The Circe Spell

by Joe Andriano


84.





13. Voyage to Old New Orleans

 From the journals and letters of Paolo and Regina Culotta

 
March 1891

Paolo was lounging on the upper deck of the ship, in first class. Enjoying the sunset, trying not to feel guilty, knowing full well what hardships his family had endured just a few years before in third class, better known as steerage.  Especially Regina, you don't want to know, she wrote, knowing that he would be totally incapable of avenging whatever indignities the sailors had subjected her to. He’d heard several stories of abuses of immigrants, especially unattended girls and women. But here he was now among the genteel, the snobs who regarded with polite curiosity the oddity of an Italian lecturer on English literature. He told them he was from Padua, not really a lie, since he lived and worked there, but only another Italian would have been able to tell he was Sicilian. He also told them he was going to spend a month at Tulane University of New Orleans to lecture on comparative literature, and on Edgar Poe's influence in Europe. This was no lie either, and it made him proud but also a little sad because he had no one else to be proud of him. Except, perhaps, Regina.

A few of his fellow voyagers thumbed through his Poe edition and looked impressed, blissfully unaware of the three bad reviews, including of course Tomaso's. He had even come by Paolo’s office to warn him that it was coming.

"Did you read the whole thing?" Paolo asked him, not inviting him to sit.

"That would have been a waste of my time," said Tomaso. "I read enough to be embarrassed that you were ever my student. Fortunately the editor of the journal I’m flogging you in does not know." He turned to go.

           Paolo had smiled then, thinking Tomaso would make a complete fool of himself after Paolo revealed the hoax. The other two reviewers also gave up well before the last tale, as he had assumed they would. The translations were too loose, they all wrote, and kept getting looser as the book went on. But as it turned out, Paolo couldn't get anyone to publish his diatribe against reviewers who didn't even bother finishing the books they were reviewing. If Signor Bedinotti had bothered to finish the book, he would not have hesitated to point out that the last tale was by far the most loosely translated, not really a translation at all.

Or rather a translation not of the letter but of the soul. Unimpressed, one journal editor told Paolo that life was too short for anyone to have to finish reading bad translations.

            He soon realized that it was probably just as well no one knew the truth, since his publisher might sue him for breach of contract if the hoax were to come out. His contract was to translate Poe tales, not to foist one of his own off as Poe's. But with his diatribe against Tomaso unpublished, the old pedant could not be publicly humiliated, and Paolo could not feel avenged. After a few cathartic fantasies of his kinsmen shredding Tomaso with a machete, however, he got over the need for revenge. Especially now on the open ocean, among admiring strangers, a thousand or so kilometers away from Padua, from what would always be Tomaso's turf, Paolo found the idea of revenge petty and irrelevant. Such an act would only validate Tomaso’s notion of him as a primitive creature. Ironic, since he's the one with all the hair on his back.


85.

After a glorious sunset, Paolo’s companions left to have drinks before dinner, while he lingered on the deck at dusk to watch the stars emerge. Stretched out in a chaise longue he felt like a member of the leisure class, almost wished Tomaso's friend Henry James would show up. What fun it would be to seduce him, even if he looks too much like Tomaso−−at least when I saw him last in the train to Rome, when was it? almost two years ago. Balding and getting a little hefty.

"Clemens calls him Henrietta James." Poe's voice startled him before he saw the ghost sitting next to him, dressed in a white suit and smoking a cigar.

"Don't tell me. Circe is here. That's how you found me."

"She's in your berth, hiding under the pillow. She found a door."

"Signor Poe, I must ask you a favor. I implore you to leave me alone. I am beginning to doubt my sanity. I gave up all but one of my vices−−including hashish, you must know how much I favor it, and all I drink now is ginger ale, all to prove to myself that you were just a hallucination. And Circe just a figment of an opiated brain."

