Veritas (Atto Melani) (82 page)

“Oh it was nothing important, just a –”

“No, Signor Atto. Let’s put aside the usual nonsense, if you want me to trust you. Otherwise I’ll turn around and leave you. And to the devil with you and the Grand
Dauphin.”

“Very well, you are right,” he admitted after a few moments’ silence.

His hands groped the knob of the drawer closest to him. He opened it and took out the little coffer he had received from the Armenian.

“Here it is. I’ll give it to you, to show that your trust in me is not ill-founded,” he said, handing me the little container.

I tried to open it, but in vain. It was locked.

“I’ll give you the key before I leave. I swear it.”

“I’ve already had experience of your oaths,” I retorted in a sceptical tone.

“But you can open it whenever you want! You just have to force it. I only ask you not to do so now. I’ll trust you,” he added in a solemn tone, “if you’ll trust
me.”

A great sophist, Abbot Melani, when it came down to trust. But I had to acknowledge that this time I had something concrete in my hands.

“All right,” I said. “What do you want in exchange for the coffer?”

“That until you open it you ask me no more questions about the Armenian.”

“When do you intend to leave again?” I asked after pocketing the coffer.

“As soon as I have understood who the shadow-man is.”

“The shadow-man?”

“The man who acts as intermediary between the killers of His Caesarean Majesty and the Grand Dauphin and the instigators.”

“A secret agent?”

“There is someone in Vienna who superintends and organises the moves of the perpetrators, whoever they are. It cannot be otherwise.”

The shadow-man: Atto Melani was all too familiar with this role! Wasn’t it the role I had always seen him play? Who, eleven years ago, had organised the conspiracy that had caused the war
of succession to break out? Atto Melani was neither the instigator (France) nor the perpetrator (a simple scribe). But he had organised and guided the diabolical machine that had forged the will of
a king, led three cardinals to betray the Pope in person and even obtained the election of one of the three traitors as the new pope.

Now for the first time I was seeing the Abbot wrong-footed by a new Atto Melani. Someone, who was of course much younger than him, and in the pay of other powers – Holland, England or who
knows who – had taken the old castrato’s place and was setting a fatal and ingenious trap for the Emperor.

“Maybe this shadow-man,” I remarked, “is spying on our moves. He might be behind the murder of Dànilo, Hristo, Dragomir and, perhaps, Koloman.”

“If so, it would be good to unmask him before we find him behind our backs.”

For once we allowed ourselves a little comfort. Abbot Melani would certainly not be able to reach Neugebäu on foot, or in our miserable chimney-sweep’s cart. So
Simonis engaged the Pennal, who transported us all much more commodiously and swiftly. Some obscure foreboding had induced me to leave our little boy at Porta Coeli, in the care of Camilla, who had
generously agreed to look after him until either Cloridia or I returned.

As Penicek’s cart made its jolting way towards our destination, I found myself picturing the corpses of those poor lads: Dànilo’s agonised expression, Hristo’s swollen
blue face, Dragomir’s mangled pudenda, and finally Koloman impaled on the pikes. I squeezed my eyelids tight and shook my head, trying to expel from my breast the wave of nausea and anguish
surging within me. Death had reaped a rich harvest from the small group of students. Whose turn would it be next? Penicek? Or perhaps Simonis? Or Opalinski? I looked at my assistant sitting
opposite me; his dull eyes were fixed inertly on the horizon, as if he had no worries. But it was just an act: I knew that, were he to be assailed by the most tremendous tempest, his gaze would
remain the same. Penicek sat on the box seat. No one was questioning him and so he kept quiet, locked in his grim Pennal’s cage, condemned to serve the Barber for one year, six months, six
weeks, six days and six minutes. Finally I thought of Opalinski again: he too had trembled at the appalling sight of his Hungarian friend. And to think that until a short while ago Jan Janitzki had
shown no fear. Inexplicable behaviour, in the light of subsequent events. I asked Simonis about it.

“Well, Signor Master, it’s due to his occupation. Outside study hours, that is, of course.”

“And what is it?”

“It’s a little complicated, Signor Master. Do you know what the ‘right of quarters’ is here in Vienna?”

Since ancient times, Simonis explained, the Emperor had had the right to claim all rented property for himself and for the court. Ever since the ancient Caesars, travelling through their lands,
had entrusted the Court Marshal with the task of requisitioning the lodgings needed for overnight stays. This custom, which takes the name of the right of quarters, had spread to Vienna as well, as
the city became the seat of an increasingly large and important court, and of a growing number of functionaries, chancellors, musicians, copyists, dancers, soldiers, stewards, cantors, poets,
servants, cooks, footmen, retainers, assistants, assistants’ assistants, and parasites of all sorts.

“Many think that having an imperial functionary as tenant is both elegant and desirable. Quite the contrary!”

This was how things went. One fine day an imperial functionary would knock at the door and, with a decree in his hand, announce that from that moment on the apartment was at his disposal. In the
space of a few days the owner and his family either had to accept cohabitation or move out. If the owner refused, they would forcefully requisition the whole of his house, or his shop, or even the
entire palace, if it belonged to him. After this, without any bargaining, a derisory rent would be set by the imperial chamber. The imperial functionary, not content with this result, instead of
using the confiscated apartment, would sublet it.

“And is that allowed?” asked Abbot Melani.

“Of course not. But in the shadow of the Caesarean court anything can be done,” sneered Simonis.

The poor owner would thus find his apartment invaded by mysterious strangers who would carry off his furniture, rip out doors and windows, and often sublet in turn to the most disreputable
types. The beautiful apartment would end up as a stinking den, a home to all sorts of shady business, including prostitution, sometimes even murders. There were even cases in which the occupiers,
too slovenly to light the fire in the hearth, would make a big bonfire on the wooden floor, and the whole apartment would go up in flames. Meanwhile the imperial chamber, permanently in debt, would
not even pay the rent. And if the owner protested the imperial functionary could actually follow the ancient custom of stoning him.

