The Haunted Martyr

by Kenneth Cameron

  Denton tried to add to the candle with his flash-light. Even then, little was to be seen, that little not reassuring. He could smell fresh paint, and a finger dragged along the wall told him that it was slick and probably shiny; a close look with his feeble light told him it was pink. At the top of the stairs, the colour changed to robin’s-egg blue. The space seemed cavernous. A wall sconce, lightless as they passed, suggested the glorious decor that DiNapoli had described: pink, yellow and green glass shaped into flowers around the light bulb that didn’t work. A little island of bad taste in the darkness.

  They walked a long corridor, their footfalls loud on bare marble floors. He was aware of a mirror, of his flash-light’s shining at him in it, his own shape behind. The fresh-paint smell mingled up here with mildew. Janet whispered, ‘I feel that I’ve had my money’s worth already.’

  Something gave repeated blows on something else, a slow thudding.

  ‘The wind’s coming up. Maybe it’ll storm after all.’ He stopped to listen, and a satisfactory roll of thunder sounded, followed by a crash as if a bomb had gone off in the street. Behind them, lightning sprang through windows he hadn’t known existed as he had passed them, flashed and vanished.

  They turned to the right. No windows here—they were moving from somewhere near the front of the house to the back, on their right rooms with closed doors, on their left an outer wall, windowless because it must abut another building.

  They turned right again, now apparently moving parallel to the building’s front. The old woman led them another thirty feet and stopped. Behind her, a narrow staircase went upward and disappeared. Between her and the three of them was an open door on their left.

  ‘La camera rossa,’ she said. The red room of song and story. Her nostrils dilated with contempt; her lips gave the faintest of smiles. ‘Dormite bene.’ Sleep well.

  DiNapoli said in Italian, but Denton got it, ‘And you, signora?’

  She pointed up with her free hand. ‘Sopra.’ Above. She said something more to DiNapoli and jingled a ring of keys at her belt.

  ‘She gonna lock us in,’ DiNapoli said, as if he expected Denton to stop her.

  ‘Oh, lovely!’ Janet said and passed into the red room.

  ‘In, in,’ Denton said. He shepherded DiNapoli towards the doorway, nudging him with the chamber pot. Passing the old woman, Denton smiled and thanked her. She hissed at him.

  As soon as he was through the door, it closed and he heard the lock turn. He tried it; it was indeed locked.

  Minutes later, Janet had lit two candles in a heavy silver candelabra and, holding it above her, was moving around the room, crying, ‘Wonderful! Wonderful!’ The room was at least thirty feet on a side; opposite the door, two tall windows rose from the floor almost to the heavy cornice, and as he looked the lightning came again and illuminated the room. DiNapoli jumped; Janet laughed.

  A fireplace took up much of one side wall. Denton bent to look up into the chimney.

  ‘Ghosts?’ she said.

  ‘Bird lime.’

  Janet went on exploring. She found another door, which led into what might have been a dressing room (‘It’s where she left the clothes she wasn’t wearing while she took her piano lesson’) and, she reported, a water closet that had once, she thought, been a long-drop privy. ‘Very authentic. All the comforts of the Cinquecento. Mr DiNapoli, you’re not getting into the spirit of things! Don’t look so glum! Come, let’s set out the picnic and we’ll eat something.’

  ‘This ain’t my idea of a good time.’

  ‘I know, but it’s only a few hours. We shall sit on the floor and eat and drink, and you can tell us the story of your life. Come along, come—!’

  DiNapoli protested, but not too much.

  ‘Chamber pot in the WC?’ Denton said.

  ‘It’s that or the fireplace, which is big enough but not very private.’ She was lighting more candles, of which there were many, as well another dozen she’d brought. ‘When we’ve eaten, we must put some of these out so we’ll have enough for the night. I doubt the ghost will be thoughtful enough to bring her own. Mr DiNapoli, did you bring a blanket? This room is cold, and I dare say it will get colder.’ She was opening a huge chest that stood next to the dressing-room door. ‘You’d think they’d have put some blankets in here, but it’s as empty as Mother Hubbard’s. That old woman wouldn’t give you the hairs from her nose if you needed to make a paintbrush.’

  When she was done making light, the room was revealed to be red because of a moire-like wallpaper, stained in one corner with water in the shape of India but otherwise sound. Red velvet curtains hung beside the windows, tattered at the bottom and sun-bleached in their folds. The upholstery of several chairs was a slightly bloodier red, the nap worn from many human behinds. ‘Well, somebody had the grit to sit in here,’ Janet said. ‘Has it always been red, do you suppose, or only since the bloodshed?’

