Until a few years before, the Carabinieri guarded common criminals, the curse of the island. But the people, Tonio amongst them, stormed their own citadel in protest and as a result the authorities replaced the thieves and murderers with political deportees, with gentlemen. So, while Tonio labours in the pumice quarries, the people of the island do their level best to relieve the former members of the Italian Parliament – men like Volpi from Rome, Beltrimini of Como and Rabezzana of Turin – of as much of their living allowance as they can. With over five hundred of them billeted in basements and hovels in and around the città bassa, they are the reason Tonio cannot take the quickest route to his destination; the deportati are watched day and night.
Something over half an hour later the moon sees Tonio slip past San Nicola. He is surprised by a patrol near the church of Santa Anna and has to hide for a few minutes in the doorway of Bartolo the cobbler.
“I must be making too much noise,” Tonio whispers as the old man unlatches the door and ushers him inside.
“If you are going to play spies, Tonio, you really should wash first. They won’t need to see you coming; they’ll smell you.”
They stand and whisper for a minute or so, but old Bartolo knows better than to ask Tonio what he is doing out at this late hour. Questions only demand answers, and some answers are best not heard.
“And please, stop scratching; they’ll hear you before they smell you. Next time you come to visit, stop by San Calogero and take a bath; your lice are a greater threat to your wellbeing than the Carabinieri. Go on, get out, they have gone now.”
Tonio takes the lane out to Capparo, the southern tip of the island, and scurries off towards the sea just before the land rises up to the small settlement of Capistello.
The house at Punta San Giuseppe is difficult to approach; there is only one narrow lane in and it twists and turns down the steep hillside, running out at the small house which sits up on the blunt promontory, a tall man’s height above the sea.
Vincenzo has told him that a motor launch will come in to the punta at midnight and that the three deportati will be waiting in the water, perching on Homer’s coffin; a rock which rises up from the seabed and crowns just below the surface, not fifty metres from shore. It is a similar escape route to the one taken by Nitti, Lussu and Roselli the year before; except that they met at a house on the Maddalena and were collected from the point near Portinente.
What Vincenzo has also told him is that these other, new men are clearly betrayed, that the Fascist authorities will now be lying in wait for them and that he, Tonio, must warn them. But what Vincenzo has singularly failed to tell Tonio is just how he is supposed to warn them. Is he supposed to swim out to the coffin and casually tap one of them on the shoulder and say, “If you please, gentlemen, we are very sorry to have to tell you that we have a traitor amongst us. Perhaps it would be better for you to postpone your departure?”
He knows only one of the three men trying to escape: Farinelli.
He admires Farinelli. It is known that he is brave, an Ardito from the Great War, and that he started out as a supporter of Annunzio. But, like so many others, when he learned how the poet’s words were nothing but empty promises, he followed Matteotti into the opposition Reformist Party. Then, when the Fascisti assassinated Matteotti, Farinelli was deported, first to Lampedusa and then to Lipari.
“That is how it is if you are political; that is why I have no time for such matters,” Tonio mutters. But, he also knows that Farinelli and Vincenzo’s daughter, Katarina, are close. He has seen them out together at passeggio. And that is why it is only natural that Vincenzo should take such an interest in the man’s welfare. That is not political, is it, eh?
The sea is but a short walk away now and the moon shines so bright, it might as well be the sun. Tonio shudders to think how anyone is supposed to hide themselves in such light. And, as he shudders, he makes out the heads of the three men bobbing just above the water out about where Homer’s coffin would be. They are waiting patiently like buoys waiting for a boat, which, he supposes, is exactly what they are doing.
Tonio creeps down between the small holly oaks and cistus. He is afraid. He hates the silence; it has never been a friend to him. Even at this late hour he would expect to hear a fishing boat setting out for the night or a herring gull shrieking from the cliffs beyond the point. But there is nothing, only silence; not even the glow of a lamp from within the little house.
