by Jay Parini
“Why bother with other standards?”
Once again, he stumped me. I found conversations with Nigel oddly disconcerting. He maintained an elegantly gloomy cool, despite the glittering life that fate had served on a platter before him.
“Munthe was a tedious old boffer,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Pater told me. A neurotic old boffer.”
“But he had energy,” I said.
“Americans admire energy, don’t they?” He could barely conceal his contempt.
“Yes,” I said.
“I find it boring, this cult of energy.”
“Really?”
“Joie de vivre, that sort of thing. Tedious.”
I had heard this line before, from Grant himself. He often made derisive remarks about joie de vivre, and never failed to disparage Picasso, whom he considered its leading avatar. “That little fool who wants everyone to think he’s a genius,” Grant said. “I used to see him clowning around the Riviera, playing the Great Man. Hurling bits of pottery across the room. Revolting.”
“You were going to show me some of your poems,” I said.
“I’ve changed my mind. They’re rubbish.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself.”
He looked at me with a kind of detached curiosity. “Do you always offer advice?”
I didn’t want to patronize him, just because I was seven years his senior. In many ways, he’d experienced more of the world than I had. And he was obviously intelligent and articulate. Too articulate.
“I’m going to write a novel,” Nigel told me. “A large and difficult novel.”
“Good,” I said, tentatively. Another budding novelist was just what the world required. “I hope to write one myself.”
“Have you got a plot?”
“Nothing specific.”
“I see,” he said, turning sad eyes on me.
“Plot is important, you’re right,” I said. “The main thing is, you’ve got to tell a story.”
“Stories are rubbish,” he said. “For second-raters.”
Once again, I could hear the echoes of his father. I came to him once with Dominick Bonano’s line about telling stories, and he squashed my notion as though it were a cockroach. “Stories are nonsense,” he said. “No good novelist depends on them. Narrative is the thing. It has to build in ways that ‘story’ doesn’t take into consideration. Death in Venice, for example. That’s it, what? The slow accretion of detail. The layered approach.” He warned me about Bonano’s theorizing, detecting at once the origin of my remark. “He’s got something invested in stories because he has nothing else. He doesn’t, for example, know much about language. Have you actually read him?”
At that point, I hadn’t. But I soon dipped into The Last Limo on Staten Island. That it was not good was apparent from the first sentence: “A short, powerfully built man with metallic gray hair, Don Vincenzo was a man of character whose passionate nature led him alternately to perform acts of great generosity and terrible violence.” What sort of character was that? Events in the narrative succeeded each other rapidly, but were undeveloped. The characters were thin, all well-defined types, and they rarely just spoke to each other; they “croaked” or “groaned” or “barked.” The language suffered from countless clichés or near-misses. The sun was always “sparkling,” and night often “fell with a thud.” Bonano’s Mafia thugs uniformly possessed a “grip of iron.” Their women were “buxom,” and they wore skirts that revealed “long, shapely legs.” There were oddities of diction, too, as in: “Tony Bruticozzi always felt sad after coition.”
“Are you still bonking Marisa?” Nigel asked.
“No,” I said. I didn’t elaborate. It would only have been used against me.
“She’s a moody bitch,” he said.
I tried not to respond in a way that he might interpret as approval for his remark. “She’s been having a difficult time,” I said. “I’m worried about her.”
“Balls,” he said. “Pater is giving her the boot.”
“I know,” I said.
“Last night, he told her to clear out.”
I felt a peculiar chill in the pit of my stomach. “Last night?”
“I heard him telling Mater. He said, ‘I’ve sent the bitch packing.’”
I was somehow not surprised. When I got back, I would go to comfort her. My own recent coolness toward her haunted me now. I listened to Nigel’s chatter without really hearing him, feeling oddly disembodied, as though I could not keep my heart and head in the same physical space.
Nigel and I found a shady seat in one corner of the garden: white-walled, covered with morning glory and plumbago. The garden dropped northeastward in terraces, with a pergola above several water cisterns. We were protected from the sun by a great stone pine, which rustled in a throaty way in the slightest sea breeze. Maria Pia had packed a lunch for us—a loaf of bread with cheese and fruit. Nigel had subtly snagged a bottle of wine from his father’s cellar, a mature Barolo that had probably been sequestered for a better occasion, and he uncorked it with guilty relish.
There were lots of visitors around us, mostly Germans and Americans, who seemed incapable of normal speech volumes. An oblong man in Bermuda shorts complained that Italy was “hotter than Cleveland, and without the air conditioning.”
“Bloody day-trippers,” said Nigel. “They ought to be shot.”
“Dr. Munthe had them in mind when he rebuilt San Michele,” I said. “He wanted a museum, with visitors.” Vera had told me that Munthe had lived in a nearby tower, not in the villa itself. “He was an old fraud,” she suggested, “a charlatan of a type that has always found Capri attractive. A lonely man, they say, and terribly insecure. He invented a character for himself—the eccentric, the lover of animals and birds, the connoisseur of ancient art and architecture. But look at San Michele. It’s a monstrosity. A tourist attraction. It has nothing to do with the real beauty or architecture of the island.”
