Desdemona by Tag Cavello (read e books online free .txt) 📖

“Didn’t your singing disturb people who wanted to sleep?” Dante asked.

“Not at all. The theaters we used were always well off the larger streets. Hidden venues in back alleys. Paris is rife with them. As are cities like London and Madrid. Even Manila.”

Dante put his cup down. “Manila? Where’s that?”

The question brought a not unkind smile to Donati’s lips. “That is in the Philippines,” he said. “A hot city. So very hot. Now you tell me, boy,” he went on, before Dante could ask anything else, “how old are you, and what grade are you in this year?”

“I’ll be thirteen in October,” Dante said. “I’m in seventh grade.”

To this he watched the opera singer’s expression very closely. Experience had made him bitter. His dad’s friends—golf players and yacht owners—were a most condescending bunch, and became even more so when it came to his age. They liked to ruffle his hair, using names like “tiger” and “chief” and “big guy” rather than his real name. Then they would tee off, or duck down into their boat for another cold drink. They never gave drinks to Dante. Ever. Once, on a Lake Erie weekend, Janet Jones had ordered pizza. She had given a slice to her Great Dane. But none to Dante. Those were his dad’s friends.

To his great relief Donati showed no signs of being like them at all. The opera singer looked him in the eye as he spoke, nodding, with full attention trained upon his response. Nor did his gaze seem penetrating or disquieting. Rather, it was simply interested. Quite respectful. For the first time Dante began to feel comfortable around the man. And comfortable, indeed, with number 114, though he’d yet to see the upstairs. Despite its run-down state—and despite its huge rooms with high ceilings—the house did not feel like a scary place. Like its owner, it looked old but friendly. And willing, perhaps, to lend an ear of its own.

Donati’s next words made him feel even better. “I never liked school,” he uttered. “But then I was not your typical student. I found it difficult to absorb material from a textbook. Children like me wanted education through doing. What is it boy?”

Dante had begun to smile. “You didn’t like school, so here you are, living in a school.”

“Ah. A fine ironia indeed.” His head tilted with sudden thought. “Perhaps I bought this house in effort to overcome the old disliking. Eh?”

“Perhaps,” Dante said.

“But no. It is not true. Love is what brought me to Norwalk. The love for an opera singer, like myself.” The man hesitated. “Wait. Not like myself. Better. Beautiful and better. Georgina Esposito. Have you heard of her?”

Dante answered that he had not, but his voice lacked strength, and his eyes were restless. Donati’s confession of love for a woman had made him immediately think of Sunny. He glanced out the window—

And just for a moment, saw her. A girl in green, with long red hair all ablaze ‘neath the morning sun. She was looking at Dante intently, as if to say: How dare you give your heart to me?

“She lived a long time ago,” Donati told him. “I loved her voice. I still do. In 1896 she came to Norwalk—“

Dante forced his attention away from the window. Now he looked back. The patch of grass where he’d seen Sunny was empty again. And the patch, of course, was green. Next door he could just make out the hood of a parked red car. So that was it. That was all it had been.

“—to sing at the Methodist Church. On Church Street,” he added, “where it used to be. Not this larger cathedral on West Main. I came to Norwalk five years ago to see where Miss Esposito had once performed, only to find the building gone, and an insurance company standing in its place.”

“You mean Nationwide?” Dante put forth.

“I do not remember its name. I was so surprised at what I saw—so stupito. I came for a church and found what looked like a gas station instead, then the gas station turned out to be an insurance peddler. Non potrei credre ai miei occhi.”

“What does that mean?”

“I thought my eyes must be lying.”

Dante knew Church Street well enough. It wasn’t part of his route, but you couldn’t ride downtown without seeing it. Not that there was anything to see. Two parking lots, one for a furniture company and the other for the Universalist Church, were all it had to boast.

“I never knew the Methodist Church used to be there,” he told Donati. “Just the other one, which is empty as far as I know.”

The other nodded. “The Universalist Church. It’s empty. Though a young couple recently purchased it. They mean to turn it into a restaurant.”

This was news to Dante’s ears. The old man’s tone, however, was of a man speaking the grim truth.

“You don’t sound happy about it,” the boy delved.

“It will never happen,” replied Donati. “I’ve seen the inside of that church. It’s too far gone to restore. And the couple…” His eyes dropped to his cup before returning to Dante with a sad smile. “They’re very sweet but very young. Immature dreamers.”

“You’ve met them?”

“Ted and Martha Billings. They’re going to lose a fortune.”

“I’m…going to lose something, too,” Dante suddenly told him. “In fact I think I already have.”

The old man’s smile faded. Yet he was still listening, and quite intently. For his eyes had not changed. They had returned from the cup with an air of sadness. Now they looked inquisitive as well, to form a third milky potion between them.

“And what might that be?” he asked.

Dante swallowed hard before answering. “I’m in love with a girl from my school.”

