The Collector of Worlds: A Novel of Sir Richard Francis Burton

The Collector of Worlds
A Novel of Sir Richard Francis Burton

Chapter One

He died early in the morning before you could tell a black thread from a white. The final prayer ebbed away; the priest moistened his lips, swallowed his spit, aware now that the doctor, who had been silent since the pulse under his fingertips had failed, stood unmoving at his side. At the end the patient had hung on out of sheer stubbornness, but had finally been defeated by an embolism. A woman's liver-spotted hand rested on the dead man's folded arms. Now it drew back and placed a crucifix on his bare chest. It's far too big, thought the doctor, outlandishly Catholic; as baroque as the man's scarred torso. He sensed the widow facing him across the bed, but couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye. She turned away, moved calmly to the desk, sat down and began writing something. The doctor saw the priest put the flask of oil in his pocket, and took this as a signal to pack away the electric battery. It had been a long night, he reflected, and now he'd have to look for a new position. A damn shame, the whole thing. He had grown to like the patient and it had been extremely agreeable living in this villa high above the town with its view over the bay, far out into the Mediterranean. He felt himself blushing and that made him blush even more. He turned away from the dead man.

The priest, the doctor's junior by a few years, glanced surreptitiously around the room. On one wall a map of the African continent, bookshelves crowding in on it on either side. The open window made him anxious—everything made him anxious at this point—and through it came rustling noises thatreminded him of other sleepless nights. A drawing to his left, beautiful and incomprehensible, which had disturbed him the minute he had set eyes on it. It reminded him this Englishman had roamed in godless parts where only the ignorant or the arrogant would venture. He had been a notoriously wilful character, but, apart from that, the priest knew virtually nothing about him. Yet another unpleasant duty the bishop had wriggled out of! This was not the first time he'd been called on to administer extreme unction to a total stranger. The bishop had offered him only one piece of guidance: Trust your common sense. Strange advice. But, in any event, he hadn't even had time to get his bearings. The fellow's wife had caught him off guard, pressing him so insistently, demanding so categorically that he give the dying man the last sacraments—as if it were his simple duty as a priest—that he had bowed to her will. He regretted it already. Now she was standing in the open door, giving the doctor an envelope, talking urgently to him about something. Should he speak his mind? The priest accepted her quiet yet determined thanks—what should he say? —and with the thanks the unspoken request that he leave. He smelled her sweat, said nothing. In the hall she held out his coat and her hand. He turned, then stopped—he couldn't go out into the night weighed down like this. He swung round abruptly.

'Signora . . .'

'You will forgive me if I don't walk you to the door?'

'It was wrong. It was a mistake.'

'No!'

'I must inform the bishop.'

'It was his last wish. You must respect it. Please excuse me, Father, I have a great deal to do. Your worries are unfounded. The bishop is quite aware of this.'

'Signora, so you say, but I lack any such assurance.'

'Please pray for the salvation of his soul. That will be best for all of us. Goodbye, Father.'

She spent two days at his deathbed, occasionally interrupted in her prayers and conversations by people coming to pay their last respects. On the third day she woke the maid earlier than usual. The woman threw a shawl over her nightdress and felt her way through the woollen darkness to the shed where the gardener slept. She called but got no answer until she gave his door a clout with a shovel.

'Anna,' he cried, 'has something bad happened again?'

'The mistress needs you,' she told him, adding: 'right away.'

'Have you laid in firewood yet, Massimo?'

'Yes, Signora, last week, when it turned cold. We've got enough . . .'

'I'd like you to make a fire.'

'In the garden, not too near to the house, but not too far down either.'

He built a small bonfire, like the ones in his village at solsticetime. The exertion warmed him a little but the heavy dew and his sodden toes made him look forward to a good blaze. Anna came out with a cup in her hand, her hair tangled like brushwood twigs. He smelt the coffee as he took it from her.

'Will it burn?'

'As long as it doesn't start raining.'

He bent over the cup as if he were trying to make out something in the liquid, and took a loud sip.

'Should I light it?'

'No. Who knows what she wants. Better wait.'

The bay grew light; a three-master dropped its sails. Trieste awoke to the sound of one-horse carriages and porters. The mistress strode across the lawn in one of her heavy, full dresses.

'Light it.'

He obeyed. Burn, burn, bride of the sun, blaze, blaze, consort of the moon, he whispered to the first flames. His father's solstice song. The mistress came over and stood so close he found it hard not to flinch. She held out a book.

'Throw this in!'

She had almost touched him. He sensed something helpless in her order; she wouldn't throw it in herself. He ran his fingers over the binding, the worn patches and the stitching, and stepped back from the flames a little, stroking the leather, searching for a memory, until he realised what it felt like—the scar on his eldest child's back.