The Witch of Napoli (16 page)

“Grab hold!” I yelled, sticking my hand out to haul Alessandra aboard.

“Join us!” she shouted, and yanked me in.

I surfaced sputtering and Lombardi paddled over to crown my head with his straw hat. Then the two idiots started singing “Santa Lucia” again.

• • •

That evening after supper, I made my way down to the lake to look for my journal, which I had left in the cabin of the boat. I found it, and was climbing back up the steps to the deck when I heard voices. I popped my head out and saw Lombardi and Alessandra heading for the dock. In the deepening twilight, I could see they were walking close together, and he was holding her hand.

Curious, I slipped back down the ladder, and snuffed out the lamp. The night was perfectly still, and I could hear them coming closer, whispering to each other. Their footsteps echoed on the wooden dock and stopped, then Lombard’s voice called out softly.

“Shall we sit here?”

“What a beautiful night, Camillo.”

I slid over to a porthole and peered out. The two of them were sitting on the dock, their shoes off. The moon cast a long, silver shadow across the water. Out on the lake, a flock of swans silently breasted through the shimmering light. Alessandra loosened the comb from her hair, letting it fall to her shoulders, then leaned back and looked up.

“The stars!” she murmured. “Look at them.”

Lombardi lifted his face towards the heavens, and they both sat there in silence.

She suddenly turned to him. “What month were you born?”

“Why?” he replied.

“Tell me.”

“Alright…February.”

“I thought so.”

He reached for her hand. “You sound disappointed.”

“You’re water. I’m fire.”

“Astrology?” There was amusement in his voice. “Don’t tell me you believe in that unscientific nonsense, Alessandra.”

She pulled her hand away and stood up.

“The Milky Way.” She pointed her finger at the luminous arc of galaxies and stars that glittered above their heads, her finger tracing its majestic sweep across the zodiac. “Dr. Sapienti told me it has a million stars, Camillo. Can you believe that?”

“Come, then, sit down here beside me. We’ll count them together.”

Alessandra giggled. “Am I safe?”

“I haven’t a drop of English blood in my veins. Your virtue is safe with me.” Lombardi dusted the dock with his handkerchief, then reached up and grasped Alessandra’s hand. “But if you’re worried, I can send for Master Labella to play chaperone.”

“I’ll use your shoes.” Alessandra positioned his shoes between them and sat down.

Lombardi grinned. “Hardly a credible barrier to intimacy.”

“You told me you were a gentleman.”

He laughed. “I was hoping you had forgotten.” They fell silent again, gazing at the stars. Alessandra shivered, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I should have brought a sweater. The nights are so much colder than Naples.”

“Here. This will help.” Lombardi took off his jacket. “With your permission,
Signora
…” He pushed the shoes aside, reached over, and wrapped it around her shoulders, brushing back her hair. He returned the shoes. “See, a perfect gentleman.”

Alessandra pushed the shoes away and leaned against him. He seemed surprised. He put his arm around her. “It’s the mountain air.”

Up at the house, you could hear Zoe singing, her voice floating down to us on the evening air. Lombardi’s voice, low and soft, found the spaces.

“You’ve never been to Paris?”

“No. Is it nice?”

“It’s the most beautiful city in the world. “The City of Lights –
La Ville Lumière.
You’re going to love Paris, Alessandra.”

“But I don’t speak French.” She sounded unsure.

“But I do. I can’t wait to show you everything.” He caught himself. “– and Tommaso, of course. The three of us. There’s a restaurant near the Champ de Mars I want to take you to…”

“Tante Alessandra! Tante Alessandra!”

Zoe’s voice broke the stillness, scattering the swans. “
Dove sei?
Where are you?
Dove sei!”
Zoe was running down the lawn, come to fetch her Alessandra.

Alessandra jumped up and grabbed her shoes. “Here,
bambina
! I’m here! Tante Alessandra is coming.”

Lombardi sat there on the dock for a moment, then sighed, scooped up his jacket, and started after her.

It was clear he was falling for Alessandra.

P
rofessor Fournier didn’t believe in spirits.

Like Lombardi and every other scientist who tested Alessandra that summer of ’99, he believed in the laws of physics – force, motions, and energy. The only thing he wanted to see Alessandra do was to levitate a table, or move a matchbox, or ring a bell – telekinetic effects that could be calculated, measured, photographed, recorded.