"I wish I could tell you that I'm your guardian angel." Poe puffing at the cigar, tried to look like Mark Twain but only succeeded as burlesque. "But I'm not. I already told you, I'm just a wandering spirit, loose but not lost because I follow you, my soul. I hope we can become one again, at the moment of your body's death. The stakes are high, for if we fail, we remain split off, and a spiritless soul can never rise to a higher level. You know all this, I've told you before."

"You are talking like the pazzo some say you were, signore."

Poe had that desperate look so familiar from the portraits Paolo had seen. "You must believe in me, or I won't be able to find you when the moment comes."

"The moment?"

"Of your death."

He felt a frisson wash over him. "What makes you think it is imminent?"

"I don't know if it is. But Circe might."

Paolo guffawed, perhaps a bit too loud. "I doubt that very much."

"You had better join your companions." The ghost sucked hard on the cigar, exhaled and disappeared in the puff. Paolo gasped, then shook his head a bit too hard and went below deck to the dining cabin. Most of the passengers had recovered from the seasickness from which he was happily immune, thanks to the many times he had helped his father and brothers on their luggers, which had given him sea-legs to rival any sailor's. Perhaps his only manly trait. But now he was the one who felt faint and a little nauseous, as he pondered Poe's ghost waiting like a vulture for him to die. A wealthy American widow who had latched onto him for reasons not yet clear waved for Paolo to join her and her nervous niece. He ordered some claret, which he hadn't touched in months but which he now drank before, during, and after his meal.

            Throughout the conversation, he was listless and preoccupied, wanting to retire to his berth while he still would have the little stateroom to himself, since his roommate was addicted to cards and played very late. Wanting but also afraid to be alone, afraid of finding Circe there, for he had left her in Gabriela's care again. She had agreed to it only after he assured her that he would not blame her if the cat disappeared again.



86.

"Well, Signor Culotta," said the American widow. "Don't they say in vino veritas? Now that you've had several glasses, tell us your story. You've been very mysterious, you know."

"That is because I do not wish to bore you, signora." Or horrify you. Well, let's see, I spent a good part of my childhood disguised as a girl, which didn't bother me, and then I ran away to Rome and became a whore, which did, but I had no choice. And then−−

"Oh trust me," said her niece, "you couldn't possibly bore me." Was she flirting, poor child?

"You both must forgive me, I am exhausted. I spent too much time in the sun and salty air today. I must retire. Buona notte. A demani."

"Va bene, signore," said the widow in an execrable American accent. "A demani." As her niece echoed her, Paolo wondered how he might avoid them the rest of the voyage. He walked unsteadily to his stateroom, and was glad to find it still empty. Then he saw something black and fuzzy on the mattress.

"It can't be you." He saw Circe's long fluffy tail first, it was sticking out from under the pillow, which he now lifted. Part of him still believed the first time she'd pulled this stunt she had simply followed him unseen onto the train to Rome. And somehow even from Rome back to Padua. But this time, there was no way she could have done this by ordinary feline means of transport. I don't believe in demons. Don't make me start, I've always been proud of having sloughed off my family's superstitions. I don't believe in magic either, at least not this kind. So the only conclusion I can come to is that you're not real, and I am quite mad, pazzo pazzo pazzo. Or maybe I've had too much to drink. I'm not used to it. Yes that's all you are. Delirium Tremens. He put out a trembling hand to pet her. She was responsive as always, purring and lifting her rear.

Trying to ignore her, Paolo undressed and went to bed, keeping the lantern lit. He wished he could wear a negligee, it would help calm his nerves. He had brought only one in his valise, along with some frilly drawers and a silk petticoat, all carefully hidden in a shirt. All the rest of his Paolina wardrobe was locked in a trunk at home, along with several fine wigs. He decided to slip on the drawers under the covers. Then he curled up with Circe, who gave him no choice in the matter, and started drifting off . . . .

He was dimly aware of a cowled figure sitting on his roommate's bed and pointing at Circe. She follows me everywhere, everywhen. She tracks me, the soul in you. I compelled her in a spell, my last. At least that part of the spell worked.

