Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders (34 page)

Oscar
sat back and considered Munthe. ‘And how does the exorcist defeat these
diabolical forces?’ he enquired.

‘With
difficulty — and determination. Tuminello is wonderfully condescending towards
them. “The secret is to find your demon’s weak spot,” he says. Apparently, some
demons cannot bear to have the sign of the cross traced with a stole on an
aching part of the body; some cannot stand a simple puff of breath on the face;
others resist with all their might a blessing with holy water. According to
Monsignor Tuminello, “relief” is always possible, but in certain cases to rid a
person of his demons can take many exorcisms over many years. It seems that for
a demon to leave a body and return to hell it has to die for ever. I’ve heard
one of these devils in its death throes crying out, “I am dying, I am dying.
You are killing me, Tuminello. All priests are murderers.”’

‘Extraordinary,’
I murmured.

‘Indeed,’
acknowledged Munthe. ‘Had I witnessed these goings-on just the once, I’d have dismissed
them as trickery but I am a man of science and, in Tuminello’s company, I have
attended exorcism after exorcism. There is more to it than hocus-pocus.’

‘Do you
admire Monsignor Tuminello?’ I asked.

‘He
brings relief to those who need it. I respect him. He is an unusual man.’ He
looked engagingly from Oscar to me. ‘I like unusual men.’

‘Do you
think he will achieve the canonisation of little Agnes?’ asked Oscar.

Munthe
laughed and removed his spectacles to polish them once more. ‘Is that his
ambition? Tuminello wants to make the child a saint? I am sorry to hear it.
Frankly, without a body and without a miracle, he’s without a hope.’

‘He
claims that the girl cured Pius IX of epilepsy,’ I said.

‘Some
say the old pope’s final illness was
provoked
by an epileptic attack!
The Holy Father’s fits may have become less frenzied and less frequent as he
grew older, but I don’t think Pio Nono was ever completely cured.’

‘And
what about the man who lived in the woods behind the pyramid,’ I asked, ‘your
patient, the bone man?’

‘He is
dead,’ said Munthe.

‘He was
a cripple with a gammy leg,’ said Oscar, ‘until he prayed to Agnes.’

Munthe
smiled and shook his head. ‘The man was a drunkard and a wastrel. If he dragged
his foot, it was to get pity. If he ceased to drag it, it was to draw attention
to himself. Even if the poor wretch was still alive and half coherent, his
testimony would be worthless.’

Our
journey to the harbour at Naples took three hours. We filled it with talk of
Monsignors and miracles. Munthe had respect for Luigi Tuminello (‘He knows his
business’), reservations about Nicholas Breakspear (‘He asked me if he might
roast
my Cleopatra’) and what he called ‘a curious fondness’ for Francesco
Felici. ‘Felici lives in the moment,
for
the moment. I find his undisguised
greed oddly disarming.’

‘Is it
greed or a lust for life?’ asked Oscar.

‘God
alone knows,’ said Axel Munthe, blinking endearingly from behind his darkened
glasses.

On the
tiny iron-hulled steamship that took us from the harbour station across the bay
of Naples to the island of Capri, we agreed,
nem con,
that if anyone
merited immediate beatification it was Brother Matteo. The Capuchin friar
appeared to be the exemplification of saintly virtues. Tall and lean, bearded
and handsome, with sparse snow-white hair and kindly dove-grey eyes, in his
simple brown habit, with cowl thrown back, he looked every inch the part. The
four of us had stood simply looking on as, with bare feet, grace and good
humour, the Capuchin friar had overseen the removal of Father Bechetti’s coffin
from the goods van of the train, found porters to convey it across the railway
tracks to the dockside and helped manhandle it onto the cargo deck of the
waiting vessel. Brother Matteo was around sixty years of age. He did what he
did with dignity and without fuss.

‘No
tips expected or forthcoming, I notice,’ Oscar whispered (with a touch of envy,
I thought).

‘He has
natural authority,’ said Catherine English, admiringly. ‘He commands respect.’

‘The
monkish habit helps, no doubt,’ Oscar murmured, ‘and the presence of a coffin.’

