Taormina

A Short Story

The waiter came over with a fresh bowl of potato chips. He cleared the table of the empty glasses and replaced the ashtray. The woman reached for her wine, grabbed a chip, and held it up to the fading light. Then she put it in her mouth and crunched purposefully.

The man watched her. “You had your hair done,” he said.

“Lavaggio e piega (wash and dry). I’ve been married to you for a decade, and those are still the only two Italian words I know.” She smiled.

“You didn’t tip them, did you?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Look at me,” she said shaking her head, her hair cascading over her shoulder.

“It does look nice.”

“Anyway, what time is it?” she asked, sipping her wine.

He shielded his eyes from the glare. “Just past seven. What time is the reservation?”

“Eight. Nothing’s open before eight.”

“At least we’re not in Spain,” he said.

“We never used to have a problem with a late reservation.” She finished her glass of wine and motioned to the waiter.

The man glanced at her and didn’t say anything. He picked up the cigarettes lying on the table, lit one, and offered her the pack.

She waved his hand away as she grabbed another chip.

“You’ll stuff yourself before dinner,” he said.

She ignored him and took a bite.

The waiter came back with the wine and they sat back, he with his cigarette, she with her wine, scanning the piazza, their eyes tracking past the parapet, across the roofs of the homes that were stacked seemingly on top of each other down the side of the cliff, and dropping into the Ionian sea. A cacophony reverberated behind them: ambling transients, some already dressed in their evening attire, the rest in tourist garb: oversized shorts, tee-shirts, polo shirts, sneakers, some with flip flops, eating gelato straight out of cones, or sucking on a cannolo. Cigarette smoke and bad cologne wafted over them, the languages an international mélange: Russian, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean; the English diaspora; Italian. Lots of Italian.

“The plume is thicker today,” he said. He motioned with his cigarette toward Mount Etna, the peak partially obscured by errant clouds, the blue sky iridescent against the dark mass.

She turned her head toward the crater. “Looks the same to me, like a landscape in a Renaissance painting,” she said. “They’re just clouds.”

“I don’t think so. See how it’s extending east. . . southeast, over the sea? It wasn’t as far out this morning.”

“It’s a matter of perspective,” she said. “We were closer this morning, practically right beneath it.”

“Acireale is not right beneath the crater.”

“You know what I mean.” She turned back toward the sea.

He watched her for a minute. Then he leaned over, flicked an errant crumb from her sleeve, and reached for her hand. “This has been nice, hasn’t it?”

She softened her hand in his. “It has,” she said.

“We needed to get away.”

“It was good to come here after all this time. Remember the Grand Hotel. . . we were so grand,” she chuckled.

“We splurged on business class.”

“It was our honeymoon.”

“We had no money.”

“We did OK afterward.”

“It didn’t matter, back then.”

“I know.”

He stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray. “This place has changed though.”

“You think?” she said, not hiding the sarcasm.

“It’s like a luna park now.”

“A what?”

“An amusement park, that’s what we call them in Italy.”

“You’re right,” she said. “The shops and the restaurants and the quaint hotels. The Greek theater—”

“The cable car ride down to the beach. They’re all attractions. And six euros for an arancino the size of an olive. Pay up and enjoy the ride.”

She smirked. “How much do you think this wine is costing me?”

He reached for another cigarette and held it between his fingers without lighting it. “Anyway, does it matter?”

“No, I guess it doesn’t.”

“It’s been a good week.”

“Yes. . . and tomorrow we return,” she said with a dramatic flourish. She finished her glass of wine and turned her eyes back toward the volcano. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is spewing more smoke today. Maybe it’s angry that we’re leaving,” she laughed.

“Maybe.”

She fell silent. “Maybe we should stay a few more days.”

He lit the cigarette.

“Seriously,” she said.

“Don’t do this,” he said.

“Why not?”

“You know I can’t stay. You know I have to get back—”

“Right,” she snapped.

He leaned toward her. “It took me three months to get the appointment with this specialist.”

“It’s a waste of time, you know—”

“Cut it out,” he said. And then, “Let’s not go there.”

“OK,” she said. “You’re right.” Then she ordered a Campari spritz from the expectant waiter, who avoided the man’s glare.

“Babe, you sure?”

“I’m sure. As sure as that thing’s going to blow,” she said facetiously, gesturing toward the peak. “Isn’t that what they said this morning down at the restaurant, that it was just a matter of time?”

“I’ll have another as well,” the man said to the waiter, who bowed and disappeared into the bar. The drinks were on the table in less than a minute.

The man inhaled deeply and let the smoke out in a long, slowly expanding plume.

“Impressive,” she said, watching the smoke dissipate.

He checked the time. “Let’s head on over,” he said.

“It’s too early, they won’t be open.”

“We can walk along the Corso.”

“With five million other tourists. Can we at least finish our drinks?”

“We can get another drink somewhere else.”

“We may as well stay here.” She gestured toward the sea. Then she turned to face him. “And look up there, that’s pretty, how the light reflects off the houses.”

He looked up at the hills, the sun disappearing behind them. Through the waning light he discerned silhouettes of a few adventurous tourists hiking up the trail, heading toward the Greek or Roman ruins. Probably remnants of an old aqueduct.

She sat back. “Ever wonder how those houses cling to the sides of those cliffs? Who lives up there? It’s a challenge getting down, and near impossible to come up.”

“That was the point. The steep cliffs protect against invaders,” he said.

