Four Hundred and Forty Steps to the Sea

by Sara Alexander

  “Buon giorno, Signore,” said a woman, stepping back to welcome us.

  “Grazie,” he replied, hooking his arm into Adeline’s and ushering her inside without hurry. A long terrace stretched out before us. At the far end there was a stone well, by the looks of it an original feature of the house. At no stage of the preparations had the major described the majesty of the home he had chosen, and I certainly had no intention of prying. Now I found myself within the wall of the baroque merchant villa that I had admired from the shore as I daydreamed of my life beyond Positano. When I had escaped the beady eyes of Signora Cavaldi just long enough to take a moment along the screaming shore of fishermen, hard at work sorting their catch, dying their nets, the air heavy with pine bark as they dipped their loads into the vats to color them, this was the pink house I had looked up at. I filled in the gaps of its fairy-tale history, played out unlikely endings of its inhabitants now lost to our shipwrecked history as a kingdom, when Amalfi was bright with mercantile riches.

  I felt my leg shake a little. I walked toward the well, noticing the huge terra-cotta urns in each corner of the terrace. I pointed up to the heavy wooden-beamed ceiling above, but Elizabeth was intent on being fed. I think we all were.

  “Santina, please take Elizabeth into one of the rooms. I will deal with the porters.”

  I nodded as I did so, catching the sight of Adeline resting in one of the lounge chairs facing the sea. The columns on either side of the lookout framed the deepening blue of the sea like a painting. The water was serene and from that view it felt as if you could trace your fingers along it just beyond the stone balustrade.

  The cool dark of the rooms inside silenced Elizabeth for a moment. I looked around and saw a divan in one corner where I could lay her down while I prepared a bottle. She stretched her small body, creased with travel. I wondered if she could see the magnificent rococo painted decoration above her, great swirls of red, yellow, and blue upon the wooden beams. Bottle in hand, I raised her onto my lap and she suckled with eagerness. It was stony quiet, but for the soft swallows of the child.

  A large wooden dining table was at one end of the room, surrounded by six high-backed green velvet upholstered chairs. A heavy mahogany dresser was beside it. The wooden shutters were closed against the heat and we sat in the wide shaft of light from the terrace. It felt like the home had been empty for some time. It smelled like a forgotten place, a locked-up palace whose tiles had not been stepped across till now. I imagined the woman who had let us in must have been paid to prepare it for our arrival, yet the sensation of a place awakening without hurry was palpable. No sooner had I thought about her than her face appeared around the doorway.

  “Salve, I’m Rosalia,” she said, offering a hand, which I struggled to shake.

  “Piacere—Santina,” I replied.

  “Yes! I thought I recognized you—aren’t you the Cavaldi girl?”

  Her question made me bristle. I was no more the Cavaldi girl than she was my mother.

  “I worked there for a while, yes,” I replied.

  “You work with the English now?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s wrong with the lady?”

  “She’s just had a baby.”

  The young woman waited for me to elaborate, her little black eyes twinkling with anticipation. We both realized I wouldn’t.

  “Well, Santina,” she began, breaking my silence, “if you need anything, please just ask—I live just down the way, Via Stefano Andres, number 8.”

  “Thank you, Rosalia.”

  She flashed me a wide grin. I mirrored her, intrigued by her clumsy curiosity in spite of myself.

  * * *

  Elizabeth had drifted into a brief afternoon nap, which afforded me time to unpack the little we had brought with us. The major led me up the wide stone steps that wove through the core of the house to the two upper floors. When we reached the top, he showed me to Adeline’s room.

  “I will take care of the initial arrangements over the next week or so. There will be daily deliveries which I’ve coordinated in such a manner as I deem most beneficial to all of us.”

  He read my furrowed brow.

  “And I assure you that your education, besides the matters at hand, is high on my list of priorities. I have little care to look at your creased confusion any more than you must do feeling it.”

  I creased a little more.

  “You will learn English. Properly. Starting tomorrow. I want you to understand everything I have to say. You understand?”

  That I did. I would have sighed out loud with relief, but I was too proud.

