Under the Same Sun (Stone Trilogy) (27 page)

H
e had seen this in movies, read about it in glossy travel magazines, but Jon had never thought he would one day be part of such a feast.

They had set a long table on the patio, under trellises heavy with wisteria and grapes, in the shade of some old pine trees. The entire bay and the town lay below them. Jon, standing at the edge of the terrace, looked out at the mountains fading into the dusk, at the silvery sheen the sea had taken on now that the sun had set and the light had turned blue. There were fishing boats out on the water, each of them with a lantern on its bow. They moved slowly or not at all. From the gorse growing on the slope just below he could hear the susurration of cicadas, the hum of a bumblebee having a late snack. The whisper of a lazy breeze moved in the trees; and from far, far away there was the sound of Positano, of nightlife on the beach just starting: snatches of music, children’s laughter, the hasty, metallic chugging of a Vespa hurtling down the serpentines. A sweet scent lingered in the air. He had smelled it right away when they had gotten out of the car. It reminded him of honey and maybe sherry, mixed with the tart aroma of the pines.

From behind, from the house, there were voices. He turned around.

A group of women came out, carrying bowls and platters of food, Naomi among them. She had a basket with bread sitting on her hip, holding it with one arm as if it was a basket of laundry while nibbling on a piece of pastry. She was talking to a black-haired girl in fast, fluent Italian. With a brief smile at him she placed her load on the table, among the dishes of pasta and sauces, the bowls of salad and ripe tomatoes.

He watched her as she returned inside, her red dress a speck of color against the dimness, highlighted by the candles on the table.

Arriving at the house earlier, he had been stunned into silence when the family came out to greet them. Their names had flowed past him like melodies, like the promise of a summer day: Gemma, Pia, Dorabella, Gloria, and they all looked like Naomi. A little duskier, a little taller or more voluptuous; but the resemblance was so strong that he had stared until they had laughed at him. Her cousins, and at last the mystery was lifted.

Once again, hearing their voices from the depth of the large building, he thought of the mermaid lured away from her natural habitat by a song, caught in a web of love, and forced to live on dry land. To Jon, it seemed as if she had returned, as if he had returned her to her own world and she was swimming at last in familiar waters.

Cesare stepped out of the house and waved to him. “Jon, let us eat. Have you ever had real Italian food?”

“Well.” Jon moved toward him and the light, toward the table laden with food, wine, and fruit. It looked like a painting, a still life: colorful, Baroque, and inviting. “I’m from Brooklyn. There are a lot of Italians in Brooklyn.”

Cesare waved his hand at him. “That is nothing. We grow our own vegetables. Everything you see on this table, everything, was grown on our own land, even the wheat for the bread. We like it that way; we like to know what we eat. Here!” He took a small dish with green olives from the table and held it out to Jon. “Try. These are from the trees on this estate. I have watched them grow!”

Jon glanced at the mountains rising into the darkness behind them, huge creatures bent over in slumber, motionless and silent. He took one of the olives and inhaled its sour, unique fragrance.

The scent threw him back to the little corner shop on Atlantic where he had gone with his father on Saturday mornings when the whim for a Middle Eastern breakfast had overtaken the family. They had bought pastry filled with minced lamb or feta, humus, and olives. Jon recalled the vats in the corner of the dim store and how the owner had lifted the wooden lids to display the brine, olives swimming in it like glossy brown and green marbles. He had always been given a couple to try by the friendly Syrian man and had taken them to eat on the steps in the sun while his father chatted and paid for their purchases.

He remembered coming home to the aroma of fresh coffee and his mother, Helen, standing in the kitchen slicing tomatoes to go with whatever they had bought.

“Naomi was telling me about a fig tree,” Jon said, “and how she used to pick fresh figs for breakfast.”

“Yes. It is right over here.” Cesare moved toward the corner of the large terrace. There was no rail. Below them, the hillside rolled steeply away. A round table with a marble top and some chairs stood here. “This is where we like to have breakfast. See, there are some lemon trees too.” From among the foliage he plucked a couple of ripe figs and handed them to Jon. “She should have come home more often. I know Lucia was unhappy about it; she always wanted Naomi to come back with her.”

“Do they come here often? Olaf and Lucia?” The figs felt strange in his hand, almost alive, human, with their warm, velvety skin and their soft shape.

“Every year. Not in summer though.” Cesare laughed. “Most people think it is too hot here in summer. But yes, they come often.”

