CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT THE BENTLEY; OR SEX WITHOUT BORDERS
Early the next morning, the Reader finds Liliana and Malarkey drinking Lavazza and eating croissants at a kitchen table as the kitchen staff scurries around the scullery preparing food for later. Malarkey isn’t going to describe the kitchen. The Reader should imagine what Mario Batali’s kitchen might look like. If the Reader cannot imagine what Mario Batali’s kitchen might look like then the Reader should Google Mario Batali’s kitchen. Mario enters and immediately walks up to Malarkey.
“Signore Malcolm, I have talked with Signore Liliano and he agreed to let you drive the car whenever you wish.”
Malarkey can hardly restrain himself.
“Grazie mille, Mario.”
Mario leaves.
“Did you hear that?”
“What I heard was impossible,” Liliana answers in between sips of Lavazza.
“What do you mean?”
“No one drives that car but Mario. It must have been the Calvados.”
“Or my charm.”
“As I said, the Calvados.”
Malarkey rushes through whatever breakfast there is to rush through, grabs Liliana before she’s had time to chew a croissant let alone swallow it, and after he gets some driving tips from Mario climbs into the driver’s seat. It’s a crisp, sunny, late-December morning in Arona. The sky is clear. From there, one can see Monte Rosa in the distance in all its magic mountain majesty. From Malarkey’s point of view, the snow-capped peak appears to be smiling. For Malarkey, it’s the conjunction of space and time and a moment that does not come that often. Malarkey gazes at Liliana and raises his eyebrows. Driving a Bentley: something he had not imagined on a “bucket list.” And not just any Bentley, but a Flying Spur. Who could ask for more?
After a final driving tip from Mario, Malarkey adjusts the seat, the mirror, whatever other accoutrements need to be adjusted before he starts the car. The engine merely hums. Then he turns on the radio. As they slowly drive off the estate, one hears the finale of Rossini’s “William Tell Overture.” [Once again, to get the true flavor of this chapter, reading it to Rossini would be mandatory. Malarkey suggests the Reader listen to (https://
At this point, the Reader should imagine aerial shots of Malarkey driving off the estate before engaging the winding eleven miles or eighteen kilometers (depending on whether you’re an American or not) from Arona to Stresa along the shore of Lago Maggiore. Malarkey isn’t going to describe the journey from Arona to Stresa along the shore of Lago Maggiore since there are no words that can accommodate the beauty of the lake and the sky and the Alps, but as Malarkey drives, he broadly smiles at Liliana. She’s not quite sure about Malarkey’s driving skills since he looks more at her than at the road, which, at some moments, becomes a bit disconcerting. Each turn he makes parallels Rossini’s music not unlike his driving exuberance in the car he drove in Carmel. The Reader follows his turning and winding, dipping and rising from Arona to Stresa along the shore of Lago Maggiore until Malarkey enters Stresa proper where he gingerly avoids hitting oblivious pedestrians and irresponsible Vespa drivers while navigating through phone-flashing tourists until they arrive curbside at the Regina Palace Hotel.
Now Malarkey could attempt to describe the Regina Palace Hotel in the manner of Thomas Mann, but as he’s said he’s not Thomas Mann and even if he were Thomas Mann a Thomas Mann description would take up a lot of pages and since the Reader is probably more interested in what happens at and after the Regina Palace Hotel, Malarkey believes an image would suffice. So, here’s a shot of the Regina Palace Hotel:
After Malarkey pulls up to the front of the hotel, Rossini ends. It’s incumbent upon the Reader to time the ending of the Rossini piece to coincide with the exact arrival time of Malarkey and Liliana at the Regina Palace Hotel. If not, please start over. But at the precise moment Malarkey parks, he holds up his hands from the steering wheel as if it were on fire and looks at Liliana.
“Fuck!!!!!”
