Issue 27 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

"Well, you never know for sure," the wife says and looks along
the beach at the young couple playing with their baby and the
sleeping man. The Texan has already moved on, taken the boat
back to the hotel. The wife pulls on her running shoes, and when
her husband is not looking, quickly slips the travellers' cheques out
of the handbag and puts them in the pocket of her towelling
shorts. The pocket is not quite large enough for them. She covers
them with her hand, smiles at the husband, and begins to walk up
the hill. He runs ahead of her along the steep white dust path that
leads up into the scrub-covered hills. She follows, running along
the path in the sun. She sweats and finds it difficult to run with
her hand on her pocket. She lets it go, now and then checking to
see if the money is still there. She stops a moment and tries
bending the cheques to fit them better into the pocket but is afraid
of damaging them. She thinks of pushing them down the front of
her bathing suit but fears the ink may run.
At the top of the hill she looks down at another small white
beach below. The water is completely transparent, a pale turquoise
at the edge, and she can see the white sand and the even sweep of
the beach like the smooth arc of a bow. Not a breath stirs, not a
leaf moves. No one is in sight; she could be the first person taking
possession of the place. She is very hot now and sweating heavily.
She runs down the hill to the deserted beach. She takes off the
shorts and leaves them on a rock, plunging into the cool water. It
is very salty and buoyant. She swims out, turning onto her back
from time to time to keep the shorts in view, then strikes out for
the horizon. When she comes back to the beach, she finds her
husband there, waiting for her in the shade of a pine tree. Beside
him lie her shorts with the cheques.
For a moment the wife thinks the sun has simply gone behind
a cloud. Then she realizes it has sunk behind the hills. Under the
arcades the husband and wife walk arm and arm in the gathering
gloom. The day has ended early, still and calm. There is not a
breath of wind. They hear the echo of their footsteps on the stone.
In the dim light the wife notices certain cracks in the whitewashed
walls, and the colors of the paint take on a fake glow. At this season
the place looks what it is, a recent development, ephemeral, in a
perdurable land. They pass the Texan who walks by with her
camera around her neck.--?She waves gaily to them and says loudly,
"I am seventy-two, but I am still having fun."
The shops are garishly lit under the arcades and filled with
expensive goods. The wife says, "You should at least buy yourself
some shoes."
"No, no, I have enough shoes," the husband replies.
The wife sees an expensive black sweater, tailored at the waist;
a bright red scarf, strewn with flowers; a tie with a pattern of blue
boats bobbing on the sea; soft leather shoes in black and blue. She
wants everything she sees. She says to the husband, "Meet me
back at the hotel in an hour. I am going to wander around a bit
on my own." She buys everything she has seen, paying with some
of the travellers' cheques. When she arrives back in her room, she
slips everything except the tie into her suitcase. When her husband
emerges from the shower she gives it to him.
"I'll wear it for the dinner," he says, smiling.
Gianna says, "The glasses are from the villa, Signora. You see
we only use them on special occasions." There are blue wine glasses
from the villa, bottles of white wine, frosted with cold, the starched
white tablecloth, and pink carnations and orange lilies as a center
piece. The wife thinks the colors of the flowers clash but murmurs
how festive the table looks. She sees four places set and asks about
the caretakers' child. Gianna says they have sent her to her cousins
for the night. "An aperitivo," Michelino says.
They sit on the veranda in wicker chairs and stare at the lurid
glare of the orange moon on the dark water, and the distant lights
of the town stirring the thick dark. The wife clutches her handbag
with the bills on her lap. The husband smiles and makes desperate
attempts to speak Italian. The wife sees he is trying to put the
caretakers at ease. She recalls his telling her how uneasy he had
been made to feel as a boy because of his race.
Michelino brings out a tray with tall drinks of something
orange with cherries and mint.
The caretakers speak to one another in local dialect which
neither the wife nor the husband understand.