Tourmaline

by Joanna Scott

  NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, KING OF Elba. Francis Cape, scholar of Napoleon. Malcolm Murdoch, Signor Americano. Is it my turn again, Ollie? You say you want to know what I believe really happened on Elba. I was a young mother then. I am an old woman now. Have forty-five years passed? This is the part of the story I find most difficult to believe. The simple fact of passing time. Someone we love is here in time and then not. Not. Your father, my husband. Was that him peeling potatoes at a bar in La Pila? Was that him walking along a deserted road in a drizzle on an autumn night in 1957?

  You know, instead of fretting about the mysteries of death, we should try to understand what we lose by staying alive. We lose someone we love, and we lose with him a good chunk of experience. We need the mingling of minds in order to know what is real. A story becomes true with recognition. The joy of recognition. The surprise of it. Someone else to recognize what you remember.

  I want my husband to remember with me that first morning in Florence when we were woken at seven by the bells. The murky darkness of the shuttered hotel room. Our bodies sharing the damp heat of that warm morning in the summer of 1956. One of us to recognize what the other recollects. If he didn’t remember the bells, he’d remember the heat. He’d remember the feather mattresses in our Le Foci house. Stopping to watch an old man in a doorway weave a basket. Drinking the new olive oil by the spoonful. Lines of sunlight falling across the papers on the desk when the windows were closed and the shutters opened. I remember. Murray would recognize these memories, even if he didn’t share the details of them.

  The memories that you children share. The memories I share with you and you with me. All the memories I’ve lost because Murray isn’t here to remind me. All that we’ll never know for sure.

  Dear Ollie, you say you want to know what I believe. What I remember. What I know for a fact.

  Fact: we embarked in July of 1956 for Genoa.

  Fact: we accumulated a debt of over 10,000 dollars during our fifteen months on Elba.

  Fact: Francis Cape is buried in Livorno.

  Fact: your father spent two nights, not three, at the bar in La Pila. Fact: for four days I did not contact the police to report your father missing. I was afraid his absence would be interpreted as evidence of terrible guilt, so I did not contact anyone. I waited. I thought I’d learned how to wait from Signora Nardi’s example.

  Fact: Adriana Nardi came home the day before your father left us, as I told you. But I didn’t tell you that when she went to see Francis Cape, she was not alone. Her mother was with her. Signora Nardi intended to surprise Francis when he opened the door.

  Fact: I cannot account for the third full night your father spent away from home. You boys went looking for him on the fourth night.

  Fact: Even Meena the cat was lost for a few days. But you all returned safe and sound — or, as it seemed to me then, you were returned, the way possessions are returned by the kind of thieves who only intend to borrow. We even got Meena back. Meena, along with those four kittens, all of them odd little flat-faced, long-haired creatures. Do you remember? The night Patrick insisted on keeping one in bed with him and then rolled over and crushed it in his sleep. Do you remember? Does Patrick remember? Have you asked him?

  Elba, 1956–1957. Sixteen months in the life of an island. We were home by Christmas. We would have come home much sooner if your father had never met Adriana Nardi. But whether we remained on Elba during her long absence because your father needed to clear his name or because he needed to satisfy a secret longing in his heart, I’ll never know for sure. If there’s more to the story you’ve been writing, Ollie, if there were encounters your father kept hidden from me for the rest of his life, if, in fact, he did love Adriana, I can only believe that it must have been a destructive, frivolous love, prompted by his search for a haven where he couldn’t disappoint the people he loved most.

  Signora Nardi, having recovered her daughter, came and sat with me while the police searched the hills for you. I didn’t want her there. I didn’t want anyone besides my husband and children. She forced me to talk to her. I remember hearing myself admit, against my will, that I was afraid of my husband. And then, seeing her confusion, I explained that I wasn’t afraid of what he’d do to others but what he would do to himself. It was some comfort to consider my children’s self-protective instinct. But my husband was a self-destructive man. What would he do? She wanted to hear more, but I’d already said enough.

