Italian Fever

by Valerie Martin

  Lucy’s mind wandered. She thought of what she would do on the morrow. Massimo would be gone; she had a number of phone calls to make. She would look for DV’s car keys. Perhaps they were in one of his coat pockets.

  But her first priority would be sleep. She was so weary that, if only her stomach would calm down, she could sleep for days. She reminded herself to have someone, Massimo or Antonio, tell Signora Panatella she wouldn’t require further food deliveries. She wanted to spend the day alone, uninterrupted, and she already had enough food to last several days.

  Antonio Cini entered the conversation briefly with the observation that the only novel worth reading in the last hundred years was Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s Il Gattopardo. Lucy took a sip of wine, which provoked another surge of nausea. To take her mind off her discomfiture, she observed her dinner companions. Stanton Cutler spoke about the difficulties of publishing foreign books in that most provincial of countries, the United States. Massimo appeared to listen, but he could barely restrain himself from interrupting; his lips moved slightly, so intent was he on his own response. On her other side, Signora Cini had finished eating and resumed mumbling, addressing only her grandson. He looked down at her, his impatience and disdain animating every line of his face. He said a few short words, which the old lady ignored. Lucy watched him until he felt her eyes on him and looked up. She was thinking that he was a liar and this thought so absorbed her that she did not redirect her gaze, as she normally would have. He was one of those men—she had known a few; DV had been one—who lie routinely, about everything, often for no reason apart from a total disregard for the practical value of the truth. If he were caught in a lie, she thought, he wouldn’t care; he would simply move on to the next one.

  He seemed to be reading her thoughts and to be content for the moment to meet the fascinated horror of her gaze with the nerveless arrogance of his own. He did not so much look at her as present for her inspection his perfect indifference to the conclusions published in her eyes. It was like staring at a cat, and, as usual, the cat won the contest. She broke the spell and turned away, only dimly aware that Massimo had spoken to her. “I beg your pardon?” she said.

  By the time the coffee and after-dinner drinks were served, Lucy’s only hope was that she would be able to get back to the farmhouse without vomiting. She tried a swallow of amaro, reputed to have a salutory effect on the digestion, but knew at once that her condition was beyond such a homely remedy. The conversation had continued, never fluid, but in fits and starts, and she had tried to follow it. This effort had only served to intensify the throbbing pain in her head. However, some matters were resolved. Signora Panatella came to the table with what was agreed to be the last basket of food, and Massimo promised to return from Florence in two days to help her with various final arrangements. As the party rose from the table, the elder Cinis bid them good night and disappeared into the dark hall from whence they had come.

  Antonio escorted his guests all the way to the car. The cool air revived Lucy, and she was able to make coherent expressions of gratitude and to receive Antonio’s offers of further assistance should she find herself “troubled” in any way. The brief, bumpy car ride up the hill was a difficult trial, but she managed it, and she climbed out onto the farmhouse drive, feeling a combination of relief and urgency. Off they went, Massimo and Stanton Cutler, waving and smiling, apparently delighted at the prospect of the long drive they had yet ahead of them. Lucy foraged in her bag for the keys as she hurried up the steps. On the terrace, she did not stop to note the clear sky, the bright stars, the fresh, invigorating air. She opened the door hurriedly, pushing it closed with her hip, deposited her purse and the basket on the kitchen table, and ran for the bathroom.

  Chapter 7

  LUCY HAD RETURNED from the dinner party just after midnight. By 3:00 a.m., she felt reasonably certain that no morsel of food she had eaten in the last forty-eight hours was still in her body. The evacuation was violent, thorough, and enervating, accompanied by alternating waves of sweating and chills. Whatever it was, she assured herself, was surely gone. She staggered toward the bed, awed and humbled by the powerful machinery of the body, which, indifferent to the will, unaffected by the abstract flights of the imagination, proclaimed its dominion in implacable terms: Without me, you are nothing.

