‘So what did you do, Nonno?’
‘We took her to a bar and bought brandy and spent much of the night drinking.’
‘She went with you?’
‘She was glad to, and we found out that it was her husband who’d drunk the cat’s blood some days before. She thought the blood had poisoned him. We persuaded a family we knew to take her in for the night.’
‘Then what?’
Grandfather shrugged. ‘He died. He’s buried up there in the graveyard.’
Ernesto could see that the old man was getting tired, so didn’t ask more.
***
Grandfather died in 1986 at the age of ninety, by which time Ernesto was studying architecture in London. Sergio wrote to him about the old man’s last days and how he called out for Ernesto and wanted to see the beautiful pen. Rosina handed him a small silver cigar tube, and sure enough he didn’t know the difference. He’d been demented for a few years before his death and at one stage went to live in the goat shed, taking his rifle with him as protection. He had the idea that the house was being watched, Sergio explained in a letter, and that someone wanted to hire the goat shed off him and fill it with women and children. You have no idea what it was like living with him when his brain went to mush. I am relieved that he has finally called it a day on this earth, Sergio wrote.
The thought of returning to Sicily for the funeral filled Ernesto with a curious restless dread. He was aware that the origins of his dread were connected with the disturbance in his head, and he feared that it might only get worse were he to return. There were times when the noise seemed almost to fade to nothing and he’d find himself cringing with gratitude. And then without warning, it would return with a shocking vengeance, and sounding as distorted and blurred as it did when he’d first heard it as a child: Einnaameoochoorozond-wellaaeindabeeez-maiaallubooilldupbeycomrooble. Yet, in the days, weeks and months that followed the onslaught, single sounds would become clearer once more, and Ernesto came to know for certain that it was a human voice and that it sounded English. He could, for example, begin to pick out the odd word like, ‘may’ and ‘you.’ On the other hand, he conjectured, it might simply have been his own immersion in the English language that caused him to believe so.
Women liked Ernesto Cavallero and he liked them too, but he had not married. He felt it would be dishonourable to burden someone he came to love with his hideous affliction. Often times he sat with his head in his hands and rocked backwards and forwards like an infant, other times he screamed with anger in his echoing apartment when he could stand his head no longer . . . who would want to marry a guy like that?
Yet, despite everything, he considered himself happy enough; he was wealthy, well known and respected as an architect, and he did not suffer from loneliness as his passionate connection to his work never diminished.
It was by chance that he came across a reference to the House of Ghosts in an article about fake religions. He stared for a long time at a black and white photograph of a portly man dressed in a striped tunic with an ornamental dagger slung on a long cord around his neck. The man’s turbaned head was thrown back as if he was in a state of ecstasy, his arms stretched out either side of him and resting on a stone ledge. Ernesto was sure that he was the man with little black eyes and tiny hands who’d stared through the olive leaves at his grandfather, and from that moment onwards he was drawn to researching all he could about Il Cornacchia grigia. He’d been known in the popular newspapers as the wickedest man in the world and described as a debauched creature saturated in perfume, who dressed in flamboyant robes and gowns, and who was in the habit of biting women’s wrists when they were introduced to him. He read that those close to him called him A.C, or Mr C. or the Beast. Ernesto gazed at photo after photo of the jowly-looking face and its prim mouth, and he looked most and for longest at the startling eyes. ‘You’re a hideous little fellow, aren’t you, Mr C?’ he muttered under his breath the first time he stumbled upon a photo of him.
