50.

9. Metempsychotic

Padua, 1887

 

Waiting for Tomaso at the Caffè Pedrocchi, Paolo sat at an alfresco table and sipped espresso, as he read Regina's letter.

Domenico and Vincenzo are finally doing well in America. You remember they're in a place in the southern U.S.A. called Louisiana. They almost have enough money to send for us, maybe in a year, maybe less. They were upset when they found out you were scomunicato, but they blame the government not you, although Domenico thinks Mama pampered you too much and turned you into Paolina. Anyway, if you want to emigrate, I think you should wait until we're settled there.

A place called Louisiana. No, gracie. Not that Paolo was invited, except by Regina. He folded and pocketed the letter as Tomaso walked furtively up to his table and signaled a waiter. He unbuttoned his bulging frock coat and sat. "I see a few acquaintances," he said, looking around, "but no one important. Good table too, Paolo, it's out of the way."

"Are you so ashamed to be seen with me, Tomaso?"

"Just being discreet. We've always been discreet, haven't we?"

"First you evict me—"

"I had to, Paolo. I told you I hate cats."

"You just used her as an excuse." He was enjoying the pretense of hurt.

"No one believed we were uncle and nephew anymore. Don't you like your rooms?"

"Well, yes." It was why he hadn't broken off the relationship. Just when he was about to tell Tomaso it was over, the old pedant gave him the very freedom he had been craving. Shortly after their weekend in Venice, Tomaso informed Paolo that he had found him some rooms not far from campus.

"And you got the first month free."

"You are very generous, Tomaso."

"And you can afford the rent. You're salaried now."

"But I miss you." It wasn't a total lie; he missed a part of him.

"More's the pity."

"Why?"

51.

The waiter stood above them. "Prego." Tomaso ordered for himself and another espresso for Paolo.

"No, gracie," he said. "I have had enough." The waiter nodded and left. "Quite enough." He thought he could really get good at dissembling. Perhaps it was as natural to him as the art of disguise. "I'm not good enough for you. Yes, that's it, you too have had enough. Enough of slumming with the Sicilian slut. Va bene, me ne vado." He got up to leave, his heart racing from caffeine.

"No, Paolo. You were a whore. I made you a scholar. And a mistress. I am proud of my creation."

"Considering the clay, no, the mud you started with?" Maybe he really was hurt, after all. Not because Tomaso was ending it, once again giving him what he actually wanted, but because the pedant really was a bigot, he really did consider Paolo’s Mezzogiorno peasant stock to be inherently inferior to his cold northern blood. "Vaffanculo!" Paolo said just loud enough to turn a few heads. Throwing money on the table, he started to walk away in what he hoped was a huff.

"You don't want me as an enemy, Paolo. Not as long as I'm teaching here."

"Isn't it you who have so much more to lose?" He didn’t look back.
 

Back in his rooms, Paolo locked his door, quickly stripped off his jacket, shoes, pantaloons and shirt, and slipped on a silk dressing gown and satin slippers. He poured himself some sherry and worked for awhile on his Poe translations. He was hoping to finish this project in time to be able to publish the tales as a fiftieth anniversary edition. I will do this without your help, Signor Tomaso Bedinotti. I'll send you a review copy, and you'll see what I can accomplish on my own. But the third glass of sherry made him nod out over his text, Poe's story "The Visionary."

A review copy. Let me think now . . .  you know I love a good hoax, Paolo, and I have just the thing. Paolo jerked awake and knew instantly what he should do. Write his own tale, set it in Venice as Poe had done “The Visionary,” but forget Poe's thinly disguised Lord Byron at the Palazzo Nuovo. I'll put one of my own heroes, also thinly disguised, in the Palazzo Vecchio. The woman he loves will not be a contessa but a courtesan. Poe's hero saved a drowning baby from the Grand Canal; mine will save what? a cat! of course, a cat from a rio. No mutual suicide will close my tale, but spells and incantations. Call it "The Visionaries."

I'll stick my story at the end of the book; Tomaso won't even get to it. I know the way he does these things. He doesn't know enough about Poe to notice anyway, and he'll have made up his mind by then. He won't be able to resist the temptation to pan the book—I'm counting on that. He'll write a review that won't even mention the mystery of the added tale. Someone else will notice the hoax—or I'll expose it myself—and he will be humiliated. I guess it's in my Sicilian blood. A mere show of independence is not enough. I must have revenge. But I am not like my brothers, I would only use a dagger on myself. That's why you threw it away, Tomaso, remember? All I want is for you to feel, for once in your life, humiliation and shame. Oh, I suppose you felt a little of it when they called you on the carpet, but that was not enough. You need to know that I am not an empty sack you throw away when you are finished.

