The Night Villa (14 page)

“I am truly blessed by the gods, then!”

“And we, too. It must be a good sign that only days before the rites Poseidon has delivered you—a man who has been initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis! Of course our rites don’t pretend to that grandeur. Rather they are modeled on the Little Mysteries of Agrai, which prepare the initiate for the Greater Mysteries of Eleusis.”

“Ah, yes, I attended the Little Mysteries at Agrai. They are most interesting as they combine the worship of Dionysus with the veneration of Demeter and Persephone.”

“As do ours, although in a somewhat unique form. You would honor our house by participating in our own rites to the maiden.” My hostess bowed to me formally and I noticed this time that the pearl diadem in her hair was shaped like a squid with long tentacles that wrapped around her head.

“The honor will be all mine,” I told her.

She smiled. Youth and beauty were restored to her face in the glow of the lamp. Did her own participation in the rites of the maiden endow her with youth? I wondered. But I could see it was not the right time for more questions. Calatoria turned and led me to the door of my chamber, just off the courtyard. “I would love to hear more of your experiences in the East and see the books you’ve carried with you, but for now you must rest and regain your strength,” she said as my eyes followed the path of light her lamp made on the walls. “Participation in the mysteries requires a clean soul and a great deal of stamina.” As she spoke these last words, the light from her lamp fell on the god as he approached the maiden and I couldn’t help but wonder what part I would play in the mysteries to come.

Later that night, as I was lying in bed writing this account I heard a noise at the door. I called for whoever was there to enter and the door opened. When I looked up I thought that the winged siren of the rites had come to life, but when the figure on the threshold stepped forward I saw the source of my delusion. Diagonally across from my doorway was the painted figure of the winged siren and Iusta, standing directly in front of her, had so perfectly fit the painted figure’s outline that she seemed to have sprouted wings. So convincing was the illusion that even when I had uncovered the trick I checked to see if she held the whip that the painted figure brandished in her hand. She did not. But the thought that she might made me shiver and for a moment I saw an image of us—a presentiment of the rites to come?—in which I whipped the girl until blood rose to her skin. I shook the vile image from my mind, sure that it had been placed there by the strange influence of the house.

“Well,” I asked the girl, “what is it? Has your mistress sent you with a message? You’re not a mute, are you? What a shame it would be if Justice was mute as well as blind!” I laughed at my own joke, but it must have been above the girl’s comprehension because she didn’t even smile.

“No,” she answered, “I am not mute. But my mistress’s message requires no words or package to deliver. I was told to deliver…myself.”

It took me a moment to understand what she meant and when I did I confess that I blushed. I am not ignorant of the custom of offering an honored guest the company of a slave girl, but I’d never been offered the gift by the mistress of the house. I considered refusing Calatoria’s kind offer, but then looking at the girl—in the lamplight her gauzy stola had become quite transparent—I realized that not only might my refusal offend Calatoria, but it might appear that I had found the girl inadequate and result in the girl’s punishment. Always in such situations I try to respect the customs of my hosts. And so I accepted Calatoria’s gift and bade Iusta enter.

Although I try to scroll down to the next line my cursor blinks stubbornly on empty space. I’ve come to the end of the scanned section transcribed by Agnes. I can’t help wondering if Agnes stopped here because she balked at describing what would have come next—Iusta’s forced submission to her mistress’s guest. It’s just as I had feared on the day I went to the excavated villa; the house was a corrupt place. Without the tempering influence of her husband, Calatoria abused the girl, no doubt punishing her for the lawsuit she had finally lost. And I had to wonder if the abuse ended with a night spent with Phineas. What part would Iusta play in the rites? Would she be literally raped by the God as played by Phineas? Would she be held down by Calatoria and her attendants and whipped?

What makes me feel sickest of all is my own desire to read more—a desire that I tell myself is scholarly, but then that sounds as weak an excuse as Phineas blaming his flagellation fantasy on the
influence
of the house. I look back at the transcript and see that the Latin word Agnes translated as influence is
potestas.
Power. That’s what I had felt in Herculaneum, the villa’s
power,
still potent after its centuries-long sleep under hardened lava.

