Free Inquisition by Alfredo Colitto Page B

‘Angelo would never do such a thing.’
    The shrew didn’t reply. In her eyes, Gerardo read obstinacy and cunning. She had realised that letting him enter was a mistake and had decided to say nothing further. There was no time to think. Someone might come along and there was the risk that she might cry out for help. All his instincts held him back from hitting a woman, but he overcame them and gave her two hard slaps, continuing to throttle her with his free hand to stop her from shouting. She growled an oath, trying to strike him with her fist. Gerardo caught her wrist and squeezed it harder than her throat, finding that her rough skin, her hair and her masculine appearance made it easier for him not to yield to compassion.
    Philomena began to entreat him. ‘What do you want from me?’ she wheezed. ‘I beg of you.’
    ‘You must tell me everything that you know about Angelo,’ replied Gerardo, harshly. ‘Then I’ll let you go. If you attempt to shout or I find out that you are lying, I’ll kill you.’
    She nodded, and this time there was genuine fear in her eyes. ‘He’s not really your friend, is he?’ she said. ‘You want to harm him, accuse him of sodomy.’
    Without removing his hand from about her neck, Gerardo reflected rapidly. If he replied in the affirmative, the woman would not collaborate, because in a trial for sodomy of her client she would be condemned to death too. But he preferred not to tell her that Angelo was dead.
    ‘I only want to make him understand that he must get out of my way,’ he lied. ‘Now that I know his secret, he’ll be more careful. Talk.’
    He loosened his hold and the crone started to speak. She said that his friend had turned up and mentioned the name of a man whom she knew well, so she had let him in. ‘What was the man’s name?’
    She shook her head, with a defiant expression. Gerardo squeezed again, harder this time, and after a second’s hesitation he shook a fist in her face. Before he had to hit her again, Philomena relented.
    ‘His name is Francesco,’ she stuttered. ‘He’s a priest, an Augustinian.’
    At those words, Gerardo started. Another monk who betrayed his vows in the most abject manner.
    ‘And what did Angelo do with the child?’ he asked. He felt a fierce anger mixed with disgust and shame, but he had to know.
    ‘What they all do,’ answered the old woman, shrugging her shoulders.
    Gerardo thought once again that he could not leave the poor little lad here, even if it meant killing his keeper.
    He asked her to repeat to him all that Angelo had said that evening, but she shrugged her shoulders again. ‘He didn’t say anything. People don’t come here to talk to me.’
    Gerardo clutched her throat again, with force. Philomena’s eyes goggled and she went purple. She made a sign to say that she wanted to talk and as soon as he freed her, she coughed violently.
    When her fit of coughing had passed, she leaned on the table with one hand, as though she needed to support herself, and said, ‘I remember one thing.’ ‘What?’
    ‘That evening my legs were aching terribly, as they do every time the fog descends on the city, so when he left I didn’t get up to open the door. I said it was an ailment of old age and told him to enjoy his youth while he still had time.’
    ‘And then?’ pressed Gerardo, impatient.
    ‘He looked at me in a strange way, and he said—’
    ‘What did he say?’ Gerardo couldn’t contain himself.
    ‘He said, “I will never grow old. When your house falls beneath the weight of the centuries, I will still be here.” I remember it not just for the words, but for the look he had. He seemed almost mad.’
    Gerardo let go of her. He was puzzled. Did Angelo know that he would be dead within a couple of days and was that why he had said that he would never grow old? But what did the second sentence mean?
    Taking advantage of his brief inattention, the woman wriggled out of his grasp, knocking over the jug of wine.