by Diego Marani
I’m worried about Guntur; he hasn’t answered my last e-mails. It’s too risky to telephone him. I’ll try and contact him again by e-mail tomorrow at the same time. There’s an internet point near the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle.
That Friday, the church seemed to be empty. The canon who normally stayed behind to tidy up the missals had already left; no one had come to clean the candlesticks or empty the collection boxes. Then Salazar saw the curtain being pulled back and caught sight of the black shoes, but when he knelt down in the confessional he was surprised not to smell the usual scent of mouthwash. Obeying orders, he recited the credo, gave his registration number and launched into his speech.
‘Vicar, I have news. A man died in the hospital. At first sight it looked like a natural death, but I’m sure it was euthanasia. Unfortunately the angel of death slipped through my fingers, but now I’m on the scent. I may even have a name. I know how they operate…’
Hearing unusual sounds from behind the grille, Salazar broke off. He noticed that the curtain on the other side was half-drawn. He glimpsed something glittering, then heard the click of a gun being loaded. He threw himself out of the confessional just as three bullets fired from a pistol with a silencer hissed through the brass grating and sank into the marquetry, splintering carved putti and garlands as they did so. Staggering around behind a pillar, Salazar managed to pull out his own gun, fired several shots in the direction of the confessional, then rushed to take refuge behind the chapel wall. The shots reverberated through the church like thunder; a light rain of shattered plaster pattered down on to the floor. Huddled on the ground, the inspector strained his ears, expecting further shots. For one brief moment the distant din of the traffic could be heard through the silence. Then a thud, the crash of overturned chairs and, a few moments later, a sound of shuffling coming from the high altar. Salazar trained his gun on the shadowy figure which had appeared on the stairs below. The canon, who had come back into the church on hearing the sound of the fracas, was holding up his hands and shaking his head; rigid with fear, he was staring into space, his chin quivering. Then Salazar emerged from behind his pillar and ran into the nave, peering between the rows of benches towards the confessional. Stretched out in a puddle of blood lay a man half-enveloped in the purple curtain which he had brought down with him as he fell, his gun still in his hand. Salazar went closer and turned the body over. He was a young man, with an olive complexion and a haircut like that of a cadet; his eyes were wide open – both of them. Salazar went through his pockets, extracting a bunch of keys, a mobile phone, two cartridge clips and a badge just like his own. The man was a Dominican.
A north wind had got up, giving a sheen to the paving and the facades of the houses, whipping up swirls of dust which settled on car bonnets. An empty tram jangled along Corso Vittorio Emanuele; the last shutters were coming down. Salazar walked fast, avoiding passers-by, trying to collect his thoughts. The person who had killed the Vicar clearly knew about their meetings; perhaps he had been on his trail ever since his arrival in Rome. That would explain the unexpected visitors to the convent. It would also solve the mystery of the stolen paintings. It was him they were looking for. He had not expected such reckless behaviour; he had been proved wrong. These people are dangerous, he thought; but now they were the only trail he had. Someone was undoubtedly lying in wait for him in the convent. That was where he had to go. He was well aware that it was dangerous; but he had to amass further proof. He went into the first church he came upon, to get his breath back and consider his situation. The silence and the scent of incense calmed him. He took his aggressor’s mobile phone out of his pocket. The address book had just ten numbers, referred to by the signs of the zodiac, but he did not have the password. He thought of the dead man, the supposed cadet, who had probably just left the academy; he imagined the lectures his superiors would have given him. Suddenly sure of himself, he typed in domini canis, and found just one file, headed Semana Santa. It was a plan of the security measures for Benedict XVI’s canonisation ceremony, down to the last detail: the make-up of the squads of guards, the positions of the marksmen and telecameras, the route to be taken by the pope, the seating arrangements for the great and the good on the podium, the teams who would be manning the police vehicles, the general running-order, with comments, and the timing of the entry of the various groups for the final parade. Salazar read it carefully. Useful though it was, he could not run the risk of keeping that phone in his possession. When he had memorised its contents as best he could, he took out the battery and removed the microchip, broke it in two and threw the pieces into the vases of cut flowers on the altar. Now he had to brace himself to return to the convent.
In Civitavecchia Harbour three men were waiting nervously in the embarkation parking lot. Two of them were seated in a car, with the windows down. The third, a thin man with very fair hair, was pacing up and down in front of the bonnet, smoking a cigarette. Then he propped his elbows up on one of the open windows.
‘You and Boris stay in the car. I’ll do the talking.’ The others nodded. It was almost evening, and lights were going on along the quays. The ferry from Genoa was drawing alongside: all lit up, it set the water foaming, its funnels sending out clouds of black smoke. The cars began rattling down the gangway, and soon a long queue had formed at the exit from the parking lot. The fair-haired man threw down his butt end and got into the driving seat. A group of harbour-workers in blue overalls set off towards the bar, taking off their caps and wiping the sweat from their foreheads. One of them, who had stayed behind, went up to the car and said in a low voice: ‘That’s the one, that yellow TIR that’s coming down right now.’
