After his shower, they sit out on the patio and watch the shadows lengthen over the water. Valeria serves him a plate of fettuccine garnished with small, sweet tomatoes, feta and basil, and follows it up with thin slivers of rapier fish, minced herring and capers.
Ric has neither showered nor eaten so well since leaving Sardinia and now he’s scrubbed off the layers of sea salt, he feels clean and full, and pleasantly rested. The wine dances through him with light feet: peach, lemon, delicate minerals.
Valeria sits and smokes long, thin white cigarettes. She seems comfortable in his company in just the same way Camille had been easy with him; neither of them driven to unnecessary conversation and neither of them offended by silence.
Later, she serves him a small glass of limoncello. “You had trouble in Corsica? Camille writes this in his letter. He says it is better for you to keep away from the police.” She frowns, as if he is her pupil just returned from an hour on the naughty chair. But her frown soon melts into a reassuring yet vaguely amused smile. “You can relax here; they will not bother you. My god, it is not as though we don’t have enough police: Port Police, Carabinieri, Finanza, Urbani and Forestale. Most of them I know, including the chief of the Carabinieri. It is La Polizia from Milazzo you will have to be careful of; they play by different rules. And remember, if Camille says you are a friend then what trouble you have had is not important.”
She pauses and glances at the signet ring Ric wears on the slender chain around his neck. “The ring?” she asks, “It is Camille’s?”
“No. It is a similar ring. It belonged to his friend, Gianfranco Pietri.”
She nods: “Manou’s father.”
“Yes. He’s told you about her?”
“Oh, yes,” Valeria replies, smiling again. “To give such a ring to a man implies great affection.”
Ric’s face colours: “I’ll take on board what you say about the police. Thank you.”
“Oh, don’t thank me; the chief of the Carabinieri doesn’t like waves any more than the fishermen. Storms we have in good supply and wind too? Well, this is the Isle of Winds, the home of Aeolus the King of Winds, so we are used to living with his capricious temperament. But, I have also learned waves make it difficult for us to navigate through life; we can do without them.”
“The Isle of Winds?”
“Yes,” Valeria replies, gazing out at the flat, oily sea: “Also the Island of Grief, of Drama, of the Damned, and, for many years, an island that belonged to the Devil.”
Ric studies her face. Her nose is slender and straight, not acquiline, like so many, and her cheekbones are high and proud.
“Why Grief and Drama?” he asks, “Why the Devil’s Island? To the naked eye, it looks like a small slice of paradise.” But, as soon as he has said it, Ric realises he had thought the same about the south-eastern corner of Corsica until he was dragged, kicking and screaming, beneath the surface.
She smiles a resigned, slightly amused smile, “Because history has a habit of cursing small islands like ours. Lipari is out of the way and there are always people who are in the way. Caracalla, the Roman Emperor, sent his wife, child and brother-in-law to Lipari in the third century; he had them murdered here. Later, when the Bourbons ruled the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, they expelled their political opponents and many criminals to Lipari. And yet the Bourbon Queen Maria Carolina, Marie Antoinette’s sister, built a refuge here; although we think this was because she wanted to get away from her filthy commoners, not because the British Governor of Sicily exiled her to the island.
“But the blame for why Lipari became known as the Devil’s Island lies with Mussolini. Il Duce deported many of his political adversaries here. In fact,” she mocks gently, “you had only to sneeze in public to be deported here in the 1930s; you didn’t have to be openly disrespectful of the Fascist ideal. During the years of crystallised disorder, you could be expelled here for saluting the Militia in the wrong fashion or simply by knowing someone who was on their black list. That was enough to get you locked up in the Regina Coeli in Rome before being transported like cattle to Lampedusa or Ustica or Favignana.”
“I can think of worse places to be banished to,” Ric replies.
Valeria shakes her head. “No, it was not so nice in those days. Before the political deportees came, the citadel was a prison for murderers and bandits, sometimes even Mafia. The citizens protested to the authorities, but all they did was to replace the criminals with politicians; at least they didn’t rape and beat the people of the island. But the deportees had to live in hovels and basements, and pay much in rent. On ten liras a day, if you did not get money from your family, where else were you supposed to live? The conditions were terrible. As we say, poverty is one thing, squalor is another.”
