The Healer

By Anna Veneziano

It is 1950 and Amato must travel to an isolated village in the mountains of southern Italy, untouched by a world at war yet poisoned by secrets, superstition and deceit.

In the small town where all is known, a blind eye is turned to shameful truths.

The young doctor Amato tries to unravel the mystery of what happened to a sixteen year old girl with psychic healing powers and discovers his own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475939767

Anna Veneziano

Anna Veneziano Wynn lives and writes in Maui.

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Copyright © 2012 by Anna Veneziano

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-3975-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-3976-7 (e)

Contents

Amato

Stigliano -Winter of 1950

  1

  2

  3

Davide

Stigliano - Summer of 1940

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

Amato

Stigliano - Winter of 1950

  9

10

11

Davide

Castel Gandolfo - Stigliano - Winter of 1950

12

13

14

Amato

Stigliano - Winter of 1950

15

16

Dr. Marchesi

Stigliano - Winter 1950

17

18

19

Amato

Istanbul - Winter 1950

20

21

22

23

24

Isadora

Stigliano - Winter 1950

25

Amato

Stigliano - Winter 1950

26

Giaginta

Stigliano - Winter of 1950

27

The Séance

Stigliano - Winter 1950

28

Maddalena’s Diary

29

Amato

Stigliano - Winter of 1950

30

In memory

of

Vincenzo Veneziano, my father

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks to Jeannette McKinley for her friendship and invaluable advise.

My heartfelt gratitude to my son Robert for the book cover design and for seeing me through the final phase of the manuscript.

"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence

is to kindle the light in the darkness of mere being."

Carl Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Carl Jung speaks to the act of healing others as well as kindling the light of humanity within.

Robert Wynn

Amato

Stigliano -Winter of 1950

  1

The word telegram has ominous connotations. An intrusion. A message that by the very essence of being a telegram forces itself on my attention.

I yield to the conditioning, open the envelope and unfold the message. Your mother is dead. Come now. I stare at the five words. The message is not signed. My sister Maddalena must have sent it.

I feel no sorrow, as if the news is not my news, as if the sorrow is not my sorrow. Even pulse. Regular breathing. No tears.

Mother has been ill for a long while. Likely, a stroke. How old is she? I never knew her age. Mid sixties, most likely. I never felt close to her.

Maddalena should have called me. Granted, there is no phone at home. She should have called from the pharmacy or the bar around the corner. On second thought, Maddalena would never go to the bar. I know that. There is always the pharmacy. She should have broken the news personally. Her hesitant-quivering-voice would have sufficed.

I push the telegram out of reading range, get on the intercom and call my assistant, Nurse Elysia. An emergency, I say. Make sure administration knows. My mother is dead and I am going to Italy right away. It is not easy to leave my medical practice on such short notice but I plan on being gone no longer than a couple of days.

Maddalena took care of me as far back as I can remember. I see her bent over the sewing machine, handling the cloth, guiding it under the needle, feet on the pedals—the large wheel turning. It hypnotized me when I sat on the tile kitchen floor and played with my lead soldiers. The metallic sound evenly dull. Caught in a vortex. Weightless. Sun on the silver knob in the center of the wheel. I would plunge in that sphere of movement, small as one of my soldiers, and disappear in the spot of white brightness. I spun endlessly with the wheel. The image is still luminous in my mind. I remember going to sleep with the sound of the black wheel in my ear.

Mother was stern. Intimidating. Rarely affectionate. When I sat on her ample lap and pressed my head against her soft bosom, I always felt uncomfortable, almost out of place. She controlled everyone, especially Maddalena who always did her bidding and dressed in black because Mother wanted her to. She looked like a widow in mourning. I was ashamed of my town, the house we lived in, father being a ramaio. He fixed broken metal pots and farm utensils. We were poor.

Maddalena kept me sheltered as I grew up. I was not allowed to play with the other children on our street. Each day, she took me to church and for walks. We seemed always to end up at a closed gate where the town’s doctor lived. Maddalena would have us sit under the large tree beside it.

Late into the night, under a pallid light bulb, she embroidered linens for bridal trousseaus. She bought my first suit when I won the award in literature at the ginnasio. At the expense of her eyesight, she saw me through medical school. She must have been disappointed when I interned in Istanbul but kept it from me when she came to Rome to see me off.

