Secretum

by Rita Monaldi;Francesco Sorti

  Meanwhile, I had been able to identify the coat of arms on the first carriage: it was that of the Rospigliosi family, but under it there was a bright damask bearing their colours, which signified that the carriage bore some honoured guest under the protection of that great family, but not of their lineage.

  The carriage was on the point of approaching the gate of honour, but I was no longer curious about the arrival of coaches at the villa, the opening of doors and all the ritual of hospitality among gentlefolk that would duly follow. When first I joined the household, I had indeed hidden behind the corners of the great house to spy on the swarm of footmen, the stools being placed for alighting from the carriages, the servant girls bearing baskets laden with fruit, the first tributes from the master of the house, the speeches by the Master of Ceremonies, invariably broken off half-way by the fatigue of the newly arrived guests, and so on and so forth.

  I moved away so as not to disturb the arrival of those gentlemen with my obscure presence and once more set to work. While I was intent on hoeing the borders of lawns, pruning bushes, trimming hedges and weeding, I would from time to time look up to enjoy the view over the city of the seven hills, while the gentle summer breeze bore me the gift of graceful notes from an orchestral rehearsal. Covering my forehead with my hand to deflect the glare of the sun, I beheld to the far left the grandiose cupola of Saint Peter's, to my right the more modest but no less splendid one of Sant'Ivo alia Sapienza, just beside the subdued pagan dome of the Pantheon and, last of all, in the background, the Pontifical Palace of the Quirinale on Monte Cavallo.

  After one such brief pause, I bent down and was about to trim a few bushes, when I saw a shadow lengthen beside my own.

  For a long time I observed it; it did not move. My hand, however, moved of its own accord, grasping the sickle. The tip of its blade traced the shadow by my shoulders on the sand of the drive. The soutane, the abbot's periwig and hood. . . It was then that the shadow, as though condescending to inspect my hand, turned slowly towards the sun and revealed its profile; on the ground, I could clearly make out a hooked nose, a receding chin, an impertinent lip... My hand, which was almost caressing those features rather than merely outlining them, began now to tremble. No longer could I be in any doubt.

  Atto Melani: still unable to raise my eyes from the silhouette I had discovered in the sand, a tangle of thoughts obscured my vision and my feelings. Signor Abbot Melani. .. Signor Atto, to me. Atto, Atto himself.

  The shadow waited benignly.

  How many years had passed? Sixteen? No, seventeen, I calculated, trying to gather the courage to turn around. And, despite the laws of time, a thousand thoughts and memories flashed across my mind within those few seconds. Almost seventeen years without the least sign of life from Abbot Melani, and now he had reappeared; his shadow was there, behind me, merging with my own, so I repeated mechanically to myself as at length I rose and very slowly turned around.

  At last my pupils acknowledged the sun's affront.

  He was leaning on a walking stick, a little shorter and more bent than I had left him. Seeming almost like some shade from another century, he wore an abbot's wig, hood and mauve-grey soutane, exactly as he had when first we met, little caring that this attire had long been outmoded.

  Confronting my glazed and dumbstruck expression, he spoke with the most laconic and disarming naturalness: "I am going to take a rest: I have only just arrived. We shall meet later. I shall have them call for you."

  Seeming almost spectral, he disappeared into the blazing midsummer light, moving in the direction of the great house.

  I stood as though petrified. I do not know how long I remained thus immobile in the midst of the garden. My breast seemed like the cold white marble of Galatea, and only gradually did the breath of life return to warm it, when I was of a sudden unnerved by the bursting into my heart of that o'erflowing torrent of affection and pain which had for years seized me whenever I recalled Abbot Melani.

  The letters which I had sent to Paris had been swallowed up by an abyss of black silence. Year after year, I had uselessly laid siege to the office for post from France, awaiting a reply. If only to put an end to anxiety, I would eventually have been resigned to receive some sadly final message, as I had imagined a thousand times over:

  It is my sad duty to inform you of the death of Abbot Melani...