  If I wouldn’t talk, then she expected me to listen. I didn’t want to listen and was about to say so, but she spoke rapidly, swearing me to secrecy before I could beg her to leave me alone. Of course I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted her to sit beside me and stroke my hair and tell me something significant enough that it would require a promise from me never to repeat it to anyone. I gave her my promise, Ollie. Now, these many years later, I am breaking this promise for the first time with much regret.

  The story Signora Nardi told me that night was the story of her daughter. And this is the story you deserve to hear. The true story of Adriana Nardi. She was not the coy young girl I’d taken her to be. She was not in love with Murray. Nor was she afraid of Francis Cape. She was a lonely girl bouncing from one heartbreak to another when your father first saw her in the Nardi garden. Yet she was far more capable than any of us realized.

  As I told you months ago, Adriana had dropped her university studies and come home shortly before we arrived on the island. As many people who knew her guessed, she’d been involved — to the point of being secretly engaged — with a young professor there. He’d broken the engagement off abruptly; she came home to Elba, where, in a naive effort to reclaim her life, she threw herself into a brief affair with a brutal young man who worked at the prison on Pianosa. All of this Adriana hid from her mother while it was happening. And by the time the early symptoms of pregnancy had begun and the prison guard had deserted her, Adriana was too ashamed to go to her mother for help.

  Imagine her that night at our villa in Le Foci. Honestly, I don’t think she expected to find Murray alone. I don’t know why she was there. Maybe she’d come to talk to me, just like her mother came to me, both of them mistaking our presence on the island as evidence of our influence. Maybe she just wanted to unburden herself. Maybe she wanted to test Murray’s capacity for sympathy. She wasn’t there, you can be sure, to test her powers of seduction. Murray misunderstood. And then, after leaving Murray, she’d met Francis Cape. Il professore. He wanted to keep Adriana to himself — a justified want, he’d thought, since it was inspired by love. He wanted to marry her. He wanted to kill her.

  Il professore, the same pathetic man who tried to stab Murray with a butter knife. He could have done better than a butter knife. He could have wielded a good sharp knife with a five-inch blade. I’m sure he wished he’d had a better weapon ready when Murray came to see him. And I suspect he’d regretted not bringing a knife along when he followed Adriana to Le Foci.

  Do you understand what I’m telling you, Ollie? Francis Cape wanted to marry Adriana, and when she refused him, he wanted to kill her. He would have killed her if he’d had the means. Instead he tried to slap sense into her so she would recognize that he was serious. Francis Cape was always serious. Francis Cape only ever told the truth. And all Adriana could do was laugh at him.

  A life held in balance. Think of all the outcomes that are possible at any one moment. Adriana could have been killed by Francis Cape that night. But he was an old man and she a swift girl. She fled down the road before Francis could stop her.

  Adriana was seven weeks pregnant when she left Elba. She made her way to Paris and there had the pregnancy terminated. Not an easy thing to do back in 1956. The ordeal could have destroyed her. Instead, it enhanced in her the same ferocity her mother was known for. She struggled, survived, prospered. And while I don’t know for certain what’s become of her over the years, I expect she’d say now, so many years later, that Malcolm Murdoch and Francis Cape both played only smart parts in her comp
licated life.

  But you want facts, you say. Facts, like the banded ironstone we found on Volterraio. The flint and sandstone and chalk. All the coarse, worthless breccia.

  Facts as certain as the warmth of my husband’s body in my arms. Nothing I could say to persuade him that he hadn’t done anyone any real harm.

  Facts, such as the stupidity of a drunk.

  Patrick, have you seen your father? Lidia, mio marito — dov’è andato? Has anyone seen Murray? Did he leave a note? Is he back yet? No, grazie, Lidia, niente. Aspetto per Murray. What time is it? Has he called? No, Harry, stay here. I don’t want you boys going out this afternoon. Un po’ di minestra, sì, that would be fine, Lidia. You know, Murray, I can’t fall asleep without you beside me. Where are you? Is it too late to find you? Did you come to this island to do whatever it is you’ve already done? It is over? Has it happened?

  My husband. And then my cat. And then my four young sons. Ten o’clock at night, and my sons were missing, and Murray wasn’t there to go out in search of them.

