Four Hundred and Forty Steps to the Sea

by Sara Alexander

  “Ah, the signorina with the bubbles at the door!”

  I turned, doing my best performance of professional calm. The man pulled out a small notebook from his pocket with a stub of charcoal. “Don’t move, per piacere.”

  I had no plans to. I was concentrating on breathing.

  Black lines swooped over the page. I could hear somewhere far off percussive laughter underscored with an improbable mix of piano notes in crescendo. Inside the darkened quiet of this room, the scrawl echoed.

  “This, per te—for you.” He reached out the small piece of paper. I wasn’t sure what to do.

  “Per piacere, you take. It’s a bird.”

  I took the sheet in my fingers. My eyes raised back to him.

  “Bird of peace, no? You like?”

  I smiled then. It escaped before I could stop it. I had visions of being fired on the spot should the cook or any of the regular staff see me here like this. “Yes, very much. Thank you.”

  “Oh wait!” he said, grabbing it back from me. He laid it on top of his notebook and scratched a signature. Then without turning back, he left me alone with the sheet in my hand. I folded it and slipped it into my pocket.

  That’s when I saw them.

  The major and Adeline stood in a slant of moonlight a little farther down the corridor. He hadn’t mentioned anything about coming tonight, even when I’d asked permission to do these extra hours outside their home. Adeline had not left Villa San Vito since we arrived. At first I didn’t recognize him. His beard had been shaven clean away, revealing a face far younger than I had supposed. Now they stood, the major whispering into her ear while a tentative smile penciled across her lips. The moon fell over her white skin, translucent in the metallic glow. She wore a long red dress with small floral details raised in darker velvet. It hung on her; as she moved, the protrusion of her hips brushed the fabric. Her hair was held off her face by a loose strip of ribbon. Even from where I stood I could notice the intricate amethyst clusters of her long earrings. Her mournful beauty was compelling.

  This is why the major brought her to my town. He knew it was growing. He knew we welcomed the misfits, the foreigners, the artists, the people who imagined. She was one of them. I left the corridor and returned to the kitchen.

  Cook led an armada with a huge skillet of more shrimp, flaming in sweet wine as they turned pink. My stomach ached to try some. I was sent back to the drawing room with the loaded plate, placing the heavy ceramic dish in the center where there was space, to a collective gasp of delight. Hands dove into them with abandon. What must it feel like to relish food with such passion? There were murmurs of delight I would have liked to join in with. Rosalia tapped my elbow. “We can stay here and carry on with drinks, says Cook.”

  I felt his hand upon my back. I turned to see the major standing tall in his crisp blue linen shirt and pressed khaki trousers.

  “How does Cook’s food compare then?”

  I had no answer. Rosalia’s smile widened; his apparent newfound youth wasn’t lost on her.

  “And thank you once again, Rosalia, your cousin is doing a fine job with Elizabeth. I can see that Santina’s day off has done her the world of good!” He looked down at me, his eyes dancing. How different from the man who first arrived here, holding on to his wife as if she might collapse or run away. Rosalia nodded as if she understood each word. The major looked across the table at Adeline, now engaged in conversation with a man wearing a purple shirt and shorts that left little to the imagination. The major left us to join them.

  The evening oozed on, the dancing slowing as the crowd shifted toward the poets and singers in the group. A silence fuzzed over the room as people took it in turns to recite or sing. Warm applause followed. Then the brother stood up. “Paolino!” he called. “Where’s Paolino?”

  Rosalia turned to me, conspiratorial. “Eduard just loves Paolino’s singing. Heard him one day as he delivered the groceries, forced him to sing the whole thing to him right then and there.”

  “I didn’t know he was here.”

  “That’s hardly surprising, you’ve barely looked up this evening. You can’t get fired if you’re a temporary, you know!”

