Veritas (Atto Melani) (50 page)

Simonis looked at me in silence, waiting for my last word.

“All right then. I’ll speak to him afterwards,” I concluded.

Simonis said nothing. He seemed relieved.

It was still the middle of the night, and we were still on the Leopoldine Island, outside the Tabor Schantz. The Pennal had parked his cart near a strange building, which I had never heard of
before: the Hetzhaus, or “House of Incitement”. It was a tall wooden building of a circular shape, from which, despite the late hour, there came an infernal clamour of human shouting
and animal cries.

“What’s going on in there?” I asked Simonis.

“Have you never heard of the Hetzhaus, Signor Master?”

“Never.”

At that very moment Populescu returned.

“It’s full tonight. Come with me, it’ll be quicker if we do it together.”

The Pennal, as usual, waited outside for us. We made our way to the entrance, where a huge, ogre-like man stopped us:

“Spectators or owners?”

“Don’t you recognise me, Helmut?” answered Populescu, “I’m looking for Zyprian.”

The ogre replied that he had seen our man about an hour earlier. However, he did not know if he was still around, and he let us through. I looked at Simonis questioningly.

“You’ll understand everything in a moment, Signor Master.”

The entrance was a simple low and narrow corridor leading towards the middle of the wooden building. As we advanced, the din grew even louder and I was able to distinguish its two principal
noises: men yelling and poultry squawking. Finally we emerged into a large amphitheatre, illuminated by a great number of torches. On the ground level there were a number of compartments, in which
animals were caged; when the grating was lifted they came out into the arena and fought. Next to the grating was the spectators’ entrance and large containers for dogs.

A heaving mass of individuals was swarming around the centre of the arena, yelling and gesticulating. The noise was now deafening, and was accompanied by a stifling stench of beasts, sweat and
urine. The crowd, all male, was made up of rough burly types, peasants and louts.

“Welcome to the Hetzhaus,” said Simonis, pointing to the scene at the centre of the amphitheatre, while Populescu asked someone for information. We moved towards the centre of the
show. A group of quarrelsome-looking brutes passed in front of us, greeting Populescu with cheerful coarseness.

At that moment, peering through the crowd, I finally saw what it was that held the attention of the swarming crowd. In the arena two large cocks were massacring one another with sharp pecks,
incited by the spectators’ furious yells, amplified by the echo created in the building’s hollow space. Just then, the larger of the two cockerels firmly seized the other’s neck
with its claw, pinned its head to the ground and with its beak pitilessly pecked it. The crowd cheered, spurring the two creatures on – one to kill, the other to die – with equally
bestial fervour.

“So Simonis,” I asked him, “what does ‘spectators or owners’ mean?”

“Spectators are the ones that come here to bet,” said Simonis, as I watched the bloody spectacle, “owners are the ones that own the animals they bet on.”

In the meantime Populescu had rejoined us.

“It’s no use, I can’t find out if the boy is still here or not. We’ll have to look for him. He’s easy to recognise, because he only has one eye, the left –
the other is covered by a bandage. He’s a boy aged thirteen, as thin as a rake and almost as tall as me.”

As Populescu moved away again, greeting strangers to left and right, I asked Simonis: “What does Populescu get up to in the Hetzhaus?”

“He scrapes together a little cash by cheating mugs with rigged bets. The Hetzhaus was opened a few years ago by two Dutch traders, and is very successful. In Vienna animal fights have
been in fashion for over a century, and there are lots of people who live by betting on them. The boy we’re looking for, even if Populescu won’t say so openly, is undoubtedly one of the
little tricksters that hang around these places. Now let’s split up, keeping an eye on each other: whichever of us sees the little squinter first must signal to the others.”

Left on my own, I studied the place. All around, the numerous barred cages held animals of every sort: in addition to cocks, there were dogs, bulls, oxen, wolves, boars and hyenas, and their
yelps of angry fear made the place sound like one of the circles of hell. The cages were set out in radial fashion, and from each one the animal inside could be unleashed and led straight to the
combat. It was as if some wicked enchanter had transformed Noah’s ark into a place of slaughter. At the entrance, ignoring the yells and yelps, the stink and the blood, a salesman was
cheerfully peddling bread, sausages and cheap Schwechat wine.

