The Witch of Napoli (30 page)

“He…he said I was possessed by the Devil. He tied me to the bed by my hands and my feet, so I couldn’t move. Then he knelt down and said some prayers, then …then he got up and walked over to the door, and bolted it. I tried to free myself from the ropes. .. I was screaming and crying… He…took off his robe and got on top of me…lifted my…my dress…and……” She beat her hands on her knees, rocking back and forth.

”Oh God, Oh God!” Tears streamed down her face.

“I couldn’t get away Tommaso. I couldn’t get away.”

A
lessandra locked herself in her apartment and wept for two days.

I told Lombardi she had gone back to Bari to visit her father’s grave. When she finally came out, she told me she was going to do the sitting. She never told Lombardi about the Church’s threat. She would lose her daughter, and she was coughing up blood on the way to the hotel on the night of December 21, 1899, but she had searched her heart and found the answer.

She loved him.

When our carriage pulled up at the Queen Victoria Hotel that night, half of Naples seemed to be crowded into the Piazza Amedeo, desperate to catch a glimpse of the famous Alessandra. The society swells were already inside the hotel, but Alessandra’s class were jammed elbow to elbow on the pavement outside, craning their necks to catch our arrival – porters and street sweepers, fishmongers and match sellers, beggars and whores. They had come to cheer their Cinderella.

By now, everybody in Naples knew her rags to riches story, her humiliation in England, and her fight for one last chance to redeem herself.

The
Mattino
and the
Piccolo
had launched a circulation war the day Huxley announced he was coming to Italy, and had worked the story for eight weeks, each newspaper dishing up breathless stories and daily updates until everybody in the city was rushing out to buy the latest edition as soon as it hit the streets. Doffo presented it as a prizefight. He drew a poster showing a boxing ring with a fat John Bull knocked on his butt with Alessandra, wearing bloomers sporting the flag of Italy, raising her gloves in triumph. Below it ran “Italy vs. England! December 21! Read the
Mattino
!” Venzano had our newsboys plaster it on the walls of every public building in town. The archbishop of Naples unwittingly helped those who couldn’t read a paper. The Sunday before the showdown, he instructed every parish priest in the city to denounce Alessandra as an agent of the Devil. Cooks and maids and laundresses who hadn’t already heard the lady of the house chattering about Alessandra over the breakfast table suddenly found out, swelling the ranks of the curious. Everybody wanted to see her.

When Alessandra stepped out of the carriage, supported by Lombardi, a great cheer rose up. Surprised, she waved her hand as Renard circled around and steadied her other arm, nervous about the amount of blood she had coughed up in her handkerchief on the way over.

I was alarmed at a guy near the hotel entrance who looked like Vito. But before I could get a second look, someone in the crowd stepped in front of him, blocking my view.

The lobby was packed with newspaper reporters, and photographers. Carbone from the
Messaggero
grabbed me as soon as I stepped inside. He pulled me into a corner.

“I need to talk to you privately after this is over.”

“About what?” I said.

“Our guy at the Vatican got some information this morning. About Alessandra. From someone high up.” He looked at me, and shook his head. “Not good.”

My heart sunk.

“No problem,” I said, trying to sound confident.

Across the room, Venzano was waving at me. Fabio had set up his camera near the staircase and Doffo stood next to him, peering through his thick glasses at a sketch he had just completed.
Signora
Damiano had brought her Naples Spiritualist circle – all twenty of them – and they quickly surrounded Alessandra, grabbing her hand to wish her success. Rossi wasn’t among them. After Huxley exposed Alessandra in England, he felt betrayed. He wrote a
mea culpa
published by the
Piccolo
, declaring he had been deceived. Cappelli stayed in Palermo.

The Italians turned out in force to support Lombardi – Sapienti and Parenti from Torino; Negri, Baldinotti and Pirelli from Genoa. Baron von Weibel had rushed down from Munich, bringing his film of Alessandra’s dancing basket to show the press. But it was Fournier who gave Alessandra the greatest boost that night – he brought little Zoe.

