Veritas (Atto Melani) (40 page)

“Women are more patient?” I guessed, while Koloman put on his cloak to go out.

“In Italy I never speed things up,” smiled Koloman, slapping Simonis on the back and walking towards the door.

The Pennal’s trap set off again slowly, plodding along the road with its soft mantle of snow towards Populescu’s home: the same apartment where two days earlier I had attended the
scene of the Deposition. It was here that the group of students had agreed to meet: each of them had sought information about the Golden Apple, and they would undoubtedly have some news to give us.
Unfortunately, what might have been an enjoyable get-together among students had become an emergency meeting. Word of Dànilo’s tragic death must have spread throughout the university,
but obviously it was his friends who had been most affected by it. Koloman Szupán himself, after that first moment of cheerfulness, grew taciturn. To drive away sad thoughts, just as Simonis
had done with me a moment earlier, I tried to strike up a conversation on the journey, and asked him if he was satisfied with his job as a waiter.

“Satisfied? For the moment, I thank God that Lent is over,” said Koloman, mopping imaginary sweat from his brow.

“Why’s that? I thought that in Lent waiters in inns worked less than usual, since you can’t eat meat and so the diet must be lighter.”

“Lighter?” Koloman burst out laughing. “In Lent you have to sweat twice as hard to do all those complicated fish recipes! Roast eel with lard; pike in sour cream; baked crabs
with parsley-roots stewed in oil with lemon and oyster sauce; roast stockfish with horseradish, mustard and butter, not to mention roast beaver . . .”

“Roast beaver? But that’s not a fish.”

“Tell that to the Viennese! And you have to catch them, the furry wretches. Good job there are also Luther’s eggs.

“Luther’s?”

“Yes, the ones Luther will never eat. They’re the Lenten eggs. They call them that as a joke, because Catholics eat them to abstain from meat, while the Protestants laugh and eat
whatever they want. Then there’s fish.”

During the Lenten penitence, explained Koloman, in the kitchens of Viennese inns you’ll find an unimaginable quantity of fish, and of an even greater variety than in Italy. Even among the
mountains of the Tyrol there were those, like the famous doctor Guarinoni (yet another Italian), who advised people not to overdo it with all the things on offer: fish from streams, rivers, lakes
and the sea, from the most unlikely places; from the Hungarian lake of Balaton, from Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, Bosnia and the Italian coast of Trieste. From Venice special mail coaches brought
heaps of oysters, sea-snails, mussels, crabs and clams, frogs and turtles, and other specialities arrived on special swift convoys even from Holland and the remote North Sea.

“I know they’re placed under blocks of ice but don’t ask me how on earth they get here still fresh after such a long journey; I’ve never understood it,” added
Koloman.

As it was a tough job to abstain from meat until Easter, and as water is always water, during Lent the menus would contain, alongside the fish and crustaceans, otters and beavers! All served
roasted and eaten with great relish.

Abraham from Sancta Clara was quite right, I thought, when he said that in Vienna no animal of land, air or water can be sure of not ending up on the table.

“These Viennese,” Koloman added, “didn’t curb their appetites even when the Turks were breathing down their necks.”

“What have the Turks got to do with it, Koloman?”

He explained that during the famous, dramatic and glorious siege of 1683, which has gone down in history, the Viennese never lost their appetite and relish for good cooking. While the city
risked being conquered and razed to the ground, groups of Viennese, including women and children, would leave the fortress at night, at great risk to themselves and their fellow citizens, to go and
buy bread from the Turks.

“From the Turks? And they sold it to them?”

“They had some really poor soldiers who needed the money. And in the Turkish camp they were never short of bread.”

Those found guilty of such trafficking were punished in the respective camps, both by the Christians (three hundred whiplashes) and by the Ottomans. However, Koloman explained, there was no way
to put a stop to it. And in Vienna there was also the problem of thirst.

“Of course, water . . .” I remarked.

“No, there was always water. It was wine they’d run out of.”

As the gourmet always prevailed over the soldier in the Viennese spirit, entire cartloads of wine were often intercepted, which had been brought down from the surrounding countryside, and which
stole their way into the city at night. Sometimes unthinkable things would happen, like the occasion when the besieged Viennese, while the battle was raging, managed to get hold of an entire herd
of over a hundred bullocks, from behind the Turkish lines (how this was managed was a mystery).

