Tourmaline

by Joanna Scott

  Our mother came home with Marco; she left Murray in Porto-ferraio to shop for presents for Harry, whose birthday was the following Wednesday. She gave Harry half an aspirin, coaxed him to take a few sips of water, and let him sleep for the rest of the day. In the evening she put cotton balls soaked in warm olive oil in his ears. If he wasn’t better in a couple of days, she told herself, she’d check with the pharmacist. If he took a turn for the worse, she’d call a doctor.

  Patrick woke up with a fever the next morning. He and Harry stayed in their bedroom with the shutters closed because the light hurt their eyes. They weren’t even interested in the comic books Murray brought them. Nat mixed dish soap with water and blew bubbles in the room, but Patrick mumbled for him to stop, and when he didn’t, Harry called him an idiot. Nat left the room crying.

  The first cause for alarm was Harry’s complaint that the back of his neck hurt. Claire immediately called Lorenzo, who gave her the name of a local doctor. The doctor was in Pisa for the day, but his wife booked a home visit for the following afternoon.

  By the evening I was sick. This was not like any kind of sickness I had ever known. My gut ached, my head ached, my ears throbbed with pain, I couldn’t swallow or speak, and I didn’t have the strength to squeeze my fingers into a fist.

  In our Marciana house I shared a room with Nat. When I fell ill my parents moved a cot into Harry and Patrick’s room for me — “the sick room” it was called, Nat announced. He wasn’t sick — hahah! He didn’t have to stay in bed — hahah! His voice hurt my ears. Someday, I knew, Patrick would beat him up for this.

  Damp washcloths were draped over my forehead. Warm cotton plugged my ears. I heard my mother’s voice but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I wondered if there was ever a time in my life when I hadn’t been sick.

  In the afternoon someone unbuttoned my pajama top and I felt the cold of what must have been a stethoscope against my skin. Then a lizard started to crawl across my chest and up my neck, along my jaw, beneath my ears. I heard a man’s voice, a voice inflected with Italian, calling my name. I didn’t understand why he needed to call me when I was lying right there in front of him, whoever he was. I wanted to tell him to leave me alone. I wanted to sleep. I did sleep, but not for long. I was woken by a huge black glossy ant, so huge it could hardly squeeze through the doorway. I screamed, and my mother rushed into the room. As she approached me the ant faded and disappeared. But it had been there long enough for my mother to see it, so I didn’t bother to explain my terror.

  Through the next period all I perceived besides the pain were odors, each of them distinct: honey, olive oil, ammonia and vinegar and candied cherries and the perfumed residue of shampoo in my mother’s hair. When I smelled her beside me I was angry — why wouldn’t she quit bothering me and let me sleep? When I didn’t smell her I was angry — why wasn’t she with me, making the pain go away?

  At some point I revived enough to know that I wanted to tell my mother she was stupid, I wanted to tell my brothers they were ugly, I wanted a sip of water, I didn’t want a sip of water, I wanted to sleep but I didn’t want to sleep because I was afraid the giant ant would come back. I didn’t understand why no one was helping me. It wasn’t fair. I was five years old, and I was supposed to get a glass of water when I wanted it. But there was water only when I didn’t want it. Didn’t anyone know that everything inside me was hurting? Where was everyone? I looked across the room and saw Patrick sleeping on his stomach, his covers tossed to his ankles, one arm dangling off the side of the bed. The sight reassured me. Patrick was here. Patrick would take care of me. Patrick, wake up! But he wouldn’t wake up. Whenever Patrick wouldn’t let me wake him up I knew he was just pretending to sleep. Patrick was stupid! Everyone was stupid and ugly, except my mother, who poured warm olive oil into my ears and made them feel better. I did feel better. The room was filled with light, Patrick was sitting up in bed reading a book, Harry was sleeping, and there was a bowl of orange Jell-O beside my bed. Jell-O!

  We all improved abruptly. One day we’d been stiff with pain, the next day we were complaining because we couldn’t run around outside in our bare feet.

  Then it was Nat’s turn. He’d spent the week feeling alternately proud of his good health and bored without the company of his brothers. Our parents were useless. Even Meena the cat wouldn’t play with him. He told Francesca he wanted to be sick. She ignored him. He pretended to be too sick to get out of bed, and for a moment he had Claire fooled. He was pleased to see how angry he’d made her. The next day he really did feel sick, and he was surprised when Claire wouldn’t rush to his bedside.

