Among the Lemon Trees

by Nadia Marks

  He was an honourable young man with traditional values and found that the hopelessness that induced these women to barter sex so coolly, as if they were selling nothing more than produce grown in their fields, was incomprehensible. He was deeply troubled by this exchange of carnal favours, and that the sexual virtue of girls, which before the war had always been so highly protected and valued, had now turned into a commodity.

  In the hope that a soldier would treat them well, buy them dinner, and if really lucky give them a wedding ring, girls were lining up to offer their bodies to anything in khaki. The ring was the main objective for most young women in Naples. Alexis and his friends would repeatedly come across desperate females searching for an American or British soldier who might fall in love with them and whisk them away from the misery of their lives. Some were lucky. Italian women possessed an earthy sexuality, so different from the play-hard-to-get girls back home, that many soldiers found irresistible, and were willing to put that much-coveted ring on their finger.

  Alexis’s friends, Tim Anderson and John Simons, had each temporarily acquired one of these girlfriends but for them it was strictly to pass their time, as both lads had girls waiting back home. Tim had taken up with a woman of mature age, well into her thirties, who seemed confident that he would eventually marry her. She claimed she was a war widow, her name was Concetta and she lived in a one-room decrepit apartment in one of the narrow alleyways in the centre of town with bad plumbing and damp walls.

  ‘Never met a woman like her!’ Tim boasted to his friends with a nod and a wink. ‘There’s nothing she won’t do if I ask her, and a few things that I’d never even thought of asking.’

  John was currently seeing a girl called Immacolata, who lived with her mother in the outskirts of Naples and whose name belied her natural inclinations. Concetta had managed to turn her poverty-line flat into a love-nest in which Tim, John, and often other friends, would spend their time off duty smoking, drinking and making love. Alexis had been an occasional participant at these gatherings but after he met Rosaria he never set foot in Concetta’s flat again.

  ‘Alexis, daaarling, you com sta-sera to my ouse, I ave beautiful girl for you . . . sì?’ Concetta would try and tempt Alexis whenever she saw him. ‘She is a bella! Una bella ragazza for you . . . you come with Teem tonight, sì? You will lov her!’

  ‘Come on, Alexis, my old mate,’ Tim kept on too, ‘if you won’t come alone then get that girl of yours and join us. It’s about time you showed that poor lass a good time. Can’t be much fun for her stuck in that old kitchen all the time.’

  ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get, my boy,’ his friend added.

  But if Alexis had any time to spare he didn’t want to waste it casually on some girl that wasn’t Rosaria. He had finally, after all these years, fallen in love again, struck by a thunderbolt, an Italian one this time, the likes of which he’d seen raging over the Bay of Naples during an electric storm, and hoped that Rosaria had felt its force too; but he couldn’t be sure. He had an inkling that she liked him – he read it in her eyes and in her smile when they were alone. But that was all, she never gave him any other sign. Still, he was prepared to wait. After all, hadn’t he learned from a very early age to be patient when it came to love?

  When finally, one sunny day, after several months of waiting and contemplating, he decided the time was right to ask Rosaria on a date, her response took Alexis by surprise. She was stooping beside an old antique sideboard in the officers’ dining room putting away some crockery, when he got a glimpse of her through the open door. A gentle breeze from the window was playfully blowing some curls hanging down her back. Bewitched as always, Alexis walked towards her.

  ‘Ciao, Alexis!’ she said, turning round to greet him with a smile.

  The curve of her hips, the pull of her dress as the fabric stretched across the small of her back following the line of her haunches, made him stir with desire.

  ‘Ciao,’ he replied nervously and cleared his throat. ‘Rosaria . . .’ he started, ‘erhm, I wanted to ask you something. Would you like to take a walk with me tonight after you finish here? Or tomorrow night, or any night. Maybe we can go for a drink? I’ll walk you home afterwards.’ He held his breath, waiting for her answer. She stopped what she was doing and breathed in. There was a long pause before her reply came back, and when it did, her eyes would not meet his.

  ‘Non posso,’ she said quietly. Alexis saw her flush crimson all the way from her ears down to the top of her arms.

