His foot tried to find purchase in empty space and he found himself falling, banging his knees and elbow. To save his face he put out his hands. He heard his skin rip, and felt pain, but it was poorly localized. He could not tell which hand he had damaged until he felt the blood tickling his left arm. He lay there for some time, promising himself that he would not panic. All he had to do was cover twenty paces. The length from his desk in his office to Caterina’s desk in the next room. How he missed that now. He wanted back all that he thought he hated about Rome: the extravagant noise, the idiots outside bars broadcasting their opinions. He thought of the vile cologne-scented politicians striding by in silver suits and fluffed-up ties who passed through Piazza Collegio Romano, bawling obscenities into their phones, mainly for the benefit of the people they knew were watching. He even missed that. He missed people.
At a certain point — he had no idea how long it had been since he started his interminable journey across the floor of the cave — he sat down and gave up. It had been long enough for the blood to stop flowing so freely down his arm and turn sticky and hard. The costive trickle of water was no longer functioning as a point of reference. It seemed to be coming from everywhere. The sensible thing was to catch some sleep and rest his mind.
His hand found a smooth slab. The rocks behind were jagged, but the slab was comfortable, if cold. Lying down might be dangerous: he was exhausted, he had lost blood, he had not slept properly and all he had eaten was a can of cold soup. He could taste its saltiness now, and he dearly wished he had had another. He decided just to sit for a while, without sleeping, and let his thoughts collect themselves. He had read somewhere that it took only a few days after the onset of blindness before the brain started remapping some of the mind’s spatial functions to the ears. Or maybe a few months. Whatever: he’d be dead before he was Batman.
He wondered how Caterina was getting on. She was probably in bed now, deep asleep and warm. He could have taken the suitcase stuffed with his parents’ memories round to her place a few days earlier. Sort of like inviting the dead parents round. What had made him throw it into a camper van travelling south? Those were among the last things he had belonging to them. Except… he put his bloody hand into his pocket and felt the three rings.
There was the buzzing again, so faint it was no more than a whine, but it interfered with the sound of the water. Two sounds plus his own breathing, and sometimes, he had noticed, he talked out loud to himself. He sniffed at the darkness, but could not smell. Was the whole cavern impregnated with the stench of death and he no longer noticed? Not noticing could be a sign that he, too, was dead. He opened his mouth and swallowed the air, as black as the inside of Pietro’s mouth. No, I am still alive. Cogito ergo sum.
It was evident that he would never get to sleep and evident that he would never be found. What sort of death would he have chosen instead of this?
‘A painful death?’ he said out loud, hearing his voice at once echoed and muffled. ‘Stabbing?’ He held up his injured hand, stared at it, put it to his nose, and tried to smell its shape and colour.
‘Dying in a bed surrounded by weeping children, wives?’
Wives. That’s very funny. Five wives. Seven! Let’s see, there would be, in order of good sex, Kristin, Emilia, Daria, Caterina of course. It’s a pity Caterina wasn’t higher up the sex list. Top place for everything else, of course. He could call them up, all his exes one by one, out of the blue.
‘Who shall I call first?’
‘Why me, of course,’ said Caterina. ‘You never call.’
‘I will from now on,’ said Blume. ‘Promise.’
‘You don’t even answer when I call.’
‘That’s because I have it on silent.’
‘But it buzzes, doesn’t it?’
‘I met a beautiful woman who cured me with licorice. She had a handsome son with blue eyes and a white smile. But then her husband put me in a cave.’
‘If this is a bedtime story for Elia, he’s too old for that.’
‘Old enough to betray. To call his father, who comes along to put me in a cave.’
‘Elia’s father is dead. He can’t be called.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ said Blume.
The buzzing grew louder. The air seemed to press in on itself. He felt it had become so thick it would block his lungs, so he held his breath. Now the only sounds were his heartbeat, the dripping water and a footfall. Three heartbeats, one footfall. Coming in his direction.
‘Caterina? You’re here?’
The footsteps stopped. The thick air smelled of sewage, gutted hare, boar.
The voice that spoke to him was hoarse with rage. ‘Answer and you’ll find out who’s calling you.’
‘I don’t want to know.’
‘Coward.’
‘They confiscated my phone. I can’t answer.’
‘Open your eyes, infame,’ ordered the voice.
‘My eyes are open.’
‘Then you can see me.’
Pietro was standing several paces off, taller than Blume remembered him. His blackened tongue poked out between his teeth. The darkness hid his lips. Walking sure-footed and soundlessly over the rock, he approached Blume and held out his arm, which was blue marbled on top, livid below. He grinned showing his missing eyeteeth, opened his stinking mouth, and said, ‘They’re calling you.’
Blume stared into Pietro’s misted eyes, the blasted forehead, through which a whirl of black air was passing.
‘There is nothing in your hand, Pietro.’ Blume checked his own hand, but it was invisible in the dark, which had a significance he couldn’t quite work out.
‘ Infame di merda. Where did you get that gun? I took it off you. I destroyed your phone, gave your pistol to Curmaci. How did that happen? This place stinks of treachery. Do you think Agazio is coming back for you?’
‘He promised he would.’
‘Answer the phone.’
‘I am under tons of rock. There’s no signal down here. It cannot be ringing. This is some diabolic trick.’
‘Such a logical line of thought. Logical to the very end. But look who you’re talking to, where’s the logic in that?’
‘No one is calling me.’
‘Where is the buzzing coming from then? You’ll have to frisk me to find the phone. Watch out for the mushy bits. Those flies, tiny creatures now, but just you wait. They’ll like your fresh blood better than mine. Lick it off your arm. Before the flies eat you.’
‘I won’t touch you. The dead are unclean.’
‘Dereliction of duty. Dead people are what pay your salary.’
‘The Calabrian dead mean nothing to me.’
‘As a people we have noticed that. A lot of the trouble stems from just that.’
Pietro glided back, illuminating the cavern as he went. When he had returned to the place where he had fallen, he lay down, getting right back into his previous position with absolute precision. He turned his head once to grin at Blume, before becoming perfectly immobile and then dimmed the light around him until he had returned to invisibility.
Polsi, Calabria
The bishop bent down with some difficulty and picked up the silver crown, which he held up so it flashed in the light of the sun. He kissed it, then placed it on the head of the Christ Child. A vigorous cheer went up. He repeated the gesture, kissing the far larger crown of the Madonna three times, straining as he reached up to put it on her head, turning it to screw it into place. A cheer, wilder now, greeted the action, and the bishop smiled and patted his stomach, pleased with the acclamation.
The Madonna was lifted onto the processional throne supported by long oak beams carried on the shoulders of the faithful. Basile would be there towards the end, at the steepest part of the hill, his hands pushing the Virgin and Child skywards as they were carried back to their place of sanctuary. The slaughter and butchering of kids, lambs and calves began. Already Curmaci could smell the spices in the copper pots ready to receive the fresh meat. Children ran around. Some women wept. Some men, too. The musicians were here, the tambourines jangling. They would dance the tarantella. No matter how fat, old or powerful, everyone always had a go at the tarantella. No youth was allowed to feel the dance was below his dignity or that he was above tradition. The dance was for everyone.