“Cheerful? I’m always cheerful when you call!” She did sound cheerful, whenever she realized she was talking to Iris. And despite being only a decade shy of a hundred, Auntie Rosa put many younger people to shame with her energy and enthusiasm. There was nothing feeble about her voice, either; it flew across the ocean clear and strong. But expecting Auntie Rosa to understand anything over the phone was another story altogether. In recent years, she had tried three different types of hearing aids, but none seemed to help much.
Iris gave up, and followed the flow. “And I’m cheerful when I hear your voice, too! I’ll call you again soon. I love you!”
Those were three words Auntie Rosa always understood. “I love you too, honey!” Little kissing noises tickled Iris’s ear before the line went dead; as usual, Auntie Rosa had hung up without saying goodbye. Iris wondered whether she simply forgot, or omitted her goodbyes intentionally. Iris still felt terrible that she hadn’t been able to make it home for Auntie Rosa’s ninetieth birthday celebration, but she hadn’t wanted to abandon Max, who was going through a bout of depression, and for the first time had not distanced himself from her. In addition, she had just turned in her resignation at the Dimora, and Signora Mangiagallo was intent on making life difficult for her until the very last day, so taking vacation time was out of the question.
There had been a surreal quality to the weeks leading up to her final day on the job. When Max was around, talking incessantly about all the places to which they would travel, the decision seemed so right. But as soon as he went away and she was left on her own, she was assailed by doubts. Ever since her first day on the job, the Dimora had been to her exactly what the Italian word meant: her dwelling. She had been there since before its opening, and put heart and soul into creating the perfect atmosphere, developing business with the just right type of clientele, earning their fidelity. The staff looked to her for guidance, and were loyal to her. She was treated with respect by everyone, and despite her aversion to formality, she had even grown into the title she had strove to achieve, and gradually became accustomed to hearing: “Buongiorno, Direttrice.” “Posso disturbarla un momento, Direttrice?” “C’è un problema, Direttrice.” “Posso portarle un caffè, Direttrice?” The Dimora had been more than a job to her; it had been a home, and the staff her family. Families could hold you back from living your life, though. If it hadn’t been for Gregorio, she would still be in Rochester doing who knows what. And if it hadn’t been for Max, she would never have risked cutting herself free: from Gregorio, from the Leales, or from the Mangiagallos.
Each time the ship pitched and rolled, the plastic water bottle that had toppled to the floor of the cabin followed suit, rousing Iris just as she was drifting off to sleep. Though she had hoped for a smooth crossing to Cagliari, she did not actually mind the rough sea. It lent a sense of adventure to her first overnight voyage, and fortunately, she did not suffer from seasickness. Neither, evidently, did Max, who slumbered in the bunk beneath her. His melodious snoring was juicy and full-bodied, its range and consistency maximized by his fleshy lips and slack jaw, and punctuated by a chewing movement and the heaving of his chest whenever he changed position, as if sleeping exhausted him.
She thought back on her sleepless nights lying next to Gregorio’s inert, lean form, of the monotonous sound of his dry snorts followed by an almost imperceptible puff, as air sought release through his thin lips, pursed even in repose. Gregorio’s snoring was neat and composed, its cadence so regular it was reassuring, and sometimes actually helped Iris fall asleep. Unlike Max’s trumpeting, which with each roll of the ship was complemented by the percussion of the renegade water bottle, the banging of the toilet door, and the swishing of coins and keys on the nightstand.
This disjointed ensemble accompanied the exquisite images collected over the past ten days which flickered through Iris’s now wide awake mind. She had already filled a notebook with her impressions, but wondered whether her words could faithfully convey the loveliness of the scenery and variety of sensations she encountered each day. She had never expected to discover such dazzling waters in the Adriatic, the coast she had always associated with mobs of mindless vacationers who flocked there each summer to play cards under endless rows of striped umbrellas, smearing their bodies with creams and oils smelling of tropical fruit, parading their paunches up and down the flat, sandy beaches, wading aimlessly in its colorless, shallow waters by day, and cruising its clubs by night. Further down the coast, just an hour’s ferry boat ride from Termoli, she had been delightfully surprised to discover the Tremiti islands, where the green gouache of Aleppo pines was mirrored in the crystal clear waters of the marine reserve. The same currents that kept the water pristine also kept it cold, and although it was early in the season, she and Max always took a dip during lunch breaks. The water exhilarated her, made her skin tingle and her heart race, made her feel alive and lucky and in love.
After returning to the mainland, they had driven through the Gargano peninsula, and she made everyone laugh by pointing excitedly at what looked like a giant alien spider from an old Japanese horror movie she spotted along the water’s edge. Smiling that smirk of his, Max explained that the contraption was a trabucco, an ancient system of poles, lines, pulleys and nets used to pluck fish from offshore waters. They were still exploring the coast when the RAI production office called to instruct them they must cut their stay short and leave at once for Sardinia: the tuna were running.
During the drive west, Iris had ridden in the backseat of the van, oblivious to the bedlam of the other passengers shouting into their cell phones, fighting to be heard over one another. With no one calling her and no one to call, she stared out the window as they crossed Italy’s breadbasket stretching from Apulia to Campania, marveling at the rolling fields of durum wheat, a landscape she did not know existed in southern Italy. For all its vastness, it was not Oklahoma, however, and within a few hours, they had already reached the outskirts of Naples.
