Four Hundred and Forty Steps to the Sea

by Sara Alexander

Whatever your decision I will honor it. The choice is entirely yours. I hope the sun has set by the time you read this. In my experience sleeping upon a decision delivers the truest answer.

  Sincerely yours,

  Henry Crabtree

  I let the letter fall to my lap. The sky was onyx. The air was still. I could hear the faint sound of the sea beckoning to the shore. Which way was the tide pulling?

  Chapter 8

  The next morning the clouds darkened. Claps of thunder shook the house. The sea churned gray, and the whole of Positano retreated into their homes while the rain lashed the narrow alleys into scurries of water chasing over the cobbles down to the sea. The major watched, sat at the table on the terrace outside the kitchen. As the wind whipped and flashes of light blanched the leaden sky, he sat in perfect stillness; the eye of the storm.

  I should have liked to imitate his poise. My thoughts raced, clanging against one another like the copper pans I hung back on the wall in a vain attempt to coerce clear thinking. There was another fury of thunder. Elizabeth ran under the table and burst into tears. I threw the tea towel I used to dry the pans over my shoulder and crouched down till my face was level with hers. Her cheeks were crimson with terror. Tears streaked the sides of her face. I took her hand in mine. I tried to sit with her terror rather than brush it away. The latter approach I had found to be a pointless task, serving only to fill me with the same frustration as her own, which did nothing to expel it, and more often than not exacerbated it. I smoothed the back of her hand with my thumb and kissed her forehead. For a flicker, I considered how liberating it was to be a child and let each of these emotions ripple through without boundary. Perhaps she was crying for my benefit? She shed the tears of confusion and fear I couldn’t. What would happen if, for a moment, I surrendered to the conflicting emotions swirling inside me? Would it be so very disastrous? What if I acknowledged, with unabridged simplicity, that the idea of sailing away to a place where I knew no one and nothing of the English spoken upon the American streets, abandoning my friends and Marco, filled me with palpable sadness?

  I had been running all my life. My earliest memories are chasing behind my mother in search of something, food to sell, riches to dig up, laundry to deliver. We ran from my suffocating father and the dread of hunger. After my mother died, I ran away from the memory of her.

  As the shutters clattered against the wind, I wrapped Elizabeth in my arms and allowed my American daydream to ebb. I wanted to feel comforted by the realization that it was nothing but that—an ephemeral wish, another wisp of a life. Yet it smarted. It was so much easier to chase. Perhaps that way I might never get what I wanted and risk the chance of losing it?

  I watched the major take another sip of his tea, thin ribbons of steam lifting up into the furious air beyond the balustrade. Elizabeth grew heavy in my arms, her breath slowed. I didn’t realize I’d been rocking, soothing the both of us. She had fallen asleep. I walked through the dining room and up the stairwell to lay her down in the bed I still kept close to mine.

  As I retraced my steps back to the kitchen a draft curled up behind me. I knew I’d shut all the windows at the first darkening promise of a storm. I checked the major’s—they were still closed.

  I knocked on Adeline’s door. No answer. My stomach tightened. I hoped she was sleeping. I creaked the door open a little. The damp air blew on my face. The tall shutter door swung against the frame in the draft. Upon the roofless terrace stood Adeline. Her arms were outstretched. Rain pelted down her nightdress. Hair clung to her scalp, matted to the back of it. I fought the instinct to rush to her. I knew from experience that it would jar her into defensiveness, if not aggression. I ought to call the major, but something stopped me. He seemed so peaceful down below on the kitchen terrace. This time I could handle Adeline. I stepped inside the room.

  Perhaps I envied her abandon. She never did anything without entire commitment, to the detriment of herself. And yet, watching this woman, making tiny steps toward healing, standing fearless in the storm, filled me with an awkward admiration. All until I snapped back into myself and ran to gather towels so she might not catch her death. I stood in the doorway to the terrace, holding them. The water cut across the space between us; diagonal flights of tiny arrows.

  “Signora Adeline!” I called out.