  DiNapoli groaned.

  They sat on the red chairs with the feast laid out on the floor. The pensione had done them well, no thanks to the Signora but to the cook, whom Janet had bribed. The food was for once not English but, DiNapoli said, ‘real Neapolitan stuff’, pretty much unrecognisable to Denton. DiNapoli explained each dish—roasted red bell pepper in olive oil and garlic; cold osso bucco, a slice of meat rolled around herbs and roasted, then sliced into rounds; grilled eggplant pickled in wine vinegar and anchovies; fresh-caught sardines, grilled and sauced; a kind of fresh bacon with tomatoes and a cheese he called mozzarella ; three other cheeses, one of them a redolent (‘stinky’, in Denton’s silent view) Gorgonzola; two loaves of crackly-crusted bread, only slightly the worse for having been baked that morning; blood oranges; a separate box of pastries; and two bottles of Vesuvian red wine and one of Est! Est! Est! white.

  ‘I think we’ll survive,’ Denton said. He was pouring glasses of the white to start.

  Janet said, ‘Mr DiNapoli, which is the garlic?’ She was looking into the roasted peppers. Her English guidebook had warned her against garlic and she was eager to eat some.

  He pointed to the chopped white bits but told her that English people didn’t eat garlic. Instead, she took a large piece of the pepper, making sure to get some of the minced garlic with it, then insisted that Denton eat some, too. ‘I’d rather we stink together,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it’s delicious. Wonderful.’ She was using the garlic, he thought, to drive away a monster, propriety.

  DiNapoli had got more cheerful. Janet’s attention both embarrassed and pleased him; wine and food gave him back his confidence, and he ate as if he seldom saw a proper meal—not too far from the facts, Denton suspected. When Janet was done eating and was sipping a second glass of the red wine, she said, ‘And now, Mr DiNapoli, the story of your life!’

  ‘Aw, no.’ He glanced at the window as thunder sounded. It was raining, too. She said, ‘It’s only a little past midnight. I’d give the ghost a couple of hours yet. Mr DiNapoli?’

  ‘I ain’t done not’ing very interesting.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. Come—tell us to start how you learned to speak English.’

  He glanced at Denton. ‘I went to America for a while.’

  ‘But you’ve come back.’

  ‘After a while.’

  ‘Why?’

  He grinned at Denton, the expression wry, then as the grin vanished sombre. ‘Well, I tell you the troot. They t’rew me out.’ He gave them each a smile, not the radiant one but an embarrassed, sad after-glimmer. ‘I was a crook. I dint t’ink I was a crook, but they said I was. And I guess they was right.’

  The lightning flashed above the city again; he flinched; rain slashed at the windows; something banged on the wall.

  Denton poured more red wine for DiNapoli and himself. ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘It’ll be a long night.’

  DiNapoli sprawled in his armchair and gazed towards the fireplace as if it held glowing coals. His ancient frock coat was buttoned all the wa
y up, and he had pulled the overcoat that had held the chamber pot over himself like a blanket. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it was like this:

  ‘I was born near here, down by the Porto, poor like ever’body. I go to work when I was nine, running messages, like that, then other things, then I get a job in a restaurant, in the kitchen. I gonna be a chef, I t’ink. Then, I’m almost twenty, they want me in the army. I dint want to go fight Savoia or somebody I never seen; let Garibaldi do it! So I go to the picciotto, that’s like a little sort of big frog in the puddle, which is my neighbourhood. I tell him my problem, he says go and see the compare.’ He looked at Janet. ‘You know the Camorra?’ He rolled the r’s with extra precision. ‘They’re like a sort of lodge. They sort of take care of peoples. The compare is the big boss.’

  ‘I heard the Camorra’s a criminal gang,’ Denton said.

  ‘Well, yeah, that too.’ DiNapoli grinned. ‘But down where I lived, there’s not many cammoristi, but everybody knows who to go to with a problem. So I go to the compare, he says, “We send you to America.” I say I don’ wanta go to America; he says that or the army. “We send you to somebody we know,” he says.’ The lightning flashed again; DiNapoli winced and drummed his fingers on the chair arm. ‘So pretty soon I’m on a ship. Last t’ing before we sail, this guy shows up, he gives me a package like a fat letter, he says, “The capo wants you to take this to New York, 17 Bleecker Street, tell them you looking for Rafi.” That’s it.’

  Janet said, ‘Smuggling?’

