In 1948, Graham Greene bought a small villa in Anacapri, Il Rosaio, with royalties that had been frozen in Europe during the war. Yet the island had never been a permanent home; the idea of permanence itself held no appeal for him. He was a perpetual foreigner, a man on whom art and architecture—culture, in the usual sense—were lost. What engaged him most were politics and people, especially those with a revolutionary and leftist tinge. By nature, he was an outsider, a spy, an itinerant. He had often traveled to exotic and dangerous places—Sierra Leone, Haiti, Mexico, the Congo, Vietnam. And he had managed to capture the atmospheres of these famously corrupt and decaying countries in his fiction.
I was no expert, but I’d fingered many of his novels in bookstores, skimming pages, noting titles and subjects. I’d only read with care The Quiet American and The Heart of the Matter, both of which I admired, with reservations. I expressed these to Vera as I worked beside her in the kitchen, stuffing prunes into a pork roast. (This would be the main course—arrosto di maiale alle prugne, one of her fail-safe recipes: “You don’t try something new when you have guests,” she said. “If you must poison someone, poison your family.”)
“I’m not a critic,” she said, regarding Greene. “But you might enjoy Stamboul Train. That’s Graham at his best—light and breezy, a bit irreverent. A conventional thriller, but well done. Not the pompous Graham of The Power and the Glory. I’ve never understood that Catholic business. If he’s a Catholic, I’m an aboriginal.” She tucked a row of prunes under the bone, laying them end to end like stones edging a garden plot. “Rupert prefers The Comedians. It’s the one about Haiti, and the trouble there. The movie was horrid…that dreadful Elizabeth Taylor. I don’t know what Americans see in her.”
I felt uneasy whenever Vera fell into this chattering mood, which often seized her in the kitchen. Her opinions were, in general, quite interesting, but she lacked faith in them. Her bold assertions seemed hollow and ungrounded.
“You won’t get much out of Graham, I’m afraid. He’s not very talkative.”
“What about Vidal?” I asked.
“Gore? He is marvelous. Howard, too. Everyone loves Howard.”
“Do you like his novels?”
“Of course,” she said, wiping her forehead with a slippery palm. “I haven’t read them all—he’s very prolific. I suppose he’s at his best when it comes to history. He should have been an ancient Roman. Maybe he is.”
“Is what?”
“A visitor, I mean, from the past. He can’t live in the States. They can’t tell when he’s joking and when he’s serious. It drives him mad.” She recommended Julian as his best novel, and Burr after that. “I adore the essays, too,” she said. “He’s the only amusing American I’ve ever read. The only intentionally amusing American.”
Vidal had arrived a couple of days earlier, from Rome, with Howard Austen, his companion of two decades. They were staying in an imposing house overlooking the Marina Grande with Vidal’s old friend, Mona Williams, a wealthy American from Kentucky who had married various wealthy men and was now attached to Eddie von Bismarck, a grandson of the famous German chancellor. (“You’ve met Eddie,” Vera said. “He’s queer as a coot. Their marriage has none of the usual features—they rather like each other, for example. It’s a kind of formalized friendship. Admirable in its way.”)
Greene had recently arrived from southern France, where he now spent much of the year in the company of a French woman called Yvonne, who rarely came with him to Capri. “Graham hates being coupled with anyone,” Vera said. “In any case, he still has a wife back in Oxfordshire. Poor old dear.” I wondered if he spent much time in England. “Good lord, no,” she said. “England appalls him. The rain, the food, the people. He despises France, too. Capri is another matter. He likes it well enough to visit, once or twice a year. But nowhere is home. He prefers it that way. Mysterious old Graham.”
In the sitting room at about seven, I was introduced to Greene, Austen, and Vidal by Grant, who called me “his American assistant.” Vera added that I had become a member of the family, adding that I wrote poetry.
“I used to write poetry,” said Vidal. “Somehow the idea of having no readers was disconcerting.” He glanced at me. “Voluntary readers, that is—not the sort of readers who get assigned a book in school.” The novel, he suggested, was fading as fast as poetry had in the past decades. “I don’t think anyone wants novels anymore, not even your novels, Rupert. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”
Vidal was tall, physically imposing, with an angularly handsome face designed to grace magazine covers. Having once studied ballet, he retained something of the dancer’s poised way of carrying himself, keeping his center of gravity in just the right place. This was quite the opposite of Greene, who had never lost his English schoolboy’s slump. A lanky man in his sixties, with meticulously combed but thinning hair, he seemed to shy away from me when I shook his hand. His nose—the snout of a drinker—was blue-veined, fleshy, and rose-tinted.
