Under the Same Sun (Stone Trilogy)

by Mariam Kobras

  In the last dark hour before dawn Naomi was woken by the sound of the street cleaner passing below their open balcony door. She rose quietly from the bed to step outside. It was quite cool now, the wind bringing chilly air from the mountains and mixing it with the spray from the big fountain out on the lake.

  Naomi stood, her arms wrapped around herself, listening to the sounds of night. There was a café not too far away, one that served breakfast very early in the day, where they were even now setting out the chairs and opening the blinds. She thought she could smell coffee, fresh French bread, even cinnamon rolls.

  The scent made her long for Halmar, for the still, peaceful life that passed in small, orderly steps, for the life that she had been able to control and direct.

  There, nothing had touched her, no one had been close enough to hurt her, and she had always been able to retreat into the solitude of her apartment. She had never been exposed, never threatened.

  There had been one man, only one she had ever allowed to get to know her a little. He had been a doctor from Bergen who had stayed at her hotel over a weekend to, as he had told her, rest. His unassuming, friendly manner had drawn her toward him. At first it had only been a cup of coffee, taken together outside the hotel door in the sunshine sitting on the low wall of the quay, then a dinner, then a visit to the theater in Bergen. She had broken off the budding affair after that, telling him she loved someone else, an American songwriter, and actually she was committed to him. The doctor had been bitter, accusing her of using her adoration for some rock star to break it off, telling her she was being childish and naive. He had abandoned her at the restaurant where they had been having dinner. She had caught the last ferry back to Halmar and stood out on the deck in the blustery wind, listening to the seagulls and the song of the ocean and imagined hearing Jon’s voice in it, calling to her.

  Naomi turned around to look at him where he lay sleeping, sprawled out as always, his arms flung across the bed. No curling up for Jon, no hiding under covers.

  A wave of bitter sadness threatened to drown her. Her body was still humming from their lovemaking, her lips tingling from his kisses. She let her hand glide over her scar and come to rest on her lower belly, feeling for life, wishing for it with every fiber of her soul. A girl, a little baby girl with Jon’s eyes, his love for music, his easy sense of humor. She could see them together: Jon at the piano with his daughter on his knee, teaching her a few first, simple melodies, teaching her to sing, while outside the snow fell on the Promenade. Naomi had no idea why, but she saw them in that parlor of the Brooklyn house, the big room with the bay windows looking out on the river where she placed the Steinway grand. That was the place she had picked for him. Just like in LA where she put his studio below her bedroom so she could listen to him when he chose to work late at night, listen to the soft, hesitant playing as a new song grew. His voice when he tried the lyrics. She would, she decided, buy a very comfortable, very cozy couch to put in the bedroom and put it right in front of the balcony door so she could sit there and look out at the skyline of Manhattan and the bridge. And again she envisioned snow, the peacefulness of a winter afternoon, the quiet of the white blanket muting the traffic, mellowing the contours of New York.

  Carefully she crept back into bed. Jon didn’t wake but turned and put his arms around her, muttering in his sleep, burying his face in her hair.

  Naomi pulled up the covers and drifted off, the image of falling snow following her into her dreams.

  chapter 20

  In a strange way, Hamburg reminded her of New York. Naomi thought it was the weather. They had last been in Brooklyn for Christmas, and it had been gray and dark too. She recalled walking along the Promenade with Jon, a day after they had arrived from Halmar, to buy a Christmas tree for his mother’s house. It had been so miserable that her love for the place had considerably weakened for a moment.

  Getting off the plane and standing on the tarmac of the small airport, she glanced up at the gray sky. Fine, misty rain settled on her face like a thin veil and made her hair instantly spring into curls.

  A line of limousines and vans was waiting for them right next to the hangar, all of them with tinted panes, all of them in discreet, sober black, their drivers in immaculate uniforms.

  She hadn’t been to Germany often. Her mother loved opera, and she loved Placido Domingo. They had come to Hamburg to see him a number of times, and her father had even debated acquiring a hotel here, stating that he kind of liked the town: it had the charm of an English place combined with the typical cleanliness and efficiency of Germany, and it was quite pretty. They had always stayed at a hotel overlooking the lake in the center of town. It had reminded her of Geneva, with the fountain and the panorama of the city surrounding the water; but there were no mountains in the distance, no landscape at all worth mentioning, only the big harbor with the huge overseas container ships. She remembered the narrow shopping streets fondly, similar to Bond Street in London or the old part of Geneva, but there were no outdoor restaurants and cafés; everything was turned inward, hiding from the cold.

  It was July, and it still was cold and drizzly.

  Shivering a little in her thin jacket, still used to the milder climate of Zürich and Munich, where they had stopped after Geneva, Naomi watched as the instruments were loaded carefully into the vans, Sal himself supervising the handling of Jon’s guitars, while Jon and Art greeted the local promoter and a couple of people from the record company who had come out to welcome him and the band.

  They had parted from her parents in the lobby of the Geneva hotel while the bus was waiting for them, Sal standing in the door, nervously glancing at his watch.