  The room ricocheted with applause. Paolino brushed behind me, his guitar strapped on him. Eduard stood up, his English fluent but heavy with a German intonation. “And so, my friends, this is the wonderful Paolino, who braves the hills for our sakes, and makes sure that we are kept fed in the most wonderful way imaginable. This is a song, which made me fall in love with him even more. It’s called ‘Scalinatella,’ or, for those ignoramuses among us, ‘Little Stairway.’ A latest hit, perhaps, but as you will hear, it is scribed in the ancient passion only a Neapolitan can ever truly understand.”

  They cheered at that. I looked across the room. The major saw me. His eyebrow raised into a question mark. A smile crept over my lips without me intending it to.

  “But enough of this German man—listen, and, like me, fall in love.”

  A hush fell. I didn’t think it possible this crowd could curtail its self-expression for that long. I was washed up into the golden quiet with everyone else. Paolino caressed the first chord. The tune sounded familiar. His woody timbre held the space. Then the lyrics reached me, at the far side of the room, like a forgotten memory. I’d never heard him express himself with such unselfconscious honesty. It bewitched the room. He reached the closing verse.

  That’s when he saw me.

  “Little stairway,” he crooned, “climb to the sky or go down to the sea.”

  A few guests traced his gaze in my direction. My cheeks betrayed me.

  “In the next few days a steamship will leave,” he sang, slowing down for dramatic effect, “within a few days my love will throw itself to the sea!”

  I allowed myself to see him. For the first time I cast no judgment, I wasn’t flinching from his attention, nor batting off his glib patter. He stood before a room of strangers, artists, and dancers and was bare. He let them in. In turn, they courted what it felt like to experience this unrequited passion. From their intense hush, I couldn’t doubt their powers of empathy surpassed anyone I had met. His vulnerability penetrated us. Not his usual dancing lilt, his flyaway hands, the self-assured swagger with which he held himself. It was clear to me for the first time that this was a man capable of expressing his feelings with compelling simplicity. The artists were seduced. He was singing to me; another girl would be quivering with embarrassment or pleasure. Paolino imbued the complexity of life and love into one simple melodic line. I let the light and dark of his voice glow around me.

  The final chord hummed into the shimmering bubble of concentration, till Eduard rose to his feet. Everyone followed. Paolino beamed. His face widened into a sunny grin, his eyes a deepening shade of chocolate. He looked beautiful. I’d never paid much attention to his posture before today. He grew before his audience. His chest widened. The obvious muscularity of his thighs did not go unnoticed by most of the women, and several of the men, in the crowd. As the cheers grew, the partygoers obstructed my view of him. I didn’t see him shift to try to find me through the human shield because I sought refuge in the darkened hallway outside. Thoughts plucked my mind, one by one, like a ghost tiptoeing across strings of an unfinished chord; the resonance of doubt.

  * * *

  The major’s house was silent as I stepped back inside. The water swayed with mercurial threads. It was the type of full moon that made our little town feel smaller and insignificant, desperate to cling on to its little indentation. We were barnacles riding the whale.

  “It is particularly boastful tonight, wouldn’t you say?”

  The major’s voice startled me. I hadn’t noticed him sat in the shadows of one of the lemon trees down beyond the terrace where I stood. As I focused toward the voice, I could pick out threads of moonlight upon his hair, though he still looked like a stranger with his newly shaven face. I couldn’t shake the sense of the major as a younger man. I walked toward the steps dow
n to the garden, not wanting to call out over the balustrade.

  “It looks like a harvest moon, even,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He fell back into silence, save the soft clink of his melting ice cube as he swirled the remnants of his whisky.

  “Santina, would you mind to fill this up for me?”

  I walked down the steps. My feet crunched across the crisp grass. I took his glass. His fingers brushed mine. He looked up at me and smiled. I wondered how much he had drunk.

  “I can read Rumi in this bright light, quite well.” I noticed a book lying facedown upon his knee.

  “An astonishing man from the thirteenth century. Born in Turkey. Wrote in Sufi. Wandered the planet searching for what in the West we might use that obtuse word: God. Something you claim to know a great deal about, I should think.”

