The Visitant: A Venetian Ghost Story (15 page)

He went on, “I’ve told you I’ll stay with you upstairs. You won’t let me. Samuel tells you to leave. You won’t. You won’t stop the medicine, for whatever reason. What can I say that hasn’t already been said? I don’t know why you’re so insistent about the laudanum and the wine, frankly. Take him to his parents and let him fool them the way he always has. He’s happy, you get whatever it is they’ve promised you, and”—a snap of his fingers—“all is right with the world.”

I raised my gaze to his. “Before the beating . . . did he . . . did you ever . . . had you any reason to think he might be . . .”

“Insane?” He drank the rest of his wine, poured more; the
glug splash glug
filled my ears. “Perhaps now and then. But then, when we were together, well . . . let’s just say there were usually other things involved as well.”

“Laudanum, you mean. Or drink.”

“Yes. And opium. Absinthe, which would turn the sanest man into a lunatic. Cocaine. Hashish. Wine, women, and song.” He lifted his glass in tribute and drank again. “Shall I go on?”

“I believe I have the general idea,” I said.

Again that amused glance. “You sound disapproving. Tell me, cara, have you ever done what you knew you should not just for the sheer joy of it?”

“I sneaked into the kitchen once to eat cake when I shouldn’t. Does that count?”

“Not good enough,” he said. “Have you ever been drunk?”

I shook my head.

“Have you ever taken laudanum until you were stupefied?”

“My father is a doctor. He would never allow it.”

“And you never sneaked any on your own?”

The hallway, quiet but for my shuffling. No lamplight to give myself away. The creak of the door, swiftly silenced. The quick look around to be certain I hadn’t been discovered, my heart pounding in my ears, my breath too fast. The bottle in my hands, shoved into my pocket.
“I would not,” I said quietly.

“No cocaine, then,” he said.

“I wouldn’t even know what to do with it,” I told him.

“Tobacco?”

“It’s vile.”

“What about lovemaking?” he asked.

I went hot, again, with a longing that frightened me. I saw the way he noted it, the small smile on his lips, the way his eyes did not leave my face though I willed him to look away.

“Well?” he went on. “Have you ever kissed someone just because you wanted to? Only because you were hungry for it, and you didn’t care what else might happen? You weren’t thinking of love, or marriage. You just wanted to appease a desire.”

“Once,” I said.
His hand cupping my chin. Leaning in. Feeling his breath against my lips.

“Not that kiss I walked in on?”

“That wasn’t my doing.”

His gaze was probing. “I think you’re lying. I think you’ve always expected something from a kiss. A future. Perhaps love. I think the kiss you speak of had all those things wrapped up in it. It wasn’t only about desire.”

“We’ll leave together, you and me. We’ll make a future together. I’ll show you the world.

We’ll be married at that little church down the road.”

“Ah,” Nero said. “I’m right. I can see you haven’t risked everything for a momentary pleasure.”

“I’m not . . . I’m not that kind of woman.”

“What kind of woman is that?”

“A . . . a woman who is not respectable.”

“A whore, you mean? But I’m not talking about whores. Desire has nothing to do with them, only money. I’m talking about decadence, which I’m trying very hard to lead you into. But you won’t even drink your wine, so it’s much more difficult than it should be.”

“I’ve told you ruin is not what I’m looking for.”

“I don’t want to ruin you, Elena,” he said with a smile. “I’m trying to get you drunk enough that you forget this mess of a world. I’m trying to get you to relax, because after last night, you look as if you need it. I’m trying to get you to forget your patient, who has an intimate enough knowledge of decadence and ruin that it’s no doubt rotted his brain, though it may look like madness to you.”

My hand tightened on my glass. “I’ll lower his dosage. You’re right; it needs a change.”

He looked at me as if he were trying to decide whether or not to believe me. I glanced away, taking refuge in wine. One sip, another. That burning I was starting to enjoy, the growing warmth in my stomach. The wine tasted better with every mouthful.

He said, “Let me stay up there with you.”

I shook my head.

“Then I want you to take this.” He reached into the pocket of his coat, pulling out something dark, laying it on the table. It was a moment before I recognized it: his knife, sheathed, the Basilio rising sun on its handle.

