The Visitant: A Venetian Ghost Story (17 page)

Even allowing that was too much, but I also didn’t want to spoil the day, and the truth was that it didn’t seem important. I rejoiced in how clear were his eyes; no shadows lingered there now. The Rialto had worked wonders upon him. Here, I could almost believe he could be cured. I could almost pretend there was nothing wrong with him, that we were only three friends on an excursion. The future, his parents, and my mistake all seemed very far away.

Nero pushed a glass of wine toward each of us and lifted his in a toast. “To friends,” he said.

“And nurses who have at last learned to compromise,” Samuel added.

I made a face, but I raised my glass with theirs, and drank the wine, which was rich and fruity and good.

“Does he not look well today, Elena?” Nero asked. “Not the least bit insane.”

Samuel’s gaze leaped to me. “You think I’m insane?”

“No, of course not,” I lied, glaring at Nero, who looked unabashed.

“My aunt thinks you need a priest,” he said to Samuel. “What she thinks a priest can do for you, I have no idea. Beyond deliver last rites. Are you even Catholic?”

“Yes. Nominally, anyway. I was raised Catholic. It was the one thing my parents stayed true to, even faced with a sea of Episcopalians.” Samuel pressed his glass to his lips, sipping slowly, obviously meaning to savor and make it last. “It only made it harder for them to break into society, of course. I imagine my bride-to-be is horrified at the thought of it. Among other things.”

I rushed in to change the subject before he could move on to beasts and chains. “I’m surprised Madame Basilio has any faith in priests. She seemed angry with the church at tea.”

“Angry?” Nero asked in surprise. “Why would you say that? She’s the most devout woman I know.”

“She said the church believed that ghosts could only be demons. Given that she thinks her daughter’s ghost is an angel moving chairs about and tossing handkerchiefs, it’s not hard to imagine she might be annoyed.”

Samuel went quiet and stared down into his glass. Nero reached convulsively for the jug, though his glass was still half-full, pouring so carelessly it splashed onto the table.

Just then, the waiter returned, bringing a plate of fried minnows, piled high, and another of sardines in some shiny sauce that smelled of vinegar, studded with raisins.

“You are speaking about a woman who also believed my father spoke daily to the devil.” Nero dangled a minnow into his mouth, crunching with satisfaction. He poured more wine into my glass, though I’d only drunk a little. “Every time I think of coming home, I think,
God, no
. The house breathes melancholy—who can bear it? But then I return and I realize the sorrow comes from my aunt. It was not Laura’s natural state, despite how she died.” At Samuel’s quick look, Nero explained, “I’ve told Elena the real story.”

“You’re spilling all sorts of things these days.”

“I know. I surprise myself. Or perhaps I’m just weary of secrets.” Nero took a sip of wine. “I would prefer to think of Laura as she lived, not as a specter haunting rooms she despised. What a terrible fate. I would not wish it on anyone.”

“It’s better, I think, to not always be sad,” I agreed.

“Oh, I’m sad too. Often. But I know Laura wishes me not to mourn her, but to live.”

“I’ve no doubt of it. Isn’t that what any of the dead would want of the living?”

I said it because I hoped it was true, for Nero and for myself. I didn’t want to believe in ghosts, lingering spirits full of resentments and angers that hid in every shadow to punish us, damning us with their eyes, demanding penance. I wanted to believe in forgiveness and peace.

“
A morir e a pagar se fa sempre in tempo
,” Nero said.

“That one I know,” Samuel said to me. “God knows I’ve heard it often enough. There is always time for dying and paying.”

Nero said, “It’s true, yes? Life is short. One must dive in.”

I smiled because I could not help myself, because again he was so unlike anyone I’d ever known, and when he looked at me, he smiled too, and for a moment the rest of the world fell away.

His gaze was so intense that I dropped mine and took a bite of sardine, and as the sweet and vinegar flavors bit and sang on my tongue, I felt a stare. Samuel’s, thoughtful and heavy. A slight shake of his head, and I remembered his warning, and Madame Basilio’s, and Nero’s own. One thing they all agreed on was that I should keep Nero at arm’s length. But I was no longer certain I could. Or that I wanted to.

