Veritas (Atto Melani)

by Monaldi, Rita

  Already shivering from the sudden drop in temperature, we took our places among the pews on the left.

  “Today we are celebrating the first Sunday after Holy Easter, also known as ‘White Sunday’ or Quasi Modo Geniti,” began the celebrant. “The Gospel we will hear is John, verse 20, and it tells of the doubting of Thomas.”

  Within my temples the memory of Dànilo’s death was hammering away; I had described it in detail to Cloridia as soon as I got back to Porta Coeli. It hardly needs saying that the episode had thrown us both into a state of deep anguish. The student’s final words suggested that the murder had been committed by the Turks. Dànilo had been about to tell us of the first results of his research into the strange question of the Golden Apple.

  “Today,” the priest went on, “marks the end of the celebrations of the holy passion, death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which began three weeks ago with Black Sunday, known also as Judica, when, as cited in John’s Gospel in chapter 8, the Jews stoned Jesus. There then followed Palm Sunday, when, as we read in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 21, Jesus entered Jerusalem. Last Sunday, Holy Easter, we read the account of the resurrection of Our Lord as handed down to us by the Evangelist Mark. On Easter Sunday we read Luke, 24: the walk to Emmaus; on Tuesday, idem, Jesus among the children. All telling of joy and happiness.”

  But what was the meaning of the arcane words that Dànilo had muttered in his death throes? Only vague recollections of what he had learned? Or obscure anathemas that his murderers had hurled at him before killing him? Cloridia and I were deeply worried that someone might connect Dànilo’s death with me and Simonis, and that we might somehow get involved in a trial.

  “It is no accident that the next four Sundays all have names of great jubilation and hope: Misericordia, Jubilate, Cantate and Rogate. And do not forget the miracle of forgiveness and love that took place centuries ago in this very convent and from which it took its name Himmelpforte, Heaven’s Gate (in Latin, Porta Coeli): when the sister doorkeeper erred and fled with her confessor, the Blessed Virgin took her place, assuming her appearance. And only when the sinner returned in penitence did the abbess learn of the substitution and the Virgin reveal herself, blessing the sinner, and disappearing before the astonished eyes of all the nuns. Rejoice and hope in the clemency of the Most High!” concluded the priest.

  It really was time to hope, I told myself, swayed by the words from the pulpit. Nobody had yet come looking for us, at home or elsewhere. If all went well, as my assistant had predicted, Dànilo’s death would be written off as the result of a drunken brawl, or a settling of scores among minor criminals. The exequies would be taken care of by some merciful charitable confraternity.

  During the religious service Atto asked Domenico to look first this way, then the other, and then back again. He was looking for someone, and I knew perfectly well whom. At the end he asked me.

  “Has she come?”

  “Who?” I pretended not to understand.

  “What do you mean, who? The Pálffy woman, curse it. On some pretext Domenico got one of the nuns at Porta Coeli to describe her to him. She told us that she often comes to St Agnes for the first mass. But there’s no one here who matches the description.”

  “I can’t help you, Signor Atto,” I answered, while someone in the pew behind shushed us, muttering disgruntled remarks about the usual prattling Italians.

  I looked upwards. In the gallery sat the nuns, while the lay sisters were at the front of the nave. I also saw the Chormaisterin: bent over her kneeler, she was praying fervently, raising her face to the holy crucifix and then to the statue of the Blessed Virgin of Porta Coeli. I stared more attentively: from the way her shoulders shook I would have said that Camilla was weeping. The evening before she had struck me as tense and nervous. Cloridia remarked it too, and looked at me inquisitively; I answered with a show of dumb perplexity. I had no idea myself what was agitating our good friend.

  At the door Atto and Domenico waited a little longer for the Emperor’s lover to appear, or at least a young woman corresponding to the description they had received of her, but in vain.

  Another possibility, said Domenico, was that Countess Marianna Pálffy might go to the nine-thirty service, the mass for the nobility, in the Cathedral of St Stephen. There was nothing for it but to arrange to meet there, in the hope of better luck.

  There was a little time before the service began and so we lingered in the convent church. Cloridia and I were looking around for Camilla; we were hoping to be able to speak to her and to find out what was upsetting her. Meanwhile Atto had asked Domenico to escort him towards the headmistress of the convent’s novitiate, who, he hoped, would lead him to Pálffy.