Not mother, but Maddalena wrote me when I married Armita. "You brought so much joy into my life from the time you were born till the time you received your doctorate cum laude. May the good Lord make your tomorrows as bright as His promises, and may your lovely bride be a garland of white roses around your neck." Poetic Maddalena. She did not have much schooling.

Why would I be thinking of this? Mother is dead and I must book a flight.

Armita opens the door and her scent intoxicates me. She kisses me lightly, more of a tease. A red and gold sari wraps her ebony body. Again her beauty startles me. A vision. Her steps soft. Her almond eyes restless. The jingling of her gold bracelets precedes her. I want to kneel before her, hold her legs, look up into her lovely face but I dare not, afraid to see once more the mocking in her eyes. A goddess, aloof. But she is mine.

I met her in one of Istanbul’s night spots soon after my arrival. Armita is a belly dancer. I watched her pulsating body bend gracefully; her hips sway, her hands shade her eyes, then curve behind her hips, above her head, circling as she spins. The jingle of her bracelets in my ears. Her body moved faster as the beat increased. She came toward me. Her long white veil fluttered as dove’s wings and wrapped around my neck. She pulled away. Her taunting eyes on me. The scent of the scarf remained. The aromatic scent of sandalwood. Bitter sweet, fading, yet strong.

We were married in one of those ceremonies that go on for days. I remained an oblivious spectator—the language and the local customs unknown to me.

She makes me feel alive and nothing else matters when I am near her. I cling to her with obstinacy bordering on desperation. I am obsessed by my craving for her and by the possibility of losing her. I make myself miserable and manage to turn each beautiful moment with her into a nightmare.

Armita folds my shirts carefully in the suitcase. Better wear the topcoat. I packed your raincoat. It might be bitter cold this time of year.

I remember how cold. The wind comes fighting through the stone houses and pounds the windows. Often at night a shutter, not fastened, bangs against the house—a desolate sound like the pounding of one’s heart.

You made reservations for the evening flight to Rome, Ciampino?"

Yes. I wish Mother could have met you. I planned a trip next summer. Too late now.

Not a word of comfort for my mother’s death. She wants me gone. Do I imagine it? Jealousy gnaws at my heart, but I refrain from showing it for fear she might enjoy it.

The suitcase seems heavy. What did you put in it? I will be there no longer than a day.

I packed your dark suit, just in case and a few magazines for your train ride, and she offers her cheek for a kiss.

The plane devours the runway and soon darkness surrounds it. I settle in my seat hoping to find a comfortable position to induce sleep. The passenger on my right is a man with grey at the temples. Wrinkled face, sunburned. Do you live in Rome? I ask. He does, and speaks perfect Italian. I am relieved. My Turkish is still limited. I want to be alone with my confused thoughts, but he seems as restless as I.

No use hoping, the old man says, she is probably dead.

Who is dead?

My daughter. A long story.

I know he wants me to ask him about it, so I do, not with conviction but mostly because at the moment I cannot think of what else to say. The thought of moving to another seat crosses my mind and I am inclined to do so. The plane is not crowded. The old man sits dejected, head down on his chest, handkerchief in hand, shoulders shaking—his sighs turn into muffled sobs.

You might as well tell me about it, I sense his need. We have all night, and sleep has left me.

It is my daughter. No use. I did not find her. He stops and looks at me with such sadness that my throat tightens. I put my hand on his shoulder. My gesture encourages him to continue.

I am Greek. I came to Istanbul in hopes of finding my younger daughter. A friend told me that a girl from our small town was known to be there. The age was right, so we hoped she might be the one. Hope is always last to leave us. I made my journey and now I am returning empty-handed. What shall I tell my wife? Her heart cannot take more pain. She has been sick for a long while.

What seems to trouble her?

She doesn’t want to see a doctor. I think it is her heart. She is short of breath, often faints. She has no will left. Her soul, I know, will soon leave her.

What about your daughter?

I have ended my search and I return empty handed. He wipes his brow with a checked handkerchief, his hand unsteady.

