The Family of Max Desir

by Robert Ferro

  He allowed himself then to surrender to a limitless fascination for men. He learned the circuit quickly. It was not extensive: the places, habits, streets, faces, hours, ways. He was shown a lot of it and discovered the rest on his own, chancing upon Lilo, who in this case was a conductor on the number four bus to San Marco. Lilo drove a scooter, looked good in slacks, had two separate and antithetical lives, one with a wife and baby, another with the circle into which Max had been introduced.

  This circle was tangential to a higher, more exalted set of homosexuals who emerged from and disappeared into the gardens of the aristocracy in the hills toward Pisa; stories of life at court in exchange for sex and street gossip—the titled queens and the working class. They bought Max clothes, took him to the opera and dinners, to museums in the afternoons and coffee at Doney’s in Piazza Republica at a certain hour. Lilo, not a thug but not a queen, picked him up in the morning on his motor scooter and took him to Fiesole for the view and coffee, or to San Miniatello to sit on the cool stones. They did not have sex for nearly a month, due to the complexity of Lilo’s existence and Max’s unwillingness to bring him back to the pensione, which was forbidden.

  Having shown such patience and respectful forbearance, it was doubly shocking then that Lilo, when he got the chance, raped Max, or at least committed rape on a body willing to be raped. It was painful, unnecessary and bestial, negating all the romantic looks and charged intimacy, replacing them with anger, shock, hurt. It was, if Max had wanted to experience something a little different, the exact reenactment of one hundred million wedding nights—the rape of the beloved bride. He might even say he now knew what the Sabines felt.

  After Lilo, Max became friendly with the only other proletarian in the circle, a waiter whose parents owned a restaurant in Prati. Max was not attracted to the ones with manners and rich families—effeminate complications absent in the working class. The queens spoke to him in English, each move they made delicately telegraphed for approval. With Lilo and the waiter anything was likely to happen, suddenly and to great effect. The excitement came in their directness.

  In the midst of these romantic friendships he was, perhaps by way of subjective compensation, atrociously unfaithful with strangers from the streets, the park; quite the little whore. He allowed nothing to hold him back, except perhaps an unwillingness to miss or be late for meals at the pensione. The imposition of a secret, vast and unorthodox sex life upon an Edwardian schedule gave him a vivid sense of being, and an absorbed interest in the goings-on that he had never before known. Any impulse to flee the palace in search of men was a command, no matter what the hour. Soundlessly he would slip along the dark halls to the door and down the hundred steps, drawn to the streets like an addict, or like some small and simple animal who has only to reach out, within a garden of abundance, to take what is required; an addiction constantly appeased, constantly growing.

  IN SEPTEMBER, BY PREARRANGEMENT, John and Marie arrived to collect him for a trip to Messina, their first, to visit the Defilippos. Having seen only photographs of Marie, the family pronounced her indeed the double of Barbara Stanwyck. Concetta, Marie’s aunt, who had survived the earthquake of 1908 and her two sisters, had shrunk to the size of a child.

  Do you remember anything? the tiny woman asked, holding Marie’s hand.

  It was fifty years ago, Nonna, Marie replied.

  I will tell you all, my dear, Concetta said. All. Your dear father, your dear mother and her need to be with him. She told you nothing about it?

  Yes, Nonna, she told me, but it was so long ago. Marie picked up her wineglass, into which the old woman had put three or four peach slices covered with wine.

  No, joia, wait, wait, Concetta said in her screechy little voice. I’ll tell you when the moment comes.

  Concettina, who never went out of the house, took them personally to the mausoleum, to see the crypts of her mother—Marie’s grandmother—and of the baby, Victoria, Marie’s sister, who had died in infancy. The mummy had entered a new phase. Cobwebs thickened with dust had fossilized into beaded strings that caught the light, like spun glass. It was apparent now that the lips and eyelids had been sewn closed.

  My mother, Concettina screeched in the gloom. La bella madre! Come look. Isn’t she beautiful?

