Tourmaline

by Joanna Scott

  It was because of the Nardi archives that Francis Cape became involved with Adriana. Francis, who was writing a book about Napoleon’s escape from Elba, had met Adriana when she was a young girl. She would keep him company in the library while he pored through old letters and contracts, and he took the time to help her improve her English. Later, he would describe her to us as intriguing.

  She arrived in our lives with a significant past, she was one of the very few Elbans who spoke English, and she was lonely. She was Signora Nardi’s adopted daughter and her only child. Her birth mother was a Corsican girl who’d fled to Elba in disgrace, left her newborn baby outside the hospital in Portoferraio, and disappeared. We learned later that her father was said to have been a foreign sailor — a mercenary, according to the gossip, or a pirate.

  At the age of eighteen, Adriana enrolled at the university in Bologna. She studied English, and after two years was encouraged by her professors to apply for a fellowship at St. Hilda’s in Oxford. Her application was accepted. She would have gone to England the following fall, but for some reason no one understood, she began losing interest in her studies and didn’t bother to take her exams at the end of the year. She returned to Elba, shadowed by the inevitable rumors about an unhappy romance.

  So there you have it — a short history of Adriana Nardi up to the point when she entered our lives. It’s hard to describe the effect she had upon people because it never seemed to be the same effect twice. Sometimes I felt she was made up of different people. Other times I thought of her as an empty shell, without a soul or self, like one of those conchs that washes up on the beach and Emily Hunter holds against her ear, mistaking the whooshing vibrations of her own circulating blood for the sound of the ocean.

  We had Francis Cape to thank for Adriana’s presence at our dinners. Francis Cape was a close friend of the Nardis and took it upon himself to introduce the girl to any English speakers he could find.

  I remember one dinner in particular at a restaurant in Porto Azzurro. Francis, as usual, was entertaining us all with stories about the Turks and pirates, and then, in response to a question from Murray, describing at great length the screes of Elba and their yield of crystal and tourmalines, rose-colored beryls, red and gray and honey-colored granite. Francis himself had purchased a serpentine pedestal from a store in Portoferraio — he’d picked it up for almost nothing, he said, because the figure of the saint which it must have once supported was missing. He dated it from the seventeenth century and could tell from the quality of the stone that it came from one of the local quarries. He invited us to visit his home the next day to see it. Which we did, and found the poor man living in a filthy hovel in the shadow of Fort Stella.

  But that’s another story. I was telling you about the dinner at the restaurant in Porto Azzurro: with Francis Cape holding forth, I stole glances at Adriana. She struck me as frail in appearance and yet rigid in her manner. And she hardly touched the food on her plate, I noticed. Afterward, I found myself thinking more about her, and the more I thought, the more elusive she became in my mind. I asked Murray about his impressions because I needed confirmation that my apprehension was justified. I felt as if I’d met a ghost, or, more realistically, a clever actress who was used to pretending.

  Murray felt nothing of the sort. He thought she was shy, or no worse than reserved. He enjoyed her company and worked hard to make her feel at ease whenever she was our guest, which turned out to be a frequent occurrence, since we spent so much time in those early weeks with Francis Cape, and Francis liked to bring Adriana along. Though the girl’s ostensible goal was to practice her English, often in the quiet hour after pranzo Murray would encourage her to speak with Francis in Italian, and he would sit across from them with his eyes closed, happily listening without understanding a word.

  My job during siesta was to keep you boys quiet and out of the hot afternoon sun. It was the only time of day when Lidia and Francesca did not expect me to be idle. They would retreat to their rooms, and I would read to you, or we’d work on puzzles or play cards before I’d turn you loose. I’d forget that I could hear the soft music of conversation out on the terrace.

  For the rest of the day, Lidia was in charge of our household. She spoke a few decisive words of English and made it clear that she approved of me only when I didn’t interfere with her work. Do you remember how she smelled of the fresh anchovies she’d cook almost daily? And Francesca smelled of lavender, like the island itself. Lavender grew everywhere — bordering the paths, sprinkled through the hills and in the village gardens. And aloe — you could take a deep breath and pull the silky taste of aloe down your throat. And rosemary, of course, and mint and honeysuckle.

