Summer in the Islands: An Italian Odyssey

by Matthew Fort

  In those early island-hopping days, I never visited Stromboli. I heard about Stromboli, read about Stromboli, planned to go to Stromboli, started off for Stromboli, but never quite managed to make it. It’s terra incognita as far as I’m concerned.

  As I wander up through Ficogrande, the town that climbs up the slope from the quay, I come across what must have been a fair proportion of the island’s population of a few hundred people gathered in the square outside the church of San Vincenzo, for a wedding. Of the day? Of the week? Of the month? Of the year? Everyone’s glad of the chance to dress up and show off and celebrate.

  The piazza is a swirl of white, cerise, cream, stripes, lavender, grey, blue; suits, jeans and jackets and flowing dresses; of stacked heels, winklepickers, Oxford loafers, tasselled loafers, pumps, platforms, wedges, network, slave sandals, gladiator sandals, filigree silver Diana the Huntress sandals with thongs reaching mid-calf. All sorts, shapes, colours; a posing, pausing, jostling, chatting, laughing kaleidoscope of fashion.

  Even the church door is decked out, with white roses mounted around the main door and around the smaller doors on either side, and bouquets set at regular intervals on the street leading up to the square.

  We outsiders, onlookers, bystanders, gawpers, sit on the wall around the square, viewing and reviewing and snapping. Not everyone’s there for wedding-viewing, though. Further along the wall a group of volcano walkers – booted, rucksacked, water-bottled, walking-poled, sensibly hatted – are waiting patiently for their guide.

  A band of four young men dressed in white shirts, black trousers, broad red cummerbunds and red neckerchiefs stand in the dappled shade of a towering eucalyptus tree. They’re warming up, two casually strumming their guitars, one shaking his tambourine and the fourth squeezing a wheezing run on the accordion.

  Just beside me, two old biddies are providing a running commentary as if we’re watching the Derby or the Grand National.

  ‘Thick ankles.’

  ‘Thick head.’

  ‘Not her colour.’

  ‘Not his.’

  ‘Well, his mother has a lot to answer for.’

  ‘But his wife’s a saint.’

  ‘A saint.’

  ‘A good person.’

  ‘I’m surprised she took him back.’

  ‘I’m surprised he dares to show his face.’

  ‘There must be something in it for her.’

  ‘What about La Ficuzza?’

  ‘She shouldn’t wear that.’

  ‘Not at her age.’

  People go into the church, people come out, smoke, chat and go back in again. Every now and then I catch the belling note of a baritone, the clarion call of the priest, murmured responses. We hangers-on, voyeurs, wait for the grand exit. ‘The time of waiting is short, but the burden of waiting is heavy,’ I think.

  The volcano walkers rise up as one and head off.

  And then, quite suddenly, the doors are flung wide. Out gushes the congregation, faces bright with relief and anticipation. The band strikes up. Selfie after selfie is snapped, selfies of selfies, on smart phones held high, on selfie sticks, snaps of the happy couple, mobbed, kissed, congratulated, patted and hugged, a swirl of colour and excitement and pleasure. It’s a beguiling introduction to the island.

  Dinner at the Ristorante da Zurro, just above the beach. Zurro’s real name is Filippo Utano and he looks like an old hippy. His bearded face peers out from a bonfire of wiry grey hair that’s kept out of his eyes by a chef’s toque that looks like a pancake, brilliantly decorated with tomatoes, chillies and flowers. He wears an orange chef’s jacket with the arms ripped off and baggy trousers with flames leaping up them in the manner of Arthur ‘Fire’ Brown, who skimmed across the pop heavens in the 1980s. He dances around his open-plan kitchen and out of it with a mixture of nervous energy and fierce purpose, both conductor and orchestra.

  A shiver of skittishness runs through the place.

  ‘Bread?’

  ‘Yes, bread.’

  ‘Coming up.’

  ‘Water? Fizzy or still? Wine? Of course, sir. Certo, signore. Right away.’ The charming waitress frowns and scurries off. A battered menu appears.

  ‘But what’s fresh in today?’

