Pursuit

by Felice Picano

  Addison had to admit he was a bit taken back. He had been nothing but generous and polite to either of these German women. Yet what she said was not in any way inaccurate as to his character or his mission, and so he listened carefully as she dropped her second card. “This card is your Quarry. The Queen of Cups reversed. A woman made for happiness, but it is snatched from her time after time. This card below you shows you have none or a very small acquaintance with the lady.”

  That was true enough. He’d met her once and seen her twice. “Four Cups reversed—four upheavals of her womanly affection. This card placed above you shows you hunt her for another, not yourself. Wands Ace reversed. A great person seeks her, and this card bodes some success.”

  How she could have known all that was so far only mildly remarkable. After all, he’d not said more to her cousin beyond that he had a mission, and was thwarted. “Behind the centre,” Wilfriede continued, “lie Nine Swords, reversed. Your Quarry feels she had true reason to be as she is.” Addison didn’t for a moment believe that. Not a single foul word had been said against her so far by anyone he’d spoken to, nor in London, nor at her home. “It is yourself to be a great troubled life, now changed mostly to good. Before you, Eight Wands, travel, direction, but it is reversed, and so it means no easy route but instead setbacks, delays, and detours.”

  That was disheartening if true.

  Four cards remained, and she placed them to one side, going up vertically. “Page of Swords is you, made younger by the newness of your travel. The Emperor is the card of your friends. Very great persons surround you. Next, your hopes and fears, and this is curious. It is High Priestess, which defies direct meaning, saying instead what is hidden will be revealed.”

  “Hidden about the lady? My relation?” he hastily added.

  “Perhaps. But this is more than lady alone. What is hidden long time now will be revealed.”

  Wilfriede reached into the other pack of cards she’d had Addison set aside and asked him to pick two. He did and turned up the Knight of Pentacles, followed by Five Wands. “This man,” Wilfriede said, “opposes you with all his heart. He is like stone.” Her Ladyship’s Cerberus and guard, she meant. The last card was the end of it all, and it was the Star, reversed, another ambivalent card. “Your wish comes true. But is what you have wished? Truly wished for?”

  That was all he needed to hear. He threw another few coins at her and stood up to go.

  Wilfriede, however, held his arm with one claw of a hand tightly and she would not let go until she had used the other to lift and peer at the next five cards in her hand.

  She looked oddly at Addison and said in a suddenly lowered voice, and in English, “I beg at you, Herr. Do not more this quest after next halt!”

  “The next halt is Munich,” Addison said. “Where does my quarry, as you so nicely put it, go from there? Shuffle your cards and tell me what they say.”

  “I do not, I cannot! Ah!” She stopped, for a card had fallen out of the deck of its own accord. Before she could fold it back into the deck, Addison had grabbed hold of it.

  Die Sonne, it read, and even he knew that much German. “The Sun!” cried Addison. “Where does the sun shine most brightly? In the south. She goes south from Munich! And there shall I follow.”

  Wilfriede continued holding his arm, her cards fallen to the table and even to the floor, as she cried something, he could only make out as: “Cicatrich Halb Mond! Halb Mond! Nach ist die Morder.”

  But Addison already knew now what he needed to know.

  Once out on the street, he found out from her cousin what Wilfriede had cried out as a final warning. He was to be of extra care about someone with a half-moon scar because near that man was murder.

  Back in his hotel room, Addison celebrated with brandy and then hot-temperedly bedded his tart of a translator. For he knew where the three of them were headed now, and it made sense: south of Munich lay the Alps, and through the Alpine Brenner Pass lay naught but Italy. What more southerly place to go?

  1 October 188—

  Hotel Mercurio,

  Bolzano, Italy

  My Lord,

  As you read this, I have arrived in Northern Italy. I waited three days for the little narrow gauge train to arrive in Innsbruck. I’d been forced to wait because of the impertinent weather, which insisted upon storming and snowing, although it is rather still autumn and far too early for suchlike.

