The Witch of Napoli (21 page)

“There you are, Alessandra.” Lombardi had come up behind me. He stepped forward to introduce himself to Bibikov and we escaped. Alessandra slipped into the bathroom, closed the door, and I hovered outside, pretending to inspect the paintings which lined the halls. A minute later, Lombardi came hurrying down the hall.

“Tommaso, where the devil is Alessandra? The General is waiting to meet her.”

“She’s feeling sick.” I pointed to the bathroom. He grimaced.

“Well, as soon as she gets out, bring her to me.”

Alessandra stayed in the bathroom for a long time, and when she came out, she didn’t look much better, but she charmed Bibikov and managed to hang on until the reception ended at nine.

We made it outside into the cool evening air, and were waiting for our carriage to arrive, when Alessandra suddenly let go of my hand, fell to one knee, then collapsed on the sidewalk. Everybody started shouting and screaming, and Lombardi quickly bent down and cradled her head in his lap, searching for her pulse. She opened her eyes and looked at him, confused, then struggled to get back to her feet, but he held her there. I was scared to death. Someone ran to fetch Countess Walewska.

A few minutes later, the Countess ran down the steps, followed by the doorman with a glass of water, but Alessandra was already sitting up.

“I’m alright,” she insisted. “It was just the heat. I’m feeling better now.”

“
Signora
, please, come inside,” the countess begged. “Stay here tonight.” She looked at Lombardi, but Alessandra insisted she felt better, and wanted to go back to the hotel.

Later that night, I went up to visit Alessandra. She was sitting up in bed with a pillow behind her, looking pale but a lot better. Lombardi was just returning a stethoscope to his medical bag.

“I’m glad you’re here, Tommaso,” he said. “I’ve made a decision which affects both of you.” He closed his bag.

“I’m canceling the rest of the tour.”

“No!” Alessandra cried. She looked bewildered. “But why, Camillo?”

Lombardi took her hand.

“Alessandra, listen to me. You need rest. A month, at least. I blame myself. The traveling, the sittings every night, the need to perform – you’re exhausted. Now this. I’m worried about you.”

“Camillo, I’m fine!” Alessandra protested. “You’ll see! Tomorrow, I’ll be back to my old self.” She began to cough, and Lombardi reached down into his medical bag and pulled out a bottle.

“This is laudanum. It will help you sleep tonight.” He poured out a glass and gave it to her, then closed the bag. He took her hand again.

“Alessandra, I know you’re worried about your fee. You don’t have to. When we get to Torino, you will get your 4,000
lire
. You’ve earned it.”

I could see the tears well up in Alessandra’s eyes. “Camillo…thank you. Thank you so much.”

The tour was over. We were going home.

I followed Lombardi out into the hall, and he pulled me aside. “We’re going to be in Warsaw for a while, Tommaso. She needs to stay in bed and rest. I want you to make sure she stays there.”

After Lombardi left, I went back inside.

She patted the bed. “Sit down here. Next to me.”

She looked at me for a long time, then she smiled. “If only I were twenty years younger….” I blushed. She fought to keep her eyes open, the laudanum beginning to take over. “You to Naples…me to Rome…I’m going to miss you terribly.”

“I once dreamed about becoming the editor of the
Mattino
,” I told her. “Now, it’s not enough. I want to do something bigger. Maybe I’ll follow you to Rome and become the editor of the
Messaggero
. ”

She smiled. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful, Tommaso. You and me in Rome.” She squeezed my hand, and her eyes fluttered and finally closed as the opium worked its magic.

Over in England, Huxley wasn’t ready to let Alessandra walk away from the game.

G
ive Huxley credit.

He figured Alessandra out, and he played her brilliantly. The
Times
was in on the plan, but Huxley chose the bait, and set the hook.

We left Warsaw for Torino on Aug 10, 1899, my seventeenth birthday. I bought a bottle of Polish
wodka
the night before we left, drank half of it, and boarded the train with a terrible hangover. Lombardi had kept Alessandra in Warsaw for almost two weeks, then arranged a first-class sleeper for her on the Nord-Sued Express on the trip home. By the time we reached Zurich, she had made a remarkable recovery. The cough was still there, but color had returned to her face, along with her appetite. Lombardi kidded that she was “costing him a fortune” in the dining car.

