The Sect of Angels

by Andrea Camilleri

  “No, thank you, Marshal. I’ll drop in again later.”

  *

  So, what could he dream up to help the time pass? He went and paid a call on Giallonardo the notary. He wanted to know what he and his wife had decided about Rosalia. And if Giallonardo asked him why he was so interested, he would reply that he wanted to write an article about it. But there was no need to ask anything.

  “My husband’s not in,” said Signura Romilda.

  Her eyes were red. It was clear she’d been crying.

  “When will he be back?”

  “He’s gone to Camporeale to bring Rosalia back here. Did you know she killed herself?”

  Big tears began to roll down her cheeks.

  “Yes, I was told.”

  “I’m sorry, but we were very fond of her, my husband and I. She was a poor orphan girl. We took her in when she wasn’t even ten years old, poor little thing. Tomorrow, since the funeral can’t be held in a church, I’m going to have Don Filiberto give his benediction outside the church of San Cono. He was so fond of Rosalia himself! He was always saying how devout she was! How powerful her faith!”

  “And at what time will he give his blessing?”

  “Tomorrow morning at nine.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  He wouldn’t have missed Don Filiberto Cusa’s blessing for Rosalia for all the gold in the world.

  *

  While stepping out of the notary’s house, he heard someone calling him. It was don Anselmo.

  “How are we coming along?”

  “On Totina’s case?”

  “Of course!”

  Teresi decided to tell him a lie to keep him in check.

  “It couldn’t have been the husband of the sister of the wife of your overseer.”

  A complicated sentence, but he’d forgotten all those people’s names, except for Totina’s.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s true he’s eighty years old, as you say, but to look at him you’d think he’s at least ninety. The guy can barely even breathe.”

  “But have you seen him in person?”

  “Of course. With these two eyes. I always serve my clients honestly.”

  “But are you starting to get any ideas as to who it might have been?”

  “I’m gathering information, don Anselmo.”

  “Well, I’m telling you: if and when you find out who did it, I want to be the first to know.”

  “But why are you so keen to know?”

  “So I can shoot him.”

  “I’m sorry, but what has this got to do with you? You’re not her father, husband or brother . . . ”

  “You’re right! But I’ll shoot him just the same! Come on! I’ve been raising the kid for twenty years, buying her things, giving her money without telling my wife, and the girl could never spare me even a caress or a little peck on the cheek . . . And now the first son of a bitch to come along suddenly gets her pregnant?”

  *

  Teresi made a plan. Go home, prepare a liter of chamomile tea, drink the whole thing, take a bath, change all his clothes because he was all sweaty, then go to the station at twelve-thirty and ask after Montagnet. If he happened to be in—which was impossible because the colonel had summoned him for an early afternoon meeting—he would tell him everything. If he wasn’t, the only thing to do was to wait in front of the church, stop Stefano and Luigino when they arrived, and wait for Montagnet to return.

  The lads weren’t at home. Stefano’s jacket with the mourning band on the sleeve was hanging from the coatrack. He would have to drop by to put it on. Beside it was the black tie. All at once, Teresi felt a chill run down his spine. Matre santa, what a terrible mistake they’d made that morning! Good thing it was still early and there were no people out on the street. Because anyone who knew Stefano, seeing the youth on the street, dressed in mourning, would surely have asked him who in his family had died! Teresi went into the lad’s bedroom, took an overcoat from the armoire, and brought it into the entrance hall. Then he did what he’d decided to do, and as he was coming out of the bathroom, he heard Stefano return. He got dressed in a hurry. It was half past twelve.

  “Where’s Luigino?”

  “He’s waiting for me near the church.”

  “I’m going to the carabinieri station to see if Montagnet’s there. And, listen: I want you to wear an overcoat. I put yours in the vestibule.”

  “Why?”

  Teresi explained why.

  “And if anyone asks why I’m wearing an overcoat?”

  “Tell them you have the flu. Everyone’s been getting the flu in this town, so why can’t you?”

  *

  “No, there’s been no news from the captain.”

  Teresi became discouraged. He was sure that Don Filiberto would give the money to Stefano, but also that as soon as he broke the story in his newssheet, the priest would claim that none of it was true, and that it was a scheme hatched up by the notorious anticlerical lawyer Matteo Teresi in cahoots with his nephew Stefano to drag the church’s good name through the mud. His brain was telling him to dash over to San Cono and stop the two lads. But his instinct told him to let things take their course. His instinct won out.

  He raced back home, got undressed down to his underpants, and lay down in bed with his head under the pillow.

  Then, a little while later, he heard the front door of the house open and close. He pulled his head out from under the pillow. He could hear the two youths in the kitchen, but they weren’t talking or laughing. What had happened?

  He went downstairs dressed just as he was. Stefano hadn’t even taken his coat off and was sitting in a chair, drinking a glass of water. He looked pale. Luigino was also sitting down, his head in his hands.

  Neither of the two seemed to have noticed Teresi.

