Father Panic's Opera Macabre (8 page)

"There's a bottle of wine in the basket," she said. "Some fresh bread, mortadella and cheese."

"Mmm."

She leaned forward on her hands, and she was like a big beautiful cat pressing against him. Still on her hands and knees, she positioned herself over his lap, and smiled up at him.

"Or would you like to play with me first?"

"Mmmm ..."

Neil reached under, slipping his hand inside her blouse, caressing her breasts, teasing her nipples. His other hand moved beneath her skirt and up the back of her thigh-the sudden thrill of finding that she had no panties on, that her flesh was so hot and moist already. His finger moved into her easily and stroked and rubbed her. Marisa's eyes were closed, her mouth open, and she sighed and groaned with something more than pleasure, some longing and need so great that it seemed almost heartbreaking to Neil. Then she whipped her head back, hair flying, and her mouth tightened, her breath sharp and fast, grunting with ferocity. Neil stroked and caressed her until she sagged down on her forearms and rolled her face in his crotch. Feeling how hard he was, she lithely swung her body around so that her backside faced him. She pulled her skirt up over her hips.

"Please, now..."

Neil quickly pulled his pants down, knelt behind her, took hold of her and then thrust into her. Such dizzying pleasure, laced with a passing spasm of sharp pain. Marisa cried out urgently.

"Harder, harder..."

She swung her head back and forth in the air again. Neil grabbed her long hair in one hand, carefully pulling it taut. She tilted her head back, and then he could see the wild smile, the roaring look on her face-her eyes open and fiery, urging him, challenging him.

"Harder harder... make me feel you ... more... MORE!"

Her cries were so loud now. Sweat stung Neil's eyes as he slammed into her again and again, and Marisa went down, her face pressed against the towel, her arms splayed out, hands clutching the cotton, her eyes closed again now, and he forced her hips down to the ground too, his body pressed on hers as he came, his face buried in her hair.

"My lover..."

"My lover," Neil said, stroking her face.

"Ah." Marisa put on an impish smile. "I think maybe you better not say anything more right now."

"Will you come to Rome? At least to visit?"

Her eyes widened in mock-surprise. "See what I mean?" She pressed her finger to his lips. "Sssh. Who knows?" She kissed him again.

It was the middle of the afternoon by the time Neil and Marisa arrived back at the house. They found two men pondering Neil's radiator, which was on a large sheet of plastic on the ground. They were daubing it with a tar-like substance. Much of the front end of the car had been dismantled, with loose parts scattered all around. One of the men launched into a long and detailed explanation- to Marisa-that involved hand-waving and pointing to various tricky places on the radiator. Neil didn't understand a word they spoke but it was quite obvious that he wasn't going anywhere that day. He didn't mind, in fact he felt a distinct sense of relief.

"It's difficult," Marisa explained. "There's so much corrosion, so many spots for them to patch up."

Neil nodded. "I can see how bad it is."

"Maybe by tomorrow?"

"Okay."

"Anyhow, if they can't get it working again, my brother will be home by the end of the week."

"Even better."

Marisa tried not to smile. "It's a good thing they don't speak English. You're very naughty!"

Neil smiled at her. "I'm trying."

The Last Night

Neil was exhausted by the long walk and their intense lovemaking, so he was glad when Marisa suggested another late afternoon siesta. She led him back to his room, promising to return for him later. He was also grateful to hear that they were excused from dinner with the family that night. He had no desire to find out what might be on the menu this time. Though in all fairness to them, it was their house and he was the intruder, and Marisa's family probably felt just as uncomfortable as Neil had.

But what a bizarre, sad household it was. What would he make of all this without Marisa? As Neil stretched out on the bed and nestled his head in the soft pillow, he realized that since he had arrived there yesterday he'd had almost no time to think about anything. The one instance when he had a few moments alone, Neil had heard the unusual metal scraping sound and he had discovered that peculiar alcove, which may or may not have had the body of a young man in it. Otherwise, Marisa was with him, occupying his thoughts and attention, or else he was too tired and sleepy to think.

Marisa was wonderful. He loved the way she made him respond naturally, instinctively-without the need for thought or analysis. She had such a gift and an appetite for living, it seemed to him. It was a terrible thing that she was stuck here, so unfair and unnatural. Her own personal life was indefinitely on hold.

Neil had to find the right way to speak to Marisa about it, to make her see that she had to do something-for her own sake. She could at least try to get away for a few days every month, to Rome, anywhere. Just to be among other people, to stroll about a city, eat in a restaurant, see a movie...

He was about ten years older than Marisa was, but that didn't seem to matter to her and it certainly didn't to him. Maybe a real relationship would never work out, but Neil had a strong sense that he could not just drive away and let go without even trying.

He had to leave ... but he had to see her again ...

... wanted her ...

His eyes closed.

"Do we have to wait for everybody to go to bed again tonight?" Neil asked, smiling at her.

"You're so naughty, I love it," Marisa said, laughing. "No, we don't. I have a special place I want to show you."

They were finishing a light meal in the billards room. Some vacuous Euro-techno music droned on the radio in the background. Marisa looked very pretty, very girlish in a dark blue-green plaid skirt that almost reached her knees and a white short-sleeved blouse that was somehow even sexier to Neil because it was buttoned all the way to the top. She wore several thin silver bracelets on her wrists. She had braided some of the hair on the sides of her head and tied it with beaded blue bands.

"I had to tidy it up while you were sleeping," Marisa continued. "I had not been down there for years."

"Down there?"

