S. Parris - The Secret Dead

With this, he grasped a hank of her lush hair and sliced itthrough cleanly at the roots, as I turned my face away.

* * *

All through the long journey to the Fontanelle cavern, hedid not say a word to me, except once, to ask if I carried a dagger. When Isaid yes, he gave a dry laugh. “Of course you do. This is Naples. Even novicenuns carry a blade beneath their habits.” I wondered if he was afraid the girl’skiller might still be lurking nearby. I tried to shut out the thought that Gennaroknew more about the murderer than he was letting on.

We took turns pushing the cart with the makeshift coffin,the two of us wearing old servants’ cloaks with the hoods pulled up closearound our faces, despite the warm night, so that we would not be recognized asfriars. I could not tell if Gennaro was angry with me for questioning him, orfor my squeamishness, or if he was just tired. Reducing the girl to hunks ofbloodied meat had not been an easy task. The human body is tougher than itlooks; limbs need to be wrenched from sockets, bones sawed through, jointsseparated with a hammer. Gennaro must have been exhausted, but he did it allalone, while I sat with my back against the wall and my head in my hands,trying to shut out the sounds. What he packed into that box, wrapped carefullyin oilcloth to stop the blood from dripping through the wood, was no longerhuman. I stole glances at the casket as he led us through the twisting backstreets in the dark, his face dogged and clenched in the light of my lantern.

A couple of times we turned a corner to find a group ofyoung men staggering home from the taverns, arms slung around one another’sshoulders, half-empty bottles dangling from their hands. Each time I bracedmyself, my hand twitching to my knife in case they should decide to have somesport with us, but they looked at the cart and steered a wide berth around it,their raucous songs faltering away to nothing as they eyed the box. No one wantsto be reminded of death in the midst of their revels. I suppose they took usfor those men who clear the beggars off the streets. At the Porto San Gennaro,I saw the glint in the darkness of coins changing hands as the infirmarian exchangeda few words with the guards, who seemed unsurprised to see him. One of themnodded, before unlocking a small side gate and gesturing us through.

The road began to slope steeply upward into the Capodimontehillside. With the incline and the stony track, the cart became harder to move,as if it were resisting its destination; we had to put our backs into the work,and within minutes I was soaked with sweat beneath my cloak. I had no idea howfar it was to Fontanelle — it was not a place I had ever thought to visit — andI did not like to risk Gennaro’s anger by asking him. I knew only that it was agreat cavern up in the hills, left behind by the excavation of tufa forbuilding. In the early years of the century, the Spanish authorities had begunclearing the city’s churchyards to make room for more bodies, and the oldremains had been taken to the Fontanelle cave. Since then it had become adumping ground for the city’s outcast dead: those who could not afford or had beendenied burial in consecrated ground. Lepers. Sodomites. Suicides. The lazzaroni - the nameless poor who died in the streets. Plague victims were thrown in,whenever there was an outbreak. Fontanelle had become a great charnel-house ofthe unwanted; people said you could smell it from the north gate if the wind wasin the wrong direction.

I caught the stench as the incline grew steeper and thetrack widened out into a plateau; rotting flesh and stale smoke, the kind ofbitter ash that hung in the air and worked its way into your nose and mouth asyou breathed. A man lurched forward out of the shadows to greet us; again, thechink and flash of money from somewhere inside Fra Gennaro’s cloak. A smallbrazier burned by the entrance to the cavern. In its orange glow, I saw thatthe man’s face was badly deformed, though his body looked strong; his browbulged low over one side like an ape’s and he had been born with a harelip.Perhaps this was the only place he could find work. At least the dead would notthrow stones at him in the street, or shout insults. He and Gennaro spoke inlow voices; I had the sense that they too were familiar with each another. Iwatched as the man took the cart and wheeled it toward the mouth of the cave, amaw of deeper shadows that swallowed him until he disappeared from view.

I turned to see Gennaro studying me.

“Are you all right?” he said.

Beneath my robe, my legs were trembling as if with cold. Itold myself it was the climb. I gestured toward the cave.

“What if he tells someone?”

“He won’t.”

“How do you know? Surely you can’t see a body in that stateand not ask questions?”

“Part of his job is knowing not to ask questions.” Gennarosquinted into the darkness and pulled his cloak tighter. “Besides, he won’tbite the hand that feeds him.”

I did not immediately grasp his meaning, until I thought ofthe coins chinking quietly into the man’s hand, their familiarity. Of course: Thiswould not be the first time Gennaro had brought a dismembered body here fordisposal under cover of darkness, no explanations required. I wondered how manyother illegal anatomizations he had carried out in that little mortuary underthe storehouse, with its convenient tunnel for ferrying bodies out unseen.

The man returned with the cart and the empty box.

“I’ll let you know if I find anything suitable,” hemuttered, darting a wary glance at me. Gennaro gave him a curt nod and turned againtoward the road.

A pale glimmer of dawn light showed along the eastern horizonas we walked back down the track, the city a dark stain below us.

“Does he sell you bodies?” I asked bluntly.

Gennaro looked sideways at me. “Remember your oath,Brother.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence. Under the cloak Icould feel stiff patches on my robe where the girl’s blood had dried. Iwondered how I would explain that to the servant who came to take my laundry.

“I prescribe a hot bath for this fever that has kept youfrom tonight’s services, Bruno,” Gennaro said, as if he had heard my thoughts. “Iwill instruct the servants to fill the tub in the infirmary. Clean yourselfwell. I will see to your clothes.”

“Will you write about this?” I asked him, as we approachedthe gate.

He smiled, for the first time since we had set out. “Ofcourse. This is one of the most important anatomizations I have ever performed.To study a child in utero is a rare piece of luck, as I told you.”

Not for the child, I thought. “But you cannot publish youraccount, surely?”

“True. At least, not in Naples, and not under my own name. Eventually,however, who knows …” His voice tailed off and his eyes grew distant. Perhapshe was dreaming of a book full of his experiments and discoveries.

“But in the meantime — are you not afraid someone will findyour notes?”

He smiled again, like a child holding a secret. “I keepthem very safe. And I trust you, as I said.”

I forced myself to return his smile, though he meant that Iwas now as deeply implicated as he was. In ways I could not yet fullycomprehend, I felt irreversibly altered by what we had done that night. Despitescrubbing myself with scalding water and a bristle brush until my skin grewraw, I could not erase the smell of blood, nor the memory of the girl’s wilddeath stare. Fra Gennaro made me up a bed in the infirmary, so that I wasexcused the office of Lauds on account of my supposed fever, but I could notrest. If I closed my eyes I saw her walking toward me with her handsoutstretched, pleading, before she reached up and tore the skin from her ownface until it hung in tatters from the bloodied pulp beneath.