As we gained altitude, the road narrowed. Tom stuck to his lane, butthe same couldn’t be said for everyone else. We were passed by mopeds; peculiar three-wheeled trucks that I’d later learn were Piaggio Apes; and large lorries, which shot big black clouds of diesel exhaust in our direction. The fumes, combined with the hairpin turns, made me want to throw up, so I moved to the center of the car and tried to keep my eyes on the road in front of us.
“Up here in the mountains is where the oldest Sardinians live,” said Tom. “People who can trace their ancestors back to the Bronze Age. Once we get back down to the coast, it’s one villa after another, all of it owned by the Aga Khan and his cronies.”
I didn’t have the slightest clue who the Aga Khan was. Later, I learned that the Aga Khan wasn’t the name of a person but was instead an honorific title, like His Royal Highness or Commander in Chief, and that it was bestowed on the spiritual leader of the world’s more than one million Ismaili Muslims. In 1974, the Aga Khan was thirty-seven-year-old Shah Karim al-Hussaini, a Harvard-educated prince turned businessman who had taken one look at Sardinia’s Emerald Coast ten years earlier and bought up the whole thing.
What I needed to know about the Aga Khan was simple. His investment in northern Sardinia, which had included the construction of resorts, restaurants, and nightclubs, had turned our new home into a playground for the rich. Now there were yachts the size of small cruise ships puttering around Sardinia’s many inlets, and the seaside towns that dotted the coast were charging exorbitant sums to rent even the most modest apartments. In Porto Cervo, where the Aga Khan had built his own villa, a Givenchy had just opened its doors, and this—more than anything—was a harbinger of things to come.
Tom warned us that while La Maddalena was no Porto Cervo, the rents still shot up in the summer months, and we might not be able to find a place to live until after the tourists went home in September. “We’ll get you over to the Housing Support Office first thing tomorrow morning,” he said as we coasted down the Via Nazionale and into Palau. “But first, let’s eat.”
15.
TOM PARKED THE CARat the ferry terminal and led us past some private tour operators and up a narrow side street to a restaurant called Fortunata’s. The place didn’t look like anything special—it was just a dark room with a bunch of plastic chairs at laminate tables, but then someone who had been working behind the bar beckoned for us to follow him down a narrow hallway, and we emerged onto this perfect little patio that overlooked the ferry terminal and, on the other side of the channel, La Maddalena.
“It’s a great view, isn’t it?” said Tom as he pulled out a chair for me.
“That’s an understatement,” said Paul.
I had looked up the Maddalena Archipelago in my parents’ atlas back home and knew that the island of La Maddalena was the largest of seven islands and dozens more islets that sat like a crown at the top of Sardinia’s head. Still, there was something about seeing the archipelago spread out in front of me that made it feel real.
“Where’s the ship?” I asked.
“You mean theGilmore?” said Tom. “Can’t see it from here.” He pointed at a spit of land not far from Palau’s harbor. “See those little cabanas? On that beach over there?”
On the other side of the harbor was a rocky outcropping, and beyond it were two dozen pinpricks of blue. I nodded.
“That’s Santo Stefano. It’s a privately owned island. On the side facing us, there’s a Club Med and some old archaeological ruins. On the other side, there’s an Italian weapons arsenal and a NATO naval support facility, and that’s where theGilmoreis moored.”
“Oh, okay.”
“A little-known fact,” said Tom as he reached for a piece of bread, which had arrived at our table along with a bottle of water, “is that it was from Santo Stefano that a young Napoléon Bonaparte tried to capture La Maddalena.”
“Really?” said Paul.
Tom nodded. “Shelled the island with cannons for a day and a half but never managed to make it across the channel. It was a huge victory for the Maddalenini, and a century and a half later, they’re still not done talking about it.”
Paul laughed. “I guess I wouldn’t be, either.”
I stared at the outcropping. “How do you get over there?”
“We’ve got liberty boats that go between Palau, La Madd, and Santo Stefano. I’ll get you a schedule.”
I was about to ask what a liberty boat was when our waiter interrupted to ask if we’d had time to look at the menu. At least that’s what I assumed he said, because everything he actually said was in Italian, as were our menus.
Paul tried to point out a few things I might like, but finally, I told him to order for me. He ordered the dogfish, but the only reason I know this is because Tom stepped in and told the waiter we did not want the head. There was some back-and-forth, and I got a little nervous, but the waiter went away happy, and when plates of homemade pasta and fresh fish arrived on our table a few minutes later, we were, too.
16.
ON THE FERRY TO LAMaddalena, Tom told us we should get out of the car and go check out the view from the upper deck. We didn’t need to be told twice.
“Jesus, Paul,” I said as I stumbled up a narrow flight of stairs and into the sunshine, “this can’t be real.” The island, which had seemed hazy when we were eating lunch in Palau, was coming into sharper focus, and we crossed the deck and leaned against the railing, trying to take it all in.
The port town—also called La Maddalena—was nestled in a small cove at the southernmost end of the island. Creamy stuccoed buildings with terra-cotta roofs sloped toward a little wharf where fishing boats bobbed like corks, and above the town, the hillside was nothing but undergrowth and granite.
Have you ever looked at something so stunning it leaves you feeling woozy? That’s how it was for me that afternoon on the ferry. “Can you believe we get to live here?” I asked as La Maddalena loomed ever larger, and Paul shook his head, seemingly as shell-shocked as I was.
Behind us, Palau and the mainland of Sardinia had faded into the distance, and the island of Santo Stefano was slipping past the ferry’s starboard side. Paul suggested we cross to the other side of the deck to see if we could catch a glimpse of theGilmore, but even from this new vantage point, we couldn’t see it.
Around us, people congregated in twos and threes, and I studied all of them, trying to get some sense of the people we would be living among. There was a quiet, older couple overdressed for the weather, which had turned out to be quite balmy, and there were a few young men who spoke rapid Italian and were wearing uniforms I didn’t recognize. “That’s not us, right?” I whispered.
