The Apprentice Lover by Jay Parini

they’re deceitful. They will steal a plum from your pocket while you’re sleeping, then attempt to sell it to you when you wake up.”
    Maria Pia emerged from the kitchen with a tray of semisweet rolls glazed with vanilla icing, a specialty of Capri. I took one and thanked her.
    â€œDo you like her?” Vera wondered.
    As Maria Pia hovered beside me, the question seemed inappropriate, at best. “In what sense?”
    â€œWould you like to have her—you know—in bed?”
    I blushed, extracting a broad smile from Vera.
    â€œYou needn’t worry,” she said. “She doesn’t speak English.”
    â€œIt wasn’t that, I—”
    â€œI’m sorry, I’ve embarrassed you. Wicked old Vera, I must hold my tongue. We’ve become silly on this island. Say any bloody thing that comes into our heads. It’s a matter of our isolation. We’re cut off, you see.”
    â€œI like it when people say what they think.”
    â€œThen you’ll enjoy yourself hugely.” She sipped her tea and stared ahead.
    â€œRupert mentioned a cottage in the garden,” I said.
    â€œIt’s a shed, really. Used to be his study. Not very warm in winter, I’m afraid. A bit damp. But it’s getting warmer now, with spring and all that. You’ll be comfortable enough. There’s a bed, a table for work, and some chairs. Mimo was supposed to give you a sofa, but he’s unreliable.”
    â€œMimo?”
    â€œThe gardener who cannot garden. The island is full of such people: the plumber who cannot plumb, the painter who cannot paint, and so forth.”
    The way Vera leaped from topic to topic, like a bird from branch to branch, would have unnerved me, but my mother’s mind worked in asimilar way, so I was used to disjunctive thinking. I waded bravely into her thought stream: “So Mimo works for you?”
    â€œOnly in theory, like the other servants. Nobody really works around here, but we support their families. It’s the island way—a form of feudalism.”
    I could sense Maria Pia hovering behind me, still holding the tray of rolls.
    â€œThis opportunity comes at the right time for me,” I said.
    â€œHow very American,” she said.
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    â€œNever apologize, darling. Let that be your first lesson in proper self-regard. Other lessons will follow.” She leaned close to me, taking my hand. I could smell tobacco on her breath, but it was not disagreeable. “I will promise you only one thing: I will tell you the truth, if and when it matters. Do you understand?”
    For reasons unfathomable to myself, I trusted her and nodded.
    â€œThat’s super,” she said, with the faintest glimmer of a smile. “We’re going to be such good friends, Alex. I shall teach you to cook, and perhaps one day we’ll open a little trattoria. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

three
    M y new home was a stone cottage with shutters on the windows, a blue door with a screen, and a flat roof made of terra-cotta tiles. It stood, as promised, at the bottom of the garden, not far beyond the dark-blue swimming pool (painted to reflect light in the manner of the Blue Grotto), and surrounded by cyprus trees that stood like centurions, their spears high. The flower beds on the seaward side of the house teemed with Vera’s handiwork, although only a few were in bloom. “Gaillardia, dianthus, fuchsia, agapanthis, iris, and tritoma,” she explained, with a schoolmarm’s delight in precision. “They’ll emerge in due course. One by one.”
    Mimo hovered in the middle distance, a shovel in hand. Like an old crow, he appeared to sink into his own black shadow, unshaven, dressed in dark clothes with a filthy cap on his head. I waved at him, but he didn’t acknowledge me.
    â€œPay no attention to Mimo,” Vera warned. “He’s not quite right in the head. A mule, I