Lost in Hotels (34 page)

“We’ll put that up here to balance the helicopter. I am Amerigo; I will be your pilot for the short flight.”

He continues in surprisingly fluid and articulate English explaining the headphones to Catherine as well as the basic physics of how a helicopter works. I had no idea it was harder to fly a helicopter than a plane, not something you exactly want to hear on your first flight, but Catherine’s face seems nonetheless engaged. He secures his door hatch with a strong pull and then a stretchy rope to secure it as I try to direct Catherine’s eyes to the Aeolian Islands in the distance. The propellers thump to a steady purr, the chopper surges forward and to the side, and then up into the air.

Catherine holds my hand tight and then tighter as the chopper glides through the air with an occasional air pocket picked up from the afternoon heat that bounces us closer together. There’s simplicity to helicopter flying, far beyond da Vinci’s primitive sketches of vertical flight and closer to what it might be like as a lonely bird soaring across the water. Catherine looks over with her bulky headset.

“I love you,” she whispers unexpectedly as our eyes meet.

“You mean me?” the pilot says with a baritone chuckle.

“Yes, you too. But only as long as we’re airborne,” Catherine laughs.

I look back at Catherine and mouth, “I love you, too.” Her words catch me by surprise, but the moment couldn’t be more appropriate. It’s the first time I’ve said that to a woman in a very long time. She leans in with her soft hair on my shoulder, and we stare off into the distance as two large landmasses come into sight. One more dramatic than the other, volcanic Stromboli is a singular silhouette that appears identical to the volcano you would draw as a child, complete with an omnipresent billow of smoke that hovers around its head.

“That is Stromboli ahead,” the pilot says as we look on. “You watch close, and you see smoke every hour or so, like clock,” he continues, as the sight alone is mesmerizing, intimidating even at this distance.

“Do people live on Stromboli?” she asks.

“Yes, it is very famous in Italy. Roberto Cavalli and Dolce Gabbana both have homes. But you need be careful, volcano very active. They all have yachts if they need to get away fast. Most people not so lucky.”

“But you have a helicopter; that’s even better,” I add.

“Yes, I guess that true. On the right here, is Panarea. We will circle and then land against the wind.”

Panarea is larger than I expected. It’s like a mountain topped with a high peak and collapsed lush green edges that descend along a terrain dotted in houses and farms that touch the sea with its jagged islands and rock formations that humble even Faraglioni off Capri.

“It’s incredible,” Catherine says from her headset clogged in static. She leans above the window for a better view.

Her head is framed by an aura of sun beating over the crystal blue sea as the white water can almost be felt crashing on the rocky shore. The helicopter finds its target, circles above the heliport, and descends as if pulled by a rope to the ground as it touches ever so gently onto the grassy pad.

“That was incredible,” Catherine says in a sort of thank-you tone. The swoop of the propellers turned off and glided to a stop. We unbuckled and looked at a small converted golf cart parked at the edge of the grass.

“Welcome to Panarea. I’m Giuseppe and will be taking you to Hotel Raya,” he yells from his seat in front of the cart emblazoned with the hotel logo. The lone pilot carries our luggage to the rear seat without help from the hotel driver or me.

Catherine takes a seat in the second row, her scarf wrapped tightly around her head to shield from the unyielding sun that’s sent a bead of sweat down from the top of my head, along my neck behind the ear, down my spine, and through the rear of my pants.

“So we go to the hotel now, is that good?” the driver says without much of a good-bye to the pilot.

He zips away and the view of distant Stromboli and the jagged formations disappear along a shaded residential street that becomes more commercial with a series of terra-cotta-colored inns and family restaurants arranged on vine-covered terraces. Scooters whiz past us with a mix of shirtless beach-bound teenagers who double and sometime triple up on the rear behind speeding grandmothers and impatient fathers with cigarettes dangling precariously from their tanned faces.

“How many people live in Panarea?” Catherine addresses the driver.

“Right now, only about three hundred, but there are many visitors, so I would say somewhere closer to one thousand,” he replies.

“That’s not very many; it must be terribly quiet in winter.”

“Quiet and beautiful. The ferries let you get away to Lipari and the busier islands, but here it’s like a phantom town.”

“When was the island first settled?” Catherine inquires further as the alleyways of the central town get narrower past small grocery stores with windows of pasta boxes, dated perfumery, and the type of shops frequented by locals rather than tourists. The streets are car free, and so is the island, maintaining an otherworldly simplicity that comes across in the calm faces of passing locals.

“It is very old, but it was really the Romans who came, and then later, it was occupied by pirates who made life terrible for those living here.”

“Pirates?”

“Yes, pirates and ships that would come and stay the winter in village houses, eat all their food, and take their women.”

“I hope they weren’t Londoners,” I interject.

“No, mostly North Africans and from the East. Very bad people.”

The view opens as we arrive on the harbor. There is a bit more life along a single row of more commercial shops along the main port adjacent to a short, deserted seafront and incline in the distance where Hotel Raya rises.

The hotel is a simple cubist house in pinkish stucco framed in an all-white architecture that spreads out from the roofline. There are no manicured trees or grassy landscaping at the entrance; instead, a simple staircase descends from the cobblestone street with a sleeping cat perched atop the tenth step painted gleaming white.

Catherine is enveloped in the moment, absorbing every detail with her eyes and scribbling it down on a small notepad she carries with her every time we check into a hotel. I enjoy watching her, the lines in her forehead tensing when she sees something that piques her interest, whether good or bad, and then relaxing as she focuses back on her notes.

