EIGHTEEN
A month passed and we found ourselves in the middle of November. During those weeks I’m certain that quite a lot happened, both in my private and professional life. The details, however, resist the best of my recollection. Mondays through Fridays continued to see me alone at the condo whilst Setti convalesced within the healing affections of kapamilya. I visited her only on weekends, holding out hope that her needs would eventually turn their attention toward a different kind of love. To be certain, you know of the kind I speak. And though Setti remained distant and untalkative with me, I knew we would eventually reconnect. She just needed some time. Well, I had plenty of that to give.
I kept my counsel at PTN. The pilot for the new show moved along at a swift pace. Shooting wrapped by Halloween night. A week later we were ready to put it out. I sincerely wanted it to perform well, albeit on this go-around I’d offered very little input. Even when the director asked for my opinion on something—the dialogue of a scene, the lighting, whatever—I provided short suggestions devoid of all firmness. As for Oliver Madilim, why, he never asked for my opinion on anything. We barely spoke during the shoot. This applies to the cast as well. I deduced that, at some point or other, it had been informed about the non-payment clause in PTN’s contract. And of course it had also been informed that the producer for Lester’s Ghosts had played a major role in that show’s short, brutal life. On the set I spent most of my time seated far back from the action, smoking cigarettes and thinking about Setti.
She’d stopped coming to work. Did I mention that? Yes, she quit. It must have happened in October, at a time when, back home, the leaves would be falling from the sycamore trees, burnt by the season for a gentle, missionary glide to the soils of death. Manila rarely experienced such colorful finality. I believe I mentioned why a long time ago. We’re too damned close to the equator. Anyway, Setti. She quit. The girls in HR still asked about her, to which I always replied that our dear girl was still on the mend but making excellent progress.
Here’s another thing I remember from that month: Detective Lopez paid another visit to my office. It was about that lie I’d told him—the one having to do with snakes and girls. This smiling, self-satisfied, arrogant jag had actually taken the trouble to follow up on my claim. And on that day he wanted to know why none of the other big-shots at PTN—writers, directors, managers—knew the slightest thing about this fabulous show. Before I could answer, he asked if he could get a drink from my water dispenser. I nodded. Lopez popped a paper cup from the holder, filled it, and quaffed.
“So!” he said cheerfully, crushing the empty cup. “This snakes and girls show! It’s just you, eh? A private idea?”
“That’s right.”
The detective consulted his notepad. “In the first week of September you said to me: We like the premise but in all honesty, it’s probably out of our budget.” He looked at me again. “You used a plural form of the pronoun, Mr. Trentinara.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“That’s okay.” Lopez’s pen tapped the notepad. “I have it right here.”
I shrugged. “It was probably just a Freudian slip of wish fulfillment. Wanting other people involved in a pet project.”
Detective Lopez smiled. “I’m sure that’s all it was. By the way...where is Selli?”
My heart tripped a beat. “Selli?”
“Yes.”
“I think you mean Setti. She’s in Greenheights. Staying at her father’s old place.”
“She hasn’t been to work lately.”
“No. Her father is recently passed. She’s having difficulty coping.”
Lopez snapped his notepad closed. “I see. All right, Mr. Trentinara. I have no further questions for now. Please don’t forget to submit your urine sample today, if you haven’t already. There should be instructions in your email.”
Later that afternoon I did as he asked. My first stop was a remote table in a corner between two unused offices. Here a girl provided me with a test tube to pee in. A piece of tape with my name on it was wrapped around the top. I wondered about the security of that but said nothing. The results of the test came back negative. To those of you who’ve been following along, that should come as no surprise. I’ve already revealed the guilty party. Ah! Now that certainly came as a surprise to him. A month after our samples were submitted, Detective Lopez led him away from his office. He was shaking his head (the guilty man, not Lopez) and gritting his teeth. Never thought you’d get caught, right Mr. M.? You should have paid closer attention to how easily, how swiftly, things can change.
I mean look at me, living here in Trentinara, Italy with the Rainbird. That happened fast enough all right. The village is located high in the hills of Campania. It gives us a fine view of the Amalfi Coast. At night, the lights of other villages like San Giuseppe and Mattine sparkle in front of the water like frivolous imps. The Rainbird sometimes goes out to watch them. The cool Mediterranean breeze feels fine, while above the most vertiginous dome of stars I have ever seen shines through endless eras of things come and gone. Trentinara is not named after the great-grandfather of yours truly Alfredo, who left here long ago to start life anew in the States. Rather, he’d been given that name by a customs agent who read the word Trentinara on his boarding pass (the Santa Maria) and assumed it as an appellation. Yours truly been suited with it ever since. It gives me a subtle, purring satisfaction to have carried the name back home. And the Rainbird gives thanks for an escaped history. Yes, by coming here I went backward through time, to behold yesterday as more like tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. I sort of love that. It makes me happy.