I heard with ill-concealed disappointment this behind-the-scenes insight into the great siege. How far removed from my grave meditations on the heroic resistance of the Viennese! Things had
apparently been quite different.

“Not exactly the unblemished, fearless heroes of legend,” I remarked dazedly.

“Oh, they were fearless all right. But they had plenty of blemishes: of wine and fat, on their collars and shirt sleeves,” laughed Koloman.

Just think, he concluded, that during the siege in 1683 there was even someone in the city who had treacherously passed on a very valuable piece of information to the Turks: within the
stronghold civilians and soldiers were no longer collaborating; the Viennese were exhausted and wanted to surrender.

“It was 5th September. Hardly anyone knows this story, which could have changed history. For some mysterious reason the Turks did not attack at once, and what a stroke of luck that was!
Six days later reinforcements arrived and the Christian armies won.”

But I knew why the Turks had not attacked Vienna at once: I had discovered it twenty years earlier in Rome with Abbot Melani. But it was a highly complicated story and if I told it to Koloman,
he would not believe me.

By now we had arrived. Shaking the snow from our boots and our clothes, we were welcomed in by Dragomir Populescu, who was waiting for us with Jan Janitzki Opalinski. They greeted us with an
anxious, anguished air. This time Penicek came in with us, and made his greetings, as awkwardly and ponderously as ever, with his ugly little eyes like a bespectacled ferret.

“I have news,” said Opalinski at once.

“So have I,” added Populescu.

“Where’s Hristo?” asked Koloman.

“He was busy. He told me he’d be a little late,” answered Simonis. “In the meantime we can start.”

“But Koloman, what are you doing here at this hour? Have the good ladies of Vienna all stood you up today?” sniggered Dragomir, with a hint of bitterness in his voice.

“On the contrary. But you always leave them so horny, with your little sparrow’s twig, that it just takes me three minutes each to make them come.”

“Don’t get worked up, Dragomir, keep calm . . .” muttered Populescu, clenching his fists.

“That’s enough joking,” said Simonis. “Dànilo is dead, and we all have to be very careful.”

They all fell silent for a moment.

“Friends,” I spoke up, “I thank you for the help you’re giving me on the question of the Golden Apple. However, after your companion’s death, I won’t blame
you if you want to go no further.”

“But perhaps Dànilo was bumped off by someone taking revenge for one of his acts of spying,” muttered Opalinski thoughtfully.

“It may even have been one of his fellow-countrymen from Pontevedro,” Populescu said in support. “They’re real beasts there, not like where I come from in
Romania.”

“After all, he’s certainly not the first student to end up murdered,” added Koloman.

And they all competed in bringing up sad cases of students of the University of Vienna who had died violently for the most varied reasons: in duels, surprised while stealing; involved in
smuggling
et cetera et cetera.

“And they were all from Half-Asia,” whispered Simonis to me with a significant glance, as if to underline the particular inclination of those people for an iniquitous life.

“Perhaps these Turks have nothing at all to hide,” ventured Opalinski at last.

“Well, yes, it strikes me as strange that the Agha should have pronounced those words publicly, if there was anything secret behind them,” said Populescu.

“Perhaps he wanted to send a coded message to someone, confident that anybody who was not in the know would not get suspicious,” conjectured Koloman.

“That doesn’t sound a great idea to me,” answered Populescu.

“But they’re Turks . . .” laughed Simonis.

The Greek’s quip set them all laughing. I was almost tempted to tell them that I had seen the Agha’s dervish carrying out horrifying rituals, and especially that Cloridia had heard
him plotting to get someone’s head, and that was why we were investigating the Golden Apple. In fact, none of those who had attended the Agha’s audience, as Cloridia had done, had had
the slightest suspicion and they had all interpreted the phrase “
soli soli soli ad aureum venimus aureum
”, or “we’ve come here all alone to the Golden Apple”,
as a declaration of peaceful aims.

I guessed that the enthusiasm of those boys was strengthened by the mirage of the money that I had promised as a reward. But now Dànilo was dead, the game was turning dangerous, and
perhaps it was right to talk. But Simonis, guessing my doubts, signalled to me with his eyes to keep quiet. And once again, like a coward, I did so.