  She turned toward me. Her face spread into a warm smile.

  “Please, come inside!”

  I reached out a hand. She placed hers in mine. Her fingers were strong, still callused from her work. I didn’t want to pull her, but my forearm was already drenched. I began to regret my decision to take on the challenge of bringing her inside. Her grip tightened. She pulled. I took a step outside.

  “Come,” she beckoned.

  I didn’t want to fight. The sea shimmered silver as a vein of electricity splintered down from above. I didn’t want to be struck by lightning either.

  She took my other hand and pulled. I stood opposite her. My face was drenched. My worn soles blotted with rainwater seeping in at the edges.

  “Isn’t it glorious, Santina?!” she yelled over the din.

  I had no answer.

  “Do you remember when you came swimming with me?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re so very good to me, Santina. You come from these mountains. It’s a blessing. Such power, don’t you think? Listen to the mountains roar!”

  I was cold. I cared little to listen to silent mountains. The lightning and thunder were loud enough.

  “That rage! Pure energy. That’s all it is. That’s what we all are. I love you, Santina!”

  Now her blue eyes deepened. For a moment I caught a flash of that woman jumping into the pond water in London. For a second she was there, in all her fiery glory. It made my heart hope and ache.

  “Signora Adeline—please let me wrap this around you now.”

  “I don’t need looking after, Santina. I need the water. I always have to be in water. Henry knew that. That’s why he brought me here.”

  I tried to smile, while easing a towel around her.

  “That’s how you tell if someone really loves you, Santina. If they give you what they know you need, whether or not they need it too. Do you understand that, Santina?”

  I wanted to. I also wanted to be inside.

  “Stop pulling me, Santina!” She flung off the towel and held my face with both her hands. “Look up! I mean really look!”

  She lifted my face toward the sky. I half expected a shot of lightning to strike through me. Perhaps I would crisp in her arms.

  “How many colors?” she asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “How many colors?”

  Perhaps the major would hear this outburst and rescue the both of us.

  “Gray?”

  “No—look closer. See the tinge of yellow? Can you see the hint of light green around the edge of that cloud just about the house? See how many grays there are, Santina—so many. Gray isn’t in between, it’s not simply neither white nor black. It’s not indecision, Santina. It’s full of blues and greens and browns and purple. So full. We only see the surface.”

  And then she laughed. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me into her wet dress.

  “There’s no storm, Santina! We are it.”

  Her laughter peeled into soft tears, ebbing and flowing between the two. She softened, so much so that I could actually lead her inside. I peeled her wet clothes off and wrapped another towel around her. She had grown thinner these past few months. I noticed the protrusion of her bones, the way the skin around it hung, a mournful ivory.

  As I turned for another dry towel she walked away from me. I wasn’t quick enough to stop her. She stepped back out onto the wet terra-cotta tiles of the terrace, raised her arms up to the heavens, naked, stretching out her body, uncovered breasts for anyone to see. I was thankful that most Positanese would be shut away inside. I ran downstairs for the major. No sooner had we returned than he stepped out into the storm to
Adeline without a moment’s hesitation. I collected the wet towels.

  As I turned to close the door behind me, my eyes were drawn back to the terrace. I’d expected him to lose his temper somehow, interrupted as he was from his meditative tea. Instead, he placed both his hands around Adeline’s face. He pulled her in close and placed his lips upon hers. She leaned back. Rain cascaded down her cheeks like tears. His mouth moved down her neck. I caught the tip of his tongue trace its brittle line. I closed the door, pretending I hadn’t seen his hands ease down her naked back. I pressed the door closed, wishing the feeling pulsing in my chest was closer to embarrassment.

  * * *

  Like a Neapolitan temper, the storm was swallowed out to sea as swift as it had erupted. Thankful that the rumbles of thunder had been nothing but that, and not prescient to an earthquake, the town resurrected to business with renewed gratitude. We had survived, once again. I pretended not to have noticed how long the major stayed with Adeline before he returned to his abandoned tea and ordered a second pot. As I laid it down, he looked up and caught my gaze.

