CHAPTER TWO: Horatio
A new friend brings many stories to tell, especially one who has travelled well.
The man introduced himself as Mr. Donati. Horatio to his friends. He told Dante this as he swept glass off the step, occasionally pausing to hoist the pants of his blue pajamas. The glass fell into a broken dustpan that made Dante wince. In less than one second it had gone from timeless to trash.
“How old was the window?” Dante then asked, bracing himself for the worst.
He got all of it and then some. “1830, I believe,” said Mr. Donati after a moment.
“Oh no.”
“Oh no indeed. But then nothing lasts forever, boy. Not even the stars.”
“I’m really sorry. My name is Dante, by the way.”
Mr. Donati set the dustpan aside. “I remember. I also know you are sorry. You were very brave to knock on the door. Other boys would have simply run away.”
“I—“
“The window, however, is irreplaceable. I am sad that after so many years it came to its demise under my care.”
“Are you going to sue me?” Dante spluttered. Over the past few minutes the sun had grown very hot. He could feel it on his neck, trying to set the nape on fire.
But Mr. Donati only laughed at the question. “Sue you? Good heavens, no! What could I achieve by suing my paperboy, other than a comic write-up in the very paper he delivers?”
“You mean you’re not angry at all?”
Dante looked at the other window. It looked every bit as old as the man in blue pajamas had told him. The gold letter B was scripted in such a way he somehow knew hadn’t been used for many years. It looked quite regal and masculine.
“What was the other letter?” he asked, before Mr. Donati could answer his first question.
“I must go inside now,” the man said by way of reply. He had stopped laughing, and his heavy shoulders were slumped. Dante caught his eye wander again to the broken door. He was taking things well, but he was still hurt, that much was clear. “I come from Sicily,” he continued, “where we sometimes eat ice cream for breakfast. Brioche, it’s called. And it will melt if I don’t eat it soon.”
Dante nodded. He felt awful all over again, as if he too would melt, and very soon indeed.
∞
They did not speak again until the start of the school year. It was the last Sunday of August, and as always, Dante had saved the final paper on his route for number 114. Rather than throw it, however, he walked it carefully to the door, as if it were a girl at the end of a date. He placed the paper on the porch, taking in the fact that the glass had not yet been replaced. The doorframe was still empty. Through it he could see Mr. Donati’s anteroom. Coats and hats. An umbrella cane.
“Good morning.”
The man himself appeared from round side of the house, looking cheerful. No pajamas adorned him today. He wore a pair of faded blue jeans with boots and a yellow t-shirt. A garden spade hung from one hand. The other clutched a twisted mass recently murdered weeds.
“Good morning, Mr. Donati,” Dante said.
“Is that my paper?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good lad. And to judge by the empty wagon, your route is done, yes?”
“Yes sir,” Dante repeated. “Done for the whole year. School starts on Tuesday.”
“So I have read,” Donati told him. “Which leaves me perhaps another month to do my gardening. Perhaps two. The weather in Ohio is so volubile.”
“Volu…what?”
Donati smiled. “That is an Italian word. It means ever changing.”
“Oh.”
“Nothing at all like this house, mind you. This house is costante.” He gestured the upper windows with his spade. “Built in 1827 and still standing, just as strong as you please.”
Dante’s eye went to the windows, but only for a moment. The house’s huge pillars drew his gaze upward towards an ornate pediment that could have once been part of Siculus’ ancient wonders. “It’s Greek, right?” he said, neck still craned.
“You mean the style?” he heard Donati reply. “Indeed it is. Greek architecture was quite popular in 19th century America. This house was originally a seminary for young girls. A boarding school.”
Now Dante looked at the man. Here was something he certainly hadn’t known about 114. “This house used to be a school?”
“A long time ago,” Donati nodded. “And if you don’t believe me, I can show you one of the old chalkboards. It’s still in place on the wall.”
“Will you? That sounds really cool!”
Donati winked. “If you promise not to throw my newspaper at it, I will.”
∞
It occupied one of 114’s two living rooms off the main hallway. A crooked black slate, cracked in places, took up most of a dirty, peeling wall of dismal beige. The whole thing looked to Dante like a very old man holding in his last breath of life. Seeing it instantly made him feel that Donati was telling the truth. The dark texture looked almost liquid, ready to ooze off the wall at any moment. To lay chalk to it would no doubt make it fall apart on the floor.
The rest of the house, Dante soon discovered, quartered similar issues. Cracked paint and faded wallpaper—all beige—surrounded not only the chalkboard, but everything else as well. Crooked pictures, their frames caked with dust, hung despairingly from rusty nails. Fireplaces with cold, forlorn hearths stood in both living rooms. What little furniture Donati had chosen to decorate with did not look antique so much as merely old. Old and cheap. Still, he showed Dante the ground floor without the slightest trace of shame, explaining that there had once been a wall to separate the two living rooms.
