“Is something there?”
Silence.
Then a moment later Sapia’s head dipped and she was back. “Take me home,” she said with a quaver in her voice. “Get me away from here.”
Lucia helped her off the bridge to the footpath and up to the villa. Once they arrived, Sapia went directly to her room. Lucia followed her up, helped her out of her corset, and got her into bed.
“We are not going to the casinos this afternoon. And tell them I won’t be at supper. Tell them I am not well.” Then she rolled over, faced the wall, and closed her eyes.
Professor Lombroso arrived in the afternoon and met his guests in the large salon on the first floor to give them a formal welcome. It was easy to see why he chose to rent a villa in a valley celebrated for its thermal baths. He was a bent man with a twisted back that made walking painful. He supported himself on a cane as he hobbled over the tile floor, inviting his guests to take a seat and waiting until everyone had before taking his.
That evening Sapia came out of her room and joined the others, having recovered after her long nap. They all gathered in the dining room under the massive carved beams where they were served by a middle-aged couple, the Abruzzeses, who kept the villa for the guests. The husband, who acted as caretaker, was the bleak man who had brought them up in his cart. His wife, the housekeeper, made up for his reticence with her easy laugh and friendly manner, prone to providing long explanations when shorter ones would do.
Sapia had already told Signora Abruzzese privately that her mother was happy and with her Aunt Adelina in heaven, so she got special treatment that night and the best cut of beef. After supper Professor Lombroso laid out his plans for the week. He spoke with a quiet formality, first in halting French, then in cascades of Italian. Sapia had requested several nights off to recuperate between sittings and he had worked them into the schedule. Lucia knew by recuperate Sapia meant playing baccarat at the casinos.
Early the next morning before the sun was up, when the sky was still a drowsy midnight blue, Lucia woke to a woman’s scream coming up from the valley below. This was followed by shouts, frantic orders back and forth across the river, and a throng of people all talking at once. Though she could not understand the words, Lucia could sense the panic and urgency around them.
She stepped out to the balcony and looked down on the river’s edge. A crowd had gathered near the bridge where she and Sapia had stood the day before. They were watching a man buckle a climbing harness around his waist. Lucia saw that he meant to attach the harness to a rope that had been stretched across the river and was being held in place by several men at each end. They had wrapped the rope around sturdy saplings and were using them as pulleys. The man on the beach clipped himself to the rope and began to wade into the swift current. First it came up to his knees and then to his waist. He fought it all the way, until it became too much for him and knocked him off his feet. He shouted to the men and they pulled the rope taut so that he could slide along it.
It was then that Lucia noticed an odd bundle of sticks and water reeds snagged on a tree branch that had gotten wedged between two boulders in the middle of the river. It seemed that this was where the man was heading as he struggled with the rope and the current. All along the journey his compatriots shouted to each other and fought to hold the rope steady, while the saplings threatened to break under the man’s weight.
After the man reached the boulders he tried several times to climb up on one but slid down with every attempt. Finally he was able to gain purchase despite the slimy surface and, after one gigantic effort, hoisted himself up on the rock and lay there panting from his exertions. When he got his breath back he crawled over to the odd bundle of sticks and worked to free it. Once free, he got a tight grip on it and slipped back into the river.
When the bundle unfurled in the water Lucia saw that it wasn’t a confusion of sticks and reeds, but a body with two arms and legs and long tresses of black hair. The man shouted to his compatriots and they began to pull him back to shore hand over hand through the rushing, muddy froth. A distraught woman broke free from the crowd and ran out into the water to meet him as he stumbled back to the beach. She took one look at the body and began to scream. After the man laid his burden down, she fell onto the body, scooping it into her arms and rocking back and forth, sobbing. The men stood silent and helpless, watching as the priest took charge trying to comfort the frantic woman, talking to her, praying for her, but she would not be consoled. The dead girl lay in her arms, pale as a specter, her eyes open and staring, her hair plastered to her face, draped over her shoulders like a clump of water reeds, so black it was almost blue.
