Lawrence Durrell: Sicilian Carousel: Adventures on an Italian Island

It looked suspiciously like a reception committee which had finally made contact — perhaps signaled by one of the villages through which we had passed. My heart sank as I measured our distance from the car. I cursed myself for taking such risks, especially with the precious lives of others. How foolhardy to imagine that just by staggering our times and places for excursions we could in the long run escape the vigilance of the terrorists! But there was no time for breast-beating, for they had seen us coming. At all costs we must recover our car. They had something in their hands, perhaps weapons. It was still too far to see clearly. My hand sought the little pistol which lay under a napkin in the food haversack. We advanced arm-in-arm with a simulated nonchalance.

I could have imagined a slightly tremulous Martine in the circumstances, but not at all. The hand on my arm was firm and untrembling and her step was light and confident. It was a moment of tension which did not last long however. We saw that they were forest guards making some sort of inventory of the trees — forest guards and tax collectors no doubt. The only weapons they carried were pens and ink and writing blocks. They talked in preoccupied tones, and looked up idly to see us pass in front of them and regain the car. It was irritating to have been scared by such a meeting; and Martine, divining my pique, smiled and pinched my arm affectionately. “Not this time,” she said, as I let in the clutch and eased the car out of the olive shadow on to the tarmac. The sunny glades smelled of rosemary and dust even in the dream; a blessed wind rose with our movement and cooled our foreheads. Martine was deeply thoughtful — that beautiful face with its snow-brown skin held sideways against the flying olive groves, deeply thinking. No one could look like that and not be thinking very deep thoughts. I offered her a penny. “I was wondering what we will have for dinner,” she replied with the same Socratic air. And then slept like a white Sphinx.

The dream faded into an untroubled sleep, and when I woke it was almost seven on a cloudless morning. Time for a dip in the hotel pool before breakfast. And here I found the gallant Bishop performing feats of youthful athleticism while his wife sat in a deck chair holding his towel. His morning boom of greeting proved that he had become acclimatized by now and was ready for anything. He swung about on elastic calves and even was so bold as to go off the top board — at which his wife covered, not her eyes, but her ears. I hoped he would not become too hearty and decide to hold Protestant services in the lounge as is the way of bishops traveling in heathen countries. I returned to pack and dress and then descended to find Deeds eating a slow breakfast and picking his way through the local Italian paper while Roberto guided him with an occasional bit of free translation. The French proconsular couple shared our table and seemed rested and refreshed.

I thought, however, that they eyed me a trifle curiously, as if they too were busy speculating as to what I did in life. The German girl was reading Goethe’s enthusiastic account of his own trip round Italy. I hoped to find the text in English or French as I knew no German. The Microscopes were wolfing their food and calling for refills of coffee with the air of people who knew that it was all paid for in advance. They were determined to leave no crumb unturned. Pretty soon, I could see, complaints would start. The British would revolt over the tea and the absence of fish knives. The French would utter scathing condemnation of the cuisine. Poor Roberto! For the moment, however, all was harmony and peace. The novelty of our situation kept us intrigued and good tempered. The brilliance of the Sicilian sun was enthralling after the northern variety. And then there was the little red bus which we had not as yet met, and which was at this moment drawing up outside the hotel to await us. It was a beautiful little camionette of a deep crimson-lake color and apparently quite new. It was richly upholstered and smelled deliciously of fresh leather. It was also painstakingly polished and as clean inside as a new whistle. It gave a low throaty chuckle — the Italians specialize in operatic horns — and at the signal the chasseurs humped our baggage and started to stow.

