She even had me carrying bags full of new undershorts and undervests, not to mention socks so sheer they looked as if they ought to be worn on a young girl’s slender foot. Rosa left me at the barber, who was instructed to turn his unhappy subject into something resembling a gentleman. It was a challenge. The barber said my hair was unhealthy, a symphony of split ends, and it would simply be best to start again. He gave me the shortest style of cut possible that wouldn’t make me look like a man just released from prison. He softened my face with hot towels and shaved my beard, and set to work with tweezers and small scissors, excising hair from places I didn’t even know hair grew. He scrubbed my ears to a hot pink finish and attended to the tufts in my nostrils the way Domenico and I had attended to sturdy weeds in troublesome corners of our gardens.
By the time I was standing inside the restaurant at the Villa Marconi I was uncomfortable in my new clothes and felt semi-naked on top of my head. I’d handed over that ridiculous hat and intended to neglect to pick it up on the way out. My toes pinched in my new shoes, which made an impertinent squeaking sound whenever I took a step. The maître d’ wanted to show me to the table reserved by Signor Bruno – they were on familiar terms with him here – but men were standing drinking, smoking and talking loudly at the bar and I preferred the anonymity of disappearing behind their crowded mass to waiting alone, self-conscious and nervous at a table.
I drank two incredibly smooth whiskies in quick succession, my stomach in turmoil. In the street, on the way in, I thought I’d noticed a woman glance in my direction. Her gaze had held me for just that one moment longer than necessary. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I imagined Veronica’s face, her scent, her hands, her secret places: my one woman. How would I ever get a second? Did I even need one?
Bruno Pasqua found me in that corner of the bar.
‘Two more,’ he ordered. ‘The corner, good, it’s quiet here.’ I looked at him and knew he sensed my distress in a place like this. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Bruno Pasqua told me. ‘All these people have got more money and position than brains in their heads. The important thing is that the food and wine are good and my friends here understand what gentlemen like at the end of a very successful week.’
He didn’t elaborate.
Bruno Pasqua was shorter than me but seemed bigger; he was older than I was but far younger at heart; he lived the great northern Italian life, but now, this second time I was meeting him, he already seemed more of a Sicilian than me. Dark craggy skin, a twisted mouth, deep-set black eyes and hair worn long, as if he lived in distant hills tending flocks and didn’t have to worry about what people thought of him. The man immediately dropped all the airs and confabulations of High Italian and started to speak to me in our good Sicilian, Catanese to Catanese, and he had a lot to say.
‘I don’t know where it comes from, but you’ve got something strong in the way you put things. Your work’s tough and clear, as if you know what you want to say and you haven’t got time for bullshit or fools. From what I’ve seen of your two books we’ve got something new on our hands. You were schooled in the hardest places I can imagine. With, I’ll wager, some of the stupidest and cruellest pigs God ever put on his good earth. But it made your vision clear. I like that. I like that very much. In your first book you can feel the whip crack, the meat tearing out of the body. In the second book you can feel the engorged prick going into a woman’s hot flesh.
‘My family are all fishermen. They’re not the happy-go-lucky sorts you see singing songs or cooking up pots of fish stew for everyone on the docks. My people are tough and they’re vicious. If someone tries to take what they’ve got they smash them down and enjoy it. They like to fight, and when their country calls them to war they go out and kill whoever they’re told to. I grew up with them and in the middle of all that I was the only one who loved books and stories. What do you think my life was like? Nine-tenths of my family can hardly sign their names but I’ve made my course through the two worlds: on one side the sea and blood and on the other side literature. I think in your life you’ll also navigate the two.
‘Now, you want to eat? I do. Then I want a woman and I don’t mean some fat Catanese prostitute with tits like a cow. What did you write, Cesare? “Donato kissed her fingers and tasted them in his mouth”.’
Bruno Pasqua laughed so loudly the group of well-dressed older men next to us turned. Pasqua shook his head and swallowed a new shot of whisky.
‘The secret is that we know exactly where those lovely fingers have been and what they must taste like . . . you can almost smell them off the page. And a young man who can write something like that knows his women too.’ He took me by the shoulder. ‘Or he’s got a wonderful imagination, right?’
He gave me the chance to answer which of the two possibilities it was, but I couldn’t say a word. Pasqua grinned and looked down at my clothes.
‘Who dressed you like such a faggot? Don’t let me see you like this again. I preferred you in your pyjamas. Come on,’ he said, and led me to our table.
I made up my mind to definitely forget to pick up that hat.
Bruno Pasqua ate with gusto, saying that the swordfish on our plates had probably been captured from the Mediterranean Sea by his father and brothers, and, if not, then by Sicilian fisherman just like them.
I understood that at least part of the reason he loved God is a Young Man and the coming Life of Disappearances was because the island of Sicily was so much a character of the stories. If he could profitably have run his business from Catania or Palermo he would have done so. At one stage during the evening he referred to the 1860 unification of our island with the mainland, except that he called this the ‘Italian invasion’ and decried the hundreds of years of our rule by everyone but ourselves.
