The Book of Human Skin

by Michelle Lovric

  My father’s will was gone, and the thief had left in its place a fresh chicken head.

  Gianni delle Boccole

  My old Master’s real will were a death sentence for Marcella, that much I figgered. That’s for why I took it, the minit I heared o my old Master Fernando Fasan’s sad passin.

  Course I knowed from my secret visits to Minguillo’s draws n boxes that he ud fudged hisself a new inhairitance alredy. Better he ust that lying will awhiles, that were my thinking. Least till Marcella were of age. I een hoped Minguillo would be cunning nuff for to take the fudged will to a notary what did not personly know the old Master’s hand. Which he were.

  I were not smart nuff to calkillate zackly persay how to make use o the bonified will, which were writed in high-falutin words that was hard to unnerstand. But I knew that the bastert brother must nowise have it in his destroyin hand.

  My originl thought were to give it to Piero Zen. He would know his old friend Fernando’s true hand. He would know what were needed to be did. But I esitated.

  Ye see, if I shone the will to Conte Piero, Ide of shone mesself a thief n a sneakin reader o things I ud no busyness to read. So how would he trust me? He mite be abhorred at what Ide did. The Zens was the nobblest o the nobble. Them bluebloods is all of one tribe in the end. Conte Piero dint nowise look kind on Minguillo, yet he mite take the young Master’s side agin a thieving servant. I dint think so, but I dint know so.

  I havered like one on them famoused Peruvian humminbirds. All that day long my voice serged up in my neck evry time I saw Piero Zen. Twice, I stretcht out a hand to waylay him. Yet each time my thoughts balled up in a grate tangle, like yarn that would niver know a strait line again.

  That night, after twelve hours o deliberashuns, full o Dutch curry, I een rolled up to Conte Piero and begun to speak in a roundabout way, to interduce the subjeck. He ansered me kind, lookt me in the eye. And that undoed me. My tong stuckt to the roof of my mouth, so I scused myself n made myself sparse.

  A few days later, we dressed in black and went to church to prey for my old Master Fernando’s soul. His body ud staid in Arequipa, where his heart ud latterly lived.

  After the funeral, all Venice’s High Sausiety come back to the Palazzo Espagnol for a toothful o sweet wine n cake. Conte Piero n my Mistress Donata Fasan made em all sadly welcomed. The son stood lordly on the threshold twigged up in one o his most loorid fit-outs. People was conmisrating with Minguillo, callin him ‘Conte’ with respeck, like he were the legal hair. The tapeworm hants n huncles was brushin their long fingers all oer him feckshonitly, speshally where his pockets was.

  This were the moment to open my mouth. I could of brung out the bonified will in front of evryone, esposed the truth. I could of shone evryone what a lie Minguillo were to his core. But still I sayed gnente di gnente, nothin of nothin, about the will. I thrastled my conshens to the ground and trampled it and give it a kick for good measure. ‘Scrostati!’ I shouted at it. ‘Pick yerself oft like a scab!’ Yet I staid numb and past bout the room handing sweet wine to the nobbles.

  I can say only this to scuse myself for letting them first preshous days pass. I started to believe we could do it, protect Marcella from Minguillo till she were of age: meself n t’other servants. Conte Piero ud help us too, without knowing nothin bout the real will.

  But I dint count on Minguillo having a plan, that dirty chicken o Beelzebub, and on her falling under it, Stippled Sow ovva God!

  Minguillo Fasan

  Without my even noticing it, Marcella had grown to the verge of womanhood. At my father’s corpseless funeral, I observed for the first time how the eyes of male visitors rested on her longer than was necessary. Even I had to admit that a disturbing prettiness had grown on those pale features of hers. It was indecent to parade such skin in public. Her face ended at her collar, and all eyes seemed to wish to burrow beneath. And why was there always a smile hovering at the corners of her mouth? What did Marcella have to laugh about? Even my mother had somehow softened in her regard, something I would have to deal with.

  My own eyes had an involuntary addiction to the soft grey shadows between the silky droplets of Pieraccio’s pearls on Marcella’s little white neck. The more I looked at those pearls, the less control I felt over my fingers.

