The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro

by Paul Theroux

  The resentment that built up in me during the day—a furious feeling that she seemed deliberately to provoke—I unleashed on her at night as soon as the door to her suite was locked and bolted. The double lock was necessary.

  One night, early on in our lovemaking, she was loudly groaning and I was butting her hard with my hips. There was a knock at the door and a voice of worried, querying concern.

  “Contessa...”

  The Gräfin instantly ceased her pleading moans and through gritted teeth cried, “Via!”— Go away!

  And almost without a transition we continued, all her bravado gone, for while outside the room she was an insulting countess, inside she was a cowering peasant girl, kneeling before me and pleading, imploring my hardened cock, holding it with her gloved hands, and caressing it with her lips and tongue with murmurs of satisfaction.

  When she wanted something particular, she asked for it obliquely, using the childish method of paradoxical injunction—the way a panting bright-eyed child says, “Better not chase me! Better not tickle me!”

  Only the Gräfin's suggestions were much more specific: “Whatever you do, I beg you, don't open the drawer of my dresser and find the dog collar and the leash. If you do, I will have to wear it and you will treat me like a dog and force me to lick you and get me on my hands and knees and take me from behind like a mastiff...”

  She scattered rugs and pillows and blankets on the floor to protect her knees, for the Gräfin’s preferred position was on all fours, facing the sofa, near enough to rest her head on it, to howl into the cushions and muffle the cries she knew would startle the palazzo's staff again.

  Sometimes she rolled over, the way a dog does to have its belly tickled, only she would raise her legs and, pretending to cover herself, claw at the lacy crotch of her panties and protest insincerely, saying “Nein.”

  Licking her, humping her, nuzzling her back, buttock-sniffing like a spaniel, I was the dog—and a fierce one, too, for the way she treated me all day. I was the badly whipped and hectored hound that turned on its mistress, but in this case it was just what she wanted.

  I did not naturally resist, I had lost the will, but instead I strayed, I procrastinated, absented myself, became scarce, wandered the side streets of Taormina, and generally avoided her during the day, as though not wanting to be reminded of my obligations. Haroun was never around. I guessed he had found a friend. I was the Gräfin’s companion now.

  In that week of resentment, my third in Taormina, I began to avoid her more and more, as I attempted to initiate another life in the town, parallel to the one I led at the Palazzo d'Oro. I became friendly with some of the shopkeepers, knew them by their first names, chitchatted with them about the weather, the local soccer team, a boxing match that was about to take place in Palermo. When I mentioned America they said, “Jack Kennedy!” but were otherwise circumspect. They had guessed that I was a German, and while they were friendly I realized they were being polite, for they disliked Germans. But they made an exception for visitors who stayed in Taormina and spent money and handed out tips and, in the Italian way, said they disliked “the other ones—not these.”

  All my clothes were from the men’s boutique on the Viale Nolfi, a small street off the Corso. The Gräfin and Haroun had bought me clothes in the Teutonic style—the pointed shoes, the short sports jacket, the narrow trousers, the turtleneck, the mesh shirt, the silk suit—the sort of stylish clothes an idle, self-conscious German wore on vacation. They were so stylish as to be almost formal: the light suit was easily soiled, the shoes had thin soles and were wrong for the cobblestones of Taormina, the turtleneck was too tight, the trousers too close-fitting. I was a dandy—out of character for me, I felt, but it was her desire, German pride mostly, that I should look rich and respectable, in her fashion. And clothing me was another way of making me hers. I had barely realized how I looked until I tried to talk with Italians, most of whom benignly forgave me for being foppish and prosperous.

  Waiters in Taormina, however, loved such people as I seemed, for we lingered, we smoked, we had nothing to do, we spent money and humored them and tipped them. One day at the Mocambo, where I had begun to take refuge from the Gräfin—but I went there mainly because the waiters knew me by name—I was addressed by a young woman in Italian. I took her to be a student, maybe French—she had an accent—definitely a traveler: she was dressed like a hiker and carried a sun-faded bag and a map. She wore a headscarf which in its simplicity gave her a wholesome peasant look that was also chic. As she spoke, a waiter wandered over to listen.