  She would sleep, she thought, weak, empty, weary to the bones, for a hundred years. But no sooner was she under the thin quilt than she began to shiver uncontrollably. She could hear the involuntary chattering of her teeth; it reminded her, pointlessly, of the rapping of woodpeckers she had often heard in the woods near her home in Concord when she was a child.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said, climbing out of bed and hurrying across the cold floor to the drawer where she had put her warmer clothes. There wasn’t much. Fortunately, recalling the likelihood of tile floors in Italy, she had packed one pair of her warmest wool socks. She put these on first, then added a long-sleeved cotton shirt and her hooded sweatshirt, took off her short pajama bottoms, pulled on a pair of cotton leggings, then put the shorts back on top. She looked around the room briefly for another blanket, but there was nothing. Her socks slipped smoothly across the tiles. She skated to the bed and got back under the quilt. By pulling the hood forward and the quilt up, she created a low tent that she could warm with her own breath. She curled her legs in tightly, still cold and a little dizzy from her excursion. A few scenes from the dinner party came back to her. Was she right in thinking that Massimo had some regard for Antonio Cini, that he had exerted himself to make a good impression? She thought of Antonio’s damp, limp hand, which he had offered her in parting, along with his lubricious smile and the soft repetition of her name. “Dear Lucia,” he had called her. The recollection gave her yet another chill. She adjusted the pillow, gave a final tug at the quilt. The impressive silence of the house bore down upon her, welcome and sedative, silent as thought. Silence is the sound thought makes, she observed; then, trying to make some sense of this meaningless proposition, she drifted away into sleep.

  But not for long. Within an hour, she was awake, burning with fever. She threw off the quilt and the sweatshirt and lay flat on her back, looking out into the dark confusedly. Where was she, what bed was this, and why was it on fire? She could hear dogs barking distantly; it seemed important to listen to them. They weren’t moving, she concluded. They were standing in one place, barking and barking. “They must be tied up,” she said. Gradually, specific recollections appeared, but they were disorderly and some were inappropriate. She was in Italy; that much was certain. This was DV’s rented house. He was dead. She had been ill, and now was weak and had a fever. This much was useful, but why did she recall, in detail and with bitterness, an argument she had once had with her husband about money? She moved her lips. Her mouth was so parched, her palate throbbed. I’ll drink some water, take some medicine, she thought brightly, fumbling for the lamp switch. The dim light illuminated an unfamiliar room, but she recognized the bathroom door. She was so hot, she felt she might be giving off light, and she was giddy, possessed of a wild, foolish optimism. Gingerly, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and slid down into a sitting position on the floor. The floor was much too slippery, she concluded, and she was too unsteady on her feet. To get to the bathroom, she would have to take off the socks. For a few moments, she didn’t move. The floor was cool and reassuringly hard. This was not, she felt confident, a dream, though some elements, the reddish glow around the edge of her vision, the unearthly stillness of the room—the dogs had stopped barking—the desultory command she had of her own musculature, were suspiciously unlike ordinary reality. Her stomach felt hollow and petulant. It was some kind of flu. Food poisoning wouldn’t cause a fever. She would have to be careful not to dehydrate. She pulled off the socks, then, clinging to the bed rail, rose unsteadily to her feet. The bathroom was a long way away. Slowly, with the small, uncertain steps of the aged, she crossed the space and arrived at the welcome support of
the sink. She flicked on the light, which was for some obscure reason sealed behind a sheet of heavy clear plastic, and stood looking dazedly at her own reflection in the mirror.