  ‘Why, Rosaria? Why can’t you?’ he said, incredulous at her categorical refusal. He hadn’t asked for much; an innocent walk, an early evening stroll along the promenade, like other people, a simple drink in a bar, nothing more.

  ‘My family,’ she murmured, ‘they would not like it.’ She avoided his gaze.

  ‘Tell your family I will take good care of you. I’m with the Allied forces, we are here to protect you, remember!’ he said, trying to jest and make light of his disappointment. He wasn’t going to give up. Having gone this far he would not take no for an answer so easily. Her reply was unexpected but her shyness and even her reluctance came as a refreshing change to him, making him all the more eager to pursue her. The idea that her family wouldn’t approve appealed to him. Perhaps, he thought, she had a decent Catholic family that held on to their integrity and values and didn’t stoop to use their girl as bait as so many resorted to doing. But he knew almost nothing about them. Rosaria had given him a very sketchy picture of where she came from. All she’d told him was that she came from a village in the countryside, close to the foothills of Mount Vesuvius, too far to travel every day into Naples so she had been staying with her Auntie Philomena.

  ‘She is not getting any better,’ she’d told Alexis after working at the HQ for a few weeks. ‘She’s much weaker now and she needs someone to look after her.’

  ‘Doesn’t she have a family of her own?’ Alexis asked.

  ‘I am her family,’ she replied, offering no extra information. Alexis asked no more; he was no stranger to secrecy. Whereas his friends were urging him to enquire further about the girl, he preferred to take his time, respecting Rosaria’s right to privacy and hoping that slowly she would trust him sufficiently to divulge more. He knew that when the time was right for her, she would open up enough to allow a clearer picture of her life to emerge. In the meantime, he had to be patient and wait. After all, he was not exactly giving her a complete picture of his own life, so why should he expect it from her?

  3

  Over the months, Alexis and Rosaria’s relationship went from strength to strength and the sexual tension between them became impossible to ignore. Alexis lay in his bed every night dreaming of her and Rosaria lived for the moment she would see him again. She had also fallen hopelessly in love and cherished every second she spent with him, yet she continued to keep her true feelings hidden.

  Even though his first attempt to invite her on a date had been unsuccessful, Alexis was not discouraged; he waited a few weeks and then tried again.

  ‘Next Saturday, some of us are going on a trip to Capri,’ he told her one day in one of his attempts to entice her out with him. He’d gone to the kitchen to get a glass of water and found her kneading dough to make pizza.

  ‘We’re going to be on leave so Tim Anderson, John Simons, their girls and me have decided to make a day of it and I was wondering if you’d like to come with us too?’ he blurted out nervously and sat down across the table to wait for her response. She picked up a handful of flour without looking at him and threw it on the dough. A fine white cloud rose between them, making him cough.

  ‘We’ll get a boat to Capri, maybe stop in Sorrento,’ he persisted. ‘We’ll take a picnic. It will be fun and you can tell your parents we’ll be a crowd. You won’t be alone just with me, there will be chaperones, in case they’re worried about that,’ he went on in earnest. ‘What do you say, Rosaria, will you come?’

  She continued to say nothing, lips
pursed, a frown across her brow, and carried on with what she was doing.

  ‘Say you will come, Rosaria?’ he implored. ‘Please say yes!’

  Alexis sat on the edge of his chair waiting and watching as she punched and kneaded the dough in silence. Finally she stopped, brushed a lock of hair from her left eye with the back of her hand and stood looking at him. All he could hear was his breathing and the clock on the wall ticking. At last, after what Alexis thought was an eternity, she spoke.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘I don’t care what anyone thinks any more, Alexis, I’ve had enough.’

  It was one of those clear spring mornings and a flock of seagulls circled the boat as it glided out into the bay towards the Amalficoastline. The city behind them was bathed in a golden light while a soft mist hovered over the harbour. The Bay of Naples ahead glistened in the early sun and high up in the distance Vesuvius loomed like a dragon, ominously belching plumes of smoke from his gaping mouth. Anyone turning round to glance at the shore could have momentarily been fooled that they were looking at the splendid Naples of long ago and not a city plunged into chaos.

