The Witch of Napoli (29 page)

Carbone caught the insinuation. “Mechanical devices? Are you suggesting…”

Huxley smiled. “Suggesting what? That master Labella is a confederate of
Signora
Poverelli? That he brought an equipment bag into the room for every sitting Dr. Lombardi conducted on the Continent, a bag which was never inspected, which carried a trick apparatus to assist
Signora
Poverelli in producing her fraudulent raps and her levitations?…”

I felt my face flush.

He paused, his timing impeccable. Everyone in the room was hanging on his words.

“… No, I’m not.”

The bastard just had.

“Now, if you will follow me up to the fifth floor, gentlemen,” Huxley announced. “We have prepared a special stage for
Signora
Poverelli’s magic show.”

The séance room was a madhouse. The hotel furniture and bed were gone, and a team of English workers were busy removing the carpets, installing iron bars on the windows, and changing the door lock. Huxley had rented the two adjoining rooms as well, to prevent a confederate passing something through an adjoining wall to
Signora
Poverelli in the séance room. Archer and Hardwicke had inspected each room from floor to ceiling, tapping walls for hollow spaces and loose panels; searching for any cracks, vents and openings to the outside. Anything found was closed and sealed. The street side of the séance room was five stories up – not that it mattered, since the windows themselves would be barred. The hallway outside would be patrolled during the séance by Mr. Farthing.

Huxley led us over to a large wooden crate sitting against the wall. A burly laborer had crowbarred the top off , and two workers were lifting out a table.

“The séance table, gentlemen. Built in England for this test.”

“Can’t trust these Eye-talians,” Carbone cracked, drawing a laugh from the reporters.

That triggered a lecture by Hardwicke. “Standard precaution for any serious investigation,” he harrumphed. “Let the medium provide the table and they’ve got you. They’ll hide a telescoping reaching rod in a hollowed out cavity, or leave a slightly raised nail to use as a lifting hook, or round the bottom of legs to make the table easier to rock or tilt when the medium leans on it. I’ve seen it all.”

Huxley knocked on the table top. “The same size and weight as the table
Signora
Poverelli supposedly levitated in Master Labella’s famous
Mattino
photo. We are challenging
Signora
Poverelli to perform that same levitation she performed for Dr. Rossi, under the same lighting conditions – but this time using
our
table.”

He steered us to the center of the room where the hotel manager was nervously watching an electrician screwing an odd-looking metal plate to the wooden floor. Huxley rested his hand on the manager’s shoulder. “I have apologized to Mr. Bates here for our extensive modifications to his hotel. I have assured him that everything will be removed when we are finished with
Signora
Poverelli.”

Huxley tapped the metal plate with the toe of his shoe. “
Signora
Poverelli’s feet will rest throughout the sitting on this rather ingenious device developed by Mr. Hardwicke.”

Hardwicke beamed at the compliment. He took a puff on his pipe. “I rather suspect
Signora
Poverelli uses her knees to lift the table, and the toe of her boot to tap nearby sitters and simulate spirit touches. She might even slip off a boot in the dark and employ her toes to pinch a sitter or place an object in a lap.” He frowned. “We’ve even caught mediums who demand complete darkness for their sittings up and moving about the room performing their mischief. We can’t allow that rubbish.”

He pointed his pipe at the apparatus. “
Signora
Poverelli will rest her feet on this metal plate. It allows some ordinary moving of the feet, such as is inevitable in a long sitting, but if a foot is completely taken off the plate, an electric bell will ring. Perhaps one of you chaps would like to test it?”

“
Ja
, I will.” The reporter from the
Berliner Tageblatt
stepped forward and gingerly placed his shoe on one of the plates. The electrician connected the wires and nodded to the German who lifted his foot.

BRIING-G-G-G-G!

The startled reporter jumped back and everybody broke out laughing. After Huxley finished and we were walking back downstairs, Henri pulled me aside.

“What do you think?” he asked nervously.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Alessandra will come through – just like she did in Geneva.”