The fair-haired man switched on the engine and looked towards the yellow truck that was bumping down the gangway. He turned the car round on the quay, tyres screeching, and joined the queue of cars leaving the harbour. The truck slithered after him. They made their way slowly forward, one behind the other, as far as the service area outside Santa Severa, where the truck driver parked in the small empty square and went to check the tarpaulins. He was middle-aged, fresh-complexioned, solidly-built and slow-moving; his head was shaven, but his chin bore the faint suggestion of a beard. He had a ring in his left ear, a snake tattooed on his upper arm, and he was wearing shorts and flashy trainers. The fair-haired man stopped the car some distance away from him, just beyond the turn-off to the petrol station. He gave the others a tense nod, pulled something out from under the seat and walked off towards the truck, then addressed the man behind the trailer.
‘Good evening, I’m Sergio’s contact.’
The driver pretended not to hear; he just stood there, tightening a strap. The fair-haired man went a bit closer.
‘Semtex. Altogether, a kilo in all. Plus the detonators. We’ve agreed on a price,’ he said, lowering his voice. The driver nodded. The fair-haired man took a folded newspaper out from under his shirt.
‘To be handed over in two installments. Next one, same place, same time.’
The driver nodded, stuffed the newspaper into his trouser pocket, winked, went off towards the driver’s cab and started the engine; the truck moved slowly off, suddenly lit up from nose to tail with coloured lights. The sky over the dark sea, still red from the sunset, was casting a golden glow over the houses in the little bay. The fair-haired man was just about to go back to the car when he heard shouting. Two four-by-fours with darkened windows were now blocking the car’s exit, one in front and one behind. Armed men were surrounding it, ordering the other two to get out and put up their hands. The fair-haired man squatted down among the bushes in the flower-bed and proceeded on all fours towards the wall of the motorway restaurant. The truck slithered slowly down the road leading to the petrol station on the other side of the little square, and there the fair-haired man climbed into it through the open window. At that moment two police cars drove into the service area, sirens blaring. Scarlet in the face, the driver first tried to push the man out again, then pulled him u
p on to the seat and gestured to him to hide on the bunk bed, swearing in his own language as he did so. He drove the truck towards the motorway, gradually picking up speed, peering nervously into the rear-view mirror and gesticulating furiously at the cars which were overtaking him, hooting wildly.
Salazar held his breath, hoping that that would enable him to hear better. The time switch was ticking away in the entrance-hall, and that ticking sound was a time bomb. He looked for the button with the orange pilot light so that he could press it when the moment came. The further along the corridor he went, the colder the air became. There was no longer the usual smell of vinegar, no candle lit before the statue of the Virgin. The glass doors were open. He slipped through the first one, gun levelled. The first room was empty, as was the next, and the last one was occupied only by bags of linen, heaped up on the floor. Salazar went up the stairs three steps at a time, flattening himself against the wall. When he reached the first floor, he raised his pistol and slipped behind the pillar supporting the stairs. Then the light went out; a hinge creaked and Salazar fired, three shots into the warm belly of the darkness. He stood stock-still. But he sensed movement: someone, apart from himself, was breathing. The switch for the automatic light was too far away, on the other side of the stairs; to reach it, he would have had to cross the area lit up by the skylight. He inched forwards along the wall; he heard a scuffling sound, a thud and then the din of a volley of bullets, shattering the plaster on the wall behind him. He fired another random shot, then threw himself to the ground. When silence fell again, he heard the sizzling of an electric cable, giving out sparks, and the sound of plaster flaking down on to the benches. He got up and dusted himself down; now the switch was right in front of him, just by the half-open door of his room, but it had been pulled out of the wall. He was about to jump to the other side of the stairs when he stumbled and fell against the soft mass of a lifeless body, pushing the door of his room fully open as he did so. At that same moment, a sign flashed on outside the skylight, casting a mauve gleam over the face of a bald man who was lying on his back on the floor in a pool of blood, his sub-machinegun protruding from beneath his blood-spattered ribs, his arms and legs spread-eagled and his fingers weirdly splayed. He was young and solidly built, and his still open mouth suggested surprise. Salazar went through his pockets, which yielded some scraps of paper, a wad of banknotes, a key and a railway ticket for Milan, with a reserved seat for Saturday 11 March. Salazar got to his feet: he had to get out of there, and fast. He had a quick look into his room: the cupboard was open, and empty, the camp-bed stripped; all his possessions had disappeared.