When
Munthe and I offered our assistance, Brother Matteo called out,
‘Grazie
tanto! Non è necessario!’
and continued about his business. While Munthe
was briefly locked in bureaucratic conclave with the harbour master, Brother
Matteo appeared on the quayside with a tray of fresh coffee and ham sandwiches.

‘He
is
a saint,’ said Miss English.

Oscar
took the refreshments gratefully — it was our first food and drink of the day —
and, as Brother Matteo departed, murmured into my ear: ‘He is so good he really
should be our murderer. That’s what your readers would expect, Arthur.’

On the
steamship, while we four sat together on a wooden banquette on the upper deck,
sheltered from the ferocious midday sun by a tarpaulin awning, below us, on the
cargo deck, Brother Matteo stood, exposed to the elements, keeping vigil by
Father Bechetti’s coffin. The crossing took two hours. Brother Matteo remained
at his post throughout, his left hand resting all the while on the coffin’s lid.
During the voyage, Oscar dozed and then slept soundly. Munthe leafed idly
through Oscar’s copy of Butler’s
Lives of the Saints
and then fell
asleep himself. Miss English and I sat side by side and talked — of her
travails and my ambitions. The sea was calm, but in the occasional swell she
rested her hand on mine and looked into my eyes for reassurance.

As the
steamship neared Capri, Munthe awoke, got to his feet and called out to us all
to stand and admire the island’s beauty. We had no difficulty doing so. The
island’s coastline was wonderfully varied and above the dramatic range of
cliffs and crags, creeks and caves, there rose high hills covered in myrtle,
cypress and lemon groves. The Mediterranean light was perfect and the view
undeniably enchanting.

‘This
is where I want to live!’ declared Munthe, his arms outstretched towards shore.

‘This
is where Father Bechetti wanted to be buried,’ mused Oscar. ‘I wonder why?’

‘Because
it is paradise,’ cried Munthe.

‘I’d
rather live in paradise than be buried there,’ said Oscar quietly.

From
the cargo deck, Brother Matteo called up to us:

‘Barca
a remi!’

‘There’s
no harbour here,’ Munthe explained. ‘The ship can go no further. We must row
the coffin ashore.’

‘How
will we get back?’ asked Oscar, anxiously.

‘The
ship will wait for us. We’ll row back once we’ve safely delivered our cargo.’

Four of
the crew, with ropes, assisted by Brother Matteo, Munthe and me, lowered Father
Bechetti’s coffin over the ship’s side into the rowing boat. Matteo and I and
two boatmen took the oars. The beach was not far off, but the water, though
shallow, was choppy and the tide strong. It was hard pounding, made no lighter
by Oscar’s jocose (and incessant) commentary. As we rowed the boat ashore, my
friend thought he would entertain us all by likening our heroic endeavours to
those of the Oxford and Cambridge crews in the University Boat Race of 1877,
the year in which the race resulted in a dead heat and Oscar composed his
sonnet ‘On first approaching Italy’, which poem, encouraged by Miss English, he
proceeded to recite!

As,
wearily, we dragged the heavy rowing boat up the pebble beach, Oscar
apologised.

‘My
nerves get the better of me when I am too close to water.’ His pale and puffy
face was awash with perspiration. Shading his eyes with a shaking hand, he
looked up into the clear blue sky. A peregrine falcon hovered overhead. ‘You
see, the birds of prey are gathering. My anxiety was perhaps justified.’

Catherine
English and Munthe laughed indulgently, but I was not amused. My arms ached and
my head throbbed. ‘Enough,’ I snapped. ‘We have solemn work to do.’

Brother
Matteo smiled.
‘Andiamo in chiesa,’
he said, indicating the donkey and
cart waiting at the roadside at the top of the beach.

It was
not clear to me at first whether or not we were expected, but two elderly men,
unshaven, in ragged trousers and torn shirts, stood by the cart and, as we came
within earshot, one of them called out, ‘
Capri? Funerale?’

‘Si,’
responded Brother Matteo. ‘Chiesa Sant’ Anna.’

