The Dante Game

by Jane Langton

  They went back to the house and headed for the dining room. In the entrance hall on the south side of the villa Homer was attracted by the buzzing noise of a small gasoline engine below the terrace on the driveway. Glancing out the window he saw a pretty girl zooming up the hill on a little motorbike, dodging expertly around the deepest ruts. Her shoes on the pedals had spike heels, her jeans were skin tight, her hair was an explosion of bleached curls.

  “Good God, what’s that?” said Homer in a state of rapture.

  “Oh, that’s Isabella Fraticelli. She’s the chambermaid. She’s married to Alberto Fraticelli, the cook.”

  “No, no,” said Homer, “I mean what’s that thing she’s riding? I saw them on the street. That little zephyr, that floating wisp of thistledown?” Desire tugged at his vitals. “How much do they cost?”

  “The motorbike? It’s the smallest kind, a Honda 50, I think.” Zee looked up with amusement at Homer’s enormous frame. “You’d never fit. You’re much too tall. Maybe you could use a Vespa, one of the bigger ones.”

  “But would it have the same buoyancy? Would it fly through the air barely touching the ground, like Isabella’s?”

  Zee laughed, and greeted Mary as she came down the stairs. Then he hurried ahead of them into the dining room, and Homer took his wife’s arm. “But I know who he is now. Don’t you recognize him? Now that I see him, I remember his name.”

  Mary frowned. “Well, perhaps. I think I’ve seen a picture of him somewhere.”

  “Of course. It was all over the Boston papers about ten years ago. He was convicted of murdering his wife. He spent five years in Walpole State Prison.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Down must we go, to that dark world and blind.…

  Inferno IV, 13.

  The dining room was a large chamber with a columned entry, a marble fireplace and tall windows overlooking yet another terrace.

  To Homer the grandeur of the villa was a little hollow. He had looked it up in a book. To his disappointment the place spoke less of Galileo than of Mrs. Keppel, with her tasteful Edwardian pretensions. There were no surprises, no awkward dead ends, no peculiar crannies. It was a movie set for the beautiful people of the first half of the twentieth century—for Osbert Sitwell and Christian Dior, for Cecil Beaton and the high society of Florence.

  The room was noisy. Homer wished the beautiful people had left behind a few rugs and curtains to soften the impact of youthful voices ricocheting off marble floors and plaster walls. Whenever the kitchen door flapped open, the banging of pots and pans and the high-pitched conversation in the kitchen added to the pandemonium. Isabella Fraticelli, the girl who had arrived on the little moped, came hurrying in with a serving dish. She was still wearing her skinny black jeans and teetering heels. Isabella was assisted by a young man whose magnificent physique was displayed in a tight-fitting black T-shirt.

  “Is that her husband, the cook?” Homer muttered to Zee.

  “No, no, that’s Franco, the gardener. He lends a hand everywhere.” Homer refrained from remarking that Franco was lending a hand to Isabella’s hip every time he brushed past her in the doorway. In fact they always seemed to arrive in the narrow passage simultaneously, pausing to bump together, giggling. Of the cook himself there was no trace, except for the violent clashing of crockery and an occasional angry shout.

  Lucretia clapped her hands loudly and then in the silence introduced Homer and Mary to the room at large. Himmelfahrt came hurrying in, and had to be introduced too. Quickly Lucretia pronounced the names of all the young students, who smiled politely and began dishing up bowls of minestrone and tearing off chunks of bread and helping themselves to platefuls of salad.

  Homer couldn’t remember which of the kids was which. Three or four of the girls were Debbies. Another was Sukey. The plump young boy in the striped shorts was Ned. A pair of taller boys with fair hair were Kevin and Winthrop. A good-looking dark-haired boy was Tommaso O’Toole. She introduced Homer and Mary to Matteo Luzzi, the school secretary, a beautiful young Italian with a mop of brown curls.

  Then Lucretia took Homer and Mary across the room to meet a couple of older women sitting by themselves, Dorothy Orme and Joan Jakes.