Then when the dinner was done and he’d drunk his fill – which was plenty, even though he didn’t seem in the least bit inebriated – Pasqua called the maître d’ over and told him to ‘Charge the bill as usual’ and to ‘Tell them we’re coming’.
Soon we were leaving the restaurant by a discreet side door that didn’t lead into the Villa Marconi’s marbled reception area, but to a smaller separate establishment. There we were greeted by a matriarch named Signora Granbassi. A young man immediately brought us a bottle of French champagne and crystal flute glasses. We sat in a semi-lit room full of overstuffed furniture. A record was playing, a woman singing in French, I thought.
‘It’s been too long, Bruno,’ the signora said, not afraid to use his name.
‘Too busy, it drives me crazy. When I’m in the north month after month you know how I get.’
She smiled into the plump rolls beneath her chin. ‘And a young friend, also a northerner?’
Pasqua looked warmly at me and used a local saying few outside of the island would have made sense of: ‘No, Sicilianu ca scorcia’ – ‘Sicilian with a thick crust.’
‘What’s he after?’
‘Ask him.’
‘What would you like tonight, young man?’
Bruno Pasqua had to rescue me.
‘I think he’s the type to go for one of our own, but someone with a bit of finesse. How about Paulina?’
‘Not with us anymore.’
‘Francesca?’
‘Got herself married.’
‘Huh,’ Pasqua said, ‘it really has been too long. Well, bring them all out and let’s have a look.’
We drank the champagne as she arranged it. Bruno Pasqua was extremely matter-of-fact about the business at hand.
‘First time in a place like this? By Sicilian standards it’s about the best you’re going to find but once we get on the road I’ll introduce you to several venues you’ll never forget.’
‘The road?’
‘We might have to travel if other countries want to translate your books, but that’s to discuss another ti
me. Now listen, I can see you’re nervous. Just take it easy. The signora and the ladies here only want to please us so there’s nothing to be worried about. And if you’re concerned about disease ask for a prophylactic and your girl will give you one. Take your time, enjoy yourself, there’s no hurry at all.’ He brightened. ‘Ah.’
Signora Granbassi led in the parade of young women. I was relieved that they were dressed demurely and seemed perfectly normal, though for me there was nothing normal in being so close to nine available females. At first I kept my eyes averted. Bruno Pasqua rose to his feet and greeted each woman with a bow.
‘What’s your name?’ ‘Where are you from?’ ‘Your eyes are almost turquoise, you know that?’
He chose the one with coal-black hair who said she was from Albania, then, as a bonus, a young blonde named Asta who spoke fondly of her village outside Oslo. How coerced were these young women? How much slavery was in this room? I wondered if they were living lives equivalent to the life I’d been forced into – yet they maintained an air of perfect normalcy. There was no unhappiness etched into their faces, no fear, and they seemed as average as the young women I used to see at the Bologna university.
Bruno Pasqua said, ‘Come on, who do you want to accompany you?’
Getting any words out was like spitting up stones.
‘Whoever wants to,’ I spoke in a very small voice.
I was surprised anyone even heard me.
‘I will,’ replied a bright voice, and I wasn’t very much conscious of who’d spoken until we were in a colourful bedroom together.
‘If we don’t work we don’t get paid,’ she said, ‘and I need the money. So what can I do for you, young man?’
Her name was Klarissa, she said, and she was in her late twenties, though, close-up, she looked much older. She told me she didn’t have any children, which for some reason I also didn’t believe, and that her husband had been killed in the war. She was born in Trieste and had come to the south for the weather, even though her accent seemed as Sicilian as mine. Obviously she had a picture she wanted to paint, but it didn’t quite come together. What interested me more than this brothel or this room or even this pleasant woman was the skill with which lies needed to be spun and threaded together in order to make them work. Hers didn’t – but what Domenico and I had done on the page, and that I continued each day, easily demonstrated the skill. For some reason we had it, the ability to make lies seem real.
And now of course Bruno Pasqua had been drawn in by my further patchwork of untruths. He’d be far from amused if he ever learned that I wasn’t the sole author of these books; I could picture the black blood that would come into his face, the rage that would tremble in his hands.
After ten minutes of chitchat Klarissa wearied of my timidity and turned in the couch to face me. As she spoke she slowly inched her dress up above her ankles, her knees and finally to the top of her thighs.
‘So you’ve asked me where I come from and now you know. And you’ve asked me about my family and now you know that too.’
She crept her dress up to her hips and spread her knees wide. She wore nothing underneath.
‘And I asked you one tiny question and you didn’t answer me. Oughtn’t a handsome young gentleman answer a lady? I’ll ask you again: What’s your pleasure, young prince?’
Klarissa ran my hand between her legs then caressed herself, but only for my benefit, I thought.
‘If you want to go slow, I’m in no hurry. Your friend won’t mind paying for an extra hour or two, will he? I could make you last all night if you wanted it that way.’
She slid down to her knees and put her hands on my thighs, then ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip.
‘Would you like me to start you off?’
I caught her hands. ‘Can we just say we did it?’
She stopped and looked at me then I helped her up. Klarissa sat facing me again.
‘We can. Do you prefer boys?’
