Gabriel and the Swallows (The Volatile Duology #1) (16 page)

“What bothers me,” I said for probably the thirtieth time that evening, “is what happens with all the old perverts that turn up.” I had switched to Campari on ice, and swilled down the orange-rind bitterness with gusto. I was already extremely light-headed.

“I already told you, Laurentis, the girls have created a list that is waiting at the door. That and you have to show your university ID.
Donne Notte
has been the Rome University social club tradition going back generations.” He sucked deeply on his cigarette before flinging it out of the open window.

“So the girls already have a guy in mind before
Donne Notte
?”

“Not necessarily one. They submit a long list of guys they would sleep with from the university, and if you happen to be on that list, you’re allowed inside.”

“But what’s the point of all the masks, then?”

“So the girls don’t know which guys they had their way with in the morning, and hence things aren’t awkward afterwards. And it gives the ugly girls a chance too.”

“But they’d be able to have a good guess who they were with.”

“Yeah.”

“But what if you don’t want to sleep with an ugly girl?”

“Your preferences mean nothing the moment you walk in that door. You get selected, and you have to take whatever is coming to you. It’s a binding, invisible contract from the moment of your entry, everyone knows that. And anyway, who cares? Just pretend she’s the object of your desire and have your way with her. You’re in no position to turn down sex of any kind. If not, you had better make sure your bird spots you before anyone else does.”

“What if you show up and you’re not on the list?”

“Then you can’t go inside. And you also have the pleasure of knowing that no woman you go to university with is interested in sleeping with you, ever.”

“Are you on the list?”

“With these looks and reputation, you better count on it. And I’ll wager I’ve been requested more than once.” Everard winked rakishly at me.

“Do you think that Mariko—“

“If your bird said she wanted you to come, then you can be sure she put you on that list.
Merda
, we are out of beer. I’m going to the store, back in a minute.” He grabbed his coat and left me there with the magazine. I wasn’t complaining.

I was well drunk and thirty minutes late by the time we arrived at Il Serpente Nero. The Black Snake was a seedy underground bar on the edge of Trastevere, known for the plethora of hallucinogenic drinks and drugs in pill form available on request. Anxious about missing Mariko, I had uncharacteristically shouted at Everard when he had returned from the store, which had taken a grand total of four hours. He seemed disturbed and even drunker than I, muttering nonsensical excuses as we ran toward Via Dandelo.

An effeminate, gel-haired boy guarded the door to the pit of iniquity, with a cocktail in one hand and a clipboard in another. He was as beautiful as a young girl and appeared interested in anything but women. Everard stuttered his own name and presented his ID, swaying a little, and after consulting the board, the guard nodded and waved him in. I muttered my name.

“Mask off, please,” commanded the boy.

Surprised but obliging, I whipped the cheap black mask, a plastic thing that only covered my eyes and was attached by elastic at the back, off my face. The boy peered at me with great interest. “I see,” he said, his eyebrows sky-high. He looked down at his clipboard. “I was wondering what you looked like,” he explained without a sliver of shyness, “because your name had been submitted all of eighty-seven times. You can put that back on now.”

I replaced the mask and stumbled down the stairs. “Have a safe time! Don’t forget to strap on a blanket bopper!” cried the boy cheekily.

“Everard?” I called, as my companion was still wavering at the upstairs entrance.

“I’m sorry, man,” slurred Everard.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, man, I’m not going in there.”

“What the hell, Everard…”

“I’m sorry for everything,” Everard melodramatically sobbed, “but I just can’t do it!”

“You
pompinara
!
Porca miseria!
” I swore incredulously, watching my friend stumble away. But I was too focused on my objective to care. I ran down the stairs and flung open the bar door.

Il Serpente Nero was an unexpected sight. It was nothing but an enormous sized concrete room, like a bunker from the war, its walls and rooftop painted a matte black. All round the room, caverns had been set up, covered in cushions and rugs, probably constructed with the plastic crates that usually hold cabbages. They seemed to all contain naked people, yet in the sparse candlelight, all one could see was a golden glimpse of shoulder, or the arc of someone’s back upon the cushions. A low, temperate, writhing music was playing that reminded me of the records I would sometimes I hear at the Khan Emporium. Used jars, with labels still attached, were filled with singular condoms. The floor was littered with their wrappers.