Meanwhile the larger cock had finished massacring its rival, which was carried off half-dead from the arena. The owner of the winner picked up his beloved pet and held it high to the jubilant
acclaim of the audience. I saw gold and silver coins changing hands, filling the winners’ eyes with joy, and the losers’ with rage.

At that moment, above the uproar of the gamblers and their beasts, I heard a shout:

“It’s him!”

I looked up. Populescu was pointing at a figure moving swiftly and almost invisibly through the forest of legs, arms and rustic faces. I saw him clearly: a pale, thin face, the right eye
blindfolded. I tried to intercept him, but taking advantage of the obstacle of a small knot of people the boy managed to dodge past me and to flee towards the exit. We all three chased after him,
pushing aside anyone in our path, and just a few seconds later we were in the street. By the time we got outside, as was to be expected, the boy had been swallowed up in the dark. The massive
Helmut, who stood on guard at the door, had just glimpsed him darting by.

“Curse it,” hissed Populescu, his breath steaming in the cold night air.

“And now?”

“Zyprian lives a long way off, in the suburb of Wieden,” he answered. “He won’t get back till dawn. He’ll have had to find some place to shelter in. But I know
there’s another place he hangs around in, near here, where he sometimes acts as pimp. He won’t expect me to know about it, because it was one of his hustlers that told me about it, and
not him. Pennal, curse it, what are you waiting for to get this cart moving?”

This place looked quite different. We were now in the elegant square of Neuer Markt. In the centre, gleaming amid the half-darkness, stood the monument to Joseph the First, Victor of Landau. A
large opulent place of entertainment spilled light not only from its ground-floor windows but also from those on the first floor. Next to the street entrance was a life-size wall painting of a
be-turbaned Grand Turk holding, as was the fashion in coffee houses, a steaming cup of coffee and beckoning people in. A number of luxurious carriages were parked nearby, whose owners –
noblemen and high court functionaries – were being expensively entertained within the building.

“This is the Mehlgrube. It’s the most elegant place for anyone looking for nocturnal enjoyment,” said Populescu. “It has the best billiard tables, the best card players,
the best music and the best whores in the city. People drink and dance even at this time of night, despite all the rules. The more successful a place is, the greater the laws it can break:
there’s all the more money for bribing magistrates.”

On the upper floor the notes of the orchestra were almost drowned by the laughter and clatter of the dancers. A piece in three-quarters time had just finished, greeted by rapturous applause.

“Did you hear?” snorted Populescu. “People are no longer happy just to dance Ländler or Langaus: now they all want this strange dance from who knows where, called Walzer,
or something similar. And yet doctors say that this waltz is too fast and immoral, it can lead to overheating and illness, and even to early death. If you ask me, in a couple of years people will
have forgotten all about it.”

While Populescu went off in search of Zyprian, Simonis had to answer my questions.

“Dragomir acts as a factotum for the professional swindlers. While they play cards, he peeks at the hand the dupe is holding, a poor fellow who has no idea he’s playing with two or
three tricksters. If they play billiards, he makes sure the victim gets given a cue of poor quality, which is guaranteed to make him lose, or every so often he switches the cue ball with a faulty
one, so that the poor sucker’s decisive shots all go wrong.”

In the meantime Dragomir had returned, looking exultant.

“I’ve found him. They’re keeping him warm for us.”

Through a little door that gave onto the road he led us into the cellar, at the bottom of a short staircase. Just one dim lamp illuminated a little room full of wine and beer barrels, where we
found the one-eyed boy sitting at a table. He was being watched over by a paunchy fellow, who had dull, half-closed eyes but looked imposing and threatening. He was even larger than the ogre Helmut
who had stopped us at the entrance to the Hetzhaus. His arms, I calculated, were as thick as my thighs.

“He helps me to get my clients to pay up,” Populescu explained, pointing to him with a knowing smile, filling a flagon of wine from one of the small barrels.

The young Zyprian looked more angry than frightened, and gazed at us with his one eye like a caged animal. He at once assailed Populescu with a stream of abuse; the latter answered him in the
same language.

