“Buongiorno, signore. Mi dispiace per mia governante di casa.”
“Buongiorno, signora. Forse, è migliore noi parliamo in l’inglese.” Nick tilted his head towards the child.
“No problema. That’s my son, Nicolo.” Nick’s face whitened at the sound of his own name. The boy ran circles around the two of them. “Maria! Maria!”
The housekeeper appeared at the entrance to the terrazzo. “Si, Signora.”
“Maria, prenda adesso bambino mio alla spiaggia, per favore. Anche abbiamo bisogno di granita limone qui.”
“Subito, signora.” Maria took the child by the hand and left.
“Isabella?” Nick asked.
“I’m Isabella, Signore,” she said straight-faced. “And I remember you. News travels fast here on Panarea.”
“Then you’re Caterina’s friend,” he said, trying to read her impression of him.
“Si. Why are you here?”
“I’m such a cretino.”
Isabella laughed while she responded: “No, you are not an idiot.”
“I’m looking for Caterina.”
“That has become a big problem for you. I can see it in your face.”
Maria came in with the granita and set it down on the table, the child calling for her to hurry up to take him to the beach.
“Have some granita di limone, Nicolo. Maria made it this morning. It is very refreshing.” They devoured the slushy, semi-frozen lemon ice that was both sweet and slightly sour. When they finished scooping the remains, Nick sensed Isabella was uncomfortable, assuming it was some bad news about Caterina, so he changed the discussion to what he thought was a safer topic.
“Where’s Carlo?” Isabella seemed distant. “Have you heard from him since the war ended?”
“I’m happy you remembered Carlo Moretto.” She looked at her sandaled feet.
“How could I forget? Helped Nathan’s cousin get out of Venice.”
“Then you remember that Caterina set me up with Carlo at a café in Assisi.”
“Si.”
“So where’s Carlo?”
Isabella face turned ashen. “I’m sorry to tell you ma Carlo è morto!”
“Oh Christ.” Nick’s eyes reddened. “After everything we went through.”
“He promised he’d come back to me. But Carlo has never left me.” She slapped a hand on her breast.
“I am very sorry to hear this, Isabella. Nathan will be devastated. You remember him, don’t you?”
“Si, the one who was devoted to my university friend, Rachele.” A tear ran black as her mascara melted on her face. “I have already shed many tears for Carlo. To tell the truth …” She stopped to wipe most of the black line away. “We never had a chance to marry. As you know, he went off to fight with the Jewish Brigade. Carlo became an infantryman for the British Army. They fought the Germans on the Northern Italian Front.” Isabella rubbed her eyes and Nick sat closer to her as she continued. “He died on April 13, 1945 at the Battle of the Argenta Gap, near the Po River.” She crossed herself. “Hit by the last of the German artillery shells. When I wrote to him before he died that I was with child, he swore he would return to Assisi and marry me. He thought we should name the child, Nicolo, after you, if we had a son.”
“I am honored.” They both stayed quiet for a while. “So how did you wind up here of all places?”
“Carlo had instructed Don Ca Botto to leave whatever was left from his family estate to me and his child. So we would avoid the poverty so many Italians now face. All because of the fasciste.” She mimicked spitting on the floor. “You mentioned Nathan before. Where is he now?”
“We came back to Italy together. He’s staying with Padre Esposito and visits Rachele every day at Dottor Russo’s villa. Somewhere in Gubbio.”
“Is there hope for my friend?”
“It’s hard to say but Nathan is determined to go all the rounds of this fight. He’s the one who showed me Caterina’s postcard to Rachele, postmarked from this island.” He handed her the card and Isabella smiled as she looked at it. “How did you come by Caterina’s painting that’s hanging in Salvatore’s café?”
“Caterina gave it to me as a going away present, but I felt that her work should be appreciated by others, hopefully some wealthy, foreign tourists.”
“I see.” Nick lowered his eyes. “So what do you do to keep yourself busy on Panarea, besides running after little Nicolo?”
