Notorious

by Roberta Lowing

  He pressed a painted fibre lifting off the map. He was closer to Trepani than Palermo, he thought, but last winter’s flooding had carried off the road signs and it seemed no-one had bothered to replace them. The wolves took them, the villagers in Siracusa had said, crossing themselves and spitting on the worn stones of the taverna. Wolves? There were no wolves left after the war, surely, when everybody ate them? The locals spat again and muttered about the sea crossing from Albania and animals which leaped through the night as the moon turned the crests of the waves to silver.

  He put one fingertip across the calm eyes of the Jesus painted in lustrous oils at the top of the page, traced a path back up the Italian coastline, past the words and figures written there: notes on his fasting, the times he had whipped himself, the amounts of money distributed to the villages on his route. He traced his projected path across the map, from Koloshnovar straight through Czechoslovakia and Austria, down the Italian coast, up to France and the home of the rightful owner of the Frenchman’s book. He avoided the shining palm leaf, cut from sheet gold, which marked Rome.

  As he drove across the flat plain, dust was channelled up to the sky. The echo of shouts grazed the wind and the clouds seemed to quiver. He heard the ragged engine and the back of his neck tightened. He had learned not to ignore those feelings. He shifted down through the gears and steered toward the jagged hill, an outcrop of the mountain range proper, black against the sun.

  At the base of the hill, he eased the car across the rougher ground. The suspension groaned over the chips of flint and slate and odd scattered objects: a water canteen, a picnic basket, a tyre crumpled like the skin of a dead animal. When the rocks became blunt boulders, he switched the engine off and pushed the goggles back. The pistons stamped down, the fan ticked unevenly to a close. The wind prickled his forehead with dust and pine tips.

  He used the metal base of his compass to ease out the panel in the driver’s side door, put his hand on the oiled leather bag wedged there, hooked his finger through the gold silk draw-string, gripped its dark sliminess, smelled the escaping sea. He closed his eyes, listened. No shouts, just a far-off hawk crying over a moving shadow.

  He would rather have made it to the other side of the plain. Landslides were not uncommon in this region. And bandits.

  The sun bleached the ground now but the grey haze staining the horizon meant a storm. Maybe he should put the roof up. He got out of the car, folded back the front side panel of the hood and tugged at the limp fan-belt.

  Number one: change the fan-belt. Check the water, number two. Number three – he looked up and saw the children, a boy and a girl. Their hair was a muddied blonde, not as light as his own, but still unusual this far south. Maybe closer to the Austrian border, yes. Even for the villages in these parts, they were dressed in a very old-fashioned way. He took a closer look. Was she holding . . . ? Yes, it was a bonnet, with a fringe.

  The girl came forward. She was tall and slender with pale blue eyes. She stared at him, unblinking.

  Czeslaw had a working knowledge of Italian, picked up from the mechanics on his mother’s estate and at the annual Torino races. He had mostly forgotten his schoolboy Latin, which was ironic, he thought now. He had always been an indifferent student, always yearning through the window.

  He asked the children where he was, who they were. The boy hung back, glowering at him: the bad foreigner; the seducer. He felt like laughing. If they only knew.

  The sun on his head was making him drowsy. He wanted the breeze, wanted cool weather, poplars straight as spires down the long avenue at Koloshnovar, elegant emerald sentries, tipped with blue. Not this hunched and leached green, these crooked fingers scratching a sullen sky.

  The girl edged forward, slowly. She was older than he had thought. For some reason, he wanted to retreat. He moved to his right, keeping the car between them. He could see the inside door, the missing panel, the light sliding off the leather bag, the drawstring protruding like a hangman’s rope.

  She turned and waved. Two more children – teenagers really – appeared from behind the rocks: a plump girl, another boy, both with the black hair typical of the region.

  They must have been waiting there. Hiding.

  Czeslaw picked up the wrench.

  The blonde girl beckoned but only the plump girl came forward, mouth open, staring at him.

  The blonde girl raised her voice, was saying to the boys what sounded like, ‘Now. What are you waiting for, Paolo?’

  The blond boy shook his head. ‘The parents never take two in two days.’

