Free What Lot's Wife Saw by Ioanna Bourazopoulou Page B

my future, Siccouane …”
    “Well then, can we stop posturing and see what we can do to improve our destiny!”
    All this time, we could hear the servants briskly coming and going, airing the rooms, dragging furniture, snapping open sheets, puffing up pillows. The noise intruded on our consciousness and sowed the seeds of panic, as if they might barge into the room and demand our Stars.
    Bateau suggested that I announce to the staff that the Governor was indisposed, so as to gain some time until we could agree on our next move. I refused to go out of the room and leave them alone with the dead body – I didn’t trust them and wouldn’t budge before I’d heard a definitive diagnosis from Dr Fabrizio’s lips. Siccouane went and locked the door so that no one could mistakenly blunder in. Outside this door the Governor was still alive and as long as everyone believed that, I was still Queen of the Castle; Siccouane was still Secretary; Bateau the Presiding Judge; Drake, Captain of the Guards; and Montenegro, High Priest of the Metropolis. We could continue living the dream for a few moments longer.
    It wasn’t long before Dr Fabrizio joined us. To cover up his alarm, he pretended to have been slighted because he’d been the last one to be informed. He declared that it had been weeks since he had last been alone with the Governor, as if anyone was blaming him for his death. He wore his stethoscope and pretended to examine the body. Even if he’d been blind he would’ve known at once that Bera was dead, but Fabrizio continued his pantomime while trying to decide what stance he should take. He asked me some exasperating questions, increasing everyone’s discomfort, about Bera’s recent bowel movements, his dietary habits, the quality of his sleep, his disposition. Montenegro interrupted the ridiculous interrogation and asked to learn the time of death. Fabrizio snapped that it must’ve been between midnight and four in the morning. He also offered eagerly that at that time he’d been asleep and hadn’t left his villa the whole night, nor had he gone to the Infirmary in the morning. Instead, he’d been on his veranda reading the Amateur Gardener , July edition, when Bianca had come for him. Markella, his housekeeper, could confirm every word. We advised him that rather than give us his explanations, he could look forward to boring the Seventy-Five with them.
    “What was the exact cause of death, Fabrizio?” Bateau was anxious to find out.
    “What do you expect me to answer with mere palpations? We need a coroner’s investigation.”
    “Maybe, but there isn’t a single one in the Colony,” Siccouane observed.
    “Do you suspect murder?” asked Drake.
    Dr Fabrizio, with the air of discovering something that had crossed no one’s mind before, said that the body’s clothes raised a few question marks. If death had been due to natural causes he would’ve been wearing pyjamas, and he would’ve been found in a sleeping position. Instead, Bera had his hands crossed over his chest as if arranged in a coffin, and was wearing the proper ceremonial uniform for his funeral. Whoever killed him had a macabre sense of humour.
    Captain Drake drew his gun and shouted that nobody would leave the room until this had been cleared up. But the room contained only those who fervently wished the Governor alive and had nothing to gain from his demise – quite the opposite; they were all facing ruin. We were forced to spell it out to him since his thick skull takes some penetrating.
    Drake seemed confused. He scratched his perspiring face and wondered whether the Governor had died at the hands of the Suez Mamelukes. Priest Montenegro couldn’t stop himself any longer and burst out laughing. He added sarcastically, “Good Lord, you’ll be blaming the cyclists next!”
    “It’s far more likely that my rivals at the Infirmary killed him to make me look bad,” Fabrizio said guiltily, feeling a failure as the Governor’s medical