CHAPTER SIX: Mermaid Pizza
Money changes hands surreptitious, leaving those in command most suspicious.
Dante lived just a quarter mile down the street from Horatio Donati, in a federal style home built in 1832. Its plain brick walls rose austerely over the street, undaunted by Norwalk’s downtown district, which seemed to creep closer to their mortar every year. From any of number 54 West Main Street’s nine commandingly large front windows one could stare forth and perhaps be unnerved by the city’s progress. It stood to reason. A fine, two-story colonial style home had once occupied the lot directly east, but no more. It had been demolished to make way for a bank. Up until recently, the lot due north bore the weight of a huge Queen Anne. Only just last year it had been torn down. Dante watched it happen from his bedroom window. City bulldozers and backhoes made quick work of the Queen’s tall corner towers and deep-shadowed entrances. Her death cries, the sound of shattering brick, echoed for half a mile in all directions. But number 54 remained.
Dante would have been glad to know his house was safe, and not simply because he happened to live there. He loved number 54. Like Donati’s home, it boasted a number of ornate fireplaces, all in far better condition. Its wide upper story windows afforded wonderful views past the purple maples that lined West Main. Often times in the summer he would sit in his room with the window open to allow the warm wind, and listen to the chickadees sing from their boughs. And at night there were fireflies among the leaves, sparkling like stars.
But what he liked most about the house was its staircase. There were no others like it in Norwalk. So Dante’s father liked to boast. Its beauty was one of the few things they agreed upon. It stood on the east side of the living room, a serpent of American cherry which began its ascent facing downtown, but soon curled immediately opposite without the use of a half-landing, so that the user, regardless of which level he began his journey, always set out east and ended west. The curve was tight, severe, immaculate. Meticulously beautiful amidst flowered stronghold high and pretty as Dolomites mezereon.
It was almost sickening to watch his father’s friends, Joseph and Janet Jones, taint it this weekend with their Gucci loafers. Yet taint it they did (or at least it seemed to Dante) on the Saturday night following Sunny Desdemona’s extraordinary little breath-hold. Not that their visit should have been surprising. Every other weekend they came to play cards in the basement and drink brandy. And while it was true they hardly ever went upstairs, Dante still hated to see them round the curve. It portrayed, he imagined, yet one more beautiful thing to which the condescending couple were granted access.
“Well hey there, tiger!” Janet’s dimpled face said when he opened the door. “Is your daddy home?”
“Sure,” Dante said, letting the couple in, “he’s in the kitchen.”
“Yo, slugger!” A towering man—Joseph—bellowed through his heavy mustache. His feet pounded the floor, shaking some of the home’s delicate Chinaware. “You’re gettin’ tall enough to pose for GQ!” And he gave Dante’s hair a ruffle.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah! Heck yeah! Mind if I go upstairs and use your bathroom?”
“There’s one down here actually.”
Joseph laughed, making his ugly chest hairs bounce like picket signs beneath the collar of his Land’s End dress shirt. “I know that, but come on, I’m a big guy, and that bathroom’s small!”
“Okay,” Dante told him. “Sure.”
“Thanks, buddy!”
And off Joseph pounded, all but attacking the stairs with his monstrous gait.
“Dante,” Janet scolded, “you know Joseph likes the big bathroom more.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Jones. Please make yourself comfortable. My dad’s almost ready.”
The woman’s volcanic features loosened—a little. “Okay then. We can let it go this time.”
He fetched her a plate of cheese. It had to be him, for his mother was out of town that night, eating cheese at some other card party. Cribbage, no doubt, which she preferred to poker. Poker is for philistines, Dante sometimes heard her say to his dad, to which he always replied, So is the Mazda Miata, before gazing out the window at her little red roadster.
“This cheese,” Janet told him presently, “is a bit stale.”
She was seated on the couch, her face lost in an essence of confusion as to what she might be chewing.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Jones,” Dante said for a second time.
“Oh no, no. It isn’t bad. It’s just…stale. A little.”
Now Joseph came pounding back down. Dante saw a Homer Laughlin about to fall from its stand and rushed to catch it.
