by D. M. George
A winding stone staircase descended to the north end of the harbor. Perla noticed how the center of the steps had been worn concave and shiny by millions of footfalls. She blinked as she emerged into the light. Groups of people sat in white plastic chairs outside hole-in-the-wall restaurants, enjoying aperitifs and the waterfront view. The smell of deep-fryer oil and garlic filled the air. Perla spotted the trattoria a short distance away but slowed and absorbed the moment. She inhaled Italy, as if she could capture its sights, sounds, and smells like fireflies in a jar.
Perla passed an alley where five feral cats milled about. An orange tabby licked its paw, a tortoiseshell twitched its tail, two black ones with white bellies posed like Sphinxes, and a dark tiger paced in circles. All had shiny coats and appeared in good health, but their apparent homelessness bothered her nevertheless.
Perla was promptly seated at the trattoria and nibbled breadsticks until her order arrived. She reflected on the lack of animal services in most countries outside the United States until the waiter delivered her a heaping platter of fried calamari, baby octopus, shrimp, and other crunchy bits she couldn’t identify. The cats weighed on her mind as she ate. How awful it must be to live in constant hunger, not knowing where your next meal was coming from.
Perla finished her feast, paid the bill, and beelined to a tiny market several doors past the restaurant. There was no cat food for sale or pet food of any kind, so she bought three cans of tuna with pull-off tabs. The cats she’d observed earlier were still loitering in the entrance of the alley. Perla opened the cans and shook out the tuna in five even piles. To her surprise, they didn’t rush to devour it. Instead, they sniffed the tuna indifferently and continued milling about. What was wrong with them? At once, in a synchronized swish of fur, the cats pointed their backsides toward Perla, tails straight up in the air, and ran to greet a smiling man who approached them. Perla recognized him as one of the waiters from the restaurant.
He nodded to her as he passed, a fat, jovial man with curly black hair pulled into a ponytail. His apron was smudged with tomato sauce, and he carried a basket in one hand and a pot in the other. He set them down on the cobblestones, opened the basket, and removed five bowls and five salad-size plates. Placing them in a neat row, he removed the pot’s lid, took a large spoon out of the basket, and ladled a big scoop of pasta del mar onto each plate. The spaghetti noodles were studded with shrimp and chunks of fish in a creamy white sauce. Perla scowled. Why doesn’t he tie little bibs around their necks while he’s at it?
The traitorous cats circled the waiter’s feet and rubbed against his legs. Perla stared in disbelief as he called each by name.
“Piero, amore, this is for you. Dante, darling, come to daddy. Lorenzo, my lion—eat up! Antonella and Rosa, belle bambine mangiate!” He talked to the cats as they ate, asking them about their day and stroking their backs. He opened a liter of San Pellegrino water after they finished eating and poured some into each bowl. After drinking their fill, the cats slunk away into the shadows without so much as a thank-you. The waiter picked up his dishes, put them back in the basket, and returned to his restaurant.
Stunned and outdone, Perla found her way to an empty bench that faced the water. Under the rainbow-sherbet sunset, she sat down, hunched over, and wept silently behind her sunglasses. Even animals had no use for her.
Minutes later, a gentle voice startled her. “Are you crying?”
She sat up and regarded the Italian man standing beside her. He was in his midthirties with a light olive complexion and a dark brown mop of hair. His face was longish but pleasant, although his eyes seemed a bit off—milky blue and unfocused. His thin aluminum cane confirmed he was blind.
“No. I’m just having a bad day.” Perla wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“May I sit down?” the man asked, resting one hand on the back of the bench.
“Sure.” Perla wasn’t in the mood for company but didn’t want to seem impolite.
“My name is Luca. By any chance did you meet some rude cats?”
“How did you know?” Perla asked, studying him more closely in the fading dusk. She slid over so he could sit down.
“Pietro from the trattoria—he’s a friend of mine. I stopped by for a drink and he told me his spoiled cat friends had snubbed a woman who came to feed them. He said you were sitting over here.” Luca sat with perfect posture and crossed his long legs at the knees. “I’m afraid those cats are not good ambassadors for Italy, and I apologize on their behalf. I wish more visitors took an interest in Sorrento’s strays.”
