The Angry Mountain

by Innes Hammond

‘Is there some ice?’ I nodded. ‘Then I will have a White Lady.’ She gave a little grimace to stop me making the obvious crack.

I mixed the drink and as I handed it to her I said, ‘Why exactly did you suggest coming out here?’

She looked up at me. Then her lips curved in a slow smile and she caressed the keys of the piano with one hand. ‘Don’t you know?’ Her eyebrows arched. ‘Here I can do as I please and there is nobody to tell my husband that he is a cuckold.’ She suddenly threw back her head and gave a brazen laugh. ‘You fool, Dick! You know nothing about Italy, do you? You are here for two years during the war and you know nothing — nothing.’ She banged the keys of the piano with sudden violence. Then she finished her drink and began to play again.

I stood there, listening to her, feeling awkward and somehow shy. She was so different from any woman I’d ever met before. I wanted her. And yet something stood in the way — native reserve, my damned leg; I don’t know. The music swelled to a passionate note of urgency and she began to sing. Then Agostinb came in to announce dinner and the spell was broken.

I don’t remember what we had to eat, but I do remember the wine — lovely, soft, golden wine, smooth as silk with a rich, heady bouquet. And after the meal there were nuts and fruit and aleatico, that heavy wine from the Island of Elba. Zina kept my glass constantly filled. It was almost as though she wanted to get me drunk. The smooth mounds of her breasts seemed to rise up out of the shoulderless dress, the ruby blazed red at her throat and her eyes were large and very green. I began to feel muzzy. The pushing of my blood became merged with the gentle putter of the electric light plant outside in the stillness of the night.

Coffee and liqueurs were served in the other room. Zina played to me for a bit, but she seemed restless, switching from one tune to another and from mood to mood. Her eyes kept glancing towards me. They were bright, almost greedy. Suddenly she slammed her hands on to the keys with a murderous cacophony of sound and got to her feet. She poured herself another drink and then came and sat beside me on the couch and let me touch her. Her lips when I kissed them were warm and open, but there was a tenseness about her body as it lay against me. Once she murmured, ‘I wish you were not such a nice person, Dick.’ She said it very softly and when I asked her what she meant, she smiled and stroked my hair. But a moment later the madonna look was gone. She was listening and there was a hungry look in her eyes that I didn’t understand.

It was then that I heard the aircraft. It was flying very low, its engines just ticking over. I jerked upright, listening, waiting for the crash. It seemed to pass right over the villa, so low that I thought I could hear the sound of the slipstream. The engines were throttled right back and after a moment’s silence they roared into life and then stuttered to a stop. ‘I believe it’s landed,’ I said. I had half-risen to my feet, but she pulled me back. ‘They often pass over here like that,’ she said. ‘It is the plane from Messina.’

I rubbed my hand over my eyes. I started to tell her that the plane from Messina wouldn’t be flying from east to west, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. I was too drunk to care.

Roberto came in then. He didn’t knock. He just walked straight in and stood there, staring at me with an angry, sullen, animal look. Zina pushed me away from her and got to her feet. They talked together for a moment in low voices. Roberto was looking at her now, his features heavy and coarse with desire. I wasn’t so drunk I didn’t know what the look on his face meant. They reminded me of King Shahryar’s Queen and the blackamoor and I began to laugh. Zina turned at the sound of my laughter. The blood drained from her face so that her eyes were big and dark and angry. She dismissed Roberto and then came towards me. ‘Why do you laugh?’ Her voice was tight with rage.

I couldn’t stop myself. I suppose it was the drink. It seemed so damned funny. She was leaning over me now, her face white. ‘Stop it. Do you hear? Stop it.’ I think she knew why I was laughing, for she suddenly hit me across the face. ‘Stop it, I tell you,’ she screamed at me. Whether it was her voice, which was not pleasant, or the blow, I don’t know, but I stopped laughing.