Altai: A Novel Read Free Page A

They wanted the wide-open jaws of the Devil, bombards spitting out the whole of hell and making the world shake. Why worry about the recoil?
    “I’ll talk to the chief guard, Signor Varadian. Meanwhile I’ll have someone sent over, right away, and I’ll see to it that you and your work are given double protection. But don’t worry—I have a feeling the Turks haven’t got much to do with this business.”
    He gripped my hand between his own, and his voice dripped with gratitude. “Thank you, Signor De Zante. And trust me, I know them well: This is their work.”
    It was evening when we got back to the palace. Some of my men, keen to demonstrate their zeal and ruthlessness, had already got things started. They had assembled a handful of seditious wretches, people used to singing songs against the Doge and the noblemen: con men, provocateurs.
    On the wheel, one arsenal worker had confessed to be Giuseppe Nasi and the son of the Devil. A blacksmith from Chioggia had sworn himself blind that he had always been a Turk, a janissary and friend of the Kapudan Pasha, who had personally issued the order to start the fire. A woodcutter from who knows where had started talking a language entirely his own, saying that it was the language of the Turks of Asia Minor, adding a few words in Latin that he had picked up from the Mass.
    Spilled blood and the stench of excrement. Torture is pointless when you’re looking for the truth. And in any case I was soon disgusted with it.
    I made them stop. The foreman had given me a list of hotheads and discontented arsenal workers. I asked Rizzi to check if any of them were among the ones arrested in our absence. There were a few.
    I ordered Tavosanis to start on the first one.
    Usually I waited at least half an hour before coming into the room. Meanwhile Tavosanis asked general questions and got to work with his fists. This time I was more impatient: I had to end the day with a result, something to give the Consigliere.
    The man’s head was hanging over his chest. He was tied to the chair; he seemed to be still conscious. Tavosanis came over and whispered in my ear what he had managed to get out of him. Now it was my turn.
    “What’s that song you were singing at the inn a few evenings ago? ‘Come, Turk, free us from our masters . . .’ That was it, wasn’t it?”
    Silence. Tavosanis looked at me. I gestured to him to wait. “We know what you were singing; we know who you were singing with. We know what you ate, what you drank, when you got up to go for a piss. We know everything.”
    The man pleaded, “What do you want from me?”
    I slowly circled the chair. The wolf isolating his prey.
    “It’d be a good idea to speak now. Think of the magistrate. Think of the wheel. You’ll miss this chair and my mate’s knuckles.” Tavosanis drew back his arm and hit the man in the jaw. “We know your friend Battiston kept saying ‘I know a way of getting them to up our pay.’ Isn’t that right?”
    “I was plastered. I don’t remember a thing.”
    He didn’t remember a thing, and yet he was crying. He was about to give up and he felt guilty for his friend.
    “And in fact it looks as if you’re going to get your pay raise, doesn’t it? As a reward for putting out the fire.”
    He said nothing. I stopped in front of him. I lifted his chin. His expression was blank; the hatred had fled. He would tell the truth.

4.
     
    The Consigliere’s palazzo overlooked the Grand Canal, but shadows like me came by the land route. The waterside entrance was for the aristocrats. I’d only come in on that side once, with my father. A silk carpet guided our steps across the bridge to the marble sirens guarding the front door. I was to introduce myself to the head of the household. An audience with the pope himself would not have stirred me as much.
    Some days later they showed me the back entrance, and from then on that was the only one I used: across the big garden, invisible from the street and