Tourmaline (12 page)

One thousand. Murray would always counter by upping the stakes. It was one of his certain habits, like always putting his right shoe on first.

Two A.M. Three A.M. The moon disappeared, and the sky brightened subtly to the hollow gray-blue that precedes dawn. I saw a shadow moving on the terrace. The dark body of an animal. A wild animal. A rat. A ferret. A cat — Meena.

I called to her, clicked my tongue, watched her freeze. She tipped her head, then decided to ignore me. Away she slunk, toward the sound of a barking dog.

A prowling cat. A barking dog. Hercules fading into dawn. Where was your father?

Morning came, and with it arrived Murray, his excuse cast as self-mocking explanation — he’d forgotten about the move, forgotten to head to Marciana after work, forgotten to put gas in his motorcycle, and on top of that he’d fallen asleep on the sofa of the other villa, slept straight through to 5 A.M., hadn’t even taken off his shoes. Then he’d set off on his Lambretta, run out of gas, and ended up walking three miles into Marciana Marina, where he had to wait another hour for a gas station to open.

He needed a shave, a bath, breakfast. He looked awful, not just physically awful but dispirited. Yesterday’s explorations must have disappointed him, I thought. His hopes for investment were ridiculous, and he’d already wasted too much money. It was all he could do to drag himself to the bedroom to change his clothes and get ready for another day of work.

But by the time he came to the table for breakfast he’d regained his optimism, so much so that he reminded me of Francis, giddy with denial. There was something he couldn’t tell me. What? I’m not sure I wanted to know. I was grateful to have Murray home. He whistled while he cracked the shell of a soft-boiled egg with the edge of his spoon,
tap tap tapping
to the tune of “Home on the Range,” until my worry turned to annoyance, and annoyance melted into amusement.

As I told you during our last dinner, Murray remained alone at Le Foci after Adriana had left. I believe this to be the truth, though it took many months for your father to explain.

OF THE THREE QUALITIES WHICH
determine the market value of a gemstone — beauty, rarity, and durability — the last quality is the easiest to measure. Durability determines the rank of mineral specimens. Durability is a stone’s defense against the wear of weather. Durability transforms certain stones into treasures and turns treasures into legends. If heroes were to find defunct paper bills instead of gold and gems when they unearthed a buried treasure, there wouldn’t be much of a story to tell.

While rarity is a more elusive quality, the connection between rarity and worth is simple. If new sources increased the world’s quantity of available diamonds tenfold, diamonds would lose value. If synthetic production of a particular type of gem rivals the natural process, miners lose their jobs.

Beauty is the quality most difficult to measure, as well as the most important. To some extent, a stone’s beauty is contingent. One year garnets may be in fashion, the next year, pearls. But the intrinsic beauty of a gemstone is determined by one factor independent of human whim: light. Light creates luster, and luster is what gives a stone its character. Without luster, a diamond would be no more beautiful than quartz, and gold would be pyrite’s equal. Without luster, topaz and ruby, amethyst and sapphire would be as dull as granite.

The greater the amount of light reflected instead of absorbed, the more lustrous the stone. The most remarkable version of this property is found in hexagonal crystals, such as diamonds, calcite, and tourmaline, which double an image by splitting the light.

Tourmaline’s alkali tints range from black to transparent, rubellite to brown. Black schorl was the most common form of tourmaline found on Elba. Other specimens tended to be pink, yellow, and green, and frequently parti-colored. From the 1930s through the 1950s, the crystals were increasingly coveted. Pink and green watermelon crystals were highly valued, and blue tourmaline was the most valuable of all.

With the money his uncles finally sent, Murray purchased five hectares of terraced land on a wooded slope in the Mezza Luna zone between Sant’Andrea and Monte Giove. Stone walls hidden among the chestnuts suggested that centuries earlier this had been cultivated land. But when Murray purchased the title from a family that had owned the land for generations, only a footpath connected the property to the coastal road.

What Murray’s land had, though, was tourmaline. Little black sticks of schorl, which Murray broke from the granite rock face when he was surveying the land. Because of tourmaline, our father agreed to buy the land for a price he knew was inflated.