  ‘Useless,’ shouted the blonde girl. ‘How will we ever get out of here?’ She swung back to Czeslaw so violently that the cross around her neck tumbled out from her collar. The gold caught the sun like shook foil, the light piercing him. She came closer, smiling in a way she obviously thought was seductive. The boys still hung back but Paolo had picked up a large rock, was holding it by his side.

  The girl said something about the next village, needing a ride across the plain. Czeslaw knew they meant to rob him – or worse – but he couldn’t turn his back on the beam of gold light from the crucifix.

  He said, ‘Do you have a priest in your village?’

  The plump girl crept closer.

  ‘There is no-one here,’ said the blonde girl sharply.

  ‘You said the next village,’ said Czeslaw. He traced back from where the children had appeared. Now he saw a faint line through the rocks, a clearing of boulders and scrub, a trail of disturbed bushes which zigzagged to the black summit.

  He reached into the car, slid the leather bag into his satchel. It slipped beneath his fingers, wanting to escape him. He said, ‘I’ll see for myself.’

  ‘No,’ shouted the boys but the plump girl skipped past them and said, gazing up at Czeslaw, ‘I’ll take you.’

  The blonde girl said, ‘You’re not the boss of this, Rosita.’

  Rosita hesitated. She pointed at Czeslaw. ‘Bel ragazzo.’

  The boys sniggered. Red washed up her doughy cheeks but Rosita stood firm. She pointed at Czeslaw’s hair. ‘Like the moon in well water at midnight. In the books – ’

  ‘Fairytale books,’ said the blonde girl. ‘Go back to the rocks, little mayor’s piglet.’

  Czeslaw heard the words through the sound of wind rushing through the forest. A Polish forest. Maybe he needed to break his fast. He leaned against the car for support.

  Rosita put her fingers in her mouth; her nails were rimmed with dirt. She moved slowly, sideways, towards Czeslaw. She had round black eyes as shiny as a doll’s. She said, ‘There is a priest.’ She pointed at the summit. ‘And food.’

  ‘A priest.’ But even before he looked up the hill, he knew he would go with them. The urge to confess was too strong. After that . . . Whatever happened to his bodily self was pre-ordained.

  The plump girl moved closer. She said, ‘You must be . . . ’ and covered her eyes with her hands.

  He insisted that the blonde girl and the two boys be in front. He took only his satchel with the maps and the compass. He debated hiding the leather bag in the car; if they attacked him, they would find it. But he couldn’t bear to be parted from it. At the last moment he shoved it into his satchel.

  They tied a red scarf across his eyes. For the first few hundred feet, all he could do was concentrate on not falling. Rosita stayed by his side, keeping up a running commentary about boulders and loose gravel, clutching his arm even on the flatter ground. He smelled hay on her and manure and, occasionally, a faint sour trace of urine.

  At the steepest patches, he had to bend and grab at tufts of grass to pull himself up. If he looked straight down, he saw grey dirt and broken rocks through the quarter moon of his vision. Rosita went ahead but he sensed she was turning almost every other moment to look at him. Soon he had to crawl which, perversely, he found easier; the dirt under his hands steadied him. He felt moulded black ovals, smooth against his thumb and forefinger, like the detritus from a glass blower’s
forge; beneath the dry topsoil was damper earth. Snatches of schoolboy history came back to him: Sicily, the Mediterranean’s granary, a land so rich it was once coveted by the entire world.

  He felt less dizzy, not standing. He got into a rhythm of pulling himself forward and up by the small, stubby bushes.

  The next time he stumbled, he shoved the blindfold off. Rosita touched her thumb to the outside corner of her eye, pointed at the grey sky. ‘Your eyes,’ she said.

  They were moving among thicker scrub, shrubs which grew out almost horizontally from the slope. The temperature dropped suddenly. He slipped on something too smooth to be rock, landed on all fours, dropping the satchel. The oilskin bag slid across the loose stones, gathering momentum, a mini-avalanche rolling down the hill.

  Gold coins spilt but he ignored them, threw himself after the bag, grabbing it, grazing his hand, spots of blood welling up, sitting in trembling drops on the rubbery black material. The drawstring slipped, the bag opened. He saw a pale gleam inside – pages the colour of bones – and shoved the bag inside his shirt. It lay against his heart, the cold seeping into him.

