"Like the horns my wife puts on me. I have them for sure, though I cannot prove it."
"Let's do this. I'll help you set up a press conference. You absolutely have to go public with this."
"Leo, open your eyes. I'm a geologist. I can't expose myself" clarified Paoloeta, who added: "Suppose I take responsibility for announcing a disastrous earthquake. If the earthquake doesn't happen, I'll be a charlatan and my career will be over. If I get in sight, the earthquake happens and the dam collapses, I will still be a charlatan, but a lucky charlatan. And my career would end anyway.”
"So, what's the solution?" Leo asked, turning near a crucifix, just before entering the road that led straight to the editorial office.
"Write a series of articles about the Union. Denounce the fact that the embankments of Lake Montevicino could collapse in an earthquake of magnitude seven. And trust me. It could happen at any time. It frightens people. Scare them away."
"Do you even know how many people we're talking about?"
"The municipalities involved would be 16."
There was a pause and a worried sigh.
"We're talking about fifty thousand people."
"Good God. If the dams were to collapse, it would be a disaster."
"I know. But perhaps there is no need to evacuate everyone” exclaimed the scholar. "I've made two calculations. Listen carefully..."
At the editorial office, Zevi began to get impatient and asked for a cigarette. He was amazed when Filippa handed her a cigar, or rather, the Cigar King: a Monte Cristo number four he had purchased online for the occasion. The critic smoked while savouring the pungent aftertaste of Cuban tobacco.
Zevi asked if they already had any catalogued material.
"We have folders" reassured Filippa, who hurried to get a folder from the shelves. The scholar raised his eyebrows, the sceptical air of those who thought it unlikely that four boys would be able to translate all that material.
Filippa explained that, contrary to what they imagined at the time of discovery, not all of the manuscript spoke of Pardo Melchiorri. There were translations of Horace, some novels by Phaedrus, passages from De Camerone and passages from the Talmud.
Zevi said it was probably an Index librorum prohibitorum. An index of forbidden books, which should have emphasized concepts and content considered particularly sacrilegious by the church. The scholar pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket and hung them on a gold chain. In silence, he studied the material, his nervous face, his nose glued to the pages, almost as if he wanted to sniff out shreds of lost history. Before reading the painter's life, he dwelt on a phrase that seemed to strike him as particularly striking. A sentence at the beginning of a translation.
Anno ab Incarnatione Domini nostri Iesu Christi...
Zevi placed the Montecristo on the ashtray. He smoothed his chin thoughtfully, took off his glasses and stared at Filippa.
"Um... Miss Villa, right? Are you the translator?"
"Yes, sir."
"Could you explain this strange way of translating the Year of Domini?" he asked in an abrupt tone.
"It's just a habit" she answered.
"Are you sure?" Zevi said, tapping the index on the page. Filippa blushed embarrassed, as if he had to undress in front of an indiscreet doctor who wanted to examine her and linger on her private parts.
"You have brought back the Year of Domains in full, and not just A.D. Just as Frater Paolous diligently did this . Now I will have to understand why you did it. Even if I have a suspicion..."
"I didn't think you'd notice. You're spectacular, Professor” enthralled Filippa.
"Wait, let me finish" said Zevi in the tone of a challenge. "You have chosen the formula Anno ab Incarnatione Domini nostri Iesu Christi. If your friends don't know it, it means Year from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. You have chosen this formula over another. And the second one is also referred to Anno Domini, and always written with the abbreviation A.D. In this case, Anno a Nativitate Domini nostri Iesu Christi sounds more or less like Year of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, why did you choose the first formula? Let's see if I'm on the right track. In the first case we speak of Incarnation, in the second, of Nativity. Frater Paolous, writing simply A.D., according to your interpretation, would have preferred to speak of Incarnation. Why did he do that? Perhaps because he thought the painter, like Jesus, was someone else's incarnation? Is that what Frater Paolous thought, Filippa?"
Filippa did not answer. She looked at the professor with eyes that suddenly glistened wet. She smiled embarrassedly, trying to hold a tear in her eyelashes.
