What follows are the opening paragraphs of the novella “Caterina’s Mistress” from my collection Saint Severina’s Fire. The story is concerned, among other things, with the esoteric link between tactile poetry and ancient Chinese law. This is the longest piece in the book. It can be considered a short novel.
I've always treated chapter titles as an essential part of the story itself, in some cases coming up with the chapters first and letting their titles determine the narrative. I'm inspired, among other things, by the serials of Louis Feuillade (Les Vampires, Fantômas) and Georges Franju (Judex), whose episode titles were designed to lure the audience back to the theater for each installment. If I name the chapters right, the prospective reader will be compelled to read the entire book. To that end, here are the chapter titles for Caterina’s Mistress. The excerpt follows.
Indiscretions
The Marquise of S.
Cistern and Fountain
The Intoxication of the Wolves
Spare the Night
The Lotus Eater
The Imprint in the Ink
Marceau drifted in and out of a lazy half-sleep as he reclined on the couch. On the table before him lay the lengthy memoirs of a minor Prussian bureaucrat, the open pages partly obscured by the shadow of a half-filled wine glass. A series of fleeting images surged through the pale light of his dreams—a counterfeiter locked in a candlelit boudoir, a house overrun with ravenous foxes, the bursting open of cabinet doors and the overflowing of a well. These fragments seemed connected by a narrative thread tied in intricate knots.
He was brought out of his reverie by the faint reverberation of a woman’s voice. “Good lord, you’re incorrigible,” he thought he’d heard her say. The words were so distant that he could barely make them out. His initial thought, upon opening his eyes, was that he was being reprimanded for his dream. With the swiftness of a pickpocket apprehended in the act, he sat up on the fine upholstery. He felt as if he’d been caught in an adulterous embrace.
“Take the flower,” the voice continued. “Take it!”
He recognized the wife of his landlord from downstairs. He’d only once laid eyes on her, mere hours before. She’d briefly appeared in an adjacent doorway as he was signing his rental agreement on the ground floor of the house. Though he hadn’t heard her speak before now, he was certain it was her—the tone and inflections with which she spoke were as distinctive as her face. The voice had emerged from the heating vent in the wall below the console table. It must have been carried up from one of the rooms below.
“Do it with your teeth,” demanded the unseen woman. “Like this.”
Marceau put his glasses on and rose to his feet, crouching down to the floor so that he might better understand the words. The irrational guilt that he’d felt upon awakening was compounded by his reservations about eavesdropping, though he wasn’t about to stop listening at this point.
“You’ll have to keep trying until you get it right,” the woman reprimanded. “There will be consequences if you miss.”
He thought it was curious that he’d only heard the single voice. He assumed she must be with her husband. Was it possible that he was too far out of earshot to hear? Perhaps he was talking quietly—it was true that his voice was remarkably soft. Something told him that this wasn’t the case, that the man had been specifically forbidden to speak. Marceau found it hard to imagine Nigel in such a compromised position. The man seemed far too serious for such frivolous games. He could feel the woman’s presence surging up through the vent and flooding the apartment. The sensation was so poignant that it almost felt electrical.
“Like that,” the voice continued, “only tighter.” Her tone suggested a woman that wielded a fine degree of control. “Now bite down, but only when I say,” she insisted. “Don’t stop until you can feel the pain as well.”
Marceau was greatly startled by a knock on the door. His entire body jerked in response. He couldn’t imagine who could possibly be visiting him. None of his acquaintances knew that he was staying here. He briefly panicked at the prospect that whoever it was would hear the woman’s voice. Without a second thought, he reached out a hand and slid the lever above the grille. The plates in the heating vent flipped into the closed position, hopefully blocking out the sound from downstairs.
He took a second to compose himself before opening the door. The man awaiting him at the top of the stairs was none other than his landlord, his distinguished cap and trim white beard looking as dignified as ever against the backdrop of the night. Who then, he wondered, had his wife been speaking to? She couldn’t have been alone. She hardly seemed the type to talk to herself. Her every move conveyed refinement.
“Nigel,” he said, his chin slightly raised. “What brings you back up so soon?”
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