Having no more to say about the sad end of their Pontevedrin companion, we started to talk about the Golden Apple.

Populescu explained that he had met a beautiful brunette, who served in a coffee shop. At first he had tried to ensnare her for base, seductive ends, but then he had thought it worth exploiting
her acquaintance to ask a few questions about the Golden Apple, since the coffee shop owner came from the East.

“A brunette?” I said, surprised. “I thought that as students you would go searching in libraries and archives.”

Simonis’s companions explained that there was nothing to be got from books, other than information on the Imperial Apple or Orb, or the Orb of the Celestial Spheres, distant relatives of
the Golden Apple.

“The Imperial Orb, as I’m sure you all know,” explained Opalinski, who was very erudite, “is constituted by the terrestrial globe surmounted by the cross of Christ. The
Archangel Michael holds it in one hand, while with the other he grips a cross in the form of a sword and hurls Lucifer into hell for his crimes of envy, pride and vanity against the Most High.
It’s no accident that in Hebrew the name Michael means: ‘Who is like God.’ That’s why the Imperial Orb became the Caesarean emblem, given to the Holy Roman Emperors during
their coronation as a symbol of the person destined by God to govern and protect the Christian people from evil. It derives in turn from the Orb of the Celestial Spheres, a representation of the
sky surrounding the terraqueous orb. The Orb of the Celestial Spheres was a symbol of power as well: for the Romans and Greeks, it was an attribute of Jove, King of the Gods.”

“What nonsense!” Populescu broke in. “Terracqueous orb, indeed. Everyone knows that in ancient times they thought the earth was flat.”

“That just shows how ignorant you are,” retorted Koloman Szupán, a great friend of the Pole. “That’s the usual propaganda to make us think that today we’re
more evolved, intelligent and modern than in the past. And you’ve fallen for it.”

“Quite right, Koloman,” approved Opalinski. “The Greeks and Romans knew perfectly well that the earth was round; just think of Parmenides and the myth of Atlas, who holds the
terracqueous orb on his shoulders. And even in the despised Middle Ages they all knew it. Did St Augustine not say that the earth is
moles globosa
, which is to say a ball? Apart from
Cosmas Indicopleustes and Severianus of Gabala, only Lactantius went round saying that it was flat, but in his day no one believed him. But unfortunately some dunces with professorships dug up the
ravings of Lactantius and passed them off as the ruling doctrine of the Middle Ages.”

“Bah, historical nonsense,” the Hungarian said, spitting on the floor.

“In any case,” Populescu resumed, “the story of the Golden Apple is exclusively Turkish, and has been handed down by word of mouth alone. My brunette, as I was saying . .
.”

“From mouth to mouth . . .” sneered Koloman. “The erudite Dragomir enjoyed an oral encounter with his brunette!”

“Are you just jealous because you couldn’t think of anything better than asking those queer friars?” retorted the Romanian.

“By the way, they send their greetings to you. They told me they have unforgettable memories of you.”

“Don’t get worked up, Dragomir, keep calm!” snarled Populescu, infuriated by the quips from the duo of Koloman and Opalinski.

The story of the Golden Apple as related by the young woman, he continued, was as follows:

“When the new sultan is crowned in Constantinople, they follow a very detailed ceremonial. The Sovereign is carried in a procession to a sanctuary outside the city: the tomb of Mahomet the
Prophet’s standard-bearer, the
condottiero
who conquered Constantinople, seizing it from the Christians. Here they make him put on a belt with the holy scimitar. Then he re-enters
Constantinople and passes on horseback in front of the barracks of the janissaries, the Sultan’s élite guards, where the commander of the sixty-first company, one of the four companies
of archers, hands him a goblet full of sherbet. The new sultan drinks the entire contents of the goblet, then fills it with fragments of gold and hands it back, shouting:
Kizil Elmada
görüsürüz!
, which means, ‘We’ll meet again at the Golden Apple!’ It’s an invitation to conquer the Christian West, whose churches are actually
crowned by the Imperial Orb of Archangel Michael, or the gilded sphere surmounted by the cross of Christ, first and foremost the golden ball of the Basilica of St Peter. That’s why
Dànilo also mentioned Rome.”