But in my heart, I didn’t believe that.

Alessandra was exhausted. She coughed non-stop now and couldn’t sit for more than fifteen minutes in a chair before pain in her back and legs forced her to lie down on a couch. She would be tied to a chair, surrounded by people who wanted her to fail, and would have one shot.

She no longer believed – in Savonarola or herself.

T
hey spent a lot of time together that last month.

After he rescued Alessandra from Gronchi, Lombardi moved her into a quiet, private apartment off Piazza Dante, and visited her faithfully every day. He was worried about her health, and insisted she rest and eat regularly. He hired a cook to fix her favorite food – bread soup,
scagliozzi, pasta fasuli
– and every evening they walked together in the gardens of the
Accademia.
She touched his hand when she talked with him, and leaned on his shoulder on the way back home.

Lombardi hadn’t forgotten how Alessandra loved Negri’s little seaside neighborhood in Genoa, and how she stood at the window for a long time, staring out, letting the breeze caress her face. A week before the final showdown with Huxley, Lombardi took her to Peppino, a little
ristorante
Venzano patronized in the Mergellina, on a small hill terraced in bougainvillea overlooking a little harbor.

He wanted me there that night, and told me why.

I couldn’t wait to see Alessandra’s face.

Alessandra wore the shell cameo of Venus that Lombardi had given her in Munich, but her skin was pale and her cheeks hollow. She walked slowly, and winced when she bent to sit down.

We sat on the terrace and talked as the sun slipped into the western sea and the stars filled the sky above our heads. During the dinner, Alessandra kept a shawl around her shoulders to keep the chill away and Lombardi talked of the coming new year and the dawn of a new century. If scientists were courageous in their pursuit of truth, the science of mental power would dominate the 20th century the same way the science of mechanical power dominated the 19th century. There was so much to learn. Whatever happened in the upcoming test, he believed Alessandra’s powers were genuine.

When the meal was over, and the coffee and
sfogliatelle
arrived, Lombardi reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a telegram.

“I received this from Dr. Renard last week.”

It was an invitation to Lombardi to move to Paris. A French industrialist had bequeathed 25,000 francs to Renard’s Institut Métapsychique to explore mediumship “without prejudice and with the same dispassion Science brings to the examination of any observed phenomenon which excites the imagination of mankind.” Lombardi would be named director of the new research program.

He looked at Alessandra. “I’ve accepted his offer. I leave for France January second. ”

The pain in Alessandra’s eyes was unmistakable.

Lombardi reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a second piece of paper, and pushed it across the table to Alessandra.

“Come with me, Alessandra.”

She stared at the document. I could see a Ministry of Justice seal at the top.

“What…what is it, Camillo?”

“A divorce decree. My marriage is over. I’m going to start a new life in Paris.” He took her hand in his and kissed it. “Come with me. Live with me. But only if you want.”

He reached into his jacket pocket one last time and handed Alessandra a linen envelope with her name written on it.

“This is for you – whatever you decide.”

Alessandra looked at him.

“Go ahead,” he said.” Open it.”

Alessandra opened the envelope. Inside was 10,000
lire
.

“For you, if you decide you still want to move to Rome, to find an apartment of your own, with a flowerpot on a sunny windowsill, and a cat to keep you company.”

Alessandra looked at me, then at Lombardi.

“Camillo…I…I…” She stared at the money.

“You don’t have to decide tonight,” he said. “We’ll talk after the test.”

I
found the envelope on my desk at the
Mattino
the next morning.

I hung up my coat, slid into my chair, and opened it.

I stared at the note, my head spinning.

Was it a trap by Pigotti?

Possible. He could easily pick a lock and lay low for her in the cathedral, but the handwriting seemed too elegant, the phrasing too refined for an illiterate street thug like him. I waved the envelope at Carlo, the reporter who sat next to me in the newsroom.

“Who dropped this off?”

“A priest.” He kept pounding his typewriter.

“A priest?”

Carlo looked up. “He was wearing a cassock.”