The Turks took her. They took her. The Turks trampled us until we had no spirit left to fight. Four centuries of humiliation, deterioration and destruction. They took our land, our homes. They took our wives and stole our daughters. You know how dark their skin is, but our daughters have skin like candle wax. Black eyes. Hair as dark as the raven. The Turks took them, the fairest, they took them. The plight of the captives. No free choice—only fear of those in power. They took what they wanted and we had no recourse. No law to stop them. We lived in our farmhouse with our daughters. Eleni was twelve and Anika just eight. He turns toward me, as if to measure the extent of my compassion. Have you known fear?

I shake my head. Except when a child, the fear of thunder, of dark places, but Maddalena sang me to sleep. Living in Stigliano, we did not even experience the war. The planes did fly in our sky, but the bombs they carried were meant for Naples.

This man’s fear is painted on his face. He lives it. He tastes it.

"They took my daughter. It is true, I tell you. My wife hid the girls in the loft and kept them quiet. Each day fear tormented us.

It is such a curse. You keep on hoping but all along you taste death. You go about your chores constantly watching, spying the movement of the leaves, watching for that distant sound of horses, the metallic sound of swords, the heavy footsteps approaching. You don’t dare breathe. Your heart pounds. Clammy sweat drips from your chin. You die each day. Each night you die a slow death until you almost wish to hear the dreaded sound of horses and swords and boots. God help me. But it is true. You wish for a physical manifestation, the one you dreaded and dreamed of. The soldier with no face that comes to take your wife away, that comes to take your daughters. You choke the scream in your brain. You still the pain in your chest. You stand dazed and watch him steal your baby daughters. Fear gone. Relief. Hard to believe, but true. With fear gone there is a brief sense of relief. Body weak, empty, abandoned by the soul. A shell to rot. Bones that the sun will bleach. And the stillness that follows. You can’t imagine how loud that stillness is.

He closes his eyes. His head rocks against the back of the seat.

Fear turns us into demons. Monotonous the drone of the plane. From time to time, a spark of light escapes from the motors, soon spent by the night.

I wait for him to go on with the story. He opens his eyes and turns to see if he can trust me with what he is about to tell me.

I taught at the University in Athens before the Turks. For protection, I moved my family to the country to live on a farm. The Turks were not deterred. They came. How they came. The fear of the Turks forced us into a deed so dreadful that I dare not speak of it. He pauses and turns to me once more to make sure that I can share the burden of his deed. I try to show compassion even though curiosity lurks at the margins.

You need not tell me, my friend, and I crush curiosity.

I must confess it to someone. Not a priest. A stranger as you; even if you will judge me sternly. I know that your judgment will never be harsher than my own. He switches off the light above our seats. The plane is in semi darkness.

My wife found the strength, he whispers leaning toward my ear. Too close. A rancid breath fills my nostrils. "I stood beside her, held Eleni, my hand firm on her mouth. I do not wish to appear less guilty. I dare say that my guilt is greater than hers. Remember the incident in the Bible about Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac? As a young man I disliked that story. I could not understand it. Why God demanded such an act? I am not a religious man. I stopped believing in God.

In extreme cases, the body responds without protest to the will of the mind as Abraham responded to the will of his God. And what of fear? The body is crushed by it. People die of fear. The heart simply stops, but the mind lives through it all. It is the mind that foresees the possibilities, it is the mind that conjures up diabolical thoughts and performs them.

Long silence. And so, our minds set out to do what our hands could have never done. Like Abraham, my wife raised the knife on Eleni while my hands stifled her screams … She disfigured Eleni’s lovely face with relentless desperation. Repeatedly, she slashed her cheeks, forehead, chin, her tears mingled with Eleni’s blood. ‘They will not take her from us now,’ my wife repeated.

He shrinks in his seat. Older now. He stares at his hands. They shake. We told ourselves that we did it for her good. Did we truly? Wasn’t it for our own selfishness? We feared so much the loss.

Is this the daughter you are searching for?

No, not her. When the Turks finally came, they left her with us. They took Anika. They had never taken so young a girl. His hands could not stop shaking. That day, my wife lost the use of her right hand; the one that held the knife. It just withered, like a dead limb. She tucked it in a black scarf wrapped around her neck, and her heart began to trouble her. The memory is branded in our brains. It burns our conscience.