Lucia stood there trembling, pulling the shawl around her shoulders, a cold lump in her stomach. She turned and found Sapia standing behind her, solemn and resigned, her mouth set, her eyes fixed on the scene below.
Later that day Sapia sent Lucia to the village to find out what had happened. “I would go myself, but the walk is too much and I need to rest for tonight’s sitting.” So Lucia set off alone with instructions to gather information and bring back the best apples she could find.
The woman at the greengrocer’s was only too happy to tell her what she knew. She described in great detail the events that transpired that morning, only it was in Italian and Lucia could not understand a word.
Lucia walked down to the town square where the local farmers had set up carts displaying winter produce. One by one the shopkeepers came out to greet her and soon they were joined by the maids and washerwomen from the hotels. They spoke over each other in Italian, which did nothing to clear up the mystery, that is, until the milliner, a tall, serious-looking woman, carefully coiffed and in a starched shirtwaist and simple skirt, elbowed her way through the crowd and greeted her in French, explaining that she had apprenticed in Lyons.
Signorina Albrici explained that the girl who had drowned that morning was the daughter of Signora Porchella, the patroness of a little pensione on the river side of the main street. Signora Porchella had sent her daughter down the valley to Lucca to pick up supplies and check on a clock that had been ordered for the parlor. She had left early that morning with letters to the suppliers and enough money for a comfortable journey. She was scheduled to return on the two fifteen so she could help her mother with the tea service. When she didn’t arrive, her mother assumed she had stayed in Lucca to visit her Aunt Bianca and would arrive by a later train. When she didn’t arrive by the five o’clock and then by the seven, her mother began to worry.
“Some say the girl was shy and never gave her mother a moment’s trouble. Some say she kept secrets, held to the shadows, and was a loner.”
Here, Signora Secondo, whose husband was the poliziotto, chimed in with a splattering of Italian. The milliner explained: “She says the girl was standoffish and thought she was better than everyone else. Everyone has their opinion, as you can see, but whatever you choose to believe, the mystery remains the same: How did Rosalia Porchella end up in the Lima River?”
Professor Lombroso had chosen the music room for the séances and had the caretaker and his helper bring in a large inlaid card table from the front parlor along with six upholstered chairs. Once the chairs were placed around the table, the maid poured glasses of fresh water, which were set out for each of the sitters. The room had massive windows that stretched almost to the ceiling, covered with heavy velvet drapes. A fire had been burning all afternoon in the grand fireplace that now held glowing coals under its fresh logs. The massive chandelier hanging in the center of the room remained dark, its candles unlit. The only light came from the fire and the few oil lamps about the room casting energetic shadows on the walls and ceiling. One corner was curtained off by thin black drapes, the medium’s cabinet. A chair had been placed inside for the convenience of the medium.
That night Lucia took her seat at the table next to the courtly Professor Lombroso. The other professors were there too: Professor Barzini, a jowly man with a pudding face, who a
pologized too often and laughed too readily, and the intense Professor Imoda with his watchful eyes. Included in the circle was a woman dressed in black. She had been beautiful once, but now her puffy face was scoured by grief. She kept her eyes fixed on her hands in front of her, looking up only briefly to answer the few questions that came her way. When it became apparent that she wanted to be left alone, the others stopped addressing her altogether.
Sapia arrived a few minutes later, after having been searched by Signora Abruzzese, who was thought to be impartial. After the housekeeper testified that she had found nothing, Sapia took her seat in front of the medium’s cabinet with Professor Lombroso on her left and Lucia on her right. They took up hands, Lucia placing her foot on Sapia’s, Professor Lombroso presumably doing the same. Professor Barzini, who was sitting on the other side of Lucia, patted her hand and said: “There is no need to be afraid, child. They are just like us, only without a corporal body.”
