Pliny's Warning

by Nicholson, Anne Maria

  They lay the small sensors in a line on a bench in the lab. Frances takes one in her hand and inserts it into a machine, sets a timer for one minute and turns it on. A small tingling is the only sound it makes.

  ‘We have to increase their sensitivity so they can detect the infrasonic acoustic waves and vibrations coming out of the crater. These little beauties can work at much lower frequencies than the old ones, so they’re much more effective.’

  ‘That’s cool.’

  ‘Can you test they’re all working after they’ve been through the transducer?’

  Olivia and Frances work together until all of the microphones have passed the test. ‘I’m going to plant five on the summit. The rest are reserves. Just one more thing, I need to check the recording centre.’

  ‘No problem. Follow me.’ Olivia leads her to an adjacent laboratory where a bank of monitoring equipment winds around two walls. ‘Here it is. You can see it’s picking up the signals from the microphones on the flanks of the volcano. Your system will link into this one.’

  ‘Perfect. Now all we need is to get up there.’

  ‘The weather’s clearing. Hopefully we can make the climb tomorrow.’

  ‘It can’t come soon enough for me—I’m anxious to install these as soon as possible.’

  Morning brings clear skies and light breezes.

  ‘Wake up! Today’s the day!’ Frances taps her friend’s shoulder as she sleeps. As she waits for Ollie to get ready, she sends a text to Riccardo and seconds later receives one back.

  ON MY WAY. R.

  The three of them pile onto the buggy and drive as far along the track as possible before it is too narrow to navigate.

  They put on yellow helmets and backpacks and start climbing. Clusters of wild flowers brush their legs as they approach the Sciara del Fuoco. The ground around them shakes with an explosion and hot red rocks tumble down the abyss and splash, sizzling into the sea.

  ‘You wanted lava, Frances, you’re going to get it! Let’s go!’ Riccardo is ebullient and his mood infects Frances and Olivia. They double their pace to keep up with him on the long winding path across an ancient solidified lava field, the terrain gradually changing from hard rock into soft fields of ash. Their legs sink into the loose black ash like deep heavy sand, testing their muscles. From time to time, they hear a dull roar as the mountain expires.

  At last they reach the top, puffing loudly. Frances can feel the heat of the earth through her boots, as they crunch on piles of shining crystals. Her throat is dry and she tosses back half a bottle of water. Clouds of sulphur drift over and they quickly put on facemasks. The crater yawns beneath them and Frances recognizes the bumpy terrain from her maps; a terrace of rock where they will work and three vents, glowing red like a demon’s eyes. She’d read that it was the eye of Cyclops, the inspiration for the ancient myths about a one-eyed man-eating monster. Other sources said no, it was the vents in Etna’s crater. Whichever one it was, Frances is mesmerized and turns to Olivia. ‘Is this what hell looks like?’

  ‘It had that effect on me the first time too—scared shitless!’

  Scared shitless is about how Frances is feeling herself. Flashes of White Island return—Bob, lying dead on the shelf next to the boiling cauldron.

  ‘You OK?’ Riccardo asks.

  She nods. It’s an odd thing, fear. She’d talked about it with an actor friend who said he would stand on the edge of the stage petrified about walking on. But he was driven and once out in front of the crowd, experienced the ultimate highs. That’s what kept him doing it; the highs made up for the lows, the panic attacks.

  Poking around in the innards of volcanoes—this was the job she had chosen. But the fear she must overcome every time she ventured inside a crater was more confronting than a hostile audience, more physical, more visceral. It was fear of the worst fury that nature could hurl at you. God knows there had been close calls…she remembers when she was knocked out on the top of Mt Ruapehu. Frances drops a mental veil on those memories, telling herself this is not the time as she steps down.

  Riccardo pulls on her jacket. ‘Stay here a minute, we should see an explosion from one of the vents soon.’ Almost before he finishes the sentence, a fountain of red molten rock shoots in the air, then drops.

  ‘Classic Strombolian,’ Riccardo says. ‘A whole lot of gas and a trickle of lava. It’s been doing this for at least two thousand years.’