I stared at him stupidly.

He slid the blade out, turning it so it caught the light. He touched the edge with his thumb, barely pressing. It raised a thin line of blood. “It’s very sharp, so you should be careful. Keep it sheathed, but within reach. It will dissuade him, I promise you.”

The thought of taking the knife, of using it, was unfathomable. “I can’t. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t even know how.”

“I’ll show you, though it won’t take much finesse to put him off. Slice. Or stab. One or the other will do.”

“I couldn’t hurt him.”

“You’d let him hurt you instead?” He slid the knife back into the sheath and held it out to me. “Take it. Please.”

I shook my head. “I don’t need it.”

He made a sound of frustration. “Elena. Please. There’s too much unhappiness is this house already. It’s burden enough. I would not be able to bear it if he hurt you or . . . or worse. I’d feel responsible.”

“You shouldn’t. You’ve been so kind. No one would blame you.”

“I would blame myself. Take the knife. I’ll sleep better knowing you have it.”

I didn’t want it. I didn’t want the responsibility of it. I didn’t want to admit what taking the knife forced me to admit—that Samuel was dangerous, that he might be mad, that he had hurt me and frightened me and would do so again. I didn’t want to acknowledge the danger I’d felt in the air. The way his eyes had darkened.
How fast your little heart is beating.

I took the knife reluctantly, turning it over in my hand.

“Like this,” Nero said, leaning close. His hands were much warmer than mine, which lately felt perpetually cold. His fingers were as gentle as I’d remembered them last night, when he checked the wound on my foot. Again, so intimate.

He guided my hand to slide the knife out. “Hold it like this.” Turning my hand to press the knife handle against my palm. Heavy and lethal. “Like this”—a quick stabbing motion, a slice. “Or this”—he brought it to his throat—“see here? A flick of the wrist, and it’s all over. But I would prefer you not take it so far. Probably just the sight of it will put him off.” He released me, sitting back, smiling grimly. “Keep it with you at all times. Don’t hesitate to draw it on him if you need to.”

“But what will you do without it? And it’s obviously a family heirloom. I can’t just take it.”

“You’re only borrowing it. I’ll expect its return when the medicine starts to work and he’s no longer a threat. As you keep telling me, it won’t be long.”

Carefully, I slid the knife back into its sheath. I was not as optimistic as he thought.

“Just try not to stain the carpets, will you? They may be the only things in this house actually worth selling.” His grin was quick, as sharp as the blade in my hand, slicing through my tension.

“Thank you. I’m . . . very grateful. For everything.”

The grin slipped away. His eyes, so intense, caught mine. I did not know how to look away. The moment stretched, and then he shook his head lightly, as if recalling himself. Another quick smile—not so easy this time, pensive instead. He reached for his wine, downing the rest of it. “What do you say, cara, shall we finish the wine? Will you get stinking drunk with me?”

I rose. “I should be getting back. But I appreciate what you’ve done. You’ve comforted me immeasurably.”

He cocked his head, glancing up at me, again that melancholy smile. “What I meant to do was make you forget. The wine will do that, you know. Make it all go away. At least for a few hours. The world will seem very different then. Better.”

“I don’t want to forget,” I said, and it was true. It was only remembering my own mistake and how I must atone for it that gave me the courage to go back to that room, to try to think of a way to save Samuel.

“Ah, well then. Perhaps another time.” Nero looked away, splashing more wine into his cup, and yet there was a studiousness in it that told me he was measuring his every move, his every word. “I’ll come up to see him later this afternoon, if you like.”

“That would be good for him.”

“And you, cara? Would it be good for you?”

Before I could stop or think I said, “Yes.”

He turned a teasing smile on me, and it was all I could do to mumble a good-bye and open the door, and when I stepped outside, I leaned back against the wall, needing to gather myself, feeling stunned and undone by his attention, by the things I wanted. To stay, to get drunk, to forget. To let him lead me where he would. To learn whatever it was he had to show me.

I took a deep breath and started back to the third floor, and Samuel, and it wasn’t until then that I realized that I’d never discovered what it was Nero and his aunt had argued about, or why he had wanted to get lost in a pitcher of wine.

