Secretum am-2

by Rita Monaldi

  "Teeyooteelie."

  Then with the sky, framed by the four walls of the courtyard, swallowing me up ever faster, faster, I offered a heartfelt prayer to the Almighty for the forgiveness of my sins, and, with heart and spirit turning to my Cloridia, I awaited the end.

  Day the Third

  9th J ULY, 1700

  It was the purest and lightest of chants, nor could I have said whence it came; it was, if anything, nowhere and yet all around me.

  It had an air of innocence about it, of timid red-cheeked novices, of remote and solitary hermits. It was a tender psalmody and it delighted my ears as I became aware of my new condition.

  At last, I realised: it was the chant of a confraternity of pilgrims in Rome for the Jubilee. It was men and women who made up the sublime blend of voices, sweet and robust, silvery and stentorian, manly and womanly; they had risen with the sun, and now they raised a song of thanksgiving to the Lord as they set out on the visit to the four basilicas to seek the remission of their sins.

  The rectangle of now azure sky from which I had fallen was still there above, crystalline and immobile.

  I was dead and, at the same time, alive. My eyes were full of that rectangle's blue, but I could no longer see. The sky flowed from my eyes like angels' tears. Only the music, only that pilgrims' choir drew me to itself, almost as though it alone could keep me alive.

  The last sensory impressions (the precipitous fall, the walls of the courtyard swallowing me up, the air pressing against my back) had been swept away by that holy melody.

  Other indistinct voices wove into each other and unwove in occult counterpoint.

  It was only then, after becoming aware of the existence of other beings around me, that I broke the frail shell of my torpor.

  Like a new Lucifer cast down from paradise, I felt a sinister, warm smoke envelop my limbs and engulf me ever more in the viscous belly of the Inferno.

  "Let's get him out of there," said one of the voices.

  I tried to move an arm or a leg, if I still had any. It worked; I raised a foot. This new and promising development, came, however, mixed with an unexpected sensation.

  "What a stink!" said a voice.

  "Let's both work together."

  "He owes his life to the shit, ha ha!"

  I was not dead, nor had I smashed into the hard paving stones of the courtyard, even less been engulfed in hell: I was being lifted out of a cartful of warm, smoking manure.

  As Sfasciamonti was to explain to me afterwards, while freeing my back of a few lumps of manure, I had ended my fall in a colossal mountain of fresh dung parked there during the night by a yokel who intended to sell it in the morning, for use as compost, to the superintendent of Villa Perretti.

  Thus, by a pure miracle, I had not broken my neck. But when I had fallen onto the horrid heap of excrement, I had remained in a swoon, showing no signs of life. The onlookers who had meanwhile gathered were worried; someone made the sign of the cross. Suddenly, however, when the pilgrim confraternity passed by, I had moved my head and blinked. "'Tis the Lord's doing," exclaimed a little old man. "The confraternity's prayers have resuscitated him."

  Up above, Sfasciamonti, distracted by my fall and anxious about my fate, had allowed our man to get away when, rather than face the catchpoll's wrath, he had let himself drop to a lower rooftop, continuing his flight on the surrounding terraces. My ally who, with his weight, would have run the risk of falling through some skylight, was compelled to abandon the chase. Once down the stairs, he had dragged me out from the manure cart with the help of a market gardener, there to sell his produce on the nearby market of Campo de Fiore, which was just about to open.

  '"Tis an accursed mess," said Sfasciamonti, as he led me to a nearby vendor of old clothes to fit me out with clean apparel.

  "The Chiavarino had this in his hands — anything but a spyglass."

  From a dirty grey cloth he pulled out the device which I had seen him brandishing victoriously when he burst out from the stairs onto the terrace, at the unforgettable moment when I had a knife pressing against my guts.

  The apparatus, which had emerged badly from the night's adventures, was reduced to a mass of twisted metal, in which one could with some difficulty discern what had once been a microscope. The only parts remaining in one piece were the base, a vertical cylinder and a pivot joining this with the rest (now lost) of the optical instrument. The cloth contained a collection of glass fragments (presumably, what remained of the lenses), three or four screws, a cog wheel and a half-crushed metal plaque.

