by Joanna Scott
When we arrived at the station our train was waiting, the rear cars already packed with passengers. Claire agreed with Murray that if we were going to find seats we’d have to travel first class. Murray, carrying the two new valises, went off to buy tickets. Claire led us toward the front of the train and lifted us one by one up the metal stairs.
The seats of our compartment were upholstered in red leather, the armrests were mahogany, and the perfume of the last passenger still lingered in the air. Harry, always the luckiest among us, found an empty ring-box covered in navy velvet beneath his seat cushion. Patrick offered to trade the rope he’d found in Genoa for the ring-box. Harry declined. Patrick sat on Harry, pinning him down, and tried to pry the box from his fist. Harry screamed. I started to cry. Claire grabbed her umbrella and raised it threateningly. Patrick’s terror was fleeting; a moment later he was tugging at the umbrella, wrestling in fun with Claire. No one paid attention to the train whistle. Only when we moved forward with a lurch did it occur to Claire that Murray had been left behind.
“Boys, we have to get off!” But we’d just gotten on, Harry said. Claire gestured as if to wave off his stupidity and rushed to the door at the end of the corridor. By then the train was already moving fast enough to blur the platform, making it appear liquid. As the carriage passed a porter Claire yelled, “Stop this train!” The man cheerfully touched his cap and nodded. Jump, Claire thought to herself in desperation. We must jump. Of course we couldn’t jump. It was too late. We were heading to Florence without Murray.
We rode in silence. The train’s jerking settled into a smooth forward motion, and Claire sat with her hands crossed over the base of her throat — a position she’d assume in an attempt to ward off panic. The sunlight gave her eyes a milky sheen. She caught the smell of cigarette smoke drifting through from the corridor — Murray’s cigarette…but Murray wasn’t there. She jumped to her feet, snapped open her wallet, and poured the contents onto the seat, counting her lire too frantically to keep track. She had begun counting it again when we heard the conductor’s sullen “Biglietti, prego,” in the corridor. Claire separated coins from bills. She told us to keep quiet, though we weren’t making a sound. A moment later the swaying of the train unbalanced Claire, and she tipped toward the door and into the arms of the conductor, who stood with the smirk of understanding on his face, his expression suggesting that he needed no explanation, he knew well enough about le signore like this one, le signore traveling without their husbands. Lonely signore and their clever mistakes.
Claire stumbled away and resumed her frantic search for money to pay our fares. The conductor watched her through the smoke of his cigarette. My brothers and I watched the conductor.
Six carriages back, Murray leaned out a window and watched the landscape, drawing a deep breath in an effort to inhale the scenery — the long single-arch stone bridge, the steep hillside rising above the tracks, a castle’s towers in the distance, terraces of vineyards, perfect rows of cypress, a boy walking along a dirt road with a goat on a leash, morning sunlight turning a river gold. He nodded to a conductor and squeezed past with the valises into the next carriage. He opened each compartment door and checked to see if we were inside.
Where were we? If not in this first-class car then in the next one. Murray ambled on — or danced, yes, it felt like he was dancing to the music of the train. He tried to decide whether he wanted a cigarette. He didn’t really want a cigarette right then, but he could strike up a conversation by asking someone for a light. How do you ask for a light in Italian? At this point Murray knew only words from a phrase book he’d brought along. Piacere di conoscerti. Mi vuol passare il sale per favore.
He looked around. This gentleman in the white linen suit, maybe he’d have time to spare, along with a light. “Pardon me, per favore, signore….”
Of course he had a light. And he spoke a little English. He had a brother who lived in New York. Murray said he was from New York. Davvero? Sì, sì! Murray offered the man a cigarette. The man was from Genoa but was going to Florence to visit his cousin. He wanted to talk. If the signore could wait there, Murray would be right back. He had to find his wife and give her the tickets. Va bene, va bene — the man nodded him on. He’d wait there. They could talk about New York. The man had lived for six whole months with his brother in New York!