  He crawled back to the satchel and a flash of yellow and black: an unusual rock formation? As he began sweeping with both hands, stones tumbled past him. The blond girl and boy had stopped above Rosita. The other boy, the dark-haired one, was further up, sitting on a rock, using a large square-bladed knife to trim the knots from a thick branch.

  Czeslaw craned his head. Chips of fast, angry Italian fell down the hillside.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ the blonde girl was saying.

  ‘We can’t do it now,’ said Rosita.

  ‘You’re not the boss of us.’

  ‘My papa is,’ said Rosita.

  The wind curled into the silence with a soft sigh. Czeslaw moved his hand and saw a cracked eye rolling into the dry earth, a gleam of light and curved yellow fangs veined with black.

  Dirt fell on the picture in the ground. The dark-haired boy was descending. He carried the branch like a club over his shoulder.

  ‘No, Stefano!’ screamed Rosita.

  ‘Sophia’s right.’ The dark-haired boy pointed the club at Czeslaw. ‘He puts all of us in danger.’

  ‘No.’ Rosita pressed her hands to her burning cheeks. ‘There’s a new plan.’

  ‘What plan?’ said Stefano. ‘Did you know about this, Paolo?’

  The blond boy shook his head.

  ‘She’s lying,’ said Sophia. ‘Do it now.’

  Czeslaw looked down. He could run and risk a broken leg. He rose slowly, the incline of the hill tugging at him.

  The blond boy, Paolo, held up a flat piece of grey shale with a side as sharp as an axe. Czeslaw could almost feel it slicing into his temple.

  Rosita moved so that she was between Czeslaw and the others. She shouted, ‘You can’t do this without checking with my father first.’

  ‘Get out of the way, mayor’s piglet,’ shouted Sophia. ‘No-one listens to you.’

  ‘The signori decided,’ shouted Rosita. ‘No more stopping the cars. If the parents don’t do it any more, we shouldn’t either.’

  ‘Liar!’

  ‘How would you know?’ said Rosita. She frowned at Paolo. ‘Who is more likely to know what the signori decide? Her? Or me?’

  ‘The signori,’ said Paolo in a considering tone. He glanced at Stefano, who shook his head and turned. Paolo dropped the rock.

  Sophia shouted ‘No!’ but Paolo was already climbing.

  Rosita raised one arm, pointing. ‘Go,’ she said to Sophia. Only Czeslaw was close enough to see that her hand was trembling.

  Sophia looked at her. Then she spat and began climbing.

  The cold ate at Czeslaw’s knees. He saw thin lines of black painted stones: a mosaic of a deer, head twisted away from the beast which rode its back, paws wrapped around the slender neck. There were words in black at the top of the picture: Cubile Omnium Bestiarum – The mosaic broke off into jagged triangles.

  Cubile omnium, thought Czeslaw. His schoolboy Latin wasn’t enough. Another month and he would have started his training. Cubile omnium: The lair of – ?

  A pebble clattered. Rosita extended her hand. ‘They won’t harm you,’ she said, ‘as long as you are with me.’

  He picked up the satchel. Maybe this was God’s will, he thought. The journey wasn’t the penance. Maybe the Frenchman’s book was meant to stay here. He rubbed his forehead.

  ‘Food,’ said Rosita. ‘And the priest: up, up.’

  He saw the wolf in the ground clearly now, the huge yellow fangs ripping into the slender neck, the blood cascading from the white fur of the deer’s chest. A hunting scene.

  Rosita pointed to shiny black rivulets on the cliff face. ‘The black tears.’

  Light was trapped in narrow slivers along the spine of the shiny ridges. He scraped with his fingernail. No flecks, no splinters. Lava.

  ‘Tears from the black faces,’ said Rosita. ‘Over to your – ’ she hesitated as if she couldn’t remember. ‘To your right.’

  He saw a dark brown face painted on the rock: a pre-Roman face with white hooded lids, slits of darkness for the eyes, a black rectangle for the oiled beard and yellow lines for the gold clasps tethering it.

  The coldness at his heart expanded. A remorseless face from across the sea. Africa.

  Shouts fell from the summit. Rosita tugged at his arm. In a reverse of nature, the taller trees started here. He heard the breeze through the branches, a sound like rolling surf. Rosita seemed to have gone through a clump of bushes. He plunged in; bony dried branches scratched him, grey nails caught his clothes. His feet hit stone, a small ledge, a step. More steps. An old wall rose out of the ground, decayed but recognisable. And a cracked stone base, a fallen column, hieroglyphics smudged in the crumbling stone, the bearded profile of a man.

