Paris Letters #57
Montreal, Newfoundland, Hokkaido, and now Scicily. All islands. Like the some un-brave Ulysses, I went from island to island, tribe to tribe. Each island had its own problematic, its own beauty, and its own monsters to flee from. What was the point of all that travelling? Just to end up where the story had begun. Paris.
I arrived in Sicily with a few dollars in my pocket. It was winter, and the rank lemon trees and barbed war around my compound made it seem like a forlorn spot. The streets were noisy with traffic as people returned home for afternoon siesta. In a quiet little church with veiled widows, I sat and did something resembling prayer.
Mt. Etna, the local Volcano, was active, and there were several small earthquakes daily. Its peak was crowned in lava, a radical orange red — the most beautiful colour I had ever seen. There were volcanic winds, and I walked around carrying an umbrella — although it was a clear blue day — and the ashes stung my eyes. This was the year of ashes.
My job was to teach Italian soldiers English, and they, in turn, taught me how to make spaghetti sauce. Everything dripped with olive oil, and I lived on espressos and cheap pizzas cooked in wood fire ovens.
My companions in Catania where the US marines, the main english population in town. Generous to a fault they mothered and nursed my wounds, like a fellow soldier cut down in battle. I told them about my fiancé who had dumped me, about my nervous breakdown in Japan, my time in Newfoundland, and subsequent flight to Europe to start a new life.
A few times they took me to Sigonella, a huge American military base near Catania. There we drank beer and ate hamburgers in what could have been an anonymous town in mid-western America. Some of the officers across the table looked like real killers with their glassy smiles and blank laughter, and at the disco there were real mafioso, I was told.
The second Gulf war had not yet started: shiny uniforms were not yet bloodied, bodies were not yet crippled or maimed. The marines were a paragon of good health, laughing with their mouths full of steak, ripe with American optimism. There was always something too loud in their laugh and too bright in their smiles.
I quit my job and borrowed some money for a train to Paris. The smoky Italian train sped through the night towards a dark epiphany, like some Hitchcock film. At a stopover in Rome I was feverish, while I stood mesmerised by a painting of Caravaggio. All of that betrayal and decapitation resonated in me.
When the direct train to Paris was late, I took the southern route along the Mediterranean coast of Italy and France. Passing the lemon orchards, the sprawling villas, and seaside towns, I was back in the south of France. The brightness of the landscape was unreal and incongruous, after where I had been.
In Marseilles, I missed the rain to Paris. I had been absorbed DH Lawrence’s “The phoenix” — a book I read with disgust and admiration, as if it were the story of myself — and I forgot my luggage in a restaurant. When I returned to look for my bag there was a cordon of soldiers. They had sealed the place off and evacuated everyone. When I told them I was the owner of the bag, I was spread-eagled on the ground by men with machine guns.
At every threshold the monsters appear, it seems. The all came rushing in.