At every stop along the way, reporters peppered Lombardi with questions, demanding to know why the tour had been suddenly cancelled. Not everybody bought his story that Alessandra’s health was in danger. In Paris,
Le Petit Journal
breathlessly trumpeted that Weitzel in Vienna had caught Alessandra using matches to start a fire so she could terminate a failed sitting – a rumor Huxley planted.

We arrived back home on Sunday, and Lombardi put us up in the administrative guest house at the asylum until he could get to the bank to arrange our train tickets and Alessandra’s payment. The impossible dream she had confessed to me that night at the Piazza del Plebiscito was about to come true. She could start a new life – without Pigotti, and with 4,000
lire
in her purse. She would run her own life.

At ten o’clock the next morning, the “Kaiser” came looking for us. Frau Junker was as sour as ever.

“You will come with me. Dr. Lombardi wants to see you in his office.”

When we got there, Lombardi was sitting behind his desk with a scowl on his face. Behind him was a cabinet of curiosities filled with fossils and stones. A row of ivory skulls mounted on iron rods sat on a side table – probably the props Lombardi had used in his famous Darwin lecture in Rome. A young, clean-shaven man in a sharp-looking, brown suit and silk tie lounged in a chair in front of Lombardi, a notebook and pen in his hands. He jumped up when Alessandra entered the room.

“
Signora
Poverelli?”

Lombardi gestured to him. “This is Mr. Harold Carter, Rome correspondent for the
London Times
. He insists on asking you a few questions.”

Carter flashed Alessandra a boyish grin. “
Che piacere vederti
.” So pleased to meet you. His Italian was excellent. He bowed and kissed her hand. Huxley had picked the right messenger.

Frau Junker brought over two chairs, Lombardi dismissed her, and we all sat down.

“
Signora
Poverelli…” Carter started.

“Alessandra is fine,” she replied with a smile, brushing back her long black hair.

“Thank you…Alessandra, then.” He opened his notebook. “Our newspaper recently interviewed Mr. Nigel Huxley, an investigator for the London Society for…”

“We’re quite familiar with Mr. Huxley,” Lombardi interjected.

“I understand. I wanted to ask
Signora
– I’m sorry,
Alessandra
– here, if she had seen the interview.”

“I haven’t,” Alessandra replied. “And I don’t care what that
cazzo
says.”

Carter laughed. “I understand. I won’t read you the article. But I was hoping to get a comment from you on his offer to test you in England.”

Lombardi stood up. “Alessandra has nothing left to prove. She’s passed enough tests.”

Carter ignored him. He held up a newspaper clipping and looked at Alessandra.

“In the interview here, Mr. Huxley explains how you
could
have produced the phenomena he witnessed at the sitting on Ile Ribaud. He suggests you come to England and demonstrate your paranormal powers. If you can, he says the Society will happily join its Continental colleagues and declare your powers genuine. Will you consider it?”

Lombardi slammed his fist on the table.

“She’s not going to England, damn you!”

Alessandra wheeled on Lombardi. “Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do, Camillo!”

Carter kept his gaze on Alessandra. “If I could read you the last paragraph of the story?…”

“Go ahead,” Alessandra said.

Carter unfolded the newspaper clipping and read it. “I am confident our vulgar, little Neapolitan trickster will decline to be tested in England…”

“Vulgar little trickster?” Alessandra was on her feet, fists clenched. Carter looked at her. “I apologize,
Signora
…Should I continue?”

“Go on.”

“…She is a cheat. An extremely talented one, but a fraud nonetheless. I’ll wager 100 pounds sterling…”

“His own money?”

“Apparently, yes.”

“Nothing will give me more pleasure than emptying that
stronzo
’s wallet.” Carter smiled.

“Then you accept…”

“She can’t afford a trip to England,” Lombardi roared, “and I’m not paying!”

Carter folded the clipping. “That won’t be necessary, Professor. The Society is offering to pay all travel costs – first class – as well as Alessandra’s expenses while in England.”

Lombardi pointed to the door. “Wait outside. I need to discuss this further with
Signora
Poverelli.”

Carter picked up his hat and bowed to Alessandra. “It was a pleasure to finally meet you. When you get to England, please give Mr. Huxley my regards.”

