Secretum am-2

by Rita Monaldi

  Meanwhile, the falconer had unhooded the falcon and released it. The hawk had climbed rapidly to a considerable height where it appeared as little more than a dark spot in the sky.

  "Perhaps it won't ill-treat him too much," sniggered Melani. "In any case, the only thing that matters to us is the note. If he lets go of it, he'll come to no harm."

  "You speak as though the falcon could understand what he's doing. Birds are beasts. They have neither intellect nor heart," I replied.

  "Enough of that, boy," the falconer broke in.

  He spoke with a northern accent, perhaps from Bologna, or Vicenza, where I knew that falconers had always been in abundance.

  "Your ignorance is equalled only by the courage of my falcon," he told me in a harsh voice. "You say that birds have no pity. Do you not know that the great Palamedes, imitating the flight of cranes, which fly in V or A formation, or grouped to form many other letters, composed the characters from which came the alphabet, as Saint Jerome writes, and that from the imitation of the wise living of these cranes, or grues, comes the latin verb congruere, which means literally to be congruent, or coherent."

  "No, I did not know that, but…"

  While he imparted these notions to me, above our heads the falcon traced a series of threatening circles in search of his victim.

  We advanced cautiously through the long grass, looking for traces of Caesar Augustus. Atto and the falconer were sure of tracking him down. I was rather less sure, but I thought that if that were to happen, I should be able to make the parrot understand that it would be in its best interests to return Albani's note, on pains of suffering the cruellest of combats. We all stood there with our noses pointing up in the air, waiting for something to happen. The hound sniffed feverishly at trees, looking halfway up, watching the slightest movements.

  "And how can you say that birds have no heart? They practise gratitude, fidelity and justice far better than men. The sparrow- hawk captures a little bird to help with its digestion and keeps it alive all night close to its belly, whereupon, out of gratitude, it frees it instead of devouring it. Geese are even more modest than a young maiden: they couple only when they know that no one can see them and, afterwards, they wash thoroughly. Crows practice only marital love. Widowed, a turtledove will never mate again. Swallows always feed each of their fledglings fairly and equally. Are human beings capable of that? Furthermore, among fowls, the males are loquacious and the females taciturn: the contrary of men and, when one comes to think of it, far better. Lastly, geese, although rather inclined to gossip, when they know that an eagle is approaching, resist the temptation to honk and thus be discovered by putting a stone in their beaks.

  "They even assist us when we are ill: there is no better way of ridding oneself of stomach ache than to place on it a live duck. For pains in the ribs, you need only eat an Austrian parrot; those with weak stomachs should eat swan's, eagle's or cormorant's meat; the dropsy is treated with powder of burned bats, while for many distempers one takes swallows' nests dissolved in water, nor is there an end to the remedies which poultry breeders generously offer us, and… One moment."

  The falconer had at last broken off. Everything happened suddenly. The dog barked loudly and pointed: he had found the quarry. From a nearby shrub we heard a loud rustling, then the beating of wings. Caesar Augustus, brilliantly white and fluffed- up with his yellow crest, escaped from the thicket and took to the air. The dog barked loudly but the falconer held him back from following and cried out:

  "Look! Look!"

  Hearing that call, the falcon knew that its time had come. Instinctively, it directed its beak downwards and plunged towards Caesar Augustus who had fortunately, although three times slower than his aggressor, gained a good start. He was flying towards the fortified Roman wall; the raptor corrected the angle of its attack as it drew closer. It was like a projectile, ready to plant the tip of its beak into the flesh of its victim, or to brake at the last moment, then turn and wound it with its deadly talons. It would only remain then for it to follow the disorderly fall, diving at last onto the poor injured and defenceless body on the ground and slaughtering it with two or three decisive blows to the breast.

  The parrot hastened towards the great wall, behind which it presumably hoped to find shelter at least from the first attack.

  "Caesar Augustus," I cried, hoping that he might hear me, but then I realised that everything was happening too fast for human senses.

