The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro (3 page)

“I am hungry,” she said to Haroun. “Will you call the boy?”

This was also interesting, the fact that she spoke to him in English when I was present. When they were alone, I was sure they spoke German. The English was for my benefit—I didn't speak a word of German. But why this unusual politeness, or at least deference, to me?

Haroun snapped his fingers. The waiter appeared with two menus. Gräfin opened hers and studied it.

Holding his menu open but looking at me, Haroun said, “Have you seen the olive groves?”

I said no, feeling that it was expected of me, to give him a chance to describe them.

“They are quite magnificent,” he said, as I had expected. “We are driving out tomorrow to look at one near Sperlinga. You know Sperlinga? No? Perhaps you would like to accompany us?”

“Morning or afternoon?” I didn't care one way or the other, but I did not want to seem tame.

“It must be morning. Afternoons here are for the siesta,” he said.

“I'd love to go with you.”

“We leave at eight.”

“I want the fish,” Gräfin said. “Grilled. Tell them no sauce. Small salad. No dressing.”

She snapped her menu shut. So, in that way, I was informed that I was not a dinner guest. But once again I saw how, in the manner of trying to appear offhand, Haroun was manipulating the situation. Gräfin was indifferent, though, or at least made a show of indifference. She did not look up as I excused myself and left. My audience was over. I had been summoned, I had been dismissed.

I walked through the upper town, from the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele down the Corso Umberto Primo, where most of the shops and bars were, the ones that catered to foreigners.

Down an alleyway I found a bar where some older Sicilians sat and smoked, listening to a soccer match being loudly broadcast on a radio. It reminded me of a religious ritual, the way they were seated around the radio with its glowing dial. I sat near them, ordered a bottle of beer and a panino, and I stewed, resenting the fact that my little discussion had taken place at Haroun and Gräfin's table, and that I had been sent away. My frugal meal was proof that I had very little money and because of that was at the beck and call of these people. So what, I told myself; I could leave at any time: just board the train at the foot of the hill and head east, where life was cheap and cheerful. And somewhere in Palermo, Fabiola was yearning for my love.

 

Haroun was in the lobby the next day before eight. Gräfin was already in the car. These people were prompt. I imagined that their wealth would have made them more casual. Haroun greeted me and directed me to the front seat, where I would sit next to the driver. This made me feel like an employee, one of Gräfin's staff. But Haroun, too, seemed like an employee.

We drove through Taormina and down the hill, took a right on the main road, and then another right after a short time, heading upward on a narrow road into the island.

“Bustano,” Haroun said. Then he conversed with the driver in a language that was not Italian—and not any language I recognized.

Haroun laughed in an explosive way, obviously delighted by something the driver had said.

“He said it will take more than one hour,” Haroun said. “Because, he says, this is a
macchina
and not a flying carpet.”

“What is that language?”

“Arabic. He is originally from Tunisia.”

“The
Moro
of the Palazzo d'Oro.”

“Exactly.”

“How do you know Arabic?”

Gräfin said, “Harry knows everything. I am lost without this man.”

“I can speak English. I can write English,” Haroun said. “I can write on a 'piss' of paper. I can write on a 'shit' of paper.” He made a child's impish face, tightening his cheeks to give himself dimples. He tapped his head.
“Ho imparato Italiano in una settimana. Tutto qui in mio culo. ”

“Now he is being silly.”

“Where did you learn Arabic?”

“Baghdad,” he said. “But we didn't speak it at home. We spoke English, of course.”

“You're Iraqi?”

He winced at my abrupt way of nailing him down, and rather defensively he said, “Chaldean. Very old faith. Nestorian. Even my name, you see. And my people...”

“He is German,” Gräfin said, and patted his knee as though soothing a child. “He is now one of us. A wicked German.”

Iraq then was an exotic country which had recently overthrown its king and massacred his whole family, but Baghdad a rich cosmopolitan city, colorful and busy, full of banks and socialites, not the bomb crater it is now.

“Ask him anything.” Gräfm's hand still rested on Haroun's knee. She was looking out the window at a village we were passing, near Randazzo, on the mountain road, a cluster of cracked farmhouses, one with black lettering that had faded but was readable on the side, a pronouncement in Italian.