  "It must have gone like this," said Sfasciamonti reconstructing the events of the night, as we entered the old clothes shop. "This was stolen not long ago. I shall check today on whether any other sergeant knows anything of this. Chiavarino must have done the job himself, or perhaps he bought it off someone else. When he heard us at the door, he misunderstood our explanation, confusing the spyglass with this mackeroscopp."

  "Microscope," I corrected him.

  "Well, anyway, whatever it is. Then he left the house and went to the Piazza Navona. He must have been looking for some cerretano," said he while, nodding to the old clothes merchant, he led me to the inner courtyard where there was a little fountain, so that I could clean myself up.

  "But why?"

  "Did you not hear what the Maltese said? Chiavarino works for the German. And the German, as I told you, works with the cerretani," said he gesturing with his head in the direction of the terrace on Campo de Fiore. "The mackeroscopp was supposed to go to the German. Many real beggars spend the night at the Piazza Navona, but there are plenty of cerretani there too. Chiavarino went to one of these."

  "You mean the one who was on the point of killing me!"

  I exclaimed, remembering Sfasciamonti's scream when he saw that it was not Chiavarino.

  "Of course. They met behind the fountain. Then the cerretano heard us and fled. We ran after him thinking it was Chiavarino, whom I know perfectly well and who looks quite different: tall and fair with a broken nose. And he's not cross-eyed, as the little monster whom we followed seemed to be."

  So I had risked my life for nothing, I thought, while I took off my filthy clothes and washed quickly, for who could say where Atto's telescope might be, let alone his papers? My bones were all still aching from the fall into the manure, although it had been fresh and soft because of a generous admixture of straw.

  Then there was a suspicion which gnawed at me. The Maltese did not know what a spyglass was, and probably did not know what a microscope, a far more unusual object, might be. Nor did Chiavarino know what the two devices were or what they were called, so much so that he confused the one with the other.

  "How did you know that this was a microscope?" I asked the catchpoll, pointing to the little packet in which he had placed the fragments of the machine.

  "What a question: 'tis written on it."

  He opened the little bundle and showed me the wooden base of the apparatus, on which there was a gracefully framed little metal plaque.

  MACROSCOPIUM HOC

  JOHANNES VANDEHAR1US

  FECIT

  AMSTELODAMI MDCLXXXIII

  "Microscope made in Amsterdam in 1683 by Jan Vandehaar," I translated.

  He was right, it was written there. And those few simple Latin words even Sfasciamonti had been able to understand, however approximately.

  "Someone will have to explain to me how you shoot with a thing like this mackeroscopp with its barrel full of glass," he muttered to himself, incapable of resigning himself to the fact that the device was not an arm.

  Still confused by the breakneck piling up of events, not to mention the physical trials I had had to undergo, only then, while I was drying myself with a piece of cloth and dressing, did I remember to tell my companion of the provocation with which I had tried to confuse the cerretano, warning him that he would die at the hands of the German, and of the man's strange reply which I had by some miracle heard when I was falling from the terrace
.

  '"The German will kill you…' But you are insane!"

  "Why? I was only trying to save my life."

  "That's true, damn it, but you went and told an accomplice of the German that his principal would have him killed… The German's dangerous. 'Tis as well that it was, as you said, to save your life."

  "Well, that's precisely why I'd like to know what the cerretano said. Perhaps he threatened that they'd come after me."

  "What exactly did he say to you?"

  "I couldn't understand, 'twas a phrase that made no sense."

  "You see, it really was a cerretano. He spoke to you in cant."

  "In what?"

  "Cant. Gibberish."

  "What's that, their jargon?"

  "Oh, far more than that. 'Tis a real language. Only the cerretani know it, 'tis their own invention. They use it to talk in front of strangers without being understood. But thieves and vagrants of all kinds use it too."

  "Then I understand what you're talking about. I know that criminals, when a sergeant is coming, say 'Madam's coming' or "Tis raining'."

