The church was already half filled with people when
Dan arrived for the memorial service. Because of Mario
Bianchi's association with the Italian Embassy the
service was attended by representatives from all the
diplomatic missions, and the first several rows of pews
in the left front of the church were set aside for the
diplomatic corps. In the front row, on the right hand
side near the aisle, sat, first, the Italian Ambassador,
and next to him was Marlisa di Paulo, then Carlo and
Liliana, supposedly, Dan assumed, because of Carlo's
friendship with Marlisa. Next to Liliana there was a
Somali couple and two children, who Dan learned later
were Ali, Antonio's head man on the plantation, along with
his wife and children. Ali's wife sat beside Liliana,
then the man, and finally the two young children who
were surprisingly quiet and calm during the entire
service. In the next rows behind them were what was
left of all of the old Italian colonial families in
Somalia with the men dressed in ill-fitting, heavy, dark
suits that were probably worn only to funerals, weddings
and baptisms. The women all wore plain black dresses.
Their heads were covered with black lace mantillas, and n their hands the women fingerd rosaries. Both the men
and women looked exactly like the people one would
expect to find at a funeral in any rural farming village
in Italy. There was, also, a smattering of other non-diplomatic expatriates, friends of both Mario and
Antonio, and several Somali men and women who were
mostly friends and employees of Antonio.
In the front of the church, on the alter, were two
plain closed caskets; one, covered with the red, white
and green Italian flag, contained Mario's body, while
over the other, at Antonio's request, the Somali flag
with a single white star centered on a blue field, was
draped. Wreaths of flowers, flown in on the Alitalia
plane that morning from Italy, surrounded both caskets.
The eulogies and the rest of the service were
conducted in Italian and at first Dan tried to
concentrate and make mental translations, but finally
his mind wandered and he found himself thinking about
Liliana, Rita, Carlo, Mario and Antonio as well as
himself. Looking at the caskets Dan had a powerful
sense of the futility of man's desperate struggles to
find happiness, in the form of love, sex, money,
property, prestige and some kind of meaning in life.
We're all heading for the same place, he thought, and
that brief moment from the time we fall out of the womb into the tomb is what we call life, living.
Mario Bianchi, Dan knew, loved to drink, party, womanize,
hunt wild animals and drive his little Fiat sports car
fast. All Dan knew about Antonio was that he was a
loner, a quiet, solitary man who painted, sculptured,
hunted and enjoyed his farm, but still waters run deep,
he mused. Dan guessed that Antonio and Maggie Chandler
had discovered some kind of love, sex or happiness
together. Rita was a restless, bitter, cynical woman
who couldn't seem to find happiness in either sex, love
or money, and Carlo, if Liliana was right, was a
workaholic who maybe found some sexual pleasure with
Marlisa di Paulo. Then there was Liliana, and he
thought about her high energy enthusiasm, curiosity and
willingness to experience life in all its highs and lows
- in her words, to just let life happen to her. He
recalled her telling him how at forty-one years old life
had happened to her when she had her first orgasm with a
tired old dilapidated diplomat who was on the verge of
being put out to pasture. Dan wondered why life had
taken so long to reveal the secret rewards of sex to
her. What special equipment did he have that he could
tap that reservoir of wild sexual energy that had
remained hidden in her core? Or was it him? And why
could Liliana awaken in him feelings, passions and sexual energy that he thought had long since been spent?
This is Lilith territory, he concluded, and
Lilith's wild seductive spirit pervades every nook and
cranny of this windswept, barren coastline from Suez
south to Dar es Salaam, and that is as good an
explanation as any, unless there really is such a thing
as love? Chemistry?
When the service concluded, and people formed lines
to file past the caskets, Dan stood up and turned to
look toward the rear of the church. Dan caught just a
glimpse of Maggie Chandler in the last row, still
kneeling in prayer with her eyes closed and her head
bowed. She was the only other American at the service,
and Dan quickly turned his eyes away before she could
see him looking at her and know that he had invaded her
privacy. When he again stole a glance toward the rear
Maggie was gone, and he hoped she had carried her
illusions of secrecy with her.
Dan paid his respects to Bruno Gianini, and Marlisa
di Paulo, stopped briefly to chat with Liliana and Carlo
then walked to his car to ride home.
Rita was already in bed and asleep when he arrived.
He ate a light cold supper then walked out onto the
terrace to sit, smoke his pipe and sip coffee. A fresh
breeze was blowing off the sea and the sand on the dunes rising up behind the beach whirled and shifted as the
tangambili, the time between the winds, finally ended.
For the next several months there would be regular,
predictable strong winds, and Dan wondered what fate and
the unpredictable future held in store for Liliana and
him as they waited here on this isolated, barren and
weathered strip of East African coast for life to happen
to them.