Lucia was afraid, however. She had been dreading these séances ever since they arrived in Ponte a Serraglio. Most of the time, she was able to push her fears aside, especially when they were at the baths, shopping in town, or gambling at the casinos. Now she was part of the circle. The lights had just been lowered. Professor Imoda was acting as stenographer as Sapia dropped her head to her chest and called upon John King, that abomination, to guide her into the spiritual world.
At first nothing happened, which gave Lucia hope that the night might be a blank. The fire flared and then died down as a log crumbled into red-hot coals, sending a veil of burning embers up the chimney. The room smelled of smoke, ordinary and snug. The sound of the crackling fire was lulling, and for a time Lucia began to relax.
Then Sapia’s breath came harder and faster and Lucia knew something was coming. She braced herself and held on to Sapia’s hand as the room began to change, not all at once, but slowly, in degrees. The smell came first. The woodsmoke was replaced by an odor of damp, of foggy river bottoms, and reeds waving in marshy shoals. Professor Imoda called out something in Italian as he wrote furiously in the notebook.
Next came the distant sound of a rushing river. Sapia was on her feet now, writhing about, her arms thrusting into the air, as she called to John. In Italian she begged him to bring the girl to her. “Bring her here, John. Portarla qui.” Professor Barzini translated for Lucia. She was grateful to him, not because she cared to know Sapia’s words, but because he was close to her, a solid presence, his voice an anchor to the known world.
The woman in black cried out, a shrill yelp, when Sapia began to speak in a high, plaintive voice like that of a girl poised on the edge of womanhood. She spoke first in Italian, then in French, sometimes from a distance, sometimes up close, as if she were moving about the room, even though it was plain that she never left her chair. “He said he loved me and he would marry me. I believed him. I loved him.”
Lucia held Sapia’s hand, letting go only once when her glass toppled over, spilling not water but a black, viscous material on the tabletop. It reeked of a swamp, of corruption, of spongy layers of rot.
“Then I was with child. He kept putting me off, saying he needed more time. His father wanted him to marry a rich girl from Lucca. How could he deny his father?”
The spilled liquid moved as if it were alive with a mind of its own, slithering down the table like a snake, coiling around the next water glass and knocking it over. The snake grew, doubling in size, as its black, viscous body toppled the next glass and the next, absorbing the noisome contents sometimes with a faint gurgling sound that Lucia found particularly loathsome. When the snake reached the end of the table it slipped to the floor and glided across the tiles until it disappeared behind the curtains of the cabinet.
It helped that Lucia was Sapia’s control and that she had to remember to keep a tight grip on her hand. It gave her something to do—this was her responsibility now—so she wasn’t so afraid. It helped that no one else in the room seemed fearful, only the woman in black who sat stiff and still in her chair.
The scent of the river grew stronger.
A gust of wind ruffled the curtains of the medium’s cabinet. The professors kept calling out observations to Professor Imoda. Professor Barzini had long since given up translating them. The wind blew harder even though all the windows in the room were shut. The curtains billowed out, and when the wind stopped suddenly, they fell limp against the outline of a figure that could now be seen in the folds. The voice of a girl was heard hovering above the table, desperate and tragic, cascades of Italian, breathy without pause. Finally the voice began to move off until gradually it faded away.
Shortly after that the curtains lay flat, and the air cleared, smelling fresh again, the fetid odor of the swamp retreating. Now the only sound in the room was the sobbing woman in black and the distant roar of the river. After a time Sapia lifted her head and announced that no more would happen that night.
Sapia went to Signora Porchella and held her while the woman cried. She told her that justice would be done. “This boy, he will be unhappy with his bride. You have my word on it. His life will be short and miserable. He will suffer a horrible illness, lose all his hair, and die screaming in pain.” All this was translated by Professor Barzini.
Signora Porchella leaned back and dried her eyes. “When?” she asked.
“By the time he is thirty.”