My heart sank as I noticed that there seemed to be nobody waiting for me. I had arrived too late. Mariko was in there somewhere, among the rugs that were sure to be worm-holed in the light of day, with a masked man or maybe two. Or maybe three, I thought to myself as I looked around more. They were everywhere, kissing from half-masks, stroking bodies, too many tongues, hair spread all over cushions, legs like open scissors. To my amusement, I noticed a large amount of costume wings attached to the bodies. Ever the rage that year, the wings came in a plethora of sizes and colors, worn by men and women. I sighed. Everard Fane was going to pay for ditching me.

My discomfort and awkwardness grew and I was about to leave when something touched my shoulder. I turned around and, to my great relief, there was Mariko. Her dark hair was coiled into a chignon at the base of her neck, and she wore an elaborate red plaster mask, encrusted with plastic jewels. As promised, two wings, obviously spray-painted a silver hue by an unpracticed hand, were attached to her vampire-black dress that barely covered her backside. I began to speak, but she held a finger up to her scarlet lips to silence me. She took my hand and led me toward the back of the bar, to the only unused cubbyhole that was covered with a rug in fading chartreuse paisley swirls.

Mariko pushed me onto my back. In a flash, her dress was discarded and she threw it nonchalantly into the darkness. She wore no underwear, yet kept her costume wings strapped to her back. Unwillingly, I thought of Volatile, and also of Darlo Gallo, the way she had once worn wings to another
Carnevale
party, a lifetime ago, before it became a trend. Instantly, I hated myself for thinking of them. Mariko was pushing my jacket off my shoulders and my shirt up my neck. She dived onto my chest and was suddenly unfastening my belt, sliding my jeans purposefully down my thighs.

When Mariko straddled my naked body, all I could do was reach up and unfasten the clip from her hair, and it fell like a curtain, washing over me with its familiar scent. I closed my eyes and let Mariko have her way with me. And even though I was drunk and my vision hazy, I felt the immediate connection of our souls through our thrusting bodies. I knew I would never leave this woman, and that I would have no other. I could taste the buttery wax of her crimson lipstick all over my mouth and when it was over, she breathed into my ear, “I love you, Gabriel.”

I awoke by a piercing light striking my eyelids. My mask had been torn from its elastic on one side, and hung uselessly from my ear. My head swam and I sat up, not immediately noticing my nakedness. To my relief, I spied my clothes, balled up in a sweating heap close to my feet.

The light was coming from the door to the bar, wide open and abandoned, allowing any old curious pedestrian access to the shocking sight. All round me, couples and threesomes or more were coming to, and in the harsh, grey light all I could see were dirty bodies, all sagging, uneven and flaccid body parts, and mounds and mounds of pubic hair. Mariko was nowhere to be found.

Staggering to my feet, I cut my heel on the remnants of a broken beer bottle, and pain seared through my head, the beginning of my first real hangover. But I couldn’t help but smile. I had had sex. If only those strong boys that worked the Orvietani vineyards could see me now. I had done it all with Mariko Marino. And she loved me. Suddenly, going home did not seem so very distasteful after all.

I
wanted to be casual about what had occurred between Mariko and I, even though it was hardly the way I had imagined our courtship. I wanted to do the traditional Italian thing, taking her out frequently with a group of friends to drink and dance, slowly exposing her to my family until it was time for me to ask the question, and she would move into the farmhouse. I had concerns, in the past, that the Laurentis winery would not be enough to support her, and that perhaps she did not want to stay in Orvieto, but after she had expressed herself to me the night of
Donne Notte
, all those fears turned to dust.

My only problem, now that I had her, was that she was nowhere to be found. I did not have her telephone number or her address, I had not seen her in the marketplaces or squares for three weeks, and neither had she returned to
Il Nero Serpente
. I had even braved the masses of administrative buildings at the
Universita
, asking one assistant after the other for Mariko’s address. I had finally found one willing to assist me, and as she was sorting through drawer after drawer of badly filed manila cards, the telephone began to shriek, the queue behind me began to lengthen and squabble, and a few superiors flooded her desk and began to barrage her with demands. Fed up with the chaos, and after one regretful look at the discarded student cards on her desk, I had no choice but to dig my hands deep into my pockets and walk away.

