Constant Tides

by Peter Crawley

  “We need to ensure all this medical equipment is sterile,” Mira says to her mother.

  “Sterilise? All this?” Enzo says.

  “Yes, papà. Do you drink from a dirty cup?” She raises her eyebrows at him. “Before I can give him the morphine, we must make sure the syringes are clean. I don’t want to inject him with something harmful; he is weak enough as it is.”

  “But we don’t have the means,” he argues.

  “Yes, papà, we do. These syringes look as though they have been used before and they cannot be used until they are sterile. Mama, the old cast–iron pressure cooker, please, make sure it is clean, pour in a few cups of water and set it on the stove. Place the colander inside and a metal dish on top, this way we can sterilise the syringes. The needles I can sterilise with a flame.”

  “Are you certain this will be enough?” Enzo asks, once Francesca has left.

  “You forget, papà, when Carlo was brought back from Africa, I stayed with him in the Margherita hospital for the last four weeks. I fed him when he was conscious and I tended to him when he was not. In four weeks, with little else to do other than sit around and cry and wait for him to die, I learnt a great deal from the doctors and nurses.”

  “Obviously not enough to save that fool of a husband, eh?”

  Mira rounds on her father and spits venom, “Papà, I know too well that Carlo was not your flavour of man, but that is not the kind of remark I expect from you. You! A man of such compassion that you allow a complete stranger into our house. A complete stranger, not only a man who may die of his wounds, but also a man who, if he is found by the Germans, will no doubt be responsible for all of us being stood against a wall and shot.”

  Enzo withers beneath her tirade. “Yes,” he mumbles, “I am sorry, I–”

  The patient stirs, his arms and legs twitch. “Where am I?” he asks in English, raising his hands to the bandages covering his eyes.

  Mira leans over him and taking hold of his hands, pulls them away and places them down either side of his torso. “Ssh, rest, Signor Lock. Calm yourself. Try not to talk too much. I know you can understand Sicilian, so if you need to talk, try to speak our language.” She waits, looking for some small acknowledgement that he has understood. When there is none, she carries on, “Now, as to where you are: you don’t remember?”

  “No, not much, I…” he replies, this time in Sicilian. “I think I must have been dreaming.” He struggles against the bed, first trying to lift his shoulders, then his legs. “Where am I? How did I get here?”

  Mira ignores his questions and asks in a tone pitched perfect in calm and reassurance, “And what have you been dreaming?”

  Her father looks at his daughter as though he is sure she has lost her mind.

  “Dreaming? Oh, I was dreaming of when I was a boy. I was sailing on a lake. It was night and the breeze was so warm and the stars were shining so brightly.” In falling some way back into his dream, he ceases his struggle and very gradually his limbs fall limp.

  “That was a good dream,” Mira murmurs, shooting her father a look that tells him he is ridiculous for having thought she may have lost her mind.

  “Yes, it was until something terrible rose out of the water. Whatever it was brought a loud noise and a white light and… Am I awake now or am I still dreaming?”

  “No, Signor Lock, you are awake; for if you are dreaming, then so are we. I think what you were dreaming of was how you came to be here.”

  He grimaces and tries again to raise his hands.

  Once more, Mira presses them back down. “You were on an English boat; you had a battle with a submarine; your boat and the submarine blew up. Fortunately for you, you were rescued from the water by one of the Italian sailors from the submarine. He brought you here, to our village of Ganzirri on the shore of the Strait, to our house. This is where you are and that is how you come to be here.”

  “Yes, now I remember, you are Mira. Did anyone else get ashore, Mira?”

  “As far as we know, no. But that does not mean to say there are no other survivors. Sottocapo Falanga, who brought you here, said that a Motoscafo was nearby; it is possible they may have rescued others.”

  Francesca comes back in and Mira hands her a needle and a syringe tube. “For fifteen minutes, please, mama; then let them dry and bring them back.”

  Turning back to her patient, she says, “Now, I want you to drink some of this fluid, it is to stop you from becoming too dehydrated. We have no intravenous fluid, so you will need to drink as much as you can. Do not concern yourself with the bedclothes; they are the least of our concern.”

  He draws on the tube, gags, coughs and splutters, and eventually manages to swallow. “Thank you,” he whispers and lies silently for a few seconds. Then he moves his head slowly from side to side, wrestling with some thought that bothers him. “I don’t understand, why haven’t you given me up?”

  Mira glances at her father, her look designed to prompt him to respond.

  “Because you are wounded,” Enzo replies, “and because you have come to us from the sea.”

  “But I am British. I am your enemy.”

  “Signor Lock, no man who comes to us from the sea is our enemy unless he means us harm. We are fishermen and our duty is to those of the sea; that far outweighs our duty to whatever flag he bears. Besides that, we know what it means to…”

  Nicholas Lock lifts his head from his pillow and, though he cannot even see the tears forming at the corners of Enzo’s eyes, he perceives the anxiety in his voice. “What it means to… what?”

  “To be desperate to survive, Signor Lock.” Enzo blinks and clears his throat. “Now, I leave you in my daughter’s capable hands. We will talk later, when you have more strength. For the moment, rest. As I said before, you are safe now, so rest.”