  “Suor Strassoldo?” said Atto with great urbanity, using Italian since the nun’s surname was Italian.

  “Von Strassoldo, please!” brusquely answered the sister – a thin, middle-aged woman with small, menacing blue eyes.

  Atto was caught off-guard: omitting the patronymic “von”, which testified to the Strassoldo family’s noble blood, was not a good start.

  “Please excuse me, I –”

  “You are excused, but so am I,” von Strassoldo cut him off. “I have many things to see to and I don’t speak Italian. I’m certain that the Chormaisterin will be able to help you in anything you need.” With that she turned and walked away, leaving Abbot Melani and Domenico flustered and above all humiliated, since other nuns had been present at the short conversation. Not even with a blind man had the tetchy mistress of the novitiate sweetened her manners.

  “Signor Abbot,” I whispered in his ear, while the other nuns moved away, “people behave differently from the way they do in Italy, and perhaps in France too. When they don’t welcome a conversation, they cut it short.”

  “Oh, forget about it,” Abbot Melani interrupted me, extremely irritated. “I understand perfectly: that silly old woman of Italian origins does not like her old compatriots. They’re all the same, people of that sort: after just one generation they pretend they don’t remember where they came from. Just like the Habsburgs and the Pierleoni.”

  The latter name was entirely new to me. What had that Italian surname got to do with the glorious Habsburgs, the Emperor’s family?

  “Don’t you know who the Pierleoni are?” asked Atto with a cruel little smile.

  According to official historiography, he explained, the Habsburg Empire was born from the ashes of the Roman Empire, which had died out on account of the barbarian invasions of Goths and Longobards. Thanks to his heroic valour, Charlemagne drove the Longobards from Italy and was acclaimed Roman Emperor. Subsequently, thanks to the undefeated virtue of the German Otho the Great, the name, insignia and authority of the Roman Empire passed down to the most glorious Germanic nation, and at present they rested with the Austrian lineage of the Habsburgs, the resurrected progeny of the Caesars.

  “But this is the balderdash that historians peddle,” hissed Atto, throwing a malevolent glance in the direction of Strassoldo, “because nobody wants to dig up the truth on the origins of the Habsburgs.”

  The history of the Habsburg emperors began with Rudolph I, who ascended to the throne in the year of Our Lord 1273. All were agreed on this point.

  “But what happened before that day,” said Abbot Melani, “nobody knows.”

  According to some scholars, the origin of the Habsburg blood should be traced back to to a certain Guntram, whose son around the year 1000 was supposed to have founded a castle of the name Hasburg, which is to say Habsburg. Others traced it back to a certain Ottobert, around 654. Still others to Aeganus, the royal house-steward of France, who had married Gerbera, daughter of St Gertrude.

  Other scholars answered indignantly: not a bit of it, the Habsburgs descend from the royal blood of the Merovingians. Prince Sigebert, son of Dietrich of Austrasia, in the year 630 had received the county of the Alemans from the King of France, and his successor Sigebert II had assumed the title of Count of Habsburg. It w
as from his son Pabo of Alsatia, after nineteen generations, that Rudolph I was finally to descend.

  Most certainly not, thundered scholars even more learned than the previous ones: the Habsburgs descend from Adam.

  The dynastic series (which included the kings of Babylon, of Troy, of the Sicambrians, kings and counts of France, kings of Gaul, kings of Austrasia, dukes of Alsatia and of Alamannia, counts of Habsburg and of Ergau) according to these scholars was as clear and limpid as the sun, although a little patience was required to read it all through: Adam, Seth, Enos, Cain, Mahalel, Iared, Enoch, Methusalem, Lamech, Noah, Chus, Nimrod, Cres, Coelius, Saturn, Jupiter, Dardanus I, Erichthonius, Tros, Ilus, Laomedon, Antenor I, Marcomir, Antenor II, Priam I, Helenus, Diocles, Bassan, Cladodius I, Nicanor, Marcomir II, Clogius, Antenor III, Estomir II, Merodacus, Cassander, Antharius, Franco, Chlodio, Marcomir III, Clodomir, Antenor IV, Ratherius, Richimerus, Odemar, Marcomir IV, Clodomir IV, Farabert, Hunno, Hilderich, Quather, another Chlodio, Dagobert, Genebald, another Dagobert, Faremond, yet another Chlodio, Meroveus, Childeric, Clodoveus the Great, Clothar, Sigisbert or Sigebert, Childepert, Theodopert, another Sigisbert, yet another Sigisbert, Ottbert, Bebo, Robert, Hettopert, Rampert, Gunstramo, Luithardo, Luitfrido, Hunifrido, another Gunthram or perhaps Gunstram, Belz, Rapatus, Werner, Otto, another Werner, Albert the Divine, Albert the Wise and finally the usual Rudolph I.

