Ignoring my remonstrances—I urged her to continue her story, not break off at that particular point—she simply left me sitting there and retired to her bedroom with en suite bathroom. I heard the sound of water running, heard her gargle and the hum of an electric toothbrush, followed soon afterwards by her snores.
I, on the other hand, was wide awake. Or reasonably so, because the Polifemo was having an effect. Anyway, I was too wide awake to sleep, so I went upstairs to my den in the attic and tried to tire myself a little by revising my novel—a pretty reliable method. I don’t know how it is with other authors, but whenever I open my laptop and look at my mess of a draft, I’m overcome with leaden inertia, paralysing fatigue and a sort of ominous malaise. It’s as if I’ve just opened Pandora’s box and am already experiencing the preliminary symptoms of the plague. It’s like a general anaesthetic: you’re still wondering what’s happening when you wake up and your appendix is out. Except that your novel is just as unfinished and messy as it ever was. Nineteenth-century novelists never suffered from writer’s block. Take Balzac, for example. He would complete a draft with a final full stop and embark on another novel right away. I, on the other hand, am a walking writer’s block, a child of the twenty-first century.
“That’s because your generation always had their bottoms blow-dried after their nappies were changed,” Poldi told me once. “And because everything was always handed you on a plate. Like another piece of focaccia?”
I’d written nothing since my last visit to Sicily. Not a word, so I was doubly surprised when, in the middle of the night and with a second glass of Cyclopean wine inside me, the adjectives came pouring out of me.
Sicily 1919. In Chapter One my great-grandfather Barnaba had been trampled on by a white donkey. This was, in a sense, his call of the wild, his encounter with nature in the raw. Frantic with rage and hubris, Barnaba pursued the donkey and would have shot it but for a volcanic eruption and a fit of compassion. He had then lost his heart, first to the preternaturally beautiful Cyclops Ilaria, and thereafter to gentle, maidenly Eleonora. He had solved a murder, made a pact with the Devil, hurled his shotgun into the maw of Etna, realised that he had to emigrate to Munich, and much else besides. Great cinema. Myth, history, passion, action, sex, fantasy, poetry, hard facts—they were all there. I was heading straight for international stardom, or almost. Now for Chapter Two. I started writing like a man possessed. I was an adjective machine.
I had a vivid mental picture of Barnaba: so terribly young and poverty-stricken that even little David Copperfield would have pitied him, but—of course—immensely handsome and suntanned and as determined as a bull terrier. He eats a bowl of spaghetti every morning before sunrise, then rows his ramshackle dinghy across the Gulf of Catania to work for a pittance for the hard-hearted and avaricious landowner Grasso, father of the luckless Eleonora. Stoically grinding his teeth, Barnaba endures his master’s bullying and humiliation for the sake of Eleonora, who brings him a pitcher of water at midday, when the couple make passionate love in the shade of orange, lemon and mandarin trees. It is a feast of the senses of which they partake in constant fear of being flushed out and torn to pieces by Grasso’s German shepherds. To avoid interrupting my flow unnecessarily, I jotted down these love scenes in note form only, intending to develop their imagery in an opulent manner. At nightfall I made Barnaba row back across the bay to Catania and his straw-filled mattress in the house of Signora Spadaro, a widow and fortune-teller who had once been reluctant to take him in as an infant. It should be explained that he had lost his mother in childbirth and been rejected by his father, who cruelly blamed the little boy for his wife’s death. Barnaba rightly senses that his origins are burdened with some dark secret. At this point I made another note, because I hadn’t the faintest idea what that secret could be. Never mind, I would work it out, preferably with the aid of a birthmark or something. At all events, Signora Spadaro serves Barnaba a meagre supper of olives and wild fennel. She is consumed with desire for him, having seen him grow up into an athletic young man, and has only one thing in mind. When he steadfastly rejects her, she throws him out. First, though, she lays out the cards, which predict a great future for him (marginal note). Signora Spadaro does not, however, tell him this but threatens him with dire misfortune. This leaves Barnaba cold, because after the incident on Etna he’s determined to emigrate to far-off Germany and seek his fortune there. No sooner said than done. Barnaba bids Eleonora a tearful farewell (marginal note) and, barefoot and wearing his only shirt and only pair of trousers, sets off on the long and dangerous journey over the Alps with nothing in his hand but half of an ancient talisman presented to him by the Cyclops Ilaria in memory of their night of love. This talisman is associated with a mysterious prophecy (marginal note plus question mark). After an adventurous crossing of the Alps, which involves magical encounters, fights with bandits, wounds, temptations and lyrical campfire scenes (various marginal notes), Barnaba at last reaches Munich, where, it has transpired en route, a distant aunt of his is living. The eccentric Pasqualina, formerly a celebrated artist and spy, sees Barnaba as the reincarnation of her late husband and welcomes him to her apartment in Westermühlstrasse. In the course of a touching scene (marginal note), she asks Barnaba what he intends to do with his life from now on, and he tells her . . .
