Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
“You say, ‘Get back to cutting that privet!’ ” When Pasquale didn’t laugh, Richard Burton leaned in to explain. “The point being . . . not to blow up my own arse, but just so you know, I wasn’t always . . .” He looked for the word. “This. No, I understand what it is to live in the provinces. Oh, I’ve forgotten a lot, I’ll give you that, gotten soft. But I have not forgotten that.”
Pasquale had never encountered someone who talked as much as this Richard Burton. When he didn’t understand something in English, Pasquale had learned to change the subject, and he tried this now—in part just to hear his own voice again. “Do you play tennis, Richard Burton?”
“More a rugger by training . . . I like the rough and tumble. I’d have played club after Oxford, wing-forward, if not for the ease with which men of the dramatic arts bunk young women.” He stared off into space. “My brother Ifor, he was a top rugger. I’d have been his equal if I’d stayed at it, although I’d have been limited to the hockey-playing, big-breasted girls. From my vantage, the stage-jocks got a wider choice.” And then he said, to the captain again, “And you’re sure you don’t have just a nip on board, cap’n? No cognac?” When there was no answer, he fell back against the stern again. “Hope this arsehole goes down with his tub.”
Finally, they rounded the breakwater point and the icy wind broke as the boat slowed and they chugged into Porto Vergogna. They bumped against the wooden plug at the end of the pier, seawater lapping over the soggy, sagging boards. In the moonlight, Richard Burton squinted at the dozen or so stone-and-plaster houses, a couple of them lit by lanterns. “Is the rest of the village over the hill, then?”
Pasquale glanced to the top floor of his hotel, where Dee Moray’s window was dark. “No. Is only Porto Vergogna, this.”
Richard Burton shook his head. “Right. Of course it is. My God, it’s barely a crack in the cliffs. And no telephones?”
“No.” Pasquale was embarrassed. “Next year, maybe they come.”
“This Deane is fucking mad,” Richard Burton said, with what sounded to Pasquale almost like admiration. “I’m going to flog that little shit until he bleeds from his nipples. Bastard.” He stepped onto the dock as Pasquale paid the Spezia fisherman, who shoved off and chugged away without so much as a word. Pasquale started toward the shore.
Above them, the fishermen were drinking in the piazza, as if they were eagerly awaiting something. They moved around like bees disturbed from their hive. Now they pushed Tomasso the Communist forward and he began making his way down the steps to the shore. Even though Pasquale now understood that Dee Moray wasn’t dying after all, he felt certain that something terrible had happened to her.
“Gualfredo and Pelle came this afternoon in the long boat,” Tomasso said when he met them on the steps. “They took your American, Pasquale! I tried to stop them. So did your Aunt Valeria. She told them the girl would die if they took her. The American didn’t want to go, but that pig Gualfredo told her she was supposed to be in Portovenere, not here . . . that a man had come there for her. And she went with them.”
Since the exchange was in Italian, the news didn’t register with Richard Burton, who lowered the collar of his jacket again, smoothed himself, and glanced up at the small cluster of whitewashed houses. He smiled to Tomasso and said: “I don’t suppose you’re a bartender, old chap. I could use a shot before telling the poor girl she’s been bred.”
Pasquale translated what Tomasso had told him. “A man from another hotel has come and take away Dee Moray.”
“Taken her where?”
Pasquale pointed down the coast. “Portovenere. He say she supposed to be there and that my hotel can’t take care good of Americans.”
“That’s piracy! We can’t allow such a thing to stand, can we?”
They walked up to the piazza and the fishermen shared the rest of their grappa with Richard Burton while they talked about what to do. There was some talk of waiting until morning, but Pasquale and Richard Burton agreed that Dee Moray must know immediately that she wasn’t dying of cancer. They would go to Portovenere tonight. There was a buzz of excitement among the men on the cold, sea-lapped shore: Tomasso the Elder talked about slitting Gualfredo’s throat; Richard Burton asked in English if anyone knew how late the bars were open in Portovenere; Lugo the War Hero ran back to his house to get his carbine; Tomasso the Communist raised his hand in a kind of salute and volunteered to pilot the assault on Gualfredo’s hotel; and it was around this time Pasquale realized that he was the only sober man in Porto Vergogna.
He walked to the hotel and went inside to tell his mother and his Aunt Valeria that they were going down the coast, and to grab a bottle of port for Richard Burton. His aunt was watching from her window and describing what she saw to Pasquale’s mother, who was propped up in bed. Pasquale stuck his head in the doorway.
“I tried to stop them,” Valeria said. She looked grim. She handed Pasquale a note.
“I know,” Pasquale said as he read the note. It was from Dee Moray. “Pasquale, some men came to tell me that my friend was waiting for me in Portovenere and that there had been a mistake. I will make sure you get paid for your trouble. Thank you for everything. Yours—Dee.” Pasquale sighed. Yours.
“Be careful,” his mother said from her bed. “Gualfredo is a hard man.”
He put the note in his pocket. “I’ll be fine, Mamma.”
“Yes, you will be, Pasqo,” she said. “You are a good man.”