And Eleni? I dare ask. The old man’s shoulders shake as if taken by sudden chill. After that day, when the knife cut into her face as she watched us in horror, she withered away like the hand that cut her. Tuberculosis. We took her to as many doctors as we could afford. We sold our land, moved to Rome so she could be close to a specialist there. We heard of a miraculous drug called penicillin. They had it in America. The price was high. We were forced to mortgage our house. Eleni was in a sanatorium for a year, up in the Alps. Her body was slowly consumed by fever and cough. She died at fifteen. Never once did she look at her face in the mirror. She waited death’s approach with tremor and hidden pleasure—innocent virgin waiting for the groom. She talked about death, preparing, planning. ‘I must have a white dress and a long beautiful veil on my head,’ she said. So my wife sold her wedding ring and bought a wedding dress of lace and satin with yards and yards of white veil. Eleni’s eyes were enormous. By then, her cheeks were ashen except for the unnatural flush caused by the fever. Too bright. Silence hangs, painfully long.

We dressed her like a bride, the veil around her pillow. She said in a whisper, ‘I’m ready to go now, dressed in white. I will meet my Savior.’ She folded her hands on her breast. A last labored breath. As she let it out, she seemed free from pain. She was gone … just like that … she was gone.

I search for a sense of pity for the Greek. He said that fear set out to do what the hand alone could never have done. I think of human sorrow, the tragedy of desperate fears, the medium of life and death. Memories of dying patients.

The man beside me stirs. And what about you? He asks, in need of blotting the past, making an effort to be polite. He asks me where I was going. To my mother’s funeral, I say.

He inquires about my work. I tell him I practice medicine in Istanbul. My name is Amato Fasano. I was born in South Italy. A small town.

Amato, the Greek says with pleasure. "It means beloved."

I never liked my name. I plan to change it.

My memory takes me back to the room I shared with my sister. There are three rooms in the house, one on top of the other, connected by pitched steps of crude stone. The front door opens on a narrow street. More than a street, it is a tortuous alley. Like a rocky stream, if seen from above, forcing its way through a row of dingy abodes. Narrowing even more the already narrow alley. In the grayness of that alley lived people with no other solution than to carry their burden in desperate communion. People who had forgotten the relief of tears and renounced even the right to cry.

A doctor you say? The Greek nods respectfully.

I had no choice. It was suppertime when I returned home after completing the liceo in Naples. Father sat quietly at one end of the table, his head down, fiddling with the fork. He unfolded his napkin in his systematic way, tucked it in his collar, carefully spreading it to cover his entire chest. Mother sat opposite him, a knitted shawl on her shoulders; her beautiful hair freshly tied back in the usual knot. She seemed even fatter than I remembered and I made a mental note to speak to her about losing some weight. I was excited because my exams had gone very well. My parents did not seem to share my excitement. Father raised his eyes, stared across the table at Mother. Finally turned to me and asked what I planned to be. A lawyer, I said. Maddalena, all but dropped the smoky terrine full of soup on Mother. Never, she said violently. Never.

I was taken aback by her vehemence. She had no right to choose my future career. Amato will be a doctor, she intoned with the voice of an oracle. Lawyers are devious, she was bitter. Lawyers judge and destroy. You are sensitive, Amato, she whispered. Doctors are sensitive to human needs, and I laughed and mocked her. I was too old to be ordered about.

When I asked Mother for advice, she bit her lower lip and hurriedly said to do what Maddalena wanted, that she knew best what was good for me.

As long as I can remember, I was conditioned to do Maddalena’s bidding. At this point my memory fails me completely. Once more, I face the impenetrable wall of my dreams, wishing to scale it, unable to do so. Fear of the unknown. I see myself, a pigmy, facing the wall that shrinks both sides to gain new heights. I focus my eyes toward the top, measuring its growth, all the while viewing with terror, from the corner of my eyes, the shrinking process that occurs on either side.

I wonder if I am ready to identify the wall. To give it a name. The conscious mind urgently demands what the subconscious tries to suppress. I decide to have a long talk with my sister, after the funeral.

Nothing could bring me back to Stigliano other than Mother’s death. Five years ago I closed the door to my past there.

Sorry about your mother. Why so bitter about your place of birth? I wish I could go back to mine.

