Q - Luther Blissett, page 54
His sparse hair is dishevelled, his eye-sockets hollow, and his jaws would pounce on the steak that Demetra's just served him, if they weren't in full flow.
He finally gulps down his first mouthful and seems to regain the requisite lucidity.
He barely lifts his eyes from his plate: 'Anyone else been put away?'
'Infante in Naples.'
He puffs.
'And that's not the worst.
Perna's little eyes stare at me apprehensively: 'Who else?'
'Benedetto Fontanini.'
The bookseller runs his hand over the top of his head, smoothing down what's left of his hair. 'Sweet Jesus, we're fucked...'
'They've imprisoned him in the monastery of St Giustina, in Padua. He's accused of being the author of The Benefit of Christ. He could rot there for ever.'
Perna lowers his head again. 'We've got to be really careful from now on.' He looks at all three of us in turn. 'Everyone.' His eye falls on João: 'And don't you go thinking you're any safer than the rest of us, my friend, if they start getting serious we're all fucked. We're safe here in Venice for the time being, but they've given us a good warning.'
'What do you mean?' I refill his wine glass.
'They've worked it out. They know who we are, who's involved. First they arrested João, then me and poor old Infante. Then off they go after Benedetto of Mantua...' He chews and swallows.
Duarte looks at all of us: 'Who are we talking about?'
Perna's fork falls on to his plate. Silence. The Caratello is closed, we're alone, three Sephardic Jews and two inveterate unbelievers sitting around a table plotting: an inquisitor's delight.
Perna squats down like a cat: 'We're talking about the Hardest Man of all, gentlemen, yes, His Hardest and Toughest Eminence Cardinal Giovanni Pietro Carafa. We're talking about the zelanti. The ones who want to make a nice little necklace for themselves from the balls of Reginald Pole and his pals. Bastards one and all they are, those men and their cops. They still haven't set them loose, but they will before long, you'll see.' A glance at João. 'And these men can't be bought, you know? Incorruptible bastards.'
I interrupt him: 'Milan, Naples, Venice -- those cities are never going to let the Roman Inquisition poke its nose into their business.'
'And business it is. For the time being it wouldn't be worth their while setting their cops on us, you're right. But it all depends on who takes the Holy Throne, who makes the rules after Paul III croaks. And yet in order to avoid interference from Rome, the Venetians might think it best to settle their scores with us off their own bat, without waiting for Carafa and his friends.'
He swallows his mouthful. 'Oh, the filth. When I think about that latrine, I lose my appetite.'
* * *
Q's diary
* * *
Venice, 5th November 1548
* * *
The child who thinks Jesus is a statue.
* * *
I've travelled the length and breadth of the city. I'm looking for a German, trusting my intuition: the bookshops where he might have acquired The Benefit of Christ Crucified.
I visited the shop of Andrea Arrivabene, the bookseller at the sign of the Well, a place that Titian is sure to be familiar with. I pretended to take an interest in the doctrines of Anabaptism, hoping he might be able to suggest someone I could speak to.
Not a thing.
* * *
Venice, 7th November 1548
* * *
The child and the statue of Christ.
The child who thought that Jesus was a statue.
The five-year-old child.
The child that Bernhard Rothmann, the pastor of Münster, asked who Jesus was.
A statue.
The endlessly repeated anecdote, in the days of madness.
The days of King David.
It's hard to go back. Painful. Memories of conversations, long, interminable, stirring up the preacher's madness, suggesting the most deranged choices to a deluded mind.
Terror and slow dissolution.
The final days of Münster.
Outside those walls, the first shiver of uncertainty. I wanted to forget.
Titian, the German pilgrim who baptised Adalberto Rizzi, alias Friar Poplar, Friar Lucifer and the pirates of the Po, knew Bernhard Rothmann.
Someone from Münster, someone I've met.
I went back into the street, this time in search of a face. I turned around with a start every time I heard a word uttered in my language. I scrutinised people's faces, beneath their beards, trying to see beyond their hair, whether it was long or short, peering among their scars and wrinkles. It was like a hallucination, a suspicion confirmed in every face I saw.
This won't do.
Chapter 29
Venice, 11th November 1548
* * *
It isn't easy to explain to them that I've got to go. It isn't easy to tell them about an old enemy. Qoèlet, the constant ally, the traitor, the infiltrator.
It won't be easy, but it has to be done. Explaining the journeys of the past few months, this beard: Titian, the apostle with The Benefit of Christ in one hand and the water of Jordan in the other. Settling a score that was begun twenty years ago. Trying to set Carafa's cop -- his best, his most cunning cop - on the trail of an Anabaptist heresiarch made to measure specially for him. There isn't much time left. The noose has begun to tighten earlier than expected, but I knew that would happen. I'm playing with fire, and I can't put their lives in jeopardy. The same unforgivable mistake I've been making all my life: my past erupting into the present and turning into a massacre, ripping apart the flesh of friends, partners, lovers. Demetra, Beatrice, João, Pietro. The names of the imminent dead. Leave before it happens. Drag the Exterminating Angel and the eternal policeman along behind me, far from the loved ones of my final days. To the remotest corners, the very arsehole of Europe, this continent that I've travelled from coast to coast. Get him to follow me there and, in that foul-smelling sewer, wait and settle the scores for countless lives. Alone.
