‘Yes, but I suspect I’ll have to be sly. How did your uncle save you?’
‘First he got removed from my case. Father Grassi – do you know him? – decided he was too soft and I a hard nut to crack. So they locked me up and put me on short commons to break my spirit and I, if I wanted my fortune, couldn’t run off. Wearing me down was their best option because they couldn’t rush me into final vows the way other orders do. It’s against their rule. So they went at it hammer and tongs: starvation, religion, soft talk alternating with harshness and no mention of my case ever. They claimed to be interested exclusively in my soul. You’re right, Nicola, I’m a veteran at escaping spiritual snares!’
‘How do you know they weren’t sincere?’
‘I couldn’t afford to see things their way. After ten months of their treatment, I pretended to be a convert. I looked it too: emaciated, hollow-eyed, etc. Perhaps I had been half won over? I was praying, but to a sort of counter-God of my own.’
‘That was God!’
‘Mine!’
‘Everyone’s. The same. The one!’
‘My captured image of Him. Private! Personal! He helped me too. My uncle turned up again – they’d sent him to Naples, but he came back and demanded to see me and was shocked at how I looked. He insisted on my being brought to the country and fed properly. He told me how the law suit was going. By now he was furious with Father Grassi. He said the case had been taken to right a wrong, that profit was a worldly concept and that he didn’t care whether the Society agreed with him or not because it and the Church were becoming images of the thing they fought: materialism, and that he was going to put in a petition to be secularised. Well, then they really grew worried because they feared losing us both, so Father Grassi was overruled – my uncle had gone over his head to the General – and I was released.’
‘In the end, then, you got what you wanted from everyone: from the Jesuits and from the Sacra Rota.’
‘Oh it was too late to stop that. My mother’s impudence had cooked her goose and there was no reversing things. Yes, I won.’
‘And your uncle?’
‘He’s still a Jesuit. He and I have a truce. He says I never grew up, but can’t be blamed because I had to live like an adult when I was small. Also that I’m vulgar but that vulgarity is a worldly notion. Do you mind my vulgarity, Nicola?’
‘I’ve always liked it. It’s robust!’
‘Then you’ll like Miss Ella. Let’s go over to the theatre.’
Outside, in weak gaslight, flights of porticoes gleamed like stalactites. Bologna’s gas, said Flavio, was of poor quality, being obtained by burning horses’ carcasses. Nicola laughed disbelievingly, but Flavio swore that it was true. And why not? Why shouldn’t the remains of hacks and nags be turned – like the souls in Dante – into light? Briefly and wretchedly – but still it was a glittering end! This reminded him of the lights of Paris, where he planned to stay until he had learned how to make money make more money. This was why he had had no scruple about keeping his fortune from the grasp of both his half-sister and the Society of Jesus, since he, unlike them, would make it multiply. ‘Don’t laugh. One day I shall come back and teach you. I’ll bring you profitable lore. I’ve already started acquiring it.’
‘In the circus?’
No, said Flavio. The circus was a sideline.
Walking into the theatre, Nicola drew a cloak over his clerical costume and was quickly installed in a shadowy corner of a box. Priests were forbidden to attend the theatre, but a blind eye was turned if a man was discreet.
Flavio left him alone while he went backstage to encourage Miss Ella – and to remind the doorkeepers that her excitable admirer was to be refused admission.
Meanwhile the music struck up and two clowns came forward to warm up the public. The show was, thought Nicola, innocent and wise: a handmaid to religion rather than, as was sometimes thought, an enemy. The circus swank showed up the vanity of vanities and the clown, arse up in sawdust, mocked the haughtiness which kept Roman landlords from learning how to read a balance sheet. He felt clairvoyant. Something was about to happen.
Flavio came back and sat in the front of the box nodding and bowing at people in other boxes while, down below, clowns with floury faces and great wounded smiles seemed vicariously to suffer the sorrows of the world.
‘Bravi! Bravissimi!’
Spangled limbs whirled and acrobats took their bow. The crowd roared and vendors profited by the pause to hawk fizzy drinks. These were new here and said to have anti-hypochondriac properties. ‘Seltz! Seidlitz!’ cried the hawkers.
‘She’s next!’ whispered Flavio. ‘Sit forward.’
