The Matarese Circle (32 page)

The shepherd boy raised the heavy pistol and fired it into the head of Guillaume de Matarese.

The old woman had finished, her unblinking eyes filled with tears.

“I must rest,” she said.

Taleniekov, rigid in his chair, spoke softly. “We have questions, madame. Surely you know that.”

“Later,” said Scofield.

Light broke over the surrounding mountains as pockets of mist floated up from the fields outside the farmhouse. Taleniekov found tea, and with the old woman’s permission, boiled water on the wood-burning stove.

Scofield sipped from his cup, watching the rippling stream from the window. It was time to talk again; there were too many discrepancies between what the blind woman had told them and the facts as they were assumed to be. But there was a primary question: why had she told them at all? The answer to that might make clear whether any part of her narrative should be believed.

Bray turned from the window and looked at the old woman in the chair by the stove. Taleniekov had given her tea and she drank it delicately, as though remembering those lessons in the social graces given a girl of “ten and seven years of age” decades ago. The Russian was
kneeling by the dog, stroking its fur again, reminding it they were friends. He glanced up, as Scofield walked toward the old woman.

“We’ve told you our names, signora,” said Bray, speaking in Italian. “What is yours?”

“Sophia Pastorine. If one goes back to look, I’m sure it can be found in the records of the convent at Bonifacio. That is why you ask, is it not? To be able to check?”

“Yes,” answered Scofield. “If we think it’s necessary, and have the opportunity.”

“You will find my name. The
padrone
may even be listed as my benefactor, to whom I was ward—as an intended bride for one of his sons, perhaps. I never knew.”

“Then we must believe you,” said Taleniekov, getting to his feet. “You would not be so foolish as to direct us to such a source if it were not true. Records that have been meddled with are easily detected these days.”

The old woman smiled, a smile with its roots in sadness. “I have no understanding of such matters, but I can understand if you have doubts.” She put down her cup of tea on the ledge of the stove. “There are none in my memories. I have spoken the truth.”

“Then my first question is as important as any we may ask you,” said Bray, sitting down. “Why did you tell us this story?”

“Because it had to be told and no one else could do so. Only I survived.”

“There was a man,” interrupted Scofield. “And a shepherd boy.”

“They were not in the great hall to hear what I heard.”

“Have you told it before?” asked Taleniekov.

“Never,” replied the blind woman.

“Why not?”

“Who was I to tell it to? I have few visitors, and those that come are from down in the hills, bringing me the few supplies I need. To tell them would be to bring them death, for surely they would tell others.”

“Then the story is known,” pressed the KGB man.

“Not what I’ve told you.”

“But there’s a secret down there! They tried to send me away, and when I would not go they tried to kill me.”

“My granddaughter did not tell me that.” She seemed truly surprised.

“I don’t think she had time to,” said Bray.

The old woman did not seem to be listening, her focus still on the Russian. “What did you say to the people in the hills?”

“I asked questions.”

“You had to have done more than that.”

Taleniekov frowned, remembering. “I tried to provoke the innkeeper. I told him I would bring back others, scholars with historical records to study further the question of Guillaume de Matarese.”

The woman nodded. “When you leave here, do not go back the way you came. Nor can you take my child’s granddaughter with you. You must promise me that. If they find you, they will not let you live.”

“We know that,” said Bray. “We want to know why.”

“All the lands of Guillaume de Matarese were willed to the people of the hills. The tenants became the heirs of a thousand fields and pastures, streams and forests. It was so recorded in the courts of Bonifacio and great celebrations were held everywhere. But there was a price, and there were other courts that would take away the lands if that price were known.” The blind Sophia stopped, as if weighing another price, perhaps one of betrayal.

“
Please,
Signora Pastorine,” said Taleneikov, leaning forward in the chair.

“Yes,” she answered quietly. “It must be told.…”

Everything was to be done quickly for fear of unwanted intruders happening upon the great house of Villa Matarese and the death that was everywhere. The guests gathered their papers and fled to their rooms. I remained in the shadows of the balcony, my body filled with pain, the silent vomit of fear all around me. How long I stayed there, I could not tell, but soon I heard the running feet of the guests racing down the staircase to their appointed meeting place. Then there was the sound of carriage wheels and the neighing of horses; minutes later the carriage sped away, hooves clattering on the hard stone along with the rapid cracking of a whip, all fading away quickly.

I started to crawl toward the balcony door, not able to think, my eyes filled with bolts of lightning, my head trembling so I could barely find my way. I pressed my hands on the wall, wishing there were brackets I could hold
onto when I heard a shout and threw myself to the floor again. It was a terrible shout for it came from a child, and yet it was cold and demanding.

“Vieni subito!”

The shepherd boy was screaming at someone from the north veranda. If all was senseless up to that moment, the child’s shouts intensified the madness beyond any understanding. For he was a child … and a killer.

Somehow I rose to my feet and ran through the door to the top of the staircase. I was about to run down, wanting only to get away, into the air and the fields and the protection of darkness, when I heard other shouts and saw the figures of running men through the windows. They were carrying torches, and in seconds crashed through the doors.

I could not run down for I would be seen, so I ran above to the upper house, my panic such that I no longer knew what I was doing. Only running … running. And, as if guided by an unseen hand that wanted me to live, I burst into the sewing room and saw the dead. There they were, sprawled everywhere in blood, mouths stretched in such terror that I could still hear their screams.

The screams I heard were not real, but the shouts of men on the staircase were; it was the end for me. There was nothing left, I was to be caught. I would be killed.…

And then, as surely as an unseen hand had led me to that room, if forced me to do a most terrible thing—I joined the dead.

I put my hands in the blood of my sisters, and rubbed it over my face and clothes, I fell on top of my sisters and waited.