  That little Austrian town became agog and overcrowded with winter sporting folk. Yes, you read aright. They come from counties all around at news of a large snow-fall, and they strap on to their boots slats of wood with curved-up ends, and they wield poles for balance—I think mostly for show—and then they traverse the four-foot-high snow banks which cover up all the streets and make carriages laughable and only sleighs at all usable. The people here refer to this walking upon snow with wooden poles as schussing, an execrable word, which like much of German actually sounds just like it occurs. And everyone around me for the three days was mad for sledding and rolling about in snow and for skating upon the ice, which last I have done once before in England. Above all, they are mad for this schussing.

  And now I am in Italy, refreshed and quite eager for the hunt again.

  Your most humble and obedient servant

  Addison Grimmins

  ✥ ✥ ✥

  Worse than the young men were these Alpine young women. They didn’t wear skirts, but instead a sort of woollen piece, both blouse and trouser, that closely covered their bodies from within their boots all the way up to the top of their head, where it was finished off with a little hooded beak, like a bird’s, but flattened out. This latter, Addison had been told, was necessary to keep out the sun, since in the mountains it often would become very sunny and so hinder one’s vision due to all the reflection from the snow. Needless to add, wearing these schuss costumes, the young women looked much like the young men, except naturally for assorted protuberances, which in fact made them all look highly improper. Not that Addison had any complaint.

  The scene of these odd activities was the slopes outside on several sides, slopes being the term used for the angled sides of the higher hills and mountains covered thickly with snow, for the people climbed as high as they possibly could up the mountains and then, for fun, they schussed down as far as into the town’s streets and squares, which everyone else seemed to accept in good humour.

  Addison had time for all of these contemplations and speculations since two sudden and enormous snowfalls had left him twiddling his thumbs at his inn with no more entertainment than very old issues of English periodicals—Longman’s Magazine and The Fortnightly Reviews, one with a strange tale by Wilkie Collins and another, even more eerie one, by Amelia B. Edwards—as well as a half dozen issues of Boys of England magazine and a battered and somewhat dog-chewed copy of Robinson Crusoe, all suggesting some of his younger countrymen had been installed in these quarters not long before and probably also snowed in.

  On the third day of heavy snowfall overnight with no transportation out of town but sleighs and those only locally, Addison felt he had to escape this chalet or he might go mad. So, he decided to step outside and himself schuss.

  Being still young, in fine physical form and still rather limber, he allowed himself to be led by the trilingual adolescent son of the innkeeper to a dressing room and there equipped with one of the schuss overall coverings.

  “No! No! All the clothing must off go!” the lad commanded, laughing.

  “Not this too?” Addison said, clad only in loose cotton underpants.

  “And why not?” he said, pulling his own suit open to reveal a puff of blond hair and genitals.

  Addison realized at that moment precisely how British he was, and while it was only in the past several years he’d actually come to don under-briefs within trousers, he now felt them incumbent upon his rank and station, dubious as those might be.

  “Also these.” Wolfie thrust a pair of long wooden slats with upcurvi
ng fronts at him which Addison recognized would become his only, fragile if not actually perilous, vehicle this day. Some thin, pointed ash wood canes were tossed at him, and together with Wolfie’s brother, Anton, and another friend, all of them leapt up into an open wagonette headed for the edge of the town.

  Several other Germans, an Austrian, and a Swiss couple were already schussing down the treacherous incline, as their one-horsed wagonette trudged up a tortuous path. Once arrived and alone on the little plateau, the lads showed Addison how to handle the canes, imitating the side-to-side movements needed for the actual skees, as the slats were termed.

  The two other boys then took off down the slope and could be heard calling out to each other. Their heads, then their speeding figures, then only their shadows were visible and they schussed away.

  “I must be completely mad to attempt this.”

  “You are a good-looking fellow,” Wolfie said. “I am certain you have much experience with the womens. This is not so different,” and he slowly moved his hips side to side in a semi-circular motion as though in the throes of physical passion, exaggerating the motions. “You see? You already know how it is done.”

