Red Island House

On the one hand the scene was hilarious: the manager bullied by his staff; the priestly Pianon helplessly aroused by the loud, ribald female crowd around him. Shay has always amused herself by envisioning him as the arid scholar Casaubon from Middlemarch, transplanted to the tropics and engrossed not in the Key to All Mythologies, but in an endless

Unlike most of the village women who embark on careers with foreign men, Noelline is educated, has completed two years at the lycée run by the sugar refinery at Ankazobe. She writes a fair hand in French orthography, can use a computer, and speaks good French and Italian. Besides her intelligence, her undeniable energy, and a reputed genius for sex

A few weeks later, when she hears that Maz has died, she thinks that she chose the wrong confidant in frivolous Orso, that she made the whole account—as Orso said—into an adventure tale. But was there anything else to do? Even Maz, for whom silence was an entire language, knew that words, however imprecise, are sometimes required to honor things th

“No, no, carissima, that was a thousand and one coffees’ worth of entertainment!” says Orso, pulling on his loden coat and preemptively brushing past Shay as he plucks a five-euro note from his wallet and, with a flourish, hands it to the unsmiling Irish cashier. “Yes, quite a yarn,” he continues, as he gallantly holds open the brass-barred front d

Anyway, I touched off his creaky laugh by quoting him one of my favorite lines from King Solomon’s Mines: ‘Two things I have learned: you can’t keep a Zulu from battle, or a sailor from falling in love.’ ” Orso looks at Shay incredulously. “I can’t believe you, of all people, read that racist stuff.” “Orso, when I was a kid I was crazy about Rider

“Right away I understood that he was one of those very quiet men who, if pressed, can be very dangerous. That he was also the kind of man who picks one woman, and puts himself totally in her power.

The thing is, I’ve always been drawn to men like Senna: a mixture of charismatic, bossy, passionate. The kind of man who makes a whole soap opera about his likes and dislikes. Very Italian. No matter what you think, Orso, you have to admit he keeps life interesting.

It was some time after midnight at New Year’s, when everybody on Naratrany seemed to be crowded into the billiard hall in Finoana village.

“Come to think of it, you two had a lot in common,” continues Orso. “Both of you being, in a way, exiles. Both adrift in Madagascar for no real reason…”