Father Panic's Opera Macabre (3 page)

"I see. But her father-he really was an evil man?"

"Oh yes, he was a monster."

That seemed to please Marisa, who smiled broadly. "I'd love to read your book."

"I'm sorry I don't have a copy with me, but I'll be happy to send you one when I get back to Rome."

"Thank you. Signed, please?"

"Of course."

Marisa squeezed his arm again and Neil smiled at her. She was so attractive, pleasant to talk to and be with, and his encounters with women had been disappointingly few since he'd come to Italy.

They reached the front door, but before she opened it Marisa turned and looked around as if she were checking the weather. Then she led him into a dimly lit entrance hall. As soon as the door clicked shut, Neil noticed how quiet the house was. There were two large armoires and a couple of free-standing coat racks, along with a pair of heavy upholstered chairs made of very dark wood, and a long ornate wooden bench. All of this furniture was old, chipped and dusty. A gloomy corridor led straight into the house from the entrance area. Off to the right was a wide flight of stairs that led to a landing and then angled up toward the center again.

"I hope you won't mind waiting for a moment while I go and make arrangements for your room and bed? We so seldom have visitors, I want to make sure they open the window and change the linens."

"Don't go to any trouble for me," Neil insisted politely. "I'd be fine on a couch with a blanket."

"Oh no, we can certainly do better than that." Marisa led him into a small sitting room and turned on a floor lamp that had a battered shade with a fringe. "You can sit here. I'll be right back."

"Thank you."

As soon as he was alone, Neil noticed that it was an interior room. It had no windows, no other doors. There were two plain wooden chairs, both so dusty that he decided not to sit down. Boxes of old books were stacked up against the back wall of the narrow room. He went closer and looked at them but the titles were in a language he didn't recognize.

Neil began to feel uncomfortable in his breathing. He was asthmatic, though he had such a mild case of it that he rarely experienced difficulties. A single Benadryl capsule was usually enough to quell a reaction. But now he could taste powdery alkaline fungus in his mouth-even before he spotted the patches of it on the lower side walls of the room. Neil's lungs tightened, he could feel himself losing the ability to breathe in and out.

He turned toward the door, forcing himself to move slowly and carefully, as he had learned long ago- sudden exertions only made matters worse. Now he felt a little dizzy, lightheaded, as if he'd just been hit by a very powerful nicotine jag. This was something Neil didn't associate with asthma. His thoughts were foggy and vague, but he wondered if it was an effect of the particular fungus in that room-not mildew, it was something else, something new and deeply unpleasant to him-and he could imagine invisible toxic clouds of it being sucked in as he breathed, quickly absorbed into his blood, and then sluicing chaos into his brain.

Neil reached for the doorknob but his hand seemed to wave and flap listlessly in the air. Wow-the word formed in his mind with absurd calm and detachment- he couldn't remember the last time he had a reaction this strong and swift. He might even fall down.

But then Marisa opened the door and smiled at him.

"You look pale," she said, taking his arm in hers again.

"I think I'm just a little tired, that's all," Neil said. "I did a lot of walking and driving today before I got here."

"Dinner is later, but we'll have some wine and snacks now."

"That sounds very good."

She led him down the long corridor toward the rear of the house. There were any number of doors on either side, but all of them were closed. They passed three more staircases, one that went down on the left side, then farther on another that went down to the right, and at the back, one more that led to the upper floors.

"Too many rooms," Marisa said, almost to herself. "It's impossible to take care of all these rooms anymore. Most of them are closed and never used. There's no need for them."

Neil nodded sympathetically. "Do you have any brothers or sisters? I mean, aside from the brother you mentioned."

"No, only Hugo. That's part of the problem. He's away on business often and has no interest in running things here. Neither do I," she added in a lower, almost conspiratorial tone.

A familiar story, Neil thought. He couldn't imagine someone like her remaining here for very long, even if it was her family home. A bright young woman who had recently finished her university degree-work and life and love were all to be found elsewhere now, out in the world.

He felt better as they stepped outside, his breathing was almost back to normal. They walked to a stone patio with a weathered wooden table and several chairs. It was located a short distance from the house, at an angle that allowed them a very attractive view of the sharp ridges and deep vales that unfolded in the distance.

He also saw, directly beyond the yard around the house, a gradually rising series of terraces and still more outbuildings. Men were working the plots, kids were playing, and Neil occasionally caught a glimpse of a woman in a woolly jacket and long skirt peering out of one hut or another.

He and Marisa sat at the table. A bottle of red wine and two crystal goblets had already been placed there, and two older women soon appeared to set down platters of food. Neil knew immediately from their features that they were not related to Marisa.

There were slices of cold sausage, black olives, cuts of three or four different kinds of cheese, something that looked like pate or a meat pudding, a couple of loaves of bread, butter, a bowl of dark olive oil and a few jars and dishes that contained unknown sauces and spreads. The wine, which Marisa said they made from their own grapes, was a dark ruby-maroon in color and had a little too much of a tannic edge, but it was drinkable.

"Robusto," Neil managed to say.

Marisa was no longer wearing sunglasses. Her eyes were deep blue, frank, open, curious-perhaps he was reading too much into them this soon, but they were so easy to gaze at. The breeze played in her silky black hair. She had such striking features-strong cheekbones, a wide mouth, rosy full lips, a proud nose, clear smooth skin with a pearly luster-altogether, they grabbed your attention and held it.

