Read The Witch of Napoli Online
Authors: Michael Schmicker
“What did you tell him?”
“I thanked him, Tommaso, and told him I would shut up and behave, and do whatever he wanted. But when the tour is over, I’m taking my money and going to Rome.”
I couldn’t believe my ears.
“Alessandra, you’re crazy! You just won the lottery! He’s got money! Food on the table, a roof over your head, for the rest of your life. And on top of that, he loves you! Holy Mother of God…”
Alessandra shook her head.
“He’ll never marry me, Tommaso. Right now, I’m different and exciting, and I can help him. But he’d eventually find someone else in Paris – some woman younger and more interesting and more respectable than me. Then I’d have to start all over again. That’s how men are.”
Outside the window, church bells tolled midnight.
She slid off the bed and headed for the door.
“You can’t rely on others, Tommaso. You can only rely on yourself.”
L
ombardi tried hard to change her mind.
He cut in half the number of sittings in Germany, and changed the schedule to give Alessandra every other day off. Baron von Weibel invited us to move out of the Rheinischer Hof hotel and stay at his castle, and Lombardi quickly accepted. Weibel had a lake on his estate, and Lombardi arranged for breakfast to be served late every morning in a pretty outdoor pavilion at the water’s edge where he and Alessandra spent a lot of time sitting and talking.
The late summer weather had turned beautiful – sunny with blue skies, warm in the day but pleasantly cool in the evenings – and Lombardi took her riding in a carriage through the baron’s oak forest filled with pheasants and wild boar, and a noisy, little woodpecker whose
rat-a-tat-tat
made Alessandra laugh out loud. When the weekend came, Lombardi surprised us by taking us to see mad King Ludwig’s fairy-tale castle in the Bavarian Alps – Neuschwanstein had just been opened to the public. You’ve seen it in postcards, I’m sure. It sits atop a mountain like a Wagner opera set, and Alessandra wandered awestruck through the halls, hand in hand with Lombardi, marveling at the murals of medieval knights and malevolent sorceresses and shell-boats drawn across the water by silver swans. She had never seen anything like it in her life. Neither had I. Before we left, he bought her a pretty music box with a picture of the castle in winter painted on the lid, and she slept on his shoulder during the train ride back to Munich.
The sittings that week in Germany were few, but went well. Alessandra was determined to do her best for Lombardi.
The most amazing incident in Munich happened in broad daylight.
The baron had bought a Cinématographe motion picture camera that Spring from the Lumière factory in Lyon. They cost a fortune, and I had never seen a motion picture camera before. I finally screwed up my courage and asked him if I could inspect it. The next morning, he set it up on the front lawn, and was explaining how it worked, when Alessandra and Lombardi came strolling up from the lake with their picnic basket. The baron waved them over.
“Tommaso here is learning how to use the motion picture camera.”
Alessandra grinned, put down her basket, and pirouetted in a circle.
I laughed. “The Baron isn’t interested in filming
you
dance,” I teased. “He wants to see your
basket
dance.”
Lombardi had given her a bouquet of wildflowers at breakfast, and Alessandra was feeling happy. Without thinking – as she later confessed – she turned around, waved her hand like an orchestra conductor, and the wicker basket suddenly rose up and began to do a little jig. The Baron stood there speechless, mouth agape.
Miraculously, the camera was loaded, and I had the presence of mind to start cranking the handle. I ended up capturing eight seconds of the action on film. Alessandra’s back is already to the camera when the film starts, but you clearly see her arm come up, then the basket dances out from behind her skirt, hops like a rabbit across the lawn, twirls around in a circle, then falls back to the grass. Later that summer, the Baron toured Bavaria, showing the film to packed houses, and the German press dubbed Alessandra the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” A professor in Berlin, who wasn’t there that day, assured everyone that it was all done with wires and string.
Lombardi was ecstatic when Weibel played the film back that evening, and told me he was going to buy a motion picture camera for me to use when we got to Paris. I couldn’t wait. I had visions of myself as the next Ugo Falena, directing films and entertaining thousands.