  The ground flattened, the steps became a path. He was still bent, weighted by the thick cold air; the tendons behind his knees ached. He held his hands against his heart to make sure the bag didn’t slip. Mist seemed to be swirling around his feet. More steps then a cave – no, not a cave, a natural arch of rock, daylight immediately ahead. Rosita and the others had disappeared. The path broadened into a road of flagstones, the start of buildings, squat cottages. Beyond, the clouds low and swollen. The sky was darkening fast; lightning ripped, rain fell in flat panes. He saw an opening: a building to his left, a barn. He ran to it.

  As he was about to step into the darkness, someone grabbed his hand. Or was it his head? Was it his heart? He was pulled through the rain, drops in his eyelashes, curtains of diamonds. Grey mist in his throat. The warm, musty smell of too many bodies in a small space, a fetid tang. The room dipped under him. He put his hand to his chest and dropped to his knees.

  Dark figures stirred in the corner of the barn. A ring of stocky suspicious-eyed villagers: the women in black shawls and black dresses, some veiled, the men in black woollen caps and trousers with braces.

  Light fell in pale lines through the cracks in the wooden roof onto the dried grass rushes on the floor. Two men held up lanterns on long poles. The flames trembled, sent shadows flickering across the faces, spectres creeping into crevices and across the metal rings of a thick chain which dangled from a hook in the roof. Twisted grey rags hung there, revolving slowly in broken creaks.

  Rosita bent beside him, holding his elbow. A balding man with a large stomach pushing over his black trousers stared down at him.

  ‘Papa, he’s mine,’ said Rosita.

  Czeslaw shook his head, tried to speak.

  The women pointed at his hair. One touched his head. A murmur went round the group: ‘Bel ragazzo.’ ‘Monete d’argento nell’acqua.’

  Sophia edged forward and put her hands on her hips. ‘I saw him first. So he’s mine.’ A tall woman with bolts of grey in her black hair caught at the girl’s hand, saying, ‘Sophia!’ but the girl jerked away, kneeled on the other side of Czeslaw.

  ‘He’d much rather come wi
th me.’ She opened her eyes wide. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  Rosita moved closer to Czeslaw.

  ‘Let him choose,’ said Sophia. She leaned in, thrusting her chest at him.

  ‘Puttana!’ shouted Rosita and hit Sophia across the jaw. The girl was knocked to the ground; her hair fell – a veil the colour of clouds in a stagnant pond – over her face.

  The balding man jerked Rosita away by the shoulder. Blood trickled from Sophia’s nose. ‘Mine by right,’ she screamed. ‘The look-out gets the biggest share.’

  Shouts erupted; the grey-haired woman put her hand over Sophia’s mouth and muttered, ‘Scusi, Signor’ to the bald man. Two women grabbed Sophia by the arms and dragged her away. The black wall of bodies opened to let her through. When Czeslaw turned his head, Rosita had also vanished.

  ‘I need to make my confession,’ said Czeslaw. He must have spoken in Polish because the villagers shook their heads. ‘A priest,’ he said in Italian. The group stirred, murmured, ‘Father Dante.’ As he turned to look, a big man with a broken nose grabbed the satchel from his shoulder.

  The contents scattered among the hay stalks and the big man crouched. Czeslaw saw red grooving the lines in the cracked dry hands. Grape juice, surely. The big man poked at the compass, the map, the thick wad of lira in the gold clasp, Czeslaw’s Bible.

  ‘No.’ A thin stooped old man with blue eyes so faded they were nearly white stepped forward so that the other was forced to retreat, reluctantly, on his haunches.

  The old man turned. Czeslaw saw the splintered wooden walking stick, the black robe, the knotted rope around the waist, the rough wooden cross hanging on the long metal chain.

  Czeslaw reached under his shirt and pulled out the wooden crucifix. With a feeling of intense relief, he kneeled and kissed the hem of the black robe.

  Father Dante put a gentle hand on his head and said softly, ‘You are safe now.’ The crowd murmured. The priest raised his voice and said, ‘You have my word. Let him speak now who says God’s word is not good enough.’