“Am I interrupting a street party or is anyone invited?” he asked with a crooked grin.
Off our silence, he lifted the crate from his shoulder and placed it down on the wide step.
“This man bothering you, Santina?”
I nodded.
“Hey, Signo’, do your begging someplace else, sì? This lady has work to do.”
The man cackled. Paolino climbed the half dozen steps between us to reach him. “Old man, go make trouble someplace else. Lots of tourists down the hill, you never know, they might take pity on a tramp like you.”
As he spoke he led the man down the steps. The smell reached me before he did. Alcohol, urine, cow shit. My throat clamped tighter. When Paolino returned, I was in the exact spot he’d left me.
“You know that man, Santi’?”
I gave a stiff shake of my head.
“He didn’t hurt you?”
I shook my head again.
“Well, come on then, let us in.”
I opened the door, and he followed me into the kitchen, placing the crate on the table as he always did.
“Every time I come in here, it feels like you’ve made it a little bit more like your home. It takes time for a kitchen to become a cook’s. Like a good pan, you know? So many dishes have to be cooked before the metal is truly seasoned.”
We stood for a moment. The troubling silhouette planted in my mind like a boiled-in stain.
“I have to run—orders on the rise,” he said, filling in for my lack of conversation. I followed him to the door.
He turned back toward me. “You alright, Santina? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
I feigned a smile, then closed the door.
I had buried all memory of my father a long time ago.
Chapter 9
That last Sunday the following June, I should have been at church. I should have been intoning with all the other women, fingering the tiny black beads of the rosary, falling into the familiar droned rhythm like I did each Sunday morning and Thursday afternoon. But when I reached the church of Santa Margherita, passing the nonnas I once served at Cavaldi’s along the way, I didn’t go inside. They were drawn to worship. I was carried down to the sea.
I stood upon the sharp black stones feeling the pull of the deep turquoise before me. Sheer heights of jagged jet mountain rose from the bay, dipping the beach in shade, a shadow before the glittering water. The expanse spread out before me toward the haze of the horizon, the pointed tips of Li Galli reaching out of the water, and far over to my right the allure of Capri. Our town lay open to this endless water, yet we clung to the mountains as if the houses sought refuge from centuries-old memories embedded in the rock; those Arabian invaders who sailed in, robbers, ransackers, terrifying pirates. Our sea wasn’t an intimate pool, a demure bay. Ours was an ancient force of nature.
This year’s June was a choral song on light, the promising prelude of a blinding summer. The water turned emerald. I looked down. My feet were wet. I lifted them out of my shoes and waded in a little way. My cotton dress reached halfway down my calves. No one could notice how withered the right one was in this dress. I looked around. Nobody. I lifted my skirt up a little more and felt the cool reach my thighs.
I thought of Adeline. If she were here, she would have swum halfway to Capri by now. I could picture her with ease, cutting through the glassy surface, passing the cliffs in long, smooth strokes, water rippling from her in liquid arrows. I listened to the rock and lap of the water against my legs, wondering if I would resist diving in then and there without a care of whether I had worn the appropriate suit, whether I had a towel? Would I ever have a taste of the abandon of an Adeline? Or would I always stay the dutiful help? The tireless carer? That’s what I’d agreed to do, for these next few years after all. What sense in these swirling thoughts?
Today, the call of the open air stirred a playfulness I’d kept in the dark. My first day off without Elizabeth had made me giddy. It was an intoxicating taste of freedom and more than a little overwhelming. I looked down at the glinting light. My fingers reached in and swirled through it. I thought about the congregation replying to the priest in unison, facing toward the altar, turned away from a powerful ocean. I thought about the cool gray of the church inside, a world away from these gleaming stones, of the people echoing repetitions rather than losing themselves upon the beach like the tourists. What would it take for me to swim here, now, fully clothed and walk back, dripping behind me like a wet dog? Would it matter what anyone would say? I pictured Cavaldi’s scorn. It made me laugh out loud.
