Pliny's Warning

by Nicholson, Anne Maria

  ‘Frances, don’t go to Whakaari, I beg you. It’s not right to go there. It’s tapu, forbidden to Maori, and it’s dangerous for you. Please listen to me.’

  His words still ring in her ears, urging her not to go to White Island, known to the Maori as Whakaari. But she hadn’t listened. Couldn’t. If it was a test to see if she could embrace his world, she had failed miserably. But what were her choices? To turn her back on a life of work and research that meant so much to her? Her expertise gave people a chance to escape from the fury of volcanoes. The life of the baby sister she had never known was taken so cruelly because there had been no warnings of the disaster. But if she’d listened to Tori, would another life have been saved? Would they still be together? Frances turns over and twists the soft white sheets around her. But she finds no comfort.

  The first sighting of White Island had sent the same tremor of nervous excitement through her that came with each new volcano. Bob Masterton had tapped her shoulder from the back of the helicopter as the island appeared on the horizon, the tip of an enormous cone rising out of the ocean.

  ‘She’s pumping today, Frances. We should get some great samples and readings.’ She had turned to smile at the man known as Mr Volcanoes. There wasn’t a crater in the country Bob didn’t know and White Island was no exception. He was a frequent visitor, his tanned face and muscled body evidence of his long involvement with New Zealand’s Volcano Watch team.

  She had pointed to the bag by her side. ‘I’ve got the new cameras here. They’re state of the art so they should give us some fine photos if they survive the heat.’

  The previous day there’d been a vigorous earthquake swarm with dozens of tremors caused by magma and gas movements beneath the volcano. One of the cameras that recorded all activity on the island had stopped working, its power supply extinguished. In the wake of the Asian tsunami, fears of a local tsunami activated by landslides on White Island had become a constant worry. It didn’t look like it, but this was the biggest volcano in New Zealand, with nearly three quarters of it below the sea.

  As the small red helicopter slowly flew through the great blue expanse, drawing closer to the island, Frances had felt like a little bird trapped inside. She had sat in the front with the pilot, Hamish, a confident, tall, black-haired, freckle-faced, twenty-five-year-old who had already been flying this route for three years. Strong winds buffeted the chopper and it had lurched noisily from side to side, narrowing the fifty-kilometre gap eastwards between the mainland and the island. In every direction she’d looked, left, right and down through the window between her feet, all she had seen was the deep blue sea. Only the island ahead interrupted the line. A huge white cloud of steamy gas towered over the island.

  ‘See that cloud?’ Bob had said. ‘That happens after a lot of heavy rain.’

  As they had drawn closer, it had occurred to her that Tori’s story about its mythological origins correlated well with the scientists’ version. Both agreed this was part of a line of fire stretching across the Pacific, Maori believing it came from Hawaiki, their mythical island home. He’d told her the fire had arrived in answer to a prayer from a powerful tohunga, the high priest Ngatoroirangi. He had been leading Tori’s ancestors, who journeyed in canoes in search of new lands. Climbing the high mountains in the middle of the North Island, he had nearly frozen to death. Anguished, he’d cried out to his ancestral spirits to send warmth. ‘Ka riro au i te tonga, tukuna mai te ahi! I am seized by the cold wind from the south. Send me fire.’

  Frances was always totally drawn in by Tori’s dramatic renditions. He was so passionate when he told the old stories; eyes flashing, arms waving and his voice strong and emotional. He’d said the priest’s prayers had been answered and the fire roared under the sea, emerging first in White Island, then heading inland to create hot pools and geysers and finally, bursting into flames in the sacred mountains of Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro.

  A fresh tail wind soon had them circling the island and Frances had shrugged off Tori’s mythology. She had also put out of her mind his anger when she had told him she would be coming here. What lay ahead needed her full concentration.