∞

He told Donati everything he knew about Sunny Desdemona, which admittedly wasn’t much. She stood maybe four feet, seven inches tall to Dante’s five three. She had long red hair, with freckles on her cheeks. Her eyes were a green, like swimming grottos on a stormy island. She had lots of friends—or at least knew a lot of girls who liked her.

And of course, she was poison mean.

“Does she like you?” Donati asked.

He had refilled their cappuccinos whilst hearing the story. Dante seized his mug, eager to hide his blushing face. Why had he felt compelled to spill his guts to this relative stranger anyway? Why couldn’t he have kept his mouth shut?

To his surprise, the opera singer came forward with an answer. “You are in love,” he said, “that is why you speak the way you do. You have the heart of a poet, which is lovely—except chances are you will never be a rich man.” He leaned back in his chair. “Now tell me. Does she?”

Placing his cup on the table, Dante said, “I don’t think so.” His so-called poet’s heart sank with the confession. “When she catches me staring she always makes a face. Like, you’re stupid, kid, go away.”

“I see,” the older man replied. “Well then, answer me this: Do you think you can win her, if you put your mind to the task?”

“Maybe my heart.”

“No, boy. It must be your mind. A fisherman’s palate becomes moist when he his hungry, but he must catch the meal with his mind.”

Dante thought about it. Could he win Sunny? Was there a way to make her look at him with interest rather than scorn?

“Your love will inspire you,” Donati went on. “That is where the heart comes in. But you must be wily as well.”

And from here he told Dante a little story of his own. Once, he said, in 1830, a boy from Norwalk fell in love with a girl who attended school right here at number 114. She was a very beautiful girl (of course), with tumbling black hair like tornado clouds, and eyes blue as a lightning-struck sea. Her name was Louisa. The boy’s name became lost over time, but so powerful did his love burn for Louisa—whom he’d met eating strawberries at a street fair—that on many nights he would creep through the countless mighty elms that had once grown around 114, and climb their branches to reach the school’s huge pediment, and slip inside to the attic bedroom where she lay. Here he would present her with myriad tokens of his affection—flowers, fruits, kisses.

Louisa loved them all. She also loved the boy. His face was handsome, his heart brave. Every time he visited, she thought of heroes. Climbing the trees took strength and courage. Traversing the attic at 114 took even more.

Here Mr. Donati explained that to reach the attic bedrooms from outside, you first had to cross a vast section of framework. A place where huge wooden beams floated in darkness like the hull of a sunken galleon. If you could manage this feat without losing your nerve, you might then be able to find a sliding wood panel that let on the attic stairs. None of the girls who lived in the attic would open this panel. The gigantic beams were simply too disturbing to look at, let alone walk on. The boy, however, used them every week to reach his Louisa. He used them at night, when the moon hung at just the proper place to light the way across.

For a full year his luck and skill with the beams held firm. But in August of 1831 it all came to an end. One night near the end of the month the boy came calling as usual. Though a cool wind had gotten up, and the sky was anxious with clouds, he climbed his favorite elm with ease. Minutes later, he was slipping through number 114’s tympanum oxeye window to place his foot on one of its frightful joists. By this time the wind had grown stronger, the clouds heavier. The school’s huge frame had come alive, dashing in and out of silvery light each time a cloud blocked the moon. Impatient as the boy was to see his love, he attempted to cross anyway, until the clouds grew too thick for the moon to escape, and he was utterly blinded.

“You must know what happened next,” Donati said.

Dante was pretty sure he did. “He fell.”

“Indeed. Straight down through the ceiling of the second floor. His body landed in the teacher’s quarters, where it became impaled on her bedpost.”

From here the old crooner seemed unable to move on. He stared at Dante for several seconds before rising from his chair to return, on bones seemed made of glass, to the kitchen. Dante thought it best to remain seated. From the kitchen came a rattling of dishware—plates and cups and who knew what else. What could Donati be doing? he wondered. Whipping up a soufflé?

The thought proved not terribly far off. Dante stared at 114’s cold living room fireplace for another ten minutes. His mind had gotten back to the boy—the poor, love-struck boy—and rather morbidly, whether the room in this house still bore evidence of the tragedy. Then Donati returned with a breakfast tray. It wobbled in his arms. Toast, jam, some re-heated muffins. He placed the tray on the table and invited Dante to eat.

“Not precisely Italian,” the singer said, a trifle apologetic, “but then we are in America. Are we not?”

Dante took a piece of toast. A rather silly question had occurred to him, but it felt like he had to know. “Was…was the teacher asleep in that bed when…when the boy fell?”

“She was rather rudely awakened by the event,” Donati admitted. “Miss McKinney, her name was. The crash made her scream, and when she lit the lamp, her bed was soaked in blood. It took a long time for the whole story to come out,” he went on, crunching a piece of toast. “Miss McKinney did not hear much of it, for her nerves were so damaged by the event she was unable to return to teaching. But an envelope was found with the boy’s jacket. An envelope with Louisa’s name