  ‘Well, there’s tuna and swordfish. Anchovies and gamberetti di nassa.’

  ‘Gamberetti di nassa?’

  ‘Little prawns. Very special. You eat them raw.’

  ‘I’ll have some of those, please.’ Damn the price.

  ‘With the antipasti?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Gamberetti di nassa, little fleshy commas, pink as an Englishman who’s caught the sun, curl around a filling of paradise blue eggs, red stripes running down their small, headless bodies. I eat them shell and all. The shells are so delicate, a thin rime, and the raw flesh is as soft as Turkish delight. Around them on the plate are small, blue-and-silver anchovies, split and with their backbones removed, lightly cured in vinegar with a touch of chilli; sardines in carpione – fried and then cooked in sugar and vinegar with onions from Tropea and black peppercorns; thin slices of swordfish have been lightly touched with vinegar, too, and then immersed in neutral vegetable oil; and thick fingers of tuna cooked and treated with a different sweet-and-sour marinade with coriander and juniper in it.

  It’s simple food, the cooking of fishermen, says Zurro as he prances out to deliver the plate personally. Fishermen didn’t have fridges in the old days, so they preserved their catch in oil or oil and vinegar or just vinegar, he says. He dashes off again, stops, has a quick word with a group of regular customers, another with two pretty girls. The next moment he’s back in his kitchen, flicking a pan of pasta and sauce over and over.

  I’m ready for a plate of spaghetti alla strombolana, a mighty mound of pasta slathered with tomato, capers, olives, breadcrumbs, anchovy, chilli, mint – a touch of Zurro here and of the Levant there – all minced up and slithery, sensual, saucy, substantial.

  The sun’s setting. The sky slips from primrose to pale blue to deeper blue to blue velvet. A few stars stipple the velvet, and out just beyond the compound of the restaurant, the volcanic black beach has all but vanished, the sea darkens, and the lights of fishing boats and cruise boats and yachts and pleasure palaces shiver over it. The restaurant fills with holidaymakers in shorts and deck shoes, dresses with sweaters thrown over the shoulders, with couples leaning together and groups of friends and family, all pantomimes in silhouette. The charming waitress and a young man with tattoos up his arm and a haircut like a peaked cap dash about among the tables.

  A candle held firm in black sand in a glass burns with a steady flame on the table. A large plate with two substantial slices of swordfish on roughly chopped chicory. The swordfish is about two centimetres thick and has been grilled so that it’s almost cooked through, with only the lightest shading of pinker flesh at the very centre. It breaks easily to my fork, fine curved strata of dense meat, Bovril brown on the outside, milder, more like veal on the inside. The ribands of chicory are crunchy and bitter. There’s another plate, too, of caponata, that Sicilian vegetable stew on the sweet-and-sour theme, small chunks of melanzane, zucchini, peperoni, olives and capers.

  Now it’s completely dark, and I’m completely full. The light from the candles picks out details on the faces at the tables around in dramatic chiaroscuro. Thank heavens da Zurro doesn’t take puddings as seriously as it does the other courses. I finish with a plate of biscottini and a glass of Malvasia di Lipari. Some of the biscottini are the colour of sand and some volcanic black, and they both have a crumbly texture, and a sweetness that sits comfortably with the cold, fruity, dry wine.

  The bill, please and grazie, grazie mille, I say. Era una cena splendida magnifica. Una per la memoria. I know no Italian would say anything like that, but I want Zurro and my lovely waitress and everyone to know that I’ve had a really good time.

  ‘Why are you eating alone?’ asks the man at the next table. He’s lunching with a young ma
n.

  I explain my mission and tell him about my love affair with Nicoletta. He laughs.

  ‘But my name’s Vespa,’ he says. ‘Carlo Vespa.’

  He’s a dentist from Milan, he explains, and has a house on Stromboli. He’s trim, with close-cropped hair and a droll, ironic manner. He saw I was eating alone, he says, and decided to talk to me. He explains that his father was the same. He would always engage strangers in conversation. The young man is his son and they come to Zurro’s pretty regularly.

  ‘Filippo’s an artist,’ Carlo Vespa says. ‘When he’s good, he’s very good. But he has his off days, like all artists. Today he was on good form.’

