Ontreto

by Peter Crawley

  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.”

  12

  Her sofa provid
es a better night’s sleep than his bed on board the Mara. But it is narrower than he might have hoped and several times in the night he dreams he is balanced on the edge of a cliff, staring at rocks and shallow water.

  Over a breakfast of fresh apricots, sweet cake and coffee strong enough to tar a road, Ric again asks Valeria if there is a boatyard where he can get the Mara fixed.

  “Il Velaccino, Marcello,” she replies. “He will take Mara out of the water at Canneto. He knows all there is to know about making her better. He lives at Capistello, the village up there.” She points over her shoulder at a hamlet on the hillside. “I will give you directions. You must tell him you are a friend of mine, that way he will be fair with you.”

  The air is cool and clear, and, as they sit out on the patio, Ric watches the Aliscafo charge towards the Marina Lunga.

  “Camille says in his letter that your family name was Sciacchitano.”

  “Or so he thinks,” Ric replies.

  “It is more than possible,” she says, considering. “It is a Sicilian name and there are families with this name in Lipari. That will both help and make it difficult for you to find out anything. Sadly, many people of the islands emigrated in the last century.” Valeria looks for all the world as though she’s just come out of make-up and her carefully constructed repose suggests she is expecting a photographer.

  “Even now, after scuola media most of the children go to Milazzo or Messina for further schooling. They don’t always return. Once they have seen what the world has to offer, it is hard for them to find enough reason to come home.”

  Valeria lights one of her thin, white cigarettes and ponders for a minute. “Your grandfather or great-grandfather, he left Lipari for Britain, when?”

  “We think, in the thirties,” Ric offers.

  Valeria frowns, turning figures over in her mind. “In the last years of the nineteenth century, to emigrate made much sense. Of course, the island exported pumice for the building of skyscrapers in New York and many of the men went to help build them. But the only work for men was fishing or working the pumice quarry, so in the first ten years of the last century nearly 10,000 left for America, a quarter of that number for Argentina and many to Australia. Now we have only 10,000 people on this island, although in the summer the Aliscafo brings as many people again. But… but in the thirties, life was hard; the only way to get off the island was to volunteer to go to Quarta Sponda, to Libya or Tunisia.”

  Ric is listening. But it comes to him that if the population of Lipari is so small, then it is likely that most people know each other and, therefore, it is likely that any one of the people he has met since his arrival knows either the victim or the murderer from the charade he heard played out in the mist.

  “As part of the forced colonisation, you mean?” he asks.

  “Yes, as a part of Balbo’s dream of Grande Italia. You could not leave the islands unless you had a permit. Many of those who could not get work sold their souls to the Fascist State. Before the war, the police force in Italy was greater than that of the police forces of France, Germany and Britain combined. It is unlikely that your ancestor would have emigrated from Lipari; it is more probable that he would have escaped.”

  Valeria chews her lip for a moment before adding, “I will commit some thought to this. A diversion would be most welcome. But first, you must see to the Mara. Here,” she scribbles a map of directions, “this shows you where Marcello’s house lies. He knows all there is to know about boats; even his name means he is of sea. Tell him I sent you.”

  13

  “La Strega, you say, eh? At La Casa dei Sconosciuti?”

  Ric assumes he’s referring to Valeria and the cottage, and he expects the man to follow up his questions with some sharp remark about how Ric is living with a woman old enough to be his grandmother. But he doesn’t. He busies himself poring over the tow-hitch of an archaic tractor, so Ric replies simply, “Yes.”

  Signor Maggiore is medium height and barrel-chested, and his jet-black hair frames a wide face dominated by a heavy brow, a brow which extends like a broad lintel over his arrow-straight nose. Ric recognises him as the figure who walked behind the hearse and who led the mourners of the funeral cortège two days before.

  “You are English? We can speak English. It will be easier.” He lights the stub of cigar wedged between his teeth.

  “Well, I’m probably more Welsh than English, but that would be splitting hairs given the circumstances.”

  The man frowns, but Ric feels this more from the brief and intense flash of his eyes, rather than any obvious alteration in the contours of his forehead.

  “No, I understand what you say, but it is important to split hairs. The people from Wales are not the same as the people from England. This will be like saying the terroni are the same as the polentoni, which is not true. The polentoni are from the north of Italy; they have money and die young from stress-related illness. We are the terroni of the south; we live long because we understand that life is simple.” He clears his throat, spits aside and bends to the coupling of the trailer.

