by Eric Dupont
“And believe me, we’ve no shortage of evil spirits in Germany!”
The party had ended at some ungodly hour. On the evening of January 1, Gabriel had taken up the invitation of some of the folks from Friedrichshain, but hadn’t stayed too late. He’d wrapped up the night in an unspecified place, got home just as the rest of Germany was getting out of bed, and awakened with a brutal hangover and a copy of Margaret Thatcher’s biography in his pocket. Convinced that sleep would never come on the back of that discovery, he went down to the basement to pick up the mail that had been lying there undelivered for days. A small envelope like the ones used for sending Christmas cards had been waiting for him since December 31. An Italian stamp. Postmarked Rome. His brother’s address. Inside, a Christmas card with a nativity scene.
Mommy Dearest,
I hope you have a very happy Christmas, even if I can’t be with you this year. I hope you’ll take a little time out to relax over the holidays. Anamaria and I have almost finished filming Tosca. Only a few more scenes to go. We’ll be back in Outremont in mid-January.
I love you.
Your son,
Michel
Gabriel had to reread the card three times. He laughed heartily, then took the elevator back upstairs, pondering a couple of serious questions. By the look of things, in his haste, his brother had written his address on an envelope meant for Madeleine Lamontagne. “Mommy Dearest,” Gabriel snorted to himself as the elevator dropped him off on the ninth floor. More like “Dearest Bitch,” he thought. As the water heated for the coffee, his brain slowly fired up. If Michel had put his address on an envelope for Madeleine, that means he’d probably sent Madeleine a letter meant for him. The thought irritated Gabriel. No, there was just no way his brother—a man who got his mathematical mind and colossal memory from his mother—could have done something so stupid. What might he have sent to Montreal? For the first time since arriving in Berlin, Gabriel had an irrepressible urge to hear his brother’s voice. Not his tenor’s voice. He wanted to speak to him on the phone, to wish him happy new year, to do what normal people do. And that was when he realized he’d once jotted down Michel’s number at Palazzo del Grillo in Rome, but never called. Gabriel wasn’t overly fond of the phone. His mind still enveloped in the mists of the previous night’s party, he dialed the number, forgetting the 39 prefix for Italy. Just as he was about to try a second time, he recognized Magda’s light but persistent knock on his door. What did she want at this hour? She had to go out for the day, she explained, and was wondering if he’d like to have supper with her when she got back. He said no. He told her about the mysterious card, that his brother’s mistake had him worried. He would never have thought Michel capable of such a thing.
“His mind must have been elsewhere,” Magda reasoned.
She invited herself in. Dressed in the little felt hat she always wore on holidays and a long green loden coat that had somehow survived the GDR, she looked out of place alongside the unmade bed and Gabriel in nothing but boxer shorts and a white undershirt bearing the imprint of two voluptuous lips, no doubt belonging to the owner of the Margaret Thatcher biography. Magda picked up the telephone and dialed the long number. It rang a couple of times until they heard a loud and virile pronto!
The man on the other end was a Brazilian, his job consisting, as he patiently explained to Gabriel, of guarding the Palazzo del Grillo tower to make sure no one escaped. Gabriel told him he was the tenor’s brother. No, no one was home, neither Anamaria nor Michel. The Brazilian, who was something of a motormouth, told Gabriel that Michel was feeling better and that he’d left early that morning to shoot the final scenes of the film with Signor D’Ambrosio. As for Anamaria, the dangerously talkative Brazilian went on, she’d been found the day before, safe and sound.
“No need for Signor Michel’s brother to worry any longer!”
Gabriel hung up, lost in thought. He explained to Magda in awkward German that all was not well in Rome, the awkwardness stemming from the fact that he could think of no equivalent for “All hell’s broken loose.” No need to worry any longer? So he should have been worried in the first place?
Gabriel heard Terese Bleibtreu again, telling him to look after his brother. He imagined his worst fears being realized. How far had this D’Ambrosio character gone? What did he mean, Anamaria had been missing?