  Marie had taken Max’s hand and stood slightly behind John’s arm, a comer around which she made an effort to hide. She said softly, Oh my God.

  Concetta, turning to Marie, said, That’s your grandmother, my dear … Can you imagine?

  They stayed in Messina four days, visiting with everyone, looking over the old photographs and letters, auditioning family and friends. They were brought around to the factories, the warehouses, the farm, the villa, down the coast to Catania where there was more, and to Taormina for the view. Since the war the Defilippos also sold appliances and light fixtures. John placed an order for two of their largest crystal chandeliers and numerous other fixtures for the new house being built in Hillcrest, which was considered correct and thoughtful, and for which John got everything at half-price.

  Along the sea road, Marie asked the driver to stop. She remembered this spot, where her mother fished. They got out and she went down to the water’s edge to a spit of rocks. She said, pointing a few feet away, I stood right there with my mother. Marie looked out across the straits, then at the little beach, the houses, the hills and trees behind.

  She fished the morning we left, Marie said. Right here where we’re standing. Some big fish, I can tell you. If she hadn’t fished we wouldn’t have left and you would never have been born, Max. Can you see how a little thing like that can make a big difference?

  HE SAID GOODBYE TO THEM IN ROME, from whence they flew to Paris and he returned to Florence with permission to remain another six months. Arriving after midnight, he left his bags at the train station. Ravenous, wired and vibrating with anticipation, his mind flooded with the images of rampant organs and melting eyes, he roamed the darkened streets and alleys like a soundless, gliding shark pursuing the sonics of hunger.

  In the Castine, the large park along the western reach of the Amo at one end of the city, he was arrested by a plainclothesman whose passivity Max had misinterpreted. He spent the night in an Army blanket on a cement shelf in the police station by the Duomo; He was questioned twice. Did he know that the act he had been caught committing—either they did not have a word for this act or its utterance was forbidden—was a crime against nature and the laws of God? He denied committing a crime. He was a tourist out walking, lost in the interstices of refined aesthetics, in the appreciation of Florence and all its amber angles as a work of art.

  In the morning he was given sweet black coffee, was fingerprinted and photographed, and then, without having seen a lawyer or magistrate, was put into a Black Maria and driven upriver to a huge old prison outside Arezzo, called La Stella Nera. He was put in a cell by himself and given a plate of pasta, a raw egg and a panino. He wondered what he was supposed to do with a raw egg. The guards, through the grate, would not answer his questions or tell him the time; no matter what he asked they would say, Yes, soon; it would be soon.

  No one knew he was there. He would not be reported missing at the pensione because he had not actually returned. His bags were checked at the train station. His parents were gone. He waited. On the third morning, three raw eggs later, he was led out of one wing of the prison, through an enormous rotunda and into another wing, into a small interior room in which a man asked statistical questions and typed the responses. Then he was taken into another room in which a man sat calmly behind a bare desk. Max demanded to know why he had been held incommunicado for three days. He was an American citizen. He had committed no crime.

  It was a crime to do what was done in the Cascine, the man said. Everyone was held incommunicado until they had seen the magistrate—him. The delay was unfortunate, due to a backlog in the system.

  After this interview Max was transferred to a different wing and put in a cell with two Italians
. He presented the three eggs as a house gift, which the older, quieter cellmate accepted and cooked over a hotplate in the corner, giving them back to Max fried, with a fork and napkin and a side of prosciutto and cheese. The other cellmate was younger than Max, no more than seventeen. He had been caught stealing a car, his third offense. He did not think he would get more than five years. The older man, the cook, had been awaiting trial, also for. auto theft, for three months, considered a typical delay. His name was Enzo and this was his cell, run according to his rules and extensive arrangements. After a few hours the younger thief popped up onto Max’s bunk offering a cigarette. They talked while Enzo cooked dinner in the corner, passing them the results on white china restaurant plates. When Max asked why Enzo was being so kind, the boy whispered that Enzo thought Max—here called Massimo—was probably a personage and would help them when he was released.