“You know what I like least about this house?” the big man said to no one in particular. “These stairs! They’re too steep and the curve always makes me feel like I’m being stirred in a damned tea-cup! Dante!”
He jumped, almost dropping the plate. “Yes, sir?”
“What’s takin’ your dad so long, boy? He kissin’ his money goodbye already?”
“No, sir. I’ll go check.”
Half an hour later all three of them were in the basement. The cards were on the table. So was the money. So was a rapidly waning bottle of brandy. Periodically, one of them would call Dante down with a request—Dante, the ash trays need emptied; Hey big guy, how ‘bout some water; Dante, another plate of cheese if you please. He ran up and down number 54’s narrower, cruder stairs without complaint, careful not to drop anything or let his face flash signs of the least dissent. Janet made mention once more of the stale cheese. She also asked him to please bring down ice with the water from now on.
Around ten o’clock they decided to order pizza. It came on time, though Dante’s father refused to tip because he insisted the driver was ten minutes late. By Dante’s watch (it was he who had called the order) this was simply not true.
“Late,” his dad said flatly, handing him a ten from is wallet.
“But Dad!”
“No tip. Now bring us down the pizza.”
“Do as you father says, little boy,” Janet, who was now showing signs of inebriety, drawled.
I’m actually taller than you, Dante thought, not that tipping the pizza guy happens to be any of your business.
“Go, Dante,” his dad commanded.
Dejected, Dante went. The Pizza Brothers driver waited at the front door. He was fat. Huge, actually, with round, red cheeks that looked like Donati’s. His smile was like the opera singer’s too—wide, warm, friendly. Dante took the pizza. The bill came to nine dollars and ninety-five cents. A nickel came back, which Dante then pocketed.
“Seeya later, buddy!” the driver said, in a cheery tone nothing at all like the superior one Joseph used when he called Dante buddy or big guy.
“Wait!” Dante called as the driver turned to go.
Janet’s purse was on the table where she’d eaten her cheese. She’d either forgotten it or had no worries for its safety. Whichever, she’d made a mistake, for now Dante, with a heat under his skin that burned like pre-fever, rummaged into it, found her wallet, and fished out a ten dollar bill.
“Here you go,” he told the driver, proffering it. “You’re a good man.”
The driver’s smile stayed friendly. It did not flicker to greed or hunger, or any other like sin. He took the money and asked: “How do you know?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dante said. “It really doesn’t matter.”
“Thanks, fella. Enjoy your pizza.”
“Oh, I will.”
And the driver exited into the September night (followed by an approving wind that played through the trees), and Dante took the pizza downstairs, and the card game kept right on going.
∞
“You…stole money from your father’s friend’s purse?” Donati asked wonderingly, after slurping down a cappuccino.
“I did,” Dante admitted with pride.
“And how did that feel?”
“Oh I was terrified. I thought Janet would come upstairs and catch me.”
“But you committed the deed anyway.”
“Yes. And she never found out.”
Donati grunted. His chair creaked as he leaned back. “Never is a long time, young man. You did a wrong thing to support a right thing. You got something out of it—a little revenge, a little justice. The delivery driver certainly got something out of it. But this Janet person…”
“She’s nasty anyway,” Dante said.
“Perhaps,” Donati replied. “But for a scant minute or two, you descended to the level of your bête noir.” Now he came forward again. “Tell me, Dante, if one night a cockroach crept under your bed, what would you do to chase it out? Kneel to the floor or lift up the bed?”
Dante frowned. The old singer’s reproachful tone hurt. But how could he know the way he, Dante, felt last night? Where was his song of empathy? Or of defending common decency?
“Sunny would have taken the money, too,” Dante said. The excuse was weak but better than none at all.
Donati smiled. “I suspect that Sunny’s arms,” he said, “are not as strong as yours. Though of course, after hearing this story of how she held her breath for you, I also suspect that’s what you like about her.”
