“If this is my time, please Mother, take care of my girl.”
The house creaks and grinds, and somewhere out in the street, a water main fractures and water gushes into the cellar. Somewhere up above him in what remains of his family’s home, a brace dislodges, breaks free, and sails through the void to clout him hard on the top of his head.
“It hurts, mama. It hurts too much.” His hands drop. His head lolls. Is it sleep or is it a state far less desirable and far more permanent? And when it happens to us, how can we know?
Chapter 12
For the second time in her life Lilla wakes to the sound of a voice other than her mother’s.
“Open your eyes, dear. Come along now.”
“Where did all these blankets come from, Mrs Robertson?”
“From the merchantmen. Men like those who brought you in yesterday. They’ve stripped their beds and given over all their clothes and medicines; can’t be a shred of cloth left on any of the boats. Now up–you–get; you should feel a little brighter. You’ve slept all through the night.”
“All night? Why, what day is it?”
“It is Tuesday, St Aileran’s Day, if I recall rightly. Well, it is in Ireland anyway. Saint Sapiens the Wise some call him. Died of the fever; one of those foreign diseases from overseas. Couldn’t have been that wise, now could he?”
Lilla is very openly astonished. “You mean, I’ve been asleep since yesterday afternoon? No, I can’t have been. I have to look for my–”
“Yes, you do and I’ll come with you. Put some of these clothes on; you’ll need them, it’s still cold and rainy outside.”
“Where did you get these from?”
“I borrowed them from someone who’ll not miss them.”
“I’d rather not have known that, Mrs Robertson.”
“You asked. And it’s not so much that there aren’t any shops open, as there aren’t any shops left. Now, hurry up, we’ve got business to be attending to and Dottore Roselli can’t spare me for too long. How’re those legs of yours?”
Lilla sits up, swings them over the side of the cot and examines them. “This one,” she points to her bandaged leg, “hurts a little. It itches, too.”
“That’s good then; that means it’s beginning to heal. Can you stand up?”
“Yes. Look. I’m fine, really I am.” She recalls some of the horrors of the day before. “Is Messina still the same today?”
“It is. No sense in pondering on it, though. Mustn’t get down on ourselves, otherwise others will follow suit and we can’t have that. Right, now,” decides Mrs Robertson, reaching into the woollen bag hanging at her elbow. “Here’s a piece of bread. Not much to be going on with, but it’s all that’s been handed out, and there are some barrels of fresh water outside, so let’s get a drink and we’ll be off.”
“Where are we going? Isn’t there too much to do here?” Lilla looks around the tent: on almost every bed an injured child lies either staring listlessly or sobbing quietly.
“There is. There’s far too much to do. So, we’ll get you home and then I’ll come back. I’ve slept a bit myself and a walk in the fresh air will clear my fuddled head. Now, hurry along.” She hauls back the tarpaulin flap and ushers Lilla out.
The marina is a hive of activity and anchored in the outer harbour are two large warships, one markedly longer than the other and both with high vertical prows and tall, thick masts. The warships dwarf all the other craft busying to and fro as though they are little more than whitebait in the presence of great grey sharks.
“That’s the Piemonte, the one with two funnels,” Lilla says, a little absent–mindedly, “she’s one of ours. I’ve seen her in the Strait before. The one with four funnels I don’t know; she has a British flag at her bow.”
“That’s right. HMS Sutlej, a cruiser; a training ship so they tell me.” Mrs Robertson stands up a degree or so straighter. “How do you know the flag?”
“Enzo taught me.” Lilla’s face collapses. “Oh, Enzo.”
The older woman wraps her arm round her young charge. “Now that’s the second time you’ve mentioned this Enzo. Your young man, is he?”
Lilla bites her lip, hard, and digs what’s left of her nails into her thumbs to distract herself from the lump rising in her throat. “Mm.”
“Where does he live, then?”
“In the Via dei Templari, up towards the Chiesa di San Gregorio. It was where those sailors found me.”