  You know what I did then? I felt my head grow unbelievably heavy, my eyes blur, my mouth go dry, my pulse slow, and I fell asleep. Amazingly, I fell asleep. I’d hardly slept for three days and nights. My sons were missing. My husband was gone. And I fell asleep. And dreamt, of all people, about the engineer from Ohio, the one who’d thrown himself off the Casparia. I dreamt only of seeing him leaning on the ship’s rail, a cruel smile on his face. When I woke up my eyes were dry from staring without blinking. And Lidia was leading Signora Nardi into the room.

  Signora —

  Signora —

  Talk in English. Talk in Italian or French or Latin, for all I care. Don’t bother me. Don’t stay. Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone. Tell me a story, Signora. I’ll tell you what could happen. You tell me what did happen. Tell me that your daughter’s freedom is as important to you as her safety. You let her make her own mistakes — trust being the one absolute of love.

  She didn’t say any of this when she sat up with me through the night. Instead, she offered me the story of her daughter as proof of the necessity of trust. See what happens when you trust someone? She is always with you, and you with her. With him. With them, Signora Murdoch. You trust them to do what they believe they have to do, even if they are mistaken, even if they try to hide their mistakes from you. They trust you to welcome them back, no matter what.

  We will wait together, Signora. We will keep the lights on and tell stories to pass the time. The story of my daughter. Do you want to hear it? You must promise never to repeat to anyone what I tell you, Signora. I will tell you what my daughter told me. My daughter roaming the world while I waited for her to come home. I will tell you. My heart like a bird fluttering inside a box. If I could have, I would have ripped open my chest and let the bird fly away. I will tell you. You will understand. And when morning comes we will see what we will see.

  When my brothers and I left our villa that tranquil October afternoon, we were not going to look for our father. Though we hadn’t seen him for a few days, we didn’t really understand that he was missing. Murray always had come back; therefore he would come back again when he was ready. And so would we. But just in case we were gone longer than we expected, Nat filled a thermos with water, and we each carried a sack with an apple, a piece of bread, and some cheese.

  We set out that afternoon during the quiet hour of siesta. It was a beautiful day, the blue of the sky the pure royal tint of sapphire. Patrick, who had hunted for minerals with Carlo along the far slope of Monte Giove, knew to direct us west. As we walked along our regular route toward the path leading up the mountain, we shared the feeling that we were on the mission we’d been training for. Our games had been nothing more than practice.

  Over the past months we’d learned a fair amount about valuable stones and their histories. Patrick had a list and would tell us, and when we forgot he would remind us, about diamonds weighing more than a pound, diamonds that had been stolen, diamonds that had started wars, diamonds that had been found by shepherd boys in the mud of a riverbank and sold for the price of 500 sheep, ten oxen, and a horse.

  We would have been satisfied to find any gemstone that would have made us a profit of one horse. We wanted a horse. And a boat. Anyone who lives on an island needs a boat. A horse, a boat, and maybe an electric train set. We’d left our trains back in America. A horse, a boat, electric trains, and snorkeling masks for each of us so we could explore the world below the surface of the sea. It hardly mattered that Nat and I didn’t know how to swim. We could float on an inflatable raft. We needed a big inflatable raft. A horse, a boat, electric trains, snorkeling masks, and an inflatable raft in the shape of a beluga.

  We didn’t tell anyone where we were going because we didn’t know. We just knew we were hunting for something valuable. Something that someone else would want. The Star of Elba.

  After a few days of mist and rain the air was fresh, the breeze soft, the fields a velvety green speckled with patches of white — perhaps orchids or fuchsia. We walked quietly, hoping to spy a wild goat. We didn’t see a goat but we saw a strange bird — a heron, it must have been, with a black velvet stripe along the underside of its long white neck and white feathers hanging from its breast like strings of pearls. Harry spotted the black eyes of a green lizard hidden in the grass. And we caught a glimpse of a mottled snake as it slid across the path.

  We climbed through the woods up Monte Giove and along the rocky ridge at the summit. We rested against a granite boulder on the northern slope of the mountain. In the distance we could see dozens of colorful sails mingling at what must have been the finish of a regatta.