  White surf was crashing against craggy rocks then ricocheting onto colonies of sea gannets nesting above. Two of the birds had taken flight, each plunging into the sea in search of fish. She could see a deserted black beach on the far side of the island where currents of yellow sulphur stained the waves as they lapped in and out of the sand. The mouth of the volcano was dotted with smaller craters belching smoke and steam. Even from the air, she could see its deadly heart, a boiling lake gargling in a seemingly bottomless throat.

  ‘There’s the old sulphur mine down there, by Crater Bay,’ Hamish’s voice had crackled through her headphones as they descended. ‘All the miners who lived here were killed overnight in 1914, by a red hot avalanche. Poor bastards! Only their cat survived.’

  Frances had peered out of the helicopter window at the frames of old buildings above the beach. There were no other signs of human habitation, just a barren moonscape. No reason on earth to live there.

  ‘Get ready,’ Hamish had told them. ‘Going down.’

  A few minutes later they’d touched down on a clear stretch of rocks, perching like a praying mantis as the engine shut down. Strong wind had blasted them as they opened the doors and stepped into blinding sunshine. Frances had taken one look towards the gaping crater before she had started coughing. The stench of sulphur and other gases was so strong and acrid she had almost vomited.

  She’d quickly hoisted her backpack out of the chopper, put navy overalls over her jeans and shirt, swapped her sneakers for long insulated rubber boots and pulled a bright orange mask and headdress over her hair. Bob had dressed identically, covering his own greying cropped hair. She’d then grabbed the bag with cameras.

  Hamish had put on a smaller facemask.

  ‘See you in an hour or so. I’ll be waiting here.’

  The two of them had looked like a pair of beekeepers trekking towards a ring of fumaroles puffing out a heady chemical mix of steam. The walls of the crater rose up around them. A stream of hot muddy water was rushing alongside them and they had to navigate its twists and turns, carefully stepping across the current.

  ‘I must have been here more than twenty times and it’s never been the same.’ Bob’s voice was muffled through the mask. ‘There can be hundreds of tonnes of gases pumped out in a day and the heat is tremendous. This stream has taken a new path. Look!’ He’d pointed to a boiling mud pond the size of a child’s backyard pool. ‘That’s new. Come up in the last month.’

  ‘It’s the closest place to hell I’ve been!’ Frances had edged close to him so she could hear above the wind. ‘Are you sure it’s a safe time to do the testing?’

  ‘Sure, just watch your footing carefully and keep your mask on. We’ll start with the Donald Mount fumaroles and then we’ll check the other monitors and I’ll help you get those cameras going.’

  He strode ahead as she trailed behind, gingerly stepping on the brilliant yellow and white sulphur crystals, red earth and crumbly rock. Steam was pouring out of the ground in dozens of places and from the main crater some three hundred metres ahead. When Frances had bent over to touch the ground, it burnt her hand.

  Bob had reached the fumaroles first and quickly assembled the testing kit from his backpack and put on a pair of gloves. ‘Stay behind me!’ He’d positioned himself close to the mouth of the largest vent, the size of a football. Uphill from him, it was covered in steam when he plunged a thick tube into its hissing and bubbling core.

  Frances had waited close below, passing bottles to capture the samples of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and halogen gases to analyse back in their lab.

  ‘I’ll bag some of the soil,’ she’d told him as he stepped away from the fumaroles.

  They’d packed the samples into their bags and backtracked towards the helicopter and across to the ridge overlooking the craters. As they’d passed, s
he’d noticed that Hamish had wandered down towards the beach.

  The air had cleared and they carried their headdresses. It had been a relief to feel the breeze cooling her face. When they’d nearly reached the top, she’d spotted a camera and its support frame lying on the ground. ‘Looks like it’s been knocked over by a rock. It’s also heavily corroded,’ she’d said, fingering a clump of crystals on the camera.

  Bob had fixed the framework, hammering it into the scoria. Frances unpacked one of the new digital cameras and took a photo. ‘Check this out. Pretty good, don’t you think?’ She’d showed him the image on the tiny screen of the boiling lake that lay below them.

  ‘Extraordinary. Much clearer than the old one. Take one of me and I’ll take one of you.’