Liliana merely raises her eyebrows, but doesn’t react. After all, it’s only a Bentley. Malarkey and Liliana decide to have drinks at the Regina Palace bar that overlooks the lake and from there they can see Isola Bella only four hundred meters away. If the Reader isn’t familiar with Isola Bella, then, oh never mind. Malarkey nurses a Guinness Bitters; Liliana, a dirty martini made with Belvedere vodka and blue-cheese olives. It’s a wee bit early for alcoholic beverages, but one needs to seize the moment in Stresa since those Stresa moments may not ever come again.
“Mario was right?”
“About what?”
“Driving the car.”
“What about it?”
“It is better than sex.”
“Excuse me?”
“He said driving it was better than sex.”
“Maybe for you,” Liliana says as she sips her martini.
Now this might appear to be a rather benign comment, but, for Malarkey, the wordsmith, no comment is really benign unless it’s a comment without words and only punctuation marks, in which case that’s already been done by a Brazilian writer. The Reader may detect a not so subtle irony on Liliana’s part. One might assume that it’s a dig at Malarkey’s sexual performance or lack of one. If one assumes that’s the case, then one is probably correct.
“Uh, what’s that mean?”
“Not sure you want to get into it, do you?”
“Is there a problem?”
“There’s often been kind of a problem.”
“With what?”
“Malcolm, it’s a glorious day in Stresa with the shimmering blue lake and the snow-capped Alps and peacock flocks on Isola Bella. Let’s keep it that way.”
Of course, Malarkey can’t keep it that way even with it being a glorious day in Stresa with the shimmering blue lake and the snow-capped Alps and peacock flocks on Isola Bella and so he needs to taint the glorious day in Stresa with the shimmering blue lake and the snow-capped Alps and peacock flocks on Isola Bella by stating,
“Wait a second. You said it’s often been a problem?” Malarkey asks, slightly agitated.
“Yes. On and off.”
“Then why haven’t you said something before?”
“Because before it wasn’t the most important issue.”
“And now it is?”
“To some degree.”
“What degree?”
“You know.”
“No, enlighten me.”
“You don’t have the … endurance.”
“Are you talking about having sex or running a marathon?” he quizzically asks.
“I knew this would happen.”
“What would happen?”
“You’d just get defensive talking about it.”
“Who’s getting defensive?” Malarkey defensively asks.
She rolls her eyes.
“It is a bit personal, isn’t it? I mean I’ve tried almost every med known to the sildenafil world.”
“Then maybe you should try a different med or …”
“Or what?”
“Or try something else.”
Malarkey’s eyes get wide.
“Like what? A dick injection?”
Liliana raises her eyebrows, smiles, sips her martini, but says nothing. Malarkey does not see that coming. For Malarkey, the rest of the day is somewhat tainted and Malarkey and Liliana don’t talk too much. Even the luncheon at the Ristorante Pizzeria Mamma Mia doesn’t lift the mood. It’s not a secret to Malarkey that things aren’t as good as they could be and the slow decline in his performance hasn’t gone unnoticed. The inability to perform sexually goes beyond the physiological. Intercourse is, after all, a psychological function as well. The two work hand in hand, so to speak.
As dusk falls on Stresa, they return to the Villa. Malarkey drives the winding eleven miles or eighteen kilometers from Stresa to Arona, but unlike the earlier trip, when he turns on the radio the Reader hears an instrumental version of the “Song of the Volga Boatman.” [To get the full flavor of what Malarkey was feeling on the way back, Google (https://
“I’ve arranged for Mario to drive us to Milan tomorrow,” Liliana says.
“Fine.”
“Something wrong?”
“No, nothing. Never felt better.”
“I thought you wanted to spend New Year’s Eve in Milan.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And now I’m not sure.”
“Why not?”
“Performance anxiety.”
“Are you serious?”
“Nevermore.”
Liliana says nothing more for the rest of the drive, but the remainder of the page is left blank in case the Reader would like to write what Liliana might be thinking.