The Council of Egypt

by Leonardo Sciascia

  Imbecile, Di Blasi thought, don’t you understand I am beginning to die?

  Chapter XI

  “The matter is not at all clear. Abbot Vella came to my house and told me a story that is neither fish nor fowl. I do believe all this furor of suspicion and attacks and tests has clouded his mind, poor man.” Monsignor Airoldi looked like a man risen from the dead; in his own fashion, he was relating to anyone who might be curious – and numerous people were most curious – what had happened between him and Abbot Vella. It is well known that walls have ears, and all Palermo was already agog over the face-to-face exchange they had had in the privacy of the Bishop’s bedroom. Monsignor had avoided leaving the house for several days; now, what with the discovery of the Di Blasi conspiracy, he hoped that people would have forgotten the story of the falsified codices and the Abbot’s confession, and so had ventured to go out; after meeting only three or four people, he was convinced that he had made a mistake; people were all absorbed, yes, by that tremendous plot but, like Phaedrus’ dog, they were prepared to drop that bone in order to sink their teeth into Monsignor’s spindly calves.

  “Yes, he confessed that he falsified something,” Monsignor admitted, “but I couldn’t gather exactly what... Perhaps the Council of Egypt... In any event, you can be sure that the Council of Sicily is authentic. You had proof of that, after all.”

  He was negotiating with the Abbot to insure that he would not confess to having corrupted the Codex of San Martino, because the title page of the Codex of San Martino bore the legend: “Codex diplomaticus Siciliae sub saracenorum imperio ab 827 anno ad 1072, nunc primum depromptus cura et studio Airoldi Alphonsi archiepiscopi Heracleensis.” He should own only, if at all, to the falseness of the other, in which the Archbishop of Heraclea’s scholarly care was not officially involved. In exchange, the Abbot could count on Monsignor’s indulgence. But the Abbot was saying neither yes nor no to this; he kept to his house, and when Monsignor’s emissary would go to see him, he would change the subject or, smiling fixedly, would sit listening in silence. From what had happened that other morning and what his emissary reported back to him, Monsignor was indeed inclined to believe the Abbot truly mad.

  “In a word, I know less than you,” Monsignor said, “and then, what with all that’s going on...”

  As punctual as swallows, the ladies and gentlemen of Palermitan high society returned every year to the Conversation Club in the Piazza Marina: the same names, the same faces; the same threadbare comedy of gallantry and gossip was now, however, complicated by recent events. We might better say enriched: most persons relished both developments, for an indolent society delights in terrible or shameful events, especially if the protagonists belong to that same society and rank. However, this year the advent of spring coincided with Holy Week, so that the band was absent from its platform, the ladies were dressed in somber colors, notably purple, and the amiable reunion of these fine folk was slightly subdued by a note of official mourning.

  “It’s not worth discussing,” Monsignor Airoldi said, “especially since I myself have not managed so far to get a clear idea of what happened. In my opinion, his illness dealt that blessed Abbot such a blow that he’s become a bit odd... But we have more serious things, much more urgent troubles...”

  “Santa Rosalia has protected us,” the Princess di Trabia said.

  “Just think, today is the day the uprising would have broken out,” the Princess del Cassaro said; as wife of the Prefect, she was the best informed among the ladies.

  “I should say that Jesus Christ has protected us,” the Marquis di Villabianca said, “since this is the week of His Passion... I should say that the inspiration to confess came to that young silversmith, that young Teriaca, directly from Jesus Christ... Oh, the Lord has been most merciful toward us; if we stop to consider our sins, our vanities—”

  “Oh yes, most merciful,” Monsignor Airoldi said.

  “The Lord,” Don Saverio Zarbo interrupted, “had what you might call a direct interest in the plot. You know that their criminal plan of action marked the churches to be sacked first.”

  “They thought it out very clearly,” the Prefect’s wife said, “very shrewdly, because all the churches set out their most precious treasures on Holy Thursday.”

  This was a propaganda finesse of Monsignor López; he was terribly afraid that the populace might rise up, and he had invented this detail to appeal to popular sentiment.

  “The fact is,” the Prince di Trabia said, “that we have been nourishing serpents in our bosoms. But I can say this with a clear conscience: I never did like that Di Blasi.”

  “That’s true. Your Excellency was never on intimate terms with him,” Meli said.

  The Prince did not appreciate this testimonial overmuch, and he turned a face of chill reproof on Meli. “You, however, liked him very much.”

  Meli excused himself. “Our only connection was that we shared a love of poetry.”

  “And you believe that he loved poetry? Where in a heart as black as his could there be room for a love of poetry?”

  “He did love it,” Abbot Carí said, as if to himself; he shook his head, his thoughts far away. “He did love it.”

  “Senile old man,” the Prince murmured.

  And Meli said, “Oh no, my dear Abbot, as the Prince so rightly observed, we can now say definitely that he did not love poetry, he could not love it. That was all so much dust in people’s eyes, in the eyes of gullible people like me.”

  “You are the one who does not love poetry,” Abbot Carí said, looking at Meli with dim eyes. He got painfully to his feet and, leaning on his cane, walked uncertainly away.

