‘I have a secret. Would you like to know?’ He laughs. ‘You’re the only guest tonight. Forgive me.’
I hesitate, he continues talking.
‘I thought – Oriol? Who would you like to spend time with? The girl who has come to recover Natalia? The world is such a dangerous place, I would like to keep you safe.’
His eyes linger on me. He does not say the words but I feel him thinking.
‘Where’s the bathroom?’ I ask.
Hand fixed to the base of my spine.
‘Cover yourself,’ he whispers. ‘It’s cold. First door on your left.’
I walk in a daze, shut the door, perching on the enamel toilet seat, head in my hands. Time slows. I look up – focusing on a blur left of the bathroom sink . . . a cigarette pack on white enamel – American Spirits – I reach out – turn the object over – So light. I’m slow, what has he put into me? Don’t wait. I feel my breath panicking, crouched on the toilet seat, a wetness between my thighs, my bowels shake and discharge. An ornate mirror and a bowl of potpourri on the marble surface. Nausea rocks at the base of my stomach, my hair dishevelled, a dark blue thumbprint on my neck – a welt like an egg on my forehead – my lip is split – don’t look – I think – the dull aches, the throbbing, the pain beneath the fog of this – there are two firm knocks on the bathroom door. My heart races. Clear as a bell.
‘Are you alright in there?’ Oriol asks.
He knocks again, rattles the door handle. Arrange my hair – the key turns in the lock from the outside – Oriol is standing outside the bathroom door. He stares directly into my eyes.
‘What were you planning to do in there?’
‘Nothing.’
He takes my hand, leads me away, back to the kitchen, the hot stove.
‘What have you discovered?’
My temper flares.
‘A mix of things.’
‘You’ve finished?’ he asks, curious.
‘Yes.’
‘You were about to go home. When?’
‘Tonight.’
‘Why?’ He pauses. ‘Have you found what you’re looking for?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anything original?’
‘A name.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Aureus.’
‘Aureus?’ He scowls. ‘Means nothing to anybody else.’
‘I found a book.’
Oriol picks up the knife beside the cutting board.
‘What book?’
‘A book she hid.’
Oriol turns the knife in his hand. He sighs once. Deeply. Calculating something. ‘She was an artist,’ he murmurs. Steam clings to the clear glass lid of the stew. Flames lick the steel pot. Oriol frowns. His hands drop to his side. He goes to the sink. Smiles. ‘Everything happens for a reason. She has led you to me.’
I pause, uncertain.
‘Best not say anything yet,’ he says. ‘Such a shame that it had to come to this.’
The water very hot, near scalding. Cutting knife resting on the marble counter beside the sink. His fingers blush pink from the heat. He cleans his cuticles first, pushing back the flesh from his nails, then takes up the knife left limp on the side of the sink and returns to slicing his fuet, irregular cuts on a wooden board. Suddenly he stops. He lifts his face to heaven, closes his eyes and mumbles. A prayer? A word of warning? What happens next comes so quickly I barely remember the beginning of the movement. With the speed of a swordsman, Oriol takes the knife and slams the blade through the fingers of my outstretched hand, pinning me to the table. The blade rips through the web of flesh joining my thumb and index finger so cleanly I don’t feel any pain – the shock is so great.
Behind him on the stove, the lamb stew bubbles, an open garlic bunch, skin cracked, displays its white flesh to the kitchen.
‘Does it make you feel alive? I find pain like that – well . . . profound.’ The pounding in my head clears.
Oriol takes the knife out of my hand. He examines the blood on the blade.
‘I want to know your impulses, your motivations, your desires,’ Oriol continues. The smells from the stew are sweet. Sticky and warm. Bouquet of Rioja marrying rosemary.
‘What do you want? What did you come for? I want to learn from you.’
Sing-song, playful. I do not respond, feeling the terrible sharp pain in my hand.