  We chat some more about our respective lives. He gives off a palpable energy.

  ‘If I’ve got two things to do, I do three,’ he says. ‘If I’ve got three things to do, I do five. I’m sixty-eight. It has its limitations and its pleasures. There’s less sex, but I find I enjoy art and food more now that I’m older.’

  He stays on Stromboli for several weeks every year, and has many friends on the island. As it happens he’s meeting some this evening. Would I care to join him for a drink with them?

  ‘I’d be delighted to,’ I say. ‘What time?’

  ‘About 7.30. I should warn you that we have to climb 184 steps to their house. It’s quite high up.’

  I say I think I could manage that. We would go slowly, he says, because he has a heart problem. He’s had two heart attacks, he says. He looks remarkably fit for a man who’s survived two heart attacks. I get the impression that he’s thinking more of me than of himself. He gives me instructions how to find his house and excuses himself and I go to the Gelateria Lapinelli in search of pudding.

  The Gelateria Lapinelli is a gem sparkling in the Aeolian Islands. Not since the rose petal and the rice and cinnamon ice cream at the legendary Gelateria Pica in Rome (legendary not least for Signora Pica’s refusal to smile at even the most lavish of compliments) have I experienced such ice cream excitement. There’s something about the texture of sublime ice creams that marks them out, an exquisite balance between softness and firmness, creaminess and smoothness, substance and airiness, carrying the flavours, not masking them. The Lapinelli gelati have all of these qualities. They evoke the divine confections of Cervia of blessed memory.

  The ice creams are made in small batches at the back of the shop by a gelataio who was a cabinet maker in a former incarnation. He brings the same craftsmanship to making ice creams as he used to make furniture. Instead of being decanted into the usual open rectangular tubs, to present a spectrum of often virulent colours – the standard Italian ice-cream display – the Lapinelli ice creams are kept in old-fashioned metal cylinders. For each order, the ice cream in the relevant cylinder is beaten vigorously with a spatula before being draped luxuriously into your tub, cornet, or, in my case, into a split brioche bun. The chocolates – chocolate with cinnamon, fondente or dark chocolate, or just plain chocolate, all subtly different, all exquisite variations on a chocolate theme – are particularly fine, but I’ve also worked my way through the vanilla, vanilla with caramel, strawberry, almond, coffee and pistachio, and I haven’t come across a dud yet.

  And the brioche bun brings a whole new dimension to the pleasure of eating ice cream. I start with a few spoons of the ice itself – salted caramel this time, creamy, dreamy, the quiddity of sweetness and indulgence – tearing off the odd bit of the brioche to add springy substance to each mouthful. As I go on, the ice cream slowly melts into the brioche, lubricating its bounciness, soaking into it, melding flavours, turning squidginess into divine squelch, until all is gone, leaving me full, slightly sick and sad that this life-defining pleasure is over.

  I go to swim it off. Afterwards, as I lie against a rock to dry in the sun, I notice a man walking along the beach with great deliberation. He’s stark naked. I’m not sure whether to be alarmed or amused. Every few paces he pauses and presents himself, first to the sea and then to whoever happens to be lying on the beach where he’s standing. He finally stops opposite a young woman lying on the other side of the rock from me. She finds her book more interesting than the naked man, which isn’t entirely surprising, given the absurd round pot belly swelling above his genitals. I wondered if he’s aware of his absurdity. He turns round and slowly makes his way back down the beach. Really, people are very odd.

  Carlo Vespa is waiting for me outside his house in Piscita, the smart end of the island. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have a summer retreat nearby. Like all the houses on Stromboli, it’s painted white, its whiteness made the more dazzling by the darkness of the earth, rocks and sand that’s more dusty, greyish charcoal than black. Carlo’s house, immaculate with easy-going chic, overlooks a delightful small cove.

  ‘Is this where you swim?’ I ask.

  ‘Actually, I piss there every morning,’ he replies. ‘I feel a real sense of luxury.’