The stateroom door opened, his roommate came quietly in. Paolo pretended to be sound asleep, and tried to muffle the cat's motor with the covers.

"Signor Paolo?" The young American, who was returning from the grand tour provided by his newly wealthy father, had felt it necessary, from practically the first moment of their acquaintance, to confide in him concerning the boring details of his European sojourn. His English was only a trifle better than his Italian, and he admitted that literature was his least favorite subject in school. So Paolo pretended to be asleep. William, or rather Bill, washed his face and brushed his teeth at the little basin in the corner, then undressed, donned a nightshirt, extinguished the lamplight and went to bed. Amid the muffled cacophony of the ship's paddlewheel he never noticed Circe's purr.

             Paolo soon drifted off, and was untroubled the rest of the night by voices, visions, or dreams.


87.

At the end of the voyage Paolo had to abandon the cat again, knowing now full well she would find him. He left her hiding in his berth, where she had remained for days, sneaking out occasionally to do her business, God knew where. For she acted like a normal cat now that she was with him again, accepting his leftovers, defecating in the sink when she couldn't get out, demanding his caresses as rewards for not just shitting at random.  Perhaps not totally normal, for she seemed to know she needed to be quiet, meowing only in little trills and plurps, staying under pillow and cover when the American was around. With such help, Paolo managed, in the remaining four days of the voyage, to keep her hidden from the American, a feat made possible both by his addiction to cards with genteel female company and by his growing suspicion (Paolo could see it in his eyes) that Paolo was, if not a little queer, then certainly rather strange.



A stranger now, indeed, in a very strange land. The New Orleans harbor was teeming with every conceivable kind of ship and boat, and the levee was lined with a forest of sooty cylinders, the huge smokestacks of docked steamboats.  The air seemed thick with grime. As Paolo debarked he looked back and saw in the shadows below-decks the immigrants waiting their turn. There, or in a similar space, stood Regina five years ago, he could just picture her face, eager with hope, darkened by fear. He tried not to feel guilty that he was a respectable visitor who didn't have to endure the humiliation of being "processed" as an immigrant. These poor contadini had to prove that they wouldn't be a "burden to the community," that they were not without prospects, that they were not idiots, nor carriers of infection, nor banditi. They had to swear that they were not bound by contract−−with a padrone, say, as his own brothers had been, back when it was legal. Since he was a gentleman who had actually been invited to New Orleans, Paolo was not detained. All he had to do was show his papers and answer a few questions. Although he was born in Sicily, the address on his passport was Padua, where they could see he was associated with a major university. They treated him with respect, even sympathy when he told them he might stay awhile to be with his dying mother.

           Once he got through customs and had his two suitcases, he shared a hackney with two other travelers and gave the driver the address of the dormitory on University Place where he would be staying. A young American student helped him with his bags and showed him to his room. His appointment with the Literature Chair was not until the next day, so he got directions to Royal Street in the Vieux Carré, where his far-from-royal family lived, and began to walk there. He had not heard from Regina in a month, and although he had written her as soon as he’d booked passage, he was not sure that she had gotten the letter. Nor did he have any idea how his mother was doing. She had actually rallied several times since her tumor had appeared, crediting her remissions to the voodoo of a neighbor, whom Regina had described in her last letter as a black witch who could work the whitest magic.

Mama also thinks Madame Montanet is protecting her, with silly charms she calls gri-gri, from the evils of this house. Remember I told you it's supposed to be haunted? Mama has heard noises on the roof about once a month since we moved here. She's even seen the ghosts of a cruel mistress and her tortured slave, who somehow managed to break away while being whipped and got up to the roof, from which she jumped to her death. Her footfalls thump over the roof once a month. No, not during the full moon, Paolo. (I can just picture you asking that!) I've heard the noise, but have never seen the ghost. Mama is sure it was the slave running on the roof, but Mama takes morphine. Even now during this remission because she says when she doesn't take it she sees the ghosts. Shouldn't it be the other way around? I only hope you get here before she dies. I'm sure these remissions are only temporary.

