Midnight at the Tuscany Hotel

by James Markert

  “It’s the hotel’s rebirth, Vittorio,” he said more than once.

  Vitto couldn’t deny it. In an ironic twist, the hotel full of dying people had come alive again—alive with laughter and camaraderie, guests and hosts united by the unmentioned bond of battling the same deep, dark monster that was age and memory loss and the end of full lives lived.

  The days had fallen into an easy rhythm. John and his helpers served meals across the piazza. William played at being everyone’s doctor, visiting every guest daily with his stethoscope and leather bag—he also carried the grenade in there, but had promised not to throw it while on his rounds. Valerie played her violin when she wasn’t helping John. Mrs. Eaves was often at the piano, while Juba occasionally took breaks from whatever hotel chore he was doing to sing or to play as well. But Juba never lost track of Robert’s whereabouts, and Vitto noticed that he often looked to the wall clock behind the bar, as if waiting for something only he and Robert knew about.

  And Vitto painted.

  He strolled the hotel grounds daily, spying various scenes of everyday life, and then painted them for the guests, capturing memories they could have in their rooms at night when they grew confused. He painted portraits of singles and couples, of widows and widowers, of husband-and-wife pairs with decades of marriage behind them as well as a few couples who’d only recently become an item and were beaming from the newness of it all.

  Most guests now carried a leather journal with them to record whatever they did during the day, and they’d made it a habit to read through their notes at night and again in the morning. Vitto had gotten the idea of giving out the journals on the morning after his fountainside talk with his father, about how Magdalena, after he was born, had been forced to again use a journal to help get her through the day. And Robert reminded him of the little notebooks that used to be inside the bed stands of every room. It had become tradition for every guest at the hotel, at the end of their stay, to write down stories and memories from their time at the hotel. One of the first things a newly arrived guest had done was to read the accounts left by the previous residents of the room—the food they’d eaten, the celebrities and artists and musicians they’d met, and especially the interesting stories they had heard at last call.

  “This hotel is full of memories, Vittorio. Memory seeps from every wall, every stone, like fuel. Memories from decades of guests.”

  So full of memories that it spilled into the water? Vitto hadn’t spoken the idea, although it seemed as plausible a theory as any. But the next day he’d contacted a local shop, purchased every journal they owned, and then had the shop order enough for each guest at the hotel to have one. And now, whenever he looked about the piazza, he saw dozens with journal in hand, scribbling down their thoughts. The results were noticeable. They remembered a little more, felt a lot more content and less lost.

  Several doctors had come to visit—real doctors, William called them—to observe the goings on, the morning behavior as it transitioned to day and finally night, taking notes of their own as the water’s effect ran its course throughout the day. They interviewed some of the guests and even invited a few to their offices for more detailed analysis. So far, all had declined. No one wanted to leave the hotel grounds.

  One doctor asked if he could visit regularly, and Vitto told him that the guests—he was careful not to call them patients, as the doctor had—could have any visitor they desired. But then Valerie jumped in and warned that a doctor’s appearance implied sickness and that no one here wanted to be reminded of it.

  “This is not a hospital,” she told him.

  “Then what exactly is it, Mrs. Gandy?”

  “It’s a retreat,” she’d said and then added, “from life.” And then: “A place that promotes living over dying.”

  Vitto held up his hand to stop her—though he agreed with what she was saying. Valerie had grown more passionate by the day about what they were doing and had become sensitive to those who questioned it or hinted that they were about to—which the doctor then did.

  He leaned in to whisper: “That reporter Landry Tuffant claims the water is killing them.”

  “And Landry Tuffant scours the grounds like a vulture, daily, as if waiting for just that.” Valerie stepped toe-to-toe with the doctor. “Do you see any of them dead?”

  Vitto hoped at that point that Robert wouldn’t shuffle by. In the wrong light he looked nearly dead. The same was true of Mrs. Eaves, who had been ninety when she arrived months ago and now looked closer to the century mark.

