Arlo Gust

(Read: ~6 minutes)

Connie bought and renovated a craftsman style bungalow near the hospital and Gaston moved in with her. She vacated the apartment in the first building she bought and was glad to rent the space to Letitia once she learned of Gaston’s interest in Rosa’s abilities. The building boasted two additional units upstairs, and three units downstairs. Despite drafty windows and leaky plumbing, no shortage of people wanted to live there.

After huffing and puffing up and down the stairs, plus a few breaks, Letitia and Rosa moved into Connie’s old two-bedroom place on the second floor. Rosa’s room overlooked the overgrown front yard and a dilapidated strip mall across the street, recently voted onto a list of the ugliest spots in the city by readers of the local alt-weekly. The mall’s anchor tenants included a dive bar with a vinyl banner advertising happy hour specials, a laundromat and a small market run by hard-working refugees, open daily from 6 am to 10 pm.

The reading room of mystic Madame Rouge del Rey occupied a small storefront in the strip mall between the dive bar and the coin laundry. She turned on a red neon sign that flashed PSYCHIC READINGS when she arrived at work and cut the light off when she left. As she got older, the sign flashed less and less and a lot of people in the neighborhood whispered about the end for the neighborhood legend. Nonetheless, Madame Rouge still had plenty of believers spread across the city, state and country, people around the globe recognized the name Madame Rouge, according to her. She regularly advised people she met when they were babies, and since their parents wore diapers, too, all while sitting in a rocking chair she inherited from her mother.

Over the years, she filled the role of priest, marriage counselor and divorce mediator. She named people’s kids, advised what jobs to take, where to live and what kind of cars to drive. She provided guidance on love, sex, religion, money, jobs and health, for a reasonable fee, of course, always due up front since people loathe paying for disagreeable news and advice; Madame Rouge didn’t always tell people what they wanted or expected, but folks loved her anyway.

Charisma is performance and she performed various forms of clairvoyant spiritualism, employing whichever manner she saw fit. Her practice adapted to changing tastes and cultural conditions based on her client’s needs. And plenty of people with needs became clients over the years. She sat for readings hours upon hours, beginning about mid-morning, usually continuing late into the night, depending on the number of people waiting. Plenty hung out at the bar next door before or after their time with Madame Rouge.

On certain nights, with enough people loitering, the parking lot took on a festive vibe, turning the strip mall into the site of impromptu street parties, plenty broken up by the cops after running too late into the night. These stories about young Madame Rouge became legendary long before anyone heard of La Bohème. For a segment of believers, understanding La Bohème begins with Madame Rouge del Rey and their relationship. The early history of the young Madame Rouge growing up in Charlottesville begs for further scrutiny. Knowledge of her childhood is limited, except she was born in the city in central Virginia and lived in a neighborhood filled with working-class people. Records back then can be hit or miss and there’s no official indication of her birth and the exact date is unknown. The first mention of her appeared on a census record, where she appeared as Maria del Vecchio, infant daughter of Mr. Rodolfo del Vecchio and his wife Lucia. The census recorded the family lived in an old tenement building, originally near the strip mall, long since demolished.

The del Vecchio’s came to central Virginia from Italy when one of the supper clubs serving wealthy students at the university sponsored Rodolfo and his family to immigrate to the U.S. to fill the role of house manager and chef. Lucia became a sought-after seamstress in the neighborhood, turning the front room of their small flat into her shop. Her business grew enough over time to open a small shop on the first floor of their tenement building.

Most folks in the neighborhood assumed the Del Vecchios, from northern Italy, were Roman Catholic. But actually, husband and wife converted to the Seventh-Day Adventist Church while still back in their homeland. Locals in the town he lived disliked the growing presence of the American cult and warned converts subversive activities wouldn’t be accepted. Catholic enforcers began hassling Rodolfo at the cafe he managed and threatened Lucia at the dress shop where she worked. Rodolfo and Lucia attended the Saturday services despite the threats. The situation came to a head when the windows on the front of their home were smashed and the door set on fire. The young couple decided to seek asylum and found refuge in the United States after receiving persecuted status due to their faith conversion.

As Seventh Day Adventists, the couple sat for several hours most days reading from the dreams and visions of the movement’s numero uno prophet, Ellen White, who in her lifetime published over forty books and two thousand essays and pamphlets espousing views on the epic battle between good and evil, with Jesus Christ and Satan battling for dominance over the eternity of human souls. Today’s cult may just be tomorrow’s worldwide faith movement, a transformation with a long and proud tradition. Gautama Buddha had to rise above significant challenges from rivals who disagreed with him about the eternalism of the soul, predestined suffering, the existence of evil and the avoidance of judgment, centuries before Jesus Christ and Muhammad. For the first three hundred years of their existence, Christians were a favorite cult to persecute in the Roman empire that worshiped gods atop Mt. Olympus. Within a hundred years, Jupiter and Apollo were forgotten and their festivals wrapped up into Christian holidays.

Polytheists persecuted Muhammad on the Arabian peninsula for a decade after challenging their tribe’s historical faiths, two thousand years after Zarathustra faced the same treatment atop the Persian plateau.

People want mysticism in their prophets. A madness makes people believe in an emerging faith, the hint of a new higher power elevates a deviant idea into inspiration. Believers follow awe-inspiring figures into deserts, up mountains, across seas; told to abstain from certain food, drink, and sex, for a later return on their sacrifice.

