“We have very good opera where I come from. In Boston. And at Tanglewood, in Lenox.”
“I have heard so,” the man said.
This was to impress them with the fact that they were dealing with a bright and cultivated person.
“You're right — it’s a shame they don’t use the Greek theater here for operas.”
“Well, they do of course,” the man said.
Fearing that I had revealed my ignorance, I risked another generalization and said, “I mean, this summer,” and the man nodded, and I knew I was flying blind.
“The seats are so hard,” the woman said. “I refuse to sit on marble stone. I want a soft chair in a balcony!”
Spoiled bitch, you’re supposed to think, but I admired her for her forthrightness and for being uncompromising. No Greek ruins for me, forget the ancient stone benches of Siracusa and Taormina.
We talked some more — trivialities about the heat, the blinding brightness of noon, the wildflowers, the emptiness, the absence of visitors.
“It is why I come,” the woman said.
Again that “I” told me she was in charge and the man a mere accessory.
“Have you had lunch?” the man said with a gesture that took in all the plates of food. “You are welcome to help yourself.”
I was ravenous yet I said, “No, thank you.” I was too proud to accept, and anyway, by my seeming restrained and polite they would be reassured and would respect me more.
“You will forgive us?” the man said, and picked at some salad. The woman, still with her gloves on, and using a silver tool, pierced olives from a dish of antipasto and nibbled them.
“Such a pleasure to talk with you,” I said, and excused myself. I went back to my table, my empty coffee cup, and opened my sketchbook again and indulged myself in shading a sketch I had done.
The couple conferred some more. Then the woman got up slowly and, in a stately way, for her white dress was long and lovely, she left the terrace, shimmering in the dazzling light. The man paid the check — the Italian business, the saucer, the folded bill, the back and forth, and more talk with the waiter. When the waiter left, saucer of money in hand, the man came to my table.
He looked at me intently and then smiled in a familiar way, as though he knew me well.
“I have arranged for you to stay here,” he said. “I was once a student”—I had started a polite protest—“no, no. It will be pleasant to have you as a neighbor. We will talk.”
He had read me perfectly.
2
So, within an hour of happening past the Palazzo d’Oro, I was installed in a room with a view of the sea, seated on my own balcony, in a monogrammed bathrobe, eating a chicken sandwich, clinking the ice in my Campari and soda, the breeze on my face. I had been transformed: magic.
“This is my guest,” the man had said — I still did not know his name — and he asked for my passport, which he glanced at. “Mr. Mariner requires a double room with a view of il vulcano. Put it on my bill.”
A moment later he gave me his name but in an offhand way: “You can call me Harry”—as though the name was fictitious; and it was. His name was Haroun.
When I tried to thank him he put a fingertip to his lips and then wagged the finger sternly. There was no mistaking this gesture. He made this admonishing finger seem a very serious instrument, if not a weapon.
“This can be our secret,” he said. “Not a word to the Gräfin.”
That gave me pause, yet I had no choice but to agree, for I had accepted the free room. To ease my conscience, I told myself that if I wished I could leave at any time, as impulsively as I had come; could skip out and be gone, as I had left Fabiola, the Principessa. Even so, I felt that in acquiring the room I had been triumphant, it was a windfall, and there was a hint of mystery about Haroun that I liked, a conspiratorial tone that was comic and pleasing. And Gräfin? I supposed Gräfin was the woman.
“Not a word to anyone,” I said.
“The Gräfin is not my Gräfin, as you probably think, but she is a very dear friend. I have known her for years — we have been absolutely everywhere together.”
This was in my room — he had followed me there with the room boy — not a Moro, then, but a square-shouldered Sicilian boy, and Haroun was sort of eyeing the boy as he spoke to me, sizing him up as the boy bent and stretched, putting my bag on a small table and adjusting the fastenings of the shutters.
“Look at the skin these people have!”
He pinched the boy’s cheek and arm, like someone choosing cloth for a suit. The boy, preoccupied with the shutters, smirked and allowed it.
“Never touch their women,” Haroun said. “That is the iron rule in Sicily. They will kill you. But their boys — look what skin!”
Now it seemed to me that the boy knew he was being admired, and he stepped away from Haroun and said, “Bacio la mano”—I kiss your hand — and somewhat giddy with this byplay, Haroun snatched the boy’s hand and pressed some folded money into it.
“Ciao, bello,” Haroun said to the boy, smiling as he watched him leave my room and shut the door.
Alone with Haroun I felt more uncomfortable than I had when the boy was there — the compromising sense that it was not my room, that in accepting it I had accepted this small, dark, smiling man who I felt was about to importune me. But from what he said next I realized that his smile meant he was remembering something with pleasure. Sometimes people smile to show you they are remembering something happy in their past.
“The Gräfin is such a dear friend,” he said. “And we have our secrets too.”
Something in the way he spoke made me think the woman was giving him money.
“She is a fantastic person,” he said. “Wonderful. Generous.”
Then I was sure of it.
“And she is very sensitive.” The way he stood in the room, lingering and looking around, conveyed the impression that the room was his — and of course it was. “All her noble qualities have given her a great soul and a fantastic capacity for friendship. I think somehow you guessed that about her.”
I had guessed that she was a rich, difficult woman who was not interested in anyone but herself, yet I smiled at Haroun and agreed that she was a sensitive person with a great soul. In this room I felt I had to agree, but agreeing was easy — this was small talk, or so I thought.
“I can see that you understand things quickly,” he said. “I admire you Americans, just showing up in a strange place with your passport in your pocket and a little valise. Fantastic.”
He saw everything. He made me shy.
“Probably you want to rest,” he said. “We usually have a drink on the terrace at seven. This is a lovely place. I think you will enjoy it. Ciao for now.”
Was that an invitation? I didn't know, but it did seem to me that I was part of a larger arrangement that at the moment I could only guess at. After he left I ordered the sandwich and the Campari and soda and tried not to ponder what the larger arrangement was. I told myself: I can leave tomorrow, just as I came, on the train to Messina. Being hard up in Italy didn't frighten me — people were friendly, strangers could be hospitable, I spoke Italian, I was personable — well, this hotel room was proof of that.
I guessed that something was expected of me. I did not know what, but something.
Because I had not been specifically invited, I did not appear on the terrace until nearly eight o'clock. The woman Haroun called Gräfin was holding a glass of wine and looking at the lights on the distant sea — fishing boats — and Haroun raised his hand in an effortless beckoning gesture that had a definite meaning: the languid summons of a person who is used to being obeyed. The woman herself, her head turned to the bobbing lights, seemed uninterested in me.