  He leads the way along a series of small lanes, and then up the 184 steps to his friend’s house perched high up the flank of the volcano, showing no effect from his two heart attacks. Mysteriously, he keeps referring to someone as Iddu.

  ‘Iddu?’

  ‘The volcano. It means “Him” in Sicilian dialect.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  I think this is very odd.

  We eventually make it to the top of the 184 steps. Carlo’s greeted warmly and I graciously. Our hosts are a marketing guru from Rome and his wife. The other guests include a banker and his wife, also from Rome, a sound engineer from Milan and a professor of law and his wife from Turin. We help ourselves to frittata, arancini, polpette, mini calzone, pizza, cannoli and other pastries.

  Stromboli is an escape for each of them. The banker from Rome says that he has to come here at least once a month. It helps him deal with the stress of his job.

  I ask him about Iddu.

  ‘I come because of Iddu,’ he says. ‘Iddu inspires respect. You have to develop a relationship with him.’

  ‘A relationship with a volcano?’ I ask.

  ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘Some people can’t. They feel intimidated and they leave.’

  His wife nods.

  ‘But that’s pretty primitive,’ I say.

  ‘Possibly,’ says the marketing guru. ‘But primitive instincts are part of us all. Iddu is the bringer of fire, which is fundamental to society and ourselves.’

  He explains that Stromboli is a stratovolcano, in a constant state of eruption, but in a minor key, emitting bubbly volcanic eructations every day, as it has for the last 2,000 years.

  ‘You must climb to the Sciara del Fuoco, the crater, to understand better,’ says Carlo. ‘Or at least go to the observatory and watch the rocks being hurled into the air.’

  While they all adore the island, they never come in August, when Stromboli is invaded by a mass of holidaymakers and sun-seekers, and the character of the island and Strombolani changes completely, says the banker, as if they’re suddenly possessed by a collective alien madness.

  ‘All they think of is money, money, money,’ says Carlo.

  ‘And then they turn back into normal people in September,’ says the marketing guru’s wife.

  Presently Carlo and I make our way down the 184 steps and go our separate ways. I walk along the winding street to the point where I left Nicoletta. The beams of the full moon on the white painted houses give them a silvery luminescence. The windows and doorways are blocks of solid black from which the occasional shaft of light escapes. It’s as if I’m moving through a de Chirico dreamscape, full of the scents of hibiscus and jasmine and the musk of figs.

  How odd, I think, that these rational, sceptical, intelligent men and women, who probably don’t believe in God or the afterlife, believe in the personality of a volcano. I look up. A faint pink glow emanates from the crater. I remember that Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth ends on Stromboli. Maybe Carlo and his friends are right. Stromboli is a portal to another w
orld.

  A couple of days later Nicoletta and I take the ferry to Salina. The streets of Ficogrande around the port are streaming with humanity. Four tour boats have docked in quick succession, discharging their cargo to mingle with that of the regular ferries, the advance wave of the tsunami of tourists and holidaymakers that are about to crash over these islands. It’s easy to be appalled by this mass – English, Germans, French, Italians, Norwegians. Inevitably they transform the social and economic structures they submerge, but, I wonder, would any of these islands be inhabited at all were it not for the annual invasion, and the infusion of cash and trade it brings with it? Instinctively, like Stefan Zweig, I revolt against mass tourism, its crassness, its vulgarity, its ubiquity, its insensitivity, but how can I justify denying others the pleasure of such a place?

  As we steam away from Stromboli, I can sense Iddu’s massive, brooding, quiescent presence. Puffs of smoke or steam suddenly appear above the summit, as if Native Americans are sending smoke signals. The ferry skirts the edge of Iddu and draws into the minuscule harbour of Ginostra, a village of seventeen permanent inhabitants, two alimentari, two restaurants and a handful of sugar-cube houses thrown casually over the surrounding hillsides. It seems there’s always another yet more remote outpost to discover. Perhaps here is the Mediterranean haven I’m looking for. I peer down as the metal drawbridge of the boat drops. A couple and a man and a dog get off. An APE, one of those ubiquitous three-wheeler trucks, zooms on. The metal drawbridge clanks back into place. We draw away.

  6

  SUN-BRIGHT GODDESSES