52.

Padua—Rome—Padua, June 1889

Shortly after taking his seat on the train to Rome, Paolo saw a balding portly gentleman several rows in front of him who reminded him of Tomaso. Looks a little like Henry James. The man was quite preoccupied writing in his notebook—so he must be James, hope he doesn't look up and recognize me. Or did he only see me as Paolina? Paolo met James back when Tomaso liked to show him off, pass him off as a lady. They had loved to fool people when away from Padua, where of course they never dared let “Paolina” emerge from the shadows of Tomaso's house. But it was in Rome where they had first met James. When they saw him in Venice a year later, though, Paolo was, well, Paolo. He's looking at me now. Do I look familiar, Signor James? Back to his notebook. Good.

Not long after the train pulled away from the station, Paolo was nodding out, hitting his head on the window, jerking awake, then drifting away again. By the time the train was speeding through the valleys and vineyards of Tuscany, he must have fallen fully asleep. Otherwise, how to explain that Edgar Poe was sitting in the empty seat across from him? Poe looked ragged and worn out. Why do I still dream of you? My book is almost finished.

Poe turned away furtively and peered down the aisle. Is that Henry James over there?

I think so.

53.

He felt a nudging on the cuff of his pants. Once again the cat emerged from beneath him, under his seat. She climbed up on his lap, as the conductor came up to him.

"Prego, signore, you need to put your cat in a carrier."

"Mi scusi, but I don't have one. I didn't know the cat was here."

"Is it yours or no?"

"Sì. She must have followed me."

"Then you must get off at the next stop, signore."

"D'accordo." This has now become an experiment, Paolo thought, as he carried her off the train in Orvieto. After petting her thoroughly, he let her go outside the station. He looked furtively around like a guilty thing, then quickly got back on the train. We'll see just how uncanny a cat Circe really is. Somehow I don't think this is abandonment.

As he looked out at the lush vineyards speeding by he began to truly worry that he was going mad. These disturbingly vivid dreams of Poe could no longer be explained by overwork on the Racconti grotesci arabesci, which was almost finished. Circe's uncanny pursuit seemed even less accountable. To keep himself sane, he tried thinking of Regina. His sister was the only person he knew who loved and accepted him for what he was. Mama has never accepted me, of course, la via vecchia is too firmly ingrained in her being, her father's misgivings notwithstanding. Besides, she always thought I should be able to assume and discard the disguise without it compromising my manhood. What she would never know was the simple fact that he was born a she-male. His mother (and brothers) mostly blamed the government—but not totally. The remaining blame she felt was hers, but rather than take on that burden she transferred it to him. When first his father then his grandfather tried to beat it out of him, she never intervened.

He was still trying to forgive her. I want to. I feel terribly sorry for her, her life has been so hard, one disappointment after another: losing her husband to a futile war, little suspecting her youngest son wished him dead; losing her home, such as it was, when the Bersaglieri torched the village, and what did she do to deserve such a freak for a son?

54.

Would my family even care that I'm publishing this book? Only Regina, of course. They didn't care about his translations of Swinburne, they couldn't even read them. That was for the better, Regina wrote. Paolo thought of her now with such longing for her company, her unconditional love, her sisterly kisses, wondering if all these womanly feelings he felt were merely echoes of her soul, phantasms of her body. Admiring her all my life I wanted to become her? His gaze for a while was lost among strangers hurrying by on the square, and when he looked back toward the empty seat next to him he was startled to see it no longer empty. Poe was actually sitting there.

That's not possible. I'm awake. This is not a dream.

"Good heavens!" said Poe, pointing past Paolo’s shoulder toward the bustling square. "It's Swinburne! What is he doing in Rome? I thought Watts had him under lock, key and rod at Pines."

 Paolo didn't recognize him at first, that wild bush of carrot-red hair had thinned and greyed quite a lot since he'd seen him in the bordello. . . .

         

. . . . Swinburne had told Signora Lanzetta he only wanted one of her girls who liked to pretend to be a boy. She was all smiles when she offered him “Paolina.” When Paolo revealed himself as the very inverse of Swinburne’s request, he expected him to be angry, but Swinburne was so delighted he gave Paolo more money than he usually earned in a month. And all the impish poet wanted was frusta frusta frusta culo nudo.