Guilt creeps uninvited when I think of my sister Maddalena who is like the wheel of her sewing machine: magnetic, compelling. I have always been unable to avoid the pull of her will. She is the fulcrum, the fountain head around which my life revolves. I never learned how to get free. She can be stubborn but gentle, dumb yet in some things brilliant. I never understood her obsession with my being a doctor—a beast of burden she granted me everything. My parents had no appreciable means. I could not have come this far without my sister’s help. I wish I could feel closer to her, but seventeen-years separate us.

She never married. Not for lack of beauty. She chose to be a recluse, all her energy focused on me, stifling, smothering and curbing my instincts. I dare say that she inhibited my manhood. I dread facing her once more.

She crops to mind when I spot liver with onions on a menu. I have a built-in aversion to it. She made me ingest large quantities of liver, horse meat and fish—the first two to enrich the blood, the last to strengthen the mind. It would enhance the thinking process and the memory. When preparing for my exams for admission to the University of Rome, Maddalena brought me the welcomed early morning cup of caffè latte, accompanied by two raw egg-yokes whipped smoothly with sugar and Marsala and most important of all, a pill of Phosphorus to stimulate my brain cells.

My life is in Istanbul with my wife Armita. She is very beautiful.

Beauty brings sorrow, the old man says with a sigh.

Why must it be so?

Mostly because beauty is never alone. Pride and selfishness accompany it, and with them comes a hardened heart. When you have a stony heart, you shed no tears for the misery of others. When beauty fades away, as it must, pride and selfishness have strongly rooted themselves within. Hard to dislodge them.

I thought of beautiful Armita. Heartless? The only time she came to the hospital, her eyes were void of pity for the sick. Her flawless face frowned at the odor of germicide. Her glorious face distracted me. How can you stand it among so repulsive ones? I replied, Simply because at night I bathe in the perfection of the woman I love. She granted me one of her token kisses on the cheek, just enough to make me wish for her all day long.

Each night I rushed home to find her asleep, but as always I dared not awaken her. Without fail she fenced me off saying that she needed her beauty rest, that she could not be beautiful for me without sleep. And I stared at the ceiling, restless and lonely.

You have a good life, the old man smiles. I pray to God it will stay that way.

Is all hope lost of ever finding your second daughter?

I am afraid so. Money ran out. I could stay no longer in Istanbul.

Give me your name and address. My assistant Nurse Elysia knows a Father Gerardo who has helped many a girl like your daughter. Any particular way to recognize her? How old is she now?

She is twenty eight and has a horizontal scar on her right knee. She fell on a piece of metal as a child. It was a deep cut.

I will look for her when I get back. It’s a promise. Tell your wife. A momentary impulse. The intent to be of help is honest; so is the awareness that once the old man steps off the plane, I might neglect to keep that promise. I see Armita stretched on the pink divan, her voice slow, bored and scornful. ‘You are no world savior,’ I hear her say.

You are kind. Your sister is right. You make a good doctor, the old man shakes his head hopelessly. He is resigned to his loss. As an afterthought, At times, love is selfish. I now see that my love and the one of my wife for our oldest daughter were selfish and he sobs, quietly, covering his face with his handkerchief.

Was my mother’s love unselfish? Let the wondering vanish. She will be buried in the cemetery plot, behind the chapel.

The old man drifts—a sentinel who allows himself a few seconds of torpor, enough to dream a long dream. Then he promptly awakes. The eyelids open once more and the vigilant watch continues.

The lights of Rome appear in the distance. The plane starts its descent. A bend to the left. Wings leveled over the runway flanked by bluish-white lights. A white line at the horizon turns yellow, then orange, forewarning the rising bright disk. Nature’s early morning hush is broken by the discordant noises of the airport. The air is brisk. A wave of the hand and the old man disappears in the crowd.

  2

On arrival in Ciampino airport in Rome, I find a damaged suitcase, the contents intact but in disarray. Apologies from the airline.

I force myself to dismiss the matter, as I flag a taxi to take me to Stazione Termini. More than a train station, it is an aorta of Roman life. Always congested, throbbing and inducing a sense of urgency and excitement. A center where people meet for lunch, travelers arrive and depart, business is transacted, deals are made and broken. One can even buy a chance at the lotteria.

The littorina for Naples sits empty on Binario 3—doors wide open. I climb in and choose a window seat. Relieved to get a ticket on