Zevi was the first person able to truly understand her complicated mind.
The professor grasped the meaning of that suffering. He beckoned her to calm down, pointing out that her intuition did not deserve those tears. Then he mumbled something incomprehensible and returned to focus on the crippled painter's life. After not even a minute, he had already understood the historical value of the discovery. There were dates, notarial deeds, circumstantial facts described in detail. He admired the detailed descriptions of the paintings, was outraged at the beating the painter received, and was disgusted at the condemnation of the Holy Inquisition. At each passage he read ʺGod... Jesus Christ... God... ʺ with the suffering of those who were walking a Way of the Cross.
He closed the folders. He took off his glasses and said, "I absolutely must see the original. Where is your friend?"
Leo was just a few hairpin bends away from the headquarters. The rain had got heavier, and he was always on his cell phone.
On the other end of the phone, Giorgio Paoloeta was eating a cheeseburger without cheese, sesame seeds jumping on the shaggy bum.
"I'll explain the situation" said the geologist pointing his finger at the computer screen, where he had opened a satellite map. He magnified the image to the detail of Lake Montevicino. "The first dam is the one at Piediripe, south of the basin. It is made of clay, iron and concrete. It is the one that has undergone complete maintenance. Two million euros spent to reinforce it with a wall twenty metres high and four metres thick. It can withstand an earthquake in the
eighth, ninth grade Richter. You don't even knock it down with an atomic bomb. Do you follow me?"
"I follow you” Leo replied on speakerphone, looking at the cell phone on the seat. Guido was calling again, and waiting for an answer. Leo thought it wasn't appropriate to interrupt the scholar again.
"The second dam is the one in Valle Memoria. It is located northwest of the lake, at the hamlet that gives it its name. It's all iron and concrete. Seven hundred thousand euros spent by the region for maintenance. It was supposed to be a million, but the money was finished and the work stopped suddenly. It can withstand an earthquake of seven point three, point four. Then there is the third dam."
"I know it well” Leo interrupted him, "they made me run all the way through the retreats with the team."
Paoloeta nodded as he looked at the dam on the screen. "The third one is at Poggio Muso, to the east, near the river. It's all dirt. And it's the most dangerous one. There's never been any real maintenance because the funds allocated by the region were barely enough to fix the other locks. It's just a few minor interventions. But it's like putting a little mascara on an old whore's face. You don't regain your virginity that way. The dam can withstand a shock of magnitude seven. Maybe less."
"That sounds like bad news” commented Leo.
"In fact, we've got the point” replied Paoloeta.
The geologist's finger traced on the map the stretch that water would make if there was a failure of the Poggio Muso dam. It was a winding path wedged between mountains and hills, where the Muso river flowed, which at that time of the season was little more than a torrent. The only area at risk was the hamlet of Poggio, just two thousand souls, and the Benedictine convent, which stood further down the valley, where the hills ended up making way for the plain close to the sea.
"Luckily the lock of Poggio prot
ects an area where the population, from the valley to the sea, is almost non-existent" the geologist refreshed himself. He waited for Leo's comment. Paoloeta did not hear his voice, but he had the sensation of hearing a terrifying bang.
"Leo? Leo? Are you there? Leo!"
The airbag suddenly exploded. Leo saw the world around him. The plates cracked on the window, his head slammed on the window, the glass flew in the air like crystal confetti. The female driver rolled over three times before finishing her race against the walls of the ring road. Leo found himself upside down, the car a pile of twisted sheet metal, the right side open like a can of tuna. He tried to undo his seat belt, but it was stuck, and he felt like he had several broken ribs.
He felt a stream of warm blood dripping from his forehead to his chin.
In front of him, a black off-roader with a dented hood and smashed headlights. A man in a long dark coat with his hat fitted up to his eyes stepped out of the vehicle and rushed unhurriedly through the sheet metal. He looked at Leo. He was dazed and frightened.
"Holy shit, man. How the fuck did you not see me?" he said, with a pain in his side that took his breath away.
"I smell gasoline. Help me out of here” begged Leo.