The hiatus of emotion is not lost on the older woman. She bends a little and peers directly into Lilla’s watery eyes. “Well, young lady, I suppose the question you have to answer is do we go in search of your young man or your parents? My guess is both. So, what you have to do is decide who is first on your list.”
“My parents, Mrs Robertson. We must find my parents first. They’ll be worried sick. And besides, I spoke to Enzo’s father just after the earthquake finished and he told me Enzo was–”
“Right then! Your parents it is. In the Borgo del Ringo, you said. Let’s be going. Take a drink of water on the way and we’ll see if you can’t clean up your face a bit. Wouldn’t want your parents thinking you’d let yourself go just because of a little earthquake.”
However, when they turn from the harbour Lilla gasps. The full extent of the damage to the city is all too starkly apparent.
Along the front of the marina, the Corso Vittorio Emanuele is a rubble–laden shambles, and though the ornate façade of the once splendid Municipio still stands, it is plainly obvious from its vacant windows that the interior has collapsed. To her left, part of the front of the Hotel Trinacria has slumped down into the street, and as far as she can see to her right, the harbour front has crumbled into the water. In both directions, dead bodies covered in sheets lie at sporadic intervals and the smoke of many fires drifts in the moist air.
The destruction of the city being almost too much for her to take in, Lilla turns her attention back to the harbour. Steamers out in the roads hang by their anchor chains, some heeled over, others hard up against the quay; barges float capsized and, in the outer harbour a second vast ship clanks and bangs as it drops its anchor.
When Lilla gazes down, though, it takes her a while to realise that there are bodies floating in the water.
“Oh, Mrs Robertson, look.”
“Yes, Lilla. Terrible thing. I’m told there’s hundreds of them. Panic, I suppose. Nobody knew what to do: if you came to the harbour you got washed away; if you stayed where you were, chances are you were buried alive. Seems like you were one of the lucky ones. The Good Lord must have a plan for you.”
Survivors loiter and stare, their expressions gaunt and gormless, their limbs paralysed for lack of instruction.
“Who’s in charge, Mrs Robertson? People are standing around doing nothing. Shouldn’t they be digging, helping, pulling all these bodies out of the water?”
“Of course, they should. Trouble is, there’s no one in charge. They’re all gone: the Mayor, the Bishop, most of the local government people, the Carabinieri, all gone. The customs and the Santelia barracks are destroyed; hundreds dead and missing. Seems the Hotel Trinacria was one of the worst affected: they tell me Angelo Gamba and his family didn’t survive, although I saw the Hungarian prima donna; she got out with only her arms broken. Mr Ogston, the British consul, poor man, escaped with his niece, but the rest of his family perished.” Mrs Robertson sips from a cup of fresh water and sighs. “One woman I tended to has lost eleven members of her family. Eleven! Imagine.” She shakes the thoughts from her mind. “Right, Lilla. Come along now, drink up; no knowing when we’ll get more water.”
As another great warship anchors in the Strait, they make their way along the once beautiful esplanade.
“That’s a Russian warship,” Lilla notes, hesitating, wishing, hoping the host of nations responding to Messina’s disaster will soon set ever
ything right.
“Come along, now. No time for dreaming.”
The Borgo del Ringo, the fisherman’s quarter, lies two kilometres up the Corso Vittorio across the Torrente San Francesco di Paola, and their progress is hampered by having to pick their way around the many corpses and over the rubble, which occasionally heaps across the esplanade into the harbour.
Lilla covers her mouth with her hands. “What is that awful smell?”
“Never mind that, young lady. That’ll be the carbolic they’re spraying the dear departed with. That and all the broken sewers.”
The harbour wall is cracked and crumbled, and zigzag fissures in the marina, often as wide as a barrel, mean they have to jump and step from one uneven level to the next. Gas lanterns lean at ridiculous angles and women wring their hands in despair, knowing that without a husband to provide, their futures are at best bleak.
At one section, they have to turn a corner and make their way up to the Garibaldi which, when they eventually get there, looks to have sheared along the middle, one side of the road shifted several metres above the other.