Ellen White believed her dreams and visions were made possible by the spirit of prophecy, a gift described in Revelation as directly inspired by God, go big, right? Even Jesus and Muhammad needed the archangel Gabriel to go between. White’s first public proclamation came when she was sixteen, not long after members of the church she attended were disappointed when a scheduled date for the apocalypse came and went without the end of the world. Plenty of critics claimed White simply put on a convincing, yet deceitful show. Her public visions were known to contain feats of strength and endurance, like holding her breath or not blinking. Mild by today’s standards, but entertaining enough to garner attention.

Decades later, Maria del Vecchio grew up between two worlds, one dominated by her refugee parents’ foreign culture and a faith considered a cult, the other a world of infinite possibilities in a land she considered her own. The first documented account of Maria’s own psychic capabilities shows up in the form of a handwritten letter she sent when she was eighteen to a neighbor. In the note, she admits to an ability to communicate with departed souls and informs the neighbor about a potential message from their dearest love, lost recently, the identity of the soul is left unsaid. Maria finishes with a request to stop by and visit. One assumes the neighbor took the offer seriously since the letter survives to this day.

Only a mishmash of sparse details exist about any of the del Vecchios until a few years later when a brief obituary appears in the local paper for Rodolfo, mentioning his wife and daughter and his former employment for the men’s fraternity. The death certificate issued by the city coroner states he died from heart disease. Several decades later, the paper printed an obituary for Lucia, who passed peacefully at home, describing her as a popular seamstress, beloved in the community. The obituary does go on to say Lucia was survived by her daughter, Maria, who by then, everyone in the neighborhood called another name.

In her early twenties, after her father died, Maria scraped together enough money to open a psychic business in a nearby strip mall. An advertisement she bought in the local daily paper announced the arrival of Madame Rouge del Rey, world-famous mystic. The intriguing pseudonym and her flashing, neon sign flashing attracted enough visitors to pay her rent on time every month and provide a living for herself. After a while, Madame Rouge and the laundromat remained the most reliable and longest-lasting tenants of the strip mall.

The mystic’s life consisted of walking back and forth from home to the reading room. Though she claimed world-famous status, Madame Rouge never ventured further than a mile or two away from home her entire life. A long trip for her involved heading all the way downtown to pay taxes. She spent her entire life within just a few blocks, shuffling between a couple of different apartments and storefronts over the years. She hated cars and buses. Each year, she walked slower than the one before, decades collecting behind her.

Back when Madame Rouge moved into the strip mall, years before Letitia and Rosa settled in across the street, most people agreed the shopping center’s best days were long gone, venturing the same guess about the whole neighborhood. Few living there saw a better future on the horizon, except Madame Rouge Del Rey. She foresaw the arrival of a wonderful neighbor across the street. She waited patiently for a few years to make contact with Rosa, content to anticipate the astounding woman she saw in the future.

Madame Rouge finally decided to introduce herself the evening Rosa found her own way over to the strip mall. The warm spring weather brought people outside on a Friday evening, though Letitia nodded off watching TV on the couch. She felt worn down with a headache after a long week working in office administration at the university. Rosa sat in her bedroom looking out the window, watching a mix of adults and kids break their winter hibernation by gathering across the street, bunched up in the middle of the parking lot between the bar and the storefront of Madame Rouge. Her red sign flashed. Rosa felt restless like the rest of the neighborhood and when she saw a few friends playing tag between parked cars, she slipped out of the house to join the game.

Madame Rouge never used the front entrance of the reading room, she only ever came in and out through a back door in the rear alley, adding to her mystique. Madame Rouge also never showed interest in who attended any of the impromptu parties in the parking lot over the years. When she came out the front door and stood on the strip mall’s sidewalk outside her shop to watch Rosa play, all the adults stopped partying and watched Madame Rouge in awe.

Having fun playing with her friends, Rosa ignored the old woman at first. But the way people responded to the woman’s presence eventually caught the girl’s attention. She stopped playing and realized everyone was staring at her or Madame Rouge. The playmates shied away and left Rosa standing in the parking lot alone. The crowd moved in closer to gawk, almost encircling the lone child.

No one noticed Letitia who came barreling into the scene, the minute after she woke up and couldn’t find her kid. Following her mother’s intuition, Letitia crossed the street and weaved her way through the crowd. Seeing her daughter encircled, she pushed past the last few people and called Rosa’s name. The relieved child turned and buried her face in Letitia’s embrace. The protective mother absorbed the crowd’s attention, scanning the unknown faces in the circle. The rush of adrenaline caused by the situation made her head spin, and she squeezed Rosa close, leaning on the child to keep her balance.

Swaying on his own with an open bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag, a man nicknamed John the Drunk called out to Letitia.

“Hey there darlin’, stay a while so we can get to know you. I sure do wanna.”

The crowd laughed and pressed in closer to mother and daughter. Letitia backed up, stumbling, nearly falling.

Madame Rouge stepped off the curb.

“Hey, back off!” she shouted at the troublemakers in the crowd. A wedge cleared in the mass of people as Madame Rouge walked across the parking lot.

“You hush John. The rest of you, give them space,” her voice boomed. Madame Rouge closed the distance between herself and the frightened strangers, speaking to Letitia in a soothing voice.

“I’ve heard a lot about Rosa and have been waiting to meet her myself.”

Then she waved her arm at the crowd and told everyone to go home or back inside the bar before turning her attention back to the mother and daughter, entwined in the parking lot. As Letitia turned towards home, Rosa pivoted to keep an eye on Madame Rouge, who smiled and waved bye.

Rosa waved back.

“Come back when you’re ready for answers instead of questions,” Madame Rouge called out to the pair crossing the street towards their apartment.