‘I apologise, it’s the situation . . . I don’t . . .’
She put her index finger against her own lips. ‘Shh, in here whatever you say or don’t say is the law. But we act as if we did it, all right?’
I nodded a little more enthusiastically than I’d meant to.
‘Well, we’ve got time,’ she went on. ‘Your friend paid for some very good champagne. Will I get it?’
‘Yes.’
Klarissa slipped out of the room and I studied my palms. I felt as if I could breathe again. Despite everything I’d been imagining while writing Donato’s story, right here not a single part of me desired a woman or wanted to be attended to. My hands weren’t cold and I wasn’t consumed by fear, I simply felt as if I wasn’t present.
When Klarissa returned she had a new bottle of champagne and three glasses – the young woman from Norway had come in with her. They shut the bedroom door, laughing together like girls. We toasted one another’s health. Asta needed the champagne more than me and certainly more than Klarissa.
‘Wore me out in twenty minutes. The man’s a bull. He’s giving Elena a run for her money, let me tell you. But he’s not without pity. When he realised I wasn’t keeping up he said I could go, and gave me a tip too. And such a tender kiss. He said that maybe he shouldn’t have been so greedy.’ She drank some more. ‘Cock thick like a leg.’
We spent the hour drinking the champagne and discussing the latest showing at the local movie theatre. When I left the bedroom the signora was waiting in the reception area with some of her women, all of whom were waiting for new clients. She asked if I was happy with the service and I said that indeed I was, and would definitely return. She whispered that Bruno Pasqua probably wouldn’t surface until the morning; he’d asked for the pipe to be brought into his room.
Whatever that meant, I didn’t mind. The night air was crisp and the cold bit pleasantly at my ears, and by the time I was halfway home I realised I really had forgotten that stupid hat.
Bruno Pasqua had a relative living four blocks from Signora Rosa’s house, and three weeks after we packaged up and posted the completed manuscript of A Life of Disappearances to his office the relative sent her ten-year-old twins running to collect me so that I could come speak to him on their intriguing mechanism, the telephonic machine.
‘My only regret,’ he said, his voice echoing on the line as if he was speaking out of some distant dream, ‘is that I can’t publish this book at the same time as the first. It’s everything I hoped for, Cesare.’
Relieved that I’d served Domenico’s memory well, I didn’t want to make an immediate start on what I thought could be a third and final novel. Working carefully through those remaining manuscripts Rosa had showed me, I saw the strangeness, the confusion, the lack of true experience that could be cut away to make a last book, something tender but true. Domenico had been writing about the old feudal life in Sicily and I liked the idea of bringing something like that to life. It would have to wait, however, because this city living had completely enervated me. I needed to get away into more familiar surrounds.
Pasqua was publishing Young Man at the start of the new year, and Christmas was already approaching. Signora Rosa’s house was beginning to fill with guests and her sons were due to arrive, new families in tow. The deal with Bruno Pasqua meant I had money, not a lot, but enough to let me do what I wanted.
Instead of renting myself a country cabin or purchasing a ticket for some exotic location, I visited the local stables until I found myself a good horse, saddlery and camping equipment. It only took a few days to put together the supplies. Rosa didn’t want to see me leaving, especially not in winter’s festive season, but I told her I knew what I was doing.
On the telephone Pasqua asked, ‘You’re going where?’ His voice was half-concern, half-envy.
The horse was a good one, an intact male with plenty o
f fire. He reminded me of Esperanto. The stable manager smirked when I picked him, knowing what I was getting and already thinking I wouldn’t be able to handle him. When we were free of the constraints of the city and its environs I twitched the reins and took Thunder away from wide thoroughfares busy with motor vehicles and bicycles. He snorted and fought me. He didn’t want to pick his way down an embankment and then a hillside towards the long, flat green plains ahead. He knew by the time we got to the bottom who was boss. His flanks quivered with the exertion and the stress of the steep descent. I patted his neck and leaned close to his ear, rubbing and scratching, telling him good things and making sure he knew the sound of my voice.
‘How about a run now? That’s what you really want, don’t you?’
It took three attempts to get Thunder to understand what he could do. The stable master had kept his beast in enclosures far too long.
‘Come on.’ We wheeled in a circle. ‘Straight ahead.’
His head shook and his nostrils flared, and finally the message made sense in some primal part of his brain. He shot forward and picked up speed. There was plenty more in him, and we raced across the plains toward the foothills of the volcano.
While everyone else observed the ritual of the Christmas season, I observed the snowfalls over the peaks of Etna. While warm kitchens created feasts for gathered family members I cooked lentils, chickpeas and potatoes over open fires. As loved ones slept in their homes in the warmth of their beds and the safety of their rooms I huddled in the sorts of caves I’d been looking for when Salvatore and his tracker hunted me down. I had blankets to wrap myself in against the icy drafts that howled around these peaks and plateaus, and I didn’t miss anything or anyone. I did think about Domenico. I could hear his voice sometimes in my sleep. I did think about Veronica. I’d wake up out of some dream and realise I’d been smelling her hands and neck.
Black Mountain Page 21