“Your what?”
“My American assistant! And the only thing she - that is, you - have to do, besides pretending to help me, is write the copy for the new promotional video I’ll be shooting. We’ll do some work during the day, but the rest of the time, it will be like a honeymoon.”
The word “honeymoon” might have blocked out all the rest, but Iris’s instinctive prudence forced her to at least ask what Max was getting her into. “Wait … what do you mean, ‘write the copy’? What copy?”
“Don’t worry, for you it’ll be a cinch. It’s for the American market, so it’s all in English.”
“Just because I speak the language doesn’t mean I know how to do that stuff,” Iris said.
“You’ll do great. You should see some of the crap those people write,” Max said. “Anyway, I’ll email you the schedule so you can get yourself organized. But now, I gotta run. I should’ve been out the door ten minutes ago.”
“Where are you going?” For each time Iris got up the nerve to ask the question, there were a dozen when she didn’t. The last thing she wanted was for Max to mistake her curiosity for jealousy, or her interest for an interrogation.
“Flavia’s picking me up. It’s too fuckin’ beautiful to spend the weekend in Rome. We’re going to her place in Capalbio.” Iris felt her pulse quicken. She had met the chatty, olive-skinned quiz show hostess at one of the parties she had attended with Max in Rome. Afterwards, when Iris had remarked upon her quintessential Mediterranean beauty, Max had immediately agreed the woman was incredibly attractive, and then gone on to admit that he himself had been in love with Flavia briefly a few years back, though they had soon discovered they were totally incompatible as lovers. He said they had been the best of friends ever since, once the issue of physical attraction had been resolved. Iris knew she was being old-fashioned, and to be fair, Max had introduced her to Flavia as his girlfriend, but still, she just plain didn’t like the idea. She would have to keep her misgivings to herself, however; after all, wasn’t she still sleeping in the same bed as her husband, and still having sex with him every other Saturday night? She was starting to understand why Claudio Olona was convinced that married people should only have affairs with other married people. Weekends they were at home and accounted for, not out gallivanting.
“Have a good weekend,” she said, already thinking she might indulge in an extra little pill before bed.
“You, too, Capo,” Max said.
“Stromboli?” Beatrix lit two cigarettes, and held one out to Iris, who was pouring them each a glass of wine. Sunday nights were so much more bearable when Bea was in town. And tonight the two women had plenty to discuss.
“Yes, can you believe it?” Iris said.
“Frankly, no. Why the hell would you go all the way down there to that pile of ash and rubble when you can fly almost anywhere in Europe from Milan in under two hours?”
“It’s not a pile of rubble; I’ve done my research, and it looks absolutely astonishing! This is a great opportunity to go somewhere I doubt I would ever go otherwise.”
“But at this time of year? The place will be deserted. Everything will be shut down.”
“We’re not going as tourists. Max has an assignment there, and I’ll be helping him, like an assistant.” Iris refrained from telling Bea that she would have a job of her own to do, or that all expenses were being footed by Max’s client. Her friend had that asinine rule about measuring a man’s interest by the amount of money he spent on you, but until she got to know Max in person, she would never understand that rules like that simply did not apply to men like him. Not many rules did. Plus, not to criticize or anything, but what kind of men had Bea found for herself, when it boiled right down to it?
“The whole idea was for you two to enjoy a vacation together,” Bea took a drag on her cigarette, tilting her head back to exhale. “To take some time to relax, you know? You’re a wreck.”
“This will be much more than a vacation, Bea. We’ll be working on a project together. And get this – Max said it would be like a honeymoon. He used that exact word!”
“My idea of a honeymoon is slightly different, but then again so was each of my ex-husbands’. Do you still get to have sex, or isn’t that part of the job description?”
“I’m not going for the sex, Bea,” Iris said. “At least, not only. I’m not interested in fueling some pointless affair that will eventually fizzle out and die. What I want to do is see where we are going with this relationship. I want to see how it feels to be a real part of Max’s life.”