“Are you planning on getting dressed any time soon? Will you come over this evening, Kapriel?”
Magda tried to look elsewhere as Gabriel got dressed and threw a few things into a travel bag.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to go. I don’t like what’s going on one bit. I need to get there quickly, before Mom gets involved.”
“Your mother? Judging from what you told me, she could probably sort everything out just by cutting D’Ambrosio off.”
“Yes, but she’ll only do that if she thinks there’s money to be made. God knows what’s going on with Anamaria and Michel in the meantime. No, I’ve made up my mind: I’m going. Can you call Lufthansa for me, Magda? My credit card’s on the table.”
Magda looked out the window at the grey, depressing Lichtenberg skyline.
“Take me with you.”
“You won’t be able to keep up.”
“And how are you going to find your way around Rome? You’ve never been!”
“Neither have you. Need I remind you, you were trapped in a workers’ paradise for forty years!”
“Take me with you, Kapriel. Please.”
“No way. Besides, I can barely afford my own ticket.”
“I’ll ask Hilde for money. She’ll loan it to me. And I still have some Lufthansa miles from that time I went to Greece.”
“Magda, no.”
“Don’t say no. I want to see Rome before I die! Have pity on me! You know how fascinated I am by antiquity and ruins. You’re going to take that away from me?”
“Don’t cry. That’s not going to work.”
“I promise I’ll be good.”
“You promise you won’t be horrible to anyone?”
“I promise.”
“Even if we run into any Bavarians?”
“I swear.”
“You swear you won’t start drinking and lose your temper with complete strangers?”
There was a long silence while Magda stared at the floor, visibly wounded. Then she pulled herself together as only a German can and looked up.
“On Ludwig’s head.”
Gabriel and Magda caused a sensation at Berlin Tegel Airport. Reduced to silence once she’d sworn not to be unpleasant, Magda smiled beatifically at the Lufthansa flight attendants, all from the West. They swooned at the sight of the old woman with the cane accompanied by a beefcake with teal-colored eyes. Just as the coffee was served, the phone rang back at Gabriel’s apartment. Five times. Then the answering machine:
“Hello, Gabriel. I hope you’re keeping well. This is Venise Van Veen, the journalist and author. I hope you remember me. I certainly remember you. Listen, son, I’m calling to talk about what’s happened to your brother in Rome. It’s an emergency. We need your help. I need you to call me back right away at 514-555-5239. I hope you have a nice New Year’s Day in Germany. Tschüss!”
Poor Venise. So sure she had a role to play and strings to pull. She’d be waiting a long time for Gabriel to call her back, off as he was to straighten out the mess in Rome. She’d never know that the fate of Louis “The Horse” Lamontagne and his descendants was governed by forces beyond the ken of a columnist, that there were times when it wasn’t about being for or against something, but of moving forward with the wind at your back.
Magda even managed to hold her sarcasm in check when, during the stopover in Munich, the passengers were welcomed with an unmistakably Catholic Grüß Gott. She made do with closing her eyes and raising them to heaven, without saying a word. Gabriel and Magda had managed to find two tickets for Rome via Munich. But they had to rush to make it to the next flight, taking one
of those little electric buggies from gate to gate, Magda enthroned in silence beside an airport employee with a particularly thick accent and a fondness for small talk. They were the last to board the flight to Rome, taking off from Munich at 10:30. Magda was true to her word. There were no uncalled-for comments, not even when she caught the cabin attendant making eyes at her traveling companion, who said with an embarrassed glance:
“She’s got a nerve, doesn’t she, Magda?”
“What do you mean?”
“For all she knows, we might be together.”
“Husband and wife, you mean? It really is an obsession of yours.”
“It would help me get my papers in order with the German government.”
“I promise I’ll think it over, Kapriel.”
Gabriel, having promised himself to never breathe a word of his meeting with Terese Bleibtreu to Magda, nevertheless allowed himself to allude to it, just to ease his conscience a little.
“Would you have married Ludwig Bleibtreu, Magda?”