The man didn't move or say anything. He did not take his cell phone to call the ambulance, nor did he try to reassure him.
The man only gave him a cold look.
"Help me..." begged Leo before he faint.
20
The clear sky made the golden light shine on the proudly spreading wings. The sculpture, made of marble, bronze and pure gold leaves, was the symbol of the Rai production centre in Saxa Rubra. Rinaldo had parked under the winged shadows of the monument, strictly forbidden to park.
Daisy came out of the television studio with the desire to kill someone. Yet just a minute earlier she had released a spectacular interview. On TV, she looked like an American star, with the nervous gestures of art and adrenaline, answering questions with sharp commentary and pungent irony.
The presenter, a well-known face of Rai, arrogant and arrogant because of that sense of omnipotence that gives the simple fact of being famous, tried several times to ask her about the tragedy of Dancing Sport. She watched him all the time with the air of someone who sincerely feels sorry for someone. She explained that she was there to promote a record and not to talk about death. She emphasized that she did not approve of the so-called grief TV, where many information professionals were building careers for us without any shame.
During the broadcast, the socials took sides and ignited. The online democratic world always lived on excess, and no one was shocked at anything. Threats and insults served to increase followers and visibility. In fact, promoting the new album was unorthodox but effective. Rinaldo gloated. His secretary was giving him exciting news over the phone.
During the live broadcast, some 6,000 copies of the last record had been booked, and requests were not diminishing. Daisy was the only one not to cheer. Away from the spotlight, her smile disappeared, she became angry and polemical. She got drunk more and more often, and when she didn't drink, she was suddenly seized with rages.
Daisy and Rinaldo came out of Saxa Rubra's studio as if they were day and night. He was cheerful and smiling, dispelling optimism with his mobile phone eye, determined to capitalize on the wind in his stern. Daisy, silent and gloomy, was the dark face of the Moon. They climbed into Rinaldo's new Corvette Stingray, a splendid flame-red toy worth a hundred and eighteen thousand euros.
The style was perhaps less refined than the supercars produced in Europe, but under the bonnet was a roaring engine, a six-thousandth of a cylinder capacity that was a song of tenors. They left their studios by taking the ring road east of Rome. Daisy watched as prostitutes paraded by the side of the road.
She noticed a four-by-four poster mounted on a panel, right behind the row of trees and whores. It was a giant picture of him. At first he didn't recognize it because someone had scarred his face on the poster.
Daisy took the phone. There were several messages from Lory, some of them days old, and she had never replied.
She tried to type something on the keyboard, but she couldn't.
"Rinaldo, I'm tired!" she said, suddenly bursting into tears.
"Hey, baby! What's going on?" Rinaldo became worried.
"I'm tired, Rinaldo. Tired. Tired of everything!" she exclaimed, closing her hands like a shell on her face, her body shaken with sobbing.
"Come on, let's stop for a moment” he proposed.
They stopped on the way. They had seen a tavern with tables outside, the parking lot next door full of articulated lorries
adorned with lights and posters of girls with huge tits. Rinaldo left fifty euros for the illegal parking attendant, an old man with dry legs and a drinking belly, begging him to keep an eye on the Stingray. The old man watched in amazement at the note, the grateful look immediately became the look of someone who would kill to make such a benefactor happy.
Rinaldo and Daisy sat outside, even though the weather was not yet completely spring. They ordered a couple of coffees from the waitress, who brought them to the table with unusual enthusiasm. She was probably on probation and trying to get busy hoping to be hired on a permanent contract.
"I feel like a wreck, Rinaldo” Daisy admitted, wiping away her tears. "I don't know what's happening to me. I take medication to sleep, but I can't. I don't close my eyes, and if I do, I have terrifying nightmares. I try to cheer myself up by taking a lot of shit. But I don't need to tell you that. These are things you know perfectly well."
"What does the doctor say?" he asked, trying not to sound too paternal.
"Dr. Salieri? I don't know if he's treating me, or courting me. I haven't figured it out yet."
"Sandra says he's great."
