Veritas (Atto Melani)

by Monaldi, Rita

  “Of course, Hristo. But didn’t you say that he would join us at the meeting?”

  “You must forgive me this little lie, Signor Master. As you saw, he didn’t come. But it’s not that he couldn’t. The fact is that he didn’t want to talk in front of everyone.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “I don’t know. I saw him briefly this morning and he told me that that’s what he preferred, because there is something he finds suspicious.”

  “And what is it?”

  “He didn’t tell me. But he did mention that he thinks the real meaning of the Agha’s sentence is all hidden in the words soli soli soli.”

  “And why?”

  “He said that’s it to do with checkmate.”

  “With checkmate?” I said with a mixture of surprise and scepticism. “In what sense?”

  “I’ve got no idea. But if I were you I’d trust his instinct. Hristo is a real philosopher of chess.”

  Hristo Hristov Hadji-Tanjov, explained Simonis, had a passion for chess, and he supported himself by playing matches for money, which he always won. Vienna at night was the undisputed kingdom of gamblers. All over the city people pitted themselves against lady luck – in coffee shops, luxurious establishments and dingy taverns.

  The cart jolted: Penicek had suddenly switched direction.

  “What’s up, Pennal?” asked Simonis.

  “The usual: a procession.”

  It was the Oratorian Fathers of St Philip Neri. That was why Penicek had abruptly changed his route and gone down a side street: if we had been spotted by the people in the procession, we would have had to stop, kneel down and wait patiently for the Holy Sacrament to make its slow way past us, and so risk arriving late at our meeting with the Bulgarian.

  “Hristo usually plays at the inn called the Green Tree, in Wallner Street,” said Simonis. “A fine inn, always very crowded.”

  He explained that it was frequented not only by artisans, merchants and common folk, but also by irreproachable aristocrats with noble names and clergymen of exemplary reputation, all eager to be robbed blind by professional players of dice, cards, bassette, thirty-forty and trik-trak, and, last but not least, chess.

  “Most of them come from your country, Italy, and they’re the best, including the chess-players: Hristo often tells me about a certain Gioacchino Greco, a Calabrian, who, in his opinion, is the greatest player of all time. They too only play for money, lots of money,” added Simonis.

  We were interrupted once again. Penicek’s vehicle had given another jerk.

  “And now what is it?” asked my assistant severely.

  “Another procession.”

  “Again? What’s going on today?”

  “I’ve got no idea, Signor Barber,” answered Penicek with the utmost deference. “This time it’s the Brotherhood of the Immaculate Conception. They’re all heading towards the Cathedral of St Stephen.”

  I leaned out and before our vehicle set off down the side street, I had time to see the participants’ afflicted faces and to hear their fervent voices raised in song.

  Every night, Simonis went on, entire estates would change hands, ending up in the pockets of Italian adventurers, leaving behind a trail of tears, desperation and suicides: gold, land, houses, jewels, and, for those who had nothing else to offer, even hands or eyes.

  “People bet their eyes? What on earth do you mean?”

  “Such things are unknown to those who work honestly, Signor Master, and who stay at home at night, instead of hanging around places of entertainment. Well now, to curtail certain excesses, an ancient communal ordinance of 1350 is still in force which forbids anyone who has run out of money but who still wants to offer a pledge, to bet on his own eyes, hands, feet or nose. There are people who have done it. And who have lost. That’s partly why about fifteen years ago Emperor Leopold had to re-declare his condemnation of gambling, as a sower of poverty and despair.”

  While Simonis was explaining the mysteries of Viennese nightlife, the progress of the cart was interrupted by a great gathering.

  “Pennal, what the devil is it this time?” asked Simonis.

  “Forgive me, Signor Barber,” he said, in a humble tone. “I just wasn’t able to avoid this procession.”

  “What’s going on today?” I said in amazement; even on a Sunday, and even in such a sanctimonious city as Vienna, it was unusual to have so many processions all so close together.