  “Today you will get basic provisions. Cook a light dinner and organize your room on the floor below, and Elizabeth’s beside you, as you see fit. I will sleep in this room here”—he pointed across the hallway to a darkened room on the other side of the stairwell—“so I can be sure to be near Adeline. That is all for now.”

  I left without asking any more questions, though I could have sat upon that bed and gazed up at the deep red squares painted on the wood above, palatial trompe l’oeil within each panel, a fanfare of bold golds, maroons, and deep blues. Adeline would be sleeping in a cathedral.

  * * *

  When Elizabeth awoke, I changed her, fed her a little before we left the house, stuffed the huge key in the pocket of my skirt, and pretended I wasn’t nervous at the prospect of my first excursion with a baby in tow. It was five o’clock now, the shops beginning to open their doors to customers after siesta. Each tap of my shoe percussed the jagged memories fighting for attention. It wasn’t nostalgia, the town that opened up underfoot as I wound down the steps toward the center felt like one I had known in the final fitful moments of a bad dream.

  The streets appeared the same but there had been a subtle shift. The colors were different. A little more care was taken over the window boxes. Some homes had been painted pastel shades. The town was rousing from a slumber. Of course it was still the fishing village I had always known, but there seemed to be more people now, a more resolute swagger to the Positanese.

  A voice drew me round. “Well, well—if it isn’t the mountain girl! I see you didn’t waste any time over in the city by the looks of things.” Signora Cavaldi raised an eyebrow at the strawberry blonde bundle in my arms and traced me with a glare I hadn’t missed.

  “Buon giorno, Signora. This is the little girl I look after.”

  “Yes, I can see that. You’ve come back after all. Dreams a little too big for a mountain kid after all?”

  I smiled so I didn’t say anything rude.

  “You should see what Paolino has done to our modest shop.” She swept her arm through the air to the unrecognizable store behind her. I had left it a darkened cave of fresh produce; now it was framed by flowering window boxes of vermillion geraniums, beautiful wicker baskets laden with lemons and fat peaches. Tall terra-cotta urns stood with pots of fresh herbs growing inside them. The plain wooden door had been replaced with glass, held open by slabs of granite, beckoning you into the display of fresh legs of prosciutto and glass bowls filled with white clouds of fresh mozzarella. Behind the counter, upon the slanted wooden shelves, the last of the day’s fresh loaves beckoned, all the ingredients for a light dinner. I stepped inside.

  “We’ve become quite the talk of the town,” she resumed, her chest puffing out. “Something all the new foreigners are seduced by of course—so many of them coming now. All a little strange if I do say so, but money’s money, whatever your hair color, no?”

  I wasn’t sure what answer to offer.

  “You’ll be wanting something for dinner, no? I’ll call Paolino.” She walked back to the skinny stairwell I had dreaded climbing each night, and yelled.

  She turned, heaving with heavy steps up to her burgeoning empire. I stood still, watching till she’d disappeared around the corner.

  I breathed in the salty prosciutto, realizing that it had been hours since I ate. My mind took a bite of the fresh figs in the basket u
pon the counter, and I imagined the smooth mozzarella softening upon a hunk of the fresh bread. The sound of steps drew me out of my imaginings. Someone stood before me, the air of familiarity but with a face I couldn’t place. Only when he spoke did I realize the awkward Paolino I had fled had been replaced by a relaxed young man, proud purveyor of the beautiful creation around him.

  “Bet you don’t recognize it, Santina?”

  I smiled without thinking, wondering how to reconcile that gawky, rude teenager with the man who had chosen baskets for fruit, or laid out these terra-cotta bowls of charred eggplant floating in luscious green olive oil beside tall jars of green olives scenting the shop with an herby air I could almost resist.

  “It’s beautiful, Paolino!”

  “I know. I can hardly believe it myself. These new people coming now, Santina. They like these things. We sell double what we used to. Artist types. They look strange. Act strange. But they spend on the good things, you know?”

  “I suppose, yes.”

  “But enough about me—you look . . .”