  And far worse than this! Uncle Gaetano’s terrifying tales ring in her ears. Frances stares in awe, her eyes travelling from one extraordinary sight to another; the terrifying hot centre of the crater to the bird’s eye view over the ocean. Smoke is curling into the sky from another far-off island in the volcanic chain.

  ‘Are you ready to go?’ he asks.

  She hesitates for a moment then punches the air. ‘Let’s do it!’

  With magma puffing up from the earth’s core pouring out of every orifice, the three of them had planned their assault on the dangerous landscape to the last detail.

  Their target—to bury five microphones at one-hundred-metre intervals in an L-shaped pattern four hundred metres from the explosive vents. From there, they could transmit the source of the acoustic waves and vibrations back to the observatory. The new equipment was so accurate, once installed, it would then be possible to isolate precisely which vent was exploding at any given time.

  Inside the crater they edge slowly towards the terrace, Riccardo taking the lead. The explosions are roughly fifteen minutes apart and each of them understands that the job will take much longer than that. They will be in a perilous position and had agreed on rule number one: don’t turn your back on the vents.

  They reach the first position and immediately start their allotted tasks. Riccardo removes some markers and a one-hundred-metre coil from his pack. He plants the first marker in the crumbly tephra and, compass in hand, moves away to mark the second spot.

  Olivia takes out rolls of fibre optic cables, connectors and a trowel. She digs a shallow trench in the loose surface and starts to bury the first line of cable.

  Frances removes five small boxes from her backpack. She has already wrapped the microphones in foam to protect them from wind, heat and humidity and placed them inside the protective containers. She digs a small hole at the first marker, buries the first box and connects it to the cable.

  Riccardo has started digging a trench back from the second marker and meets Olivia at the halfway point. He drags the rest of the cable along to the second point where Frances is already burying the next microphone. Their teamwork is exacting. So too is the work of the volcano. Like clockwork, the explosions continue. With each blast, the scientists face the vents, always calculating where the rocks might fall, ever ready to dive out of the way.

  An hour passes and Frances signals to the others to rest. Her throat is burning and her eyes sting. They climb back to the lip of the crater like a trio of yellow-headed ants and sink to the ground, exhausted. Sweat coats their faces. They remove their masks and drink more water. Olivia produces three oranges and they devour the juice-laden fruit. The wind has picked up but not enough to deter them and they welcome the icy blasts.

  ‘Last leg to go. Let’s get it over with.’ Frances’ voice sounds feeble. The sulphur clouds drift over again, hot and suffocating. They don their masks and together head back into the crater. Working side by side they lay the last section of cable.

  ‘Moment of truth,’ Frances thinks, crossing her fingers. She sends a text back to the director at the observatory.

  MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. PLEASE TEST AND ADVISE. FRANCES

  She’s staring at her phone waiting for the response when a low rumble shakes the ground. When she looks around Olivia is on her knees smoothing an uneven part of the trench. Riccardo is further away looking at the vent. The crater explodes so loudly, her head reverberates.

  A pile of hot boulders rockets out of the volcano. Frances watches them rise, plateau, then fall, a massive rock as big as a car hur
tling towards them. Frances hears herself screaming and drops to the ground as she watches the fiery comet, seemingly moving in slow motion.

  ‘Ollie, look out!’ Riccardo’s voice echoes around the crater.

  The rock is heading straight for her friend. Olivia’s scream ricochets from wall to wall of the crater. The rock smashes, rolls and come to a halt.

  As Frances watches the rock steaming she can’t see Olivia or Riccardo and for a few seconds, she can’t move. The eruption has stopped. She scrambles to her feet and sees something blue trapped beneath the rock has caught fire. Her heart misses a beat when she recognizes Olivia’s backpack.

  ‘Frankie! Frankie!’ Beyond the rock she sees Olivia on her hands and knees, calling, at the same time Riccardo is running towards her.

  Frances keeps running, dodging hot pieces of the broken rock strewn all around. The three of them see each other safe and intact at the same time. Panting, Frances slows and walks more carefully now towards the others.

  Her phone beeps and she stops to read the message.

  CONGRATULATIONS! ALL WORKING. WHAT WAS THAT EXPLOSION IN THE SOUTHWEST VENT?