“I know exactly what you want to do,” Beatrix said. “You want to hedge your bet, see what cards you’re holding before making any decisions. But I can’t say that I blame you.”
“That sounds so cynical, Bea!” Iris said. “I’m in love with Max. But I love Gregorio, too, in a different way. I’m just so confused and scared.”
“Scared will get you nowhere. Now is the time for nerves of steel. To stick with the gambling jargon, you’ll be upping the ante with this trip, Iris. It’ll make the game even more interesting.”
“I know.” Iris gulped down her wine. “So can I still count on you, for the alibi?”
“A promise is a promise,” Beatrix said. “I’ll handle Gregorio for you. You have enough to worry about with Max.”
The Piaggio Ape crawled up the old mule path in pursuit of the dim headlamps feebly leading the way. The vehicle’s three bald tires slipped and spun, determined to get a grip on the semi-paved surface of the track whose bumps, cracks and potholes jostled the grogginess from Iris, still recovering from her four o’clock wake-up call. Sitting in the cargo bed with her back against the minuscule cab, she used her legs as stabilizers to cushion the shocks that jarred her tailbone and shot up her spine, ricocheting off each vertebra along the way. Despite her discomfort, she couldn’t help but admire the vehicle’s “I think I can” attitude; it reminded her of the spunky little locomotive in a book her mother used to read to her when she was a child. The book was one of Iris’s favorites, and she checked it out each time she was lucky enough to accompany her mother to the town library. Whenever they read the part where the tenacious locomotive made it to the top of the hill, she and Lily would clap and cheer and jump up and down on the sofa. But what really fascinated Iris was the way her mother told the tale, the inflection in her meek voice steeled with an uncharacteristic tone of obstinacy, her face flushed with effort, as if she herself were the locomotive as it willed its way uphill, instead of Mrs. Carlo Capotosti, mother of twelve, sitting on the cushion of a sprung sofa sprinkled with cookie crumbs, her varicose-veined legs propped on a footstool, with Iris tucked under one arm, Lily under the other.
The Ape driver jerked the hand brake and unlatched the door to his cab, growling an incomprehensible comment Iris took to mean the ride was over. His short, stocky form waddled away on thick legs toward the edge of the clearing. Max unfolded his long limbs, and hopped down from the cramped flatbed where he had been wedged in the corner across from Iris. He yawned, stretched, scratched his crotch, and walked to the other end of the clearing. Iris took a moment to let her ears adjust to the silence after the constant grating of engine gears; it was so quiet she could distinguish each man’s tinkle as he peed. She wondered whether men actually had a physiological need to urinate so often, or if theirs was just a dog-like instinct to establish their presence and assert their masculinity wherever they went.
She lowered two backpacks and a tripod to the ground, then hoisted herself over the edge of the Ape, hopped down to her feet, and walked in the opposite direction of the men. She inhaled deeply, raising her arms to the inky sky, joined her hands as if in prayer, then bowed low at the waist, exhaling. She placed her open palms on the soil, introducing herself to the ground on which she stood. She slowly inhaled and exhaled a second time, then straightened up and brushed the grainy black dirt off her hands. Its color and texture reminded her of the ashes she had received on her forehead all those firs
t Wednesdays of Lent. She could recall the haunted, holy feeling that descended upon her when the priest thumbed a black cross in the center of her brow, whispering the Lenten reminder: “From dust thou came, to dust thou shalt return.”
This ash was different, though; it had come from the bowels of Stromboli. Iddu, to the locals. Familiarity, fear, and a pagan form of reverence convened in the islanders’ name for the volcano in whose shadow they scratched out their existence. As a child, Iris had perceived her father in a somewhat similar manner: a solid, benevolent presence when respected; a formidable fury-spewing force when angered. If Carlo Capotosti could see her now, he would certainly wonder what business she could possibly have here, atop a volcanic island, in the company of a blue Ape, a native with driving habits as rough as his dialect, and a Roman filmmaker. She could describe to him in detail the fifteen-hour train ride south to Sicily and the day of ferry-hopping through the archipelago she had endured to get there, but as for the why, well, that was something she was still trying to figure out herself.
