Gabriel and the Swallows (The Volatile Duology #1) (27 page)

“But how will I stop her from coming into my dreams?”

“You must take control over your own consciousness. You must be strong, and no matter how much you miss her, you can’t return to that world where she is waiting for you. It’s your mind, Gabriel. Only you can control it, no matter how magical she may be.”

“Sounds like Alcoholic’s Anonymous.”

“You’re a dream-aholic,” she said with a laugh.

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “But Darlo,” I said in afterthought, “will she let me go?”

“If she loves you like you say she does, she will.”

“And do you think I have the strength to go through with this?” I questioned.

“I’ve always perceived you, Gabriel Laurentis, as someone who has the ability to do precisely as he wants.”

I knew she was right. I had to choose. But a choice between a life full of disappointment or a life I loved, based on a simple perception of reality, did not seem like a fair choice at all. But I knew the truth: as real as the white world seemed, it was manufactured. And if other human beings did not have a supernatural creature protecting them, building them sanctuaries and their own private caves, yet still managed happiness, then why couldn’t I?
When we die, we do not live on
, Orlando had said. What was his meaning, that Volatile was dead? It had to be. Even if her spirit and the memory of the Orvieto she had created remained, she was slain, extinct. Had I not seen her grave, the earth that cradled her remains?

I let the weeks go by, like a coward, after the decision had been made. I held Volatile in my arms and made love to her. I ate my mother’s food and praised it. I played chess with Papa, who hadn’t a single grey hair. She and I walked arm in arm, lost in the maze of the enormous Laurentis vineyard. It was always summer, and the swallows stared down upon us watchfully like guardian angels, humming a strange vibration. They seemed to sense what I was about to do. They appeared poised and ready for flight, to migrate to warmer climates.

I drudged through that final day. I drank espresso after espresso, willing myself not to fall asleep. “Are you feeling unwell, Gabriel?” asked my father as I sat, head resting on the kitchen table, unblinking eyes staring at my shoes. He ruffled my hair affectionately as he passed by, with a book and a nightcap. “It will be all right, son,” he murmured, and shut his door. Freddy, taking his cue, leapt up from the table and sealed himself inside his room.

It was very, very late when I entered the white world, and I found Volatile asleep, curled in my sheets. I approached her timidly, making my footfall as light as possible. Softly, I sat down next to her as a weak red sun rested upon her face. She was curled up; knees tucked under her chin, just like a child. I stroked the lengths of her hair, so long it reached her waist. It curled on the ends. I hadn’t noticed that before. Emotions never before experienced welled up within me, like an ocean’s savage waves.

Something salty trickled down the left side of my face, but I brushed it away violently and steered myself. “Volatile,” I whispered urgently, although it broke my heart to watch her eyelids flutter, to see her stir and sit up straight.

She said my name groggily.

“I have to go, Volatile,” I said, forcing my voice to sound as steady as possible.

“Where are you going?” she asked, but she already knew.

I reached for her hand and I held it for a long time. The red sun rose and fell again into the horizon. The swallows were eerily silent.

“Thank you for everything you have done for me,” I whispered when it was time, raising her fist to my mouth. It seemed like our hands were fused together. I felt an age of clamminess between our palms and I did not want to disengage. “Without you, we would be ruined. Without your sacrifice, I would be nothing. Without you, I would have been friendless, alone, all of my life. You saved me, Volatile. Every good thing I have in my life came from you. You were the first person, I believe, who truly loved me.”

“I was,” she said slowly. “But you don’t love me, do you, Gabriel? Not really. That is why you’re leaving me.” She looked down at our entwined hands. “I suppose they were right,” she muttered in disbelief. “They were right all along.”

“Volatile…”

“It’s going to be dawn soon, and you will have to wake up.”

“I will never forget you,” I said, and a very peculiar thing happened. The humming began again, and grew loud and uncanny, raucous and bizarre. My ears seemed like they would soon split open from the murderous noise, and I covered them with my hands. I watched, dumbfounded, as Volatile walked to the center of the room, the nucleus of the white world, her wings suddenly unfurling and stretching to their full, monstrous capacity. She stared at the sky and held her arms straight out over her head, two undeviating lines. Suddenly, the dreamland began to break apart. The grey walls started to crack and splinter into a hundred pieces, hunks of the roof shattered and rained down in thick, vicious shards. I made to shield my head, but realized I didn’t need to. The debris avoided me completely. Through the open space where a wall once was, I watched Il Duomo split apart, brick by brick. The labyrinths of Orvieto unraveled and slithered like snakes, before disintegrating into useless grey fragments. My Mamma and Papa, our workmen too, all glided past me, their faces frozen and their eyes lusterless, like marbles. They bent and swayed with the current, like paper dolls. Sweet Vittoria naked, separated from her fur.

And Volatile, her arms and wings stretched out like an angel of death, was like a violent vortex, and all the matter and molecules of the white world whirled around her amidst that deafening shriek, until she swallowed all of Orvieto whole.