Chapter 21

We lingered while Nero and Samuel regaled me with tales of their exploits in Paris: an absinthe-fueled club that catered to contortionists; a night walking along the Seine that neither of them could quite remember except that they were alternately terrified and elated by hallucinations caused by something they were loath to reveal; a masquerade ball they’d attended dressed as sheep, where they followed any Bo Peep they happened upon—“There were six or seven,” Nero said. “Ten,” Samuel corrected. “And one was Robert Pennington.” Nero winced. “I’d prefer not to remember
that
.”

By the time the wine and food were gone, we were all laughing, and Madame Basilio’s ghosts were long forgotten. When I rose, the floor tilted slightly beneath my feet before I caught myself on the edge of the table. The café windows—small, shaded—had muted the sunlight, and the day seemed too bright when we stepped out into it, the afternoon sun starting to dip. We made our way back to the gondola, both Samuel and Nero steadier than I, in spite of the fact that Nero had drunk most of the wine. A street performer singing Verdi jumped in front of us, following us persistently, bellowing “
Libiamo ne’ lieti calici
” at the top of his voice, making me laugh and Nero make faces until Samuel finally palmed him off with a few centimes.

I did not want to go. It had been one of the best days I’d ever spent. As we approached the gondola, Samuel stumbled. I caught his arm, and when he looked up, his gaze leaped beyond me, distracted, tense. His brow furrowed. I followed his gaze, but there was only the gondola, its toothy prow bobbing, Zuan waiting.

“Samuel,” I whispered.

His gaze cleared. “It’s nothing,” he said quickly, but his smile was thin and troubled, and I didn’t believe him. The day had fooled me into thinking he was finally getting better, but now I realized it had only been a brief respite.

Nero was at the gondola. He had seen nothing, and his mood was still joyous as he settled into the cabin. Samuel was tense as he sat beside me.

I said, “Let’s never go back.”

“Agreed,” Samuel said, and I knew he was trying as hard as I to regain our earlier pleasure in the day.

Nero said, “Your wish is my command. Let’s just tell Zuan to keep going, shall we? Out in the lagoon and past the Lido and into the sea until we end up in . . . where would we end up?”

“Listen to you. You’d wander blind across continents if not for me,” Samuel said affectionately, relaxing into the seat, stretching out his arm so his hand brushed my shoulder. I saw the almost jealous way Nero tracked the movement, and could not help my joy at it. “Depending on the direction, Athens. Or Constantinople. Algiers. Barcelona.”

“Let Elena decide,” Nero said.

“I don’t know. I don’t know which is best.”

“Perhaps Samuel’s parents will pay for you to try each one.”

“Indeed. They’re very generous. Especially when it comes to getting what they want.” Samuel’s words were bitter. “I used to think my father could read minds; he was so
very
good at using what people wanted against them.”

“We’ll find a way out for you, amìgo,” Nero said fervently, and I had the impression it was a long-standing conversation. He looked at me. “And Elena will help us, won’t you, cara?”

I felt the lure of his persuasion. He knew already how bound I was. I had no idea how to change things. I almost resented him for his words. Almost. But there was a look in his eyes, too, that reminded me suddenly of the book beneath my mattress, the way his lips had brushed mine, and my mouth went dry. I wanted to do what he asked of me. But I didn’t know how.

Samuel slid a glance to me. “Is that so?”

“No one wants you to be unhappy,” Nero said.

“Really? I’d thought Elena had no real care for my happiness.”

“That’s not true,” I said quickly. “I
don’t
want you to be unhappy. It’s just—”

“It seems we are in negotiation,” Samuel finished. “About who should be doing the sacrificing.”

“It’s unfair of you to ask it, when you know how important it is to my family,” I said quietly.

“You’re a grown woman who should be looking at a life away from her family,” Samuel said, equally quiet.