  “Scusi, signore, cerchiamo una pernione qui non più caro,” she said. She was looking for a place to stay that was not too expensive.

  “Benvenuto, signorina. Vieni a casa mia. C’è libero,” the waiter, Mario, said, urging her to come to his house because it was free.

  “Nothing is free,” she said in English, and was so assertive and indignant Mario walked away laughing.

  I said, “But everything is expensive in Taormina. How long are you planning to stay?”

  She said, “I want to see the Teatro Greco. The Duomo. Lawrence's house.”

  I said, “Lawrence lived in the Via Fontana Vecchia. 'A snake came to my water-trough / On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, / To drink there...'”

  “I like how he seemed ‘a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,’” she said. “By the way, your English is excellent.”

  “It sure oughtta be.”

  She laughed and said, “Where in the States are you from?”

  “Long story.”

  “I’m at Wellesley, but I am from New York.”

  “City?”

  “Upstate.”

  “I just graduated from Amherst.”

  “I know lots of Amherst guys,” she said, and sat down and named a few, names I recognized but none I knew well. “How long have you been in Taormina?”

  “A few weeks.” I did not want to admit that it was almost four, because I felt I had been so idle. “I came to see the Lawrence house too.”

  “I love that poem.”

  “English major?”

  “Art history. I've been living in Florence—junior year abroad program. I’m just traveling. I thought I would look around here and then go to Siracusa.”

  “I’ve been meaning to go there.”

  “Two weeks here and you haven’t got there yet! What’s the attraction in Taormina?”

  “Long story,” I said. “La dolce vita. ”

  She said, “Men are so lucky. If I just hang around an Italian town looking at buildings for my project, everyone takes me for a whore. That waiter was pretty typical. That’s why I have to keep on the move.”

  “Maybe I could come with you to Siracusa.”

  “That’s just what they say!”

  “I mean, to protect you—to run interference.”

  “Maybe we can talk about it,” she said nicely.

  She took off her sunglasses, seeming to peel them in one motion from her eyes, which were gray, and she took off her headscarf and shook the dust from it as her hair tumbled to her shoulders. Her hair was streaked by the sunlight and she was slim and a bit damp from her exertion: she had been walking.

  I loved her looks and her air of spontaneity and self-reliance, but just as much I loved the fact that we spoke the same language. I had gotten so used to talking with waiters in Italian and with the Gräfin and Haroun in basic English—slowly and always finishing my sentences—that I had almost forgotten the pleasure and directness of talking with another American. Meeting this woman was like meeting my sister—someone from my own family—and I was reminded of who I really was.

  She said, “I thought you might be a German. Those shoes. That jacket. It’s the look. Fashion is one of my interests. Usually I can spot an American a mile off. You had me fooled. I think that’s pretty good.”

  The Gräfin and Haroun had turned me into a German. I liked the concealment even if I was not keen on the identity.<
br />
  “I’ve got some German friends here.”

  “Italians can’t stand the Tedeschi.”

  She spoke knowingly, sure of herself, which irritated me, because although it was true that Italians disliked Germans, they didn’t hate them, they were too self-possessed to hate anyone—they were guided by village prejudices and village wisdom. Instead of telling her this I asked her what her name was—it was Myra Messersmith—and bought her a cup of coffee.

  “Gilford Mariner. Please call me Gil.”

  And we talked in that familiar, self-conscious way of isolated Americans abroad. It was not until I began to talk, unburdening myself, that I realized how many complaints I had. We swapped grievances, another habit of American expatriates, complained about the irregular hours of bars and banks and shops, the uncertainty of museum hours, the watchfulness of men, the nosiness of women, the way Italians littered their landscape, the loudness of motor scooters, the tiny cars, the long meals, the irritable bus conductors, the slowness of service, the persecution of animals, the adoration of babies, the tedium of Sundays, the peculiarities of academic life, the pedantry of teachers, the smugness of priests.