  She looked bad. Her skin was pallid, it had a greenish tint, and her eyes were sunk in dark bruised-looking circles. She fumbled in her cosmetic bag and extracted a bottle of aspirin. Her packing had been hurried and she had forgotten the travel packets of medications for indigestion, diarrhea, colds, and allergies that she usually carried along. She drew a glass of water from the tap and shook out a few pills onto the counter top. “Aspirin it is,” she said, tossing two back and following up quickly with the water. But her mouth was so dry, the tablets lodged at the back of her tongue, and the water failed to move them along. She gagged, then made herself cough, trying to force them free, but nothing worked. Choking, she tried more water. The water was alarmingly cold; she pictured a pool of it bubbling up from some deep subterranean spring. She could feel it pouring down her gullet and dropping like an icy waterfall into the empty, hypersensitive pit of her stomach. When the water hit bottom, her stomach contracted furiously. Clutching the sink with one hand and holding her hair back with the other, she vomited the clear liquid along with the undigested aspirin into the basin. This cataclysm left her so exhausted, she sat down wearily on the toilet seat. So much for aspirin, she thought. It might be best just to let the fever burn out whatever microbe it was after. If she took a glass of water and put it by the bed, when it was room temperature, she might be able to hold it down. She rested her forehead on the cool porcelain sink, working out this plan. She could stay in bed all day if necessary. No one was coming and she had no business that couldn’t be postponed. She recalled seeing a jar of beef bouillon cubes in the kitchen cupboard; she could have that for a day, and there was also a box of herbal tea. But what herb was it? Mint? Was it fennel? Camomile? Her brain flagged at the rigor of this inquiry. She had looked at the box; the answer was surely in her memory. But all she called up was a recollection of a favorite teacup she had at home. It had been her grandmother’s, lilies of the valley, handpainted, with a handle in the shape of a vine.

  Gradually, as she sat there in the glare of the bare bulbs arrayed around the bathroom mirror, she became aware of a sound, repeated, but at intervals, like fingernails scratching on plaster. How long had she been hearing it? She got up, stepped into the bedroom; it was coming from that direction. But then it stopped and she was arrested by the problem of how feeble and hot she was, how difficult it was to stand, even supported by the door frame. Mindless of all but the pressing need to lie down, she tottered out across the floor, gained the bed, and sank down on it, drawing her legs up after her with a groan. Dimly, she knew that the scratching sound had begun again; against her will, she understood that it was coming from the wall next to the bed. After that, there was the shock, dulled and diffused by fever, of the irresistible conclusion that on the other side of that wall was DV’s former bedroom, the room where she had discovered the terrible drawing and the letters. “Carissima, amatissima,” she recalled, but the voice she heard saying these words was not that of the oily, overconfident heir to the Cini fortune. It was someone else, and it was so seductive, she yearned toward it. It spoke to her; she was the dearest, the most beloved, the amatissima. The words repeated themselves like warm caresses; they lulled her, and she gave in to them willingly and slept.

  When she woke again, it was daylight, but the sky was so overcast that the room was gloomy and chilly. The travel clock informed her that she had slept until noon. She made a mental inventory of her condition, still feverish, but not the raging fire of the night. Her head throbbed, her joints ached, and her stomach felt truculent but empty—therefore not an imminent threat. She was weak, thirsty, and anxious. At length, she made up her mind to get up, brush her teeth, and try a cup of tea. She was content to be alone. She could groan and mutter as much as she liked, and she certainly had no desire to talk to any of the people who might be available to her. In the kitchen, she moved slowly, but it was satisfying to do what she could. The tea was fennel, the best thing for someone in her condition.

  The food basket was still on the table where she had left it the night before. She busied herself in emptying it, eyeing the dishes warily as she transferred them to the refrigerator. They were leftovers from the dinner party, soggy and unappetizing, for the most part, but there were a few pieces of fruit, oranges and a beautiful golden pear that she set aside in a bowl. When she could eat again, these would be her first food. Then she sat down at the table with her teacup, drinking in small, discreet sips, so as not to cause any sudden disturbances within. She heard a spattering sound against the window, the start of a light rain. Once again, she considered the likelihood that DV’s car keys were in one of his jacket pockets. That would have to wait. She was certainly not well enough to go out into the rain to the other apartment.

  When she had swallowed half the tea, a steadily rising tide of nausea lifted her to her feet and sent her stumbling for the bathroom. She arrived in time to fall on her knees before the toilet, where, for many minutes, she was compelled to go through the violent involuntary spasms of dry retching. Her limbs trembled and her hair and face were soaked with perspiration when, at last, she managed to crawl across the floor and pull herself back into the bed.