  Instead, nothing; until now, when his unexpected reappearance had taken my breath away. I was incredulous; directly upon his arrival, the first action of the illustrious guest of the Rospigliosi, invited with all honours to the Villa Spada, had been to seek me out: me, a mere peasant bending over his mattock. The friendship and faith of Abbot Melani had overcome distances and years.

  After finishing what I was doing in all haste, I hurried home on my mule. I could not wait to inform Cloridia! As I rode, I kept repeating to myself, "Why should I be surprised?", tenderly realising that this impetuous and unexpected reappearance was utterly typical of the man. Such emotions, such a tightening of the heart-strings! As in a dream, I relived the turmoil of teachings and intellectual passions which Abbot Melani had revealed to me and the dangerous pursuit into which I had been plunged when I followed him. ..

  Little by little, however, emotions and gratitude came to be attended by a doubt. How had Atto managed to trace me to the Villa Spada? It would have been logical for him to seek me at the Via dell'Orso, in the house which was formerly the Locanda del Donzello, the inn where I had served and in which we had met. Instead, Atto, who had clearly been invited by Cardinal Spada to his nephew's wedding, had come straight to me upon arriving, as though he well knew where to find me.

  From whom could he have learned that? Certainly not from anyone at the Villa Spada; none there knew of our erstwhile frequentation, quite apart from the fact that my person was never the object of anyone's attention. Besides, we had no common acquaintances, only the adventure we had both lived through at the Donzello seventeen long years ago. Concerning that extraordinary episode, I had at first kept a concise diary, based on which I had drawn up a detailed memoir, of which I was, moreover, inordinately proud. I had even mentioned it to Atto in the last missive which I had sent him only a few months previously, in one final attempt to obtain tidings of him.

  As I trotted across the fields, I gave free rein to memories, and for a few moments I relived in a daydream those distant and remarkable events: the plague, the poisonings, the manhunts in the underground galleries, the battle of Vienna, the conspiracies of the sovereigns of Europe. . .

  How brilliantly, I thought, I had succeeded in telling it all in my memoir, so much so that I had at first taken pleasure in poring over it on sleepless nights. Nor was I perturbed by having once again before my eyes all the iniquitous deeds perpetrated by Atto: his transgressions, his failings and blasphemies. I need only to go to my writings to recover my spirits, even to feel positively merry, and then I was minded of the love of my Cloridia, which still Deo gratias accompanied me, and of the purity of work on the land and, lastly, of my fresh connection with the Villa Spada. Ah yes, the Villa Spada. . .

  As though I had been attacked by a thousand scorpions, 1 spurred on my mule and hastened home. Now I understood only too well.

  Cloridia was not at home. I rushed to the trunks in which I kept all my books. Feverishly I emptied them, rummaging at the bottom of each one: the memoir had disappeared.

  "Thief, brigand, blackguard," I growled under my breath. "And I am a dolt, an imbecile, a gullible jackass."

  How foolish I had been to write to Atto about my memoir! Those pages contained too many secrets, too many proofs of the infidelities and betrayals of which Abbot Melani was capable. No sooner did he know of its existence - alas, only now did I realise this - than he unleashed some ruffian of his to purloin it. It must have been child's play to enter my unguarded house and search it.

  I cursed Atto, I cursed myself and whoever he had sent to steal my beautiful memoir. Anyway, what else could I expect of Abbot Melan
i? I had but to turn my mind to all I knew of his turbid misdeeds.

  Castrato singer and French spy: that already said all that was to be said about him. His career as a singer was long since over. In his youth, he had, however, been a famous soprano and had taken advantage of his concerts to spy on half the courts of Europe. Subterfuge, lies and deceit were his daily bread; ambushes, plots and assassinations, his travelling companions. He was capable of grasping a pipe and making it pass for a pistol, of hiding the truth from you without lying, of expressing and inspiring deep feelings out of pure calculation; he knew and practised the arts of stalking and theft.

  His intellect, on the other hand, was both fulminating and penetrative. His knowledge of the affairs of state I recalled as reaching into the best-hid secrets of crowned heads and royal families. What was more, his keen and lively mind was capable of dissecting the human soul like a knife cutting through lard. His sparkling eyes gained him sympathy, nor had he ever the slightest difficulty in winning over those around him.

