Veritas (Atto Melani) (22 page)

Another noise. Taking care not to waken my dear ones, I got dressed and stepped outside. I had not yet reached the cloisters when I recognised him by his voice.

“And the laurel crown . . . there it is!” I heard him whisper nervously. He was picking up a few objects, which must have fallen from a large canvas bag he was holding.

“Simonis! What are you doing out here at this hour?”

“Er . . . uh . . .”

“At this hour you’re supposed to be in your room, you know the rules,” I reproched him.

“Pardon Signor Master, I must go.”

“Yes, to bed, and quickly,” I replied in irritation.

“This evening there’s a Deposition.”

“Deposition?”

“I’m the barber, I must be there.”

“Barber? What are you blathering about?”

“Please, Signor Master, I have to be there.”

“What have you got in there?” I said, pointing at his bag, which had something moving inside it.

“Mm . . . a bat.”

“A bat? Just what are you doing with that?” I asked, more and more astounded.

“It stops me falling asleep.”

“Are you making fun of me? Do you want to get a fine? You know very well –”

“I swear, Signor Master, if you take a bat with you, you never fall asleep. Or you can catch some toads before dawn and dig out their eyes, then hang a flask of deer-hide round your neck
with the toads’ eyes inside together with nightingale meat. That works just as well, but the bat is easier . . .”

“That’s enough,” I said, dismayed and disgusted, dragging my bizarre assistant by his arm.

“I beg you, Signor Master. I must go. I must. Otherwise they’ll expel me from the university. If you come with me you’ll understand.”

For the first time since I had met him, Simonis’s tone was distressed. I realised that it must be something of the utmost importance. I decided that for no reason in the world could I run
the risk of seeing him expelled from the
Alma Mater Rudolphina
through my own fault. And I knew very well that at that point in the night I would not get back to sleep; curiosity did the
rest.

The place was an old apartment near the Scottish Monastery. According to Simonis, it was being rented by a group of his study companions. As soon as we entered I felt as if I had been hurled by
a Sorcerer of Time into the wrong century. The room was full of young men dressed as ancient Romans; they wore togas and mantles, laurel crowns around their temples and leather leggings. Some of
them were holding scrolls of paper, in imitation of ancient parchment. The only detail that connected the great crowd with the present day were the countless tankards of beer they were all swigging
merrily. The Beer Bell, which announces the end of legal drinking time, had rung long ago, but this strange toga-clad mob seemed not to care.

Simonis emptied the bag he had brought with him, gave me some robes and took some for himself. At that moment he was spotted by a few of them and I heard a feverish murmur run round the
room.

“The Barber, the Barber’s here!” they all repeated, elbowing one another and pointing at Simonis.

Some of the students made towards him and embraced him enthusiastically. Simonis greeted everyone with an expansive wave, to which the crowd responded with applause. With all those swishing
togas, it was like being in the Roman Senate after a speech by Cicero.

I suddenly felt bewildered: Simonis the Greek, my apprentice, my underling, was the king of the evening. I thought back to his account that morning of the history of the Place with No Name and
its creator, Emperor Maximilian II. My bizarre assistant undoubtedly possessed hidden talents.

As soon as he was dressed and decked out as a Roman senator himself, he was accompanied to a wooden stage in the middle of the room.

I myself had just finished putting on a toga and leggings, far too capacious for my slight build, when another excited murmur broke out. A door giving onto an adjoining room had just opened. A
platoon of young men entered, apparently escorting a prisoner. In the middle of the group was a very odd individual, if only for the way he had been rigged out. He was a timid, skinny young man,
who looked around himself hesitantly. He wore a hat with two enormous donkey’s ears, probably made of cloth, and an even larger pair of cow horns. From his mouth hung two huge boar fangs,
which must have been fixed to his teeth with some sort of paste. Otherwise he was draped in a large black cloak, which made him look both sad and awkward. He had been driven into the room by a
stick, with which he was regularly beaten on the back like a beast of burden.

“The Beano, the Beano!” the bystanders all cried out, as soon as the young man appeared at the door.