  “People with a simple BA degree call themselves dottore.”

  “Priests leer at my boobs and imply that they can personally get me into Heaven.”

  “Everyone smokes—even me!”

  So we talked and compared notes and it seemed we agreed on most things.

  She said after a while, “How much does your hotel cost?”

  Her question took me by surprise and embarrassed me. I didn’t have an answer. I said, stalling, “It depends on how long you stay.”

  “I’d like to stay a few days and then maybe we could go to Siracusa.”

  “It's really not far. We could get there in a few hours—maybe a day trip from here.”

  Already we were talking as though we were going together. It excited me to think that I would be leaving Taormina with this pretty girl who already was such pleasant company, a comforting prospect that eased my mind.

  “I don't blame you for staying here. It’s so beautiful. I guess that’s Etna.”

  The shapely volcano emitted a trickle of smoke that rose in a ragged vertical rope, like a dark vine climbing into the windless air.

  “That thing could blow at any moment.”

  Myra laughed and clutched her throat and said, “I love melodrama. Oh, right, I can see the red-hot lava pouring down the side and endangering our lives.”

  “I’d lead you to safety—into the catacombs of the Duomo.”

  “That sounds exciting, Gil.”

  This confident teasing was a sort of flirting and already I was saying “we.” She liked me, I could tell; she didn’t fear me. She was glad to have met me, she would test me a little more, and I would pass, and we would become traveling companions, cozier than ever, rubbing along through Sicily.

  While I was talking to Myra Messersmith this way, needling her gently, she became interested in something behind me and stopped listening to me. Her eyes were fixed on a moving object and she seemed to grow warier, her face darkening a bit, almost alarmed, and then she jerked her head back, startled. At that instant I felt a sharp poke against my shoulder and the harsh whisper, “Come wiz me.”

  “What was that all about?” Myra said.

  I had turned to see the Gräfin walking away.

  “Long story.” The Gräfin had never come to the Mocambo before.

  “That's the third time you’ve said that.”

  “Everything’s a long story to me. I’m an existentialist.”

  But Myra did not smile. She was thinking hard. Women know other women, because unlike men they are not beguiled by appearances: they know exactly what lies behind any feminine surface. Myra’s alertness, the single woman’s scrutiny, something new to me, amazed me with its accuracy in processing details and giving them significance—finding clues, searching for dangers, all in aid, I guessed, of choosing a mate. Men were casual, women so cautious. Even from this swift glimpse of the Gräfin, Myra knew me much better.

  “Her heels are amazing. What’s with those gloves? The hat’s Chanel, and so is the dress. I bet she gets her hair done every day. The dress is raw silk—you can tell by the way it drapes. Did you see the gold threads? That’s real gold. It’s from Thailand.”

  I took Myra’s interest for curiosity, a way of telling me that she understood fashion; and I was startled to see her rising from the café table. There was a cloud on her face, a sort of resignation and quiet anger that might have been rueful. I saw that in that moment of witnessing the Gräfin poke me, Myra had written me off as someone she could not rely on. She had summed up the situation before I said a word.

  “I’m going to Siracusa.”

  “Why?” I said, sounding lame.

  “It’s not far—you said so yourself.”

  “I thought we were going together.”

  She said in a warning tone, “You’re keeping your friend waiting, Gilford.”

  She had indeed written me off. She knew everything, it all fitted, my clothes, my presumption, my vagueness, “Long story,” the sudden appearance and unequivocal demand of the Gräfin.

  “These Germans really overdress. Especially the older ones,” she said, and turned and passed the waiter, leaving a thousand-lire note on his saucer for the coffee and the tip: pride.

  I felt like a small boy exposed in a needless insulting lie, who would never be trusted again.

  “See ya.”

  Her false bonhomie gave her a sort of pathos, but she seemed brave as she crossed the Piazzale Nove Aprile with her bag in one hand and her map in the other. She walked purposefully but she was weary and burdened and so she was a little lopsided; but she was free. She was the person I had once been, before I had met the Gräfin. I could not bear to watch her go.