“It’s a wonder anyone is still alive,” Mrs Robertson mutters, as she clambers over a jumbled stack of smashed beams.
Near the theatre, they come across a man wearing underclothes, an opera hat and wooden sabots. His expression dazed, unwavering and apathetic, he stands in a doorway, the door behind him held at a careless angle by its top hinge. To his chest, he clutches a young child covered in a shawl.
“Please, lady,” he asks, his eyes dull and stony, “have you seen my wife?”
“Where did you last see her?” Mrs Robertson replies.
“She is inside. She won’t come out.”
Lilla and the older woman walk over and peer in through the gap in the entrance. Inside the roof has fallen in. A woman’s leg protrudes from the unruly mass of brickwork.
Mrs Robertson steps back, bends to the man and peels back the shawl covering the girl’s head. She recoils, briefly. “Now you listen to me, my good man. You know where the market is? Yes? Well, take your daughter down there, to the medical station. Ask for Dottore Roselli, he’ll take care of her.”
“But I don’t have a daughter,” he replies.
“Then, who’s this on your lap?”
“I don’t know. I was asleep and woke up out here. I don’t know how I got here and I found this girl lying on the ground. Please can you take her, I don’t know what to do with her.” His bottom lip quivers and he begins to cry.
Mrs Robertson stands up and glances at Lilla, her face a picture of sadness. “What’s your name, sir?” she asks, in a kindly tone.
“Papali. Gianni Papali. We only came for the opera. How long have I been here?”
“Well, Gianni, there’s no point in sitting here getting all upset. Just you take her where I said. Come on, set to it. No sense in sitting here, you’ll die of exposure. Come on, off you go. Lilla, help the man up.”
His limbs are frozen almost stiff, but with a little cajoling and a warm hand, he stands and wanders off the way they have come.
“Poor dear,” she says.
“Mrs Robertson?”
“Yes, my dear– Oh, watch yourself, that’s sharp. Sorry, let me give you a hand. Here, take mine. Just get down off this bit… Now, what was it you wanted?”
“Are you always this… Well, like you are. Don’t you ever get frightened?”
“Naturally, my dear. Everyone gets frightened sometime or other. It’s how you deal with being frightened, that’s the important thing. If you let everyone see you’re frightened, then they might be frightened, too. No sense in that, now is there?”
They make their way over yet more mountains of rubble, each helping the other, each warning the other of uneven ground and hazardous debris.
“That’s what Mr Gordon said. Or something like that. Something about life being full of challenges and how you have to meet them whether you like it or not. You must know him very well.”
“No, Lilla, I’ve never met the man. We’ve communicated in writing and by telegram. Anyway, maybe that’s just the way we are, us British. Some see us as a bit stiff, a bit phlegmatic, but that’s no bad thing, eh, especially when a bit of calm is called for. Now, give me a leg up, will you, this mountain of matchsticks is so high I can’t see over it.”
Lilla, though, waits until the woman looks back to question her lethargy. “I don’t know how to repay your kindness, Mrs Robertson. I’m sure my parents will be very grateful.”
“No bother. No need to thank me. Let’s find your parents first, before we go thanking each other. As I said, there must be a reason why the Good Lord has seen fit to spare us both from this catastrophe.” She pauses, cranes her head over the top of a pile of beams as though they are the topping to a barricade. “Ah, we’re here. Oh, my! The banks have fallen in. We’ll have to wade across. It’s exactly as its title suggests, a torrent.”
They do make it across, even though Mrs Robertson has to gather her skirt up around her waist. She shivers and looks skyward as though the freezing–cold water is little more than an inconvenience. Once on the north bank, she rubs Lilla down with her own scarf, ensuring she doesn’t dislodge the bandage at her leg.
The Borgo del Ringo is almost a village in its own right, as it is separated from the city by not only the Torrente, but also the few remains of the old city’s fortified walls. Fields stretch away towards the mountains; fields in which rudimentary shelters of bamboo and sail cloth are being hastily cobbled together with twine and fishing line; fields in which spare wood from the ruined houses is being gathered and burnt to keep the newly homeless warm.
