How to Paint a Dead Man (25 page)

Angela puts her hand on your shoulder.
Really, you don’t look well. I’m going out to get you something to pick you up a bit, OK. Maybe some peppermint tea?
She shrugs on her cardigan, collects her purse.
The place looks great, Suze. Really great. You’ve worked so hard. I know it’s been difficult.
On her way to the door she pauses.
Hey, you don’t think you’re pregnant do you? I felt like shit when I was pregnant with Anna. I wanted to collapse all the time.
You smile, and shake your head, but something inside you splits, and you feel half of you subside along a fault line running from the base of your skull down your backbone. Angela shuts the front door and is gone. The building ticks, listening. For a moment you sit still, waiting for something. Something. Then you go to the cloakroom and look in your bag for your organiser. You can only see your phone and your wallet.

When you open the door the snug is almost in darkness, but for the glow of the screen, and a weak table lamp. The curtains are drawn. Tom is wearing headphones. He cannot hear the traffic on the main road, the birds in the trees next to the heath, or the hustle of the city beyond. He doesn’t hear you come in, and it is like that first time, when you found each other and it all began. Behind him, the erogenous red paper left on the walls three years ago, as if you had both dressed the stage for the exchanges that would follow. His back is turned. You walk towards him, a shadow in the room. On the desk next to the computer is a pad of paper on which he has written columns of words. His diary is open to this week’s page. You stand behind him, calculating.

In a moment you know he will turn round. He will glance past you to the door, which is open. Then he will look at you and his eyes will flicker with excitement. You will take his fingers into your mouth and put his hands under your skirt. You’ll feel him stroke your legs, and move you on to his lap. He will pull your buttocks apart as if separating pieces of a fruit. He will rub you wet with his thumb, open the fastening, and move the tip of himself into place. You will hurt yourself slowly, your legs either side of the chair, and he will continue to open you outwards as you move.

In a moment he will turn round and his eyes will flicker.

The following week brings high temperatures again. The earth cracks open. Taps wheeze and trickle. It is the season of floating pollen, sticky arms and abandoned arguments. It is the season of wilting peonies and calendulas. Beekeepers have brought their produce to the market, jars bright and slow with their gorgeous orange contents, and then returned to their fields with swollen wallets. The professional cyclists have passed through the town, pushing stiffly up into the hills through the cheering crowds, gathering speed around the chicanes of the downhill slopes, and flashing away down colonnades of aspen and barley. Young birds have become confident about leaving their nests. The pavements ripple with heat.

A week after the purchase of the television, Annette is no clearer about its governances and possibilities, but the rest of the family are fully committed to its charms. Uncle Marcello believes absolutely that he could win
Lascia o Raddoppia.
He has dispatched a letter of application to the competition. He will write one a week for the rest of the year until they accept, he insists. If he wins, the business will be sold to another family and they can all retire to Argentina. Her mother is uncertain about this proposal. Argentina is the Land of Forgetting, in case he has forgotten, and there they could lose their heritage and their patriotism. It will be too hot in summer, too cold in winter. And besides, Vincenzo will not want them; he writes so infrequently it is as if all thoughts of reunion with his family have vanished. ‘Then a world cruise,’ Uncle Marcello says optimistically, ‘if it pleases you more, Rosaria.’ There has been a miracle reported on the news.’ Near Naples, a girl has levitated. Witnesses say she was surrounded by heavenly rays and cleared three feet at least. The Vatican is investigating. Maurizio complains that his favourite advertisement for nylon stockings has been discontinued. If the skirt was too short and broke the decency codes, then why was it made in the first place? he asks. He shakes his hand when Mina Mazzini steps past the piano to the microphone, and Annette can hear his fingers slapping against each other like fresh-caught fish in a bucket. Their mother re-tunes the channel.

Tommaso is less enthusiastic about the buzzing, twittering box of pictures. He is engaged in riding up and down the hills, between ruined towers and ripe vineyards, and even up the steps of the cimitero di campagna. ‘I have to build up my thighs,’ he says, when Father Mencaroni asks him why he is leaving tyre tread on the sacred masonry. Sacrifices have to be made if he is to produce a gold medal for the country, he informs the priest, and off he rides, leaving a small cloud of dust to settle on the priest’s cassock. Father Mencaroni shakes his head.

Either the mignonette honey, or the television’s distraction, has saved Annette’s mother from her weekly migraine. She is busy watching the religious programmes, instead of lying down in her room with a camomile head-wrap. When Annette leaves for the church, her mother does not say anything about her returning home safely, or minding the potholes in the road and the troglodyte Southerners. Nor does she insist that Mauri and Tommaso accompany her to mass, for mass has been brought to her. She watches in a headscarf, her long dress arranged in drapes over her knees, and her hands linked, exactly as if she were sitting at a pew in San Lorenzo.