  ‘I don’ know, and I never looked, because I figure maybe this is a test, the cammoristi want to find out can they trust me.’ He looked around the candlelit room. ‘This place is giving me the creeps. Maybe we oughta do this another time. Eh? No?’ He slid farther down, pulled the overcoat up around his ears. He sighed. ‘So I put the package in my coat pocket; when we get to New York, all these guys in uniforms come on board, ask questions, open our boxes, all like that, but nobody looks in my pocket. So I get off, I’m carrying my box on my shoulder and I ask somebody, where’s Bleecker Street. They don’t speak Italian; I don’t speak English. Finally, I find a guy speaks Italian, I ask, he says, “I dunno, I just got off that ship over there.” The same one I come on. So I walk and walk—’

  A sound keened through the room, faint and high pitched.

  ‘Only the wind,’ Janet said.

  DiNapoli was sitting upright. ‘Some wind.’ He sank back. ‘We all gonna be killed. Where was I? Phhh, I was lost. So I keep saying, “Bleecker Street, Bleecker Street,” and people point or they push me that way and I come to Brooklyn Bridge. I’m in Brooklyn! I never heard of Brooklyn; I don’t understand it’s not New York. I t’ink I got off the ship at the wrong place, but no, people point over the bridge. I tell you, I walk about twenny miles that day, this box on my shoulder, I’m tired.

  ‘Finally, I come to Bleecker Street. Number seventeen. It’s a little place they sell food over a board on the windowsill. Little, I mean I seen bigger closets. So I say, “I’m looking for Rafi,” he points up. Don’t say not’ing, just points. I t’ink, well, either Rafi died and gone to heaven, or he’s upstairs.’ He stopped, raised his head to listen. All three listened. Only the wind and the rain.

  ‘I find a doorway and these stairs. At the top is a guy, pretty young, strong. I seen hundreds like him in Naples. He holds out his hand—don’t say nothing. I give him the envelope, he opens it, looks inside, says I done good. That’s it. He says sleep over there, eat this, have a coffee, put the box there.’

  ‘Now you were a cammoristi,’ Denton said.

  ‘No, no, nothing like that. You mean cammoristo—one is cammoristo, two is cammoristi. No, I wasn’t a cammoristo, only a guy.’

  ‘Was Rafi a cammoristo?’ Janet said.

  ‘His name wasn’t Rafi; that was just something I was supposed to say. Yeah, I suppose he was Camorra. But he never said nothing about it. No, his name was Ettore.’ He listened again. The banging on the walls started again and he muttered, ‘Maybe a shutter.’ He looked at Janet. ‘How about I do this some other time?’

  She smiled and shook her head. He sighed.

  ‘Ettore give me a job in a kitchen, a restaurant over on Fifth Avenue. Couple of other Italians there, too, but there wasn’t so many Italians in America then. We was, what’s the word—the first ones to go—?’

  ‘Pioneers?’ Denton said.

  ‘That’s it! We was pioneers. So I spend a couple years in the restaurant, and then Ettore sends for me, he says, you gonna run a smoke shop. I tell him I want to stay in the restaurant, I like it; he says I’m gonna run a smoke shop. You know a smoke shop?’

  Janet shook her head.

  ‘They sell cigars, cigarettes, tobacco, candy, little t’ings. But we also sell numbers on the Napoli lottery and the Irish sweepstakes, plus a little thing, square, got holes all over it, a penny a go. You take a match, you push on one of the holes, it pushes out a little rolled-up paper and you read it, maybe it says, “Win five cents” or “Win a dime”. Mostly it says you lose. Nobody don’t tell me it’s illegal; in Naples, all that stuff you can do.’ The overcoat heaved as if he had belched: he was laughing at himself. ‘After I run the smoke shop for a couple years, Ettore sends a guy to run a card game in the back room. I also got some stuff to sell I don’t like, French postcards and photographs, I won’t say of what, which I keep under the counter and I don’t mention, except some guy ask me particularly for one I sell it to him. Otherwise, I pretend they ain’t there.’ He looked at Janet and shrugged. ‘I ain’t proud of this.’

  ‘We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of, Mr DiNapoli. Go on.’

  ‘Well—’ He stopped, listened. Denton heard only the rain and an echo of thunder so far away it was more felt than heard. DiNapoli looked again at Janet. ‘You ain’t scared, are you.’

  ‘Not of the dead. Of the living, sometimes.’

