The American Page 14

  He would have made his mark on history.

  Yet, like a bloodstain on hot sand, this mark would soon fade and disappear, enter the realms of legend which would do him no real good but would keep the bar going. The patronage would swell with the curious who would demand to know which part of the bar I had leaned against, which glass I had drunk from, what was my favourite wine. They would ogle the glass, prop up the same metre of counter, order the same bottle. The Boss would become a shrine, a sepulchre to the anti-hero.

  I should not want to bring Efisio such good fortune and in such a manner, at such a cost to myself.

  It would not surprise me, were I to follow this course of action and thus bare my chest to the Baretta 84 (9 x 17mm, polizia and carabinieri issue: odds fairly long for I am not such a fool) that two centuries hence, the legend will have it, upon the spot where I fell, blood oozes from between the stones annually on the anniversary of my death. Italians love to make shrines.

  “I walk here every Wednesday morning.”

  Father Benedetto speaks with such assurance. Being a man of his god, he has no doubts in his mind whatsoever as regards his destiny. He will continue to stroll here, in the Parco Della Resistenza dell’ 8 Settembre, every Wednesday until eternity stops. Failing that, he shall come here until his god calls him into the after-life. He is not bothered which eventuality comes first.

  The pine trees and poplars are silent. It is only half an hour since dawn and the sun is not yet up, but the day is light. The air remains chilled by darkness and there is no warming of the skies to create even the merest zephyr in the valley. Already, the sparrows are hopping about in their interminable search for mates and crumbs.

  I spied the priest from some way off, recognised his soutane flapping as he walked, as if he was dressed still in the folds of night. There was no need for me to step into the cover and ascertain who was this early morning promenader.

  As soon as he saw me, he raised his hand in half-welcome, half-benediction, as if he was covering all possibilities. I might have been a demon of the darkness wandering about in the trees, looking for my hole down to the underworld.

  ‘Buon giorno!’ he called when still twenty metres away. ‘So you, too, walk in the park before the sun wakes.’

  I greet him and we fall into slow step with each other. He walks with his hands behind his back. I prefer to keep mine in my pockets, whether or not there is something in them. This is a habit.

  ‘It is a quiet time,’ I explain, ‘and I enjoy the peace. There is virtually no traffic on the roads, the people are still in their beds, the air is untainted by car fumes and the birds are singing.’

  As if at some subconscious cue, an unseen bird starts to warble softly in the branches of the poplars.

  ‘I walk here to meditate,’ Father Benedetto states. ‘Once a week. Wednesday, the farthest one can travel in the week from the Sabbath. I always follow the same path. The trees, they are like the Stations of the Cross: by certain trees I thank God for certain favours he has granted me, or certain gifts he has made to me and all men.

  ‘For example, here by this pine, I pause and thank him for the sunrise. But not this time. On the next circuit. You see,’ he points to the east where there is a blush on the horizon, ‘the sun is not yet up.’

  ‘You mean,’ I reply teasingly, ‘you only pray when the sun has risen. This suggests a doubt in your mind. Perhaps he will not give you the sun today.’

  ‘Give me?’ The priest feigns astonishment. ‘He gives it to us. And he will not fail.’

  ‘Assuredly,’ I agree and grin.

  He knows I am harrying him in good humour.

  For a brief moment, he halts and bows his head.

  ‘And this circuit?’ I ask as we proceed along the path, our shoes crunching the gravel.

  ‘This circuit I thank him for the many friendships I have and ask him to look after those of my friends who are troubled.’

  ‘I just walk here for the peace of the place,’ I remark. ‘I have worked long hours during the night and this is a relaxation. One has to concentrate so much on fine details.’

  ‘Butterfly wings. They demand great concentration.’ He nods as he speaks but he also gives me a sideways glance which I cannot interpret.

  We walk on. At a cypress tree, he bows his head once more, but I do not enquire after his prayer and he does not offer the information.

  ‘All men seek after peace,’ Father Benedetto says as we turn a corner in the path and start up a gentle slope through flowering bushes. ‘You walk here in the early day, some walk here in the cool of the evening to shed their cares, some come at night and hug each other close.’ He waves his hand at the bushes where the courting couples lie. ‘I wonder how many bastards have been made here?’ There is a terrible sadness in his voice.

  ‘I find my peace in the mountains,’ I comment as we leave the bushes.

  ‘Is that so?’ the priest asks. ‘Then perhaps you will stay here and settle yourself.’

  ‘How do you know that I might think of going?’

  ‘Those who seek after peace seldom find it. They are always moving on, looking elsewhere. And,’ he adds perceptively, ‘they are usually sinners.’

  ‘All men are sinners.’

  ‘It is so. But some are greater sinners than others. And those who seek peace have much sinning in their history.’

  ‘I have found my peace,’ I say.

  This, of course, is a lie. I never found it. In truth, I have never really sought after it. Not until now.

  There has always been an element of excitement in my life and it has been prompted not only by my chosen art, not only by those who seek me out, those who dwell in the shadows, but also by my own desire to keep travelling. Life is a long journey and I am not one to get off halfway. I have always wanted to shift forwards, to turn the next corner, to see the next view and walk into it.