Annette gathers up some peonies for her papa and for Signor Giorgio. She counts the number of flowers on each. They are uneven. It cannot be helped; sometimes nature makes unlucky patterns. Their globes are full and heavy. The petals froth and their scent is balanced delicately between mountain air and frankincense. Concentrating hard, perhaps she can just see a border of red, an echo of red near her hand when she holds up the stems. Sometimes red can be seen in the world because it is so vivid. But sometimes the colour is simply a trick of blood lighting the discreet hollows of her eye sockets. She is nervous after the incident with the shadow last week. Though she has bled, she does not feel as if what went into her has been brought back out. She does not feel cleansed. She finds Tommaso pumping up his bicycle tyres and asks if he will come with her to the church. ‘Why?’ he demands. He has already been excused and he does not wish to be recommissioned. ‘I just like your company, little one,’ Annette tells him. Maybe he will come later after his training, he says.

She collects the little rosemary spirit-stopper from her dresser and steps outside into streets as warm as an oven. On the way to San Lorenzo, people amble by and greet her pleasantly. ‘Hello. Good day. Not with your brothers this week? Regards to Signora Tambroni and to your uncle. Stay in the shade!’

The church smells as it always does, of sacred wood and the white talcum gloves of the old brides of Christ. Today they are to consider Abraham, so devoted to God that he would sacrifice his son Isaac. Such a difficult story for us to comprehend, Father Mencaroni says. What price is there for loving God best among all our loves? Imagine it. To hold a knife to the throat of an innocent. To be prepared to slice the artery as one would a festival goat’s. Is this not trust, absolutely? Will we not be rewarded in heaven for such devotion? he asks. On Annette’s lap, the uneven peonies nod their heads imperceptibly. She thinks of the weeks after her sickness. There was a game she had played with Mauri, which he had invented to help her recover, and which had developed from the object-holding game. He would mix special pastes and concoctions in the kitchen, combinations of anchovy and pomegranate, fig and salt, and she had to open her mouth, receive the spoon, and describe the mysterious mis-combined contents. If she recoiled from the test Mauri would object. ‘Trust me. Imagine I’m St Luke.’ The game’s tonic qualities were never truly apparent to Annette, as her taste buds had not been affected during her illness, but she continued to play it until Mauri lost interest.

While she is receiving the sacrament she does not lift her head up towards the Deposition, with its jostling pyramid of mourners and the brutish creature no more than an arm’s length from the green-tinged Christ. But she knows his face will be staring out between those of the disciples, casting and recasting itself. She does not want to attract his attention or antagonise him. Perhaps if she remains cowered and small he will not follow her along the road and up the steps to the cimitero. Perhaps he will not even notice her. She thinks of the artist in the madhouse, slipping a blade in behind one eye, beginning to cut away the soft globe. Father Mencaroni lifts his hand towards Sebastian on the wall of the church. He asks the congregation to think for a moment about suffering. Then they are reminded not to use water unless strictly necessary-the region’s reservoirs are running low. The service concludes. The congregation sighs, leaves the basilica, and everyone begins to fan themselves in the sweltering heat. All thoughts turn to dozing behind closed shutters.

The gates of the cimitero are open when Annette arrives. She closes them behind her. They do not creak; they have been oiled. Climbing the marble steps she has made a resolution. She will not be afraid. If the Bestia is there, if he has leaked once more from his ornate frame and moved undetected through the town, and if his shadow begins to seep into her-into the canals of her ears, between her legs, and in through the pink eye of her belly-she will trust God to protect her. She will trust him, and the little glass vial of rosemary in her pocket. It will be a test of her courage, and her faith.

She steps into the stone garden of departed citizens while the sun burns furiously overhead. Carafes of wine have been left to fortify and evaporate in niches. She can smell plums and dry incense. The pathways through the memorials are worn smooth. She goes first to the photograph of her father. She touches the laminate panel, perhaps where her father’s hat is tipped back off his head, perhaps where his moustache is shaved so finely against his lip. She touches the figurine of the Madonna. A spider’s web has attached her to the corner of the alcove, as if the Holy Mother has been caught in a net. Annette removes it, and removes last week’s desiccated offering. She places the peony stems in the metal canister. Three blooms. Five blooms. ‘Papa, I remember your polished shoes,’ she says. ‘We have a television now. People are talking about a drought. Don’t worry about the flowers; Uncle Marcello has barrels of rainwater collected.’

Next she visits the chamber of her old tutor. She passes through the private gate, whose hinge has also been oiled, into the shady recess. It is quiet in the tomb, like a stone lung without any breath. On the wall a brass plaque shines dully. Pale insects with wings like oat husks crawl in the fissures. Annette empties the blue bottle of its dry stalks and flies, and delivers the new flowers with their five erupting red blooms. The light in the glass hull reflects the entrance of the chamber and the little crypt window, which looks out towards the beeches. It reflects two figures: one is a girl who is no longer a girl, and the other is squatting in the corner of the chamber in the darkness, like an animal. Now, after all, Annette can hear that the room is breathing. There is the sound of air travelling the length of a nose, into the well of a throat, and down into the chest. Air rushing back up the throat’s tunnel and blowing from two nostrils. She holds still.