  “Thank you, Enzo. That is your name, isn’t it, Enzo? I feel sure it is; you must have told me.”

  “Yes, Signor Nicholas, my name is Enzo, Enzo Ruggeri. We will talk later.”

  Before he leaves the room, her father squeezes his daughter’s arm affectionately; his expression tinged with melancholy, if not exactly apology.

  Mira smiles, wanting him to know that she does not hold his unnecessary and ill–judged remarks against him.

  So, her father did not approve of her husband. So what? And why does that matter since her husband is no longer around to upset his father–in–law? She offers the tube up to her patient’s mouth. “Come drink, a little at a time. Not too much, just a little.”

  When he wearies from lifting his head, Nicholas rests back down, but after a few minutes, he tenses and shudders as if in pain. “Mira?”

  “Yes, Signor Lock.”

  “Mira, I think I am lying naked in your bed, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “In that case, you had better call me by my given name. I think you must already know me better than most others I have met. Please call me Nicholas.”

  “Of course, Nicholas.”

  His body is once more and very suddenly wracked by a spasm of pain. “Mira, am I blind? Is that why I cannot see?”

  “No, Nicholas. You cannot see because the skin around your eyes is burned and Dottore Roselli wants to keep them covered for the moment.”

  “Well, I’m grateful to Dottore Roselli for his time. Is he here?”

  “No, not now. He will come by later.”

  “I’m so sorry to put you out, Mira.”

  “No matter, Nicholas. How do you feel, right now, I mean how do your burns feel?”

  “They sting a good deal and my face is on fire, yet I am cold. How can that be?”

  “It is because of your burns. You are cold because your body has surrendered much of its heat. When I have given you some morphine and dressed your burns with fresh aloe, I will cover you with a blanket and you will be warm again.”


  “Morphine?” he murmurs, his voice tiring. “Where did you get morphine from?”

  Francesca returns, and with the aid of a towel, she carries a hot metal plate, on which a glass syringe tube, a plunger and needle lie. She sets the dish down on the table, frowns in sympathy and leaves.

  “From a friend, Nicholas. From a friend. Now, I am going to give you an injection which will help you dream some more. Try to dream nice dreams.” She picks up the syringe tube, screws the needle on top and lays it back on the dish in such a way that the needle rests free of contact. Next, she breaks the bulbous nipple off the top of a larger ampoule and picking up the syringe, draws some of the clear liquid into the glass tube. “Rest now, Nicholas. Banish dark thoughts and free your mind to wander.” Holding the syringe up to the light, Mira presses the plunger and notes the fine jet of morphine which squirts silvery from the needle. “Nicholas, walk in the afternoon sun on the slopes of Aspromonte. Look down across the Strait at our beautiful village. Feel safe and well; I will sit by you to make sure you do not stray too far.”

  Chapter 8

  “What time is it?” Nicholas asks, unsure as to whether he is either awake or dreaming or whether, if he is awake, anyone is nearby to hear him.

  “Please?” Mira replies, in a voice soggy with sleep.

  “I’m sorry; forgot where I was and spoke in English. What time is it?” he asks again, though this time in Sicilian.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps a half hour before dawn.”

  “Was there an air raid during the night? I don’t know if I heard one; I think I did.”

  “Yes. Reggio and San Giovanni again. Now, though, it is too close to first light. Your air force is nothing if not predictable. Breakfast and dinner: in between, but never during. How do you feel?”

  “Oh, not too bad.” He hesitates. “Mira, you are sleeping on the floor? Because of me?” The air in the room is sultry, an oppressive saturated cloak that clings to his skin. A bead of sweat dribbles from his neck.

  “There is only one bed in my room,” she states. “Or should I say, there is only space for one bed.” Mira chuckles, “We are fortunate. There are four rooms in my parent’s house: one for my parents to sleep, one for me, a washroom of sorts and the room in which we cook and live. Most people only have two rooms: one for cooking and living, and one for everything else. Even though we have only the water papà collects from the village pump, he wanted a private room for washing, so he built one. A necessity, he calls it. A luxury, my mother called it until she got used to using it. Ha! That didn’t take long now, eh?”

  “I’m sorry you have to sleep on the floor on my account.”

  Her hand is at his chin and he senses the rubber tube against his lips. He sucks and draws in the sweet, citrus–flavoured water.

  Mira withdraws the tube and waits for him to swallow, before offering the tube up once more. “Don’t concern yourself, Nicholas. I am quite used to it. Until… Well, until recently, I shared this bed with my… my sister and before that with my brother, too. Nowadays, I get to sleep on the floor more often than I would like, because when Maria comes to stay, she sometimes wriggles in her sleep and then I am more comfortable on the floor.”

  “Maria?”

  “The grand–daughter of a friend of papà’s. Maria and Beppe: they are like my brother and sister, though Beppe no longer comes to stay.”

  “What about your brother and sister? Where are they now?”