  The doctor said, “I can’t say as I do.”

  “Are they not happy?” Valerie asked.

  “Seemingly.”

  “And if one of them were to suddenly die, Doctor?”

  “Well, then . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “Old people die,” she added, turning on her heel and leaving the doctor standing with his mouth open but no words coming out.

  “I fear I’ve unintentionally made an enemy,” said the doctor to Vitto, who patted him on the shoulder and took him on a tour of the grounds, showing him the tennis and bocce courts and the croquet lawn, all full, and the pools lined with elderly guests lounging in the sun and drinking sweet colored beverages on ice brought to them on trays by the crew of young people Vitto had hired from nearby towns to help with daily operations.

  The doctor visited daily after that, but not to take notes or observe or study. When Vitto asked why, he admitted, “I don’t know exactly. But this place makes me smile.”

  He was there with Vitto when Johnny Two-Times, carrying a tray of dirty breakfast plates and utensils across the piazza to the kitchen, suddenly stopped, his ears alerted to the sound of a distant car rumbling over the bridge and onto the hotel property. The tray of dishes began shaking, unbalanced now in his extended hand, as if he’d been struck by his own personal earthquake. The doctor and nearby Cowboy Cane took the tray and rested it on one of the piazza’s wrought-iron tables, while John moved catatonically toward the sound of the approaching car.

  A car door closed outside the hotel entrance, and then another, and by the time Vitto reached the three Roman arches, the two new guests were coming through with suitcases in hand.

  “New arrivals?” the doctor asked Vitto.

  “Not new,” he said, realizing who had returned, finally, after leaving in such haste weeks before. “Just old friends coming home.”

  The doctor’s eyes grew large. “Did that old woman just give me the finger?”

  “Were you staring?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then probably.”

  John stood frozen, his feet nailed to the travertine, as Beverly Spencer and her grandmother approached the center fountain. Beverly looked defeated, much as she had the day she first arrived, and grandmother Louise had that same look of agitation and confusion.

  Granddaughter led grandmother to the fountain, dipped a small cup into the water, and aided her as she swallowed. Louise then sat down on the edge of the fountain as if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders, as if she had finally returned home after being whisked away against her will. But who could blame the granddaughter for taking her away? Regardless of the reasons, here they were, returned, and John still stood there like a brainless statue as Beverly looked his way.

  Vitto nudged John. “Go to her. John, go. Remember, barrel of sunshine.”

  John took one slow step, then another, and muttered, “Barrel of sunshine, Gandy.” Slowly he moved toward the fountain, where Beverly stood wiping her eyes and smiling.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Well what?”

  “Are you going to stand there like a lamppost, or are you going to ask me? Again.”

  “Last time I asked you, you smacked me.”

  Vitto hissed, “Ask her.”

  He looked over his shoulder, hissed back, “All right, Gandy.” And then he did it. He got down on one knee, paused for a moment, and then lowered the other knee, which got a blushed ch
uckle from Beverly and a headshake from Vitto, then spurred a few of the watching guests to get out their journals and write that scene down.

  “Beverly, will you be my wife?”

  “Of course I will.”

  John got to his feet and hugged her so tight and high that her feet lifted from the stones. When he finally put her back down, he said, “We should set a date.”

  “Sooner rather than later,” said Louise, sipping more water at the fountain. “Her grandmother isn’t getting any younger.”

  Thirty-One

  Beverly and John’s wedding took place the following week, with chairs set out in rows across the piazza and the vows spoken just as the setting sun painted the sky with broad strokes of red and orange and turned the stone walls to gold.

  “Now don’t cry up there, John,” Vitto had told him while he helped fasten the bow tie around John’s thick neck before the ceremony.

  “I’ll try not to, Gandy, but you know I’m an emotional person. And I thought this day would never come.”

  “With Beverly?”

  “With anyone.”

  “Barrel of sunshine, John.”