I had read Dr. Munthe’s well-known autobiography, The Story of San Michele, which in its day sold millions and made its author a wealthy man. Its author was charming, but shallow, determined to please the reader at every turn. Truth was not important to him, only beauty. Reading it, I felt I understood Munthe only too well, and that if I were not careful, I could easily fall into that trap. I could turn myself into a “character,” presenting a falsely buoyant self to the world. I could all too easily sacrifice truth to beauty.
“You’ve been bonking Toni Bonano,” said Nigel. “I know all about it, not that it matters. I rather like it. She’s quite pretty, in that hard American way.”
“You’re wrong, old man,” I said. “Toni and I are friends. Nothing more.”
“A pity,” he said. “What about Holly? Mater says you pine in her presence. Are you a piner?”
“I hope not.”
“I don’t pine. I don’t like anyone well enough to pine for them.”
“Have you got a girlfriend.”
“Charterhouse is all boys, and mostly buggers,” he said. “But I’m not a bugger.”
“No,” I said. “I can see that.”
“Nicola has a boyfriend.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“She’s not a virgin, but I am.”
“There will be plenty of time to remedy that.”
“Pater’s mad about girls. Mater calls it his ‘little hobby.’ I find it rather disgusting.”
I refrained from comment, hoping the remark would float away and pop like a soapy bubble.
“It’s not a secret,” Nigel continued. “I realized quite a long time ago that my father was corrupt in that way. A bit too lecherous for his own good. But I’ve forgiven him. Mater doesn’t mind. Super girl, don’t you think?”
“Your mother?”
“The estimable Vera.”
“I like her.”
“She says you’re queer. Are you queer?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I told h
er that,” he said. “You can always tell. They mince about, don’t they. Mince, mince, mince.”
“I try not to mince.”
“You’re very manly.”
“Thank you.”
I sighed, lying back in the grass. I found Nigel’s conversation totally exhausting. He had no tact whatsoever, adopting a worldly tone at odds with his age and callowness. “He just chunters,” his mother warned me. “Pay no attention to Nigel. Just nod agreeably. He will eventually stop.”
“I heard about your brother,” Nigel said.
I tried not to flinch.
“The Mater can’t keep a secret.”
“It’s not a secret. My brother was killed in Vietnam.”
“Bloody savages.”
“Who?”
“The Americans.”
It was not worth pursuing that line of argument with an English schoolboy whose grand pronouncements were like huge plants in thin soil. They could be toppled by the slightest winds of argument.
“Will you stay long, Lorenzo?”
“On Capri? I don’t know,” I said. “I have no plans.”
“That’s bang on,” Nigel said. “Plans are evil.”
After a blessed pause, he went on the offensive again. “Whatever attracts you to Holly? I don’t get it. She has no breasts, no hips. I can’t fathom her. There is something hugely missing.”
“It’s not about breasts and hips,” I said.
“Pater adores her, too.”
“I know.”
“She’s rather fill-in-the-blank. You have to guess what’s there. Probably nothing is there.”
“I do like her.”
He clucked his disapproval. “I’d tread carefully there. Pater doesn’t believe she has any romantic interest in you, or he’d be rotten. He would kill you, in fact.”
“Your father?”
“He’s frightfully erratic.”
“Your father isn’t erratic,” I said.
“Oh, he is. But I don’t mind. I really don’t.”
I could see he minded a great deal, as would any son. Indeed, I’d watched him vying with Holly for his father’s attention, and failing. He’d been provoked into saying outrageous things at meals, simply to draw his father’s wrath. (Angry attention was apparently better than none at all.)
Nigel swilled the rest of the wine straight from the bottle. “I don’t like Italian wines,” he said. “They’re undistinguished.”
“Really?”
“French wines are nicer.”
“I’m not an expert,” I said, hoping to wake a modicum of self-consciousness in Nigel, who plunged down any conversational road with abandon.
“I drink quite a lot at school,” he said.
“Don’t they mind?”
“They never find out. I can be quite discreet.”
“Really?”
He looked as though I were speaking a language with no similarities to English. “When we get back,” he said, in a vaguely conspiratorial tone, “I’ll show you a couple of recent poems. They’re rather disreputable.”
“I don’t object to that.”
“Love poems, that sort of thing. You’ll think I’m a wanker.”
“I doubt it.”
“Point is, I don’t care what you think,” he said. “I really don’t.”
I merely smiled. He seemed vulnerable now, so young and foolish. I wished I could do something to make him feel better, but that was beyond me, having all I could do to attend to myself at this point.
three
Chaos struck the following night.
Marisa had rarely been seen at the villa over the past week, and everyone knew that Grant had finally asked her to remove herself from the property.
“This slow-drip torture has to end,” Vera said, as we were gathering empty plates for Maria Pia to take into the kitchen. Grant remained at the table, ignoring everyone, reading a newspaper while he finished a glass of brandy. Holly and the children were talking among themselves, planning a trip to the piazzetta for ice cream.
“Last week, I suggested that she go back to Naples,” I said.
“A rotten idea.”
“I know.”
