The Fourth Circle

Rhodos 1913-1

Rhodos 1913

The door on the left of the corridor at the ground floor of the Italian Command Center in Rhodos opened only to get stuck at the bulging floorboard with the usual enervating metallic screech. Mario kept on signing the orders of the day, not out of any particular zeal but because he was bored stiff of Sgt Liborrio’s chatter.

‘Later, sergeant. I’ll call you. For the time being, I don’t want to be disturbed unless we come under attack’.

‘Captain Rossi?’

The sweet voice certainly did not belong to Liborrio. He slowly lifted his eyes and got lost. Blue-green seas covered him. The most beautiful creature he had even laid eyes on was standing in the middle of the miserable room of his office. La nascita de Venere. Botticelli’s Allegory of Spring…

‘Himself…’ he heard his voice.

‘I need your help’.

She looked at him with worry, her eyes acquiring a bluish vivid shade. Mario got up and around half of the desk that stood between them. “Damn, how beautiful she is”. He showed her the disheveled chair before them.

‘Please, take a seat, Miss. What’s the problem?’

‘We are running out of time. It’s a matter of life and death. Romeo. We must hurry’.

“So, there was a Romeo…”

‘Relax…What happened to…’

“What kind of asshole was that Romeo…?”

‘I don’t understand what I can do…’

‘Find him and bring him back’.

“What’s happening here…?”

‘Miss, you must have been misled. This is…’

‘I’m sure he’s hiding in the castle. He sees it as a game. For someone to enter and look for him, he must have permission from you. I’ll just die if I don’t find him’.

‘Yes…I see…’ “Lucky son of a b***h, that Romeo…”.

‘If he comes across some snake…A large dog or something…I don’t want to think about it. He’s so tiny’.

‘Excuse me, what exactly did you say you lost, Miss?’

‘My puppy!’

It was the last thing he expected to hear. He suppressed a smile. This was starting to be fun.

‘Your puppy! This is a very serious matter. Where did you lose your Romeo, Miss?’

‘At Porta Marina. Something must have spooked him. I ran after him. I called him. It was as if he wasn’t listening to me…’

He kept gazing at her. “Her lips need kissing…”

‘At Porta Marina…You are sure about that…’

She blushed under his persistent look.

‘Yes…’

He was enjoying her.

‘About half an hour ago…at most…’

‘And you saw him running towards the castle…’

‘I saw him running to the castle…’

He was breathing her in. Wild flowers. Some white transparent little lilies that appear in March on the Camogli hills. Tender and brave. Little teardrops they called them. When did they come that close? He could almost feel the warmth of the body.

‘Will you help me…?

‘We’ll do something about it…’

His eyes looked furtively at her lips. How did they taste? He wanted the taste of their tender flesh in his mouth.

‘I…’

They budged at the whisper. She closed her eyes, almost leaning on him in anticipation of the kiss. He would kiss her. Instead of that, he escaped at the open window with a deep breath that she didn’t see. The young lady was too dangerous. He could even fall in love with her.

‘Fato! He called up a soldier who was feeding a stray dog out of his can, at the courtyard of the Command.

Fato was the perfect antidote. He avoided looking at her as he was waiting for Fato to cross the little distance between the entrance and half the corridor and the door to his office. But he didn’t fail to see the manner she was looking at her. Fato appeared, presented himself and stood to attention.

‘At your orders, captain’.

‘Fato! You will help the young lady find her little puppy. You will do what she asks you to. It’s an order. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir captain sir’.

The only certain thing was that Fato hadn’t understood a thing, but that could wait. What was of utmost importance was to keep danger at bay. And now, he had to turn and look at her to save face.

‘You’ll be escorted by private Fato. You can trust him. He’s very capable. I wish you good luck with your Romeo’.

He saw her raise the perfect arcs of her eyebrows.

‘And you? Won’t you join us, captain?’

‘I’m on duty. I cannot leave my post. Unless there is a very serious reason’.

‘Then…the only thing left for me to do is to thank you for everything you did for me’.

‘I haven’t done anything yet, Miss…’

‘Sana…Sana Diaz, captain…’

Mario restricted himself to a constrained smile. The indecipherable expression on his face turned into a frigid mask as the door closed behind her.

He combed the floors, racked the floorboards, smoked quite a few cigarettes, until he made up his mind. He stepped out to the courtyard and went straight to the sentry. He meant to ask him one thing but asked him quite another, instead.

‘How did the young lady go through? Why did you let her come through?’

The sentry was cornered.

‘She said that you were expecting her, captain, sir. She used your name’.

Was he inventing all that to save himself from ass chewing? He couldn’t be certain. What would he do now? Get into a fight with the whole company because Sana Diaz had entered his office or perhaps because she had exited his life...?

‘Aha…’

‘That’s right, captain, sir…’

“Right”. He went back to his office. She sent off a scent of little lilies in bloom. “Right”.

‘Liborrio!’

‘At your orders, sir captain, sir’.

Every single time, he confirmed that Sergeant Liborrio was spending half of his life behind the closed doors of the Command.

‘I’m expecting an answer to my request for a transfer…’

‘It’s coming through the official channels, sir. After he had to speak to Rome more than ten times.

“So the general signed the order…Indubitably, Liborrio was a reliable source”.

‘Thank you, sergeant. Dismissed’.

The sergeant paused a little.

‘Why are you leaving, captain sir?’

He had no wish to discuss the reasons that made him leave the privileged post his powerful uncle had secured for him for the uncertainty of Tripoli.

‘Not now, sergeant, I haven’t yet finished with those f*****g signatures.

‘You lost her!’

He sprang out of his chair like a jack-in-a-box.

‘What do you mean you lost her? Where did you lose her? How did you lose her? When did you lose her?’