Yet there she stood, enveloped in a velvet cloak of darkness. The only lights were those of the Ape’s tail lamps blinking their farewell as they were dragged out of sight by the rotund man and the cantankerous engine grumbling its way back down the hill. At first, the darkness seemed absolute, but soon Iris could make out some forms emerging from the shadows. Her eyes first discerned the leafless branches of a gnarled fig tree, then a colony of prickly pear cacti waving their thorny pads at her, and a whitewashed abode squatting on the hillside. Nature murmured all around her, each sound piercing a pinhole in the silence which had at first seemed impenetrable. A breeze rushing in from the open sea breathed freshness into the air, rustling from slumber the island which blocked its path. A rooster crowed in the distance, impatient to start the new day. A gang of gulls screeched as they cruised the coast in search of breakfast.
As she stood there, Iris focused on absorbing the sensations and impressions she would later record in her journal. Writing about a totally new place would be stimulating, and the challenge excited her. She hoped she would be able to translate her perceptions into words, to make viewers feel and taste and hear the things they would be seeing in the video. During the endless train ride south, the nebulous notions about her future that had been floating aimlessly around in her mind started clustering together. Ideas began to form and latch onto one another until she had strung together a surprisingly credible theory of a new life - her new life, on the road with Max. So much depended on this assignment; if she did a good job, it could all begin right here. There were many more islands to visit; many more stories to write.
The snapping of a twig interrupted Iris’s reverie. She spun around. “Max! You scared me!” she shouted in a whisper, the way her parents used to scold their chatting children in church.
Max drew her close and kissed her, his stubble scratching her chin as he flicked his mint-flavored morning tongue at hers. When Iris had caught him earlier in the bathroom with her toothbrush sticking out of his mouth, he just grinned through the froth, then spat into the sink and shrugged, saying he had forgotten his. It was ridiculous that it should bother her to share her toothbrush with Max when they were already on far more intimate terms, and surely it was not his fault that the vision of him catapulted her back to another time and place where she often found the bristles of her toothbrush wet with someone else’s spittle. The memory still filled her with disgust.
A thunderous rumble followed by a loud clap brought Iris back to the present. “Look, Capo!” Max cried, pointing to the mountaintop.
“Wow!” Iris exclaimed. Incandescent chunks of matter soared high into the air, tracing a red arc against the black sky before disappearing into nothingness.
“How’d you like that?” Max asked, as if he were personally responsible for the pyrotechnic display.
“It was amazing!” Iris said. “But isn’t this dangerous? Shouldn’t we be on the lookout for lava?” She knew what volcanoes could do; she had visited the ruins in Pompeii with Gregorio once on their way to Ischia.
“Don’t be stupid,” Max said. “Lava flow is rare, and anyway it always runs down the sciara, on the northwest flank of the mountain.” Iris searched his face for further reassurance, some sign that he knew what he was talking about, but found nothing there except that smirk he always wore when he teased her.
“Anyway,” Max continued, “it’s time to move our asses if we want to get some footage. Once day breaks, all we’ll see is the smoke. You got your flashlight?”
Iris nodded, smiling proudly as she unzipped a pocket of her new backpack and extracted her new flashlight, switched it on and shone it in his face. Her secret shopping trip to a sporting goods store in Rapallo had filled her with an inebriating sense of adventure, and she would have bought a sleeping bag, too, had it not been winter, and had Max not told her that all their accommodations would be paid for. But she hadn’t been able to resist purchasing one of those red pocket knives with a dozen different tools she had always wanted to own but never had an excuse to buy. “I’m all set!” she said, feeling like a full-fledged assistant as she hoisted the backpack laden with half of Max’s paraphernalia onto her shoulders.
“Move it, then!” Max said. Shouldering his own bulging pack, he prodded Iris’s butt with the tripod, nudging her to the trailhead. Half an hour into their uphill trek, Iris was sweating but proud of her ability to keep up with Max, thanks to her refusal to give up jogging despite Gregorio’s warnings about saving her joints for old age. Fuck old age.
