Chapter 87
PAUL HAD A COUPLE OF days off when he got back from the cruise, so we decided we’d take the ferry over to Palau and try to find the Roccia dell’Orso, which was just a big rock shaped like a bear.
There were signs at the ferry landing directing us up into the hills, and when we came to a small parking lot, more arrows pointed us up a steep path. “This better be worth it,” said Paul as we got out of the car.
Paul hadn’t asked many questions about how I’d filled my days while he was gone, and I hadn’t offered much, but I’d spent a lot of time thinking about what I’d tell him if he did ask.
I wanted to tell him about the boat trip and the visit to CNEN’s makeshift lab and even the morning walk Teo and I had taken to the Villa Webber.
Or parts of it, anyway. Paul would have been interested to know there was a way onto the property, and that hidden in all the dense foliage was a crumbling pink mansion.
But what could I say that didn’t begin and end with Teo?
The whole way up the hill, Paul was telling me a story about some trouble a group of sailors had gotten into during the tender’s port call in Rota.
Something about a striptease and a night swim that had ended with a half-dozen sailors getting called to captain’s mast. Paul had heard about it all after the fact, but it was one of those navy yarns that grows more elaborate with each retelling, and in the interest of finding some common ground, I laughed in all the right places.
“Is that the rock?” Paul asked, pointing at a boulder we could just see over the crest of the hill.
From below, Bear Rock didn’t look like much, but as with many things in life, it was a question of perspective. We hit the last series of switchbacks, and once we were standing in front of the thing, Paul said, “Wow, it really does look like a fucking bear.”
He was right. The bear was maybe twenty feet tall, with stocky legs and a big belly, no neck and a tiny head. Its face was turned toward Palau.
We stood under the belly of the bear, looking down at the ferry landing. A ferry was chugging across the channel, from La Maddalena to Palau, and I wondered if Teo was on it, headed back to Sassari and his regular life.
“Will you look at that?” said Paul, pointing in the direction of Santo Stefano. “You can see the tender from here.”
It was true. From this vantage point, we could see not only the Gilmore but a submarine that was moored alongside it.
This was my opening. If I wanted to tell him anything about how I’d spent the last ten days, I should do it while we were already on the subject of the tender. “I met some people while you were gone.”
“Oh yeah?”
I nodded. “They’re researchers with Italy’s Atomic Energy Commission. CNEN?”
“I know what CNEN is,” he said. “Yeah.”
“There’s this older guy, Bruno Romano, and he’s got a research assistant named Luca something-or-other.” I mentioned Nina, too, because I didn’t want him thinking I’d been hanging out with nobody but men.
“How’d you meet them all?”
This was where I’d have to lie. “Down at Cala Gavetta. I guess they come and do a bunch of testing twice a year because of the subs.”
“Yeah, that’s a thing.”
“They collect all these mollusks—nacchere—along with sediment and water samples. And they send it all to Rome to be processed, but it’s a super-laborious and time-consuming process.”
Paul didn’t say anything.
“Is that the same thing you’re doing? Collecting mollusks and stuff?”
“Yeah, but we can do most everything right on the tender. We’ve got all the equipment we need.”
This shouldn’t have surprised me, but somehow it did.
“Do you mind me asking,” I said, “why we don’t just share our data with them? If we’re all doing the same thing?”
“We don’t share that kind of data with anyone,” said Paul. “And the agreement we signed doesn’t stipulate we have to.”
“I understand we might not have to, but it seems like we’d want to, right?”
“Why in the world?”
Here, I stumbled, remembering what Teo had told me when I’d asked if it was possible that the navy knew there was something in the water: That’s a good question to ask your husband.
“Well, I guess I just don’t get it. If the numbers are perfect, which I assume they are, wouldn’t that information go a long way toward quelling the unrest, all of the protests?”
“Italians will always find something to protest.”
I didn’t like the sweeping nature of that statement. “Well, what about just saving them some money? It sounds like the regional government can’t afford all this testing.”
“No one’s making them do it,” said Paul.
“Yeah, but… you can see why they’d want to, right? If we won’t share our results with them?”
“Eileen,” said Paul, like he had the patience of a saint, “there has never been an accident in the history of the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program.”
“But what about—”
“Enough,” he said, and we both stared at each other, because that one little word had come off sounding an awful lot like an order.