In the mornings our parents would confer in low, growling voices outside, Claire still in her bathrobe and slippers, Murray already mounted on his motorcycle. They would discuss bills, loans, and their increasing expenses. Later in the morning Claire would take a taxi to the bank in Portoferraio in hopes of collecting the last of the loan Murray’s uncles had promised to wire. Murray’s uncles, however, were keeping Claire and Murray waiting, and Murray had to ask Lorenzo for a month’s respite on the rent. Claire explained the situation to Lidia, who kept down costs by cooking her cacciucco with grouper instead of swordfish. Francesca was given the month of December off. And our mother began calling agents for information about ships heading back to New York.

The weather grew colder. The clouds overhead were dark gray with ragged edges, and rain would fall continuously for three or four days at a time. Patrick and Harry claimed that they were being bullied by the Elban boys at school, so Claire decided to keep them home for a while. She gave them reading lessons that amounted to an hour spent deciphering articles in a week-old
Herald Tribune,
worked with them briefly on math, and then she’d bundle us in raincoats and boots and send us outside.

I turned five in the middle of November. Patrick, who turned ten on the ninth of December, was responsible for the safety of the rest of us — which translated into tyranny. He was the king, we were his servants, and if he asked us to pick the spiny balls off a sandbur or collect dried-flower sacs from the sedge, we had to oblige.

After the disappointment of paltry gifts at our birthdays, we weren’t looking forward to Christmas. Somehow, though, our parents managed to satisfy our greed. The presents were abundant on Christmas morning — toy soldiers and trucks, puzzles, model airplane kits, and even books in English. Lidia had the week off, so Claire mastered the oven and cooked potatoes and green beans and roasted a chicken, which she tried to fool us into believing was turkey.

After dinner we collapsed on the floor in front of the radio that provided only fuzzy reception on a single channel. We listened to a broadcast of a Christmas mass, not caring that we didn’t understand a word of it. Claire was in the kitchen washing up; Francis Cape — who either had mistaken a casual comment for an invitation or else had somehow invited himself to dinner — lit his pipe, Murray lit a cigarette, and they settled in their chairs for a good long smoke.

They smoked in silence for a few minutes. Murray said something about work being done on the road to Marciana. Knowing Francis’s resistance to all development on the island, he launched into a defense of the new roads, insisting that not only would they open up the island to tourists, they would ultimately save the El-bans time and labor, giving them the opportunity to concentrate on intensifying production on their farms as well as improving their dilapidated houses. He was describing a house he’d seen in San Piero when Francis interrupted him.

“That’s all fine, Murray. But there’s something important I want to discuss with you.”

Murray’s immediate thought was money: Francis wanted to borrow money from Murray or lend Murray money or else he knew of a secret source for money. But Francis had only to say the name “Adriana Nardi,” and Murray felt a draining presentiment. What about the girl? Adriana had disappeared, Francis said. She’d left a note explaining only that she couldn’t explain why she had to leave. She hadn’t been seen or heard from for more than a month. At first her mother kept secret the fact of her disappearance. She made inquiries with friends in Bologna but failed to find any evidence that her daughter had been there at all. After a few weeks she contacted the local police. They questioned fishermen, sailors, and harbor workers. In the week before Christmas, the police told Signora Nardi that to the best of their knowledge Adriana had never left the island.

After Francis finished his account, the two men smoked in silence for a long minute. Murray considered what he couldn’t say: Adriana had disappeared because of him. He knew this as surely as he knew that his land would never turn a profit, the knowledge as certain as it was untested, a theory born from common sense. Adriana had disappeared because of Murray. If she never returned, he would be held accountable.

“Well then, Francis, where is she?” Murray asked abruptly. “Why, for God’s sake, why should I know?” Francis could only sputter in outrage at the accusation implied in Murray’s question.

“Why should you know. Of course you don’t know. You don’t have any idea where she’s gone off to. Somewhere on the island. She’s hiding out somewhere on the island.” The possibility of this gave rise in Murray to a strange excitement — the scientist’s excitement at the thought of proving his hypothesis. “Have they looked in the caves? The bunkers? Of course they have. Where else? She knew the secret places —” He stopped, blinked in surprise at himself for using the past tense.
Knows,
he thought. Say,
She knows…
He couldn’t say it, not with Francis peering at him through the screen of pipe smoke. Knew. Knows. Was. Is.

