Free The House of Scorta by Laurent Gaudé Page A

punishing has nothing to do with this. The Mute has a right to be buried in the cemetery.”
    “She was in the cemetery before you dug her up. She got what she deserved, sinner that she was, for having spawned such a band of heathens.”
    Raffaele turned pale. It seemed to him as if the hills themselves commanded him to answer this insult. “You’re unworthy of the frock you are wearing, Bozzoni. Do you hear me? You’re a rat hiding behind a cassock. Give back that cassock, or I’ll kill you.”
    And he leapt at the priest like a snarling dog. He grabbed him by the neck and with one furious swipe of the hand ripped off his collar. The priest was beside himself, choking with helplessness. Raffaele wouldn’t release his grip. He yelled like a madman, “Strip, you son of a bitch, strip!” shredding the priest’s cassock with all his might and pummeling him all the while.
    He didn’t calm down until he had undressed Father Bozzoni completely. Don Carlo surrendered. He cried like a baby, covering his torso with his plump hands. He muttered prayers, as if he were up against a horde of heretics. Raffaele rejoiced with all the ferocity of vengeance, “That’s how you’ll go around from now on: naked as a worm. You have no right to wear this habit. If I find you wearing it again, I’ll kill you, understand?”
    Don Carlo did not answer. He walked away, weeping, and disappeared. He never came back. This episode had sent him over the edge once and for all. He wandered through the hills like a lost child, paying no mind to fatigue or the sun. He wandered about for a long time before collapsing, exhausted, on the southern ground he so detested.
    Raffaele remained a while at the spot where he had thrashed the priest. He couldn’t move. He was waiting for his anger to die down, trying to get a grip on himself so he could return to the village without having his expression betray him. The priest’s torn cassock lay at his feet. He couldn’t take his eyes off of it. A ray of sunshine made him blink. Something glinted in the light. He bent over without thinking and picked up a gold watch. Had he left at that moment, he probably would have thrown it away in disgust a bit further on, but he didn’t move. He felt that he hadn’t seen things through. Slowly, warily, he bent down again, gathered up the torn cassock and went through the pockets. He emptied don Bozzoni’s wallet and left it a little further up the path, open, like a deboned carcass. He squeezed the wad of bills and the gold watch in his fist, an ugly, demented grin on his face.

 
     
    “T hat rascal found a way to take me with him.” Raffaele had just realized that their altercation had led to a man’s death, and even though he kept repeating that he hadn’t killed anyone, he knew full well that this death would forever weigh on his conscience. He could still see the priest, naked, crying like a child, going off into the hills like a poor soul condemned to exile. “So I’m damned,” he said to himself, “damned by that jerk, who wasn’t worth the spit on my tongue.”
    Around midday, Father Bozzoni’s body was brought back to Montepuccio on the back of a donkey. The corpse had been covered with a sheet, not so much to keep the flies off as to make sure the priest’s nudity didn’t shock the women and children.
    Once it arrived in Montepuccio, something unexpected happened. The donkey’s owner, a taciturn peasant, deposited the body in front of the church and declared loud and clear that he had done his duty and had to go back to his field. The body remained there, wrapped in a sheet, covered in dirt. People looked at it. Nobody moved. The Montepuccians bore grudges. Nobody wanted to bury it. Nobody wanted to participate in the ceremony or carry the coffin. Besides, who would say Mass? The priest from San Giocondo was away in Bari. By the time he got back, don Carlo’s body would be decomposing. At a certain point the sun’s heat became