  I braced myself for one of his cutting remarks, hating myself for being lured in, in the first place. Now I’d be constrained to buy. It was only polite.

  “. . . English!”

  I laughed at that. Out of relief if nothing else.

  “And who is this?”

  “Elizabeth—I look after her.”

  “Really? You hold her like she’s your own—I thought you’d found some British prince already.”

  I smiled, feeling a twitch of disappointment prick the corner of my lips. I tried to ignore the surfacing memories; my last conversation with Mr. Benn, the confusion of Adeline’s fall, the whisper of failure. All these things Elizabeth made me forget.

  “I’d like to buy some things for dinner,” I said, focusing on the task at hand.

  “I didn’t think you’d come just to visit me!”

  His face cracked into a wide grin. I had remembered his eyes a hard brown, glassy with pompous adolescence; now they were warm, full of humor. I watched him wrap the bread in wax paper with deft hands, and fill a crate with other provisions I saw fit; a crisp head of bright romaine, a handful of red tomatoes clinging to their vine, several scoops of olives and charred eggplant, and an etto or two of prosciutto, pancetta, and coppa, wrapped between thin layers of paper. My stomach rumbled in anticipation.

  “Don’t worry, Santina—I’ll send this to your house with Gennaro, you remember him, no?”

  I’d tried to forget that toothless porter—he’d never been kind about mountain folk.

  “Where are you living now?”

  “Villa San Vito,” I replied, watching his eyebrows rise in astonishment.

  “No prince, you say?”

  “I know the major and his wife will be wanting to dine early—is Gennaro free now?”

  “I’ll send him right away.”

  * * *

  I set the small table on the terrace just outside the stone-walled kitchen and tried to keep Elizabeth occupied, bouncing her on my hip, hoping her cot was due to arrive with the first of the furniture shipment from London the following day. The heavy bell at the front door clanged. I jumped. I reached the door and heaved it open. Paolino stood before me. I looked down at the crate. It was loaded with several things I hadn’t ordered.

  “A welcome home, Santina.”

  I didn’t want it to feel that way. This year was my detour, nothing more.

  “Few things on the house.”

  I smiled, baffled by his kindness, then noticing his racing eyes dart past me gathering information.

  “Grazie, Paolino—I’d better be getting on.”

  “Yes. No rest for the wicked.”

  I sighed a faint laugh; the travel day was beginning to wear me down.

  “Or donkeys,” he added.

  The major’s voice rattled down from the stairwell. I reached for the crate, but Paolino shook his head. “Don’t be a crazy, English girl. Let me.” Before I could close the door, he strode across the terrace. My heart raced.

  “It’s fine, Paolino, really, I can manage,” I insisted, breaking into a skipped walk to keep up with him.

  “I’m no barbarian,” he replied, pushing on toward the farthest end of the terrace, where the garden began. The major met us. Paolino stopped.

  “You are?” the major asked, looking down his nose at Paolino, his eyes flashing an icy blue.

  “Delivery from the grocery,” I said, interrupting.

  “Very well. Do hand me the crate. Per piacere.”

  I watched Paolino take in the major’s fiery red hair, the spray of freckles upon his cheeks, and wither a little under his sharp stare. I realized the major no longer made me feel I was being interrogated. He reached for the box and walked to the far end of the terrace, where double doors led to the kitchen. “He may go,” he called back to us as he disappeared inside.

  “No prince, no,” Paolino muttered, shuffling back toward the door, “they all like that in London?”

  I felt a familiar irritation rise and heaved the door open. Paolino turned before he began his descent down the first dozen steps toward the alley, flashing me a knowing smile. Then his footsteps tip-tapped down into the dusk along the rose glow of the sunset cobbles.

  Chapter 5

  I awoke the next morning with a start. Adeline was screaming. I heard the major’s heavy footsteps above, thudding staccato feet across my ceiling. I wrapped myself in my dressing gown and ran upstairs.

  The stench hit me before I turned the corner at the top of the stairs. An acrid smell snubbed the air. I knocked on Adeline’s door before opening.

  “Santina, I would welcome some assistance, yes!” the major called from within.