  “So when will you return to New York?” Olaf had asked, turned more toward Jon than her. “When will we see you there?” Jon, in a pleasant, easy tone, had replied that it would be another couple of weeks or maybe more, he could not tell. It depended on what Naomi wanted. Perhaps her heart was set on visiting some other places in Europe? Smiling at her, he had slung his arm around her shoulders. “Naples, babe? I haven’t been that far south in Italy yet. What do you think; would you like to go there? See your roots? We could take a vacation in the sun; I’d learn how to order my food in Italian from you. We could even hire a yacht to sail to Capri. We have some time before the US leg of the tour starts; we could take a vacation and get some rest.”

  To which Lucia—a fine smile on her lips—added, “Or visit your family in Positano. Your uncles and aunts would be delighted to see you.”

  Blushing, Naomi had mumbled that she’d been there, thank you, and yes, it was pretty, but no, not right now, and waved after her parents halfheartedly when they got into their cab. The thought of living in the same town with them seemed dire beyond all imagination.

  Now, on the rainy Hamburg tarmac, Naomi thought that Naples would be just fine. It would be blistering hot, stinking of garbage, noisy, and filled with the exhaust fumes of Vespas; but it would also be full of flowers, sunshine, and good spirits. A wild, romantic longing for Ischia gripped her, for the narrow, winding roads around the island and the beach of Sant‘Angelo, for a dinner of mussels in one of the little trattorias along the pier in Porto. She even thought she could hear a silly, Italian song playing somewhere in the back of her mind.

  Or Positano, and how long since she had been there. The scent of gorse and bougainvillea crept into her memory, the soft sound of the Mediterranean breeze rustling in the wisteria canopy of the patio, the whisper of the surf.

  “We used to pick figs from the tree on the patio,” she said when Jon came over to her, “and eat them for breakfast. Then we climbed down those long, long stone steps to the beach and lazed away the day. There was a small restaurant right on the water, barely more than a deck and a kitchen; and two old women would cook whatever the fishermen brought home in their boats—shrimps, mussels, tiny fish—an
d toss them on a plate of pasta doused in olive oil, parsley, and garlic.”

  He waited, his hands in his pockets, the collar of his leather jacket turned up to keep the rain away, wind blowing his hair into his eyes.

  “I was as brown as a nut. And in the evening my uncles grilled fish for us, and there would be salad and fresh bread and lots of red wine.” Thoughtfully, she paused and tapped the tip of her shoe into the puddle that had formed at her feet. “It was really nice. We used to spend the summers there before I ran away with you.”

  “Where? In Naples?”

  She shook her head. “In Positano, on the other side of the Sorrento peninsula. Most of my mother’s family lives there. They only say they are from Naples because people overseas don’t know Positano.”

  “Do you want to go?” Jon felt a crazy, wild impulse to see this place, to stand on that patio and look down at the gentle Mediterranean in the dusk of a warm summer night. He wondered if the stars looked different down there too, until he realized that Naples and DC were almost on the same latitude.

  “We should go. I think we should go, Naomi. It would be lovely to see where your mother comes from.” He drew her into his arms. “And you. I’d finally find out if there are more girls with your looks and temper. Is it pretty down there, in… Positano?”

  “Pretty?” Naomi drew a deep breath and slowly let it out. “It’s not pretty, Jon. It’s stunning, beautiful. If you drive there from Naples you have to cross the mountains, the peninsula, and then, well below, you see the little town, the colorful houses clinging to the hillside, all the way down to the shore. There’s only a small beach—the rest is steep cliffs and stone—and there are flowers everywhere, wonderful, wild flowers, and the scent mingles with the aroma of the sea; and at dusk you can watch the swallows flit along the rocks, hear their calls…” She sighed. “The water is so warm and soft, so gentle, dark blue, much darker than the Pacific, totally different from the North Atlantic. Everything is… kind, gentle, soft, just, lovely.”

  “You’re homesick!” Surprised, Jon let go of her and took a step back so he could look at her. “You’re homesick for that place! Why in the world is this another secret I have to pry out of you, and again after a confrontation with your parents? Why do you make life so hard for yourself, my love? Why do you deny yourself all this: your family, your home? What is wrong with all that, Naomi?” He raised his hands in a gesture of supplication. “You come with me to see my family, you even buy a house in Brooklyn so we can live close to my mother and sister and brother, and yet you refuse your own, even those in Italy?”

  She pulled up her shoulders in that well-known gesture of denial but did not reply.

  “So do you want to go?” Jon repeated. “Do you want to go to Naples and Positano?”

  A sudden, painful yearning filled Naomi. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, Jon, I want to go. I want to go very much, as soon as we have the time. Please, yes.”

  Parker saw the cavalcade of limousines come up the road, but they turned into the small back street that led into the garage of the hotel and vanished.

  Silently cursing, he crossed the pavement to get from the tree-lined sidewalk along the lake to the hotel entrance and walked inside past the liveried doormen.

  No one stopped him from sitting in one of the couches and ordering coffee from the bar, but he could see there were security guards standing by the elevators and a couple of very stern men denying a small group of women access to the doors leading to the stairway.