Pasquale wasn’t used to this outward affection, especially when his mother was in one of her dark moods. Maybe she was coming out of it. He walked into the room and bent over to kiss her. She had the stale smell she so often got when confined to her bed. But before he could kiss her, she reached out with a clawed hand and squeezed his arm as tightly as she could, her arm shaking.
Pasquale looked down at her shaking hand. “Mamma, I’m coming right back.”
He looked at his Aunt Valeria for help, but she wouldn’t look up. And his mother wouldn’t let go of his arm.
“Mamma. It’s okay.”
“I told Valeria that such a tall American girl would never stay here. I told her that she would leave.”
“Mamma. What are you talking about?”
She leaned back and slowly let go of his arm. “Go get that American girl and marry her, Pasquale. You have my blessing.”
He laughed and kissed her again. “I’ll go find her, but I love you, Mamma. Only you. There’s no one else for me.”
Outside, Pasquale found Richard Burton and the fishermen still drinking in the piazza. An embarrassed Lugo said they couldn’t borrow his carbine after all, because his wife was using it to stake some tomato plants in their cliff-side garden.
As they walked down toward the shore, Richard Burton nudged Pasquale and pointed to the Hotel Adequate View sign. “Yours?”
Pasquale nodded. “My father’s.”
Richard Burton yawned. “Bloody brilliant.” Then he happily took the bottle of port. “I tell you, Pat, this is one damn strange picture.”
The fishermen helped Tomasso the Communist dump his nets and gear and a sleeping cat into the piazza and they used the cart to wheel his outboard motor down to the water. Pasquale and Richard Burton climbed in. The fishermen stood watching from what was left of Pasquale’s beach. Tomasso’s first yank on the pull start knocked the bottle of port from Richard Burton’s hand, but luckily it landed in Pasquale’s lap without spilling much. He handed it back to the drunk Welshman. But the little motor refused to catch. They sat rocking in the waves, drifting slowly away, Richard Burton suppressing little belches and apologizing for each one. “Air’s a bit stagnant on this yacht,” he said.
“Bastard!” Tomasso yelled to the engine. He beat on it and pulled again. Nothing. The other fishermen yelled that it either wasn’t getting spark or wasn’t getting fuel, then those who’d said spark switched to fuel and fuel to spark.
Something came over Richard Burton then and he stood and, in a deep,
Tomasso pulled, the motor caught, and Richard Burton nearly fell out, but Pasquale caught him and sat him down in the boat. Burton patted Pasquale on the arm and slurred, “ . . . more than kin, and less than kind.” They chugged away into the grain of the chop. Finally, the rescue party was away.
Onshore, the fishermen were drifting away to their beds. In the boat, Richard Burton sighed. He took a swig and looked once more at the little town disappearing behind the rock wall, as if it had never existed at all.
“Listen, Pat,” Richard Burton said, “I take back what I said before about being from a small village like yours.” He gestured with the bottle of port. “No, I’m sure it’s a fine place, but Christ, man, I’ve left bigger settlements in my rank trousers.”
They walked ashore and straight into Gualfredo’s recently remodeled albergo, the Hotel de la Mar in Portovenere. The desk clerk required even more of the money from Pasquale’s payoff from Michael Deane, but after they’d negotiated his outrageous price, the man gave them the bottle of cognac that Richard Burton wanted and the number of Dee Moray’s room. The actor had slept a little in the boat—Pasquale had no idea how—and now he swirled the cognac like mouthwash, swallowed, patted down his hair, and said, “Okay. Good as gold.” He and Pasquale climbed the stairs and walked down the hallway to the tall door of Dee’s room, Pasquale looking around at Gualfredo’s modern hotel and becoming embarrassed again that Dee Moray had ever stayed in his grubby little pensione. The smell of this place—clean and something he thought of as vaguely American—made him realize how badly the Adequate View must stink, the old women and rotting, damp sea-smell of the place.
Richard Burton walked in front of Pasquale, weaving on the carpet, righting the ship with each step. He patted down his hair, winked at Pasquale, and rapped lightly, with one knuckle, on the hotel room door. When there was no answer, he knocked louder.
“Who is it?” Dee Moray’s voice came from behind the door.
“Ah, it’s Richard, love,” he said. “Come to rescue you.”
A moment later the door flew open and Dee appeared in a robe. They crashed into each other’s arms and Pasquale had to look away or risk betraying his deep envy and embarrassment that he’d ever imagined that she could want to be with someone like him. He was a donkey watching two Thoroughbreds prance in a field.
After a few seconds, Dee Moray pushed Richard Burton away. In a voice both chiding and sweet, she asked him, “Where have you been?”
“I was looking for you,” Richard Burton said. “It’s been something of an odyssey. But, listen, there’s something I need to tell you. I’m afraid we’ve been the subjects of a frightful bit of deception here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come in. Sit down. I’ll explain the whole thing.” Richard Burton helped her back into her room and the door closed behind them.