  His eyes smiled. I couldn’t tell where his sarcasm would lead us. I hoped he hadn’t been drinking since they’d returned home. “Here—read this top line.”

  I took a breath, trying to steady myself despite his unpredictable demeanor. “‘At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine. Breathe into me.’”

  How long had the major sat here, stupefied by the moon, churning Rumi’s writing around in his mind? I hadn’t noticed him leave the party.

  “Well, Santina? What do you say to that?”

  I looked at his smiling eyes.

  “I say . . . Positano is the perfect place to be moonkissed.”

  He laughed at that. Or laughed at me. I didn’t care which. I caught a titillating glimpse of something beyond his wiry self-control. Our grins faded into an almost comfortable silence. He tapped the glass.

  “On second thoughts, Santina. I ought to let you get to bed. This is supposed to be your day off. I apologize.”

  “It’s already tomorrow.”

  He stood up. “Then it’s far too early to start drinking.”

  He closed his book and walked toward the steps. When he reached the balustrade, he placed the book upon the base rim of one of the columns supporting the upper terrace.

  “I shall leave this here for you, Santina. I think you have a closer affinity to your Positanese moon than I. Do let me know if it presses its face against yours, won’t you? The moon, I mean—not the book. Unless you’re in a particularly clumsy mood. I’ve heard parties do that to people.”

  With a chuckle he disappeared into the shadows of the house. I picked up the book and let it fall open at a random page: “Let the water settle, and you will see the moon and the stars in your own being.”

  I reached inside my pocket for the little drawing, straightened it to place it between the pages to press the creases away. I read the signature: “Picasso.” Alone in the garden, I felt I’d been gifted that very moon. Those party people from a parallel world had muddied my thinking after all.

  Chapter 10

  Dawn teased the horizon with strands of pink. The major and I bent over the zucchini patch, which was shooting out in all directions, thick tubular stems threatening to dominate everything in its wake. It was impossible to water or garden at any time other than this, or during the abating warmth of dusk. In between, the humidity of July steamed toward a ferocious August that even the locals struggled to survive. We took this time, before Elizabeth stirred and the sun rose, to tend to the vegetable garden. Paolino joked about the major’s military layout. Every time he brought up deliveries he asked whether I was sure he hadn’t used a ruler to measure the distance between the plants.

  “The fact of the matter is, Santina, Mother Nature is not so much of an attentive listener as a law unto herself.” His trowel tucked into the small tufts of weeds eking an existence near the base of the zucchini plant. “Just as it ought to be, I should imagine. But good heavens, what are we to do with all these zucchini?”

  I had tried, with diplomacy, to convince the major that planting more than three to four indentations with seeds would lead to a glut, but he would hear none of it. It was the first time he had planted this garden with full force, and, still accustomed in his mind to the damp London summer, he anticipated several seeds to fail. All of them grew.

  His maintenance of it edged toward obsession in the face of its unrelenting bounty. Even he had to admit, there was only so much linguine coated in the sweet grated vegetable that he could eat, even if he knew I infused the olive oil with garlic to perfection and had the patience to wring out all moisture inside the zucchini before sautéing.

  “I will pickle some later, Major, and make verdure giardiniera. I can add some cauliflower too.”

  He looked at me while still bent over, attacking the pernicious intruders. He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow.

  “Our Lady of the Zucchini. I’ll speak to the mayor. Perhaps I can convince him to add one more saint festa to the never ending list?”

  I sighed a laugh and snipped away several male flowers that would not bear fruit, placing them with care into a small basket at my feet. In my mind, I was already coating them around warmed translucent onions and garlic as the base for a risotto. The major bent down toward several of the smaller zucchini and cut them away with his knife. He reached over the top of the foliage and handed them over.

  “How many’s that, then? Enough to feed half the inhabitants of Li Parlati, wouldn’t you say?”

