Fiend, page 17
part #3 of Voice of Blood Series
Had I not given any serious thought to the truth that I would never again be able to see the golden hills of Campania wavering under an ocean of sunshine?
It did not seem so. I slept through the increasingly ovenlike days, with stringent direction not to be disturbed, and sprang again into impatient action as soon as the sun was setting. I could barely keep my stinging eyes open against even the declining light. Each time I woke, I cursed the brilliant scarlet sunsets, flaming and fading over the taffeta sea, and redoubled my savagery at night upon the unfortunate and unwary of the city of Naples.
My appetite had returned with ferocity. More than twenty years denied, I slaked my thirst greedily, emboldened by rumors of cholera, scarlet fever, summer agues, and the like. After subsisting on the thick blood of sailors for days on board the ship between Toulon and Naples, the novelty of the Neapolitans refreshed me. Naples was rife with disease, and I grew as addicted to the taste of a new sickness each night as I had to a roster of different entrées at Dumarchand’s. Each malady would affect me gently for a few hours—chills, nausea, a fluttering headache, weakness in my limbs—then seep away, leaving me feeling stronger and fitter by minutes. I grew to enjoy the symptoms as though it were a new form of drunkenness, tossing and turning on my bed in a whirlwind of discomfort, my mind painting feverish pictures, knowing that I would be as well as I had been before by the end of the night.
Neapolitans were also prone to killing each other in fits of pique. I regularly saw knife fights and brawls, just passing between the dockside and my cheap hotel in the central district. Finding dead comrades on the street in the mornings (or better yet, whole families, killed stone-dead by cholera before any of them could even leave their homes) was even more common here than in Paris. Their hot tempers bemused me like the aggressive antics of children; though no less fatal, my own methods had become so secretive, so subtle, so distinct.
Nonetheless, I quickly tired of the human intensity of the city. I remained in the crooked brick-oven of Naples for only two nights, and set out toward Piedimonte on foot on the third. I carried only my pocket-book, my pistols, and my painting, and I seemed to skim over the roads and fields with no more effort than a leaf borne on the wind. What relief to leave Naples behind and strike out on my own through the country of my birth! How fine the summer night was! How brilliant the half-full moon, set in a polished obsidian sky! I would see my farm again, honor the grave of my mamma, and settle at least part of the disturbance in my soul.
The hills glowed the same white-gold in the moonlight as they always had, and the single, eldest olive tree, planted at the entrance of the road that led to the farm, had grown thicker and wilder, its branches heavy with immature fruit. I climbed up into the tree and stood out on the highest solid branch, gazing out at the rise where the sheepfold, the house, the vineyards, and the orchards could all be seen at a glance.
Even in the dark I knew that something was wrong. I did not make out the details of the grounds themselves before the awesome quiet began to alarm me. Where were the thoughts of the mortals who lived here? Even sheep had consciousness; where were they? There should have been hundreds of humming sheep-dreams. The vineyards did not look right and the grass in the folds grew tall.
Not a soul, human or animal, flickered in my mind as I walked up the road toward the house, passing the carriage house and stables. The path was strewn in sharp stones; we had always kept it clear. Morning-glory vines tangled themselves right across the path, the alabaster trumpet flowers soaking the night with their syrupy scent. I thought of dear old fat Prego, and how he would have stumbled over these vines, and cut his knees upon the stones, and my remorseful heart ached as though I had killed the horse with my own hands.
On the front door of the house, a rain-stained sheet of paper curled away from the carved wood, toward the flowers, toward the moon.
Property of the King Victor Emmanuel, Annexed upon this date, 1 May 1868 No trespassing
Empty. Abandoned and forgotten.
I was struck blind with rage and distress. When I returned to my senses, I found myself, wet-faced, at the door of the little rectory of the church in Piedimonte without remembering how I had gotten there. A bearded old priest opened the door, sleepily rubbing his eyes. I did not recognize him, but I sensed that he had been there for decades. An entire generation had come and gone.
“You are still asleep,” I commanded.