           As he walked on Royal, Paolo tried to remember how long it had been since he'd seen his family. He figured twenty years since he'd run away from his mother and sister. Twenty-five since he'd seen his brothers. When he found the address, an old rundown three-story mansion now divided into several apartments, he stood awhile on the sidewalk, staring up through the delicate lace ironwork decorating the balcony, on which a man was standing with fierce eyes fixed on Paolo. Another ghost? Papa? Leaning over the railing now and suddenly grinning down at him. Papa rarely grinned.

"Paolo?"

            "Domenico! Dio mio, you look just like Papa."



88.

"Papa never dressed like this." He spread his arms out to show off his fancy suit. Vincenzo appeared now at the door below, and as soon as he hugged Paolo crushingly hard, kissed his cheek and ushered him in, he was surrounded by family: adolescent nieces and nephews and lovely sisters-in-law, all hugging him and welcoming him in the Sicilian dialect he hadn't used in years. At forty-three, Vincenzo was still a strikingly handsome man, with thick silver-streaked waves of hair, a well-trimmed mustache, and a robust stature that stood out in stark contrast, Paolo was sure, to his own obvious effeminacy. Oldest brother Domenico, now downstairs with them, had aged a little less gracefully, for he was very bald, and his mustache was white. But the years of labor in the muggy bogs of Louisiana had only served to make him brawny and solid as a live-oak. Next to his burly brothers, Paolo felt like Paolina again, and he prayed they wouldn't call him that.

"How is Mama?" he asked. And where is Regina?

Domenico shook his head. "Mama's gone, Paolo. She died three weeks ago."

"Ahimè! I am too late."

"Regina said you couldn't get away until now. Va bene, Paolo, at least you tried. You have come. And you are welcome."

"She spoke of no one but you in the end, Paolo," said Vincenzo.

"To curse me or bless me? She never forgave me for running away."

            "She wanted you here."

Domenico's wife Maria led the children out of the room. "Let Uncle Paolo talk with his brothers now."

"Will you be staying for dinner, Paolo?" asked Vincenzo's wife Alicetta.

"We're taking him out," said Domenico.

"Is that a good idea? The streets are dangerous for us now."

"We have nothing to fear," said Vincenzo. "Don't worry," he added with a gentleness Paolo had never seen in him before.

"Va bene," she said, looking unconvinced as she left the room.

"Why are the streets dangerous?" Paolo asked.

"You have arrived at a bad time, little brother," said Domenico. "The Chief of Police was murdered last fall, and certo! they're blaming Sicilians. Our boss's brother was one of nineteen Italians they indicted. The trial's going on now."

"I was not harassed, walking here."

"You're a gentleman. People see that. You don't look like a dago."

"Where's Regina?" Paolo finally asked.

"She moved out," said Vincenzo. "She's living in a convent."

Paolo laughed. "Good joke, Vincenzo. Regina in a convent."

Domenico gave him a stern glare alarmingly reminiscent of his father. "What do you mean by that?"

"She's not a believer, what do you think?"

      "Oh. She works for the Mother Superior. She teaches in her school. Not religion. English."

"I like that!" said Paolo with a smile.

"You’re right she’s not a believer, Paolo." Vincenzo could not suppress a sneer. "She didn't even start believing after I told her how the Madonna answered my prayer and sent the padrone."



89.

"She never let Mama know she didn't believe," said Domenico. "Not like you with all your blasphemy, you who studied to be a priest." It was becoming clear to Paolo that both his brothers were having difficulty holding back the contempt they still harbored for him. "Allora, piccolo fratello, Regina should be able to see us if we go now, before vespers."

Walking again in the late afternoon, a beautiful spring day with a dry northerly breeze, Paolo noticed the hostile stares they were getting as he was sandwiched between his brothers. He loudly spoke English to them, and since he spoke it more fluently than they, he did most of the talking, boring them with his boast about actually having been invited to New Orleans by Tulane University. "They think you’re from Padua," said Domenico. "If they'd known you were Sicilian, it would never have happened, Paolo."

