It was with one of the Signals friends that I visited the ruined Roman town of Herculaneum, or ‘Ercolano’, as it is now called. This had been destroyed, like Pompeii, by lava from Mount Vesuvius. It is smaller than Pompeii, more compact, nearer the sea and if anything more perfect. We saw the Roman baths, the shops, the streets and the temple – it was no more ruined than many bombed-out cities of our own day, but time had mellowed the scars of destruction and it seemed a whole, or at least rounded off. Grass had grown profusely, and there were wildflowers in the crevices. Oleanders had been planted along the main drive to the ruins and their perfume filled the air. All was quiet except for the occasional distant sound of an engine or, as so often, the chirping of grasshoppers. It was hot and rather dusty, and for a short time one seemed to have left modern life and yet not have entirely penetrated antiquity. One seemed to be in a sort of vacuum, so strongly was the atmosphere imbued with an indefinable, yet indisputable, aromatic sensation of the past. Our guide, a worthy man, speaking efficient English, took especial pride in displaying what he declared were ancient Roman lentils – small black beady objects. Dried beans of some sort they undoubtedly were, but surely they could not have been left by the Romans? ‘But yes, Signorina, these are Roman lentils,’ he assured me. I heard my companion mutter something that sounded like ‘Roman, my foot!’, but I had not the heart to disappoint our cheery guide by a show of scepticism.
It is perhaps most of all for its colouring that I remember Herculaneum. In the background, like the backcloth of a theatre, was the brilliant blue Mediterranean; in the foreground the creamy-grey weather-beaten stones and, contrasting against them, the rather dry green turf, relieved by the deep pink of the oleanders. Above all this was the blue sky of Italy, which must be seen to be believed. The strength of the sun was dazzling and the outlines of everything were razor-sharp. Blue, stone, pale green, bright pink and blue again, all vividly revealed by an intransigent meridian sun – that was the colour-scheme of Ercolano, bathed in a light that would have made the humblest tenement romantic – Ercolano was almost enchanted.
18
Torn’ a Sorrento
B efore we left Naples five of us made an excursion to Sorrento and Positano. I had always longed to visit Positano again, and was not disappointed. We went by the autostrada, but turned off at Castellamare and at Sorrento we stopped the car on the crowded main piazza. There were many shops selling all sorts of souvenirs, mostly corals, cameos and other jewellery. I bought a polished wood cigarette box depicting Vesuvius and the bay. After looking at the shop we wandered down a narrow lane to the water’s edge and went along a small jetty. The water was deep blue, aquamarine, and quite transparent. It was quieter than normal, for it was not yet midday and there was no-one much about. Most of the Italian population were in church or just out of it, milling round on the piazza, garbed in their Sunday best, greeting friends and acquaintances, and exchanging the day’s news. One or two small fishing boats floated becalmed on the water, and on the terrace of the hotels overlooking the jetty an occasional guest wandered to the balustrade to enjoy the morning view. We did not linger long, but after admiring the rich green vegetation that abounded almost to the edge of the sea, we returned to our car, piled in and set off along the coast once more, hooting at every corner, for the road was narrow and traffic was frequent, and there were several ugly gashes in the concrete seaward walls, where vehicles had crashed (we hoped only mildly, and not to their doom) several hundred feet down on to the rocks below.
We went through Positano, wooded slopes on either side of the road, and eventually came to Amalfi, where we visited the cathedral, a very fine piece of architecture, mainly in black and white marble, commanding a magnificent view from its steps. Climbing once more into our overflowing vehicle, we ascended the road for Ravello, first up a wide curving surface and then along narrow winding lanes with high stone walls on either side, and here and there a gate set in the wall, made of thick strong timbers reinforced with iron studs. In the wall would be a bell-pull, made of iron. One could imagine the distant clanging that a tug at the rusty iron handle would produce in the hidden porter’s lodge, and the grumbling that would ensue if the custode were disturbed during his siesta.
We were now well up above the coast road and in among the olive-covered slopes, where the trees grew on a slant, their trunks gnarled with age and often bent inward by the force of several centuries of breezes and gales. Before long we came to the former Capuchin monastery, in peacetime a hotel, but now taken over for a rest-camp. We had lunch on the terrace, shaded by vines and overlooking the sea and the small port of Amalfi. It was a little cooler up here on the terrace, and the wind rustled refreshingly in the vine-leaves, but in the sun it was as hot as ever. Inside the building the cool shuttered corridors and stone floors dispelled some of the fierce outside heat. The rooms of the hotel, former monks’ cells, were small and sparsely furnished. They had distempered walls, some cream, some pink and some blue. There was an air of restfulness about the monastery, which seemed to invite one to repose far from the madding crowd of modern life. One could well imagine the monks moving softly amongst the trees and flowers, tending the vines, studying quietly on the terrace, or perhaps looking out to sea, lost in contemplation or prayer.