He replied slowly, “I am still asleep.”
“You will remain asleep, and recall this exchange as a dream. Tell me truthfully what has happened to the Fattorio di Ricari, and you will avoid a nightmare,” I demanded.
The priest’s eyes drooped closed. “It belongs to Our Majesty King Victor Emmanuel,” he murmured. “It was claimed as property of the court of Italy.”
“Yes, years ago—but what about before that?”
“It was owned by the family of Zelotti.”
“And before that?”
The priest blinked a few times, and his eyeballs shot back and forth under the closed lids. “I was told when I arrived here that it was owned by Captain Vittorio Ricari. That was before my time; I was still in Salerno then. I did not know the Captain. He had a great reputation in this town; he was spoken of frequently for a while. Years ago. He is all but forgotten now but for Brother Luigi, who manages the holy oils. He is always reminiscing about Captain Ricari’s oils; they were the finest.”
I felt panicky and sick, and I cut into the old man’s recollection, which could go on forever. “Who was Zelotti?”
“The elder?” the priest asked, but then he grasped my meaning. “Sr. Zelotti married the daughter of Captain Ricari.”
“Which daughter?” I whispered through dry lips.
“The eldest,” mumbled the priest, smiling. “Signora Maria Elena. She was a most beautiful, capable woman and a fine mother.”
So many questions filled my mind, and demanded answers from his, that the poor man struggled and twitched, strung between the non-sense of sleep and the fractured logic of my questioning. Did they have many children? Was this Zelotti handsome? More handsome than I? Did the farm prosper or fail? Was I ever mentioned, or did I simply disappear? The only words that finally passed my lips sounded like the guilty plea of a condemned man.
“Did she love him?”
The priest relaxed a little, and sighed heavily in his sleep. “She bore him three fine sons,” he answered. “He was not cruel to her. Their marriage was advantageous, and prosperous, for a time. One child in the grips of the devil’s temptations, and all their prosperity was in vain . . .”
I could not bear any more. “That’s enough. Go back to bed.” The priest shrugged a little and raised his arm to close the door. “You will dream of the ghosts of sheep,” I said to him. “Good night.”
I turned around and wandered back toward the farm with my face in my hands. Abruptly, I changed my course and walked back to the church, and the graveyard surrounding it. I thought, I must drink it all at once and get it over with. I must do this. If I feel as though I am dying, it is because I am.
The Ricari mausoleum stood almost precisely as I remembered it: golden-yellow marble, as tall as I was, deftly carved, guarding over the plot of graves. However, now both of my parents’ names had joined the ranks of grandfathers and great-uncles, and of my brother Vittorio. There was a place for me next to him, too—a blank spot on the marble, to the left and below my father’s, awaiting the inscription of my name.
Elena was not here; of course, she would not be—she was a Zelotti now, and a mother of Zelottis. I felt that I hated all Zelottis in Creation, both the pious and the profane, with a viciousness like the crackling madness of rabies. I placed my hands against the chilly carved granite, crossed swords and grapevines and books cut into the rough surface, and prayed to the God of Job to take retribution against them. And yet—I slumped down the mausoleum wall and fell into a heap on the grass—God had already granted my wish; they had been ruined, and ended their lives unhappily.
Could I ask for a better, more efficient method if I begged it from Satan himself?
And had I not?
The next day, the village stonecutter rode out in the scorching heat of the day with his tools and added my name to its place on the surface of the mausoleum. When his wife asked him where he had been upon his return, he had no memory of having ever risen from bed that morning.
By then, I was halfway up the Voltorno, headed away from golden Campania hills and the drifting ashes of my painted dreams of the past.
My second trip to Switzerland was much more comfortable than my first, though no less painful. Money acted as a superb lubricant and cushion, guaranteeing a fine carriage and soft beds that I did not utilize, preferring to rest my penitent bones upon a hard floor, with the bedding wrapped around me like a shroud.
My hunger grew demanding again, and I was too befogged in despair to attempt to control it. The mortals would die anyway, sooner or later, probably sooner; and I was rarely cruel. If I had to decimate an entire family for an undisturbed and sheltered day of sleep, I was more than capable, but I did not seek the opportunity.