  By the time Nat fell ill, Claire had a clear sense of the fever’s trajectory — its abrupt climb and steady high plateau over a course of five days. We’d all had the same symptoms and been sick for the same amount of time.

  We had to put off celebrating Harry’s birthday, which upset the rest of us but not Nat, who was too sick to care. We all felt the justice of his illness. It was his punishment for taunting us. He deserved to suffer as we’d suffered. Hahaha, Nat. Look at you now. Poverino.

  I’m not sure how we realized that Nat’s sickness was taking a different shape. The light hurt his eyes just as it had hurt ours. He’d ask for water then push it away when it was brought to him, just as we’d done. He was terribly sick. We’d been terribly sick. Poverino Nat. We taunted him. He didn’t have the strength to do more than gesture with his hand for us to go away. We went away — but we’ll be back, Poverino, we said.

  We hadn’t realized that Claire had been staying up with us and then with Nat through the night, snatching an hour here and there during the day to rest. Even when she went to lie down she couldn’t sleep. Or she’d drift toward sleep and after a minute wake with a start. Once she woke to find a ladybug sitting on her hand. She’d stayed still for a long while, watching the bug, and then had sent it with a puff out the window.

  Claire was so exhausted that at first she attributed her anxiety about Nat to her own fatigue. Day three of the fever. Day four still to go, she told herself. Day five he would be sitting up and eating Jell-O.

  The doctor had prescribed a liquid antibiotic, but as far as Claire could tell it hadn’t helped the rest of us. Still, she gave it to Nat in the proper doses, tilting his head back in her hand and pouring a teaspoonful into his mouth. Once she bumped her arm against the table and spilled the medicine across Nat’s pillow. She blotted it dry but didn’t bother to change the case, and when I came into the room I mistook the stain for blood pouring from Nat’s ear.

  The fourth day came and went and then the fifth, and Nat showed no signs of improvement. He huddled beneath the sheet, and when I touched the lumpy outline of his body, he’d shudder. Claire continued with the routine of his care. The doctor came for a second visit and prescribed a stronger antibiotic. Claire asked if they should take him to the hospital in Livorno and realized only by hearing herself ask the question that she was scared, as scared as she’d been when the engineer had dangled Nat over the Casparia’s rail. When the comparison came to mind, she could only stare at the doctor, stunned.

  He said he didn’t want Nat moved. Which meant he was telling her that her son was too sick to go to the hospital.

  She collapsed in Murray’s arms after the doctor left, and Murray was grateful for the chance to offer her comfort. He reassured her, promised her that Nat would be fine, promised to bring in another doctor, reminded her of the time Harry contracted pneumonia, what a scare they’d had, but he’d recovered, hadn’t he?

  Claire realized as she clung to Murray that they’d taken to escaping from their troubles into each other. The natural ease of their love had been weakened by suspicion. Lately, suspicion had been replaced by a narrow, consuming need for each other’s company. They’d been neglecting their children. They’d been horrible parents. She was a horrible mother.

  And even now, Murray’s presence was enough to subdue Claire’s rising guilt. He convinced her she nee
ded to sleep. She was mistaking guilt for exhaustion. Of course she was exhausted. All right, she’d sleep and let Murray take care of Nat for a while. He helped her to bed and was going to help her slip under the covers, but she sent him back to Nat’s room.

  When she woke she couldn’t tell whether it was morning or afternoon. Wandering through the quiet house, she felt like she did when she woke in the middle of the night, though daylight lit up the windows. In Nat’s room she found Murray asleep on the edge of Nat’s bed, but Nat was awake, and when he saw her he smiled weakly. She smoothed his wet bangs to the side of his forehead. His skin was cool to her touch — or at least cooler than it had been for seven days, and his eyes had lost their milkiness. Claire wanted to cry. She disguised her emotion with a little gulp of laughter that woke Murray. They spoke in low, calm, efficient voices about what would be best for Nat — orange juice or orange Jell-O.