  “I expect you are wondering when will be the appropriate time to discuss my letter?”

  I straightened, trying my best to not allow his unexpected question to leave me hanging for a studied answer. I decided not to give in to mute embarrassment.

  “When would you like to discuss it, sir?”

  “This moment. I’m sure you’ve arrived at a decision. We always arrive at these sorts of decisions far quicker than we’d like to admit. It takes our stubborn brains longer to articulate it. Indecision is only the marker of resistance to our first impulse.” He cleared his throat. If I didn’t know better, I would have sensed a sting of nerves. “No time like the present.”

  I noticed he hadn’t done up the top two buttons of his shirt. Usually he only kept the top one undone.

  “I think,” I began, trying with every fiber not to allow the quiver in my voice to take over, “I think that I am happy to stay in my hometown a little longer.” This wasn’t the answer that had pounded my brain all night. I chose to ignore the other versions of my reply fighting to get out. The ones where I spoke of the family, of feeling flattered that they had thought my work good, of how much of a bond I felt with someone else’s daughter. I chose to make him think that it was Positano only that kept me here. I don’t think I’d realized it was far more than that. Or maybe I did, and that’s why I said nothing to that effect. I couldn’t articulate the way his lessons had changed me in this short time. I loved the way they worked a tangible magic upon my mind and way of seeing—the idea of stopping now was not an option.

  “Then it is settled?”

  “Yes, sir. I will remain until Elizabeth begins school.”

  I didn’t think it appropriate to gush, or thank him. This was a business conversation. He creased his paper back up to cover his eyes.

  “This afternoon we must plant some of the newer tomato plants, Santina.”

  I stood still.

  “It’s high time you and I instill some order to this garden. We are somewhat askew this year, but you can rest assured it will not happen again. If we work quickly, we will avoid a dreadful glut of zucchini. Even with your culinary prowess, I’m sure you’ll struggle to handle an endless supply of the blasted things. One can’t ever have enough tomatoes though. I shall be glad of some jarred sunshine come November.”

  He closed the conversation. There was nothing left for me to do but unpack the clothes I’d packed in my mind, and be sure to reach Marco before he closed the gates for the evening.

  * * *

  I wasn’t sure whether it was my state of mind, or whether the tumult of a storm made the blue skies that followed all the brighter. The cemetery looked luminous that afternoon. The bright white of the tombs crisper than usual, any leafy debris washed away by the rains to reveal the delicate veins within the marble. Elizabeth and I wove in between the high tombs, sometimes stopping as she looked up at the towering angels above the richer dead, or insisting we take a moment by the tomb that marked the picturesque spot where a Muslim prince lay, his head scarf carved atop an engraved obelisk.

  We followed the narrow walkway onwards, which curved back into the rock where two wide stone benches were sculpted into the indentation. Elizabeth sat down upon the hot cement, happy to perform careful reexaminations of a handful of stones and a couple of pine cones we’d found along the way. I waited for Marco, holding a warm roll I’d just baked stuffed with prosciutto and thin slices of eggplant wrapped in a tea towel. In my other hand, I’d filled a small cloth bag with oranges from the garden. I turned toward oncoming footsteps. I stood up and wrapped my arms around Marco.

  “Calma, Santina, you make me feel like you’re saying goodbye!”

  I didn’t let go.

  “Something smells good!”

  I handed him the warm tea towel. He sat and attacked the contents. I wondered when he had last eaten.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come straightaway like I’d promised,” I said, after I’d let him enjoy several mouthfuls in silence. He shook his head, brushing away my apology. “It will be different now. I will have every Sunday off. We can be together.”

  He straightened and swallowed. His eyes creased toward the sea. It was a deep turquoise this afternoon. I followed his gaze. I thought about Adeline and squinted to see how many other colors I could see within the blue.

  “I would like that, Santina. Can I come to you? My house—”

  He trailed off.