  Alas, all his best qualities were at the service of the most sordid ends. If he enlightened you with some revelation, it was only in order to win your compliance. If he said he was on a mission, he certainly did not betray his base personal interests. If, lastly, he offered his friendship, I thought bitterly, it was with a view to extorting whatever favours he needed most.

  The proof of all that? His indifference to old friends. He had left me without news for seventeen years. And now, as though nothing had happened, he was calling me urgently to his service...

  "No, Signor Atto, I am no longer the young lad I was seventeen years ago." Thus would I speak to him, looking him straight in the eyes. I'd show him that I was now a man well-versed in the business of life, no longer timid in the company of gentlemen, only deferential; capable of weighing up every occasion and discerning where my own interest lay. And if, because of my slight stature, everyone still called me a boy, I was and felt myself to be a very different person from the little prentice whom Atto had known so many years ago.

  No, I could not accept Abbot Melani's conduct; and, above all, I could not tolerate the theft of my memoir.

  I threw myself down on the bed, trying to rest and to part company with these and other sad cogitations and endlessly tormenting the sheets. Only then did I remember that Cloridia had told me that she would not be returning home; like every good midwife (as she had become after prolonged practice over the past few years) she would spend the last few days before the confinement at the home of the mother-to-be. With her had gone my two adored little ones, no longer so little: at ten and six years of age, already big girls, my daughters had become the full-time helpers of their mother (whom they adored) not only as pupils, to be instructed in this most important discipline, but as assistants ready to meet her every need, for instance by handing her oils and hot greases, towels, scissors and thread for cutting the umbilical cord; or in dexterously pulling forth the afterbirth and other such matters.

  I dedicated a few thoughts to them: the little pair followed their mother like a shadow, their behaviour in public as sensible as it was vivacious 'twixt our four domestic walls. Their absence now made the house seem even emptier and sadder, and I was reminded of my melancholy infancy as a poor foundling.

  Thus, favoured by solitude, grave thoughts had gained the upper hand. Insomnia wrapped me in its cold embrace and I knew how cold the connubial couch can be without the consolation of love.

  After an hour or so, having missed my lunch for lack of appetite,

  I resolved to return to the Villa Spada in order to pursue my duties. Such repose as I had taken, however brief, had had the desired effect: the insistent thoughts of Abbot Melani and his sudden return, of which I knew not whether it was most welcome or opportune for me, at long last left me. Abbot Melani had, I thought, emerged like some selfish protean sea-god to perturb the quiet counterpoint of my existence. It was right that I should try now not to think of him.

  He would have me called, so he had told me; until then, I could at least dedicate myself to other matters. I had much to do and so I set about one of the tasks which most pleased me: the cleaning of the aviary. The servant who habitually undertook this was more and more frequently confined to bed by an ugly wound to his foot which refused to heal. It was thus not the first time that I was discharging this duty. I went to collect the feed and set to work.

  The reader should not be surprised to learn that the Villa Spada was graced by an attraction as exotic as the aviary. In the Roman villas, all forms of diversion were in great demand. At his Villa on the Pincio, Cardinal de' Medici kept bears, lions and ostriches; at the Villas Borghese and Pamphili, roe deer and fallow deer wandered freely. At the time of Pope Leo X an elephant, Annone by name, had even promenaded among the gardens of the Vatican. Apart from animals, sportive entertainments to astound and divert the guests had never been lacking, such as pall-mall (which was played at the Villa Pamphili), or trucco, otherwise known as billiards, which was played at the villa of the Knights of Malta and at Villa Costaguti, on a court polished with soap or a cloth-covered table, or billiards in the open air, which was to be found at the Villa Mattei, to overcome the melancholy humour of the summer evenings.