In the confusion I see him twofold – a sink where he runs the water hot – my vision sways – the water is running so hot it’s scalding. The flesh of his hands turns pink and raw, and yet he keeps them there, scrubbing his fingernails. The soapsuds thick on his hands. Witness my knife’s sharp point. He looks into the mirror. Smoothes back his hair. His lips part. They are fine and strong. Above him he can hear the music. The tones of techno-grunge. European house. He keeps time with his foot on the tiles. Dries his hands on a towel. Studies his features. There is no doubt in his mind. The players take their places. The river runs its course. And so the thing they had started would come to an end.
How silent is this town! Ho! Murder! Murder! What may you be? Are you of good or evil?
The stones beneath me are very cold and quiet. The ground slopes gently where I rest. I can feel the cement cold underneath me. A pool of dampness wells around my hair in the dark, and I wonder if the clouds will part and I will see the lights of the stars. A dog barks somewhere distant. But not before the horror grips me, and I sway. A hand touching – a hand caressing – I feel a dampness on the place where he entered, a mouth, a tongue – he is tasting the life of me – until, sharp, the pain turns like a screw.
It is not real. In the living room he asks her to wait. She is looking at me. A stranger. Don’t speak, she says. Alone. I struggle to stand. Can you help me? When he comes in, he wears a mask made of burnt leather, thick nostrils folded out over his face. Small slits for eyes.
The mask ties round his head with a buckle, a metal clash against his hair, and ends above the lower lip of his mouth, so that his chin and jaw are visible, shaved and clean. He goes shirtless. I wanted to show you what I do. Naked from the waist up, and about his loins, the thin jeans he had worn in town for the night. He will not use them again. He gives the girl a knife and asks her to dip into the blood in a bowl and taste it. First she refuses.
A sacrifice. I found her yesterday. And kept her waiting. For you.
The girl looks at me. Before we begin. Life has already gone out of her. He hits her across the back of her head where her hair will hide the bruise, smashing her face down into the bowl, so that her nose touches the blood. When she lifts her face, and he sees her eyes, he sobs, and apologizes. Then he takes her away. I see him from the kitchen, by the roses and chrysanthemums, dragging the girl by her hair. She stumbles down the steps, calling out, Stop! Stop! He lifts his head. Smiles back at me. Through the glass.
You can have her if you like.
She’s yours if you want her.
He shows me to the door.
See how far you can run.
The girl convulsing. She sobs again.
The forest, we will be safe in the forest.
I take her hand.
Now we are running, running over the grass, past the fountain.
He emerges from the open French windows, aims the gun and fires once. The girl falls – like a ghost felled in the forest, blood and fragments of bones spurt from her head, and over into the black forest she goes, white limbs uprooted, bare and naked as I watch.
I am paralysed. A deer. Drunk on horror. I cannot move. Is she alive? I sink to my knees. Are you alive? Trying to put the pieces of her back together. I feel him hunting me. Still wearing his mask, he takes the gun and presses the barrel into my breast, mashing down the flesh. Leave her, he snarls. I wanted you to see what I do.With his other hand he caresses my ear.
Vomit rises.
This is a nightmare, this is a dream.
It is not real.
Past, present, future. I do not know where I am. If I am watching throu
gh Natalia’s eyes or my own, or all their eyes. I have exited my body.
I look back but cannot see her. The mask reaches me. I am hallucinating. There is no girl. The blood is my own.
‘My darling? Don’t you understand?’
He whispers, kissing my neck.
‘She was a witch. She was a witch. Querida.’
The leather of his mask hard against my skull. ‘Don’t you understand, my darling, what I am giving you? All that you have asked for I have given you.’
Hard against my cheek, his breath snags against my mouth. There is no point in screaming.
‘Come.’
He shouts, pulling my shoulder.
Lifting me up from the ground, he brings his masked face closer.
I am weak.
I am a monster.
‘Come!’
That familiar tolling of a bell.
‘I could smell it on you.’ He drags me panting through the woods. ‘It’s a scent like camphor and oil, they taught me to smell – a witch reeks!’
Twigs crack beneath my feet, the thorns of a bramble rip through my skin, I fall and stumble on the rocks, crashing onto my knees.