Renard had already sent out invitations to prominent French scientists to test Alessandra,
Le Figaro
had scheduled a major interview with her, and the editor of the
Parisian Illustrated Review
would be sending an artist over to the hotel to sketch the celebrated Neapolitan “Queen of Spirits.” Everybody was excited and happy.
I had completely forgotten about the Weasel.
I
got Doffo’s second letter the day we left for Warsaw.
Pietro had used his key to get into Uccello’s desk, found the confidential report the Weasel had mailed to Cardinal Uccello following his visit to Bari, and copied it for Doffo.
Alessandra was in trouble.
July 16, 1899
Confidential
To His Eminence Cardinal Giovanni Uccello
From: Crocifisso Testa, Interrogator
Investigation of the Spiritualist medium Alessandra Poverelli
Pax Tecum.
On 7 July I met for two hours with Father Angelo Federico, parish priest of the village of Spinazzola in Bari, to find out what he could tell me about
Signora
Poverelli. Father Angelo is a simple man, of no great intelligence or learning, with only two years training in the local seminary. He has served in his current position for 27 years without promotion. He is short and fat, rather slovenly in his dress, and lives with his housekeeper, most likely his concubine. According to Father Angelo, Alessandra’s father was a Socialist agitator disliked by the villagers, and her mother an open practitioner of witchcraft who refused to have her child baptized. Her mother died when she was five and her father was publicly executed for treason by the King of Naples when she was 13 years old. Because of the family’s unsavory reputation, no one in the village was willing to take her in, so out of Christian charity Father Angelo did. Satanic manifestations associated with her presence occurred frequently in the rectory, particularly when she was scolded by the housekeeper. Father Angelo suspected she was possessed by the Devil and performed an exorcism on her. I asked him if he had informed his Bishop before conducting the exorcism, and he replied that he saw no need to do so since they taught him the ritual in seminary. At this point, Father Angelo’s housekeeper, who was serving the pasta, interrupted him. “He had to tie her to the bed, she was so wild. The good Father spent the whole night on his knees next to her bed, begging God to drive the Devil out. But Satan keeps his own. She was a slut, a puttana. Got herself pregnant shortly afterwards.” My ears understandably perked up at this divine revelation. I asked Father Angelo if he knew who the father was. He said everyone suspected an acrobat named Ivano who came through the village with a traveling circus that summer. I asked him what had happened to Alessandra’s bastard. He replied that he quietly arranged to send the pregnant Alessandra to the Santissima Bambina orphanage in Naples to have her baby there. I assured him the Holy Father himself thanked him for this information, and for his years of hard labor in one of the more stony vineyards of the Lord. I am headed for Naples.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.
P.S. Your Eminence would have been amused at the pasta presentation dreamed up by Father Angelo’s housekeeper. The spaghetti was shaped in the profile of Jesus, with orecchiette for his ears.
I stared at the letter, dumbfounded.
Alessandra had a bastard.
The Weasel would need the birth record, but he was already on that. Once he had it, the Vatican could leak it to the press, and the newspapers would go crazy. There was no way any respectable scientist could work with Alessandra once the scandal went public. Alessandra would be finished. So would Lombardi – the university would crucify him.
The only question was when the Vatican would drop the bombshell.
My guess was Paris.
I could have warned them, but I didn’t. She and Lombardi looked so happy. And what would be the point? There was nothing they could do about it anyway. Besides, there was a small chance the Weasel wouldn’t find anything. Twenty-six years had passed. That was a long time, and nobody kept good records on the nobodies who showed up to spend a few days with the sisters before delivering their brats, dumping their babies in an orphanage, and disappearing.
Me? I just wanted to make it to Paris. I figured I could use Lombardi’s camera to shoot some photos of the new Tour Eiffel and sell them back in Naples when it was over.
You have to gnaw the bone that’s thrown you.
“
H
ow do I look, Tommaso?”
“
Maronna!”
I stared at Alessandra.
How did she look? She looked spectacular – the Neapolitan cinder maid turned into a princess, ready for the reception at Countess Walewska’s mansion. Polish newspapers and magazines had trumpeted her visit to Warsaw, and the city was buzzing about the mysterious Italian temptress who levitated tables.
