dare not imagine the others.
"We went to a villa with the usual dull enthusiasm that had reigned between us for some time now, with the only difference being that during the trip we had not yet quarrelled once. On the contrary, my husband, Diego, drove in reserved silence, aided by the three glasses of whiskey he had already drunk at home."
Odd that you got there safely.
"The party itself didn't differ from those of previous weekends: music, buffet, Diego still drinking, Diego being silly with everyone in his way, and me trying to pretend everything was going right."
Basically a nightmare.
"Basically the usual nightmare." Exactly.
"I'd knocked back my martini fix, too, but I could control myself better. Out of the blue, what was supposed to be the hostess announced that the hour was upon us and the real soul of the party was about to begin. Having said that, she urged us to follow her and we all went to what at first seemed to be the cellars of the villa, but then we realized it was the exit to a large room."
Sipping more tea, we are about to get into the thick of the story.
"There was music in that room too, but it had changed, it almost sounded like classical music. I looked for my husband and noticed that he was stranger than usual, but I didn't think anything of it, I thought about the alcohol. The music suddenly stopped and everyone, as if following a well-designed script, first stopped and then arranged themselves in a circle. I began to worry when I realized that I was at the centre of this human chain. I thought it was some sort of prank and didn't want to show my discomfort." In your place I would have run like hell!
"Perhaps, I told myself, I had missed something of the landlady's speech, and so I made to enter the circle too, but every attempt of mine was thwarted and unknown hands pushed me inwards. It quickly went from simple annoyance to outright concern as everyone began chanting a strange litany. Tired, I angrily took off my mask and started railing against everyone in front of me, repeating in a firm voice that I didn't like that kind of game and that I wanted to leave, but no one gave me an answer: they seemed to be in a trance state." I remain silent, astonished, listening to the continuation of that incredible story, so reminiscent of Eyes Wide Shut, and I try to imagine its conclusion.
"When I decided to break the barricade I was slapped violently by a guy and then pushed to the ground in the general indifference. I began to cry in despair, calling for my husband's help..."
She hastily wipes away a tear she couldn't control. I fully understand that such a memory must not be pleasant.
"...When I spotted him in the crowd, I was incredulous to see that not only was that bastard doing nothing to help me, but that he was in cahoots with everyone else!"
"Do you think they plagiarized him, or drugged him in some way?"
I interrupt the story, only because sometimes memories can become more vivid than they should, and it seems like a good point to bring her back to the present time in part.
"Clearly something had been done to him, because his gaze was practically blank!"
It worked, she seems to have calmed down.
"I was on the ground with no strength, they had probably drugged me too. Diego came up to me and picked me up like I was weightless. There was a moment when I thought he was taking me out of there, but I was quickly disillusioned when I saw that he was walking on the opposite side of the exit, towards the centre of the room. Stunned, I realized that I had been placed on an altar only when I saw my clothes, torn with force, flying on the ground."
He looks up and stares at me coldly.
"He raped me in front of everyone, as if nothing had happened." Speechless.
"Eventually I must have blacked out, because all I remember is waking up in a wooded clearing covered only in the shreds of the clothes I had on at the party." Satanic cult stuff.
"I take it you filed a complaint." Husband or not, I would have sent them all to jail and more.
"Of course. Too bad, though, that they all disappeared! Including Diego, who I haven't seen since. God knows how long I looked for him, but in vain. Not for nothing, but just for the sake of smashing his face in!" More than fair.
"And the owners of the villa? Didn't they track them down?"
"From the investigation it turned out that they had moved to the Canary Islands for more than two years, without ever having returned to Italy, and that for six months they had entrusted a real estate agency with the sale of the villa. Six years have passed and now everything has fallen into oblivion."
Six years! Am I wrong or is that more or less how old little Elisa should be? She reads the question in my face and I don't have time to formulate it.
"Yes, Davide, Elisa was conceived that night. She is the only good thing in my life."
Certainly a tragic experience, but I still don't understand how this story can connect to Roberto.
"I had long since, if not forgotten, at least put that day in a corner, until I met Roberto in a chat room."
"The spirits, I guess."
"You know it?"
Right, the one made up of the exhausted group.
"Vaguely... Roberto had told me about it once."
Lately lying is becoming more and more natural to me, maybe I'll run for office in the next election.
"I had started dating her thanks to a friend who had almost forced me, but for Roberto it had become a mania: he was looking for particular information."
"What kind of information?" I pretend to be oblivious to the whole Lilith myth thing. I want to see if he's hiding something from me.
"There's one detail I left out in the story earlier..."
She hesitates. Come on, tell me the whole truth, just the truth.
"When I was in the mansion and those fools were chanting that strange litany, they were doing it to invoke Lilith: the black goddess." Bingo! The stories are finally channelled on the same track.
"Have you ever heard of it?"
If you're referring to that nonsense I read on the PC, yes!
"I know roughly the story..."
"Good, then you'll save me from talking about it. Anyway, the fact is that Roberto's obsession was actually Lilith."
And here I thought it was you who had stupefied him.
"He confided in me privately about the strange dreams he was having. For my part, however, the recondite hope of knowing what had happened to Diego pushed me to delve into the subject.
I thought Roberto might be a link in solving my mystery."
If there weren't idiots on this world....
"He never told me about it. What kind of dreams did he have?"
As I formulate the question, I think of my own and a slight shiver runs down my spine.
"He said they were always fuzzy when they woke up, except for Lilith's name, which invariably rang out in the darkness." That he drank my own beer?
"I provided him with all the material I had collected over time about Lilith. There were also instructions in the handouts to perform an invocation ritual, but I strongly advised him against it."
"Let me guess: he didn't rest until he did it, did he?" I know the chicken and she lights the bonfire for the spit.
"He had convinced himself that only through ritual could he bring to the surface something that was inside him, but which he could not yet bring into focus."
Wouldn't it be better to pay for a good psychologist?
"With the excuse that everything had to be prepared in the right way, I convinced him to at least do it in my presence.