It was another Sunday morning at number 114. And despite the current discomfiting breakfast table illusion, Dante felt even more at home today than he had last week. And last week, of course, he had felt even more at home than the week before. Sunlight burst through the living room’s cheap, thin curtains, illuminating the chalkboard as if in effort to coax old wisdom to its surface. Both fireplaces, dark, regarded man and boy like amused elders watching children at play. A clocked ticked from the hall. Spooning up the last of his brioche, Dante was reminded of the picturesque ruins of Athens’ Acropolis, as well as the last of the Temple of Zeus. He had read about both during history class last year. Now here he sat in a near dilapidated home inspired by those very places. Can it be the destiny of everything and everyone, he wondered, to surrender what lay in their past to the sun?
“She shared with you a very intimate secret,” Donati spoke, “thus I will not have you betray it by asking how long her lungs endured. But I am put in mind of a story I once heard while on a stop to perform in Kalamata, Greece. It’s about a young girl who wanted to become a mermaid. This because she so much enjoyed swimming in that city’s Messiniakos Bay, which is deep and clear and beautiful, if not a bit cold.
“Her name was Alekto, which in ancient Greek translates to unceasing. The name fit her well, for even though she was only twelve years old, she possessed a will stubborn as the castle overlooking Homer’s lost Pharai. She was also quite beautiful, with long, golden hair and blue eyes. Each morning she would walk to the bay for a swim in its sun-streamed waters. There was a place among rocks which only she knew, which freed her to undress without being seen. And of course no one ever saw her, yet her body, it is said, was both fragile and slender, nary disturbing the film of the water’s surface when it passed through to visit the depths.
A pretty girl underwater is lovely to behold; no doubt this is why her story is told. Some like to talk of her billowing hair, others of her eyes upon lost, sunken lairs. But ‘tis her bare, dainty chest most pretend recall best, holding a breath in lungs sturdy though slight, as even within spark of death comes alight.”
Here Dante raised his hand, entreating Donati to pause. “Is that some kind of a poem?” he asked.
“Indeed,” came the singer’s reply. “A snatch of what I remember.” He sighed, as if in knowing the pleasure of memory longs for escape. “The original story was told in poetic form. There is a song, however, Alekto used to sing before she dove, translated to English by a professor at one of the Greek colleges. In it she longs to be a mermaid, so she could stay underwater indefinitely, for the sea fascinated her. She loved its cool depths, its blue beauty. She loved the glow of the sun on the fish and the rocks. Above all, she loved the feel of the bay on her naked body. She wanted to marry it, like it was a man. And in her mind the only way to do that was to become part fish.”
“Not all fish?” Dante wondered.
“Alekto had read many stories about mermaids. She became convinced that to be a mermaid was to be married to the sea.”
“But mermaids aren’t real.”
“Tell that to a twelve year-old girl,” Donati said with a smile. “Anyway, I have memorized the song. It goes as such.”
Dante listened as, with a deep breath, his new friend began to sing in a surprisingly thunderous voice, done further justice by the house’s high ceilings and many wooden beams. It rushed through the halls, exploring every room. It rushed up the stairs, entwining the rail like bougainvillea. The word handsome came to Dante’s mind. Donati’s voice was fine oak. Old library books on a leather chair. Wood smoke from the chimney of a forest cottage.
Maid of the deep,
Hear the song that I weep,
Hear the song that I weep,
Oh maid of the deep!
Swim unto me,
With your scales of Pisces,
With your scales of Pisces,
Oh swim unto me!
Snapping creature of the moon,
At the heel of Hercules,
During your romantic hour,
A bride come to the seas.
Like Anatolia ships,
Hard storms dashed upon the rocks,
I brave a devious wish,
I brave from balmy docks.
Maid of the deep,
Hear the song that I weep,
Hear the song that I weep,
Oh maid of the deep!
Swim unto me,
With your scales of Pisces,
With your scales of Pisces,
Oh swim unto me!
Come Hera’s Persian bird,
Paint with feathers morning mist,
Thus two animals of feeling,
Bring a third upon our tryst.
And shall depart one with the third,
Many fathoms, far below,
Trailing thanks to the others,
Deep as amphorae cargo.