  They’d laughed like a couple of schoolkids on an excursion as Bob raised his hand in a victory sign, or the volcano sign, as he called it. Frances had balanced on her toes in a pose she’d learnt at childhood ballet classes.

  ‘Something to show the office boys and girls who never leave their desks,’ he’d joked as they looked at their images. Frances fitted the camera into the framework and fiddled with the radio modem that would relay the photos back to the computers at their headquarters. She cleaned some loose ash off the solar panels powering the cameras and the two of them walked along the ridge to replace the second camera.

  ‘All done?’ he’d asked. ‘Come and help me clean up the other gear. You do the microphone and I’ll tackle the seismograph.’

  Bob had led Frances further round the ridge. ‘It’s so volatile here we’ve had a lot of problems with ash and rocks knocking out the power,’ he’d said.

  Frances had quickly cleaned the small microphone that picked up volcanic tremors. As Bob worked on the seismograph, Frances had paused to gaze across the island. She could see Hamish sitting on the sand on one side, his tall gangly body sheltering beneath some scrubby trees near the site of the derelict miners’ settlement. The sea was all around and there was no other land in sight.

  The interior of the giant crater was completely devoid of vegetation. It was a landscape like no other; a maritime volcano active for hundreds of thousands of years. The potential was there to erupt with such force that it could blow right into the stratosphere and alter the climate for hundreds of kilometres. Frances had reflected on Tori’s tale. The origins of this fiery beast were somewhat older than the priest’s story that dated back less than a thousand years, but the small error of fact had given her no comfort.

  ‘C’mon, Frances, I want to show you the crater lake before we go.’

  They had skidded down loose rocks, put their masks back on and Bob had broken into a quick march towards the lake at the far end of the crater. She’d found it difficult to keep up because the ground was so pocked with hot pools and boiling mud she was afraid she would lose her footing.

  Swirling clouds of steam had gathered between them but she could still see the glow of his orange headdress moving further ahead. She’d called out to him to slow down but a loud roar from the crater left her voice in the wind. She’d stopped. Suddenly, she could see nothing at all.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  One euro, signora.’

  Camilla Corsi passes a coin to the newspaper vendor at the kiosk opposite the university and quickly takes her copy of Il Mattino. She flicks through it until she sees the photo on page eleven. The image of her is flattering, showing her in the control room of the observatory.

  ‘Naples professor to spearhead volcano inquiry’, the accompanying article announces. She nods her head with satisfaction and turns back. ‘Another five copies,’ she calls to the vendor. She tucks the papers into her alligator skin briefcase and hurries across the road.

  The imposing fifteenth-century main building of the university towers over her, its red and grey stone exterior glowing in the last hour of sunshine. As she glances up, the light catches the motto engraved beneath the ornately sculpted pediment. Ad Scientiarvm Havsvm Et Seminarivm Doctrinarvm—To the honour of teaching and learning of science.

  ‘There was a time I believed it was that simple,’ she thinks, as her heels echo on the decorative mosaic floor of the vestibule leading to the central courtyard near her office. Her secretary has gone for the day, leaving a neat pile of messages and mail on Camilla’s green leather-covered desk. She sifts through them, discarding all but one letter. The envelope is cream embossed with gold, her name written in handsome calligraphy. She opens it.

  ‘The Ambassador of the United Kingdom requests the pleasure of the company of Professor Camilla Corsi at a commemorative dinner at the Palazzo Capodimonte to celebrate 300 years of British diplomatic presence in Italy.’

  There’s a handwritten note below.

  ‘Love you to come, C. Let me know. Will be good to escape Rome for a couple of days. XXX B.’

  ‘Ah, dear man,’ she thinks as she draws a large red tick on the invitation and puts it in her out-tray, already pondering whether to dash out to buy the new-season Versace cocktail dress she had spotted in her favourite shop in Via Toledo earlier in the week.