The four most famous of Ernesto Cavallero’s buildings will be familiar to most people; it was he who created the Silver Pinnacle in Prague, the Silk Obelisk in France, the Maury-Smith building in London, and the Central Archways complex in Boston. Much of his lesser known work has remained, little remarked upon, but still standing and undamaged. But that was no compensation for Ernesto because his most celebrated works had all been destroyed. The last of his four important works to go to ruin was the Silk Obelisk, which managed to stand for seven years before it was burnt to the ground. The Maury-Smith building was of course, bombed, and although part of it was still standing, the cost of salvaging and repairing it would not have been practical. Well, the earthquake in Prague did not just strike the Silver Pinnacle it is true, a few other public buildings in the surrounding area were also damaged, but Ernesto still counted it as significant. Then, quite recently his beautiful Central Archways simply fell to the ground and became rubble, and it was this last catastrophe that finally decided him; despite his terror, he was going to carry out a fantasy he’d evolved, elaborated on and dreamt about for some years past.
It was May 2016, still bitterly cold in England. He packed very little as he had no intention of staying in Sicily long, and even as he boarded his plane he hadn’t decided if he would visit Sergio and his mother or not. He had to take the risk of being recognised in Cefalù, of course, but he was fifty-eight and had an English look about him, so he thought it unlikely anyone from the past would spot him.
He chose a small hotel on the back road in the old part of town, as it would take him less than ten minutes to reach the House of Ghosts from there, and speaking only in English to the receptionist, he booked in. His plan was to wait for the early morning light before going to the house, as he had no intention of being near the place when dark was falling. As he’d arrived in Cefalù late in the afternoon, he rested in his room, ate a meal in one of the newer restaurants on the coast road, then smoked several cigarettes and drank a few beers to while away the hours. By the time he was ready to return to his room and sleep, he’d convinced himself that the impulse which brought him back to Cefalù, was one generated by stupidity and tiredness and some old and lingering superstition from his childhood. He decided he would see his mother and Sergio when he’d completed his business in the hideous house as a way, at least, of making his idiotic trip to Sicily worthwhile. He’d tell them it was a surprise visit—that he had some architectural meeting to attend in Palermo, one that had arisen suddenly.
The following morning, he dressed quickly and left the hotel before the receptionist was at her desk. His heart had started to beat faster already, and he knew that however clearly he recognised the absurdity of his mission, a part of him was resolutely set on going through with it.
Nothing much had changed along the road up to the old football stadium, a few more houses perhaps, and a new grocery store, and the street lighting had been modernised, he noticed. He came to the bend in the road where he’d sat with Antonio and Donato all those years ago, his head ringing with muffled sound. Further on was the road leading home to the farm. He looked away from it quickly; frightened it would soften him when he needed all the courage he could muster.
The area around the House of Ghosts was thick with bushes and undergrowth, so much so that for a while, Ernesto could not even glimpse its roof tiles. But he saw the remains of the tiny track the boys had led him onto blindfolded. It was still there even after all these years, and without stopping to consider anything, he lurched his way down it, grabbing onto the stronger branches either side of him to lessen the speed of his descent.
What a sorry mess the house was now. Much of the roof had gone. The doors and all windows except one had been boarded up. The big patio tiles were covered in years of dust and dirt through which small feverish bushes were struggling to survive.
As had happened on the day he’d stood before the house as a child, a lone dog began to bark—a mournful, desperate sound that funnelled itself into hi
s growing apprehension.
He spoke aloud: ‘Come on, let’s get it done, and then just go. Put an end to the whole bloody thing.’
His voice sounded small and his clenched hands were wet. He uncurled his fingers and wiped them on his jeans as he moved forward. The open window would take him into a room adjacent to the one in which the repulsive human heads had been painted. He could see plenty of rubble and planks on the floor of the room, and at the end, the door was open and hanging from the frame by one hinge. Beyond that, there was nothing to see but greyish darkness with a sense of moving shadow. He climbed the sill and slid in, looking carefully for where his feet could go.
For a moment, he wondered if he’d misjudged the layout of the house, as the room he looked into beyond the hanging door was no more than twenty foot square. But as he entered, he recognised it as the very one he’d thought of so often in his adult life during his obsessive thoughts about Il Cornacchia grigia. The murals had largely faded with the exception of one or two of the most hideous heads. The teeth and lips in particular had remained in good condition on those.