  "Yes, but those are things that everyone knows, like that martino means a knife, or a piotta is a hundred Giulio coin. Even many of the words of the Jews are well known; if I tell you that two people are agazim, you'll understand perfectly that I am talking of a couple of friends. But then there's a more difficult level. For instance, what does it mean if I say to you: 'The hunchback isn't corn of the first of May?'"

  "Not a thing."

  "Well, that's because you don't know cant, or slang. 'The hunchback' means 'I', 'corn' means 'afraid' and 'the first of May' is God."

  "So 'I'm not afraid of God'," said I, astonished by the obscurity of that short sentence which seemed so well suited to a cerretano.

  "And that's only an example. I know it only because we sergeants do manage to pick up something. But never enough. The cerretano said something to you which you couldn't understand, is that not so?

  "If I remember, it was something like… teevooteedie, teeyootiffie, no, teeyooteelie or something like that."

  "That must be another kind of cant. I really don't know how it works, I've never even heard it spoken. I only know that sometimes the vagabonds use normal words but mix them all up, twist them about and complicate them using a secret method which few people know," said he, twisting, untwisting, tapping and squeezing his fingers one against the other, the better to illustrate the concept, "and you can't understand a word of it."

  "So how the deuce are we to know what the cerretano said? We do not even have any way of continuing our investigations and finding Abbot Melani's papers," said I with ill-concealed disappointment.

  "We must be patient, and besides, matters are not exactly as you say. We do at least know now that someone is collecting these strange instruments with which one can see large or small, mackeroscopps, spyglasses et cetera, and that he has a passion for relics. We can look for Chiavarino, but he'll already have moved to another house. He's a dangerous fellow, 'tis best to keep well away from him. The track to follow is that of the cerretani."

  "It seems no less dangerous."

  "That's true. But it does lead directly to the German."

  "Do you think it was he who stole Abbot Melani's papers?"

  "I believe in facts. And this is the only trail we have to follow."

  "Do you have any idea of how we proceed from here?"

  "Of course. But we shall have to wait until tomorrow night. Some things cannot be done by day."

  Meanwhile, we had returned to our horses. We separated: this time too Sfasciamonti had some chores to do on behalf of his mother. Since I was still in shock following my dreadful adventure, the catchpoll thought it would be better if I returned to Villa Spada on foot; he would see to the return of both our mounts.

  So it was that, still stinking and rotten but at least not shameful to behold, I made my way towards the San Pancrazio Gate. At that early hour, the city was overflowing with pilgrims, pedlars, prentices, maidservants, swindlers, strollers and tradesmen. Every little alleyway was animated by washerwomen's songs, children's cries, the barking of stray dogs, street vendors' calls, as well as the curses of coachmen whenever some wobbling cart delivering dairy products cut across the path of their carriage. In the markets of each quarter, those great theatres in which the city of St Peter renews its rites each day, the festive chaos of the morning was turning into a spectacle: the fluttering black of an apostolic pronotary's gown set off the green of lettuces, a cleric's dark cloak strove to upstage the orange of fresh carrots, the perplexed eyes of dead fish scrutinised the eternal human comedy from fishmongers' counters.

  I was near Via Giulia, immersed in this disorderly stream of humanity, goods and vehicles, when I came upon an even denser assembly. I made my way as well as I could, more concerned to get through than to look at what was going on. In the end, however, I found my progress blocked and tiptoed to see what this was all about. At the centre of the crowd stood a sinister figure, his long hair gathered into a ponytail, and, on his bare breast, a large bluish sign in the form of a viper. But it was around his neck that there squirmed, slimy and treacherous, a real serpent. The public observed its contortions, at once fascinated and frightened. The young man began to whine a sort of dirge; the coluber twisted rhythmically, following the intonation and rhythm of the chant and arousing the audience's amazement. Now and again, the mummer would stop and in a low voice utter some arcane formula which had the power to halt the reptile's contortions; the animal would freeze suddenly, tense and rigid, and would come back to life only when the chant began again. Suddenly, the young man seized the creature's head and thrust a finger into its jaws, which closed on it at once. He withstood the pain a few moments then withdrew his finger. He then began to distribute a few little jars filled with a reddish ointment, explaining that this was serpent's earth, the most perfect of antidotes which, if one is bitten by a snake, counteracts the venom so that one suffers no pain whatever. The nearby onlookers threw small coins in large quantities into the straw hat at the fellow's feet.