  “So what happened?”

  They said nothing.

  “Jesus Christ, would you tell me what happened?” said Teresi, raising his voice.

  “The priest hanged himself,” said Luigino.

  Teresi felt the ground give out from under his feet. The trap he’d laid for the priest had worked all too well. Damn the moment he got that brilliant idea!

  “Did anyone see you go in or come out?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “We entered by way of the sacristy door, which was open,” said Luigino. “We went upstairs, and there he was, in the first room. Hanging from the ceiling. It was . . . ghastly. There was an envelope on the table.”

  “Did you take it?”

  “Yes. And I put it in Stefano’s pocket. I had to literally drag him out of there. He was in shock and couldn’t move.”

  Teresi looked over at his nephew. The lad’s eyes were open wide and staring into space. He went up to him, stuck his hand in the youth’s pocket, took the envelope out, and opened it.

  You won’t get the money you wanted, because I was unable to find anyone to lend me such a sum. In exchange, I give you my confession. I abused Rosalia Pampina, my parishioner, for a long time, and in unnatural ways, making her believe that what we were doing were secret practices to ward off temptation and to allow her to remain pure until marriage. But the evening she came to confess about having been raped by Salamone the brigand, I don’t know what got into me. What Rosalia said isn’t exactly correct—that is, that the penance is like the sin. In fact, the penance was worse than the sin. You can sell this letter of mine to a newspaper, if you like. They will surely pay you more than what you asked of me.

  This was followed only by the man’s signature.

  “Do me a favor,” Teresi said to Luigino. “Go and look for Dr. Palumbo and bring him back here. I’m getting worried about Stefano.”

  CHAPTER XI

  AN INCONVENIENT DEATH

  It wa
s the sacristan, Virgilio Bellofiore, who discovered the body of Patre Filiberto, whereupon the whole town did a repeat—that is, descended into a pandemonium almost exactly like the one unleashed on the day of don Anselmo’s cholera.

  Spooked as he was, the sacristan, dashing out of the house, missed a step and rolled all the way down the staircase, smashing his nose. Then, picking himself up, he went out into the street with his face covered in blood and shouting desperately:

  “Don Filiberto killed himself!”

  These words were quickly passed from mouth to mouth by hundreds of people. Those in the street repeated them to those at their windows, while those at their windows shouted them at those on their balconies, and those on their balconies yelled them at those on their terraces, while those on their terraces shouted them in turn at the wind, and the wind soon carried the news out into the countryside around Palizzolo.

  What happened next was that whoever was eating stopped eating; whoever was sleeping woke up; whoever was breastfeeding laid the crying baby down; whoever was working in the vegetable garden set the hoe aside; whoever was dying managed to stave off death; and whoever was making love stopped in the very midst.

  And all those who could do so ran towards the church of San Cono, filled up Piazza Garibaldi, and clogged the nearby streets.

  “Is it really true he killed himself?”

  “Apparently.”

  “But is it true or not true?”

  “It’s true.”

  “And how did he kill himself?”

  “With rat poison.”

  “He shot himself.”

  “He threw himself off the balcony.”

  “He inhaled the smoke from the bedwarmer.”

  “He hung himself from a ceiling rafter.”

  “He stabbed himself in the heart.”

  “But why?”

  “He’d gone crazy.”

  “He was a gambler. He’d lost a lot of money playing zicchinetta.”

  “Come on! The man had never seen a playing card in his life!”

  “He was sick.”

  “He had debts.”

  “He’d quarreled with the bishop.”

  “He didn’t believe in God anymore.”

  “Did he leave any note?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing? When someone kills himself, he always leaves a note saying why!”

  “This whole thing is very strange!”

  “Extremely strange!”

  “Maybe he wrote to the bishop.”

  “Maybe he did write a letter, which they then destroyed.”

  “Who?”

  “I dunno! The sacristan, for one.”

  “And why would he destroy it?”

  “Maybe it said some compromising things.”

  “Bah!”

  “Now I’m having my doubts.”

  “And what if he didn’t kill himself?”

  “What do you mean, didn’t kill himself?”

  “I mean, what if he was killed and then they made it look like he killed himself?”

  “And why was the sacristan’s face all bloody?”

  “Maybe he caught the killers in the act.”

  “Then why was he yelling that the priest had killed himself?”

  “’Cause they threatened him. They would’ve killed him too, if he didn’t say what he did.”

  “That’s bullshit!”

  “Who would have wanted to kill Don Filiberto?”

  “He didn’t have any enemies.”

  “All he ever did was good.”

  “He helped everybody.”

  “He always had a good thing to say about everyone.”

  “He would take from himself to give to others!”

  “He was an honest man! A great man!”

  “A great man? He was a saint!”

  “A saint! A saint! A saint!”

  Growing more and more excited, the throng began to move forward, perhaps to go into the church to get a glimpse of the saint’s mortal remains, or else to give vent to all the agitation they’d been subjected to of late, from the cholera scare to the arrest of Marquis Cammarata.

