The Rome Prophecy ts-2

by Jon Tracy

  Valentina isn’t that hungry, but gets tempted by a light tempura of baccala and anchovies, followed by a small portion of tagliatelle with artichokes.

  They pick out a reasonable bottle of Amarone della Valpolicella and try to talk about anything and everything except her suspension and the case she’s been taken off.

  Only when a second bottle has been opened does she feel ready to stop avoiding things. ‘I suppose tomorrow I should find myself a solicitor.’

  ‘Don’t rush into it. Things could look different in the morning.’

  ‘I won’t, but I need representation.’ She stares out of the window at the bright lights and the crowds of noisy strangers, and feels isolated and vulnerable. ‘This isn’t my city, Tom. Aside from you, I don’t have friends here.’

  He tries to reassure her. ‘You probably have more people on your side than you think.’

  ‘I doubt it.’ She swills wine in her glass. ‘When will you need to leave?’

  The questions stings. ‘Not until you tell me to.’

  ‘ Grazie.’ His gesture of kindness makes her feel tearful. The only other person who would have been this understanding and supportive was her cousin, Antonio.

  She curses herself for letting her guard down and thinking about him.

  One moment of sadness, and memories of him flood in on her.

  She blinks tears from her eyes. ‘This damned disciplinary case could take weeks.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay weeks.’

  ‘Or months.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay months.’

  She doesn’t laugh, but there’s a suggestion of a smile. ‘Years? Maybe a lifetime?’

  ‘Now you’re pushing it.’

  Finally the laugh comes. She looks into his eyes and thinks that if he does stay, then she might just cope with all the madness that Caesario and his cronies are going to throw at her.

  They ask for the bill while drinking the last of the Valpolicella.

  Tom tips the waiter, and at the door helps Valentina into her coat.

  Outside, the night is crisp, and they link arms snugly as they walk back towards the Spanish Steps.

  Valentina is feeling mellow and more than just a little drunk. She gestures to the fountain at the foot of the steps. ‘Rome is beautiful – but it doesn’t stop your life turning to rat shit.’

  ‘Your life’s fine, Valentina. You are defined by who you are and who you love, not by your job and what your boss does to you.’

  Even through the haze of too much alcohol, she knows he’s right.

  She holds him tighter and hopes she doesn’t fall and make a fool of herself before they reach the hotel.

  An almost full moon shines on them, and Tom briefly looks up at it. For the first time that night he isn’t thinking of Valentina.

  His thoughts are with another woman.

  One lying in a psychiatric bed across the city. A woman terrified of the dark and the evil she’s certain it will bring.

  74

  There are no windows in the room.

  No natural light can spill in from the world outside the hospital and make the occupant feel part of normal life.

  There’s only the homogeneous, alien whiteness of the forever-buzzing fluorescent tubes.

  But Anna Fratelli knows the day is over.

  It is night-time.

  She knows it as surely as if she was standing outside and watching the great Roman sky grow black around her.

  She clutches a bible that one of the nurses has given her and rubs it over her body like a bar of soap.

  No inch of skin is left unlathered.

  The words of the Lord will protect her.

  His are the only true words.

  Mother is wrong.

  What She says about Him is wrong.

  Anna kisses the bible and stands it, cover facing her, on the cabinet beside her bed.

  She kneels and prays.

  ‘ En ego, o bone et dulcissime Iesu, ante conspectum tuum genibus me provolvo, ac maximo animi ardore te oro atque obtestor, ut meum in cor vividos fidei… ’

  They will come now.

  From out of their own darkness, from places beyond the womb, the others will come.

  And one will take her.

  ‘… spei et caritatis sensus, atque veram peccatorum meorum poenitentiam, eaque emendandi firmissimam voluntatem velis imprimere

  …’

  The doctors have given her medicines. Pills. Liquid on spoons. Drips. They’ve put them in her mouth and in her veins and told her they’ll make her better.

  She doubts it.

  Maybe it’s the drugs that are making her sleepy.

  Or – more likely – it’s the others.

  It’s always tiring when they take her. They sap her energy and drain her.

  She feels increasingly listless.

  She looks across the room for the paper and crayons that the nurses let her have.

  No pen. No pencil. You might hurt yourself.

  She’s too tired to reach them. Her eyes close for a second.

  Cassandra is there.

  She’s dressed in a beautiful white intusium topped by a lavishly embroidered white and gold stolla. She looks as pale as moonlight as the soldiers trundle her past in a rough wooden chariot.

  Cassandra’s eyes see Anna. She calls to her. ‘Have faith, sister. You and I are strong. I am coming to help you. I will be with you soon.’

  Anna can feel Cassandra’s voice penetrating her.

  Touching her soul.

  In the wall mirror in the hospital room she sees her lips moving, but it is Cassandra’s calm and dignified voice she hears.

  She walks to the mirror. Stands before it and sees Cassandra talking directly to her.

  ‘Mother cannot hurt you. Whatever She does to you, sweet Anna, She cannot harm you.’

  Behind Cassandra, crowds are jeering and throwing things at her. Stones. Rotten fruit. Broken pottery.

