Heritage (16 page)

‘He is jealous, Father, forgive him.' His mother made excuses for his surliness, and his father berated him in private.

‘Father Brummer is a man of the cloth, Pietro,' he said angrily, ‘and he shook your hand – that is a great honour!'

But Pietro couldn't warm to the priest, and he couldn't disguise his feelings. He couldn't smile when the priest tried to charm him, telling him about the great cities he knew, about Berlin and Rome, and other places that Pietro had never heard of. And, as his father's anger grew, Pietro became more and more unhappy.

‘Milano,' the priest said one night after they had shared their evening meal. He and Franco had also shared a bottle of red wine, and the priest was feeling mellow. Catie was asleep in her parents' bed, and Pietro was sitting at the table with the men while Lucia washed up the bowls at the bench. Father Brummer had insisted Pietro have a small glass of wine with them; he was nearly a man now, after all, he had said jovially.

‘When the spring thaw comes, we could take the boy to Milano and show him a big city, Franco, what do you say?'

The prospect overwhelmed Franco. He had never been to Milano himself, and to go there with the priest! He was sure Father Brummer was only humouring the boy, but the fact that he would suggest such an idea was a great compliment.

‘Perhaps we could, Father. Although Milano is many kilometres away.'

‘A hundred kilometres only,' the priest said dismissively. ‘That is nothing – men have walked far greater distances. When you buy your donkey, Franco, we could pack our supplies and follow the river to the south. You and me and Pietro, what do you think about that?'

Franco's eyes lit up – the priest's enthusiasm was always infectious. But from her bench in the corner, Lucia smiled indulgently. Franco was so gullible. Father Brummer was simply trying to include Pietro in their conversation, as he so often did. She glanced at the boy, wishing he would respond, but he was staring at the priest with fear and suspicion. It embarrassed her.

‘You would like Milano, Pietro,' Father Brummer said, and once again he conjured up images in an attempt to gain the boy's interest.

But as the priest talked, Pietro wasn't listening, he was lost in his own thoughts. Why would the priest suggest travelling together when the spring thaw came? The priest had said that he would be leaving their house when the spring thaw came. Did it mean that he intended to stay with them? Pietro didn't like the thought of that at all. He looked at the priest's handsome face, animated and confident as he painted pictures of the great city of Milano, and he disliked him more than ever. He didn't trust the priest.

Then he heard his father's roar and the sound of his father's chair toppling over as Franco sprang to his feet. He felt the angry blow of his father's hand across his face, and he sat quivering from the shock of it.

‘You will not look at Father Brummer in that way!'

His father, too, was shaking. With a rage that Pietro had never seen before.

‘You will not look at a man of the cloth with such insolence!'

Towering over him, his father raised his hand as if to strike him again, but the priest intervened. ‘No, Franco,' he said as he stood, ‘do not hit the boy.'

Pietro could feel the vein in his temple throbbing, and the tic in his left eye starting to twitch. And he could see the priest watching him, studying him closely, as if he also recognised the signs. He knew that he must get out. He must get to his secret hiding place before the fit overtook him. He pushed his chair away and ran to the door, but his father charged after him, dragging him back into the room, shaking him roughly by the shoulders. His mother was screaming, and so was Catie who had appeared at the open doorway, and his father was yelling words at him that Pietro could no longer hear.

‘Let him go, Franco,' the priest said. The boy's eyes were rolling back in his head.

Lucia, too, had seen the signs. ‘He is having one of his fits,' she cried, running to Pietro in time to catch him as he crashed heavily to the wooden floor. ‘Fetch me a piece of rag, Franco, quickly.'

Franco ran to do her bidding. But, as Lucia forced the rag into the boy's mouth, he turned away in disgust and disappointment. His son's madness had returned, and he was sickened by the sight. He picked up his daughter who was crying and carried her into the other room, where he sat with her, cradling her head to his chest. Through the open door, he could see the priest watching as the boy kicked and thrashed about on the floor like a demented animal, and he wished the priest would look away. But he didn't. The priest stood silently witnessing the boy's shame, and Franco's humiliation was unbearable.