“I am working on folk pottery of Isole Eolie or Isuli Eoli, as the Sicilians would say.”
“Bravo, I am jealous of your endeavor.”
“E tu?”
“I’m studying American Literature at San Francisco State College, not far from where I live.” Nick paused and stared at Isabella. “Ma adesso, I am looking for Caterina.”
“I know she’ll be angry with me for telling, but Caterina is right under your nose, Nick. You see, two months ago, Caterina asked if she could stay with me for a while. She wanted to work on her painting and I have a little guesthouse just below my villa near the water. I knew it would be perfect for her. Naturally I agreed. She is there right now.”
“Mille grazie, but I don’t know what I should do.”
“You men are all the same. When it comes to sex, you are very aggressive, and when it comes to love, you are always conflicted. If you love Caterina, you must fight for her just like Nathan is doing as we speak. You must face il tuo destino.”
It was a warm, sunny day and Nick wiped the sweat off his brow with a white handkerchief and trailed Isabella down to the water. In the distance Nick could see the rocks jutting from a cluster of islets and further north the fuming Stromboli. The one-room guesthouse walls were whitewashed and two bright red bougainvillea plants climbed the stucco and crowned the top of the front door. There were patches of yellow hibiscus plants, some buds already full and waiting to open up. Isabella knocked on the door and entered the artist’s studio. Nick heard Caterina yelling at Isabella, who came out of the guesthouse with her hands over her ears.
“Go around to the back where it faces the sea and find yourself a chair. If you’re patient enough, she may have a few words with you. Buona fortuna, Nicolo!”
After an hour, Caterina, wearing a cotton dress the same hue as the bougainvillea, broke through the light blue beads that led to the terrace. She stood there for a while, her brow and lips pursed, brown hair streaked lighter from the sun and braided down her back. She sized Nick up and down. The way she glared at him reminded him that she had every right to despise him.
“Caterina, is it really you?”
“Why are you here?”
“I had to see you again.”
“Bene, you have seen me, so now you can go back to North Beach.”
Nick got out of his chair and walked up to her. Her face lacked any expression. “You don’t understand, Caterina. Things have changed since our days in Roma.”
“Si, you state the obvious.”
“Can’t we at least talk for old time’s sake?”
“Pezzo di merde! I hate you.”
“I am sorry. Mi dispiace!”
“Meaningless words! You walked out on me. Never even wrote me a postcard.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You said that already.”
“We can’t undo things of the past. We just have to get on with out lives. I just thought …”
“I’m going inside now.”
The beads crackled in his ears as she left. Nick trekked up to the villa and spoke with Isabella who tried to console him. He returned to the café and Salvatore took one look at him and gave him a glass of grappa and left him to sort things out on the terrazza. Nick could hear laughter from the café, as Salvatore spun a few stories in between serving his customers.
“Salvatore! Salvatore!” The owner came out wiping his hands on his waist apron.
“Mr. Nick, you sound upset.”
“I need a sailboat. Do you have one?”
“Certu. I let you borrow mi
ne. It’s right over there.” Salvatore pointed to its mooring. “You can sail?”
“My father taught me a long time ago. Grazii.”
“Good luck fishing.” Salvatore laughed and went into the café.
Nick checked the seaworthiness of the sloop, examining the lines, halyards and sheets. Everything was secure, so early next morning he picked up a few provisions for the day at the alimentari, loaded up and set sail due south. The morning brought the salty-sweet smell of the sea, the wind billowing the sails, the Sicilian sun warming his face and the breeze tossing his hair. The cry of seagulls followed him part of the way. He never felt more alive than at this moment distancing himself from that Calypso-like island he left behind. The canto of the sails transformed him, while the lines hummed and the sales flapped, the water slapping the wooden sides and spraying his face. This heightened sensation suspended all memory and Nick lost himself in the exploration of the two islands that diagonally bookended Panarea.