The old
men came down the beach to help us carry the coffin to the donkey cart. I
commanded Oscar to assist.

‘You’ve
got to face life’s harsh realities now and again, old man,’ I said.

I had
noticed that since Brother Matteo and the coffin had first emerged from the
railway goods van at the harbour in Naples, Oscar had studiously avoided
gazing upon the oak box itself.

‘It’s
not life that I shy away from,’ said Oscar. ‘It’s death.’

Nevertheless,
my fine aesthetic friend heaved to and six of us — the two old men, Brother
Matteo, Axel Munthe, Oscar and I — lifted the coffin out of the rowing boat and
up onto our shoulders.

As we
carried it, precariously, over the shingle towards the roadway, we were not
unattended. Eight or ten young boys — all barefoot, some quite naked — had run
along the beach to discover what was going on. Catching sight of the coffin,
they had fallen silent and now they stood, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, watching
the scene in wonder.

When we
had placed the coffin on its simple hearse, we followed it along the roadway
and up the hill, our cortège of naked boys in tow.

‘I’ll
not forget this death march,’ murmured Oscar. ‘I’m glad I came.’

Brother
Matteo led the procession, walking alongside the donkey. He and the animal
seemed to know the way.

‘We are
going to the church of St Anna,’ said Axel Munthe. ‘It is the island’s parish
church and very old. It’s where Father Bechetti was baptised.’

‘St
Anna is the protectress of women in childbirth,’ said Oscar.

Munthe
pulled Oscar’s copy of
The Lives of the Saints
from his jacket pocket
and handed it back to my friend. ‘You know all about her, of course.’

‘I do,’
said Oscar, taking the book. ‘I already did. She is the mother of the Virgin
Mary. She is Our Lord’s
grandmother.
Her story is well known, Doctor.’

‘Is
it?’ asked Munthe. ‘I am a Swedish Protestant and a lapsed one at that.’

Oscar
laughed and pushed the book into his outside jacket pocket. To make room for
it, he had to transfer his cigarette case to an inside one.

‘I
suppose I am not allowed to smoke under the present, sad circumstances?’ he
asked, balefully eyeing the box containing the mortal remains of Father
Bechetti. ‘I could use a “gasper” as Arthur’s ne’er-do-well characters like to
call them. In this heat, to be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.’

As we
got close to the village, the naked boys began to fall away. As we entered the
old church, there were just the seven of us, the six men carrying the coffin
and Catherine English following behind. The ancient building — constructed,
according to Munthe, in the thirteenth century with materials taken from the
ruins of villas dating back to the heyday of Imperial Rome — was deliciously
cool. And still. And dark.

Evidently
we were expected, for immediately in front of us, at the head of the nave, just
in front of the altar steps, stood a simple wooden bier, with, at its head, a
heavy brass candlestick bearing a single burning candle.

To the
right of the bier, seated alone in the front pew, was a nun dressed in a blue
serge habit, her head bowed. From the outline of her form, she might have been
a young woman. When we had lowered the coffin onto the bier and I turned
towards her, I saw that her face was deeply lined and she had sunken,
black-ringed eyes.

As we
stepped away from the bier, Brother Matteo whispered to Axel Munthe in Italian.
‘Sister Anna,‘

Munthe
translated, ‘she does not speak. She weeps. She prays.’

Catherine
English had remained at the back of the church. Axel Munthe, Oscar and I joined
her in her pew. As we sat down, the nun got to her feet and stepped into the
nave. She genuflected towards the altar, made the sign of the cross and went to
kneel at the foot of Father Bechetti’s coffin. She knelt on the hard stone
floor, her back erect, her hands placed together and held up before her face,
palms and fingers touching. Brother Matteo stood beyond the candle, on the
steps, facing the high altar. He genuflected slowly and then turned back to
lead his little congregation in prayer.

‘In
nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.’

He made
the sign of the cross over the coffin, then smiled at the reverend sister.

‘Requiem
œternam dona Joachim Bechetti, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in
pace. Amen.’

For
twenty minutes, we sat at the back of the church listening to Brother Matteo’s
prayers and the old woman’s sobbing.