Gabriel and the Swallows (The Volatile Duology #1) (7 page)

Volatile stood up and brushed the twigs and dead leaves from her knees, and wandered inside. I sighed, and got up too, and I felt instantly better wondering what would happen in tonight’s dream. If I would ride around the vineyards on the back of the old donkey, which had Alfio Gallo’s face and Alfio Gallo’s voice, and I would whip him while he complained of his nothingness.

Yet this was what happened in my dream:

Mamma was wearing a red evening dress and she laughed as she brought the
osso bucco
to the table, because she had burned the red wine sauce. Papa grabbed her about the waist and whirled her around the kitchen and I rolled my eyes. She told me to go outside to play and when I ran out, I beheld the acres of vineyards we owned, the last of our multitude of workers going home for their suppers. I felt around in my tailored jacket pocket and found a note that Mariko had concealed there. “Handsome Gabriel,” it read, “meet me at St Patrizio’s well tonight, I have something to show you.” She had drawn hearts and kisses all around the border. The smell of wine – white wine, red wine, pinot noir, chardonnay and bubbling frothy champagne stung my nose. Yet there was something more. The overpowering smell of moss, dried leaves, dampness, mold, the inside of eggs, of unwashed flesh and the entrails of insects – whatever those scents combined was, it eluded me. It took me many, many years to discover what that smell was, that aroma that engulfed every dream I ever had, from my birth until my death. And when I finally did, it explained everything.

  The stars glistened and the wind ruffled my white gold hair that all the girls loved. The moon was full.

And I left our vineyard and climbed the fortress wall into Orvieto town, but it did not seem dreary and exhausting, it seemed magical, because in my dreams I was stronger and the distance was lesser. Every upward step felt like I was descending and the tree branches parted the moon’s milk and bathed me in fractured luminescence. The town was deserted, but the lights in the ancient stone houses and apartments that lined the streets were turned on, and cast Orvieto in a pool of golden calm. Cats curved around shop signs and on the ledges of windows, and the coins that lay on the bottom of a plaza fountain glimmered as they granted each wish. As I passed the Piazza Cahen, I noticed S. Belivacqua singing in a rich tenor to a lady who looked very much like Signora Marino, but I couldn’t tell because her eyes were shrouded in shadow. I wondered if she was waiting for Mariko too.

When I reached the well, Mariko wasn’t there. I leaned over the edge of it and smelled the dankness inside that was the aroma of the hundred-year-old bodies that had lived and died there, still remembered fondly by the well that stored their scent in its walls. Completed five hundred years earlier, St Patrizio’s well was a colossal structure of paths leading to Orvieto’s underground city, a city that had existed longer than the earth could probably recall.  The Etruscans had built the passageway for masses of people and livestock in exodus, journeying deep into the darkness on an incredible descending double helix.

I sat there and hummed to myself, fingering the note Mariko had given me, my heart swelling with love. An hour passed, maybe two, and still Mariko did not come. I began to feel worried when –

“She’s not coming,” said a voice behind me. Something emerged from the shadows of the trees and moved closer to me. “You shouldn’t wait anymore tonight.”

My heart began to pound. “Signora Marino?” I whispered, and wondered how much trouble Mariko would be in when her mother got home.

And she stepped out into the light, and I saw it was not S. Marino at all, but a tall woman with swallow’s wings, some sort of
Carnevale
costume. She had long brown hair to the middle of her waist and piercing green eyes. And she was lovely.

“Who are you?” I said, jumping to my feet.

“I am Volatile,” she replied. And her voice was like that of a little girl, but I calculated her age – twenty-five perhaps. She wore a white dress that made her look like an angel, on account of the costume wings.

“Do I know you? Have we met before?”

“Yes,” said the creature, “and you will remember me when you wake.”

“What do you want?”

“To be in your dream.”

“But I’m not dreaming, I am awake now, this is real life.”

“Is it?”

I furrowed my brow. “And I’m not exactly friends with old people anyway.”

“Old? I thought you thought I was twenty-five?”

“Are you?”

“Not really, but I look older tonight.”

“You’re confusing me. Go away.”

“All right,” said the swallow-woman, and turned to leave.

