The Secret Legacy

by Sara Alexander

  The Major reappeared in the doorway. He looked tired but hopeful. I left the men to their goodbyes in private. Inside the car, Giuseppe met my eye in the mirror.

  ‘Finally locked her up, eh?’

  ‘It’s not a prison, Giuseppe.’

  ‘She coming out anytime soon?’

  ‘Two weeks.’

  ‘I don’t know, Santina. From what Paolino tells me, there’s not much hope of a full recovery from that one.’

  ‘You always believe what other people tell you?’

  Giuseppe’s eyebrows lifted, then dropped into a cheeky grin. ‘You sound like I’m talking about your family, not your employers,’ he goaded.

  I didn’t reply. He was angling for more idle gossip. I wish I had known the Major had asked him to do the job; I could have done my best to dissuade him. The Major returned to the car at last and I watched the Doctor disappear behind a billow of dust as we pulled away.

  *

  My feet crunched on the gravel at the entrance to Pompeii. I squinted in the light.

  ‘Thank you, Giuseppe,’ the Major said, ‘see you in the early afternoon.’

  The Major swung his bag over his shoulder, his face alive with anticipation; a young boy waiting to show off his toys. He bought our tickets and then launched through the entrance at his usual pace, taking long strides uphill along the opening via. He turned back. I struggled to keep up.

  ‘Forgive me, Santina!’ he called down to me, waiting for me to reach him. ‘How horribly selfish. I think I’ll pretend it’s my first time too. Let us savor every step, yes?’

  His face was golden in the start of the full morning sun, catching the blond in his red hair. The huge stones underfoot led us past ruined homes either side of us. There were tourists around me, the sound of cameras clicking posterity, but I couldn’t hear them. I was dipped into the eerie silence of the stones, the quiet fortitude of them all, standing despite the terror that had shook this spot. We arrived at an area the Major explained was the Forum. We walked to its center, the purple hump of Vesuvius smoking in the near distance. The columns rose high, supporting invisible coffers. It wasn’t hard to imagine this place a throng of activity at the center of Roman life.

  I didn’t feel the Major beside me until he spoke.

  ‘Words fall short of describing this feeling, don’t they, Santina?’

  I nodded.

  ‘There’s much more. Follow me.’

  We floated through another several hundred years of history and palatial ruins. I stood before mosaics I’d only ever heard about. I etched their tiny golden squares to memory, the pools at the center of the courtyard homes, the way the place upheld a dignified silence despite the clatter of people. My mind flashed with pictures of these streets filled with people. At every turn, the Major revelled in describing life as it once would have been. He drew pictures in the air with his words. He breathed life into these relics, so much so that I felt I could almost hear the chariots charging down the streets, or the roar of the crowds as the senate met.

  When we reached the first smaller theater, we took a seat and the Major reached into his bag. He handed me an apple. I accepted, feeling rather stupid for not having prepared it myself. The Major had insisted there was to be no need for me to do so, each of the three times I’d asked him what I ought to pack. We sat, chomping in antiquity for a moment.

  ‘What play shall we watch?’

  I looked at him. He returned the gaze with an inkling of a smile.

  ‘Well, Santina? Some awful tragedy perhaps? Pierced with war and betrayal? Or a tragic love story? Two lovers who cannot be together and, ignoring the advice of their parents, surrender to their undying love with dire consequences.’

  I laughed.

  ‘Both!’ I replied. ‘We can stay all day.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  He took another bite. His eyes landed on tourists as the steady stream rolled through, a hover of wonder in their chatter.

  ‘What do you make of all this beauty?’ he asked.

  ‘I need more words. I can’t draw it like you.’

  ‘Don’t try to do that. I want to hear how you feel. How you see it.’

  I took a breath. All nerves or insecurity of seeming stupid dissipated looking at his open expression. He made me feel like he had a genuine interest in what I was thinking. He wasn’t setting a trap. This wasn’t a test.

  ‘It’s a spell,’ I said, at last.

  He didn’t comment. He opened the space, urging me into it.

