Stories: All-New Tales

I heard a silvery tinkling somewhere above me.

She was

already on

the stairs and

climbing into the

stars with her white

dress swinging from her

hips and the bracelet around

her ankle so bright in the gloom.

My

heart

thudded,

a cask flung

down a staircase:

doom doom doom doom.

I knew the hills better

than anyone and I ran another

way, making a steep climb up crude

steps of mud to get ahead of her, then

rejoining the main path up to Sulle Scale.

I still had the silver coin the Saracen prince

had given her, when she went to him and dishonored

me by begging him to pay me the wage I was properly owed.

I put

his silver

in a tin cup

I had and slowed

to a walk and went

along shaking his Judas

coin in my old battered mug.

Such a pretty ringing it made in

the echoing canyons, on the stairs,

in the night, high above Positano and the

crash and sigh of the sea, as the tide consummated

the desire of water to pound the earth into submission.

At

last,

pausing

to catch my

breath, I saw

a candleflame leap

up off in the darkness.

It was in a handsome ruin,

a place of high granite walls

matted with wildflowers and ivy.

A vast entryway looked into a room

with a grass floor and a roof of stars,

as if the place had been built, not to give

shelter from the natural world, but to protect a

virgin corner of wildness from the violation of man.

Then

again it

seemed a pagan

place, the natural

setting for an orgy hosted

by fauns with their goaty hooves,

their flutes and their furred cocks.

So the archway into that private courtyard

of weeds and summer green seemed the entrance

to a hall awaiting revelers for a private bacchanal.

He

waited

on spread

blanket, with

a bottle of the

Don’s wine and some

books and he smiled at

the tinkling sound of my

approach but stopped when I

came into the light, a block of

rough stone already in my free hand.

I

killed

him there.

I did

not kill

him out of

family honor

or jealousy, did

not hit him with the

stone because he had laid

claim to Lithodora’s cool white

body, which she would never offer me.

I

hit

him with

the block of

stone because I

hated his black face.

After

I stopped

hitting him,

I sat with him.

I think I took his

wrist to see if he had

a pulse, but after I knew

he was dead, I went on holding

his hand listening to the hum of the

crickets in the grass, as if he were a

small child, my child, who had only drifted

off after fighting sleep for a very long time.

What

brought

me out of

my stupor was

the sweet music

of bells coming up

the stairs toward us.

I leapt

up and ran

but Dora was

already there,

coming through the

doorway, and I nearly

struck her on my way by.

She reached out for me with

one of her delicate white hands

and said my name but I did not stop.

I took the stairs three at a time, running

without thought, but I was not fast enough and

I heard her when she shouted his name, once and again.

I

don’t

know where

I was running.

Sulle Scale, maybe,

though I knew they would

look for me there first once

Lithodora went down the steps and

told them what I had done to the Arab.

I did not slow down until I was gulping for

air and my chest was filled with fire and then

I leaned against a gate at the side of the path—

you know

what gate—

and it

swung open

at first touch.

I went through the

gate and started down

the steep staircase beyond.

I thought no one will look for

me here and I can hide a while and—

No.

I

thought,

these stairs

will lead to the

road and I will head

north to Napoli and buy

a ticket for a ship to the U.S.

and take a new name, start a new—

No.

Enough.

The truth:

I

believed

the stairs

led down into

hell and hell was

where I wanted to go.

The

steps

at first

were of old

white stone, but

as I continued along

they grew sooty and dark.

Other staircases merged with

them here and there, descending

from other points on the mountain.

I couldn’t see how that was possible.

I thought I had walked all the flights of

stairs in the hills, except for the steps I

was on and I couldn’t think for the life of me

where those other staircases might be coming from.

The

forest

around me

had been purged

by fire at some time

in the not so far-off past,

and I made my descent through

stands of scorched, shattered pines,

the hillside all blackened and charred.

Only there had been no fire on that part of

the hill, not for as long as I could remember.

The breeze carried on it an unmistakable warmth.

I began to feel unpleasantly overheated in my clothes.

I

followed

the staircase

round a switchback

and saw below me a boy

sitting on a stone landing.

He

had a

collection

of curious wares

spread on a blanket.

There was a wind-up tin

bird in a cage, a basket of

white apples, a dented gold lighter.

There was a jar and in the jar was light.

This light would increase in brightness until

the landing was lit as if by the rising sun, and

then it would collapse into darkness, shrinking to a

single point like some impossibly brilliant lightning bug.

He

smiled

to see me.

He had golden

hair and the most

beautiful smile I have

ever seen on a child’s face

and I was afraid of him—even

before he called out to me by name.

I pretended I didn’t hear him, pretended

he wasn’t there, that I didn’t see him, walked

right past him. He laughed to see me hurrying by.

The

farther

I went the

steeper it got.

There seemed to be

a light below, as if