Chapter 18

Samuel was asleep when I returned, which was a welcome reprieve. If my years at Glen Echo had taught me anything at all, it was that madness couldn’t be cured. It could be lulled into obeisance, babied with laudanum and cold baths and calming words, enough so that patients could return to their families—at least for a time, with everyone pretending that all could be normal again, that all that was needed was a nice rest in the country, and
oh, how pink your cheeks are now! How rustication becomes you!

But most came back to Glen Echo, every year or so surrendering to voices or hysteria or melancholia, come to nurse invisible wounds out of sight of society, out of mind.

How often I’d heard bitterness in the voices of the women I’d tended at the asylum. How much they’d feared and hated having to hide the pieces that did not quite lock together. I’d heard it in Samuel’s voice too. Living a lie. The strain of a lifetime of keeping secrets. I had not understood before. Not really.

And perhaps I didn’t understand now, either, but I began to wonder if perhaps it was time to write to my father and tell him what I suspected. I suppose I even wanted him to tell me it was all right to give up, to leave Samuel to himself and the Farbers to their quaint little delusions that he could be the son they wanted.
It will be all right, my dear
, he would say.
We will find another way to survive this.

I wondered what Littlehaven would be like, and whether my cousin would expect me to bake bread, or clean out stalls, or milk cows, and . . . and I felt only a swift and debilitating desperation.
No. Not yet.

I racked my brain, trying to remember my every interaction with other epileptic patients. I studied my father’s notes with renewed vigor. There must be something I’d missed, something that could help me. I was not ready to admit defeat.

I heard a scraping sound, like something heavy being dragged over stone, and I looked up in alarm. Then I heard someone racing down the hallway. There was a frenzied rap on my door.

“Mamzelle! Mamzelle!”

My heart froze. I dropped the pen and jerked to my feet, unlocking the door and pulling it open to find Giulia standing there. Her hair was down, volumes of hair, thick tangles to her waist, and her eyes were wide and frightened.

“Please, mamzelle.” Her gaze darted toward Samuel’s door, which was wide open.

I pushed by her, running to his room, stumbling to a stop just inside. The first thing I noticed was the thick and spicy smell of the sguassetto. The second was the mess. The chair was on its side, halfway across the room—the scraping sound I’d heard—and handkerchiefs were strewn everywhere as if someone had grabbed them from the dresser and tossed them into the air. The drawers were wide open. Sguassetto spilled in an ugly brown pool on the carpet, next to an upturned bowl. The room was frigid, that uncanny cold again. I did not see Samuel anywhere.

But then I heard him. From the other side of the bed came gasping; when I rounded the bedstead, I saw him flat on the floor, and at first I thought he was having a grand mal seizure, but no. He was still but for his breathing, which was staggered and harsh, bursts of icy clouds, only half dissipating before he expelled another.

“Samuel?” I asked.

Nothing. No response. I stepped closer. His eyes were open, but he was staring into space, that distant, faraway look. Whatever he was seeing was not me.

Madness.
I fought the urge to run. This was only a petit mal, wasn’t it? Nothing to be afraid of. I knelt beside him and forced myself to touch his shoulder.

“Samuel,” I said again.

He jerked away and flung out his hand at the same time, a backhanded blow that caught me so hard I fell back, tears stinging my eyes at the pain.

He sat up, enmity in his eyes, nostrils flaring. He began to speak. It sounded like Venetian. Like his singing the other night, it seemed fluent, and I found myself scrabbling away, trying to get beyond his reach, crashing into Giulia’s feet. I’d forgotten completely about her.

She stood watching, her face white, her eyes wide and dark, staring at him as if she could not believe what she saw.

No, no, no.

“Get out of here!” I shouted at her. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She backed away, but not because of my words. It was him she was frightened of, and whatever it was he was saying. It was him she fled, her hair flying out behind her as she turned and ran from the room. I was glad when she was gone. Or at least I was until I realized Samuel was getting to his feet, clutching the bedcovers to help him rise, bringing them and the pillows to the floor in a cascade of fabric. He hadn’t stopped speaking, and now there was an intensity that frightened me, spittle on his lips, his gaze not here but somewhere else. I didn’t understand the words, but I understood the venom in them.