“So there could be two classrooms?” the boy asked.
“Two classrooms,” Donati answered. “I purchased this house for a song, due to its dilapidated condition. In fact my words are almost literal, for I was once an opera singer. Can I get you some cappuccino?”
He showed Dante into the kitchen. It was a tight, narrow room behind the chalkboard. Seeing it nearly caused the boy to gasp in horror. By far it was the worst-looking room on the ground floor (who knew what ruin lay above?). Strips of paint hung from a sagging ceiling like jungle vines. Stained counters, all crooked, lay atop droopy cabinets of rotting wood. The floor had once been white but was now stained so deeply that Dante thought it would never come clean.
“Cappuccino!” Donati said again. Near the stove stood a silver, clumsy-looking contraption. Smiling, he poured a cup from it, then another for himself. “I could never drink too much cappuccino. In my mind it would be ridiculous for one to say ‘I have had too much cappuccino.’ It’s like saying you have too much money, or too much love.”
Dante nodded. In truth he knew nothing about cappuccino. The stuff was almost as alien to him as Jack Daniels. He took a sip. It was thick and warm—not at all hot.
“Good?” Donati asked, looking hopeful.
Dante found it surprisingly sweet but still good, and told him so. Then he asked: “Were you really an opera singer?”
They went back to the living room to sit by one of the cold fireplaces. Here Donati explained that he had once travelled the world, performing on the small stage (his voice was good but not, by his own admission, exceptional). He claimed to have played almost all the popular operas, from Vivaldi’s L’Olimpiade to Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.
“Albeit L’Olimpiade became awkward at times, for my troupe lacked money for set pieces. We played almost all of our operas on an empty stage, to small audiences in candlelit backwater theaters. Set pieces were usually trivial, provided the singers were good. And many of us were damned good. Marie Comfit. Louise St. Claire. Alfred Puissance. They could sing. Oh my, could they ever.” The older man seemed to have forgotten his drink. His eyes had filled with the mist of years gone by. “Nor did the time of day matter much,” he continued. “To us or our audience. Parents would bring their children to see Pinocchio at two in the morning.”
“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 on it. From there the love story became exposed.”
“What was in the envelope?” Dante asked.
“Ah!”
And before Dante could stop him, the old man was on his feet again. This time he went to the hallway. His steps echoed on the high ceilings. Dante heard him go up the stairs, rummage about somewhere for a minute or two, then come back down. As before, he had retrieved something. Not more breakfast treats though.
Donati sat. He placed an old, brown envelope on the table. Dark splotches stained its surface. It looked every bit as ancient and fragile as the chalkboard. Across the front, written in staggered cursive, was one word: LOUISA.
“No,” Dante said, awe-struck. “I don’t believe it.”
“You do. It’s just an old envelope.” The opera singer smiled. “No doubt you’ve seen stranger things.”
“I have. It’s just that—“
“Open the envelope, boy. We must have your question answered.”
Dante reached for it. He feared it might fall apart in his hands, delicate as the fibre had become. Its texture was soft, almost powdery, as if at any moment it would crumble. Gingerly as he knew how, he extracted a parchment from within. This too proved a challenge to unravel. With great care Dante pulled one corner back, and then another.
“It’s already torn in many places, as you can see,” he heard Donati say, “but the poem is still perfectly legible.”
Indeed it was. And it looked to be written by the same hand as what had marked the envelope. Faded letters waltzed across the page, their orientation slightly crooked, their words all but hemorrhaging with desire.
My shadow falls upon the porch,
Of the temple where you lie.
My shadow fades upon the torch,
Of the beauty I draw nigh.
Each night I walk the pediment,
To soothe an aching need.
I long for your disarmament,
I kiss you and I’m freed.
A giant’s bones are not enough
To keep my heart at bay;
A giant’s bones my own rebuff—
My love for you holds sway.
Always will I come for you;
Wait for me and see.
I love you, sweetest Louisa, true,
My darling, my dear, marry me!
“This was written by the boy?” Dante asked.
“To his Louisa on the night that he died. The story comes from the realtor who sold me this house. Where she got it” Donati shrugged “who knows? Does it even matter? The poem eventually found its way to Louisa’s hands. She kept it for the rest of her life. Never married.”
“That’s…” Dante began. But he couldn’t think what to say. Dumbfounded, he shook his head. “I don’t know what that is.”
But Donati did know. “That is love, boy. Romantic love. And when it’s real, there is no stopping it. A boy and girl will always come together. The author of the poem used his mind to make sure it happened for him and Louisa. But the spark derived from love.” He leaned closer. “If you truly love this Sunny Desdemona, you will think of a way to win her.”
“I love her,” Dante said, more sure of himself this time.
“Then what are you waiting for? Get to plotting, boy, get to plotting.”