  Anna covers her face for fear of being hurt. She turns from the mirror. She slowly rotates three hundred and sixty degrees.

  Cassandra is there again.

  Her hand has been cut off.

  Blood drips in pools of jelly from the stump.

  Her eyes roll back in their sockets.

  Anna turns back to the mirror.

  Behind the bible, blood pours from her stitched arm while she mouths the words that Mother says most…

  You mustn’t tell, Anna.

  Mustn’t tell

  Mustn’t tell.

  75

  For a fleeting second, Valentina has forgotten about yesterday.

  Her eyelids blink, her brain tells her body she’s awake, and her first thoughts of the day are about Tom.

  But they’re quickly chased off.

  Someone has let the bad thoughts out as well.

  Suspension, Caesario and court martial.

  They’re all there again, banging on her window and pulling faces at her.

  Tom’s out for the count, breathing as peacefully as a baby.

  She slides from his warmth and goes to the bathroom.

  The face peering back at her from the harsh light of the mirror above the sink looks scared and drained and old.

  It’s not her.

  Valentina determines that she’s not going to be that face.

  Not for much longer.

  It’s not even five a.m., but she gets dressed and lets herself silently out of the room. There’s something in the boot of the car that she wants.

  Her feet make slapping noises and echoes in the deserted car park.

  It’s cold enough to see her breath in front of her.

  She beeps open the central locking of the Fiat and grabs the carrier bags of personal belongings she collected from her desk when Caesario suspended her.

  It hurts to even touch them.

  As she walks back to the room, she realises she feels something more today than just anger and frustration.

  Shame.

  Its icy fi
ngers are digging into her shoulder and won’t let go.

  How will she tell her parents that she’s been suspended? How will she break it to friends back in Venice and to her old boss, Vito Carvalho?

  Vito might actually understand. She confided in him about her brush with Caesario, so he might not think badly of her.

  She lets herself back into the bedroom, trying to be as quiet as possible.

  But Tom hears her.

  He turns the bedside light on and screws up his eyes. ‘Where have you been?’

  She holds up her bags. ‘The car. I wanted to get these.’

  He glances at the digital clock near the lamp. ‘So early? It’s not even five.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ She climbs on the bed, kisses him and turns the light out. ‘You try to get some more sleep.’

  She smells of fresh air and the start of a new day. Her hair and skin are cold and sensual.

  ‘Not yet. Kiss me awake some more.’

  Too tired and drunk to make love last night, Valentina now desperately needs sex. She needs it to renew herself.

  Tom drags her clothes off.

  He cups her breasts while she straddles him.

  Her long hair falls around his face as she bends and covers his mouth and neck in kisses.

  It’s an eternity before they’re spent.

  They lie together in blissful post-coital slumber. Shafts of sharp winter sunshine arrow through gaps in the curtains and lodge in the wooden floor.

  They wake at almost exactly the same second.

  Valentina kisses him lightly.

  ‘Will you order some breakfast while I shower?’ She steps naked from the tangled quilt and escapes to the bathroom.

  ‘Sure.’ Tom watches her every step. ‘Anything special?’

  ‘Carbohydrates!’ she calls from the bathroom. ‘Lots and lots of carbs.’ She sets the shower going. ‘And juice. And coffee.’ Her voice becomes more distant. ‘Oh, and maybe some fruit. Berries if they have any.’

  He dials room service and orders croissants, pastries, muffins, a fruit platter, granola, some low-fat yoghurt, cranberry juice and a pot of black coffee.

  Valentina emerges from the bathroom dressed in a thick white robe, her hair wrapped in a towel.

  Tom kisses her as he squeezes past and heads for the shower. ‘Food should be here in a minute.’

  He takes a fraction of the time she did, and is already towelling himself dry when he hears the door open. For a second his heart jumps.

  She’s in danger.

  He rushes naked into the room.

  An astonished young man in a white jacket and perfectly pressed black trousers all but drops the heavy silver breakfast tray he’s carried from the lift without spilling anything.

  Even Valentina looks shocked

  Tom pulls up, only a pace away from throwing a wall-breaking punch.

  ‘Sorry.’

  The word is hugely inadequate, but it’s the best he can manage. He turns as nonchalantly as is possible when you’re naked, and creeps back in agonising embarrassment to the bathroom.

  ‘He’s very jealous,’ says Valentina as she signs for the breakfasts and adds a generous tip.

  It’s enough to restore normality. The waiter smiles and heads off to the kitchen.

  ‘What was that all about?’ She grins at Tom as he reappears, a towel now around his waist.

  ‘Sorry. I thought for a moment that you were in danger.’

  She moves plates and cups off the tray. ‘I wasn’t. And by the way, don’t you think I know to use a safety chain?’

  He glances over to the door and sees the brass slider.

  She rubs his arm as he stands close. ‘But it’s nice that you care. You want coffee?’

  ‘Just juice for the minute.’ He lifts the carrier bags off the bed. ‘What’s so important in here that you had to raid the car at the break of dawn?’

  ‘Give me the one in your left hand. I’ll show you.’

  Tom passes it over.

  Valentina empties it on the bed.

  Three thick volumes of photocopies flop out.

