A Season for the Dead

Twenty-Two

He had given her some water and a piece of bread, allowed her to go to the bathroom, though strictly under his supervision, and he had watched, a little too closely, she thought. Then he had led her back, kicked the chair across the room until it stood next to a black, upright beam and tethered her tightly to the arms. Her hands remained bound throughout, with a loose rope around her ankles to prevent her trying to run. Running was, in any case, not an option. They were in some strange, medieval room, an octagonal chamber littered with rubbish: books and videotapes, CDs, clothes and, on the walls, photographs, everywhere, some of a woman she vaguely recognized.

The pictures alarmed her. Alicia Vaccarini refused to look too closely.

In the corner a narrow, circling staircase led to a room below, to the outside world and freedom. Some way distant, it had to be. As soon as he took off the gag she had screamed until her lungs hurt, screeching for help, yelling murder, murder, murder. He’d just stood there, watching, not smiling, not angry. Waiting for the panic to subside. When she was done, when there was no more breath left in her body, he shook his head and said, “No one can hear, Alicia.”

She had screamed again at that, until her voice went hoarse. He had hardly paid attention, half watching the movie on the TV somewhere behind her head. She recognized the film from the soundtrack. It was Pasolini’s The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, the arrival of the three Wise Men to the accompaniment of the old Negro spiritual “Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child.” He seemed affected by it somehow; she wondered how to turn this to her advantage. How she might get out of the stuffy, airless tower alive.

Then he switched channels, over to one of the mainstream stations which was showing a soccer match. It was a deliberate act, one with a point. It said there was something to be done.

Gino Fosse picked up a low wooden stool, brought it in front of her, sat down and took her head in his strong, pale hands.

“You thought I was a priest, Alicia.”

She was too frightened to say anything, too confused to second-guess what he wanted.

“Well?” he insisted.

He waited. Perhaps her silence would make him angry.

“You looked like one,” she said. “For a little while.”

“Then confess to me,” he said. “Confess everything.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“The truth.”

He was crazy, she knew that. But there was some strong, linear logic in what he sought. If she found what that was, perhaps there could be some hope of survival.

“I have sinned, Father,” she said.

“Don’t call me 'Father'!" Gino Fosse’s bellows echoed off the walls of the tiny chamber. His face contorted with fury. She was silent. She waited, watching him make a concerted effort to control his emotions. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Not your fault. My anger wasn’t directed at you. Just talk to me, Alicia. Confess.”

The tears were starting to burn in her eyes. She racked her brain, trying to think of something that would satisfy him.

“I’ve committed unnatural acts.”

“Of course,” he said. “And you’ll be forgiven. But these are small things.”

It was impossible to know, she thought. No one was free of private vices, no one lacked a history he or she would not care to share with the world. “Help me. Please.”

He nodded, understanding instantly what she required. “Four months ago,” he said, “you sat on a judicial committee looking into the question of diplomatic immunity for certain people. You recall this?”

“Yes.”

“There were decisions made, votes taken. Were all of them based on fairness? Or did you seek, and get, some reward for some of your actions?”

“Denney,” she whispered, feeling cold.

“No names!”

“I didn’t know the rest of them would vote against me. I thought… I was given to understand they’d received the same favors. They’d go the same way.”

His dark eyes regarded her icily. “Judges and deputies. Lawyers and ‘public servants’…” Spittle flecked his lips when he said the last. Some deep, inner hatred surfaced within Gino Fosse and she knew, at that moment, this was hopeless. He would do whatever he planned to do because his mind was made up. The rest was an act, a show for his conscience, not hers.

“I did what I promised,” she insisted. “I can’t be held responsible for other people.”

“There was a price, Alicia. For you. And for those involved. What was that price?”

“Money,” she replied. “Don’t ask how much. I can’t remember. Not a lot.”

“And?”

He knew. He had to have some prior knowledge. It was a wonder to her. She had believed this had been so private. She thought of the photographs on the wall. It was possible…

“I was provided with some personal entertainment.”

His dark eyebrows rose. “'Personal entertainment'? Specify, please."

“They sent me a woman for the night. She didn’t mind. What’s it to you?”

His hand came out from his side and slapped her across the cheek, hard.

“What’s it to me?” he demanded. “I drove her there, Alicia. I was a party to that act. I thought I understood what was happening. I didn’t. Just as you understand nothing, regret nothing, feel no sense of anguish for what you’ve done. This man you talk about. I still can’t see him walking down the street. I still can’t touch him, Alicia. There was such a great cost for your favors. You took so much and gave back nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m truly sorry. If there’s some way I can make amends. If it’s a question of paying back the money—”

“Money.” He stared at her, his face suffused with pity. “You think money’s so important. You have no idea of how pathetic you are. Or how grateful you will be to me. And soon.”

Gino Fosse stood up and walked to the bookshelf in a corner of the room, taking out two thick photographic volumes. He returned and placed them in front of her, opening the first at a double-page spread depicting a church courtyard.