  And do you remember the winds? The powerful scirocco that caught the sunlight and shattered it into a glassy, spiraling mist. The damp grecale that followed a rainstorm. The harsh winter maestrale that brought two months of rain. Always the wind scraping against the side of your face. Always the sound of it. Moaning through cracks in the shutters, swishing over the vineyards, rattling the fronds of palm trees.

  And the blue glimmer of the sea all around, as if the hills of Elba had been heaped upon a plate. And fresh fish to eat every day, sole and tuna, squid and shrimp. There was the time we came upon fishermen cutting up a manta that must have weighed a few hundred pounds. And one evening after supper in Portoferraio we saw a thirty-foot-long giant squid stretched out on a dock for display. And once Nino brought over a tiny monster, a viper fish, with its huge, ugly mouth held open with toothpicks.

  I remember one beautiful evening, drinking martinis on the terrace. Francis Cape was describing in his usual vivid detail how the German and Italian submarines would cut their engines and use the inflow from the Atlantic to drift past the British blockades at Gibraltar. Once in a while they made it; usually they didn’t. I remember thinking sadly that the engineer from Ohio would have enjoyed trading stories with Francis Cape.

  But I couldn’t stay sad for long. The wind would rise and whisk the past away. The sun turned Murray the color of half-polished bronze. My hair was so tangled I wouldn’t bother to brush it for days at a time.

  You see how happy I was? Go ahead and use the word magic to describe those first weeks. You remember wandering with your brothers in the hills. Have you forgotten that almost every morning Francesca would take you boys to a quiet cove where the clear water was as still as glass? Sometimes I’d tag along. You, Ollie, would stare in a trance into tidal pools, watching the tiny mouths of barnacles opening and closing — you thought they were the eyes of the rocks! The other boys would walk in bare feet across the slippery kelp. Harry always found something — a cork, sea glass, a pink anemone latched onto the back of a crab. Nat would inevitably wander off, and Francesca would go climbing across the rocks in search of him.

  Midway through the summer, your father and I began talking about extending our vacation beyond August. The dollar was strong against the lira, and even with Lidia and Francesca as full-time help we lived cheaply. Our rent for a month was roughly the cost of dinner out for our family at a New York restaurant. For next to nothing, we could remain on Elba until Christmas. Harry and Patrick could go to school in Portoferraio. We could fish and swim and climb into the mountains to hunt for precious stones. Maybe we’d get lucky and find a big chunk of blue tourmaline. Who knows? Maybe tourmaline would make our fortune.

  In the evenings Lidia would make a big bowl of soup or pasta, and we’d eat too much and sit with guests and watch the sun go down behind the mountains. Our circle of friends grew wider. Adriana introduced us to Mario Ginori and his wife, a wealthy local couple. Francis introduced us to Joshua Meredith, from Shrop-shire, who was doing research for a travel guide.

  During those early weeks life kept me too occupied to anticipate any change. This has more to do with the proximity of the sea than with our routines, for the endless expanse of water makes one feel that nothing short of death is important, and nothing important can happen without nat
ure’s consent.

  Nothing without natural propulsion. It’s comforting to believe that our lives follow the patterns of nature. But it’s a small comfort when we’re faced with the violent outcome of human action.

  OUR MOTHER READ THE BOOKS she’d brought from America, wrote letters to friends and family, and occasionally accompanied us to the beach, where she sat on a blanket looking like some sort of foreign luminary, a visiting duchess from the distant North.

  Once in a while our father would come along for a swim, but more often he’d wander off on his Lambretta and spend the morning tapping away at boulders with his hammer and chisel, separating feldspar from granite, granite from quartz. Sometimes he’d bring home wishing stones — dusty, egg-shaped rocks belted by a full circle of quartz — but nothing more, nothing of real value.