She sighs as if the island is still unclean. “One man,” she pauses, remembering, “Leonida Bongiorno, a teacher of English. He helped some of the deportees escape from Lipari. He was a man of conviction; not like so many others who wanted only to make money from the misfortune of others.”
The sun has now set away behind the island and the patio is lit by a bright full moon, suspending like a lantern low in the eastern sky.
“It’s not exactly Siberia though, is it?” Ric says, trying to lift the conversation from the doldrums of Valeria’s recollection.
“No, Ric, you are right. It is a small slice of heaven.” She lights another cigarette and exhales heavily. “We are famous for our volcano, Stromboli, and our pumice and our obsidian. But, for how much longer, who knows? There are people who want to build hotels here; to bring prosperity to our little island. If they do, we will lose our status as a World Heritage Site. As for the politicians, they continue to promise us prosperity like it is a light at the end of a tunnel. But this is a dream which should not be realised by us, the Terroni.” She glances at him. “The promise of prosperity is nothing more than an illusion: it is a false horizon which delivers only a poverty of spirit.”
Her pronouncement hangs in the air like a pregnant moth.
If Ric didn’t already know from Camille’s letter that she had been a film actress, he is sure he would have guessed so. In spite of her years, she is strikingly beautiful and even more so when stirred. She reminds him of Manou.
Valeria turns to look at him very directly, “I apologise for my rather monochromatic view of the world. It is state of mind that comes with age.”
“You’ve no need to apologise, Valeria. It’s perfectly natural to want to protect something you love. How long have you lived here?”
She gazes at him; her expression balanced between bitterness and regret: “Since the seventies. Since I realised the world is full of ugly, unforgiving and dishonest creatures.”
Valeria sighs once more. “Luchino,” she glances again very briefly at Ric, “Luchino Visconti, he promised me the part of Angelica in Il Gattopardo – The Leopard. It was good casting; it made much sense. I come from near Palermo, not far from where the Salina estate of Lampedusa’s book lies.” Valeria stands, as though it is the only way she can accommodate the pain of her memory, and Ric is reminded of how tall she is and how gracefully she moves.
“Then, out of the blue, he gives the part to that Tunisian slut and the film wins the Palme D’Or at Cannes. The rest, as one might say, is history.” She floats back down; a gossamer throw settling over a chaise longue. She sips her wine.
Ric searches for some words with which to apologise for the many great injustices of the world, but nothing that comes to mind seems either adequate or appropriate.
“Non è giusto, Valeria,” she mutters and immediately giggles. “That is not fair of me; La Cardinale was the better age for the Sedara virgin and she had worked with Luchino before. No, I should not speak ill of her, or him. He was a good communist and it’s not as though she was his paramour. Luchino was not one for the girls, if you understand what I mean by this.”
Ric feels his head weigh under the fierce glare of her emotion, and the wine and the lack of true sleep during his journey begin to tell on him.
“Please don’t think me rude, Valeria: dinner was wonderful and light years ahead of my diet of the last few days. I’m grateful to you, but I think I’d better hit the road or the water, or whatever the correct expression is.”
Valeria smiles warmly, her moment of irritation passed. “Of course, Ric; I understand perfectly. A good night’s sleep is of greater benefit to youth. When one is older, sleep, like lovers, can be elusive. And the only lover available to a woman of my years is Morpheus; to find him, I take a sleeping draught. Even our lighthouse, Faro del Mediterraneo will not wake me.”
They clear the table and take the dishes and glasses into her modest kitchen.
As he turns for the door, she says, “In the morning we will talk of this ancestor you come to look for. And we will talk about how to improve Mara’s health.” She hesitates, “If you would like, Ric, you are welcome to sleep on the sofa. I have spare blankets and I am certain you will find my sofa more comfortable. Mara will be quite safe without you; there are no storms forecast this night.”
Ric smiles in appreciation.
“I would offer you my bed,” Valeria grins, playfully, “but you are not Camille and I am not young. In the morning, bring me your washing and I will see to it; this is one luxury you can share with Camille.”