by Erri De Luca
I had seen the way he worked the oars and I copied him. It wasn’t the force of the arms but of the whole skeleton moving forward and backward to lift the oars behind and lower them ahead. Without friction from the waves the boat moved by itself beneath our feet. “Cuóncio, nun t’allenta”—Slowly, don’t wear yourself out, he told me.
• • •
I rowed for two hours in the still waters of the night. The sound of the oars was two syllables, the first accented when they went into the water, the second longer until they came out. An-na, an-na, between the two syllables a woman’s name was pronounced on our breath. After two hours he took over the oars and I slowly lowered into the sea the line with the hundred baits. When we were done the day was beginning.
All around us on the surface of the sea, a shiver passed, anchovies threatened by the tuna billowed up and leaped out, the water rippled from the swarm in flight. We were in the middle, the fisherman grabbed the net and lowered it at random amid the mass. He hauled up a living handful that he flipped into a bucket. It was robbery.
The sun appeared, dragging its feet, the sound of gas catching fire, the burner lit, and on it he set a coffeepot, dented and charred. He wet his head and put his beret back on, I made the same gesture. The coffee whistled air through the beak like a rooster. He lifted his cup to the sky to greet the rising day. We drank inhaling its smell of earth on the sea, one mile from the shore.
• • •
Following his pointers I aimed for the sandbank, a field in the middle of the sea that could be located through a couple of finders: the whole outline of the Sant’Angelo promontory would appear and Vivara Island was supposed to look like a laurel leaf. In that strait of the sea you rested on the sandbar. The sun was already giving off a sweaty-faced glare. Give us today our azure bread attached to the bait hook. In its slow movements there was prayer, not pretense. The sea, at our bidding, let itself be gathered. We lowered the line weighted with pieces of squid. First to rise from the bottom was the sparkling white of the ombrina, then the red rockfish, flapping wildly. Under the beating sun the sea began to shift, slow waves pushed the boat off course. We corrected the drift with the oars. It was the hour of waiting before hauling in the line dangling from the two floats. We went to retrieve them. With slow, regular strokes, he coiled the line back in the baskets. After fifty meters an eel slithered aboard. He picked it up with a net, removed the swallowed bait from its mouth, and threw it in a tub. It was followed by a small grouper, a medium-sized one, and the glorious sea bream, pride of any man on his way back from fishing.
• • •
A couple of times the line went taut, stuck to some spot on the bottom. He ordered me to row in one direction, guessing the angle from which to free it. We finished and took turns at the oars. We went in the direction of the current, each stroke was supported by a push from the stern. We arrived at the beach of our departure as the bells were calling the noonday mass. He offered me the small grouper and shook my hand. It was bleeding because of my lack of practice with the oars. We had exchanged ten words at the right moments.
On the return ferry I stretched out to sleep on the wooden seats smelling of varnish and salt. A sailor woke me, we had arrived. It was already city around me, I hadn’t heard it approach. For a little while I was dazed, not knowing where I should go, what to do. The burning in my hands revived me.
That night Don Gaetano cooked with tomato the best grouper in the world, picked clean all the way down to the bone.
It was summer and the swelling in my pants often returned to me. Don Gaetano taught me a few simple electrical and plumbing jobs, and sent me to take his place on a few repairs. I would pick up tips. One afternoon when the usual call from the widow came he told me to go up. I appeared with the toolbox, she let me in. Even at home she wore the little hat with the black veil. The blinds were closed, the room cool and dusky. She showed me the way to the bathroom to repair the drainpipe of the sink. I crouched down to unscrew the trap, she stayed close by, her naked knees at eye level. While I forced the nut with the monkey wrench, her knees started to bump against me in little thrusts. Saliva filled my mouth. Her hand went to my hair to ruffle it, I stopped working, stayed still. She squeezed and started to pull on my hair. I let go of the monkey wrench, I obeyed her. She turned off the light and pressed her belly against mine. Her arms climbed to my neck and squeezed it, pushing it slowly against her face. She opened my mouth with two fingers and then with her lips. I raised my hands in response, she took them and placed them behind her back. Then she started fumbling for my sex. My back was to the sink, she pressed against me and my sex entered her body. She moved me around. It was nicer than inside the cloud. She lifted my hands to her breasts and started to breathe out, faster and faster, until a push that took away all the blood in my body. A transfusion from her to me had happened. This must be the facimm’ammore, the let’s make love, that men and women say to each other.