  Homer and Mary nodded and smiled, then filled their plates and settled down at a small table with Professor Zee. There was an extra chair, but when Himmelfahrt began lowering himself into it, Zee warned him away. “I’m sorry. I’m saving it for someone else.”

  Himmelfahrt was not to be denied a seat at what he perceived to be the head table. Pulling up another chair, he sat down beside Mary Kelly, and began a long history of his family. It turned out that the Himmenahrts had been margraves of Brandenburg, related by marriage to the dukes of Schleswig.

  Mary made appreciative noises, and let her attention wander to the students. She couldn’t help comparing the American kids with the young Italians—with Matteo the secretary, Franco the gardener, and Isabella the chambermaid-waitress. How green the Americans looked! So young and callow and bursting with health, so plump of cheek, so juicily packed with fresh fruit from California and orange juice from Florida and vegetables from Georgia. Were they as wholesome as they looked, or had they brought along supplies of controlled substances in their baggage? If so, the effect was invisible. Their eye sockets were not hollow, their complexions were bright. Their clothing was cheerful too, loose and sporty in mismatched hues, unlike the cruel blacks of the Italians. A couple of the boys had odd haircuts, but the hair of the girls fell over their shoulders in long shining floods.

  By contrast Isabella and Franco and Matteo were poised and majestic. Young as they were, they seemed a dozen years older than the Americans. They were monarchs who by some quirk of fate had been enslaved by a crowd of giant children.

  The din grew louder. “Silenzio!” cried Lucretia, clapping her hands again. The clashing in the kitchen stopped. The American kids paused in mid-shout. Laughing, Lucretia pulled up another chair and sat down beside Homer, then leaped up and ran to the serving table for a basket of fruit. Zee turned to look at the door, but the person for whom he had been waiting didn’t come. Somewhere a clock chimed, and there was a general upheaval. Everyone got up. Chairs scraped across the marble floor, plates were piled on the center table.

  The cook appeared in the kitchen door, watching the exodus, smoking a cigarette. Alberto Fraticelli was a pale melancholy-looking man with a bald head, obviously a good deal older than his wife.

  “It’s the first class of the school year,” said Lucretia to Mary. “Why don’t you go?”

  “Zee’s Dante class, you mean? He’s very good?”

  But Lucretia merely said, “Just go.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Canst thou be Virgil? thou that fount of splendour

  Whence poured so wide a stream of lordly speech?

  Inferno I: 79, 80.

  The classroom was another spacious chamber, as big as a ballroom. Zee had nicknamed it the Drawing Room of the Queen Mother. At one side it was dignified by a pair of orange columns streaked like marble, but the portable blackboard and the folding chairs gave it the homely air of a rec room in a church basement. All that was missing was the Ping-Pong table.

  Homer and Mary sat down at the back and watched as the three Debbies came in and sat down together, followed by the two older women and three of the boys. Matteo the secretary was there, slouching in a chair in the front row. Ned Saltmarsh ostentatiously put his books on the seat beside him, turned to glower at the three Debbies and announced, “This is for Julia.”

  “So?” said one of the Debbies, and the three of them laughed. “Where’s Sukey?” said another Debbie. “Maybe I’d better go and see,” said the third Debbie.

  But then Sukey ran in and stood angrily in front of Matteo; “It’s happened again,” she said furiously. “Something’s missing from my room. First it was my boyfriend’s picture, and now it’s my bathing suit. It’s that maid. I mean, like I saw her poking around like she was supposed to be dusting
or something, but she was snooping, I swear. You’ve got to search her room. Honestly, I didn’t come here to be ripped off.”

  Matteo yawned and promised to investigate. “like a detective, yes?”

  Sukey plumped herself down and jerked out her notebook, as Zee came into the room and arranged his papers on the plastic table beside the blackboard.

  Picking up a piece of chalk, he glanced around at the rows of students. Homer suspected he was searching for the person who hadn’t appeared in the dining room. Apparently that mysterious person was missing once again. Zee smiled wanly at Homer and Mary, and then began drawing a picture on the blackboard, a brisk sketch of a tiny vessel tossed by giant waves.

  Turning to the class, he cleared his throat and spoke up in Italian.