  The Perceptive Reader will have guessed that this correspondent’s not one to let a scruple get between him and his heart’s desire. Fact is, if it was not for the gamy mystery of the missing will, I would have promised Marcella to the highest bidder then and there, and made my father’s funeral a double celebration.

  If it was not for the missing will, I would have had her betrothed to something noble, a lot older of course, nothing younger would take her on account of the twisted legs.There would be some raddled count who would have her. For how many times sixty goes into twelve or thirteen is always a pleasurable consideration. I imagined some hoary parsnip nudging up her cranny tentative as a winter morning. If the thing could be managed. Given the irritation of the zone, and all.

  But the one thing I could not afford at this juncture was an inquisitive, acquisitive, intelligent brother-in-law; not unless I found the real will and destroyed it first. A forthcoming brother-in-law would have the right and duty to ask for certain documents in the course of the wedding transactions.

  My forged will, nicely browned and spotted, would not raise an eyebrow – provided it was not closely compared to my father’s real handwriting.

  Yet what if the real will were to reappear at that inconvenient moment? I could see how it would work. My sister’s banns would be read and the very next morning there would be your man Mister Will-Thief at the water-gate, wanting in, with a proposition.

  Whoever had taken that thrice-cursed will wished me no good.And if he wished to feed on my fortune he would have no trouble in finding a dining companion in Marcella’s potential husband – before or after the wedding. Then what if Marcella bred? I could not bear to imagine her in kindle with a child, another bloodsucker on my inheritance, another squalling pretender to my darling Palazzo Espagnol.

  It would be the height of foolishness to allow that to happen.

  There came a morning when my fingers could not keep away from those pearls of Marcella’s and I found them pulling the necklace tight against her neck. That maddening smile flitted away and was replaced by a thin line of terror. Who knows what might have happened had my valet Gianni not interrupted me with some inanity about a misplaced cravat?

  Gianni delle Boccole

  The pearls done it. I bethought of poor little Riva n them black bottles, and I scrood my resolve together and went to get the will. I planned to innersept Conte Piero’s gondola when he arrived at the Palazzo Espagnol and have a quite word with him at the water-gate.

  But when I went to get it I discovert that I were not so clever as I bethought.

  It were not where I left it. Where I bethought I put it. I seemed to be mistook bout where I hid it last. I must o been dranged by seein Minguillo throttlin Marcella with them pearls.

  So I emptid my draws. I pulled all my pockets inside out, leavin my clothes piled up in driffs on the floor. I turned the lining of the curtins. I slit the mattress. Nothing. Gnente di gnente.

  Marcella Fasan

  ‘Why so quiet?’ demanded Cecilia Cornaro. ‘I’ve met noisier nuns. Not that I mind some peace after your incessant banter.’

  ‘My brother is returned,’ I murmured, fingering my pearls and the bruise on my neck that I had covered with a shawl.

  ‘In what way does that affect this portrait of the little Contarini?’

  My subject took the opportunity to stretch and yawn. Cecilia dispensed a single look and the boy resumed his pose with an expression marred by fright. I winked at him, and he began to retrieve his composure.

  ‘Remember Marcella’s poor father is recently dead,’ Piero pointed out sadly.

  ‘And this affects her painting how?’

  A shadow fell between us and a foreign voi
ce answered her, ‘Not at all, I would say myself. That’s a fine piece of work, lassie. You have the young gentleman to the life.’

  Cecilia looked the intruder up and down in that way she had, as if she were running a medium-sized squirrel-fur brush over his whole body, which was large, well made and soberly clad. She stopped at his head, meeting the steady grey eyes with her own reckless green ones.

  ‘A Scot?’ she pronounced with satisfaction, as if she had deduced that fact purely from his musculature, skin and features.

  ‘A Scot, madam. Come to see if you would do me the honour to paint my wife Sarah.’ His voice softened on the name, so it came out as a two-note sigh.

  ‘And where is the dear lady?’ enquired Piero helpfully.

