The Lying Tongue

by Andrew Wilson

  Occasionally Crace would catch me brooding. He would ask me whether I was all right, and I would have to look down so as not to let him see the hatred in my eyes. I was a good actor, though, able in an instant to lighten my mood and flash him a winning smile. I could always explain my seemingly distant demeanor with the fact that I was having problems with my book. “Writer’s block,” I would say, and he would nod knowingly. He advised me to keep a notebook in which I entered my day-to-day thoughts and observations. That was always a good way, he had found, of keeping the creative juices flowing. But nothing in the world would make him want to publish again, he added; he would rather die than see his name on the front of a book.

  Now that I knew the circumstances surrounding his decision to give up writing, I had to admit that, despite the almost visceral repulsion I felt toward him, I admired the fact that he had never been driven to change his mind. I wondered if he knew about the death of Chris’s mother? After all, her existence—and Chris’s note to her telling her what to do in the event of Crace seeking publication of The Music Teacher—was the one big obstacle preventing the release of his second novel. I suppose Shaw posed a small risk, as he knew about the existence of the book, but now that I had bought his silence I doubted he would do anything. Ultimately, I was the one who held all the cards, the one with the power to shape Crace’s future. I was the teller of his story, his ventriloquist, his biographer.

  Sitting up in bed, writing in my notebook, I listened as the rain lashed against the window. After a delicious supper of linguine di mare, Crace and I had done a spot of reading in the drawing room, and then at eleven o’clock, with the storm already raging over Venice, he had asked me to get him his customary glass of water and two sleeping pills. Although I had suggested that he see a doctor, he had refused. He couldn’t bear the thought of a stranger examining him, he said, poking around his body like an unwanted intruder. He had told me that he had quite a stash of pills he had hoarded over the years that should keep him going for some time to come. I wondered why he had gone to the bother of amassing the tablets. The most likely reason, the only motivation I could discern, was a knowledge that one day he might feel compelled to take his own life.

  Since my arrival back at the palazzo, his dependence on me seemed complete. From first thing in the morning, when I made his breakfast and stood by him as he got dressed, through the day, when I would read to him or sit by him as he talked about his art collection, to the evening, when I would help him take off his clothes and assist him as he climbed into bed, he demanded that I stay with him. Leaving him for a matter of minutes to get some food from the local shop induced spells of anxiety, which, if not allayed by soothing words and reassurances of a quick reappearance, resulted in hysteria, while the only time I got to myself—when I could write in my notebook—was after he had gone to sleep.

  That night after I had given him the sleeping pills, he retired to bed. He must have been asleep for two hours when I heard a series of disjointed, unintelligible shouts coming from his room. Had Crace’s old employee returned? I hid my notebook under my pillow and, wearing only a vest and shorts, ran down the corridor and into the portego. I switched on the lights in the grand hall, illuminating the vast space, but there was no sign of an intruder. The sound, a frightened, animalistic cry, continued to come from Crace’s bedroom. I gently knocked on his door, but as there was no answer except for the terrible moaning that continued to echo down the corridor, I entered the room. In the darkness I saw Crace writhing in his bed, kicking and hitting the surrounding velvet curtains as he thrashed out with his legs and arms. It was obvious he was having a nightmare.

  “Gordon, Gordon, wake up,” I said, walking into the alcove.

  I opened the dark red curtains and switched on his bedside light, but the nightmare still gripped him.

  “Gordon,” I said, reaching out to touch his bony shoulder through his cotton nightshirt. “Gordon?”

  He arched his back, pain etched deeply into his face, and woke with a jump.

  “Oh, thank God,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I was having the most awful dream.”

  He sat up in bed and looked at me with a dazed, confused expression on his face.

  “Just thinking about it unsettles me,” he said, shivering. “Oh, it was horrible and so realistic. I went out for a walk, something that, in itself, filled me with fear, and if that was not bad enough, I came back to find that…that…you were dead.”

  Tears clouded his eyes as he relived the dream.