Now there is the sound of swallowing, saliva moved from the tongue to the gullet. Now, the sound of something stirring in the corner. The hairs on Annette’s arms and neck lift, as fine as the filaments of a dandelion clock. The air is pulled away from her and it is difficult to breathe. There is the dry crackle of heels, like the sparking of matches against the sandpaper strip of a matchbox; the figure is standing slowly. A footstep. The gate of the tomb closes. The air breathes. She tries to speak, but her mouth is cracked and dry, like the earth in the centre of Italy, and words will not grow. In the pocket of her skirt, her fingers curl around the little glass vial. In her mind’s eye, she pictures the abundant rosemary growing in pots outside Castrabecco, and her uncle grinding oil from the green spines to keep her safe. She thinks of the blessed, humble rosemary, whose flowers turned blue when the Virgin hung her laundered robe on the bush as she travelled into Egypt.

There is a deep sigh, like the growl of an animal guarding its prey. She could clap her hands sharply, one-two-three, like clapping stray cats away from a dead pigeon in the street when they squabble for its plush entrails. She could call out for help, though the cimitero is empty, and the town is apathetic in its long summer state. She could rattle the gate, release the catch, and run down the steps–she knows the way–but she has made a promise not to be afraid. She has made a contract with God to trust in Him so that He will keep her safe from harm.

The breathing continues through the damp internal passageways and catacombs, through the holes in the face. Finally, he has come. What does he look like? She wants to know. Has he the lumbering back of a boar, with hair so coarse it cuts through bark? Does he move on all fours to slaughter sheep, like the Lobos dogman Vincenzo has written to them about, gore smeared about its mouth? She finds her voice. ‘Is it you? Is it you?’ A smile perhaps, the wet cracking of lips. Then there is silence. It is a silence so cavernous she could fill it with everything she knows and imagines. She could fill it with impossible bouquets and tropical fruits, exquisite hybrids spilling in eternal suspension. She could fill it with memories, of Signora Russo’s white baton conducting the anthem, of the tomb of the wolf’s bones, of Signor Giorgio’s suspenders, resting tight against his bloated chest. And of the eyes of her father, as green as the river, and of her mother and her uncle kissing, and of her brothers, with their chestnut skins and pouting mouths. It is a silence so big it might never end.

She lifts her face. Behind their lids her eyes are rolling and fighting the impediment. She raises her arm, reaching out. She thinks that when she touches him his hands will be flat and ringed like hooves, or with nails as long and barbed as porcupine quills. When he brings her palms up to his neck there will be a mane alive with lice, and plates of reptilian armour. His mouth will stream with spittle, the lips torn to shreds by the many serrated teeth. His tongue will wind around her wrist like a snake; it will be hung with hooks and barbs, attaching to her skin like thorns, and it will drag her to him. And when he tips back his head and roars, it will crack the stone of the tomb, and shatter her into pieces.

But when he touches her, his skin is soft and warm, and his hands are the hands of a man. And when he lays her down there is no thrashing tail, no soft underbelly, like the belly of a dog; no loaded jaw against her neck. He has been transfigured; becoming human, with smooth legs, and muscles in his arms. He lifts her skirt gently above her waist, but he does not open her abdomen with the blade of a horned thumb, nor is there the pinch and tug of her liver being taken. There is dripping on her forehead, two, three anointments, and salt on her mouth that she tastes with her tongue. She says to herself, ‘I am washed clean in the blood of the lamb. I am washed clean in the blood of the lamb. Heavenly Father.’ Her mouth is carefully opened, and the braids of her hair coiled inside. He pushes her chin so that she will bite down on the dry cords. He is breathing harder as he pulls the skirt higher, above her head, arranging it around the contours of her face, like a veil. He begins to remove her underclothes and she stirs, tries to shift away, but he secures her wrists. He is patient. There is rustling, the clinking of a belt, and then the force comes, to her back and hips and up inside her. She cries out but the sound is muffled. She bites her hair, coughs as it touches her throat. There is a red piercing, and a flame licking into her. It is like the pain of the mystics, the pain of St Theresa. She is being opened like the heart of the beloved. She is being burned alive.

The Bestia does not howl loudly in the tomb and break her apart, but groans and chokes, and the pressure lifts. His shoes scrape against the floor. The wetness spills. She is thinking, now I know who you are. Does he hear her think it? Is he afraid? He is holding her down. He is pushing against her chest and it is hard for her to breathe. He is tightening the skirt across her face and she cannot spit out the braids, the hair is in her throat. Small fireworks detonate inside her skull. Her legs kick. Her eyes feel as if they will break like yolks. The fit throwing her body up will snap her ligaments and break her spine, but she cannot stop it. There is one last flash in her head, and then she calms, and her feet still. She can smell the bitterness of candlewicks blowing out, a hundred thousand candles being extinguished all at once. Then she is falling away, falling down through the stone mausoleum, down among the roots of the hillside, past the two-headed worms and the blue-black beetles, down into the darkness.