Phantom (22 page)

"You
can
do that, I suppose?" she inquired with an airy insolence that made me quite ashamed of her. "A bench— it won't be too difficult for you, will it?"

"No, mademoiselle… it won't be too difficult." He spoke with guarded courtesy as always, but there was an unmistakable edge to his voice that suggested he was not prepared be pushed very much farther. I determined then that I would be present throughout the course of this enterprise.

Twenty stone urns were delivered from the marketplace, and in due course Erik carried them up to the rooftop garden and filled them with soil.

"I can do the rest," Luciana insisted. "I don't want you interfering with my new plants. Boys know nothing about flowers. You ought to get on with that bench now, I don't want you to take all summer."

He turned away in silence, picked up his tools, and went over to the great slab of travertine that awaited his attention.

For a couple of weeks Luciana tripped enthusiastically around the paved rooftop with a small watering can in her hand; but then, predictably losing interest in maintaining the pretense, she started to sit beside him each evening as he worked, occasionally making scathing comments on his progress.

"You're very slow, aren't you?" she said one night. "I thought you would have finished that bit by now!"

"
Luciana
!" I said sharply, looking up from my Bible to give her an angry warning glance. "Go and look after your flowers."

She got up with an impatient toss of her head and went away to fetch her little brass can.

"What's the matter with these stupid plants?" she said after a moment's disgusted contemplation of the urns. "Why are all the leaves turning yellow and falling off like this?"

I sighed and remained silent, but as I returned to my book, I was surprised to see Erik put down his chisel and go over to touch the withering blooms with angry regret. It was the first time I had ever seen him approach her of his own accord.

"They're dying of neglect," he told her shortly. "Can't you see that?"

"They're
not
neglected!" she flared. "I water them every day. Every day without fail!"

"You haven't watered them for over a week!" he snapped suddenly. "Look at the soil, it's rock hard!"

"Oh,
you
!" Without any warning Luciana threw the little brass can at him. "You think you're so clever, don't you… the all-seeing, all-knowing oracle! How dare you tell me I'm too stupid even to grow flowers! How dare you!"

She burst into tears and ran below, and suddenly there was silence in the garden. Erik bent to pick up the can, placing it on the edge of the balustrade when I approached.

"This parapet is crumbling very badly," he said uncomfortably. "The stonework really ought to be renewed, sir."

I agreed with him, permitting him to avoid a subject which he very obviously did not wish to discuss.

"That's a job you can tackle in the autumn when we're slack," I said quietly. "I'll get the stone ordered from the quarry for you in September. Better finish that bench first, though. I can see you're making a good job of it. And don't allow yourself to be rushed, boy. Even the most difficult customers have to learn patience."

"Yes, sir." He looked away, out over the old city where the light of a thousand winking oil lamps was just beginning to show in the gathering dusk.

I left him and went to the edge of the stairs. When I glanced back I could see that he had filled the brass can from the water butt and had already begun to move like a shadow between the urns.

Very late that night, when the sound of the old spinet in the cellar drew me from my room, I found Luciana sitting on the stone staircase with her knees drawn up beneath her chin. She was barefoot and shivering in her night shift, but listening with such fierce intensity that she did not know I was there until I put one hand upon her shoulder and made her start guiltily.

"Hello, Papa," she said in a sad tone. "Have you come to listen too?"

"You shouldn't be sitting here like this in the cold," I told her. "You should be asleep."

"He plays so beautifully." She sighed wistfully. "I've never heard anyone play like that before. Sometimes I sit here for hours just listening to him. Oh, Papa, I wish I'd worked harder at everything… He makes me feel so very small and ignorant."

I was silent, sitting beside her and feeling the cold stone creeping slowly into my old joints.

"Luciana…" I said at last, "I'm going to write to the Mother Superior in the morning and tell her you will going back to school in August."

She turned and buried her dark head against my shoulder.

"Please don't send me back there again, Papa. I'm quite old enough now to keep house for you."