I pointed to the lettering. “What does that say?”

Without hesitating, Haroun said, “'Do not forget that my'—
genitori
is 'parents'—‘were farmers and peasants.' It was put there long ago.”

“Who said it? Why is it there?”

I had been through this in another village with Fabiola; she had sheepishly explained these old Sicilian slogans.

“Mussolini said this. It is from the war.”

“You see?” Gräfin said with a mother's pride, and for the first time showed an interest, turning to read the peeling slogan on the cracked stucco wall of the ancient farmhouse. She turned to me and said, “It is so charming how they leave the words there!”

“Fascisti,”
Haroun said.

“Even
fascisti
can be sentimental,” Gräfin said.

“What's the capital of Bali?” I asked Haroun, to change the subject.

“Denpasar,” he said. He folded his arms and challenged me with a smile.

I was thinking how, when fluent foreigners uttered the name of a known place, they left the lilt of their suppressed accent on it.

“I sailed there once on my boat,” Gräfin said.

“Your famous boat,” Haroun said.

“My famous boat.”

“But that's a long way,” I said.

“Not long. I flew to Singapore and joined the boat. We sailed to Surabaja. Then I went by road to Bali. I stayed some nights with a member of royalty at his palace. Djorkoda Agung—
agung
is prince. He lives in Ubud, very beautiful village of arts, and of course very dirty. The people dance for me and they make for me a”—she searched for a word, she mumbled it in German, Haroun supplied the translation—“yes, they make for me a cremation. Dancing. Music. Spicy food served on banana leafs. Like a festival. We sail to Singapore and I fly home. Not a long trip but a nice one. I love the dancing.
Ketjak!
The Monkey Dance!”

That was the most she had said since the moment I met her. It was not exactly self-revelation, but it was something—something, though, that did not invite comment or further questions. It was a weird explanation, a sort of truncated traveler's tale. She was so wealthy she was not obliged to supply colorful detail. I wanted to ask her about the cremation—I wanted to joke about it: So they killed and burned someone in your honor?—but irony is lost on Germans.

“No more questions, Haroun,” I said. “You know everything.”

“Where is the olives?” Gräfin asked.

We were passing a settlement signposted
Nicosia.

“Just ahead, beyond Sperlinga.” There was something anxious in Haroun's helpfulness that suggested he was afraid of her. He said, “Bustano—that is not Italian. It is from Arabic.
Bustan
is 'garden.' Caltanissetta, near here, has a place Gibil Habib. From Arabic, Gebel Gabib, because it is a hill.”

“But where is the olives?” Gräfin asked again, in the impatient and unreasonable tone of a child.

The olives
was what she called the place, but Bustano was not a village, it was an estate, outside the pretty town of Sperlinga—many acres, a whole valley of neat symmetrical rows of ancient olive trees, and at the end of a long driveway a magnificent villa, like a manor house, three stories of crusty stucco with a red tiled roof, and balconies, and an enormous portico under which we drove and parked.

A man appeared—not the squat stout Sicilian farmer I was used to but a tall elegant-looking man in a soft yellow sweater and light-colored slacks and sunglasses. His dark skin was emphasized by his white hair, and there were wisps of it like wings above his ears. He greeted us, and though I spoke to him in Italian—and he deftly complimented me—Gräfin and Haroun spoke to him in French, to which he replied in fluent French. I smiled and nodded and stepped aside. I understood a little of what they said, but my study of Italian had driven the French I knew out of my head. I could hear what was being suggested. The Italian olive baron was urging us in French to come inside and look around and to relax.

I said in Italian, “I need to walk a little after that long ride.”

“Yes, you are welcome,” the man said in English, which disconcerted me. “Over there is a little pond, with ducks. And many flowers for you.
Bellina.
”

Haroun said he would come with me. We walked to the ornamental lily pond. Haroun picked a flower and held it to his nose.