  For the first time since we’d been on the island, we continued over the peak of Monte Giove and climbed down the western slope, out of sight of Marciana. Patrick led us into the hilly terrain of Mezza Luna. To our east was the peak of La Stretta. We continued south, watching the ground carefully for the glimmer of a gem.

  We didn’t find much that was worth keeping — only a few small pieces of what was probably pyrite and a clump of snowy calcite. We kept walking. The heat of the sun increased as the afternoon wore on. We passed our thermos between us.

  We walked west toward Punta Nera. When I was too tired to walk, Patrick and Harry took turns carrying me on their backs. We climbed another, smaller mountain we’d known only from the view at the top of Monte Giove. We kept walking, following a shallow gully wherever it would take us. Eventually we came to a small creek that we hadn’t known existed.

  The valley was filled with holm oak and a green patchwork of myrtle and ferns, and there was a great scattering of huge boulders, some half cleaved with the crevices worn smooth by wind, others with buttresses and chimneys and deep openings that looked like windows. It seemed as if the rocks had tumbled down from the mountains after some great quake, as if the whole universe had shuddered over the chaos of love and picked up the earth and shook it violently, trying to force from the silent ground a confession.

  Once upon a time the universe had felt…what? What did we know about the chaos of love? Nothing other than the evidence of its effect around us — broken stone, surfaces worn smooth by wind and rain, ancient gouges in the soil filled with green that were no less than proof of the world’s ability to repair itself and endure.

  Goldfinches flew between the trees, flickering like light reflecting from a tilting mirror. We inhaled the dusty smell of moss warmed by the sun. We waded with our shoes in the shallow water. We felt the silky sensation as schools of minnows bumped against our ankles. We grew giddy and loud. We splashed each other, slipped and fell, and returned to shore drenched.

  We rested against the trunk of an oak and ate what was left of our bread and cheese. We finished our water, then refilled the thermos with water from the creek before moving off in different directions. Without saying it, we knew to stay within calling distance of each other, as well as to stay close to the creek. We knew that we couldn’t get lost if we stayed w
ithin sight of flowing water.

  Nat headed south toward Capo Sant’Andrea. Harry went in the same direction but on the other side of the river. Patrick crossed the creek and headed toward La Stretta. I headed back in the direction we’d come.

  A frog began chirping and was answered by another frog. The coarse oak leaves hissed with each gust of wind. As twilight came on, the greens of the valley darkened to gray, and whatever was lighter than green became phosphorescent. White blossoms, gold birds, pink quartz — they glowed as though lit from within. Their colors mesmerized me. But when I’d try to approach, the object would disappear like a mirage.

  The evening air was still warm, with a cool intermittent breeze. The sky overhead was a deep, metallic blue. Across the creek I saw Patrick’s flashlight wobbling between saplings. I tried turning on my own flashlight but couldn’t make it work. I tried to think a greeting to Patrick. He didn’t answer. I shouted, and he shouted back, “Shut up, Ollie!” I watched him as he bent over to pick up a stone. I saw the quick arc of his arm when he threw the stone into the water. The clatter and splash scared the frogs into silence.

  I’m not sure how long we searched in the darkness, but the sky had darkened to a dusky gray when we heard Harry yelling for us to come quick. I saw the beam of Patrick’s flashlight on the opposite bank wobbling ahead of him and thought I saw Harry ahead of me, but it turned out to be the pale face of a rock. I tried to keep up with Patrick. When he ran ahead I called for him to wait. He ignored me. I followed the sound of Harry’s voice and tried not to lose sight of the beam of Patrick’s flashlight.

  When I caught up to my brothers, I found Harry standing knee-deep in the creek, his face a ghostly alabaster in the glow of Patrick’s flashlight. We all shared the startle of déjà vu. Once before, and now again, I followed Patrick into the creek to join Harry. The water seeped into our sneakers. We stood without speaking, staring at the wet rusty pipe that Harry was holding. We became aware of the silence. The frogs and birds were silent, the breeze was still, and we were hardly breathing. Only the little creek made any sound — the murmur of shallow water flowing over rocks. We pressed close to Harry to see what he was holding. The sky grew darker. Time passed. We might have stood there all night if Patrick hadn’t finally found his voice.