I sat next to Vidal, with Greene on the opposite side of the table beside Howard, a short, barrel-chested man with a Bronx accent and a warm, outgoing manner. He smoked an American cigarette, blowing the smoke away from the table. Marisa had been seated at my other side, while Holly was next to Greene. She looked ethereal in a pale blue dress that would have suited a nun; it swept below her knees, with her blond hair freshly washed and shampoo scented. Greene was entranced by her, and it was difficult for Grant to get his attention, although he made several attempts.
Maria Pia, assisted by her cousin Alfredo, brought course after course to the table. An older man called Gabriele, in a white jacket, was employed to keep everyone’s wineglass full, and he worked assiduously at this task, which in the case of Vidal and Greene was no small assignment. Bottle after bottle of Corvo was opened and emptied as we ate.
There was gossip about various local worthies, including the Bismarcks and Bonanos, all of whom both Vidal and Greene knew quite well. Grant talked more freely about his book on Capri than I’d ever seen him do before, describing the shape and content of the book. There was talk of the British Labour government, which Grant seemed to despise (much to the annoyance of both Vidal and Greene). Then, inevitably, the subject I most dreaded came around: Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War. Kent State was mentioned. Greene and Vidal joined forces against Grant, and appeared to silence him. They had trunkloads of facts stored in their formidable brains, and Grant had not troubled to find out much about the war. He unleashed a few lines about “the domino effect,” but these were swept aside by Greene, who delighted in baiting Grant. I remained avowedly on the sidelines, praying that an angel would soon pass over the roof of the Villa Clio, bringing conversation on this uncomfortable subject to a halt.
Without warning, Vidal turned to me. “And why aren’t you in Vietnam?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. “I would have thought you were about the right age for cannon fodder.”
No question could have been less welcome, and I swiveled toward Vera.
“What an awful question,” she said. “Leave the boy alone, Gore.”
“He isn’t in Vietnam because he’s in Capri,” said Grant, crushing a piece of bread into the sauce on his plate. “It’s one of the laws of physics. If you’re here, you can’t be there.”
“I liked Vietnam in the fifties,” said Greene, intercepting Vidal. “Met Ho Chi Minh once, a sly little chap. Yellow toenails. Rather clever.” He swept everyone’s attention into a small bag. “Amusing, too. Spoke lovely French—the old boy studied in Paris. He arranged for me to fly over Hanoi in a small plane during the French war. There was rocket fire, and it grazed one wing, but I never really thought we’d go down. I wouldn’t try it now. The North Vietnamese have extremely accurate ground-to-air missiles, I’m told. Russian-made. Quite deadly.”
“You were never in a plane over Hanoi,” said Vidal. “That must come from one of your books.”
Greene relished this challenge. “Nonsense, Gore. I’ve been over Hanoi a number of times, in various aircraft. I quite liked Hanoi—some charming old colonial architecture. The Americans will see to that, I suppose.”
“Did you visit the opium dens?” Vidal asked.
Greene nodded. “And the brothels. I’d go back in a second.”
“Tell Mr. Nixon. He’s looking for a few good men. Put you right up front with the infantry.”
“I’d be fighting for the other side, I’m afraid.”
“No wonder they never gave you the Nobel, Graham,” Grant observed.
“I don’t want their bloody prize.”
“Neither do I,” said Vidal. “I already belong to the Diner’s Club.”
“Richard Nixon is a butcher,” said Greene, still obsessing over Vidal’s previous remark. “He belongs in a meat factory, not the Oval Office.”
“Gore knows a lot about meat factories,” said Austen, lighting another cigarette. A gold chain glistened on his neck.
“Be quiet, Howard.”
“Fuck you,” said Austen, smiling.
Grant shifted uneasily, stretching his back. “I can see no reason to object to this intervention on the part of your country, Lorenzo,” he said, looking directly at me. “Someone has to stand up for something. It’s a bloody awful world.”
“Pax Americana, is that it?” Greene said. He chewed and talked at the same time. “You sound more and more like Kipling, Rupert. If you’re not careful, they will appoint you Poet Laureate. No one has survived that fate, and that includes Tennyson.”