For Jon, hearing these words, the world tilted. It was not so much a new perspective, as it was, looking into a mirror not directed at him and seeing a totally new part of the world that had been invisible to him, hidden in an angle just outside his vision.

“Lucia and my son, Ferro,” Cesare went on, “they share a passion. They are the artists in this family. Sadly, Lucia has given up so much for her husband’s sake. But she is really a good singer.”

He had heard that before. Somewhere it had cropped up, the mention that Lucia sang in an opera chorus, but it had never been talked about again.

“She used to sing in church, you know. All the solos at all the masses, it was always Lucia. We were so proud of her. She stood up there in her white dress and sang like an angel. The clearest voice you can imagine. My little sister.”

“And Ferro?” Jon tasted the strange name on his tongue. It sounded harsh, hard, a name for a fighter.

Cesare turned at the sound of female laughter from inside the house. The rest of the family appeared, Raphaele and Lorenzo in the lead, carrying a huge tray with a roast suckling pig between them. They placed it on a side table and began carving the meat, laying the golden crust on a plate one of the women was holding.

Gemma, she was Gemma, Jon was certain, Raphaele’s daughter.

There were so many of them. He had counted seven female cousins, one male; and he hadn’t even tried to figure out their spouses and children.

“Ferro is my son,” Cesare repeated with a smile. “My wife and I, we only had one child, and late in life. He is younger than Naomi even though I’m the oldest in the family.”

“Open the wine,” Lorenzo called, and Cesare moved away.

Like a lovely painting, Naomi stood with her cousins and watched the men deal with the roast pig. There were four of them in that little group, all roughly the same age, yet they looked like four versions of the same female. Jon wondered, if Naomi had lived here her whole life, would she be like her cousins: lush and tanned, full of loud laughter, her hands brown and strong. He felt a pang of sorrow for her braid. He had loved how it wrapped around them when they made love. It had reminded him of a mermaid, her long tresses dragging him under, while she held him in her arms. Now she looked elegant. Sleek. A city woman, ready to dive into the bustle of New York. For a moment he longed for the quiet days of Halmar, and the simple life, and the easy days that slipped into one another like grains of sand running through fingers. Music had flown out of him there; it had floated in the air, and he had felt it in every breath he took.

“Come, sit,” Cesare called. “Dinner is ready.”

Naomi sat down beside him and reached for his hand. Hers was warm, her touch firm, without hesitation; and when he looked at her, she gave him the same brilliant smile she had shared with her cousins. “I love it here. Can you smell the flowers, Jon; can you hear the ocean?”

“To be honest, all I can smell is food,” Jon replied, and gazed at the table with the many bowls and platters. He could hardly wait to try the pasta with the mussels. “And it’s a pretty good smell.” He laid the figs he had been holding down beside his plate.

“Ah.” Naomi took one of them and broke it open. Little golden seeds lay nestled in the dark pink flesh of the fruit. She offered it to him, but he shook his head. He wanted pasta, and the crackling crust from the pig, the wine, and the bread. Naomi bit into the fig. Juice ran down her  chin, and she laughed, wiping it off with the back of her hand like a child.

chapter 25

S
omewhere deep inside, Jon realized, she did care. As much as she said she didn’t want to be part of the family business, she had a way of walking through a hotel with a critical eye, taking note of everything, seeing every dust mote, every little thing that was not perfect and did not meet her standards.

Cesare had taken them down to the hotel after dinner, saying over and over how much he regretted Naomi’s decision, but he understood; they wanted privacy, and she was probably curious to see her property.

At this Jon had thrown her a questioning glance, but she had only shrugged and replied that the hotel was her father’s hobbyhorse, not hers.

It was not as simple as that, he had seen as soon as they arrived. The manager had been waiting for them, an anxious look on his face. Bemused, walking behind Naomi, Jon had followed them down a flight of stairs from the lobby. The sense of déjà vu was so strong he almost thought he had double vision. It was exactly this way that she had shown him to his room at the hotel in Halmar when he’d first arrived there.

She wandered around in the spacious rooms, opened the sliding doors to the private terrace and stepped outside, inspected everything, and at last declared that it was okay. No more than that, a terse “Okay,” and the manager had wilted. With a wave of her hand she had sent him off, ordering breakfast for the next morning, specifying what they would want and when.

“You bossy little thing,” Jon said when the door closed behind him at last. “Did you have to make the poor guy feel like dirt?” He was pleased enough with their surroundings. The place was obviously a first-class establishment though less plush than others he had seen. There was a lot of space, the furniture simple and sparse but of good quality. Everything was airy, open, directed toward the outside and the sea. Here, he could hear the ocean and the rustle of the wind in the trees, smell the flowers and the herbs.