Neil and Marisa nibbled at the food, drank the wine and talked for an hour or more about books, history, Italy, America, and their lives. He felt very comfortable and relaxed with her. He was usually not one to volunteer much information about himself, but he soon found that he wanted to tell her things, that he enjoyed her questions and interest.

When La Petrella was published and Neil had to give quite a few interviews, he quickly developed a brief biographical sketch that satisfied most questioners. How he had stayed on in Worcester after graduating from Assumption College. The six years of substitute teaching by day, bartending nights and weekends at the Templewood Golf Course or at Olivia's. All of the reading and writing he had done in odd hours, slowly accumulating the first novel, and then the second. How both of those books were indifferently reviewed in only a few places, and barely sold. How Neil had decided to give fiction one more chance, and-bingo. The glowing reviews of La Petrella, the solid sales, the trade paperback that sold even better, and the film option. It was a happy American story, neat and edifying.

But with Marisa, Neil wanted to say more. He told her about the death of his mother, which was followed only a few months later by the breakup with his longtime girlfriend, Jamie, and how those two events had forever changed him, diminishing his expectations of life and instilling in him a certain resignation to melancholy that even now, almost four years later, showed no sign of going away.

"Ha, it serves her right," Marisa said of Jamie. "She left you just before your book came out and did so well. I'm sure she has kicked herself many times since then. Better you found out sooner than later. You should be glad she left when she did."

He wasn't, but Neil laughed at Marisa's words and part of him hoped that she was right about Jamie kicking herself. Still, even after the book was published, she had never called or written, never made any attempt to revive the relationship, and he'd long ago accepted the fact that it was dead.

Marisa spoke softly but quickly, her voice fluid and pleasing to the ear. She had a way of filling any brief moments of silence that arose. Neil gradually learned more about her, and it was pretty much as he had already guessed. She had returned home after college, intending to stay for a month or two, the summer at most. Her degree was in history, which meant that she could only teach or go back to college for a postgraduate degree, neither of which appealed to her. She had been thinking of moving to Florence. She could always find a job like waitressing to earn money while she looked for an opening in a more interesting line of work-perhaps fashion, magazines, the arts. Florence was a lively creative city, there were always opportunities for bright young people who looked for them.

But she soon was caught up in "keeping things going" at home. Her parents and two surviving grandparents were all in varying stages of illness or frailty. It was impossible just to walk away. Her family and the tenants needed her. Marisa's brother Hugo was often away on business-he was a rep for a medical supply company- and his financial contributions were very helpful to the household.

Marisa seemed to understand that the whole enterprise was by now hopelessly outmoded, a relic of the past, and doomed to collapse, though she didn't say so. But she apparently regarded it as her family duty to do her part and see it through as long as her parents and grandparents were alive. As she spoke of these things, Neil could see that she was forcing herself to smile and affect a light tone, but there was loneliness and sadness in her eyes. It wasn't hard to understand why she was so grateful for a visitor.

Neil noticed a group of six or seven men standing together on one of the terraces. They appeared to be watching him, and Marisa. Neil wondered what those people would do when the farm finally went under. Perhaps they thought he was from the bank, and wondered the same thing. Even at some distance, they seemed alien, slightly wild, lost people.

A heavy mist was drifting across the hills and settling around them, a low grey cloud of moisture. It came with surprising swiftness, obscuring the sunset and the views. Marisa frowned.

"II morbo," she said.

"What?"

"This fog. It's a regular feature of the region, especially up here at these altitudes. The local people call it il morbo."

Neil shivered, feeling a sudden chill. "That means sickness, illness, the plague," he said.

"Yes, exactly." Marisa laughed. "Sometimes it blows through and is gone in an hour, but it can linger for a couple of days-and when it does, you do start to think of it as a plague."

On the terrace above, the men were losing their individual definition in the mist, becoming a cluster of dark shadow figures. The air was grey and full of floating globules of wetness.

"Let's go inside," Marisa said.

Passegiata

She led him up a flight of stairs and along a short corridor. They took a sharply angled turn, so that they appeared to be heading back the way they had just come, though by a different passage. They went through a doorway, across a raised gallery that was open above an empty room, and then into yet another corridor. Their footsteps made an echoing hollow clatter on the bare floorboards. The floor itself seemed to tilt slightly one way and then another, or to sag in the middle-it was never quite solid and level.

Marisa held his arm snugly against her as they walked, and Neil could feel the movements of her hip. The way their bodies touched, the way Marisa smiled at him-he wanted to believe she was seriously flirting with him, but he decided it wasn't serious. Not yet, anyway. Now that they were indoors, he noticed a sweet woodsy fragrance about her. Juniper? Whatever it was, he found it deliriously attractive.

"The layout is a bit crazy," she said apologetically. "At one time we had many relatives living with us here- cousins, aunts, uncles, in-laws. The rooms were divided and altered many times over the years to accommodate everybody and their belongings."

"I see."

"There was a story that a couple of hundred years ago this was not a farmhouse, that it was originally a monastic retreat or home for some obscure religious order that eventually dwindled away."

"Is that right?"

"You can still see religious carvings and symbols in certain places on the old woodwork, so maybe it's true."

"I like places with a mysterious history," Neil said.

"Yes, so do I, but now it's just a big nuisance."

They turned a corner and were in a wider area, a cul-de-sac. There were two doors, one on either side of the dead-end wall. Marisa opened one of them and went into the room. Neil followed.

"I hope this will be all right," she said.

The room was large, almost square in shape, and sparsely furnished, but it looked comfortable enough. The tall narrow window was swung open and the air in the room was clear, with no trace of mustiness-that was the most important thing as far as Neil was concerned.