The Marshal Makes His Report (18 page)

Don’t take me back to that house!

‘You’re distressed. You’re angry with me perhaps for taking up so much of your time. Father Benigni—’

‘No, no. I was thinking . . . I was thinking about your father, to tell you the truth.’

‘Of course, yes.’ Neri’s head began to make tiny agitated movements. ‘I am wasting your time and we should be talking about my father. My father . . . I
will
tell you everything. You understand that it’s not easy for me. You see, it’s so often difficult to confess not the serious things one has done but the petty things, the shameful, squalid little things. It isn’t just me, you see. I know very little of the world, but Father Benigni assures me that a man would often find it easier to confess to a murder, say, than to some little socially unacceptable . . . than to . . .’

His breath seemed to fail him and the Marshal, alarmed by not knowing in what his illness or weakness consisted and distressed by his suffering, reached a fatherly hand to touch his shoulder.

‘Steady, now. You don’t have to confess anything to me. I’m not a priest, remember.’

‘But you’re something very like a priest in the sense that you are familiar with things that . . . you are used to things and can understand. Besides, Father Benigni agreed that it was right to tell you. He’s worried about my health, I know that because my—nevertheless, it’s the right thing to do and would be so even were I in perfect health. You’ve been making an inquiry, they told me that, and you see, you’re wasting your time because I know. I know everything, so it’s only right. I’ve been weak and cowardly but there were other reasons, other people—I don’t want you to think too badly of me. It matters to me quite a lot and yet I don’t know you. Isn’t that strange? I’ve watched you very often. You walk very slowly and sometimes you stop and stand quite still for a moment as though you were saying something to yourself. Then you go on. You’ve often seemed so troubled. You may think it strange, but though I can’t see people’s faces from up here I can often judge their mood. For instance, I can tell by the way he opens the gate when Mori the porter has been quarrelling with his wife . . .’

‘I imagine that happens fairly often.’ A silly enough remark, and the Marshal knew he was only trying to delay what he didn’t want to hear without having the remotest idea of what that was.

‘They do quarrel a lot.’

‘And when you’re not observing the people in the courtyard or arranging your coin collection, you play music.’

‘Yes. You knew that? I play the flute. I’ve studied very little because it was felt that sustained study would be too much wear on the nerves. But I do play. I often wish . . .’

What he wished for he didn’t say. The Marshal imagined that there must be a lot to wish for in his life. Why should he feel for him, though, in just the same way he’d felt for the dead father—or the dream version of the dead father? As if he were the only one to care? Surely this young man was surrounded by care and attention? With a bluntness that he couldn’t help though it sounded so unkind, the Marshal said, ‘Why me? I understand the chief public prosecutor is a good friend of the family. I’d have thought you’d tell him anything you had to tell.’ Was he just being used again? Was this a trap to make him somehow compromise himself, the reprimand and the sudden transfer waiting round the corner.

‘Gianpiero . . . Yes, but I couldn’t. You’re right, of course, he’s a very dear friend of my—of ours, but that’s just why I couldn’t tell him—I mean about her, not about my father—and it would be even worse to have to admit that I . . . that I . . . It’s you I want to tell. It’s not easy for me to explain, but I have so much time to watch people, to know them. I’ve been watching you ever since it happened and at the funeral I became quite sure that you were the one person to whom I could unburden myself.’

The Marshal could well believe it. Story of his life. Other people’s problems, other people’s guilt, other people’s burdens and even their neglected dead. And because he knew that this was what his job was about he didn’t protest.

‘Tell me whatever you want to tell me if you think it will make you feel better.’ And since he had already understood the ‘shameful, squalid little thing’ that blocked his recounting of the more important one, he helped him.

‘You know, I first heard about you and your coin collection from William Yorke. His sister seems to be very fond of you. She told him how you sat for hours together sorting your collection at your desk by this window.’ He got up as he said this and went and stood with his back to the window in the space where the desk must once have stood.

‘I was looking down myself when I was waiting for you just now. Gave me a bit of a shock. Must have been a trial to you. I mean, after all, we’re only human.’

It was a bull’s eye all right, but what the relevance of it was to anything remained to be seen.