All that remained, in my dream, was she and I facing each other, suspended in nothingness.

“Don’t go,” she said, and her expression was that of a child whose trust had been broken for the very first time, hands held palm-upward toward me, an act of humility.

And then I woke up.

D
arlo Gallo had that enviable talent of making friends effortlessly with a wide range of personalities. I would watch her at parties, clinking glasses with old Orvietani patriarchs, gossiping merrily with other young women, laughingly waving away scores of well-dressed men with romance on their minds. Her divorce had finally come through and she now wore her wedding rings on a long gold chain dangling around her neck. “Because a diamond this size deserves to be shown off on a daily basis,” she would explain, and drop a fresh strawberry into her champagne. No matter who would engage her in conversation during a gathering, she would refuse to neglect me, returning to me often and linking her arm through my own, leading me around and introducing me to people like a long-lost brother.

She developed her own reputation amongst the Orvietani, away from the shadowy public opinion of her father. She was a style icon, they decided, with immeasurably good taste, despite a French education. She was trustworthy, they said, not flighty like other girls her age. And even though she was once married to that scandalously sleazy politician -- an alcoholic and a womanizer, if the tabloids were to be believed -- she was the height of worthy opinion when it came to food and entertainment, a cuisine and wine connoisseur.

At the mayor’s dinner, an affair highest on the scale of importance on the Orvietani social calendar, Darlo Gallo had praised her way through twelve courses, to the delight of the infamously particular chef. However, after the gateaux and cheese platters had been served, and the guests were presented with a Tuscan dessert wine the color of cherries, all eyes were on the illustrious Ms. Gallo as she took one sip and declared, “Take this away at once. I only drink
Laurentis Dolce Fantasia
after a perfect meal.”

After this famous event, every restaurant, bar, caffé and
trattoria
in Orvieto and the entire Umbrian region stocked our wine, and the people, inspired by Darlo Gallo’s declaration, followed suit, ordering
Dolce Fantasia
after every dining experience. Within the year, our entire cellar stock, going back some sixty years, was sold. I was soon obliged to develop a waitlist for emporiums and cellars throughout Italy and France, and Papa had no choice but to hire extra hands to speed up production. What was it that the school children used to say about Darlo Gallo? That she owned Orvieto? Those who don’t heed the words of children are fools indeed.

When it became clear that we needed more land, Darlo shrugged and offered her own. And so a partnership was formed, and Laurentis wine took over the Gallo estate. On the day that the contract was signed, as an omen of good faith, Darlo appeared at the farmhouse with a bottle of
Gallo Premium Trebbiano
in one hand and a young donkey on a lead in the other. “His name is Tomasso
Duo
,” she stated heartily, “and he’s all yours, Celso!” She was now on a first-name basis with my father.

People began to question my relationship with Darlo. Whenever Papa saw us together, his eyes would alight with pleasure. Young, rich Orvietani men would clap my back with envy, and our names became entwined on their tongues: Gabriel-and-Darlo. Darlo-and-Gabriel. It was assumed that we were an item, we were so frequently together. Those that knew us intimately, and I did develop a little clique of my own, knew we were nothing more than business partners, although they could not help but speculate.

Sometimes, when I watched her work a room, I could not help but admire her for her intelligence and excellent conversation, covering a wide range of secular and highbrow topics. A shrewd businesswoman, she had retired from the modeling industry, and was often away for lengthy periods promoting
Dolce Fantasia
and a new range of dry white wines we were developing on the Gallo land. I would worry about her when she was gone, and would not go out socializing much in her absence. I grew to fear the inevitable; that someday she would meet a man, marry him, and bring him into this tightly knit partnership we had, ruining everything.

I began to love the outdoors, the smell of manure and ripening grapes, and the cries of birds that would flood the woods at nightfall. I watched them always, an unfurling of wings, a twitch of the tail, and they could all be
her
. I began to sense her presence out there in nature, and saw her shadow accompany every living creature. Yet there had been no swallow sightings in the region, and all the farmers complained of it, perplexed.

Sometimes I would whisper her name to the air, hoping it would carry over deserts, oceans, and oriental lands filled with spices and opulent carpets. When I closed my eyes, I could feel her breath on my face and her hair wrapped around my wrist. But then, I would command myself: enough. If I indulged myself this way, I lectured myself, I would certainly go mad this time. Really insane. Institution-worthy.

It was hardest just before bedtime. I would hold my pillow to my chest and stand at the foot of the bed, staring at the sheets. It was in this bed, in reality and in the white world, that I grew to know her so well, her body, her mind. I remembered when I was a child; she would sit there with me and listen to my woes. And I would glance at this swallow-girl and not realize how limited our time was, the effort I would go to these days to change this. My fists would whiten around the pillow and I would remind myself to breathe. It became my constant companion, the living sadness.

