Part 1 — VIII

"Ma présentation, en cette tenue de maraudeur aquatique, je la peux tenter, avec l'excuse du hasard."

(S. MALLARMÉ, Le Nénuphar blanc.)

THE hotel, if one could dignify by this term the old convent where cockroaches followed one another across the tiled floors like a stencilled pattern, was full of the tragedies of such places in the South; sheets too short (the top one being sewn to the blanket), granite bolsters (from which one wakes with pulverised ears), a permanent odour of disinfectant, candlelit nights on which the tall shadows of the bug-hunters dance across the rough plaster walls, holes in the mosquito curtains through which the mosquitoes crawl, and, pervading everything, the sickly smell of night-light oil.

The town and the port bear different names here; the reason for this is obscure, since the sea is at the end of the street. But if you want to get down to the beach as Lewis did every morning since his arrival in Sicily, you found that it was a forty minutes' walk, first along a road hidden beneath a thick floury dust patterned with chickens' feet, and then through sunken paths, climbing down the same kind of terraces that stretch from Gibraltar to the Atlas, and from Toulon to Lebanon, and make the shores of the Mediterranean look like the tiers of a giant circus. On getting down to the sea you saw that previously in the village you had been on a level with the horizon, and that the hotel itself was nothing but a cube which, set in a block of sky, was so hard that light seemed to break on it, only succeeding in reaching its more salient and unshaded surfaces.

Stretched out naked with the Mattino folded into a cocked hat on his head and his loins girt with a bath towel, Lewis waited for his skin to turn the colour of pyrites. Afterwards there would be a walk under the early afternoon sun to regain the shelter of his room. Thirty yards from the shore the coolness would evaporate, but until then he had to admit it to be the best bathe of the year. The gentle shelving of the shore went on beneath the water; the sand was so hot—even though it was towards the end of autumn—that after eleven o'clock he had to decide on his place and not move from it, at the risk of being scorched. After all, was not Africa just across there, a few hours' journey by sea? Grassless gardens came down towards the beach where olive trees, which were nothing but skin and bone, stretched themselves out of the cracked soil the colour of bread-crust.

That same morning Lewis had received a visit from the brothers Pastafina as he was getting up. The journalist brother had discarded that ferocious pseudo-American elegance of which the Italians were the first pioneers in Europe, especially for film purposes, and had again become the Cavaliere Pastafina, with the peg-top trousers of Italian comedy—the fashion for which begins at the latitude of Naples—celluloid cuffs and an open collar showing a hairy chest. He was followed by his brother, the Commendatore Pastafina, a kind of political Maciste with a bibulous eye, sweeping gestures, black cheeks, nails and armband, oiled hair ending in quiffs, and dressed in that uniform of white cloth buttoned up the side which leads so many Sicilians to be mistaken for half-pay naval officers. The option on the deposits expired that same evening at eight o'clock. Lewis had full power to deal with the matter since he had acted without consulting anyone, being certain of not being called upon to supply all the authorized capital, since the business was bound to prosper from the start. The day before, with the help of experts, he had again confirmed the excellence of the way in which everything combined to make the working satisfactory: operations could be carried out in nearly every case under the open sky, except to the west, in the ancient workings which could be lined with gently sloping galleries; timber and pit props were cheap; there was plenty of labour to be had, except perhaps at harvest time; and a possible output of five hundred tons a day with a profit of sixty lire for each ton extracted. Three borings had been made, all very satisfactory. In the evening Lewis had cut out pieces of blue paper to represent the projected factory, the warehouse and the laboratories, with the enthusiasm of a young couple distributing furniture over a plan of their new home.

Nevertheless he pleaded for a postponement in order to study the matter more closely, particularly from the point of view of the possibility of getting a concession from the municipality of a mixed railway to the seashore, which would carry passengers and thus help to reduce the initial expenses.

The brothers Pastafina, without even looking at each other, spoke together and answered that they were not in a position to grant any delay. A chromolithograph portrait of King Humbert fastened to the wall by a nail, a drawing pin and a wafer, upheld their protestations. Any renewal of option was impossible. The signing was arranged, therefore, for five o'clock that same evening, after the siesta.