  ‘Away in Edinburgh, being too delicate to travel. I would pay whatever I have, no, whatever it takes, to bring you to her.’

  ‘Is she going to die?’ asked Cecilia with characteristic subtlety.

  ‘I fear so.’ The voice did not falter, but it was even quieter now.

  The Contarini boy shuddered and took his hand off the skull upon which Cecilia had insisted that he place it. In his confusion, he set it down on the dead lizard that she had splayed on the silk tablecloth in front of him to signify the supple transience of youth. He squeaked, drawing the one thing he feared above all: Cecilia Cornaro’s gaze. Without a word from her, he scuttled out of the studio.

  Cecilia laughed and turned a mild eye on our guest. ‘Sit down, Mr Scot, and tell us about yourself.’

  Hamish Gilfeather traded in miscellanies. Scottish plaid was all the fashion in Europe, and he travelled with pallets of the bright soft wool. His Italian was excellent, well flavoured with a piquant burred Scots accent. Cecilia considered him. ‘Explain what makes your Sarah worth a portrait, then. A portrait by Cecilia Cornaro.’

  Hamish Gilfeather smiled, ‘It shall take more than one interview to tell you that.’

  And Piero held out his hand, ‘All the better.’

  Gianni delle Boccole

  I keeped lookin evrywhere for the will. I were that confust that I douted my memmary, which were niver good thanks to all them slaps to head that I got reglar from Minguillo. The more I bethought, the more confust I was, till it got that I could not een recall the zact minit of putting it down.

  My next shuttering thought were that Minguillo ud been to my room and stole it back agin. But if he ud finded it, then he would of had me in for a feroshus ragging, after what I wunt of had my employment no more. Yet Minguillo treated me jist like before, perhap with extra slaps for the worrit look on my face what he niver liked.

  I askt Anna in a roundabout way, ‘Did you see any bits of paper, official-lookin, bout the place? When you was tidying my room, for hexample?’

  But she ritorted, ‘That casino! Paper everywhere! And as for you . . . always showing off your reading and writing!’

  Which I tookt for a ‘no’. Twere a shame that my old Master Fernando Fasan, saving his grease, niver bethought to get the female servants tort their letters. Anna allus risented it, for she were clever n spoke edikated een tho she couldn’t write.

  I must of jist forgot the last hidin place, that were it. That’s what I telled myself agin n agin.

  Sor Loreta

  I was surprised to find out how many days I had passed tied to my bed.

  As a penance for all that time without prayer, I cleaned the dust off my crucifix with my tongue. In the dirt of my floor, I licked the shape of the cross. That dust and dirt were the only nutriments I allowed into my body for days on end, apart from the five orange seeds I sucked in memory of Christ’s wounds, as Veronica Giuliani had done.

  My little wispy angels continued to visit me during the hours of daylight, appearing clearly against white walls or when I looked towards the sun. I saluted them in a sweet voice, for these dear creatures were the proof that I was marked out by the Most High.

  Sor Sofia was kept hidden from my sight. I was sure the sweet child would never have willingly allowed herself to be separated from me. She must have been restricted to parts of the convent where I might not go: for I was forbidden to walk near the Zocodober fountain where she lived in a large cell with her godless sister Rafaela. Then again I tortured myself with the thought that the spiteful priora had spoken some truth amid her lies – that Sofia had been assigned to the spiritual care of that false angel Sor Andreola, whose cell was also by the fountain.

  Those wicked setters of snares, the other nuns, sought every chance to bring back my fever, leaving indecent notes inside my hymnbook, smearing my door-handle with fat, and calling Sor Sofia’s name in whispers outside my window. I listed the names of those who tortured me on pieces of paper, and then I burned them. The ashes writhed like heretics and flew up in the room.

  I was obliged to burn Sor Andreola’s name every day. For she had contrived a new devilment in the nunnery. She had begun to pretend to have visions of the Lord, and she wrote them down. These visions were passed from hand to hand, and were universally admired. Only I remembered the words of Teresa of Avila: ‘The weaker sex is ever more vulnerable to false visions sown by the Devil. The weaker sex is also more likely to pretend to possess saintly virtues, yet for selfish advancement.’