  “It’s the corporation of the smiths and knife-grinders this time. And they’re on their way to the Cathedral of St Stephen as well,” Penicek told us.

  “There must be a great prayer-meeting there. Do you know anything about it, Pennal?” asked the Greek.

  “Nothing, I’m afraid, Signor Barber.”

  The road was indeed barred by the arrival of a holy procession, announced by the insistent sound of a bell and preceded by two road-sweepers, who were shovelling the snow into piles on either side of the road to make way for the Holy Sacrament. In accordance with Viennese custom, we all had to get out and kneel down for a minute making the sign of the cross and beating our chests, like all the passers-by around us.

  “Curse it, we’ll be late,” moaned Simonis, as the cold of the snow penetrated our bones.

  Meanwhile the procession advanced, led by the priest who was holding up the Holy Sacrament. I noticed quite a few faces in tears in the crowd. Next to me a group of young men had seized someone of their own age by the scruff of the neck and thrown him to the ground, forcing him to kneel. In the Caesarean city, Protestants (the poor wretch must have been one) on such occasions were officially only required to take their hats off; but in fact they were often forced to kneel down like all the others. It was said that once an incident of this sort had befallen the Ambassador of Prussia, so that the imperial court had been obliged to issue a formal apology.

  The delay was getting worse: because of the procession other carriages had stopped, and the passengers had knelt down inside them. The people kneeling on the ground glared hostilely at them. If we had been in the suburbs, where manners were rougher than in the city, the passengers would probably have been forced to get out and prostrate themselves on the ground.

  At the same time (this I knew from experience) at the sound of the bell all the occupants of the houses nearby would have stopped working and knelt down, making the sign of the cross and beating their chests.

  Even a puppet theatre, which just a minute earlier had been offering one of its scurrilous shows, had become magically petrified: as the Holy Sacrament passed by, the street artists had all been transformed into devout worshippers.

  As soon as the tail of the religious procession had passed on its way, everything and everyone went back to their previous activities, as if nothing had happened.

  “I can understand losing at cards or dice, which have always led to ruin,” I said, turning to Simonis once again, as soon as the cart had started up again, “but chess? Who would let himself be fleeced by a chess player?”

  “Hristo will definitely be able to tell you more about that than me. But everyone knows that chess, of all ludic pastimes, is the most sublime and elevated. Many claim that for its subtlety, chess is the only game suited to princes. You may have heard that among the Viennese nobility it’s beoming fashionable to take lessons in the science of chess playing, just as they used to do with music, philosophy or medicine.”

  I recalled that in the living rooms of the houses of the rich, when inspecting their chimneys, I had almost always seen chessboards of exquisite workmanship, finely inlaid or even in beautiful coloured stone.

  “Today the best chessboards are made in Lyons, in Paris and Munich,” added my assistant. “And before the war broke out, they used to import the most beautiful specimens here. Chess is becoming a game for the rich. Hristo often has the chance to teach chess to pupils who pay well. When he accepts games for pay, the challenger is very often a wealthy young man. So, all in all, he does pretty well.”

  �
��But professional players like Hristo must lose occasionally.”

  “We students are protected by special legislation. In an ancient privilege brought in by Duke Albrecht, around 1267, it was established that a student when gambling can only lose the money he has on him, and not a penny more, and he cannot give up his books or his clothes. In addition the win is only valid if there’s a guarantor who administrates the players’ winnings. And since Hristo plays without a guarantor, on the rare occasions he does lose, he cites this law, which his opponents don’t know about. And he doesn’t pay. But if the loser is not a real cavalier, and suspects he’s been tricked, he could try to get his revenge.”

  By now we had reached the Leopoldine Island, on the other side of one of the branches of the Danube, the area where the house stood that was going to host the Agha’s embassy the next day. After travelling down a long tree-lined avenue, we crossed a bridge over another canal separating the Leopoldine Island from the generous open stretch of the game reserve known as the Prater.