  Yet here, perhaps, I should like to stay. This valley, with its castles and villages, its forests alert with wild pig and its mountain pastures alive with fluttering butterflies. There is a tranquility here not to be found elsewhere.

  Perhaps, too, it is time to slow the excitement down, to take it easy as my years draw on and my trespass upon earth grows shorter.

  I still think of myself as young. I accept that my body ages, that the cells get shrunken and the brain dies at an accelerated rate, but I have a young man’s soul and ideals. I still want to go on doing my bit to shape the world.

  ‘I would say you have not discovered your peace,’ Father Benedetto breaks into my thoughts. ‘You are still looking for it, still wanting. Wanting very badly, very seriously. But you are not yet done and . . .’

  He pauses as we round another landmark in his prayer path, bowing his head and muttering briefly to himself, to his god.

  ‘And?’ I ask as he steps on.

  ‘Forgive me. This is the priest in me speaking. And the friend. But you have done much sinning, Signor Farfalla. Perhaps you still do . . .’

  ‘I have a mistress,’ I admit. ‘She is young enough to be my daughter, pretty enough to be my daughter-in-law, were I to have a son. We make love twice weekly, often with another girl present. We three. A ménage à trois . . .’

  Father Benedetto huffs at this: it is another French expression for something immoral.

  ‘. . . but I do not consider this sinning,’ I continue.

  ‘In our modern world,’ he responds curtly, ‘there are priests who share your view. However,’ and his tone softens once more to the melody of the confessional, ‘I do not refer to the sins of carnality. I am thinking of the more deadly sins . . .’

  ‘Are not all sins equal?’ I ask, attempting to steer the conversation; but he will not have it.

  ‘We are not discussing theology, my friend, but you.’

  The path reaches a large expanse of grass. In the centre, a number of ravens are squabbling over some morsel. As we approach, they flap into the air, one of them carrying the remains of a dead
rat in its beak.

  ‘You like this town, this valley. You should like to remain here, find your peace at last. Yet you cannot. There is something in you you cannot ignore. Some outside force. Some enemy.’

  He is far more astute than I had thought. I should have remembered the lessons learnt in school: Catholic fathers not only have their god on their side, they also have the gift of prying open the box of the soul without even touching the lid.

  ‘What work do you do, my friend?’ he asks outright. ‘You paint butterflies, yes. And you are so good an artist. But this cannot give you so much money. It is true one can live like a prince in the mountains here with as little as twenty thousand American dollars per annum income, but you have more than this. You do not wave your money in the air, you have a cheap car and your rent is not high, but I sense you are a rich man. How is this?’

  I am silent. I do not know what or how much to tell this priest. I know him well, but not sufficiently to share my life with him. I know no one that well.

  ‘Are you on the run, as they say?’

  I do not fear him as I would others. I cannot account for this. It is a fact. He is somehow trustworthy yet I am still extremely cautious.

  There is, I sense, a need to tell him something, to satisfy if only temporarily his inquisitiveness, his delving into my life. I can string him a series of untruths: not lies, for they are too readily discovered. I need to dissemble carefully, build a plausibility into my deceit which he will accept despite his priestly insights and his experience of lying confessions.

  ‘All men are on the run from something.’

  He laughs quietly.

  ‘You are correct. All men watch at least some of the shadows, yet you watch them all.’

  Confound him, I think. He has been studying me.

  ‘So I have sinned greatly,’ I admit, my voice a little louder than I should have wanted it. I quieten it. ‘And I may still be sinning greatly. There is no man on earth who does not sin daily, even on a grand scale. But my sins, if such they be, are for the good of mankind not . . .’

  I must say no more. I know that if I allow my curtains to part, this priest will not merely peer through my window but will swing his leg over the sill and jump inside me, have a good poke around.

  ‘Until you relinquish your sins, until you confess and repent, how can you stop running?’

  He is right. I do not agree with repenting my sins but I do acknowledge I must relinquish my way of life in order to find that elusive peace, whatever it may be.

  ‘Do you want to tell me?’

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘For your own sake. You know your reason. Perhaps I can pray for you?’

  ‘No,’ I answer. ‘I may tell you for my reason but you are not to pray for me. I should not want you to perjure yourself before your god. He may punish you by destroying the world stocks of armagnac.’

  I try to make light of our talk, but he still will not let me guide our talk. He is as persistent as a hungry mosquito, hizzing in the air, zooming in, dodging the swat and circling for another attack. He is as persistent as a Roman Catholic priest who sees a true, bona fide, one hundred per cent, gold-plated sinner to save.

  ‘So?’ he prompts.

  ‘So I have little to say, little to tell. I live in a secret world and I like it that way. You are correct, father: I am not poor. I am not a poor artist. Yet I am an artist. I make things.’ I demur and wonder what to say. ‘Artifacts.’

  ‘Counterfeit money?’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘You work in metal. You are given some steel by Alfonso, the car doctor.’

  ‘You seem to know much about me.’

  ‘No. I know little. I know only what you do in the town. It is not easy to hide everyday things from people. They do not talk. Except to me. I am their priest and they trust me.’