It was difficult at first, learning to shut my mind. To retain my will and consciousness during sleep, and not slip away with abandon. I learned not to dream, and during sleep, I was suspended in nothingness, quite alone. I often sensed the shadow of a door, calling out for me to turn its handle, and I would struggle violently, wanting to push it open and see her one last time. But I was forgetting that she had gone. She would not be waiting for me, that world had been destroyed. How many times can you say goodbye to a person? I kept wanting to do that, to say goodbye. A complete sucker for punishment.

Time passed. Darlo and I began to hold tasting parties for our new wines, resurrecting and recalibrating the old classic reds that her family had successfully produced for generations. We started sponsoring events in Rome, and held an annual ball every spring at
Il Casa di Gallo
around the time of
Carnevale
, reminding our customers of the wealth, glamour and prestige of the ever-expanding Laurentis winery. Old Signora Gallo presented no objection, as she had long ago moved to Naples to be with her sister.

As I wandered through the halls of this mansion, a glass of the ruby elixir I had created in my hand, I was surprised at the effort Darlo had put into remodeling the old place. She had taken down the gilt-framed masterpieces and replaced them with minimalistic modern art, all bare lines and block colors that I couldn’t pretend to understand. All the heavy velvet curtains, old world sculpture and ostentatious chandeliers had been donated to charity, to be replaced with practical, slatted bamboo drapes, African death masks and fat, laughing jade Buddhas. She had burned every one of her father’s stuffed heads, painted the room pink, and used it as a shoe closet. During such a party, I snuck into the master bedroom and examined the four-poster bed with its elegant scattering of oriental silk cushions. I felt a sharp, unexpected pang of jealousy as I noted the imprint of two bodies on the cotton sheets. Well, why shouldn’t she have a lover? I thought as I slammed the door shut behind me, no longer caring if I was discovered, she’s a grown woman.

And I made my way to the back courtyard, looking up at the fountain that Darlo decided should stay right where it was. I smiled to myself as I remembered the words of a little renegade I once knew: “These people have no taste”. I laughed to myself loudly, startling two elderly people mingling nearby.

It was after one such party, when Darlo was overseeing the cleaning contingent well into the early hours, that I approached her, tuxedo jacket in one hand, keys to my car, a sensible Peugeot, in the other. “Let me walk you out,” she said, looping her arm through my own. I remember what she was wearing that night, pearls around her wrists and a short cream dress with a beaded hem that soared up her thighs, a lack of pantyhose revealing the freckles on her knees.

In the driveway, as I sat in my car with the window down, she leaned against the doorframe and said, “Don’t you think, darling, that it’s time we got married?”

“Married?” I guffawed, waving her suggestion away.

“I do believe I am ready to marry again,” she continued, “and you and I, well, we’re the greatest of friends. We get along so well together. And we do throw a mean party.”

“Well, how about your countless other suitors?” I laughed, “good men, most of them. Rich too, and distinguished. How about that mustachioed fellow that followed you about all evening with his tongue hanging out? You’re ruining your chances with a dreary old bachelor like me.”

“Why, Gabriel Laurentis,” she chided, “you’re not yet thirty years old! Dreary old bachelor, indeed.”

“Goodnight, sweetheart,” I said in response, and plucked at the tip of her nose, a habit I had developed in recent years.

“Do think about it, won’t you darling?” she drawled, turning to go back inside. “I’d love to have dear old Celso as a father-in-law.”

“And I’m sure that was your prime motivation for asking me, you sly thing, and my own father too! Why don’t you marry him instead, he’d have you in a heartbeat!”

Darlo giggled. “I’d rather have the younger model,” she said.

“Very well, I will consider your proposal of marriage,” I said, mock-formally. She laughed and swatted at me before sashaying away in that mini-dress and high heels, tousling her chin-length hair.

I tossed and turned in bed that night. Marry Darlo Gallo? Could I? I had never considered marriage, never assumed it was for me. I had devoted myself entirely to the business, deviating only to build a small extension to the house, a proper room for Freddy who was now in his early twenties and a damn fine overseer, and a large new shed and cellar. I knew Darlo Gallo was serious, she never joked about this kind of thing. I imagined a life with her: breezy, elegant, and easy. Business trips and luxurious vacations to exotic lands tempted me, as well as the thought of having her in bed again, which was something I fondly fantasized about from time to time.

We had slept together once, two years ago, after signing a contract with one of the biggest hotel chains in Europe. We had gotten wildly drunk, and had run naked through the vineyards on the Gallo estate. She ended up sliding on moss and bruising her knees, and I ended up taking a bath in the courtyard fountain. In the morning, we woke up and I opened my mouth to say something romantic, but she laughed at the moles on my buttocks and went inside to prepare strong coffee, never mentioning the incident again.  

This is my wife, I imagined my future self saying. May I present Darlo Laurentis? And she would step forward, the women would gasp at her stylish attire, the men at her beauty. But I did not know, you see. I did not know if I could go through with it, now or ever.

There was something I had to do first.