At once they burst into a choral song, ragged and powerful:

Feeling lost amidst this seditious rabble, I went up to Simonis. I noticed at that moment that he had hung a gut string from his belt, like the ones used to play lutes, guitars
or theorbos.

“It’s a song to welcome the novice, telling him that they will make a real student out of him,” he explained, shouting into my ear so that I could hear him over his
friends’ drunken voices.

“What does Beano mean?” I asked Simonis.

“Italian, I speak your language too!” butted in a tall, paunchy student, with large bright eyes, an affable face, round ruddy cheeks, and the thick dark hair of Eastern peoples.

“This is Hristo Hristov Hadji-Tanjov,” said Simonis. “He’s from Bulgaria, but he studied for a long time in Bologna.”

“Well yes, I quenched my thirst for knowledge by imbibing at the
Alma Mater Studiorum
of Bologna,” he confirmed, raising his tankard.

“Now he’s gone on to another kind of thirst,” joked another, gesturing at Hristo’s tankard. This was a lanky fellow with shoulders like a wardrobe, who introduced himself
as Jan Janitzki Count Opalinski, a Pole. “Before that he was thirsty for my sister Ida, who’s a dancer.”

“Shut up, you drunkard. The Beano, whom others call Bacchant,” explained Hristo, after draining his beer, “is not yet a student, and so not a man either. He has asked to be
admitted to the university, but his nature is still bestial, like that of a pig, a cow or a donkey. He has to show he can rise above animal passions. He’s admitted into the human consortium
only if he can pass the Deposition test.”

“The Deposition?”

“The
depositio cornuum
,” interposed another, a boy with a flowing mane of corvine hair, a fine moustache and two sharp nut-brown eyes. “This evening he’ll remove
his animal horns and will finally become a human being!”

“This brilliant explanation has just been given to you by a dear friend of mine,” Simonis announced. “Let me introduce Baron Koloman Szupán. He comes from Varaždin,
in Hungary, and has a large farm with over eighteen thousand pigs.”

“Yes, and I’ve got eighty thousand,” mocked a plump, half-bald fellow, who was introduced to me as Prince Dragomir Populescu, from Romania. “Koloman has the same name as
Saint Koloman, the patron of students, but blasphemes him with his lies, and he’s as much a baron as I’m the pope. Gypsy-baron, that’s what he is, ha ha! If he really has eighteen
thousand pigs, as he tells us, why has he never brought us a ham?”

The group of friends burst into loud laughter, but Koloman did not give up: “And what about you, Populescu, who claim to be a prince only when you’re on the prowl for
women?”

“Don’t get worked up, Dragomir, keep calm,” muttered Populescu to himself, flushing with rage and looking upwards.

“Worked up? You’re as drunk as a donkey!” interjected Hristo, the Bulgarian.

“And you’re a sponge in a beer barrel,” retorted a good-looking man with the air of one who enjoys life, who was introduced to me as Count Dànilo Danilovitsch and who
came from Pontevedro, a little state I had never heard of.

“Sorry, but how come you all speak my language so well?” I asked in wonder.

“It’s obvious: we’ve all studied in Bologna!” answered Hristo, “and some of us in Venice as well.”

“Ah, for a night in Venice!” said Opalinski wistfully.

“Ah yes, and the Italian . . . women, women, women!” sighed Dànilo Danilovitsch, winking.

“The Italian women . . . Don’t get worked up, Dragomir!” stuttered Populescu, with dreamy eyes.

“Then came that freezing winter, two years ago, along with the war and the famine,” Hristo continued, “and we all came here.”

“And we’ve not regretted it!” Koloman concluded. “O Austria! Excellent land, irrigated with running waters, planted with vineyards, teeming with fruits and fish, and
abounding in timber! And you, O mighty Danube, mightiest river in Europe, nobly born among the Swabians of the Black Forest, you make your powerful way through Bavaria, Austria, Hungary, vigorously
cleave through Serbia and Bulgaria, and emerge with sixty broad arms into the Black Sea, and with your sublime waters bring grace to many superb cities, none of which is richer, more populous or
more comely than Vienna!”