  ‘That’s the word, I think,’ I began. ‘As soon as we stepped in, I felt swept up in it. Like in church when everyone is singing and the sound is above you and around you and inside you. Like that.’

  He didn’t move his eyes from mine. I could see the reflection of the white stones beneath us in them. He didn’t comment. He held the quiet for me with silent encouragement.

  ‘But there is sadness too. I feel it so very strongly,’ I added.

  ‘I do too.’

  Our gaze returned to the stage down below.

  ‘Tragedy left us these treasures,’ he said, in his Adeline voice, the one he used to usher her back into herself at the ebb of one of her fits. It was a silken scarf caressing my face.

  I let his words hang, noticing how comfortable I felt resisting the need for an immediate reply. For all the beauty of his words, his stories, his pictures of this place’s past, the graphic descriptions of what it must have been like for those poor souls trapped in the volcano’s eruption, the most golden gift the Major offered was silence. I couldn’t remember a comfortable silence before him. He had couched his offer of teaching me the language as a bargaining tool for my staying with the family, but the longer I lived with him the more I came round to the idea that he was driven by a love of sharing his world. He was not fulfilling a promise alone. Today, I felt my perception was as important to him. It was an art, his skill of crafting a space between us for me to stretch myself, to widen my ideas, share my feelings. I admired this gentle skill. However easy it might appear, I knew it took a great deal of selflessness, and a genuine to desire to understand another, rather than projecting his ideas alone. I was not a blank canvas. He forged a space in which I was doing the painting. Not with the frantic passion of Adeline, but with my words and their colors.

  ‘You can read history, Santina. You can list facts. You can learn from them, of course. But if you can stand in it, if you can let it trace through you without judgement, without analysis, just let the atmosphere course through you fully, then you are absorbing it. Much like a recipe, no?’

  ‘A recipe?’

  ‘Certainly! You and I could follow the same recipe and your dish will still taste different from mine.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Absolutely. Your recipe is inside you. You’ve lived it, tinkered with it, intuited the precise moment to stir, or not, to lower the heat, or intensify it. My approach would be academic. I would be following instructions. But I would need to surrender to the process physically in order to tune in.’

  He took in my unconvinced reaction.

  ‘It’s a challenge!’ he exclaimed.

  My eyebrows creased. How had we arrived at food when we were here to absorb history?

  ‘You will write me a recipe. I will cook it. You will cook it. Then we will compare and I can expatiate.’

  ‘Ex . . .?’

  ‘A long word designed to make you admire my command of the language. An arrogant slip. And a good word: expatiate, to extemporate, elucidate, expand . . . much like my waistline if I were to eat as much as I wanted to of your food.’

  He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. All color left his cheeks, his skin at once a sudden papery grey.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘What’s that, Santina?’

  He shook his head, as if flicking off the dizzy spell.

  ‘Yes, quite all right,’ he replied, his rhythm staggered. ‘I think the heat’s getting to this Brit after all. Co
me on, we’ll find some shade further on. I know a beautiful spot for some refreshments.’

  He stood up. I followed and lost my footing. He took my hand in his. It felt colder than I’d expected. I found my balance. He let go.

  We carried on past an enormous statue of a naked man at a central courtyard.

  ‘The human form, in the hands of an artist, holds up the mirror and blurs our sight towards unattainable perfection. Such a dangerous condition.’

  ‘Why dangerous?’ I asked, trying not to sound too out of breath as we climbed the steep steps along the walkway that led the crowds toward the gardens of Diana.

  ‘It is unattainable. It is a mind-set, not a truth.’

  I thought about his rows of tomato plants. How Paolino joked he’d planted them using a ruler.

  ‘The only truth we see here is the one the artist wants us to see,’ he continued.

  I stopped for a moment. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘He is horrendously gorgeous. Do let’s move along. I can’t bear to wither in his shadow!’

  We laughed.