His father had taught him well and he handled the tiller and adjusted the sails with aplomb. He laughed aloud at himself for succumbing to the gloomy clouds of his life when all he had to do was set sail alone, wherever the winds took him. Minchia, he was happy to be alive after all that happened. He didn’t need anyone to fulfill his life as long as he could breathe the fresh air that emanated around him. Without any perception of time, these thoughts repeated themselves again and again. What shocked Nick out of his reverie was his sense of smell, his nostrils and eyes wide open to the odor of rotten eggs. He carefully tacked his sails, then switched on the inboard engine, gliding into the port of Vulcano and tying up the boat, as it bobbed in the sea.
Nick followed a road past the hissing and fuming of sulfur coming out of the ground and came across the mud baths of Laghetto di Fanghi where he paid the attendant a few liras to enter the natural site. There was no one there so he had no inhibition about stripping naked to bathe in the pale brown, hot mud, rich with minerals. After immersing himself, he meditated for 15 minutes. He got out and was amazed there was not even a tingle of pain in his right leg. He stepped over to the nearby beach and washed himself off in the warm, spring-fed blue sea. Later, he bought a bottle of acqua minerale naturale and carefully hiked up to the rim of the Gran Catere, clouds of sulfurous gas in the air and within an hour made it to the top for a spectacular view of the Aeolians as far as Stromboli, then returned the same way to his sailboat heading northeast for that other fiery island.
After hours on the sea, Nick went ashore on Stromboli, detecting the power of the volcano as his feet touched land. He meandered around the rocky shoreline until he saw a man in his early thirties examining rocks and placing one in a sample bag. He moved closer to him and discerned he was British, judging by his safari hat and khaki shorts with kneehigh socks. He smiled thinking that no self-respecting Italian, especially a Southern one, would be caught dead wearing pants only fit for children.
“Tu sei inglese, no?” Nick asked.
“Right you are, English!”
“I’m American sailing around the archipelago. Nick Spataro.” He offered his hand and the Englishman cranked it.
“Nigel Dickens, no relation.” He grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Sailing round the Tyrrhenian sea, is it? Lovely idea. Would like to do that myself. But as you see I’m quite busy with these volcanic rocks. The magma ejects all kinds of interesting forms. So what made you stop here at the ‘Lighthouse of the Mediterranean’?”
“Can’t say I’m much interested in rocks and minerals. But I do find watching the eruptions exciting from Panarea, where I’m staying. You know, smoke and fire spurting. Lava spilling.”
“Ah, you like the fire and brimstone,” Nigel said laughing while Nick grinned.
“First time to Sicily?”
“No. I first came during the American invasion of southeastern Sicily.”
“Blimey, I was there too. Engineering unit under Montgomery. And you?”
“Tank destroyer squadron, Paton. But if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it.” Nick pursed his lips.
“Right you are. No point to it now. We have to get on with it.”
“Are you doing academic research or exploring for a mining company?”
“On a grant from Oxford to study the effects of surface change over time. No doubt you Yanks might find all this boring.”
“Everybody has to follow their own stars.”
“I see. You like all those dreamy things. Are you a writer of sorts?”
“Nah, but I am majoring in American Lit.”
“A man after my own heart. Can’t get enough of your American English, as they call it. Always changing, not like our stuffy British English, but then again we do have Shakespeare. And Dickens, of course.” They both laughed.
“I just met you and you’re making me laugh.”
“We all have to laugh at ourselves, don’t you think? Can’t take yourself too seriously. Life’s too short, right mate?” He slapped Nick on the shoulder.
“Seize the moment.”
“There you go. That good ole American can-do spirit. Well, I guess I better continue with my work. Jolly good money to play with my rocks.” Nick laughed again. “Better be heading back for Panarea before it gets dark. Never can tell on the sea.”
“It was fun chatting with you. Look for me at the café in Panarea, if you get bored playing with your coglione.”
“Ah, I knew there was some Italian in you, Nick Spataro.”
“And some Dickens character in you, Nigel Dickens.”