He stumbled, catching himself again, advancing on me where I sat like a helpless bundle. I reached into my pocket for the knife Nero had given me, but it wasn’t there. I’d left it in my bedroom.
So very stupid.
Samuel stared beyond me and spat what sounded like invective. Then his tone changed to a plea, his eyes full of fear. He fell to his knees.

“Samuel,” I whispered, half afraid to call his attention, remembering too well what it had cost me the last time. But that look in his eyes, that raw anguish—I couldn’t let it stay. “Samuel, please. You can make it stop. You can. You must try.”

His gaze jerked to me. “Elena,” he breathed. For a moment, I saw him, a fleeting glimpse of Samuel, and then he was gone. His expression darkened. He got to his feet. I should not have called to him. My instinct to say silent had been right. Why didn’t I have the damn knife? Or morphine. I could sedate him. If I could just get to my room.

But he was coming toward me, angry and menacing.

I scrambled to my feet.

“Elena!”

Nero’s voice came from the hall.

I called, “In here! The bedroom!”

He was there in moments, Giulia running in behind him. She had obviously gone to fetch him, and I felt a rush of gratitude before Nero said sharply, “Samuel!”

Samuel’s head snapped around. Nero came in slowly, raising his hands, palms out. “It’s all right, amìgo.”

Samuel’s entire body stiffened. He lunged at Nero, falling on him so heavily Nero crashed into the wall. I heard the thunk of his head against the plaster, and then they were grappling. Samuel was shouting, garbled words now, no language at all.

“I’ve got morphine,” I said, making for the door.

Nero’s only answer was a terse, “Hurry!”

I pushed past Giulia, who stood wringing her hands, as I rushed to my bedroom. I fumbled to open the medicine case, everything spilling in my haste to find the morphine.
There.
I pulled it out, along with the needle and syringe in its small, hard leather case.

Giulia shouted, sounding panicked.

I opened the case and took out the pieces, screwing the needle to the plunger with trembling fingers. The cork of the bottle was stuck; finally, I pried it loose, set the syringe to it. The plunger froze. I could not get it to move.
Careful. You can do this.
I had done it a hundred times, calming hysterics.

I heard a crash. Giulia shrieked.

Finally, I had the syringe loaded, and I grabbed the knife for good measure, shoving it into my pocket as I ran back. Giulia had not moved. Nero and Samuel were on the floor, rolling, Samuel fighting him in earnest, meaning to do damage while Nero was working to avoid his blows and keep him contained at the same time.

“Try to hold him still!” I directed.

“I can’t,” Nero grunted.

I grabbed for Samuel’s arm, and he threw me off so violently I nearly lost the syringe. I jabbed the needle into his shoulder. He pulled away, dislodging it before I could get the morphine into him. He jammed his arm against Nero’s throat.

“Now,” Nero ordered in a strangled voice. “Do it now!”

I jabbed again, pressing the plunger in the same moment Samuel twisted away, but not before I got most of the drug into him. The syringe went flying, scattering droplets of morphine everywhere.

Nero was choking. For a moment I thought it wouldn’t work. It hadn’t been enough. But just as I thought it, Samuel shook his head, blinking, easing up. Nero gasped a breath. Then Samuel collapsed, unconscious.

I sat back in relief.

Nero pushed off Samuel’s limp body and sat against the wall with a heavy sigh, his curls falling into his face. “What was that?”

I glanced at Giulia, my gratitude gone now in my suspicion that she had caused his fit. “Why not ask her?” And then, before he could, I asked her in French, “What happened?”

She looked at Nero, a look heavy with some hidden import, before she answered. Reluctantly. “He likes sguassetto.”

“I told your mistress he wasn’t to have it.”

She shrugged as if my orders were of no moment. “You keep him like a child. He is a man.”

I ignored that. “What happened then?”

“The chair moved across the room.”

“The chair
what
?
”

“Moved.” She walked her fingers in description.

I remembered Madame Basilio’s comments about Laura’s spirit moving the chair, wanting to be heard. I realized then that I would not get a straight story from Giulia, who was no doubt so encumbered by her mistress’s tales that she would not be able to say what she’d really seen. Nero had said she was his aunt’s creature through and through. I didn’t doubt it. “I see.”