I was in a sweat, my underwear at my feet, my back stiff from withstanding her pushes without leaning against the sink. She broke away from me, turned on the lights, and washed between her legs. She told me to do the same. Then I picked up my tools. “If I need you I’ll call you.” “Yes, ma’am.” And that was my first repair job.
• • •
The second time was already easier, no bathroom, straight to her bedroom, she undressed me, stretched me out on her bed, and climbed on top. The thrusts were hers. We stayed attached longer. Don Gaetano asked me if I was happy to do it, I said yes, with my head.
“She’s replaced me with you.”
I said that wasn’t right.
“It’s right and as it should be. She’s young and I couldn’t keep up with all her calls.”
I could. She had a wild variety of fantasies, one was in total darkness. I had to hide, she came in looking for me. I stayed for an hour, then I went back downstairs. It lasted until the beginning of autumn, I used to go in the afternoon. Then her mourning ended, she took off her veil and left the house wearing colors. The calls came to an end. It was Don Gaetano who had recommended me, he told her I was trustworthy, a kid who didn’t talk.
“You needed a little nature. Now that you’ve known it, an encounter with the girl from the third floor might even happen to you.”
“And how will I recognize her? Ten years have passed, a lot of time.”
“Guaglio’, time is not a lot, it’s more like a forest. If you have known the leaf, you recognize the tree. If you looked into her eyes, you will find her again. Even if a forest of time has gone by.”
• • •
I practiced doing repairs. I learned quickly, once I saw something done I repeated it correctly. I made some money. I understood the channels, the wires, that carried the flows that had to be enclosed in the ducts, to run between the poles and the switches. I liked being the stationmaster of the circuits. Controlling water, electricity, was a game for me. It wasn’t much of a game when the soil stack got clogged and had to be emptied of excrement. The first time I gagged. Don Gaetano had me tie a handkerchief around my mouth and nose.
The autumn of the last year of school had begun. At night I studied and the afternoon I spent at the loge for the card game and to fill in for Don Gaetano. One afternoon that we weren’t needed for any chores, a drizzle was falling from low clouds, coming down soft and sticky. We were playing a hand of scopa, my back was to the window, Don Gaetano got up to answer someone who had appeared at the door. I took advantage of the interruption to go to the bathroom. I came back and sitting at the table were two girls in raincoats. One of them was looking around, the other wasn’t. One was blond, self-confident, talking with Don Gaetano, the other wasn’t. I remained off to the side.
• • •
The blonde asked whether there were any unrented apartments in the building. Don Gaetano took his time to get a sense of the person he was dealing with, asked whether they would like a coffee. They said yes and took off their raincoats. He put the pot on the
fire. Out of habit I avoid looking the girls in the face. Otherwise I get embarrassed.
“Here we don’t post rent signs, we spread the word. Right now there’s nothing, but a three-room apartment on the third floor is supposed to open up.”
Don Gaetano paused. He was at the burner, standing, and out of the corner of his eye he was staring at the one who had still said nothing. I could see her brown hair, sugared-chestnut-colored, held back behind her neck by a hairpin. “The apartment where you lived when you were a little girl,” said Don Gaetano with a half smile at the silent one. I took a step backward and bumped into the coffeepot, which didn’t want to fall.
“Anna,” came out of my mouth. The blonde covered my voice by asking whether they could visit the apartment. Anna turned around very slowly and looked at me, eyes wide and still, as if on the other side of a window. “Guaglio’, mind the coffee, it’s boiling.” I twisted around and turned the coffeepot upside down, removing it from the flame.