“Wait!” I said. “Are those real?”

“My wings? Yes.”

“Can you fly?”

“Of course.”

“So what are you? Some sort of half human, half bird? You’re a foreigner anyway, I can tell. We have a foreigner at school and his name is Orlando Khan and I hate him.”

“But you don’t hate Orlando Khan. You love him because he saved your life.”

I laughed. “You’re strange.”

“Perhaps. But I’m not half human and half bird.”

“Then what are you?”

“I am a human with bird tendencies when I am with you. And I am a bird with human tendencies when I am with them.”

“You’re weird. What did you do with Mariko?”

“I prevented her from coming.”

Rage began to boil within my chest. “Why did you do that? Who do you think you are?”

The woman frowned darkly and suddenly, the moon was leached of its light. “I am someone, who in this world, has power over it,” she said cryptically. “I know all about your dreams. And before tonight, I never wished to enter them.” And she spread her wings and flew away.

The next morning, I awoke, filled with fear and wonder. It was early and Mamma was still in bed. I marched into the kitchen and Volatile’s head surged up at my entrance from her cot near the open window. Something inside of me jumped when I recalled her face from the night before – lovely. But old. Not like her at all, and it was uncanny how I was filled with a creeping dread, like my childish heart already recognized the undoing of me. And I hated it. I sensed my own destruction and I hated it.

“Why did you do it?” I hissed, and grabbed her forearm too tightly. “I know you did something last night. Who are you?”

But Volatile wrenched her arm away and dropped her gaze. I felt foolish then because how could she be responsible for anything? She was just a little girl with birds’ wings, not a magical being. “If you did do something,” I whispered, as a precaution, “don’t do it again. Stay out of my dreams. I’m warning you.”

Volatile’s wings shuddered a little and she began to desperately gaze out the window at the sky. I began to feel guilty for scaring her, and remembered how distorted the Volatile I met last night was, and doubted myself. “I guess I’m the idiot here,” I confessed mournfully. “I’m standing here talking to a struck-dumb bird-girl who doesn’t even know her own name.”

Volatile looked at me out of the corner of her eye. She took a sharp intake of breath, and stood up poised for flight, her wings spread out like a speckled cape. “
You’re an enormous idiot
,” snapped Volatile in a clear, clipped voice I recalled from the night before, “and I don’t know why I bother with you! I won’t meddle with your dreams again.”

And she soared out the window, completely ignoring my open mouth that was undoubtedly hanging to the floor, and I wondered how I was going to explain this to Mamma.

L
ike a child whose guilt grows like a monster in the dark and eventually paralyzes him, so the incentives of Volatile’s departure consumed me. I decided not to say a word about it, knowing my parents would immediately interrogate me, and I was the world’s most transparent liar. How on earth was I going to explain this to them?
“Sorry Mamma and Papa, but I told Volatile all about my secret dream life where you two are better versions of yourselves, and she appeared in it. So I got angry and she flew away. By the way, she can speak Italian. But on the plus side, it looks like her wing is fully healed.”
Unlikely. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed to Zeus that Volatile would return and all would be forgotten.

“Where is she?” queried Mamma, who got out of bed shortly after Volatile had flew away. She scanned the fields from the open window. “She knows not to go outside during the day.”

“I don’t know!” I squeaked, pouring myself an extra-large glass of milk, which I glugged down whole.

Mamma began to search the closets and the bedrooms. When she returned to the kitchen, her brow was creased into three horizontal lines. “You haven’t seen her, Gabriel? Was she not in her cot when you got up?”

“No,” I stammered, and threw a huge chunk of cheese in my mouth, and began busying myself with rearranging the jars of spice and herbs on the counter top.

“Gabriel…”

“I said I haven’t seen her,” I spluttered.

“Gabriel…” Mamma’s eyes were wide and she stared into mine, pulling the truth out of me.

“I haven’t seen her!” I cried. “Leave me alone.”

“
Leave me alone, leave me alone
,” repeated Mamma.

“That’s what I said!” I screamed, slamming the milk glass back on the table with more force than required. It splintered and shards of glass fell on the floor. I ran into my bedroom.