“Hello there, you must be David Summers,” says an older woman inside a small office just up the main corridor leading into the hotel. My eyes play tricks on me in the direct sunlight making the interior spaces look far darker as all I can do against the light is look straight through the lobby and at Stromboli in the distance.

“Yes, that would be me,” I say attempting to remove my sunglasses.

“I am Martina, this is my hotel, and I wish you both welcome,” she says, extending her hand that’s cold and soft to the touch. I feel a slight prick of well-manicured nails that touch my inner wrist. She smells of an Italian woman, a scent that evolves over a lifetime from that almost musky, sexy fragrance of a young woman to a sort of matronly floral scent of this likely grandmother.

“And I am Catherine. I’ve read so much about you.”

Martina’s eyes widen, happy or curious that someone new recognizes her as more than just front-of-the-house help.

“Oh, is that so? What have you read exactly?” she says coyly.

“Well, that you came to this deserted island in the sixties and built this hotel that is now as iconic as the island itself,” Catherine explains.

“That is very nice, but I am just a woman trying to run a business despite these Italians that make this place impossible to do business.”

“But you seem to be doing very well … I mean, look at this place,” I add.

“Yes, but no thanks to them. They should build me a monument, but they don’t respect women, and they don’t like people from the outside. Hold on, let me finish up here, and I will take you to your room.”

Martina has the command skills of a more efficient Napoleon, ordering her staff around in briefly punctuated Italian that probably translates far harsher than it sounds. Catherine walks ahead as I poke my head inside the small dining room and into the open-air lobby lined in white tiles and framed by a beam ceiling and a 220-degree view of a rugged seascape capped by architectural rock formations that look like Giacometti molded them. On the terrace, steamer chairs and loungers are vacant except for one with a single man sitting lost between a book and a cocktail.

“So let’s go … where is your woman?” Martina barks.

“Catherine, love. Are you ready?” I yell ahead and see her silhouette turn back in our direction.

“You need to watch a woman who leaves your side in search of the unknown,” Martina whispers pointing a long finger with a glossy red nail at me.

“Do you speak from experience?” I reply.

“Oh, I was worst of the worse. But I was never with such a handsome man. Beautiful men are delicious in bed and difficult in life. I prefer a man who’s sometimes difficult in bed and delicious in life.” Then she adds, “But I just speak very honest with you.”

Catherine rejoins us as we walk swiftly to the parked golf cart. We all get in and Martina speeds up the hills.

“There are three parts of the hotel. You will be staying in Raya Alto that is up on the hill. Most times you will walk, but I’ll take you this one time.”

“Thank you. So has the island changed much since you arrived?” Catherine asks politely from the passenger seat.

“Everything has changed. When I arrived, I was beautiful and desired; now I am an old woman in a place where you have to bribe people to get anything done. What used to work with just a wink and some dinner, now takes years, and even then you don’t know what’s in store for you.”

“When did you arrive here?” I ask.

“It was a lifetime ago. I was considered a foreigner because I am not from the islands. I met a man and we would embark on a love affair that became the best and worst times of my life. He was much older than I was with a life all his own. But when we were here, it was our life. I must say it feels like yesterday, but at the same time, a lifetime ago.”

The town yields to a more residential setting with open plots of land that smell of trailing rosemary and citrus leaves among omnipresent olive trees. Martina turns the cart up a gravel road with an incline that requires a heavier foot. My eyes gaze up the hillside and at the edge of a mountain where a series of terraced villas looks almost identical to the main hotel lobby. A rounded driveway leads past a swimming pool that Martina says took forty years to build, and to a small roundabout near the foot of the buildings.

“This is Raya Alto where you will be staying,” she says.

Catherine’s eyes gaze up at the property that looks like a mix of Positano and Santorini with its earthy colors and white stucco architecture. The smell of fresh baked bread fills the air as two women busy about in white baker’s uniforms in a small outdoor kitchen behind an old walnut tree. Martina says nothing to the women, but takes the lead up the slick white staircase that ends at a small landing and up to the left to a large terrace with white floor and a thatched roof.

“If you were here a month earlier, you could have danced at the disco that’s outside the main house, but now you must entertain yourselves at night or go to the port. But looking at you, I think you will find something,” she says.

Martina shoves the glossy-blue door open with a brute force as the metal key chimes against the metal key slot. The door opens to a spare space lacking the edgy design or trendy all-white decor that I expected. Instead, it’s a room of blue hand-painted tiles, a simple white side table, and a platform bed that hovers in a scent of linen washed by hand and dried in the Aeolian wind.

“It’s quite lovely. Simple, chic while making the most of that incredible view,” Catherine says politely gazing out the window.

“If you need anything, you know where to find me. But I’m sure the long walk will make you really think about whether it’s worth it,” she says with a laugh and pulls the door behind her without much of a good-bye.

“What an incredible place. It’s so not what I was expecting.”

In a good sort of way, I assume?” I ask.

“Absolutely, although I take you for more of the Hotel de Paris type,” she replies.

“Meaning?” I say, grabbing her around the pleated waist of her fluffy white sundress that’s still as fresh as it was back in Taormina.

“Just that you don’t seem the romantic boutique hotel type, that’s all.”

“Well, there are a lot of things you don’t know about me yet,” I say, resting my nose next to hers.

“Are you making your move already? We have to stretch the day, Mr. Summers. There’s no Internet or TV here.”

“No television? How totally awful,” I say in my strongest American accent.

“I’m just saying we have to pace ourselves.”

“I’m a couple-times-a-day kind of guy sometimes; I hope that’s okay with you.”

“You’re insufferable, David, really.”

“Okay, so I am going to jump in the shower and wash off my four hours of sweat, and maybe you’ll feel differently when I come out, or at least I can hope.”