  The falcon was drawing ever closer. Twenty yards; fifteen; ten; seven. All of us, three men and a dog, stared breathlessly at the scene. The wall was too far off. The parrot could never make it that far. Only an instant and it would all be over. I awaited the impact.

  "No," the falconer hissed angrily.

  He had made it. At the very last moment, Caesar Augustus had opted for a nearer refuge. He had hidden himself in a group of trees thick enough to discourage the falcon, who slowed down and at once regained height.

  "Caesar Augustus!" I called again, approaching at a run. "Let go of the paper and all will be well!"

  We tried but failed to find the outline of the parrot among the branches. He had hidden really well, as the falconer, too, was forced to admit.

  "You promised that you would give him time to ponder," I protested vigorously to Atto.

  "I am sorry. I did not realise that things would go so quickly. Nevertheless, he has had all the time he needed for thinking."

  "Thinking? But he'll be utterly terrified."

  The events that followed proved me to have been utterly mistaken.

  While we were exploring around and under the thick clump of trees, a sudden, lacerating double whistle broke the silence. We looked at one another. It was the falconer's whistle, yet he seemed as astonished as we.

  "I did not… did not do it. I never whistled," he stammered.

  Instinctively, he looked upward.

  "The glove, damn it," he cursed, seeing that his faithful pupil, hearing the call, was promptly returning and was looking for his forearm. So the falconer had to pull on his leather glove in furious haste and only just caught the flying beast in time. It was then, out of the corner of my eye, that I saw the white and yellow spot gliding silently to the left, once again in the direction of the Roman wall. Atto too realised this a few (important) moments later.

  The parrot had imitated the falconer's whistle perfectly, thus causing the predator to return to its master, down below. Caesar Augustus had thus gained enough time to get away, before his enemy could gain height and, with that, the ability to attack.

  "That way!" exclaimed Melani, turning to the falconer.

  The wasted time had given Caesar Augustus a distinct advantage. The falcon was once again freed and once again had to gain height. The dog was barking wildly.

  "Can your bird not attack at once?" asked Atto, running towards the point where Caesar Augustus had disappeared from sight.

  "He has first to gain height. He does not attack horizontally like a goshawk!" replied the falconer, as offended as if he had been asked to attend a wedding dressed in rags.

  This gave rise to a wretched, disorderly chase downhill along the Roman walls, following the road that traverses the Barberini property up to Piazza Cosimato. Behind the ancient walls, rhythmically punctuated by antique watchtowers, Caesar Augustus's yellow crest would reappear from time to time. He could not fly higher than the falcon, as herons do to dodge such attacks. He had, however, perfectly understood the enemy's weak points and was employing delaying tactics: flying low and passing very rapidly from a tree to a crack in the wall, then vice versa, alternating brief but lightning sorties with the repeated whistle which he had heard the falconer use and had at once learned to imitate to perfection. The falcon could only obey the commands which he had been taught from his very first training, and with every whistle he came back to his master, who was, understandably, almost out of his mind. A couple of times, Caesar Augustus also used the falconer's "Look! Look!" hunting signal, throwing
the adversary into such confusion that, if its master had not got it away from there with yells and curses, it might have turned its warlike attentions to a couple of innocent sparrows fluttering in the vicinity.

  The last part of the road was flanked on both sides by two ordinary walls and no longer by Roman ruins. I turned around to look for Atto: we had lost him. Caesar Augustus, too, was nowhere to be seen. I did, however, hope that he would have continued along the same trajectory as he had followed hitherto. In that case, as soon as we reached the first open space, we might perhaps have caught sight of him. It was thus that we came to the front of the convent of the nuns of Saint Francis, in Piazza San Cosimato. Abbot Melani arrived some time later, completely out of breath (despite the fact that he had left off running very early on) and sat down by the roadside:

  The hunter wastes much time at stalking

  The game he's after, riding, walking,

  He combs through hill and dale and hedge, Conceals h imself am ong the sedge,

  Oft scares away more than he gets

  If he's been slipshod with his nets.