“As an only son, you have a responsibility to your parents,” I retorted. “When do you intend to stop being a spoiled child and become a man?”

Samuel let out his breath in surprise.

Nero made a sound—a strangled laugh, I’d thought, but then, when I looked at him, I realized it wasn’t that. He was looking at Samuel and me as if he’d suddenly noticed something he’d never seen before.

We all went silent as the gondola made its sure and steady way toward the house where none of us wanted to be. As it approached the water stairs and the peeling, leaning mooring posts, dread was the only thing I felt.

Little wisps of mist already formed on the water, heralding evening, ribbons of fog tangling and dipping, dissipating only to re-form. The receiving court felt ominous and dead, the red-tinged shadows creeping with evil intent. The hazy light held ghosts within it. Samuel had one hand on the wall for support and was walking quickly, even with his limp, as if he meant to be away from me as soon as he could.

He rounded the mausoleum-like entrance of the stairs, disappearing ahead of me down the hall. I paused, turning to say good-bye to Nero, who would go up those stairs.

He was closer than I expected, nearly on my heels. Before I could say the words, he grabbed my arm, pulling me close, up against his chest, his hips to mine. I looked up at him in surprise and question, only to find him studying my face as if he meant to find some secret in my eyes. His were dark and intent, raising an answering desire in me, a terrible yearning. He was going to kiss me, I knew, and I waited for it, wanting it, my heart pounding.

A soft crack echoed down the hall, a rock, dislodged by Samuel’s foot, rolling across uneven paving.

Nero released me, backing away. His lips thinned, his expression changing from desire to something so barren and desolate it took me aback. What could cause that look in someone’s eyes? In his?

“Nero,” I whispered.

He turned away. He was on the stairs even as he was saying, “Good-night,” taking them two at a time in hasty retreat, and I was left to hurry after Samuel as if nothing had happened. Though in truth, I had no idea if anything had.

The day had been spoiled; there was no doubt. Samuel went to his room and closed the door quite definitively, and I closed my own too, leaning back against it, thinking of that look in Nero’s eyes, reliving the moment until it took on the quality of a dream, until I wasn’t sure I hadn’t made it up.

I went to the window and stared down into the courtyard, the smoking top-hat chimney of the kitchen, the fog from the canals on three sides beginning to coalesce, still formless and searching, easily blown apart by a breath or an air current. From below, a door closed; there was Giulia, hurrying across the cracked paving stones to the kitchen, and behind her, head bowed, his step slow and thoughtful, was Nero.

He did not look up. He followed Giulia to the kitchen and disappeared within, but I wasn’t certain she’d known he was behind her.

Or perhaps she did. Perhaps they meant to meet. Perhaps he was on his way to make her “happy.”

The thought tormented; I turned away from the window, and still the thoughts came.
How long has he been with her? What are they doing?
And then,
of course he has gone to her. She knows what to do. She knows how to satisfy him. What do I know? Nothing.
What was it Samuel had said to me? That I should know what it was I asked him to give up.

I glanced toward my bed. There it was, peeking out, that ragged yellow cover. It was absurd to think of reading it. How could it possibly help me now? Still, it seemed to tempt me like some ancient devil.

Perhaps it was time that I learned what it was I was longing for.

Before I could think about it too much, I strode to my bed and reached beneath the mattress, pulling out the tattered book, opening it to the place I’d left off. My gaze fell upon the line, “Now I think, Father Eustace, that poor girl has been on her knees waiting her penance long enough,” and I took a deep breath and began to read.

Chapter 22

I read until very late, and my dreams were the words on the page come alive. I woke exhausted and drenched in sweat even in the cold, the blankets tangled about me. My skin felt too sensitive; I longed to be touched, for more than that. It had been a bad idea to read
The Nunnery Tales
. Now I felt worse than ever, more unsettled, plagued by thoughts that would not leave me, no matter how I tried to distract myself.

