Valeria grins knowingly, “A problem to do with Camille?”
“Long story,” he cuts her off, watching her and trying to fathom why she should take the information in such a curiously casual manner.
“As you know, Ric, I have plenty of time for long stories. Try me? But, kindly fetch another bottle of wine from the fridge before you start; listening can be thirsty work.”
While he fetches the wine, Valeria lights a small lantern and places it in the middle of the table.
Ric pours and sits down. “I spent last summer in Corsica, which is where I met Camille–”
“And Manou,” she interrupts, delivering him yet another knowing smile.
“Yes, and Manou. And…”
“And…?” Valeria asks.
“And after that, I met with some trouble. Or rather Manou and Camille met with some trouble and I ended up getting caught in the middle of it.”
“Trouble!” she says, shaking her head. “It follows some people around like bad perfume. Go on.”
“Well, afterwards it seemed best I leave. Camille, as you know, sold me the Mara. Or, more accurately, he gave it to me.” Ric pauses. “I guess I never looked at it this way, but I suppose you could say it was a way of paying me for a service I’d rendered. The old fox might like to think of it in those terms, but I still can’t get used to looking at it that way.” He pauses again.
“Go on, Ric.”
“When I left with the Mara, Camille presented me with a couple of passports the campers had left behind. He said that being the south of the island, the trouble would most likely go away in good time. They seem to have a way of burying the more uncomfortable aspects of the past over there.”
Ric knows he has to keep the unpleasant details out of his explanation and right on cue his thigh twinges. “But, Camille suggested I use one of the passports over the winter in case the police in Corsica decided to take an interest in what had happened; in case they started looking for me. In the event, I didn’t use them; it didn’t feel right, pretending to be some other guy.
“The good news is I’ve still got the passports; the bad news is Camille gave me something else. And it’s that something else which is now missing from the Mara.”
Valeria lights another cigarette, mulls over what he has just told her and looks up, observing him the way a teacher might observe a child responsible for disturbing her classroom. “Why did you not throw these passports away when you had the chance?”
“Christ only knows,” he replies.
She is quiet again for a moment before nodding her head, as though she has grasped some fine detail about his actions or rather his lack of them. “You did not throw them away because you are still running away from something and thought there might come a time when you needed them.”
“Sure. From the police.”
“No,” she says, searching his face for a clue, “there is something more. Perhaps you are still running away, but not from something; perhaps you are still running from someone. Not from Manou, from your wife. It is as Nino said: a weight which is too heavy to set down.” Valeria stares at him, but not in the unyielding manner of an interrogator or with the inquisitive eyes of a gossip; more she gazes at him with the gentility and compassion of a priest.
When he does not reply, she reaches over and lays her hand on his forearm and squeezes it softly.
“I told you, Ric, I ran away from life when I understood I no longer possessed the energy to act. The camera would look at me and I would look back, but I felt the camera was looking right through me, as if I was made of glass. When this dreadful thing happens to an actor, the cinema makes an orphan of her; no one wants her.”
Valeria bridles at a thought that has occurred to her and she hesitates, before saying, “This was the second time the world made an orphan of me, so I decided I would not risk being cast out a third time.” She grins self-consciously and chews her lip. “I told you, Ric, this is why I came to Lipari, to La Casa dei Sconosciuti; to live among strangers who speak to me, but who can do me no harm.”
He is very genuinely touched by her openness and feels minded to repay her generosity, but…
“But what, Ric?” Valeria urges. “But what?”
“But…” he replies, grimacing, wondering. “It all seems so simple and yet it isn’t. You were there when I told Nino about how I was in Afghanistan, on my second tour of duty, and that it was while I was out there that my wife was killed in a car accident. If that wasn’t bad enough, she had begged me not to go; she said she felt something awful was going to happen.”
He glances at her in search of some encouragement.
Valeria’s countenance is serious and questioning; the frown lines around her eyes indicating she is intent on hearing him out. “It is only natural that a woman should worry in this way. Please, Ric, go on.”