  What Hristo wanted to tell us must be genuinely hot stuff, I thought, for him to fix an appointment all the out way here in this intense cold.

  As we crossed the bridge, leaving on the right the villa of the noble family Häckelberg and on the left the Löwenthurm property, we were faced by the immense stretch of the Prater.

  On the opposite side of the bridge we stopped. We were alone. Simonis and I got down from the cart, while Penicek remained on the box and nodded when my assistant ordered him not to move until we returned.

  The winter weather had driven everyone into their houses and emptied the roads, especially in this corner of the city close to cold forests and damp, grassy meadows. There was no sign of any of the numerous boys from the Leopoldine Island who would come out to the Prater at every snowfall, entering secretly by some gap in the fence, to play on their sledges.

  “The entrance is barred,” I remarked, pointing to a large gate that must be the way in.

  “Of course, Signor Master, this is an imperial game reserve. Come along, follow me,” he said, inviting me to walk alongside the fence towards the right.

  “But once Cloridia and I entered by this very gate and walked around here for a whole day,” I objected as we walked along.

  “The gamekeepers often close an eye to respectable-looking couples. But in general common people are barred from entering: only His Caesarean Majesty, dames and cavaliers, imperial councillors, chancellors and functionaries of the court chamber are allowed in. It was Maximilian II who made the Prater the great reserve that it is today, joining together a number of separate plots of land. Some of these areas, for example, belonged to the convent of Porta Coeli. The nuns owned half Vienna.”

  “Yes, they’ve still got that vineyard at Simmering, not far from the Place with No Name.”

  “Here at the Prater,” my assistant went on, “Maximilian also created the great tree-lined avenue you must have seen on your previous visit.”

  So, I thought, we were once again following in the footsteps of Maximilian II, the lord of the Place with No Name. Maybe it was a sign of destiny.

  At last Simonis stopped, pointing to a spot where a wide gap in the fence, hidden by a bush, made it possible to slip through.

  “The children of the Leopoldine Island use these gaps to go and play in the Prater. And my friends and I use them too, when we need a little privacy,” commented Simonis.

  No sooner had we slipped through than we were greeted by an idyllic and unreal landscape. The reserve was entirely covered by a blanket of snow. The tips of the trees thrust upwards into the milky immensity of the celestial vault; the snow seemed to have been transfused into every object, so that the green earth and blue sky were embraced in the blankness of a pure and opalescent coitus. In that fantastical world, pheasants, deer and bucks lay hidden, prey to the Emperor’s venatic passion.

  “Strange,” said Simonis looking around. “Hristo should have been here ages ago. That damned procession, I don’t know whether we’re late or he is.”

  “There are tracks here,” I observed after we had waited for a few minutes.

  In the mosaic of scuffled marks and scrapes on the ground by the unauthorised entrance, some human footprints could be seen, clear and fresh. The snow was getting thicker.

  “What do you think, Simonis, could they be his?”

  “Judging by the size of the foot, Signor Master, they could well be.”

  So, with the incessant snow making it harder and harder to see anything, we began to follow the tracks.

  There was not much time; soon the snow would obliterate them. The footprints headed to the right and joined a long path flanked by a double line of trees: the great avenue which, as far as I knew, ran all the way through the Prater to the Danube. But almost at the beginning there was a fork to the left.

  “He didn’t go left or right,” declared Simonis, observing the traces, “he went between the two prongs, through the woods. And do you see that the footprints have got wider apart?”

  “So he started running.”

  “So it seems, Signor Master.”

  No place, in the snow, is as beautiful as Vienna. Trees, hills, bushes, lawns, mossy rocks: the Prater was a single immaculate expanse. In the distance, much further than we could see, I knew that the branches of the bending Danube flowed, sinuous and seething.