  The tiles were splattered with vomit. Adeline was crunched into a ball at the corner of her bed. She rocked. The major’s pajama sleeves were rolled up past his elbows. He was on his hands and knees using towels to clean up the mess.

  “Please, Major, let me, you see to Adeline.”

  It was the proper thing to do, but my stomach twisted at the sight of it all. He left to wash his hands in the attached bathroom. I swabbed the pools. No sooner than I did, Elizabeth cried out. The major stepped back inside the bedroom.

  “All the women in my life have the devil in them this morning—that will be all, Santina, go to the child.”

  I left, no doubt with too much eagerness.

  The major always referred to Elizabeth as The Child. With each day that passed, that small bundle of life was becoming more a part of me. Each time he flicked this title at her, it was as if he pressed a fresh bruise of mine. I could count the times I had seen him hold her. He looked without seeing. A perfunctory glance now and then, someone cross-checking an inventory. It wasn’t hard to understand why, but it smarted nonetheless. This child broke his wife. The devotion he bored into Adeline consumed all his passion. How could there be anything left for this needy babe? That was what I was there for. He paid me to love her for him. And I did.

  Elizabeth’s lament was soon lost to milky nourishment. We sat in the corner of my room, on the chair I had prepared for night feeds. I always opened the shutters for her first morning feed, letting the light stream in through the tall glass double doors. The October sun was reluctant to acquiesce to autumn. How different from my first October in London, where the damp air already furled the decaying tips of bronzed leaves. Here, grapes swelled to picking, the mountain air was sweet with chestnuts. I watched the shadows of a passing cloud dance across the tiles. This morning’s sun was proud, radiating with the pretense of summer, mocking the promise of autumn. Perhaps Adeline’s recovery would stay a hope lost to the past too?

  When Elizabeth had finished, I sat her up on my lap, noticing how her back strengthened each day. I could lose myself in this small human. She absorbed my restlessness, distracted me from the gnawing sadness for having been dragged back to Positano, away from the life I’d planned. It was impossible for me to sink into those
thoughts while I rubbed my palm in circles around her middle till she let out several belches and looked pleased with herself. The pull of this girl was both a balm and unsettling; this time the following year, I would have to leave her. Allowing myself to become attached would cause me nothing but more unnecessary heartache. I laid her down in her cot to stretch out for a little so I could return to the major.

  The door was open. I stepped in.

  I found him curled around his wife. His hand locked into hers. Her hair was matted with nightmares and sweat. Their breath rose and fell together. I stood, trespassing. My eye caught sight of the dirty towels. I decided to finish the job at hand regardless of the imposition. I heaved the pungent pile and caught a bitter whiff.

  “Santina?” I heard him call.

  I turned, feeling even more the intruder.

  “Thank you.”

  I always hesitated after he thanked me. It would be rude to say that he was welcome because that would insinuate we were equals, which of course we weren’t. It was rude to say nothing too, of course. Awkwardness puffed through me like a snake of smoke despite, or maybe because of, my best efforts to smother it.

  “I’ll take breakfast at my usual time, then we will begin your first lesson,” said the major.

  I swallowed a stammer. “Will you not rest, sir?”

  “I will take breakfast at the usual hour. You will not shirk your commitments.”

  I turned and left. If I had been nervous about my first lesson before, now I was on the precipice of panic.

  He ate on the terrace just beyond the kitchen; two eggs, cooked for three and a half minutes once the water reached a rolling boil, two slices of toast, light brown on one side, one spoon of marmalade, two cups of tea from a pot. I added a fig on a small saucer as well. It needed to be eaten that morning; it would be jam by the afternoon otherwise. He peeled the papery purple skin, sliced it into four wedges, chewed each piece several times and wiped his mouth clean afterward. I cleared the table and wished Elizabeth would call out for me, but the warm breeze seemed to lull her into a nap in the Moses basket upon the kitchen table. I liked her close to me. It helped me intuit every nuance and, with enough concentration, nip hysteria before fear of famine took hold and that round face of hers creased into the kind of fury you’d expect from a spurned woman intent on everyone knowing so.