I close the laptop and stand up in the doorway to get a fresh breath of air. The moon, which had barely cleared the eastern wall of the villa when I began reading, is now directly overhead, its light streaming in through my open door so brightly it feels like a presence. It makes me think of Phineas opening his door to find the slave girl Iusta, the lamplight turning her gauze dress transparent, a pair of painted wings springing from her shoulders. Something about that image strikes me. I put the laptop down on the chair and walk out into the courtyard, following a diagonal path to the back wall. I walk straight to the figure of the winged siren holding aloft the phallus-handled whip. It’s the image Phineas was referring to, which means that the room I’m in corresponds to the room Phineas stayed in at the real Villa della Notte.

I
n the morning I meet the other two members of the Papyrus Project: Simon Bowles, a British art restorer who’s working to re-create the wall paintings from Herculaneum here on Capri, and Maria Prezziotti, an Italian archaeologist from the Pontificia Instituto Sacra Archeologia—PISA. If I’d been expecting a dour old nun as the Catholic Church’s representative I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Maria Prezziotti is no older than thirty. She’s dressed impeccably in a dark skirt and crisp cotton blouse; pearls gleam on her earlobes and a gold cross nestles between her ample breasts. It occurs to me that her outfit is nearly identical to the one the housekeeper wears, only on Maria it looks chic and sexy.

I realize right away that I’ve seen Simon before. He’d been working on the wall painting when I wandered into the courtyard yesterday morning. I’d mistaken him for a satyr and now I see why—he has the fleshy, sensuous lips and full belly of that mythological creature and the fringe of curly red hair crowns his brow like a satyr’s wreath. When I enter the lower courtyard where the morning buffet is laid out he’s tucking into a full English breakfast of fried eggs, sausage, toast, and jam.

“Ah, she arises like the dawn,” he says, patting a splash of egg yolk from his chin. “I was afraid I caused you to faint yesterday morning, Dr. Chase. I’m glad you weren’t damaged by the fall.”

“It was the verisimilitude of your paintings that startled me,” I explain, taking a seat across from the painter. “I thought I’d died and woken up in Hades.”

“My paintings have been pilloried by the press before, but never once have I been told they sent their viewers to Hell.”

“I can assure you I mean it as a compliment. I looked at them again this morning. The Rape of Persephone looks exactly like the one at the Villa della Notte and the new mural, the one of the mystery rites, it’s…” I hesitate, recalling the more lascivious details of the painting. I notice that Maria Prezziotti is looking at me as if I’d dribbled egg down my front. Maybe it’s just my clothes—a Waterloo Ice House T-shirt and khaki shorts—she disdains.

“Yes,” she says before I can finish my sentence, “the mystery rite paintings will no doubt be the images that the press choose to exemplify the villa once they’re released. A rutting goat-man and a winged dominatrix. By next summer they’ll be on every American tourist’s T-shirt.” At the word
T-shirt
she curls her upper lip at mine.

Agnes, coming out onto the terrace with a pot of coffee, comes to my rescue. “I’d buy one of that winged siren,” she says. “I just love her face, and now we know from Phineas that it’s a portrait of that slave girl who lived at the Villa della Notte—Iusta.”

“Of her mother actually,” I say. “Calatoria tells Phineas that the painter used Iusta’s mother as a model, but the daughter must have looked just like her since Phineas mistakes the girl later that night for the winged siren….”

I’ve been too busy pouring my coffee to notice the silence that’s settled around the table, but when I look up I see that Maria and Simon are staring at me while George and Agnes are exchanging guilty looks.

“And where did you read this, Dr. Chase?” Maria directs the question to me, but her gaze is firmly rooted on Agnes. “I thought the scroll wasn’t ready to be distributed yet. Did you give Dr. Chase a copy of the scanned material?”

Agnes blanches at the note of accusation in Maria’s voice. “Well, yes—” she begins, but Maria interrupts her.

“I see, you Americans really do stick together.”

The color returns to Agnes’s face as though she had been slapped. “I gave Dr. Chase the transcript because Mr. Lyros, the American who’s paying your salary and preserving your country’s heritage, asked me to. If you have a problem with that, I suggest you talk to Mr. Lyros.” Agnes’s voice wobbles at the end of this shockingly, for Agnes, brazen retort, but she holds her ground under Maria’s stare. I’m staring at her, too, wondering why usually meek Agnes would talk back to her elders like this. Had Maria done or said something before I got here to make her this angry?