  It took Nat another three days to recover strength enough to stand up, and he remained disoriented in some ways. But he ate heartily, laughed when we made faces at him, threw comic books and spoons and even a full cup of water across the room at us when we teased him. He ate a big piece of the chocolate cake Claire baked for Harry’s birthday party. He worked on puzzles. He played with Harry’s new troop of toy soldiers. He called Patrick a dumb-head and me a snotface. And when he was finally allowed to go outside and play with us one beautiful June day, when for the first time in weeks we were able to roam in our pack of four away from the house and up the slope of Monte Giove, Nat resumed his place in our game of ants. Jako Three, come in, it’s Jako One here.

  Maybe the game kept us from recognizing that Nat had changed. When we were playing, scrambling toward and away from the secret horde of gold, the four of us were as close to being a single self as we would ever come. We didn’t need speech to understand each other. In retrospect, though, we can point to signs that Nat was having trouble. At home when someone spoke to him we’d see a strange expression on his face, new furrows in his forehead suggesting deep confusion. He’d have to look directly at us, he’d ask what, we’d repeat ourselves, he’d ask what again, we’d repeat ourselves again, and when he still looked at us, confused, we would resort to pointing, or else we’d just give up.

  He hadn’t gone deaf, not exactly. What happened to Nat was stranger than deafness. The fever had left him with hearing that was fragile, like a long-distance line at the mercy of the weather. Sounds would be coming to him with a clarity that was almost painful, then they’d fade out, and for an interval lasting at least a few minutes and sometimes as long as an hour he wouldn’t be able to hear anything at all.

  Like the rest of us would have done in his place, Nat decided to keep his condition a secret. And he was good at deception. If he wanted to know what he’d missed, he’d wait until we’d forgotten that we’d already repeated ourselves. He’d fall asleep in front of the radio. He’d fall asleep on Murray’s lap. He’d decipher Lidia’s meaning from the expression on her face. He’d shrug when Francesca asked him a question. He was clever in so many ways that none of us caught on.

  OLLIE, I’M LOSING TRACK. There’s nearly fifty years of life between then and now, almost fifty years to clutter my mind. I don’t remember the doctor prescribing a second antibiotic for Nat. I asked Nat about this and he says he doesn’t remember either. Where are you getting your information? How do you know so much? That last exchange between Francis Cape and Signora Nardi, for instance. How did you know about that? I don’t recall telling you, and you say you weren’t able to find anyone during your last visit to Elba who remembered the Nardi family. But you’re right — the Signora did give Francis reason to feel accused. I found out about this later from our cook, Lidia, who was friendly with Signora Nardi’s cook.

  The more I talk about Elba, the murkier my memory becomes. Did it really rain so much that spring? Did I roast a chicken for Christmas? You say we had a radio. I don’t remember any radio. And did I tell you I was reading Keats? Not only have I forgotten what I did four and a half decades ago, but I’ve forgotten what I said to you when you were last here.

  What do you kno, and what are you making up as you go along? I can’t discern the difference anymore.

  You’ve told me you want to write something that’s true. A true history of fact. You make me wonder. Are you running from your own life into the past, and from the past into a fairy tale? What you’re writing about my life doesn’t match my collection of memories. What do I remember? I’m not sure. What do I know? What do you know? Do you really know, Ollie, that Signora Claudia Patresi dreamed about ice-skating? Where did you hear this?

  I don’t remember knowing about you boys playing secret games in the mountains. But I do remember wondering what you were up to. All the whispering you did. You took to talking in a peculiar concoction of Italian and English. Do you really remember it? I remember. You boys talking amongst yourselves in your own stew of a language. Not just an Italian phrase thrown in here and there. What I heard was an incomprehensible mix of sounds. Could it be that what you’re remembering is not a magical means of communication but nonsense that you could only pretend to understand?

  What do you know for sure? I’ve gone back to old journals and sometimes I can’t even read my handwriting! But as far as I can tell I never mention anyone named Ninanina. I remember the tiny woman who ran the enoteca in Portoferraio. Her name was Nina-nina? This rings a bell. But how did you find this out, Ollie?

