VIEW OF MESSINA BEFORE THE EARTHQUAKE.
At the hotel our identities were looked into by a couple of suspicious looking carabinieri to the intense annoyance of Roberto who felt it was a slur on the good name of the Company. Did they think he was ferrying carloads of criminals all over Sicily? But I missed this visitation.
Italy of course was in the grip of an inflation far worse than anything we had seen back in France; but one singular aspect of it was the sudden disappearance of small change. It had just happened in Messina. Nothing under a thousand-lira note seemed to exist and in order that business should continue as usual one was forced to accept change in kind so to speak. For example, in order to buy some toothpaste, aspirin, and tissues, which I did need, I was forced to accept as “change” a pair of silk stockings, a surgical bandage for sprains, and a pair of nail scissors. This sort of thing was going on in all the shops with the result that people were being loaded down like Christmas trees with things they didn’t want. I even got a telephone tally of nickel as part of my change in a tobacconist’s shop. It represented the price of a local phone call. Of course we were obliged to carry over this strange kind of primitive barter into our own lives — I tipped the hall porter with the telephone tally and an unwanted Tampax which had strayed into my chemist’s bundle. It was quite childish and chaotic. But the staff of the hotel seemed used to accepting these strange collections of objects instead of money tips. And finally one got quite used to going out to buy one orange and coming back with a bunch of grapes and a pound of figs as well. In a couple of days we had accumulated dozens of unwanted objects like this.
The evening was a trifle saddening; we all hung about a little, rather feeling that perhaps the situation called for a little speech from Roberto, or a more formal farewell to each other. But timidity and lack of organization held us imprisoned in the mood until it was too late.
Messina was a calm and tranquil place to spend a night, but we slept badly, afflicted by a woebegone sense of anti-climax. Even breakfast was an unusually subdued affair. We packed and loaded our gear automatically like the experienced tourists we had by now become. Then we swung off in the bright sunshine to have one glance at the cathedral before taking the long coastal road to Taormina. Here again was a fascinating aesthetic experience for me, and one which I had not expected. I knew that, like the rest of the town, the cathedral had been shattered to bits by the famous earthquake, and had been more or less shoved together. I had little hopes that this forced restoration of the great building would be a success. It is a quite fantastic success; it has been done so simply and without pretensions, executed with a bright spontaneity of a Zen watercolor. Whatever they found left was run into the new structure which itself was graced with an anti-earthquake armature. The result is simply marvelous; the huge building is among the most satisfying and gorgeous to be enjoyed in the island; and one is moved by the almost accidental simplicity with which it has all been brought off. Deeds was touched by my enthusiasm, and was glad, he said, that he had not over-praised the thing.
And so off along the coast road in the fine sunlight towards the last port of call. On the last headland Roberto called a halt and we made a few color photographs of the Carousel which I knew I would never see. Somewhere, in discarded photograph albums, they would lie, melting away year by year.
And soon we ran in on Taormina and the melancholy distribution began; the French ladies and the Count with his wife were put down on the road to Naxos, the Japs disappeared, Beddoes was dropped at a pension which looked like the headquarters of the Black Hand. It was indeed like the casualty list of a battalion, men dropping away one by one. “So long!” “Bye-bye!” “See you again I hope.” “Ring me in London!” “Come to Geneva, but let me know.” Mario had become sulky with sadness and Roberto was a little bit on edge too it seemed. We sorted out baggage and shook hands. Deeds disappeared into an orange grove with his bags, promising that we should meet again for a drink somewhere in the island. He had a few more visits to make as yet. The pre-Adamic couple walked away into the sunlight with an air of speechless ecstasy. I was the last one — the higher we went the fewer we became; my little pension was in the heart of Taormina — which is built up in layers like a wedding cake. But at last my turn came. I embraced Mario and Roberto and thanked them for their kindness and good humor. I meant it. They had done nobly by us.
Taormina
We three men sit all evening
In the rose garden drinking and waiting
For the moon to turn our roses black,
Crawling across the sky. We mention
Our absent friend from time to time.
Some chessmen have tumbled over,
They also die who only sit and wait,
For the new moon before this open gate.
What further travel can we wish on friends
To coax their absence with our memory—
One who followed the flying fish beyond the
Remote Americas, one to die in battle, one
To live in Persia and never write again.
She loved them all according to their need
Now they are small dust waiting in perfect heed,
In someone’s memory for a cue.
Thus and thus we shall remember you.
The smoke of pipes rises in pure content
The roses stretch their necks, and there
She rides at last to lend
A form and fiction to our loving wish.
The legions of the silent all attend.
9: Taormina
“TAORMINA, THE OLD Bull Mountain — I’m so glad I followed my instinct and saved it up for the last. It was like a kind of summation of all that went before, all the journeys and flavors this extraordinary island had to offer. Like a fool, I loped up it with Loftus in an old racing car at full moon; but something made me aware of the sacrilege and next day I walked humbly down to the bottom where I left a propitiatory candle in the little Christian shrine of St. Barnabus (isn’t it?) and retraced my way up again. Of course it must have once been a sort of sacred way, laid out against the breast of this steep little mountain so that one could approach it step by step, loop by loop. The long steep zigzags of the road must have been punctuated significantly with statues and flowering shrubs and little fanes to take an offering of the first fruits. One arrived, slowly and breathlessly, watching the scene widen out around one, and deepen into a screen of mountain and sea and volcano.”
Thus Martine. In the garden of the Villa Rosalie to which I had been assigned, two white-haired men played chess amidst dense flowering shrubbery which suggested rather the cultivation of a spa like Nice than the wild precincts of Sicily; I had come back to Europe really. I left my bags and walked the length of the main street with its astonishing views. It was so good that it aroused indignation: one almost suspected it to be spurious; but no, it simply outstripped language, that was all. And a wonderful sense of intimacy and well-being suffused the whole place. Yes, it was sophisticated as well — and as if to match the idea I found a small visiting card from Loftus waiting in my box inscribed in that fine old-fashioned lace hand which he had cultivated in order to write ancient Greek. A message of greeting, giving me his phone number. But tonight I was in a mood to be alone, to enjoy, and to regret being alone. It was a strange new feeling, not unconnected with fatigue. But the sinking sunset which one drank out of one’s glass of Campari, so to speak, was as extraordinary as any that Greece or Italy has to offer. And Etna did her stuff on the skyline.