When the attack was finally over, and the boy lay limp and exhausted, Lucia wiping the spittle from his face, Franco tucked the little girl into bed and told her to stay there.

‘I am sorry, Father,' he said, returning to the room.

‘Why are you sorry?'

‘That you should see such a thing. My son's madness. The shame of it.'

‘There is no shame in his illness, Franco. I have seen seizures like his before. How long has he been suffering them?'

Lucia answered for her husband, as she sat on the floor, her arms about Pietro. ‘He used to have them often when he was a little boy, Father,' she said. ‘They started when he was six years old. But he has not had a fit for over two years now, isn't this so, Franco?'

Franco nodded, still not able to look at the boy whose eyes were beseeching his forgiveness.

‘Is this true, Pietro?' the priest asked, and when the boy remained silent he repeated the question. ‘You have had no attacks for over two years, is this true or is it not?'

Pietro slowly rose, his mother also, her arm still protectively about him, but he shrugged it away. He stood alone, unsteady on his feet, trying to ignore the sharp pain in his head. ‘Yes,' he said, although he knew that the priest did not believe him, ‘I have had no attacks.'

‘I think that you are not telling the truth, Pietro,' the priest said gently, and Pietro looked down at the floor, unable to meet the accusation in his parents' eyes. His parents believed the priest, and no matter how much he denied it, no matter how hard he lied, they would continue to believe the priest. He said nothing.

The priest addressed himself to Lucia and Franco. ‘I know something of Pietro's illness,' he said. ‘Attacks such as his do not disappear for years and then suddenly manifest themselves again. He suffers from a condition which will likely remain with him until adulthood, and possibly for the rest of his life.' He took Pietro's arm. ‘Come, my boy, sit down. You are weak.'

Pietro allowed the priest to lead him to the table and seat him in a chair. The priest sat beside him, and his mother joined them, but Pietro could see his father, still glaring silently at him, and he hated the priest for ruining his life.

‘You must not hide yourself away, Pietro,' the priest said. ‘It is not safe for you to be alone when you have your attacks, you could harm yourself.'

The priest was aware that he was not getting through to the boy, but then he had been unable to make an impression upon the boy since he'd first arrived. No matter, it was the parents' trust he needed to ensure.

‘Come, Franco, join us,' he said, and Franco sat at the table, sullen and hard-faced. ‘There is no sin in your son's illness, my friend, you must believe me. And there is no shame in it either.'

Franco listened to the priest; it was the first time Father Brummer had ever called him ‘my friend'.

‘And Lucia,' the priest said, turning to the wife, ‘you must not put the rag in the boy's mouth, he could choke on it.'

‘But he bit his tongue once, Father, so badly that …'

‘Yes, yes, I know, but we must find something more suitable.' The priest looked around the room and spied the wooden donkey. He crossed to it, pulling the strong, leather belt of its reins through the hole in the donkey's mouth. ‘This would be excellent,' he said. ‘Do you have a sharp knife, Franco?'

Franco went obediently to the bench in the corner and fetched his killing knife from the drawer.

‘You do not mind?' the priest asked, doubling the end of the belt over, the knife poised beneath it.

‘No, Father.'

The priest sliced off a short section from the end of the belt, the sharply honed blade cutting through the thick leather with ease. ‘It is a fine knife, Franco,' he said. Then he returned the knife to the drawer and brought the piece of leather to the table where Pietro remained sitting in silence, his mother beside him. He put it on the table. ‘When the boy has another fit, Lucia, you must place this between his teeth. And Pietro …'

The priest sat beside him, his face so close that Pietro could feel his breath. He didn't look at him.

‘If you feel an attack coming upon you when you are alone, Pietro, this is what you must place in your mouth, do you understand?'

‘Answer Father Brummer!' Franco snapped when the boy remained silent.

‘Yes, Father,' Pietro said. ‘I will place the piece of leather in my mouth.'