Worse, I did not know how I would look Samuel or Nero in the eye without thinking of the book. I felt embarrassed already, and I had not even left my bedroom. Nero knew nothing about it, of course, and so perhaps he would notice nothing untoward, but Samuel would take one glance at me and know I’d read it, and that troubled me as much as anything.

But I couldn’t avoid him all day. He was my patient; I had a responsibility. Finally I forced myself to go to his room. Samuel stood at the balcony door, staring down at the canal.

“What color is it today?” I asked.

“Muddy brown. There’s yellow too.” He turned to me, and I steeled myself against his gaze, but I realized immediately that he was in no shape to notice anything. The clarity that had been in his eyes yesterday was gone. He wore that haunted, distracted expression I’d grown used to, jaw clenched as if he struggled for control, a gaze that darted beyond me and then to the wall as if he expected to see something there and dreaded that he might.

“You didn’t sleep,” I said.

He raked his hand through his hair. “I can’t think. I’m so tired. All I do is see things that aren’t there. Yesterday helped, but”—his gaze shot to mine—“I could use some distraction.”

I thought of the last time he had asked for distraction,
“
Let me fuck you until we’re both exhausted
.”
And the time before, when I’d ended up with the book that would not leave my thoughts now. I felt a sinking churning in my stomach. Lower. No, distraction did not seem like a good idea. “A cold bath first.”

“They aren’t working, Elena. Why must you torture me with them? Even you believe I’m going mad.”

“No, I—”

“Don’t lie to me. Nero said it yesterday. I know you think it. I don’t blame you.” He sank onto the chair, throwing his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “I feel it myself. Every day, a little worse. Yesterday I thought . . . well, it doesn’t matter. I can barely remember the day already. Christ.” He swept his hand over his eyes.

I did not say,
You aren’t mad
, because I couldn’t bring myself to lie.

He went on, “I always knew this might happen. Your father told me the epilepsy destroys the brain a little at a time. But this is sooner than I expected. And I didn’t expect to be so aware of it happening. I thought . . . I don’t know what I thought. That I would be older and half-senile already. I thought it would be a blessing. But this”—he closed his eyes—“this is a nightmare.”

“Perhaps it’s time to go home,” I said quietly. “Back to your parents.”

He opened his eyes and frowned at me. “That’s what you said yesterday. But then you told me that Nero convinced you to stay.”

I tried to ignore the flutter at the sound of his name. “Yesterday you seemed to be fine. But today . . .”

“You’re giving up.”

“No, I . . . I . . .”

“Be honest with me, Elena,” he said, straightening. “Tell me the truth, whether or not you think it will upset me.”

His gaze compelled honesty, so I told him what I thought. “I don’t know how to help you. This is beyond me. I wonder if you wouldn’t be better served by returning to”—I lowered my voice—“Glen Echo.”

His expression didn’t change. “This is what you want. For me to go back there.”

“The bromide isn’t helping. You said yourself the cold baths aren’t. Nothing I try . . . your wounds are getting better, but your hallucinations are worse than ever, and you’ve had two seizures since I’ve been here.”

“Three,” he corrected. “The petit mal the other night. That’s three.”

I only looked at him.

“It wasn’t a petit mal,” he said tonelessly.

Reluctantly, I said, “No, it wasn’t. Not like any I’ve seen.”

“So it’s true then. I am going mad.”

“I don’t know, Samuel. I haven’t enough experience—”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know madness when you see it.”

“I could be wrong. It
could
be the medicine. And the epilepsy.”

“You don’t believe that. If you thought there was any hope at all, you would keep trying. Otherwise you lose everything and so does your father.”

I could not bear to think of that. I had been attempting not to.

He snorted derisively. “You’ll have to marry your cousin. The Rialto will be all of the world that you ever see.”

I flinched. “I wish you wouldn’t paint such a vivid picture.”

“It’s no better for me,” he pointed out. “I’ll be locked up and surrounded by attendants who are a little too fond of restraints. I can’t even ask you to run off with me. I can’t trust myself not to hurt you.”