  She slept fitfully, waking again and again to the sound of rain. As the afternoon wore on, she was aware that her temperature was going up and that she was disoriented and confused. She muttered various comments, nonsensical even to herself. Occasionally, she tried to get up, then fell back hopelessly. Her lips were chapped; she could not recall ever having been so thirsty. But when she did have a lucid thought, it was to the effect that she had best remain where she was. Eventually, the fever would break and she would open her eyes to a solid and recognizable present.

  For she was lost in time. She was conversing with people who were lost to her, some to the past, some, like her grandmother, no longer to be found among the living. She rehashed the four-year argument that had been her marriage; she upbraided a landlord who had taken advantage of her when she was in school. The line between sleeping and waking fantasies was obscure, more and more difficult to trace. In the late afternoon, the rain stopped and she woke. A few horizontal shafts of light splayed across the floor like the fingers of a pale hand. Then, as she watched, neither sleeping nor fully awake, the fingers rushed up over the footboard of the bed and leapt into the air as two flames, one red, one blue. There was a rushing noise, like wind, and the hissing and crackling of a wood fire. She tried to lift herself, for she was frightened and wanted to escape, but her body was inert and unresponsive. The flames, she understood, were communicating with each other; they were deciding her fate. Would she live or die?

  Later, it was dark. She woke again, soaked in sweat, and dragged her fingers through her hair; the fever was breaking. Now she would get better. But she was so weak, so empty, so thirsty, and hungry. How long ago had it been, that last meal? She reached out for the lamp switch, found the cord, felt along it for the plastic switch box. But something was wrong. The box had a toggle switch—surely she was not mistaken—but this box had a button. Still she pressed it. There was no light. Then, as her heart expanded so abruptly that she felt it as a blow to her rib cage, a hand closed over hers and another stripped the quilt from her shoulders. She shouted, “No!” flailing out into the darkness, but the hands were strong and pinned her back against the mattress. Now there was harsh breath over her face, fetid and hot. The hands held her tightly by her shoulders and shook her. Why was he so angry? She tried to hold her head still, but she was too weak. She could feel her chin repeatedly striking her breastbone. Her tongue got in the way of her teeth and she bit it hard; for a moment, everything was red. “Lucy,” he said angrily, shaking her as if he intended to break her neck. All around, the silent room seemed to brood over her struggle; the darkness was an accomplice, a further agent of terror. She had recognized the voice, knew, in some
powerless center of knowing, that what was happening could not be happening. “DV,” she cried out. “Stop it.”

  At once he released her and she fell back a long way, for a long time, falling and falling through black space. Then she felt the give of the mattress, the compression of the soft material in the pillow. Feathers, she thought with relief. She opened her eyes and looked out into the empty darkness of the room. The rain had started again and far off she could hear a low roll of thunder. She passed her tongue over her lips, tasting blood.

  The horror of the encounter clung to her in the darkness, and she to it, as to a friend. Why was he so angry? She concocted a paranoid narrative in which DV had been murdered and she had been poisoned. Soon she would join him in the dreary cemetery at the end of the dirt road in Ugolino, and no one would be able to do a thing about it. It would be a strange but not entirely unimaginable coincidence that she had come out to arrange one funeral and ended up the subject of another. She waved away the obvious problem of a motive; the Cinis were certainly dreadful enough to murder Americans just for the interest of the thing. Or perhaps they were annoyed with the Panatellas for turning the farmhouse into a hotel and had decided that if everyone who stayed there turned up dead, it would soon fail as a business venture. She sat up, fighting panic, turned on the lamp—it was a toggle switch—and pushed back the covers; she wanted most of all to be out of the bed. The light emphasized the absurdity of her imaginings and the cold floor gave her a jolt sufficient to turn her thoughts to practical considerations. One part of the dream, if it had been a dream, had been true. Her fever had broken and she was now damp and cold. She rummaged among the bedclothes for her sweatshirt, then, pulling it over her arms, stumbled off to the bathroom. No matter what the result, she would rinse the blood out of her mouth and brush her teeth.