In the living room Patrick shrieked, “Idiot!” Harry threw a wooden block that hit Patrick in the head. As Patrick lunged at him, he kneed Nat in the back by mistake.

“Dumbface!” Nat cried.

“Jerk!” Patrick yelled.

Murray was grateful for the uproar because it gave him the chance to get away from Francis. He attempted to mediate an elaborate truce among us. He wanted to hear Patrick’s account of the fight, then Harry’s. He invited Nat to add his own version. Yes, sharing should be encouraged, but on Christmas day a boy doesn’t necessarily have to share his new toy backhoe.

“Let’s talk about sharing,” Murray said, his cigarette still clamped between his lips, the four of us watching in fascination as the long ash grew longer and still didn’t crumble.

When he finally returned to the dining room to rejoin Francis, Claire was there and had already heard from Francis a good part of a longer version of the Adriana Nardi story. Had Claire ever met the Signora? Francis was asking as Murray settled into his seat.

“Never,” Claire said.

“She’s a retiring sort,” Francis said, “not much interested in life, as far as I can tell.”

Or else, Murray considered, Signora Nardi was inordinately interested in life and had found ways to watch without being seen. Perhaps she knew how to keep an eye on her daughter and hired someone to follow her. An absurd idea — yet it had the force of a startling memory. Murray pictured the living room of his Le Foci house. The moonlight on the floor. Adriana on the sofa beside him. Someone watching through the window, just like someone had watched him from a window of La Chiatta as he wheeled his Lambretta from the courtyard.

Murray had become a potential suspect in a potential crime — or maybe not. Maybe no one had given him a second thought. He attempted to return to his earlier mood. The satisfaction of a smoke after a good dinner. A glass of cognac. Adriana just an annoyance.

At least the girl knew how to keep a secret — you could see this in her face, her pallor, her evasive sideways glances. She’d learned as a child to protect herself with secrecy, every word and gesture designed to deflect attention. But here was the paradox: her evasive manner invited attention, as though — no, not as though, in fact, she wanted to be seen, admired, exposed, to confess what she had been trained to hide.

Unless she were mad, her shattered mind held together by a dark obsession. I’m here, Signor Murdoch. Go away, Adriana. I don’t want to go away. Go away.

A woman’s voice. A rooster’s crow.

He watched Francis and Claire talking, listened to the liquid, indecipherable murmur on the radio in the living room. He let himself drift, imagined a Saturday afternoon in his backyard in America. Screech of a blue jay, smell of fresh-cut grass, buzz of a chain saw in the neighbor’s yard, and the sound of children’s voices from the tree house — not so different from the sounds his children were making in the next room, reminding Murray of where he was, in a villa overlooking the Mediterranean, lured here by the simple promise of change.

He’d have admitted to being a ridiculous man with ridiculous ambitions, but he had committed no crime and had no reason to run away. He looked across the table at his wife for confirmation. She was chewing her thumbnail while she listened to Francis describing what he knew about Signora Nardi. Murray reached for the cognac and refilled Francis’s glass and his own. Claire looked at Murray, and when their eyes met Murray was surprised to feel a different manner of scrutiny — the searching glance not of concern but of suspicion.

“You think I have something to do with this?” he said calmly, setting the bottle back on the table.

Claire flinched visibly but remained silent, and Francis watched them both with his lips pressed tight in what Murray read as a grin. The silence was unbearable. “I mean,” Murray continued awkwardly, “the girl might have told me back when…she could have indicated…but she didn’t, you know. She didn’t admit it. If she was troubled. Or something.”

Claire worked the dry skin of her cuticle. “Something,” she muttered. The scorn implied by her echo ordinarily would have goaded Murray into an argument. Instead it stirred in him the same cool indignation he would have felt if he’d been holding a worthless hand of cards and Claire were threatening to call his bluff.

Guilt sounds like the crinkle of aluminum foil. The clank of a knife against the half-open lid of a tin can. A gas burner hissing without a flame. A cat clawing at a sofa’s upholstery. Dry leaves blowing on pavement. Scotch tape being crumpled into a ball.