It doesn't matter how long it takes, Eloi can have his name back, I'll just be Titian the mad Baptist.
João will take care of the brothel and Demetra in my place. I'll move about, I'll leave clues, I'll keep going until I've dragged Qoèlet into the light.
Perna, you said it: you've got to see how things will end, you've got to put your life and your luck on the line if they're to mean anything at all. You have to supply a reason for each and every defeat, and for everything that's been spared. They're not going to give up the game, and I want to bring it to its conclusion. Somehow.
* * *
Looks of astonishment, jaws set. The only sound that emerges is Beatrice's clear voice: 'Just because life has forced my family to dissemble, it has never stopped me from appreciating sincerity, Ludovico.'
She smiles. My words have done nothing to dim the light in her dark eyes. 'So allow me to reciprocate your candour. You aren't the cause of the danger that threatens us: we all knew from the start what risks we would face when we set out to distribute The Benefit of Christ Crucified. We've challenged the excommunication of the Council, the Inquisition, the shady strategies of the powerful men of Venice. To what end? The spiritual war being waged by the black dogs of the Holy Office is a threat to all of us. Pretending not to know that won't save us. Look who we've got here: an underground bookseller, the manager of a brothel and a wealthy Jewish family that's been on the run for half a century. Then there's you: a heretic, a reject, a thief and a pander. All of us the kind of people they want to sweep away. If they win they'll take everything, they'll fill every available space. We'll be locked up, the lucky ones will die.'
Beatrice walks over to the window, with its view of the Giudecca canal against the background of St Mark's. It remains a dark outline.
She goes on: 'You've spoken of personal fate, you've said you've got to settle a score. You mentioned the black wing that has been flying over your head throughout your life, destroying everything dear to you. Your concerns are noble and sensible, but everyone has a part to play. I, too, am convinced that it's a good idea for us to part, remaining united only in the interests of a common plan. The Titian trail, sowing heresy and confusion, may bring the dogs out, it may confuse their sense of smell, slow down their progress, as we await the new Pope. But if that's your task, everyone else is going to have to have something to do as well.'
João rises to his feet, unsmiling. 'Aunt Beatriz, you could keep the exit clear. Your charisma and your contacts at the court of Ferrara, where we are in good favour both because of your loans to the duke and your great personal refinement, could guarantee a safe passage for everyone if things were to heat up. I'll stay here in Venice, to call in favours in return for the donations we've made. Now's the time for the patricians and merchants of the city to show their proper appreciation of the people who keep them in such splendid style, and who keep their affairs afloat. Meanwhile I can take care of new business, the routes we've opened up with the Turks.'
* * *
He turns back towards Perna. 'You'd be better off staying out of sight for a while. I want you to be my agent on the eastern coast. Your job will be to spread the new translation of The Benefit in Croatia and Dalmatia, to Ragusa and beyond. You won't just be dealing with books, you'll be my link beyond the reach of the Inquisition.'
The little man jumps up: 'Selling books to the Turks? Am I dreaming here? Going up and down the coast on those stinking little tubs? Is that to be the fate of Pietro Perna, a man with a reputation, a man respected from Basle to Rome? Ludovico, say something!'
'Yes, you're right, you need a new name. Something less respectable, perhaps, but less well known to the cops.'
Perna slumps into his chair, almost disappearing into it, his legs dangling.
João smiles at Demetra. 'The fascinating donna Demetra will go on managing the Caratello as though nothing had happened, constantly on the alert for any indiscretions on the part of her affluent customers. Any information could be valuable. We'll keep an eye on her and the girls while Ludovico is away.'
Beatrice: 'There's no point denying that our fate depends to a large extent on the identity of the next Pope. Let's wait for that moment before we decide what to do in the light of that new situation.'
Bernardo refills the glasses. João raises his first, he's got his smile back: 'To the future Pope, then!'
We all erupt in hearty laughter.
* * *
Q's diary
* * *
Venice, 14th November 1548
* * *
Information picked up in places frequented or managed by Germans:
* * *
-- 'Silver Lily' bookshop, specialising in Lutheran and sacramentist books, owned by one Hermann Reidel.
-- Friedrich von Melleren, count, head of the small circle of German men of letters in Venice, has a palazzo just behind the Fondaco.
-- 'Black Forest' inn, run by a German woman married to a Venetian merchant. It's the meeting-place of the artisans: wood-carvers, goldsmiths, cobblers...
-- ' Caratello' inn, owned by Ludwig Schaliedecker, known as the German, and a Greek woman. The brothel of choice for important Germans, and for those with well-filled purses.
-- 'Silk' inn, meeting-place for merchants, run by Hans Gastwirt. Games of chance and favourable rates of exchange.
-- Workshop Jacopo Maniero, glass-maker, every Thursday after vespers: meeting-place of the Calvinist community (Italians, Swiss and Germans).