Murray continued down the corridor, checking the first-class compartments. When he finally located us, Claire had just finished paying the conductor for our tickets. Murray, a few inches taller than the conductor, peaked his head over the man’s tasseled shoulder, and said, “There you are!”
“Murray!”
“Where were you?”
“Where were you?”
Claire explained that they’d had to purchase five tickets to Florence. But Murray had bought our tickets back at the station. He tried to give them to the conductor; the conductor would only accept a single ticket for Murray. It was too late, apparently, to return Claire’s tickets. The five new tickets had been issued. We had eleven tickets for the six of us to travel from Genoa to Florence, at a cost equivalent to a night at the Hôtel Luxembourg, Claire pointed out after the conductor had left.
But she was too relieved to stay angry at Murray. We were together. We were coming from Genoa, heading to Florence, following a zigzagging route to Elba. There was no possibility of retracing our steps. We could only go on, go forward, continue to go away from the past. The speed of the train made our journey feel more than ever like destiny.
MOST OF WHAT I KNOW about my mother’s experiences in Italy I know from her directly. We have talked at length. She continues to reminisce. She has shown me photographs and read aloud portions of her journals. Though sometimes she chides herself for her forgetfulness, her memory is far richer than any hazy story I might concoct.
On the other hand, what I know about my father’s experiences I’ve had to piece together from a variety of sources. I’ve been back to Elba once and plan to go again. I’ve read history books and newspapers. From my mother and brothers I have a sense of what questions to ask. And thanks to my grandmother, who hoarded everything, I have the letters my father wrote to her from Elba.
As our parents had planned, Murray left us in Florence, in a dark, modest pensione on Via Faenza just around the corner from San Lorenzo, and he went ahead to Elba. In his first letter to his mother, he describes the blue sea cracked with white beneath the blue cloudless sky. He describes the sweet scent of lavender, the linked shale peaks of the mountains, the blue of periwinkles and the red of poppies rippling like scattered bits of silk in the grass. He says the island was even more beautiful than he remembered.
I picture my father standing on a balcony, watching a farm-hand named Nino nudge open the door to a shed with his elbow. From another place in the yard came the sound of hammering. A nightingale hidden in an almond tree sang, paused, and sang again. A woman up on a vineyard terrace pushed back her straw hat and called, “Lidia! Lidia!” A small dog yelped in pain, and Murray saw it go skittering across the dirt yard.
Here in a villa on the island of his dreams. Here in the place that after a month-long visit in ’44 had filled him with the desire to return. Peasants tying vines, cows chomping on wildflowers, a black dog running across the yard, as weightless as a tumbleweed.
In the distance Murray could see the lopsided orange roofs of the houses in Portoferraio. He considered how little had changed in hundreds of years, how what he saw was close to identical to what Napoleon would have seen during his year of exile. He imagined the little emperor in military garb wandering around the island, plotting his escape. The contradiction amused him: the island of Elba had served as Napoleon’s prison, and yet Murray Murdoch had never been as free as he was now.
The summer ahead was like a picture on a screen gradually coming into focus. On Tuesday Murray had lunch with the hotel proprietor, whose friendliness made up for his poor English. Later that afternoon Murray fell into a conversation with a British hist
orian, Francis Cape, when he was browsing in a little stationary shop in Portoferraio. On Wednesday Francis introduced him to Lorenzo Ambrogi, a local padrone, who invited him to stay at his villa. On Thursday Murray borrowed a car and visited Lorenzo’s various properties, and by Thursday evening he’d decided upon a house, a sprawling, one-storied house amidst neglected vineyards in the hills midway between Portoferraio and Magazzini. Today was Friday. At one he would have lunch with Lorenzo Ambrogi and negotiate a rent.
Until then, what? Here in a villa on the island of Elba, without his family, with miles of fields and woodland to explore. He would have liked to linger just a little longer at the pocked pinewood table in the kitchen, where Nino’s wife, Maddalena, served him a breakfast of hot milk and coffee and panini with fresh butter and honey. But Maddalena, who spoke no English, had chores to do, and she left Murray to finish his breakfast alone.