I should have put two and two together, but I had drunk a lot the night before.

“Thanks,” I said. “If Venzano comes looking for me, remind him I’m at Court all day – the Colonna murder.”

I shoved the note in my pocket and headed for Alessandra’s apartment.

I knew one thing – if Alessandra decided to go, I was going with her.

T
he cathedral was dark and empty as we stumbled down the nave.

I never liked the place. When I was six years old, my mother took me to the Chapel to see the miracle of the blood, along with half of Naples. A priest holds up this silver reliquary containing the dried blood of decapitated San Gennaro, and everybody prays hard, and the blood turns to liquid. Sometimes it even boils. You can see it with your own eyes. It scared the shit out of me. When we got home, I told my mother I never wanted to go there again.

Ahead of us, we could see the flicker of votive candles coming from the Chapel. When we reached the door I stepped into the shadows.

“I’ll stay here,” I whispered.

Alessandra nodded and turned into the chapel. I peered in. The Chapel was empty except for a solitary nun kneeling at the communion rail, praying her rosary before the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Alessandra looked around, puzzled, then looked back at me. I shrugged my shoulders. We were a few minutes early.

Alessandra advanced towards the nun.

“Sister…?”

The nun kissed her crucifix, rose from her knees, then turned and looked at Alessandra. She was young, in her twenties maybe. But her face was hard and her voice harsh. She pointed to a pew.

‘Sit down,” she ordered.

Alessandra hesitated, then did what she was told.

“You are in danger of losing your immortal soul. Satan is using you to lead the faithful astray.”

Alessandra looked at her bewildered. “Who are you?”

“Your daughter – conceived in lust, abandoned at birth, and raised by the kindness of the good sisters of Santissima Bambina.”

Alessandra sat there for what seemed an eternity. Then she stood up and reached out her hand to her daughter. “
Tesoro mio
!” she said softly. My treasure.

In the candlelight, I could see the tears in Alessandra’s eyes.

The nun pulled back.

“I do not want to know you,” she said curtly. “I am only here to bring you a message from the Holy Father in Rome. The Devil is using you to cause thousands of simple Christians to abandon their childhood faith for the heresy of Spiritualism. The Holy Father will reveal your sin to the world – and expose us both to shame – unless you withdraw from the test.”

The Weasel had it figured out. If Alessandra quit, she would be declared a fraud, her every miracle suspect. The sheep would turn once again to the Shepherd for guidance.

But Alessandra hadn’t heard a word.

“I never abandoned you,” she said softly, a tear running down her cheek. “They wouldn’t let me keep you.” She wiped the tear away with her sleeve. “What did they name you?”

“My name is of no importance. It is enough to know that I pray for you, and the boy you led astray. Be not deceived! The lust of the flesh bringeth forth sin, and fornication bringeth a punishment of eternal damnation!”

“The boy?” Alessandra sounded bewildered.

The nun looked at her with scorn. “My father, Ivano – the circus acrobat you slept with. The holy sisters told me the shameful story.”

Alessandra staggered backwards.

“Is that what they told you?” She crumpled to her knees and slammed her fists on the floor, her howls of rage filling the Chapel as Sister Magdalena fled past me.

I ran to Alessandra and pulled her to me and held her as tight as I could, trying to stifle her screams, terrified that the sacristan would come running with a kitchen knife. But no one came. I rocked her back and forth in my arms until she finally exhausted herself and I pushed her hair back and kissed her forehead, my fingers stroking her tear-stained cheek.

“Alessandra, everyone makes mistakes in life,” I said. “You were young.”

She sat there in silence, in the gloom, her head down. When she finally spoke, her voice was flat, emotionless.

“I saw the circus. Ivano taught me how to juggle. Then he left. That’s all that happened. I never slept with him.”

I stared at her. “Then who‘s the father?” She looked at the floor.

“Father Angelo.”

The shock I felt that night I still feel, twenty years later. Alessandra wrapped her arms around herself, the tears welling up in her eyes once again.