  “Barrel of sunshine, Gandy.”

  Vitto patted John’s arm and sent him on his way, and at the beginning of the wedding ceremony he thought his friend might make it through without crying. Then John saw his bride for the first time and started gushing like his own internal faucet had been turned on. Cowboy Cane had to walk up to the makeshift altar where Father Embry presided and give John his handkerchief. John blew his nose into it like a foghorn and handed it back. Cowboy Cane told him to keep it and returned to his seat in the middle of a cluster of widows.

  John made it through the ceremony, although he had to pull out the handkerchief two more times during the vows. Valerie had slinked her arm through Vitto’s and squeezed his hand by that point, and with her lips an inch from his ear, she whispered, “Women appreciate a man who’s not afraid to show his emotions.”

  He whispered back, “She must appreciate him something terrible then.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m just saying, tears aren’t always a sign of weakness.”

  “You saying I should cry more?”

  “I’m saying that you should just allow yourself to feel what you feel.”

  He looked down at the top of her head. “Meet me in the loft of the olive mill later?”

  He could feel her smile against his arm. “I’ll consider.”

  They celebrated well after sundown with music and stories on the piazza. Those who could dance did so, while others watched from tables and chairs as their minds began to grow fuzzy. John won last call with a story of bravery from the war—how he’d run across a bullet-riddled field to rescue a fallen comrade. The seriousness with which he told it made everyone believe it. Or maybe they figured he was making it up—that it was probably something he wished he’d done—and let him win because it was his wedding day. Either way, after last call, Beverly took him by the arm and led him back to their room, saying to him in a voice everyone else could hear that not all heroes are heroic.

  Valerie smiled as she watched the newlyweds go. She yawned and then called William to come get ready for bed. Together she and Vitto walked their son inside, and while Vitto monitored William’s tooth brushing, Valerie fell asleep facedown atop the covers of their bed. Vitto slipped her shoes off and covered her up with an extra blanket.

  By the time he turned to William, the boy was already under his bedcovers, waiting for the story of the gods to continue. So Vitto pulled up a chair and picked up where he left off last time—with Zeus tricking his father, Cronus, into drinking that concoction that made him vomit up the rest of his brothers and sisters.

  “This began the Titanomachy,” he explained. “The war between the Titans and the Olympians, who were led by Zeus. The old generation of Greek gods on Mount Othrys against the new Olympian gods, led by Zeus and based on Mount Olympus. Remember the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes that Uranus had sent to Tartarus?”

  William nodded and yawned, too tired to ask many questions.

  “Well, Zeus released them all and asked for their help against their brother, Cronus. The Hecatonchires hurled massive rocks against the Titans. The Cyclopes created the famous thunderbolts that Zeus used as weapons. The war lasted ten years, and in the end the Titans were defeated by the Olympians. All the Titans except Epimetheus and Prometheus, the only two who fought alongside Zeus, were jailed in Tartarus, and the Hecatonchires guarded them.”

  Vitto stopped because William’s eyes were closed, but when he started to get up, William said, “Then what happened?”

  “Zeus and his brothers, Poseidon and Hades, drew lots, like straws, to see how to divide the new universe. Zeus won and became god of the sky and the ruler of mortals and gods. Poseidon became the ruler of the seas. You hear the waves out there?” Vitto gestured toward the western side of the hotel, where the sound of waves beating against rocks could barely be heard.

  William yawned again. “I hear those all the time.”

  “Well, Poseidon was put in charge of them. And Hades drew the shortest straw and had to go down and rule the underworld. The dawn of a new era in Greek mythology was born.”

  William snored, so he left it at that.

  Vitto kissed his forehead, turned out all the lights, and watched the piazza from the window. The guests had all retreated to their rooms for the night, but the bar area was still lit while Juba cleaned the counters. Vitto quietly left his room and sat at the bar. Juba offered him a glass of wine, and Vitto didn’t decline. They spoke casually of the wedding and shared a few laughs on John’s behalf. Juba cleaned glasses as they chinned about times both present and past, and as the evening grew to night they finished a bottle of the hotel’s red wine together.