  But on that spring morning, in early March, the six people in the boat heading for the island of Capri were determined that for that day at least they would try and forget the horrors of war and the wretched place they’d just left behind.

  Tim and John were both in a cheerful mood, laughing, joking and cavorting with their girls, while Alexis beamed with happiness to finally have Rosaria sitting so close to him. The women in their Sunday best were delighted with this unexpected treat. Concetta, extravagantly dressed for the occasion in an elaborate hat, silk stockings, ruby lips, and a moulting old fox-fur flung over one shoulder, sat half draped over Tim, smoking an American cigarette. Immacolata, as if in keeping with her name, wore a simple blue dress with a delicately embroidered collar and had arranged her hair in an intricate style, piled up high on her head and decorated with tiny, brightly coloured artificial flowers. Her whole appearance, despite her heavy make-up, made her look like one of the cheap plastic statues of the Madonna found in the street shrines situated in almost every corner of the city.

  Earlier that morning when they met at the harbour, Rosaria had been cloaked in a blue shawl which covered her head and most of her torso, but once on the boat she let it fall on the bench. Now, as they sat side by side, Alexis noted she was wearing, washed and pressed for the occasion, the same floral dress she had on the first time he saw her in the old kitchen. On her feet she had a pair of shoes which in comparison to her usual footwear appeared to be brand new. Of course, on close inspection, he realized that the illusion of newness was due to their owner having taken great care of them. Polished to a high shine, the shoes were a cherry-red with a wedge heel and a thin strap that coiled around her slender ankle and fastened on the side with a silver buckle. Around her neck she wore a small silver crucifix encrusted with tiny sea pearls, much like the ones the girls wore back home to church on Sundays. It dangled just above the start of her cleavage, where the scoop of her neckline allowed an occasional glimpse.

  For the first time since he met her, Rosaria wore her hair loose. It cascaded over her shoulders in an abundance of dark curls and every time she moved it released a delicate aroma of orange blossom. Alexis sat as close as he could to her, their thighs touching. After a while he reached across and took her hand in his and there, on that boat, in the middle of nowhere, Rosaria finally relented.

  Sorrento gradually came into view, perched precariously on cliffs that rose defiantly from the sea. Alexis blinked in disbelief; he had never seen anything so splendid. The coastline that they were rapidly approaching was so dramatic, so mythical, it made him feel quite giddy. The waves lapped wildly at the rocks and the wind seemed to carry the song of the sirens to his ears. He too, Alexis thought, like Odysseus, had been lost for too long, had wandered for too many years with no apparent end to his Odyssey but with no Penelope waiting patiently for his return.

  The salt in the air blurred his eyes and something like a sob rose silently from his breast to choke him. Tightening his grip on Rosaria’s hand, Alexis shifted closer to her, and she, looking up at him, breathed a gentle sigh and closed her eyes, letting her head rest on his shoulder.

  They disembarked noisily, the other girls shrieking at the splashing waves, and made their way up to the town for a quick look around and a stroll in the orange and lemon groves. They sat under fragrant trees laden with blossom and ate freshly picked oranges, smoked cigarettes and drank ice-cold limoncello while the heady perfume lulled them into a state of forgetfulness.

  If Alexis was captivated by Sorrento, then Capri totally bewitched him. As the boat drew closer to the island he saw through the sea-mist a rock so massive, so powerful, so rugged and primitive that he almost expected to see mermaids basking on the shore. This was truly a land of gods and legends, and surely, if the call of Ithaca had not been so strong, there could have been no possible reason why Odysseus hadn’t chosen to stay there forever. Rosaria too gazed at the approaching coastline with awe. She had so often stood looking across the Bay of Naples towards this legendary island, trying to imagine it. ‘A wealthy man’s paradise,’ she was told. ‘A playground for the rich,’ she heard them say. She’d pictured lavish villas and exquisite shops, sophisticated socialites, beautiful ladies and dashing men sipping cocktails in elegant bars. But what she saw approaching her was nothing of the sort. She saw a deserted mountainous island, rising forcefully from the bowels of the sea, casting its shadow over the bay. Rosaria’s eyes scanned the shore for the elegant ladies and smart restaurants but saw only a little harbour, unsuitably named Marina Grande.

