Secrecy by Rupert Thomson Page B

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. ‘You know, I could kill you for this. I could kill you right now –’ As he went to draw his sword, Padre Paone placed a hand on his upper arm.
    I still hadn’t said a word in my defence. Maybe I sensed that things had already progressed beyond that point. Also, I was mesmerized by Jacopo’s performance. He had spoken with such conviction that I had even begun to doubt myself.
Had
I done something terrible? I touched my forehead; my fingers came away wet. And anyway, my innocence couldn’t be verified. How do you prove that something
didn’t happen
? It had been so clever of Jacopo to bring Padre Paone along. A stroke of genius, really. After years of studying with the Jesuits, I was hardly about to accuse the church of lying. All I could do was hold my tongue.
    I stared at the wedge of sunlight near my feet until it began to resemble a crevasse into which I might disappear. If Jacopo were to do away with me, my guilt would become a fact, since there would be no one left to tell my side of the story. He would remove the need either to press charges or to provide evidence. He would be held up as the saviour of the family’s honour. A pillar of the community. I lifted my eyes from the ground, and all I could see for a few long moments was a pulsing triangle of violet and green. My only option was to flee.
    I rolled over on to my back. I had eluded Jacopo, but now I had the likes of Bassetti to contend with – Bassetti, whose record of serving the ruling family for more than three decades testified to his statecraft, his guile and his resilience. Whenever I ran into Bassetti, he was pleasantness itself, and yet, even during our first meeting, I thought I had sensed something else in him – something slippery, reptilian. Then, on the night of the