Paul Theroux - The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro

“Benvenuto, signorina. Vieni a casa mia. C’è libero,” the waiter, Mario, said, urging her to come to his house because it was free.

“Nothing is free,” she said in English, and was so assertive and indignant Mario walked away laughing.

I said, “But everything is expensive in Taormina. How long are you planning to stay?”

She said, “I want to see the Teatro Greco. The Duomo. Lawrence's house.”

I said, “Lawrence lived in the Via Fontana Vecchia. 'A snake came to my water-trough / On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, / To drink there…'”

“I like how he seemed ‘a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,’” she said. “By the way, your English is excellent.”

“It sure oughtta be.”

She laughed and said, “Where in the States are you from?”

“Long story.”

“I’m at Wellesley, but I am from New York.”

“City?”

“Upstate.”

“I just graduated from Amherst.”

“I know lots of Amherst guys,” she said, and sat down and named a few, names I recognized but none I knew well. “How long have you been in Taormina?”

“A few weeks.” I did not want to admit that it was almost four, because I felt I had been so idle. “I came to see the Lawrence house too.”

“I love that poem.”

“English major?”

“Art history. I've been living in Florence — junior year abroad program. I’m just traveling. I thought I would look around here and then go to Siracusa.”

“I’ve been meaning to go there.”

“Two weeks here and you haven’t got there yet! What’s the attraction in Taormina?”

“Long story,” I said. “La dolce vita. ”

She said, “Men are so lucky. If I just hang around an Italian town looking at buildings for my project, everyone takes me for a whore. That waiter was pretty typical. That’s why I have to keep on the move.”

“Maybe I could come with you to Siracusa.”

“That’s just what they say!”

“I mean, to protect you — to run interference.”

“Maybe we can talk about it,” she said nicely.

She took off her sunglasses, seeming to peel them in one motion from her eyes, which were gray, and she took off her headscarf and shook the dust from it as her hair tumbled to her shoulders. Her hair was streaked by the sunlight and she was slim and a bit damp from her exertion: she had been walking.

I loved her looks and her air of spontaneity and self-reliance, but just as much I loved the fact that we spoke the same language. I had gotten so used to talking with waiters in Italian and with the Gräfin and Haroun in basic English — slowly and always finishing my sentences — that I had almost forgotten the pleasure and directness of talking with another American. Meeting this woman was like meeting my sister — someone from my own family — and I was reminded of who I really was.

She said, “I thought you might be a German. Those shoes. That jacket. It’s the look. Fashion is one of my interests. Usually I can spot an American a mile off. You had me fooled. I think that’s pretty good.”

The Gräfin and Haroun had turned me into a German. I liked the concealment even if I was not keen on the identity.

“I’ve got some German friends here.”

“Italians can’t stand the Tedeschi .”

She spoke knowingly, sure of herself, which irritated me, because although it was true that Italians disliked Germans, they didn’t hate them, they were too self-possessed to hate anyone — they were guided by village prejudices and village wisdom. Instead of telling her this I asked her what her name was — it was Myra Messersmith — and bought her a cup of coffee.

“Gilford Mariner. Please call me Gil.”

And we talked in that familiar, self-conscious way of isolated Americans abroad. It was not until I began to talk, unburdening myself, that I realized how many complaints I had. We swapped grievances, another habit of American expatriates, complained about the irregular hours of bars and banks and shops, the uncertainty of museum hours, the watchfulness of men, the nosiness of women, the way Italians littered their landscape, the loudness of motor scooters, the tiny cars, the long meals, the irritable bus conductors, the slowness of service, the persecution of animals, the adoration of babies, the tedium of Sundays, the peculiarities of academic life, the pedantry of teachers, the smugness of priests.

“People with a simple BA degree call themselves dottore. ”

“Priests leer at my boobs and imply that they can personally get me into Heaven.”

“Everyone smokes — even me!”

So we talked and compared notes and it seemed we agreed on most things.

She said after a while, “How much does your hotel cost?”

Her question took me by surprise and embarrassed me. I didn’t have an answer. I said, stalling, “It depends on how long you stay.”

“I’d like to stay a few days and then maybe we could go to Siracusa.”

“It's really not far. We could get there in a few hours — maybe a day trip from here.”

Already we were talking as though we were going together. It excited me to think that I would be leaving Taormina with this pretty girl who already was such pleasant company, a comforting prospect that eased my mind.

“I don't blame you for staying here. It’s so beautiful. I guess that’s Etna.”

The shapely volcano emitted a trickle of smoke that rose in a ragged vertical rope, like a dark vine climbing into the windless air.

“That thing could blow at any moment.”

Myra laughed and clutched her throat and said, “I love melodrama. Oh, right, I can see the red-hot lava pouring down the side and endangering our lives.”

“I’d lead you to safety — into the catacombs of the Duomo.”

“That sounds exciting, Gil.”

This confident teasing was a sort of flirting and already I was saying “we.” She liked me, I could tell; she didn’t fear me. She was glad to have met me, she would test me a little more, and I would pass, and we would become traveling companions, cozier than ever, rubbing along through Sicily.

While I was talking to Myra Messersmith this way, needling her gently, she became interested in something behind me and stopped listening to me. Her eyes were fixed on a moving object and she seemed to grow warier, her face darkening a bit, almost alarmed, and then she jerked her head back, startled. At that instant I felt a sharp poke against my shoulder and the harsh whisper, “Come wiz me.”

“What was that all about?” Myra said.

I had turned to see the Gräfin walking away.

“Long story.” The Gräfin had never come to the Mocambo before.

“That's the third time you’ve said that.”

“Everything’s a long story to me. I’m an existentialist.”

But Myra did not smile. She was thinking hard. Women know other women, because unlike men they are not beguiled by appearances: they know exactly what lies behind any feminine surface. Myra’s alertness, the single woman’s scrutiny, something new to me, amazed me with its accuracy in processing details and giving them significance — finding clues, searching for dangers, all in aid, I guessed, of choosing a mate. Men were casual, women so cautious. Even from this swift glimpse of the Gräfin, Myra knew me much better.

“Her heels are amazing. What’s with those gloves? The hat’s Chanel, and so is the dress. I bet she gets her hair done every day. The dress is raw silk — you can tell by the way it drapes. Did you see the gold threads? That’s real gold. It’s from Thailand.”

I took Myra’s interest for curiosity, a way of telling me that she understood fashion; and I was startled to see her rising from the café table. There was a cloud on her face, a sort of resignation and quiet anger that might have been rueful. I saw that in that moment of witnessing the Gräfin poke me, Myra had written me off as someone she could not rely on. She had summed up the situation before I said a word.