But Madame Aubertin believed in spirits, and she was desperate.

The evening we first arrived in Switzerland, a short, aristocratic-looking woman, about Alessandra’s age, showed up at Fournier’s house. She was dressed in mourning clothes and carried a little Papillon spaniel in a basket.

“Madame Aubertin is a friend of the family,” Fournier explained, passing the basket to Alessandra. “And this is Phalene.” The little dog licked Alessandra’s hand and she took it into her lap, delighted to pet it. “Madame recently lost someone very close to her. She asked me if she could intrude on our experiments before we start, in hopes you could communicate with that loved one. I told her you would try your best.”

Aubertin took a chair next to Alessandra, and lifted the black veil from her face. She had dark rings around her eyes, like she hadn’t slept in a long time.

“
Signora
, I know you are busy, but if you could understand the pain I feel in my heart…”

before Fournier finished his translation, Alessandra leaned over and embraced Aubertin.

“
Signora
… ” She gestured toward the sitting room. “
Per piacere, venga
.” Come with me.

Alessandra took charge of the sitting that night, holding one hand of Madame Aubertin while Josephine took the other. Fournier had never done a sitting to communicate with the dead, and was clearly skeptical, but he joined in the prayer, as did Lombardi for once.

“Spirits come!” Alessandra intoned. “Spirits come!” She closed her eyes and we all sat there in the dark, waiting for the spirits to show up. Next to me, head bowed, Madame Aubertin whispered her Ave Marias. I kept nervously glancing over my shoulder. Would the dead person suddenly show up behind a chair, like Lombardi’s mother?

After perhaps ten minutes of silence, Alessandra suddenly spoke up.

“There is someone here,” she announced. “A girl….young girl… brown hair…short white skirt…ribbon…blue ribbon in her hair…”

Madame Aubertin ‘s eyes were open now, looking at Alessandra intently.

“…she is holding a stick and a…circle…wood?…She hits the circle, and rolls it…rolls it along, hitting it. Now she is smiling, pointing to the basket, to Phalene ….then she points to herself…her dog?…”

Tears were glistening in the corners of Madame Aubertin’s eyes. Alessandra’ s own eyes were still closed

“…She says her name now…Em…Em…Emma, Emme… ?

A tear ran down Aubertin’s cheek.

“Aimee,” she whispered. “Her name was Aimée.”

“Aimée, yes, she is nodding ….she points to her neck…no, her throat…something wrong….she swallows…it hurts…she is shivering…”

Aubertin was sobbing.

“She wants you to know she is all right…. she smiles ….she is standing next to an older man, old man…odd hat…he shows me something…a book… or notebook with writing inside….can’t read the words…he puts the book in a bag…now he takes her hand…”

Aimee was Madame Aubertin’s only child, just eleven years old when she died of diphtheria. The old man was Aimee’s grandfather, who wore a beret and walked Aimée to school every morning.

That night before leaving Madame Aubertin embraced Alessandra for a long time, before pressing some money in her hand, but Alessandra refused to take it.

A
lessandra could raise more than the dead.

During the two weeks we were there, she levitated a solid crystal vase of lilies, a music box, and a heavy, leather-bound dictionary. She also sounded a harmonica placed in a locked box, and stopped Josephine’s mechanical metronome – once halting the pendulum swing for three full seconds.

And then there was the cuckoo clock.

Josephine wanted to get rid of it – “that old piece of junk” didn’t fit in her modern house – but the clock had been in Dr. Fournier’s family for a half-century and he wasn’t about to dump it in the trash. All day long, the clock would chime at the hour, a little mechanical bird would pop out of a door at the top, flap its wings and tail and whistle two notes “Coo-Koo!” Then a music box inside the clock would play a little melody.

Alessandra and Zoe would count down the bongs together, then join the bird in flapping their arms and calling out “Coo-Koo!”

Fournier noticed their antics and, one evening after dinner as we all sat around the table, he pointed to the clock. It was 7: 55 PM. Could Alessandra use her telekinetic powers to stop the cuckoo bird from popping out of the little door when the hour struck?

“Do it, and we’ll skip the sitting tonight,” Fournier promised her. Lombardi smiled his agreement. Zoe jumped from her chair and ran to Alessandra.

“Do it, Tante Alessandra! Then you can play charades with us tonight.”