Running off was not really a choice, of course. I could not just leave my parents to the wreck I’d made. And he was right; I couldn’t trust him. More than all of that: when I dreamed of touring the world, he was not the one beside me.

“There’s still time,” I said. “It’s only the twentieth of December. There’s no need to return until January, if you don’t want to. We can see what happens.”

“And if it grows worse?” he asked. “If I
do
hurt you?”

“We’ll decide what to do then.”

“What if I don’t want to take the risk?”

“Then we’ll return now,” I said, more confidently than I felt. “I’ll tell your parents we couldn’t help you. I’ll marry my cousin. The Rialto will be all of the world I’ll ever see.”

He laughed—short, explosive. “My God. You are something. You truly want to take the risk of staying?”

I was afraid for him and for myself. Yet there was still a chance for this to end how I wished, wasn’t there? To spend a few more days hoping that Nero Basilio might look my way. I thought perhaps I could face my wedding with equanimity if I had a kiss to remember, a touch to hold close in the deepest parts of the night.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m willing to stay. Until we cannot.”

“Very well. How do we decide when that will be? I think it best that we agree. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hurt you. So I say you take me back the moment I become violent.”

“You’re often violent. I have morphine.”

He sighed. “Then you tell me. What would be more than you could bear?”

When you frighten me
, I thought. But no, because he pushed, he prodded, he was too intimate and too insistent, and all those things frightened me. His violence frightened me, but if I just kept the morphine with me, and the knife, I thought I could manage that. Finally, I said the thing that frightened me most. “When I can no longer find you in your eyes.”

His face fell. “Christ. Elena.”

“I won’t let you forget who you are,” I promised.

“You may not have a choice.”

“If I can’t bring you back, that’s when we return. Are we agreed?”

“If I’m that far gone, I won’t know to agree.”

I put my hand on his arm. “I won’t leave you, Samuel. I promise. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. I won’t leave you to restraints and sedation. Whatever happens, even if you don’t know who I am, I’ll see you through to the end. Maybe a part of you will remember that, and find comfort in it.”

He said in a whisper, “You don’t owe me that.”

“I want to do it. I want to make the promise.”

“I never thought to meet anyone like you.” He put his hand on mine, his fingers curving, holding me in place. He bowed his head, his hair falling forward to half hide his face. Then he raised his eyes to me, and I saw within them an admiration that startled me, and beneath that, a starkly evident hope. He pulled me closer; the sun touched his hair with honey, a misty, luminous fog around his head like a halo, and I became lost in that as he bent his head to kiss my throat, the throb of my pulse. His mouth was moist and warm, the touch of his tongue sent a shiver coursing through me. He moved to my jaw, and I thought,
stop this
. My own breath came fast, a cloud of fog, and then a rush of brutally icy cold, my skin pimpling with gooseflesh, the hair on the back of my neck rising.

Her perfume teased my nose. Samuel made a sound deep in his throat that made my heart falter.
Stop him.
But I felt helpless to do so, held in place, confused and disoriented. I could not tell—was that his breath I heard, rushing and short, or my own? His hands skimmed my breasts. He murmured something against my skin; I felt him tense, a broken breath, and then, before I knew it, before I had time to react or to stop him, his hands were around my throat, a gentle touch at first, and then he began to press, and I realized numbly that he was strangling me. In panic, I pushed at him, but he was immoveable. He was no longer kissing me, but staring at his own hands. Spellbound. I pried at his fingers, trying to break them loose.

“Samuel,” I gasped. “Stop!”

His eyes were black, and fathomless. I did not see him behind them. He squeezed; I began to see stars.

He whispered, “
Chi comincia mal, finisse pezo.
”

The stars turned black. His breath was a frosty cloud. It was freezing. The scent of vanilla, fetid canal water, and acrid dye filled my nose.

