The Apprentice Lover (24 page)

C
haos struck the following night.

Marisa had rarely been seen at the villa over the past week, and everyone knew that Grant had finally asked her to remove herself from the property.

“This slow-drip torture has to end,” Vera said, as we were gathering empty plates for Maria Pia to take into the kitchen. Grant remained at the table, ignoring everyone, reading a newspaper while he finished a glass of brandy. Holly and the children were talking among themselves, planning a trip to the piazzetta for ice cream.

“Last week, I suggested that she go back to Naples,” I said.

“A rotten idea.”

“I know.”

“You're full of rotten advice,” she said. “You should become a psychiatrist. Americans are mad about them, aren't they? You could make a packet.”

“We don't really have psychiatrists where I come from,” I said. “And I don't want a packet of money.”

“I keep forgetting that you're a poet.”

Suddenly Mimo lunged into the dining room, his eyes wide. He looked as though he'd just seen the ghost of Garibaldi.

“La signorina!”
he said. His mouth continued to move, but without words.

“What the bloody hell?” said Grant.

The room fell still. We all knew that he meant Marisa, and that something had happened.

Mimo motioned us to follow him, his large, dark hands clawing the air.

There was a mad race behind him, with Vera leading the flock. Holly and Nigel were just behind her, while Nicola and I trailed by half a dozen steps, rushing through the moist evening air, now tinged with woodsmoke. Grant, it seemed, was not going to run, but I caught a glimpse of him some twenty yards behind me, walking quickly, as we passed the swimming pool and turned toward the sea.

It was sundown, with the sea blood-bright as Mimo led us to the ledge I had dreamed about many times, our version of Il Salto, the leap. Before I got there I knew what it was.

“Dear God,” said Vera, clutching my arm and teetering on the edge, looking down.

Marisa's body lay in a broken state below. Such a fall, or leap, could hardly be survived. The black swaddling of her hair, dandled by the surf, rose and fell, but she was otherwise motionless. I thought I could see blood in the water.

Grant approached us, out of breath. He looked a million years old as he peered over the ledge. “The silly girl,” he said. “There was no need.”

Holly looked once, then stepped backward. All life seemed to drain from her eyes.

“I'd say she was mad,” said Nigel. “What do you say, Pater?”

Grant, to his credit, told his son to shut up.

Nicola began to weep, and her mother comforted her, guiding her back to the Villa Clio. There was no point in standing there, gaping.

“Call Ruggiero!” Grant called to Vera, who nodded. Ruggiero was the local commandante, a regular attendee at dinner parties on the island. It was always good to have the police on your side, especially if you were an alien resident.

Grant took me by the wrist. “Let's go down there. She might still be alive.”

I was sick inside, wasted and confused. The world spun around me, a lazy Susan of colors and sounds. The voices I heard seemed unreal,
detached from their bodies. I myself felt detached: a floating consciousness that looked on this bizarre and tragic scene without understanding. Involuntarily, I followed Grant down the rocky path.

It was apparent from thirty feet away that Marisa was dead, her brains splattered on the rocks.

Mimo stood beside me, in tears, crossing himself every few minutes and muttering what must have been a prayer. Nigel was chuntering on, foolishly, about the possibility of murder.

“She didn't strike me as the jumping type,” Nigel said. “I'll bet someone pushed her.”

“The bloody girl dashed herself on the rocks,” Grant said, bitterly. “How very operatic of her.”

I simply stared at Rupert, disbelieving. What a fucking asshole, I thought. What a cruel, fucking bastard.

T
he news about Nicky's death had come from my father, who found me one night after dinner at my dorm. I was studying for an exam when there was a knock on my door. A call for me, I was told. The telephone hung from a wall at the end of the corridor, and everyone on the hall could hear your conversation, which meant that nobody's personal life was a secret. One quickly learned to speak in code.

“Hi, Alex, it's Dad,” he had said in a constricted voice; I knew at once that something terrible had happened and assumed that my mother had taken a turn. She had been hospitalized in recent months on two occasions with what we thought were heart attacks, although the doctors had never pinned anything down. “It's not Mom,” my father said. “I'm calling about Nicky.”

“Is he okay?” I knew how absurd that was, but couldn't control it. I wanted, for a few seconds, to think all would be well, when I already knew the truth. This was the news I had dreaded for so long that the dread itself had become familiar, like an old, difficult, neurotic friend.