  "Thus Albicastro would have mocked me with his beloved Brant, if he had seen the state I am in," Melani sighed philosophically, huffing and puffing like a pair of bellows.

  I noticed that the Abbot, as I had discovered many years previously, had a taste for citing quotations on the most varied occasions. Only, especially at difficult moments like this, he no longer had breath enough to sing them; and so, instead of the little songs of Le Seigneur Luigi, his one-time master, he preferred to quote verses.

  I then turned to contemplate the piazza. To my surprise, notwithstanding the fact that it was very early on Sunday morning, Piazza San Cosimato was full of people. His Holiness (but this I was to discover only later) had decided freely to grant the little boys and girls of Rome the Jubilee indulgence and the remission of sins, subject only to visiting the Vatican Basilica. For this reason, the children of various quarters were preparing to visit the Vatican in procession, with so many little standards, crosses and crucifixes. The maidens were all dressed in the most splendid lace surplices, and with garlands on their heads, each decorated for some particular devotion. The affecting little procession was attended and guided by the parents and by the nuns of the Convent of Saint Francis, all of whom were crowding into the piazza and witnessed our arrival, all dusty and fatigued, with no little surprise.

  The falconer was at his wits' end.

  "He is not coming back, I cannot see him," he blubbered.

  He had lost sight of his falcon. He feared that he might have been abandoned, as sometimes happen with raptors apparently tamed by their masters yet still in their hearts wild and proud.

  "There he is!" cried Atto.

  "The falcon?" asked the falconer, his face lighting up.

  "No, the parrot."

  I too had seen. Caesar Augustus, who must have been rather tired too, had just left a cornice and begun to glide in the direction of the nearby Piazza San Callisto. Atto was by now exhausted, while the falconer had thoughts only for his pupil. Only I and the dog were prepared to follow the parrot, with the opposite intentions: I, to save him, he, to slaughter.

  The dog barked like mad and charged to the attack, terrifying and scattering all the children from the ranks of the procession, amidst whom I too plunged in pursuit of the parrot, sowing further confusion and provoking the anguished reproofs of the nuns.

  By now Caesar Augustus was flying wearily, perching ever more frequently on windowsills, little shrines and balconies, then flying off only when fear of the dog, which bared its teeth angrily, forced him to seek some new refuge. I could not even ask him to land on the ground and give himself up. The dog was always ahead of me, barking wildly and leaping up furiously, simply longing to get its teeth into the poor fugitive. The passers-by watched in shock as our screaming scrimmage, an extraordinary chimera composed of fleeing wings, biting fangs and legs coming to the rescue, made its way forward.

  Several times, I narrowed my eyes, peering into the distance: the bird still seemed to have that wretched scrap of paper hanging onto a talon. After covering a considerable part of the Via di Santa Maria in Trastevere, our bizarre trio turned left and came at last to the bridge of the San Bartolomeo island.

  Caesar Augustus landed on a windowsill at the corner, just where the bridge begins. He was quite high up, and the dog (which had perhaps realised by now that it had lost all trace of its master) was beginning to tire of that exhausting, absurd circus. It looked at the parrot, which nothing now seemed likely to shift from its position of safety. To my left stood the San Bartolomeo bridge and, beyond it, that beautiful island, the one single piece of insular territory which completes and embellishes the impetuous flow of fair Tiber. The dog at last turned on its heels, not without one last outburst of rage and disappointment.

  "So, do you want to come down? We are alone now."

  In the parrot's eyes, I read his willingness to surrender at last to a friend. He was on the point of coming down. Instead, one last cruel reversal intervened.

  An old woman who lived in the house had come to the window. She had seen him. Taken aback by the unusual features of that bizarre and beautiful creature, yet incapable of appreciating such splendour and rendered nervous by her own stupidity, the hag tried brutally to drive him away, threatening to strike him. The poor fowl fled, borne on the wind which in that place generously accompanies the current of the river.

  I saw him successfully gain height, like some new falcon, dipping and again rising, until he gave way at last to the caprices of the eddying winds and disappeared from view, a drop in the sea of lost desires.