“This malpractice can become so bad,” my assistant went on, “that at times it is the emperors themselves who evict the occupiers. Ferdinand I had an entire palace next to the
royal palace emptied, because the functionaries who had settled there were always drunk and made so much noise that they disturbed the imperial sessions, and they were so incompetent in handling
the stoves and fireplaces that they risked setting alight both their own building and the royal palace.”

“And what does Opalinski have to do with all this?” I asked at the end of the explanation.

“It’s simple: he acts as intermediary for the subletting agreements.”

“Didn’t you say they were illegal?”

“Certainly. In fact, they can present real risks: for example, when the owner of the apartment has friends at court and decides to get his own back on the functionary who expropriated him,
or on the intermediary himself. Opalinski is used to risks, familiar with fear. It must be acknowledged: Jan is truly a courageous Pole. It’s only now, after what happened to Koloman, that
I’ve seen him get really nervous.”

Meanwhile we had arrived in Neugebäu, greeted by the dazzle of its white marble. As a good son does with his tired father, I would have liked to show Atto, had his eyeballs not been
deprived of light, Maximilian II’s majestic building, its gardens, its generous fish ponds, its towers, the seraglio of the ferocious animals and the unconfined view that could be enjoyed
from the northern terrace. Prior to entering the Place with No Name I had given him a brief description of its treasures and history, so that he did not arrive completely unprepared in this trove
of memories, suspended between the tragic past of Maximilian and the present, no less sinisterly shaded, of the young Joseph. I had summarised Maximilian’s struggles with the Turks, the birth
of Neugebäu as a parody of the tent of Suleiman the Magnificent, the tragic death of the Emperor and the plots woven against him. I had of course said nothing of the only detail which he would
never have believed: the Flying Ship and the supernatural wonders that Simonis and I had witnessed.

Atto had listened to my whole account of the dark history of the Place with No Name with extreme interest, nodding at those parts he already knew, prudently remaining silent during those that
were new to him.

I could not, with my feeble oratorical powers, render the greatness of the place denied to him by his blind eyes, and I knew – or at least I felt – that he was afflicted by it to the
depths of his soul, because this was the definitive proof of his decline: twenty-eight years earlier I had known him to be thirsty for all aspects of learning, every curiosity, every secret, and
intent even on writing a guide to Rome in his spare time, so as to satisfy his creative bent and his appetite for knowledge. Now that his body betrayed him, his inner faculties were all slaves to
circumstances; curiosity had to yield to resignation, haste to patience, intelligence to ignorance. Atto would never see Neugebäu.

Once we had reached our destination, after bidding farewell to the Pennal (he would come by to pick us up later), we went first of all to introduce our bizarre party to Frosch. The keeper of the
Place with No Name, who had been surprised to see us arriving in Penicek’s gig, cast a sceptical eye at Abbot Melani.

“Is he a new apprentice, replacing the little boy?” he laughed with coarse, bold humour, pointing at Atto.

Frosch asked us no questions about our previous day’s work at Neugebäu. If he was not a skilful dissimulator (and drunkards generally are not), this meant he had not seen us take off
in the Flying Ship, nor indeed land in it. I heaved a surreptitious sigh of relief: I certainly did not want to share with the drunken Cerberus the incredible secret of the flight that Simonis and
I had undertaken.

We passed in front of the ball stadium and I cast a silent glance at the Flying Ship. It was where we had left it, lying limp on the ground. Its birdlike features, as awkward as they were
bizarre, gave no intimation that it was capable of soaring lightly and nimbly among the clouds. I looked sidelong at Simonis: at the sight of the ship his doltish eyeballs seemed to grow wide and
cloud over with emotion. Even Abbot Melani, unconscious of everything and locked in the darkness of his blind eyes, as he passed in front of the ball stadium, turned his head imperceptibly towards
the Flying Ship, as if it had sent out an invisible, magnetic summons. “The power of blindness!” I thought. Those unable to see perceive what is invisible to the rest of us.

In the ball stadium only one detail had changed from our previous visits: at the far end of the great rectangular space were stacked the birdcages, full of their vociferous occupants. Atto heard
the chattering noise and asked me about it. I turned and asked Frosch.

“Martens. Last night they did away with half a dozen Indian pullets.”

The keeper explained that he had put the cages in the ball stadium because the stable door had been broken, and the predators had immediately taken advantage of the accident. Tonight the birds
of the Place with No Name would sleep safely: the stadium, whose doors were in good condition, presented no such risks. As soon as the stable door had been mended, the cages would go back there.
For the moment, since the weather was now quite warm, the birds could even sleep in the open.

Atto was greatly struck when he heard the racket made by the lions, panthers and other fierce beasts: it was their meal time, and the hungry animals let out slavering howls. I briefly described
the appearance and attitude of each carnivore, depicting how they gripped and tore at the red meats distributed to them by their keeper. He asked me if there was any risk of them escaping. I then
told him of my encounter with Mustafa, on my first visit to the Place with No Name.

“Being blind, I wouldn’t have a chance to escape from the lion. But then he’d find my bones getting stuck in his teeth, ha ha!” he joked.

During our first hour of work everything went smoothly. Abbot Melani remained at a prudent distance from us, sitting on a stool, taking great care not to get dusty: as soon as any dirty cloud
reached his nose, amid sneezes and imprecations he would ask to be placed a little further off to spare his clothes, which were the usual green and black. It was surprising, I thought, how
attentive the Abbot was to his outward appearance, even though he could not see himself in the mirror.