"Please, Paolo," said Poe, "spare me the sordid details. I just cannot brook Algernon Charles Swinburne. If James thought I was primitive, what must he think of that degenerate lout? Oh God, he's spotted you. Here he comes. And there I go."

But he’s the one who first told me I should read you. The chair was empty again. Paolo was still puzzling over whether he had vanished or had never been there at all, when Swinburne addressed him. "Paolo Paolina! Is that really you?" He sat right in Poe's chair.

"I am flattered that you remember me, Signor Swinburne."

"As I was flattered by your fine translations of my ballads." He extended his hand, much pudgier than Paolo remembered it. "I'm glad I can thank you now in person."

"My Italian colleagues don't share your enthusiasm, signore."

"Indeed? What do such pedants know of our passions?" He smiled. "So you've gone from puttana to pedagogue. At least you have moved up in the world, Paolo."

"I enjoy teaching your poems, Signor Swinburne." He felt awkward, even a little stupid next to a poet he loved to teach, if not always with reverence. "So, what brings you to Rome, signore?"

"I've fled my benevolent captor. One last fling, that's all I want. And presto! Here you are, my Paolo Paolina. The goddess is with me today."

"I'm here for the Bruno celebration, the unveiling of the statue tomorrow."

"Actually so am I. I even wrote a poem for the occasion."

55.

Anything but Amontillado. Poe? But where is he? I can’t see him. "No, grazie, signore."

"Just as well. I don't have the kind of money I had last time, Paolo."

"You were very generous."

"So perhaps I still have some credit?"

"Is Signor Watts after you? Has he sent anyone to fetch you?"

Swinburne looked worried. "How did you know about Watts?"

"I move in literary circles, however small they may be. And you are a famous man, signore."

"Surely you mean infamous, Paolo." The waiter arrived to take Swinburne’s order, which evolved into a discussion of affordable wines.

He's a fraud, Paolo. Poe’s voice in his head. He's using Bruno's unveiling as an excuse to find you and descend back to debauchery. His attraction to Giordano Bruno is purely intellectual now, and he doesn't care anymore about the Resorgimento, he doesn't care about anything really, he is a mere decadent aristocrat.

Some have described you as a would-be aristocrat, Signor Poe.

He's supposed to be drying out at Pines, you know. His drinking made mine look like sipping.

It didn't take much with you, though, did it?

Swinburne swallowed all the noble sentiments he once had, then spewed forth their inverted remains in his wretched prose. Take Walt Whitman. He loved him once, now he despises him. He even castigated Mazzini. All the noble causes, took them all back, let Watts dictate his morals to him. I know you think perhaps my spirit once possessed Swinburne, his Dolores not unlike my Lady Ligeia, his jingling sing-song rhymes and lavish alliterations more excessive even than mine. But he never had my spirit.

Never? I thought perhaps you recently vacated him. I know he can't be your reincarnation; you were still alive when he was born.

It is you, Paolo, you're the one who harbors my poor soul.

It’s true I was born the year you died, but I’m not sure I buy it. Reincarnation, I mean. But if you're right that your spirit and soul split off, you could have possessed Swinburne.

So you’re willing to believe in daemonic possession but not metempsychosis?

I was being facetious.

I cannot inhabit anyone, Paolo, not even you. I’m invisible to you now only because I wish to conserve energy. Thanks to my own half-baked conjuring, my irresponsible bungling when I was one with the very soul you are now in Rome to praise, I cannot inhabit anybody. Inhibit, yes, and stir to action too. But disembodied and doomed to wander, by many a route obscure and lonely, through this Land of Dreams you call the real world, I remain a spirit following my soul. Following you.

The waiter came with Swinburne’s wine. Grazie, he said, then to Paolo: “Salute.” He attempted merely to sip his drink. "It is very fortuitous that we have met here, don’t you think, Paolo? I wrote a poem just a little while ago that you inspired. Let me come to your room tonight. Mine won't be safe, you know. Let me serenade you with my poem."

"I'm flattered. D'accordo, but none of your English vice, signore, per piacere."

56.

That night, after sharing a bottle of Chianti and eating linguine in octopus ink and fried squid (thank goodness Swinburne did not do as the Romans did and eat the brains, organs and intestines of mammals), they retired to Paolo’s room. He donned his wig, pale pink merry-widow, and white silk peignoir. At first Swinburne merely wanted him to pose, lying on the bed on his side and slightly prone, with back arched, peignoir lifted past his waist. Buttocks protruding. "I told you," Paolina said, "no frusta." But Swinburne, grasping her waist with both hands as though preparing to mount her, was merely trying to adjust her position until he had it just right. He made her bend one leg and cross it over the other, and to rest her head on one arm, also bent, just so.