  The white sun pounded down but I couldn’t feel it. I was lifted into this other world. His world. I cherished these moments to gaze through his spectrum. He made me feel like we were in a safe place despite the deep sadness he lived with. Today he had left his wife in a stranger’s care. I had watched my best friend and her family toppled by grief. But the Major couched these realities as the very essence of life; the real truth. His courage and simplicity in the face of these things was compelling. His mind was the gateway to a higher reality, rooted in the botany of everyday: the plants, our garden, the gentle daily rhythms, but also in the high ideals of great thinkers, ones whose passion was the human condition. How he could smudge the two intoxicated me. It felt so very real, incisive, yet full of gentle, unwavering respect. How I loved being pulled into the shaft of light through which he viewed the world.

  We rode in silence till Pompei slipped into memory. Without warning, the Major ordered Giuseppe to come to an abrupt stop by a tiny roadside pizzeria, perched upon a curve in the road. ‘Come along, Santina, you must be absolutely starved. I know I am. Giuseppe – mangiare, si?’

  ‘No, no, signore. Io aspetto. Waiting.’

  ‘Can’t I feed the poor man?’

  I shrugged with an apologetic smile, feeling like I ought to follow Giuseppe’s lead.

  ‘I shan’t dine alone whilst the two of you simmer in the heat, for heaven’s sake. Come along. I’ll get him something to take home.’

  We stepped inside the tiny space and were escorted to a terrace overlooking the bay of Sorrento. The Major ordered for us. He filled my glass with cold gold from a carafe placed on our table.

  ‘This is a thank you luncheon,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, feeling myself scratching for a more appropriate reply. ‘I mean, I don’t expect thank you.’

  ‘Of course you don’t. You’re one of those rare breeds of people who are capable of giving of themselves without the desire for immediate repayment. But it’s the right thing to do. And that’s why I’m doing it.’

  I watched him sip his wine. I tasted mine. Its chilled fruitiness slid over my tongue. I’d never drunk with him. It felt inappropriate, yet rude if I didn’t mirror him.

  ‘It is delicious, isn’t it?’ he asked, unfolding his napkin.

  I let the pause hover.

  ‘I remember my first visit to Pompeii. I may have shed a tear. I wouldn’t admit it to my uncle who took me, of course. He saw it as a rite of passage before his nephew left to be the officer he was always destined to be in India. And it only gets better, Santina. Pompeii, I mean, not the army. That’s quite a different story entirely. For me at least. The next time you’re there, you’ll discover more treasures. Your eye will have the freedom to focus on the details. Your mind won’t be overloaded by the majesty. It will receive it like a friend.’

  ‘Next time?’

  His eyes softened, or saddened, I couldn’t decide which. He ran a hand through his hair. The luminous turquoise of the bay of Sorrento behind him made it appear a deeper shade of red. His gaze drifted toward the kitchen where a waiter burst through the double doors and laid an enormous pizza between us. Another waiter slid a bowl of salad beside that, and a third filled our glasses once again.

  ‘Good heavens, it’s a tempest of service,’ he said, with a sardonic grin.

  He insisted on cutting the pizza and serving me first. I ought to have felt like an imposter at his table. Yet I felt safe. The relaxed way he sat, light reflecting off the linen tablecloth picking up the darker streak of blue in his eyes, looking at me with a soft smile, could make me feel nothing but that. Cared for, even. Like the comfort of the shade of a lemon tree on a hot day.

  I didn’t realize just how hungry I was till the sweet tomato sauce and delicate ooze of mozzarella filled my cheeks. I may have eaten a slice without looking up. I know I did, because when I lifted my gaze, the Major was laughing.

  ‘What?’ I asked, wiping my face with a paranoid swipe of my napkin, picturing awful smears of tomato across it.

  He didn’t stop, but lifted his glass and insisted I cheer to our health – and appetite, he added, with the warmest smile I’d ever seen.

  We returned to the villa in the afternoon glow of travel weariness and full stomachs. After the pizza he insisted we finish with gelato and sorbetto, limoncello for both of us, and espresso. He ordered a calzone for Giuseppe, and had a waiter take it out to him. I lost count how many times Giuseppe thanked him along the road home.

  We stepped into a cool silence.

  He left for upstairs. I followed. After a few moments we met at the top of the stairwell, both changed into gardening clothes. I hadn’t expected him to help me.

