Black Mountain

by Venero Armanno

  He gazed down at me. I couldn’t make the slightest response.

  ‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘all those two wanted to know about was if I’d observed a boy. They said I’d know him by his limp. They explained that he’d escaped from a mine and they were coming to collect him. They didn’t like me asking why a boy should have to escape. I didn’t like the way they drank all my whisky and cleaned their guns.’

  He pressed his palm to my forehead and cheek, feeling for fever.

  ‘They said this boy they were looking for was fourteen or fifteen years. In the war I saw too many boys that age given guns and expected to fight. The men in charge of them sent them out of trenches too soon, sent them to unfortified front-lines, simply expected them to die at their word. Which they did. I saw the same expectation in those two. Salvatore the miner and Gino the tracker. So when we parted we went our separate ways, except that I came back and kept them in sight, at a distance. But I never really believed it would come to this. Their bloodlust was up.’

  He bit down on those words and now I understood why he’d wept. Then he steeled himself.

  ‘We have the added complication of two dead bodies. I can assure you that no matter how cheerless I feel about what’s happened, I’ve got no desire to be tried for murder. That’s what it would come to.’

  He sipped from a different flask. I guessed it wasn’t water. I would miss him when he went away, his voice was so quiet and soothing, despite the subject matter.

  ‘Those horses are a problem too. I can’t take them with me, or take anything at all that might connect me to those two corpses.’ He looked into my face again, as if I could provide an answer. ‘What in the devil do we do?’

  I tried to edge up a bit so that I could view the problem. Salvatore and the tracker, the man he’d told me was named Gino, were still exactly where they had fallen. The stranger got to his feet and went to the horses and soothed them, then he went through the equipment packed onto their backs and found the feed bags. In a moment both horses were munching quietly.

  The stranger looked around this bare plain. He walked here and there picking up the broken pieces of his rifle, which he’d smashed to bits in his fury. He threw them over the side into the chasm. Then he looked at the corpses and knew what to do; he’d probably known it all along but hadn’t wanted to contemplate actually completing the task.

  He took some care in picking up the bodies. He didn’t want their blood on him. As he loaded each corpse over the saddle of each horse he rubbed their strong flanks. Then an idea struck him. Removing the feed bags and emptying them over the side of the cliff, he spoke softly and reassuringly, and inverted the bags and placed them carefully over each horse’s head so that their eyes were covered.

  The horses snorted and shook, tails swishing with annoyance, but he kept them calm and led them in a circle one way and in a circle the other way, making sure they were disoriented.

  I closed my eyes because I didn’t want to see any more, and with only the slightest sound of screaming the two horses with their burden of dead men and dead men’s belongings tumbled into the molten fire of that crease in the volcano’s skin.

  Why wasn’t I dead with such holes in me? The pain had subsided and now the sun was bright and hot. I squeezed my eyes shut then in my dream I remembered what the stranger had said and so I lifted a veil of night up over my eyes. A red haze persisted but it didn’t burn so badly, and I wasn’t conscious of anything until that veil was drawn down from my face and the stranger said, ‘Still with us?’

  He turned to his companion, a much older man with a greyand-white beard, and round, thick glasses.

  ‘See what I mean, doctor? Holes in him and still alive. Thinner than Jesus Christ, but excellent facial bone structure.’

  The older man nodded, but not happily, and said, ‘Before it gets dark, all right?’

  The stranger brushed hair away from my forehead. ‘You might make it yet. Doctor Vliegan is going to do his best.’

  The doctor made me take a few drops of something bitter and harsh onto my tongue, but when he put an injection in my arm all pain and trouble drifted away. He and the stranger rolled me onto my side and as the older man worked on my wounds I was startlingly conscious of the conversation – even if its meaning wasn’t at all clear.

  ‘You’re so certain about this boy? I’m not convinced.’

  ‘Oh yes, and he was under the rings. If that isn’t a sign . . .’