  “You were sitting there at the kitchen table with your head slumped forward. I thought at first you were asleep and I came over to try and wake you. But you didn’t move. You felt cold to the touch. I couldn’t take it in. I kept trying to shake you, but you didn’t stir.”

  “That does sound horrible,” I said, trying to calm him down. “But it was only a dream. Look, I’m here, alive and well.”

  He took hold of my hand, and I felt his skin, both cold and clammy, rub against mine.

  “Yes, yes, you’re here. You’ll never leave, will you? My Chris, you’ll never leave. Nothing will separate us now.”

  He leaned forward and embraced me, his hands twining themselves around my neck. I felt his finger stroking the back of my neck, tracing its way down to my shoulder blade. His other hand snaked its way down my arm, massaging my triceps, before it moved on and came to rest on my leg.

  “Gordon,” I said, gently. “It’s not Chris; it’s Adam. I’m Adam.”

  He started to whisper Chris’s name over and over again, and I felt the occasional flick of his tongue brush against my ear.

  “Gordon,” I said more sternly. “Wake up. It’s Adam.”

  As his fingers started to worm their way up my leg toward my crotch, I took hold of his shoulders and pushed him away from me.

  “Stop it, Gordon. Stop it!”

  He blinked a couple of times, as if waking from a dream, and then, as he realized what he had done, covered his face with his hands. His long fingers looked like those from a Quattrocento painting.

  “Adam, will you ever forgive me? Oh, what a fool I’ve made of myself.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You were obviously having a nightmare.”

  “Yes, I was—an awful, awful dream. I can’t apologize enough. Oh God, you’ll hate me now, think me no better than a dirty old man.”

  “I don’t think anything of the kind. Please, Gordon, don’t worry—”

  “I hope I won’t drive you away,” he said, taking hold of his nightshirt and twisting it with his hands. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did leave. It was absolutely unforgivable behavior. Inexcusable.”

  “Honestly, Gordon. Let’s just forget it ever happened.”

  “God, I’m never going to get to sleep now,” he said, biting his nails. “Would you mind awfully getting me two more tablets?”

  “Is that wise? You’ve already taken two.”

  “No, it will be fine. Otherwise I’m going to be up all night, worrying, playing the whole thing out in my mind over and over again.”

  “Well, if you are sure.”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  I got the pills and some more water for Crace. As he tipped the tablets into his mouth, he turned to me and, with a look of genuine affection, thanked me.

  “I should sleep like the dead now, shouldn’t I?” he said, resting his head back on the pillow.

  I left him and returned to my room, the noise of thunder rumbling in the distance.

  Back in my room I couldn’t sleep. The feel of Crace’s fingers on my neck and on my legs, working their way up my thighs, continued to burn into me. The fear of what he might have done next unsettled me, and a thousand elaborate, equally disturbing, scenarios ran through my mind. I realized that I couldn’t continue as I was, and I made up my mind that the next day I would present him with my evidence. I would give him an ultimatum, a choice between cooperation and exposure. Of course, I would have to prepare myself for a de
gree of unpleasantness, but that would be better than the alternative. At least with this solution I would have, as they say, a certain amount of closure. I would be the one in control.

  Lightning flashed outside my window, splitting the night sky. With each strike I became more and more anxious, as if the electrical storm were somehow wired into my central nervous system. Before trying to go to sleep, I had placed my notebook back in its hiding place under the floor by my desk, but I felt an overwhelming urge to look through it. Still wearing just my vest and shorts, I got out of bed and walked across the room. I took out the chisel from my desk drawer, where it was hidden under a pile of old newspapers, and used it to ease up the edge of the panel. Inside was my little literary treasure trove, the papers that I hoped would bring me fame, perhaps even fortune. I dusted off the layer of dirt that had settled over the bag and unwrapped the package. I flicked through my notebook, amazed that I had managed to write so many words about my time with Crace. I really had done quite a sterling job. But when I reread Chris’s suicide note, I remembered that there was one thing missing—a copy of The Music Teacher. If I could only track that down, then I would have located the final piece of evidence. If I got my hands on the unpublished manuscript, then my case against Crace would be so much stronger.