  We’ve had a full week of clear skies, but it’s been so cold the snow hasn’t even started to melt. The white snow, the white sun…and did I tell you that for the first year ever, the swans are wintering here? Every morning I see them drifting back and forth across the inlet. I’ve tried to feed them, but they’re too vain to eat. They want to be admired, that’s all. Lloyd Hunter next door tried to scare them off with a shotgun. He’s worried they’ll freeze. But the swans have decided to stay and that’s that. A pop of a gun isn’t going to change their minds. I told this to Emily, who told this to her father, who told Emily to tell me that if the swans freeze to death, it’s my fault. Even if they don’t eat the bread I leave for them, I’m the one responsible for deceiving them into thinking they could survive our winter — so says Lloyd Hunter. I told Emily to tell her father if he shoots that gun once more, I’m going to call the police. Lloyd told Emily to tell me that’s it, I can find someone else to shovel my walk. Which is a peculiar thing to say, since Lloyd Hunter hasn’t offered to shovel snow for me for years.

  Now what do I really remember? I let my thoughts drift like those swans across the dark water, and I remember the hollow sounds of voices coming through the fog in Portoferraio. I remember the gritty black sand on the beach at Padulella. Looking out from the darkness of the stone chapel on Volterraio to the sea. Watching you boys running after Meena into the vineyard. Nat’s tired smile after he’d been sick, the smile of a little boy who thinks he’s just played a splendid joke. I remember watching Lidia squeeze a lemon over a plate of anchovies. I remember walking out of the Chiesa della Misericordia into the rain. The pink-tinged sky at twilight. Harry calling us to come see the dead mouse floating in a pail of muddy water. Patrick calling us to come outside on the first cold day of autumn to see our breath make clouds. I remember everything I did routinely as if I’d done it only once — drinking my morning caffé, walking to Marciana Marina, floating on my back in that salty sea.

  I am an old woman, ten years older than old Francis Cape had been in 1957. Do you want to hear what your old mother remembers about making love? I’m not going to tell you. But when you discuss your parents’ absorption in each other, you might consider the complexities of love. You might think about how passion can become cruel when it is defensive.

  What else do I remember? Looking for a gold earring I lost on the street in Porto Azzurro. Watching six fishermen in a row pass along a single wooden match to light their six cigarettes.

  Do I really remember any of this? The more I read about my l
ife on Elba, the more I forget. Alzheimer’s. Little Emily Hunter keeps asking me if I have Alzheimer’s yet. No, not yet, Emily, but soon.

  You invited me to go back to Elba with you this spring. I declined. But I wish your father were still alive to accompany you. It would have done him good to return. And you can imagine all he’d tell you. By the time we left Elba, Murray knew that island better than he knew any other place else in the world. He knew it inside and out. He’d have plenty to add to this story.

  Imagine Murray and me trying to sort through our memories to come up with a single version of our past. Remembering together what happened, what didn’t happen, what almost and might have happened. I often find myself anticipating Murray’s objections. Claire, the black sand beach was at Topinetti. And the earring I lost was pearl, not gold — a present to me from Murray’s mother.

  I remember looking for diamonds on Volterraio. I remember Harry cupping a lizard in his hands. I remember Nat’s sharp reply when I asked him if he was having trouble hearing. He could hear just fine, he said, and I believed him. I remember you, Ollie, running toward the end of the pier in Marciana Marina while I yelled at you to stop. I remember the fisherman who caught you and carried you back to us.

  I don’t remember ever threatening again to take you boys and leave Elba. I was ready to stay with Murray as long as he wanted to stay. Only guilty men run from suspicion, he insisted, and though I didn’t entirely agree, I was afraid that if he did leave the island the police would concoct a formal charge against Murray in order to bring him back. We couldn’t leave, no more than we could have unlocked a padlock without the key. There were days when I thought we’d never go home.

  I close my eyes and remember the winter wind against my face. The summer wind. The warm green water of the Terranera sulfur baths. The smell of fishing nets drying in the sun in Porto Azzurro. The fresh schiacciata from the bakery in Poggio. The gift of goat cheese from our neighbor. The bundles of fresh thyme and rosemary and mint brought to us by Lidia’s niece. The red poppies in the meadows. Dust rising as we trudged along the path to the beach at Lacona. Riding on the back of Murray’s motorcycle at night after we’d finished off a bottle of wine at a restaurant in Capoliveri. Standing in a doorway, watching you boys fill a box with the toys you wanted to take back to America.