Naomi held up a cushion from the couch. “This has not been washed, Jon. You wash the covers before you give rooms to new guests, let alone the owner. Clearly a minus; and here—” she went over to the table where a bowl of fruit stood—“these grapes, they are at least two days old. Impossible.” A little gentler she added, “Well, at least at my hotel, it would be. Impossible.”

“I think this is pretty nice.” He had to take a deep breath to reign in the laughter. “And I think you scared the shit out of the manager. I’m sure he will go to bed now wondering if you’re going to complain to the big boss. Your father, I mean.”

“My father.” She said it thoughtfully and let the word linger in the air. “You know, I’ve actually never seen him inspect a property. He was always the moneyman, the one who managed the finances. It was always Carl who went and acquired new property. Always.” Her lips pursed, she looked around. “In fact, I can’t remember my father buying another hotel on his own, or fighting over it with Carl. This must have really meant a lot to him. I wonder if this is the same suite my parents use when they are here?” With a little shake of her shoulders she came out of her reverie. “But it really is a lovely spot, isn’t it? Makes me wonder why they offered Halmar to me when I wanted to hide from you and not this. I think I wouldn’t have minded living here, and the family so close by. It would have been a little  less lonely. Maybe…” A tiny shrug, a brief tightening of her lips. “Maybe, if I’d come here, I would have been able to let you go, find a new life, a new love.”

“Oh, very bad idea!” Jon was by her side in two big strides. “Very, very bad idea. I like it a lot better this way. Way better.”

Her hair smelled of cooking, her skin of sun; and it was warm and soft, warm from inside, as if her body had come alive again after her long illness, as if at last blood was coursing through her limbs again.

“I could be married to one of my cousins’ friends, another landowner, and be running this hotel and living in the sun and the warmth all year long. I could have my own fig tree right here on this terrace. I’d eat pasta every day.”

He kissed her hard, holding her tightly when she tried to squirm out of his arms, molding her body to his, inhaling her breath. She moaned a little, but he did not let her go. “I’ll feed you pasta if that’s what you want, and I’ll plant a fig tree for you in Brooklyn and the Malibu garden, but you can forget about marrying a brawny Italian and living here. You’re mine; your fate is sealed.”

“Yes.” A sigh, a gentle capitulation, and the softening into the embrace.

“
B
ut there’s no reason,” Jon said a good while later, “why we shouldn’t come back here once a year, just like your parents. Your family is here, after all. I think my mother and Val would love it. We could bring them.”

Naomi sighed in reply, but when he raised himself up on his elbow, he saw that she was hardly listening to him.

The moon had risen. It cast a golden path on the calm water, leading toward the horizon and even farther, away into the distance. The fishing boats seemed to dance on it, following the light into another world.

Beyond the terrace doors, hidden somewhere in the bougainvillea, a lonely cicada sang. Her face was turned away; she was gazing at the moon and the few wispy clouds drifting past it.

“I think I’ve changed my mind, Jon,” she softly said.

His heart skipped “About what?”

She looked at him. Her eyes were deep, black pools in her pale face.

“Remember I once told you if I was a selkie I would want to live in the cold, gray waters of the North? I’ve changed my mind. I’d want to live here. Because then, on a night like this, I’d come ashore. I’d pick flowers and weave a wreath while sitting on the sun-warmed sand of the beach.” The sheets rustled when she moved closer to him. “I’d pick figs and oranges, some grapes and peaches, and take them back into the sea with me and eat them down there in my castle and relive the hours in the air.” She paused. “But I probably wouldn’t eat them. I’d keep them in an empty seashell and smell them, breathe in the aroma of sun and light.”

Her skin shone like a pearl. Jon missed her dark tresses, missed digging into them, wrapping them around his hands. The short hair made her face daintier, smaller, more vulnerable.

“I’d lie in wait for you, my selkie,” he replied. “I’d lure you out of the water with a basket of flowers. Or no, I’d build a bed of blossoms for you in my garden, and then when you come ashore, I’d take you there and love you, crushing all those petals, releasing their fragrance with your sighs.”

Even as he spoke, before she could reply, Jon knew what she was going to say. The
Secret Garden
, he breathed. “Ah, that’s what that song was all about. Oh my God, Naomi, I never realized. The image was there all the time; you had that image in your mind all the time.”