"Nicholas Royle - Flying Into Naples" - читать интересную книгу автора (Royle Nicholas)

expression on her face. What a face, though, what extraordinary beauty.
She was good looking when we first met, of course, but in the intervening
years she has grown into a stunning woman. I fear to lean forward and kiss
her cheeks lest she crumbles beneath my touch. But the look is blank. I
don't know if she recognises me. I say her name then my own and I must
assume her acquiescence -- as she turns back into the hall and hesitates
momentarily -- to be an invitation. So I follow her. She walks slowly but
with the same lightness of step that I remember from before.
As I follow her into the apartment I'm drawn immediately to the far side
of the main room where there's a balcony with a spectacular view over the
Bay of Naples and, right in the centre at the back, Mount Vesuvius.
Unaware of where Flavia has disappeared to I stand there watching the view
for some minutes. Naples is built on hills and one of them rises from the
sea to dominate the left middle ground, stepped with huge crumbling
apartment buildings and sliced up by tapering streets and alleys that dig
deeper the narrower they become. The whole city hums like a hive and cars
and scooters buzz about like drones. But the main attraction is Vesuvius.
What a place to build a city: in the shadow of a volcano.
It's a while before I realise Flavia has returned and is standing behind
me as I admire the view.
"What do you want to do while you are in Naples?" she asks with a level
voice. "You'll stay here, of course."
"You're very kind. I meant to give you some notice but I don't think I had
the right phone number." I show her the number in my book.
"I changed it," she says as she sits in one of the wicker chairs and
indicates for me to do the same. "I've been widowed six times," she says
and then falls silent. "It's easier."
I don't know what to say. I think she must have intended to say something
else -- made a mistake with her English -- although she seems so grey and
lifeless herself that the statement may well have been true.
We sit on her balcony for half an hour looking out over the city and the
volcano on the far side of the bay, during which time I formulate several
lines with which to start a fresh conversation but each one remains
unspoken. Something in her passivity frightens me. It seems at odds with
the щlan of the city in which she lives.
But Flavia speaks first. "With this view," she says slowly, "it is
impossible not to watch the volcano, to become obsessed by it."
I nod.
"My father was alive when it last erupted," she continues, "in 1944. Now
Vesuvio is dormant. Do you want to see Naples?" she asks, turning towards
me.
"Yes, very much."
We leave the apartment and Flavia leads the way to a beaten-up old Fiat
Uno. Her driving is a revelation: once in the car and negotiating the
hairpin, double-parked roads leading downtown Flavia is a completely
different woman. Here is the lively, passionate girl I knew in London. She
takes on other drivers with the determination and verve she showed in my
room overlooking the hotel car park when we took it in turns to sit
astride each other. She rode me then as she now drives the Fiat, throwing
it into 180-degree corners and touching her foot to the floor on the