“You’re full of rotten advice,” she said. “You should become a psychiatrist. Americans are mad about them, aren’t they? You could make a packet.”
“We don’t really have psychiatrists where I come from,” I said. “And I don’t want a packet of money.”
“I keep forgetting that you’re a poet.”
Suddenly Mimo lunged into the dining room, his eyes wide. He looked as though he’d just seen the ghost of Garibaldi.
“La signorina!” he said. His mouth continued to move, but without words.
“What the bloody hell?” said Grant.
The room fell still. We all knew that he meant Marisa, and that something had happened.
Mimo motioned us to follow him, his large, dark hands clawing the air.
There was a mad race behind him, with Vera leading the flock. Holly and Nigel were just behind her, while Nicola and I trailed by half a dozen steps, rushing through the moist evening air, now tinged with woodsmoke. Grant, it seemed, was not going to run, but I caught a glimpse of him some twenty yards behind me, walking quickly, as we passed the swimming pool and turned toward the sea.
It was sundown, with the sea blood-bright as Mimo led us to the ledge I had dreamed about many times, our version of Il Salto, the leap. Before I got there I knew what it was.
“Dear God,” said Vera, clutching my arm and teetering on the edge, looking down.
Marisa’s body lay in a broken state below. Such a fall, or leap, could hardly be survived. The black swaddling of her hair, dandled by the surf, rose and fell, but she was otherwise motionless. I thought I could see blood in the water.
Grant approached us, out of breath. He looked a million years old as he peered over the ledge. “The silly girl,” he said. “There was no need.”
Holly looked once, then stepped backward. All life seemed to drain from her eyes.
“I’d say she was mad,” said Nigel. “What do you say, Pater?”
Grant, to his credit, told his son to shut up.
Nicola began to weep, and her mother comforted her, guiding her back to the Villa Clio. There was no point in standing there, gaping.
“Call Ruggiero!” Grant called to Vera, who nodded. Ruggiero was the local commandante, a regular attendee at dinner parties on the island. It was always good to have the police on your side, especially if you were an alien resident.
Grant took me by the wrist. “Let’s go down there. She might still be alive.”
I was sick inside, wasted and confused. The world spun around me, a lazy Susan of colors and sounds. The voices I heard seemed unreal, detached from their bodies. I myself felt detached: a floating consciousness that looked on this bizarre and tragic scene without understanding. Involuntarily, I followed Grant down the rocky path.
It was apparent from thirty feet away that Marisa was dead, her brains splattered on the rocks.
Mimo stood beside me, in tears, crossing himself every few minutes and muttering what must have been a prayer. Nigel was chuntering on, foolishly, about the possibility of murder.
“She didn’t strike me as the jumping type,” Nigel said. “I’ll bet someone pushed her.”
“The bloody girl dashed herself on the rocks,” Grant said, bitterly. “How very operatic of her.”
I simply stared at Rupert, disbelieving. What a fucking asshole, I thought. What a cruel, fucking bastard.
four
The news about Nicky’s death had come from my father, who found me one night after dinner at my dorm. I was studying for an exam when there was a knock on my door. A call for me, I was told. The telephone hung from a wall at the end of the corridor, and everyone on the hall could hear your conversation, which meant that nobody’s personal life was a secret. One quickly learned to speak in code.
“Hi, Alex, it’s Dad,” he ha
d said in a constricted voice; I knew at once that something terrible had happened and assumed that my mother had taken a turn. She had been hospitalized in recent months on two occasions with what we thought were heart attacks, although the doctors had never pinned anything down. “It’s not Mom,” my father said. “I’m calling about Nicky.”
“Is he okay?” I knew how absurd that was, but couldn’t control it. I wanted, for a few seconds, to think all would be well, when I already knew the truth. This was the news I had dreaded for so long that the dread itself had become familiar, like an old, difficult, neurotic friend.
“Not so good,” he said. There was an unnatural pause, while he collected himself. “It’s pretty bad news I gotta tell you, son.” My father began to cry—a quick, sharp sob he tried his best to stifle.
“Oh, God,” I said.
“He’s dead, Alex. Got killed over there, they said. Some kind of explosion.” After more sobs, he added, “Your mother’s pretty upset.”
I could not speak. I don’t remember much of anything after that, but several guys on my hall were soon standing around me. They seemed already to know that something had happened.
“I’m coming home right away,” I said.
“That sounds good, Alex. You do that,” he said. “I think your mother would appreciate it.”
I remembered the painful numbness, like I’d been stung by a wasp in the heart. I felt it again that night, after Marisa’s body was taken away by the police. The reality was unbearable, a fiery place where my mind could not settle for a moment. I sat at my three-legged table, drinking three glasses of grappa—finishing off the bottle that Marisa and I had started only a few nights before.
“Can I join you?” asked Vera, standing at the door.
“Sure.”
“That’s a decent bottle,” she said, recognizing the local label, from Da Gemma, the restaurant.
“Yeah,” I said, vaguely.
“Are you all right?”
“Me?”
“You, Alex. I’m worried about you.”
“Why?”
“I know that you and Marisa, as it were, were close.”
“As it were,” I said.
“Don’t play that game, please.”