The House in Amalfi (14 page)

He didn’t laugh at me as I’d expected; he simply nodded in agreement. “You had difficulty with the door today,
carina,
” he said.

I stared at him, surprised. “But how did you know that?”

“The signore told me he met you here.”

“The
signore
?”

“Sì, il signor Pirata.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. Then the man I had thought was a painter was the owner of the Castello Pirata—and Mifune’s employer. It was
his
grandfather who had brought Mifune to Amalfi as a boy, and now Mifune had been here more than seventy years.

Mifune told me how it had happened. The Grande Signore Pirata was on a visit to Japan. In Kyoto, he’d admired the elegant minimalism of the Japanese gardens. Mifune had been orphaned young and was apprenticed to a gardener there. The
gran signore
had recognized Mifune’s unique talent as well as his spirituality. He admired the boy and arranged to bring him back to transform his own craggy Italian gardens into some form of Japanese sculpture. The boy had intended to return home, but then a year stretched into two and then three. He was so in love with his work the time just sped away. He was happy with his new “family” and he stayed on.

When I was a child, often Mifune would take my hand and lead me to the Castello, where he proudly showed off the landscape he’d created over a period of many years. It was a combination of the simple, almost architectural Japanese style and the natural Italian style of gardens that looked as though they might have grown wild. They were filled with fragrant herbs: rosemary and thyme, mint and oregano, lovage and lemon verbena, whose scent followed you as you brushed past. And there were
allées
of citrus, their carefully pruned trunks painted white and their dark green leaves clustered with bright fruits. There was the reedy lagoon where orange carp flickered through the green depths like slivers of molten lava from Vesuvius. And of course there were the tranquil Japanese oases that you came upon, quite by chance it seemed, at the
turn of a gravel path, at the bottom of a flight of marble steps, or at the brow of the hill. Places with only a curve of pristine raked pebbles, yet each pebble was exactly the right size and chosen carefully for its color. The end result was a work of art—beautiful in its serenity. Shading this delicate simplicity might be a graceful three-hundred-year-old tree, transported all the way from Japan, or a piece of sculpture, a sleek fin of steel, bright in the sunlight, or a simple rustic bridge. And always there was the sound of water: the bubble of the stream, the trickle of a small cascade, the light gush of a fountain. Heaven existed in Mifune’s gardens, and I was lucky enough to have found it.

I quickly brought my mind back to the present-day Signor Pirata. I remembered how arrogant he’d been
and
his odd warning.

“Mifune, I didn’t realize the painter was the Signor Pirata from the Castello,” I said. “I’m afraid I was a rude to him.”

Mifune nodded and I guessed he had heard all about our little “confrontation.”

“The signore enjoys to get away from his busy world; he enjoys spending time painting his old boat,” Mifune said, gesturing toward the cove below.

I hadn’t yet been down to the cove, but now I remembered the little jetty and that the Piratas had always kept a couple of boats there. I also remembered Nico Pirata’s smart speedboat and guessed that’s where it was moored now. Lucky Nico, I thought enviously, because I was a “water baby.” I’d been a swimmer all my life and still had the broad shoulders and the smoothly muscled back and lean flanks that were the legacy of my Evanston high school swim-team days. Longing overcame me and I decided there and then that I would buy a small boat. I’d swim from it out in the bay; I’d sail it to Pirata to do my daily shopping; I would sunbathe naked on it. I couldn’t
believe how ideally my new life was shaping up. I only hoped I could work it all out. And I hoped I was strong enough.

Mifune gazed searchingly at me. I felt somehow lost in his pale gaze, as though he could see into my thoughts.

“When you unlock this door you unlock the past,” he said quietly. “Remember there are other pasts here. Not only yours, also Jon-Boy’s.”

“But that is what I want,” I said eagerly.

He bowed and I watched him walk slowly away, his knees bent like an old man’s, back through the garden.

I was alone at my father’s house.

The door squeaked as I pushed it open. The slanting rays of the setting sun filtered in for the first time in twenty years and the musty smell of an unoccupied house hit my nostrils.

I was in a small terra-cotta-tiled hallway. Through an arch on my left was the
salone,
the living room. This was the largest room in the house, taking up most of the ground floor, with high ceilings and three French doors giving onto the patio. An arch to the right of the hall led to the white-tiled kitchen where I remembered eating some of the best meals of my life.

I walked into the living room and immediately had the welcoming feeling of coming home. Of course this was the only
real
home I’d ever had; the others had just been rented, and the Chicago apartment had been Alex’s. But this house in Amalfi had belonged to Jon-Boy and me.

Then I saw his papers were still on the wooden table under the window and the blue couch had dents where people had sat, an empty glass, an open bottle of wine. . . . Shocked, I realized that the house had not been touched since the night Jon-Boy died.

Heart pounding, I climbed the stairs and walked down the narrow corridor to Jon-Boy’s bedroom. I opened the door and, half-afraid, stood looking around. His books were on the shelves, his clothes still hung in the half-open armoire, and the
Cartier leather travel clock he’d bought to celebrate the night we left together for Rome was on the bedside table. Next to it was a photograph of me at my high school graduation.