  Frances starts to laugh, her fingers shaking so much she can’t reply. What the hell? If the rock had dropped a few degrees closer, she wouldn’t have any fingers.

  Ahead she sees Riccardo pulling Olivia to her feet. And then they kiss, a long, slow kiss, right there in the crater of Stromboli, the kiss of fire that lasts forever.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  As Camilla counts the names on the guest list, her pen hovers uncertainly over the last two—the British Ambassador and guest. Brian? She has tired of his antics; her opinion of him soured after catching him groping a young African girl at a cocktail party the other night. Silly old goat! Still, let him come and see her presiding.

  ‘Avanti! Come in!’ she responds to a knock on her office door.

  Maria leads two porters carrying her precious credenza. ‘Over there, near the window,’ Camilla tells them.

  Although her appointment as chancellor has yet to be officially announced, she’s already feeling at home in Alfonso’s old office. Poor Alfonso, who’d have thought? On the verge of retirement, then another stroke. She had sent flowers to the hospital from the university but his wife had rung to say he had lost his short-term memory, so not to bother visiting. That was no hardship! Conveniently, Umberto had ensured Camilla would be acting in the position until her investiture.

  ‘The university is fortunate to have a new chancellor of the calibre of Professor Corsi…’

  Camilla inserts the words ‘and talent’ after ‘calibre’. She wants to have the media release just right in time for the announcement in the coming week.

  ‘Professor, is there anything else before I take my lunch?’

  ‘Yes, Maria, arrange to have these hung on the wall.’ Camilla hands her the framed certificate of her doctorate and her university gold medal. ‘Oh, and could you get a carpet specialist over here to have the Persian rug cleaned? And I need a list of Naples’ best portrait artists. Make sure it includes some abstract painters. I want to choose one to paint Professor Galbatti’s portrait to hang in the corridor with the former chancellors. That will be most appropriate, especially as he is so fond of contemporary art. That will be all for now.’

  Camilla flicks through her diary. A late lunch with Umberto—she grimaces—the price she must pay. Five o’clock, appointment with Professor Luigi Paoli. All things considered, Alfonso’s nephew had taken her elevation with grace. A true pragmatist that one. Clever too, and attractive. She had considered making him her assistant chancellor, but only for a moment. No point having him sniffing around. No, he could stay running the chemistry faculty, at least for as long as it suited her. She’d string him along a little, and tell him her plans later that day, over a drink.

  She picks up the morning newspaper and flicks through. On page eight there is the story, buried at the bottom. It was inevitable there would be something about it in the media, in spite of efforts to muzzle the journalists. Since Umberto’s mammoth construction had started in the Red Zone, there had been local protests. But nothing would be done to stop it and a story so far back in the paper? Well, that would do little harm.

  She checks the story again. Good, her name is not mentioned, nor is the Progetto Vulcano report, just a local gripe about proper planning processes being ignored. Camilla snorts derisively. Half of Naples would have to be demolished if those rules were applied!

  A file on the desk is marked ‘Urgent’. Something she will have to deal with, now that Rome was involved. She picks it up and reads the latest correspondence. Pressure was mounting to reinstate Progetto Vulcano, with a group of American vulcanologists making noises about Vesuvius being the world’s most dangerous volcano and complaining about inaction by local authorities. Camilla could almost smell her team members’ names on that one. Universities in Pisa and Bologna were also poking their noses in, going on about academic freedom. She looks at a handful of articles about the volcano in international magazines—they could live with that. No, it was the threatened intervention by Parliament that was causing the most grief. The Neapolitan politicians were nervous about it, and it certainly hadn’t helped that the toxic waste issue had now spiralled out of control.

  She knew she had no political option—she would have to kickstart the project and reform the team. Most were still spread around Naples. She would ask Bartolo Caterno to head it up this time, although she would control him. Frances Nelson would soon be returning from Stromboli. And Riccardo Cocchia? Perhaps he had learnt his lesson. Camilla had been furious when she heard he had been badly beaten and had let Umberto know, reminding him he had promised there would be no violence. He brushed it aside, excusing it as his son Fabio getting carried away with his work.