“I certainly will talk to John—”

“Talk to me about what?” The question comes from the doorway that leads from the kitchen to the courtyard where John Lyros, in slim faded jeans and a soft white shirt, stands sipping a cup of coffee. “Is there a problem?”

Maria turns from Agnes to her boss, her expression smoothly morphing from disdain to polite inquiry. “I just wondered why we haven’t all gotten to see the scanned portions of the Phineas scroll. It’s my job to look for any Christian references in the material recovered. It is why my organization agreed to fund this project,” she finishes with a pointed look at Agnes, no doubt to remind her that John Lyros isn’t the only benefactor of the Papyrus Project.

“Actually I forwarded the file to everyone this morning; you should find it in your e-mail. I’m looking forward to hearing what you all think of it at dinner tonight when perhaps we’ll get the next installment. What do you think, George? Can you and Agnes get the next bit scanned and transcribed by this evening? I’m afraid that once you get started reading it, it’s hard to put down. Right, Dr. Chase?”

“Yes,” I say, “especially knowing that in three days—”

“Enh, enh.” Lyros holds up a hand to stop me. “No spoilers! Why don’t we let Simon and Maria catch up with their reading while George and Agnes get to work in the lab. As for you, I bet you’d like to stretch your legs and see a little bit of the island. We wouldn’t want you thinking you’re in Hades when you’re actually on one of the most beautiful places on earth.”

“No,” I say, wondering just how long Lyros had been listening to our conversation. “I’m sure a walk would do me good.”

It is true, I soon see, that Capri is indeed one of the most beautiful places on earth, but it’s not true that the walk Lyros has planned for us is little.

“There are really only two choices,” he says when we step outside the villa’s wrought-iron gate onto a narrow path. “Up or down. Down leads to the town of Capri—La Piazzetta, the Gran’Caffe, shops, droves of tourists—and up leads to the Villa Jovis.”

“The palace of Tiberius,” I say. “I’d like to see that. But won’t it be too crowded?”

He shakes his head. “Most of the tourists are content to stay in the town and shop for duty-free Gucci or take the boat excursion to the Blue Grotto. It’s a bit of a hike, though, are you sure you’re up to it?”

I look up the path, which slopes gently but steadily uphill between bougainvillea-covered walls and oleander bushes. Taking an experimental breath, I find the air sweet and light and oddly intoxicating. “Absolutely,” I say.

We walk slowly and Lyros stops often at water fountains to drink and at benches to retie his sneakers, or at tempting vistas to point out the Marina Grande below us and Monte Solaro towering behind us, or to point past a gate at some villa that lies drowsing in a lemon grove behind mounds of fuschia and azalea, geraniums and jasmine. He always picks a spot well shaded by an umbrella pine or cypress to regale me with a piece of Caprese history and give me a chance to catch my breath. “And this,” he says at one gate, “is the Villa Lysis, once home to Count Jacques d’Adelsward Fersen, who so scandalized the Caprese that he had to leave the island. He did return eventually and lived here until he died of an opium overdose at forty-five.”

“What was the scandal about?”

“Oh, just another one of those old Caprese stories of degenerate foreigners made up of gossip and lies,” he says, turning back up the path.

“You sound like you don’t approve of the locals.”

“I guess I’m afraid of what they say about me—that I’m just another in a long line of eccentric foreigners come to live out his fantasies—or to escape the demands of Empire like our friend Tiberius.” He points upward and I see that the ruins of Tiberius’s villa have come into view—a mass of sun-struck brick and limestone crowning a high peak above us.

“Why did you decide to build a replica of the Villa della Notte?” I ask.

Lyros shakes his head. “Well, the funny thing is that I came upon the property here on Capri the same summer that I became interested in the ruins of the Villa della Notte. Except for some eighteenth-century looting of the site, most of the villa was unexcavated. I knew that left to the government the villa would remain underground for decades more, so I decided to fund the excavation. On the same day that I was shown this piece of property here on Capri the excavators found the map of the old villa and I saw that I could create a mirror image of the villa just across the bay. It just seemed like it was…fate. I suppose that sounds silly.”