“Hah, now that’s funny.”
“What’s so funny?”
“Me, marry Ludwig? Why not? We’ve all seen horses puke outside a pharmacy.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s an old German expression that means stranger things have happened.”
“Why so strange?”
“Because we were so young.”
“You didn’t see him again after the Gustloff?”
“No. I came back just in time to find out his sister Terese had died, that’s all.”
“What do you mean, his sister died?”
“Terese Bleibtreu died in the final days of the war. They were difficult times for Berliners, women especially. The men were all off fighting, or were half mad. Nerves, you see . . . Only the women were brave enough to go outside for water as the bombs were falling. All the pipes were shot to pieces, you see. Running water was a thing of the past. Women had to go looking for water with pails, sometimes far from home. Lines would form at the fountains. Sometimes a bomb would fall on two or three poor women. And the line would close over the space the explosion had left.”
“Didn’t the others run away?”
“No, they wanted water for their kids. Anyway, by this point, the living virtually envied the dead. And I know what I’m talking about. The Russians took Berlin that April, as you know. It wasn’t the best of times.”
“And Terese Bleibtreu died looking for water? Are you sure?”
“Of course I am! I found out from a neighbor on Schillerstraße who was with her. She didn’t know what hit her. Such a shame. She played Schubert like an angel.”
This last remark plunged Gabriel into an impenetrable silence. His mind was racing.
“You’re right, Magda,” he said when they landed, before they got off the plane. “We’ve all seen horses puke outside a pharmacy. And we will again.”
“You said it, Kapriel!”
Gabriel and Magda were met at the Hertz counter by an employee who was clearly struggling to keep up with the New Year’s Day demand. He didn’t have a single car left, he told them.
“You could always take a motorcycle. Two crazy women left on a Suzuki barely an hour ago.”
But Gabriel couldn’t see himself driving an overweight Magda around a city he didn’t know.
“We should take the train, Kapriel. Then a taxi.”
Magda didn’t say a word aboard the Leonardo Express that took them from the airport to Termini station in central Rome, staring out at the ruins and remnants of antiquity from the train.
“Look! Just look at that wall. It dates back to Roman times!”
Lost to a sightseeing frenzy, Magda shared none of Gabriel’s preoccupations. He was starting to find the train too slow. What state would Michel be in when he found him? He realized that Magda knew the layout and the street names, even though she’d never been to Rome.
“In the GDR, cities like this were like forbidden worlds to us. We knew them like the back of our hands. I could spend hours looking through books on Rome, poring over maps, ready for the day when I’d be lucky enough to go, at last. And now that day has come, thanks to you, Kapriel.”
They had no idea where they would sleep. They had managed to convert a few marks into lira at the airport, before being whisked off to the historic city center. At Termini, Magda insisted on taking a look around and admiring the clouds of swifts flitting above the station. The two travelers fell under their spell as they formed shifting, complex patterns in the skies of Rome.
“There were the same birds in Königsberg, too. Thousands were strewn across the ground the day after the bombardments. Dead. They’re swifts, Kapriel. They fly in tight groups, without ever colliding and without ever really seeing each other. Young birds fly alongside brothers they don’t even know. All that matters to them is the ballet they perform in the sky. They don’t care about any of the rest.”
“Why do that?”
“Nobody knows. But it’s beautiful. You know, Kapriel, apparently Puccini, before he composed Tosca’s last act, came to Rome to soak up the sounds of the city. He wanted to hear the bells. One day he got up early and wrote down all the sounds of the bells that rang across the city that morning. The bells we hear at the start of the final act are how Puccini remembered the bells he’d heard. It’s a little like being inside his memories. But it’s almost noon already! The bells that ring at dawn have been silent for hours. A pity.”