“Well, what does he tell her?” Poldi asked me when I deposited a printout of the second chapter on the breakfast table late the next morning.
“It’s what you call a cliffhanger.”
“You mean you ran out of ideas.” She eyed me with concern. “And you wrote all this last night?”
“Uh-huh,” I said with a shrug. I stuffed a cornetto into my mouth and did my best to look cool in the extreme. Just don’t ask her what she thinks of it, I told myself.
“Well? What do you think of it?”
Poldi laid the manuscript aside. “Are you feeling all right? You look pale. Got a temperature?”
“I’m fine, thanks. Well?”
She tapped one of my marginal notes. “What does that mean?”
“It’s the way I work. First the rough structure and then—”
“What bollocks!” she interrupted. “You don’t have a clue. You simply dashed it off. It’s utter tosh. Is that really the best you can do?”
“Thanks for the constructive feedback.”
“That’s right, take offence.” She angrily flung my unfortunate second chapter down on the table and rose with a grunt. “You can do plenty better than that. I’m off to the beach at Praiola. Go back to bed. Have a lie-in and then rewrite the whole thing, okay? See you this evening.”
But before she left the house, she turned and said, “There was one sentence—you know, where you describe how small and lonely Barnaba feels in his rowing boat out at sea, but at the same time so at one with himself and the world. On the borderline between joie de vivre and melancholy, so to speak. I liked that.”
One sentence out of a whole chapter!
Ah well, not bad for a start.
But to revert to the case.
“Donna Poldina, what a nice surprise!” Russo said when Avola was introducing all his guests in turn.
“I can’t say the same,” Poldi retorted, “considering the welcome I got from those canine killers of yours. And you can let go of my hand.”
“What a shame,” Russo said softly. He continued to hold her hand, gazing intently into her eyes. “What a lovely dress you’re wearing.”
Poldi would have liked to interpret the look on his face as ice-cold or lethally menacing. It did in fact convey something quite different—something that disturbed her almost as much as Achille Avola’s aftershave.
“Oh,” said Avola, “you’ve already met?”
“Briefly. On the occasion of, er . . . an interview. Signor Russo likes to set his dogs and contract killers on me sometimes.”
Before Russo could explode her little white lie about journalism, Poldi swiftly retrieved her hand, took Avola’s ar
m and got him to conduct her to a vacant place at the long table far enough away from Doris and her German deliziosi, who were persistently waving to her. She cast her eyes up to heaven and prayed that Doris would not come and sit down beside her.
“White or red?” All at once, Avola was so close to her that his lips almost brushed her ear.
Poldi went hot beneath her wig and headscarf. It was like the onset of a fever that would soon consume her utterly. A vampire must feel something of the kind just before sunrise, she told herself. At the same time, she was feeling far from ill. On the contrary, she felt as sexy and desirable as she had in her heyday, when she first met Peppe.
“Red,” she whispered, “but only a teensy drop.”
Avola poured her some wine and reached for the dish of grilled sausages. “You’re drinking a Nerello Capuccio from last year. It’s still a bit too young—a pubescent teenager. It needs another year. I call it Brontes. All my red wines are named after Cyclopes. The whites have nymphs’ names.”
