Valeria is hanging his washing on a line behind the cottage when he returns.
“You should let me do that.”
She sucks her teeth, “When I can no longer hang out the washing, then I will lie down for good. What did Il Velaccino say?”
Ric chuckles.
“Oh, of course, he told you I am La Strega. Well, you will find the Siciliani are not offended by their sobriquets. To most, I am known as La Strega, the witch, and Marcello is known as Il Velaccino, the sailmaker.” She gathers her basket and he follows her inside.
“I’m afraid the Mara is going to be out of the water for a few days,” he says, “and I won’t be able to stay on board while he does the work.”
“It is not a matter, you can stay here.”
“Marcello, Il Velaccino, has offered me a place in town and I don’t want to put you out: fish and house guests and all that.”
Valeria turns to look at him, clearly none the wiser for his expression.
“Sorry, it’s an old saying: the similarity, fish and house guests, they both start to go off, to smell, after three days.”
But, Valeria is still studying him, dreaming or perhaps trying to find a deeper meaning in what he is saying.
“Something my mother used to say,” Ric offers. He wonders for a moment whether he has offended her by rejecting her hospitality and appearing to throw his lot in with the man to whom she has just introduced him.
Then she comes out of her stupor: “As I said, it is not a matter. You can come and collect your washing tomorrow, but first a little coffee and biscuits.”
They sit out on her patio and watch the sailing boats beat the breeze down towards Vulcano. The air is clear and from where they sit the coast of Sicily is a faint blur on the horizon. Yet another Aliscafo hastens noisily around the citadel.
The nacatuli biscuits are small and round and decorated with flowers and leaf shapes; they taste of almonds and cinnamon and rose water.
“Cavazza,” Valeria says, pointing at a herring gull circling the cliffs away to their right. The gull’s cry is jarring and scornful, as though it objects to carrying the ills of the world on its broad, black-tipped wings.
Beyond the cliffs, the tall, grey-white, bald cone of Vulcano dominates the horizon. “Is the volcano still active?” Ric asks.
“No, no longer. The white smoke comes from sulphur fumaroles at the rim of the crater. There are four volcanoes, all dormant now. A Scottish man, Stevenson, bought the island in the nineteenth century. He mined sulphur for making explosives, for treating skin conditions, making paper, that kind of thing. Stevenson also mined alum for purifying drinking water and for cosmetics, but he built houses, and planted vineyards and orchards. Then in 1888 the volcano erupted for two whole years; Stevenson left and nobody went back until after the Second War. Before Stevenson, the Bourbons sentenced their condemned to work in the mines. People say Vulcano is the closest place to hell on earth, which is probably why the Romans thought it was the entrance to the underworld.”
“Seems a pretty uninviting spot,” Ric says.
“Oh,” Valeria drags on her cigarette and exhales a long stream of white smoke not unlike those issuing from the crater, “there are some hotels on the coast, just across the straight. And, sometimes I go to Acqua di Bagno for the hot mud. It is good for the skin. But you cannot get away from the smell of the sulphur; it can be overwhelming. Some days, when the Scirocco blows, you can smell it from here.”
“I suppose one can get used to most things,” Ric adds, “but living with the many volcanoes must be like living in the shadow of several time bombs.”
“Yes, it is. The volcanoes can be destructive, and yet they can be benevolent too; over the years they have provided the islanders with the means to make a living. First they provided obsidian; the black glass which you find on the beaches. Pliny, the Roman naturalist, named it this way; it was first used as a cutting tool in the Stone Ages. It is said that Pliny died trying to rescue a friend from the eruption of Vesuvius: ironic, eh, don’t you think?
“Many people died mining the sulphur and alum, and later they began to mine the pumice. As recently as the seventies Lipari exported 150 million lira of pumice. It was one of the few regions of Italy which were not in debt. However, that has stopped now; there are cheaper sources of pumice and the idea of child labour no longer sits so easily alongside the idyll that is Lipari. Stromboli is now the only time bomb, as you put it.”
“I stumbled across Stromboli on my way here,” Ric says, recalling the colourful aberrations which had interrupted his night, “didn’t seem to be sleeping too soundly to me.”
“If you were coming from Sardegna, what you saw was probably the Sciarra del Fuoco, the Path of Fire, on the north-western side. But you are correct, Faro del Mediterraneo never sleeps. For thousands of years the sailors of the Mare Siculum have relied on her light to guide them home.”
“She?”
“Yes, she: Mount St Helens, the Three Virgins and the Saints Ana, Clara and Isabel. They are all women.” Valeria turns to face Ric, smiling and yet calculating. “Is there a man who can match a woman for her emotion, her ferocity? And who can look at a volcano without seeing a woman’s breast rising out of mother earth? Yet, I have heard it said that when a volcano is active, she is a woman and when the volcano sleeps, he is a man. Strange, no?”
Away to the north Stromboli sits quietly electing a new Pope. Ric smiles back. “But I thought Stromboli was a character from Pinocchio, the Disney film?”
Valeria nods, “Yes, you are correct. In Collodi’s novel Mangiafuoco is the fire eater, but in the film he is a puppeteer. But,” she adds, “as much as Faro del Mediterraneo can be a blessing, she can also be a curse.”
“A curse? Why?”
Valeria frowns and pauses. “Yes, a curse. Her flames attract people in the same way a light attracts insects; people, like insects, become transfixed by her brilliance. But, when one gets too close to her flame…”
“Your house, La Casa dei Sconosciuti?” Ric asks “The House of Strangers?”
“Yes.” She stubs out her cigarette and sips her coffee. “You remember I told you about the island being a prison during the time of Il Duce. Well this house was used as a meeting place for the political deportees. La Casa dei Sconosciuti brought many strangers together.”
Valeria lights another cigarette and gazes out at the sea. “I was drawn to the house when I came here. It was appropriate. I needed to find peace – a certain anonymity – and it is often to be found in the company of strangers. They may be silent strangers, long dead, but their souls still walk the shoreline at night. I find their presence comforting.”
Though the sun is by now close to its zenith and the heat haze has reduced the view of the mainland to a faint smear, Ric shivers. Valeria is the first person since Manou in Corsica who has referred to the dead as though they still walk in the land of the living.