  ‘The world doesn’t give us signs, Domenico, you keep mixing up reality and fantasy.’

  ‘Kristof, please don’t start with your nihilistic views again.’

  This older man, Doctor Kristof Vliegan, said without rancour, ‘It’s only when you start with your religious fantasies.’

  Don Domenico laughed softly and it was a lovely sound. ‘You know religion’s got nothing to do with it. Men have made themselves into the only gods they or we need, correct?’

  ‘It would appear so.’

  I must have cried out.

  ‘He’s feeling too much . . . do you have to be so parsimonious with the anaesthetic?’

  The doctor prepared another injection and the pain only lasted a moment longer. But by the time night fell I was aching and burning, as if the doctor had decided to put lumps of red coal into my bullet holes.

  ‘Kristof, he’s in agony.’

  ‘And he’s not dead. Awake and looking around, incredible.’ The doctor was sitting up from the bed he’d made for himself, reaching for his spectacles. He examined me quietly. ‘Feverish. But I can’t give him any more, it’d do him in.’

  ‘Just a little? Maybe he can take it.’

  ‘Whatever we do,’ the doctor shook his old grey-haired head, ‘he’ll be dead before morning.’

  ‘Then what’s a little more going to matter?’

  The doctor slid another shot into me. Serenity eased through my veins like a warm liquid. I felt good. Happy even. My eyelids were heavy, but despite so much anaesthetic I was still awake. It was as if I’d been put into a waking sort of null state. The stranger pushed himself to his feet and dusted off his trousers. By the light of an oil lamp he looked ten feet tall. They had a fire going and had eaten well. I was swaddled like a baby. My face was freezing but inside all those blankets I felt I was melting. The doctor’s words floated on the stagnant ocean of my mind. He’ll be dead before morning.

  The stranger found what he was looking for and crouched beside me. Carefully, he used the wet cloth to soothe my face. Then he settled comfortably, his back against the rock wall.

  ‘Let me tell you something,’ he said to me. ‘I have a spirit guide who looks after me. He’s not much to look at but he can be very powerful. You saw the men Salvatore and Gino firing at me. Did you see that I wasn’t hit? My spirit friend protected me, then I had him shield you from the last bullets. They would have struck you in the back of the head and that would’ve been that. My protector became your protector and he liked doing it, so I’m going to ask him to look after you a while. You’ve come this far, boy, with no animal or human spirit to defend you, so I think now you deserve a little help.’

  The doctor was trying to settle in for the night. ‘Come on, Domenico. Do these inanities have to be the last words your slave boy has to hear?’

  This strange man named Domenico held up a hand to quieten his friend.

  ‘Don’t pay him any attention. He’s a good doctor but he lacks imagination. The only animus that cares for him is an owl that died a hundred years ago, and the good doctor’s still angry at the universe. My spirit might be featureless and somewhat pallid, but it certainly gets the job done.’

  ‘Featureless and pallid,’ the doctor muttered. ‘God above . . .’

  ‘But you’ve had nothing, and that seems miraculous, to survive so far. The best I can do is lend you mine so that i
f death comes stalking, my guardian will hold him back. You can help by being strong. Believe that you will live and don’t submit. If you hear sweet words about how easy and nice it will be to let yourself slip away, don’t believe them. Not unless you want to go . . . and I don’t think a young boy like you should be ready for that just yet.’

  Out of the medicinal comfort there was a spasm of pain that seared through my chest. Don Domenico’s hand was close by. I grabbed it and squeezed hard. It was the first time in my life that I sought solace from another person. And received it. When the spasm passed I let go. He took my hand again and I was panting like a sick dog.

  ‘Get your mind off physical matters. Relax. I’ll tell you something amusing. I’ve discovered that a group of naked women use their wings to fly around the smoke rings above this place. Close your eyes, try and see them, take yourself away from these rocks. Are you old enough to like women?’