  Fans, they were the best indicator that someone had arrived who was not keen on publicity. He imagined he could hear commotion behind those thick walls, feel the hum of the elevators as they ran up and down with the luggage of the illustrious guests, and finally, with her, taking her into one of the suites on the locked-off floor where no one had access except the most trusted personnel, and even those were accompanied by security.

  There was no way to get to her except to lie in wait here for hours and hours, hoping she would venture out on her own for a shopping or sightseeing trip and her husband would choose to stay in hiding.

  The thought alone made Parker swallow bile. He had seen the press releases from the other cities, read the raving review of the Munich concert and seen the photos of Jon leaving the venue after the show, walking through a throng of fans with her by his side, one arm around him, laughing. She had looked so pretty in that rose silk dress, the same one she had worn for their interview, her braid falling over her shoulder. Seeing that picture, Parker had made one of his editors call the newspaper where it had been issued and ask for a copy. Once printed, he had hidden it away in his desk drawer, peering at it every ten minutes to stare at that smile, at the dark eyes gazing up at Jon, wishing with a gutwrenching fervor that it was meant for him.

  In a moment of sanity, while navigating the hallways of Heathrow, Parker had realized he was about to fly to Hamburg, where he would lurk in hotel lobbies, on sidewalks, and in backstage entrances, all in the wild hope of catching her alone, of having her to himself.

  Dazed and despite the early-morning hour, he had made his way to one of the bars and ordered a stiff drink. He was stalking Jonathan Stone’s wife. He couldn’t help himself. Drink downed, he had hastened to the gate when his flight was called. He could not help but wish that the plane would fly a little faster, cross the Channel with lighting speed and take him to Hamburg, take him closer to where Naomi was.

  “We could go after the European leg of the tour.” Jon said, tossing his jacket on the couch. “We would have six weeks before the tour starts again in the US. Why not put that time to good use, lazing in Italy. I really like the idea!”

  Carefully, just peeking, Naomi pushed the curtains aside and looked out of the window at the steady drizzle of rain. Right across the street was the lake with the fountain, more of a large pond compared to Lac Léman in Geneva; but there were cruise boats on it, going toward a bridge at the far end, crossing under it into a larger body of water. Just to the right, around the curve of the lake, she could see the facades of the old buildings, shops on the ground floor, the inviting side streets with the expensive flagship stores.

  “I really wanted to use the time to get some work done on the Brooklyn house.” She remembered walking down those streets with her mother one day and buying a purse. They had searched for a nice place to have lunch but had found only a steak house, which had made them return to the hotel, slightly disgruntled. Her father had laughed at them and taken them back across the street, up a flight of stairs in one of the massive buildings, and ordered one of the best oyster meals she’d ever had. There had even been champagne. Olaf had poured for her, stating how he enjoyed taking out his wife and daughter, he was so proud of them, the beautiful women in his life.

  “I wanted him to love me because I’m his daughter, not because I’d be important to the business someday. Love me just for me.” It came out of nowhere, a sudden, bitter outburst; and it made Jon stop and listen to her.

  “All the while,” Naomi said softly, “all the time he was scheming and plotting and thinking of me as a pawn.” She turned around. “There were stories, Jon, in my head. Sometimes I felt like I had one foot in another world, listening to other people’s lives. I wanted to write it all down so badly, but there was never the time nor space for it. I would go to a party or dinner with my parents, and in my head this scene was humming that wanted out so badly.” Her hands fluttered nervously with the need to explain. “Like a bubble growing inside my chest, something that has to be poured out, brought to life. And I tried to stop it, tried to suffocate it; and it made me sad, silent, and angry.” With a little shrug, embarrassed at her outbreak, she added, “And then, one day, there was you; and I knew where I had to take that need to write. When I heard you on the radio, everything made sense. Everything else became meaningless.” The old pain tor
e her spirit. “I wanted him to be proud of me for what I am, not for what he wanted me to be.”

  Holding her breath, she waited for a response, but Jon just looked at her, waiting.

  “You…” Her heart skipped, and she had to hold on to the table beside her. “I’m married to you! I don’t have to spend a single moment of my day thinking about my father if I don’t want to. I can sit down and write a novel, and no one will tell me it’s a waste of time, worse, nonsense.”

  Jon shook his head. “To be yourself, Naomi, to do what you want, for that you don’t have to be married to me.” He grinned and moved toward her. “I like it way better like this, of course, but you doing what you want to do with your life has nothing to do with me. For crying out loud, babe, let’s go out right now and buy you a new laptop, and you can sit down here in this hotel room and start writing that novel that’s clearly waiting in your head! You’re way beyond song lyrics, Naomi, and way beyond writing plays. You need to start your real work. Let’s go!”

  Stunned, she took a step back.

  “Don’t you see?” Jon didn’t touch her, didn’t even come close enough for it. “The only one holding you back is yourself. I’ve been telling you over and over. You don’t have to keep yourself small and hidden, or live in my shadow!” He pointed in the general direction of the hotel telephone. “Go ahead, call Harry. Tell him you’re ready to finally write that movie script he wants from you; make his day! Lock yourself in and write the great American novel!”

  A small giggle escaped her at his dramatic gesture, and she hid it behind her hand.