The Girl From Venice Page 6
8
Giulia insisted on a visit to San Clemente. Cenzo didn’t feel he could deny her a farewell; most people got to stand by the graveside when their parents died. He stirred the water with an oar while she scanned the island through binoculars.
“But at least we should fish,” Cenzo said. “If the Germans are watching, they will find it odd if we don’t.”
“Do you think they found the body in the well?”
“By now, yes. I’m surprised they didn’t find him right away.”
“I don’t feel bad about killing him.” She turned her face away all the same.
“You didn’t kill him, I did.” He let that soak in.
Cenzo had trimmed her hair to make it slightly less manic. She stared down at a school of pipefish that had taken refuge in the shadow of the boat. They scattered, chased by an eel that unwound as it went.
“Big fish eat little fish. It’s a law of nature,” he said.
“Mussolini promised my father that exceptions would be made for Jewish veterans.”
“Il Duce made a lot of promises. As soon as he became a puppet of the Germans, all his promises were forgotten.” Maybe that was more than he should have said. Her father sounded like the kind of man who never made a mistake until he did. “How long were you in the hospital?”
“Two years. I didn’t go to school. I read a lot. A lot of Freud.”
“Oh.”
“I could probably help you with your deep-seated psychological problems or analyze your dreams.”
“How would you do that?”
“We usually start with the mother.”
“That I believe. Right now I’m sure a prudent man would say it’s time for us to go. We don’t want to attract attention.”
“My mother was very stylish,” Giulia said. “She was always busy. Always opened the opera season or the film festival or Carnival.”
“That must have been fun for you.”
“No, I was in the way. I think I embarrassed my mother,” Giulia said. “She was the queen of the beach cabanas. Men vied to rub tanning lotion on her. When they turned their backs on her because she was Jewish, it almost broke her heart. She said I was homely and had chased the men away.”
“Maybe she was jealous.”
“No, she had taste. And furs, she loved furs and feathers. At the end she sewed her jewelry into her furs and moved like a sloth. I have to give her credit for one thing. When she said it was time to leave Italy, it was time to go. But my father was an honorable man and thought that other men were too. Mussolini gave my father his word and my father believed him.”
“And then it was too late?”
“It was too late.”
He pointed. “I see smoke rising from the other side of the island, and I don’t think it’s a dream.”
Giulia refocused. “It’s probably a ferry.”
“We’ll see soon enough.” In fact, he had already seen enough to make the hair stand on the back of his neck.
“I don’t see anything.”
“You will.” He looked up at his sail, which luffed indifferently. He wasn’t going to get any help there.
A gunboat rounded the island. That the Germans still patrolled San Clemente could be a good sign, Cenzo thought, if it meant they were still searching the wrong place for Giulia. But because she had wanted so badly to see San Clemente, the wrong place was exactly where she was.
As part of a fleet, the gunboat might have been a miniature war machine. In the lagoon, it was colossal. Sun reflected from the ship’s bridge and Cenzo couldn’t identify the officers in command, although he hoped it was not the Colonel Steiner who had been with Lieutenant Hoff. Soldiers stood along the rail, uniforms fluttering from the speed of the gunboat, which could slap over the water at thirty knots. Cenzo counted ten other fishing boats on the horizon, most taking advantage of low tide to strip clams and mussels from the lines. Others were shaking fish from nets or had shut down to nap. Cenzo couldn’t tell which fishing boat the Germans were headed for. The Barking Dog was on one side, the Unicorn on the other. All he could do was head toward the sun and row.
“Merde,” Giulia hissed. “They’re heading straight for us.”
“Put this on.” He gave her his hat.
“They’ll recognize you.”
“If they’re looking for me, they’re looking for a crew of one. We are now a crew of two. Besides, we’ve got them staring into the sun. We’ll blind them if nothing else.”
“Maybe I should swim for it.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it even to your Lord Byron.”
Giulia glanced back. “They’re still coming. I’ll drown before I let them catch me.”
“They won’t, as long as you do what I say. When I say ‘Jump,’ jump. Keep your hat on and no fancy dives. We’re going into sandbars. They can’t follow us forever.”
“They can just shoot us.”
“They won’t do that. They’re having too much fun.”
“Fun?” she asked. “Why should we help them?”
“Because they’re such a sorry lot. Pull your hat down and don’t look up.”
Cenzo went on rowing, ignoring the gunboat as it gained on them. Ahead, the low tide exposed bands of mud and shining sun.
The gunboat throbbed and slowed and casually blocked the Fatima’s exit from the sandbars. Cenzo shouted, “Jump!” and encouraged her with a push. As soon as Giulia hit the water, Cenzo drove the Fatima aground, traded the oar for a wooden box, and jumped in after. The gunboat came to a stop directly behind them but, rather than try to escape, Cenzo pushed the Fatima farther into the mud.
“What are you doing?” An SS officer in a mud-spattered uniform stepped out on the deck of the gunboat. He waved a pistol airily, as if it were a baton. “I said, what are you doing?”