Nicola did and could now see the stalls where enthusiasts were shouting for Miss Ella. ‘Meezella!’ they pronounced, domesticating the sound so that it had an almost meaningful ring – and indeed it did mean something. Misella – from the Latin, miserella – was a disused old word for a female leper, and though the claque would not be thinking of it, the forgotten meaning gave an enfevered edge to their cry. ‘Meezella! Meezella!’ It was to see her that they had paid their money, returning in many cases, said Flavio, several nights in a row. She was the draw. Without her, the circus could not have appeared in a theatre like this.
‘Here she comes!’
Among Miss Ella’s public, Nicola idly noted a man with a bright beard, something now rare, since civil servants who made up a large part of the population were forbidden to sport one.
‘Watch!’ whispered Flavio.
She was quite unlike the girl Nicola had met in the café. As though released from a chrysalis, she had shed gravity and seemed transfigured as she smiled her glazed smile – justified, he now saw, by the inner concentration it must take to risk life and limb before this public which screamed, as though driven by cannibal appetites, until quelled by the ringmaster, a cartoonish gentleman in lavender gloves. Silenzio! Silence for Miss Ella and her horse, Starlight. ‘What you are about to see …’ And he named the crowned heads who had admired the spectacle. Then the horse piaffed and executed various caracoles and curvets, after which the dancer rose to her feet on its back and began her dance. Taut as a bird in flight, she stood on one silken leg and extended the other, landed on Starlight’s back, repeated the movement in reverse, landed again astride the gently moving mount, then, leaning so far back that her throat was parallel with the ceiling, raised her marvellous legs like stamens and for moments was standing on her head as the horse proceeded around the ring at its docile, steady pace. Entranced, the audience held its breath and the moments were both painful and thrilling. A current bound them in a communion as close as the one between the dancer and her mount. Feeling Flavio’s hand in his, Nicola gripped it in recognition of the marvel. Then it was over and Miss Ella smiled for the first time with an easy, open smile.
‘Bis! Bis! Bis!’
‘Brava! Bravissima! Bis.’
The imperious demand for an encore would not let up. The ringmaster flourished a hand towards the dancer. It was up to her.
‘Bis!’ bullied the customers.
‘She’s tired,’ whispered Flavio anxiously. And indeed her taut, professional smile was back. Down in the front stalls, the bearded man fumbled, perhaps for a bouquet. Several had already appeared but were being withheld in the hope that she would perform again. She seemed to hesitate, patting and placating her horse, then, as if on impulse, urged it forward and began a briefer version of her routine, ending with her legs scissoring air like some cryptic hieroglyph. Suddenly she was down under the horse’s hooves, in a commotion of bent limbs, while members of the audience restrained the bearded man and someone snatched the pistol which had gone off, scaring Miss Ella’s mount so that it swerved and dropped her. Already the ringmaster had pulled the frightened animal clear of where she lay on the sawdust. Ladies screamed. Gentlemen tried to block their view.
‘Come with me.’ Flavio tugged at Nicola’s elbow.
Nicola found himself raced through agita
ted spectators, then past circus people in various stages of undress – a clown’s nose hung oddly around his neck – to where a small procession was carrying the dancer on a stretcher. Flavio and he followed this to her dressing room where Flavio insisted on being left alone with her while Nicola and the rest waited at the door. After some minutes, he emerged.
‘I don’t want anyone touching her until her own doctor comes,’ he ordered. ‘Damn him! He’s supposed to be here.’ The man, he was told, was being searched for through the city’s cafés. He drank, Flavio explained, and had in fact been debarred on that account or on some similar count from practising in his own country. ‘But he’s devoted to Miss Ella. She may be concussed.’
He sent everyone away and asked Nicola to guard the door. Please. This was a vital favour. Nobody but Flavio himself or the Irish doctor – his name was O’Higgins – must be let in. He thought he knew where O’Higgins might be and was going to look for him. Please, he pressed his friend’s hand, and left before Nicola could mention the trouble in which this could get him if his superiors were to hear that he had been seen lurking outside a circus dressing room, trying to hide his purple socks behind a clothes hamper and clutching his cloak to his chin.
