The House in Amalfi (36 page)

I had fond memories of Lorenzo and me making love on this old fishing boat, but this was the first time I had ever sailed on it. Smiling, I watched Aurora guide us out to sea. I thought, relieved, she seemed calm, almost contented, and I wondered if knowing about Jon-Boy and Isabella might be some kind of turning point for her and now she might be able to face her future without the fears that had plagued her all her young life.

She turned the boat south, then came to lean companionably on the rail next to me. I don’t know much about sailing, but I’d always thought somebody should be at the helm, even in a little baby-type boat like my own. “Hey,” I said, a touch nervously, “shouldn’t one of us be doing the driving?”

But Aurora just laughed, a rare sound. “Oh, this old ship knows exactly where it’s going,” she said. “Don’t worry, Lamour; it’s on automatic pilot.”

I hadn’t realized boats could have automatic pilots and I wasn’t sure I believed her, but she seemed unconcerned, so I took her word for it.

“How interesting,” she said, suddenly animated. “See that cloud on the horizon, Lamour? I’ll bet you that in a few minutes it’ll be joined by another, then another. This must have been exactly the way the storm blew up that killed Jon-Boy and Isabella.”

I stared at her, shocked. She was smiling happily, her eyes fixed on the horizon.

“See, what did I tell you!” she exclaimed. “There’s another cloud. I know the weather around here better than I know my own mind. We’re in for a storm, Lamour. Isn’t that exciting?”

I groped around in my mind for what to say. I knew next to nothing about boats and sailing or about bad weather at sea, except that my father had disappeared in the kind of storm she was predicting now. Afraid of provoking her, I said as calmly as I could, “We’d better turn round, Aurora, head for home. Your father will be getting worried.”

“No, he won’t; he doesn’t even know we’ve gone. Nobody does.”

She was right. I stared at the receding shoreline. It was too far to swim, and anyhow the sea was already surging into a swell, lifting our little fishing boat, then letting it slide down again in a way that churned my already nervous stomach. Aurora was now up in the bow, hair streaming in the wind. And then I realized Aurora had lied to me. There was no automatic pilot and this boat was sailing into the swell and the oncoming storm, unguided.

I lurched along the deck to the little cockpit. I stared blankly at the control panel. At least there was an old-fashioned wheel; maybe I could turn us around, head back to shore.

“Lamour.”

Aurora was standing next to me. She put her hands over mine. “Don’t do that, Lamour, please,” she said softly. “I need you with me. You said you would be my friend. I didn’t expect this storm, but it’s wonderful, isn’t it? It’s just so perfect I can’t believe my luck.” She laughed, a joyous, lovely sound that made me think everything was going to be all right after all.

And then she said, “Don’t you see why it’s perfect? It’s just
like the night I was born. And now I’m going to die. I was going to do this alone,
mia sorella,
but now I think maybe you will have to join me. And I promise you, it will be lovely, beautiful, just the way it was for your father.” She gripped my hands tighter, staring deep into my eyes. “We’ll join him now, Lamour, in his lovely resting place. . . . What could be nicer than the family together at last?”

Oh God, oh God. . . . She was crazy. . . . She had planned all along to kill herself . . . and now I was going to join her. . . .

“Aurora,
why
?” I struggled to get my hands free, but she pressed them down on the wheel so hard I yelped with pain.

“Don’t you get it?” she said. “I wanted you to witness my death; then you would have to be the one to tell Lorenzo. And I wanted you to see the way your father died . . . so you could feel the kind of pain I feel. You who are so pure and secure, so independent and calm, so . . . so
real. . . . 
”

The boat gave a sudden lurch as a wave hit broadside. Aurora let go her grip and staggered back, smacking her head against the metal lantern. Her eyes rolled in her head and she slid to the floor, just as the boat rolled again, sending me crashing on top of her. Somehow I scrambled to my knees. . . . There was blood on my hands, on my shirt . . . and blood trickled thick as old wine from Aurora’s head. I took off my shirt and put it under her. She did not move.

Terrified, I grabbed the wheel again, staring out through the little cockpit window. The edge of the horizon darkened, then blurred, moving quickly toward us, as though night was creeping up out of the ocean. The boat lifted over another swell, rocking deeply. I glanced from side to side, assessing the sea. Even I knew that in weather like this I would have to tack, that is, sail the boat first one way, then the next, in short angled spurts, heading back to the shore. Only trouble was I didn’t know how to do that. I looked at the horizon creeping
closer and with dread in my heart knew I had no option but to find out. And right now.

I looked anxiously at Aurora, still unconscious on the floor, and thought of my father. History was repeating itself. There was nothing I could do for her; I tried to concentrate on keeping the boat afloat. Sudden bitter tears flooded my eyes. I choked them back. “Jon-Boy, oh, Jon-Boy,” I yelled bitterly into the wind that was slamming into us, just as the rains came, “don’t let it be this way; please, please, oh please . . . help me. . . .”

Nico was driving his red Porsche up the Castello’s long gravel drive when he saw Mifune hurrying from the thicket of pine trees. Nico was surprised. Mifune always moved calmly and slowly; he’d never seen him run before. Alarmed, Nico stopped the car and got out.

“Mifune,” he called, catching up and grabbing his arm. “What’s wrong?”

The old man rocked on his feet, sweat poured down his bony face, and he had trouble catching his breath.

“Take your time, time, your time . . . ,” Nico said, but he already knew it was something bad.