At length, after a meandering journey of a score of months, I felt that my spirit had lightened to a less impenetrable darkness. I thought I had been looking directly at my soul, but I had been glancing past it to the gloom of the grave, which did not describe my entirety. I had barely been conscious of my destination; I allowed myself to be drawn to it, as naturally as a bird flies south in September.
And, as if stepping out into the Holy Land, I came again to Geneva. It stood as calm and gay and secure as ever, insulated by the toilsome Alps. War seemed alien here. The peace soothed me; I was safe in its sanctity at the apex of the mad continent while the conflicts swirled about, around and below us, but as far away as legend.
I settled my deeds and money in the banking system there, and froze it tight, removing even my own access to my accounts. I would have to become someone else, and come back for it, if I wanted it; I locked it into a trust to mature for twenty years, to be accessed only by Orfeo V. Ricari. Signed, M. Grise. By then, my French was so seamless that the bankers had no idea that I was not a Parisian gentleman, entrusted with valuable property and exceptional wealth, and with a quirky eccentricity about meeting times. My requests were not unusual at this time; many noblemen had retreated over the Alps, intending to keep their wealth intact. And the soundness of my money was quite beyond suspicion.
Once this unpleasant responsibility had been resolved, I retraced the steps through Geneva I had taken with Lorenzo. A lifetime ago—two lifetimes!—I had come with him in pursuit of our hero, the poet Lord Byron. I had sought to touch the hem of his robe and receive absolution for my sin of mediocrity. I had bet my soul and lost; but here was another chance to at least take in the glory of history with my eyes. I sought the magic castle, the now-famed Villa Diodati, which together we had never perceived; I would not be denied the culmination of the pilgrimage a second time.
Byron had died a lifetime ago, but the Villa Diodati still stood, golden and gorgeous on its carefully maintained grounds, the waters of the lake reflecting on its face like a pretty girl angling her looking glass. The night when I arrived was clear but windy, whipping froth across the lake surface and bending the young leaves on the trees. A storm approached from the northwest, massing the fleecy pearled clouds in a layer over the moon. Spring had grown impatient with the soft, mild weather of the last several days, and the air trembled with dips and swells of atmospheric pressure. I guided my little stolen rowboat with swelling joy, my eyes drinking in the sight of the columns of the mansion against its cape of black swansdown, restraining my delighted, horrified laughter in the face of its magnificence. At last I had made it, though the journey had taken sixty years and cost me my life.
The air was just air; the house was just a house.
I flung myself onto the cropped grass, several yards away from the house itself, and gave vent to my emotions. My claws rent great furrows in the manicured lawn, tearing the earth itself; I grasped handfuls of sod and flung them behind me, back into the water, scrubbed the dirt into my face and into my hands and my expensive, if travel-worn, elegant clothes. I rent the hair from my scalp in great handfuls. I threw my shoes into the waters of the lake and ran about on the grass in my bare animal feet, spinning myself in dizzy circles until the ground rose up to meet me, hold me down, clasp me and calm me by force. You still exist, Orfeo Ricari, it said, thrumming through the aching of my bruised bones. You cannot escape my gravity; you are an organism, a natural creature. You belong here. The earth is your home. Be glad of my protection, for there is no place for you in Heaven.
Reintegration
The best and worst thing about the countryside bounding Geneva is its illusion of changelessness, hidden behind the explicit variation of the seasons. Before I had much noticed, the new century began, and Europe went to war with itself. I think I slept through most of it. Sometimes I lay down to sleep in my cellar when the cherry blossoms were fresh, bountiful and fragrant, and when I woke up, the fruits had emerged, like tiny green pebbles, each containing a moment that had passed me by.