"My dear little girl, you've no idea how to keep a house."

"I could learn!" she insisted fervently. "I really will learn, Papa. Please don't send me away again. I'll miss him so much!"

She held me in a suffocating embrace, as though simply by clutching tighter and tighter she believed she would be able to hold on to what she really wanted.

"I'll die if you send me away!" she said passionately. "I'll die!"

Music filtered up from the cellar and swirled around us like a gentle, enveloping shawl.

I felt the pointed bones in her shoulder which showed me where the weight had dropped from her these last few months; and I knew that for once this inveterate little liar was telling me no more than the simple truth.

Toward the end of that summer I found myself relying almost entirely upon Erik's skills. His ambivalent status had already cost me several trained men—men such as Calandrino, who came to resent his meteoric progress and ultimately declined to work with a boy who had made a mockery of the apprentice system within two years.

By this time I was accepting work purely for the sake of Erik's experience. Arthritis was twisting my fingers out of all normal proportions and I was aware that I would soon be unable to hold a chisel; I wanted Erik to take over the business from me.

During that final contract I found it easier to employ itinerant laborers and place all of the laying under the boy's supervision. I had given him responsibility for every aspect of this new job; he had done all the costings, and though I had gone over the estimate with a fiercely critical eye, I had been unable to pinpoint any naive oversight or extravagance. The client accepted the estimate without demur and then conveniently departed to Florence for the summer. Consequently there was no need for him to know that the building of his property had been placed largely in the hands of a fifteen-year-old boy.

The construction proceeded in the orderly manner which characterized all of Erik's work. He had absolute authority in my absence and his formidable, brooding presence upon the site ensured that there was neither conflict nor slacking among the men. He was very tall now, massively boned and muscular, almost inhumanly strong, and staggeringly competent; one glance at the uncompromising eyes behind the mask was sufficient to quell anyone's inclination to argue a point. And yet he was always fair, ready to acknowledge a hard worker or encourage a beginner; he showed all the signs of becoming a good master.

They were up to the first level when one of the men went sick and I was obliged to engage a new laborer temporarily. I thought nothing of it when the fellow told me he had worked his way down through Italy from Milan—it was not unusual for a laborer to travel in search of work.

But there was something alarming about the quick, startled glance that the man gave Erik when they met, something over and above the normal surprise engendered by the prospect of working beside that mask.

By siesta time I had gathered enough from the throbbing whispering running like wildfire all over the site to know that whatever secret Erik had chosen to hide was a secret no longer. This man had seen something—not in the Trastevere perhaps, but elsewhere—in Milan or Florence, wherever there are fairs to be attended.

And now he had told what he knew.

turned him off at the end of the day, but I knew it was too late to repair the damage he had done. The atmosphere on the site reminded me of the timeless lull before an electrical storm, and I could see from the sudden tension in Erik's eyes that he was fully aware of the change that had come over the men.

It wasn't long before the whispered word
monster

reached my ears and I heard it with terrible sorrow, for it merely confirmed my own inner understanding. I had guessed long ago that the boy hid some very serious deformity behind that mask, something he had never found the courage to reveal to me. In many quiet little ways I had tried to show him that his fears were groundless, but he had never been ready to read those signs; and I had been forced to wait patiently for the day when he finally trusted me enough to show me his face in the privacy of our home. Now, as I began to understand the enormity of the burden he carried with him, I saw that day was never going to dawn…

Danger was pulsing all around him, like molten lava waiting to engulf him in an unguarded moment, and I watched him change in response to this unspoken threat. Suddenly he was a feral animal once again, scenting the imminent reality of attack; a young tiger waiting in grim threatening silence to repel the challenge that never came. His natural authority—and his reputation for a quick and savage knife hand—kept the threat hovering narrowly at bay. But the vigilance required of him was unremitting, and he began to come home from the site at night too tense even to think of eating.