  He loved throwing around the name of our area. I noticed he’d begun even to roll his “r’s” in an effort to prove that his promise of learning Italian had been in earnest. Our hill had been christened “dead city” not only because of the cemetery that reigned over it at its peak, but because the houses around us were the ones left abandoned during the first wave of Positanese escaping to America. I hated the term. Ours was the place where most of the larger mercantile houses stood. One by one they now filled with people who were far from dead. Here were the people celebrating life, committing the colorful burst of our town to page, canvas, and screen.

  I straightened.

  “Good heavens, Santina, don’t tire just yet! We’ve got several rows of tomatoes that need pricking out.”

  I made my way over to them and crouched down. I loved their herbaceous smell, the way the scent deepened as I broke away the extraneous green shoots, allowing the plant’s energy to feed the growing fruit alone. Would this be good practice for people? How could I cut away unwanted shoots—of thoughts, dreams—so that my energy could be directed only to the fruit I bore? What would I leave behind me? I brushed away the vanity of my own legacy. How fortunate I felt, to have these daily dawns of peaceful gardening to clear away needless thoughts like weeds.

  We worked in silence as the sun climbed. Only the scritch-scratch of dry earth beneath the claws of the major’s small garden fork and the quiet snap of stems as I removed them scraped our fading thoughts.

  Over the past summer months the major had expressed a preference for conducting our lessons in this manner. From ten o’clock till no earlier than tea time, he would prefer the shade of indoors, reinstating his reign over the garden only once the sun had softened its blaze. I prepared lunch alone, spent the days with Elizabeth within the cool of our shuttered room, lulling her to afternoon rest under the shade of the lemon trees, now widening with maturity and entwining into a thick canopy beyond the vegetables. Most days I’d take the time to rest myself. I loved lying upon the reed mat underneath those flat leaves, Elizabeth’s slowing breaths edging me to sleep, like lying on the floor of a rocking sailboat.

  The major stretched his back. “My word, they’re making quite some progress with those carnival boats this year!”

  I followed his gaze down toward the water. Around a small bend from the main beach, Spiaggia Grande, there was a rocky bay where several dozen old fishing boats were moored—a hidden location ahead of tonight’s celebrations—beside the tourist vessels that transported visitors to town from the larger ships from Naples and Sorrento which could not dock on our bay.

  It was August 15th, Ferra
gosto, Assumption Day. The day we honored our Madonna’s ascent to heaven. The day our town fizzed about with anticipation as summer began. Each year all the local fishermen and traders outdid one another’s inventions as they masked their working boats as pirate ships or enormous sea creatures. Everyone would watch tonight’s sea ritual. It was the most magical evening of my childhood memories. Perhaps the only one. It wasn’t Sunday though. I would not be joining the festa down on the beach this year.

  “Your face is a child’s, Santina.”

  My eyes darted to him.

  “The idea of standing in a hot crowd fills me with cool terror,” he added.

  I smiled. The sun stretched its rays. We’d have to water soon or it would evaporate. I went to the faucet at the far end of the patch, turned it on, and reached the end of the hose just in time. If I placed my thumb over the water, it would squirt down onto my wrists. I tried to remember this feeling when the midday heat beat down.

  “Such a promising smell, isn’t it?”

  “The water, Major?”

  “The water, the damp earth underneath, the plants filling the moisture with a thankful, herby scent.”

  I must have raised an eyebrow without meaning to.

  “That’s why poets write about these things, Santina. Such simplicity cocoons complex biochemical manifestations—such utter perfection in all things. I mean, look at this flower”—he lifted a zucchini petal from my basket—“look at all those spider veins flowing through these papery petals.” He held it up against the sun so that the light shone through, silhouetting the thin green lines. “You see, this little zucchini blossom is sending messages to the very tip: survive. It’s a compulsion.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And while a flower is so very beautiful, it’s a plant’s parting song, one last desperate attempt to survive. It offers its seeds back to the earth whence it came.”

  He took off his hat and fanned his face in smooth strokes.