"Yes." She pointed to the floor. "There's a huge cellar beneath this house. It's full of things my family brought with them after the war and have never used since. I don't know what we'll do with it."

"But they were lucky they could take anything at all with them," Neil said. "By the end of the war tens, probably hundreds of thousands of people had nothing more than the clothes on their backs."

"Yes, I suppose. Anyhow, when we were children, Hugo and I had our own little clubhouse down there. It's buried in the middle of everything. It was a good place to hang out on rainy days. Later, I used to like to go there alone, to read or just to think. You know?"

"Sure." Neil nodded. "The childhood retreat, the adolescent haven. We all had private hideouts like that."

Marisa laughed. "Hideouts-yes, that's the word."

She took his hand. Neil thought that they were heading toward the front of the house, but as usual there were so many turns and passages that it was impossible for him to keep a sense of direction. They finally arrived at the door that led to the cellar. As soon as Marisa opened it, Neil heard the sound of an electric generator. She flicked a switch and some lights went on below. The narrow stone stairs descended along an interior wall that was made of rock and mortar, and were open on the other side.

"Watch your step," she warned him.

Neil nodded. The air was cool and damp, but he could tell from his first few breaths that it probably wouldn't bother him. The unbroken flight of stairs was steep and long-it was more like two normal floor levels down to the bottom, Neil estimated.

They had not quite gone halfway when Marisa stopped and turned to him. She pointed out across the expanse of the cellar now visible on the one side. Single lightbulbs dangled from cables here and there, providing some illumination, though much of the place was cast in shadows.

"Look at it," she said, sounding exasperated.

"I see what you mean."

The place was a vast warren of storage areas, shelves and platforms, all of them full of boxes, cartons and trunks. One area contained metal racks jammed with clothing on hangers-coats, dresses, suits, shirts. Another part was given over to larger items that were covered with tarp, unusual shapes, some kind of equipment or tools.

"This is only half of it," Marisa told him. "It's the same on the other side of this wall."

"Wow, it looks like they brought everything with them."

"Oh, no, not at all. You'll never guess."

"Guess what?"

"What my families did, before they came here. Both of the families, my mother's and my father's. They worked together."

"Weren't they farmers, like here?"

Marisa laughed. "No!"

"Then I have no idea."

"Don't worry, I'll show you."

At the bottom of the stairs she led him around the wall into the other half of the cellar. At first it looked like more of the same, a maze of aisles and clogged passages through a sea of accumulated possessions. It was hard to see much because the lightbulbs were widely scattered and dim, but Neil noticed a few unusual items-large rolls of canvas, for instance, a collection of grotesque puppets, some faded banners mounted on poles.

"Yes?" Marisa prompted.

"Still no idea," Neil said. "Unless they ran a circus."

"Ah, you're getting warm."

"Really?"

"Yes, they had a travelling show, not really a circus. In good weather they would go from town to town, the larger villages, throughout the entire region. They had a puppet show, they staged little plays, usually stories from the New Testament, things like that."

"Are you part gypsy?" Neil asked jokingly.

"No way," Marisa exclaimed. Neil found her sudden use of such an American expression endearing. "Those people, they call themselves Roma now, but they were trouble wherever they went. They made it very hard for families like mine. Nobody liked or trusted them. Gypsies, I mean."

"Nobody likes the gypsies," Neil echoed, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Even today, even in America."

"Of course. But never mind them. I want to show you something that my great-grandfather did. I'm not sure if he started it. Probably not. But he was a master craftsman. Now forgotten, unknown."

The sadness in her voice struck Neil. They had come to a long table that was covered with wooden boxes, each one about the size of a medicine cabinet. Marisa went to one directly beneath a lightbulb and lifted the lid. Neil stood close beside her. She carefully peeled back a sheet of something that looked like parchment or vellum, revealing a mask of a human face. The detail was remarkable.

"It's wax," Marisa said. "Look how fine the work is."

She slipped her fingers under the mask and lifted it- and Neil could see that it was almost paper-thin and translucent.

"Go ahead, it's okay," she told him. "You can touch it."

Neil took one edge of the mask between his fingers, rolling them over the filmy wax. It felt strong enough not to tear easily, but also very soft and supple. It had a slight oily slickness.

"What did they do with them?" he asked.

"They wore them in the plays they put on. And I think maybe they showed them, like an art exhibition-you know? One of the banners they used translates as 'The House of Masks.' You see, the trick is, he cast them from real people, and then he used the casts to make these masks. He had some formula he developed to make the wax like this."

"It's beautiful," Neil said. "But doesn't your grandfather know how it's done? You could do something with this, you know."

"Yes, he must know, but he won't say. He won't talk about it at all anymore." Marisa shook her head sadly. "I'm so afraid it will all be lost, because Hugo and I just don't know what to do about it."

"Your father?"

"Same thing. He probably knows, but if I try to bring up the subject, he switches off. Like that," she said snapping her fingers.

Neil looked down the length of the table-tables, as he realized there were three of them lined up end to end. "All of these boxes-"

"Yes, each one contains several masks."

"Do you take care of them?"

"Ah, good question, my lover." Marisa was still holding the mask in her hands. "Hugo and I are the only ones who have ever even looked at them in the last fifty years, yet this is how they are. The temperature and moisture in the air here must be just right. And wax is a remarkable substance in the right conditions. It doesn't change."

"Fifty years; God. It does feel a little oily."

"Yes," she agreed quickly. "I think they were conditioned or rubbed with some kind of plant oil to help preserve them this way."