  Of course, in this reconstruction the names of many kings appeared several times, with uncertain spellings (Bebo or Pabo? Gunstramo or Gunthram? Sigisbert or Sigebert?), and nothing was very clear at the end of it. What was good, however, was that the competing scholars, worn out, had given up rebutting one another.

  But there were other researchers, the most learned and unstinting, who objected: did Rudolph I not descend from Albert the Wise? Well, Albert the Wise descended from Alberto Pierleoni, Count of Mount Aventine, member of an ancient and illustrious Roman family. Having moved from Rome to Switzerland, Alberto Pierleoni had married the daughter of Werner, last count of Habsburg, thus founding the dynastic line, Habsburg-Pierleoni. The Roman family went back to Leone Anicio Pierleoni, who died in 1111, of highly noble blood because he descended from none other than the Roman Emperor Flavius Anicius Olybrius.

  “Unfortunately, the theory of their descent from Pierleoni, which was very fashionable under Leopold, Joseph I’s father, proved suicidal,” sneered Atto, still furious at being humiliated by Strassoldo.

  The Pierleoni, as other experts observed, were a rich and powerful family but had been tarnished by some extremely embarrassing affairs. It included cardinals and bishops but also grasping and unscrupulous merchants and bankers, who maliciously financed the Holy See with the aim of making it an accessory to simony, so they could blackmail it and turn it into their own profitable backyard. A Pierleoni was elected pope under the name of Gregory VI in 1045, but it was then discovered that he had shamelessly bought the papal seat from his predecessor, Benedict IX. This reached the ears of Emperor Frederick III, who descended upon Italy, forced Gregory VI to resign and retire into exile in Germany, where the ex-Pope then died, surrounded by general scorn.

  Another Pierleoni was elected pope in 1130 under the name of Anacletus II, but on the day of his election another cardinal was appointed pope under the name Innocent II, causing a grave schism that created anguish and torment throughout Christianity (Anacletus was to quarrel with five more popes). In addition, according to other rumours, the Pierleoni family (who, like so many medieval Roman families had their own private army and fortified castles in the middle of the city, and regularly went to war against rival families) were actually of Jewish blood: their forefather, a certain Baruch, was a Jew who had converted to Christianity, and the legend according to which some popes had been secretly Jewish was based on the true story of the Pierleoni. In addition, the Jews were far from popular with Emperor Leopold I, father of Joseph I the Victorious, and he had confined them in a ghetto on the other side of the Danube, the Leopoldine Island, just where the Turks had pitched camp during the siege of 1683.

  “In short,” concluded Atto, taking me by the arm and cackling, “the glorious Roman family from which the imperial blood of the Habsburgs is supposed to descend was composed of popes, long disliked by most people in Vienna; of Jews, disliked by Emperor Leopold I; and by Italians, disliked by everyone: you saw how that idiotic Strassoldo woman behaved.”

  Meanwhile Camilla de’ Rossi had come up to us and Cloridia had addressed her. The two women were now talking animatedly in front of a small group of young novices. I went up to them, taking Atto by the arm. We came into earshot just as my wife was answering questions from the novices, who were very curious about us, a family of strange Italians who had come to Vienna from the distant city of the Pope. Camilla was acting as interpreter from German to Italian and vice-versa.

  The young women (all of excellent families and very well-behaved) asked about Rome and its splendours, the Pope and the Roman court, and finally wanted to know about the life we had led there, as well as our past. I listened with a touch of anxiety, since Cloridia had to conceal the stain of the infamous profession she had practised during her troubled adolescence.

  “I don’t remember anything of my youthful years,” she replied, “and besides my poor mother was Tur . . .”

  Just as she was about to reveal her mother’s Eastern origins, I felt Atto start and his wizened hand clutched my arm. I saw Camilla de’ Rossi’s eyes open wide and she broke in brusquely: “Now my dears, it’s time to get to work, we’ve talked long enough.”