“Fishing,” Cenzo said.
“Fishing? Italians always have it backwards. You’re supposed to fish in the sea, not the land. Or maybe you were thinking of running.”
“No.” Cenzo strained to see whether Colonel Steiner was one of the officers on the bridge of the gunboat.
“Maybe your skinny friend there was thinking of running.”
“Why? He’s a good boy.”
“All Italians are good until your back is turned.” The officer barked an order and two soldiers jumped down from the gunboat and aimed their pistols at Cenzo and Giulia.
Maybe these particular Germans had no sense of humor, Cenzo thought. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t speak German so well.”
“I think you speak German perfectly well. Well enough.”
“I’ll show you,” Cenzo said.
“Show me what?”
“Fishing on land.”
Cenzo leapt and came down hard on his heels, kicking and gouging the sand until a shrimp with a green shell and red swimmers appeared in the pool he dug. Cenzo skipped and danced like a Cossack, capering to the beat of his feet while at the same time he ordered Giulia to fill the box. The SS officer aimed his pistol first at Cenzo, then at Giulia, and finally laughed at these crazy Italians, these crazy Italians who danced with their fish and even offered to share their catch with the soldiers, who said, “Nein, Nein,” holstered their pistols, and, shaking their heads, climbed back onto their gunboat, which backed out and motored toward other fishing boats. They hadn’t been after the Fatima; they were weary men drinking the dregs of war and ready to shoot anything that caught their eye.
Giulia dropped and sat on the ground. With a fedora and mud-spattered feet she looked not so much like a putto di mare as a street urchin.
“We can go now.” Cenzo took his hat back.
“Go where?”
“The shack, where else?”
“And spend the rest of the day hiding?” She looked out at the broad lagoon. “Teach me how
to fish.”
“Are you willing to get wet and stink like a fish?”
“Better than being a prisoner. But I need a rod and reel.”
“Do you? I suppose if you’re a rich man and have all day to catch a fish, that’s one way to go about it. But if you’re a professional fisherman and have to catch a thousand, you use a net. You don’t chase the fish with a hook and sinker, you welcome him to your net. And you don’t set your net anywhere but in a channel that is your family’s birthright for generations. Do you think you can do that?”
“You said I could.”
With her badly cropped hair, she put him in mind of a cat sinuously winding herself around his legs.
“Very well, we’ll see.”
• • •
“The goby is an ugly customer,” Cenzo explained. “He’s full of spines and guile and you have to get down on all fours in the water and feel around in the mud, because you can’t use a rod or a net. And you have to use both hands to find his tunnel—that’s right, a tunnel—to catch him. He is small and, as I said, ugly. Are you sure you want to be a fisherman?”
Giulia said nothing but she appeared resolute.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
Instead of kicking the water as he had for the shrimp, he walked slowly and studied the bottom of the lagoon. At low tide, algae and sea grass shifted listlessly in the water.
“We’re lucky. There’s one right at your feet.”
“I don’t see it.”
“Put some water in the pail. See the hole in the sand?”
“No.”
“It’s covered with a little sand.”
“Then how am I supposed to see it?”
“Keep looking. You get on your knees, like so. Do you see the hole now?”
“No.”
“And you reach in and tickle the goby with one hand, and up he pops into the other.” There was a small explosion of sediment, and a small brown fish with elaborate spines rested in Cenzo’s hand. He plopped it into the pail. “Your turn.”
“To do what? I never saw anything.”
“I’ll give you a hint. The goby has a tunnel, which means he has two holes, a front door and a back. Knock on one door, and he comes out the other. Just be sure not to grab the spines the wrong way.”
“This is stupid.”
“There’s a hole right here and its companion hole right there. See it?”
“Maybe.”
“You have to get lower than that.”
“I am.”
“Lower. See the hole?”
“I see it, I see it.”
“Get your hands in position.”
“I’m—” A goby emerged and zipped away. “Merde, they’re fast.”
“Well, you tried.”
“Wait, I think I see another hole.”
“You do?”
“I have it now. Ouch! Merde! I lost it.” She sucked blood from the tip of her finger.
“Spines.”
“They’re so little, why would anyone bother catching them?”
“Because if you put this ugly fish into risotto and simmer it until it disappears, you will have the most delicious dish in the world. And the market pays accordingly. Anyway, you gave fishing a try. It’s not for everyone.”
“I see another hole.”
“You want to try again?”
“It’s more interesting than sitting in the shack.”
“You’re soaked.”
“So are you.” She crept up on another hole.
“First patiently, then quickly,” he said.
The goby squirted from her grasp.
“Merde! Almost.”
“This is something else we have to talk about. Your vocabulary is all wrong. Nobody says merde. We’re not in France. Say merda like an Italian, like you mean it.”
“Here’s another.”
As a crab lifted a stalk of eelgrass, a blunt pugnacious fish peeked out. Giulia thrust her hand into the fish’s hole and it darted directly into the grasp of her other hand. She transferred the fish immediately to the pail.
“I did it! I did it! I did it!”
