Beautiful Ruins

Richard Burton shook his head. “Right. Of course it is. My God, it’s barely a crack in the cliffs. And no telephones?”

“No.” Pasquale was embarrassed. “Next year, maybe they come.”

“This Deane is fucking mad,” Richard Burton said, with what sounded to Pasquale almost like admiration. “I’m going to flog that little shit until he bleeds from his nipples. Bastard.” He stepped onto the dock as Pasquale paid the Spezia fisherman, who shoved off and chugged away without so much as a word. Pasquale started toward the shore.

Above them, the fishermen were drinking in the piazza, as if they were eagerly awaiting something. They moved around like bees disturbed from their hive. Now they pushed Tomasso the Communist forward and he began making his way down the steps to the shore. Even though Pasquale now understood that Dee Moray wasn’t dying after all, he felt certain that something terrible had happened to her.

“Gualfredo and Pelle came this afternoon in the long boat,” Tomasso said when he met them on the steps. “They took your American, Pasquale! I tried to stop them. So did your Aunt Valeria. She told them the girl would die if they took her. The American didn’t want to go, but that pig Gualfredo told her she was supposed to be in Portovenere, not here . . . that a man had come there for her. And she went with them.”

Since the exchange was in Italian, the news didn’t register with Richard Burton, who lowered the collar of his jacket again, smoothed himself, and glanced up at the small cluster of whitewashed houses. He smiled to Tomasso and said: “I don’t suppose you’re a bartender, old chap. I could use a shot before telling the poor girl she’s been bred.”

Pasquale translated what Tomasso had told him. “A man from another hotel has come and take away Dee Moray.”

“Taken her where?”

Pasquale pointed down the coast. “Portovenere. He say she supposed to be there and that my hotel can’t take care good of Americans.”

“That’s piracy! We can’t allow such a thing to stand, can we?”

They walked up to the piazza and the fishermen shared the rest of their grappa with Richard Burton while they talked about what to do. There was some talk of waiting until morning, but Pasquale and Richard Burton agreed that Dee Moray must know immediately that she wasn’t dying of cancer. They would go to Portovenere tonight. There was a buzz of excitement among the men on the cold, sea-lapped shore: Tomasso the Elder talked about slitting Gualfredo’s throat; Richard Burton asked in English if anyone knew how late the bars were open in Portovenere; Lugo the War Hero ran back to his house to get his carbine; Tomasso the Communist raised his hand in a kind of salute and volunteered to pilot the assault on Gualfredo’s hotel; and it was around this time Pasquale realized that he was the only sober man in Porto Vergogna.

He walked to the hotel and went inside to tell his mother and his Aunt Valeria that they were going down the coast, and to grab a bottle of port for Richard Burton. His aunt was watching from her window and describing what she saw to Pasquale’s mother, who was propped up in bed. Pasquale stuck his head in the doorway.

“I tried to stop them,” Valeria said. She looked grim. She handed Pasquale a note.

“I know,” Pasquale said as he read the note. It was from Dee Moray. “Pasquale, some men came to tell me that my friend was waiting for me in Portovenere and that there had been a mistake. I will make sure you get paid for your trouble. Thank you for everything. Yours—Dee.” Pasquale sighed. Yours.

“Be careful,” his mother said from her bed. “Gualfredo is a hard man.”

He put the note in his pocket. “I’ll be fine, Mamma.”

“Yes, you will be, Pasqo,” she said. “You are a good man.”

Pasquale wasn’t used to this outward affection, especially when his mother was in one of her dark moods. Maybe she was coming out of it. He walked into the room and bent over to kiss her. She had the stale smell she so often got when confined to her bed. But before he could kiss her, she reached out with a clawed hand and squeezed his arm as tightly as she could, her arm shaking.

Pasquale looked down at her shaking hand. “Mamma, I’m coming right back.”

He looked at his Aunt Valeria for help, but she wouldn’t look up. And his mother wouldn’t let go of his arm.

“Mamma. It’s okay.”

“I told Valeria that such a tall American girl would never stay here. I told her that she would leave.”

“Mamma. What are you talking about?”

She leaned back and slowly let go of his arm. “Go get that American girl and marry her, Pasquale. You have my blessing.”

He laughed and kissed her again. “I’ll go find her, but I love you, Mamma. Only you. There’s no one else for me.”

Outside, Pasquale found Richard Burton and the fishermen still drinking in the piazza. An embarrassed Lugo said they couldn’t borrow his carbine after all, because his wife was using it to stake some tomato plants in their cliff-side garden.

As they walked down toward the shore, Richard Burton nudged Pasquale and pointed to the Hotel Adequate View sign. “Yours?”

Pasquale nodded. “My father’s.”

Richard Burton yawned. “Bloody brilliant.” Then he happily took the bottle of port. “I tell you, Pat, this is one damn strange picture.”

The fishermen helped Tomasso the Communist dump his nets and gear and a sleeping cat into the piazza and they used the cart to wheel his outboard motor down to the water. Pasquale and Richard Burton climbed in. The fishermen stood watching from what was left of Pasquale’s beach. Tomasso’s first yank on the pull start knocked the bottle of port from Richard Burton’s hand, but luckily it landed in Pasquale’s lap without spilling much. He handed it back to the drunk Welshman. But the little motor refused to catch. They sat rocking in the waves, drifting slowly away, Richard Burton suppressing little belches and apologizing for each one. “Air’s a bit stagnant on this yacht,” he said.

“Bastard!” Tomasso yelled to the engine. He beat on it and pulled again. Nothing. The other fishermen yelled that it either wasn’t getting spark or wasn’t getting fuel, then those who’d said spark switched to fuel and fuel to spark.

Something came over Richard Burton then and he stood and, in a deep, resonant voice, addressed the three old fishermen yelling from the shore. “Fear not, Achaean brothers. I swear to you: tonight there will be the weeping of soft tears in Portovenere . . . tears for want of their dead sons . . . upon whom we now go to wage war, for the sake of fair Dee, that woman who so makes the blood run. I give you my word as a gentleman, as an Achaean: we shall return victorious, or not at all!” And while they didn’t understand a word of the speech, the fishermen could tell it was epic and they all cheered, even Lugo, who was pissing on the rocks. Then Richard Burton waved his bottle over his two crewmates, in a sort of benediction: Pasquale, huddled against the cold in the back of the boat, and Tomasso the Communist, who was adjusting the choke on the motor. “O you lost sons of Portovenere, prepare to meet the shock of doom borne down upon you by this fearless army of good men.” He put his hand on Pasquale’s head: “Achilles here and the smelly bloke pulling on the motor, I forget his name, fair men all, pitiless and powerful, and—”

Tomasso pulled, the motor caught, and Richard Burton nearly fell out, but Pasquale caught him and sat him down in the boat. Burton patted Pasquale on the arm and slurred, “ . . . more than kin, and less than kind.” They chugged away into the grain of the chop. Finally, the rescue party was away.

Onshore, the fishermen were drifting away to their beds. In the boat, Richard Burton sighed. He took a swig and looked once more at the little town disappearing behind the rock wall, as if it had never existed at all.

“Listen, Pat,” Richard Burton said, “I take back what I said before about being from a small village like yours.” He gestured with the bottle of port. “No, I’m sure it’s a fine place, but Christ, man, I’ve left bigger settlements in my rank trousers.”