Salazar went off through the flickering lamplight, peering over his shoulder as he did so, trying to collect his thoughts. He had now lost contact with his superiors; in order to get back in touch, he would have to put himself in the hands of the Swiss Guards, and that was a tricky business. They were always extremely thorough: they would detain him, then interrogate him and check his fingerprints. It would be a few days before he could continue his enquiries. The Piazza Karol Wojtyla Barracks were the nearest, but perhaps it would be better to go straight to the Porta Angelica. He stopped at a fountain in a small square to wash off the blood from his clothes and hands. Perhaps he should not have left the convent in such a hurry; perhaps he should have looked around more thoroughly. Where had the nuns gone? Had they been locked away somewhere? Kidnapped, even? At all events, the whole thing had been badly managed; there was no need for such high-octane action, such hullabaloo. He could have been caught and done away with much more discreetly. Thinking back to the empty rooms, it struck him that the place must have been suddenly evacuated. Then he saw why: it wasn’t a convent at all! He remembered that he had never seen more than three nuns at any one time, had never heard any noise, smelled any cooking. The place was too empty to have been really lived in. So, it had been nothing more than a stage-set. Why had it taken so long for the penny to drop? But then nothing made sense any more. Who was the man in the confessional? Who had set that trap for him? Salazar moved off from the fountain, horror-struck. So the Vicar was a spy? He ran off, taking the darkest alley he could find.
He watched them as they met up, emerging from porches and alleyways. There were four of them; at first he thought they were just passers-by, people coming out to smoke a cigarette. One had a dog on a lead; another was taking a lighter out of his pocket. Salazar began to run, but the four men behind him were on his trail. Incredible though it seemed, at that hour the streets around Campo Marzio were all empty. Coming to a place where the street widened out, he tried to hide behind some parked cars, but his pursuers were on his trail. They dragged him out and stood him up in front of a street door, opened up their jackets and brought out their guns. Salazar lifted his hands slowly above his head and let himself be disarmed. He tried to look them in the eye, to memorise their faces; before he could do so, he felt a sharp stab of pain in the nape of his neck and lost consciousness.
The Vicar felt a macabre relish in slipping it into his mouth before placing it in his eye socket. That slippery sphere gave him a dizzy sense of power. He could eat the eye he had not got. He imagined himself swallowing his organ of sight and seeing inside himself, he who could not see outside himself. What effect would that have? He spat his prosthesis out into his hand, put it in the empty ashtray and took two little bottles out of a drawer. He sprinkled the lubricant on to the silicone eye and put it in, then washed out his mouth with the strawberry-scented mouthwash. Now he was whole again. He put the bottles back into the drawer and opened the envelope on the table. He took a black exercise-book out of it and started to read Salazar’s diary, which his agents had just brought to him from Amsterdam.
24 April
First I should say how I first met Guntur, who he is, what he does. But I’m in such a hurry to tell the story of Django that I don’t know where to start: thoughts are piling up in my head and the words are getting all tangled up on the page. This whole business is a bombshell, indeed it may even portend the death of the Church as we know it. But it’s better that no one in Rome should hear about it; they would overreact, as usual, and only make things worse. Until I’ve thought of some way out, I’ll keep it to myself. Guntur is older than me by some ten years, but he seems very young; his face too is strangely youthful, he’s got no spare flesh on his frame, he is self-disciplined and unassuming. His high cheek-bones and narrow eyes add a touch of mystery. He survived the tsunami which struck Indonesia in 2004 and, like me, he grew up in an orphanage, run by a Dutch Muslim charitable body. He likes to say that only orphans can be good Muslims, because the Prophet was an orphan too. Normal people, who grow up in a family, don’t know what it means not to be able to call any woman mother, nor any man father. Guntur is a neuro-psychiatrist, he is doing research at the University of Amsterdam and in his spare time he helps out in a madrassa in Slotervaart. We first met a couple of months ago, and immediately clicked; we’re both survivors, after all. We both regard our existence as a joke played by providence, and this helps us not to become attached to people, or to things, and to realise that one day we will lose everything. Guntur is a scientist, but he is also a sincere believer. His is the science of Avicenna, that is, a science which proves the existence of God and uses faith to cast light on reason. Guntur had agreed to talk about the Gospels in the madrassa, and it was with him that I organised the first Biblical-Koranist groups. I have set the missionary priests they send me from Rome to praying along with the imams; that way, they will be more useful than saying mass for a handful of senile old women in the church of Sint Nicolaas. Let’s hope that the people in Rome won’t be too quick to notice what’s going on. There is a lot at stake for me. I should have sought protection in the curia before embarking on such a risky venture. Anyway, it’s too late now. Perhaps there is still someone in Bologna who knows me, some fellow student from the Patriarchal Monastery. I should make a visit sometime. But I’m so happy here. This year spring has been particularly lovely in
Amsterdam, with the sky a constantly changing shade of blue, and the wind bringing a smell of earth, tearing the clouds into a thousand tatters the moment they form. The canals seem deeper, and below the surface another city teems with life, a city of fish on bicycles. In the evening it often rains, but it’s like fine spray, light as a watering hose, prolonging the lives of the tulips and keeping the grass green. Guntur and I often meet up in a coffee shop on the Oudezijds. We talk about philosophy and faith, helped along by a pipeful of good Himalaya Cream.