When Flavio came back alone, Nicola made these points with vigour, and insisted on being let into the room. Standing in the corridor was courting trouble and he feared to run into gawkers if he tried to go out alone.
Inside, Miss Ella had begun to groan. Her spangled costume was constricting her, but couldn’t be removed without turning her over and Flavio’s attempts to do this hurt. She would have to be cut free. Shouldn’t they call one of the circus women for this, asked Nicola. But Flavio, tight-lipped, said ‘No’ and began to nick at the garments with a scissors. ‘Ella,’ he kept whispering. ‘We’ll get you more morphine in a moment. Hold on. Hold on.’ He looked demented, could not be argued with, yet was deft, perhaps, remembered Nicola, because he had been a leather worker. It was a slow business, though, and, after twice jabbing the flesh with his scissors, Flavio asked Nicola to get his finger under the stuff and hold it while he cut.
Miss Ella was now as still as a funerary statue: one of those crusaders’ wives carved in modestly compact folds and flutings ready for centuries of inactivity.
Nick, nick went the scissors, cutting the cloth pod so that it peeled away in a flurry of sequins, underneath which was a layer of padding which fell to reveal male genitalia.
Flavio covered them with a protective hand. ‘This is under the seal,’ he told his friend. ‘Only you, I and the doctor know.’
Then he began to weep.
*
A crinolined female dwarf, shaped like a pyramid, was in ambush as Nicola left. ‘Father, did you give her the last rites?’
‘No.’ He explained that he was not here as a priest. The eyes of two acrobats, an animal-trainer and the dwarf were on his violet stockings. Death-and-mourning colour, they registered. What but bad luck could his visit bode? They made gestures to ward it off and cursed the jackass with the pistol. Their season was ruined. An acrobat hissed that the public was stupid! Without his spangles, he looked like a coal-heaver! He spat. Then swore. Nicola fled.
*
Two days later, looking feverish, Flavio called on him with news that the doctor feared the dancer might have irremediably injured her back. ‘Her’ he said with a faint emphasis. They were thinking of taking her to a local thaumaturgist, a nun who was alleged to work miracles. What could they lose? Doctor, dancer and lover had been in confabulation for twenty-four hours in the small room, which smelled of pomade and urine, while outside the theatre the single word ‘Closed’ spelled ruin for the Circus.
Flavio said it was intolerable that someone like that could be crippled.
‘I won’t apologise for the deceit. You’d hardly want me to give scandal? My mother did enough of that. “Scion of great family practises vice of Sodom” is a scandal-sheet title before which I rather quail. They haven’t burned anyone for the offence lately, but why gamble?’ Miss Ella’s real name, he added, was Olmaz Kingsley and she had been born in Louisiana twenty-two years ago. Convenience aside, female horseback riders were more popular with the public.
‘Did you seduce Miss Ella?’
‘She seduced me. Look, Don Nicola, I’m not pure. Is that so bad? I’m doubtless seeing the mote in others’ eyes, but, as I see it, prideful purity is the plague of our times. It leads to bloodshed. I don’t kill anyone. And don’t talk of souls because they can be shriven, for instance by you. Do you know why I don’t flounce out of this glittery, tottery, hypocritical old Church? It’s because I like being in it. I was brought up as Nobody’s Child and now enjoy being one of this state’s ducal ornaments and am even ready to work for the privilege, which few are. I want it to go on, not to collapse. The Church is supposed to have many mansions – so why not a niche for me? At the moment you’re all busy cordoning off half the rooms and I do see why. You’re under fire, etcetera. But you shouldn’t reject friends. I’ll make a bargain with you if you like. I’ll promise not to hurt anyone too much and in a year or so I’ll be back to do you some practical good.’
‘Simony! You want to buy a licence to sin.’
‘Not at all, I’m showing esprit de corps by not leading a mutiny within St Peter’s barque. If it weren’t for loyalty I might. There’s no reason for the Church to condemn my love for Miss Ella. Don’t talk to me of “nature” because you don’t hold with it. It’s fallen. That’s your doctrine.’
‘We must redeem it!’
