Veritas (Atto Melani)

by Monaldi, Rita

  “Opalinski set a trap for us, and I fell right into it,” Penicek began, pressing the wounds on his head with his hand. “That’s if we really want to call him Opalinski.”

  He stopped for a moment. He continued to look downwards. His little wretched eyes were fixed on the graves all around us, his pupils darting feverishly from one stone to another.

  “What do you mean?” I said at last.

  “Opalinski doesn’t exist, has never existed. His real name is . . . Glàwari.”

  “Andreas Glàwari, to be precise,” he said after a few moments’ silence, “and he’s Pontevedrine, not Polish. That’s what he confessed to me, thinking that in a few minutes’ time he was going to finish me off. He didn’t imagine I would survive. So he amused himself by telling me all about it. And now, just as he told it to me, I’ll pass it on to you. Everything.”

  Dànilo had been the easiest job. The first victim had imprudently revealed to Glàwari the time and place of the appointment, and so he just had to get there a little earlier to avoid any problems. The victim had ended up in the murderer’s clutches without even recognising him. He had shown surprise only when the knife plunged into his liver like a hot blade into butter.

  “When you found him dying, the only thing he managed to say was the name Eyyub and the forty thousand of Kasim, one of the thousand legends about the Golden Apple. Dànilo had learned it in his research. He thought he had been stabbed for this and, thinking it important, he spent his last breath in the attempt to tell you what he had learned. But in fact the Golden Apple had nothing to do with his murder.”

  With Hristo Hadji-Tanjov, the chess player, the procedure had been a little more complicated. The stubborn Bulgarian had guessed that it was not a good idea to talk in front of the whole group.

  It was true, I thought, while the Pennal talked on: poor Hristo had fixed the appointment with me and Simonis in the distant Prater without anyone knowing.

  “Glàwari, who always had all of us followed, already knew at the meeting at Populescu’s house that Hristo was not going to come: his thugs had told him that he was heading for the Prater. And so he realised that the Bulgarian no longer trusted his friends.”

  “And he was right,” I put in.

  “But Glàwari had to come to the meeting with us, and so he ordered his two hired killers, two Hungarians to carry out the murder. He even told me their names: Bela and T rek; if those are their real names, of course. Anyway, they belong to his network of spies. In executing Hristo there was the risk of being overheard by the Prater’s guards, or by any children who might have gone in to play. That was why the two Hungarians used a dagger. Luckily, he told me with a sneer, it all went well. It’s true that his men could have caused a good deal of trouble, when they fired at us. They hadn’t foreseen your arrival. Glàwari had given orders that they should eliminate any dangerous witnesses, but he didn’t know that Hristo had an appointment with you, of all people. When the two killers saw how attentively you were examining the corpse they at once decided to do away with you. My arrival stopped them, luckily. And you know what, Glàwari even thanked me: he still needed you, he said. While he was telling me all this, every so often he would laugh,” gasped Penicek, shaken by sobs, “and he explained that after thrusting the dagger into his neck they shoved Hristo’s head into the snow until he stopped moving.”

  Then it was Dragomir Populescu’s turn. In this case things reached the peak of refinement, Glàwari told Penicek, laughing all the while. Glàwari knew that the Romanian never hit it off with women, and he paid an Armenian girl to trick him. He fell for it easily: all he had to do was invite him to have coffee at the Blue Bottle, where she worked. The ingenuous Dragomir didn’t suspect a thing.

  “She was a brunette, a certain Mariza. On Glàwari’s orders she arranged to meet him at the Andacht on Mount Calvary.”

  “So it was the waitress who served me and Atto just a few days earlier! How stupid of me, I took Atto right into the enemy’s mouth!” I exclaimed, thinking how many secrets Melani had confided to me in that coffee house. Fortunately he had been prudent enough to tell me the most important things while we were out strolling.

  “Everyone goes to the Blue Bottle, and people like Glàwari know it. There are always ears listening in there. It’s easy with the Armenians: they’ll spy for anyone who pays them well.”