∞
Of course there was so, so much that happened before Trentinara. For me the year 2006 represented change. A passing, if you will, from one chapter of a book to the next. I believe I’ve mentioned Tarot cards once in this book already. Here I do it again. Did you know that in most Tarot decks, the 13th trump of the Major Arcana, the card known as Death, represents not a physical expiration of life, but change. Now I don’t know why I keep going back to this sort of thing. I hold no special belief in Tarot readers. Never once have I even been predisposed to visit one. Before writing this novel (remember, it’s a novel, not a journal), my closest brush with Tarot was in owning a pack of the playing cards at the age of thirteen. I’d bought them from a gift shop at Elyria’s Midway Mall. Inside was a booklet of instructions that I could not hope to comprehend. So I developed my own way of playing, amusing myself with them at odd intervals over the next two or three weeks. Then I got bored and traded them to a friend, who’d stolen a 1969 issue of Playboy magazine from his dad. It was a clean, smooth swap.
2006 is the Death card. The 13th trump. I can’t associate it with old copies of men’s magazines (Brigette Bardot and Vanessa Redgrave!); thus, it is to the cards I turn. Such changes that took place in those days. It was a crossroads where the Reaper paused to regard the presence of a young man facing a dare. Where that man’s fate, balanced on the keen blade of moonlit sickle, became the Reaper’s. A philanthropist of death. A minister of revision. The man’s choice—which road to take—meant everything and nothing at all. It was pale as the hand that grasped the staff. Black as the shroud upon the skull. From one choice branched a cluster of others. And all of the roads were dark. There was very little to light the way—save, perhaps, for a deck of Tarot cards, and an old woman to read them.
The pilot for PTN’s new romance premiered in early November. I watched it with Setti, whom by then was spending more and more time at the condo. She lay in bed, her head on my shoulder, producing decidedly tactful comments about the show. I stroked her hand and told her not to be so skittish. If she liked the show that was fine. If she loved it, even better.
“But you might get mad.”
“No I won’t, darling. No I won’t.”
She loved the show. In fact, I hold its production responsible for her recovery. Oh Setti, how sweet it felt to hear your singing voice again. That night a long needed rain fell upon the cracked, dry landscape of a terrible world. Your smile covered the sun. Your breath made a storm through the trees. It was good to have you back. Should you promise to stay I will spend forever in debt to that goddess who sends man a woman to love. Should you promise to stay I will do so by loving you until the end of all time in every world this universe can hide.
“Fredo?” she said softly.
And I asked her what she would like.
“Do you remember what happened to Giselle?”
The program had cut to commercial; otherwise, she might never have asked such a question. Pulling her closer, I said that I did indeed remember. But what made her think of Giselle now?
“Well,” she explained, “this new show seems so great. I think it’s going to be a hit. It won’t help Oliver forget, though. Nothing will.”
“No,” I replied. “If he loved Giselle, he’ll never be able to forget her.”
She smiled. “Is that tonight’s love story talking, or do you really mean it?”
It wasn’t the love story. I had nearly lost Setti. Had it actually happened, there would have been no forgetting her. Was Oliver any less human than I?
“Of course you do know,” Setti went on, “that Giselle’s death was actually filmed? And that the footage likely still exists?”
That made me hesitate. “Interesting,” I told her. “I hadn’t considered it.”
“Why not? It’s a fetish of yours, yes? Seeing a girl drown?”
PTN’s new romance had come back on and Setti was watching the screen. Her head lay on my shoulder. A lightly etched smile teased her lips. The smile did not seem cruel or chiding. Underwater breath-holding had been something of a fetish for her, too.
“Not in real life,” I said with a small laugh.
She cocked an eye at me. “Sure, Fredo, sure.”
“I’m serious. I would never consciously will something like that.”
“But you would like to see the footage? Correct?”
She was so good at putting me in a corner. Trapping me into the truth. She did it with the girlish ease of a murdered beauty’s ghost.
“I...I don’t know, Setti.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Just tell me.”
“Well...yes, then. I suppose it would please the morbid curiosity of a man far from home.”
Her smile broadened, and I received a satisfied pat on the shoulder. “Try the network vault.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes.”
“What was the name of the show?”
Setti thought for a moment. “Hmm. It was about a female spy trying to blow the lid off a terrorist plot. Tropical Tyranny. That’s it.”
“And when did Miss Chavez drown?” Suddenly I was becoming excited. I wanted to see the footage, all right. Giselle Chavez underwater, holding her breath like a little champ. Acting out the scene. Oh, baby. Had she panicked in final moments? Had her tiny arms writhed and twisted to get free of the jammed cuffs? I thought the answer was probably yes.
“About two years ago,” I heard my girl reply.
I nodded. “Tropical Tyranny. Two years back.”
She laughed. “That’s right, Fredo. Go get it. Then bring it here. I want to see, too.”