“Aurora,” Mifune gasped, and Nico’s heart sank. “Your father told her about Isabella and Jon-Boy. . . . She went to find Lamour. She’s taken her out on Lorenzo’s boat. Something bad is going to happen, Nico. . . . I feel it. . . .”

Nico knew he was right. Aurora had never sailed the old fishing boat—she knew nothing about it—and a storm was about to hit. His instinct was to head immediately for the jetty and the Riva and go after them, but he knew he must tell his father first. . . . At least then somebody would know where he was and could call the coast guard.

He put Mifune in the Porsche and drove to the house. They found Lorenzo out on the terrace, watching the approaching storm.

“Oh, Nico, there you are,” he said. “I’m glad you got home before the storm broke. Odd, isn’t it, how I can never see a storm approach like this without thinking of Jon-Boy and Isabella, and Aurora of course.”

“Aurora’s out there,” Nico said abruptly. He told him what Mifune had witnessed and immediately Lorenzo got on the phone and alerted the coast guard rescue service. Then he and Nico drove back to the road and took the elevator down to the cove.

The sea was already hurling itself at the jetty, rocking the Riva at its mooring. Lamour’s little boat was smacking up against the pilings, but there was no time to worry about that now. Nico was already in the Riva, revving up the engine, while Lorenzo untied the lines. He leaped on board and they took off.

The rain hit as they emerged from the cove, sweeping over them like a curtain, soaking them in seconds.

Nico guided his boat by instinct and experience through the rocky channel and out to sea. “She’ll head for the caves just past Pirata,” he shouted to Lorenzo over the roar. “She thinks I don’t know about them, but of course I do. It’s where she’d take Lamour; I know it.”

Lorenzo forced back his panic. Like Mifune, he knew instinctively his daughter had set out to kill herself at sea, in the place she had been born. And now she was going to take Lamour with her. He needed to control his emotions, to take charge, or both women would die.

The slender Riva crashed into the swells, hurtling over the top and flying into the dips like a carnival ride, even though Nico took it sideways-on. They were five minutes out when they spotted the fishing boat. It was headed toward shore, and even as they saw it, it caught the full onslaught of a wave and took on water, dipping and lurching.

“Dear God,” Lorenzo cried, “there they are, Nico . . . .”

Nico gunned his engine in a futile effort for more speed.

“Bring her alongside,” Lorenzo commanded, already fashioning the ropes into a makeshift harness that would secure him to the Riva. As Nico edged his speedboat alongside, the wind took it, scraping its length along the wooden fishing boat with a sound like an electric saw. Groaning, Nico looked up and saw Lamour’s head pop out from the cockpit.

“Lamour’s there,” he yelled to his father.

Lorenzo saw Lamour and his heart did a double leap. She was shouting something to him, but he couldn’t hear over the wind. He knew every inch of his old fishing boat, he knew where he could fix that line, and he knew how to do it, except the boat was a moving target. He motioned Lamour to catch the rope. She got it on the fifth attempt and staggered back, clutching it. Somehow she knew what to do, wrapping it around and around the wheel, anchoring it with the weight of her own body.

Nico held the Riva as stable as he could, as Lorenzo began to swing hand-over-hand across the line. He was almost there when a wave caught the boat, sending it slamming against his chest. Lorenzo yelled with pain, his fingers uncurled, and he lost his grip. He was falling. . . . He grabbed out, caught the line with one hand, felt the electric jolt of pain in his shoulder.

He swung himself up on deck. Lamour felt the line go slack; she hurtled out of the cockpit and into his arms. “Aurora’s hurt,” she cried. “We have to help her. . . .”

Lorenzo knelt over his unconscious daughter. He touched her bloody head, felt the sting of tears in his eyes. He loved her so. . . . He heard the clatter of the coast guard rescue helicopter overhead. “Thank God,” he muttered, cradling Aurora’s bloody head. But he knew it wasn’t over yet.

Nico swung the Riva away from the boat and the swirl
created by the helicopter’s rotors. He kept her as steady as he could, watching as the aircraft fluttered over the fishing boat, then sent down a crew member with the rescue basket. Nico saw them load his sister’s inert body into the basket and winch it into the helicopter. Lamour was next.

When it was over, Lorenzo stood for a few seconds on the deck of his beloved old boat. Then, head bowed, he, too, was winched aboard.

Only then did Nico turn and, bouncing over the swells, make his way back to shore.

I opened my eyes and stared up at a vaulted blue ceiling scattered with stars and looped with painted garlands. I was in bed, but not my own. I heard the rustle of a starched apron, soft footsteps; then someone was bending over me, her face close to mine.

“Ah, signora, at last you are awake,” she said in Italian, confusing me, because I hadn’t yet remembered I was in Italy.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“Why, at the Castello, of course, signora,” she said cheerfully. “When you refused to stay in the hospital, the Signor Pirata brought you back here.”

“Hospital?” I took a good look at her. Of course, she was a nurse. “But I’m not sick,” I mumbled as she tucked a thermometer between my lips.

“Perhaps not, but you had a bad experience, out there in the storm. The doctor said we must keep you quiet, allow you to rest, make sure there are no ill effects.”

Then I remembered.
I remembered it all.
Aurora planning to kill herself. Aurora joyful because of the storm that would drown me along with her. Aurora trapping my hands with ferocious strength so I couldn’t turn the wheel and head the boat back to shore. Aurora lying unconscious, her bloody head. . . .

“Aurora?” I said urgently.

The nurse took out the thermometer, inspected it critically, then nodded her head. “Normal. And the Signorina Aurora is in the hospital still. She suffered a severe laceration to her scalp, but there was no fracture. She will be fine.”