After an apology of a siesta, which consisted in sitting and digesting our lunch for about half an hour and then taking photographs on the terrace, we went to Ravello and saw Prince Umberto’s country house and the villa where Greta Garbo had lived. Ravello has a tiny green, surrounded by some grey stone cottages with roses climbing up their walls. There is a grey stone church there also. Round the corner from the green, if you follow the road, you come to more high stone walls, and here and there an entrance, perhaps with an armorial bearing carved in stone over the gate-posts, and pots of cactuses on either side. Through the wrought-iron gates we could see palm trees and cypresses, and the glimpse of the shuttered villa within, for of course nothing was open for visiting. It was quiet and utterly peaceful here – no wonder Greta Garbo liked it, with her reputation for loving solitude. One seemed cut off from the world, in a paradise of trees, flowers, ferns and cool stone dwellings. One of the latter had been very conveniently requisitioned for use by officers of HM services, and we had tea there in the shady garden, listening to the ringing English voices and the bantering conversations, well larded with Army slang, that went on around us. Our own conversation was just the same, but somehow it all seemed a little incongruous in that haven of exotic vegetation, semi-tropical heat and Italian architecture. But the Italians employed by the club had learned to make good English tea – an unexotic but important point.
Once again we squeezed into our car and sped down the mountainous road, past tiny scattered stone houses clinging to the hillsides and an occasional goat browsing at the road-edge, attended by a small girl with pigtails tied over her head or a little dark-haired boy, both barefoot.
We struck the coast again at Amalfi, turned back the way we had come and soon reached Positano in time for a bathe before sundown, which proved just as enjoyable an experience as the former bathe there had been. Positano had not changed, but it looked a little more prosperous and the flowers were perhaps more numerous. To me, it was just as fascinating and as romantic as ever – almost too ideal to exist.
After the bathe we had an aperitif at the pavilion on the beach, which was really not much more than a small veranda converted into a café, and then we decided to finish off the day by dining at the Katarinetta, of which I had heard but until then had never seen. It was a restaurant, open-air of course, with a small band and space for dancing. Two or three of this type had opened in the summer of 1945 in Positano, but the Katarinetta was the most famed, both for local colour and natural beauty. It was literally cut out of the rock, about 200 or 300ft above the north end of the beach, so that its stone terrace faced south-west with the panorama of all Positano spread out far below. When we arrived it was dusk and the last vestiges of a glorious af
terglow tinged the grey rocks with crimson. After we had parked the car on a levelled-out piece of ground at the end of a long winding alley, we finished the journey on foot, up a steep pebbly path, emerging at last on to the aforesaid terrace, which was shaded over with arbours of vines that wreathed its parapet overlooking the sea. It was a sort of bower, where little tables covered with bright red check cloths were dotted here and there, some of them in specially designed arbours, so that a certain amount of privacy was possible for a private party. The tables in the central part were more exposed and we took one of these in order to have a good view of all the other guests when they should arrive. Although we got there at about eight o’clock, it was still early for those parts, where most of the local inhabitants did not eat their evening meal much before ten at night. In fact, the food was not even ready, so we started on a drink of some sort, and then were eventually served with huge platefuls of steaming spaghetti al pomodoro, i.e. tomato spaghetti, but cooked in Neapolitan fashion with plenty of oil and a rich sauce. This was almost a meal in itself, but of course it was only the beginning – I forget what followed.
By nine o’clock, more people were dribbling in. Hugh Trent, who was the leader of the party and drove our car, had been here before and had spent the time while we were waiting for the food in regaling us with stories of the distinguished Italians who patronised the place, most of them rich and high-ranking, it seemed – the aristocracy of the Sorrento peninsula. Now some of these important personages began to arrive, the women exotic, made up, décolletées, some of them in sunbathing tops and striped linen skirts, some wearing huge variegated rings that together with brilliant nail-varnish made their brown hands a blaze of colour, their varnished toenails shining through open sandals; others of them with their hair dyed copper or titian, very sophisticated and somewhat hard-boiled. The men seemed a trifle fleshy and one man looked as though he had been a local leading Fascist but had now recanted and was reaping the benefits of sums amassed during past years. I had no brief for such an opinion, but that was the impression I got of him, and of some of the other locals too – they looked smart, unscrupulous and extremely worldly-wise, ‘no flies on them’. But Hugh did not stop to think of what their former politics might have been; in any case, he would probably have argued that almost everyone in Italy had been a Fascist anyway. (Strange to say, I only ever met one who admitted it!) Hugh advanced on an elegant, glamorous beauty, and we distinctly heard him say, in an exaggerated drawl, ‘My dear Princess, how very delightful to meet you again,’ and in two minutes he had swept the princess to her feet and was joggling her up and down to the tune of ‘Lay that pistol down’, or some such rapid foxtrot, his face simply beaming with pride and excitement. We scarcely saw him for the rest of the evening, and contented ourselves with admiring his progress with the local beauties in the distance. It seemed that the ‘Caro Capitano’ was in high favour.