Lewis had already been in the water twice. The salt stung his shoulders and his skin began to glisten. Through his closed eyelids the light shone pink, with stabs of darkness and dazzling little radiations, as he listened to the droning song that always seems to accompany sun baths. He thought of the blind men who say: "I can hear the sun." He opened his eyes. The fight seemed to fall vertically as it does in a studio with a top light. Too bright to be the moon, but just as sombre, the chlorine-coloured sun seemed to have been plucked of its rays. The sea, sleek and calm as some oleaginous by-product, had that glaucous tinge of the North Sea at Ostend; for a moment he was bewildered by all this, quite forgetting that he was wearing green spectacles. He took them off and, like a fist between the eyes, he received the full glare of the southern sun in which all shadows are absorbed. The Mattino on his head began to smell scorched. He went into the water again.

After swimming about fifty strokes from the shore, Lewis saw before him, at about the same distance again, a boat propelled by a sailor with a stern oar. In the bows a woman was lying face downwards fishing; bending forward, with a shadow in her bosom, she was letting down her line. She was dressed in a black knitted costume out of which issued arms and legs shaded with lean muscles, spare and very sunburnt. On her head she wore a red india-rubber bathing cap. Lewis admired her. She had that lovely burnt earth colour of Mediterranean skins, whereas he was still only a sallow-skinned barbarian. He swam towards the boat. She must surely be a foreigner to bathe so late in the season; the Italians never think of entering the water after August. Presently he discovered that she was not fishing—she was sounding and taking notes, and seemed to be surveying the bed of the sea.

"I wonder if she is making a chart," Lewis asked himself, turning over on his back and unconstrainedly blowing like a whale. He was still swimming. As he drew near the young woman pushed a stray lock of hair beneath her cap without, however, lifting her eyes to him. Lewis swam a few more strokes, and catching hold of the boat, asked:—

"Do you mind?"

Above, the blueness of the sky was intense. The water reflected a shimmering network of light on to the side of the boat. From the high mountain paths the tinkle of mule bells came to his ears. At the tip of each wave shone a star far brighter than any that shine at night. Dolphins were holding aquatic sports in the distance. Jelly fish, like lost fried eggs, were drifting with the tide. A little cloud hung over the mountain like a Jesuit canopy over an Archbishop's head. Still pulling up the lead, she finally leant over towards Lewis and looked at him; set in a face the colour of iron, were two eyes which in the extreme brightness had faded into grey, and were so frank, so tender, and yet so incapable of any weakness that he could almost feel the water growing colder under her gaze. He made it clear that he was not rested yet by panting for breath.

"Are you tired?" she asked simply, in Italian, in a voice the perfection of which struck him like a fist.

"No, madame. But I am out of breath. Out of training. Too many cigars."

When Lewis lifted his eyes she was gone. He just heard a splash from the other side of the boat and was covered with spray. Turning, he saw her swimming towards the shore. He dashed after her; as he got nearer the sea-bed appeared, along which moved the refracted shadows of their two bodies. She made more headway than he for she swam with a crawl stroke, with bent arms, her head beneath the water, showing her right and left cheeks alternately, her legs stiff and her feet beating the surface of the water. When she touched bottom she had gained twenty lengths on Lewis. He saw her take refuge in a yellow bath gown which an urchin held out to her. She was smiling. Near her was a basket of figs covered with a damp cloth, and an aluminium sandwich box.

Lewis, not having a towel, rolled himself in the sand and, when completely clothed in it, lit a cigarette and lay down on the shore of a deeper brown where the fishermen's nets were spread out to dry.

Quite close by she stretched herself out face downwards, crushing her shadow on to a bath towel, her legs together, her arms above her head as though she was going to dive again. Little blue veins ran along her thighs like tattooed snakes. Her black hair was spread on the sand, leaving her neck bare.

When she had roasted enough she turned over to give the other side a turn. In this position she looked like a romantic English poet drowned and cast up by the storm.

She wiped the salt from her eyes.

Hornets were flying about just off the ground. Lewis waved towards the sea, beneath violet patches on which sunken rocks were hidden.

"Since you have beaten me, you owe me my revenge."

"You will have that this evening, monsieur," she replied in French.