The Witch of Napoli (19 page)

Except Alessandra, because her eyes were shut.

The third time around, Lombardi finally talked her into opening her eyes. The fourth go-around, she was standing next to the window oohing and ahhing with the rest of us. When the wheel finally stopped, I hopped off and she and Lombardi took another spin, Alessandra happily waving at me each time they swooped by, Lombardi with his hand on her shoulder and a grin on his face.

Alessandra had a great time that afternoon, but she fought all evening with Weitzel.

On the way to the experiment room, we passed by a laboratory where stacks of caged dogs howled and whimpered. She asked Weitzel what was going on, and he said they were going to be used for medical research. The average Neapolitan wouldn’t think twice about drowning a sack of kittens, or tying a string to a bird’s leg and swinging it around his head, but Alessandra had a soft spot for animals, and they fell into a heated argument. Weitzel told her that animals don’t really feel pain – they’re just “machines made out of flesh,” as he put it – and when she continued arguing, he suggested testily that she spend less time talking with spirits and more time studying science. By the time we got to the test room, they were shouting at each other.

Weitzel’s students were waiting for Alessandra when we got there. She was quickly steered over to the table, told to sit down, and two of Weitzel’s students brought out a folding pasteboard screen which they placed between Alessandra’s legs and the table.

“
Cosa fanno
?” Alessandra demanded. What the hell were they doing?

They hesitated, and looked towards Weitzel who was talking with Lombardi. Weitzel walked over.

“It’s part of the experiment,” he told her curtly. “To keep your dress from touching the table. Professor Lombardi told you about it.” He turned to Lombardi. “Didn’t you?”

Alessandra glared at Lombardi. “
Cosa?”

Lombardi looked at her sheepishly. “Dr. Negri noticed during one table levitation that your dress puffed out until it touched and partially covered one foot of the table. Theoretically, it might allow you to…”

She stared at him. Lombardi looked at Weitzel.

“Dr. Weitzel’s team wants to eliminate the possibility of…”

Alessandra’s eyes narrowed. “Of what?”

“Fraud.” Weitzel stared back at her, arms folded.

“You’re accusing me of cheating?”

Lombardi grabbed her arm. “Alessandra! Enough!” He pointed to the chair. “Sit down! Nobody is accusing you of anything. It’s a scientific experiment – that’s all.”

They argued about the gas lights. Alessandra wanted the room darker. Weitzel vetoed it. Alessandra wanted the assistants to simply place their hands on top of hers, not hold her fingers. Weitzel vetoed it. She wanted the screen moved slightly to the left – she needed more room for her knees. They argued over that for five minutes. Finally Weitzel slammed his fist on the table and jabbed his finger in her face.

“You’re stalling! You can’t do anything with the screen in front of you – can you?” He looked at her contemptuously. “You’re a fraud. Go back to Naples and entertain your credulous countrymen.”

I expected Alessandra to jump up and slap him. Instead, she sat there, staring hard at him, her jaw set. Lombardi came over and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Alessandra…”

She jerked away from him, her eyes still fixed on Weitzel.

“I’m ready,” she said.

Weitzel’s assistants intertwined their fingers with Alessandra’s, the gas lamp was turned down, and we started. There was no prayer, no call to the spirits. Alessandra immediately locked her gaze on the hated pasteboard screen. Five minutes into the sitting, the assistant on Alessandra’s right lifted his head and sniffed the air. He looked around puzzled, sniffing again. Across the room, I suddenly caught the smell –the acrid whiff of smoldering paper. I looked over at Alessandra, then at the screen. A wisp of smoke had begun to curl from the top corner, illuminated by the flickering lamp as it climbed towards the ceiling.

At the end of the table, Weitzel stood up and wrinkled his nose.

“I smell…”

The pasteboard screen burst into flames.

“Get back! Get back!” someone shouted. Everybody started yelling, falling down, trying to escape, Weitzel flailing at the fire with his coat. Lombardi lunged for Alessandra, flames now licking at her skirt. I heard a scream and saw Weitzel’s assistant slapping his shirt sleeve which had caught fire. Weitzel stepped back, a look of horror on his face, then turned and sprinted for the door.

