Page 28 of Never Tear Us Apart

Chapter Twenty-Six

Father Patrice takes great pleasure in unlocking the ancient cabinets that hold the illuminated manuscripts, many of which date from the arrival of the Knights of St John on the island; few are from even earlier.

‘There is a particular book of hours? A book of prayer?’ Sal asks the priest. ‘With the elephant?’

‘Ah yes,’ Father Patrice smiles. ‘The elephant is always our visitors’ favourite.’

‘The elephant?’ I ask Sal.

The priest brings out a large heavy book, one that I imagine would have been designed to rest on a ledger, a page turned every day to reveal a new prayer, meditation or catechism.

Sal and I stand each side of Father Patrice as he turns the heavy pages, showing glimpses of exquisitely inked and gilded illumination until he finds the page with the strangest looking animal on it I have ever seen.

‘That’s an elephant?’ I ask, looking at the grey lumpen creature that is sitting on its hind legs, like a begging dog.

His very human face sports a wide grin that seems to understand he is somewhat ridiculous.

What I can only guess is a trunk erupts from the top of his head and spouts a fountain of silver water.

‘You see, the artist had heard elephants described but had never seen one for himself. Rather sweet, if you think about it,’ Father Patrice says, smiling at us in turn.

‘Or the stuff of nightmares,’ I say, glancing at Sal.

‘Oh, and might we see the New Testament, the one that belonged to Caravaggio?’ Sal asks.

‘Ah.’ Father Patrice thinks for a moment. ‘I will ask. It’s annotated, you know, by the master’s own hand, and so is kept in another location. One moment.’

As soon as he is gone, Sal flips through the book a few more pages.

‘It was Brother Phillip who produced that elephant,’ he tells me as he finds the page he is looking for. ‘A most stubborn man. Certainly lacking in the humility that one would expect from a monk.’

‘Are you saying that . . . ?’

‘I was here when this book was being made,’ Sal confirms. ‘Not for long. Three days – enough to get to know Brother Phillip.’ He finds the page he wants, pressing down firmly to reveal the tightly bound margins. ‘And here is the evidence . . . Look, and tell me what you think.’

* * *

Nearly an hour later, I’m still thinking about what Sal showed me, as the count – or Nicco as I must learn to call him – gives us a tour around his beautiful palazzo.

If Sal were to tell me we’ve stepped back in time now, I would believe him, for although the palazzo is rather frayed and dilapidated, it is dripping with old-world money and expensive taste.

‘My drawing room,’ Nicco says as he leads us through a high-ceilinged room lined with pink silk wallpaper.

Peering up at the dark corners of the vaulted stone ceilings, I can see it peeling in some corners, and there are one or two large patches of damp and mould, but somehow, in the lamplight, it only adds to the glamour.

‘My ancestors.’ He gestures expansively at a long line of oil portraits that seem to cover two or three centuries, judging by their styles and number. They are linked only by a marked family resemblance to Nicco himself.

‘And my library.’

We pass through a small but beautiful room filled floor to ceiling with blue-painted cabinets full of books, some of which look older than the manuscripts Father Patrice showed us in the crypt.

I want to linger and run my fingers down the spines of the books, to pull one out at random and leaf through the pages.

Nicco doesn’t seem to be the lingering type, though.

‘And finally, the dining room.’ Nicco smiles as we enter a long room with vaulted stone ceilings. ‘Please.’ He gestures to the end of one long refectory table, where there are three place settings.

‘You are too good,’ Sal says as he takes a seat. ‘To share food in this difficult time is a kindness indeed.’

‘There are only me and Santa, my housekeeper,’ Nicco says. ‘And though I am of Italian blood, I am little concerned with food. It is but a necessary fuel.’

‘I wish I felt the same,’ Sal says a little mournfully, placing a hand on his belly. ‘I am always hungry.’

I’ve barely thought about food all day, but when the scent of something rich and earthy reaches me, my empty stomach lurches with pangs of hunger. I’m ravenous.

‘Rabbit stew and a little pasta,’ Nicco tells us as his housekeeper, a rather beautiful woman, sets a large pot down on a skillet. She lifts the lid to allow the aroma to wend its way into the room and sinks a ladle into the stew.

‘Please, help yourselves,’ she says with a smile as she takes a step back.

There’s a strong ladies-first sense, so I stand up to reach over the pot to serve myself some of the rich broth. A boiled-bare, blind-eyed rabbit’s head floats upwards.

‘Christ!’ I say, dropping the spoon.

‘Santa!’ Nicco shoots the woman a look, and she shrugs and represses a smile.

‘Ah,’ Sal says, fishing the head out of the pot for me. ‘Not a cruel trick, Maia, dear. The head is left in the stew so that guests can be certain they are not eating dog or rat. Even before the war and rations, this was tradition, you have been saved from such privations on the farm.’

‘Oh, of course.’ I sit down and let Sal serve me. ‘Well, sorry. I just wasn’t prepared.’

‘Santa, bring your plate and sit with us,’ Nicco tells her. ‘We always eat together when we don’t have guests, and besides, I think poor Maia needs a little female company now. And bring us another bottle of wine – whichever you prefer.’

When she returns a few minutes later, Santa smiles at me from across the table.

‘I apologise,’ she says sincerely. ‘I didn’t think.’

‘Don’t be, this is delicious,’ I say. It’s too salty, what little meat there is is chewy, and I have to keep picking bone fragments out of my teeth. Even so, my hunger is such it tastes like the most delicious meal I have ever eaten.

‘I only wish we had more,’ Santa tells me. She exchanges a look with the count, and I get the distinct sense she is a little more than a housekeeper to him.

Wine flows with abundance, and I feel its heady warmth running through my veins. My stomach is full, and suddenly everything around me comes into sharp focus.

This is real. Somehow, I am here – I’m here as much as I have ever been anywhere.

What Sal showed me in the margin of that book was something that should not, could not have been there.

His name and date of birth were etched on the very edge of a piece of vellum, so close to it that when the sheet was bound with all the others into a book, several hundred years ago, it was hidden deep in the margin.

It could only be seen by someone who knew it was there and could not have been added after the book was bound.

All the atoms of the universe have rearranged themselves to bring me here. I don’t know why, how long for or when I might be torn out of this world and flung to some other corner of another time.

It’s terrifying.