  He shrugged himself deeper into his overcoat. ‘Well—’ Again he stopped to listen, shook his head. ‘I run the smoke shop for nine years. Ettore give me two more to run, too, so I’m making pretty good money. I never steal from him; I t’ink, I do a good job here, they move me up. Maybe I get to run a restaurant. Nine years. I get married, I got three kids, things go good. Then Ettore sends for me—’ The high keening came again; it seemed louder. DiNapoli cleared his throat and spoke louder. ‘He says I want you should have dinner with me; he names a fancy place. I t’ink, Madonna mia, he gonna tell me I’m moving up. This is something really good. So we have this great meal, he says, “Oh, Vincenzo what a good job you doing, oh, Vincenzo, I know I can count on you.” Then we’re drinking a caffè, he says, “We want you to do something for us.” I t’ink, oh boy, here it comes, I’m made. He says the city got a new police commissioner, he trying to make a splash, there gotta be some arrests. So, he says, “I’m gonna give them the smoke shops, Vincenzo. We gonna give them you, too.”’

  He smiled sadly. For the first time, Denton saw him as he thought Janet did, his naivete, his innocence. ‘You went to prison,’ he said.

  DiNapoli said, ‘Dio mio, did I! Ettore says it’ll be only a year. Seven years! Hard labour! They get me for public nuisance, operating a gambling establishment, possession of obscene materials, offence to public morals, and procuring for prostitution, which I swear on my mother’s grave I never done. There was some girls upstairs from the smoke shop, Ettore put them there, if some guy asked me, how do I meet a girl—excuse me, signora, I don’t know how else to say it—I say, “Try upstairs.” That’s all. So I’m procuring. I’m—scusi, signora—a pimp! Me!’

  ‘And you went to prison for it.’

  ‘Ettore says, we send a salary every month to your wife, don’t worry. Everything taken care of. You be out in no time. Seven years. First two, I’m in the laundry, about killed me. Then they move me to the kitchen. Better.’

  ‘And did they send your wife the money?’

  ‘Oh, sure. That’s the Camorra way. They got a guy, he don’t do nothing b
ut carry the money around to give the wives and the widows and the mothers. They take care of people. Look how they take care of me.’ He smiled again, listened. ‘My wife, the first year she has somebody write me a couple letters—we’re fine, we miss you, come home soon. The second year, one letter. Then nothing. Then one day—I hear a woman’s voice out there!’

  They all listened. DiNapoli whispered, ‘She’s singing. She’s coming for us!’

  Janet looked at Denton. There was no question that it was a woman’s voice or that she was singing. She sounded far away, perhaps under them somewhere, but she was singing. Janet said to DiNapoli, ‘And then what?’

  ‘And then what, what d’you mean? And then she comes to get us!’

  ‘Your story, Mr DiNapoli. Tell your story.’

  ‘We just gonna sit here, telling stories? Dio mio, you two got hearts of stone! She’s a ghost!’

  ‘There are no ghosts, Mr DiNapoli. Go on with your story. You were saying that you got no letters from your wife, and then one day—?’

  DiNapoli sank down into the coat. ‘Dio mio. Then one day, another guy in the prison, he’s cammoristo, he says, I got a message for you, your wife’s annulled you. I says annulled me, what the hell is that? He says you ain’t married to her no more. I was married Cat’lic, my wife was Irish, I say Cat’lics can’t end marriages. But she got two brothers are priests, some kinda in with the bishop, he annuls us. Three kids, and we’re annulled. I coudn’ believe it.’ He stopped, and in the silence they could hear the singing, a rather thin, high voice.

  ‘And she married somebody else,’ Janet said relentlessly.

  DiNapoli groaned. ‘Yeah, when I get out finally, they tell me she married somebody else and left the city. Her family wouldn’t tell me nothing. She was gone, my kids was gone. I couldn’t do nothing because I was on the run then, see? When my time was up, they didn’t let me go, they took me and three other guys to a ship was anchored out in the port; we was supposed to go straight to Naples. I says no to that, I wanta see my wife and kids, so at night I jump off. I could swim good; I used to dive for lire here when I was little, it was nothing. So I swim to land, I t’ink now I’m in New York again! I find out I’m someplace called the Sandy Hook. I can see New York, but to get there I got to walk back around this hook of land, miles and miles, and then I’m in New Jersey! Finally I get to New York, they tell me my wife is gone away with a new husband and the kids, don’t look for her. I go look for Ettore, he’s gone back to It’ly. Ever’ting’s changed. So I go on the run, here, there, living like a bum, doing this and that. Then the bulls pick me up again and send me back to prison for excaping and violating something, and when I come out they don’t let me jump overboard this time. They put me on a ship and they guard me and I come right back—’