  “I? I don’t love poetry! Did you hear him, the poor old fool?” He glanced around in outward amusement but with, deep inside, a flicker of terror. “I write poetry, and people will be talking about my poetry when there’ll be no trace of your name—” he was shouting after Carí, who was already some distance away – “no trace, not even on the marble they’ll plant over you when you’re dead.”

  “Don’t quarrel with him – his head doesn’t work very well any more,” the Prefect’s wife said comfortingly.

  “But there’s one thing I can’t understand. You,” Prince di Trabia said to Meli, “used to visit him, you were very close... Because you both loved poetry, of course... And Your Excellency also,” to Monsignor Airoldi, “had frequent contact with him—”

  “On questions of scholarship, only on questions of scholarship...”

  “Questions of scholarship, naturally... But,” the Prince continued, “there must have come some moment when, to eyes as versed in human nature as yours, Di Blasi must somehow have revealed his true nature—”

  “Never,” Meli said.

  “Never,” Monsignor said. “He had his own ideas, of course, but that they would ever lead him even to conceive of such infamy—”

  “Ideas, you say?” the Marquis di Geraci burst out. “From now on, if you think you see anyone having ideas, run him through with your sword! We have escaped by a hair, do you know that? If Providence had not intervened, they’d be playing bocce with our heads this minute.”

  “Oh, Heaven!” The ladies shuddered.

  “Ideas! You’re so right. But” – the Prince di Trabia assumed the expression of a man about to reveal a daring proposition – “I have worked out what you might call an idea about ideas. And it is this: ideas come in the door when money leaves.”

  This met with general approval.

  “And all things considered,” the Prince continued, “the ideas over which so much ink is spilled are not so different from the ideas of a common thief. Only, the common thief has no idea that he has ideas” – he was pleasantly surprised by his own word-play and wanted to enjoy it to the full – “and if he had any idea that the deeds he commits sprang from an idea, and that that idea is defended in books, and that a whole nation, a great nation like France, has begun to put that idea into practice... Well, what difference would there
be between the bandit Testalonga and Lawyer Di Blasi?”

  “None. Each one of them was after what belongs to me,” the Marquis di Geraci said.

  “What belongs to us,” the Prince corrected. “But Testalonga, poor fellow, acted with more discretion, I would say – precisely because he had no idea that he had ideas.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” the Marquis said; his attention was beginning to wander from the effort of following the Prince in forming an idea about ideas. “But the important thing is, we have brought all these people to a halt. And this would be a good opportunity to clean out the whole stable, Abbot Vella included.”

  “That is quite another matter,” Monsignor Airoldi said timidly.

  Chapter XII

  “You’ve written how torture is contrary to law, contrary to reason, contrary to man’s nature, but a shadow of shame will hover over what you have written if you yourself do not resist it now... Quid est quaestio? That is the point at issue here. You’ve already answered what it means to put a man to the question – how bland, how legally correct it sounds! – to torture him, but you’ve answered in the name of reason, of human dignity; now you must answer with your body, suffer in your flesh and bones and nerves, and still not speak... ‘Put the slaves to the question!’ Servos in quaestionem dare, ferre – ah, judges and their Latin!” The heads of his judges floated before him in the fog of his own pain. “Quaestio!” Pain was seeping into his brain like ink, blinding him. His body was a twisted, tangled vine of pain: incommensurable, heavy with gobbets of blood. Gobbets of blood, the dark blood of man. “Put a man to the question, torture him, and he loses all sense of his own body. You... you would not recognize your own body now in the engravings of Vesalius or in Ingrassia’s iatrology, and even less in the Creation of Adam, in Monreale. Your body has nothing human about it any longer; it is a tree of blood... The theologians should have to undergo this: they would finally understand that torture is against God, that it destroys the image of God in man...”

  Suddenly he sank into a sea of darkness, his heart fluttering like a broken wing. When he could see once more, he was again before the judges’ table; he felt the ground beneath his feet; a wave of pain, hot and urgent, beat only against his wrists. “You’ve had the first strappado; there will be more. What were you thinking before they let you drop?” He raised his eyes to measure the distance he had fallen – two ells, perhaps less.

  “Well ?” Judge Artale said.

  “Nothing,” Di Blasi said. “I’ve nothing to add to what I’ve already stated. It is my fault that the people whom you have arrested were involved in a conspiracy without even knowing its real aims. There were no others... I realize that it was madness, I am profoundly sorry that others must suffer on my account... I took advantage of their trust in me, and of their ignorance—”

  “I agree as to the madness,” the Judge said, “but not too fast. I cannot believe that your hope of success was based on a dozen or so people: there must be others you do not want to name, perhaps people who were active in the plot and who were over you... And what about the French? There must have been some promise on the part of the French government, some guarantee—”

  “I have never had any connection, not even a vague connection, with French agents... I was the head of the conspiracy, I managed to mislead only the few people you have captured. I am sorry you do not believe this; it will be a waste of time.”

  “I am sorry, too,” the Judge said.