“Not so good,” he said. There was an unnatural pause, while he collected himself. “It's pretty bad news I gotta tell you, son.” My father began to cry—a quick, sharp sob he tried his best to stifle.

“Oh, God,” I said.

“He's dead, Alex. Got killed over there, they said. Some kind of explosion.” After more sobs, he added, “Your mother's pretty upset.”

I could not speak. I don't remember much of anything after that, but several guys on my hall were soon standing around me. They seemed already to know that something had happened.

“I'm coming home right away,” I said.

“That sounds good, Alex. You do that,” he said. “I think your mother would appreciate it.”

I remembered the painful numbness, like I'd been stung by a wasp in the heart. I felt it again that night, after Marisa's body was taken away by the police. The reality was unbearable, a fiery place where my mind could not settle for a moment. I sat at my three-legged table, drinking three glasses of grappa—finishing off the bottle that Marisa and I had started only a few nights before.

“Can I join you?” asked Vera, standing at the door.

“Sure.”

“That's a decent bottle,” she said, recognizing the local label, from Da Gemma, the restaurant.

“Yeah,” I said, vaguely.

“Are you all right?”

“Me?”

“You, Alex. I'm worried about you.”

“Why?”

“I know that you and Marisa, as it were, were close.”

“As it were,” I said.

“Don't play that game, please.”

“Sorry.”

“Look, I told you I'd always tell you the truth. So I'm telling you now. This is not your fault. Marisa was deeply unhappy. She had a horrid past.”

“Her present wasn't so good, either.”

“It's partly Rupert's fault, of course. But I wouldn't blame him. Not entirely. Marisa tried to kill herself before.”

I looked up from my glass.

“It's true. She told me about it, soon after she moved in. I was able to talk to her, at first. Then she brought down a lead shield around her. I wished I knew how to help.”

It didn't surprise me that she could not go further with Marisa. There
was a dearth of empathy at the Villa Clio, although—in retrospect—it impresses me that Vera made this visit to the cottage. She knew more about me than I would have guessed at the time.

“I'm glad you came,” I said.

“We're friends, eh?” She reached for my hands, and grasped them. “I was worried about you.”

We sat for a while, saying nothing, then Vera left, kissing me lightly on the forehead.

“If you need something to help you sleep, I have some jolly efficient pills,” she said.

“I'll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded, but doubted my words. I had felt a sadness creeping over me since moments after seeing Marisa at the bottom of that cliff, a long slow wave that seemed only to mount and mount, with no sign of cresting.

 

In bed, I fell asleep, but it was not a pleasant sleep. I dreamed that Nicky came into the room. He had not, after all, really died. He had simply walked off into the jungle, eventually crossing the border into Laos. He had come to me for help.

“Nicky,” I said.

“Hey, man. How you doing, asshole?”

“You're alive.”

“What the fuck,” he said.

“Do Mom and Dad know?”

He shook his head. “They're after me, Alex. I gotta hide.”

“Who is after you?”

“I'm AWOL.”

“The army doesn't know you're here?”

“They think I'm dead.”

“But you're not.”

“Hey, you're a fucking genius. You were always smarter than me, right?”

“I thought I was.” Guilt overwhelmed me, and I began to cry.

“Stop that shit, okay? You're still an actor. You're an asshole, and that's why I call you an asshole. You know how fucking bad you were, man? You did everything you could to make me look bad. What fucking chance did I have?”

He was right, I knew.

“I ought to cut your fucking tongue out, you know that? That's what they did to assholes in Nam. They caught somebody who was telling lies, one of them little geeks, and they cut out his fucking tongue.”

“I'm sorry, Nicky.”

“You're sorry, huh?” He drew a blade from the sheath at his side. “Stick out your tongue, man. Stick it out or I'm gonna pull it out.” He put a hand on my throat, digging his fingers into the soft skin.

“Don't, Nicky! Please!”

I woke as his muddy fingers touched my tongue, and I could taste the dirt of Vietnam. The acidic, harsh, and foreign soil.

Putting on a light, I found Nicky's final letter from Vietnam, which had arrived a week or more after we learned of his death. It was a consoling letter, though stained with death, and premonitions of death.

It began, as ever, with “Dear Asshole.”