I began to feel deep remorse about my stupidity that night. Why did I have to drink so much? Why didn’t I at least give her my address? Some sort of guarantee that we would see each other again? I could imagine Mariko, waking that morning in the squalor, embarrassed by the light of day, quickly gathering her things and leaving in an attempt to preserve what was left of her modesty. Had she been waiting for my call? Had she too been roaming the Piazza Santa Maria in search of me? Did she feel completely abandoned? Why hadn’t I told her that I loved her back?

All these thoughts would circle around my head like a train of desperation. I wondered if Mariko thought I didn’t care, that I had used her, because I hadn’t been in touch. I felt like an important detail was eluding me, although I did not know what, nor want to know.

I finally tracked down her address, a mere ten-minute walk away from the boarding house, after an afternoon spent leafing through a telephone book at the Trastevere post office, summoning the courage to call her apartment in Orvieto, and stuttering through a long and awkward conversation with Haha, after explaining time and time again who I was and what I wanted with her daughter. Everard had been no help whatsoever during my search, the selfish bastard. In fact, I had seen him so rarely since the
Donne Notte
that I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him; he must have felt so humiliated by his cowardice that night. He was avoiding me to be sure, and was so jealous of my success that night he would hardly let me describe it in detail. Did he feel shown up by what that effeminate boy had said about me? Eighty-seven requests. Now that was something to brag about.

Mariko’s apartment appeared from the outside a better-maintained, more colorful version of my own. Large balconies adorned the brick façade, and creeping ivy covered the entire expanse of the second floor. Springtime flowers budded in pots, reminding me of home. I knew that staring up at the lacy lingerie strung over the balconies would make me seem a complete pervert, but I couldn’t help it.

She looked different when she threw the door open, there was something unusual about her face, was she glowing? Even though I already knew her, shall we say intimately, my heart thundered in my chest and I was once again a little bullied boy and not a James Dean lookalike with eighty-seven girls willing to sleep with me. I felt small, not good enough for her.

“Gabriel?”

“
Ciao
, Mariko. You look wonderful.”

“It’s a surprise to see you.”

“You’re a hard one to track down.”

I waited for a barrage of tales as to how she had waited for me and searched for me too, but they never came. Perhaps life really wasn’t like the American movies. Her awkwardness was discouraging at first, but I was reminded of the shyness she must feel at seeing me again, remembering that night, so I made it easy for her. She was biting her lower lip and looking down at her shoes. “Do you feel like coffee?” I asked.

“Sure,” she responded, as if it were a spoonful of cod liver oil I was pressing upon her and not an espresso. But as if she instantly resolved herself to the fact that cod liver oil was good for her health, she recovered and said brightly, “But not here. Our machine is busted. There’s a café down the street.”

She disappeared for a minute and appeared again with her purse. We walked down the lane in silence. Mariko did not grasp my arm as she did that day in the city, nor did she prattle on. I felt a heaviness between us that I could not define, but I knew time would reverse our unorthodox beginnings, and we would be as one again. I was too thankful for her presence to wish to make love again, all I wanted was to be beside her, to hold her hand, to claim some sense of ownership.

The café was a little hole in the wall, and we had to stand at the bar to drink our espressos. No other clientele were present, and as soon as the coffee was poured, the dour old woman disappeared behind the faded blue walls, leaving us alone. Operatic ballads were playing on the radio, interrupted by sudden bursts of grey static.

“How have you been?” Mariko asked sweetly.

“I’ve been well. Worried about you, though.”

“Oh, I get along fine by myself. You are a darling though for caring.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Oh, class. Going to the theatre with friends. Same as always. And you?”

“Everything you said. Plus looking for you.”

“You found me.”

“Yes.”

“You wouldn’t believe the trouble I went to! I even called your Haha,” I continued.

“Did you?” responded Mariko, seeming as interested in the matter as she would a dung beetle.

It occurred to me that Mariko was too much of a lady to broach the subject of anonymous sex, so I wracked my brain for ideas of how to tactfully begin the conversation. But I had once again underestimated her.

“I’m sorry for leaving you there that night,” she suddenly stated, reaching across the bar and grasping my hand. All of the cells in my body recognized her touch, and I began tingling all over.