  The students stared back at him blankly, their pencils poised over the fresh new pages of their notebooks. Did he expect them to read Dante in Italian?

  But at once he put it into English—

  No sea for cockleboats is this great main

  Through which my prow carves out adventurous ways,

  Nor may the steersman stint of toil and pain.

  “The Paradiso,” he explained. “Canto twenty-three. In other words, we’re embarked on a difficult quest. Welcome aboard.”

  Everyone laughed, partly in relief, partly in sudden commitment. Zee was warning that much would be required of them, and at once it was just what they wanted. For a moment they all imagined this was why they had flown across the Atlantic. It was for this that they had stuffed their shapeless zippered bags and backpacks with summer clothing and winter parkas, with tiny radios and cassette players, with condoms and contraceptives and blow-dryers with the wrong sort of plugs and traveler’s checks provided by parents who were thankful to see the last of them for a while. Here was a teacher worth a journey of three thousand miles.

  They listened and scribbled as he dashed off another little Dante pushing blindly through a forest in his long gown and hooded cap. Then he recited the first lines of the Inferno, canto I. It was the stanza Homer had shouted at him across the ocean, back in May—

  Midway this way of life we’re bound upon,

  I woke to find myself in a dark wood,

  Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

  He explained that the Roman poet Virgil, representing human reason, would lead Dante out of the wood on a conducted tour of Hell and Purgatory. “But not Paradise,” warned Zee. “Only Beatrice, personifying Revelation, can take him there.”

  And then, like Dante in the dark wood, Zee lost his way. He dropped the chalk, picked it up and dropped it again.

  Someone had come in silently. Swiftly she sat down in a chair in one of the empty rows.

  All heads turned. One of the older women smiled at her, the boys became gawky and self-conscious, the three Debbies grew solemn with envy, and Ned Saltmarsh promptly moved back to sit down beside the new arrival with a conspicuous taking of possession.

  It was Julia Smith. Head down, she opened her notebook and plucked out a pen. Ned pushed close, whispering, displaying a scab on his arm, looking for sympathy.

  Clearing his throat, Zee tried to gather the scattered threads of everyone’s attention (his own as well) by swiping at the blackboard once again and scrawling on it the gate of Hell, with its ominous warning, LAY DOWN ALL HOPE, YOU THAT GO IN BY ME.

  Then he spoke of the miserable race of the damned, whose blessings on earth had done them no good—Those who have lost the good of intellect.

  His chalk screaked. Some of the kids took notes, lost the good of intellect, some let their attention drift away. Charon ferries the damned across the river Acheron. Kevin Banks put his foot under the rung of Ned’s chair and lifted it ever so slightly. Ned turned and glowered. A wasp wandered aimlessly around the classroom, trying to find its way back to the smashed figs on the terrace. Sukey reared back from it in fright, and screamed as it settled in her bangs. She clawed at the wasp, it stung her, and the class came to a tumultuous halt.

  Dorothy Orme took charge. Dorothy had been a registered nurse, and now she escorted the sobbing Sukey to the kitchen for a poultice of baking soda.

  Zee, white-faced, put down his chalk and turned away as Julia Smith gathered up her books and went out with the others, Ned Saltmarsh bobbing at her elbow.

  Homer took Mary by the arm and led her outside for a look at the city below the wall. “Who is that girl?” he said. “The one who came in late?”

  “I don’t know, but she certainly is stunning.” Then Mary caught her first sight of the celebrated view. “Oh, Homer, how fabulous, how amazing. Oh, wow.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Voluptuous Cleopatra, who love slew.

  Inferno V, 63.

  The chambermaid Isabella Fraticelli was restless. Isabella was a clever flirtatious girl, eager for excitement.

  Once upon a time it had been exciting to be married to Alberto an older man of whom her parents disapproved. But now Alberto was fat and bald, and it was no longer any fun to be his wife. It was intoxicating instead to play games with the gardener, Franco Spoleto, who was handsome as a Greek god. Franco was obviously thrilled too. Who could tell where his fascination with her might end? Images from films flooded Isabella’s mind, naked celebrities on satin sheets, swooning with ecstasy in each other’s arms.