“People make decisions for smaller coincidences,” I say. “They just don’t usually have the means to take advantage of those coincidences on such a grand scale. At least your villa was built to advance the cause of knowledge. If I hadn’t been reading Phineas in the villa last night I wouldn’t have realized that his room corresponds to the one I’m staying in.”

“Yes, you noticed that, too! You realize what it means, right? The trunk might still be there. I’ve asked the excavators to step up work on that room. If we’re lucky, we’ll find his trunk and the scrolls he brought with him. I’ve been thinking about what ‘philosophical treatises’ and ‘magical secrets’ Phineas might have brought back from the East…. Just think, he might have had an Orphic poem, an unknown dialogue of Plato, the lost writings of Pythagoras….”

“That’s great…” I stop, feeling suddenly as if the breath had been knocked out of my chest.

“Are you all right?” Lyros touches my elbow. “We can turn back. Tiberius’s villa’s been there for two thousand years. It’s not going anywhere.”

“No, I’m fine, and I want to see it.” It’s just a coincidence, I tell myself, that Lyros has mentioned Pythagoras. It has nothing to do with Dale Henry or Ely. “This is where Tiberius lived out the last years of his reign as emperor, right?”

“Yes, avoiding the intrigues and poisonings of the court at Rome.”

“He certainly found an unapproachable fortress,” I say. “No one could sneak up on him here.”

“That was the idea. There’s a story about a local fisherman who thought he’d gain the emperor’s favor by scrambling up the cliffs to present him with a fresh mullet. Tiberius was so alarmed that his sanctuary could be so easily breached that he had the man’s face slapped by the fish. Like most proud Caprese, the man responded with a joke. He said he was glad he hadn’t brought a lobster.”

“Don’t tell me—”

“Yeah—Tiberius ordered the man’s face to be lacerated with a lobster’s claw.”

“Ugh.” I wince, remembering the passage from Phineas that I read last night. Calatoria had only slapped Iusta’s face with her hand, but no doubt she could have inflicted harsher punishments on her household slaves. We’ve reached the ticket booth to the site of the ruins, but John merely exchanges a wave with the man sitting in the shade of the little building.

“Here.” Lyros leads me to the edge of the cliff beyond the booth. “Before we see the ruins—this is the Salto di Tiberio—the cliff from which Tiberius was supposed to have thrown his favorites once he had grown tired of them.”

“According to Suetonius. Some scholars think Tiberius got a bad rap.” I’m trying to reassure myself as I look over the crumbling limestone ledge at the vertiginous drop into the blue sea. It’s not nice to think of anyone falling into that void. Yet it exerts a strange pull. I find myself taking a step closer to the edge, and am startled when Lyros grabs my arm.

“Sorry,” he says. “I thought you were getting a little too close. Are you ready to see the villa?”

I nod and we start up the stairs that lead to the ruins, climbing past the vaulted cisterns that make up the middle of the villa and up toward the semicircular
ambulatio,
the columned walkway that crowns the peak. The climb is steep enough that we don’t talk, giving me time to get over my embarrassment at jumping when he had grabbed my arm.

When I reach the top I’m panting. Even Lyros with his Himalayan hiking experience is breathing heavily. We stand looking out at the view of the strait that runs between the eastern point of Capri and the Sorrentine peninsula. Lyros waves his arm in the air, gesturing toward the water. “This view always reminds me of the view from the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion; it holds such a commanding presence over the sea, and while there’s no temple to Poseidon here, there was a temple over there on the Sorrentine coast—” he begins.

“Sacred to Tyrrhena Minerva,” I finish for him. “The Athena of the Tyrrhenian sea, patron of navigators. According to Statius, sailors poured libations into the sea as they passed the temple to ensure safe passage through the strait.”

“Ah, you know your Statius.”

“Well, I boned up when I knew I was coming here. I thought of the passage when I read last night that Phineas lost his crew in this strait. He says he saw the whitened bones on the sirens’ rocks and poured a libation. Funny that he survived in a rowboat when his crew was lost.”

“Which he calls a sacrifice to Poseidon, thus fulfilling the prophecy Calatoria received from the Sibyl the week before Phineas’s arrival, that ‘Poseidon will take back what is his.’”