"Ah, bello Paolo, bellissima Paolina. Sleeping Hermaphroditus."

"I'm quite awake, Algernon."

57.

After breakfast, as they walked to the piazza, Swinburne paused and took a deep breath. Haggard and hungover, he stretched his arms up to the deep blue sky.  "Ah, Paolo, I'm glad it's such a lovely day, it will help my headache, and unlucky Pope Leo won't be able to thank his Lord for thunderbolts thrown upon us cursed heathen."

"He's closed the Vatican for three days, he's afraid of riots. They say he's threatening to leave Rome altogether."

"Rome would have something more to celebrate, then."

"He thinks putting up Ferrari's statue of Bruno is a wicked crime. And we have reached the scene of the crime, Signor Swinburne. We are now accessories." As they entered the Campo dei Fiori, well over a thousand people were already there, gathered around a colossal figure almost ten meters high, veiled under a large canvas. A band was playing, and a huge baritone was singing Verdi's hymn to Garibaldi. Speeches had already begun, celebrating Rome's ongoing liberation from papal tyranny. Free-thinkers, atheists, pantheists, all gave thanks to Bruno for paving their way. As the canvas was lifted to reveal the cowled, brooding figure, Swinburne shouted, "Lift up thy light on us, O soul whose spirit on earth was a rod to scourge off priests, a sword to pierce their God!"

People were turning and glaring at him. One of them cried, "Zitto, you crazy Englishman."

"Per favore," said Paolo, "softer, signore, you don't want to attract attention, remember? Best to maintain decorum."

"They burned him at the stake, Paolo, how decorous is that? But fire and sword are no longer theirs; the steel, the wheel, the cord, the flames that rose round living limbs, and fell in lifeless ash and ember, now no more hath the power, Paolo."

"Don't deceive yourself, things haven't changed that much."

"Perhaps not in your homeland, don't they call Sicily the Land that Time Forgot? But here . . . . Look, they've finished unveiling him. Let's try to get closer."

They were now about ten meters from the giant statue, as close as they could get, the crowd was so densely packed. As the speeches began again, Swinburne remained undaunted by stares as he ranted, "Rome! . . .  redeemed at last from all the red pollution of your past, now acclaim yon grave bright face that scoffed of yore even at the fire that caught it round and rose to cast its ashes in the face of the pompous pope."

"You're spitting, signore."

"Scusi, Paolo." Swinburne was looking down at Paolo’s feet. "You said you have no friends in Rome. You were wrong."

Paolo squatted down and looked carefully at the cat's face as he stroked her long black fur. "It can't be you, but I know it is." The scar on her nose made it certain. "I knew she would follow me. I only wish I knew why. Or how."

"Follow you? What do you mean?"

Over Swinburne’s shoulder, Paolo caught sight of some men coming their way. "Never mind, you had better lose yourself in the crowd. You're being followed too, and not by a cat. Look behind you."

"Ah, Watts' thugs have spotted me."

"Well, you haven't exactly been inconspicuous."

 "I'll give them a run for their money. If you're ever in England, Paolo, come visit me in my lovely prison, won't you?"

58.

Paolo stared for a long time at the statue and listened to the continuous anti-papal diatribes. It wasn't until he was ready to leave that he noticed his arms were empty.

"Signore," he asked the person nearest him, "did you see my cat? I was carrying a black cat."

"No, signore."

Paolo wandered aimlessly through the crowd for over an hour before leaving.

           He returned the next morning when the venders had set up their stalls on the square. No sign of Circe. He was struck with the oddity of the brooding dark colossus, now seeming so out of place, its worshipers gone, amidst all this bright fruit and glittering fish. If the cat had been here, one of the venders would have no doubt chased her away.

On the train back to Padua, he dozed off quickly. In his dream he was Paolina sitting on her own bed at home, wearing a white satin gown that suddenly faded like a mist as she lay down with blue-silk legs in the air. Quickly penetrated by a disheveled derelict (did I invite him in?) whose breath stank like death and whose stubbly chin was scratching Paolina’s neck. Paolo jerked awake, still in bed, to find Circe on his chest licking his cheek with her sandpapery tongue, right where he'd thought Poe (it was Poe, wasn't it?) had applied his stubble.