"Maybe. But I don't like his compliments. She tells me things like: ʺMediocre artists love art, but hate life. While great artists hate art, and they love life.ʺ He says I'm hating both. And that only happens to elected souls. It sounds a bit like bullshit to me, a bit like an invitation to take me to bed.
"Maybe he's telling the truth” said Rinaldo as he looked at a couple of truck drivers who were admiring his Stingray: the shorter one, in a denim suit, was gesturing as if he were an expert on that type of car, while the other one just listened to the description of the wonders hidden under the hood.
Rinaldo turned the spoon in the cup to stir the sugar that hadn't melted completely. "Maybe it's time to stop” he said while sipping coffee.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you're only 20 years old, Daisy. You're too fragile. And I feel responsible for your condition. I didn't intervene because I hoped it was just a crisis. At your age, it can be. But you haven't been the same for too long now."
"Do you think I'm becoming schizophrenic too?"
He grabbed her hands, and smiled as if he had heard a great nonsense. "You're not mentally ill, don't worry. But you will take a break” he exclaimed calmly.
"Shall we stop? But we have evenings to do, contracts to fulfill and..."
"I'll take care of it. Go home and get some rest. I'll talk to you in a month."
"A month? Are you crazy? Do you know how much this is gonna cost us?"
"One hundred and eighty thousand euros to you and, seventy thousand to me. But better to lose money than to lose you."
Daisy had another crying fit. She hugged Rinaldo and sobbed.
"I want to go out of this hell, Rinaldo."
In Castelmuso, Professor Zevi took the geranium out of the jacket and put it in Filippa. The girl did not know if it was a gallant gesture, or if she simply wanted to get rid of it because it was withering.
When in doubt, she took care to keep it in a glass, which she placed in the brightest spot of the room.
The art critic had been literally kidnapped by the lost time brought back to life by Frater Paolous' harsh handwriting.
He massaged the tip of his elbows resting on the desk. N
ext to it, Florence was helping him select the material to consult.
"In the red folder are the pages still to be translated. Unfortunately, the earthquake forced us to stop. But soon the work will be complete” Filippa pointed out.
Eugenio Zevi appreciated the girl's translation, but preferred to read the original copies, those written in Latin by Frater Paolous.
The descriptions of the monk were more exciting because they were direct and unfiltered. They represented a journey back in time, where Zevi could smell the spicy scents of the early 17th century Castelmuso market, see the clear sky nestled between the crooked walls, the people dressed in rags, the dung of the horses on the dusty roads, the nobles walking around dressed in stoat... and more, wooden-wheeled carts, fish stalls in the shade of greasy, crumpled tents, barefoot children, priests in long black hats, drunkards singing starlings, toothless old men, women with red cheeks and water jugs over their heads...
"Ah, this one then! It's a disgrace!" he shouted, tapping his fist on the document.
"The hand. Can you believe this? The hand!"
ʺThe hand, what? ʺ everyone wondered.
Zevi, angry as if he had been wronged, explained: "Abbot Caligo condemned the painter by having the execution by Secandum manu diaboli.
Filippa understood immediately, and felt an almost physical pain.
"Listen to what Frater Palus says..."
Zevi read the last account of the excommunicated monk, dated 19 September 1638.
Pardo Melchiorri was taken to the public square in front of the Palazzo Deʹ Priori. In chains, smaller than ever, more wretched than ever. The vile people around, watching. But no one laughed, no one mocked him. No one spat. No one
threw stones. The people were afraid. The Holy Inquisition ruled that his was the devil's hand.
This was enough to terrorize the rednecks of Castelmosso.
In the middle of the dusty square they put a stone. Melchiorri put his hand on it. A hand that was cut with a single blow of an axe. One hand and five fingers jumped off. Five fingers that no longer held brushes, no longer mixed colors, no longer painted the truths hidden behind these sinful valleys. This is the last testimony of an unhappy soul. A sublime painter who found an iron hook instead of fingers. From that day on, in order to survive, he set about doing the most humble of trades...
The Dawn of Sin Page 22
