by Mari Biella
A sudden burst of green and gold lit up the sky, and was followed a second later by a loud explosion. The man paused, looked out of the window, and then glanced at me.
“A celebration,” he said. “The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, perhaps. Are you a religious person?”
“Not particularly.”
“Neither was I. I had been brought up in a moderate, almost casual Christianity, as had most people of my time and place; I was raised in a church made timid by science and suffering. However weak my faith, though, I was more of a Christian than I thought. I believed in God, and I feared Him; I feared damnation. And in those days I felt damnation falling over me like the night.” He paused again and then, to my surprise, smiled. “You don’t believe me, do you? You think I’m making all of this up.”
I didn’t reply.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Had some stranger told me such a story when I first arrived here, I doubt I would have believed a word of it either. We live in a sceptical Age.
“Certainly very few people could have imagined what was happening back then. The authorities – not unreasonably, perhaps – seemed inclined to suspect me. I, after all, was now the common factor in two sudden and violent deaths. Distrust followed me like a shadow. People turned and stared as I walked down the street, and I heard whispering behind my back. Often I saw Barbarigo or one of his men apparently following me, watching my every move. Only the lack of proof saved me from being arrested. The cause of the landlord’s death could not be determined, and it was thought possible that he might have fallen on the stairs during the night and broken his neck.
“Such innocent explanations did little to lift the weight of suspicion from my shoulders, however. Unsurprisingly, when my landlady looked at me now, it was with misgiving – no, with fear. She was afraid of me, who had never knowingly harmed another being in his life, who was as perplexed as anyone by the shadow of death that seemed to be descending around him. As soon as she had composed herself enough to speak, she timidly asked me to leave, giving me only a few days in which to make alternative arrangements.
“To leave the place where I had once been almost happy no longer seemed a sacrifice. I remembered the being that had attacked me – on two occasions now – and feared that it might return, and finish its work. It was this threat, perhaps, that led to my decision to leave Venice without delay. I began to organise my journey home, opting for the most direct and least troublesome route. This was necessary, as my health was now suffering badly. I felt myself weakening by the day – weakening so much that I sometimes thought that, if I did not go home soon, I might not be able to get back there at all. My body often seemed beyond my control: I shook, I dropped things, I stumbled and fell. I increasingly saw myself as a condemned man, teetering on the very brink of the grave – but no, that was not a sound comparison. Even a criminal, bound for the gallows, may hope for a reprieve. There would be none for me.
“Perhaps it was my desperation which had attracted her in the first place. She was a killer, of course; her entire existence was but the background against which the kill took place. But she was not a devil, not quite. She had a conscience, you see: a weak, flickering conscience, but it was there, and it informed her actions to an extent. Some she killed suddenly, quickly. The very speed with which she brought death might have seemed merciful.
“Others, like me, she seduced. I think she must have smelled the desperation in me, the fear and the isolation. Perhaps she thought that it was kinder to kill me softly, gently, bringing as much pleasure as pain. And the worst thing is that she was entirely correct in thinking so.”