  “Saint! Saint! Saint!”

  “Let’s break down the door of the church!”

  “Let’s grab the saint for ourselves!”

  “We’ll have a procession and march him through town!”

  The six carabinieri who’d formed a cordon in front of the church started backpedaling.

  Marshal Sciabbarrà felt lost. If the crazed mob actually did manage to get their hands on the corpse, they would surely tear it immediately to pieces, each trying to get his own personal relic.

  Without thinking twice, he cocked his revolver and fired twice in the air. Everyone fled. Everyone, that is, except eighty-year-old ragioniere Michele Orlando, who lay on the ground in the middle of the piazza, cut down by a heart attack.

  *

  The sacristan, meanwhile, had raced over to the nearest church, which was San Giovanni. The main door was half closed. Dashing in, he nearly crashed into Don Alessio Terranova, the parish priest, who was just coming out to close up.

  “Don Filiberto killed himself!”

  Don Alessio froze with his left foot in midair, unable to complete his step.

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  “He killed himself! Hung himself from a rafter! I saw him with my own eyes!”

  Don Alessio set his left foot down.

  “Did he leave any kind of written message?”

  “I didn’t see anything! But it really spooked me!”

  “Go and wash your face!”

  These words took the sacristan by surprise. He didn’t understand.

  “What did you say?”

  “Wash your face. It’s all covered with blood.”

  “I’ll go into the sacristy.”

  “No, don’t waste any time. Wash it right here, with the holy water in the baptismal font. Then go and tell Patre Raccuglia, Patre Scurria, Patre Samonà, Patre Marrafà, and Patre Pintacuda.”

  “You forgot Patre Dalli Cardillo.”

  “No, I didn’t forget him. There’s no need to go and talk to Patre Dalli Cardillo. But you must tell all the others to meet here, in no more than fifteen minutes.”

  *

  “Listen, Marshal, they told us at the courthouse that no judges are available at the moment.”

  “What do they mean ‘at the moment’?” Marshal Sciabbarrà asked his colleague at the other end of the telephone line.

  “They mean that before tomorrow no magistrate from Camporeale can come to Palizzolo.”

  “So I’m supposed to leave the priest dangling from the rafter until tomorrow?”

  “I have an idea. Cut the rope he’s hanging from, and later, when they ask you about it, tell them you did it because you thought the priest was still alive.”

  “All right, but then what am I going to do with the corpse?”

  “Have somebody fashion a catafalque from the bedclothes and posts, then put it out on display in the church.”

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  “Why, what’s wrong with that?”

  “If the bishop comes and sees it, he’ll break my neck! Don Filiberto is excommunicated, since he killed himself!”

  “You’re right. Wait, let me ask the captain.”

  Three minutes went by during which Marshal Scibbarrà damned his soul by dint of curses.

  “Sciabbarrà? The captain wants to know if there are any chests in the sacristy.”

  “Yes, there are two or three.”

  “Wait just a second.”

  The marshal had all time he needed to utter every curse he knew.

  “Sciabbarrà? The
captain says you should bring the body down into the sacristy and put it temporarily in one of the chests.”

  “What about afterwards?”

  “We’ll see about what to do afterwards. And don’t let anyone into the sacristy.”

  *

  His Most Reverend Excellency Egilberto Martire, bishop of Camporeale, normally took a half-hour nap after eating. That day, before dozing off, he’d given an order to his staff.

  “You mustn’t wake me for any reason! I don’t want to be bothered for anything, even if you start hearing the goddamn trumpets of the Apocalypse!”

  Therefore his secretary, Don Marcantonio Panza, solved the problem by calling his second secretary, Don Costantino Perna.

  “Listen, Don Costantino, I just now got a phone call from the mayor of Palizzolo. Apparently the priest of San Cono parish, Don Filiberto Cusa, has killed himself.”

  “Killed himself?! O Madonna benedetta! How very strange! Are they sure?”

  “That’s exactly why I’ve decided to go straight to Palizzolo myself. I’d like to confirm things in person. I’ll inform His Excellency by telephone. And when he wakes up, you must tell him everything, but with the utmost caution.”

  *

  With the help of two carabinieri and Lance Corporal Magnacavallo, Marshal Scibbarrà did what the captain had said and, just to be sure, not only covered the chest with the priestly vestments he’d found inside, but placed four heavy bronze candelabra on top as well. Then he left the lance corporal and carabinieri on guard outside the sacristy door, to prevent anyone from going in, and headed back to the station.

  Half an hour later, the lance corporal found six priests he already knew standing before him.

  “We’ve come to bless the mortal remains of our unfortunate brother,” said a sorrowful Don Alessio Terranova, opening his cloak so the guard could see the aspergillum and basin he’d brought.

  Lance Corporal Magnacavallo broke out in a cold sweat. Now what was he going to tell these priests? Could he possibly tell them they’d put the body inside a chest? Then he had an idea.