  ‘They’re copies of Anna Fratelli’s journals. Her life – or should I say, lives – in her own tortured words.’

  76

  Louisa Verdetti sits in Sylvio Valducci’s office biting a thumbnail and waiting for her boss to finish a call.

  Finally he clunks the phone down on its cradle.

  ‘Both the police officers you complained of have been suspended.’ He smiles triumphantly.

  Louisa doesn’t say anything.

  He gives her another second.

  Surely she appreciates his power? What he’s done for her? What he could do for her if she was nicer to him?

  It’s a while since any woman’s been nice.

  A good session of nice with the not unattractive Signora Verdetti and he could see her as something entirely different from the pain-in-the-ass clinician always nagging for more funds.

  But there’s not even a hint of the gratitude he’s hoping for.

  ‘What, no thank you?’ He jerks his arms. ‘You don’t think I had to pull strings to get these police officers kicked out of your way?’

  She concentrates harder on the hangnail.

  ‘Well, let me make something clear to you. There’s no room for excuses now. I expect to see results, Louisa, and I expect to see them soon.’

  ‘I didn’t want them suspended!’ She’s so angry she can’t look at him. ‘I asked you to make a call to someone senior to see if there was any way to get them to back off and give me some space and time alone with Anna.’ She feels sorry for Valentina. Being appreciated as a woman in the medical world is tough, but in the Carabinieri it must be close to impossible. ‘What will happen to them?’

  He lets out a small laugh. ‘You care?’

  ‘Yes!’ Louisa looks down at her hands. Her thumb’s bleeding where she’s chewed the nail. ‘They were only doing their jobs.’

  Now he’s angry. ‘Oh, please! No bleeding hearts. Be a bit more professional.’

  He loves the fact that she’s feeling guilty, feeling so bad about things that she can’t help but let off steam.

  ‘What’s done is done. You’ve got your personal victory and beaten the bad lady captain and her army, so enjoy it. Then forget it and get your job done.’

  In a sense, Louisa has already forgotten it.

  Her mind is back on her patient. ‘She damaged herself again last night.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Anna. She tore at the stitches again.’ She makes a motion towards her forearm. ‘Drove the corner of a bible into her wounds until she’d opened them all up.’

  77

  Tom and Valentina finish the mountain of breakfast.

  They stack used crockery on the tray and slide it outside their hotel room before attacking Anna’s journals.

  Tom spreads photocopies on a largish desk in the corner near the

  TV.

  Valentina sprawls across the gold-quilted bed with the two other sets of documents. It doesn’t take long for her to see the big picture. ‘These diaries stretch back at least fifteen years. It looks like even pre-puberty, Anna was troubled by multiple personalities.’

  ‘And the stories and history are all jumbled up,’ says Tom.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look.’ He shows her the first page, marked The Ancient Diary of Cassandra. ‘Here she calls herself Cassandra; that’s a Greek name. She refers to the Greek god Zeus, but the Etruscan goddess Minerva.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Then she says that she’s a descendant of the house of Savyna; that was Renaissance period.’ Tom traces a finger over the appropriate text. ‘Next she describes “the people of Cosmedin” – I think that’s from the medieval period, but her husband is called Lucius, and that’s an old Roman name.’ He turns the page. ‘And this story about the Bocca, the Mouth of Truth, it’s completely anachronistic: church and legend are from totally differe
nt time periods.’

  Valentina smiles at him. ‘Boy logic. Why is it men are obsessed with seeing things in a set order? You’re looking at the writings of a highly disturbed woman suffering from multiple personalities, not a graduate entering a history paper. What are you reading into it?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I just noticed that all the timelines crossed.’ He tries to better articulate what’s really troubling him. ‘It’s as though her suffering stretches back through time, through the entire history of Rome.’

  ‘You’re reading too much into it. These are fantasies, to mentally protect herself from whatever abuse she’s endured. She’s grabbing at visual fragments of every legendary story she’s ever heard.’ Valentina fans out some of the papers she’s been reading. ‘Come and see this. In here, she pretends to be normal. She adopts totally different alters with common names like Maria, Melissa or Francesca. Thankfully, nothing awful appears to have happened to them.’

  Tom leans over the bed to look. ‘What are they?’

  Valentina’s mood goes melancholic. ‘They’re almost what every teenage girl thinks about. More daydreams than anything. She writes about seeing a nice boy in a park, kissing him by some fountains, spending time in the sunshine at her grandmother’s house, picking flowers from the garden.’

  Tom touches Valentina’s hair. ‘Maybe she had some good times after all.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  They drift back to their separate piles and read in silence, only speaking to call out the name of any new alters they discover.

  After an hour, they’ve counted more than a hundred.

  ‘I’m out of my depth here,’ confesses Tom, laying down the papers and rubbing his tired eyes. ‘I understand demonic possession, but not this dissociative identity disorder business. It’s like Anna has an out-of-control personality machine inside her that can’t stop manufacturing new identities.’

  Valentina gives it some thought. ‘That might not be a bad comparison.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Anna’s brain being like a broken machine. I mean, we all adjust our personality to cope with whatever life throws at us, right?’

  ‘Right.’