I feel the silk scrape away from my chest, he is pulling me by the hands and wrists, the sash falls to the side, and I am naked and terrified.
Deeper we go into the forest, the trees rise up around us and groan, their branches hiding their faces, tangling in the dark, they pull at my skin, the wild boar rushes through the underbrush, following our path, hungry for blood, and the fox watches us from the sidelines, ever curious.
I shout and hurl a rock at the violator, he pulls at my wrist harder until we reach a clearing, too dark for me to discern, I see only that the thorns and trees part and my knees collapse onto gravel as the fear chokes in my throat and I gag on my heart beating in my mouth.
The forest opens. Moonlight streaming into the clearing and between my horror and my fear I catch the flashes of enormous statues; ascending, he drags me towards the carved mouth of a monster, the face of a Titan roaring from a cliff, as the mountain rises above the forest; before me a lake, on which the moonlight glints, flanked by two marble nymphs attacked by stone hunting dogs in noble regalia.
The women’s bodies twist and turn away from the animals, which hound at their legs and arms, as he drags me forward, down the path that cuts across the lake to the mouth of the giant, on whose forehead I see, by the light of the moon, a mighty cross and then?
I wake in an enclosed room, cave-like, without windows, marked by black ornamental marble, the lower walls covered in shelves of strange jars. The smell is one of damp soil, water trickling somewhere – water dripping from an underground source. The light is dim round the edges of the room, the focal point of illumination comes from a single hanging chandelier. A dull throbbing in both my hands, followed by a sharp jolt of pain. I cannot bring myself to look down.
‘My father put in the modern amenities in 1969. Lighting, electricity.’
Oriol removes his mask. His hair combed to one side. Tawny curls kiss his ears. On his chest a clean white shirt, loose over his collar. Muscles perfect. He is perfection.
About his neck he wears a golden chain, a crest, black cross and crown, flanked by branch and sword. Behind him, an extraordinary, ornamental façade, a baroque devotional, dark metal forms the crucifixion, lit by candles, the crown of thorns weeps behind him.
Above Oriol’s head, the dove of the Holy Spirit and a sun-explosion of gold, which joins the columns of marble and splays out into the room. Marble poison black, as are the rock walls. A sheet of stalactite?
My vision blurs.
I look up. My breath loud at my temples.
Chest expanding and collapsing. Veins bulging in my wrists, as the blood flows from my brain into the ground, again, before the pain. Whiplash round. Eyes focus and diffuse. These walls are painted – my God – they are even older than the gold – murals – there are paintings on the walls, swirling shadows at the edges of the light.
‘So?’ he asks, very pleased. ‘What do you think?’
Against the black cave, shelves made of ornamental wood and red metal. Stacks of leather-bound books. Beneath the dim light of a chandelier, a marble table where instruments have been laid out. I am pulled back into my body by shooting pain. A burning sensation at the palm of my hands, a raw throbbing. A series of blades. Handles of antler and ivory. Two boning knives and an ornamental razor, beside an open book clean on the marble – all clean – no sign of blood. But there are grooves in the rock. A well at the centre.
Before me – a single clear jar filled with a yellow liquid. Labelled and sealed with a metal cap. White cloth folded behind it, alongside an ornamental tabernacle and a bowl of water.
I hear Oriol’s breath slow. He is an enigmatic beauty.
‘What do you see?’
My mouth dries.
A heaving sensation in my chest – choke back the rage – he has painted red shapes on my hands – a cross – my vision tightens. Flesh peeled to the side, all swollen. A serpent – he has carved the shape on my left palm, splitting open my flesh, blood dribbles down my fingers onto the floor – pooling on the tiles – revulsion wells in my throat. A gaping hole in the other.
‘I have marked you appropriate to what you are.’
His eyes rise to the roof.
‘You are in the Sacred Chapel of the Order Dedicated to the Eradication of Heresy and Witchcraft, the Sacred Chapel belonging to my family.’ He points to the words written across the ceiling of the cave – Arise Lord and Judge thine own Cause and dissipate the enemies of faith. ‘It is an honour for you to be here.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
The longer you can keep him talking – but pain dulls the senses. The wounds sting. He walks to the wall beside the baroque chapel.
