Gin and prickly pears, exotic cocktails under the volcano

The little harbour is really narrow, some say it is the smallest in the world, a few boulders of rock and a little cement that resembles cocciopesto. We land at sunset as we did the first time thirty years ago. I took shelter there while fleeing from Panarea, as then the first step is uncertain but a breath is enough to erase the fatigue. It is the most eagerly awaited moment, my absolute rest almost on the summit of the volcano, the lava mass descends into the abyss for over two thousand metres. We are on high ground but at sea level. The volcanic activity is continuous. A puff and a few explosions welcome us.

I have walked the path through the myrtles and broom a thousand times. As I climb, I get out of breath and certainly cannot ask for help. She gets the rucksack, I get the heavy trunk with the bottles. It's a larder I can't do without, always the same and luckily it doesn't allow for deviations. The only possible gin is 57 degrees. Horatio Nelson knew it well, it is the ideal gradation for the sailors' fizz, to avoid setting fire to the sails, to avoid spoiling the gunpowder. These are the rules of the sea and the first is not to sink. That is why I chose a gin distilled in Plymouth from 1793, the year Admiral Nelson landed in Naples, on a terrace overlooking the gulf and met Emma Hamilton and discovered that she was even more beautiful than her portrait painted by George Romney. Love at first sight was inevitable.

His face is a yellowed postcard on the wall of our little white house. We are overlooking the sea, facing Salina, Vulcano, Lipari, Panarea and Basiluzzo. The nature all around is as harsh as the characters who live on the island, their names are Saro, Giovanna, Pasquale, Bartolo, Assunta, no contact during the winter and that is good, so we have a whole year to tell. The place should not be revealed, those who know these seven houses know it and if possible we prefer not to have intruders. It is an island within an island and protecting it is almost an obligation. The electricity has already tried to spoil everything. We use it to a minimum and only for the fridge, for fruit and vegetables and for ice, without which I cannot survive. The invention of a cocktail gives meaning to our summer and the neighbour's lemon that reaches out to us and begs for attention. Honouring him is the most natural thing in the world just before we go to look for a friend, past the church, past Gianluca and Rosita and past the abandoned post office we arrive at old Kurt's to be told once again about his meeting with Friedrich Dürrenmatt and the first day he set foot on the island of black and white photos and planted the hibiscus that welcomes us again this year in full bloom.

We leaf through the album of memories with him and Fausto; it is the women and men of that time that we find again in the similarities, in the face of Graziella who gives me her capers and Giovanni who for years took us from the boat to the pier. The catch for many summers was only there thanks to him, the only one to dispel the mystery of an island without fish. Finding everything is an exercise in patience. There are no roads, one moves on foot, on the surface of the water or on the back of a mule. Perhaps it would be better to go it alone, perhaps with two greyhounds like the ones Curzio Malaparte kept on Lipari during the months of confinement, they are quick and relentless in catching wild rabbits while at best I manage to grab a book from the magnificent wall of white ostriches. I alternate them with sunrise baths, more like taking the opportunity to fill a bottle with sea water, filter it three times in gauze on the way back and leave it on a felt plate lying in the sun. I renew it every morning, the liquid part evaporates and the salt remains at the bottom. A cutting board holds the capers, never on top of each other and in a line to dry. They should be dehydrated as much as possible and then chopped with a pestle in a lava stone mortar that Professor Michele gave me a lifetime ago, amidst a thousand discussions and ideas about housework, between Lacan's maxims and ancient Aeolian legends.

Since he disappeared, my holidays are much quieter. There is little talk and everyone spends their time in their own way. Some fish for octopus with their hands, some build dry stone walls, some draw rocks in their notebooks, some throw breadcrumbs to the fish, some write financials with the I-Ching, some peel and whitewash walls and some toast in the sun. Far more useful is my house pianist, who strives to play Köln Concert one note after another. She spends her afternoons practising and sets the pace for my real hobby, writing limericks about the great architects of history, from Callicrate to Zaha Hadid, stuff that goes something like this,