“
Leave me alone
!” repeated Mamma, and then shook her head hard, like a dog emerging from a river, trying to regain control of herself. “Well, I would leave you alone, Gabriel, but I think you know something that you should tell me!
Tell me, tell me
!”

“I don’t!” I wailed from my bedroom. I grabbed my book bag and starting stuffing my homework into it.

“
Leave me alone, leave me alone
!” said Mamma, and entered my room. She stopped still for a second, pressing her forehead with her shaking hands, willing herself to concentrate. But she was angry and her disease was betraying her. “You had better spit it out now, young man, what did you do to her?”

“Nothing!” I yelled, planting my feet solidly on the floor. “Nothing! Nothing!”

And Mamma blinked her eyes rapidly and held up her hands with fingers splayed like a mime, and her little fingers began to twitch demonically. “
Nothing!
” she shouted. “
Leave me alone! Nothing! Leave me alone!
”

I ran to the door, my book bag flopping over the floor, and pulled on my boots. Mamma had not been up in time to make my lunch, so today I would go hungry, but I didn’t care. “You get back here this instant young m—
leave me alone
!” shouted Mamma, and suddenly a violent tremor coursed through her body and she sank to her knees.

I swung around and glared at her – my own mother, clad in a threadbare nightgown, breasts exposed from the upheaval, lined with stretch marks like rings on a tree trunk. Her wild hair, all black and grey, tumbling from her head like a mad woman, as it jerked on her neck. Her hands had landed on the shards of the glass and began to bleed. Here she was, pathetic and textbook ridiculous: the reason why no one spoke to me and teased me so unmercifully, while I tiptoed around on eggshells for her sickness, fraying my nerves, and now she was blaming me for a stupid damn bird-girl who had tricked us into thinking she couldn’t understand a thing.

“Get back here, Gabriel!” she cried.

So I did. I took two steps toward the house and said, “I hate you, you know that? You’ve ruined my life!”

“
I hate you
!” echoed my mother, and began to cry. “
I hate you, I hate you
!” She covered her eyes with her bloody hands, and her fingers convulsed savagely. “Why do you hate me, Gabriel?”

And seeing my own Mamma crying on the floor made tears well up in my own eyes too, even though I hated her. But I would be strong, or else she would start about Volatile again, and I would be undone.

“I hate you because you’ve ruined me! Everyone hates me and it’s because you’re a retard!”

A strong hand on my shoulder and suddenly, someone was shaking me so forcefully I could feel my teeth rattling and I bit down on my own tongue – hard. “What did you just say to your mother?” bellowed Papa, his spit flying on my face. His spectacles fell to the ground and in my clumsy haste to get away, I stepped on them and they shattered. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the tears coursed down my cheeks regardless. “You will answer me immediately!” he shouted.

“
Leave me alone
!” shrieked Mamma. “
I hate you! Retard, retard, retard
!”

“No!” I screamed at Papa, and wrenched my shoulders free. “You God-damn
bastardo
salami-eater!” And I grasped the strap of my book bag and ran like the wind. I sprinted toward Orvieto, and didn’t look back.

But if I had, I would have seen Papa pick Mamma from the floor and examine her hands. He would wipe them down and try to extract the splinters, but do a bad job, because his glasses were broken.

Instead of taking the direct route to school, I deviated. It was early and I didn’t want to be present for extra teasing, so I needed a place to hide out. Without thinking, I flew past St Patrizio’s well and its spider web of ancient aqueducts, up the slight inclination of Via Roma until I saw it blazed on a wooden sign:

The Khan Emporium
.

The shop was still closed, as it was very early, and I peered through the windows. I had never been inside the Emporium before, and I gasped as I beheld its contents. Curved jars of loose-leaf teas lined the shelves behind the cash register. Just above it, beeswax candles in impossible shades and shapes, so slick and shiny they looked like marble. Lanterns of glass and papyrus, and paper umbrellas of the Orient with hand-painted cherry blossoms. There were plates and bowls not made of fine white china, but of cracked and glazed clay, shimmering like fish scales. Rugs hung where curtains should be, with patterns so curved and deliberate they made me dizzy if I stared too long. A glass case boasted cigarettes and cigars from all over the world, and another spiced, musky perfumes that Signora Khan mixed herself. There were embroidered robes so deliciously ornamented that nobody in town could possibly wear them, except perhaps for
Carnevale
, and Indian saris in saffron and teal that probably served as costuming for S. Belivacqua’s theatre troupe. I noticed a strange wooden box containing Asian cosmetics: a pot of black henna for the eyes, a tub of red henna stain for lips. And suddenly, a face in the window.