By now the place was full and there were also some British officers in mufti from GHQ. English was spoken on most sides and there was a Babel of voices, patterned with the quick rhythm of the band and the lilting melodies of the South, the whole atmosphere permeated by the smell of rich Neapolitan cooking and the whiff of scented cigarettes. The vine-leaves were silhouetted sharply against the deep blue of the night sky and far below one could hear the murmur of the waves on the rocks. The air was fresh and the stars twinkled brightly overhead. On the terrace lanterns gave out a warm yellow glow; far beneath us, reflections of the light shimmered on the water. What a setting! No wonder one could feel intoxicated with its glamour and forget any misgivings one might have about those who shared it. We did not leave until after midnight, when we eventually managed to separate Hugh from his noble dancing partners, and then only when he had bade them fond farewells, with many promises of renewed acquaintance in future.
We were soon in the car, homeward bound. We had hardly travelled more than a few miles when there was a nasty hard bump at the back – a puncture. After a change of wheel, the spare wheel also punctured. ‘That’s our reward for using one of those captured enemy vehicles,’ someone said, ‘they’re so ruddy unreliable!’ Someone had to get out and walk to the next village to telephone for a relief truck. It must have been three in the morning when we finally reached home, quite worn out. The evening ended in a most Italian fashion, for Italian transport was at that time notorious for breaking down, and you could never travel anywhere without seeing some lorry or overloaded private car with a wheel off and its occupants squatting disconsolately at the roadside while their sweating driver struggled with jacks and spares. But as far as we were concerned, we had had a wonderful day – a puncture here and there was all part of the game.
Round about that time I became acquainted with other aspects of Italian life. To my shame I still spoke very little Italian, despite my long stay in the country, but living in an Italian household as we were, it was impossible not to absorb some of the atmosphere and observe the everyday doings of the family whose guests we were, even if superimposed ones. Two or three of the Perellis invited Pat and me to dinner, but we refused because we knew so little of the language and were afraid of getting hopelessly out of our depth. It was perhaps also because the intense heat was beginning to drag us down, and by the end of a day in the office we had no energy for anything, least of all for smartening up and being on the intellectual quivive for an exhausting Italian dinner party. As I later discovered, Italian dinner parties are very intensive, and we should doubtless have been called for our opinion of the political situation and many other complicated matters, vastly different from a simple conversation with the dressmaker or Luisa. Still our relations with the Perellis continued to be very cordial; they were extremely kind, and last thing at night we would often go into the kitchen for a chat with Luisa and sometimes with Signora Perelli. We knew their children quite well and used to take them fruit drops and other packets of sweets. Sometimes there seemed to be a current of unrest in the house and I heard rumours that things were not going quite as smoothly as they might between the Perellis. One night there was a great discussion going on in the dining-room, which was next to my bedroom and gave on to the same balcony; a sort of family conclave seemed to be in progress and there was a tension in the air. About midnight, when I was trying to sleep despite the burble of voices raised in animated discussion, there was a tap at the door – it was Signora Perelli. ‘Could you let me have a few cigarettes for Signor l’Avvocato, Signorina, please, we have quite run out,’ she said. ‘Of course, Signora,’ I replied, ‘here are all I have, you are welcome,’ and I gave her a packet of twenty, of which about fourteen were left. She thanked me profusely and withdrew. The men’s voices droned on and on – perhaps it was a pity to have let the Signora have so many cigarettes, I thought, as they would probably now stay up until all were smoked. I could just imagine what the ashtrays must be looking like by now.
It must have been about 2 a.m. when the party finally packed up and I heard them all saying ‘Buonanotte’. I turned over with a sigh of relief, thinking it was all finished, but it only seemed an hour or two later when I heard voices again and it was obvious that the conference had resumed. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 7 a.m. Whatever was the household coming to? This was certainly quite unusual! When Luisa brought my coffee, she was bursting with importance and excitement and I wondered whether the Perellis were going to be divorced, though it hardly seemed possible in Italy. Going by the confidential expression on her face, Luisa would have liked to tell me all about it, but she remained loyal to her employers and contented herself with a knowing look.
One evening not long after this, I had strolled back from the office and was approaching the outside staircase which led to the first floor and the Perellis’ flat, when loud voices from their open kitchen window rent the air. An argument was taking place, as far as I could gather, between the Perellis and Luisa, but who was siding with whom it was impossible to tell. All of a sudden a large missile shot past in front of me,
missing my nose by a hair’s breadth, and landed with a plop in a bed of begonias to the right of the path. I took a quick look and saw that I had narrowly missed being felled with a fair-sized alarm clock. I just walked on up the steps, pretending not to notice the occurrence, and went straight to my room, not even glancing into the kitchen, where the voices had somewhat subsided to a mere murmur. I had only been in my room for a few minutes, when without warning a shadow darkened the French window leading on to the balcony, and Signor Perelli strolled in, saying, ‘Buonasera, Signorina, sta bene?’ ‘Si, grazie’, I answered, rather surprised at this unwonted intrusion. ‘Bene, bene,’ he answered, and without more ado passed out of my door and into the corridor, perfectly composed, and evidently much relieved that I bore no visible marks of injury.
My Italian Adventures Page 22