I said, “He's right. It is
bellina.
”

Haroun shrugged. “The flowers, yes. But the trees. The frantoio. The storage and cellars.” He crumpled his face, which meant,
I am not impressed.
“It is not great quality. Toscano is better. But this villa is charming—very comfortable. And the Gräfin wants it. She likes the business.” He made a gesture of uncorking a bottle and pouring. “`This is my olive oil. I grow it. I press it. You eat it'—she is a romantic, you see?”

He had a way, in speaking of Gräfin, of being able to turn his criticism into a compliment, which made me admire him for his loyalty.

I plucked the petals from the flower I was holding and said in a stilted way—I had been practicing the speech: “This is nice, very pleasant. And you have been very kind to me. But—forgive me if I'm wrong—I feel you expect something from me. That you are arranging something. That you want me for some purpose. Tell me.”

I was glad we were outside, alone. I would never have been able to say this back in Taormina, at the palazzo, where he had made me a guest. This setting, the olive groves, made me confident.

Haroun looked away. “See how they dig and scratch the roots to fertilize the tree. Some of these trees are hundreds of years old. Maybe here in Norman times.” He walked ahead of me, and he glanced back at the villa in which Gräfin had vanished with the elegant olive man.

“What is it?” I asked.

“You are very intelligent,” he said. “I like that. Very quick. Bold, too, I can say.”

Two things struck me about this speech. The first was that he wasn't telling me what he really felt—that my intelligence made him uneasy. Second, even then I knew that when someone complimented me in that way, he was about to ask a favor.

As a way of defying him, and taking a gratuitous risk, I told him this.

“You are my guest, so you should be a little more polite to me,” he said, laughing in a peculiar mirthless way to show me he was offended.

So I knew then that what I had said was true and that his reply was a reprimand. Given the fact that I had accepted his hospitality, I should have felt put in my place, but I resisted, wishing to feel free to say anything I liked.

He said, “What do you think of the Gräfin?”

“I don't know anything about her.”

“Exactly. You are right,” he said. “She is a great mystery. That is why I love her.” He came closer to me. I seldom noticed anything more about Haroun than his beaky nose, yet his nose was so big and expressive it was all I needed to notice. “But when you see the Gräfin, what do you feel?”

What did this man want? I said, “I feel curious. I feel she is very nice.”

“She is fantastic,” he said, another reprimand. “She has everything. But do you believe me when I say to you she is lonely?”

“I believe you.”

“Because you are intelligent. You can see.”

“But you're her friend. So how can she be lonely?”

“That's the mystery, you see,” Haroun said. “I am her friend, yes. I am also her doctor. I qualified in Baghdad, I studied more in Beirut. I went to Germany for further study. I did my residence in Freiburg. And I stayed there. The Gräfin became my patient.”

We had begun to kick through the avenues between the rows of olive trees. Men were trimming the trees, lopping branches, fussing with ladders and buckets.

“A doctor can be friendly with a patient, but not intimate,” he said. “So we travel, and I take care of her. But it ends there.”

“What a shame,” I said, hoping for more.

“But you see, even if I were not her doctor I could not help her,” he said. He was looking away. “I am of a different disposition.” His gaze fell upon a strapping bare-chested man with a pruning hook, and Haroun glanced back as we walked on, seeming to hold a conversation with his eyes alone, the bare-chested man, too, responding with a subtly animated and replying gaze.

“What a shame.”

“It is how God made me.”

“I think you want me to be her friend.”

“More than friend, maybe.”

“I see.”

As though he too had been practicing sentences, he said, “I desire you to woo her.”

The expression made me smile.

“Do you find her attractive?”

I had to admit that I did. She was pretty in a brittle old-fashioned way. She was chic, she was demanding. Yes, she was much older than me—I could not tell how much; thirty-five, perhaps—and I was twenty-one. But strangely, her age did not prejudice me against her. I was attracted to her for it, for the oddness of it. She was certainly unlike any woman I had ever met—in fact, she was a woman; I did not know any women. I had only slept with girls, the nubile, pleading, marriage-minded girls like Fabiola. What did a woman want? Not marriage. Perhaps a woman of such experience as Gräfin wanted everything but marriage, and that included debauchery, and that I craved.