“Thanks. I miss my own cats,” Perla said, leaving out the part about her husband getting them in the divorce.
“When I have a bad day, I treat myself to gelato. Come, let me buy you one. My girlfriend, Gianna, owns a gelateria in town.”
Perla began to protest, but Luca stood up and offered his arm. She took his elbow reluctantly, and together they hiked back up the hill to Piazza Tasso, Sorrento’s main square.
“How long have you and Gianna been together?” Perla asked, wanting to keep the conversation off herself.
“Just three months, but I’m going to propose soon.”
“Congratulations.” Perla imagined Gianna as a Dolce & Gabbana model with swept-up black hair and bright red lipstick. “She must be a special lady. Tell me about her.”
“She’s the most beautiful woman I know,” he said. Perla had never considered how a blind man would perceive feminine beauty. “She is a good listener, so faithful, gracious to my friends and family, accepting of my disability… She’s got it all.”
Lucky Gianna.
When they reached Piazza Tasso, Luca made a sharp turn in to one of the tributary alleys and pulled Perla inside a gelateria with a storefront so narrow a sighted person could easily miss it. Behind the refrigerated glass display case, gelato of all colors bulged out of rectangular tubs in perfectly sculpted pompadours of humps and swirls. Rum raisin, pistachio, strawberry cheesecake—Perla salivated, although she was still stuffed from dinner. Gianna must have stayed up all night with a putty knife to create such a beautiful presentation.
“Gianna, I’d like you to meet Perla…”
Perla hadn’t noticed Gianna come up behind her. She choked; Gianna was not a Dolce & Gabbana model. Her stretch-marked cleavage undulated as she approached. It swelled over the plunging neckline of her sausage-tight dress in a failed attempt to draw attention away from her lumpy figure and spindly legs. Thick makeup covered her acne-pitted face, and heavy eyeliner failed to correct the unevenness of her eyes. Gianna’s worst feature, however, was her sneer.
“Buonasera,” she said pleasantly, but her upper lip twitched like a dog about to bite. They eyeballed each other in the way women usually do surreptitiously. But Gianna didn’t hide her animosity toward Perla, and Perla didn’t hide her curiosity about Gianna. There was no need to pretend; Luca couldn’t see.
Perla contemplated the unlikely couple as the three of them sat uncomfortably close at a tiny table, eating gelato from shrimp-cocktail cups on paper doilies. Gianna turned her back to them and texted.
“It’s been a long week, and it’s so good to be back in Sorrento with Gianna,” Luca said, smiling in Gianna’s direction.
She ignored him, instead making eye contact with a man who had entered the shop. Gianna waved him away.
“I got in from Naples this afternoon.”
“What do you do there?” Perla asked, trying to think of an excuse to leave.
“I teach at the Naples Conservatory of Music—usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but meetings kept me there all week.”
While he spoke, Perla observed a fresh love bite on Gianna’s neck. Gianna, the treacherous girlfriend.
Perla thanked them for the gelato, claimed jet lag, and excused herself for the evening.
Parthenope
The kayak bobbed in the gentle swells at the mouth of Parthenope’s cove. Perla peered around the boulder that sheltered the inlet from
view. Unbelievable. Parthenope was floating on her back next to the rock where they’d drunk limoncello the day before, sound asleep, hands crossed over her chest.
Perla shook her head. Her mind still refused to process what her eyes saw. Caution screamed, Run! There’s no telling what kind of mood Parthenope’s in or if she’ll remember you at all. Did mermaids experience blackouts too?
Something nudged Parthenope and woke her up. A dolphin’s head popped out of the water with something on its nose. Parthenope tickled its chin, tossed what looked like wet paper onto her rock, and ran her hand lovingly over the dolphin’s head. She whispered something into one of its little ear holes, and it barked out a laugh as the two of them spoke animatedly in dolphin language with lots of nodding and smiling.