Fato was at a loss for words.

‘At the Palazzo...’

If he meant the Palazzo of Grand Magister, because no one could be certain with Fato, then this thing was getting serious.

‘This is a wreck! Why did you let her go there?’

He was shouting. Fato quivered like a beaten dog. Mario cursed himself inside, regretting it. There was no point taking it out on Fato. He was to blame. His primitive survival instinct had given him fair warning. Miss Diaz was not at all the vulnerable wildflower of the gentle hills. She was one of those rare flowers that grow near the craters of volcanoes. He knew how to take what he wanted. He got his hat and got out. “Rossi, you’re running after her!”, his own self was undermining him. “And you are doing it because you want to see her again like crazy …”

‘I’ll be out for an hour or so’, he spat on the sentry angrily.

He left the military car at the port and walked to Porta Marina. He stepped out on the sea side. A narrow causeway, used in the old days by fishermen who pulled their boats ashore and cleaned their nets, separated the coast from the thick, medieval walls. Now it was empty, strewn with abandoned boats, since Italian Command forbid any movement at sea. She was waiting for him, exactly as he had imagined. He focused on Romeo, faking indifference. He picked up the puppy in his palm, stroked it, let it see him and smell him, he spoke to him tenderly and sometime afterwards, he surrendered him to Sana’s embrace. After a last desiring look to Mario, Romeo hid his snout into Sana’s bosom. Mario had some trouble where to put his hands and where to look. He pulled out his pack of cigarettes, put it back, put his hands in his pocket and, at long last, he looked at her. He tottered on his boots and tried to smile.

‘So, we meet again…’

‘He liked you, captain’

‘Romeo! Yes, of course! Me too…very much in fact…I’m glad you found him!’

‘Yes, we’ve found him’.

‘So, everything’s good, then…’

‘Everything’s good’

‘Well, then…’

‘Then what?’

‘I’d better be going…’

‘You’d better be going’.

‘And you? Are you going to stay here?’

‘We are going to stay here’.

‘I’m only saying this because it’s a bit of a deserted spot’.

‘I got Romeo, here, are you forgetting?’

‘Right…’

‘Right’.

‘Well then, there is nothing else to do than bid you goodnight’.

‘Goodnight’.

‘Goodnight, then…’

‘Goodnight, captain’.

He turned to go, certain that he had hit bottom at the barrel of self-humiliation. Rock bottom.

‘Captain, why did you come?’

He turned around completely. After his initial surprise, he thought that in military jargon that would be called “weapon misplacement”.

‘Fato…that is, not exactly…I…Afterwards I thought…I thought responsible for you’ He said at the end.

They remained looking at each other’s eyes.

‘You didn’t come for Romeo…did you?’ he spoke first.

Instead of an answer, Sana kissed him on the corner of his lips.

‘I came for you’, she said then.

‘Why?’

‘I saw you at the port in the morning, I liked you, I asked around, and there I was. You, however, why did you come all the way out here?’

Mario kept silent.

‘Won’t you say a word?’

A disorderly lock of black silk was caressing her cheek softly. He pushed it aside with two of his fingers and stole another moment, before pulling his hand back.

‘It just can’t happen like that…’

‘Why not?’

‘Because…in a few days I’m off to Libya.

A protracted pause ensued that was gently broken by the sea breeze.

‘You’ll come back…’ Sana whispered.

‘How do you know?’

It sounded aggressive, like an assault. As if words had touched a hidden wound.

‘I know so…’

The warmth in her eyes welled up in tears. It engulfed him whole.

‘How do you know?’ He asked more softly.

‘I can feel it. It is destiny that we should be together’.

‘We’ll lose each other…’

‘I’ll wait for you. I would even for a lifetime…’

‘Sana, my sweet…’ a male voice interrupted.

Both turned. The man, around thirty-five approached with a stern look. His whole interest was focused on Mario. The two men looked at each other their eyes dueling in the air.

‘Is there a problem? He asked. The generous tone of his deep voice indicated that he was addressing Sana but he was staring at Mario. The girl linked arms with him and smiled.

‘None…The captain was asking if I needed any help’.

‘Let us not keep you, young man…’

Mario managed to withhold his impulse to throw a good punch right in the face of that detestable guy, and succeeded in sounding in control.

‘Captain Mario Rossi’. He corrected him steadily.

The man’s eyes turned into two grey slits.

‘I’d say that name sounds familiar…’

‘It is quite common’.

‘Perhaps…Thanks for taking care of my fiancée, captain…Rossi.

‘Don’t mention it, Mr…’

‘Komninos. Dimitris Komninos’.

‘I’d say that name sounds familiar…’

‘It is quite common’.

‘Perhaps…A pleasure to have been of help to your fiancée Mr…Komninos’.

After a killer glare, Komninos turned to Sana with a totally different mood.

‘Shall we go, my dear?’

Mario remained on the spot. He saw them walking away along the coast, darker than death.

The sun was waning in the Aegean under an explosively lilac sky…

‘Big-time ship owner. Based in London. He met Miss Diaz two years ago in Paris. Her family is from Salonica. The whole family is on the island. Her father participates at the conference of Italian businessmen organized by the Swiss Bocher Group. They’re being accommodated at general Ameglio’s villa. But you know this already. There will be a reception in their honor this coming Sunday. But you know this, too. You have been invited. Will you attend?’

He was listening to Fato, sitting in the chair behind his desk, his eyes fixed on the letter opener he was fingering.

‘Fato, I don’t want any other citizen to complain that you were racing through town in the army car. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, sir, captain, sir’.

Fato made sure the door wouldn’t get stuck in the bulging floorboard this time. Mario threw the letter opener on the desktop, kicked the chair back and got up. He stepped out into the moonless night. He just couldn’t wrench her out of her mind…