Voices began to fill the beach. I saw Giacomino wheeling his lemon ice trolley along the far end of the sand. His brow was as weary as during the winter. His family lived in a one-room house not too far from where I had grown up. A couple of tourists swaggered to him and exchanged their coins for cups of freshly squeezed lemon juice with sugar and crushed ice. These beachcombers splashed the beach with synthetic color. They wore large hats, larger glasses, bold swimsuits made to be looked at; how different from the deserted bay I knew as a child. My life inside the major’s villa was all encompassing—looking after a toddler and her family was a round-the-clock job—and I hadn’t realized quite how much the small piece of world beyond our walls was bursting into life.
These people had chosen our bay to play. Theirs was the passionate pursuit of happiness. For the Positanese high up in our church, it was worship and protection. Because of these visitors, Giacomino’s family would have enough to eat through winter from what he might hope to earn over the summer. Just beyond the beach cafés shaking up cocktails for the visiting artists, families like this scraped by on bread and sauce or scant drippings of olive oil and freshly picked oregano, to keep hunger at bay. All this time I had been aching for a life beyond these waters but the waves had carried it to me. There was no one clambering along these pebbles that I knew. Everyone who knew me as Santina the polio girl from the hills who worked for the English soldier was either inside the church I’d just left, or the larger church down in the main square, or creating feasts for their families or the tourists they worked for.
I thought about those tiny ceramic shepherds’ houses placed inside the small cave I’d passed along the curve of road this morning. The models were fixed amongst the crags, taking up only the tiniest of spaces. It was a miniature version of our world; honoring the power those mountains wielded over us. Like those terra-cotta houses, we stuck steadfast to what tiny space we could carve out.
Today I let the bubbling sense of liberty tingle through me. Renewed, I was a mountain girl. I belonged higher up, amongst those rocks, in the damp green. I squinted toward the hill on the opposite side of the farther bay. I could see the major’s villa from down here. What would Elizabeth be doing now? Would the major be taking his tea on the terrace? Might he spot me, a small puff of yellow dress against the dark stones? My chest tightened. I shifted my gaze back to the water. I watched the bubbles crawl up toward my feet and slink back again.
The world was coming to Positano.
* * *
When I stepped back inside the house I found Rosalia’s cousin chasing Elizabeth around the ground floor. She shrieked in delight, and I suppressed the urge to run and wrap my arms around the child. Of course I was relieved Elizabeth was happy, yet felt uncomfortable with the subtle twist of envy squeezing my middle. I chastised myself for it and returned my attention to the picnic for my brother and I.
In the kitchen I’d already set aside a loaf inside a basket, a slab of cheese, and a handful of tomatoes. I added a small bottle of wine I had decanted from the large glass urn that Paolino refilled with his grandfather’s own brew. I placed a mozzarella in a glass dish and tied a plate to the top, slid in some paper-thin prosciutto slices in their brown package around the side of the basket. It felt heavy. I stopped my compulsion to add any more.
“How was Mass, Santina?” the major called out to me as I reached the front door. I ignored the tight arc
h of his eyebrow and offered my usual reply: “The same.”
His mute nod spoke volumes.
I imagined myself telling him I’d left after the first reading, that the scorch of the sun and abandoned beach was too tempting. That I would have swum in my sea then and there. That I looked up toward the terrace and imagined him watching me disappear under the water. The sound of the water lapping over my feet returned to my mind.
“And that, I suppose, is its very draw.” He took a sip of the fresh lemonade I’d squeezed earlier this morning. The dappled light through the canopy rippled over his white linen trousers and shirt. I’d not seen him quite so relaxed in a while. Something about this surprising serenity softened his features. Gone was the subtle frown, the quick, incisive glare with which he attacked any task. For the first time I would have even come close to calling him handsome. His red-tinged beard still framed his face in severe outlines. He was as angular as any day, yet his demeanor had shifted. Perhaps he too went to the deserted beaches before the crowds on his early morning walks? He never spoke to me about them, but it seemed so obvious to me now that the one place he would lose himself in was the water. This place wasn’t for Adeline alone. I imagined him gliding through the undulating morning sea before it swished with noisemakers.