  “Why did you never tell me my father couldn’t see color?”

  “Because he asked me not to.” Juba glanced into the shadows of the loggia.

  Is he looking toward Robert’s room? “You’re so loyal to him that you allowed me to be kept in the dark all these years?”

  Juba glanced at the wall clock behind the bar, the clock around which the shelves holding all the glasses had seemingly been built. “I don’t think you were the one kept in the dark, Vittorio. You see color more vividly than—”

  “Because I somehow stole it from him.”

  “You didn’t steal it from him, Vitto.”

  “Then how would you put it?”

  “Could it be he was only borrowing it?” asked Juba. Vitto grunted, opened another bottle. Juba added, “Or was the ability always meant for you anyway, and he was only holding it for you until you arrived?”

  “Is that a question? Or are you telling me some kind of answer?”

  Juba shrugged, kept busy wiping the inside of the glasses with a white towel. How many times had he cleaned those glasses over the years? His hair had grown white, but he didn’t seem to have aged much over the years. Then again, according to Robert, Magdalena hadn’t aged that much until she started drinking the water.

  “How old are you, Juba?”

  “Old enough.”

  “Where’d you go?” Juba raised his eyebrows. Vitto said, “You know what I’m talking about. You left when Dad closed down the hotel. You came back. Where’d you go in between?”

  “Traveled.” He smiled and shrugged. “Saw the world.”

  “But not for the first time, right?”

  This drew a pause from Juba, as if he was wondering why Vitto had put it that way. But Vitto himself didn’t really know why he asked it, other than because Juba, more than anyone he’d ever met, looked like someone who’d been places.

  “I’ve been around,” Juba finally said.

  “So how old are you, Juba?”

  This time Juba laughed. “Would it surprise you to hear that I don’t really know?”

  “No. It would surprise me less, though, if you knew but said you couldn’t tell me. But you’
re all about the same age, right—you and Dad and Mamma?”

  “Perhaps.” Juba winked, glanced at the wall clock. “Roughly, I’d guess.”

  “Did Mamma set fire to her house in Pienza? With that man Lippi still in it?”

  Juba turned, showed his back, pretended to clean a glass he’d already cleaned twice. “I don’t know.”

  “You do. But that’s okay. I assume you and Dad are still trying to protect me from something. Protect her memory even? Her legacy?”

  “More wine?”

  Vitto nodded, sipped as soon as it was poured. “She did it, didn’t she? That reporter is on to something. He wants to smear her legacy, like his father was trying to—all because he thinks his father was pushed off that cliff.” He took another sip, set the glass down. “She burned that house down with him in it, didn’t she?”

  “Enough, Vitto.”

  “You’re protecting her too.”

  “Of course I am,” Juba said quickly, almost in a hiss. “I’ve been . . .”

  “You’ve been what?”

  “Your mother . . . the horrors she lived through—it wasn’t that much different from what you . . . what your army doctor called battle fatigue? Combat exhaustion? Hell doesn’t always require a war, Vittorio.”

  “My entire life she battled with memory. An ability to remember that I somehow stole, just as I stole from my father. But at least she lived. She smiled. She was warm when many of my nights were cold. But near the end, those final months—Juba, she was depressed. She turned inward, spoke very little. It pained her even to smile. And she obviously jumped off that cliff to end it all. But why? What happened to her, Juba?”

  Juba looked around the piazza toward the wall clock, toward Robert’s room, then back to Vitto. “Some roots grow deep.”

  “What does that mean? I’m not a little boy anymore.”

  “I told her not to drink the water.”

  “And you’re okay with people drinking it now?” Juba didn’t answer. Vitto said, “Explain, or I’ll go drag my father out of bed right now and demand that he tell me.”