This was greeted with applause and, of course, a toast, which was followed by several more. From the talk and the familiar tones the students used in addressing one another, it was clear that
they were all a group of comrades, accustomed to mixing beer and chatter, gross pranks and the gay
joie de vivre
of twenty-year-olds. God only knew what these fun-lovers had got up to in
Bologna and Vienna. But observing the gusto with which they knocked back their beer and engaged in jokes and tricks, passing themselves off as counts, barons and even princes, I doubted that they
had ever achieved anything sensible. And if one looked carefully under their Roman togas at their clothes and shoes, they all had the same blackened collars, the same patches, the same holes in
their shoes. Like my assistant, they were simply
Bettelstudenten
, cheerful penniless time-wasters, much more skilled in the art of getting by than in the doctrines of science.

“Pleasant companions you have, Simonis,” I said.

“You’re very kind, Signor Master. Some of them come from great distances, beyond the borders of the Empire, from
Halb’Asien
, ‘Half-Asia’,” the Greek
whispered to me, as if to excuse them.

“Half-Asia?” I repeated, not understanding.

“Oh, that’s my own definition of some of the lands east of Vienna, beyond Silesia and the Carpathians, like Pontevedro, for example; lands set between cultivated Europe and the
squalid steppes traversed by nomads, and I don’t mean only geographically . . .” answered Simonis, laying heavy emphasis on the last words.

“They all seem normal boys, just like you,” I answered, still not understanding.

“Don’t be fooled by appearances, Signor Master. I’m Greek,” he affirmed with pride. “Some of them are divided from our Europe not only by language and borders. The
broad plains and gentle hills of their native lands, which extend as I said beyond Silesia, beyond the Carpathians, not only look like the landscape of the lands of the Urals or deepest Central
Asia. The similarity with those worlds so different from our own goes much deeper.”

I had no idea what the Urals or Central Asia were like, and not having grasped the sense of these unexpected words, I kept quiet.

The comradely atmosphere encouraged me to change the subject and ask Simonis another question.

“Why did they all call you Barber when you arrived?”

“Now you’ll see, Signor Master.”

“Silence, friends!”

This command, shouted by one of the students accompanying the Beano, hushed the whole assembly. The Greek climbed onto the wooden platform. The Beano was escorted towards him, and he announced
in a severe voice:

“Previously you were a being without reason, an animal, an unclean school-fox; now you will become a man. Your filthy tusks prevented you from eating and drinking moderately, obscuring
your intellect. Now you will be led back to reason.”

“Simonis is playing the part of the Deposer this evening,” whispered Koloman to me with his sing-song Hungarian accent, “the one who leads the ceremony. He compared the Beano
to a fox because it hides in holes in the ground like schoolchildren who huddle together among the school desks. That’s why the Deposition is also called the Baptism of the Fox. To become men
we have to come out into the open, seeking knowledge by going to university and forgetting the world of vice and its distractions. This evening’s Beano chose his Barber himself; he’s
often heard about him and admires him. He’s sure to benefit from many of Simonis’s virtues.”

That may be, I thought, but the whole merry mob of students looked as if the last thing they were seeking was virtue and knowledge. Meanwhile they passed Simonis an object wrapped in a piece of
cloth. It was a piece of black fat, with which he began to paint a fine pair of moustaches and a beard on the Beano’s face. Applause and laughter broke out, while the Beano endured it all in
silence. Simonis immediately began a short speech in German, in which the poor Beano was exhorted to abandon his dissolute life, to turn from vice to virtue and to abandon the darkness of ignorance
by means of study.

“Now comes the Latin exam,” whispered the Hungarian Koloman Szupán into my ears with a snigger.

The Beano was asked to decline the noun
cor
, which in Latin means “heart”. He began to decline it correctly – nominative, genitive, dative and so on – all in the
singular.

“
Cor, cordis, cordis, cor, corde, cor
,” said the Beano, spluttering awkwardly on account of the boar tusks that obstructed his mouth.

“
Numerus pluralis
,” pressed Simonis, ordering him to decline the plural.

“
Corda, cordarum, cordis
. . . ow!”