“So, where is your parent’s house?”
“It is down near the water. This way.”
Lilla leads her guardian down alleys sticky with mud and littered with dead fish, whose glazed eyes seem to follow them as they pass by. The village shows less devastation than the city they have just struggled through; the smaller, basic, single–storey dwellings having withstood the shaking of their foundations far better than the tall, colonnaded structures of the city.
The dead lie twisted in the agonies of their departing, not so much crushed as battered and drowned by the huge tidal wave that has swept ashore, catching them as they huddled together in the cold night air.
Lilla’s pace quickens. “It is here, just around the corner.”
They turn, to be confronted by the beach and the water, and what looks on first impression to be a picture of perfect calm. Yet when they glance about, they notice that the fishermen, their wives and their children are nowhere to be seen. And, on closer examination, they also realise that the walls of the once white–washed houses are now covered in the flotsam and jetsam of the sea.
“Oh no!” Lilla screams as she starts running along the littoral.
She slips and falls, regains her footing and sets off again.
“Mama? Mama?”
When she reaches her parents’ house, the windows have crashed in and the front door is missing. The wreckage of the small fishing boats lies smashed against the houses, as though a giant has gathered them up, squashed them between his hands and tossed them from the roofs. More fish, as though they were part of the day’s catch, lie limp and listless, slowly rotting.
Lilla is bewildered by the sight. She staggers back in shock, fortunate that Mrs Robertson has now caught up and is there to prevent her from falling.
“Hold on, my dear. Hold on.” For a moment, Mrs Robertson grapples with her young charge and as gently as she can, she turns Lilla round to face her.
“Oh no, they can’t be.” Lilla’s head slumps.
“Listen, we don’t know. We simply don’t know. Look at me. Come now, look at me.”
Eventually, Lilla raises her head and stares back into Mrs Robertson’s eyes: they speak to her of concern, of abject sorro
w, of pity.
“How many brothers and sisters do you have, Lilla?”
“I– I have no brothers, only three sisters.”
“And who else should be inside, apart from your mother and father?”
“Just my sisters and my grandmother. Why?”
“Because I want you to stay here while I go and look in the house. Don’t follow me, do you understand? Wait here and don’t move. Lilla, look at me, listen to me. Tell me you will stay here.”
She nods her head slowly, twice.
Mrs Robertson relaxes her grip. “Promise?” she asks.
Lilla nods once more and waits.
For what seems to Lilla like an eternity, she stands and prays, her arms wrapped around her shoulders, her knees trembling and her eyes tight shut.
“Lilla?”
“Yes, Mrs Robertson. Your father is not here.”
“Oh, wonderful! That’s so wonderful. He’s safe, I know he is. He must have taken them–”
“No, Lilla, I said only your father is not here. Your mother, your sisters and your grandmother are all inside.” She pauses and turns to comfort her.
Lilla, though, sees the end of a journey from which there is no return etched deep in the woman’s face. “It can’t be true. All of them? How can it be? No, I don’t believe you. My father would have saved them. He would have. I know him; he can do anything; he would never leave them.” She makes to brush the older woman aside.
“I’m sorry, Lilla. You mustn’t go in there. They didn’t have a chance. They must have gone inside to escape the wave.” She grabs the girl and pins her arms around her.
Through her sadness, Lilla’s anger like a lighted match suddenly flares and she struggles to free herself. “No, it’s not possible. It can’t be; it mustn’t be.”
“There, there, my poor girl. There, there,” Mrs Robertson coos. “Nothing you can do for them now. Best you stay out here.”
Wrapped in their world of sorrows, neither hear the man stumbling towards them. “Lilla,” he calls. “Lilla!”
He waits, watching the two women in their embrace, knowing, hurting, understanding that Lilla, in her confused state, is trying to make sense of what has happened to her family; those whose proximity has ensured her warmth all these recent winter nights, those whose mumblings and squirmings have both annoyed and reassured her, those who are now and forever more cold and fated never again to wriggle in their sleep.
Constant Tides Page 6