The Council of Egypt Page 14

  And there were memories. Within the dream of the present, he now also dreamed the past. He saw Malta on the rim of sea and sky, in a golden haze of memory. Suddenly, it leaped into his eye as into the lens of a telescope, and into his heart: he saw the tapering campaniles, slender as minarets; the low white houses, the belvederes; from the bastions of the old city, he saw the sweep of fields between Siggeui and Zebbug, with their yellowing harvests of Majorcan wheat and the intense green of the sulla and the joyous purple-pink of its blossoms, the whole veined by low white walls. “Issa yíbda l-gisemín.” The jasmine was coming into bloom, and poured its perfume over terrace and street. Old men savored it as they sat on soft rush suffahs smoking their eternal pipes; the women worked at their little looms, weaving lengths of light cotton; indolent young men plucked fitfully on their guitars, the suspended chords spinning a melody through the languid air. At evening, the guitars struck up like crickets, and up from the port floated the songs of the sailors – Sicilian, Greek, Catalan, Genoese – eloquent of far places and homesickness. As the boy listened to the drunken tales of the sailors, the world unfolded before him like a fan: he discovered the vast and varied adventures that new places offer to even the poorest man, and he saw that the only possibility for the poor man to pluck the pleasures of life lay in changing scenes. And it happened that sometimes he would surprise the sailors in secret places along the shore, locked in dark embraces with the Veneres of the waterfront, heavy women, misshapen like their prehistoric forebears from whom Malta was said to have taken its name; it was the sailors who also made women known to him; he responded with nausea and intoxication, from which sprang his burning voyeur’s curiosity about all things erotic. Indeed, it was through women that he began to falsify the world; from what he saw, sensed, and surmised about women he drew the materials that led him to an inexhaustible and, with time, flawless fantasticating. It was definitely through women, through the fantasy that he had conceived of women, that he had created his fantasy of the Arab world to which the language and customs of his country, and, obscurely, also his own blood, attracted him. “Only the things of fantasy are beautiful. And memory, too, is a fantasy... Malta is nothing but a poor, harsh island and the people are as barbarous as when St. Paul was shipwrecked there. Only, being in the sea, it allows imagination to venture into a fable of the Moslem and Christian world, as I have done, as I have been able to do... Others would say history, but I say fable.”

  Chapter XVI

  It was two o’clock in the morning when the Conversation Club on the Piazza Marina received, perhaps from one of the judges, the text of the sentence, which had been scribbled on the back of an envelope. The trial had been held behind closed doors, and soldiers with bayonets at the ready had prevented even small crowds from forming outside the Tribunal. It was known, however, that counsel’s arguments had lasted for hours, from two in the afternoon until ten at night, especially because of the energetic pleas entered by Paolo and Gaspare Leone in defense of Di Blasi, and by Felice Firraloro for the other defendants. Talking to the wind, of course, but the Leones in particular insisted because a colleague was involved.

  The Marquis of Villabianca seized the envelope; everyone present acknowledged that to do so was his right, knowing how useful it would be for his diary. He began to read aloud: “Iste Franciscus Paulus Di Blasi decapitetur absque pompa, et ante executionem sententiae torqueatur tamquam cadaver in capite alieno ad vocandos complices, et isti Julius Tinagiia, Benedictus La Villa, et Bernardus Palumbo supendatur in furcis altioribus donec eorum anima e corpore separetur, et executio pro omnibus fiat in planitie divae Theresiae extra Porta Nuova...”

  The rest of the sentence was lost, drowned by a torrent of comments, questions, and explanations. Everyone was satisfied, but not because the sentence was so exemplary – it could not have been other than what it was, given the crime and the need to impress Jacobins and plebeians alike with the power of the State; they were content because Di Blasi – a man who belonged to their class, after all – had been granted decapitation, the Court thus setting him apart from his accomplices, who were to be hanged.