  “So that same evening when they killed Dragomir, the old man at the Blue Bottle who frightened the Abbot by blathering about the Tekuphah, the cursed blood –”

  “It was all set up for you. But the cruelty with which Populescu was murdered, including the discovery of the Armenian tandur with the mangled pudenda, followed a particular logic. You were supposed to suspect that it was revenge for Dragomir’s excessive attentions to the young Armenian, whose family, like all those strange people, have cruel customs beyond all imagining. It was intended to put you on a false trail, or rather, on a trail that was not only false but also absurd, which would just make you go on with your investigations. And indeed you fell for it.”

  Breathing heavily on account of the pain in his arm, and shedding angry and desperate tears, the Pennal broke off briefly, and then resumed.

  “The Armenian’s traffickings, the Golden Apple, the Turks, the dangerous trade of each victim: all these possible explanations were used to keep you in continual uncertainty. And so you would go on investigating, until you finally made a false step which would allow Glàwari to identify the person whose orders you were following.”

  “Orders? What orders?” I said in surprise.

  “In short, the person who set you poking into matters that didn’t concern you.”

  “Opalinski, I mean Glàwari, thought we weren’t acting alone?” I said in amazement.

  “Exactly,” repeated the Bohemian.

  So Glàwari had really believed that our interest in the Agha’s phrase had not arisen spontaneously, but had been inspired by someone else, someone much higher than us! But he had been wrong: Cloridia and I had grown suspicious all by ourselves, and it would have all ended there if Simonis had not offered to get his companions to look into things.

  “So all those crimes were just a . . . little performance set up to keep you busy,” Penicek summed up.

  “A barbarous trick to see how we reacted,” I repeated, aghast.

  “Like a cat with a mouse,” Penicek agreed, gasping more desperately. “And finally Koloman: it was a real stroke of luck . . .”

  “Just a moment. Opalinski can’t have killed Koloman: he was with us at Porta Coeli!” Simonis interrupted him, his face transfigured by suspicion, by perturbation, by repressed rage.

  “Of course, of course,” Penicek agreed at once, clearly scared of his Barber. “In fact Opalinski, or rather Glàwari, had killed Koloman before joining you at Porta Coeli. He had come to the convent with me with the deliberate intention of framing me. It was no accident that he threw him out of the window, in the Prague fashion. As I said, it was a real stroke of luck for him that you asked me to go to the apothecary. At that point he pretended to reveal unwillingly where Koloman was. Because from the moment I left Porta Coeli to buy the ingredients I no longer had an alibi, and would not be able to prove my innocence. We are all students of medicine, it’s true, but Glàwari is better than me: he knew that I would have to wait for the Galenic preparations and, what’s more, that at the apothecary of the Red Crab they were bound to get suspicious of that long list of things to buy. Ah, if only I had suspected something, I would have returned in the twinkling of an eye. I wouldn’t have wasted any time arguing with the apothecary and I certainly wouldn’t have racked my brains over the Agha’s phrase in front of that stupid statue of the Circassian!”

  “That means,” I murmured, “that Opalinski’s grief over Koloman’s death . . .”

  “It’s always the truth that seems incredible, I know,” sobbed Penicek. “It was all a cold-blooded performance on that devil’s part! But one day divine punishment will strike him: a h
eart finds peace only if God wills it.”

  “That’s why Jan, or Andreas, or whatever the devil his name is, at first didn’t appear frightened by the murders!” I exclaimed, in stupefaction. “Polish courage, indeed!”

  “Glàwari knew very well,” added Penicek, wiping away his tears, “that at the fourth corpse your suspicions would inevitably fall on the survivors. It was me or him, therefore, and he had prepared everything. When by sheer chance you discovered the murder just before three p.m. and right opposite Koloman’s window was the window with the host’s daughters, Signor Barber surmised that Koloman had fallen out of the window by accident – an unforeseen hitch that caught Glàwari off guard and forced him to accuse me openly. But if you think carefully, he was the only one who had always known where Koloman was hiding.”