He shuddered visibly at the sight of the crude paintings, and drew in a breath. No particular odour came to him as he stood there, although he remembered that the room had smelt of something repulsive years ago. A great deal of the roof was missing and he could look up at the blue and reassuring sky, and know that soon he’d be gone from the place.
He became aware quite suddenly that other people had trespassed into the house as well: he saw that plastic bottles and pieces of paper and cardboard were littered across the rubble-covered floor, and against one wall, he spied a set of three candle stubs with a crude symbol painted above them in black. The thought that the man who so frightened his proud grandfather had modern devotees, made his stomach lurch. He closed his eyes just for a moment, so that he could attend properly to the droning noise; it was only a small murmuring in the background as it sometimes could be when he’d been getting enough sleep, and he was glad of that. He was holding himself together well, until he saw the remains of the crumbled metal chair in the corner of the room, and the sight of it took him straight back to his young self, and he knew that if he did not exert great control, his adult fear would give way to that of a child—a wilder, free-roaming terror that would cripple his rational mind completely.
He saw the approximate place he’d been standing as a boy and made his way there, as he knew he must. For a few seconds, he looked down and thought of his mother and Sergio and was startled by the sudden intensity of his need to see them, to hold them close to him.
He opened his mouth to form the words he’d thought about countless times, and then remembered that in his thousands of imaginings of the moment, he was always on his knees. He moved stone and wire and rotting wood to one side, and kneeling clumsily, placed both hands upon his heart and whispered, although it was barely audible, ‘Forgive me.’ He did not know what it was he should wait for, but having said the words once, he was curiously emboldened, and speaking louder, he repeated them. Somewhere in the distance, the same dog barked on, and it seemed to trigger in Ernesto a bundle of long-held back frustrations. ‘I am sorry! I am sorry! I am so goddamned sorry!’ he shouted, ‘What more—what more can I say? I was just a child.’
The droning in his head flared up from sibilant background whispering to the roaring sound that came when he was particularly agitated. He collapsed back onto his heels and winced as inside his skull he heard: einnaameoochoorozond-wellaaeindabeeez- maiaallubooilldupbeycomrooble.
Some part of him had imagined he could rid himself of his curse if he did obeisance in The House of Ghosts, but now all he could think about was his own stupidity for acting on this childish impulse—the same stupidity, he thought, that made him feeble and unthinking in the hands of the bullying Puglisi kid in the very first place. He’d left behind his work, his home, and his comfort to arrive on the other side of the world to stand in a decaying house. The fury that overtook him in his welling self-hatred was way outside his normal range of anger. He rose to his feet again, and picking up a heavy chunk of rock, lobbed it straight and hard at the grinning face on the mottled, dark green wall. He saw dust fall and heard nothing but a faint groan before part of the wall gave way, and with it, the last of the roof beams came down heavily on Ernesto’s head, and then fell against his leg.
When next he was aware of his surroundings, the dog had stopped howling, and there was nothing to be heard except the faint sound of trucks on the hill road. He looked upwards into the sky through the great hole in the roof; white clouds had formed and he studied them for a while before turning his attention upon himself. He could feel that his left leg was badly swollen, and he sensed the coming of intense waves of pain. He could move the roof beam enough to wriggle free, but when he tried it, the throbbing in his head increased to a level that he could not bear. For several minutes he lay there, staring blankly at all he could see around him, and as his vision blurred and nausea set in, he knew he’d been badly concussed.
He was thinking about what he should do next. He had to climb over the high sill in the other room if he could drag himself through all the fallen debris and rotting wood. He rehearsed the painful journey several times in his mind, although he had the notion that his thoughts about it should be more urgent. But the far corner of the room had become interesting to him—a piece of paper or a small bird was fluttering there amongst the shadows. He could hear nothing outside now and he began to wonder what kind of dog could have made the deep braying sound he’d heard earlier. Perhaps somebody had attended to the animal at last and it had settled down in the yard of one of the houses he’d passed along the road. He realised that the nearest houses were a good distance away, so there was no point in him shouting.