“Tennyson bores me, but I don’t mind Kipling,” said Vidal. “The Man Who Would Be King—now that’s a story I wish I’d written.”
“I was talking to Rupert,” said Greene.
Grant sipped his wine before talking—a way of controlling the pace of the conversation. “Grew up on Kipling,” he said, side-stepping Greene. “First writer I ever really knew. Still go back to the early stories, Plain Tales from the Hills. Swift, clean, sturdy.”
“I like the Just So Stories,” said Holly.
“Me, too,” said Greene, “but Kipling was a jingo, nonetheless. Rather an embarrassment at the end. The belief in empire, and so forth. A thing of the past, even then. Only America seems bent on acquiring one now. Shopping around for jewels to place in their crown. Talk about falling dominoes.”
Grant was shaking his head. “You’ve been hoodwinked, Graham,” he said. “You don’t mean to tell me that the Americans actually want to control Vietnam? Why would anyone bother? It’s a wretched place. No oil, no precious metals—not that I’m aware of.”
“Empire is like any other lust,” said Vidal. “After a while, any body will do.”
“Not mine,” said Austen.
“I rather admire Nixon,” Grant said, playing the devil’s advocate.
“So do I,” said Vidal. “One rarely sees vice on this scale. It’s inspiring. Only a great nation can support such maliciousness.”
“Unpatriotic Gore,” Vera put in.
“In fact, I’m quite patriotic,” Vidal insisted. “Why else write about my country at such length?”
“They seem to have forgotten their history,” Greene said.
Howard Austen was shaking his head. “The schools gave up a long time ago.”
“The United States of Amnesia,” said Vidal, who launched into a short history of the empire, beginning with the Louisiana Purchase and moving up through the acquisition of the Philippines. “It’s an invisible empire now,” he said. “We leverage the world with a dollar bill.”
“People prefer it like that,” said Austen. “You get the benefits of empire without having to exercise direct control. No cops running around with American flags on their helmets.”
Holly, Marisa, and I watched the spectacle in silence, intimidated, with Vidal quipping away, with Greene making grand statements, with Grant reflexively taking the opposing side. I hadn’t thought of Grant as having reactionary politics, or any politics; but that evening he seemed a cross between Kipling and Churchill. At first, I’d been alarmed by the superior tone of the table. Then I realized that nobody here would go to the wall for an argument. One could say outrageous things in this company, testing them on the air, propositionally.
Vidal, in particular, seemed eager to try out various ideas, seeing how they would play in intelligent company. There was a solid core of belief there—a sense that America had betrayed its original democratic impulses, and that it had become a sham democracy, where only the rich have a say. All politicians, he claimed, were “bought men, controlled by their owners.” He disparaged the two-party system: “We have only one party, the party of business. It has two wings, Republican and Democratic.”
I waded in, gingerly. “It’s still a fairly classless society.”
Vidal laughed. “You don’t really believe that?”
I did. The fact that I, for example, was the grandson of Italian immigrants on both sides meant something to me. I could not quite reconcile my own story with Vidal’s appealing and ear-catching formulations.
“One day, you’ll see that the Bank, as I call it, controls everything.”
“I don’t believe in conspiracy theories,” I said.
Greene was smiling broadly. “Good chap,” he said. “You mustn’t let Gore badger you.”
“He’s a bully,” said Austen fondly, lighting a cigarette.
“I grew up in Washington,” Vidal said. “My grandfather was a senator. I’ve seen how the system works, and it’s not pretty.”
“You should run for office,” said Vera.
“He has,” Austen told her. “He lost.”
“If I had won, it would have been a waste of my time.”
“I thought, briefly, of standing for parliament,” said Greene. “But Gore is right. It’s the Beaverbrooks of the world who have their hands on the levers. I would have got lost in the system. Digested, rather.”
“That would have been fun to watch,” said Grant. “Like a rat going down the length of a snake.”
“In the end,” said Greene, “they shit you out.”
Grant frowned. He didn’t like the use of words like “shit” at the table, and later told me that Greene had never outgrown this adolescent streak. “Tell us your view of Vietnam, Lorenzo. You never answered Gore’s perfectly fine question. Why didn’t you go to Vietnam? Might they still come after you?”