I picked it up, remembering my graduation as though it were yesterday. Jon-Boy had told me he was going back to Italy to start his new novel and that he was leaving me with the Mortimers again. Of course I’d begged him to take me with him, but he’d said, “Lamour, we can’t play at being irresponsible children any longer. You are growing up. You must go to college.”

What he’d meant, of course, was that
I
couldn’t go on playing at being an irresponsible child. But he, of course, could.

I said I didn’t want to go to college, I wanted to go with him to our house in Amalfi, but he shook his head firmly and said, “Time for you to get on with your life, baby.” He didn’t say, “And it’s time for me to get on with mine,” but I knew that was what he’d meant. He wanted his life back, separate from mine.

I accepted it because those were the terms and conditions of life with my father. You took the lonely times along with the exciting ones, and besides, I thought he was serious about writing his new novel and I respected that he needed to be alone. Of course I was wrong. Jon-Boy never wrote it. I guess he was too busy just getting on with life instead.

He’d made me feel beautiful, though, on that graduation day, as well as loved.

I’d worn a dress for once, instead of jeans. It was corn-flower blue, sleeveless, with a flippy little skirt. I’d felt different in it, kind of elegant and more grown-up. I had on my black graduation gown, cap tilted jauntily, tassel dangling over my right eye.

When my name was called by the principal there was the usual ramble of laughter. After all, Lamour was a pretty wild
name for a seventeen-year-old girl—or at least the boys thought so. I’d walked proudly onto the podium to collect my diploma, head up, clutching my slipping cap. From the corner of my eye I’d caught sight of Jon-Boy, sitting with the Mortimer family, there in full force. There was a big smile on his face and he punched the air triumphantly.

My answering joyous smile practically wafted me off that podium, and then it was all over. Jon-Boy had put an arm around my shoulders. Looking at me, he said, “Honey, you are a beautiful girl and never let any of these young punks tell you otherwise.” He’d grinned as he added, “And remember, your father is an expert on these matters.”

After all the high school graduation ceremonies and parties were over, Jon-Boy and I had dinner alone together. I was sad because he was leaving the next day. I’d miss the happy buzz he created when he descended on my simple life, bringing with him the scent of exotic places: the market in Campo de’ Fiori; the fishermen’s boats, the pines, the sea, the hot sun of the Amalfi coast; the snuffly odor of Rome’s ancient ruins. The truth was I was still hoping and praying he would say, “Forget college and come back with me.”

I’d chosen a local Italian restaurant for our “celebration” dinner. We sat opposite each other, silently eating pizza Margherita that we both knew wasn’t a patch of the Roman ones but enjoying it anyway. Jon-Boy was drinking wine and I was drinking Coke and we were talking, of course, about Rome. I’d never seen the new apartment he’d rented there, but I knew it was much grander than our old place in Trastevere.

“Don’t you miss it, though?” I asked.

“The old neighborhood?” He lifted a black eyebrow in a question. “Sure I do, but one thing I’ve learned in my life, honey-bunch, is that you always need to move on. Going back is not in the cards; it never works.” He saw I didn’t want to believe that and added, “Well, maybe that only applies to me.”

He leaned his elbows on the table, watching, amused, as
I picked the tomatoes off the pizza Margherita, the way I’d always done. “Some things don’t change, though,” he said with a grin.

He looked up as two women approached our table, holding paper and pens, requesting his autograph. I watched shyly while they told him how wonderful his book was and that he was even more handsome than in his photographs. It had never really sunk in that my father was a famous writer, probably because I’d never shared that part of his life. He had written his novel after I’d left, and his success had swirled all around me without ever touching. I’d lived in Evanston with the Mortimers, and he’d lived in Rome and toured the world promoting his book. Anyhow, a few years had passed since then and now he was about to write his second one.

As the women fussed over him I watched, eager to share in the afterglow of his fame, seeing how easily he charmed them. He was so good-looking and so interested, making each woman feel she was the only person he cared about at that moment. It was a technique that had never failed him with women. He asked each woman her name, then called her by it; he signed their pieces of paper and added a little personal message about “meeting in Antonio’s Restaurant”; he thanked them for enjoying his book, said he would never forget them, and sent them away aflutter with delight.

“Now they’re in love with you as well as with your book,” I said, a touch jealously, making him laugh.

“You’re almost old enough to fall in love yourself,” he said.

I didn’t tell him I’d already fallen in and out of love a dozen times. Had he forgotten I was seventeen? “I guess so,” I said instead. “Except there’s no one here to fall in love with.” This was true. I’d already gone through my list of possibles and now I’d run out of boys, and so had Jammy. We were heading off to college—me to Michigan State, she
to the Rhode Island School of Design—unencumbered by boyfriends.

“Are
you
in love?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. I didn’t want to be presented with a new Italian “mother” out of the blue.

“Aren’t I always?” he said, catching my hand across the table, pulling a face when he found it greasy from the pizza. But I saw a wariness in his eyes and knew he was hiding something from me.

“No, seriously, Jon-Boy,” I said as he wiped my hand clean with his napkin.

He looked solemnly back at me, something he rarely did; we always seemed to be laughing when we were together.

“Honey-bunch,” he said, “you’re getting to be a grown-up girl. You’re moving into an adult world and with that comes responsibility. It’s time to move on,
carina.
Your life will be new and exciting—college, deciding your future. . . .”