“Get out!” Lombardi yelled at me. The three of us stumbled into the hall, choking and coughing from the smoke. People were running up the hall carrying buckets of water. We made our way down the stairs and outside to the street where we found Weitzel and his assistants huddled together near a bench, dazed looks on their faces. Weitzel had lost a shoe in his mad scramble to escape.

Alessandra marched over to Weitzel.

“
Vafanculo
!” she said.

Then she turned to Lombardi.

“Take me back to the hotel.”

The next morning, Lombardi talked with Weitzel and they mutually agreed to cancel the second test.

B
y the time we reached Munich, Alessandra was ready to quit.

She was still angry and upset at Weitzel’s rude treatment, her cough had worsened, and the bleeding hadn’t completely stopped.

It was a gray and rainy Sunday. Alessandra came down late for breakfast, and Lombardi and I were already drinking our coffee. After we ordered, he leaned forward and tried a smile on her.

“Well, sleepyhead, would you like to come with me to Baron von Weibel’s castle to see the arrangements for tomorrow night?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she snapped.

I tried one. I picked up the breadbasket and passed it across the table to Alessandra.

“Would
Frau
Poverelli care for a
Brötchen
?”

Alessandra reached for it just as a waiter leaned over to fill her water glass, and he spilled the pitcher on her arm.

“
Porca miseria
!” she cried. Lombardi jumped up with his napkin to dry her off, but she pushed him away.

“I don’t need your help!” she said.

She threw her napkin on the table and stomped back upstairs to her room. Lombardi shook his head and sat back down.

‘What’s the matter with her, Tommaso?”

“She’ll be alright,” I said. I had already turned my attention to the giant platter of ham, sausages and cheeses the waiter was laying on the table. I was eager to start eating.

“
Buon appetito
,” I said.

Lombardi sighed.

“Well, stay here and keep an eye on her today.”

I spent the afternoon in the library. It was a dark and gloomy room, with heavy furniture and an empty fireplace. The room was deserted except for an elderly man dressed in a black Sunday suit and vest, with a high starched collar, sitting in a leather chair with a monocle in his eye, reading a newspaper. He looked at me sourly when I entered.

Church bells tolled in the distance and I walked over to the window. Heavy maroon curtains blocked most of the weak light from the leaden sky outside. I looked out onto the street. The rain was falling steadily, water rushing down the gutters. A newspaper boy was sitting in an archway across the street, his cap pulled down over his face, a stack of newspapers at his side. He was looking at the sole of his shoe, which had a big hole in it. He took his shoe off, stuffed a wad of paper in it, and put it back on. A carriage passed by and he hopped up, ran out into the rain and chased it down the street, waiving a paper, but it didn’t stop. He dejectedly returned to his shelter.

When I turned around, the old man with the newspaper was talking heatedly in German to the desk clerk who had slipped into the room. All I caught was
schwartze
. That’s what the German tourists called me when I was selling post cards back in Naples. It means black, and he obviously didn’t like the idea that I was in the library. The other thing they always called us was
makaronifresser
– macaroni eaters.

The clerk whispered something in his ear, he glared at me, then got up and shuffled out, leaving the room to me. All the magazines were in German, but I flipped through a few, looking at the photographs – the Kaiser on a horse reviewing troops, a photo of a big battleship being launched, a football team scoring a goal. I finally headed back to my room. I tapped on Alessandra’s door as I passed by but she didn’t answer. I figured she was sleeping.

I was wrong.

“
W
here the devil is she?” Lombardi complained.

We had been sitting there for a half an hour waiting for her to show up to eat. He looked at his watch. “7:30 already. Tommaso, go up and get her.”

I knocked on her door. No answer. I knocked again.

“Go away!” It was Alessandra.

“It’s me, Tommaso,” I said. “Lombardi is waiting for you downstairs. You’re late for dinner.”

No answer. I tried the doorknob. It was unlocked, so I opened the door.

Alessandra was sitting at her desk wearing nothing but her drawers and a chemise, a bottle of wine in her hand. A second bottle, empty, lay on the floor at her feet. The closet was open, and a jumble of clothes was stuffed into a half-packed bag on her bed.

“Tommaso?” She held out the bottle. “Find a glass.”

I snatched the bottle from her hand.

“Jesus, where did you get this?” I demanded.