We were introduced to its driver, a stocky and severe-looking young man, who might have been a prizefighter or a fisherman from his dark scowling countenance. His habitual expression was somber and depressive, and it took me some time to find out why. Mario was a peasant from the foothills of Etna and understood no language save his own dialect version of Sicilian. He also distrusted nobs who spoke upper class — and of course Roberto spoke upper class and was a nob, being a university man. But from time to time, when a word or a phrase became intelligible to Mario, the most astonishing change came about in that black scowling face. It was suddenly split (as if with an axe blow or a saber cut) by the most wonderful artless smile of a kindly youth. It was only lack of understanding that cast the shadow; the minute light penetrated he was absolutely transformed. But he was grim about his job, and would not touch a drop of drink throughout the trip; it made Roberto, who was a convivial soul, a trifle plaintive to see such devotion to duty. Well, on the sunny morning we gathered around the little bus and eagerly appraised it, for we would be virtually living in it for a week. It looked pretty good to me — the luxury of not having to drive myself. Mario shook hands darkly with us all, the proconsulars, the Microscopes, ourselves, the German girl, the two smart French ladies and the half dozen or so others who as yet swam in a sort of unidentifiable blur, waiting to develop their pictures, so to speak. Among them, as yet unidentified by science, were the egregious fellow called Beddoes, a Miss Lobb of London, and a rapturous Japanese couple, moonstruck in allure and wearing purple shoes.

Deeds and I settled ourselves modestly in the last two seats in the back row, enjoying therefore a little extra legroom and a small lunette window of our own. The others took up dispositions no less thoughtful, realizing that we would need space to stretch and smoke and doze. Across the aisle from us, however, there was an empty row and this was suddenly occupied by a passenger to whom we hadn’t paid attention before. He was a somewhat raffish-looking individual of medium height clad in veteran tweeds with dirty turn-ups; also old-fashioned boots with hooks and eyes and scarlet socks. On his head he wore a beret at a rakish angle from under which effervesced a tangled mop of dirty curls worthy of Dylan Thomas. To everyone’s discomfort he smoked shag in a small and noisome French briar. He talked to himself in a low undertone and smiled frequently, exposing very yellow canines. “A rather rum chap,” whispered Deeds confidentially, and I could bet that after a pause he would sigh and add resignedly, “O well, it takes all sorts.…” The nice thing about Deeds was not only his kindness but his predictability. I felt I already knew him so well by now that I could guess the name of his wife — Phyllis. And so it proved to be. But the chap over the way had started to make conversation — a sort of sharp and knowing line of talk. He said his name was Beddoes and that he was a prep school master. “Just been hurled out of a prep school near Dungeness for behavior unbecoming to an officer and a hypocrite.” He gave a brief cachinnation and sucked on his noisome dottle. Deeds looked thoughtful. Well, I could almost hear him think, if one goes abroad it is to meet new faces in new places.

Yet, at the moment all was harmony, all was beatific calm and indulgence. Even Beddoes seemed all right in his rather sharp-edged way. Later of course we were to ask God plaintively in our prayers what we had done to merit such a traveling companion. But not today, not on this serene and cloudless morning with its smiling promise of hot sunshine and a sea bath along the road. The little hearts blood-colored bus edged off with its cargo into the traffic, feeling its way circumspectly about the town, while Roberto sat down beside the driver and conducted a voice test on the microphone through which he was to keep us intellectually stimulated throughout the Carousel. His own ordeal was just beginning, of course. At breakfast he had bemoaned a guide’s fate to Deeds, saying that one was always telling people something they already knew or something they did not wish to know. One could never win. Sometimes, attacked by hysteria, he had tried telling people false facts at breakneck speed just to see if anyone was awake enough to contradict him: but nobody ever did. But today he ran a certain risk with the Bishop as a passenger, for the latter sat forward eagerly, on the qui vive like a gundog, all set to ingest Roberto’s information. A trifle patronizing as well, for it was clear from his manner that he already knew a good deal. Yes, it was as if he were doing a viva voce in school catechism. Roberto began somewhat defensively by saying that we would not have time to do everything as there was much which merited our judicious attention. “But we will do the two essential things so that you can tell your friends if they ask that you have seen the Duomo and St. Nicolo.” It wasn’t too bad as a ration, Deeds told me; but he had spent a delightful hour in the Bellini Museum and the Fish Market, both of which we should be missing on this trip. No matter. Sicily smelled good in a confused sort of way. I was anxious too to get a first glimpse of that curious architectural bastard, Sicilian baroque, which had so enraptured Martine. “You expect it to be hell, but you find it heavenly — sort of fervently itself like the Sicilians themselves.” At that moment our bus passed under a balcony from which apparently Garibaldi had prefaced a famous oration with the words “ O Roma, O morte .”