His eyes flickered. I didn’t see Samuel within them, but someone else, not the dead look of madness but
someone
. Consciousness and intention and jealous anger. But that was absurd and I couldn’t breathe, and everything took on dark edges, and he was still squeezing as I scrabbled at his hand, scratching now, digging my nails in. He was so strong. I was going to die, and so soon after I’d made him the promise to save him, and where was someone to save me now? Where was Nero?

The knife.
I had the knife in my pocket. Desperately, I pawed at my skirt, trying to find it within the folds of fabric. Samuel’s teeth were clenched, his expression intent and furious.
Not Samuel.
Everything exploded before my eyes, red and black. Finally, I felt the knife, the hilt. I gripped it and tore it loose, the dagger sliding from the sheath, in my hand, and I couldn’t think what to do with it—
what was I supposed to do
?
I couldn’t make my thoughts obey, or my hand. It was only instinct now, only the pure will to survive that brought my hand up and then down, and I heard his cry of pain, and he jerked away.

I gasped for breath, nearly swooning as air rushed into my lungs again, choking, scrambling away even as I struggled to breathe, dropping the knife, everything going white before my eyes, the world spinning and then, finally, settling, and I could see again. Samuel with his hand pressed against his shirt, his ribs, red seeping between his fingers, staining his shirt. He looked at me in disbelief, and there—there he was—Samuel again, and I thought how strange it was that he should be there when before he had been someone else entirely.

“Elena,” he said, a wretched sound, torn from his lungs, horror and fear. He reached for me.

I wrenched away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Elena, my God . . .” How terrible he sounded, racked and hopeless.

Blood dripped over his fingers. He took his hand away to look, and then grabbed the edge of the chair as if he might faint. He pressed his hand back again.

Warily, I rose to my knees. He looked so lost, like a child who had done something wrong without knowing what it was. His eyes glistened.

“Samuel,” I whispered, my voice raw; I could not make it louder. “Look at me.”

Whatever I had seen in him was gone, but I was still cautious as I went to him, and I felt the way he held back too, his reluctance to let me touch him, even as I pulled his hand away from his chest so I could look at the damage I’d wrought. It was not so bad as it looked. A slice, but not deep, bleeding profusely. “I’ll have to get bandages,” I said. “Wait here.”

He grabbed my hand before I could leave. “Don’t. Don’t come back. Stay in your room. Lock the door.”

“Not until I wrap this,” I told him.

But when I was in the hall, I thought about doing what he asked. My throat ached; I had trouble swallowing. I knew there would be bruises. And what about my promise now? He had not wanted to hurt me, and I had told him I would not condemn him until I saw madness in his eyes. Surely that was what I’d seen. Hadn’t it been? Samuel Farber gone, and someone else in his place. Someone else . . .

But no. He’d been strangling me. Who knew what it was I’d seen in him? Or if it had been anything at all? I ran to the bedroom and grabbed my medical case. When I returned, he was at the balcony door, struggling with the latch.

I went cold. “What are you doing?”

“It’s calling me,” he whispered. “Don’t you hear it?” He jerked open the door. The chill air rushed in, that molten, misty sunlight. He stepped out.

I stared at him in horror.

“Good-bye,” he said.

I dropped my case and rushed over, grabbing him around the waist. “No, Samuel. No. Stop!”

He struggled to get free. “Let me go.”

I felt the wet, warm stickiness of his blood on my hands. I dug my fingers into his wound. He gasped, crying out in pain. I dug harder, and it was enough to weaken him, enough so I could drag him back inside. He crumpled onto the floor, and I closed the door and locked it, leaving bloody fingerprints.

I was trembling when I turned to face him, sick with what he’d tried to do, not just to me, but to himself. “No. You won’t do this. Promise me you won’t.”

His hair fell into his face. “My fingerprints are on your throat.”

“You won’t do this.”

“I can’t be in restraints again. I’d rather be dead than in an asylum. At least give me that peace.”

“No,” I said again. “No.”

“I just tried to kill you. I
wanted
to kill you. I would have done it too, if not for that knife.” He looked at it where it lay on the floor. “Nero’s.”

“He gave it to me in case I needed to use it against you,” I said.