outside of the house. But they were all over the inside of the house as well. Now that we knew what to look for, we saw them everywhere — crawling on bookshelves, up flowerpots, across the tiles and planks of the floors, up walls, along ceilings. When we understood how plentiful they were, we began yelling with delight. Claire joined us on our hunt without understanding what, exactly, we were hunting for. When Harry showed her the mass of spiders underneath the living-room sofa, she herded us all out of the house again, and this time she wouldn’t let us go back inside.
These were the zebra spiders — minute spiders that could leap from the floor to a tabletop and were as wily a prey as minnows. They weren’t as beautiful as the ghost moths, but they were more interesting to us. To Claire, they were a new and worse kind of pest, somehow expressive of a mute hostility. If the house had an animate spirit, this spirit had taken a strong dislike to us, and with the moths and spiders meant to drive us away. And if the house were just a house, it was proving itself uninhabitable.
That same afternoon, Claire ordered us to stay outside until she returned, and she walked to Lorenzo’s villa, where she put to him an ultimatum: he would see to it that the Le Foci house was free of pests or the Murdochs would break the lease. Lorenzo poured her a glass of wine and promised to help. If the villa didn’t suit the Signora, he would find her another villa —
una villa più bella,
he assured her. He smiled gently, his mustache flattening across his upper lip. Claire felt startled by his kindness and recognized how excessive her distress must have seemed. She sipped her wine. When he offered her a cigarette she accepted, though she hadn’t smoked for years.
The problem was easily resolved, thanks to Lorenzo’s graciousness. For the same rent, he provided us with a new house in the hills between Marciana and Marciana Marina, with a magnificent view of the sea. Claire accepted before she even saw the place. And she made all the arrangements to move without even consulting Murray, sparing him from the distraction of life.
Some days the vibrancy of colors on the island astonished him; other days the clouds hung low to the ground, the air was thick with smoke from burning rubbish, and he couldn’t understand what the Italians were saying to him. Elba held no certain answers. But Murray grew increasingly resolute. He didn’t want to leave the island without taking with him a deed to Elban land. He hired a surveyor, Carlo Giovanni, who had recently lost his job in the local mining industry. Carlo wouldn’t give Murray a straight answer. Either the land on the east side of the island was worth more than the land on the west side, or the land on the west side was worth more than the land on the east side. Either Murray would prosper, or he’d fail.
He kept mislaying maps and forgetting appointments. He heard some men in a bar in Portoferraio laughing, and he knew they were laughing at him. Still, he wasn’t close to giving up. Often he didn’t come home for pranzo and siesta. Instead, he’d trail Carlo over rock croppings and through chestnut woods. Francis Cape tagged along and proved so useful as a translator that Murray offered to pay him, but Francis said he preferred the status of a volunteer.
If Murray could only put a claim down, he’d feel better. There was plenty of land to buy and plenty of islanders who wanted to sell. But where to begin. When to begin? How?
Uncertainty was beginning to make him agitated. He was losing sleep. He rattled lame jokes for his guests in order to keep them at dinners that lasted for hours. He shrugged when Claire announced that we were changing residences. He wasn’t home to help pack. And on the morning we were scheduled to move, he left the house early, before the rest of us had woken, he trailed the surveyor all day, and in the early evening he rode his motorcycle right past Marciana
These were the zebra spiders — minute spiders that could leap from the floor to a tabletop and were as wily a prey as minnows. They weren’t as beautiful as the ghost moths, but they were more interesting to us. To Claire, they were a new and worse kind of pest, somehow expressive of a mute hostility. If the house had an animate spirit, this spirit had taken a strong dislike to us, and with the moths and spiders meant to drive us away. And if the house were just a house, it was proving itself uninhabitable.
That same afternoon, Claire ordered us to stay outside until she returned, and she walked to Lorenzo’s villa, where she put to him an ultimatum: he would see to it that the Le Foci house was free of pests or the Murdochs would break the lease. Lorenzo poured her a glass of wine and promised to help. If the villa didn’t suit the Signora, he would find her another villa —
una villa più bella,
he assured her. He smiled gently, his mustache flattening across his upper lip. Claire felt startled by his kindness and recognized how excessive her distress must have seemed. She sipped her wine. When he offered her a cigarette she accepted, though she hadn’t smoked for years.
The problem was easily resolved, thanks to Lorenzo’s graciousness. For the same rent, he provided us with a new house in the hills between Marciana and Marciana Marina, with a magnificent view of the sea. Claire accepted before she even saw the place. And she made all the arrangements to move without even consulting Murray, sparing him from the distraction of life.
Some days the vibrancy of colors on the island astonished him; other days the clouds hung low to the ground, the air was thick with smoke from burning rubbish, and he couldn’t understand what the Italians were saying to him. Elba held no certain answers. But Murray grew increasingly resolute. He didn’t want to leave the island without taking with him a deed to Elban land. He hired a surveyor, Carlo Giovanni, who had recently lost his job in the local mining industry. Carlo wouldn’t give Murray a straight answer. Either the land on the east side of the island was worth more than the land on the west side, or the land on the west side was worth more than the land on the east side. Either Murray would prosper, or he’d fail.
He kept mislaying maps and forgetting appointments. He heard some men in a bar in Portoferraio laughing, and he knew they were laughing at him. Still, he wasn’t close to giving up. Often he didn’t come home for pranzo and siesta. Instead, he’d trail Carlo over rock croppings and through chestnut woods. Francis Cape tagged along and proved so useful as a translator that Murray offered to pay him, but Francis said he preferred the status of a volunteer.
If Murray could only put a claim down, he’d feel better. There was plenty of land to buy and plenty of islanders who wanted to sell. But where to begin. When to begin? How?
Uncertainty was beginning to make him agitated. He was losing sleep. He rattled lame jokes for his guests in order to keep them at dinners that lasted for hours. He shrugged when Claire announced that we were changing residences. He wasn’t home to help pack. And on the morning we were scheduled to move, he left the house early, before the rest of us had woken, he trailed the surveyor all day, and in the early evening he rode his motorcycle right past Marciana
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