  The Gräfin was on the terrace of the palazzo when I got back. The waiter stood beside her holding a bottle of wine. I sat down. He poured me a glass.

  “Drink, drink,” the Gräfin said.

  I did so, and my anger flattened the taste of the wine, soured it in my mouth. I watched the shadows rise up the walls of the terrace, saw the last of the daylight slip from the roof tiles. I said nothing, only drank. When the waiter approached—and now I was self-conscious: what did he make of me?—and lit our candle, the Gräfin stroked the inside of her handbag and found her key, which she handed to me.

  In her suite, I locked the door and shot the bolt. I drew out my leather belt with a sliding sound as it rasped through the trouser loops, lifting it as though unsheathing a sword.

  “No,” the Gräfin said with what seemed like real fear.

  I prepared to tie her wrists with the belt and she relaxed a little—she had thought I was going to beat her.

  In a calm voice she said, “There are silk scarves in the drawer of my dresser. Use them—they won't leave marks on my skin.”

  She extended her arms so that her wrists were near each bedpost and she lay while I bound her with scarves. She slipped one leg over the other, looking crucified.

  “Please, whatever you do, be gentle. Don’t rape me—don’t humiliate me.”

  Not desire, nor even lust, but anger kept me there, forcing her legs apart, fumbling with her clothes. In my determination to have my way I did not even reflect on her desire but was singleminded, thrusting myself into her. Only when I was done did I realize that her sighs were sighs of pleasure. She had exhausted me again.

  “We rest now.” Her voice came out of the darkness, waking me. “Zen we eat.”

  Meeting Myra had retuned my ear: I heard the Gräfin’s German accent as never before.

  Over dinner, the Gräfin said, “Who was zat silly girl?”

  “American.”

  “What shoes she had. Her blouse so dirty. And did you see her fingernails? She could at least brush her hair. Of course, American.”

  7

  I could not escape without encouragement. My inspi
ration was Myra Messersmith disgustedly turning away from me to pick herself up and swinging her bag and, without looking back, walking away across the piazza, into the Via Roma. The Gräfin’s contempt for Myra’s clothes made me remember everything she wore, from the white blouse and headscarf to her blue jeans and hiking shoes. She was my example. And she might still be in Siracusa.

  We had a great deal in common, Myra and I, but I knew that she was the stronger, and that it would help me to spend a few days with her. Just the half hour I had spent with her at the Mocambo had lifted my spirits and shown me who I really was, an opportunistic American who was out of his depth here, being used by Haroun and the Gräfin. In a flash, Myra saw me with some accuracy as an idle parasite who needed the patronage of a rich woman, I wanted to disprove that. I was twenty-one, still a student, who until meeting these people had been traveling light, passing through Italy making sketches. Well, not many sketches lately. I had done hardly any, as though I feared incriminating myself, or feared having to face the person I had become, a flunky in the Gräfin's entourage.

  And what images would I have recorded in my sketchbook? A howling woman in twisted underclothes. A doglike woman on all fours, buttocks upraised. A woman—I now saw—addicted to rituals: a certain time of day, a particular sequence of sexual gropings, always in the same room on the same carpet on the same portion of the floor. All of this was shocking, for sex was the last thing I wanted to depict. Sex was a secret; sexual portraiture was the stuff of lawsuits. This was 1962: the topic was forbidden. You could buy “Snake,” but Lady Chatterley’s Lover was still a scandal. The Gräfin's suite was another country, without a language, without literature, almost without human speech, with no words for its rituals; where it was always night.

  I woke as always in the daylight of my own room—the Gräfin insisted on sleeping alone—and felt preoccupied, with an excited edge to my determination, my hands shaking slightly as I drank my coffee like a farewell toast. To steel my resolve I did not talk to anyone; I needed to concentrate. I dressed, took all the cash I had, and hurried out of the Palazzo d’Oro and through the town, my head down, moving like a phantom.