INCIDENT ON ISCHIA by Alexis Levitin

James had just finished his sophomore year and was off to Europe for the first time. On the student boat coming over, he met Julia, a pretty girl from Detroit, who said she was a model. For the big costume party, she sat him down on a tiny stool in her narrow cabin and busied herself with transforming his face. Zipping open a large make-up kit, she set to work with a broad smile. After more than an hour of meticulous fussing, she gave a final touch to his eyebrows, delicately smoothed a bit more rouge into his cheeks, and carefully extended the eyeliner just beyond the outer edges of his eyes. She then pulled a wig of lovely auburn hair from a felt bag and placed it snugly on his head, caressing the soft tresses flowing over his ears. James had sat stolidly through it all, amused at her seriousness and a bit tantalized by her soft touch, her slender arms, the smell of her perfume, the gentle hum that seemed to come from deep inside her. He could sense that she was not a virgin and that stirred in his blood both excitement and apprehension.

“Now I’m done, Jim. Wait till you see what you look like. I hate to say it, but I really know my business. Go to the bathroom and take a look in the mirror.”

James got up and walked to the tiny bathroom extension. He turned on the light and there, just two feet away, with a startled look on her face, was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He stared at the mirror, paralyzed. Julia squeezed in behind him, rubbing her soft body against his back, gazing at him in the mirror. They looked like two beautiful sisters, rivals with hidden stilettos, ready to battle for a man’s love. James turned to Julia and, trembling, placed a tentative kiss on her swollen, perfumed lips. He felt he was melting into her and he was petrified. He broke away with an embarrassed little laugh and said “Boy, you’re really good with that make-up. I hardly recognized myself. Wow. Is that me?”

He (or was it she?) won second place in the masquerade ball later that evening. After the contest, he and Julia danced together on the swaying dancefloor. She pressed her soft body close to his and breathed into his ear. His blood begin to pulse and he couldn’t tell if what he was hearing was the insistent pounding of rock and roll or the thumping of his own heart. He felt mesmerized and terrified. Later, he wrote her address and phone number in his little black book, but he did not dare return to her stateroom, throbbing with the engines far below deck. They parted amiably in Southampton and never saw each other again.

Since this was his first time in Europe, James wanted to gobble it all down. He started with Westminster Abbey, London Bridge, Stonehenge, and Stratford-upon-Avon, where a girl with pretty bangs, a tight skirt, and an embarrassing set of misaligned teeth had accosted him, but with an uneasy smile he had evaded her. Then he had crossed the channel, descending to Paris. There he had visited the Louvre, with its disturbing Mona Lisa. He knew the painting was famous, but that mysterious smile, if it was a smile, made him uncomfortable and he was happy to move along towards landscapes, where he felt more at ease. He had gone, of course, to the Eifel Tower and gazed down on the city from its dizzying height. He had visited Notre Dame and remembered Esmeralda from the famous novel. He wandered the narrow streets of Montmartre, where women smoked their cigarettes and gave passing men hard looks. Their skirts were short and very tight. James stared, swallowed hard, then turned away.

After Paris, he began to hitchhike, first to the Valley of the Loire, then on to Avignon, then down to Nice, Monte Carlo, Menton, then over the border into Italy. After Siena, Florence, and Rome, he headed south towards Naples. A friendly young Italian, on his way home, picked him up and said he would take him to near the port in Naples. James had his school French and a bit of Italian from the Fellini movies and they managed to chat amiably, taking turns mangling a hodge-podge of French, Italian, and a bit of English. Gianni didn’t know many words in English, but his accent was a delight. Suddenly, however, on the northern outskirts of town, spotting an attractive prostitute, he pulled over, screeching to a halt. “Scusi, I have to stop here, maybe I can pick you up again later,” and helped James drag his knapsack out of the back seat and onto the side of the road.

They were almost in the city and there was too much traffic for good hitch-hiking. James felt swallowed up in the shabby, bustling urban scene and held out his thumb without much hope. In fact, it would have been hard for anyone to stop in the press of late afternoon traffic, and no one did. However, after twenty minutes, Gianni reappeared, pulled over, and nervously helped him throw his knapsack into the backseat, then, with a screeching of tires, pulled back into the flow, looking anxiously in the rear-view mirror. James wondered if his friend had skipped out without paying, but he could hardly ask. He was grateful for the continued ride and remarked on the good looks of the girl his companion had pursued. The Neapolitano glanced at him astonished and simply said “Tutte le puttane sono cattive.” James was abashed but could say nothing.

Twenty minutes later, Gianni, with a smile, a slap on the back, and a “Ciao, Giacomo,” dropped him near the port, and, with a beep and a wave, roared out of sight. James found a pensione in a third-floor walk-up, had spaghetti for dinner in the restaurant downstairs, and got a thick chocolate ice cream cone at the corner gelateria. Though there was plenty of noise rising from the street below, he slept well and awoke the next morning with a smile, ready for a day of adventure. Grabbing his backpack, he headed for the port, where he quickly found a cruise to the island of Capri, with its famous Blue Grotto. On the tourist boat there was a slender American girl in pink sneakers. She had an energetic ponytail and a broad white forehead, and was accompanied by a rather severe looking mother, who kept her arms crossed over her breasts. James looked at the girl there in the magical reflecting light of the Blue Grotto and wished he had the courage to take her picture. He was sure she was a virgin. His eyes returned to her again and again, but when she looked back, he always looked away. To him she seemed as pure as the crystalline waters of the Blue Grotto itself. He felt that he was sullying her with his gaze, but he couldn’t stop looking. However, the erect carriage and severe grey eyes of the mother were enough to preclude even the thought of talking to her. He sighed and accepted the nature of things.