  A folder with a stick-on note saying FOR YOUR URGENT ATTENTION is next to her phone. She picks it up, ignoring the flashing message alert button. Inside are the recommendations from the three members of the panel set up to appoint the new Director of the Chemistry Faculty. She smiles when she sees the decision is unanimous: Professor Luigi Paoli. It had certainly been helpful that Luigi didn’t share his uncle’s surname—that it was well known that his mother was Alfonso Galbatti’s sister was of little importance. Sometimes, appearances were everything. ‘Madonna,’ she thinks, ‘where would any of us be without our patron?’ There would hardly be a worthwhile position in any Italian university that didn’t have a patron behind it. Still, this one had come at great expense, even by her standards.

  Transparency and accountability to Parliament were becoming more of an issue now the Left had a bigger say, though they were as much into nepotism as anyone. She’d had to fly in the three professors from different campuses around Italy three times, accommodating each in one of the best hotels on the waterfront at Santa Lucia. Of course, they knew what was expected. They dutifully interviewed the seven short-listed candidates each time before reaching the inevitable conclusion that Luigi Paoli was the best person for the job. The three had all benefited from research grants Alfonso controlled so Camilla was surprised when one of them had confided that he had reservations, and believed the woman from Rome was better qualified. She made a note to herself not to invite him to the next panel.

  She remembered when she had her own first major break in the university hierarchy, thanks to Alfonso. But the germination of her rise to the top started long before that. In fact, if she really thought about it, the seed was planted thirty-six years earlier, when she was just eight.

  Her father had returned home late for dinner at the family house in their village near the old town of Nola where he ran a small trucking business and had an interest in an olive oil concern. Giuseppe Corsi was proud that his family lived comfortably and his wife, Antonia, could afford to provide a good table. On this night, Camilla, her three brothers and mother had already finished supper when her father arrived. He sank immediately into his favourite armchair and she had leapt onto his lap to hug him. ‘Daddy,’ she said pulling at his already loosened tie, ‘you smell really nice, like sweet roses.’ He pushed her aside gently and eased her off his knee. She caught the look exchanged between her parents; his eyes, was it embarrassment, shame, or some other emotion? She couldn’t recall.

  But she remembered her mother’s response. Crushed. An expression like a ripe peach squashed in your hand. She never sat on her father’s knee again. The look was one Camilla was to see more and more on the faces of other women. She started to notice other things too. Her father was a popular figure but not in the league of the men who gathered every night in the central bar, their well-cut suits a contrast to the working men who clustered in the other two bars
across the piazza. The women, like her mother, the young girl, noticed, were never there in the early morning and evening when the men liked to huddle together. Occasionally she’d see women she didn’t know. Their expressions weren’t crushed and they were always laughing and drinking and smoking together or sometimes with one or other of the men.

  Camilla decided there and then that she would never have a crushed expression. When she was sixteen, she made one mistake. Once she had dropped her guard and allowed someone to get too close, but she had solved the problem and rarely thought of it now.

  She excelled at school and when she was accepted into the prestigious University of Campania, she chose vulcanology, partly because she had grown up in the shadow of Vesuvius and knew by heart the stories and legends of the eruptions stemming back thousands of years, and partly because she was a natural scientist. She breezed through her courses, studying hard and eschewing the social life. Camilla knew she was no beauty and could not compete with some of the classically beautiful girls in her year. Boys her age showed no interest in her but she noted early on that older men saw in her immediately a discreet sensual quality that eluded her contemporaries.

  Alfonso Galbatti was one such suitor. He had cut a dash as the head of her faculty, but it wasn’t until she had earned her doctorate and the university medal that they had any contact. He had held her hand slightly longer than necessary when he handed her the prize and an invitation to coffee to discuss her future followed. Before long, she was offered a junior lectureship. Two years on, a little after her thirty-fourth birthday, there were three more offers on the table. At the age of fifty-nine, one year younger than her father, Professor Galbatti had been elevated to the top job and his life was about to accelerate. Would she like to accompany him to New York to assist him at an international conference? There was an opening in the department for an associate professor. Would she be interested? The third offer wasn’t mentioned. They would stay in the Waldorf. Two rooms.