As soon as Carter left, Lombardi slammed the door.

“Alessandra, listen to me! This is crazy! You need at least another two, three weeks of rest. You’ve just gotten over…”

“I feel fine, damn it!”

“But you’re not fine! Listen to your cough! I’ve been to England. It’s rainy and damp. Terrible for your cough. And the travel – five days at least. For what? A hundred pounds?”

Lombardi went to his desk, yanked open the drawer, and pulled out his cheque book.

“I’ll give you the hundred pounds. Here!” He started writing the cheque.

Alessandra came over and grabbed the pen. “I don’t want your money, Camillo! I want his!” She flung the pen across the room. “A trickster? A fraud? I’ll show the fucking English who the fraud is. Fuck him!”

“Then I’m going with you.”

“No! This is between me and him.”

“It’s not just between you and him! My reputation is at stake too! If you fail…”

“I won’t fail.”

“Alessandra, please – please. I’m begging you. ”

“I have to, Camillo.”

I saw my opportunity and grabbed it. “I’ll go with her to England,” I said. I had never been there, and I didn’t want to go back to Naples. I wanted to see the world.

“Well then at least take Tommaso, Alessandra. I’ll pay for him.” Lombardi dropped into his chair and sighed. “This is crazy.” He shook his head. “I’ll wait for you in Paris, at Renard’s apartment.”

“
W
here is he?”

Alessandra was angry.

We stood in the cavernous station, surrounded by our luggage, looking around for the Thomas Cook agent the Society has promised would meet us when we got to London. The boat train from Dover arrived at Victoria Station, and we had to get over to King’s Cross Station to catch the train to Cambridge.

“Huxley is behind this,” she groused.

“Maybe we came in on a different track,” I suggested.

“No! He planned this!” She stamped her foot angrily.

I looked up nervously at the station clock. We had been waiting there for 30 minutes, and we had less than an hour to find the other station. I pulled out the English phrase book Lombardi had given me in Paris the night we left for Calais.

“No problem. I can get us there,” I said. I waved to a porter. “We’ll take a cab.” Lombardi had also slipped me five pounds British sterling for an emergency, and this was certainly one. I had no idea how frequently trains ran to Cambridge, and someone was supposedly waiting for us there. What if we missed them too?

Alessandra was still complaining when we got into the cab and the driver snapped the horse’s reins and we rolled out into the busy street.

“I don’t think he understood your directions,” she said. “Maybe he’ll take us to the wrong place. Maybe you should show him the word in the book.”

I was getting exasperated. On the two-hour ferry ride across the Channel, she was in a constant panic. Lombardi had taken care of her all through Europe, but now it was just me and her.

“You’re the one that wanted to come to England,” I snapped.

“And the minute I get Huxley’s money, we’re out of here.” She pulled her window curtain shut and crossed her arms. “I hate England.”

Not me. I glued my face to the window and gaped at the sights. Naples was a big city, but London was ten times bigger, four million people, the capital of the world. The noise and din and bustle, the jammed streets and sidewalks – big shot
Inglesi
industrialists in their fancy suits and vests and top hats and bowlers, stylish ladies clutching the hands of their immaculately dressed children, shouting men walking around wearing sign boards advertising soap and cigarettes, women selling bouquets of flowers, chimney sweeps and oyster carts, beautiful parks and tall statues and stately buildings with lions guarding the steps. I had never seen anything like it in my life. The streets were even more jammed than the sidewalks, and we slowly plowed our way through a sea of vehicles – double-decker busses drawn by teams of horses, men on bicycles, tradesmen’s carts loaded with coal and beer barrels and cabbages, all fighting to cross the same bridge we were. We queued up and nudged forward on the policeman’s whistle, as the driver of a hansom cab loudly demanded right of way for his aristocratic fare. I watched a gang of street urchins dart in to grab some oranges off a grocer’s cart, escaping through the stalled traffic as he shook his fist and cursed them. It was a wonderful show, and Alessandra missed it.

We barely made it to the station on time, and I gave the driver a shilling – way too much from the way he beamed and thanked me, but it was Lombardi’s money and besides, I didn’t have time to wait for the change. We hurried through the station, found the track, and boarded at the whistle. When we plopped into our seats, Alessandra finally took a deep breath and turned to me.