  As I remembered Crace’s words to me when I had left him in the bedroom—how he was going to sleep like the dead—I knew that I would have to take the opportunity. I quickly pushed all the papers and my notebook back into the bags and placed them under the floor. I put the chisel into the drawer and under the newspapers, and picked up my small pen torch and dropped it into the pocket of my shorts. Thunder roared outside, shaking the foundations of the palazzo, and a wall of rain lashed against the window. If Crace could sleep through a storm as ferocious as this, then he really was dead to the world.

  I opened my door and walked down the dark corridor into the portego. I stopped at the entrance to the next corridor, the one that led to Crace’s quarters, and then again outside his bedroom, listening for movement, but could not hear a thing. I pushed open the door into his bedroom and stepped onto the terrazzo. I had to be certain that Crace really was asleep before I proceeded any further, so as I moved into the alcove that housed his bed, I coughed, quietly at first and then more loudly. But all I heard from inside his velvet canopy was the sound of breathing and the occasional guttural snore. I pulled back the curtain and peeked inside to see Crace lying in a fetal position, his mouth open, a bubble of spit at the corner of his lips. Although his lids were closed, his eyes continued to move under the skin at a rapid pace, a sign that he was in the deepest of sleeps. I closed the curtains and left Crace dreaming.

  I walked across the room and opened the door to his study. I took out my pen torch and shone it into the darkness. Illuminated by the pocket of light I saw the face of the terrapin ink pot staring out of the gloom and then the various objects standing on Crace’s cabinet of curiosities: the slipware flask shaped like a scallop shell; the range of fine vases; the miniatures in their velvet frames; the white marble relief of Mucius Scaevola; the triangular perfume burner with its winged figures; the brass candlesticks and the bowl showing Ganymede being abducted by an eagle, a representation of Zeus. The rich, red, fabric-lined walls looked like they were covered in blood.

  I searched the cabinet first, running my fingers along the spaces between the mass of objects and down the back of the shelving for any sign of an envelope or package, but there was nothing. I looked around the room at the piles of books, some of which, despite my best efforts, were still arranged in unstable towers. I knelt down by some oversize volumes that Crace had placed in one of the far corners of the study. I lifted each one off the pile, quickly flicking through the pages so that I could see the space behind them, but again there was no sign of Crace’s book. Although I had already looked through his desk soon after arriving at the palazzo and had found no trace of a manuscript, I began to search that too. After all, I couldn’t rule out the possibility that Crace may have secreted the typescript in another part of the palazzo before moving it to his desk in the last few weeks. One thing I had learned during the course of my research was that you had to be thorough. Assumptions were dangerous things.

  I opened the small drawers at the top of the desk and found the tiny gold keys and the buff-colored envelope that still contained the lock of flaxen hair, which I now knew probably belonged to Chris. But at the back of the drawer was another, larger envelope, one I hadn’t seen before. I pulled it out and shone my torch inside it to see another lock of hair, similar in color to Chris’s but not quite so brittle in texture. I remembered the iciness of what I had taken to be Crace’s fingers on my face while I slept, but now it seemed more likely that what I had felt was the press of cold metal scissors against my skin, scissors he had used to cut the hair from my head. As I turned over the envelope, a rash of goose bumps prickled the skin at the base of my neck. Written on the back of the envelope was a phrase in Italian that seemed vaguely familiar. It was in Crace’s handwriting.

  “Io son colei che ognuno al mondo brama, perché per me dopo la morte vive,” it read.

  At that moment I heard a noise behind me. A slash of light burned into the room. I turned around. Crace was standing at the door, wearing a nightshirt and a dressing gown. He was holding a gun.

  “Found something interesting?” he said.

  “Gordon—it’s not like you think, I’m—”

  “You’re what? I know very well what you’re doing.”