* * *
Venice, 15th November 1548
* * *
Spent a day in the 'Black Forest' and in Hermann Reidel's bookshop.
Nothing.
* * *
A name that rings a bell: Ludwig Schaliedecker. Where have I heard it before? Among the German apostates? Something to do with Wittenberg.
Ludwig Schaliedecker, manager of the 'Caratello'.
Check tomorrow.
Chapter 30
Venice, 16th November 1548
* * *
She leans against me to avoid losing her balance as she climbs aboard the boat that will carry us to the Miquez brothers' carrack, moored on the other side of the island. With the other hand she holds her heavy cloak, helped by a servant-girl, taking care to ensure that her clothes don't get wet. She manages to preserve a boundless dignity where other noblewomen would simply have appeared clumsy, encumbered by all their flummery. I can't help reflecting that Beatrice is a special, luminous creature.
I help her to settle on the seat, with her cloak rolled up under her arms.
Hunchbacked Sebastiano is ready with the oar at the stern.
João and Bernardo embrace us.
'Don't be afraid, Aunt Beatriz, I'm leaving you in good hands. Write to me when you reach Ferrara, and do pass on my greetings to Duke Ercole and Princess Renée.'
'And you be careful, João, these streets can be more treacherous than the castle dungeons. And keep an eye on your brother Bernardo, if anything were to happen to him I'd hold you responsible.'
'Don't worry. We'll all meet up again very soon.'
João flashes his smile: 'Good luck, my friend. Keep your powder dry, and don't be too impulsive. These people are dangerous...'
'I can be too, if the occasion calls for it...'
Sebastiano has already unmoored the boat from the jetty, the two brothers say goodbye to us, their hands raised to the sky.
* * *
The news arrived at dawn. A Franciscan who came to the Caratello for a quiet fuck: the Venetian Inquisition is planning to arrest Beatrice. Today they would have interrogated her concerning some informer statements identifying her as a crypto-Jewess, a false Christian.
An act of intimidation, a feeble attempt to pressurise a family whose presence is awkward for everyone, perhaps to blackmail them to obtain discounts on credit. The patricians of La Serenissima are shitting themselves. Who hasn't had loans from the Mendesi, as they call them here? Who doesn't covet their vast family wealth?
João immediately prepared the carrack, there was no time to lose.
So we're leaving without even having time to think.
Ferrara. That will have to be the starting-point of Titian's journey. A long journey, this time, using the city of the Este family as a safe house to which I'll return to pick up news about the situation in Venice. My plan is to head south, towards Bologna, and cross the Apennines, get to Florence. Before I bade him farewell, Perna told me I couldn't die without having seen Florence. Poor little Perna, dispatched along the Croatian coast. I have no doubt that he'll be a great success down there; Pietro the bookseller weeps and wails, but in the end his big balding head always pops up again, unharmed and ready to resume its endless logorrhoea.
So here we are. We're on the home stretch, the last bit of our journey and a new adventure. I'm a madman, an old bird perched here on this seat with my grey beard and aching bones that won't leave me in peace. I'm mad, and I still want to laugh. I still can't believe I'm off on my travels again, preaching up a storm. I find myself thinking about how it all began. I find myself thinking that my life has coincided with war, with flight, with sparks that set the plain alight and waves that covered it over. I should leave my tired old bones in a hole somewhere and slip serenely away, a little bit at a time, reviewing the faces of my friends and lovers in my memory. And instead I'm still here, dogs snapping at my heels, settling the score on behalf of all those faces. The obsession of an old heretic who can't find peace.
The last challenge, the last battle. I could have died in Frankenhausen, in the squares of Münster, in Holland, in Antwerp, in the prisons of the Inquisition. But here I am. And finishing the game, solving the mystery, is the last thing that remains to be done.
* * *
Q's diary
* * *
Venice, 16th November 1548
* * *
Visit to the 'Caratello'. Ludwig Schaliedecker, or 'don Ludovico', the manager, isn't there. He's left, no one knows where he's gone. I throw out the occasional question, I don't want to arouse anyone's suspicion.
Clearer memories: Eloisius de Schaliedecker. Wittenberg, more than twenty years ago, a man who came to challenge Luther and Melanchthon. He was the talk of the whole university, because of his strange notions about sin and perfection.
He might have come from the Netherlands or Flanders, I can't remember.
Try and get some information. Write to the Inquisition in Amsterdam and Antwerp. A letter of introduction from Carafa might be useful. And that would mean telling him of my suspicions.
It would still take a matter of months.
Keep on searching here in Venice. Keep an eye on the 'Caratello', in case he comes back.
Write to the Inquisitors in Milan, Ferrara and Bologna to get fresh information about Titian the Anabaptist.
* * *
Letter sent to Rome from Venice, addressed to Gianpietro Carafa, dated 17th November 1548
* * *
To the most illustrious and honourable Giovanni Pietro Carafa
* * *
My lord, I have just today received Your most urgent communication. You will receive this reply at most two days before I arrive in Rome. I will immediately be available for whatever tasks Your Lordship may wish to assign to me.