“It’s okay,” I said, and raised her hand to my mouth, grateful for the contact, grateful for any of herself she wanted to give me. I wanted to tell her then, in that moment, that I loved her. The words formed in my head but they refused to escape from my lips. Instead they lodged themselves in the back of my throat, like a pebble.

“Gabriel,” she said, my name one warm breath exhaled her parted red lips. I kissed her hand and her palm and she said, “Gabriel,” once more, with urgency. I paid her no mind and continued to kiss her. “Gabriel!” she snapped, and her voice became ugly, her hand was wrenched away, and she slapped my face.

Instantly, the offending hand covered her mouth, and her expression was pure shock. “I’m sorry, Gabriel!
Merda
! I’m sorry.”

I rubbed my cheek. I wasn’t hurt. Not physically, anyway. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” I muttered.

“I didn’t mean to hit you.
Merda
!”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you, I wasn’t a gentleman. Forgive me.”

“I just…I don’t want to be kissed like that.”

“Why? Too public a place?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

Something was wrong, dreadfully wrong. She was getting flustered, and I noticed a smear of lipstick on her front tooth. Her hair began to unravel out of its ponytail and fall around her face, which she brushed away violently. “What is the problem, Mariko?” I asked, willing my voice to be as gentle as possible.

“I don’t want to be kissed…by you. I don’t want, I can’t believe I have to say it, I don’t want this with you, Gabriel.”

I must have just stared at her like a large, floundering, stupid fish, its slack jaw hanging open. She reached for my hand. “Gabriel, I am so sorry.
Merda
, I am so, so sorry.”

“Why did you invite me in the first place?” I demanded.

“I thought I wanted it – I mean,
you
…”

“And you just changed your mind? Like that?”

“No. I mean, yes. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Was it something I did?”

“No, nothing! You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why?” I was beginning to grow angry, deeply angry. I felt like a little boy with a Humphrey Bogart hat shaking in his hands, standing in the aisle of the Teatro Mancinelli despondently, the lire saved for two cups of coffee burning holes in the pockets of my hand-me-down pants. “I want to know what is going on here,” I commanded, as adamantly as I could. I suddenly hated that little boy in the theatre. And I was beginning to hate the girl he was staring at, the one whose breath smelled like Bellini.

“This is a little creepy, Gabriel. I mean, you search all over for me, you even call my mother back in Orvieto?”

“
Creepy
?”

“She rang and told me you had called her! A little much, don’t you think?”

“I was trying to do the right thing! I thought you would want that!”

“If I had wanted to see you, I would have found
you
. I know where you live.”

“I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care about you. That I used you. But I guess you beat me to it. I guess you used me.”

“I did not use you, Gabriel.” She was staring me down with those green eyes. “You’re being a little melodramatic, don’t you think? I admit I made a mistake. I should never have invited you to
Donne Notte
. Happy now?”

How could she be so heartless? How could I, for all of these years, have been in love with such a careless creature? And it was all my own doing, harboring feelings for a harpy of Darlo Gallo, who was revealing herself to be as spoiled and selfish as my enemy. And why, after all these years, was
that name
coming up again? If Mariko had been right about one thing, it was this: Darlo Gallo was everywhere.

Regardless of my inner ranting, shaming Mariko as an invisible punishment for rejecting me, there was a deep pain in my chest. I wanted to storm away, throw my coffee cup at the wall, something manly, something aggressive. I wanted to keep my dignity somehow and not melt in front of her. But I couldn’t.

“No, I’m not. I’m not happy. You told me you loved me, Mariko.”

Her face screwed up like a dried prune, like she had swallowed a lemon whole. “No, I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“When?”

Had she taken something that night? Was it possible she did not remember? “At
Donne Notte
. After we…after we, you know, had sex.”

But Mariko scoffed. “We have never had sex,” she stated drily.

“Sounds like you were too drunk to remember,” I counteracted lamely.

“Sure I was drunk, but what I do remember about
Donne Notte
is that I wasn’t there. I invited you, but I never turned up. So whoever you had sex with,
that’s
the person you should be harassing now, and not me.”

She straightened up, threw some notes on the bar, and walked out.

And that was the last time I ever had dealings with Mariko Marino.