“Ask him anything.” Gräfm's hand still rested on Haroun's knee. She was looking out the window at a village we were passing, near Randazzo, on the mountain road, a cluster of cracked farmhouses, one with black lettering that had faded but was readable on the side, a pronouncement in Italian.
I pointed to the lettering. “What does that say?”
Without hesitating, Haroun said, “'Do not forget that my'—genitori is 'parents'—‘were farmers and peasants.' It was put there long ago.”
“Who said it? Why is it there?”
I had been through this in another village with Fabiola; she had sheepishly explained these old Sicilian slogans.
“Mussolini said this. It is from the war.”
“You see?” Gräfin said with a mother's pride, and for the first time showed an interest, turning to read the peeling slogan on the cracked stucco wall of the ancient farmhouse. She turned to me and said, “It is so charming how they leave the words there!”
“Fascisti,” Haroun said.
“Even fascisti can be sentimental,” Gräfin said.
“What's the capital of Bali?” I asked Haroun, to change the subject.
“Denpasar,” he said. He folded his arms and challenged me with a smile.
I was thinking how, when fluent foreigners uttered the name of a known place, they left the lilt of their suppressed accent on it.
“I sailed there once on my boat,” Gräfin said.
“Your famous boat,” Haroun said.
“My famous boat.”
“But that’s a long way,” I said.
“Not long. I flew to Singapore and joined the boat. We sailed to Surabaja. Then I went by road to Bali. I stayed some nights with a member of royalty at his palace. Djorkoda Agung— agung is prince. He lives in Ubud, very beautiful village of arts, and of course very dirty. The people dance for me and they make for me a”—she searched for a word, she mumbled it in German, Haroun supplied the translation—“yes, they make for me a cremation. Dancing. Music. Spicy food served on banana leafs. Like a festival. We sail to Singapore and I fly home. Not a long trip but a nice one. I love the dancing. Ketjak! The Monkey Dance!”
That was the most she had said since the moment I met her. It was not exactly self-revelation, but it was something — something, though, that did not invite comment or further questions. It was a weird explanation, a sort of truncated traveler’s tale. She was so wealthy she was not obliged to supply colorful detail. I wanted to ask her about the cremation — I wanted to joke about it: So they killed and burned someone in your honor? — but irony is lost on Germans.
“No more questions, Haroun,” I said. “You know everything.”
“Where is the olives?” Gräfin asked.
We were passing a settlement signposted Nicosia.
“Just ahead, beyond Sperlinga.” There was something anxious in Haroun’s helpfulness that suggested he was afraid of her. He said, “Bustano — that is not Italian. It is from Arabic. Bustan is 'garden.' Caltanissetta, near here, has a place Gibil Habib. From Arabic, Gebel Gabib, because it is a hill.”
“But where is the olives?” Gräfin asked again, in the impatient and unreasonable tone of a child.
The olives was what she called the place, but Bustano was not a village, it was an estate, outside the pretty town of Sperlinga — many acres, a whole valley of neat symmetrical rows of ancient olive trees, and at the end of a long driveway a magnificent villa, like a manor house, three stories of crusty stucco with a red tiled roof, and balconies, and an enormous portico under which we drove and parked.
A man appeared — not the squat stout Sicilian farmer I was used to but a tall elegant-looking man in a soft yellow sweater and light-colored slacks and sunglasses. His dark skin was emphasized by his white hair, and there were wisps of it like wings above his ears. He greeted us, and though I spoke to him in Italian — and he deftly complimented me — Gräfin and Haroun spoke to him in French, to which he replied in fluent French. I smiled and nodded and stepped aside. I understood a little of what they said, but my study of Italian had driven the French I knew out of my head. I could hear what was being suggested. The Italian olive baron was urging us in French to come inside and look around and to relax.
I said in Italian, “I need to walk a little after that long ride.”
“Yes, you are welcome,” the man said in English, which disconcerted me. “Over there is a little pond, with ducks. And many flowers for you. Bellina.”
Haroun said he would come with me. We walked to the ornamental lily pond. Haroun picked a flower and held it to his nose.
I said, “He's right. It is bellina.”
Haroun shrugged. “The flowers, yes. But the trees. The frantoio. The storage and cellars.” He crumpled his face, which meant, I am not impressed. “It is not great quality. Toscano is better. But this villa is charming — very comfortable. And the Gräfin wants it. She likes the business.” He made a gesture of uncorking a bottle and pouring. “`This is my olive oil. I grow it. I press it. You eat it’—she is a romantic, you see?”
He had a way, in speaking of Gräfin, of being able to turn his criticism into a compliment, which made me admire him for his loyalty.
I plucked the petals from the flower I was holding and said in a stilted way — I had been practicing the speech: “This is nice, very pleasant. And you have been very kind to me. But — forgive me if I’m wrong — I feel you expect something from me. That you are arranging something. That you want me for some purpose. Tell me.”
I was glad we were outside, alone. I would never have been able to say this back in Taormina, at the palazzo, where he had made me a guest. This setting, the olive groves, made me confident.
Haroun looked away. “See how they dig and scratch the roots to fertilize the tree. Some of these trees are hundreds of years old. Maybe here in Norman times.” He walked ahead of me, and he glanced back at the villa in which Gräfin had vanished with the elegant olive man.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You are very intelligent,” he said. “I like that. Very quick. Bold, too, I can say.”
Two things struck me about this speech. The first was that he wasn’t telling me what he really felt — that my intelligence made him uneasy. Second, even then I knew that when someone complimented me in that way, he was about to ask a favor.
As a way of defying him, and taking a gratuitous risk, I told him this.
“You are my guest, so you should be a little more polite to me,” he said, laughing in a peculiar mirthless way to show me he was offended.
So I knew then that what I had said was true and that his reply was a reprimand. Given the fact that I had accepted his hospitality, I should have felt put in my place, but I resisted, wishing to feel free to say anything I liked.
He said, “What do you think of the Gräfin?”
“I don't know anything about her.”
“Exactly. You are right,” he said. “She is a great mystery. That is why I love her.” He came closer to me. I seldom noticed anything more about Haroun than his beaky nose, yet his nose was so big and expressive it was all I needed to notice. “But when you see the Gräfin, what do you feel?”
What did this man want? I said, “I feel curious. I feel she is very nice.”
“She is fantastic,” he said, another reprimand. “She has everything. But do you believe me when I say to you she is lonely?”
“I believe you.”
“Because you are intelligent. You can see.”