  “You get many British tourists here?” Ric asks.

  “A few, not many. We are not sophisticated enough for the British. Or, maybe it is that we are too sophisticated. Who knows?” He wipes his hands on an oily rag. “Why? You want to meet people from your own country? You have a boat, why would you want to meet people of your own kind? Usually people with boats don’t want to meet people of their kind; that is why they travel by boat, alone, eh.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s more that so many people here speak English, I hadn’t expected it this far south.”

  Signor Maggiore leans back, hands on hips and stretches out his short back: “Many different reasons for this. La Strega speaks good English because she was a film actress. Escurzionisti speak good English because they must speak it to earn money. I speak good English because I had a good teacher.”

  “Bongiorno?”

  The broad Liparotan eyes Ric a little suspiciously. “Si, Leonida Bongiorno, the comunista. I was not one for learning, but he was a good professor for me.” He pauses for a moment and weighs Ric in his mind. Whatever conclusion he reaches, he dismisses it.

  “But, I have to fix boats for every nationality, so it is a good ability for me. Not,” he says, pointing out to sea, “boats like this, eh?”

  Ric turns and shades his eyes to watch a gargantuan motor yacht open at the transom to disgorge a sizeable tender and several jet-skis. It is absurdly monolithic in proportion; at least twice the size of the Kohar, the Armenian’s yacht in Corsica: “Not so much gin palace as champagne palace.”

  “Si, they get bigger and bigger, like big hotel, perhaps one day even bigger.”

  “You could hide a small army in one of those.”

  The man Valeria has referred to as Il Velaccino glances up at Ric. “Si, or many bad people, fugitives, illegal immigrants… last summer a little bird told La Polizia in Milazzo that one of these boats, a Russian boat, was taking a Serbian war criminal to Africa to escape the Court of Hague. They arrest the boat and bring it here, to Marina Lunga. Big important happening: much chest puffed out and growing taller for La Polizia. Then,” he begins to chuckle, “then they find out it is not a Serbian war criminal, but it is a member of the Russian Parliament – the Dumas – on his way to a party with Il Cavaliere – Berlusconi – in Panarea.” He laughs, bends, slaps his thigh, and wipes his eyes with the same oily rag with which he has just wiped his hands. “Ah, it was what you would call priceless. Many red faces; many cocks suddenly walking like hens. Much amusement for us, eh? La Polizia, they go back to Milazzo to argue with each other. Perhaps they don’t come to feel the heat in our kitchen for a while, eh?

  “Now, I have work and soon the sun will be high. What can I do for the Mara?”

  Ric explains the problem with the packing around the stern tube seal and Marcello Maggiore says he can fix it, only the boat will have to be out of the water for a few days.
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br />   He plucks the cigar from between his teeth, examines it and then rubs his lower lip in thought: “You cannot stay on Mara while she is out of the water. This is not possible, I don’t have the correct braces; only enough to keep her up while we work. You can stay at La Casa dei Sconosciuti, with La Strega?”

  “How long’s a few days?”

  “Maybe five, maybe a week? I have others waiting and it will help me to have Mara at my yard if I need to order parts.”

  “Five nights might be too long on Valeria’s sofa. For her, I mean. I’d be better off taking a room in town.”

  Signor Maggiore examines his cigar once more. “I have an idea. Your name is…?”

  “Richard Ross, Ric will do.”

  Il Velaccino examines his own hand before offering it. “Marcello, pleased to meet you, Ric.” His fingers are lean and strong. “You are a friend of La Strega?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then, I have a monolocale in the town, in a vico near the Garibaldi. I rent it out in the summer. Now it is empty, so you can have this for as long as it takes me to make the repairs.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Ric replies, surprised the man has not demanded a fee for the accommodation. “Thank you.”

  Marcello relights his stubby cigar, takes a couple of drags and walks away, checking the straps on his trailer as he goes. “Now I must work; we can talk later. You want me to come to Casa dei Sconosciuti or I see you in Marina Corta?”

  “The Corta will do. I don’t have that much kit. What time?”

  “Oh, I see you at passeggio.” He waves his cigar in salute.

  14

  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?”