I could hear the grandfather clock against the wall, with its slow fat tick. Maria Pia, in a black dress with white lace at the collar, was standing opposite, staring at me, aware—though she spoke no English—that I’d been put on the spot. The faces around me bobbed, unreal, in peculiar elongations of time. I was there and nowhere, vaguely aware of having drunk too much already—a glass of wine in the kitchen, and several more during the meal. I had eaten almost nothing, too excited by the company to care about feeding. Hunger seemed petty compared to the matters at hand and my wish to seize every conversational morsel.
Grant would not let me off the hook. “Perhaps you’ve already been to Vietnam? It’s an odd system, isn’t it? The typical tour of duty is what, a year or so?”
“A year,” I said.
“So have you been there?” Austen asked me.
“My brother, Nicky, was in Vietnam,” I said, moving from word to word carefully as one might step across a stream from wobbly stone to stone. I drew a big breath now. “He was killed.”
Vera gasped.
Greene, too, looked very concerned. “How long ago did this happen?”
“Last winter,” I said. “He was on a recognizance mission.” I reached anxiously for water. “He stepped on a land mine.”
“Bad luck,” said Grant.
“That’s one way of putting it,” I said.
I had managed to acquire, for the first time, Holly’s complete attention. Her eyes grew wide and glistened.
The table was frozen, and I found it unbearable. Rising, I excused myself. I rushed through the kitchen into the garden, trembling, and sat under an umbrella pine. It was sundown, and my eyes settled on a cloud of ferns, artfully untended. Below me, the sea moved through shelves of opaline translucence.
“Are you all right?”
I turned to see Holly beside me.
“Yes, thanks.”
“I’m sorry about your brother,” she said. “I had no idea.”
“I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Ruined the dinner party.”
“No, you did the right thing. It brought the discussion, well—back to basics.”
“We are basics.”
“Yes, but you’ve been—closer—than most. Closer to the war, I mean.”
“Nobody ever mentions the war here. Have you noticed?”
“It’s not their war.”
“Or yours.”
“I’m part American,” she said. “I feel some responsibility.”
“Responsibility is good,” I said, unable to conceal my annoyance.
While I was glad for Holly’s attention, I could not suppress my anger. She had not, until this evening, showed more than a slight interest in my history. Now that she knew about my loss, I seemed interesting to her.
“One thing troubles me, Alex,” she said, ignoring my irritation. “That time with Rupert, in his study. When he read and discussed your poem when I was present. It upset me afterward.”
“It’s a rotten poem.”
“That’s not my point. He just shouldn’t have done that. It was cruel.”
“I’m getting used to him.”
“Everyone does, and that’s a problem. He goes scot-free.”
“He’s a Scot,” I said, making a feeble joke. “And he’s a gifted man.”
“What nonsense.”
“You once thought him remarkable. I remember you saying it, after the birthday party.”
“Everyone’s remarkable, once you get to know them.”
“I guess you are American,” I said. “That sounds very democratic.”
“I don’t like to see Rupert treading on people, treating them like disposable objects.”
I couldn’t understand her turning on Rupert like this. “You and he are still friends, huh?”
“Of course,” she said. “But I’m under no illusions.”
She fell short of saying that I was under illusions, though I was. I had innocently apprenticed myself to him, and while part of me resisted, I still wanted to believe that, as an artist, he only did what was necessary in order to accomplish his work. If that meant cannibalizing the people around him, so be it.
A strong breeze lifted Holly’s hair and riffled her dress, which in the evening light was diaphanous. Though angry, I still wanted to embrace her.
“Were you and your brother close?” she wondered.
“It was complicated,” I said, not elaborating. I thought about what he wrote in that letter: “You probably can’t have good without bad. Or peace without war. I have seen both of these famous opposites here, and they are the same when you dig deeper. Good and Evil. Peace and War. Nicky and Alex.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “If you ever want to talk about this, I’d be glad to listen.”
“Thanks,” I said. I wanted badly to kiss her, but refrained. It would have been unseemly.
Over Holly’s shoulder, I noticed the shadow of a person beside a large hedge, barely distinguishable from the massive shadow of the bush itself. At first, I thought it must be Mimo. He had a way of making himself part of any scene like this. But I quickly realized it wasn’t Mimo. It was Marisa, her hair like a black curtain, which she swept from her brow. When our eyes met, she pulled back into the shade, behind the bush, and I could for a moment imagine I had not seen her, and that life would be simple in the days to come. That was not, of course, a possibility. Not anywhere near the Villa Clio.