  I looked questioningly at my neighbour, a lad who was grasping a large bread-making mould.

  "He's a sanpaolaro" said he.

  "And what does that mean?"

  "Saint Paul one day bestowed grace on a certain family, promising them that none of their members and descendants would ever need fear a serpent's venom. In order to be distinguished from others, the descendants of that family are all born with the sign of a serpent on their body and are known as sanpaolari."

  Behind our backs, an old man interrupted.

  "All balderdash! They catch the snakes in winter when they've little strength and almost no venom. Then they purge them and keep them on a starvation diet, so that they become soft and obedient."

  In the group pressing around the sanpaolaro the old man's words had been clearly overheard; some heads turned.

  "I know all these tricks," the old man continued. "The sign of the serpent is made by pricking oneself in several places with a very fine needle, then rubbing on one's skin a paste made of soot and the juice of herbs."

  Other heads, distracted from the spectacle, turned towards the old man. But just at that moment, a cry went up.

  "My purse! I have it no more! They've cut it!"

  A little woman who until that moment had been staring at the spectacle of the sanpaolaro almost as though she had been hypnotised, was expostulating desperately. Someone had cut the string which she wore around her neck and had made off with her purse and all her money for the day. The group of spectators turned into an uncontrollable magma, in which everyone twisted around to make sure that nothing was missing (purses, necklaces, brooches).

  "There, I knew it," said the old man, guffawing, "the sanpaolaro's friend found what he wanted."

  I turned towards the man who until that moment had been drawing all our attention. Taking advantage of the general confusion, the sanpaolaro (if he merited the name) had vanished.
r />   "With his accomplice, of course," added the old man.

  Resuming my walk, my humour had darkened. I too had not realised that the serpent was only a means of attracting a few unsuspecting victims while an accomplice of the sanpaolaro looked after the business of relieving them of their money. Two real virtuosi of the art of theft, thought I: as soon as things became uncomfortable, they had vanished like snow in the sunshine. And what if they too were cerretani. Sfasciamonti had said that every cerretano was a beggar and that begging was the most profitable trade in the world. Did he perhaps also mean that every beggar, rogue or vagrant was also a cerretano? If that were the case, the prospect would be terrifying: without realising it I had been offering alms to an army of criminals who held the city under their control.

  I abandoned these notions, which seemed too fanciful, and my thoughts returned to my fall and the horrible death which I had just faced. What had saved my life? The prayer of the pilgrims in procession or the cart full of manure? The dung had undoubtedly been the immediate cause of my salvation. Was I then indebted to good fortune? And yet, I had opened my eyes to the passing of the pious procession of pilgrims, to whose chants I had miraculously reawakened. Had I thus been touched by grace through the merit of the innocent vows of love and charity of that cortege of the faithful come from afar?

  But how effective were those vows? In the pilgrims' intentions these were certainly innocent and full of ardour, I thought. But, I murmured to myself as I passed a squalid and most costly lodging house for pilgrims which I knew to be the property of a cardinal — there was also something else beyond those prayers that was perhaps less innocent and pure: the very organisation of the Jubilee.

  Of course, I well knew (and it was universally known) that Pope Boniface VIII had, in the year 1300, inaugurated the solemn recurrence of the Holy Year with the best of intentions. Drawing inspiration from the noble custom of the pontiffs of ancient times, who every hundred years granted the faithful full and complete remission of their sins, provided that they visited the Basilica of St Peter in the Vatican, Pope Boniface VIII had officially instituted the Jubilee Year in the full and proper sense, adding to past practice only the obligation to visit the Basilica of St Paul, and setting aside certain days for the visits of the faithful.