For a long time neither of us spoke.
In the field the scene continued quietly, almost absurdly calm compared to the violence it represented. The boy sat on the wooden chair with the mild impatience of someone forced to attend a family argument he did not understand. His legs swung idly. A soldier stood beside him holding a metal container from which he occasionally lifted a small spoon.
The prisoner who called himself his father continued speaking.
The boy did not answer.
Joseph watched the scene with the mild attentiveness of a lecturer observing an experiment unfold exactly as predicted.
"You asked earlier," Joseph said finally, "about the Persian method."
I realised he was referring to the wooden trunks scattered across the field.
"Scaphism," he continued.
The word sounded strangely delicate for something that looked so grotesque.
"The Persians discovered that the body can be used as a small ecosystem," Joseph said calmly. "Milk and honey are applied. Insects arrive. The body becomes both the environment and the nourishment."
I said nothing.
Joseph glanced briefly toward the boy again.
"But that," he added, "is not the interesting part."
"What is?"
Joseph looked at me with a faint smile.
"The interesting part is that none of it matters."
I turned toward him.
"What do you mean?"
"The body is temporary," Joseph said. "The mind is more durable. But even the mind is not the final structure."
He leaned back in the seat.
"History is."
The wind moved slowly across the field. I could hear insects humming in the trees.
Joseph opened the car door.
"Come," he said.
We stepped out onto the grass. For a moment I thought we were going to approach the prisoners again, but instead Joseph walked toward the far edge of the clearing where a narrow service entrance descended back into the earth.
The door opened automatically as we approached.
Inside, the air changed immediately.
Cooler.
Drier.
Artificial.
We walked down a concrete staircase that spiralled slowly underground. The sounds of the field faded behind us until the only noise remaining was the quiet echo of our own footsteps.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
Joseph answered without turning.
"To the place where the real work happens."
The corridor opened into a chamber so large that at first my eyes could not comprehend its scale.
Rows.
Endless rows.
Metal cabinets stretching into the distance like the interior of a cathedral built entirely from drawers.
Each cabinet carried small white labels.
Names.
Dates.
Numbers.
The lighting above was soft and uniform, producing a strange calm that felt almost clerical compared to the brutality of the prison chambers above.
"What is this?" I asked quietly.
Joseph walked between the rows with the ease of someone moving through a familiar library.
"This," he said, "is the archive."
I followed him down the aisle.
Folders were stacked in precise order. Boxes of photographs. Shelves containing old newspapers preserved inside plastic sleeves. Identity cards. Marriage certificates. Property deeds.
Entire lives reduced to paper.
"Every person who has ever become… inconvenient… to the family eventually arrives here," Joseph said.
"Why keep records of them?" I asked.
Joseph stopped walking.
"To remove them properly."
He opened one of the drawers and pulled out a thin file.
Inside were photographs of a man standing outside a small grocery store.
"His name was Carlo Ventresca," Joseph said.
Was.
The word hung in the air.
"He owned three shops in Palermo. A wife. Two daughters."
Joseph turned the page.
The next photograph showed the same storefront — but the sign above the door had changed.
Different name.
Different owner.
Joseph closed the file.
"Carlo Ventresca no longer appears in any registry," he said.
I frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Joseph slid the drawer shut.
"I mean that he does not exist."
"That's impossible."
Joseph resumed walking.
"His employment records were removed," he continued. "His business was transferred. His property titles amended. His tax files dissolved. Even his church records were corrected."
I stared at him.
"You can't erase a person like that."
Joseph glanced at me.
"Of course you can."
We passed another aisle.
Inside the drawers I could see thousands of similar files.
Photographs of faces that no longer belonged to the world outside.
Birth certificates.
School records.
Marriage documents.
Lives catalogued with terrifying precision.
"The body disappears easily," Joseph said. "But people are stubborn creatures. They remember things. They ask questions."
He tapped one of the cabinets lightly.
"So we correct the story."
I felt a chill run through my chest.
"You mean you rewrite history."
Joseph smiled faintly.
"History is always rewritten."
We stopped in front of a long table where several clerks sat quietly working.
Typewriters.
Ink stamps.
Stacks of official documents.
One man carefully removed a photograph from a passport and replaced it with another.
No one acknowledged Joseph's presence.
They continued their work without looking up.
"But if someone is erased from records—" I began.
Joseph finished the sentence before I could.
"—then they never existed."
The words echoed in the enormous room.
I looked back across the endless rows of cabinets.
"How many?" I asked.
Joseph followed my gaze.
"In this room?" he said.
"Yes."
Joseph thought for a moment.
"Enough."
He began walking again.
"The family's true power is not violence," he continued calmly. "Violence attracts attention."
We passed another aisle filled entirely with bound newspapers.
"Administration," Joseph said, almost softly.
"Administration reshapes reality."
I noticed something strange then.
One of the clerks had asked me a question about a file number.
He spoke only to me.
Not to Joseph.
Joseph answered the question before I could.
The clerk nodded.
But his eyes never once looked in Joseph's direction.
For the briefest moment I wondered if the man had even heard him.
Joseph continued walking as if nothing unusual had happened.
Ahead of us another corridor opened deeper into the archive.
"Come," Joseph said.
"There is one more room you should see."
And as I followed him into the next chamber, a quiet thought passed through my mind — a thought so faint I almost dismissed it immediately.
That Joseph seemed to move through the palace with perfect certainty.
As though every room we entered already existed inside his memory.
Or perhaps inside something else entirely.
Something that did not belong to the palace at all.