Uriel. He’d always felt touched by his sadness, and the strange sense of loss that seemed to hang around him.
Then one racing stream of water met the furnace itself, fell upon the beehive structure, fought with the baking hot brickworks of the convex roof.
The fire was dead, killed by a flood tide of foam and water. Some kind of victory had been won, too late for Uriel Arcangelo, but soon enough to save his family, that insular clan who would now, Scacchi thought, be gathering to witness the strange, inexplicable tragedy that had burst out of the night, bringing a fiery death to their doorstep.
Unable to stop himself, Piero Scacchi walked forward and peered into the belly of the beast. The object lay there, crumbling in the moaning embers, unmistakable, a shape that would, perhaps, explain everything, though not now because there was insufficient space in Piero Scacchi’s brain to accommodate the stress of comprehending what it might mean.
A tumultuous crash at his back made him turn his head. The firefighters’ axes were finally tackling the stupid wooden doors. If only the man inside had found the strength to turn the key.
If only . . .
Scacchi nodded at the white, fragile skull, sitting flat and jawless in the embers, shining back at him, and murmured a wordless benison.
A strong arm seized him by the shoulder; a voice barked at him to move. He removed the fireman’s fingers, stared into the man’s face with an expression that brooked no argument.
Then he went outside, back through the shattered doors this time, coughing, feeling his eyes begin to sting from the smoke, his skin chafe with steam burns, cuts and splinters bite into his han
ds.
On the cobbled quayside the family was gathering among the firemen and a couple of local police. Two Arcangeli were missing—Uriel and his wife. Some wordless intuition, which he hoped was just stupid, anxiety-fraught speculation, whispered to Piero Scacchi a version of what might have happened that night, and why, perhaps, a man might die rather than turn the key to an ancient set of doors and save himself.
Then Michele was on him, eyes flaming, shaking a bony hand in his face, so close his fingers touched Scacchi’s weary painful cheeks.
“Island moron!” this chief of the clan spat at him, shaking with fury. Michele was a short man, not far off sixty now. And in a suit already too. The Arcangeli dressed for their own funerals, Scacchi thought to himself, and cursed his own impudence.
Michele wound his two puny fists into Scacchi’s smoky, tattered jacket.
“What did you do, you idiot? What?”
Scacchi removed the man’s hands from his clothes and pushed him away, making sure that Michele saw this was not a good idea, not an action to be repeated.
Gabriele stood away from his elder brother, in an old suit too, silent, his dark, liquid eyes staring at the black shining water. Perhaps he was awaiting orders, as always. Raffaella was next to him, still in a nightdress, eyes bright with shock and anticipation, staring at Scacchi, with some sympathy, he thought, and a little fear.
An ambulance boat had arrived. A medic came up and looked at him. Scacchi shook his head and nodded towards the foundry.
“I tried to help,” he said quietly over his shoulder, half to Michele, half to anyone who cared to hear. He was aware of how old and hoarse and exhausted his voice sounded.
Then he marched past the busy firemen, past the bystanders, through the flashes of a lone photographer who had somehow reached the scene.
The dog sat upright, a taut black triangle by the ladder down to the boat, whimpering in gratitude for the man’s return.