  And now Matteo was here, with his blue eyes and charming curls. Matteo had studied in seminary, he had wanted to be a priest. To Isabella there was a forbidden sexual attractiveness about men who had taken sacred vows. And in Matteo’s case there was the added wonder that he was not really a priest. He had the appeal of forbidden fruit, and yet he was available, he was free to make love if he wished.

  Matteo’s room was on the third floor of the east wing, down the corridor from the one Isabella shared with Alberto. Did Matteo take a nap after lunch?

  Isabella helped Alberto wash the lunch dishes, and then she took off her apron and fluffed her hair.

  “Where are you going?” said Alberto, looking at her suspiciously.

  “For a walk,” said Isabella sulkily. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

  “For a walk? You’re not going for a walk. Here, look at all these onions. Cut them up!”

  “Onions, uffa!” Isabella turned and pranced out of the kitchen. As the door swung shut behind her, an onion hit it with a thump.

  Chopping onions, cleaning toilets! Isabella fumed as she ran lightly up the stairs. The whole job was beneath her!

  But at least she had the free use of a key. As a chambermaid she could enter every closed door, inspect every privacy. Now Isabella took out her key and approached Matteo’s room, meaning to creep into his bed and run her fingers through his hair.

  But when she opened Matteo’s door, she had a shock. He was not in the bed. He was standing at the window, oiling a gun. Around him lay an arsenal of firearms.

  Angrily he shouted at her to get out. In confusion Isabella backed away. Matteo slammed the door in her face.

  Porca miseria! Isabella’s feelings were deeply hurt. Offended, she went looking for Franco Spoleto. Franco would not shout at her. Franco would be sweet to her. And how thrilling, to tell him Matteo Luzzi’s secret!

  Matteo saw them together. Looking down from his high window over the landscape, across the hills and valleys south of Florence, the tower of Villa Montauto, the convent of La Colombaia, he could see Isabella and Franco near at hand, talking excitedly in the driveway.

  Slowly and carefully he opened the window. Selecting the high-powered bolt-action Beretta sporting rifle, he took it to the window, knelt on the sill and took careful aim, moving the weapon slightly from the tumbled platinum hair of Isabella to the shorter brown curls of Franco, back and forth, back and forth.

  Blam-blam, he said to himself. Blam-blam.

  CHAPTER 15

  … that strange, outflowing power of hers …

  Purgatorio XXX, 38.

  Ned Saltmarsh wasn’t the only male at the schoo
l who was dazzled by Julia Smith. Tommaso O’Toole pursued her with witty insults that were a refreshing change from Ned’s adolescent infatuation. The other guys were susceptible too. Among themselves they rolled their eyes and indulged in hilarious fantasies.

  As for the girls, they were jealous of Julia at first, but before long most of them succumbed to her amiable good humor. She fixed Sukey’s typewriter, she braided Debbie Sawyer’s hair, she loaned Debbie Weiss a pair of earrings and admired the pictures of Debbie Foster’s boyfriend. She listened and teased and said what she thought. She was comfortable to be with.

  But one of the older women, Joan Jakes, couldn’t bear the high pitch of Julia’s extreme good looks.

  “Look at that,” she said to her friend Dorothy Orme, watching Julia from across the dining room, “the way the males hang around her. I think it’s disgusting.”

  “The worst is Ned Saltmarsh,” said Dorothy. “The poor boy has a terrible crush on her. He’s such a child. I suspect he misses his mother.”

  “His mother?” snickered Joan, adding cleverly, “You mean it’s more suck than fuck?”

  “More suck than—oh, I see. Well, perhaps. On the whole I think Julia handles it well. I suspect she had sensible parents.”

  Joan snorted. Picking up her dishes, she took them to the serving table, banged them down, and glowered at the men around Julia. Surely something was fishy about the woman. She couldn’t be all that perfect. Usually things balanced out. Look at herself, for instance. She might not be beautiful, but she was smart as a whip. Would she rather have been pretty and dumb? Certainly not.