  ‘And I should too?’ I enquire.

  ‘Of course.’

  Once more, he stops, bows his head, mutters a prayer and sets off again. The sun is up now and the air is already warming. There is a small hum of cars on the roads. The sparrows are squabbling in the grass with less energy. They know the heat is coming.

  ‘Now to walk once round with no stops,’ Father Benedetto declares. ‘This one for my constitution, not for Our Lord.’

  ‘Your last prayer, I hope, was not for me.’

  ‘And if it was, what could you do to affect it?’ He grins.

  ‘Nothing.’

  I decide to give him something to quell his curiosity, to stifle for the time being his prying and prodding. This is against my nature, against my lifelong rule of silence, my almost monastic vow of silence, but I deem it necessary to put a stop to his conjecturing, pull a curtain over his persistent interest in my affairs.

  This may be a mistake and I may live, or die, to regret it, but there it is. Past errors have been survived. And just as my instincts can inform me of the presence of a shadow-dweller, so do they now tell me that Father Benedetto is a man of his word I can trust, as far as I am prepared so to do.

  We do not speak again until we reach the bushes.

  ‘I will tell you this much,’ I offer. ‘I am what some would regard as a criminal. Perhaps even as an international criminal. I exist in police and government files in more than thirty countries, I should say. I do not rob banks, print banknotes, break into computers or sell explosives to terrorists, or governments, so they may shoot down jet airliners. I am not a spy, not a James Bond: I have only one pretty girl in my life.’ I smile at him but he is frowning. ‘I do not steal art treasures or peddle heroin and cocaine. I am not . . .’

  ‘Basta! Enough!’

  He raises his hand and, for a moment, I think he is going to bless me, make the sign of the cross over me as if I was some demon he was going to exorcise. I fall silent.

  ‘Say no more. I know now what your work is.’

  ‘Some would say it is the work of god.’

  He nods and says, ‘Yes, some would say so. But . . .’

  We reach the gates of the Parco della Resistenza dell’ 8 Settembre. The traffic is now quite busy, the shadows of the vehicles halted at the junction lights long and hard.

  ‘What do you do now?’ I ask him.

  He looks at his cheap steel watch.

  ‘I go to the church. And you?’

  ‘I go to work. Painting butterflies.’

  We shake hands as priest and parishioner do when they meet or part in a public place. He goes off up the hill towards the church of San Silvestro and I make my way through the narrow streets towards my home.

  As I walk, I worry I may have told him too much. I somehow doubt it, but it may indeed be the case he has divined my true employment. If that is so, I must be very wary of him and those who may approach him.

  I have already mentioned to you the Convento di Vallingegno, a ghostly spot where spirits roam and local sorcerers rifle the monastic graves, where is reputed to be buried a Gestapo necromancer. It is a mysterious and malignant place yet it is also quite beautiful. It has a placidity many a holy place has lost. No tourists wander the collapsing cloisters, no lovers couple in the courtyard.

  This part of Italy, for all the television aerials and telephone lines, the ski-lifts, autostradas and proliferation of supermercati on the outskirts of every town, still exists in the Middle Ages. In the Yellow Pages is a section, admittedly small, for witches, wizards, and magicians. These wise folk can remove warts, abort unwanted pregnancies without surgery or gin or drugs, cure broken limbs without splints, restore fertility and maidenheads, exorcise spectres and cast ingenious spells upon perfidious husbands, wayward wives, lovers and loose daughters.

  I have no interest in mumbo-jumbo. My life is clear-cut. There are no frayed edges where reality shrouds into myth. I am no longer a Roman Catholic.

  Yet the Convento di Vallingegno has an attraction for me. I enjoy the quietude of its interior, the timelessness of the ruins, the proximity of the grave. The inaccessib
ility of the monastery is pleasing to me also: I can be fairly sure of not being disturbed there for anyone seeing my presence would keep away, fearing I might be one of the authorities. Or a wizard. Only those with clandestine lives go there.

  In the ruined wall of the chapel, there is a delicacy I am fond of hunting when the chance offers itself: wild honey.

  I first tasted it in Africa. The late sixties and seventies were a turbulent time for the dark continent: wars raged, petty politicians struggled for power in the post-colonial years. It was a time for making money, those dog years of war. I was paid my highest rate ever for a job by—well, let that be as it may: he is still alive and I wish to remain so, too. Suffice to say, I was compensated fifteen thousand dollars in cash and what proved to be over forty thousand in raw diamonds and emeralds just for removing and replacing a rifle barrel. And destroying the original.

  I was not told why, but could guess when I was handed the weapon. It was a one-off, a fabulously wrought stock, all filigree silver, gold inlay and ivory. The rifle had to remain in the public eye. It had been used in an attempt, I reasoned, on the life of Idi Amin Dada, madman and baby-eater, sheep-seducer and sergeant-major-cum-major-general: never believe the rantings of journalists and headline writers bent on improving circulation figures. The rifle would be carefully checked by his cronies. The rifling of a gun barrel is as indentifiable as a fingerprint. If you cannot change the print, change the finger.