“
Tante
Alessandra!” she cried, pushing through a sea of legs and running into Alessandra’s arms. She flung her arms around Alessandra’s neck and kissed her as Alessandra hugged her tightly, tears in her eyes, before releasing her back to her father. But not before Fabio captured the shot for the
Mattino
.

As we started upstairs, where Huxley was waiting for Alessandra, Claudio from
La Stampa
yelled out, “How’s your girl, professor? Gonna show us something tonight?”

Lombardi turned around and addressed the crowd of reporters.

“I have the greatest confidence in
Signora
Poverelli. She is ready.”

But she wasn’t, and Lombardi knew it.

The day before, he had handed me a statement to be given in advance to the
Mattino
.

I handed it to Venzano the day before the test. He asked me what I thought. I told him the truth.

“It’s over,” I said. “She’s finished.”

H
uxley humiliated Alessandra one last time.

When we reached the fifth floor, a sour-looking matron with a suspicious eye steered Alessandra into the side room Huxley had set up for the required pre-test inspection. Alessandra was stripped naked, her clothes inspected for secret pockets or hidden hooks on her sleeves or bodice, then Huxley’s assistant took her time using her fingers to probe every cavity in Alessandra’s body –her mouth, her
fica
and even her
culo.

Lombardi and Renard only received a quick pat down, but Huxley had ordered Archer to give me the works.

“Behind the curtain, Labella,” he barked.

“Why?” I protested.

He sneered. “Afraid we’ll find something?”

He made me take off my jacket, shirt and shoes, turned my pants pockets inside out, and ran his hands up the inside my legs, giving me a shot in the
coglioni
before telling me to put my clothes back on. I wanted to kill him.

I took my chair against the far wall, next to Lombardi and Renard. Huxley didn’t want us anywhere near Alessandra when the lamp was turned down. Huxley’s short-hand writer was already busy at her desk next to the shuttered and barred window, adjusting the wick on the oil lamp which would provide the room’s only illumination once the sitting started.

When Alessandra shuffled into the room, my heart sank. I could see the fight was gone from her. Farthing led her over to the table and Hardwicke positioned her feet on the electrical plate.

“Don’t lift them off the pad,” he warned her, then he took his seat.

Farthing headed for the door to take his guard position out in the hall. Archer let him out, then locked the door and slipped the key in his pocket.

Huxley grinned. It was the moment he had been waiting for since Ile Ribaud.

“The rope, Mr. Archer.”

Archer reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a pair of silver cords, and handed them to Huxley who held one up to Alessandra’s face and sneered.

“A first for you, I believe.”

Huxley began tying her right hand to the chair. “Shall we see what miracles you can produce when you’re properly restrained?” He wound the cord tightly around her wrist a half dozen times, and finished it off with a complicated knot. “A warning,
Signora
. Pulling against it will only make the rope tighter.”

I could see the rising panic in Alessandra’s eyes as Archer handed Huxley the second rope. Huxley took his time fastening the line around her left wrist. Alessandra started to tremble, and began to tug at the ropes.

Huxley paused, annoyed. “Shall we proceed?”

Alessandra took a deep breath, then nodded her head and shut her eyes tight. Huxley returned to the task, carefully checking each loop for slack, then gave the binding one last yank, slipped into his seat at the end of the table, and Archer turned off the overhead electric light.

In the flickering flame of the oil lamp, I could see Alessandra shaking now. Her breaths were becoming sharper, quicker, shallower. Suddenly, Alessandra stopped and drew back, as if surprised. Her eyes were locked shut, but she was looking at something.

“No… No!”

Archer glanced nervously at Huxley. He waved his hand dismissively.

“Just an act.”

Alessandra’s head began to whip left, then right, like she was trying to avoid someone from getting too close to her face.

From kissing her.

“Don’t! Please! Please, Father! I beg you!”

It was the voice of a thirteen-year-old girl about to be raped.

I jumped up.