  All this was perfectly and horribly personified in Sor Andreola.

  Whatever Sor Andreola did became the fashion immediately. Before long, dozens of ignorant nuns were scribbling down their visions. Santa Catalina became a community of writers of fiction, each vying for the most ludicrous vision. The priora came to tell me that even my beloved Sor Sofia claimed a vision of her own. It was of a black bird, signifying Death, which had flown into her cell. ‘He told her that she must avoid Sor Loreta, who would do her a great harm otherwise.’

  I protested, ‘The Devil often takes hold of an innocent pencil. This is Sor Andreola’s perverted influence at work on poor Sor Sofia!’

  The priora opened one of her slow smiles. It was then, perhaps unwisely, that I told her about the angels who came to my cell in the brightest hours and flew all around me until I grew dizzy.

  ‘I declare this has gone beyond what anyone can bear!’ cried the priora. She took me by the arm and marched me up to the oficina. Of course, with my unusual physical strength, I could have pushed her to the ground at every step. Instead I demonstrated the most abject humility.

  ‘Wait here,’ she said fiercely. ‘I am sending for the doctor.’

  Minguillo Fasan

  I made an interesting discovery about my sister: she feared convents.

  First, I noticed how Marcella averted her eyes when we passed by Corpus Domini in the gondola. And then, when walking by Sant’ Alvise, I had witnessed a tug of fright wrench her limp to a bestial gallop. In church she never peered at the nuns singing behind their grates like any normal curious person. She pleaded to stay at home when my mother went to visit her confined cousins at the parlatorio of their convent. She would not touch the fragrant nun-baked cakes my mother brought home.

  It had come to me, while I lay with one of my whores from the Spanish madam’s in Cannaregio (I did some of my best thinking when I was not thinking), that the easiest way to head off a pretender to my estate was to marry Marcella immediately to God, who did not tolerate secondary husbands or property, except the little bit he demanded in exchange for His austere hospitality.The going rate that year was a thousand ducats, a fraction of a proper dowry for a noble marriage, the profit of a single smelting of ‘The Tears of Santa Rosa’.

  Once safely interred, the nuns’ wings were clipped by poverty. They could not escape unless it was to earn their bread on their backs. Convent life prepared them for no other profession. So in the convent they stayed. Until they died.

  Of course some of them had a Sapphic bent anyway, and would not have had it any other way. Otherwise, women do not run to friendship without hair-pulling or recriminations. Men together grow clannish; the ladies tend to the obnoxious.

  ‘Why are you grinning?’ asked m
y Spanish whore. ‘¿Y qué es este libro?’

  My book of human skin had spilled out of my clothes during our preliminary skirmishes. I snatched it from under her heavy white thigh and slapped her across the face with it. No one should touch that book but me – and occasionally my quack – she must learn that! I had to pay her twice over, for she would be out of circulation with that bruise for a few weeks. In fact, it was my last dalliance at the establishment, for the Spanish madam thereafter turned me away with a curdling kind of look, the second time with a ruffian behind her for emphasis. I put the unspent money into my drawer for ‘special funds’.

  For I had conceived a new vision of myself – as a collector, famed throughout the world, for my library of human leather. I had made a sparkling start with Tupac Amaru. Now that I had come into Marcella’s money, I graduated to scraps of sailor hide tattooed with ‘Mother’ and the outlines of seagulls. I had them trimmed and bound around manuals for sea captains and instructions on how to knot ropes. But what I really craved was to enrich my collection with books already bound with historic martyred human leather. I dispatched letters, very specific letters, to the great booksellers of the continent.

  Replies were not slow in coming, nor booksellers in dusty person, for Venice had long been a hub of their commerce. Imagine my feelings when I realized that I was not the only such collector in the world! A flat-eyed bookseller explained it to me when I tried to turn a hard bargain on something soft and musty in his back room. It turns out that anthropodermic bibliopegy has always had its secret adherents, many more than the Squeamish Reader would perhaps like to think.There were even merchants who travelled only in human books – livings and fortunes were to be made from small items of dead.