  The waiters, who threaded a frenetic zigzag among the tables bearing iced drinks, scorzonere, and Neapolitan ices, mentally addressed each lady or gentleman they served with a “May it refresh your—!” or “May it refresh your cuckold’s horns!” and hurried back to the kitchen, where their co-workers were busy setting up orders and commenting pithily on the satisfaction of their masters.

  “They’re pleased that he won’t hang but’ll have his head chopped off!”

  “We serve the iced drinks, they guzzle them... The rope for us, the axe for them.”

  “You think that’s such a great advantage? The pleasure of having your head chopped off—”

  “It’s the difference between a meal with meat and a meal of plain dried beans.”

  “No, it’s not a difference in kind, it’s a difference in style.”

  “Some style! Myself, I’d rather keep my body in one piece. The idea of being stuffed into a coffin in two pieces would make me sick.”

  “How would you know you were in two pieces?”

  “My soul would know it.”

  “Your soul doesn’t think. It gets ready to be roasted and it looks.”

  “Looks at what?”

  “At the filthy business life is... or at the emptiness that comes later and that is nothing but emptiness.”

  “All the same, with the knife you die fast. Even in a thing like this, they come off better than we do.”

  “But he’s left without his head!”

  The same question as to whether, style aside, the guillotine was superior to the gallows was being debated by the Countess di Regalpetra, Don Saverio Zarbo, and the Marquis di Villanova.

  “Say what you like, but one’s head, dear Lord, one’s head!...” the Marquis was saying, and he touched his neck as if to make sure his own was well attached.

  “I would never have supposed that it mattered to you so much,” Don Saverio said, never able to resist a gibe.

  “It mattered to him,” the Countess said.

  “That he should present us with this fine distinction in style, you mean?” the Marquis asked.

  “No, do you know what I think?” Don Saverio asked. “That he, as the Countess says” – he emphasized the pronoun by way of allusion to the past connections of the Countess and Di Blasi – “that he will actually suffer more from the distinction the Court has granted him... He believed in equality, he fought for it, and now they give him the axe and his companions get the rope.”

  “Then the sentence is completely just from that point of view as well. In a case like this, the punishment should contain the opposite of the ideas of which the accused has been found guilty,” the Marquis said.

  “Exactly,” said Don Saverio.

  “Who knows what he’s thinking at this moment. He must be so – so disheartened. I do feel so sorry for him. I’m afraid I shan’t shut my eyes all night long,” the Countess said.

  “I do believe that,” Don Saverio said.

  “May I recommend something? An infusion of hearts of lettuce, a cupful, a good cupful, and you’ll sleep like an angel,” the Marquis said.

  “Really? But a broth of lettuce hearts must have a horrid taste. I don’t think I could drink a whole cup.”

  “Add a touch of lemon,” Don Saverio advised.

  Chapter XVII

  Every day Father Teresi came to visit him: the attention was probably a request of Monsignor Airoldi’s, but it was not much appreciated by the Abbot. He knew that Teresi was not only the chaplain of the Castellammare prison, but also the spy of Monsignor López: dog does not eat dog, well enough, but he found it distasteful just to look at the man and that meek expression of his, which would persuade anyone to hand his heart over into the priest’s keeping. However, after seventeen days in jail, the Abbot’s distaste began to fade from habit, not to overlook the fact that Teresi was in a position to do him
some favors.

  It was from him the Abbot heard that Di Blasi had been sentenced to death and that the penalty would be carried out the next day. “Unless,” Teresi added, “the proverb that says the executioner is never absent turns out not to be true.”

  “Why, what has happened?”

  “What’s happened is that our honorable hangman Di Martino fell from the top of the gallows while he was setting it up in front of Santa Teresa, so now he’s in the Central Hospital and he’s not got one whole bone in his body.”

  “A sign from Fate,” the Abbot said.