‘I moved my desk.’ His face was deep red and lowered towards his tightly clasped hands. His body rocked slightly like an old woman saying her rosary. ‘I moved it as soon as I’d confessed to Father Benigni.’

‘I see.’ But the Marshal also saw from his unshriven face that he had gone on looking after that. ‘And what did Father Benigni advise?’

‘Oh, he was very kind. He explained that it was only a venial sin, that in a sense I was a special case because, you see, if I’d been well enough my mother would have had me marry before now. You do understand?’

‘Yes . . . yes, I do.’
He needs to get married.
Lorenzini’s voice but the Grillo’s words. ‘I understand perfectly.’

‘But you realize that it’s not just . . . he doesn’t just paint them, that he . . .’

Only then did the Marshal think of the portrait of Bianca Ulderighi and remember that where the other tenants called her the Marchesa, or even That Bloody Woman, Hugh Fido . . .

‘He was tormenting me, you see. Look for yourself. You can only see from here, only from my window. It was aimed at me all along, although at first I didn’t understand that. I only realized it one day when he was arranging a model and he made her lie facing the window, he made her . . . And then he came right to the window himself and looked up. He looked straight up at me. And, God forgive me, God forgive me, even then I went on watching, I couldn’t help it! I was shamed to the depths of my soul and I went on looking. I couldn’t stop myself. Who else could have helped me except Father Benigni!’

‘Calm yourself now. Steady.’ The Marshal went back to him and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You trust Father Benigni, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do, absolutely.’

‘Then remember what he told you. It was only a venial sin.’

‘I do trust him . . . But such a terrible chain of events! How could it be that such a small guilt should become so great? I’m sorry. I must keep calm and not waste your time and tell you all the truth that I’m sure of.’

The Marshal could just hear the little priest saying it and he didn’t much care for that ‘all the truth that I’m sure of’ but he made no comment.

Neri’s hands were clasped now as though he were praying inside himself as he spoke, which may well have been the case.

‘I confessed. I confessed but didn’t repent. I moved my desk as I’d promised. Miss Yorke came up that very day, I remember . . . She used to say I should call her Catherine and she was always very kindly, very gentle. She asked me why—why I’d moved my desk to where I wouldn’t be able to see properly. That’s how kind she was, that she thought of my eyes. They’re not very strong. She brought me a box she’d found, a document box which had three coins in it under all the papers. They weren’t terribly valuable but she thought of me, and she thought of my eyes, and I didn’t know how to answer when she asked me why. She’s so far removed from anything like that. I always think she’s like an angel from a fresco, don’t you agree?’

‘I haven’t met her yet.’

‘Or perhaps from even longer ago . . . “A jar of wine from the Alban hills, more than nine years old . . .
est
in horto, Phylli, nectendis apium coronis; est hederoe vis
multa, qua crines religata fulges.”
Such long hair, of the same clear gold as the Alban wine . . . “and in my garden there is parsley, Phyllis, to plait a wreath for you; with trails of ivy I will bind your shining hair . . .” Such beautiful hair, like spun gold . . . “with trails of ivy I will bind your shining hair.” . . . I wish I could have studied more but my eyes, you see—and she thought of that, so kind—’ He broke off abruptly, as though remembering something, a painful memory that flooded his mind and set his hands, which had reposed a moment at the thought of Catherine Yorke, clutching again at each other for comfort.

‘Father Benigni said . . .’

The Marshal, for the moment, made no attempt to keep him to the point, if there really was a point to all this. He contented himself with sitting down again and observing Neri Ulderighi, perhaps the most extraordinary person he had ever come across. His body was so decadent, oversized, puny, the head too heavy for the sloping shoulders, the hair and skin that of an old man. Years of inbreeding had produced his body and its weak but desperate urge to reproduce itself. And out of all this shone a soul purer than a child’s—or it would have been had the priests not got at it and burdened it with guilt.

‘Father Benigni, you see, is concerned for my health as well as my soul. He’s cared for me all my life. I had to tell him that even after my confession I’d gone on . . . gone on—but I was punished, terribly punished—’ He was crying as he had at the funeral, his head lolling and then jerking upright.