He works his way as quickly and quietly as he can down to the water’s edge. It is not easy; in places the scrub gives way to bare rock and the slope drops away sheer into the water.
Tonio loses his footing and slips, stumbles and falls down the last of the slope, pitching headlong into the black water. He lands with a thunderous splash.
But the water is, if nothing else, cool and refreshing on his skin. Bah, Vincenzo, he thinks, at least there is some pleasure.
There is little point in his trying to keep his presence quiet any longer. “Signori?” he calls, cupping his hand to his mouth and not really understanding why; in all probability they will have heard his grand entrance over in the Marina Corta. “Signori, you must come back.”
But as he calls, Tonio becomes aware of the noise of a boat engine some way off shore. It is a growling noise, like the noise of the generator at the quarry, only more urgent.
Tonio begins to swim in the direction of the men; his stroke is raw and uncultured. “Signori, gentili, you are betrayed!” he calls again.
The sound of the motor grows and echoes around the gullies of the hill behind him. He is worried that the boat will run him down if it doesn’t slow up soon. It is somewhere close; he is sure of it. Still, though, he cannot see it. He stops and treads water for a moment, hoping to catch a glimpse of the boat as it approaches. He can see the heads of the men not far away. “Signori,” he calls once more.
Now, he can just make out the white shimmering bow-wave of the boat, carving through the night towards him. It is a beautiful sight, bright and shiny like the silver paint on the statue of San Bartolo up in the cathedral. The boat is low and long. It slows and halts. The motor dies and a torch is played over the heads of the men. There is much excited talking.
Then, all that is dark is light and all that is silence is noise. And where there were three men waiting for a single boat, there is now a great commotion and more boats than Tonio has ever seen, even at the festival of San Bartolo.
The long motor launch lies not thirty metres before him. Hunched figures lean over the rail, reaching down to haul the men from their precarious perch in the sea, and Tonio can see this quite clearly because all are now bathed in the white light of a thousand candles.
A rifle is fired, then a machine gun and then more guns.
The water around the launch boils and jumps, like when fishermen herd tuna towards a net. The figures fall back, some into the boat, others into the water.
A man screams and waves his hands in the manner of a Sicilian puppet.
Another man stands still and raises his arms in surrender, pleading. But, the water continues to boil and the bullets continue to strike. And the man lurches and crumples and falls headfirst into the sea.
One of those in the water attempts to climb into the boat, exposing his broad back to the searchlight. It spots black in several places and the man slumps back down, one of his arms slipping so slowly, ever so slowly, from the rail, as if in one final, desperate plea for help.
And the side of the motor launch is exploding into tiny fragments and splinters, and someone is shouting. And suddenly there is no more shooting because there is no longer anyone left alive to shoot at. The gunfire echoes around the shore and gradually fades away. The silence is interrupted only by a weak, pleading moaning, like that of a man who knows he is about to close his eyes for the last time.
Tonio has heard this moan before. It is the same moan his father gave out when he fell through the floor of the drying house at Porticello and broke his back acro
ss the wheel of the cart below. Even Innocenzio had not been able to blame that terrible misfortune on the authorities.
There is little else to be done. The carnage Tonio has witnessed will live in his memory; that is, if he is to live long enough to possess a memory. He is too late; all his efforts have been in vain. He slips slowly beneath the water, turns himself round and strikes out for the shore, careful not to break the surface with his strokes.
Oh Vincenzo, he thinks as he clambers ashore, if you have killed me, there will be trouble.
2
Early summer 2013
During the night Ric slips into the fitful doze of the lone yachtsmen. He doesn’t allow himself to fall fast and deeply asleep which, given half the chance, is exactly what he would like to do. All it takes is the briefest trembling of a sheet or the thinnest slap of a wave to jerk him rudely awake.
And yet, during the moments in between, he dreams.