  I returned to the Villa Spada covered in sweat, worn out and embittered. I was to report at once to Abbot Melani with the bad news. He, however, had not yet returned. He must surely be resting, on the way back, from the exertions of the parrot hunt: an ordeal at his age, exacerbated by his painful arm. I decided that, rather than endure a discussion and Atto's complaints, it would be best to slip a note under the door of his apartment reporting on the negative outcome of the hunt. However, even before leaving him that message, I knew as soon as I set foot in the villa that the afternoon would be filled with chores, and yet more occasions for over-exertion.

  The wedding festivities included a ludic entertainment: a great game of blind man's buff in the gardens of the villa. Eminences, princes, gentlemen and noble ladies were to challenge one another in joyous competition: hiding, following, finding and getting lost once more among the hedges and avenues of the park, vying for who was to show the greatest sagacity, speed and skill. The game could be played only in a place where vision, access and even hearing were obstructed, making for ease of concealment and difficulty in discovering those hiding: the magnificent gardens of Villa Spada, now rendered almost labyrinthine by decorations ephemeral and floral.

  I was advised that my services would be required by Don Paschatio on this occasion, in view of a temporary shortage of staff. No fewer than four servants had deserted the Major-Domo, giving such more or less imaginative excuses as a fit of melancholy humour and the sudden death of a dear aunt.

  The day had grown cloudy, the temperature had gone down a little and so the game was to begin not too late. I hastened to find some sustenance in the kitchens; it was by now time for luncheon and the hunt for Caesar Augustus had left me ravenous. I found some leftovers of turkey and toasted eggs, by now grown cold, but a delight both for my taste-buds and for my stomach.

  I was still chewing on some little bones when one of Don Paschatio's assistants instructed me to don livery and report to the junction between the avenue alongside the secret garden and that which led through the vines down to the fountain. At that crossroads, a place of refreshment had been set up, with fresh waters, orange juice, lemonade, selections of fruit and vegetables, freshly cut bread and good preserves, all in the shade of a great pentagonal white and blue-striped pavilion, the pilasters of which were decorated with great woo
den shields bearing the family arms of the spouses' families, the Rocci and the Spada. All this had been provided to slake the thirst of the players of blind man's buff, overheated by all that running around, but also for the sake of those taking no part in the game and preferring to stay idly stretched out on the great white canvas armchairs in the shade of the pavilion.

  Making my way to my post, I could but admire once more the infinite caprices granted by the good architect of nature, of which, now that the work of gardening had been completed, I kept discovering new and admirable details. As in every garden all things must be pleasant, in the Villa Spada, every element had been bent to the pleasure of the eye and the intellect, starting with the order of woods and vegetation; for the art of building is a matter of more than the architecture of walls and roofs and comprises hedges, walks and avenues, meadows, porticoes, pergolas, palm trees, flower beds and kitchen gardens. The greatest villas possessed splendid tree-lined avenues, and it is true that we had none such. Therefore, to give a better tone to the walks, along the edges were aligned rows of noble box shrubs, privets and acanthus.

  Barrel-vaulted pergolas gently introduced the shy, admiring visitor to the confluence between one avenue and another, or to crossroads under verdant bosky cupolas. Espaliered laurels were trained as canopies, symmetrically tonsured and seven or even fifteen feet high, vying with sheltering holm-oaks, myrtle bushes shaped like umbrellas or sugar loaves, as well as with complete ephemeral wooden buildings, all covered with a mantle of vegetation, and rows of columns in green with festoons and wreaths providing a frame for the orchestra. From a semicircular platform, a small ensemble of string players filled the air with a melodious counterpoint, a joyous game of hide-and-seek between trills and pizzicati that seemed to anticipate the game to which the guests had been invited.

  Here, a few paces distant from the platform of the little orchestra, I had been detailed to serve, mixing orange juice and lemon, slicing bread, taking care of the armchairs and providing whatever else might please the excellencies and eminences present or passing by.