‘Your mother?’ asked the Marshal very gently.

The head was stilled. ‘You know?’

‘I guessed. The portrait and one or two other things suggested . . . an intimacy.’

‘You understand that I didn’t know what to do?’

‘Why should you have done anything? It must have been upsetting for you to think that your own mother—’

‘Not to think, Marshal, to see. To see. It was a punishment in itself but I had to confess my own wrongdoing, you must see that. I didn’t intend to say more. I swear to you I had no thought of mentioning my—of who was concerned. It’s true, you know, what Father Benigni said. It’s only our own sins we have to confess. The sacrament doesn’t require us to recount the sins of others, and though I hadn’t thought of that for myself—I was too upset to think clearly—I nevertheless only intended to confess my own sin. You do believe me?’

‘Of course.’

‘Of all things you must believe that. But I was very distraught, I think almost hysterical, and somehow it just came out.’

‘I see.’ The Marshal decided to take over in the hope of avoiding any hysteria now. ‘And Father Benigni told your father, is that it?’

‘Oh no, not—the secret of the confessional, you see, meant that he—’

‘You’re not telling me he forced you to do it!’ But he had, of course, wasn’t that what he’d just done now?

I feel it’s better that you see him alone.

‘Forced? Oh no, what a shocking thing to think. I know it was the right thing—but he killed himself! He killed himself and I’m to blame with my filthy uncontrollable habit. I killed him!’ He started to scream.

Eight

‘A
nd you believe him?’ Lorenzini looked almost disappointed.

‘Yes.’

How could he not believe him? With a character like his it was impossible not to believe, even without supporting evidence, and there had been plenty of supporting evidence. The Marshal had been doing his job long enough to know that to get the right answers you had to ask the right people the right questions. The right answers were now in his notebook.

It must have been about three in the morning, though I didn’t
think to look at the clock.

Just one shot—at least I only heard one.

I’ll show you. You see? Of course, he’d shot himself by then—I
only came out on the balcony when I heard the noise. I’d say
that to be hanging over the edge like that he must have
intended to fall but he didn’t.

We saw it in the paper afterwards. Said it was an accident—
of course a family like that wouldn’t want it known, it’s only
natural.

How do you mean, come forward? Nobody asked me. I didn’t
even know you were making inquiries. Cut and dried, I would
have thought.

And even before visiting these people on the top floors of the surrounding buildings the Marshal had followed Grillo up the stone staircase to the top of Neri’s tower and looked down. The stones he held as he leaned over had been washed clean, but below him the trail of darkened blood was out of reach. There was no doubt in the Marshal’s mind that Corsi had intended to fall, to escape from that house at the last, but he hadn’t succeeded.

And all the way down the winding narrow stair the dwarf rattled on and on.

‘Heard the one about the chap throws himself off a tower and changes his mind half way down?
Save me!
St Anthony, save me!
And a great big hand comes out of the sky and grabs him! Then a voice says,
By the way,
which St Anthony were you wanting?
Well, you know how many St Anthony’s there are in Italy, so the chap casts about in his mind and comes up with
St Anthony of
Paduaaaaaaaaaaagh!
’

The courtyard, for once, had been empty of music. Somewhere outside a fading tattoo of drums marked the retreat of the procession after the tournament. The great doors opened a crack and boomed shut again as the Marshal reached the inner gates. The last thing he saw before escaping was Leo, huge, bull-necked, in purple and white slashed breeches with the tattered remains of a white T-shirt hanging from his scratched and bleeding torso.

‘At least, by then, Neri had stopped screaming.’

‘Didn’t that happen before? I mean, didn’t he start screaming like that when that English boy let the firework off?’

‘Perhaps it happens all the time.’ The Marshal was silent a moment, thinking. Then he said, ‘It must happen fairly regularly because they knew just what to do. The Marchesa appeared out of nowhere, as you’d expect, and the dwarf too. Neither of them was surprised and he was given an injection—something intra-muscular, the sort we all do at home but it was the dwarf who had to do it. I’ve an idea he can’t stand his mother being near him. He never mentioned her directly when we were talking, he avoided it, I think.’