“Go upstairs to ask whether the young ladies can see the apartment.” I went out like a sleepwalker, my mouth half-open. As I climbed the stairs I traveled to the past, the times I had risked waiting in front of that door to hear a noise, in the hope of seeing her come out. It never happened. And now here I was about to knock on her door to bring her back here. The past was a staircase and I was climbing back up.
• • •
I returned and there were four cups, one for me, too. “If you accompany them, Don Gaetano, the young ladies can go up.” I drank the coffee without being able to look up. The window that separated the little girl from the world had fallen, the shards must be on the ground. They went upstairs to the apartment, I washed the cups, then I left the loge and went into the courtyard so I could be in the rain. I had dived across the wet pavement many times to steal the ball from feet, from kicks. I looked at the rain pipe going straight up, passing next to the first-floor balcony. Now it was inhabited by flowerpots with the last basil of the year.
I leaned my head back till I could see the third floor. She was there, behind the windows, and she was looking down. I lowered my eyes, the coffee climbed back up inside my throat, pushed by the beat of a hiccup from my diaphragm. I returned to the loge, to the bathroom, and I threw up.
• • •
They came downstairs, the blonde asked Don Gaetano to notify her when the lease expired, they were ready to take it over. Anna followed, looking around. I helped them to put on their raincoats, the blonde tossed her hair outside her collar, a gesture that forced me to pull my head back to avoid getting it in my face. Anna kept hers under her collar, divided by a line that parted it in two. A smell of rain rose to my nose, stolen from behind her. The weather had worn that smell to be recognized. She thanked me for my small bit of help, turned around and shook my hand, noticed the injury from rowing and smiled. That contact held the promise children make to see each other tomorrow. Then she shook Don Gaetano’s hand. The blonde had already left and outside it had stopped raining.
“Are they coming here to live?”
“I don’t think so, they only wanted to visit. The other girl brought along the blonde, who talks like a lawyer.”
“I’ve wanted to see her for so long I forgot what she might look like. Waiting made me forget what I was waiting for. How can something so absurd be possible, Don Gaetano?”
“At the orphanage I waited to be old enough to go out, then the day came and I didn’t remember what I had been waiting for.”
“I never imagined she’d be so pretty. So bold, pensive, a little battered, someone arriving from a trip. Do you think she’ll come back?”
“I don’t think. I know.”
• • •
We didn’t play scopa, I had no head for it. We were distracted by a small commotion, a visit from the tax auditor. He had come to deliver an assessment, a summons, to La Capa, the cobbler, the same one who two years ago had picked four winning numbers in the Naples lottery. The auditor was a government official, quite smug about his job, and he had a northern accent. But getting La Capa to understand something in Italian was beyond his reach. I go to call the cobbler and tell him he has a visitor at the loge. He comes by and then begins the following exchange, which I immediately copy down in my notebook.
“Are you Mr. La Capa?”
“At your service, Excellency.”
“I am here to serve you with a citation.”
The cobbler made a worried face, told him to have a seat, that he would bring him a glass of water.
“I’m sorry to have been the cause of any agitation,” all the while forcing him into the chair.
“Agitation? What are you talking about, Mr. La Capa, I have here a citation.”
The cobbler had decided the man was agitated. He placed a glass of water in his hand.
“But I’m not thirsty, Mr. La Capa, let’s not waste time, I am here on behalf of the Ministry of Finance.”
“Congratulations, and who is the lucky girl? Your fiancée?”
“No one. I am here about your tax liability.”
“So, you’re a liar, are you?”
“How dare you!”
The poor auditor was audibly irritated but also intimidated because La Capa had two hands on him that were one size short of a shovel, and they were attached to two arms that were larger than life.
“You see, you’re agitated.”
The other man started to stand and La Capa sat him back down with a light tap that glued him to the seat.
Don Gaetano was surveying the scene, unperturbed. The cobbler wanted to explain himself.