Some say Poe never made love to a woman, much less to a she-male, thought Paolo, awaking yet again, this time to the train. In the train, really awake now. And no Circe. A dream within a dream.

Back in Padua, when he got to his rooms, he was not at all surprised when Signora Gabriella, his widowed neighbor who had agreed to take care of the cat, was waiting outside for him in tears.

"She's gone, signore. I am terribly sorry." The old woman looked as though she hadn't slept all night. She handed Paolo his key.

59.

New Orleans, May 20, 1889

My dearest Paolo,

I wish you could have come to visit in Catania before I left for this strange new world. Little Palermo they call it, and it is little, I'll give them that. We live in a tenement by the river, but it's better than a shack in the cane fields, which is how our brothers lived for two years. Now they're fishing again, they have their own lugger, and our paesan' (or is he just another padrone?) Tony Mantranga buys their oysters for his saloon. They're also unloading bananas for him, you wouldn't believe all the fruit that comes here, Paolo. Anyway, I wish I could say that we're one big happy family, but Mama is sick, Paolo, and even if she wasn't, I could never be happy without you in my life.

I'm not writing to beg you to emigrate, why should you? Everyone is proud of you for going to University and becoming a teacher. Yes, even Domenico. I'm asking you to come visit, that's all. I know it's asking a lot, perhaps you cannot afford it (and I wouldn't want you to come in steerage like we did), but I don't know how much more time Mama has, Paolo. She is wasting away with some kind of cancer. She managed to avoid yellow fever, malaria, cholera, and she gets cancer. It isn't fair, Paolo. She misses you, too. She really does. Domenico says it's okay if you come, you have the right to see your mother before she dies, even if you are scomunicato.

He says that he and Vincenzo will be making enough money soon for us to move out of this dump into a real house. I don't know if they're just telling that to Mama to give her something to live for, or if it's really true. I do know they work hard, day and night. I'm not sure what they do at night. I'm not sure I want to know. Their wives don't like that they're involved with this Mantranga family, because they're bound to get mixed up in a feud the Mantrangas are having with another Sicilian family, the Provenzanos. I've already learned enough English to read the papers, Paolo, and I know that many Americans hate us. Ever since that infamous Giuseppe Esposito was found to be hiding here (calling himself Joe Randazzo), they suddenly think half of us are criminals with assumed names! At first they were shocked to see Sicilians actually starting to own land and run businesses, we were supposed to take the place of their slaves (the "dagos" would be the new "niggers"). Now they think "the Mafia" is taking over the city.

Sometimes I overhear Domenico and Vincenzo talking in the other room (we have two rooms for the whole family, with a few dividers made of wood scraps for privacy). I know they do more for Signor Mantranga than just providing oysters and unloading bananas. I'm afraid he knows of their reputation as banditi, may even be using them because of it. Threatening to get them deported, blackmailing them into doing some of his dirty work. I think it involves persuasion—they collect money for him and maybe even for his boss, Joe Macheca. They'll do anything to get out of this filthy tenement, Paolo. There's a house on Royal Street that Mantranga owns, he's got it divided up into apartments, and there's almost always one empty because nobody lives there very long, it's supposedly haunted, that's where they want to move. Of course they'll never tell Mama the house is haunted. She'd never move if she knew the ghost of a tortured slave girl was sobbing there at night. Obviously they don't believe the stories, or they wouldn't want to move there. Mantranga said we could rent it, maybe even eventually buy it from him. By then, he will already own us.

As for me, when I'm not cooking or sewing, I'm tutoring for Mother Cabrini, trying to teach Sicilian children to read and write. She says I'll be able to teach in her new school when it opens next year. Since Mama is worried I'll die an old maid, and since I've turned down every suitor who's offered his not-always humble hand, she's trying to get me to take vows. Just like Nonno did with you, but not for the same reason. I can't in all conscience become a nun. I don't believe in their God, Paolo. There, I actually wrote it down. I should be scomunicata, just like you. I can pretend to believe for Mama's sake, but I can't make a sham of myself by marrying Christ. I admire him but not for the right reasons. People ask me why I've never had an amoroso, a beau they call it here, and I tell them the half-truth, that no man comes close to my ideal. I don't tell them the rest, that I am now totally repulsed by the thought of—ever since the voyage, that's all I'll say, Paolo. Ask our brothers for the details. I told them what happened, against my better judgement. So, what did they do? They tried to find the sailors who molested me, and when they couldn't they just maimed and mutilated a few they thought might be the offenders.

You're not like them. This is why I miss you so much, my sweetest brother.