  ‘I couldn’t very well leave you to do all this alone, now could I?’ he asked.

  We walked down the stairs in silence, but for the gentle tap of our shoes on the stones.

  I watched him fill a watering can at the tap. I waited to fill a second myself. He took it from me to fill. His peculiar mood was leaking the fact that leaving Adeline at the hospital was causing more discomfort than he’d expected. I bent down to lift the full watering can.

  ‘I’ll get that, Santina, don’t worry!’

  I lifted this can every day. He knew that. His erratic behavior started to unsettle me. I bent down to lift it again. So did he. Water lapped over the top. I gasped. My skirt was drenched.

  We rose together. He grabbed my shoulders out of instinct. ‘I’m so sorry, Santina!’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said, feeling the cold seep onto my legs.

  His hands didn’t move. Neither did I.

  The sun streamed across his freckles, catching a sideways beam over the luminous blue of his eyes. His face moved close to mine. Our breaths met. Still I didn’t move. My heart thudded but my body didn’t retreat. Neither did his. Reality slipped away with the water overflowing from the watering can at my feet.

  His lips edged closer.

  CHAPTER 14

  A sharp knock at the door skidded us to real time. I heard my feet scuff the hot earth as I walked through the garden and across the terrace to open it, but my body felt like it hung back a pace or two, a lost shadow trying to reach its owner. My hand clicked open the catch, its metallic sound clanging through me like a peel of Sunday bells, urging me to return to the home this place was till a moment ago.

  Paolino stood the other side. He flashed a wide smile. I watched. He revealed a bunch of flowers from behind his back with a flourish, a haze of yellow, my least favorite color. I summoned sunny appreciation, but my performance slid away, spilt honey oozing off a countertop in lazy droplets.

  His face fell. ‘Oh, Santina, I’m so sorry. I heard about Rosalia.’

  Perhaps I’d forgive myself for using my best friend’s grief as a mask for the time being? It seemed the kindest thing to do.

  ‘That’s all right, Paolino. It’s awful.’

&nbs
p; He took my reply as a cue to take my hand in his. He lifted it to his lips. I slipped it away. I nodded behind me, indicating we were not alone. His voice dipped into a whisper. ‘I’ve missed you, Santina – I look forward to our Sundays together. The last two you’ve filled them with other people.’

  ‘I was with my best friend!’ I replied, a little louder than planned.

  ‘I know,’ he cooed. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘The Major is here.’

  ‘Yes. I want to speak with him.’

  ‘He doesn’t pay the bill till the end of the month, you know that.’

  He ran his free hand over his slick hair. There was nothing left to smooth. His hair wax had done a good job of that already.

  ‘It’s not business. Private matter.’

  He wasn’t speaking sense. My head spun, trying to ignore the sensation of standing a careless whisper away from the Major. It was as if the furious heat of the day melded reality, a scorched crushed plum forgotten on the pavement.

  ‘Don’t look so panicky, Santina – you’re making me feel nervous!’

  ‘You should be. The Major doesn’t sit around here waiting for unannounced visits from grocers on private matters. Since when were you friends? You can’t stand the man.’

  ‘I never said that.’

  My eyebrow raised. He received the arrow.

  ‘Look, we going to stand here and talk at the doorway like a couple of peasants or you going to let me in?’ He cocked his head to the side, flicking me a playful grin, which was almost resistible.

  I shook my head with a reluctant start of a smile. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ I didn’t fear him facing the Major as much as I dreaded turning to face him myself. What expression would I read there? What would he read on mine? The ground beneath me felt molten, shifting plates of the sea. Paolino edged inside and out onto the terrace. He turned back to me. ‘Why don’t you put these in water, Santina?’

  ‘That private?’

  A look streaked across his face. I’d never seen it before. He always looked so self-assured, at peace with his surroundings, able to sing and smile his way in and out of anything. He reached out the bouquet, crushed at the stems now from his tight grasp. He was a grown man with the heart and energy of a boy, unhardened by anything, in love with life and all it might offer. Who wouldn’t fall into a man like that?