Perla shuddered. Not just a mermaid, a dolphin-speaking mermaid! There were so many things she wanted to ask Parthenope, but the reality before her was simply too… real. Her thighs tightened around the two large coffees she’d brought to share. Where was that bravado now? She tore her eyes away from Parthenope’s undulating, jade-silk fins and paddled backward.
With a jolt, the kayak stopped moving; it was stuck on something. She paddled hard to break free but couldn’t. The kayak spun around and shot toward Parthenope’s rock. Two dolphins emerged from underneath, leaped into the air, and darted away underwater.
“Perla! I knew you’d come!” Parthenope appeared delighted to see her and graciously pretended she hadn’t sent the dolphins to tow her in. She sat on her submerged ledge, leaning forward over the flat rock, spreading the tabloid out to dry.
“Good morning,” Perla said, puffing herself up. She rested the paddle across the bow of the kayak. The air smelled of halibut and hangovers. “I brought you this.” Perla handed Parthenope one of the coffees. “I thought you might need it.”
“I can’t drink anymore now.” Parthenope groaned and rubbed her temples. “My head hurts.” Her aquamarine eyes were red-rimmed.
“This coffee will help. Careful, it’s hot.”
“Coffee?” Parthenope tasted it and perked up immediately. “Mmm, it’s good. Yesterday I was too drunk to hide myself from those men. Thanks for helping me. I don’t find full bottles of alcohol very often, and I tend to overdo it.”
Perla stared her as they sipped their coffee, still disbelieving her eyes, still doubting her sanity. “So mermaids really exist?”
Specks of rainbow fire glinted in Parthenope’s opal-pure skin. Wet hair twined around her body, ends floating in the water.
“Why are you so surprised?”
“Why? Well, to begin with, you’re a mythological goddess and I’m a tourist from San Jose, California. Normally at this time of day I’m stuck in freeway traffic…” Perla raised her cup in a sweeping motion, taking in the glorious backdrop of sky, water, and cliffs. “But now I’m in paradise with you. Amazing.”
“You moderns are so arrogant. You dismiss ancient religions as mythology, as merely entertaining stories. You can’t see what’s right in front of you.” She gathered her wet hair into a rope and wrung out the water. A small shell comb materialized, and she began untangling the mass of curls.
“I do now. My favorite story was Odysseus and his encounter with mermaids… or sirens. Which is it anyway? I’ve always been confused… Are they one and the same?” Perla climbed out of her kayak and sat next to Parthenope.
“The same. Siren in the air, mermaid in the water.”
“So you can grow wings and talons and fly off if you want to?”
“No, I’m a mermaid all the time, a newer species.” Her right eye twitched as she braided her hair with flying hands. Within a minute, she had finished an elaborate coiffure that joined a dozen tiny braids on the back of her head like netting.
“I have to know,” Perla said. “Did you kill the man yesterday? The one the coast guard said was mutilated?” Befriending a murderess grated on her conscience.
“Nah, I just bit off his pizzle. He’ll live but won’t molest women again.” Parthenope laughed and chomped her teeth. She told her about the young girl on the beach.
Perla gulped, not sure that knowledge eased her mind.
“I’m famished. Do you like lobster?” Parthenope cleared her throat and began singing the most bewitching aria Perla had ever heard. Her voice soared and dipped and circled—no words, just scales.
The melody was a sensation as much as a sound, a genie of euphoria riding into Perla’s ears on the backs of beautiful notes, swirling downward, suffusing her body with warmth, joy, and deep relaxation. Perla was captured, transported; she was a sailor happily steering her ship onto the jagged rocks.
An unwelcome grating sound killed Perla’s aural buzz. Surrounding the rock, hundreds of lobsters poked their heads out of the water, waving their arms and clacking their claws as if saying “Take me! Take me!” Parthenope evaluated them and reached down, palm up, to the fattest one. It climbed proudly onto her hand, claws still, and she lifted it to her face. The others dropped back underwater.
“Thank you, my love,” she said to the lobster and gently blew in its face. It reddened, went rigid, and flared its tail. Its little legs straightened, vibrated madly for a minute, then it let out a squeak, went limp, and died.