  Once on land, the party went in search of the town but found nothing but a cafe and a ticket office for the funiculare to transport them to the top of the mountain.

  ‘The town is right at the top,’ the station master informed the group, ‘but if any of you gentlemen feel particularly fit you can always take the steps. There are several thousand of them,’ he said, laughing and winking at the girls.

  The views from the funiculare were both magnificent and frightening and Rosaria, dizzy from the height and excitement, buried her face in Alexis’s chest. Once they reached the top and stepped onto the Piazza Municipio, the town’s main square, they encountered an entirely different world. Here time had stood still and everything Rosaria had heard about Capri proved to be true. Apart from some men in uniform there were no other visible signs of the war, only glamorous people, smartly dressed men with shiny brilliantined hair and ladies in flowing dresses, sitting in cafes. Rosaria blinked several times to make sure she was not dreaming.

  After a glass of marsala at one of the smart cafes, the group set off to find a suitable spot for their picnic. They walked through twisting, winding streets, peered over treacherous cliffs at stunning views of emerald bays, and finally they arrived at the locked gates of a deserted villa where they could go no further. There, under the trees, they sat above the sea like gods. To the sound of birdsong and laughter, they ate white bread, such a delicacy, and tinned bully beef as if it was foie gras, and Naples was a thousand miles away.

  At some point, while the others lay languidly on the blanket engaged in their sexual games, Alexis took Rosaria’s hand and led her away from them. He wanted to kiss her more than anything else in the world and if this was going to be the moment, then he wanted to have it in private. Willingly Rosaria gave him her hand and followed him down the path into a little green plateau. There, amongst the wild flowers and buzzing bees, Alexis took Rosaria’s face in his hands and for the first time since Ourania, he kissed a girl with love and tenderness. Rosaria readily returned his kisses and gave herself with as much passion as he did. They lay together in the long grass holding on to each other, listening to the crashing waves below.

  ‘I love you, Rosaria,’ Alexis whispered in her ear.

  Suddenly, Rosaria jumped up, and brushing down her dress made to leave. Alexis grabbed her hand an
d pulled her down again.

  ‘I love you, Rosaria,’ he told her again. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘Yes, Alexis, I heard you,’ she replied and turned her head away from him.

  ‘And do you love me too, Rosaria?’

  ‘Yes, Alexis, I do. I love you,’ she said breathlessly, ‘but I shouldn’t.’

  ‘Why, Rosaria, because I’m not Catholic? Because I’m a soldier?’

  ‘No, Alexis, because loving you might get you killed.’

  ‘But I told you, Rosaria, I will honour you, your father doesn’t have to worry about that.’

  ‘It’s not about honour, Alexis,’ she said hesitantly. ‘You don’t know, you don’t understand, you can’t even imagine!’

  ‘No! You don’t understand, Rosaria,’ he said and pulled her close. ‘I want to marry you!’

  ‘That’s just it, Alexis.’ She reached across and brushed his cheek with her fingertips. ‘You can’t marry me, Alexis! I’m already married!’

  A day that had started with such exquisite promise for Alexis was turning into one of the worst in his life. Rosaria’s words made his stomach churn and the light turn to darkness.

  ‘Married . . . no!’ he stammered in denial and disbelief. ‘You never told me.’ She stared at the ground, big fat tears rolling down her cheek. ‘Your husband . . .’ he asked, his head pounding as if it had been hit by a hammer, ‘is he dead? Was he killed fighting?’

  ‘No, Alexis,’ she replied, suddenly looking up at him, eyes flashing. ‘It’s not like that, not like that at all! He is not dead, he has not been killed, but I wish to God he had!’

  Confusion clouded Alexis’s eyes.

  4

  As the tale began to unfold it became quite apparent to Alexis that the unwanted husband was not the only thing that was wrong with Rosaria’s life. The girl he had fallen in love with was living a nightmare, trapped in a web that was threatening to suffocate her.