Rupert Thomson: Secrecy

Even as my eye was caught by the tilt and swirl of birds above the rooftops, I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder. Nothing there, of course. Nothing there. Only the quiet grass, and the pines, austere and dense, and the mauve vault of the sky, soaring, vast … More than fifteen years had passed, and still I couldn’t forget what lay behind me, what followed in my tracks. I had always feared there would come a time when, as in a dream, I would discover I was unable to run, or even move, as though I were up to my waist in sand, and then it would be upon me, and all would be lost.

I had left my hometown of Siracusa in 1675, the rumours snapping at my heels like a pack of dogs. I was only nineteen, but I knew there would be no turning back. I passed through Catania and on along the coast, Etna looming in the western sky, Etna with its fertile slopes, its luscious fruits and flowers, its promise of destruction. From Messina I sailed westwards. It was late July, and the night was stifling. A dull red moon, clouds edged in rust and copper. Though the air was motionless, the sea heaved and strained, as if struggling to free itself, and there were moments when I thought the boat was going down. That would have been the death of me, and there were those who would have rejoiced to hear the news. Rejoiced! Porco dio.

I was in Palermo for a year or two, then I boarded a ship again and travelled north-east, to Naples. I hadn’t done what they said I’d done, but there’s a kind of truth in a well-told lie, and that truth can cling to you like the taste of raw garlic or the smell of smoke. People are always ready to believe the worst. Sometimes, in the viscous, fumbling hours before dawn, as I was forced once again to leave my lodgings for fear of being discovered or denounced, such a bitterness would seize me that if I happened to pass a mirror I would scarcely recognize myself. Other times I would laugh in the face of what pursued me. Let them twist the facts. Assassinate my character. Let them rake their muck. I would carve a path for myself, something elaborate and glorious, beyond their wildest imaginings. I would count on no one. Have no one count on me. I was in many places, but I had my work and I believed that it would save me. All the same, I lived close to the surface of my skin, as men do in a war, and I carried a knife on me at all times, even though, in most towns, it was forbidden, and every now and then I would go back over the past, touching cautious fingers to the damage. It was in this frame of mind, always watchful, often sleepless, that I made my way, finally, to Florence.

I gazed down on the city once again. Set among the palaces and tenements was the russet dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, like half a pomegranate lying face-down on a cluttered dining table, its thick rind hollowed out, its jewelled fruit long gone. I could hear no cries, no bustle, but perhaps that shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me. I thought of the land I had travelled through, the farmhouses unpeopled, roofless, the highways and footpaths overgrown, the unpicked olives staring like blown pupils from their branches.

Ghost country.

Up on that ridge, I dropped to my knees, not in reverence or wonder, but because I wanted to contemplate the world I was about to enter, to give myself a few moments to prepare.

By the time I passed through the southern gate, a bell was tolling the night hour, its notes insistent and forlorn. The gatekeeper said I was lucky. Another minute, and I’d have had to sleep outside the walls. He seemed resentful; maybe I had deprived him of one of the clandestine pleasures of his job. I showed my papers to a guard. He yawned and waved me through. I found myself on Via Romana. Buildings crowded in on either side, the high grey-and-yellow façades bristling with barred windows, the eaves so exaggerated they almost met above my head. A thin dark ribbon of sky. I heard the gate crash shut, and a woman swearing. Locked out, presumably. The gatekeeper would be enjoying that.

I came to the Ponte Vecchio, its jewellery shops closed up for the night. Halfway across, I stopped and leaned on the parapet. The breeze lifting off the river smelled of duckweed and wet mud. Sixteen years of tentative arrivals and sudden, improvised departures, all my pleasures snatched, all my promises overlooked or broken. I remembered an afternoon spent with a young widow during my last visit to Rome. Her eyelids pulsed and fluttered as she lay beneath me, and her neck glistened with sweat, and I had been reminded of Maderno’s daring, exquisite sculpture of St Cecilia. Stay with me , the woman murmured. We’re so well suited … But here I was again, with everything before me, everything unknown.

A few minutes later, as the sheer, blank wall of the Bargello loomed above me, I was brought to a standstill by the sight of several round objects mounted on the battlements. In the gloom I could just make out bared teeth, clumps of hair. A bald man stepped out of a doorway and saw where I was looking.

‘Sodomites,’ he told me.

Only the other day, he said, a crow had set down just where I was standing with a human eyeball in its beak. Shrugging, he turned back to his meagre display of herbs and drupes.

I asked if he knew of an inn called the House of Shells. I had come too far, he said. It was on Via del Corno, behind the Palazzo Vecchio.

Rain fell, but not heavily, and I hurried on through the damp, curiously muted streets.

When I found the inn Borucher, the Grand Duke’s agent, had recommended, I passed beneath an archway and into a cramped courtyard. Soiled grey walls lifted high above me, the sky a black lid at the top. I doubted the sun would ever touch the ground, not even in the summer. Was this the right place? It didn’t look like much.

I was about to knock on the door when a girl of eleven or twelve appeared.

‘Is this the House of Shells?’ I said.

Her pale, square forehead reminded me of a blank sheet of paper, and she had threaded plants and bits of straw into her long, lank hair. Her shoes were the size of rowing boats.

‘This is the back entrance,’ she said. ‘And anyway, we’re full.’

‘I reserved a room.’

‘Who are you?’

‘The name’s Zummo.’

She led me down an unlit passageway that smelled of vinegar.

‘My mother will know what to do with you,’ she called out over her shoulder.

If her manner was grand, her gait was awkward and ungainly. Her whole torso heaved ceilingwards with every step, then slumped back again, as if, like a puppet, she was being manipulated from above by hidden strings. It occurred to me that she might have a club foot, or that her legs might not be of equal length.

We passed through another doorway and into a second courtyard, where a middle-aged woman in an orange shawl was bent over a flapping guinea fowl. She gave its neck a sudden, brutal twist, then straightened up and faced us, the dead bird dangling limply from her fist like a flower needing water.

‘You’re the sculptor,’ she said.

‘That’s right.’

‘I was expecting you a week ago.’

‘I walked from Siena. It took longer than I thought.’

She gave me a searching look, as if my words were a code that had to be deciphered. Her ash-coloured hair, which she had drawn back tightly over her skull, hung down like a rope between her shoulder blades. One of her top front teeth was missing.

‘Your luggage arrived,’ she said. ‘A mountain of stuff. I had it taken to your room.’

I thanked her.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll be charging you for those extra nights.’

‘Of course.’

‘I’m Signora de la Mar, by the way.’

‘That’s Spanish, isn’t it?’

‘My husband was Spanish, God rest his worthless soul.’ She crossed herself in a desultory way, then handed the guinea fowl to the girl. ‘Put this in the kitchen.’ When the girl had gone, she turned to me again. ‘Her name’s Fiore. I hope she doesn’t bother you.’