  I heard the doctor grunting his displeasure again, then the world wavered and I no longer heard background sounds. Instead of being wrapped in blankets I was sitting on a monstrously high ledge observing a universe of stars. A white and featureless warrior guarded me. Except that this creature looked as if it was the one needing protection. It was slim and naked and bland as milk. There was no face to see. Nothing at all.

  That was all right. It, or he, could be whatever it was.

  A hand that wasn’t quite a hand touched mine. I felt no pain, and for the first time in days I knew I wasn’t going to die.

  Later Don Domenico Amati would tell me that we stayed on the plateau three nights, until they decided to risk letting me ride one of the horses down off the mountain. Mostly, I remember, I was lying forward hugging my horse’s neck while the don guided us along. Doctor Vliegan rode the second horse and saw me to the Amati estate and palazzu, but the first real sense I had of the place wasn’t until many weeks later.

  Most of the time I was in an insensate haze, drifting in and out, faces talking to me, caring for me, trying to feed me, meaning as little as the dreams you forget the moment you awaken – and even the awakenings themselves were no more substantial than dreams, until a day arrived when I had a clear head with clear thoughts in it. I was in the softest bed I could have imagined, the room so beautiful it had to be a chamber of paradise.

  Under the sheets and light blanket I was bandaged well, my body clean and washed. Vials of medicine were arranged on a small table, and when I tried to move I couldn’t quite do it. Despite the comfort I was determined to get some clothes and find a way to continue my journey. This house wasn’t my destination. To me it didn’t matter that I’d been saved and that by some incomprehensible miracle I’d survived. The man Domenico might want anything from me. I still intended to escape the island. It didn’t cross my mind to wonder exactly who it was I had to run from any more.

  A woman quietly entered. She was much older than any others I had vague recollections of. They used to visit me in this bedroom: maids, nurses perhaps, washing me, turning me. This older woman – yes, she’d also been here many times, looking over me, caring for me. I couldn’t imagine why.

  ‘Well, you’re with us. How do you feel?’ She touched my hands and face and wiped my forehead with a damp cloth. ‘What do you remember?’

  I didn’t want to speak about the shootings. I’d never reveal what the stranger had done, though that didn’t seem to be what she was asking about.

  ‘Tell me something. What’s the earliest thing you can see in your mind, as far back as you can go?’

  It was a strange question but somehow, here, it made sense to ask. I thought it over, as I’d done many, many times in my life. The earliest thing? But it was like looking into a fog.

  A man giving me to another man. Disappointment.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Can you let me know what you need the most right now?’

  With words that didn’t want to be produced from my dry and sore throat, I told her. She left me with something she called a bedpan. When I realised what it was for and how it should be used, I decided I had to recuperate as quickly as possible.

  The doctor visited soon after. There was a twinkle in his eye as he examined my wounds and had a nurse in a white uniform re-bandage me. He assured me I was firmly in the land of the living and that from here my recovery would be fast. Despite his confidence, for this day at least, I could feel myself fading once again. His face shimmered as if in a pool of water disturbed by a stone and I don’t remember another thing.

  That’s how those early days would pass, and for me they were always extremely short. I’d lie or sit awake for an hour or two feeling perfectly lucid, then without expecting it all my strength would go and I’d drop into unconsciousness.

  The older woman returned several times a day. Her name was Rosa Bortolotti, and when the doctor wasn’t in attendance she gave a small group of nurses their directions. They helped me eat and drink, wash and use that awful bedpan. One day Signora Rosa came in with a tray of food, the plates decorated and the cutlery shining. She helped me sit up, firm pillows behind my back. She put the tray onto my lap then folded her arms.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s see how you help yourself.’

  I was little more than an animal. I managed to hack a portion of meat and get it into my mouth.

  Rosa said, ‘You don’t have a single social grace, do you? Could you please keep your mouth shut while you chew, you’re not a dog.’

  I did as she asked, and it was as awkward and strange as trying to speak without using your lips.