           The porter at the gate of the convent obviously knew Paolo’s brothers. Domenico told the old man they were here to visit their sister. He sent a little girl to fetch Regina, who soon appeared, behind the wrought-iron lattice fence. "Paolo. You've come!" She was in her early forties now, but she looked even older. She wore an austere high-neck navy blue dress, a severe bun of salt-and-pepper hair and a mousy demeanor; she did not look at all as Paolo remembered, as he envisioned her.

"Meet us in an hour, Paolo." Vincenzo gave him an address on Decatur Street. "We'll eat fried oysters and drink some wine. Regina will give you directions."

After their brothers left, Regina led Paolo into the courtyard, where the aroma of sweet-olive engulfed them as they sat on a bench together among gorgeous oleanders, azaleas and camellias, many reds and pinks. "You didn't get my letter?" she asked.

"No, I think our letters must have crossed. What are you doing here, Regina? Why not live with your family?"

"You're one to ask such a question."

"You know why I don't!"

"Well then, you should know why I don't. Ever since the voyage here, after what those sailors did to me, I haven't been able to stand the sight, smell or touch of any man, not even my own brothers. Except you, Paolo. You're not like other men."

"You don't have to tell me that. Now tell me what you're doing here. Surely you don't equate your own brothers, your own blood, with those brutes."

"Equate? No, but let's face it, Paolo, our brothers are also brutes. They cut up some sailors they thought might be the ones who violated me. You call that honor?"

      "No, but still, they are your brothers."

"They keep sawed-off shotguns in the house. They scare me, Paolo. Not to mention, the house is haunted, as I wrote you. Not everyone can see or hear the ghosts, but Mama could. I can only hear them. They're all slaves, Paolo."

"The ghosts, you mean."

"Well, not only them. Our brothers too. Mantranga and Macheca own them, lock, stock and barrel as the natives say. I moved here when the opportunity came up. I'm a fifth wheel there anyway, now that Mama's gone."

 "So you're not thinking of taking vows."

"No no. Did you think I'd become a believer since I wrote you that I wasn’t?"

"Well, you’re living in a convent. I wondered."

            "One thing I do believe in. Fate. Not merely Fortuna. Why am I here? you ask. Because it is my fate, what I was born to do, to teach Italian children to read and write.



90.

"You see, Paolo, I'm doing good. I don't need to believe in their God, I don't even need to have children. I can still help my paesani. My children are here, every morning they come. Mother Cabrini says I have a gift."

"We're both teachers now. I like that."

"I love your letters, Paolo. I've kept them all."

"Tell me about Mama. Did she suffer terribly?"

"Yes. The morphine helped, but not so much toward the end. She kept saying your name, and toward the end she got very confused and started calling me Paolina, asking me for forgiveness. When she died Alicetta and Maria covered all the mirrors in the house, kept them covered until she was buried."

"Not in a pauper's grave, I hope."

"No, our brothers are making more and more money, Paolo. They are not poor anymore."

"Can you get away tomorrow, take me to her grave?"

"Certo."

"Come back to Padua with me, Regina. You don't belong here. I'm not poor anymore either and−−"

She put her forefinger over his mouth. "Silenzio, Paolo, this is exactly where I belong."

"Does Mother Cabrini know you are lapsed?"

"Sì, she considers me a challenge."

The little girl came running from the house through the garden path. "Mother Cabrini say time for vesper, Ma'm."

"A demani, Paolo mio," said his sister. "How about three o'clock? I can get away then."

"Va bene." He hugged her tightly, caressed her hair, wishing he could undo the tight coiffure. He remembered her lovely black tresses, so long and thick, and one of his wigs looked just the way she'd once worn her hair. He wondered as he walked away what kind of hell Mother Cabrini, or indeed his own mother, would have imagined was waiting for him, the sodomite who modeled his physical being after his own sister.



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