  “Why, God Almighty, why?” I repeated several times in confusion.

  “I told you: he wanted to know who was behind you. He killed all the companions Signor Barber was fond of to induce you to reveal yourselves, to betray yourselves in one way or other, so that he could spy on your moves. He wanted to see if you were acting alone, or if you were under orders from someone higher up. Only Hristo had realised this, and that is also why he died. And there was another reason: he knew that it wasn’t prudent to talk in front of the whole group!” the young Bohemian laughed hysterically, and then sighed: “Oh, Hristo! You have gone from our lives, but you will always live in our hearts.”

  Simonis and I stared at each other with a mixture of stupefaction, suspicion and anguish. Then the Pennal continued:

  “The Turkish trail was a pure waste of time. There’s nothing concealed behind the Golden Apple: it’s just the Turkish name for Vienna. The enquiries into the Agha’s phrase just served Glàwari to get you both alarmed. He wanted to unmask the bigwig who’s above you.”

  Those words set me shivering, and at the same time they lit a lamp within me. So I had guessed right: there really was a link between me and the murders!

  I ran my hand through my hair. By some tragic quirk of fate, the series of murders had begun with a mistaken assumption on Glàwari’s part: he had not believed that the enquiries into the Golden Apple arose from any genuine interest on my part; he thought that I was carrying out an order. Penicek concluded:

  “Finally there was me. Glàwari left me to the last because none of you loves me, you all despise me. I don’t belong to your little band. You put up with me just because I’m a poor Pennal, and I act as your slave. I would be much more use as a culprit than as a victim. If he had killed me, you wouldn’t have shed many tears. My death would not have spurred you to further investigations or action, which was what Glàwari wanted so that he could discover your secrets. You would all have been ready to believe in my guilt, as soon as Glàwari pointed his accusing finger at me.”

  These words stirred a sense of remorse which I had kept repressed for too long. How foolishly I had let myself be fooled by appearances! And how wrong I had been never to protest at the cruel treatment they inflicted on the poor Pennal!

  “Up there, in the apartment, after massacring me,” concluded Penicek, “time was ticking away and Glàwari felt things were getting too hot for him. You hadn’t come, he was afraid you had smelt a rat and at last he decided to make off.”

  “Just a moment, I still don’t understand,” I stopped him. “Opalinski, or Glàwari, or whatever his name is, had known Simonis ever since their days together at the University of Bologna, like all the others, long before I arrived in Vienna. Is it a coincidence, or had he already got onto Simonis’s trail? And if so, what was his motive?”

  The Pennal did not reply at once. He seemed to have trouble in breathing. His wound gave him acute spasms. Then he spoke:

  “He seems to be a man, but he lives in another world: one of solitude, lies and dirty games. Glàwari is a secret agent. One of the many whose task is to cover up a highly delicate operation. He told me no more than that. He had been chosen years ago to stay close on the heels of Simonis; that was why he was first sent to Bologna.”

  Simonis did not answer. His pistol was still trained on him, under a fold of his cloak.

  “But Simonis and the others came to Vienna because of the famine two years ago!” I protested. “Two years ago now! I have only been here a few months. How is it possible . . .”

  Here Penicek gazed at my assistant with eyes that gleamed anxiously:

  “. . . that a Bettelstudent of medicine and an assistant chimney-sweep, ordinary simple Simonis, could be of such interest to a spy like Glàwari? Easy, if he too is not what he seems. If instead of being called Simonis Rimanopoulos, his name is Symon Rymanovic, a Pole with a Greek mother.”

  “You?” I exclaimed, turning towards Simonis.

  “But don’t think he’s just a simple spy,” Penicek interrupted. Then, breathing more shortly than ever, he addressed my assistant: “You, Signor Barber, apparently so absent-minded, are actually one of the best-trained, most courageous and faithful servants of the Holy Roman Empire. A loyal and generous defender of the cause of Christ, isn’t that so?”