I gasped and pulled back at the strange white monster: no hair, no neck, just a white face hovering; bodiless. As I hastily gathered myself and turned on my heel to escape, the door opened. The doorbell chimed so merrily that I couldn’t be afraid. There was Signora Khan, dressed head to toe in black, a scarf covering her hair and neck like a nun. “What do you want?” she demanded, but her voice was gentle and infused with glorious, curled vowels. “We do not open for another half an hour.”

“Nothing,” I said. “Sorry.” But I stood there, staring at my feet while she waited for me to turn away.

“Oh I see,” said S. Khan and smiled. I noticed then how beautiful she was, and her emerald eyes. “Are you looking for Orlando?”

“Yes,” I stammered, surprised.

“You’re Gabriel, aren’t you?” she said, smiling so wide I could see her perfectly white teeth, and the gap between the front two. “I should have known. Come in.”

I followed her into the Emporium, inhaling the scents that descended upon me like a crowd of insects. My head began to grow fuzzy but I enjoyed it. She turned on the lights as she passed, and I felt like I was inside a rainbow. “Sit down,” she said, leading me into what had to be the kitchen, and placed a pink and gold glass of thick coffee in front of me. I was about to mention that I wasn’t allowed coffee until I was fourteen, but to hell with it, I’d already upset Mamma and Papa so terribly that one little coffee couldn’t hurt. It tasted vile and bitter but it made my heart race and clarity exploded through my thoughts like a thunderbolt. “Orlando will be down soon. He’s saying his prayers.”

“I say my prayers too,” I said, the energy from the coffee pushing me past customary shyness, “only not to Jesus.”

“Oh,” said S. Khan, “the same as Orlando.”

“I pray to Zeus though,” I informed her seriously.

“That’s a very good idea,” said Signora Khan kindly, seeming amused, and poured me another cup. “You’re a very handsome boy,” she stated.

I set my cup down and looked at her straight in the eyes. “I’m not. You don’t have to say that.”

“I’m not just saying it, Gabriel.”

“Well, you’re an adult. And adults always have to say silly things like that. My Mamma says that all the time.”

“You don’t think it’s true?”

“Of course not. But all Mammas say that little boys are handsome, especially their own. I bet you say that to Orlando all the time.”

“You’re very observant and quite right,” said S. Khan, and looked impressed, although I could tell she was trying not to smile. “But all Mammas happen to believe their sons are the most handsome boys in the world.”

And at the mention of my mother, I began to feel sorry for how I had behaved. I remembered that I loved her and I wanted to go home and tell her so, but then recalled I was angry too, and scared for Volatile.

“Your mother is Blanca Laurentis, no?” queried Signora Khan.

“That’s right,” I sighed. “Sorry.”

“Sorry? Sorry for what?”

My shoulders drooped and I shook my head. “Just sorry. You know. Everyone knows she’s a…”

“She isn’t,” stated Signora Khan in a voice so loud it startled me. “She has a medical condition, that is all. It’s quite common, you know.”

“But she’s the only one who has it!”

“Yes, in this small town whose citizens believe is the center of the universe. But in the whole world, she is one of many. Don’t be too hard on her.”

“Do you know my mother?”

“I went to school with her,” said Orlando’s mother, and cleared her throat.

“Was she always…you know…like
that
at school?”

“Not always.”

“Papa said something happened to her to make her like that.”

Signora Khan looked distinctly uncomfortable and shuffled in her chair, choosing her words carefully. “Then your father must be right. Are you an only child?”

And without thinking, I gushed, “I have a sister but she flew away!”

“Don’t you mean ran away?”

“Yes, sorry. She ran away.”

“Well, that is very serious. I am sure she will be back. Your parents must be beside themselves with worry. I didn’t realize you had a sister.”