Nick smiled and Nigel chortled as they shook hands. He returned to the sailboat, floating out of the safe inlet. He headed out about a mile when all of sudden a charcoal fog swept in out of nowhere, closing in from all sides. He found himself moving much faster that he would have preferred, as if being pushed by unknown currents that crisscrossed at different times. There were eight islands as far as he knew, so if he happened to run aground on one of them, Nick hoped his body wouldn’t be splintered up like the boat.
Nick realized he had drifted away from the archipelago, considering the time he was already out on the sea. Then the first bolt of lightning struck, crashing on the horizon with howling wind and a rising sea, and thunder afar cracking out booms, closer and closer, which brought him back to Salerno when he first heard the Acht-achts, those horrible eight-eight shells, pounding incessantly. Sweat was pouring out of his sulfurous smelling body, till one of those electric bolts hit dead center at the main mast, causing Nick to lose control of the boat and tossing him and everything else around. When the boom swung low and swift at his head, he was slammed on the deck like he had been thrown by a deep-chested wrestler and knocked unconscious. It was as if Nick entered an abyss where he spiraled down around an upside-down cone trapped in a dark cavern, everything locked up like Houdini in the Chinese Water Torture Cell, but no chance for Nick to squeeze his way out.
The following afternoon the sailboat had drifted back into the waters of the Aeolian archipelago. Salvatore, standing on the deck of an Italian Coast Guard craft cruising at maximum speed, spotted his sailboat. The crew members got Nick aboard the boat and a medical team revived him, as Salvatore hovered over Nick’s sun burnt face and assured his friend that he would be okay, while they bandaged his skull, trying to ascertain the severity of the concussion. A coordinated team set up a bridle to tow the sloop and then the helmsman cruised to Panarea. By the time they got back, the entire village was huddled by the dock with Isabella at the front. With Salvatore in the lead, the medical team carried Nick on a stretcher to the café where the local doctor waited.
Isabella followed on the side the stretcher. “Madonna, thank God you are still alive. I don’t think I could take another death.” Her son grabbed onto the stretcher as he walked with Isabella, while Nick winked at the boy and glanced at Isabella.
“It all started with Vulcano, the gateway to hell. Thought I was done for.”
“Basta with these dark thoughts.” She cr
ossed herself. “You have everything to live for.”
Nick squinted his eyes and said: “Grazie Isabella. Tu sei molto gentile.” While they were entering Salvatore’s place, Isabella noticed Caterina, who watched from the top of the incline on the road leading to the villa. Isabella waved to her friend who turned away, walking back to her hideaway.
A week later in the early evening, Nick sat in the café having an espresso when a notion popped up as if he had just come out of a drowsy daydream. “Salvatore! Salvatore!”
“Mannaggia, Nick. I am not your Mamma.”
“One more request.”
“No sailboat.”
“I need your rowboat.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Nick. You are breaking my balls now. No boats for you. Nenti!”
“I swear I’ll only take it to Isabella’s villa.”
“You mean you want to find Caterina.”
“I didn’t say that exactly.”
“If you want to play Rodolfo Valentino, in bocca al lupo. But don’t wreck my boat. Capisci?”
“I promise.”
“You are one mixed up Sicilianu Americanu. It’s a good thing for you, Mr. Nick, that I like you. So go ahead and make a fool of yourself. I know about these things when it comes to women.”
That evening Nick hugged the coastline of Panarea south past San Pedro, gliding into a small cove. He could see Caterina’s guesthouse lit up and rowed near the tiny rocky beach in front and anchored the boat. The volcano on Stromboli shot out a volley of sparks on this very clear evening. The stars lit up the sky in a panorama of clusters. He played the waiting game because, on such a beautiful night, she was sure to venture outside. A half hour later, he heard the beads rustle and Caterina stepped out onto the terrazza. She wore a blue sarong, its color picked up off the string of lights on the perimeter. She hadn’t noticed Nick as her eyes followed the fire from the volcano.
“Caterina.” His voice echoed across the water. She spied him in the boat.
Somewhere in the Stars Page 27