  Once more the pulleys screeched, and his body, dark and amorphic, burgeoned with agony. “Don’t make me black out!” he prayed; he was praying to the dark nature of the blood, of the tree, of stone; to the dark God. “Judges who believe in the question also believe that witcheries exist that help one resist it: multi reperentur qui habent aliquas incantationes ut multos habui in fortiis in diversis locis et officiis. What they don’t know is that the sorcery is simply thought: in essence, the magic is only thought.” He looked down at the judges’ heads below his feet, and at their table and their papers. “You must keep thinking; if you want to hold out, you’ve got to keep thinking... Two hundred years ago or more, they gave the strappado to Antonio Veneziano: ‘Seven strappados he was given, and he withstood them.’ You must withstand, too. He was a poet, a man of more delicate constitution than you, more susceptible, and yet he withstood... for a pasquinade against the Viceroy, and you, instead, for a crime against the Crown... Remember one of Veneziano’s poems, any one... Say it out loud, say it!... I can’t, oh, I can’t.” A spasm of pain shattered the detachment he had been able to sustain by talking to himself as if to a second person: the executioner had jerked on the rope. “Now they’re going to let you drop,” he told himself. “Keep hold of yourself, keep—” But he plummeted down with a groan.

  The Judge got up from the table. He walked around and stood in front of the prostrate body: he was considered a good man, a humane judge; the fact that someone should stand up under torture he held to be an offense to his own sensibilities, a rebuff of the mercy he was accustomed to extend even to criminals. So his next question was angry: “You had been informed of Colonel Ranza’s arrival?”

  “Colonel Ranza. Who is he?”

  “You know perfectly well who he is, and we know too, fortunately.”

  “I’ve never heard the name... According to you, who should have informed me of his arrival?”

  “Your friends on the Committee of Public Safety. Colonel Ranza is their agent; and we know that he has been sent to Sicily to reach an agreement with you.”

  “You know more about it than I.”

  The Judge returned to his chair. He sighed. “We have other means,” he said. “Don’t force me to have recourse to them... Don’t force me.”

  “I know. Night after night with no sleep allowed, torture by fire... I know. Human stupidity has proved extraordinarily inventive in devising torture. I know. And I don’t expect to be spared any of them. It may be that you will succeed, that you’ll make me admit I was waiting for this Colonel Ranza with open arms. I hope not, but considering the torture you promise, I cannot exclude it. But at this moment, during this short relief, I want to tell that I have never even heard the name of any Colonel Ranza. I give you my word, man to man.”

  “Man to man!” The Judge’s voice was menacing now. His hand shook with anger as he reversed the small hourglass he kept on the table; to the executioner, it was the signal for the third strappado.

  Chapter XIII

  Word of Di Blasi’s arrest reached Abbot Vella via his niece. While she was washing pots in the kitchen or arranging what few things needed to be put in order, she would give him a report on what was going on in the city: usually the Abbot was lost in other thoughts and did not hear her; only now and then he caught a name, a phrase in the endless monologue, and if it aroused his curiosity he would question her. And so it was that day.

  “...and the leader of the band was a lawyer, Don Francesco Paolo Di Blasi.”

  The Abbot caught the name as someone walking along a dusty street turns up a shining coin or fragment of glass with his toe. “What band? And what has Di Blasi to do with it?”

  “He headed a gang that believed neither in God nor in the Saints. They were planning to rob the churches of every last treasure, and to do it today, Holy Thursday... But they arrested them.”

  “Di Blasi? It can’t be. Who told you this foolishness?”

  “All Palermo is talking about it, and it’s true as Gospel. And Nino, who could put out a newspaper with all he knows about what’s going on, this Your Worship knows, Nino told me that the lawyer has been locked up in Castellammare and has had the strappado already.” Nino was her husband; as the Abbot supported his family, he gave himself exclusively to skimming news among the coachmen, watchmen, and sacristans, and to frequenting houses of prostitution and taverns.

  “It can’t be, it can’t be!... You know Nino better than I. He’s likely to mistake a lantern for a wineskin, especially if he’s drunk his quota for the day
.”

  “But everybody is saying it.”

  “Tell me again everything you’ve heard, step by step.”

  The niece repeated her version of events, and her version was the version of Monsignor López. The Abbot was not convinced, but he admitted there must be some truth in it.

  Later in the day he got a more formally coherent account from Monsignor Airoldi’s messenger, but the conclusions seemed no less inadmissible. One thing was certain, however; Di Blasi had been arrested; the Abbot felt that he should express his dismay by some token of solidarity and friendship. For the first time in his life he perceived, he shared, the agony of another. A weakness, a surrender, but in this particular case he did not regret it, even as he admonished himself to keep his distance in the future from connections that might involve similar feelings. “But there is no danger of that,” he told himself. “From now on, you will be as lonely as a leper.” It was said without drama, rather with pride, as he surveyed the landscape of his own solitude.

  He hired a carriage and had himself driven up to the Monastery of San Martino. The evening light shifted as purple-black clouds were cleft at intervals by the blood-red setting sun. The trees shuddered, and so did the Abbot, murmuring superstitiously, “Holy Week weather,” for he was thinking how such weather always accompanies direful deeds and tragedies.