Alessandra looked unsure.

“Chi non risica non rosica,”
I teased. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

A minute before 8:00, Alessandra pulled Zoe into her lap and glared at the clock. “I wanted the cuckoo to feel
afraid
to come out,” she told me afterwards. Zoe imitated her, frowning, tiny fists clenched tight.

We sat there as the seconds counted down for what seemed an eternity before the minute hand finally landed on 8:00 PM. I held my breath as the hours sounded.

Bong…Bong…Bong …Bong…Bong…Bong…Bong…Bong
then…

…nothing.

The door remained shut.

I stared at the clock. Alessandra had a big grin on her face.

Zoe grabbed Alessandra’s hand. “Come Tante Alessandra! Let’s go play charades.”

“Go ahead,” Lombardi laughed, shaking his head.

Fournier and Lombardi walked over and peered at the clock. The minute hand now showed 8:01. The rest of the clock was obviously working fine. Fournier tapped on the door, his amazement already turned to analysis.
How
exactly had Alessandra stopped the bird from coming out? Exerted a mental force on the door to keep it closed? Damaged the mechanism?

I left to join the charades. We could hear the two of them in the kitchen, parsing the possibilities. Josephina shouted to her husband to dismantle the clock and look inside.

“Maybe he won’t be able to put it back together,” she laughed, “and I can get rid of it.”

An hour later, we all gathered in the kitchen and watched the clock. Nine bells chimed, the door popped open, the bird popped out, and the two tiny pipes inside sounded their duet.

“Coo-Koo.”

L
ombardi didn’t want to invite D’Argent.

We were all sitting out on the terrace that Sunday when Fournier suggested his crazy idea. Zoe and Alessandra were playing tag on the lawn, and I was working my way through a French phrase book, though my eye kept getting drawn to the spectacular view. In the distance, the breathtaking, snow-capped peak of Mont Blanc rose up in the June sunshine. Dr. Fournier and the family always spent the Christmas holidays there skiing. Fournier looked up from his newspaper.

“A well-known Paris stage magician is in town. He’s playing at the Théâtre de Genève.”

Lombardi looked puzzled. “And…?”

“He’s performed for Emperor Napoleon and the President of France. He says he attended séances in Paris, and investigated French mediums.” He passed the paper to Lombardi. “I wonder if we…”

Lombardi looked at him. “You’re not thinking of inviting him to a sitting, are you?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s absolutely mad. Why?”

“Why not? Alessandra’s doing spectacularly well.”

Fournier refilled Lombardi’s wine glass. “We know Huxley’s going to release his report on Ile Ribaud soon, and he’ll make it sound like you were duped. What better way to counter that than have a famous magician declare Alessandra’s real?”

“But what if she fails?”

“Possible. But look what she produced for Negri in Genoa. And she’s done some amazing things this week, and she’ll be doing the sitting right here, surrounded by people who believe in her.”

Lombardi handed the paper back to Fournier. “No. It’s too risky. I won’t allow it.” Fournier persisted.

“You took a terrible risk at Ile Ribaud, with Huxley breathing down her neck.”

“I had no choice! Renard got me into it.”

“And look what you got out of it! You got Renard to stand with you. What was that worth? I’ll be frank, Camillo – you wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t given his imprimatur. ” He leaned forward. “You already know what Huxley is going to say – she’s just a clever trickster, that’s all, and academics are easy to dupe. But if a professional magician tests her, and comes away convinced – or even comes away puzzled – you’ve got your riposte to Huxley’s report, and a damn good one.”

“We don’t even know him. We would need an introduction…”

Fournier smiled. “I know the theater owner. He banks with our family. I’m sure he booked our Monsieur D’Argent.”

Lombardi stared at his wine glass, silent. Finally Fournier spoke up.

“Why not let Alessandra decide?”

Lombardi sighed, then turned to me. “Tommaso, go get Alessandra.”

A
lessandra teased D’Argent’s assistant shamelessly.

Philippe was broad-shouldered and handsome – in his late twenties, I’d guess – with dark curly hair, cognac brown eyes, and a sense of mischief about him.

Alessandra flirted openly with men she found attractive. She truly enjoyed the company of men, but I think it was more than that. Pigotti was insanely jealous, and it was a way she could hurt him back. Huxley had already begun spreading the rumor that she was having affairs with both Renard and Lombardi.