  Damn Umberto and his family! Greed—that was the problem. How much money does one person need? Camilla liked the answer attributed to a New York banker. How much money is enough? Just a little bit more. And that was the Dragorra family’s flaw. They always wanted more, a lot more. If they stuck to cement and construction it would be easier to smooth the way. But garbage! That was everyone’s problem. Fabio was becoming the family problem: a few too many photos of him in the paper and on the television news, spotted near too many violent crime scenes as protests against the dumping of toxic waste escalated. His alibis were wearing thin.

  The last crime shocked even battle-scarred Camilla. She didn’t know if Fabio was involved but nothing would surprise her. Il Sistema was changing its time-honoured rule of not murdering women. But after the shooting last month, that taboo was well and truly broken. She reaches for the newspaper coverage of the murder. The photo shows a woman’s body lying in the middle of a car park, her stockinged legs sticking out from under a blood-splattered blanket. Two bullets in the nape of her neck, her skull shattered. She recognizes those shoes; she’d nearly splurged on an identical pair. Expensive shoes. Camilla shudders. The woman was only thirty-five, the wife of one of Umberto’s competitors in the waste disposal business, from a well-known family. Retribution wouldn’t be far away.

  The sun is rising higher and filters into her new office. She glances out of the window at Vesuvius across the bay. The winter snow has melted leaving the volcano fresh and bare. Spring isn’t far off. She picks up the invitation to the concert and smiles. The helpful man in the music shop had made sure she received one.

  You are invited to the Spring Gala Concert of the City Orchestra, at the Teatro San Carlo. The soloist is Naples’ new classical sensation, cellist Pasquale Mazzone.

  She reads the invitation over and over, savouring each and every word until the alarm rings on her watch. She sighs and puts the invitation to one side. Time for lunch with Umberto.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  As the ship glides the last few hundred metres into the port of Naples, it creates a poignant sense of homecoming. Frances stands among bleary-eyed passengers on the deck, shaking off a va
gue nausea from the rough overnight crossing, and gazes into the city. The contrast between the cobalt skies of the Aeolian Islands and the city is startling. Though early, a grimy film already covers the metropolis, from the imposing ancient fortress of Castel Sant’Elmo high above the city to the faded elegant facades of the buildings behind the wharves.

  The ship slides the last metres to its berth. She searches for Marcello’s face among a small crowd gathered below but sees no sign of him. Gathering her luggage she bumps down the stairs with the other travellers to the car deck, where her phone beeps and she reads the new message. ONLY 2 MINS AWAY. X M

  Although the weeks had flown since she had left Naples, she had missed Marcello deeply. They had communicated as often as they could—texts, phone calls and emails. But it was unsatisfying; two people caught up by necessity in situations that demanded so much of each of them. Sometimes it seemed better to let things be for a while and resist an addiction to a daily dose of small talk from a far-flung shore.

  But when his four-wheel-drive pulls up at the end of the wharf, she realizes how much she is looking forward to seeing him and hurries, dragging her suitcase. He is soon out of the car, running towards her. It is the sweetest reunion, their lips meeting, soft and pliant.

  ‘You look wonderful.’ Marcello caresses her cheek. ‘That island has been good to you.’

  Frances laughs, recalling her close call on Stromboli’s summit. ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’

  She regards Marcello closely, comparing his darkly tanned hand to her pale one. The desert winter sun has etched his smile lines deeper and his brown eyes have lost the troubled expression he wore before Christmas. ‘The break has been kind to you too.’

  ‘Come on, I’ll take you home.’ He wraps his arm around her waist and helps her into his vehicle.

  The city is still half asleep, allowing them to drive quickly through the streets up towards Corso Vittorio Emanuele. The building is quiet, her neighbours not yet stirring, and they hurry up the stairs. Frances turns the key and the apartment door swings open, knocking a pile of letters pushed under the door. She scoops them up, notices one is from the university, but puts them aside, unwilling for them to intrude just yet. Inside it is cold and dark, shrouded with the mustiness that creeps into a space when people leave. She throws open the shutters and the room instantly fills with warm spring sunshine.