Adeline entered through the main double doors onto the terrace. She sat beside the major without a sound, then turned to me and smiled. I was accustomed to the major’s moods being entangled with Adeline’s. Today was a good morning. When Elizabeth dashed by her, she even lifted her hand to reach her. Rosalia’s cousin scooped Elizabeth up and, perching her upon her hip, brought her to her mother. That’s when she kissed her child. It was the first time I’d seen her do so. My eyes darted to the major. His eyes were light.
“Don’t waste any moment of today, Santina!” he called, returning to a book open upon the table. I opened the door and stepped out onto the alley. The sunbeam of my childhood waited for me up there in our hills.
* * *
All the shimmer of my morning lost its luster by the time one o’clock rolled around and still my brother did not show. I fell into worry. I recounted our conversation, his caged remarks about the dubious ship folk in Sorrento. I tried to remember the face of the young man I’d first seen him with. I forced myself to suffocate images of my father laying into him for my stilted reaction on seeing him for the first time in an age. I waited until almost two o’clock. I no longer had an appetite.
I could hear the sounds of the beach from up here, fearless frolics from out-of-towners. Word had got around about tonight’s party. Rosalia was beside herself with excitement. I wondered how I would be able to concentrate while worrying about my brother. I slumped down onto the bench outside the cemetery gates. I pulled out my rosary and fingered a few of the beads, trying to conjure the intoned calm of our little church creased into the cliffs, but in vain. I looked down at the beads. Crescents of light curved around their diameter. The rest ebbed into the darkness of my palm. The warm roundness of them filled my hand. In themselves they did not transmit light, but the actions that accompanied them could. Or should. Or did. I longed to make new memories of my family but couldn’t help wondering whether this daydream was a meager replacement of my American one.
* * *
Villa Santa Croce was a few hundred meters along the alley that ran behind our villa, and almost a replica of the major’s in layout. Its plaster was deep damask, unlike our pale pink, and its terraces were wider. It lacked the intimacy and faded allure of the major’s house, but inside it was a veritable treasure trove in stark contrast to the major’s collection of bizarre artifacts from faraway lands. Here, the dressers that lined the halls shimmered with fine china, goldrimmed and adorned with exquisite designs. Chandeliers hung in each of the grand rooms, glimmering with heavy cut crystal. On one floor the parlor’s centerpiece was a grand piano. I could but imagine how on earth they would have transported it up here. I pictured a caravan of donkeys each hauling up a separate piece to be puzzled back together. The kitchen ran the entire far side of the house, rather than taking up a small nook of the ground floor like the major’s. Here, a broad hearth overpowered one wall, with long stone counters running the length of each side of the room. The range was at its center, colorful tiles either side upon the stone island. In our villa this area had become surplus book storage for those texts that couldn’t find a place in the major’s study.
A small army of staff were deep in preparations. There were four regular domestics including a cook who I took great pains to stay on the right side of. She was a small, stout woman, with thick, fast fingers and a hot tongue. As I walked into the kitchen for the first time to collect some dishes, I overheard her slam one of the regular girls with a blast of Neapolitan I’d rather not repeat. Her standards were exacting and, from what I could sense, never achievable.
Rosalia sidled in beside me and whispered, “What did I tell you? Can you believe this place?”
“It’s a palace,” I answered, trying not to move my lips. Our heels clipped along the polished tiles to the far room where an enormous dining table was strewn with mouthwatering arrays of festive dishes. There were several seafood salads, a great pile of charred shrimp, a small mountain of steamed clams. A tempting aroma of garlic, dense olive oil, fresh mint, rosemary, basil, and laurel moistened the air above the display. Another girl entered with an enormous basket of fresh bread. Its yeasty warmth as she passed made my mouth water. I ought to have eaten more before I came. The grandfather clock chimed six. We were called to the kitchen.