Pasquale stood alone in the hallway then, staring at the door, unsure what to do, listening to the hushed conversation inside and trying to decide whether he should simply stand there, or knock on the door and remind them that he was out here, or just go back down to the boat with Tomasso. He yawned and leaned against the wall. He’d been at it for about twenty hours straight. By now, Richard Burton would have told her that she wasn’t dying, that she was in fact pregnant, and yet he heard none of the noises he’d have expected coming from behind the door at the revelation of this news—either a loud expression of anger, or the relief at the truth of her condition, or the shock that she was having a baby. A baby! she might yell. Or ask, A baby? Yet there was nothing behind the door but hushed voices.
Perhaps five minutes passed. Pasquale had just decided to leave when the door opened and Dee Moray came out alone, her robe pulled tight around her. She had been crying. She said nothing, just walked down the hall, her bare feet padding on the carpet. Pasquale pushed off the wall. She put her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. He put his arms around her, the tapered notch of her waist; he felt the silk against her skin, and beneath her soft robe, her breasts against his chest. She smelled like roses and soap and Pasquale was suddenly horrified at the way he must smell after the day he’d had—trips on a bus and in a car and in two fishing boats—and only then did the unbelievable nature of this day fully register. Had he actually begun the day in Rome nearly cast as an extra in the movie Cleopatra? Then Dee Moray began to shudder like the old motor in Tomasso’s boat. He held her for a full minute and tried simply to let the minute be—the firmness of the body beneath the softness of that robe.
Finally, Dee Moray pulled away. She wiped at her eyes and looked into Pasquale’s face. “I don’t know what to say.”
Pasquale shrugged. “Is okay.”
“But I want to say something to you, Pasquale, I need to.” And then she laughed. “Thank you is not nearly enough.”
Pasquale looked down at the floor. Sometimes it was like a deep ache, the simple act of breathing in and out. “No,” he said. “Is enough.”
He pulled from his coat the envelope of money, much lightened since it had been handed to him on the Spanish Steps. “Michael Deane ask for me give you this.” She opened it and shook with revulsion at the bloom of currency. He didn’t mention that some of the money was meant for him; it made him feel complicit. “And these,” Pasquale said, and handed her the continuity photos of herself. On top was the picture of Dee and the other woman on the set of Cleopatra. She covered her mouth when she saw it. Pasquale said, “Michael Deane said I tell you—”
“Don’t ever tell me what that bastard said,” Dee Moray interrupted, not looking up from the photograph. “Please.”
Pasquale nodded.
She still hadn’t looked up from the continuity photos. She pointed to the other woman in the photo, the one with the dark hair, whose arm Dee Moray was holding as she laughed. “She’s actually quite nice,” she said. “It’s funny.” Dee sighed. She flipped through the other pictures and Pasquale realized now that in one of them she was standing grimly with two men, one of whom was Richard Burton.
Dee Moray looked back toward the open door of her hotel room. And then she wiped her teary eyes again. “I guess we’re going to stay here tonight,” she said. “Richard’s awfully tired. He has to go back to France for one more day of shooting. And then he’s going to come with me to Switzerland and . . . we’ll see this doctor together and . . . I guess . . . get it taken care of.”
“Yes,” Pasquale said, the words taken care of hanging in the air. “I am glad . . . you are not sick.”
“Thank you, Pasquale. Me, too.” Her eyes became wet. “I’m going to come back and see you sometime. Is that okay?”
“Yes,” he said, but he didn’t think for a second that he would ever see her again.
“We can hike back up to the bunker, see the paintings again.”
Pasquale just smiled. He concentrated, looking for the words. “The first night, you say something . . . that we don’t know when our story is start, yes?”
Dee nodded.
&n
“But sometimes . . . we are like people in a car on a train, go in same direction. Same story.” He put his hands together. “And I think . . . this is nice, yes?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, and she put her own hands together to show him. “Thank you, Pasquale.” One of her hands fell to Pasquale’s chest and they both stared at it. Then she pulled it away and Pasquale turned to leave, summoning every bit of pride in his body to wear on his back like the shield of the centurion he’d almost become that morning.
“Pasquale!” she called after only a few steps. He turned. And she came down the hallway and kissed him again, and although it was on the lips this time, it was not at all like the kiss she’d given him on the patio outside the Hotel Adequate View. That kiss had been the beginning of something, the moment when it felt like his story was beginning. This was an end, the simple departure of a minor character—him.
She wiped her eyes. “Here,” she said, and she pressed into his hands one of the Polaroid photographs of herself and the woman with dark hair. “To remember me by.”
“No. Is yours.”
“I don’t want that one,” she said. “I have these others.”
“One day you will want it.”
“I’ll tell you what—when I’m old, if I need to convince people that I was in the movies, I’ll come get it. Okay?” She squeezed the picture into his hand, then turned and padded back toward her room and disappeared inside. She closed and latched the door slowly and quietly behind her, like a parent sneaking from the room of a sleeping child.
Pasquale stared at the door. He had wished for this world of the glamorous Americans, and like a dream she had come to his hotel, but now the world was back where it belonged, and he wondered if it would have been better to never have glimpsed what lay behind the door.