style="font-size:15px;"> “Photograph?”
“Yes. Big one. Pretty woman. Sad eyes. English people surprised when one person disappears. In my country thousands disappear. No one surprised.”
Just then, the emptiness inside me, which felt like melancholy, turned into raw grief. Shaken, I put my head on Honey Dew’s chest.
“Hug me,” I said. “Please.”
She did. She put her arms around me and drew me close to her, allowing me to be sheltered by her, yet alone in my sorrow.
“You’re a nice girl, Honey Dew,” I said, at last. “I’m lucky to have met you.”
“You lucky I’m bad girl. I’m only nineteen, but I’m smart turning tricks. See what I mean?”
Proudly she contemplated the outcome of her labours, my prick finally stiffening under her expert fingers. But not for long. A sudden image of the front page of the Daily Mail, which I had been torn between reading and ignoring, withered my ardour.
“You really upset.”
“Sorry, Honey Dew,” I said, staring down at the blunt language of a reluctant cock.
But she drew breath and bent down again, her straight hair like a silk black curtain tickling my belly as her red valentine lips coaxed and stroked and salvaged the leftovers of my lust.
Trembling and aroused, I allowed myself to submit to that adamant imperative, a stir of pleasure already tingling in my groin. Oblivion, I begged her. I want to forget. Him. Her. Myself. I want to tame the beast that pokes its head… ah, ah, ahhh… so that when my coital cries stopped and my weeping began they were one and the same, both hideous and exquisite.
Though I covered my face with my hands, I was unable to suppress certain images – her smile, his laughter, the touch of her hand, the look in his eyes when the two of them saw each other – images that turned my sobs into convulsive gasps like the rush at the heart of a waterfall.
Afterwards, gratified by the felicity of the outcome, we dressed and prepared to leave, she fixing her lipstick in the mirror, I taking the customary two hundred quid out of my wallet and leaving it on the night table.
“Do you do this for many men, Honey Dew?”
“Not many. Few.”
“Would you do it for me if I didn’t pay you?”
Her slanted eyes peered at me from under charcoal eyelids; then the scarlet lips, no longer smudged, broke into a smile.
“Of course,” she said coyly. “But you rich man, I poor girl. Not equivalent.”
“You mean fair.”
“Right. Not fair, not square,” she said, picking up the money and slipping it into the back pocket of her tight elegant jeans.
FIVE
June 16, 2005
I’ll do anything, I thought, I’ll go anywhere to avoid returning to the house where Piero Giordano, my wife’s father, is sitting in the dark, chain-smoking and staring at the portrait of his vanished daughter. Is it possible to hide glaring guilt from his eyes? A bruised soul from his scrutiny?
I kept roaming in the murky twilight, asking myself at what point sadness turned into grief and grief into despair. Where did it lead? And to whom? Perhaps God (if I could invent Him) or repentance (if I knew how it felt) or absolution (if I could chastise myself enough).
Now, thinking of the occurrence from whose horror I had fled and from whose consequence I might never be able to extricate myself, I came upon the imposing medieval church across the road from Regent’s Park – the Danish church I must have passed a thousand times without ever bothering to enter.
Thoughts of providence, of miracles, prompted me to push the massive wooden door. To my astonishment, it creaked open and let me in. A sense of Christian hospitality (perhaps Catholic since the church was named Saint Katharine) mingled with the overbearing smell of lit candles and incense.
How long since I was last in church? Too long to remember. Except for the image of Father Rowan, the crippled pastor of our Southern Baptist church in Florida, limping along the narrow aisle on his way to the altar. He had a walking stick which he used for support (as well as punishment). Dante and I loathed catechism, but had been warned by our parents that no church meant no dinner, no fishing, no movies.
Now, years later, inside this foreign church, the sound of my footsteps grew louder and louder as I walked across the nave, stopped before a crucified Christ, terrifying in his near-nakedness, his crown of thorns, his glazed eyes.
If it was true that He knew about the sins of the world and still forgave the multitudes, then He would understand the rage which had coursed through my blood, the anger which had seized and devoured me.
I bent down and bestowed a humble touch upon His lacerated feet. They were cool as marble, and so were the eyes that couldn’t see. Or could they?
“I’m not looking for forgiveness, Lord. I just want to stop the sound of that splash.”
I paused. I had barely expressed what I was there to say, and yet I was already spent. The rain seemed to have tapered off, and a bleak sun was shimmering on the stained glass windows as I tore myself away from the crucifix, my throat tight from swallowing the unshed tears, my footsteps hollow as my own faith.
SIX
June 16, 2005
My father-in-law, Piero Giordano, is a Caprese by birth, a fisherman by necessity and a father by miscalculation. Sometime in the spring of 1984, his young peasant common-law wife had misunderstood the rhythm method of contraception (as explained to her by the village priest), therefore creating life with one wrong monosyllable and giving birth to a stunningly beautiful baby girl they named Antonia.
But, overnight, the joyful event had turned tragic when the young mother paid the ultimate price for giving birth with only the village midwife to assist her during a difficult delivery.
Too preoccupied to dwell on the cruelty of fate, the anxious father, who until then had held a dignified but financially unrewarding position as a high school Italian teacher, had been forced to supplement his income by moonlighting as a fisherman. His frail rowboat (idle but for an occasional Sunday excursion) was dutifully sanded, painted, repaired and equipped with sturdy broad oars which would allow Piero to test the waters off the coast of Capri.
It had taken the village a few weeks to realize that Piero Giordano was in search of Someone to do Something about his meagre resources. But, having understood, the villagers (even the thriftiest) permitted themselves the luxury of charitable contributions.
Of course there was no one more deserving of help than the rugged, weather beaten, self-proclaimed fisherman, and no one better able to help him than the Almighty. Like all miracle-workers, the Almighty made Piero’s fishnets heavy with flounder and sea bass and snappers, with bushels of calamari for good measure, thus enabling him to retain a certain amount of intellectual fantasy, while making life tolerable for his family.
But a tragic occurrence