‘What I do is very simple. When we are finished I will show you your tongue, you will sleep. I will wash you and clean you, and then tongueless I will ask you to repent. When you die you will be guaranteed a path to heaven – assuming you believe in that stuff. The sacrifice of your evil will have been made in the shape of your tongue. However . . .’ He flicks on a light that runs around the outer perimeter of the cave ceiling. ‘I want you to understand before we begin. Nothing should be a surprise.’
My eyes adjust to the light, sharpening on the objects – his macabre perversion of scientific methodology.
Oriol strides to the shelves. What I thought were the spines of books are jars – stacks and stacks of jars, uniform, fifteen centimetres in height and ten across, the fluids contained in them of varying colours, in each a mass of brown and pink mud, like a ball of muscle – pain erupts in me – panic swelling in my nerves, the animal pounding at my temples – calm please be calm.
Don’t let him see!
‘Your tongue will join a collection of witch llenguas dating back to 1851 when my forefathers perfected the formalin solution I still use today. Simple really. The collection is dated and monitored, every tongue is labelled as you can see here.’
He takes a jar in his hand and holds it up to the light, examining its contents.
‘This one was pretty. Rare.’
He meets my gaze directly.
‘You will have appropriate company.’
‘Do you keep them all?’
‘Yes, yes, yes.’
He waves his hand dismissively, returning the jar to its shelf.
‘Safely preserved. You will see our whole history here – we have collected the tongues of heretics since 1244 . . . Once our glorious and great acts of spiritual cleansing were public affairs – they were theatre. They were spectacle. My ancestors lived them as artists, performing with pomp and grandeur the greatest of sacrifices, for we were purged with the bodies, and we maintained the strength of our heritage by the ritual communion with God. The space is quite opulent. Very beautiful. In 1780, my family received an artist from the court to paint our own basilica of the faithful with our versi
on of the Pentecost. The result is a true work of art. Look up! Have you ever seen such craftsmanship?’ The fresco on the ceiling depicts St Dominic seated in a Spanish court, enthroned above a row of dignitaries; before him, Inquisition functionaries, and then military brigades which move a row of convicted heretics towards a fire to be burnt, while on the stakes two victims already meet their fate. Above the heretics the artist has painted rotten tongues similar to those imagined at the Eucharist – while above St Dominic a golden drop of fire rages.
‘The fresco is part of my heritage. The tongues of fire represent our immortal Inquisitional language. We seek out the speakers of the devil’s craft, and we take their power. If a witch’s tongue is buried in the ground, she is reborn.’
He sighs, relaxes in his chair.
‘I like you, Anna.’
I wince when he uses my name. It does not belong to you. ‘You have a good character. Human reaction, if genuine, can be directed – there’s always a pulse. You can read it like a signature. Character. It defines how we act. What we do. Natalia Hernández was fickle. I made her famous . . . immortal . . . but in the end . . . in the end she hated me for it. I gave her the most profound gift. But what did she do with this treasured object? She tossed it back into the hands of the police, as if I were trash. She wrote them letters. I don’t know how long for, after all I – I shared everything with her,’ Oriol snarls, hunching his shoulders like the hackles of a dog. ‘Imagine what that does to a man, betrayal of that kind? It exposes your soul. Leaves you naked in the wilderness. Alone. Do you understand loneliness?’
Oriol edges closer.
‘There is nothing dirtier than taking your own life.’
He spits at me.
‘As a phenomenon? It weakens the spirit. It impairs judgement – I know. The mistakes. The uncleanliness – but I finished her. No one suspected me – involving a stranger was genius. Theatrical genius.’
Oriol exhales, leaning against the table, caressing the air.
‘I hated myself for months. I am after all human – sinful – I crave diversion – the performance – the stagecraft. Imagine my melancholy; in the theatre I so often repeated violent actions, without the satisfaction of living them.’
The Serpent Papers Page 37
