The Fallen Angel

ELEVEN

He had sunglasses too, the same cheap kind. A black T-shirt that was tight over his muscled torso. The familiar old faded denim jacket. Fake Adidas sneakers going to ruin. It was poverty that drew this family together more than anything, she thought, and as they slipped further into penury and uncertainty the bonds grew ever closer, so tight they had long felt ready to snap.

The tourists had gone to eat, to drink. The Ponte Sant’Angelo was almost deserted: two men selling postcards and souvenirs, a tramp with a German shepherd on a piece of rope, slumped with his dog beneath the statue of a grieving angel. But there was always a steady stream of traffic thundering over the worn patch of asphalt that stole its way into her imagination every time she passed this place.

Robert Gabriel took hold of her skinny shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks. She responded. Not too much. That was never a good idea.

They walked up and down the bridge, beneath the gaze of the angels, talking, thinking, exploring. She told him about Costa and the visit of the police. She listened to his stories, his fears. He said little of any moment. Robert never changed. Still, it was good to speak.

Finally she made him stand by the angel with the cruel flail and said, ‘I wish Joanne was still alive.’

‘Me too,’ he answered, and didn’t look her in the eye. ‘I liked her. We both did.’

‘I try to like everyone,’ Mina told him. ‘Even when it’s not easy. Especially when it’s not easy.’

‘St Mina of Rome,’ he said, a sarcastic smile on his strong, handsome face. ‘They’ll make you that, when it all begins. That thing. The process. What’s it called?’

‘What?’

‘All that mumbo jumbo about making a saint. I used to laugh about it with Malise.’

He would never call him ‘father’, even when he was young.

‘I think they call the first step beatification. It means someone has reached a state of bliss. I don’t see that happening soon, do you?’

‘When you’re dead, St Mina, they’ll light candles. Put your T-shirt in a glass case by the altar.’

‘Don’t be so stupid!’

‘I’m not. You deserve it. You’ve got the looks. That pale, pained innocent face. The sacrificial maiden.’

‘Shut up, Robert,’ she said, cross, beginning to regret this.

He persisted. He never knew when to stop.

‘No. I mean it. Look at the papers. That photograph.’ He burst out laughing, clutching his stomach like a bad actor. ‘The one where they put your head on her portrait. .’

‘I’d nothing to do with that.’

‘You’d everything to do with it. You painted yourself as her, didn’t you? What did you expect? What did we expect?’

That was a question she could answer.

‘Freedom,’ she said softly. ‘The chance to live. To breathe. Security, I don’t know.’

The very things Beatrice Cenci had sought too, only to finish her days beneath the flash of an executioner’s sword a few short steps from where they now stood.

‘So it’s all worth it, then?’ he asked, and stood closer to her, backing Mina’s willowy body against the stone parapet of the bridge across the Tiber.

‘Worth what?’

He leaned against her, leering, nudged his lips against her ear and whispered something coarse and common. His fingers fell to the belt of her jeans, slipped below, stroking the tender skin beneath her navel.

Mina Gabriel pushed him back and said, ‘Cut that out.’

‘Sorry. I forgot. You’re a saint.’

‘And you’re an animal.’

‘Animals are useful too, aren’t they? A bit more than saints, I’d say.’

She walked away from him, back towards the lost place of execution and the endless stream of cars. This hadn’t been a good idea. It wasn’t worth the risk. He was, she realized, beyond hope, beyond advice.

Robert followed her, struggling to voice some pathetic excuses.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked as they reached the shops and houses that led into the centro storico. ‘Where are you going to stay?’

‘Best you don’t know.’

Mina Gabriel wished more than anything she could make him take off those opaque sunglasses, could do the same herself. That they could look straight into each other’s eyes, just this once.

‘Robert,’ she said. ‘Be serious, please. They’re going to come for us. Just like the papers are saying. You act as if it’s all some kind of a joke. Everything.’

‘A joke,’ he repeated. ‘Not even a very funny one either. You as Beatrice. Me as Pangloss. Watch and wait. And remember. .’

He slapped her backside, hard.

‘All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. See you, sister. Take care.’

The blow hurt. She felt her eyes begin to sting, heard some tiny little voice start to chant inside, the vicious, pained refrain that had been absent for a little while, along with all those familiar words she never dared utter out loud.

Don’t touch me, don’t hurt me, don’t, don’t, don’t you dare. .