She looked around. “They’ve been invaded, by hordes wielding iPhones instead of bows and arrows and swords. Why do the locals stay?”

“Maybe it is the views.” He laughed.

She stared nonchalantly at him and sipped her orange drink. “You’re not funny. You should stick to what you know.” She grabbed another chip.

He took a drag and waved the smoke away from the waiter, who had materialized to light the candle on their table. A roving band of musicians, more like minstrels, were serenading a couple at the adjacent bar. He glanced back up at the towering hills behind him. The hikers had disappeared. He turned back to the sea, where two yachts and one sailboat glided along the water. He followed the latter until it disappeared behind the rock formation that jutted out of the coast. His eyes tracked the coastline south, and when they reached the base of Mount Etna, climbed up the steep slope.

The plume had doubled in volume.

“That’s not good,” he said.

“What’s not good?”

“That,” he said, gesturing toward the expanding white mass.

“You’re obsessed with that thing. It’s more than thirty miles from here.”

“What if we can’t leave tomorrow?” he said.

“Then we can’t leave. It’s not a tragedy.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Forget it.” He signaled to the waiter for the check.

“I’m not finished,” she said.

The waiter placed the platter with the check on the table.

“Grazie,” the man said.

That’s when the first temblor hit.

“Did you feel that?” he said.

“What?”

The table shook again. This time their chairs moved with the force of the tremor.

They jumped out of their seats.

“That I felt,” she said. They both turned to face the volcano.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed.

A massive, vertical plume of gray smoke spewed out of the crater, with the intensity and speed of water gushing from a fire hydrant. Bright red and orange lava shot up into the sky like roman candles, and when it fell to the ground, cascaded down the sides of the mountain forming small canals feeding the valleys. They heard a loud explosion, followed by a faint, sustained low roar, like a moaning lion. And the plume had grown in density, morphing from white to gray to black, extending straight up and then bending in a south-easterly direction over the sea, away from them, as if clawing its way through the now darkened sky.

“Isn’t that wonderful,” she said, her hand over her mouth.

The man’s stunned gaze alternated from the erupting volcano to his phone.

The crowd had pivoted in the direction of the eruption. Every phone was out, capturing the spectacle. A faint, babel-like murmur engulfed the piazza.

“Take a video,” she said.

He came out of his stupor. “We’re not leaving tomorrow,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

“That’s not good,” he said.

“You’re crazy,” she said.

He sat back down and lit another cigarette.

“Oh, my,” she said. “The ash is falling, down where we were this morning.”

“So what. We won’t be driving in that direction anytime soon.”

She leaned on the table and glared at him.

“They closed the Catania airport,” he said, showing her his phone with the alert from the airline. “I have to get back tomorrow.” He threw his phone on the table in resignation.

She walked over to the railing at the edge of the piazza, drink in hand, and looked along the coast. The volcano had increased in its intensity, the lava blasting out of the crater, the ash raining down onto the villages and towns and beaches. More boats had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, dispersed across the water, taking in the spectacle. She did the same while she finished her drink.

“Don’t lean over the railing,” he said. He stood back, a few feet from her.

She didn’t hear him. Or she ignored him.

He took a step forward. “We can drive to Palermo tonight, take the coastal route north through Messina,” he said. “There’s a flight at 7:30 a.m. If we leave now we can get a good night’s sleep.”

She turned toward him and leaned her back against the railing.

“Can you step away from the ledge?” he said.

“Am I making you nervous?”

“No.”

“What about dinner?” she said.

“How can you be thinking about dinner at a time like this?”

She walked back to the table and sat down. She waived the waiter over and ordered another Campari spritz.

He followed her. “We can get some panini.”

She reached for the cigarettes and lit one, eyeing him.

“I guess we could leave after dinner,” he said, sitting back down.

“You’re not getting it,” she said, exhaling sharply.

“What am I not getting?”

She flicked the ash from the cigarette under the table and stared at the black and white tiles below her feet. “I’m staying, at least until they re-open the Catania airport.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll find another Airbnb. This whole town’s one big Airbnb.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I’ve never been more serious,” she said, stubbing out the cigarette with her heel.

He grabbed the glass and sighed. “It’s my fault.”

She didn’t move.

He stared at her profile, at her sculpted aquiline nose silhouetted against the darkening sky, at the imperceptible mole above her lips, at her long, elegant neck. He wanted to reach over, touch her hair, caress her cheek. After what seemed like an interminable moment, he said, “It used to be good, didn’t it?”

“It did,” she said.

“We were doing just fine,” he said.

She nodded.

“We were happy, weren’t we?”

“We were,” she said.

“And then we tried—” He couldn’t finish.

After a moment, “There’s nothing we can do about it.”

He lit another cigarette. “Yes there is. That’s why I have to get back.”

She shook her head. “Not that way. Not with another specialist. We’ve exhausted all options going down that path.”

The crowd in the piazza had grown in size. People were standing on the church steps, smoking and drinking and talking loudly, some had found their way atop the tower straddling the southern city gate, many were stacked up against the railing, leaning over the precipice to get the perfect shot of the exploding crater.

“You know you can do something,” she said. “If you wanted to.” She looked past him. “But you choose not to.”

He stared at the expanding plume.

“I still fail to understand why you don’t—”

“I told you,” he snapped. “I’m not going to ask my brother. It wouldn’t be ours.”

She didn’t say anything.

“It wouldn’t be mine.”

She put her empty glass on the table and lit another cigarette. Then she stood, walked across the piazza, and disappeared along the Corso into the crowd.