“Listen here, Mr. Liar from the tax liability: chillo ca cuntrolla ’e bigliett d’o tram se chiamma cuntrollore—the guy who inspects streetcar tickets is the ticket inspector, right? And you are from liability, which makes you a liar.”
“Listen here, Mr. La Capa, this is an outrage.”
“Ma quanno mai, qua nisciuno s’arraggia—No one is raging out here. But you look too pale, like an undertaker, chillo d’e ppompe funebri, doesn’t he, Don Gaetano? He’s wearing black shoes, the kind that chase funerals.”
“Now you’re really going overboard.” The poor auditor tried to stand up, but La Capa returned him to the chair with a blow of the sort that nails a sole to a shoe. The auditor realized that things were taking a turn for the worse and started glancing around for assistance. Don Gaetano was an Egyptian sphinx.
“My good man, do you or do you not understand that I am here to inspect your income?”
“No, you show me no respect, and you may not come in.”
“My dear Mr. La Capa, are you hard of hearing?”
“Hard of hearing? Me? Why I can hear what the flies are saying all the way down in Piazza Municipio. You’re the one that talks foreign.”
“I speak Italian, as is only normal.”
“Oh no you don’t, with my Norma you could only speak Neapolitan.”
The auditor felt lost, ran a hand through his thinning hair, and shut his mouth, giving up any effort to stand up.
“Bevete ’o bicchiere”—Drink up, La Capa ordered.
He obeyed with his eyes closed. Before he could start crying Don Gaetano finally stepped in.
“I’ll take care of the auditor, go on back to your apartment now, La Capa.”
“Good idea, you handle him, io nun aggio capito niente ’e chistu furastiero—I don’t understand a word this foreigner says.”
Don Gaetano accepted the summons and released the auditor.
“We’re never going to see him around here again.”
“Don Gaetano, if you had waited another minute, we would have had to take him to the hospital.”
“He deserved to meet La Capa. For once in his life a poor guy has a stroke of luck, right away the state comes by and wants to take it away. La Capa was right, that guy was wearing black shoes for a funeral.”
• • •
The rest of the afternoon Don Gaetano taught me how to wrap hemp around threaded pipes
, to smear grease to seal the joint between two pipes. I still hadn’t used the threader, the tool that cuts the pipes and threads them. He let me try it a couple of times, I succeeded.
“I have to redo an installation, I’m going tomorrow. If you give me a hand we’ll be done by noon and split it down the middle.”
“Down the middle? I can’t. You’re the master, I’m the assistant. Give me a tenth and we’re good.”
“I’ll give you a fourth and not another word.”
And so it went. The following Sunday from seven in the morning until twelve o’clock sharp we redid the installation. I was back home at two o’clock and in front of the locked door Anna came toward me. Don Gaetano had insisted on my washing my face and hands, I could shake hands without getting her dirty. “Can you let me in?” She was in a bit of a rush and looking around. I opened the door without shaking, but my throat was choking. I couldn’t take her to the room where I slept, there wasn’t enough space for two. I went into the loge. In those few rooms there was a door I had never opened and I knew it led to a downward staircase. I opened the door, it had to lead to the hiding place. My breath came out, inviting me to follow it. I lit a candle and headed down. Anna placed a hand on my back, but heavily, I felt a pressure from it that put me off balance. The silence of the tufo opened and closed around our footsteps.
• • •
We arrived in the storeroom I had entered ten years earlier. I rested the candle on a shelf higher up, we stood still. The candle cast ribbons of flame on her hair, her face. Her eyes responded to the light with sparks. Her breath was calm, it didn’t shift the air. I hadn’t been down there since then, I told her.
“Everything in this building is smaller than I remember as a child, except you.”
Her voice crossed the ages. It started out childish and ended up adult. When she got to the “you,” she touched me. Then her hand raised my arm to her shoulder. My other arm went around her hip by itself: a figure from the start of a dance.