Afterward, he went for a stroll. He followed a shale path up to the vineyards. He paused at the end of a row and watched two young women tending vines. They glanced at him, turned to each other, and began whispering. If Murray had spoken their language he would have introduced himself. Instead, he left them to their secrets and continued along the path, up and over a verge, and down into a ravine. The broken shale gave way to slippery clay beneath his shoes. The perfume of lilies grew stronger, the vegetation denser as the path leveled. Velvety ferns bordered the path. The sun, still low in the sky, shone through a gap in the ravine’s ledge, catching the glint of larkspur and daisies. The rock walls threw back the hollow echo of a trickling spring.
Murray sat on a flat-topped rock beside a pool. He would remember — mistakenly — feeling the tension of expectation, as though he’d been waiting for someone to join him. He listened to the water, the call of a cuckoo, the shush of the wind along the grassy shelves above the ravine. He sat without thinking. He sat for an hour, a day, a week. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there, how long he’d been listening to the sound of soft humming, how long he’d been watching the girl work. She was pulling handfuls of clover from the flower bed along the opposite rim of the pool. When Murray realized that she didn’t know he was watching her he found himself unable to move, as if after immeasurable time he’d grown rubbery roots that stretched around the rock and deep into the soil.
He kept staring at the girl; she must have felt the pressure of his gaze, for she looked up at him abruptly. But she just shook away the startle, shrugged, and went on weeding, as though she didn’t mind having an audience. No, she didn’t seem to mind at all.
She wasn’t beautiful. Her hair was black, with short curls so fine and feathery that he could see the white of her scalp. Murray noticed the line of muscle in her thin arm as she tossed a handful of clover into a basket. She was unnaturally pale, and her cheeks had an oily glow, like marble lit by backwashed sunlight. She wore a simple white blouse and brown skirt, garb that didn’t distinguish her from any of the other peasant girls on Elba. Yet there was something different about her, Murray thought, a refinement in her movements, perhaps, or a subtle haughtiness expressed by the tightness of her features. The girl wasn’t just too pale, too fragile. Her condition seemed oddly revealing, as if she were sickly because she was selfish or devious or cursed by bad luck. And though she ignored him, she demanded his attention. Murray was certain that she wanted him to keep watching her. She was lonely, and yet— how did he know this? — she was responsible for her loneliness. She fit the role perfectly. Eve in the garden, leaves floating, falling around her when a gust shook the trees. Just the fact of her presence was a temptation, and yet everything about her warned Murray away.
He stared at her, attempting to settle his impressions into un-ambivalent judgment, telling himself that she was in every aspect a plain peasant girl. He had nearly convinced himself when she stopped humming and spoke.
“You must be Signor Americano.” Her voice threw him back into inarticulate confusion. Her English, though clearly a second language, was precise and had a British ring to it. He couldn’t bring himself to ask how she knew about him. You don’t ask witches and goddesses how they know what they know.
“Yes?” she prompted. Her grin was sly — a response to his confusion. He wanted to remind her that she should be careful with strangers. He wanted to pin her to a name but couldn’t bring himself to ask.
She brushed her hands against her skirt. He thought she was preparing to extend a hand in greeting. Instead, she dipped her hands into the water bubbling out of the rocks, and he watched as she drank from the bowl of her palms, his discomfort growing as it slowly occurred to him that her action should have been private.
“Excuse me,” he said, pushing himself up. “I must be going.” He was amused to hear in his own voice a false accent, an involuntary echo of her refined diction. At the same time he realized he wanted to copy her and cup fresh spring water in his hands. He wanted to linger. He wanted to talk to her.
“Good-bye, Signor Americano.”
He hesitated. He didn’t want to leave. He must leave. “Arrive-derci.” He considered asking her for directions, but on second thought decided this would be silly since there was only one path leading out of the garden, and from the top of the ravine Lorenzo’s villa would be in view. He went to tip his hat and then realized that he wasn’t wearing a hat. “Piacere di conoscerti.”