  Addison did see, and so he let Wolfie give him a little shove from behind. He clutched his canes and he swayed side to side and soon he was moving, sliding along the snow with a mere touch of the ground with the one hand-held cane for better balance and then another, and he was off.

  He heard Wolfie pass by him, going much faster. Soon, Addison was all alone on the slope, moving rapidly, never completely stable or secure, with the skees below him having some sort of life and mind of their own. They needed more guidance of a hip or arm, but not too much, merely a light touch or motion, and he found himself drinking in the sharp, odourless Alpine air, and having time to look beyond himself at the mountainous scenery as it turned slowly, almost majestically about him while he continued to descend.

  Suddenly he heard the voices of others on each side of him. He panicked for a second, but they were past him so rapidly he was able to regain control, until he saw ahead an open landing where Wolfie and his brother and friend were stopped, chatting and looking at him.

  “How do I stop?” he called out, but Wolfie just looked startled, then took a few steps forward and called out to someone behind him in German phrases he couldn’t make out. All at once, Addison was in the midst of three others schussing closely.

  One on each side held him by the elbow and they all landed together just beyond Wolfie and his group, upright for only a moment and then down and all together, him and one lad on one side and a lassie on the other side and two more behind him, all grunting as they fell mixed up in a pile of limbs not far from the edge of someone’s storage barn. They laughed and tried to get up, pushing each other down as they did, then throwing snow at each other with no respect for sex, until they were all laughed out.

  “You have been so brave and you have now schussed, English fellow!” Wolfie said, tapping his chest. “Come, now we go again.” And before he could even get his balance, Addison was being lifted into a horse-drawn sleigh for six, and they headed for a somewhat higher slope. This second time, Addison managed to stay completely on his slats, or skees, as they called them—and then he joined them in falling atumble at the ending, laughing and pushing each other down again.

  “What you are saying?” Wolfie asked.

  “This tomfoolery is just…”

  “Wonderful, no? Full of the wonder?”

  “Yes, wonderful,” Addison admitted to Wolfie and the others, laughingly repeating it, and then to himself, last, thinking not since I was a little child and tumbling about on the dirt floor at Villas Sheen with my brothers… But thinking of that could only lead to the darkest of thoughts.

  5 October 188—

  Casa Ippolito Nuovo,

  Ancona, Italy

  My Lord,

  Not knowing how long I shall be here, I have taken chambers. They are above a shop that sells baked goods and so I am next door to a bakery, awakened by the aromas of fresh-baked bread and sent to sleep with the perfumes of sweet cakes. Doubtless if I remain long, I shall grow quite rotund.

  I had hoped that with the train delayed so long in Innsbruck, I would encounter Her L-ship or the maid or that lout in the town, or even upon the little train. I could sense Her or at least Someone, the way you have narrated to me you instinctively “feel that your prey has arrived” when you ride out with a gun and hounds into your forest seeking game.

  I scoured the train top to bottom in as normal a fashion as I could, which is to say, curiously but without seeming to be looking for anyone in particular. I encountered enough oddities: a pair of young Greek lads, possibly students, who attempted to engage me in conversation in Italian, and then in very poor English. They are in Italy, but they don’t know how long. One was excessively pretty and well worth a tumble. They weren’t absolutely travelling alone as I’d at first presumed.

  Coming back through the cars, I saw them with a tall fellow with mutton chop whiskers, whom I’d briefly seen in the wintry Austrian townlet I wrote of to your Lordship. I’d hardly remarked him there. Here, he seemed another traveller. Is he German? He barked a greeting at me in that language. Even later, I saw the Greek students talking to a pert little wisp of a thing who looked at me a long time with very large dark eyes. Now there’s someone to tumble, albeit I already know what she has to teach.

  Yes, it’s boring to talk of potential conquests. But I am bored. I go about the town, and I look for clues to where Her Ladyship may have gone. None have come my way, and I am reminded by the keeper of this house that many leave off the train and remain at Lake Garda. Should I track back and go there? Tourist spots are so boring. They must come through here to get further south, to entrain to any of the larger cities of the Italian Peninsula. Of that I’m certain. And so I shall remain here and rather thoroughly bore myself. Unless, that is, I find something to do.