  ‘That’s beef, roasted with rosemary and peppers, served rare to help you build your strength.’ She watched me hacking at another piece. ‘Do you remember my name? And the doctor’s?’

  ‘Signora Rosa.’ My voice was a whisper I didn’t like, no air behind it. ‘Doctor Vliegan.’

  ‘Good. I don’t live here and neither does the doctor. I’ve known Don Domenico since he was a boy. Three sons of my own, so he thought I’d be the best person to look after you. But you’ve taken your time to come back, and I have to be with my family again. I’m sorry to leave you but maybe one day you’ll want to come visit me in Catania.’

  There were so many questions I wanted to ask her, but the pressing matter was the food in front of me and the effort it took to feed myself, much less speak. The elegant knife dropped from my hand to the plate. I had the strength of a kitten and the finesse of a boar. Signora Rosa couldn’t help herself: she cut the beef into small portions and fed me. I chewed obediently, mouth shut. Then eating cost too much strength and I had her stop.

  ‘Why – did you ask me – about what I remember?’

  ‘You worked in a mine but you weren’t born there. Before that a man called Gozzi had you, didn’t he?’

  I stared at her, trying to work out how she could have known this.

  ‘I want to understand if you know anything about what was before that.’

  I didn’t, not in the slightest. She must have read the truth of it in my eyes because she didn’t pursue the matter. I had no memories of someone who would have been like her, for instance, what normal boys would call a mother. And that image of the man delivering me to another man certainly didn’t include a father, I was certain of it. In reality I believed I had no parents at all, as if I’d been born out of the air itself.

  I tried to speak.

  ‘What? Please try again.’

  ‘Have – I – got clothes?’

  ‘Leaving so soon?’ she smiled, revealing the deep lines in her face. ‘You’ll have to ask Domenico. I burned everything you came here with myself.’

  As Rosa cleared the tray and straightened my bed for me, helping me make myself comfortable, I wondered if I was some sort of prisoner – everything about my life had taught me mistrust; it was the only way to survive.

  Signora R
osa put some of the medicine from one of the brown vials onto a spoon. The liquid was milky white and I took it. She told me she wouldn’t be seeing me again for some time, looking down into my eyes in a way that said she didn’t necessarily want to leave.

  As soon as she was out of the room, I spat the medicine into a washcloth and lay restlessly asleep–awake for hours, waiting for nightfall. When things seemed safer I nearly fainted with the effort of climbing out of that bed, then I managed to do it, staggering naked, bandaged and shivering around the room.

  There were many closets to investigate: women’s clothes with ruffles and velvet, small-soled boots with buttoned-up sides. There were men’s vestments too, and very fine ones at that. I tried a few pieces of the more sedate items but they looked and felt ridiculous, as big as Salvatore’s things had been, though of infinitely better quality. Still, I needed to select clothing that would give me protection.

  I was angry at how hard I was breathing. I dressed, no shoes, and went to the windows. During my recovery they’d been mostly open, the curtains drawn or undrawn depending on sleep or wakefulness. This was the very first time I looked through them. There was a moonlit night of spreading fields, undulating valleys and the outlines of hulking mountains. Small fires were scattered in the fields and tiny homes glowed from the inside.

  I opened the window, checked the sides and found a way, and then carefully climbed down the side of the mansion. My arms felt thin, legs spindly, not wanting to carry me. I had to stop every now and then, catch my breath, wait for nausea and some small amount of pain from my wounds to pass.

  There were four levels to get down. I was certain that if I could escape the hellhole of the sulphur mines and travel all the way to the volcano, I could get away from this infinitely more congenial place. I thought of how kindly everyone had treated me, starting with Don Domenico on the mountain, letting me clutch his hand when pain shot through me, but I also remembered his odd stories and visions, the unimaginable goings-on in his head. Naked women floating through the volcano’s smoke rings; a spirit guardian: there was no choice, this was hardly the place for me.