“One morning, one of our patrols got into contact with the Taleban and I was sent out with my men to help extract them. However, the initial contact turned out to be a feint to drag us into a larger fight and three of my men were killed. I sustained some injuries and was medevac’d out. While I was on the way back to the hospital, I had this incredible dream in which my wife was killed. It may have been the morphine – God knows they pumped me full of the stuff – or it may have been the shock of the injuries or some kind of post-traumatic stress from the engagement; nobody knows. All I do know is that exactly what I had seen in my dream turned out to be true; she had died.”
Valeria pours more wine into his glass, as if to fuel his recollecting. “And after?”
“And afterwards… although I’m not sure there is such a thing as afterwards.” He glances again at her in much the same way as she glanced at him only a few moments before. “Afterwards? Well, I’d lost my bearings, couldn’t make any sense of any of it; I just wandered around in some sort of permanent blue funk. The shrinks said it was all perfectly natural; and it probably was. But eventually I realised I needed to find some kind of anchor; something solid I could relate to in order to get my bearings.
“During all of this, my father passed away and while I was sorting out his personal affects, I came across this old photograph of my great-grandfather in Foreign Legion uniform, standing beneath the gate to a garrison. Here.” He shows her the photograph he has kept with him since the day he left home.
Valeria studies it in the dim light cast by the lantern. “And this is the man you think is Antonio Sciacchitano, your ancestor?”
“Yes. It’s naturally a little faded. The man’s features are indistinct because his face is in shadow, so it’s not possible to see any facial resemblance. But it came to me one day that if I found out a little more about my own personal history, where I’d come from if you like, it might help me work out where I was and, with any luck, how to go forward.”
“And this was when you met Camille?”
“In a roundabout way. I located the garrison in Bonifacio, on the southern tip of Corsica, but it’s no longer in service. Camille, I met after that and Manou a little later.”
“And there you met this trouble you speak of?”
“Yes.” Ric sits back and folds his arms.
Valeria reads his body language and remains silent for a minute, pondering what he has told her.
There is no breeze and the Sicilian Sea before them reflects the polished obsidian of night. The cliffs to their right have surrendered the airy thermals which hold the cavazza aloft and the last hydrofoil of the day scurries away towards the mainland. Fishing boats, their navigation lights shining like fireflies, whine and dart to and fro in the darkness.
Her eyes glint in the light of the lantern and her cigarette glows red. “And now you think that whatever it is that you find here will provide you with the strength and the direction to continue?”
Ric assumes a melancholic expression. “Who knows? Maybe?” But then he remembers Commissario Talaia taking his real passport, “Maybe not?”
She stubs out her cigarette, drawing the evening to a close. “Let us hope Old Nino finds enough in his memory to help you, Ric.”
“Which reminds me,” he says, rising from his chair and collecting the dishes. “I spent yesterday afternoon looking around the cemetery and found a grave near the chapel house. The headstone suggests the occupant’s name is Antonio Sciacchitano.”
“That is interesting,” Valeria replies, and after a moment’s consideration, she begins to chuckle.
“Yes, isn’t it?” But he realises from her amusement that there is something about his discovery he has missed. “What’s so funny?”
Valeria laughs, loudly; a gay, melodious and unconstrained laugh.
“What?” he asks again, clearly mystified by her reaction to his news. And the greater his puzzlement, the louder she laughs.
Finally, when her laughter has subsided, she says, “Think about it, Ric,” she tries to say as she surrenders to yet another fit of childish giggles. “How can this man be your great-grandfather from Britain if he is lying in a grave in Lipari?”
Even though, but for the gentle light thrown by the lantern, they are sitting in the dark, Ric reddens with embarrassment. He slaps his head as if to knock some sense into it. “Oh god, I didn’t think of that.”
“No, you didn’t. But did the headstone say when this Antonio Sciacchitano was born; perhaps he was your great-great-grandfather?”
Ric recalls the image of the headstone, “Thought of that! But no, it didn’t give his date of birth, only his date of passing, July 1930.”
Valeria stops chuckling, “1930, you say?”
“That’s how it read. I spoke to Old Nino last night; he seemed to think the date should mean something to him too, but his memory was a bit dull. Does it ring any bells with you?”
But instead of committing any more thought to it, Valeria gets to her feet and begins clearing their dishes. As she walks away, she says, “Only that 1930 is the year I was born.”