The movement in the far corner took on a shimmering glint that began to hurt his eyes. He’d never been concussed before; he had no idea it affected the eyes in that way. His throat was parched; he was thirsty. It’d not occurred to him to buy a bottle of water as he struck out that morning. He remembered how his mother would scold him if she caught him drinking water straight from the kitchen tap. He remembered that when he arrived home after running as a child from this awful house, his lunch was cold and he was grateful that he was not made to eat it. It was strange to think that Sergio and his mother were less than a quarter of a mile away and he could not get to them.
He could feel, and it was with gratitude, that he was beginning to pass out again, but in the second before his consciousness shut down, he saw a curious movement—half fluttering, half trembling in that corner to which his eyes had been constantly drawn.
On his next awakening, the room had become darker and cooler, and he’d broken out into a sickly cold sweat. The urgency of his situation was finally beginning to impress itself upon him properly. He thought of fire, of warmth. He was seized with the notion that something definite—a solid thing—had formed in the far corner, and he was afraid to look over there now.
He reached into his jeans pocket and took out his grandfather’s Zippo. On flicking it open and igniting the wick, he gained a little comfort; it occurred to him that he could scrape together pieces of paper and old wood and make himself a decent fire. Despite the pain and curious wandering thoughts in his head, he was able, by stretching either side of him, to scoop together material to burn. He sensed the increasing agitation in the corner but could not bring himself to raise his head and look over there. Had he been afraid to do so some minutes before, he was now doubly so, as it occurred to him that his attention was being deliberately sought by something. Not paper and not a bird, but an agitated and much larger shape. He wished now that he could still hear the braying of the dog.
He thought about his grandfather as he flicked the lighter open again and lit his scrappy fire. As they had returned to the house on the day Ernesto was to leave for Palermo and his new life, the old man had held him tight in his trembling arms and then let him go abruptly as if he was ashamed of h
is own emotion. And reaching into his pocket, he took out his beloved Zippo and gave it to the boy without a word.
Now, in the far corner of the room a curious optical nonsense was unfurling, and despite his resistance, Ernesto found himself gazing through his eyelashes at it. Surely, he thought, it was a result of his concussion; his brain had misinterpreted what was in the shadows. He had, after all, researched Il Cornacchia grigia extensively, and stared fixedly at the photographs he’d come across, looking in particular at the darkness of the eyes and their odd shape. So it was reasonable to assume that his brain would be capable of conjuring up a good and detailed image of the repulsive man, for there he stood, or so it seemed—in the shadows, fleshy-faced, sour of lip, his startling black eyes staring across at Ernesto’s fallen body. The figure was robed in a purplish glittering gown and on his head was wound a bulbous and grubby white turban. Ernesto lifted his eyes, and ignoring the trembling that had begun in his limbs, he looked directly at the hallucination. As he stared hard and greedily at the thing he’d created, the figure shuffled forward two steps and put the fingers of his tiny hand to the base of his neck as if in wonderment, as a sickly jasmine-like perfume moved through the still air of the house.
Ernesto had brought it on himself. He’d allowed the abomination to arise as if it was real, and now he was at the mercy of his own invention. He gazed downwards at the creature’s feet and it was only then that he began to dismantle his own logic; there was something grotesque about the slippers the thing wore—absurd Turkish-looking objects, red woven with pom-poms at the toe—Ernesto couldn’t have dreamt up such a thing—he didn’t have the mental frivolity it required . . . that he knew.
While he’d been able to attribute the manifestation to his injured brain he’d felt fear, yes, and a good deal of revulsion, but now, on recognising that the figure was not of his making after all, he was filled with horror that came at him in a great surge like a sudden rogue wave from the oceans’ depth.
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