The men came into the sewing room, some crossing themselves, others whispering prayers, but none deterred from the work they had to do. The next hours were a nightmare only the devil could conceive of.

The bodies of my sisters and I were carried down the staircase and hurled through the doors, beyond the marble steps into the drive. Wagons had been brought from the stables, and by now many were filled with bodies. Again, my sisters and I were thrown into the back of a cart, crowded with dead, like so much refuse.

The stench of waste and blood was so overpowering I
had to sink my teeth into my own flesh to keep from screaming. Through the corpses above me and over the railings, I could hear men shouting orders. Nothing could be stolen from the Villa Matarese; anyone found doing so would join the bodies inside. For there were to be many bodies left inside, charred flesh and bones to be found at a later time.

The wagons began to move, smoothly at first, then we reached the fields, and the horses were whipped unmercifully. The wagons raced through the grass and over the rocks at immense speeds, as if every second was a second our living guards wished to leave behind in hell. There was death below me, death above me, and I prayed to Almighty God to take me also. But I could not cry out, for although I wanted to die, I was afraid of the pain of dying. The unseen hand held me by the throat. But mercy was granted me. I fell into unconsciousness; how long I do not know, but I think it was a very long time.

I awakened; the wagons had come to a stop and I peered through the bodies and the slats in the side. There was moonlight and we were far up in the wooded hills, but not in the mountains. Nothing was familiar to me. We were far, far away from Villa Matarese, but where I could not tell you then and cannot tell you now.

The last of the nightmare began. Our bodies were pulled off the wagons and thrown into a common grave, each corpse held by two men so that they could hurl it into the deepest part. I fell in pain, my teeth sinking into my fingers to keep my mind from crossing into madness. I opened my eyes and the vomit came again at what I saw. All around me dead faces, limp arms, gaping mouths. Stabbed, bleeding carcasses that only hours ago had been human beings.

The grave was enormous, wide and deep—and strangely, it seemed to me in my silent hysteria, shaped in the form of a circle.

Beyond the edge I would hear the voices of our gravediggers. Some were weeping, while others cried out to Christ for mercy. Several were demanding that the blessed sacraments be given to the dead, that for the sake of all their souls, a priest be brought to the place of death and intercede with God. But other men said no, they were
not the killers, merely those chosen to put the slain to rest. God would understand.

“Basta!”
they said. It could not be done. It was the price they paid for the good of generations yet to be born. The hills were theirs; the fields and streams and forests belonged to them! There was no turning back now. They had made their pact with the
padrone,
and he had made it clear to the elders: Only the government’s knowledge of a
cospirazione
could take the lands away from them. The
padrone
was the most learned of men, he knew the courts and the laws; his ignorant tenants did not. They were to do exactly as he had instructed the elders or the high courts would take the lands from them.

There could be no priests from Porto Vecchio or Sainte Lucie or anywhere else. No chance taken that word would go out of the hills. Those who had other thoughts could join the dead; their secret was never to leave the hills. The lands were theirs!

It was enough. The men fell silent, picked up their shovels, and began throwing dirt over the bodies. I thought then that surely I would die, my mouth and nostrils smothered under the earth. Yet I think all of us trapped with death find ways to elude its touch, ways we could never dream of before we are caught. It happened for me.

As each layer of earth filled the circular grave and was trampled upon, I moved my hand in the darkness, clawing the dirt above me so that I could breathe. At the very end I had nothing but the smallest passage of air but it was enough; there was space around my head, enough for God’s air to invade. The unseen hand had guided mine and I lived.

It was hours later, I believe, when I began to burrow my way to the surface, a … blind … unknowing animal seeking life. When my hand reached through to nothing but cold moist air, I wept without control, and a part of my brain went into panic, frightened that my weeping would be heard.

God was merciful; everyone had left. I crawled out of the earth, and I walked out of that forest of death into a field and saw the early sunlight rising over the mountains. I was alive, but there was no life for me. I could not go back to the hills for surely I would be killed, yet to go
elsewhere, to arrive at some strange place and simply be, was not possible for a young woman in this island country. There was no one I could turn to, having spent three years a willing captive of my
padrone.
Yet I could not simply die in that field with God’s sunlight spreading over the sky. It told me to live, you see.

I tried to think what I might do, where I might go. Beyond the hills, on the ocean’s coasts, were other great houses that belonged to other
padrones,
friends of Guillaume. I wondered what would happen were I to appear at one of them and plead for shelter and mercy. Then I saw the error of such thinking. Those men were not my
padrone;
they were men with wives and families, and I was the whore of Villa Matarese. While Guillaume was alive, my presence was to be tolerated, even enjoyed, for the great man would have it no other way. But with him dead, I was dead.

Then I remembered. There was a man who tended the stables of an estate in Zonza. He had been kind to me during those times we visited and I rode his employer’s mounts. He had smiled often and guided me as to my proper deportment in the saddle, for he saw that I was not born to the hunt. Indeed, I admitted it and we had laughed together. And each time I had seen the look in his eyes. I was used to glances of desire, but his eyes held more than that. There was gentleness and understanding, perhaps even respect—not for what I was, but for what I did not pretend to be.

I looked at the early sun and knew that Zonza was on my left, probably beyond the mountains. I set out for those stables and that man.

He became my husband and although I bore the child of Guillaume de Matarese, he accepted her as his own, giving us both love and protection through the days of his life. Those years and our lives during those years are no concern of yours; they do not pertain to the
padrone.
It is enough to say that no harm came to us. For years we lived far north in Vescovato, away from the danger of the hill people, never daring to mention their secret. The dead could not be brought back, you see, and the killer and his killer son—the man and the shepherd boy—had fled Corsica.