  The dust was rust-colored, black, brown, gray. Our father would return capped and coated with dust. Dust would envelope Francis Cape’s car whenever he bumped along in his Fiat up our drive. Dust would hide Adriana Nardi from view until she opened the door and stepped away from the car. If she ever smiled a greeting at my brothers and me when she entered the house, we were too busy to notice.

  July melted into the heat of August. August brought us closer to September. We didn’t bother to ask when we would be leaving, and my older brothers didn’t protest when our parents announced that they would be going to the local school.

  We overheard our father describing to our mother what he’d seen in his expeditions. We listened carefully when he turned the subject to treasure. The land, he said, was the island’s greatest treasure. The rich stock of Elban land. Land strewn with sparkling minerals, land rising in peaks and sloping down to the blue disk of the sea. Here on paradise, the value of land was rapidly increasing as the island’s future as a tourist haven became more certain. While Murray spoke, he let a match he’d used to light his cigarette burn far down its stem. The shock of heat against his fingertips roused him and he shook out the flame abruptly. We watched him relax into his cigarette as he continued. Claire watched him. An investor could take advantage of the trend, Murray said. He could invest in property. Developers were already scouting, and local farmers were ready to sell. If an investor were clever, he could be a middleman. He’d find the land that others wanted, stake his claim, bide his time, and eventually sell his property at enough profit to make the effort worthwhile.

  Murray wandered the island on foot and motorcycle. He circled it by boat. He studied maps and topography charts. He even tried to make sense of the laws relating to property and taxes, but he found them as impenetrable as the rules relating to Italian grammar. He decided that there were some things he didn’t have to know.

  In order to calculate the value of land, he needed to know more about the island. Francis Cape brought him to the Nardis’ villa, La Chiatta, to see the family’s extensive archive.

  The front drive cutting between Lorenzo’s property and the Nardi olive groves was lined with oleander bushes, their blooms brown and faded from the heat. The villa itself was a tired orange stucco, with a high stone wall around the courtyard that blocked the view of the sea, though the shore must have been close — Murray heard the water slapping against rocks when he stepped from Francis’s car.

  Signora Nardi, Adriana’s mother, met them at the door. She spoke English stiffly, self-consciously. She was a small, gray-haired woman with steely eyes that absorbed everything in a cold, consuming glance. Francis Cape had warned Murray about her, describing the woman as aloof. Murray had the immediate impression that she disapproved of him. Before he opened his mouth to speak, Signora Nardi already disliked him.

  She said that her daughter had told her all about the American couple and their lively bambini. She hoped Murray would bring his family along for a visit one day. Murray promised to do so and added that he hoped Signora Nardi would come join them at their house for a meal.

  The stiff way she smiled in response suggested reluctance. She motioned to Francis to lead the way inside. Murray followed Francis. Adriana met them in the library, at which point Signora Nardi left, having indicated that Signor Murdoch could examine anything in the collection relevant to his studies.

  Studies, she’d said, as though he’d been presented to her as another scholar joining Francis Cape in his search of history. He wanted to laugh at the idea. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for.

  Adriana showed him whatever she thought might interest him. Signor Americano wanted to know more about the island. Look at this — a cup made by a nineteenth-century Elban artisan for Napoleon. And this — a mine survey of Monte Calamita dating from the seventeenth century. You want to know about our island, Signor Americano? Here is a ledger from the Palazzina dei Mulini tracking the emperor’s expenses.

  While Francis Cape watched with a possessive pride, Adriana showed Murray brittle yellow documents signed by Napoleon, music programs from the early 1800s, and old maps of the whole Tuscan archipelago.

  What else could Adriana show Murray? Could he come visit her again? Of course he could. What could she tell him about the island and its history? This beautiful, mysterious island. Would Adriana tell him that story again, the one about Napoleon laughing so hard he fell out of his chair?