“Then the drawers opened, and the handkerchiefs flew”—she raised her arms, fluttering her fingers with a meaningful glance at Nero, though I had no idea what meaning it was, and he did not even look at her—“and his eyes rolled back in his head and he began to sing. That is when I came to get you.”

I glanced at Samuel, his chest rising and falling steadily now, at peace—or as much as he could be in dreams.

Nero’s expression as he looked at his housekeeper was a mix of contempt and dismay. “That’s quite a tale.”

She shrugged again, staring at him insolently, as if daring him to contradict her.

“What was he saying?” I asked.

“He spoke Venetian,” she said smugly, again that challenge to Nero. “He sang ‘
Un Ziro in Gondola.
’”

Nero stiffened, his expression melting into one of incredulity. The name of the song sounded familiar, and I remembered that Madame Basilio had mentioned it. A favorite of her daughter’s. I understood then what Nero must be feeling, and my heart ached for him.

“He wasn’t singing when I saw him. And he can’t speak Venetian.” I looked at Nero. “Can he?”

“Not that I know,” he said.

“Of course. It was only babbling,” Giulia said, but there was something in her manner that told me she lied. “Nonsense words. Like a baby. Silly rhymes. Poems the washerwomen say.”

Nero stared at Samuel as if my patient held some confusing mystery.

“We should get him to bed,” I said, rising.

Nero nodded. He got to his feet, saying something in Venetian to Giulia, who frowned at him, but, thankfully, stalked off.

“Take his feet,” Nero directed, and the two of us lifted Samuel. He was very heavy, and I was breathing hard before we had deposited him on his mattress. I glanced about the room.

“I suppose I should clean this up,” I said.

Nero shuddered. “I’ll help.”

The two of us began setting things to rights. I was glad he was there, though we spoke little. The room seemed to discourage it with its oppressiveness. I felt almost as if it were pushing me to hurry, to finish, to leave. As if it could not wait for me to be gone.

I glanced at Nero, wondering if he felt the same. He squatted among the mess of handkerchiefs, which were blown about as if by a sudden wind. Squares of fine linen dangled from his hands, and he was staring at them with a heartbroken expression.

As if he felt me watching, he looked up. He gave me a tiny quirk of a smile, and held up a handkerchief. “Laura’s. I hadn’t realized Aunt Valeria kept them.”

“She had one for every gown, it looked like,” I said softly.

“They smell of her. She was the only woman in Venice who wore this perfume. They made it for her in this stinking little shop over on the Merceria. I could barely stand to go inside, but she loved it.”

“The scent is in everything. I get whiffs of it all the time.”

His expression turned quizzical. “Do you? This is the first time I’ve smelled it since she died.”

“Perhaps my nose is too sensitive. You should keep one with you. As a reminder.”

“A reminder of what?”

“Her death was so sudden. Her perfume must be a comfort.”

“I’ve never liked the scent. Too sweet. I found it cloying. And I don’t want to be reminded of her death.”

“No, of course not. Such a terrible accident—”

“It was no accident.”

I wasn’t certain I’d heard him correctly. “What?”

“It wasn’t an accident.” He gathered up the handkerchiefs, one great ball of them, and shoved them almost violently into the open drawer of the dresser. “An accident is what we tell people.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She took her own life.”

He spoke the words so simply, bare fact, no embellishment and no emotion. But I saw in his eyes the same sorrow I’d seen when he’d shown me the purple canal. The same I’d seen in the cupola.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“She threw herself off the balcony,” he said.

“Dear God. How terrible. Why?”

He shrugged. “My aunt believes it’s because I didn’t try to make her happy.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I try not to think about it.” He closed the drawer with emphasis, as if he were putting a period on a sentence. “She was despondent. I was gone. There’s nothing else to say.”

Suddenly, I remembered the canal’s beckoning song as I’d stood on the balcony, my thoughts of falling, of drowning, my memories and my despair called back as if I’d smelled some truth in the air, as if understanding could exist in a whiff of perfume.

I realized he was watching me.