And he dreams light, frivolous fantasies of Manou and the boy he came to know in Corsica. And he dreams of Camille, the white-haired old fox whose boat he now sails, and the kindness and generosity of the people he has met in the small harbours of the east coast of Sardinia: Fabrizio the mechanic in Santa Maria Navarese, Giuseppe the carpenter in Arbatax, and Carmelo the harbour master of Cagliari, where he has passed most of the winter.
Camille, in signing the small yacht over to Ric, has sent him on his way with various letters of introduction, which is fortunate, because in just about every harbour along the way, some old salt pitches up to press him: Where is Camille? Why is it that this stranger is on board the Mara without him? And, perhaps more to Ric’s liking, will the new owner come ashore and take a little wine, as Camille surely would have?
The Mara is old, like her previous keeper, and many of her small things – her padeyes, bails and the snap shackles of her rigging – are brittle and occasionally break beneath his clumsy fingers. She is old, but she is not ancient. Rather she is old in the way that one instantly recognises a great aunt who is old and therefore very naturally deserving of respect; as though the moment you recognise the light of wisdom in her eyes, you understand that she has seen much and knows more.
The Mara is an elegant and distinctive sloop; ten or so metres of hand-planed Cedar of Lebanon, slim at the hips and lithe through the water. But, what she wants more than anything from Ric is his time; time for him to understand that she is happier just off the wind as opposed to running fast before it; time for him to attend to the helm, which jams occasionally; and time to sort the rigging, which snags whenever he reefs the main. And that is not to mention the bilge pump, which runs only when it sees fit.
But it is Manou he misses most. Eight months have passed since he left the tiny bay at La Tozza on the south-eastern coast of Corsica and every time he closes his eyes she appears before him. It is as if she commands the approaches to his sleep in the same way Cerberus commands the gates to the underworld.
But, though Manou monopolises his sleep, there is good news. For Ric knows that if it is Manou’s face he sees whenever he closes his eyes, it means the dream hunter has at last departed and with him he has taken the faces of the dead.
Tonight is Ric’s fourth night out of Cagliari. A strong and steady Libecciu has been blowing out of the south-east and he hopes it will take him only another day or so to reach his destination.
But Aeolus has other designs for him. The devious son of Poseidon prefers to toy with Ric, just as he has toyed with so many other seafarers who pass too close to the islands of his birth. The God of Winds is bored and, by way of distraction, turns his eye to simple amusements. He stills the Libecciu and replaces it with a thick, clinging sea mist.
The choice, for Ric, is simple: either wallow at the mercy of the current or run up the motor so the Mara can make some way. He furls the jib, hauls down the mainsail and returns to the cockpit to start up. After a few juddering objections, the engine coughs, clears its throat and settles to a purr.
Ric maintains his westerly heading; gliding like a lean ghost through the white mist, which opens and then closes swiftly behind him.
If the Mara possessed even the most basic radar, he might sleep more restfully. But, she doesn’t have radar in the same way that she doesn’t have any other more conventional navigational aids and conveniences; the mast head and crossbar lights being the only concession the Mara makes to modernity. The old boy, Camille, hadn’t needed them. He’d merely gone wherever the wind had taken him, just as Ric is now going wherever Aeolus drives him.
He wakes, startled. The deck beneath him stirs and he grows aware of small waves lapping at the side of the hull.
But the night mist still blinds him and he wonders how it is that without the wind, the sea is disturbed. He hears a muted thump, like a bass drum beaten once, and becomes aware of a dull crimson glow high up ahead.
From disturbed, the sea is very soon distressed and the Mara begins to pitch and yaw. The waves increase in height and weight and he has to hold the wheel firmly to maintain his heading. Ric glances at the compass and notices the needle is uncertain about its bearing.
The crimson glow, an explosive incandescence he recalls from a far-away-field, burns bright and intense; an eerie fire on a hillside high up beyond the prow of the little boat. And the odours of the very same far-away-field now lay siege to his senses: sulphur, mustard and bad eggs, and the bitter, stinging, acrid edge of cordite, of urgent exercise in oppressive heat and, inevitably, of decomposition.