She thought about it, nodded, and kissed Sapia on both cheeks. Professor Barzini helped her to her feet. Then, taking her arm, he led her out of the room and closed the door behind them.
“I thought you said you couldn’t see the future,” Lucia said, once they were alone in Sapia’s suite.
“I had to give the poor woman something. I could not leave it as it was—the boy gets everything and the girl dies. That is no ending.”
“Did the girl really throw herself into the river?”
“Of course. I told the story just as it was told to me. I made nothing up.”
Later that night, while the house slept, Lucia lit the lamp and went downstairs to the séance room. She stood in the middle of the room by the dying fire, trying to ignore her pounding heart.
“Rosalia,” she said softly, and listened.
Silence.
She went to the medium’s cabinet and fingered the curtains that had once formed the body of the drowned girl. She stooped and touched the floor with her fingertips. They came away wet.
“Rosalia, are you here?” she whispered.
CHAPTER 11
February 1904
Lucia stayed with Sapia at the Balmoral when they first returned to Paris. Neither of them mentioned the Curies, although Lucia knew she would have to go see them sooner or later. Sapia wanted her to stay on as her assistant and companion. Her plan was to rent a flat in Paris where they both could live. When it came time to travel, Lucia would accompany her and attend all the sittings. Sapia found it comforting to have Lucia on her right.
Edith Arlington had arrived shortly after the accident to see to the care of her husband. She made sure that he was seen by the best doctors, that the kitchen made his favorite dishes, and that he was as comfortable as possible given that his leg was imprisoned in a heavy plaster cast.
By the time Lucia and Sapia returned they found Arlington fit and even mobile in the special wheelchair that Edith had procured for him. That first day they gave Mrs. Arlington time to herself while they wheeled Arlington into the lift and down to the sunroom to watch the snow falling on the glass roof. After that Lucia made a point of visiting him every day, wheeling him around the hotel so he could get a bit of fresh air and didn’t have to stay cooped up in his room. In this way she was able to justify putting off the Curies.
She didn’t know how Madame Curie would react when she told her that she was leaving her employ. She hoped that she would take it well. She was prepared to stay if Madame needed her, at least until a replacement could be found. She thought about asking Marta if she knew of a girl looking for a position. She w
ould have to be a special person, someone well suited to the household, someone who could cook and clean and wouldn’t mind the Curies’ eccentricities.
When she couldn’t put if off any longer she set off for the laboratory, preferring to walk rather than take an omnibus, so she could go over what it was she wanted to say. It was a snowy afternoon. The cart and carriage horses plodded through the slushy tracks in the street, while the street sweepers shoveled the dirty snow and steaming horse manure into the gutters, forcing the pedestrians to jump over it or suffer the consequences. Lucia picked her way down the street, avoiding the icy patches on the sidewalk, until she reached the drive that led to the hangar. There she shook out her umbrella at the door and peered through the glass. She spotted Madame Curie bent over a laboratory notebook, too preoccupied with her work to notice Lucia. Seeing her there in a new starched white smock, looking tense and focused, determined and fragile, Lucia knew she could not leave her mistress without notice. She would stay for at least a month. Sapia would have to understand.
She stood there for some time not wanting to interrupt. It was unthinkable to disturb Madame Curie when she was working, a rule etched in her mind from two years of service in the household. She decided to come back another time and was about to leave when Madame Curie looked up, brightened, and waved her in.
“Lulu. You’re back.” She seemed glad to see her, although she did not get up to greet her. “Did you have a good time?”
“Oh yes. It was lovely.”
“Well, good for you. We missed you. But we knew you were in good hands. Was it fascinating? Did you learn a lot?”
Lucia told her about the town and described the séances, particularly the one involving the girl in the river. It was cold in the shed even though the stove was red-hot. She wrapped her arms around her chest and shivered. “I’ve been thinking,” she said, searching for the right words. “Well, what I mean to say is, I thought I might stay with Madame Palladino.”
If You Are There Page 22