“Yes, like our father and our grandfather. Unfortunately, our father was lost to the Strait when we were quite young, so we didn’t really know him.” She sighs, as she considers both her father’s short life and the misfortune of children who grow up without the guidance of a father. “I sometimes wonder if that is not why Antonio took to being a fisherman too: perhaps he believes the sea will one day give our father back to us.”
“That doesn’t sound like common sense or logic.”
“No,” Angelica, says, slowly, reconsidering, “it doesn’t, does it? Maybe that is just me reading signs that are not there. Or maybe I have painted the wrong picture of him, I don’t know; but it is important to understand that just because a man lives by what he sees, it does not mean he is not a spiritual person. Antonio is that and much more, although he keeps much of his spiritual side locked away.”
“Is that because of what happened to him with his wife? Was he so hurt that he has buried his emotions? Once bitten, twice shy, that sort of thing.”
“Now, Caterina, add the wine and when it has reduced, the tomato paste; then we will leave it for ten minutes before we add the peas. Yes, I think you may be right. He was very wounded by her leaving; it wasn’t simply his loss of face, though he is no different from any man in that respect.”
“Or any Sicilian man, you mean.”
“Yes, perhaps,” Angelica replies, standing to sniff the aroma rising from the saucepan. “Nearly; one more minute.”
“What was she like, his wife? Why did she leave him?”
“What was she like? Oh, she possessed vanity the way some women possess small dogs: a plaything for her to lavish her attentions on, a focus for her love. So much so that Antonio could not compete with her vanity; there was not sufficient room in her life for both. Being married to a fisherman is not easy: the hours are long, the work is dangerous, and one would have to share one’s husband with his mistress, the sea. For that, I don’t blame her.”
“Where does she live?”
“In the north. Milan, somewhere near there. Somewhere where she can feed her vanity the right diet of polenta and fashion. She remarried, that was her right, and she comes back to visit Enzo, Antonio’s son, my nephew. But when she does, she always looks like she has come straight from a catwalk and that is not her right.”
“How does Enzo feel about her?”
“Like most twenty–year olds who have been deserted by their mother; he resents the hurt she has caused his father.”
“What age was he when she left?”
“Oh, ten, I think.”
“That must have been tough for your brother, to bring up a young boy and have time for fishing.”
“Naturally. Now,” she says, as though she has talked enough of sadness, “the sauce has thickened, so put it in that bowl and we will let it cool. I prepared the rice before I went out this morning. It is over there, on that big plate. When you have done that, please cut the mozzarella into small cubes and we will have a coffee, which I will make.”
“I see,” Caterina replies, a hint of easy humour in her tone, “So you trust me to make your arancini, but not to make your coffee.”
“No, that is not how it is. You make the arancini, the espresso machine makes the coffee and I make you smile, which I am pleased to see I have.”
*
“Take a big spoonful of rice,” Angelica, says, “and put it in your palm. Close your hand a little and press the rice into the shape of a cornet, like so.”
Caterina copies her. “Like an ice cream cornet.”
“Yes. Good. Now, take a small spoon of the sauce and fill the rice, leaving just enough at the top to add two or three cubes of the mozzarella and close it over. Be gentle, take your time; next to the preparation, this is the most important part.” She watches her pupil and manages to resist the temptation to interfere. “Yes, exactly like that. Excellent. Try to make the thickness of the rice even and thick enough that the sauce will not leak through. When you have finished, put the arancino on the plate.”
“I’m not sure that’s good enough, Angelica. It’s a bit thin in places.”
“That was your first. Try another; the second will be better and the third better still. I will watch and if I am not happy, I will tell you. So, keep going until you have finished.”
Caterina smiles, a resigned, good–natured and grateful smile. “Okay, but just remember, it’s your head that’s going to roll if I mess up.”
“No, I don’t think so. When cooks make a mess of their cooking, we do far worse than cut off their heads. Good, the second one is already looking more even.”
Although as in the afternoon before, they sit in silence, this time Caterina’s concentration provides a fence with which to keep the elephant of her circumstance at bay.
“How many arancini have you made so far, Caterina?”
She whispers to herself, counting: “two, three, four. Four.”
“And how many children do you have?”
Caterina hesitates as she loads her palm with rice. “That’s not fair.”
“Life is not fair,” Angelica states, solemnly. “How many?”
“One, my daughter Lucy.” She carries on pressing out the cone shape, all the while not looking directly at her inquisitor.
“And how old is Lucy?”
“Twenty–five.”
“What is she like?”
“She is tall, slim and very attractive: she has lovely hair, light–brown, not dark like mine. She’s a bit of a fitness fanatic: goes to the gym, runs half–marathons, but then most of them seem to do that these days.”
“Yes,” Angelica replies, dreamily, “my sons are the same; well, not all four of them, but three of them anyway. I am sure she is very attractive, like her mother, but when I ask you what she is like, I mean what she is like as a person.”
