We’ve got plenty of other things to deal with.’ Bassetti said good night, then disappeared into an adjoining room.
Acting on an impulse I didn’t entirely understand, I unpinned my violet and dropped it over the balustrade. As I stepped back into the shadows, heart hammering, I heard the man let out a grunt of surprise. Perhaps the violet had spiralled past his face. I could imagine him staring at the flower, then glancing over his shoulder. I couldn’t imagine his expression, though. I didn’t even know what he looked like. At some point he would probably discover that violets had been worn by people who attended the banquet, but it seemed unlikely he would be able to trace that particular violet back to me. I climbed the stairs again, on tiptoe.
His name was Stufa.
Since flowers didn’t fall all by themselves, from nowhere, he would realize that somebody had been watching him. Would he assume the violet was a love-token – that he had a secret admirer, in other words – or would he see it in a more sinister light? Though I didn’t know the man, and had nothing against him, I found myself hoping that the falling flower had sent a shudder through him. Of uncertainty, at the very least. Or, better still, of fear.
The howling of the wind hid the sound of the Frenchman’s somersaults. The strips of oiled cloth that hung against the window reached into the room; I felt damp air move over my face. Turning on to my side, I pulled the covers up around my ears. They had a name for these bitter, nagging gusts that blew out of the north, but I had forgotten what it was. Once again, I heard the bald man’s grating whisper. What about the Sicilian? That had to be me, didn’t it? Who else could he be talking about? You want me to look into it? Then Bassetti’s voice. Not yet. By which he meant that there would come a time – and, unfortunately, there was plenty to unearth.
I remembered a bright spring morning in 1675. Sunlight angled down into the courtyard in the middle of our house. I was having breakfast with my mother and her sister, Flaminia, when Jacopo appeared unexpectedly. I had thought he was billeted with a battalion of Spanish troops in Messina; in fact, we’d all thought so. Jacopo wasn’t alone. Lurking behind him, close as a shadow, was Padre Paone from Sant’ Andrea, the church opposite our house. Padre Paone had baptized me, and had given me my first communion. I had known him since I was a child.
I got up to offer him a seat.
‘Given the circumstances,’ he said, ‘I think I’d better remain standing.’ He would not meet my gaze.
‘I’m not sure how to begin.’ Jacopo’s tongue shifted inside his mouth, as if he had eaten something that had gone off, then his head lunged in my direction. ‘First your obsession with making parts of people’s bodies, and now these – these practices of yours …’
I had no idea what he was talking about.
‘What did I tell you, Father?’ Jacopo said. ‘Not even a flicker of remorse.’
The priest stepped forwards. He spoke quietly, and his face had curdled, like milk left in the sun. He used the word ‘abomination’.
I glanced at my mother, then my aunt. They seemed entirely passive, in a trance, perhaps because this was a familiar voice, a commanding voice, a voice that delivered homilies and granted absolution.
Jacopo took over. ‘He’s going to be tried, found guilty, and thrown into prison, and the good name of this family – this noble family – will be dragged through the dirt. Never again will we be able to hold up our heads in this town –’
‘But what is it?’ Aunt Flaminia broke in at last. ‘What has he done?’
Jacopo turned to the women with an expression of mingled horror and supplication, as though he had been entrusted with the most terrible knowledge, and was only keeping it to himself in order to protect them.
‘Father?’ he said in a cracked voice.
At times, truly, I thought Jacopo had missed his vocation. Forget the military: he should have pursued a career on the stage.
Once again, the priest began to murmur. This time, he was more specific. This time he mentioned carnal knowledge of the dead.
‘Jacopo,’ my mother said, ‘there must be some mistake –’
Jacopo leaned over her. ‘We have witnesses.’ He turned to me, the muscles knotting and flexing in his jaw.