  Simonis turned as white as a sheet, but did not answer. He slowly lowered his pistol. I looked at him again, astonished by what I had just learned. It was as if Penicek’s words had wrapped the weapon and his face in an invisible shroud, which disarmed him and made him helpless: the shroud of truth.

  “Now you’ll excuse me, Signor Barber,” gasped the Pennal at last, rising from the ground and heading towards the hospital. “This arm is too painful, I must get medication. My strength is at an end. Take me, Lord, into your hands.”

  He made off, still clutching his wound, limping and staggering towards one of the doors behind us which led into the hospital.

  I turned to follow him with my eyes. At that moment I happened to glance at a gravestone:

  My strength is at an end

  Take me, Lord, into your hands.

  Andreas Glàwari

  1615–1687

  And then the stone next to it:

  You have gone from our lives,

  But you will always live in our hearts

  Bela T rek

  1663–1707

  And then another, even more mocking than the previous ones:

  A heart finds peace

  only if God wills it.

  Farewell grandmother Mariza

  1623–1701

  It was too late. Simonis and I ran desperately in pursuit of Penicek. We were just in time to catch a glimpse of him as, with a nimble gait (where was the lame leg now?) he caught up with the black carriage that we had seen pull up at the Bürgerspital and calmly climbed into it. He bestowed a final glance of total indifference on us, closed the door and, tossing something out of the window, disappeared amidst the clattering of the hooves and wheels. We stopped running only when we reached the point from which the black vehicle had darted off into thin air. On the ground we saw what Penicek had just thrown away: his spectacles, which he had used to create the role of the timid, inexperienced Pennal. It was all too clear that we would never see him again.

  A few minutes later we were back in the same bedroom where we had found Penicek. Turning to the left this time, we found a door that gave onto the last room in the house, the only one we had not yet visited, probably a little study. The ferruginous smell I had noticed during our first visit had grown even thicker, more turbid and fleshy. Simonis went up to the door. It was locked but the keyhole was empty. With a few robust shoves he burst open the double doors, which sprang apart like a theatre curtain. Bouncing against the wall they closed behind us. Now there were three of us.

  It was like a cross between a man and a beetle. It had two black antennae sticking out from its face, its head and torso were as red as warrior ants. Just before dying it had collapsed onto the armchair that was positioned there in front of us. The blood that soaked the torso had dripped onto the floor.

  Hurled into his eyes with the swiftness of a skilled knife thrower, the tips of the
two missing spits from the kitchen must have caught him by surprise. Then he had been eviscerated. The three embroidered napkins from the table had been thrust into his throat and fixed there by two twists of rope behind his neck, so that he had no way of crying for help. It was not clear whether he had bled to death (ten or twenty stab wounds are too many for anyone) or choked to death.

  We both vomited.

  “This time we’re really in trouble,” I began as soon as I could speak. “They saw us in the building. They’ll come looking for us.”

  “Not necessarily. The false motive for the crime will help us,” said Simonis with icy calm.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’ll look like a vendetta by Mr Zwitkowitz, or a quarrel among students.”

  “You don’t stick a spit into someone’s eyes for a quarrel.”

  “But for an eviction you might.”

  “Not in Vienna,” I rebutted.

  “In this city there are people from Half-Asia who would do it for much less.”

  “And Zwitkowitz sounds like a name from those parts.”

  “Exactly.”

  We walked out. The old woman we had seen earlier on the ground floor was no longer there. Out on the street I found my legs still shaking, while the icy air lashed our faces refreshingly. Everything – the street we were walking down, the buildings around us, the sky itself – seemed clear and distant at the same time. We walked all the way back to the convent without saying a word. I was expecting Simonis to say something, to explain, or at least to try. But he said nothing. Whoever he really was, he had been overwhelmed by the horror of Opalinski’s murder no less than I had. I felt I had been catapulted into another universe. Everything was changing because of that wretched war, I thought, the War of the Spanish Succession.