“Oh, she is a very positive soul: always the one to see opportunity in difficulty rather than the other way around. She’s worked hard at her studies and so far, she’s made the grades and earned the rewards, the accolades, the opportunities. That’s what I mean about her, she never expects anything to come to her; she always makes the effort to go out and get what she wants. Wasn’t quite like that when I was her age: mostly, we had it put in front of us and were told to eat it.”
“When did you last contact her?”
Caterina puts the spoon down beside the bowl of sauce and stares at the cupboard. “Last week, before I…” She shakes her head, banishing the memory from her mind. “The day I met you at Capo Peloro.”
“And we know today is Wednesday, because Antonio is coming; tomorrow is his Onomastico.”
“His name day?”
“Yes. Usually, men do not work on their name day, but Antonio…” Angelica shrugs, pauses, stands and inspects the arancini. “You are getting through those very quickly; they look very good. Bravo! I will whisk the eggs, flour, salt and water; the breadcrumbs I have all ready, here. When you have finished, you can dip the cones and roll them in the crumbs: then, you can put them in the fridge to firm up.” She taps the door; it is plastered over with photographs held in place by a variety of gaily–coloured fridge magnets.
“Angelica?”
“Yes, Caterina.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me about Lucy’s father?”
“No, that is for another time; perhaps after you have spoken to your daughter or later, when you feel you are ready.” She pauses, though not for long. “No, what I am more interested to know, is why you have come here, to Ganzirri. How long have you been here and did you come straight from the airport or from somewhere else in Sicily?”
“I came here from Taormina, last week.”
Angelica waits, expecting.
“I’d been there for a few days.”
Angelica is still waiting, still expecting.
“Seeing a few of the sights: you know, the amphitheatre, the Duomo, the Corso, Isola Bella.”
“Yes, I know of these places; they attract many tourists. Where did you stay? Which hotel?”
“I didn’t stay in a hotel, I stayed in a bed and breakfast; though I don’t suppose Casa Cuseni is everyone’s idea of a B&B.”
Angelica frowns in thought for a moment. Then, her face lights up. “Ah yes, I have heard of this place. It is a national monument, a museum; it has much history. It was built by an Englishman, no?”
“A man called Kitson, in 1905. He left it to his niece after the war and she ran it as a meeting place for artists until she died in 2005.”
“What is it like? It is very special, no?”
“It is, very special, very peaceful and the gardens are incredibly beautiful; citrus trees, olive and almond, bougainvillea, cineraria, stocks, white poppies. The gardens were designed by the futurists, Balla and Depero: I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a profusion of colour or encountered such a perfume of flowers,” she says, dreamily.
“Famous artists and writers,” Angelica adds. “Yes, I remember now. Didn’t Picasso, Hemingway and the philosopher Russell stay there? I think Greta Garbo, too.”
“It’s true, she did and for quite a long time. But the beauty of Casa Cuseni comes from within, not from the people who’ve stayed there. It comes more from the fresco on the walls of the locked room.”
“The fresco? Of a locked room?”
“Mm, the painting tells the story of how Kitson and his partner, Carlo, rescued an orphaned infant from the ruins of Messina after the great earthquake. They took the baby back to Casa Cuseni and brought him up there. Imagine it, a same sex couple adopting a baby in 1908. It’s no wonder the room was kept under lock and key for a hundred years.”
“You are right, Caterina; it is unimaginable. Think of the danger to both men and the baby if anyone had found out. To be homosexual in Taormina was not unknown: after all, the Greeks founded Giardini Naxos, so for a man to love another man was not perhaps so… so surprising. But for two men to bring up a child?”
“Yes, it’s a remarkable story and it spoke to me in all sorts of ways.”
Angelica watches her put the tray of arancini in the fridge. “So why did you come here from Taormina? Why here? Why to Ganzirri?”
“Why? Oh, I just remembered the name. I don’t know why but it sounded familiar; like I’d heard it before, even if I couldn’t recall exactly when or where.”
Chapter 6
“Angelica tells me you are the captain of a fishing boat,” Catherine says, to burst the ballooning silence.
Alberto had come home from the port around seven–thirty, changed into white chinos and a striped shirt, and sat down at the kitchen table to read la Gazzetta del Sud in peace. Antonio had appeared an hour later and half an hour late: his jeans torn and his dark blue short–sleeved shirt marked and sweat–stained. He had apologised: they had finished late, there had been not enough time for him to go by his house to change and if he had, he would have been even later.
“No, not the captain,” Antonio replies, shaking his dark curls and helping himself to a generous serving of salad. “I am the funcitta; the capobarca is the captain. The capobarca drives the boat and the funcitta is the man who spears the fish.”
“I see,” she says.
“No, in all probability you don’t,” Angelica corrects her, clearly irked by her brother’s economy of explanation. “Have you seen a feluca? Do you know what a feluca looks like?”
When she had come downstairs, Catherine had found Angelica in the kitchen, the table already laid. The woman had looked her up and down, before smiling broadly, sweetly, and nodding her approval of the plain blue pleated dress.
“I’m not sure, I think I may have seen one at a distance, across the Strait, before… Are they unusual–looking boats with a long gangplank at the front and a tall mast in the middle?”
“Yes,” Antonio replies, and he looks very fleetingly at his sister, a glance Catherine interprets as a criticism of her own ignorance.
