“You thought these thoughts yourself, from your own heart and brain. It is what I always hope — that people will make up their own minds and go forward.”
I thanked him for understanding me.
“But the Gräfin does not understand,” he said. “You are not so convincing to this wise woman.”
“I’ll try again.”
He said, “People’s lives are much the same. The rich envy the poor. The poor envy the rich. People with great riches are afraid of losing what they have. Famous people fear falling into obscurity. Beautiful women are fearful. Everyone in the world has the same fears.”
Was it the setting, this Greek theater, that inspired this speech? He was strutting on the cracked marble of the ancient stage and striking poses. What he said made no sense to me, and I was on the point of arguing with him when he spoke again.
“Of growing old and ugly. Of dying.”
I almost laughed at this, because I saw those fears as so distant for me here in Taormina, where I seemed just born and almost immortal. I wondered if he and the Gräfin had returned to Taormina to ease their fears.
The Gräfin was inert. Did she know that she was the subject of our strolls around the town, our whispered discussions among the ancient ruins of Taormina? But why should she care? She was above all this, she was powerful, she was resistant. Someone with little or no desire seemed very strong to me. It was hard to influence such a person. The Gräfin's rejection of me was a sign of her strength.
In the second week I saw this wooing of the Gräfin, this ritual courtship, as a battle of wills. I also believed that I was strong — at least wanted to believe it: Haroun had said what I felt deep in my heart. And for all their power, wealthy people always, I thought, had an inner weakness, which was their need to be wealthy, their fear of poverty. I had no such fear. What confused me was that I suspected them to be undeserving — lucky rather than accomplished. That luck had given them privileges, but left them with a fear of losing their luck. They were no better than me, but they were on top. I knew I was anyone’s equal, even the Gräfin’s. But I told myself that I lacked funds.
Even then, dazzled as I was, I felt resentful toward the people of power who had not created their own wealth. They were children of privilege. I consoled myself with the belief that privilege made them weak, and I had proof of it, for my short time in Taormina had weakened me.
The Gräfin was a countess by an accident of fate. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s lover, someone’s ex-wife, just a lucky egg. She had done nothing in her life except be decorative. Her life was devoted to her appearance — being beautiful, nothing else. Yet what seemed shallow, her impossible vanity — her wish to be pretty, nothing else — attracted me. She was completely self-regarding, she existed to be looked at. She was utterly selfish; her narcissism made me desire her.
I wanted, in my passion for her, to discover her weakness and to awaken passion and desire in her. I feared that there might be none, that she was too powerful in other ways for these emotions. So far, I had failed to awaken even mild interest; so far, she had not asked me a single question — did not know who I was or where I came from.
I made no active attempt to woo her now. My one pass at her had been a humiliation for us both. But neither was I submissive. I continued to buy the German newspaper and the other trivial items from Mazzarò, I flunkied for her, watching her closely. I did not volunteer any information, did not allude to anything in my own life, nor did I ask her any questions. I imitated her; I put on a mask of indifference.
My coolness worked, or seemed to. I sometimes found her staring at me, silently quizzing me. But when I turned to meet her gaze she glanced away, pretending not to care.
Late one afternoon in the large crowded Piazzale Nove Aprile, some street urchins, Gypsy children perhaps, began pestering us, asking for money, tugging our clothes — the Gräfin hated to be touched. When I told them to go away, they began making obscene remarks, really vulgar ones, variations of “Go fuck your mother.” I took this to be commonplace obscenity, but then it struck me that they might be commenting on the difference in our ages, the Gräfin’s and mine, for she was noticeably older. That angered me and I chased them away, kicking one of the boys so hard he shouted in pain and called out, saying that I had assaulted him.
“Di chi è la colpa?” a shopkeeper jeered — So whose fault is that?
“Haroun never treats them that way,” the Gräfin said. “I think he’s a bit afraid of them.”
That sounded like praise. We walked some more; still she was inscrutable behind her dark glasses.
“Or maybe he likes them too much.”
Recalling their obscenities, I said, “I hate them.”
She gasped in agreement, a kind of wicked thrill. “Yes.”
So that was a point in my favor, my harrying the ragged children. I earned more points not long after that. The Gräfin was confounded and angered by anything mechanical. She saw such objects as enemies, they made her fearful. Breakdowns, even the chance of one, horrified her. She was very timid in the real world of delays and reverses — things she had no control over, which produced anxiety and discomfort.
We had gone back to Bustano, the olive estate, one day. She said, “Harry says he cannot accompany me, so you must come”—one of her usual graceless invitations. As she had hired a driver, I sat next to him, the Gräfin having the entire back seat to herself. We traveled in silence and I missed Haroun now. I looked for anything familiar: the village of Randazzo, the signs of old earthquake damage, the Mussolini slogan.
At Bustano we were greeted by the owner and some servants. I was not invited into the villa, though the owner (yellow shirt, pale slacks, sunglasses), with gestures of helplessness and fatalism, indicated that if it had been up to him I would have been welcome. I trembled to think what he made of me, in my white slacks and white espadrilles, my striped jersey, my new blue yachting cap. She had bought me the cap on the day of the pestering children.
“The cap now, the yacht later,” she had said, and what she intended as humor sounded like mockery to me.
On the way back to Taormina, at dusk, nowhere near any village, on a mountain road beyond Troina, the car stalled at a stop sign — just faltered, chugged and coughed to a stop, like a death from black lung.
“This is impossible!” The Gräfin was angry. She repeated the sentence, sounding uncertain. She said it again, sounding fearful.
The driver fuddled with the key — the ignition key! — and stamped on the gas and hit the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. He knew absolutely nothing. He was a villager, he had grown up among animals, not machines. He treated the car as though it was an ox dawdling in its yoke, or a willful shivering dray horse. His Sicilian instinct was to whip and punch the car.
I told the Gräfin this, hoping to impress her, but she was too fearful to listen.
The car had faltered before this. When we had set out from Taormina it had been slow in starting up, and sometimes died while idling. I suspected a weak battery, perhaps a bad connection on the terminal. The engine was good enough. The car was an Alfa-Romeo TI.
“What is your name?”
“Fulvio, sir.”
“Open the hood, Fulvio.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Gräfin said, “What do you know about these things?”
“It's a good car, the Alfa TI. You know what TI stands for?”
“Of course not.”
“Tritolo incluso. Bomb included. Tritolo is TNT.”