  “What Fate, what Fate? Di Martino is getting on, his strength doesn’t match his zeal any more. He needs help—”

  “But it will be impossible to carry out the sentence without him.”

  “It will have to be delayed a few hours maybe, or for a day, but they’ll find someone else, never fear.”

  “I would like to ask you a favor,” the Abbot said.

  “Anything I can do, believe me. I am at your service, like a brother.”

  “Thank you... It’s this: I should like to say goodbye to Lawyer Di Blasi.”

  “That, believe me as if I were your own brother, is not possible. He is kept under such strict guard, you’d be appalled.”

  So that’s how a brother acts, the Abbot thought. “But you see him, you talk to him. I am a priest, too.”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  I know, you’re a spy. Aloud he said, “I understand... But could you at least give him my greetings, tell him—”

  “What?” Teresi asked; he was suddenly so eager for the Abbot to tell him something he could pass on to Monsignor López that his ears buzzed.

  “Tell him... Well, tell him that I have repented what I did... The codices, you know... Yes, repented, and that I want him to know, and that... Nothing, just that I have repented, and that I send my greetings...”

  “What is he, your confessor?”

  “No, it’s not that... It’s complicated, you know, it’s devilishly hard to explain.” It is complicated, he thought, because it’s not true at all that I’m sorry. And by telling him that I am, it isn’t that I want to deceive him. Or even to comfort him, because it doesn’t really matter to him about me or the codices, and of all times, not now. It’s that...

  “I’ll tell him. And I can do more than that. In a little while they’ll be taking him away for more torture—”

  “More?”

  “The sentence says ‘torqueatur tamquam cadaver in capite aliena ad vocandos complices.’ You can take your walk on the roof earlier than usual, I’ll tell the guards, and if you keep to the side that looks out over the main courtyard, you’ll see him on his way to the carriage. I’ll tell him that you’ll be on the roof, and that he should look up. As a matter of fact, I’ll go this minute.”

  “I will be very much obliged to you,” the Abbot said, “and don’t forget to tell him what I told you.”

  A quarter of an hour later, the guards came to fetch him for his walk. The sun was blindingly bright, and for a moment the Abbot’s head swam. Then he felt as free and light as the flag with its fleur-de-lis which rustled above his head and snapped when the wind blew in from the sea. Down in the courtyard the carriage was waiting, black as a sarcophagus against the shining gravel. The Abbot opened his breviary and pretended to read. He said to himself that what he was doing was stupid and even ridiculous, like everything dictated by feeling, which has meaning only in the sphere of emotion but is grotesque in reality. Yet he was anxious and moved, his whole being tense with expectation.

  Perhaps no more than a half hour passed: four soldiers crossed the courtyard toward the carriage; behind them, walking slowly and with difficulty between two other soldiers, came Francesco Paolo Di Blasi. The distance and the slanting light made the figures moving across the courtyard look shrunken, no taller than the shadows they cast. But when he came to the carriage and a soldier held open the door, Di Blasi seemed to grow to his full stature once more. He turned and looked up toward the roof. Then he lifted his hat and bowed slightly. The Abbot was gripped by terror and horror: the man down below who was bowing to him had white hair. His black clothing, the black carriage, the black shadows threw that utterly unexpected white head into terrible relief.

  The Abbot could not distinguish his features, but under that white hair the face seemed wizened, desiccated. He replied to the bow by waving his breviary. Di Blasi disappeared into the carriage. The stunned, lingering silence was split by the coachman’s voice, and the wheels clattered over the gravel.

  “My God,” the Abbot murmured. “God, my God.”

  Never had he confronted life with such terror. He remembered stories about malevolent phantoms, about people whose hair suddenly turned gray at their appearance; Di Blasi had seen living men turn into malignant phantoms.

  Teresi came up a few minutes later to bring him Di Blasi’s reply, and found the Abbot leaning on the parapet; he was ashen, and his eyes were wild and vacant.