  Since ancient times the river Danube has been considered the prince of European rivers, and one of the world’s pre-eminent rivers. It is no surprise that Ovid compares it with the Nile of Egypt, and it should be noted that, along with the smaller Po in Italy and the Thames in England, contrary to the nature of all flowing water in the world, it flows eastwards: only in Hungary does it turn briefly towards the west, and in Misia, it bends slightly northwards, thus, as already noted, impeding – thank God! – the westward march of the Ottoman peoples. The Danube was also an important source of sustenance for the Caesarean city. There were numerous landing places for the commerce of wines and foodstuffs, as well as numerous smaller harbours for the transportation of people and for fishing. One of these wharves, for example, lay in a canal that divided the Prater from an island known as the Embankment. It was there that Cloridia and I, during a Sunday stroll we had taken months earlier in the Prater, had engaged in laborious chit-chat in German with some boatmen.

  The snow and wind were increasing in intensity. Pluvial Jove and the Wind Rose seemed to have been sharpening their wits upon one another, in a combined effort to recreate January conditions in April. The wind was blowing straight into our eyeballs, and we had to shield our faces with our hands in order to proceed without stumbling.

  “Can you see anything?” I said to Simonis, almost shouting over the roar of the wind.

  “There’s something ahead. On the ground.”

  A bag. An old cloth shoulder bag, half-buried in the snow, containing something heavy, hard and square, the size of a plate. Brushing away the flakes that had settled on the bag, we opened it: there, wrapped in a red rag, was a large chessboard in solid wood, with its base reinforced by a plate of inlaid iron, and a little pouch full of small, finger-sized objects.

  “Signor Master, it’s Hristo’s chessboard.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He opened the pouch. He pulled out a black pawn, and then a knight painted in peeling white: they seemed to be a microcosmic representation of the white mantle of snow and the black of the wizened bushes that embroidered the Prater in two-tone lacework.

  “They’re his chess pieces. He always uses these in his games,” said Simonis, as I picked up the poor abandoned bag and its contents.

  “Let’s go on,” I exhorted him, though I was beginning to look over my shoulders by now.

  The last stretch, still flanked by snow-shrouded trees, was almost all uphill. We puffed and panted our way upwards, numb with cold. By now Hristo’s tracks (if they really were his) were covered in snow. The last prints vanished just before a small hill that rose in front of us, w
hose gradient was even steeper than the slope we had just struggled up. From its top there must be a view of the Danube.

  “Let’s go back,” I proposed. “I wouldn’t like . . .”

  A noise, distant but quite distinct in the muffled silence of the snowfall, made the words die on my lips.

  Simonis and I looked at each other: there were footsteps on the snow. Immediately, the noise stopped. The snow and the small whirls of flakes driven by intermittent gusts of wind limited visibility to a few paces.

  Without saying a word, Simonis made a sign that we should climb to the top of the hill. With our heads bowed and our backs bent, as if we were trying to hide in fields of corn, we clambered up as fast as possible. As soon as we got to the top, thanks to a favourable flurry of wind, the view opened up miraculously on the thousand isles of the bend of the Danube, and I thought back to a book I had read in Rome, before we set off on our journey to Vienna, in which I had learned that the springs of the glorious river are at Donaueschingen, in Germany, where its calm, limpid waters emerge from the mysterious depths of the Black Forest, which the ancients called Sylva Martiana, and then spout forth from a cemetery lying in the territories of the counts of Fürstenberg. And while my eyes took in those celebrated waters, which had travelled over four hundred leagues on their way here from Germany, I almost forgot what we were doing up on the top of that hill, and I only just heard Simonis’s voice saying:

  “Signor Master, Signor Master, come here, quickly!”

  Hristo’s body was lying face down near a tree, his head squashed in the snow. We had to pull with all our strength to extract the head, as it had been pressed with inconceivable violence into the bottom of a hollow, which had somehow been dug into the fresh snow. Just below the nape of his neck, we found that a deep knife wound had soaked his back with blood. But that had probably not been fatal; for this reason they had pushed his face into the hollow until his heart and lungs had given out.

  When we turned him over his face was a mess of blue and white blotches. It looked as if he had only been dead for a while, a very short while.