Back in the port, he saw that a boat was leaving in half an hour for Ischia. His English professor had mentioned that famous poets had lived or at least stayed on Ischia. Theodore Roethke, whom he would be reading in a seminar with the same professor next fall, and W.H. Auden, whose poem “Lay your sleeping head my love/human on my faithless arm” had stirred him with its melancholic wisdom, even as he felt that much of it was beyond his grasp. He really had to go back to that poem, when he returned to college in September, give it another read, another try.

By mid-afternoon he was stretched out on a sandy beach, his rucksack safely stowed away in the backroom of a seaside restaurant. He swam for half an hour in the salty warm water, then stretched out again, absorbing the late summer sun. Then he thought he would explore the interior of the island. Behind the beach there seemed to be a network of sandy paths winding in a desultory way toward low lying hills. Stuffing his towel into a small day bag, he put on his rubber sandals and started walking away from the sea.

Out of nowhere, or so it seemed, a nattily dressed gentleman appeared and, with a warm smile, said “Guten Tag.” James replied with some formality, for the man was dressed in immaculately white linen trousers and a thin white shirt, almost like gossamer. “Good afternoon,” he said. And then added, “I don’t speak German, alas.” “Peut-etre francais, alors,” said the gentleman. “Oui, c’est mieux pour moi.” And they wandered away from the open beach, side by side, on branching sandy byways, toward the interior. The gentleman said he was from Vienna, but always spent the summer here on Ischia. He said he would show the newcomer a fine natural mud pool of great medicinal value. A very healthy mud-bath, he said. And on they wandered till, in fact, they came upon a pool of thick mud. James stooped and touched the warm and ugly mixture. “Yes, a natural mud-bath, I see,” he offered awkwardly.

“You can go in, it is very healthy. If you don’t want to get your bathing suit dirty, you can take it off. There is no one here.”

“That’s OK,” James replied. “Glad to have seen it, but I don’t really want to go in.”

“It is very healthy. If you don’t want to get your bathing suit dirty, you can take it off. There is no one here.”

Finally, James understood the meaning of their wandering journey into the island’s interior. As he stood their irresolute, the dapper Viennese said “Voulez-vous faire le pompier?” James, already uneasy, was made more so by his failure to understand the gentleman’s question. “Je ne comprends pas,” he said. “I don’t understand.” The gentleman was indignant. “ Mais vous m’avez dit, you told me you speak French,” he retorted with severity. “I do speak French. I know every word you just said,” James declared, rather indignant himself. “But I don’t know what your’re saying. It’s an expression, isn’t it?” At this point, the gentleman from Vienna pulled himself together and, with great care, shifted to the language of his unenlightened walking companion. With great precision and delicacy he said

“Would you like to go in the bushes with the private parts?”

James had to say something.

“No thank you,” was his polite, if somehow lame response.

“Are you sure?” said his dapper companion.

There was a silence, broken only by the buzzing of a fly.

“I’m sure,” said James.

“Well then” said the well-bred Viennese, “Auf Wiedersehen.” He brought his ivory-colored espadrilles together with an almost military elan, and, standing very erect, he whirled around, turned his back, and in a moment had disappeared utterly from sight.

James stood for a moment dumbfounded, then headed back to the open beach. This summer in Europe was proving more than he could have imagined. He realized now that he had been neglecting an important part of his education. He decided that when he got back to campus in the fall, he would immediately sign up for advanced French and maybe even an introductory course in German. He sensed that he was woefully behind his European counterparts, perhaps woefully behind Julia, as well. But, he consoled himself, it was never too late to begin to learn something new.

Alexis Levitin translates works from Portugal, Brazil, and Ecuador. His forty-eight books of translation include Clarice Lispector’s Soulstorm and Eugenio de Andrade’s Forbidden Words, both from New Directions. In 2010, he edited Brazil: A Traveler’s Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press). Recent books from Brazil include Astrid Cabral’s Cage and Gazing Through Water and five collections by Salgado Maranhão: Blood of the Sun, Tiger Fur, Palavora, Mapping the Tribe and Consecration of the Wolves. Recent books from Portugal include The Art of Patience and Furrows of Thirst by Eugenio de Andrade, Exemplary Tales by Portugal’s leading woman writer, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, and Cattle of the Lord by Rosa Alice Branco. Recent books from Ecuador include Tobacco Dogs by Ana Minga, Destruction in the Afternoon by Santiago Vizcaíno, and Outrage by Carmen Váscones. He has been the recipient of two NEA Translation Awards and a participant in two NEH summer seminars. He was a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in Oporto and Coimbra, Portugal in 1980. He was a Fulbright International Specialist teaching Shakespeare and the Translation of American Women Poets into Spanish at the Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil, Ecuador, in 2015. IN 2018, he served again as a Fulbright Specialist, teaching Shakespeare, William Blake, and Emily Dickinson, as well as the translation of Contemporary American Women Poets into Portuguese at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil. In addition, he has held translation residencies at Banff, Canada, Straelen, Germany (twice), and the Rockefeller Foundation Study Center in Bellagio, Italy.