  This was reassuring only until he realized it didn’t mean anything, lying through the night on the top shelf as if filed away and forgotten; wondering if he would ever be freed, if like Enzo he would have to wait months for his trial. He wondered what he didn’t and couldn’t know about his arrest, the law, the missing pieces, the facts as the police knew them. Was the commissioner or the warden or the magistrate a fiend in these matters? Later he realized it must all have come from the plainclothesman who had arrested him. This act Max interpreted as a treacherous betrayal—given that they had already begun to have sex when the man drew back and changed into an arresting officer of the state. Several times during the hours at the police station others suggested he simply be let go. But the man had refused. Deliberately Max was fed into the system, step by procedural step, until a part of him, like a part of his clothing, his shirttail or cuff, was properly hooked and ratcheted and pulled into the vast machine.

  The next day was shower day. Their cell’s turn came in the afternoon. Enzo provided him with soap. It was in the showers that Max first saw Nick. He was taller, bigger, finer than everyone else in the room, in such a way as to seem better fed, on superior food, fresh milk and meat and garden fruit—an American college boy. They stopped washing and stared at each’other, like two statues that mark the entrance to something fabulous.

  Afterward, fifty or so men at a time were allowed to stand outside for an hour in the yard. Nick came up to him.

  What’s your name? he asked in English, smiling.

  Max Desir.

  I’m Nick Flynn. What are you in for?

  I was picked up in the park, Max replied. And you?

  Dope, I’m afraid. My apartment, not me. I was arrested at the airport coming back. No one’s guilty in here of course. My apartment did it, Your Honor. He laughed.

  Max put his hand on Nick’s arm. Can you tell me what to do? I’m in a cell with two car thieves.

  Do you know anyone in Florence? Max shook his head and Nick said, Well, I do. Have you got a lawyer? If you don’t nominate a good one they give you a turkey and stamp you through. You must imagine, he said, that you are dealing with Napoleon, because things haven’t changed since then.

  Have you been here long? Max asked.

  A few weeks. The person who can help me is out of town. He named a sister of the President of Italy. Max was dazzled.

  She’s due back this week. You are to picture the Emperor’s daughter-in-law. One word from her and I could spring a whole wing of the Black Star.

  Why does it have such a sinister name? he asked. You haven’t seen it from the outside. It’s got five wings like a star and a black roof.

  And the sex I’ve been hearing about? Max said.

  A crackdown a few days ago in Torino. It’s worse than any park in here. Be careful. Trust no one. He smiled again.

  A bell rang. They took each other’s hand. I’ll see you later, Nick said. Nominate Bandini as your lawyer. Two thousand bucks.

  Later, after dinner chez Enzo, a note was handed up to Max in his bunk. On the outside was written in Italian: For the American in D-Wing with the long hair. Inside, in English, it said:

  Max, we can get each other out. Tell Bandini to call Firenze 055.889 and to speak only to you-know-who. Don’t let anyone hear you say the name. Say I’m here. Nick Flynn. And that it’s the apartment, not me. She’ll do the rest. Sweet Dreams. Nick.

  In the corner at the bottom he had drawn a tiny heart.

  Max’s announcement nominating Bandini as his lawyer only confirmed Enzo’s instinctive opinion, which itself had been greatly enhanced by the arrival of the note, that Max would soon be free and therefore able to help from the outside. For the next several days he produced constant and prodigious meals from nowhere. In their interview, Max gave the lawyer the telephone number of the sister of the President of Italy and the rest happened very quickly. Max was brought into a visitors’ room. Bandini, a dapper little man of about sixty with beautiful white hair and a cane, spoke habitually in a whisper.

  She is coming! he hissed. Here! Her Excellency! No trial, no formalities, niente! This, Signore Massimo, is true power—bald, bold and limitless! It is difficult to imagine that the signorino should be so favorably connected…. The Virgin herself, meaning no disrespect, could not have done this more quickly, with such sure, masterful strokes…. It is known, he whispered even more confidentially, that her brother would sooner die than cross her. How is it, if one may ask that—

  Bandini was interrupted here by the arrival of the lady herself, heavily veiled, dressed completely in black, not an inch of skin showing anywhere. She ignored Bandini and extended a gloved hand to Max.