“How sensual,” Poldi said huskily. She sipped her young Cyclops and moved still closer to Avola. She would have liked nothing better than to screw him on the spot, but, being on duty, in a manner of speaking, she tried to gain some idea of the assembled company.
Half of those present were clearly grape pickers from the locality—cheerful, hungry Sicilian peasants with calloused hands who drank only sparingly and discussed the quality of recent vintages like wine waiters in a Michelin-starred restaurant.
The others were Avola’s guests. Doris and the deliziosi had obviously been transported there for a wine-tasting by a young tour guide. Poldi recalled seeing the minibus with the travel agent’s name on the side. Their presence was purely coincidental, therefore, and could be dismissed. Russo appeared to be a close friend of Avola’s, because he clearly knew every grape picker by name, chatted jovially with everyone and presided at the head of the table as if the whole vineyard belonged to him. Poldi noticed that he seldom took his eyes off her and resolved to corner him alone somewhere after the meal, as soon as everyone dispersed to pick grapes.
A very nervous young man across the table from Poldi had embroiled the elderly grape picker beside him in a heated argument. The pair were speaking thick Sicilian dialect, so all Poldi gathered was that politics must be involved. The young man did most of the talking. He flapped his hands wildly as if plucking invisible demons out of the air or fending them off, waving them away or squashing them. His most noticeable feature was his pale linen jacket, which looked as suitable for grape-picking as a wetsuit for mountaineering.
“Italy is up the creek!” he said, turning abruptly to Poldi. He was positively incandescent, evidently because he couldn’t hold his wine. “This country is just a puppet of the Mafia, a zombie. Andreotti, Craxi, D’Alema, Berlusconi and now Renzi—they’ve sold us to the Mafia for decades, and the EU has supplied the fuel. The fuel, know what I mean? Were you aware that Italian politicians’ salaries are the highest in the world? It’s a disgrace! And now this humiliating fuss about African refugees. We’ve been betrayed and taken for a ride by the whole of the political caste, that gang of corrupt bandits. And we won’t form a government with traitors, no way! They can get stuffed, the lot of them!”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Poldi inquired, more out of politeness than interest.
“The movement!” declared the angry young man. “The Five Star Movement. We stand for the regeneration of Italy.”
“Ah.” Poldi now grasped his connection with the anti-party led by the comedian Beppe Grillo, which forbade its representatives to form coalition governments or participate in talk shows. After the most recent elections, the MoVimento 5 Stelle had long ceased to be purely a protest party and a cooling basin for the overwrought. The party now occupied a quarter of the seats in the Italian parliament and the Senate, and it was the same story in the regional assemblies. No one who aspired to rule Italy could ignore the Five Stars any longer. Sicily was the only place where the movement was hanging fire—for the moment.
My Auntie Poldi had had something of a soft spot for Grillo the Grumbler ever since he proclaimed 8 September 2007 to be Vaffanculo, or “Eff-Off,” Day. This was when the Italian people were to give their government the one-finger salute—a profoundly Bavarian attitude with which Poldi could readily empathise.
“Rob the rich, arm the poor, social justice means civil war!” chanted Poldi, brandishing her left fist, in the course of telling me about the vineyard episode the following evening.
“Yes, yes,” I said dismissively. I’m rather unpolitical by nature, but my Auntie Poldi was just getting into her stride.
“No more justice, no more peace, it’s the fault of the police!”
“Forza Poldi! One more for the road.”
“One? You underestimate my repertoire. I never missed a demo in the old days.”
I’d asked for it.
“Words not deeds is for the birds—Power to the people—Fascist might can ne’er be right—Moderation wrecks the nation—Spare the gun and spoil the fun!—When strikes the hour, we’ll come to power!”
So much for my Auntie Poldi’s political complexion. No wonder her uncompromising opposition to authority endeared the Five Star Movement to her.
“The only problem is,” she qualified, “even the best movements always attract utter cretins and notorious troublemakers.”
And the neurotic young man seemed to be one of the latter.