  I filled in the gaps. “Let me speak with the major—that’s what we call him, he was in the British army, India—I’m sure we can work something out. Perhaps a picnic up in our mountains?”

  My question hung, unanswered. Then he gave a tiny dip of his chin, which I took as a nod. He seemed to withdraw before me.

  “How are you, Marco?”

  “Bene, grazie.”

  “You don’t need to give me the polite answer.”

  He turned and looked into me. I still struggled to marry the scrawny child darting behind me along the rocks with this tall young man. His eyelids lowered as if to hide the images rolling through his mind.

  “I live with the dead, Santina.”

  His words lay between us, a slab of marble.

  “We all do. A little.”

  He smiled then.

  “Do you still live with our uncle?” I probed.

  “No. He threw me out after Papà didn’t give him the money he had loaned him.”

  My heart tightened. “Where did you go?”

  “Nowhere for a while, then to another farm in the hills of Amalfi. I thought about working the ships in Sorrento. Heard about some jobs there. I tried it for a while too. Things got a little . . .”

  I held back from interrupting.

  His face darkened. “Let’s just say they’re not the nicest crowd to work with.”

  I wrapped my arm around his back.

  “Thank you for the food. You can come again.”

  “Sunday?”

  “Amen to that.”

  I kissed him on each cheek and hauled Elizabeth off the seat. “We’ve got a lot of time to make up, Marco.”

  His smile looked better fed now. Whatever was preying on his mind had been put on pause for a while. The food I had prepared with such care took his full attention. My mind began to flick through ideas of what I might make for us on my day off.

  “Grazie, Santina.”

  “Don’t say thank you. We’re family.”

  He stood up and gave a slight tip of his head.

  “I’ll meet you at the gate after Mass, yes?” I asked.

  He smiled, brushed his hand over Elizabeth’s head, turned, and wove back up around the corner.

  Elizabeth and I took our time returning home. Her new legs grew stronger by the day, and she relished the newfound independence even if holding my hand as she did so proved to be an ever growing battle of wills. Rosalia met us halfway on her return from town.

&
nbsp; “My brother’s fixing a leak in the roof! I thought we were all going to die!”

  “It was a loud one, yes,” I replied, trying to mop away the image of Adeline naked on the wet terrace.

  “I’ve just been asked to help out on Sunday evening at the German women next to your house. You’re coming too. They pay well.”

  “I don’t know, Rosalia.”

  “I do. It’s going to be mayhem. All the artists will be there.”

  “I don’t need to gawk at artists, Rosalia.”

  “Yes you do. I’ll call for you at four thirty.”

  She puckered a noisy kiss on each of Elizabeth’s cheeks and one on mine, then left. I was glad to be in her company for another few years. I could but imagine the scale of her plans for Paolino and me once I broke the news to her that I was no longer leaving.

  My steps grew light. The weight of the sudden change of plans had lifted. I’d thrown a scatter of seeds in the air and they now landed in perfect order on fertile, volcanic earth beneath me.

  The breeze caressed our faces as we carried on our downward wind. Where the backs of houses allowed but for a thin alley to pass through, Elizabeth stomped her feet to feel the echo bounce off the white walls either side of her. The sun’s heat intensified.

  We reached our last turn before the villa. At the foot of the final set of steps I caught sight of a small figure before the villa’s door. It was a man, small and hunched over. A sorrowful excuse for a sweater hung from tired shoulders. His face was gaunt, darkened with drink from the looks of it, prickled with stubble. He turned toward us. For a moment the sun shone a bitter halo around his silhouette. He took a step down and his features shifted into focus. The tourniquet around my middle tightened.

  I don’t know how long we stood there like alley cats before a fight.

  The sounds of the streets below clammed silent. I felt no breeze.

  “Santina?” the man croaked.

  I didn’t reply.

  “They told me you lived here.”

  My heart raced.

  I’d never been so glad to see Paolino arrive. He pounded up the steps loaded with a heavy crate of deliveries. He stopped, sweat beading at his brow with the load resting on his shoulder.