Angelica glares at him.
He flinches, drops his shoulder to rub his leg and frowns back in question. “I mean, yes, they are most unusual. There are only fourteen feluche in existence: nine on our side of the Strait and five on the Calabrian side.” Antonio falls quiet.
Angelica leans her head across the table towards him and widens her eyes, bidding him to continue.
“Yes, of course.” He clears his throat: an affectation which, Catherine decides, is precipitated more by his discomfort at having to engage a strange woman in conversation rather than from any choking shred of celery.
Angelica had introduced Catherine as Caterina, informing both Antonio and Alberto that as she spoke Sicilian, particularly the Messinese dialect, and even though she was christened Catherine, they had decided between them that Caterina sounded somehow less formal and therefore that was the name they should use when addressing her. Both men had smiled, much as if they were shy schoolboys, and again as though they were schoolboys, had proceeded to compete for her attention when time came to allocate seats at the table.
Caterina now sits beside Angelica, with Antonio opposite her: Angelica had decided.
“The feluca is a special fishing boat,” Antonio continues, “designed specifically for the fishing of swordfish. She has a long passarelle, which extends from her prow and which provides the funcitta with the facility of hovering over the fish without the presence of the boat frightening the fish away. The tall mast, which we call ‘ntinna, provides the capobarca, the captain, with the facility of observing the fish and directing the feluca to the fish from his elevated position.” Antonio glances at Caterina and his hosts as if he is expecting and waiting for applause.
“That is most impressive, Antonio, did you write that yourself or did Enzo help you?” Angelica’s sarcasm is a reprisal for his being late.
He shrugs in appeal, “It is not easy to describe a feluca to a person who hasn’t seen one.”
“No, I can imagine it isn’t,” Caterina says, leaping to his defence.
Alberto looks up at his wife in surprise; his attention at last engaged. “You should go and see a feluca,” he says, finishing an arancino and wiping his mouth with his serviette. “They live inside the breakwater, down on the beach not two hundred meters from here. It is an impressive sight, six of them in a row, though at this time of year you will have to be up very early to catch them before they go hunting.”
“Hunting?” Caterina asks.
Antonio sighs, though not in any exasperated or impatient manner; more his sigh is that of the man who has eaten well and is now more positively disposed to conversation.
“Yes, Caterina, hunting; for although we are humble fishermen, we hunt the fish. We do not simply cast a net or drop a baited hook in the water.” He pauses waiting for his rationale to rest with her for a few seconds. “You see, the fish are cunning, the ocean is wide and deep, and the weather is either our best friend or our worst enemy.” He scoffs, gently. “Ha, sometimes the wind can try to kill you and then rescue you in the same breath; this I have seen many times. But what is important to understand is that though some people are happy to call us fishermen purely and simply because we catch fish, I believe we have more in common with the hunters who stalk wild beasts in the jungle.”
Alberto clasps his hands behind his head, leans back and turns his attention to the ceiling, whispering, “The old man and the sea? Dio, please, not again.”
Antonio’s face blackens, though before he can speak his sister intervenes.
“Now you know very well, Alberto, that the funcitta may only have one chance in a day, perhaps even in two or three days, to strike the fish. If he misses with his lance, his crew have no wages: if he hits his target, the crew go home happy. That is far more responsibility for a m
an to bear than for one who punches tickets on the ferry.”
Alberto bristles. Antonio regains his composure.
“Is it just swordfish that you catch, or do you catch tuna, too?” Caterina asks by way of distraction.
Antonio smiles. “We are only permitted to catch swordfish. For tuna, we have no licence and there has been too much fishing of tuna in the Mediterranean, that is enough reason in itself.”
Alberto scoffs, unkindly, disrespectfully and Antonio’s face darkens once more.
“Oh, I apologise.” Caterina says. “This is my fault, I seem to be pressing the wrong buttons, don’t I?”
“No, you are not,” Angelica says, “And it is not your fault. The men like to argue and when they do, they forget they are in the presence of a cook who has laboured hard to provide them with delicious arancini. They should be grateful… and more respectful.”
Told off, both men sit up straighter and assume the deportment of children who have suddenly remembered their manners.
“You made the arancini?” Antonio volunteers, pleasantly surprised.
“Well, I…”
“Yes, Caterina made them,” Angelica says. “Not bad for a first attempt, eh?”
“Better than not bad; they were everything a good arancino should be.” Antonio hunches his shoulders and splays his hands. “If I had not known, I would have thought they were from Famulari’s.”
Alberto bridles. “He means the restaurant on the Via Cesare Battisti. Though personally, I believe your arancini are better: they are home–made and made with love.” He beams.
Love. Made with love. It was what Angelica had said.
However, instead of the rash of compliments sparking another round of verbal jousting between the two men, they sit and smile at Caterina, and her heart melts, just like the cubes of mozzarella she has so carefully placed in the top of the rice cones.
“So,” Antonio begins, his eyes twinkling with humour, “not only do you cook like a Messinese, you can talk like one, too. How is that so? Where did you learn?”
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