  The aviary was situated in a secluded corner of the villa, between the chapel and the vegetable gardens, hidden from view by a line of trees and by a tall, thick hedge. It had been so placed as to enjoy sunlight in winter and shade in summer, in order to spare the birds the discomfort of inclement weather. Its aspect was that of a little manor built to a square plan, with a tower at each comer and the central corpus covered in metallic mesh cupolas, surmounted in their turn by splendid pinnacles crowned by iron weathercocks. The interior was painted with frescoes depicting views of the heavens and of distant landscapes, so as to give the fowls an illusion of greater space. Holm oaks and bay laurel bushes, which are evergreen, were planted there, and there were vases with brushwood for building nests as well as four large drinking bowls. The birds (of which there were a number of groups in separate cages) were numerous and most pleasing both to the eye and the ear: nightingales, lapwings, partridges, quails, francolins, pheasants, ortolans, green linnets, blackbirds, calandra larks, chaffinches, turtle-doves and hawfinches, to name but a few.

  I entered the aviary timidly, immediately provoking a great flapping of wings. Birds, or so I have been told, should always be fed and cared for by the same person. My presence, instead of their usual master, had sown no little disquiet. I made my way in cautiously while a number of lapwings followed me nervously and a flock of little birds darted around me with hostile movements. I shivered when a blackbird settled boldly on my shoulder, somehow avoiding a collision with a francolin which was fluttering defiantly in my face.

  "If you do not stop this at once, I shall depart, and then you shall go without lunch!" I threatened.

  In response to this I received only a more aggressive and strident wave of cackling, whistling and fluttering, and further dangerous aerial incursions only a hand's breadth from my head. Intimidated, I took refuge in a corner until the squall calmed down. The government of birds and of aviaries was not, I thought, a trade for me.

  When even the most impertinent volatiles had returned to order, I began to clean and refill the drinking and feed bowls with fresh water, chicory, beet, yarrow, lettuce, plantain seeds, grain, bird seed, millet and hemp seed. I then furnished the aviary with fresh supplies of asparagus grass, which is good for building nests. As I was scattering a few pieces of dry bread, a hungry young francolin jumped onto my arm, trying to snatch the tasty booty of breadcrumbs from his companions.

  Once I had cleaned the feed bowls and swept the dejections from the ground, I moved at last towards the exit, happy to leave behind me the stink and chaos of the aviary. I was just closing the door when suddenly my heart leapt into my throat.

  A pistol shot. A projectile whistled by very close to me. Someone was shooting at me.

  I bent down with my hands
clutching my head in a gesture of protection. Then I heard a hard, loud voice, clearly addressing me: "Arrest him! He's a thief."

  Instinctively, I raised my hands in surrender. I turned around, and saw no one. I slapped my forehead and smiled, disappointed at the shortness of my memory. Only then did I slowly look upwards and see him there, in his usual place.

  "How witty," I replied, closing the door of the aviary and trying to hide my shock.

  "I said, Arrest him, he's a thief!' Boooom!'

  That second pistol shot, which seemed even more real than the first one, clearly announced the strangest creature in all the Villa Spada: Caesar Augustus, parrot.

  I should take this opportunity to explain the nature and conduct of that bizarre volatile, which was to play no small part in the events I am about to recount.

  I knew that, because of its unique qualities, the parrot had been given such grandiose names as "Light of the Avian Realm" and "Monarch of the East Indies", and that the first exemplars had been brought to Alexander the Great from the Isle of Taprobane, since which time many other species had been discovered in the West Indies, especially in Cuba and Manacapan. Everyone knows that the parrot (of which some say there exist over a hundred varieties) possesses the most singular faculty of imitating the human voice, and not only that, but noises, sounds, and much else. Years ago in Rome, the parrot of the most excellent Cardinal Madruzzo and that of the Cavalier Cassiano Dal Pozzo were renowned for imitating the human voice poorly while perfectly mimicking dogs and cats. Then there were those which knew how to imitate the song of other birds, even of more than one species. Outside the Papal States, the parrot belonging to His Most Serene Highness the Prince of Savoy was still remembered for its prompt and fluent eloquence. It is said that Cardinal Colonna's parrot could recite the whole Creed. Lastly, another white and yellow parrot of the same species as Caesar Augustus had just arrived on the Barberini estate, adjoining the Villa Spada, and this one too was said to be a good speaker.