It looked like it was going to rain, but, of course, it never did. The clouds would not budge, but nor would the heat. They could not stay a moment longer in the flat, so they bought a wheel of foccaccia and a bottle of Guadianello and went to the beach in Torre a Mare.
They parked the car where the road ended in a cul de sac and up on the cliff was a Second World War pillbox sprayed with graffiti: Forza Juve, Lecce Merde, and Vafanapoli…
What the devil was that all about?
The sea was perfectly still and people were bathing in the cove, so they walked onto the next cove and climbed down the old rusty steps onto the sand.
They made a place for themselves among the seaweed and the sand flies and spread out Julia’s towel.
Julia took off her top and went to the water’s edge. He watched her as she stood in the shallows. After a while, she waded out and dropped down into the water.
“Aren’t you going in the sea?” she said.
But Daniel had other things on his mind.
Behind them, there was a hollow in the rocks. They manoeuvred the towel and themselves into the hollow. There they lay among the flotsam and jetsam: pieces of old rope and netting, blanched wood, plastic bottles and cups. He crouched over her and helped her as she eased down her bikini bottoms. He put his hand on her freckled chest where she was almost dry; then he put his hand between her legs where she was wet.
The first time they made love was on the beach. The second time they were in the flat.
The salt had dried on her skin. He lay panting as she got up and went into the bathroom.
He lay on the bed, listening to her as she turned on the shower.
She came back into the bedroom and lay back down on the bed. When they started again; slowly, then suddenly quickening their pace, the soap and the shampoo did not make any difference. They were both dripping with sweat, when he felt it: something twisted inside him.
“Why don’t you go ahead?” the voice said. “She deserves it.”
When Cofi was arrested, Daniel had gone to see the priest at Santo Stefano. The priest had said he would do what he could for Cofi; then he had invited Daniel to pray.
Daniel was not a believer, but he had sat in the pew next to the priest while he did. If he knew it was just to salve his conscience, when things had precipitated with Julia, he knew that his conscience had nothing to do with it.
“What is the matter, Daniel? Don’t you want to anymore?”
“I’m just tired,” he said. “That’s all.”
Daniel did not as a rule remember his dreams, but he awoke with this one clear in his mind. The reason for this was that, even if it had chosen to misinterpret it, the dream was close to reality.
Finding himself back in the boat in the middle of the sea; the boat appeared to have capsized and Cofi was struggling beside in the water. Cofi appeared to look at Daniel for help. But just as Cofi called out, the dream had displaced him. “No,” the voice had said, “you cannot go back.”
Julia was busy at the school, and Daniel had his own things to do. They had arranged to meet at the flat, but she was late.
“Where have you been?”
“Are you annoyed?” she said. “If you must know, I went out for a drink with one of my students.”
“Who is he?”
“Actually, it was a she.”
“Do I know her?”
“Why, are you already bored of me?”
She opened the door to the flat and he followed her in. She dumped her books on the table in the kitchen. She went to the bathroom. He heard her turn on the tap.
She pulled the chain.
Daniel shook his head.
“You want a beer,” she said on re-entering the kitchen. “There’s one in the fridge door.”
He took out the beer and poured it into two small glasses.
“What’s the matter, Daniel?” she said.
Daniel shrugged.
“It’s nothing.”
She looked at him.
“If it’s nothing,” she said, “you seem to be making a mountain out of it…”
She lit a cigarette. As she did, she looked at him again. “You know,” she said. “I only just worked it out.”
“What?”
“Cofi’s problem. He had a kid, didn’t he, back home. It wasn’t just his mum or sister, was it? There was a kid he had to look after, too. Am I right, Daniel?”
He grimaced.
“Well,” he said, “you take the prize.”
Daniel was suddenly agitated. It surprised him. A feeling of bitterness overwhelmed him.
He got up and went and stood over by the window. Down in the street a motorino beeped its horn. A man shouted at the top of his voice: “Coglione!”
Julia came to the window and they both looked out.
There was no one in the square but a group of teenage boys talking among themselves and eating cornetti.
Daniel sat down and sipped his beer.
“What is it, Daniel?”
He sighed.
“It’s the Bermuda Triangle,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. The Bermuda Triangle.”
“That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“Well, let me spell out for you. I might just as well not be here. No one sees me. I walk down the street. They ignore me. I see everything they do. As they swing out of their coffee bars, mobile phones in hand and kiss their girlfriends goodbye, they pass me by. Someone might stop to look at one of my things. But they don’t see me. They don’t hear me when I tell them how much it is. My invisibility precedes me. So that is why I tell myself. I am living in a Bermuda triangle.”
Daniel fell silent.
He waited to see what Julia would say. But she said nothing; instead, she asked if he was hungry.
Daniel shrugged.
“Well, I’m hungry,” she said. “Shall we go and get a piadina?”
The pizzeria was packed: old folks and their friends, birthday parties and works outings, fidanzati and their friends.
They watched the pizziaolo Enzo work rapidly to shape the dough. They watched him spade it with the flat wooden peel into the oven. They watched Luigi as he cut into the fat of the Parma ham, set it in the slicer and laid it, along with some mozzarella, out on the piadina. He took a handful of tomatoes and some rocket. Then he folded the piadina and wrapped it in the paper and handed it to them, his gold ring finger wrapped round it so that none of it toppled on the floor.
“Buon appetito,” he said.
They took their piadinas outside and stood looking out to sea from the railings on the seafront. The air was damp and there was a pungent smell of seaweed that seemed to chime with Daniel’s mood. All is rotten here, he thought. It stinks.
Finishing their piadinas, they went back to the flat, got undressed and got into bed.
Julia turned out the lights; Daniel moved towards her tentatively in the darkness.
But he found, to his distress, that she was in tears.
“Daniel,” she said after a while, “I don’t think this is right.”
“What is not right?”
“What we are doing.”
“You are worried what Cofi will think? Cofi will never know.”
“Daniel, that’s not the point.”
“Well,” he said, “what is the point?”
“Daniel,” she said, “we must be kind to each other.”
“At the moment,” he said, “I feel as if all your kindness is a deception.”
A few days later, Daniel left for the north. He had found a job working on a building site outside Milan. He worked in Milan for six months. Then he went to work for a timber merchant in Bergamot. He worked for the timber merchant for three months, but when the timber merchant stopped paying him, he left. He drifted around the northern towns, selling wares, until, one day, Bembi wrote telling him he was opening a little shop.
Daniel drifted back south, but there was not much work for him in Bembi’s shop and he found himself slipping back into the old routine.
It was a Tuesday, market day in Monopoli. In the market they sold fake designer tops and fake designer shoes and pretty fake underwear for the ladies. Daniel liked to peruse the stalls, scrutinizing all the high-end fakery. Around midday he would go to the deli man, Nicola and get him to make a sandwich with Parma ham and fontina. Then, as it was autumn, he would buy some persimmon from one of the fruit stalls.
When he had had enough of selling his wares, Daniel would walk down through the boatyard and sit on the rocks to eat his sandwich. Here wild thyme grew among the rocks and the water lapped on a small sandy beach.
The days were still warm. Daniel was content and, in his contentment, everything seemed to open up for him. He no longer felt, as he had done since that day with Julia, lost in a Bermuda Triangle of his own making.