  How do you do? she said in faultless English. Would you mind leaving just as you are? It would be simpler.

  What about Nick? Max asked.

  He insists on getting his things. Thus the delay. My dear, perhaps after this experience you will have some idea of how stupid these Italians are. I apologize for the entire country … They are all pigs.

  She turned to Bandini. Signore, thank you for coming. It is most kind.

  Signor Bandini appeared to be inspecting the lady’s shoes. Anything, Signora, at any time, in any way.

  Would you please now take Signor Desir to my car? She handed him a paper. It’s signed by the warden and should see you through. She turned back to Max.

  They have my passport, wristwatch and keys, he said.

  Oh no they don’t, the little bastards. She extracted a manila envelope from a black satchel he had not even noticed, and handed it to him.

  You will learn, she said, if you are to be Nicky’s friend, that Lydia—here she partially lifted her veil, exposing a pretty, middle-aged face, blue eyes and a pleasant, mischievous smile—overlooks nothing. A presto, she said, and disappeared in a waft of veils through the doorway.

  Bandini was muttering. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

  What about the trial? Max said.

  She has had the whole thing erased! the lawyer replied. That’s the point! Erased! As if it never happened! You were not here. You are not here! He took out a pair of spectacles and examined the paper Lydia had given him. Dio, Dio, he whispered to himself.

  They were now on their way across the floor of the rotunda, moving toward an enormous door that looked from the inside like the entrance to a cathedral.

  What about the people who arrested me?

  The police? If there is any trouble, even a whisper, Bandini whispered, they too will be removed. He stopped, his hand on Max’s arm, and inquired, having suddenly thought of it, Does the signore require revenge? If so, I would think that a word in the signora’s private ear…

  The car was not at the entrance. Bandini said something imperious to the guard, who picked up a phone in a toy soldier’s striped booth beside the door.

  Some minutes passed, with Max on the edge of sharp, tumbling emotions, as if he had been drugged; the keenest, relief, was mixed with a sense of excitement at seeing and being with Nick again. Waiting for him on the prison steps Max imagined him: the tall, pale, chunky body of a wrestl
er of the 169-pound class—the image from the showers; a pair of calm, dark, round, nearly bor vine eyes set over small features—Nick’s face in the yard.

  A small but expensive black car with black windows glided through an archway and drew up to the bottom of the steps. A chauffeur opened the rear door. Nick leaned out.

  Max! he said, laughing. Let’s go before they change their fucking minds.

  With a wave to Bandini, who had turned to stone, Max rushed down the steps and got into the car. As they were moving away, down the long gravel drive, Lydia threw back her veils and began removing her gloves. Nick took Max’s hand, and Lydia said, Darlings, isn’t this great fun!

  AFTER PICKING UP MAX’S BAGS at the station, they drove down the valley toward Pisa, entering a small town and then a pair of gates in a wall of its main square, after which the car climbed a steep hill at such an angle that the road in front of them fell from view. They came out at the top within a fortress, built on an outcropping of rock in the middle of the town, like an acropolis. The top of it was not more than an acre across, on several levels. At its center, rising out of a villa constructed around its base, rose a square stone tower two hundred feet tall, topped with a loggia that commanded the countryside for miles in every direction. Up the valley in the distance one could see the mist like dust over Florence.

  No one will disturb you here, Lydia said, not getting out of the car. Nick, you know the way around. The place is yours until you’ve quite … recovered. Really, I’m so ashamed. You must both try to forget. I’ll call you from Florence. Max, such a pleasure. She held out her hand. I will be back in a few days and we’ll have a long, long talk. In the meantime, enjoy, my darlings. From now on you must take care of each other … Lydia can’t be everywhere. She blew them a kiss and the car was gone down the side of the hill.