“Room service.” She lunged for the bottle. “Give it back.”

I swept the empty bottle off the floor, dumped the half-finished one in the bathroom sink, and hid the empties behind the toilet. I hurried back out, grabbed Alessandra’s dress from her bag, yanked her to her feet, shoved the dress into her hand, and steered her towards the bathroom.

“Get dressed!” I shouted. “Lombardi may come looking for us any minute.”

“Fuck him!” she said, pulling her arm away. She stood there, hands on her hips. “Give me the bottle, Tommaso.”

I should have locked the door. I heard a man’s voice in the hallway outside.

“Tommaso? Alessandra?”

I watched horrified as the doorknob turned and Lombardi stepped into the room.

L
ombardi’s jaw dropped.

He stared at Alessandra, his face beet red, then turned his head away.

“Good God, woman, get dressed.”

Alessandra walked over to the bed, sat down and folded her arms.

“Why? Time for your monkey to put on a show? Did you bring your organ?” She grabbed the pillow and flung it at him. “That’s all I am. A trained monkey!”

“Stop it, Alessandra!” Lombardi picked up the pillow.

Alessandra glared at him. “I’m sick and tired of all your stupid experiments, your theories, your poking and prodding. You want to know how I levitate a table? THE SPIRITS DO IT! How do they do it? I don’t know, and I don’t care!”

She jumped off the bed, reached down, grabbed her shoe and flung that at him. “
Basta!
” Lombardi ducked as the boot whizzed by his ear.

“Stop it! Do you want to be sent home?”

“Sent home? You don’t have to send me home – I quit!” She grabbed a corset out of her bag and started putting it on. “I’m tired of being in your freak show.”

Lombardi blushed. “Tommaso, go back to your room. I’ll deal with Alessandra.”

Alessandra walked over to the window and leaned her head against the window.

“Oh God, I am so tired of everything.”

And she began to cry.

N
either Lombardi nor Alessandra showed up for dinner.

I finally ordered something, ate by myself, then returned to my room and started packing my bag. I knew Lombardi was going to terminate us. Alessandra had blown it, so close to the finish line – only Warsaw and Paris left on the tour. Two stops. Then she could have demanded her 4,000
lire
. Instead, she was going back to Naples broke, and Pigotti would eventually find her. There was no place to hide. The Camorra had spies everywhere in the city. And when he found her, he would mess her up bad. She had gotten so close, but her dream was dead.

I was asleep when I heard a soft knock on my door.

I looked over at the clock. It was almost midnight. I heard another tap, then a faint voice.

“
Psst!
Tommaso! It’s me.”

I slipped on my trousers and hurried over to the door. I peeked out and Alessandra was standing in the hall in her petticoat. She slipped inside and I quickly closed the door behind her.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“I have to talk to you.”

“So it’s over?” I asked her.

“No,” she said. “It’s… it’s…” She shook her head. “Tommaso, it’s so crazy…”

“What do you mean?” I demanded.

She went over to the bed and sat down. She looked dazed.

“Well?”

“After you left, he asked me to sit down and said he was tired of the tour too, and fighting with his university, and he’s thinking of moving to Paris. He knows the city from his school days, and he says Renard can help him find a position.”

“He’s thinking of leaving Italy?”

“And his wife. He’s filing for divorce”

“You’re kidding!”

Alessandra looked at me. “He told me things, Tommaso. He’s unhappy in his marriage. He hasn’t slept with his wife for three years. I felt sorry for him, Tommaso. He’s not a bad man.”

Alessandra leaned forward.

“He…he has feelings for me, Tommaso. He said I’m the first woman he’s met that he can’t figure out – and he’s a psychiatrist.” She smiled. “He said I made his life exciting.”

“You’re pretty good at leading men around by the nose,” I said.

“It’s more than that, Tommaso. I’ve come to like him, to admire him. He’s got courage, Tommaso. When he believes in something, he doesn’t care what other people think. He’s risking everything because he believes in me.”

She paused.

“He wants me to go to Paris with him.”

“You’re kidding!” I was floored.

“He has an inheritance, and he still has an apartment there – from his medical school days. He said we could live together first. He said they’re more open in Paris about those things. Then when his divorce came through, we could marry.”