“Santa Cecilia in Trastevere,” he said. “Do you know it?”

She tried to catch his eye, pleading. “Let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

He frowned. He had, she realized, an actor’s face. It was so mobile, able to go from passivity to deep concentration in an instant, able to change shape, from plainness to a kind of warped beauty with just the shift of an eyelid, a turn of the mouth.

“You must listen,” he said. “This is important. Cecilia was a family woman. The wife of a nobleman who was converted to Christianity during the persecutions of Diocletian. Her house lay beneath this church. It was here…” He glowered at her. “You’re not listening. I do all this for your benefit and you’re not listening.”

Alicia Vaccarini was sobbing, was unable to stop the choking noise that kept rising in her throat.

He leaned forward to make his point plain. “Cecilia was a martyr, Alicia. She will help wash your sins clean.” He pointed at the book. “Here in the very place she died, in the very way she went to glory.”

His finger stabbed at the image there: a virginal woman, staring peacefully out from the page.

“First, since she was a high-born woman, they tried to suffocate her in the baths beneath the house, a noble death. When that failed, they were allowed three strokes of the axe. These still did not kill her. There’s the miracle. There’s the proof. The senators and the patricians came to see her lying in bed, wounded, singing hymns, turning to Christ as she died before them. Afterwards, in recognition of her courage, they made her the patron saint of musicians. Alicia…”

He opened the second book and thrust it in front of her eyes. She did not wish to look. His strong hand gripped her hair and turned her head to the page. It depicted a beautiful white statue of the prone young woman wrapped in a shroud, face half turned away from the beholder.

“In the sixteenth century they opened her casket,” he said.

“Cecilia was incorrupt, perfect, still beautiful in her golden robe thirteen hundred years after her death. The marks of the axe were on her neck. An artist painted her, Alicia. A sculptor made this statue, which still sits beneath the altar in her church, above her house.”

“Please,” she gasped. “Gino—”

He clasped her hand. “Don’t fear. You’ll be there tonight. You’ll lie in front of her, give homage to her martyrdom. And in doing so you’ll make amends, you’ll help me put right these wrongs that you’re a part of.”

“No…”

His face changed again, becoming hard and determined. “It’s time,” he said, and went over to one of the windows, retrieved a pillow from a storage box, returned with it and, very carefully, placed it over her mouth.

Alicia Vaccarini breathed in through the white fabric. It stank of damp and mold. She coughed, retching. He took it away, waiting until she recovered her breath.

“This is the first part.”

The pillow came back, covering her face. She felt something wind around it, something like a rope which fastened the thing behind her head tightly, but not so tight she couldn’t inhale. Not quite.

“Good,” said a voice from behind.

The fabric grew damp and sticky with her saliva. The passage of air seemed to diminish with every snatched effort of her lungs. She gagged, gasping, and felt him tighten the pillow around her face.

There was one last push. The thing entered her mouth, its fibers stuck to the back of her throat. She vomited bitter bile into the fetid cotton, gagging. Then the rope relaxed, the smothering stopped.

Gino Fosse withdrew the stinking, vile object from her face. She fought to get clean air into her lungs, hyperventilating as she did so.

“Good,” he said. He now held a long sword in his hand. It was well polished, with a glittering silver blade, like something out of a military museum. With no perceptible effort, holding it in one hand, he raised it to her neck and cut the flesh there in a single, sweeping movement.

Alicia Vaccarini shrieked in agony. She could feel the blood starting to run down her neck, down onto the good, cotton shirt she had chosen to wear for the lunch at Martelli’s. It was a painful wound, but a light one. He was testing himself. He stood over her now, no doubt wondering about the second blow: how hard, how deep, it might be.

“I beg you,” she bawled. “I’ll do anything. Just don’t kill me.”

She looked up into his eyes. There was confusion there. Perhaps there was some hope. He was no longer focused on her, no longer wondering how deeply he might hack into her neck with the sharp, shiny weapon held in his hand.

Gino Fosse’s attention now lay on the television set on the far side of the room, behind her. There was a newscast. She could hear it. There was talk of a murder and a woman, a scarlet woman who, the reporter said, seemed to bring death, a shocking death, to everyone she knew. He seemed unable to take his eyes off the set. She heard him catch his breath when he saw whatever was on the screen. He put down the sword. Then he took out a clean, white handkerchief and wiped the blood off her neck.

“I apologize, Alicia,” he said softly. “I’m distracted.”

“Untie me,” she pleaded. “Let me go. I won’t tell a soul.”

He looked at her and there was pity in his eyes. “Tomorrow,” he said, “I’ll do you justice.”

Then he was gone from the room, leaving Alicia Vaccarini to her thoughts and the image from the book: a pale white corpse, wrapped in a delicate shroud, head obscured, waiting for resurrection.