I took no more notice of the conversations of mortals than an animal would; what could human concerns interest a creature who had seen a hundred years and more? No war could touch me; no ideology could seduce me. Cologny was gorgeous and immutable, its mountain skies clear. I lived as a ghost, silent and veiled, catching mice in closets, warming myself beside the fire so that I would cast no solid shadow, comfortable in my feral and insular nature. Almost every day, I read a different book from the villa’s superb library, sensually thrilled at the idea that perhaps Percy, or Mary or the Doctor, or even Lord Byron himself, had once touched those same pages. I even translated some of the Italian history and political science texts, and had them published from London under my real name, sending the small payments directly to my Geneva account, conducting all business, a few pages at a time, through the mail. I had no need of money or recognition, only mental occupation. After a while, even the need to write or translate dissipated, and I spent my days reading, tucked into a crook of an old tree, watching the infinite change and stability of Nature.
I had died and gone to Heaven.
And yet a physical Heaven meant nothing to a soul still in turmoil and a mind still imbued with the ability to learn. And somehow I’d managed to read every one of the thousands of books in the library.
I grew bored in Paradise.
Thus, I said farewell to the Villa and the grounds and the lake, and took my ragged, naked self into Cologny to be reborn. I stood in the village square as dusk fell, wearing only my long hair and a thorough coating of dirt, and stared around me; villagers passed by me, talking quietly among themselves on their way toward the tavern or home from it. I must have been as transparent as the air, for none of them even glanced uneasily in my direction. I could not resist an audible laugh, which made a few persons turn around and look, but they saw nothing.
In hardly any time at all, I had acquired clothing and shoes from a shop that sold them ready-made, imported from Paris. I had to try on dozens of pairs of shoes before I found ones that fit. The shoes and clothes were ugly and cheap, and I had not worn anything since my coat and trousers had been worn to rags and reduced to moldy shreds, and I felt an agony of discomfort as I walked out, dressed and shod, into the street. I breathed carefully and tried to relax, imagining that I lay upon a bed of nails and my resistance would only cause me further pain. I had worn clothing every day for eighty years, and I committed myself to learning to do so once more.
A barbershop stood, its doors closed and shutters drawn, a few doors down from the clothes shop. I stood staring at the facade, attempting to discover a way inside as smoothly as I had gained entry to the clothier’s. Before I could, the barber had returned from the tavern, staggering and chuckling to himself. He blinked at my appearance. “You will cut my hair, please,” I said, frisking him until I found his keys and leading him inside.
“Who are you?” he asked blearily, his breath blasting schnapps vapors toward me. “Wait, where are you? Who has spoken? Oh, there you are . . .” He fumbled against a wall until he found a lamp, and switched it on, flooding the glass bulb inside with electric light.
I stared at the lightbulb, momentarily dazzled. The barber stared at my sharp-drawn shadow against the wall and rubbed his eyes, seemingly unable to connect the shadow to the form that cast it. When he attempted to light another lamp, he stumbled over one of his chairs and barked his shin. I shook off my fascination and gave him a searching look. He slumped down in the chair and put his hand over his mouth, seized with violent hiccups. I said, “It doesn’t matter who I am. You have never seen me before, and you will never see me again. And never mind; do not cut my hair. You’re in no state. I will do it myself. That way, I won’t have to pay you.”
I glanced into one of his mirrors, and saw a face so pale and ragged that I hardly recognized it as my own. The beard did not help matters. To the barber, though, I wavered in and out of perceptibility.
My matted hair was very difficult to cut; I first braided it, then chopped through it at the nape with his stoutest scissors. The barber sat there and gaped at me, rubbing his eyes again and again. I tossed the braid into his barber’s chair. It resembled a dead ferret, and the barber shrank back from it, as though it threatened to bite him. I pitied him, but I laughed at him anyway, as I lathered and shaved my own face before the glass. “Once upon a time, a highly paid manservant did this for me,” I mused. “That was before you were born.” And underneath the dirty eiderdown lay the face of Orfeo Giuseppi Vittorio Ricari, entirely unchanged: a nose still keen, the slight overbite, a wild hare’s ears, enormous eyes that caught and held the light in a crystal lattice. How ironic that I should have to die and be reborn to witness the beauty of my face!