  As soon as the little group of nuns had moved away, Camilla took Cloridia’s arm and, approaching me and Abbot Melani, she explained the brusque end to the conversation.

  “A few years ago, in the church of St Ursula near here, on the Johannesgasse, Cardinal Collonitz baptised a young Turkish slave who belonged to his lieutenant, the Spaniard Gerolamo Giudici, and assigned her to this novitiate. At once a revolt broke out in the convent, because the nuns, who were all of noble descent, were afraid that Porta Coeli would lose its good name. Giudici insisted and the dispute was taken as far as the Emperor and the consistory, who found for the nuns: the young Turkish woman was refused entrance.”

  Actually the poor girl was terrified of being locked up in a convent, continued Camilla. Fearing that sooner or later Giudici would succeed in finding one for her, one night she managed to run away. Despite long and careful searches, nobody could discover where she had fled, or with whom.

  “As you can understand, my friends,” Camilla concluded, “certain arguments just cannot be touched on here.”

  Collonitz. The name was not new to me. Where had I heard it before? I was unable to answer this. At any rate, the message was clear: if anyone at Porta Coeli were to discover that Cloridia was the daughter of a Turkish slave, we would probably be forced to leave the place in an instant.

  A quarter of an hour later, after a short walk through the snowy streets, while Cloridia was at the palace, I went with Atto and Domenico to the Cathedral of St Stephen, in search of Countess Pálffy.

  At the nine-thirty service here the atmosphere was very different from St Agnes. First of all, it needs saying that while the three p.m. weekday vespers only brought in a handful of old women and a few beggars, late-morning Sunday masses were so crowded that one had to go from church to church to find somewhere to sit.

  In the square outside the church, dazzling with the fresh snow, was one of the typical beggars you will find in front of every Viennese church every day of the year. Dressed in a light blue skirt, she had a little box for alms fastened to her waist, which she shook as people passed her on the way into church. When we approached she leaped as if possessed and shouted to the crowd: “Come and be blessed! Come and be blessed!” Abbot Melani and Domenico were quite startled. The nine o’clock rosary had just finished and the priest was about to give the benediction. There was a sudden rush into the cathedral, and we found ourselves dragged along in a stampede of stomping,
sliding, slush-encrusted boots, which bespattered the atrium with mud and snow. Those few people who gave no signs of wanting to enter the church were berated by the beggar with curses and insults.

  “Here in Vienna Sundays are truly hallowed, it seems,” remarked Atto, stamping his feet free of snow once inside, while his nephew rearranged his hat and cloak, which had been unsettled by the horde of eager churchgoers.

  “Not only Sundays,” I explained with a slight laugh, as I adjusted my own clothes. “Every day, here in St Stephen’s alone, there are eighty masses and three rosaries. The Franciscans celebrate thirty-three masses a day at regular intervals, and in the church of St Michael there’s one every quarter of an hour.”

  “Every day?” said Atto and his escort in amazed unison.

  “I counted them up myself,” I went on, “and I worked out that every year, just in the Cathedral of St Stephen, they celebrate over 400 pontifical offices, almost 60,000 masses, over a thousand rosaries, and about 130,000 confessions and communions.”

  Without counting benedictions, I concluded, as Atto and Domenico listened in astonishment: there were always a few in one or other of the over hundred churches and chapels in the city, so that more than once the city authorities had asked the priests to agree on regular schedules for everyone, to save the people running randomly from one church to another in spasmodic search of a blessing.

  Once inside the church we realised that high mass was under way, and the service was being celebrated at a dozen altars simultaneously. Where could Countess Marianna Pálffy be hidden, if she were there? The enterprise was becoming complicated.

  As we made our way down the nave, I looked all around myself. Noblemen and ministers with powdered wigs had their backs turned to the altar and were exchanging tobacco, reading letters and recounting anecdotes from the newspapers. Leaning against the columns of the aisle, they observed and remarked upon new fashions or beautiful women, the gigantic dimensions of St Stephen’s guaranteeing confidentiality and safety from prying eyes. The individual altars were meeting places, and even had their own nicknames to distinguish them: “Let’s meet at the whores’ altar,” people would say; or “at the baked cake,” “at the florins’ square,” “at the wenches’ lane,” “at the rampart cottages”. These were all indecent allusions to the fact that these altars were favourite spots to meet women of loose morals; the poor priests could do nothing about this and were often jeered at by the women.