Parthenope kissed its head and then bit it off. Crunching contentedly, she ripped off a claw, cracked it between her thumb and forefinger as easily as an eggshell, and offered it to Perla. Perla declined and stared, dumbstruck.
Parthenope scarfed down her lobster with loud smacking noises as Perla waited and watched. She wondered about Parthenope’s anatomy, in particular her digestive tract and the apparent lack of openings below the waist.
“You sure can eat,” Perla said. “How do mermaids, uh…”
“What?”
A large splat of seagull guano hit Perla’s leg. She pointed at it. “Do that?”
Parthenope laughed. “Same as you. I don’t have legs, but everything else is there. It’s hidden under my scales.” She flexed, making them all stand on end.
“You don’t have to show me.” Perla held up her hand. “I was just wondering.”
Parthenope sucked the last morsels of meat from the lobster’s tail.
“What are you doing with this?” Perla pointed at the wet tabloid drying in the sun.
“I crave news about the world and read everything I can get my hands on. Unfortunately, my selection is limited to what falls from boats and blows off beaches: mostly travel guides, romances, spy novels, fashion magazines, and tabloids.”
“I’m a news-a-holic. Ask me anything.”
“I don’t know where to begin… It sounds like a frightening world out there—government conspiracies, UFOs.” Parthenope pointed to the drying tabloid. “Here’s one: HILLARY’S ALIEN LOVE CHILD ESCAPES AREA 51. Aliens terrify me. Are they immortals? Angry gods from another world? Have you ever seen one?”
“Don’t worry—aliens don’t exist. What’s published in these kinds of papers is outlandish fiction.”
“It’s not true?”
“No.”
“But why is it printed then?”
“Mostly to sell papers.”
“Won’t people know it’s not true?”
“Yes, if they spend time fact-checking, but they don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because they want to believe it. These days, people shop for ‘facts’ to support what they already believe—truth is optional.”
“Frightening.”
“Yes, people’s willful ignorance is frightening––but don’t get me started…” Perla took a deep breath. “Tell me about yourself, Parthenope. What do you do all day besides scavenging liquor, defending women, and serenading crustaceans?”
“I like to play the lyre. I did, anyway. Mine broke a millennium ago. It’s not the kind of thing tourists leave lying around on the beach, and I haven’t played since.”
“A thousand years? When were you born?”
Parthenope spoke slowly, consid
ering her words. “In my current form, AD 32. Not far from here.” She pointed to the bottom of a huge cliff in the distance. “That’s Tiberius’s Leap.” She pulled her hair anxiously over her breasts like a shawl. “But it’s a long story for another time.”
Perla sensed her distress and changed the subject. “I came here to give this back.” She removed the cameo from her pocket and handed it to Parthenope. “It’s really beautiful, but I can’t accept it. Your friendship is reward enough.” The thing felt alive in her hand, a pulsating fob of violence—or maybe it was just her overactive imagination.
Parthenope refused. “We’ve already had this conversation, so let’s make a deal: you wear my cameo until you leave Italy, and I agree to take it back at that time.”
“But why?”
“Like I told you, it will protect you and provide what you need.”
Unless the cameo caused ATMs to spew euros whenever she passed or wrote her TravelBauble articles while she slept, Perla was skeptical. But when she saw the color rise in Parthenope’s cheeks, she relented and put it on. It really was beautiful…
“Exactly what is it you think I need?” Perla said slowly in her best calming voice. She eased back on her elbows, soaking up the rock’s warmth like an iguana basking in the sun.
“A new perspective.”
“About what?”
“Vanity. How you see—and don’t see—yourself.”
“Explain.”
“You think all your problems would disappear if you were young and beautiful.” Parthenope’s voice rose in pitch. “But I’ve not heard you wish you were kinder, funnier, more interesting or more accomplished.”
Whoa. Perla sat up straight. No more coffee for Parthenope. The mermaid’s admonishment stung—she’d gone from mellow to attack mode in a few brief minutes. “Relax. I understand the whole inner-beauty thing,” Perla said, “but you don’t know my world. In business, anyone over forty is treated like a leper.”