  Murray returned on his own to La Chiatta a few days later, drawn there because the girl had made him feel welcome, though when he arrived he found the shutters closed against daylight and the courtyard eerily empty. He expected to meet Adriana’s mother again, but it was Adriana who answered the door. It was Adriana who served tea brewed from wild mint and let him drink from Napoleon’s cup. Murray watched her watching him from her chair across the marble-top table, her chin propped in her hands. Her eyes were a dull brown, the whites faintly bloodshot. Her fingernails had a yellowish tinge to them. Only the moist natural red of her lips suggested any vitality.

  Adriana spoke briefly, concisely, about the first visit of Cosimo III to Elba in 1700, how he arrived at three in the morning and was carried by two slaves in a velvet-cushioned chair all the way up to the Stella. She told him a little about the Austrian blockade in 1708 and the civil war that ensued. They discussed the French Revolution and even got into a mild, fleeting argument about a statement by de Tocqueville:

  “The King’s subjects felt toward him both the natural love of children for their father and the awe properly due to God alone.”

  Murray accepted every word of de Tocqueville. Adriana declared Murray a fool. Murray scoffed at Adriana’s arrogance. Adriana laughed at him, and then without warning she leaned across the table and with her thumb rubbed from his cheek what he assumed was a smudge of dirt or ink, her gesture more in the manner of a sister or daughter than a lover, but still it was enough to unnerve Murray. Before he could speak she’d left to refill the teapot in the kitchen.

  After that they spoke in softer tones, laughed nervously to fill an awkward silence, looked away when their eyes accidentally met. He asked if he might return, and she just smiled in reply. He did return — a third and then a fourth time. They grew more formal in their exchanges and rarely let opinions clash. When Murray visited La Chiatta he tried to come prepared with specific tasks. He asked for Adriana’s help in translating a newspaper article. He asked for her advice about the land. She told him he should spend his money on a boat.

  He found himself watching the girl when he thought she wouldn’t notice him, not because of any inappropriate desire but because she puzzled him. The deliberateness of her movements and the scripted quality of her voice provoked in him an imitative poise. He wondered if Adriana were suffering from some chronic illness, but she never mentioned it and Murray never asked. He studied her for signs either of deterioration or improvement. He told himself that his interest in her was as harmless and inevitable as his interest in all things exotic.

  Though it remained hot through September, the quicker turn of dusk into night foretold the seasonal changes ahead. Our parents talked about staying on Elba long enough to exp
erience the island in the guise of winter. They negotiated with Lorenzo a three-month extension of the Le Foci lease. Patrick and Harry dutifully went off each day to the elementary school in Portoferraio, and we spent our free hours scouring the sunbaked land for treasures. No one asked us to explain why we weren’t going back to America.

  Every morning Murray rose early and planned how he would fill each empty hour. At the end of the day he’d feel as though he’d passed the time in a stupor. Sometimes it seemed to him that all the islanders were plotting against him, luring him into a trap with their insinuative talk about the future. He kept asking Francis Cape for assurance.

  One morning in October he lay awake in bed trying to remember a conversation from the previous day. They’d all had supper together — he and Claire, Francis and Adriana. He’d been listening to Adriana and Francis speaking in Italian. Somehow Murray had intuited that the girl was saying something he deserved to know, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to interrupt and ask for a translation.

  Now, the morning after, he couldn’t stand not knowing what he’d missed. He climbed out of bed, leaving Claire sleeping, and rode his motorcycle along the deserted road to La Chiatta. Only when he’d turned off the engine and paused to listen to the sea lapping behind the courtyard wall did he consider how early it was and how ridiculous he’d appear if he knocked at the door.

  He snuck away as quietly as he could, though as he crossed the courtyard he had the prickling sensation that someone was watching him from an upstairs window. He resisted turning around to check. He pushed his motorcycle back up the long dirt drive. Doves cooed, hidden in the palms. Olive leaves rustled in the morning breeze. A silver moth fluttered around his head, bumping against his cheek as though to wake him.