“Now listen up—asco’ ma bene!” the cook exclaimed, wiping her hands on her starched apron. “I make a lot of food perfect. You don’t talk, you don’t stare. You don’t behave like peasants from the montagne—no mountain goats here, sì? We do things properly here. The family is Tedesch’, from Germany. Lots of artisti coming here tonight. Any trouble, you talk to me. But I don’t want to talk to nobody. Capisci?!”
I joined the general mumble of agreement. The bell rang. We took to our stations. I wished I had had the sense to defer the job of balancing a tray of prosecco for the guests on arrival. Then I realized, as the stream of guests flowed, that I had a vantage point. The German sisters, who lived here with their brother, received their friends in the dining room. Rosalia took great pains to describe their escape from Germany. She threw around the word Bauhaus as if she and I knew what it meant, though we were both a little embarrassed to admit that we didn’t. Reading between the lines, I sensed the brother had no place to express himself back home. But here, in the hills of our town, people were glad to accept a poet and artists into our midst. This is what Rosalia explained to me with colorful expression, proud to be part of the Positanese, who held an inherent esteem for art and artists. “It’s in our blood, Santi’,” she sang.
I was to offer a cordial welcome. The first to take drinks were a pair of gentlemen that reminded me of Mr. Benn and Mr. George. I think they may have been German too, but I often confused them with Russians. A small herd of dancers followed. You could recognize them by their sinewy limbs, the way their backs were stretched long and straight, with the gait that suggested they might leap through the air at any given moment. Their skin looked taut, as all fat reserves had been consumed by their great muscularity. They skittered by me, glasses in hand, giggling into the next room. I believe their choreographer, Massine, followed. I know this because Rosalia made a point of elbowing me to attention. She gave a discreet commentary from the opposite side of the wide hallway, an enormous portrait of a half naked woman swaying by a waterfall behind her. Her head reached just high enough to block my unadulterated view of the naked buttocks. Massine was smaller than I had imagined but had lively eyes with the same bounce to his gait. He followed his dancing army.
A small, older, bald man followed with ochre skin and large piercing brown eyes. He took two glasses. I didn’t think it proper to comment. Rosalia did—with her eyes at least. She managed to stay quiet, for th
at I was thankful. A rainbow of others lit up the corridor for the next half hour or so, each luminous in their attire, speech, and the space they took up with grand gestures. None exhibited any inhibition about how loud they spoke, nor how overstated their reactions to one another’s stories were. I was a sparrow amongst lions.
Rosalia beamed. She adored the opulence, this great waterfall of energy. I found the noise deafening. Confusing even. When it felt like most of the guests had arrived, we took our places in the main dining area, monitoring the plates and judging when refills were needed. I caught sight of the two sisters floating amongst their guests. In contrast to their friends, they were demure, in dark purples and blacks. Their dresses were plain, their hair scraped back from their thin faces, drawing observers only to the bright intelligence of their small blue eyes. Their brother held court in the corner of the lower terrace, surrounded by a group of young men who seemed to be ordering the universe with a complex mixture of animation and thoughtful contemplation. They all wore black. What were they mourning?
When the last guest arrived, she turned heads. I would have liked to think I paid her no mind. That I too didn’t stand and gawk at her flame-red mass of hair shrieking out of her head like a Medusa fury. I would have liked to take in the tattoos upon her face, weblike lines of ink, as if they were nothing more than a little makeup. But I couldn’t, of course. She prowled in, full lipped, black pencil around her eyes like thick smudges of soot. Several guests lounged to her and wrapped their arms around her, calling out “Vali!” and “Ms. Myers, darling!” She purred into them. The prosecco drained dry. Spirits were passed out. Someone started at the piano. The whole room swayed into dance, or rather undulated into a collective swagger, like passengers on a ship in a storm, flicking random fragments of shapes to one another. Rosalia signaled for me to return to the kitchen. As I passed through the large room, which we used as a dining room at the major’s villa, a voice called to me.
Four Hundred and Forty Steps to the Sea Page 10