The taxi driver recognized the Palazzo del Grillo address right away. He took Via Nazionale, lined with stores and restaurants on either side. The monument to Victor Emmanuel appeared right at the end of the avenue, a giant typewriter that the gods had misplaced in the heart of Rome. The car turned left onto a cobbled street, climbed a slope, then descended the length of Trajan’s Market toward the palazzo’s square tower, a medieval construction flanked by a crenellated tower. Gabriel asked the driver to wait. At the palace’s main door, the Brazilian (who, it turned out, was called Silva) greeted him, surprised to see the brother of the tenor he’d been guarding in the palace’s tower for months. He didn’t look at all like his brother, he told Gabriel.
“I know. Michel is a little rounder.” Silva smiled by way of reply.
“‘Was a little rounder,’ you mean. We made sure he followed Mr. D’Ambrosio’s program to the letter. He’s changed, you’ll see. She has too. Less, but she’s changed too. You do know we found her again? She came back! Yesterday morning, like a stray cat. Dressed as a Dominican nun.”
The whole film crew, Silva informed Gabriel, was still at Castel Sant’Angelo. He pointed to it, over toward St. Peter’s.
“Cross the Tiber. You can’t miss it. That’s what I told the two ladies who came by a half hour ago.”
“Which ladies?”
“Oh, they were probably D’Ambrosio groupies. Or perhaps French journalists. They were on a motorcycle. One of them looked like Mireille Mathieu. The other just looked grumpy. They wanted to talk to D’Ambrosio. If you hurry, you might catch them.”
Gabriel’s heart skipped a beat. Without even thanking Silva, he sat back down in the taxi. Magda had gotten out to admire the ruins of Trajan’s Market and its stray cats. He had to shout her name to get her attention. She was gazing down at the Imperial Forum, Piazza Venezia, the maritime pine trees, the domes of St. Mark’s, St. Peter’s, and Sant’Andrea della Valle, her mouth open, a tear in her eye.
“Rom, endlich,” she stammered to herself.
Thousands of swifts danced in the sky above Piazza Venezia, beckoning to her.
She came back to the taxi smiling.
“St. Angelo’s Castle,” Gabriel said to the taxi driver.
The driver didn’t move. Gabriel asked again. Silence. Magda, now calm, intervened.
“Castel Sant’Angelo, per piacere,” she said with a slight German accent.
The taxi began to move. Romans don’t believe in foreign languages.
“What would
you do without me, Kapriel?”
“I don’t know, Magda. I really don’t know.”
“Can you promise me just one thing?”
“What’s that? Finish reading Hannah Arendt?”
“No. That you’ll speak.”
“Speak? Who to? What about?”
“That you’ll speak up when you see injustice, that you’ll protest when you hear a lie.”
“You sound a little self-righteous, Magda.”
“I’m serious. Do you promise?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“When someone tries to harm those you love, or even—especially—those you do not love, I want you to speak up.”
“That’s it?”
“No.”
“What else?”
“Don’t be jealous.”
“Okay. That’s it?”
“That’s plenty.”
The day before, the same taxi driver had dropped Anamaria di Napoli off at Palazzo del Grillo and was now wondering what was going on inside the palace. Anamaria, still on the run, had hailed the taxi from a side street by the Vatican. He had only stopped because she’d been dressed as a nun. Otherwise, he explained to Magda (who didn’t understand a word of his gibberish), he never let illegal immigrants in his taxi. But for a sorella, he’d made an exception. Giving a ride to a Dominican nun, African or otherwise, as his first passenger that century could only bring good luck.
The sorella in question, poor Anamaria di Napoli, had returned to Castel Sant’Angelo like Joan of Arc to the stake. But the courage and determination of the young woman about to turn thirty was to be applauded. Having readily given in to the increasingly insane demands of D’Ambrosio for months, on December 26 she’d decided to disappear off into Rome after the shoot. Thanks to her talent for observing others, Anamaria had understood right away that she would need her wits about her if she was to escape the director’s attention. When he realized she’d gone missing, D’Ambrosio had called on everyone in Rome wearing a uniform, which meant that, as his last assignment of the century, the head of police was ordered to track down a runaway Tosca, an amusing state of affairs that gave the Italians a good laugh.