“That’s not what a fisherman says when he catches a fish.”
“But I did it.”
“You did.”
• • •
“Things you should know: A clean boat never makes money. A red moon makes the blood boil. Never fish the same ground two days in a row. At the market, cover your old fish with your fresh. A real fisherman doesn’t need boots. Fish jump to breathe. The captain of a fishing boat sleeps at the stern, the crew at the bow. Fishermen know how to wash dishes with sand. The best soup is at the bottom of the pot. When you’re rowing, watch out for mines. Good luck will kiss you in bad weather.”
“What about women in boats?”
“Definitely bad luck. Unless they’re naked. That’s good luck.”
Such bad luck that Cenzo had to laugh at himself. Two days had passed since he and Giulia had fished for goby. It could be said that he had not made a real attempt to smuggle her to the mainland. How could he when she was so afraid of being left behind? But there was also the fact that she was entertaining and quick to learn. Facts naturally landed on her shoulders. Also, he found his own miseries reduced in size when he focused on hers.
He taught her how to set a circle of nets at high tide and collect stranded fish at low. How to rake clams. How to spear a ray. How to get behind and push the boat when it ran aground. At night, watching the stars from the deck of the shack, how to track the Great Bear as he swung by his tail. How to earn the right to ask questions.
• • •
“Do you mind?” she asked.
She opened the inviolable footlocker and brought out the painting. The faint light and flicker of the lantern’s flame made the picture vibrant and alive. Cenzo’s brother Hugo was sinking into foamy waves, but he waved at a fighter plane that returned the favor with golden bullets. Cenzo was still on board and on his knees, praying to a vision of the Virgin that hovered in midair. The fishing boat, a larger version of the Fatima, was on fire. Flames climbed up the sail of the three putti de mare. The detail surprised Cenzo for no good reason. He was, after all, the artist. Those were his half-squashed tubes of oil paints in intense proto-colors. Greens and blues that were almost black. Cadmium red smeared like blood.
He remembered how the whites of Hugo’s eyes—zinc with a hint of cerulean blue—rolled like those of a man marching to a firing squad, while the plane, a Mustang as smooth and immaculate as the Virgin, turned for a second strafing run that was louder and higher in pitch. And the Virgin blessed it. She blessed the bullets that tore Hugo apart. She blessed Celestina and her heavy sighs. She blessed Il Duce and his Black Shirts in the mountains. But she did not bless Cenzo, because he did not believe in this war and his sole intent was to outlive it.
9
For a fisherman, the subject of nets was deep and complex. A bragotto could be towed by two people collecting small fry, whereas a baicolera was a winged net designed to catch the noble sea bass. A seragia had as many as six nets staked in a circle. A saltarello was a spiral net for sea bream and shad. A half-moon net was a mezza luna. Most ingenious and beautiful of all was pesca il cielo, a net that floated high above the water to “fish the clouds.”
And there were seasons. Fish left the lagoon in the wintertime and didn’t return until March to lay eggs in warm water. There was fidelity; swordfish swam together, male and female. There were troublemakers: spider crabs trying to get free made a mess out of nets. Dolphins made a banquet out of fish trapped in the nets. Every net, no matter how different its design, ended in a death chamber.
Most mysterious of all creatures was the soft-shelled crab. At the first tinge of dawn, Cenzo took Giulia into a swamp where narrow cha
nnels wended through tall spartina grass. At a dock were stacks of boxes and bags and a dozen indolent cats.
“October is the best time for catching crabs, November’s not so bad, and in winter they’ve gone out to sea. March, they’re back to lay their eggs. In June you have to check the crab pots twice a day. That’s your calendar.”
“What if someone steals them when you aren’t here?”
“That won’t do thieves any good, unless they know crabs.”
“A crab is a crab.”
“No. The expensive delicacy that the rich devour in two bites at a fancy restaurant is a female that has just shed its shell.” As Cenzo sorted through the top box, a gray crab not much larger than a bottle cap hung on to his hand by a claw. He tossed it aside and the nearest cat delicately pounced. “So, how do you know which is a female and how do you know when it’s going to molt?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know because fishermen keep the secret to themselves.” He rapidly picked through other crabs in the box, reserving some in a bag and tossing the rest into the water. “First of all, you want to make sure they’re good and soaked because you’re selling them by the pound.”
“Well?” she asked.
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to tell me the secret?”
“I’ll show you.” He placed a crab in a bowl of water. “That’s going to molt in two minutes.”
“Neither of us has a watch.”
“I’ll take your word for when time is up.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not doing anything.”
“Just wait.” He picked through the boxes while she examined the crab in the bowl from every angle.
“Just wait?”
“Like I said.”
“‘Such hath it been—shall be—beneath the sun / The many still must labor for the one!’ Byron.”
“I expected nothing less. Is there, by any chance, anyone else you like?”
“King Kong was a favorite of mine.”
“The strong and silent type.”
“For years we barely left the house. We had a projector and watched the same films over and over. We must have watched King Kong ten times. It was a real Beauty and the Beast story.”