  “I was just trying to find—”

  “It’s no use, Adam. Stop lying for once, will you?”

  He took a step toward me and raised the gun, using both hands to bring it up to eye level.

  “E se vitio o virtude opera trama,” he said, his voice rich and mellifluous.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Just completing what you had started to read, that’s all. An Allegory of Fame. Quite appropriate, don’t you think, in the circumstances? I’d remember this if I were you. It might prove useful… Tal che a le spoglie o al degno imperio arrive…”

  Although his weak arms trembled as he tried to hold the gun steady, his eyes shone with a steely, focused determination, almost a passion. I couldn’t take it in. He was actually going to shoot me.

  “Per quello infamia son per questa Fama…”

  If I waited one more moment, I knew he would press the trigger.

  “E a colui per me solo si ascrive…”

  Without a second thought, I launched myself forward with all my strength, letting the torch drop from me. I crashed into him, and we both collapsed onto the Persian rug. I heard the gun hit the floor with a dull thud. Crace started to scramble for the weapon, thrashing about with his sinewy limbs in a frenzied manner. I jumped up and started to scan the room for any sign of the gun, sweeping my hands over the floor as I did so.

  “I’m going to kill you, you bastard,” Crace screeched from behind me.

  Frantically I looked around me and finally spotted the weapon beneath the cabinet of curiosities, its mother-of-pearl sheen glinting in the darkness. I lunged forward, my chest skidding and chafing along the rug, as I reached for the gun. As I stretched out to grab the weapon, I felt something tugging at my feet. It was Crace, suddenly possessed with more strength than I had ever witnessed before. He jerked me backward, clawing at the skin around my shins.

  As I tried to reach for the gun, only a foot or so away from the ends of my fingers, the muscles in my back trembled and my shoulder felt as though it was dislocating from its socket. If I could only free myself from Crace’s grip, I could almost touch it. Wrenching one of my legs out of his hands, I kicked out backward, hitting Crace squarely in the face. Suddenly I could move. I scuttled forward like some kind of creature from the depths of the ocean, grabbed the gun and spun around so that I lay on my back. Crace came toward me, holding a paper knife that he had found on his desk. As I grappled with the gun, trying to stop my hands from s
haking, he brought the knife down hard, stabbing it deep into the top of my right foot. I cried out in pain as he wriggled the blunt-edged blade into me. I heard the sound of the knife cutting through my skin and I had to stop myself from retching. The gun, with its iridescent surface, slipped about in my hands like a fish, but as I tried to steady it, Crace pulled the paper knife out of my foot. I screamed in pain.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” he said, raising the blood-soaked blade above his head and stepping nearer to my prostrate body.

  With my good foot, I kicked him in the groin. His face creased with pain and he fell forward as though all the air had been forced out of his body. Using a nearby chair as a support, I lifted myself upward and dragged my injured foot over to the desk. As I moved I left a trail of blood behind me.

  Crace, still gasping for breath, turned toward me, his eyes glinting maniacally. He lifted the knife above his head and moved a step closer to me.

  “Gordon…Gordon—”

  “Don’t say anything.”

  “But…Gordon…stop…think—”

  “You fucking viper in the nest.”

  “Please…Gordon…stop—”

  I had no choice. I pressed the trigger, the explosion reverberating inside me. The first bullet hit the cabinet, smashing the bowl with its figures of Ganymede and Zeus into a thousands pieces and shattering the scallop-shaped slipware flask. I shot again, badly, the bullet destroying the perfume burner and the white marble relief of Mucius Scaevola before smashing the marble urn on the chest where Crace had hidden the gun. He turned his head to assess the damage and then continued in his steady progression toward me.

  “E a colui per me solo si ascrive,” he said, resuming his recitation of the quotation. “Del Biasmo il suono ond’a costei si dona de la gloria le palme e la corona. Even though I translated it for you once before, let me try and help you. After all, I understand that this may not be the most conducive of settings in which to work out the translation. ‘I am she whom everyone in the world longs for, because through me they live after death.’”