“Take the ropes off her.” I shouted.

“Tommaso!” Lombardi grabbed my sleeve. “Sit down!”

“Take the ropes off! NOW!”

I pulled away and started for Alessandra.

A scream rose from her throat.

“NO! OH GOD, NO!”

Alessandra’s back arched, her head jerking backwards with each thrust,
ah, ah, ah, ah…

“Stop it!” Huxley yelled. “Stop this acting!”

He reached out and slapped her.

Alessandra’s head flew back, then fell forward and hung there, her wrists still tied to the chair. Then her eyes slowly opened, and turned towards Huxley.

“WHO DARES STRIKE MY BELOVED?”

It was the last time in my life I heard the hiss of that monster. A creature of her mind, like Lombardi believed? If only it were!

Alessandra raised her right arm, and the rope binding her to the chair snapped like sewing thread. Then her left arm jerked upwards, ripping off the chair arm, which hung there, swinging from her wrist like a scythe.

The stenographer let out a scream, and Hardwicke and Archer scrambled to their feet.

The sickly, green eyes slowly swept the room, until they came to rest on Huxley. Then they flared, like an ember struck with a poker.

“UNBELIEVER! THE TIME OF RECKONING HAS COME!”

“It’s…it’s all an act…nothing to be afraid of.” Huxley stood up and bared his teeth at Alessandra. “You don’t scare me!”

An invisible hand yanked him off his feet and flung him across the room, his arms flailing wildly, slamming him against the wall. Huxley slid to the floor and lay there stunned, blood streaming from his nose.

Hardwicke and Archer bolted for the door. Huxley rolled over and started crawling on his hands and knees after them. Archer frantically searched his pocket for the key, and jammed it in the lock.

“Open! Open! Damn you!”

Out in the hall, I could hear Farthing shouting.

“What the devil is going on in there?”

The door wouldn’t open.

Archer and Hardwicke scrambled across the room and crouched behind a chair. Huxley screamed, and we watched in horror as he was dragged backwards by his foot, kicking at some invisible hand, then pinwheeled across the floor and slammed against the wall a second time.

“AND THE LORD REACHED OUT HIS HAND…”

Alessandra lifted her hand and the séance table rose to the ceiling, hung there, then came crashing down – legs snapping, splinters of wood flying across the room. Alessandra bent down, picked up a leg from the shattered table and started across the room.

I remember shadows and shouting, the clanging of the electric bell, the screaming of the stenographer, Farthing pounding on the door, and Alessandra, lit by the lamp flame, heading for Huxley.

He was slumped against the wall, a gash across his forehead, one eye closed. When she reached him, he raised his fists and pawed the air with a few feeble punches.

Alessandra lifted her club high in the air.

“
…AND GOD SMOTE HIM FOR HIS ERROR AND THERE HE DIED.”

I put my hands over my eyes.

“Alessandra, NO!”

Lombardi’s scream echoed in my ear.

Alessandra hesitated, then turned her head towards us, and in the lamp light I finally saw Savonarola
himself
– the sickly, putrid flesh, bloated and swollen, like a corpse pulled from a river, a writhing pot of maggot and worm, and those watery, slime-green eyes burning with hatred for our wretched world of sinners, doubters, disbelievers.

The ghoul turned back to Huxley and raised his club over his head. It started down, then suddenly stopped in mid-air – mercifully held back by what, I don’t know – and Alessandra collapsed to the floor like a discarded rag.

Lombardi reached her first.

Her eyes were open but they saw nothing. Blood flowed from her mouth and ears, her breathing ragged, her pulse feeble.

“We need to get her to a hospital!”

We heard a crash, the door flew open, and Farthing burst into the room. He flipped on the electric light and stared, mouth agape, at the battered Huxley, then at the demolished table.

“What the bloody hell!”

“
O
ut of the way! Out of the way!”

We fought our way down the stairs, past gawking maids and startled guests, Lombardi and Renard carrying Alessandra between them. A reporter came charging up the stairs and I shoved him aside.