“Oh, so you’re German?” he said thickly. “Italian politics has sold its soul to the German fiend! Merkel is the Devil in disguise.”
Poldi drew a deep breath and prepared to deliver a cogent retort, but Avola forestalled her.
“Enzo,” he snapped. “The signora is a guest!”
The young man promptly dried up, seeming to crumple like a lettuce leaf anointed with too much vinegar. He didn’t utter a word thereafter. It was as if he needed to ponder the reprimand like a Zen pupil digesting a paradoxical instruction from his master.
“Enzo’s quite a nice young man when he’s sober,” Avola said apologetically. “He’s also one of our party’s great white hopes.”
“Good for you,” Poldi said drily.
She turned her attention to the most eye-catching person present, who was seated immediately opposite her.
“May I introduce Giuliana, Madame Sahara?” said Avola, following the direction of her gaze. He topped up the glass of the woman concerned, a platinum blonde who promptly knocked it back.
Poldi found it hard to guess her age. She might have been forty. Or sixty, or seventy. Or a hundred and seventy? One of those ageless beauties whose stainless steel willpower is proof against transience and the passage of time, she was slim and wore black patent leather shoes, skin-tight black stretch pants and, in spite of the heat, a black roll-neck sweater. Suspended from a chain around her neck was a silver talisman which Poldi, who knew about such things, immediately identified as a phoenix.
Poldi might have taken the woman opposite for an architect, had she not worn a whole host of silver bangles and rings on every finger. The platinum blonde in black did not appear to sweat. She looked as though all the rigours of this life, all the noise, the loquacity, the spirit of the age, the banality and the Dorises of this world, were water off a duck’s back to her. To Poldi she looked genteel in the best sense, despite her careless make-up and tired eyes and the way she splayed her fingers when talking, which looked a trifle vulgar. She was also—my auntie clocked this at a glance—wearing a wig. Poldi took to her on the spot.
“Giuliana is a celebrated clairvoyant and fortune-teller from Santa Venerina. I’m sure you’ll have seen her posters—they’re all over the place.”
Poldi had indeed seen them. She was thrilled.
“No! You are Madame Sahara?”
The platinum blonde raised her glass. “Please call me Giuliana.”
Poldi couldn’t believe it. Madame Sahara . . . The name seemed suddenly to hang in the air like the s
weetish smoke of some forbidden resin. Madame Sahara . . . Even the lizards in the cracks in the walls whispered her name. Everyone was familiar with the posters in vivid cherry pink and dandelion yellow that adorned so many walls, junction boxes and bus shelters, for they promised amazing things.
MADAME SAHARA
Past, Present, Future
Palmistry
Astrology
Tarot
Life Counselling
Contacts with the Other Side
White Magic
Consultations by Arrangement
No telephone number, no address. Everyone knew where Madame Sahara was to be found: a detached house in Santa Venerina overgrown with woodbine and bougainvillea, relatively remote from the main road and prying eyes. The house stood empty between October and April, when only the police and foxes patrolled it. Come the warmth of April, however, it was animated once more by voices and laughter. Borne to Santa Venerina on vernal breezes or a broomstick—who could tell?—Madame Sahara returned every spring, and summer could not be far behind.
Notorious ill-wishers were routinely informed by the police that Madame Sahara’s business did not contravene the law or decency in any way, nor did it endanger the environment or public order; furthermore, it was officially authorised and regularly inspected. Thank you for your call, send us a fax, click.
Madame Sahara . . . All who knew her applauded her charm and affability. She paid the appropriate compliments and never forgot a name. Madame Sahara was as much a part of the Etna area as gorse and lava fields, secondary craters and wine, the scent of pine resin, summer storms and the soupy mists of autumn, potted plants and death notices, fatalism and melancholy. She was a vessel for wishes and desires. A friendly springtime ghost. A summer night’s fancy.
“Do you also do regressions?” asked Poldi.
“Past, present and future, my dear.”
“Well, I’m damned! I mean, how wonderful.”
“Please give me your hands.”
Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna Page 5