Alessandra was squeezed into this long, beautiful, shimmering, emerald satin gown with puffy sleeves, a big bow on each shoulder, and a white satin rose on the sash around her waist. Lombardi had paid for it. He excused his generosity by telling her Warsaw society had its standards, and we don’t want to embarrass the Countess. But they both knew he was still trying to get her to change her mind and move to Paris with him.
The hairdresser that afternoon had piled her long tresses on top of her head in a bun, and crowned it with a silver ribbon. But I couldn’t take my eyes off her chest. The gown was cut daringly low in front.
Alessandra rested her arms on her full hips and twirled around, looking at herself in the mirror. She stopped, put her two hands on her stomach, and grimaced.
“God, I can hardly breathe in this contraption, but I do look ten years younger – tell me I do, Tommaso.” She patted her bosom. “Do you think Camillo will like it?”
“If he doesn’t, he’s
pazzo
, crazy.” I replied.
There was a knock on the door and I walked over and opened it. Lombardi stood in the hall, dressed to the nines. He sported a black tailcoat and trousers, a crisp white dress shirt with studs, a winged collar and a white silk bow tie, and black patent leather shoes. He stepped inside, took one look at Alessandra, and his jaw dropped.
“Do you think it’s a bit too daring, Camillo?” Alessandra said, tugging at her dress. He stared at her. My guess is that he hadn’t seen his own wife in something like that since their wedding night.
“I…I must say…it catches a man’s attention.”
I knew exactly what he was thinking – his attention, but also the attention of every other man in the room. Lombardi reached into his silk top hat, pulled out a small velvet box and presented it to Alessandra with a smile and a bow.
“I suggest you add these to your outfit tonight.”
Alessandra opened the box and gasped.
“My God, Camillo!” She held up a pair of small, diamond ear rings. “I…I can’t accept them.”
Lombardi laughed. “Consider them on loan for the evening.”
Cinderella was off to the ball.
K
rol had Alessandra cornered.
He had pulled up his chair right in front of hers, blocking her from escape, and was describing the plot for his new novel. The Countess had introduced him as a famous Polish writer, and he certainly was verbose. I sat on a sofa next to Alessandra, watching Lombardi work his way around the crowded drawing room of her elegant, three-story
pied-a-terre
which looked out on Lazienki Park. The Italian ambassador to the Kingdom of Poland showed up with his wife, along with several Polish princes and counts, but my attention kept returning to Alessandra.
She looked pale, and fatigued.
The room was packed and humid. The servants had opened the windows wide, but Alessandra had her handkerchief out and was constantly patting the perspiration off her forehead.
“Do you believe in fate,
Signora
Poverelli?” Krol lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, then leaned forward. “I’ve been thinking for months about including a séance scene in my new novel
,
and now I have the queen of spirits sitting right in front of me. I have a thousand questions for you.”
Alessandra shot me a pleading glance, and I stood up.
“You’ll have to excuse her. Alessandra is fading a bit. We just arrive this afternoon and it was a long trip.”
Krol ignored me. He jabbed his cigarette at her. “Do you use some special incantation to call the spirits? Do you actually see them, or do you just feel their presence in the room?”
I held out my hand to Alessandra. “We really need to get Alessandra some rest.”
He pushed it away, irritated at my persistence. “All
Signora
Poverelli needs is another glass of wine. Waiter!”
Alessandra struggled to her feet. “Please, forgive me. I…I really must go.”
She didn’t look too steady. I took her elbow and steered her around the chair, as Krol glowered at me. Alessandra hung on to my arm.
“I feel sick. I need to find the bathroom.”
As we made our way to the hallway, a balding man in a ridiculously bemedaled military uniform stepped forward and blocked our path.
“Finally let you go, did he? I’ve been trying all evening to meet the famous
Signora
Poverelli!” He bowed. “General Nikolai Bibikov, at your service.”
I didn’t know what to do. I had to get Alessandra to the bathroom quickly, but I was terrified of insulting him.