It was the same week that Luciana had taken it upon herself to dismiss my housekeeper and take over the duties herself…

"What's wrong with my cooking?" she demanded in that ominous tone, when Erik had chosen yet again to go straight to the cellar without explanation or apology.

"There's nothing wrong with your cooking," I said, valiantly spearing a stringy forkful of a dish I had yet to identify, "nothing at all."

"He hasn't even bothered to come and see what it is."

"The boy's weary, for God's sake, Luciana! He only wants to rest."

As the delicate, tinkling notes of the old spinet drifted between us, Luciana's fists clenched upon the table.

"He's not too weary to play, though, is he?" she said fiercely. "He won't be too weary to sit up all night drawing and messing around with bits of wire! Only too weary to eat a meal I spent hours making!"

And snatching her own untouched plate off the table she rushed away to slam pots and pans in the kitchen.

When Luciana had gone to bed, I sat for several hours staring into the empty hearth, smoking steadily, and refilling my pipe at intervals, trying to think what to do for the best.

Toward midnight, reaching a sudden decision, I knocked once on the door of the cellar and went down the steep stone steps without waiting for a reply.

Erik had been working on the accounts. The huge ledger stood open on the table behind him, lit by a wilting candle on either side, a spray of ink across the page betraying the startled haste with which he had got to his feet at my unexpected intrusion. I fancied I could almost hear his accelerated heartbeat, and it saddened me to see him returning inexorably to his instinctive, distrustful wariness.

"I've been wanting to have a quiet word with you, Erik."

"Yes, sir… I know." He turned away to close up the heavily ruled ledger. "The accounts are all up-to-date now, everything's in order. I'll be packed and gone within the hour."

Glancing beyond him, I saw that the old saddlebags were already laid out waiting on his pallet, and I knew then that had I not made the decision to come down here tonight, I would have found the cellar empty in the morning.

"You were going to leave without a word?" I accused him indignantly. "Why?"

He stared at the ledger. "Because…" he said with difficulty, "because I didn't want to wait until you asked me to."

I had a sudden great desire to strike him a smart cuff around the ear.

"You foolish boy!" I said testily. "Why in God's name should you think I want you to leave?"

"I'm causing trouble…" He would not look at me. "I ought to go now before it's too late."

"I never heard such absurd drama! You'd better come upstairs at once before I really get very angry with you."

I marched back up the steps and he followed me in uncomfortable, meekly obedient silence, just as though he were an errant son… sat hastily where I told him to sit and accepted the wine I gave him without further protest. I was well aware that it was going to be impossible to talk to him, in the manner that I wished to talk to him, while he sat there stone cold sober, wearing his tension and his habitual reserve like an impenetrable suit of armor. So for a while I discussed the business of the day and steadily refilled our large Venetian glasses, obliging him to keep pace with me. It didn't take too many glasses before I saw that his free hand was no longer clenched on his knee, but trailing limp and relaxed over the arm of his chair.

I spoke of many things that night, some that I had meant to, some that I had not. I, too, was feeling the wine by now, and it filled me with a morbid certainty that this opportunity would not come again, that we were all of us caught in a relentless current that might soon become too strong to swim against.

The oil lamps faded and went out, one by one, but I did not trouble to replenish them as I spoke of the grand Masonic ideals, the responsibilities of manhood. I spoke of God, the Grand Sovereign Architect of the Universe, who measures us all by the Square and the Plumb and the Compass; I spoke of goodwill and charity and tolerance.

And at length, choosing my words with as much care as I could muster, I spoke of the extreme vulnerability of young women…

He asked no questions, made no comment, but he did not look away and I knew he was listening, trying hard to accept what must seem so much at odds with the reality of his life. I asked tolerance and forbearance in the face of cruelty and scorn and I knew it was a hard path I showed him, a daunting journey from which it would be all too easy to turn aside. He wasn't ready to accept a crucifix, and yet without some symbol of hope, something to touch, to hold on to, in those dark moments of despair, I feared he might soon be lost to the temptations of angry violence.