“Hey, where are you going?” Iris called, seeing Max squeeze through a jagged opening in the barbed wire fence at the side of the track. “That sign says ‘VIETATO ALLONTANARSI DAL SENTIERO.’We’re not supposed to leave the trail.”
“That’s just for tourists, Capo,” Max replied.
“Well, what are we? I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly a volcano climbing veteran,” she replied.
“Oh, come, on!” Max said. “The tourism board is paying for us to be here. And the way I want to frame this, I have to shoot from over there, off to the right.” He pointed into the darkness. “It’s not like I’m planning to climb into the crater or anything.”
“I know that. But I just don’t think we should. If there are signs and barbed wire, there must be a reason,” Iris said, kicking the dusty gravel with the toe of a sneaker. She didn’t like the idea of passing for a coward, but she liked the idea of leaving the authorized path for an off-limits danger zone even less. She was pretty sure she could feel a tremor beneath her feet at that very moment.
“Listen, I don’t have any time to waste,” Max said. “We only have about fifteen minutes until the next eruption. So let’s say you follow the rules like a good girl, and wait for me here. Give me that backpack.” He reached over the fence, and Iris obediently shrugged the pack off her shoulders and handed it over. Maybe she was being overly cautious; but maybe Max was being reckless. If only he would reason with her, convince her, give her a minute to get used to the idea - but he was already on his way. “If I’m not back in an hour, go for help!” he called over his shoulder as he marched off into the darkness.
Iris cursed herself for being such a coward; she should have gone, she would have felt safer with Max than she did standing there all alone in the dark. Especially once she realized that her phone and water bottle and survival knife were all in her backpack, and her backpack was with Max. Thank God she at least had the flashlight, she thought, playing the beam over the rocky slope on the other side of the barbed wire, as she debated whether she should try and catch up. But Max was nowhere in sight. She climbed up on a boulder that stood to the side of the path, and sat down on it. It seemed like a safe, solid place to wait.
She couldn’t figure out why exactly she had been so reluctant to follow Max. If she hadn’t seen the sign, she probably would have gone, which made her wonder whether it was a fear of physical danger, or a fear of breaking the rules that held her
back. As a child, her behavior was expected to conform to the rules of her home and school and religion. As a young married woman, new sets of rules were generously provided by her husband, his family, and the culture of their country. Wasn’t her relationship with Max all about breaking some of those rules that had been stifling her for so long? Wasn’t she already violating far more serious rules – the laws of the state and church and her own morality - by simply being with Max? There must be some way to balance things out, some way to reconcile her need for new experiences with her upbringing and beliefs.
Reflections on who she had become and why led her to think back on who she used to be - before Gregorio, before Italy. Things were easier back then, when rules were not open to alternative interpretations, and breaking them was not an option for Iris or her siblings. Except for Henry, of course. There wasn’t a rule that he respected or a punishment that he feared. While the other kids were filing onto the school bus, he was sneaking out of line and hopping onto the rear bumper where he would ride all the way to school, clinging to the bus like a monkey. When the other kids were outdoors playing ball in the sunshine, he was playing his guitar down in the basement. When the other boys his age were holding hands with girls at school dances, he was lying on Lily in the chicken coop.
Despite all the times she felt nostalgic about the past, she was saddened by what it had done to Lily, and to their relationship. She could still see her sister’s face the day of Henry’s funeral, so devoid of expression that Lily herself looked like a corpse. Tears of hurt filled her eyes when she recalled the way Lily had lashed out at her later that day, and how viciously she had reacted to Iris’s efforts to be nice. She knew Lily couldn’t have meant what she said; it was just all the strain she was under, and that strange way she had of reacting to death. Like when she had burst out laughing on learning of Dolores’s suicide. Like when she had stood dry-eyed and stone-faced at their father’s burial.
The Complete Series Page 116