Slawka G. Scarso | Stromboli by Night

Stromboli by Night

Slawka G. Scarso

As we leave the village, headlamps pointing at the ground in front of us, I can smell broom. Even in the darkness, I can picture it: yellow and thick, the way children paint the sun. But I don’t mention it to you.

The slope is gentle, at first, the path clean, and I sense delicate, ephemeral caper flowers, and wild fennel. But I don’t make you notice, like I usually would.

As we move on the uneven path, carved on the sides of Stromboli’s crater, I don’t tell you to mind your step when I find a rock in the middle. Instead, I feel an unsettling relief, when I hear you trip; and disappointment, when a stranger behind you saves you. I hear you saying Oops, I almost fell, and that nervous laugh of yours that I used to find endearing, but I don’t ask whether you’re ok.

I don’t mention the first time the wind brings the heat, a waft of hot air, like an oven opened to check a steaming pie. Nor the second.

I don’t tell you we’re almost there.

And I don’t point at the little boats, a constellation of lights on the surface of the water, watching us.

I walk on, and I walk up, among the dry-stone walls, the terraced plots, and then the weeds, the ferns, the lichens, the heat coming stronger and stronger with the wind, till there are no more weeds, no more ferns, no more lichens: we are there. We watch the rocks, freshly ejected from this rift in the earth, roaring, rolling above the lava and into the sea; plunging in the water, splashing steam.

With the corner of my eye, I see you standing right on the edge of the flowing lava, our guide telling you to be careful.

‘What’s wrong?’ you whisper, and when you turn, your headlamp is not pointing at my face, but at my feet. That’s how I know you already know, even before I pull out the note I found in your jacket when you went to book this tour in the village, even before you find the courage to point at it: Usual place? Usual time? it says, in round, youthful, joyful letters so unlike my hasty, messy writing.