‘Bollocks! Keeping up appearances is the vital tribute and I’m making it. Don’t let’s quarrel. I have to go back to her. She can’t be left alone and the doctor isn’t as gentle as I am. We have to help her to relieve herself. She can’t move, you see. I’m her slop-emptier. Does that surprise you? I’m attached to her as I am to this doddery old state. Both she and it are rare phenomena and if it can’t perform its vital functions we’ll have to help it. Empty its slops. I must go.’
Nicola didn’t see him for a while after that. Six months later, though, he saw a poster for the Circo Cinisello featuring ‘the miraculous Miss Ella’, and guessed that either the doctor or the thaumaturge had cured her back.
Seventeen
Rome
About then he chanced to meet the lady who had done her best to bastardise Flavio.
The link was Miss Foljambe, who hailed him on one of her sorties with what must be yet another resigned young footman trundling a cartful of offal. The two were sheltering from a nipping wind between the columns of the tiny Temple of Vesta. Reminding Nicola of how, some years before, he had sent her Don Mauro’s address, she confessed that, from time to time, she sent the exile news that the Pope’s regime was on its last legs. It seemed, said she impishly, the kind thing to do. Now it was her turn to put Father Nicola in the way of doing a good deed. Would he call on her? There was a poor soul staying with her who needed consolation. ‘I think you know her son, Flavio. Wake up!’ shouted Miss Foljambe, but was only chiding her footman for failing to defend the offal from brigand cats. A near-earless torn, looking more simian than feline, had started a fight. ‘Come this afternoon,’ she cried while turning to deal with this.
On leaving her, Nicola’s thoughts turned to poor Don Mauro. Shortly after his ordination, he had heard that the ex-priest was in Paris, and, on looking him up, found him suffering from phthisis and living with a woman of whom he was ashamed. Though known locally as Monsieur Maur, and, presumably, resigned to lay status, he had been upset when Nicola walked in, dressed as the priest he now was. The Maur/Mauro ménage lived higgledy-piggledy in one room; privacy was impossible and Maur had insisted on getting out of bed.
‘Wait in the café,’ he told Nicola and began to shout at his companion, who had objected that he was too sick to move. Nicola, retreating from their conflict, reflected that if Don Mauro had had a beautiful mistress, the game might have seemed worth the candle; conversely, austerity would
have had claims to respect. Failures of both flesh and spirit were hard to redeem. Almost at once, though, while entering the acrid fug of the smoky café, he remembered that Maur/Mauro was a victim of failures not his own.
It was March and cold and when the exile arrived swaddled in a dingy scarf, discomfort grew. Nicola had hoped to be invited to witness peace restored in a tidy room. Instead, there was a prolonged palaver about credit with the café owner who, in the end, grudgingly, supplied two glasses of absinthe. No, no, said Mauro, Nicola must not pay. Very well. Pride was pride. He did not insist.
Looming between sunken cheeks, the sick man’s nose quivered tetchily. He was avid for news of home but turned out to know more than Nicola did. Had Nicola heard of the by-law forbidding cafés in Bologna to close their curtains? He tittered over that bit of petty repression, wondering what official snitchers hoped to see, then, as though challenged by candour, began to talk of his companion. A good woman, he stated a touch belligerently, but, well … Discomfited, he changed the subject.
Did Nicola know who was to be buried tomorrow here in Paris? The ex-Abbé de Lammenais! A brilliant spirit! ‘Remember what he said about Liberalism? “Do you fear it? Then baptise it!”’ Don Mauro repeated this several times, slapping the table and looking pugnaciously around. Nicola wondered whether he was running a fever. ‘He believed in the people,’ wheezed Don Mauro. ‘“Freedom and love,” he said, “will save the world.”’ Whispering, Don Mauro’s voice carried further than if he had spoken aloud, and its laboured suspiration gave it a ghostly authority. ‘He was the prophet of our time,’ breathed the sick, imperious voice. ‘He said the popes would lose their temporal power. Democracy will triumph, so the Church must come to terms with it Just remember that, Father Nicola! Remember those words!’
Nicola caught the eye of a girl who kept wiping the counter and watching him with curiosity. What, she must be wondering, was a young priest doing with Monsieur Maur? Looking with her eye at his companion’s stubbly face and room-dried linen, he guessed that he must be seen in the neighbourhood as a card.
The Judas Cloth Page 37