He left her laughing at him, with him, in sympathy, in ridicule, in spite, in imitation while he walked up the path. He laughed at himself for making this simple encounter into something more meaningful than it should have been. He laughed between puffs of breath as he climbed the steep, slippery slope. He laughed at her laughter. He laughed at his own voice that was returned to him by the rock chamber of the ravine. Echoes of echoes, shadows of shadows. Down in the garden, a girl was laughing. He laughed at himself laughing at her as she laughed at him.
We were in Florence for six days. Murray telephoned every day. He told us that the sea was as warm as a bath, and when he swam out fifty yards from Le Ghiaie he could see through the clear water to the sponges and shells scattered on the sand. He told us about the magnificent gardens and vineyards, the orchards full of sweet yellow peaches, the wild goats grazing on hillsides. He said he’d climbed into the mountains and found quartz, pyrite, and a black glassy crystal that a man at a bar identified as tourmaline. Tour-maline! Tourmaline didn’t just come in the blue that he remembered. It came in black, in green and pink and red. The mountains were full of tourmaline. The whole island was a treasure chest for those who knew how to open it!
Murray called to say he’d rented a villa surrounded by vineyards in the hamlet of Le Foci, not far from Portoferraio. The padrone would deliver more beds to accommodate the six of us.
Murray called the next day to say that the beds were in place, and upon the landlord’s recommendation he’d hired a cook, an Elban woman from Portoferraio, along with a young woman from the village of Capoliveri to be our nanny. Since when could we afford servants? Claire demanded. Since the padrone had explained to Murray that the fastest way to gain respect on the island was to become an employer. Wages were shockingly low, Murray said, so he’d offered to double them. He hoped Claire didn’t mind. The expense was negligible, the advantages immense.
He called to tell us about Francis Cape, the Englishman who was writing a book about Napoleon on Elba. Francis Cape had been helpful in every possible way. He’d even driven Murray to Porto Azzurro, where Murray bought a little motorcyle.
Murray described how the mountains in the early morning mist looked like shadows behind shadows. He said he’d met a Swedish geologist who had done some temporary surveying work for one of the iron mines outside of Rio nell’Elba. The Swede explained to Murray that of all the precious gems to be found on the island, blue tourmaline was the most valuable of all. To find more he should look in the granite outcrops in the mountains. Murray said he was going to buy a rock hammer and chisel and get to work.
Come on, Murray urged. The is
land was ready for us. Hurry up and come on. Our father would meet us in Portoferraio. He’d take us to play football on the beach.
None of us remembers the uneventful trip from Florence to the port town of Piombino or the ferry ride to Elba. Among my brothers, the first memory of the island belongs to Patrick: he says he remembers waiting while Claire and Murray greeted each other, kissing and embracing as though they’d been apart for months. He remembers staring at the water sloshing against the edge of the quay. He remembers dropping a coin into the water just to hear the sound of the splash and then looking up to face an ancient, gray-bearded man, who scowled and shook a finger at Patrick for wasting good money.
I Fantasmi
ACCORDING TO HIS REPUTATION — SOMEWHAT EMBELLISHED by himself, I came to realize later — our father was a genius at persuasion. He could persuade men to hire him against their better judgment. He could persuade his mother and uncles to lend him money for a vacation they didn’t think he deserved. He could persuade his wife to forget the family’s debts for a while and enjoy life. And he could persuade his children to spend their time searching an island for treasures left behind by pirates and emperors when we already knew that such treasures didn’t exist.
Our father’s art of persuasion played upon the contrary temptations of risk and safety. Even as he’d emphasize the thrilling possibilities of an idea, he’d offer assurances and somehow make the paradox seem natural. Trust me, his smile would imply. Go ahead, give it a try, and trust Murray Murdoch to manage the dangers.
While my brothers and I only pretended to believe our father when he told us that the island’s treasure would be found by those who knew how to look, we sensed that the proposition would make a diverting game. During our first days on Elba, we each searched in different ways, following our different inclinations, escaping from the watch of our new cook and nanny whenever possible.