At noon they came to the sea at a place called Castellabate and saw a village perched far above the sea with a sign for a restaurant and hotel called Il Frantoio. Since it seemed remote and pleasant at the same time, he suggested going up and having a look.
The former olive mill converted into a hotel clung to the edge of the cliff and looked out at a shadowless sea upon which the ferries from Salerno moved with a lovely indolence. They rang a bell. To the door came a massive man with an eye patch, the owner, and after a cursory up-and-down glance at their clothes (Faoud made up for Benedetta) they were invited into a large dining room and a shot of limoncello in glasses shaped like tulips. The owner spoke to Benedetta, and her ID card was enough to satisfy him. Then Faoud handed over Jimmie’s credit card. Blind in one eye, the owner’s active eye had an exaggerated keenness that cut into others with intensified precision.
They went outside to a panoramic terrace. The owner served them from a bottle of cold Falanghina, but Faoud held his hand over his glass.
“I’m having a day off,” he said with a smile.
“Bene fatto,” the man said. He went on: “One night or two, Mr. Codrington? We have a set menu in the evening which you will love.”
Faoud turned to Benedetta as if she were his wife and therefore needed to be consulted on the matter.
“We’ll try one,” she said. “And then see.”
They went up to their room drowsily. The windows opened also to the sea; the sun’s glare made the walls mustily luminous. She lay on the bed as if expectantly, but without any nervousness. He went to the window and bathed in the marine light for a while. It was one of those days when the convergence of sea and sky at the horizon was imperceptible to the naked eye. The girl turned on her side and watched him. The fact that he didn’t want anything from her did not seem to have any effect other than amusing her, but there was a soft, baffled contempt all the same, expertly concealed for a while. Her body language spread on the bed was a clear invitation. But he was not sure if he would accept it. It was, after all, a gift from an alien world that he was not entitled to accept. Taking it by force would be more appropriate, but that was not in the code of a gentleman. Eventually, he tired of the struggle with himself and took off his jacket, unbuttoned the Abbarchi shirt, and turned from the windows to the girl, who had now rotated onto her back and was staring up at a small, dusty glass chandelier. The owner had solidly bourgeois and ponderous tastes, but his rooms were cozy and conducive to disarmament. He went to the bed and ran his fingers through her hair and she said nothing, but she didn’t brush the fingers away either.
During the night he left the windows open and mosquitoes poured in from the forest and ate him alive. He only realized it when it was too late and his body was covered with venomous little lumps. Even the mosquitoes, then, in this sinister and inviting land sensed his hostile blood and went on the attack. He closed the windows—she was still asleep—and the room became suffocating. Cursing, he got up and opened them again. The tiny demons were still there, hovering just out of reach. Suffocate or be eaten alive: such was the choice with which God had tested him.
It was for His reasons. He thought of creeping out of the room with all his belongings, letting himself out of the hotel, and driving away quietly. But he had suddenly found himself attracted to the Nazarene woman’s attentiveness as they were kissing, but not making love. He considered that since God had thrown this woman in his path he should not be so hasty in discarding the gift. Another two days, perhaps, and then he would go back to being alone. But who could say? Life was undeniably more agreeable with her at his side. And so far she had not shown any inclination to expose him. She wanted something from him as much as he wanted something from her. Jayid jiddaan thumm. One didn’t have to be a fool about it.
Satisfied without sex, he slept much better. But when he woke, he found that it was he who was alone, and that it was Benedetta who had slipped unnoticed out of the room. Nor was she at breakfast. The owner, bringing his coffee, simply said, “No one saw her. Did she go out for a swim?”
“A swim?” Faoud said.
Slowly, it dawned on him.
He went to the car and found that the money was gone. To his own surprise, he didn’t fly into a rage; he was merely glad that she hadn’t taken the car as well. It was the way of these thieving Europeans. One had to face them down with a calm resolve and a capacity for revenge. He went back inside the hotel as if nothing had happened, for after all the last thing he could afford was a scene and a brush with the police. She must have guessed as much.
Therefore, he sat instead on the terrace in view of the azurite sea of the Romans and drank his coffee with the owner’s homemade croissants. Afterward he walked calmly around the compact village of Castellabate and dried the sweat at his temples. Heat blew in from the olive fields. He forced himself to forget about the affront and to contemplate only the future: that, and the cool stone arches of the dead Christians and the smell of their pasta boiling in pots nearby. Their world didn’t matter anyway—it was nearly a ruin.
DAIMONIA
SEVENTEEN
Rockhold woke punctually at the Bratseras in a room full of dried sponges. Hours of nightmares flooded his mind still as he groped for the glass of water by the bed and tried to see the sun glimmering behind the slats of the shutters. He called his wife in England at once.
“Minnie? Don’t forget to water the sunflowers.”
“Did you have a nightmare?” the little voice at the other end asked, by way of brushing his injunction aside.
“I was being eaten by dolphins.”
“How horrible. Poppy, make sure you eat your grapefruit.”