  He feels her shift, perhaps uneasily, on the bed. “I don’t mean to pry, Mira, I–”

  “You are not prying, Nicholas,” she soothes. “You cannot see, so it is only natural that you are inquisitive. The dark makes us question, don’t you think? It is what I do when I don’t sleep: I question.” Mira sighs. “Knowledge is, or so my father has always maintained, enlightening and without light we would all be living in the dark. That is why he taught us to read and to think for ourselves. That is why we have not heard from my brother for many months; he is either dead, in a hospital or in a prison camp in Tunis.”

  “I’m sorry, Mira.”

  “Don’t be; it is not your fault. My brother joined the army for probably the same reasons you joined the navy: because you had no choice, because it was your duty and because you wanted to.”

  “And your sister?”

  “My sister is younger, she is married to another of our fishermen, they have only been together three years and already have three children. They live in Mortelle, not far away on the north coast. But we are different, my sister and me; she does not like to think for herself; she does not question everything the way I do.”

  Detecting a note of regret and longing in her wish, he searches for some comfort he might supply this woman he cannot see and yet who sleeps beside him on the stone–hard floor. “There’s nothing wrong in wanting to know why life is the way it is,” he says.

  “No, Nicholas, you are so very right. If we do not ask, how can we make things better? The only trouble is that I sometimes think my father wishes he had not taught me to question so much; for if he had not, perhaps we wouldn’t fight each other so.”

  “You fight? Each other? Why?”

  Mira chuckles or rather, perhaps because the darkness affords her some licence, she snorts a little indelicately, as though she has led him like an ass round the very same perfect circle she leads herself every night. “That is exactly the question, isn’t it, Nicholas. Why do I fight with my father, especially when he is the man who I respect and place above all others? And why do men fight, when they can more easily sit in my café, sip coffee and argue until the hunters return with the swordfish? They would certainly achieve just as much that way as they do by running around killing each other, and at least they would have the hope of some fish as a reward for their patience and respect.”

  In trying to dispel the numbness in his legs, Nicholas tenses his buttocks and eases his weight from one side to the other.

  He feels the coolness of her hands at his waist.

  “I must change your sheets. If you can sit up for a moment, that would help me.”

  He does so, too quickly. Pain flashes through his arms and across his chest, and he moans.

  “Slowly, Nicholas. Slowly.” She wraps her arm round his shoulders and holds him upright as she slips the sheet away from beneath his raised torso. “You need to be careful, or you will only make more work for Dottore Roselli when he comes this morning.”

  “Sorry, I–”

  “And you will have to learn to stop saying sorry,” she interrupts in a calm, matter–of–fact tone. “Clearly, you are a man of some independence and therefore not used to being cared for. Tell me, did your mother make you do your own washing like my mother makes me do mine?”

  “Probably. But then, I have no idea how old you are. I have no idea if you are old enough or too old to do your own washing.” He eases himself back down and hurries on with his talking. “I would guess from your voice that you are young, but no longer a child.” He makes to smile and then stops when the taut skin of his cheeks stretches and stings.

  “Yes, that serves you right for trying to be impolite, Nicholas. A woman’s age is not relevant to how others should see her. Her years are only of concern to her.”

  As though to make up for his lapse of manners, he says, “If it makes you feel any better, I am twenty–seven,”

  “Then I am older than you. Please, lift up your hips so that I can remove the sheet.”

  “Sorry, Mira, I–”

  “Enough, Nicholas. Enough,” she whispers, firmly.

  “It’s a strange feeling,” he says. “With my face as it is, I’ve no idea whether I’m blushing.”

  “Blushing? Why would you blush?”

  “Because, Mira, the last person to change my bedclothes at night was my mother and the last person to see me naked was my mother. I’m almost relieve
d I can’t see you; that would only make the situation far more difficult to live down.”

  Ignoring his anxiety and his embarrassment, she asks, “Nicholas, please lift up your hips once more.”

  He does so, and when he relaxes the new sheet is cool and dry.

  “And now your shoulders, slowly, eh.” Mira struggles a little against his weight. “Good. There. Now perhaps you will be quiet. I can’t make up my mind whether you talk more when you are sleeping than you do when you are awake. You are puddaciari. Anyone would think you were from Lipari.”

  “Puddaciari? What’s that?”

  “It means talkative. Too talkative for your own good. In Lipari they have little else to occupy their time other than talk.”

  “Mira, what language was I speaking in my dreams?”

  “English, mostly. A little Sicilian now and then. Sometimes a mixture.”

  “What was I saying?”

  “Much that I did not understand. You called out for someone. A man, I think. Harry, it sounded like. Then a number. It sounded like four. You wanted this man or men.”

  She sits on his bed and wipes his fevered brow with a damp cloth; the silence of the night broken only by the clicking and whirring of the rotors of his mind turning, as he tries to decipher the code to whatever it is that she thinks she has heard.

  “Oh, yes, of course,” he says, pleased with himself, “the Harry Four.”

  “What are they, the Harry… Four? Are they people?”

  “No,” he chuckles, “they are flags. Signal flags in fact. They inform other boats our engines have stopped. It was part of my dream. From the boat I came down on. Whenever we changed over fuel tanks, the engines used to cut out.” He pauses, thinking. “Curiously appropriate when you consider the state I’m in. You know, all at sea, blind as a bat and for the moment dependent on you.”