Ric is unnerved by nature’s sudden display of energy. He is humbled and apprehensive. He cannot think what this lurid apparition means.
A second thump from the same drum results in a thick spray of garish liquid; a vivid spout of fresh blood, like that from a bullet wound. It shoots high up from the summit and falls back to earth, radiant and piercing to his eyes: the dazzling reds of the cherry orchard at dawn, the blazing yellow of the desert sun at midday and the deep purple of last light in the mountains. And the nearer he comes to the volcano, the greater grows his fear.
The sea is bewildered; the waves wash this way and that, not knowing which way to run. The compass still swings wildly and Ric, now standing at the helm, his blood thundering through his veins, realises that immediately in front of him must lie some significant land mass and that he must turn away to avoid it.
He feeds the helm to starboard and steers the Mara away so that the volcano comes to rest over his left shoulder.
The drum is, for the moment, silenced and the fire, though casting its strange glow about the boat, grows dim. The sea settles, the waves drop in strength and frequency, and the compass is once more steadied.
Ric stays standing, alert, at the helm. Whoever was beating the drum has decided to leave him to wander through the mist.
Thinking to give the island a wide berth, he steers south-south-west. There is a small group of islands lying to the south of his projected route and, because he can’t recall their names or their disposition, he makes a mental note to check their lie at first light.
He looks at his watch: there are still a couple of hours before dawn. Now wide awake, his senses heightened by the sudden emergence and slow disappearance of the strange light, he figures he’d be better to stay on watch. If he has drifted south, he might be somewhere in the shallow channels between the islands. In the fog, where he has no hope of making out any of the harbour lights, and without radar, he will have to stay awake until the morning sun burns away the mist.
The Libecciu has given up on him and Ric is now beholden to the Mara’s screw and the rhythmic swell beneath his feet.
Aeolus, like the gamekeeper and his dogs, is stalking his prey.
3
Dawn is too long in coming and the mist persists, coating every surface in a cool, sticky film of moisture. Ric is still awake and alert, listening for the slightest sound that might warn him of another vessel or his imminent landfall.
Every now and then the wake from a much larger boat some way off
in the gloom unsteadies the Mara and she lurches, like a drunkard.
The assembly of ropes which, when tied to the helm, go to make up a rudimentary autopilot, allow him time to go below to fetch his chart. When he studies it, he realises the swell has pushed him south and that the source of the curious, crimson eruptions during the night must be the volcano on the island of Stromboli. If that is the case and he has been motoring slowly south-south-west for a few hours, he reckons he is somewhere near Lipari, the largest of the Aeolian Islands.
Ric sits down and rests his hand against the helm. He munches his way through a few of the cigar shaped aranzada. The orange peel, honey and almond biscuits rouse his taste buds and replenish his energy reserves; the marmalade flavours suggest his day is only just beginning.
The chart, he notices as he folds, is getting damp; the heavy condensation is soaking into the paper and softening the pages, which are splitting along the creases.
Ric stares into the opaque wall of vapour that surrounds him. He stands up and stoops, climbing down into the cabin to lay the chart back on the small folding table.
As he pulls himself back up the steps to the cockpit he looks aft. The sea is now so calm and flat that, bar the small swirls and eddies caused by the slowly turning screw, the Mara leaves little evidence of her progress. He wonders what Manou is doing? Probably, he decides, she is preparing the campsite at Renabianca for the first of her early season sun-worshippers. He pictures her strolling through the pines to the white sandy beach, stopping here and there to collect debris blown by the winter winds or sheaves of sea-grass washed ashore by the spring squalls.
Ric turns round to face forward and is astonished to see a tangle of iron girders stretching up out of the sea like the petrified limbs of a partially submerged forest.
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