  Yr Obt Srvt,

  Addison Grimmins

  ✥ ✥ ✥

  The days did drag on, despite the mostly sunny weather and lack of anything more than the slightest chill in the air. He easily made friends with Signora Faschiletti, the landlady of the Pensione Ercoli, and with her landlady friends from nearby pensions who all met in her breakfast and dining room to play cards daily, after the one p.m. bells had been rung by one of four nearby churches. They played for hours sometimes. One game he’d never seen played before, they called baskets. Another seemed not unlike whist but was played by four at minimum. There were little piles of metallic buttons—painted gold, silver, bronze, and a bluish tint, perhaps pewter, perhaps lead—by each of their cards, which they tossed into a centre “pot,” so they might actually be gambling, though he never saw any money pass hands.

  One elderly, well-put-together man attended. Nattily dressed and never without spotless spats on his polished boots and an ivory-tipped, turned wood walking stick, which he leant on while slowly ambulating, he arrived and left the stick prominent upon a chair by the doorway along with his grey suede gloves and dove-grey fedora. He was quite distinguished looking with his cloud of cotton white hair and a Roman visage only spoiled by an extended and rather purple lower lip. This Signor Marcellini sometimes played, but more often merely sat and watched while gulping down what seemed the maximum number possible of a local apertif called Limoncello these women put up themselves.

  He never once directly looked at Addison, not even when they’d been introduced, which he noted was often a sign that a man was physically attracted to him. So, naturally, Addison asked about him to one of the housemaids who were constantly bustling about the third-floor corridors on one errand or another. She insisted the Avvocato Marcellini was a bachelor and was believed to have been a noted ladies’ man who had unquestionably bedded all of these women and perhaps scores more, and might still be doing it, passing billets-doux under the enamelled card table for assignations.

  Addison sat in on a few hands, but one ga
me looked a bit too much given to chance and the other too complex for him to bother to learn it with the intention of cleaning them out. But the Signora F. one morning said to him, “Do you think the Avvocato is a confederate of ——,” naming one woman who had been rather on a winning streak. He replied perhaps so. Then he asked did the Signora F. herself want a confederate at the table? He already knew they called him Il Bello Inglese. Each of them found her own way to flirt demurely whenever he’d show up or tip his cap to them. One insisted he imbibe a tiny, bitter cup of coffee with a large horn of dry, sweet biscuit, another that he fetch her reticule, out of which would soon tumble a little roll of lire, which he would always return.

  Not a one of them could be below the age of nine-and-forty, and despite individually excellent features—fine dark eyes on one, a perfect small Grecian nose on another, shell-like ears on the third—none were even equivocally beautiful, wide as that word had been stretched for Addison in the past. Nevertheless, they seemed shrewd. They knew well what went on in the town, and who came and went through the town, and their palaver might soon be of value to him, so he was unfailingly polite. But no, the Signora F. decided that he was too conspicuous to be a confederate, grazie.

  To them all, he had continued to express the pathos-drenched legend that his somewhat ungracious aunt was about to visit, and perhaps all too aware of his economically straightened situation, she might be actively eschewing him. The kind-hearted, gossipy, lightly moustached signoras empathized with Addison, having no doubt been out of pocket themselves due to some handsome scoundrel in their own day. To a woman, they vociferously promised to alert him to the arrival of anyone even vaguely English or aunt-like in the town, and, if necessary, to help persuade her to his cause. But so far, no luck had crowned their alleged vigilance.

  Then as he was leaving for an afternoon stroll, suddenly next to him outside the front of the pensione, there was the Avvocato, who not only greeted him by name, but placed a grey-gloved hand upon his forearm in a surprisingly intimate gesture and asked in quite good English if Il Inglese had a few moments to look at something the Avvocato had in his home.