“None of the villagers,” Donati went on to say after a short rest, “took Alekto’s wish seriously, though she spoke of it often. She even claimed a mermaid came to visit her. It happened one morning just after she finished her song. Alekto’s breath had just set free its final note when a girl’s head broke the water’s surface. She looked to be about Alekto’s age. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. And her tail, Alekto claimed, shone with cyan and gold. ‘My name is Ciara,’ the girl said. ‘Your singing is high as the hills ‘round Ephyra.’
“She then said that Alekto could become a mermaid only when a suitable girl appeared to take her place on dry land. ‘The girl must mimic you perfectly from each day’s dawn,’ Ciara explained, ‘so that no one will know when Alekto has gone.’
“‘That sounds impossible,’ Alekto replied sadly.
“‘Indeed,’ Ciara told her. ‘No girl of the earth becomes one of the sea. Nevertheless, I offer you this: Should you find a replacement of the kind I require, sing again from these rocks and your wish shall transpire.’
“On that promise, Ciara’s head disappeared beneath the waves. Alekto went home feeling hopeless. Her hair hung in her eyes. Her feet dragged. By midday her mother asked what was the matter. When Alekto answered, she of course did not believe a word. Nor did Alekto’s father when news of his daughter’s sadness reached him.
“Over the coming days the girl went about her chores more slowly than usual, and without a smile. She ate less. The normal abundance of happy words from her mouth fell to a faithless stop. The days became weeks, the weeks, months.
“By this time friends and family were deeply concerned. A physician was called.
“‘Her spirit has flown,’ said her mother. ‘She moves through the day as if weighed by a stone.’
“Replied the doctor: ‘I have studied these symptoms within that are pent, yet upon the girl’s brow I can find no ailment.’
“The girl’s despair continued for another week. Then one morning, all without caution, she was well. It happened so quickly. Alekto returned from her usual swim among the secret rocks wearing a smile her mother had not seen for so long it was a wonder she recognized her daughter at all. Her hair shone like garden flowers on a windy day. Her eyes twinkled the blue of Saturn seen through misty clouds.
“‘I’m hungry,” she said. ‘What food might I find in this household’s pantry?’
“Being so delighted to once more have her daughter thus, the mother prepared breakfast straight away. Alekto ate with fervor before dashing straight off to her chores, which she finished before noon, possessed of an energy she’d not demonstrated for almost year. This behavior continued the next day, and the next, and the next. Both mother and father were greatly relieved. It seemed their daughter was well.
“Well but no longer quite the same. As the days passed a number of subtle differences in Alekto’s demeanor began to surface. The mother was first to take notice. One morning Alekto came into the kitchen wearing a yellow dress she had sewn all by herself. Taken aback, her mother exclaimed: ‘Never have I seen you adorned as the sun; it blends poorly with hair on the shoulders it runs.’
“To which the younger replied: ‘This is the color I choose as my best, though I shall sometimes wear others kept dark with the rest.’
“That was the beginning. Alekto’s favorite color had changed from blue to yellow. Then came her favorite foods. She stopped preferring figs over teganites. She asked for her soup to be mashed instead of boiled. Suddenly snobbish towards Lesbos wine, she began to request Cretan. The mother grew more and more puzzled, but did her best with these tilts in her daughter’s behavior.
“Then one day Alekto lost interest in swimming. Never again did she go to the rocky grotto. She grew up to be a seamstress and married a carpenter. And all throughout she was happy. No one saw her cry or get sick ever again.
“So!” Donati said, his expression satisfied. “Did the girl merely grow up, or is she even to this day swimming with fishy friends? Eh?”
Dante laughed a little. “I think she probably just decided to grow up.”
“Perhaps,” the other replied. “And one day this Sunny Desdemona may grow up. In fact it’s quite likely indeed. But there is also a chance,” he went on, tilting his head, “that she will choose the sea. To swim with her dreams. Where would that leave you, my dear boy?”
Dante thought for a moment before saying: “I would follow her.”
“Down to darkest depths?”
Now he nodded. “I think so.”
Donati began to gather dishes from the table. They clanked and rattled gently in the window’s dawn light. “May the need never come to make such a choice,” he said with a soft tone. “May the need never come.”