  “Do you feel ill?” the priest asked.

  “The sun,” said the Abbot. “I have a slight sunstroke, my head aches.”

  “Let us go down,” Teresi said, and took his arm.

  Perhaps it really was the sun, the Abbot thought. He wanted to be quit of that vision, that memory. He did not even want to know whether the Chaplain had delivered his message to Di Blasi. But – “I told him what you wanted me to tell him,” Teresi said.

  The Abbot stared at him blankly.

  “He answered,” the Chaplain continued, “that there is so much fraud in life, and that yours has at least the merit of being a zestful one, and even, in one sense, as he put it, useful. And that he admires your imagination.”

  “He said that?”

  “Those very words. And he hopes that you will soon be at liberty again, and he sends you his greetings.”

  “They will torture him again, you said?”

  “Yes, but it will be simply pro forma, I think. His feet are like overripe pomegranates; the doctor says it would be too risky to use any more fire... What was I saying? Oh, yes. The sentence will be carried out tomorrow at the specified time. They appealed to the prisoners in the Vicaría for a volunteer executioner, a temporary one, and twenty or more responded. They’ve chosen one – a bull of a man, I can tell you. He had sixteen more years to serve, and he still can’t believe his good luck... Yes, yes, the sayings of the ancients always turn out to be true: the executioner is never absent.”

  Chapter XVIII

  He took off his shoes; he felt the relief of the swimmer who surfaces for air only to dive back into the water, for now he had to take off his stockings, which were stuck to his feet with blood and pus. With one terrible decision of will and hand, strip them off – quickly.

  The judges turned away and pretended to consult among themselves, so that they would not have to see. Even the police looked somewhere, anywhere else – out the window, up at the ceiling. When they glanced back, Di Blasi was stockingless; his feet leaked a greenish slime.

  “Let us get on with this,” said one of the judges: the stench of those suppurating feet combined with the smell of fat melting down was turning his stomach. Melted fat, boiling fat was to be the torture device this time rather than direct fire, which, in the doctor’s opinion, the prisoner could no longer survive.

  “This will be a token application,” the presiding judge said, “merely to observe the terms of the sentence.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It was the doctor who objected to further torture.” The judge preferred not to accept the thanks of a convic-ted criminal.

  The fat in the kettle was gurgling over the fire. That heavy kitchen odor in a torture chamber helped a little to take his mind off his atrocious pain. There was something ridiculous, grotesque about these men, police and judges alike, hovering over the bubbling oil like women in the kitchen preparing the lard after a slaughtering. For a moment, his mind wandered among recollections of how, as a child,
he used to roam the kitchen on days when they were preparing the lard, to nibble on cracklings, which he loved; it was a big kitchen, and in the smoky half light, the copper pots and pans gleamed like small crepuscular suns. It had been years since he had gone into that kitchen or eaten cracklings; the taste and the image were associated with boyhood. A nagging, painful thought crept into this memory: the judges and the police had also had childhoods; perhaps the smell made them remember some long-ago happiness or yearn for the peace and quiet of home; he thought how in a little while the distastefulness of the duty they were carrying out – that is, of torturing a fellow man – would be submerged in sweet, familiar fogs: presently they would eat and sleep and play with their children; they would make love; they would worry over the baby’s cold and the dog’s distemper; the setting sun, a flight of swallows, the perfume of a garden would move them to sorrow or delight. And now they were witnessing torture. This should not happen to a man, he thought. In the future it would not happen, not in a world enlightened by reason. (What despair would have accompanied his last hours had he had even a presentiment that, in the luminous future he envisaged, whole peoples would devote themselves to torturing others; that men of culture, lovers of music, exemplary family men, men who were kind to animals, would destroy millions of other men with implacable method and bestial skill, that even the most direct heirs of Reason would reintroduce the “question” into the world – no longer as a factor of law, which it was at the moment he endured it, but actually as a factor of existence.)