The fireman ordered me to leave the premises immediately, and as I tried to return to the pickup with Marie, she walked beside me shielding her face with her arm. She began coughing, spitting, she hobbled along through the smoke, staggering down the rocky path. I lifted her, put her arm around my shoulder to give her support, she’d stopped walking, she dragged her feet in the dirt, her flip-flops scraping against the ground, kicking up small rocks. I opened the door to the truck and placed her on the seat, her body sunk down, she slid down her seat, limp. I sat her up, repositioned her in her seat, grabbed her left arm that was hanging out of the truck and placed it on her lap, slammed the door. I sat down at the wheel and started the truck right away. Unable to turn around, I drove straight ahead, reentered the equestrian club. Peppino and the few remaining rangers had given up protecting the buildings — it was too late, the club had completely burned down — they’d simply gathered together with the survivors around the tanker and, in shock, they watched me pass by, while the horses, neighing and panicked, their tails lashing, their manes swaying, kicked up a whirlwind of dust in an effort to follow me. I did a U-turn in the lot and exited the way we’d come, leaving the equestrian club behind us as I accelerated into the dust.
I drove on, speeding along, unperturbed by the road’s bumps, potholes, ruts, letting go of the wheel only to keep Marie from falling over, her body tipping over against my shoulder or abruptly lurching toward the windshield, causing me to grab her by the back of her shirt to keep her from hitting her head. I wasn’t sure if she was unconscious or not, I continued to drive through the fog, seeing nothing by the beam of my headlights, all was smoke, shadows, and the glow in the distance. Leaving the unpaved road, I headed toward Portoferraio, following a craggy coastline route. The wind from the sea shook the old truck, making the doors vibrate, and some stronger gusts pushed us over to the shoulder. I sped up, and I saw the shrubs jitter along the road, their branches swaying in my headlights, and the small trees of the undulating thicket bowed as we passed. I was shirtless at the wheel, my eyes unblinking, wild, mesmerized by the hypnotic unraveling of the road. I didn’t slow down when passing another car, didn’t turn my brights off, our fenders would touch, I’d swerve onto the side of the road and my tires would bounce unevenly in the gravel along the cliff ledge. I made out in the distance the darkened profiles of the great rocky coastal cliffs, whose tortured sides crumbled into the sea like the petrified bottom of one of Marie’s designer dresses, with its rumpled sheets, its pleats, its laminae, its vertical ridges and sharp jags fashioned by wind and storm. I heard the sea rumble below me, black, immense, churning, raging in a fury of foam, and I sped on along the craggy coastline, carrying in my wake this procession of phantom dresses of volcanic rock, dresses the color of lava or magma, which joined the basalt’s darkness with the metamorphic rocks, mixing together granite and porphyry, ophiolites, cipolin and limestone, mica sequins and glimmers of obsidian grains.
Marie had fallen next to me, slumped over on the seat, her eyes distant, her body tossed around by the car, her shoulders passive, shifting according to the curves of the road. Her T-shirt was blackened by the smoke, stained with fingerprints, bits of grass and mud, dirt, its cotton scorched in many places, specked with ash and other charred material. She’d lost one of her flip-flops, soot covered the straps and V attachment of the remaining one, and its daisy was black, dying, without petals. Her T-shirt hung askew, baring a shoulder and rising up at the thigh, but her nudity was far from carefree and charming, her body was bruised, she must have felt mortified for not having panties on. Make no mistake, Marie loved walking around naked, but if nudity agrees with the sea and open air, it clashes with fire, which gives it an unpleasant, if not unbearable, character. I dug through the glove box but found nothing to cover her with. I slowed down abruptly and parked on a seaside cliff. I had some trouble getting out of the pickup, the wind pushed against the door, its metal frame creaking, and I had to slip through the narrow opening I was able to make. I took a few steps against the violent wind and took off my pants, then removed my boxers. There I was, naked on the cliff, standing in the white beam of the truck’s headlights. I could see Marie’s silhouette seated in the truck, I saw the sea below, the dark vegetation waving furiously in the wind. I put my pants back on, twisting in place, and, opening the truck door, pulling hard, holding it open in the storm, I slid in and handed my boxers to Marie (here, put this on, I said, don’t say I never did anything for you). Marie looked at my boxers confusedly, and then she smiled, she gave me a shy, grateful smile. She took the boxers and slipped them on while I started the truck again in the night.
A little farther on, I was forced to slow down, the road was blocked, siren lights spun silently in the night. I got out of the old truck, leaving Marie asleep in the vehicle, and walked over to a small crowd of onlookers gathered on the road around some fire engines. The fire couldn’t have been far away, orange cinders could be seen in the undergrowth by the road, a few isolated flames flickered here and there above its length. The firemen had unrolled a fire hose, which dripped in the middle of the road, and a dozen campers watched them silently behind police tape set up by the Red Cross. They had been evacuated from a nearby campground, they’d rushed out of their tents and were now standing here, idle, with the look of refugees, young girls in nightgowns, a few odd objects in their hands, a toilet case, a bottle of water, ping-pong paddles. I wandered for a while among them on the road and walked over to a fireman who was giving explanations to a man in shorts seated on a Vespa whose motor continued to run. The fireman, helmeted, his neck protected with a sort of extended permeable hood, explained to him that the fire was spreading on Monte Capannello and that a pocket remained active on Monte Strega, the fire had reached Volterraio and two other valleys were still burning. Shirtless, I continued to amble down this smoky coastal road, when a Red Cross first-aid worker caught up to me without my seeing him and put a thermal blanket around my shoulders. I said nothing, I didn’t react in any way, I didn’t even thank him (I can’t imagine the stricken look I must have had), and I returned to the truck. I took the blanket off my shoulders and placed it carefully over Marie’s thighs as she continued to sleep in her seat, tucked her in gently.
I turned around then and headed back in the direction of the equestrian club. Marie had opened one eye but remained speechless, she stared out at the road in front of her. I drove slowly, I was spent, deprived of energy and strength. The wind had abated. The sun had begun to rise, on the horizon smoke and morning fog covered the sea. As we reached the small white bridge a couple of miles from La Rivercina, I slowed and turned onto the road that led to the equestrian club, driving carefully, avoiding potholes and bumps. The undergrowth thronging the road was completely scorched, blackened, charred, and a strong smell of fire penetrated the vehicle. The coastal shrub had burned like dry wood, after having run wild for several years, growing unevenly, never clipped or tended, drying after long months of drought and August’s torrential heat. Nothing remained of the tangles of rockrose and thorny broom, of myrtle, of strawberry tree and tree heath, choice combustibles, rich in flammable oils, which the fire must have set ablaze as soon as it came near. I pulled into the equestrian club slowly, and Marie grabbed my arm, I felt in my body the terror that seized her.