‘Good. This is excellent.' The priest stood and handed the leather strip to Franco. ‘Feed some string through the hole in the end, my friend, so that your son can wear it around his neck at all times. It is best to practise care, is it not?'

 

From that day onward, Pietro wore the piece of leather on a string around his neck, and over the next six weeks, in his secret hiding place, he used it. He had two more attacks in that time, both with very little warning. They came upon him more swiftly and ferociously than ever before and he barely had time to slither beneath the house and prepare himself. He blamed the priest. But the priest was right about the leather strap, he discovered. It was far more effective than the piece of rag, which he'd often found himself gagging on as he'd regained his senses.

Pietro now spent more time with the goats than he did at home with his family. The priest was always in the house, and he did not wish to keep company with him. He would rise early and milk the goats, tethering them one by one in the shelter among the trees down by the river, the warm, rubbery feel of their teats somehow comforting. Then he would carry the pail of milk back to the hut and put it on the bench where his mother would later prepare the cheese. He would breakfast with his family, his father ignoring him for the most part, and then he would leave before the priest awakened, returning to the goats.

The morning was cold, and Pietro hugged his coat about him as he carried the pail from the shelter. But despite the cold, the snow was dazzling in the sun's early rays and he squinted from the glare; soon the spring thaw would come, he thought. Pietro prayed that the spring thaw would see the departure of the priest, although he knew that even if the priest left, things would never be the same.

He walked up from the river very slowly. He always carried the pail with care, but this time he walked more slowly than ever. He could feel the pulse throbbing in his temple and he wondered how much time he had before the fit would strike. They came on so quickly these days that he couldn't risk taking the milk to the hut. He should have left the pail at the shelter. He set it down in the snow – he would come back for it later. He must get to his secret place.

He clambered up the bank, but, as he came into view of the rear of the hut, he could see his father with the priest. What was the priest doing up at this hour?

He circled around the trees as he made his way to the front steps and, sliding beneath them, he slithered on his belly to his hiding place, where he turned onto his back and waited.

His mother and Catie were preparing breakfast. He could see his mother's old shoes, and Catie's slippers that his father had made of goat hide, crossing to and from the table directly above him.

Several minutes passed. The tic in his left eye started, and he placed the strip of leather between his teeth. Then someone else entered the room. Pietro could see the shadow of another pair of shoes at the door. But they were not the boots of his father, and they did not thump as they crossed to his mother and sister who were laying the table together. They were the priest's shoes, and they trod very softly. So softly that he could not hear them at all as they arrived beside the shoes of his mother.

Pietro's jaw clenched and his eyes rolled back, and he heard and saw nothing more. He failed to hear the crash of the chair and the thud of the bodies as they fell to the floor. And he did not see the priest's shoes cross quietly to his parents' bedroom.

The priest moved quickly and purposefully. He took the peasant's identity papers from the dresser where he knew the man kept them. He took his birth certificate and his marriage certificate too; he'd been prepared, he knew where everything was. He took the haversack from the peg behind the door and bundled some of the man's clothes into it, then returned to the main room. Taking the knife from the table where he'd left it, he stepped over the bodies and crossed to the bench in the corner where he poured water from the jug into the basin. He washed the knife and put it into the haversack's side pocket along with the papers, and the money that he poured out of the glass jar. From the larder, he packed a supply of bread, salted goat's meat and cheese, and then he left. The whole exercise, including the killings, had taken only minutes. But then, he was an expert. There was only the boy to dispose of. He set off for the goat's shelter down by the river.

Pietro could hear his name being called and he opened his eyes, unsure of where he was; it always took him several moments to recover his senses.

‘Pietro! Pietro! Pietro!'

The voice kept calling his name. He took the leather strap from his mouth, alarmed. He was under the house, he'd had a fit. The voice was nearby. Did they know he was here? Was that why they were calling him? But it was not his father calling him, he realised, it was the priest's voice. He peered out from his hollow in the ground and saw the priest's shoes. They were silhouetted in the light that shone through the front steps. Pietro lay back, very still. He could not leave his secret hiding place while the priest was standing on the steps.