“He says he won’t talk, and that he doesn’t remember anything,” explained Populescu, draining his flagon. “Earlier he promised to help me. Then he started saying
that these things are sacred for the Turks, that you shouldn’t ask too many questions, otherwise their god might get angry and punish us. But I pointed out to him that promises must be kept.
Otherwise Klaus will step in,” he said, nodding to the brute next to Zyprian.

“Among themselves,” Simonis whispered into my ear, “Half-Asiatics are particularly cruel.”

Zyprian spat on the ground as a mark of contempt. Populescu gave a sign to Klaus, who gave Zyprian’s left cheek a resounding slap. The impact was so violent that the boy tottered on the
chair.

“Go to hell,” he hissed in German.

“Don’t get worked up, Dragomir, keep calm,” muttered Populescu to himself. “Klaus, again,” he ordered.

This time three backhanders were delivered. The first made the victim shake again, the second made him lose his balance, and the third knocked him to the floor. Klaus hit without any style, but
efficaciously. Zyprian bore up.

“You’d better leave us for a while,” Populescu said to us. “We’re going to have to use strong measures.”

I shivered and looked at Simonis, who jerked his head as a sign that we should take Dragomir’s advice. We went and sat down a little way off. A few moments later we heard Zyprian’s
first screams, followed by Populescu’s burps, as he knocked back another flagon of beer.

“Half-Asia,” muttered the Greek, shaking his head.

“I don’t think that has anything to do with the violence,” I objected. “You talk as if they were the outcasts that live in the Americas: now those really are
savages.”

“These are no better, Signor Master. An old Pontevedrin joke says that a peasant, at the gates of heaven, is offered whatever he wants, on condition that his neighbour, who’s still
alive, will get twice as much. ‘Take out one of my eyes,’ answers the peasant with a malicious smile. There, that’s how people in Half-Asia treat each other.”

From Zyprian’s screams it really did seem that Populescu was giving orders for not just one but both of his eyes to be taken out.

“Believe me, Signor Master, in those parts men live like wild animals,” the Greek said heatedly. “Don’t be fooled, there’s nothing heavenly or idyllic about the
wildness of lands like Pontevedro; it’s a state of utter darkness, of obscure, foggy and bestial crudeness, an eternal cold night, beyond the reach of any ray of civilisation, any warm breath
of human love. It’s neither day nor night there, just a strange twilight, possessing neither our culture nor the barbarism of Turan, but a mixture of both: Half-Asia!”

“That’s enough, for the moment,” we heard Dragomir Populescu order the brute, who had just set his knee on the boy’s stomach and was preparing to hit him again.

Simonis and I approached. I was shocked by the coldness with which Dragomir Populescu, a student with an unsuspected double life, had set the thug on the poor child. Obviously it was not the
first time that our companion had had someone beaten up; only one who belonged to the sordid criminal world, I thought, could deal so casually in violence and bullying. Cheats, tricksters, pimps,
spies and fornicators. Simonis was not wrong: although his companions might call themselves students, they were anything but lovers of letters and sciences.

Zyprian’s resistance seemed to have been broken. The boy was lying on the ground with a blood trickling from his lower lip and a dark ring swelling round his eye even as we watched. He
mumbled something under his breath.

“Louder,” ordered Populescu, pouring his beer over his head.

Zyprian kept quiet. At another signal from Populescu, Klaus gave him a kick in his ribs.

The boy moaned and turned on his side.

“Aren’t we overdoing things?” I interposed.

“Shhh!” Populescu hissed at me. “Now then, Zyprian, what can you tell us about this Golden Apple? My friends are here for you.”

Zyprian began talking in his own language again, this time slightly louder. To make his mutterings intelligible, Dragomir translated them simultaneously into Italian, stopping every so often to
ask him to repeat words that he had not pronounced clearly on account of his swollen lip.

“Everyone talks about the Golden Apple, the secret of all power. Everybody is looking for it, but no one knows where it’s ended up. One day in Constantinople the sheik Ak emseddin
had an idea: he exercised his gift for visions, and identified the spot where Eyyub, Mahomet’s standard-bearer, who died during the victorious siege of the city, must be buried.”