Views of drab apartment buildings with drab laundry hanging from drab balconies overlooking drab roadways infiltrated the harmonious images of the countryside still floating in the space between Iris’s eyes and her memory, as the van snaked through the traffic to the port and queued up with the other vehicles waiting to board the ferry. Drivers were leaning against cars in the fading light, smoking, obsessively checking their wristwatches and cell phones, intent on looking as if, unlike the others, they had better things to do than wait. Looking across to the pier where the hydrofoil for Ischia was docked, Iris swallowed, as a surge of sadness tightened her throat. She had waited at that pier many times, after flying down from Genoa with Gregorio and his diving gear. She wondered whether he would go to Ischia this year, and whether he would rinse out his own wetsuit and hang it to dry at the end of the day, in the same methodical way he had taught her two decades earlier.
Iris curled into a ball in her top bunk, clenching the rough sheet in her fists; the pitching and rolling was getting worse. Each time the ship listed to one side, she held her breath until the movement was reversed and the cycle repeated itself: inhale-apnea-exhale, inhale-apnea-exhale. If Gregorio were there, he would sense she was awake, and cradle her in his arms. If sleep still eluded her, he would resort to more effective means, and now so would Iris. Lying on her stomach, she stretched an arm down to the night table and grabbed her travel pouch. Her fingers found the familiar package of pills, and popped open a blister. Not wanting to climb down from her bunk to chase the rolling bottle of water, she swallowed the little blue pill without drinking. Hugging the flat pillow, she silently recited the goodnight prayer she used to say as a child. All she had to do now was wait.
“Buongiorno, Bella Addormentata! Are you planning to come ashore or are you just gonna stay here and doze?”
Iris forced open her heavy lids, trying to figure out where she was and why. In the dream she had just abandoned, Gregorio was looming over her, holding a baby in his arms, demanding explanations she could not
give. But the man standing in front of her in the artificial light was Max, and from her bunk, little more than his head was visible. She could see that he was already wearing a shirt, though, and that his backpack was slung over a shoulder. A deep shudder vibrated through the cabin, through her groggy head, through her lethargic body. The ship was maneuvering into its slip at the pier.
“Where are we?” she mumbled. The last thing she remembered was waiting in the port of Naples, looking at the hydrofoil for Ischia.
“We’re there,” Max said. Great. If only she could remember where “there” was today. “Now move that pretty little ass of yours!”
Iris raised her sunglasses and parked them on top of her head, bracing her eyes to face the midday sun. The morning had passed in a blur, and she recalled only snatches of the westbound drive from Cagliari to Portovesme in the van. This final crossing to the island of San Pietro would be brief, and she wanted to remember every minute of it. A surge of excitement for the imminent arrival at their final destination ferried the last traces of grogginess from Iris’s system; her loose hair slapped her in the face as she stood on the open bridge, inhaling the salty air peppered with the smell of deck paint and engine grease. The thought that she was here, about to set foot on a little-known island, rather than fielding the complaints of the clients, staff and owners of the Dimora, was as difficult for her to grasp as if it were a dream dangling from the moon. Only this time she was awake, this time she was living that dream in person. Exhilarated by her newfound freedom, Iris tossed her head back and laughed aloud, sharing her joy with the sun and the sky, the sea and the wind. As the ferry approached land, her heart quickened at the sight of a brand new territory to explore. There was something oddly familiar about the colorful pastel buildings that lined the waterfront of Carloforte, and Iris wished that she knew more about the island and its history.
“Max, it reminds me of home!” Funny, how Liguria was home to her when she was traveling, and Rochester was home when she was in Liguria. It was all relative, she supposed.
“I’m not surprised,” Max said. “Wait until you hear someone talk. I’ll bet you understand the Tabarchino dialect. It’s a lot like what you hear in Liguria.”
“How can that be? We’re so far away!” she said.
“Ah-ha! You mean Signorina Capotosti didn’t do her homework?”
“I haven’t been able to hook up to the Internet for five days, or I would have.” Max always teased her for spending more time researching the local history and customs of their travel destinations, rather than where they would be sleeping or what specialties they would be eating. To her, it seemed presumptuous, if not downright rude, to arrive in a new place without first learning a bit about its culture. All she knew about the island of San Pietro was the reason given for this stopover on their itinerary: tuna fish.
“You must know something about this place, if you agreed to come here,” she said. “You must have learned something in geography class; after all, it is still Italy.”
“I don’t remember the whole story,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “All I know is that the island was settled a couple of centuries ago by a colony of Genoese descendants.”
“Really? What did they come here for?”
“They didn’t really mean to come here. They went to Tunisia first, to a place called Tabarka, to fish for coral. When the coral ran out, there wasn’t a hell of a lot they could do there, so the smart ones left. I guess they just stumbled on this place on their way back to Italy, and discovered there was lots of coral here, too. It worked out well, because no one was living here then, and the king was looking for someone to colonize the island.”
“How amazing! Where did the name come from?”
“Look, Capo, you’re the one who’s supposed to be telling everyone about this place, not me. I’m the movie man, remember?” Max poked her in the ribs.
“OK, OK!” Iris giggled. She couldn’t wait to find out more about the island. She wondered whether there was a little museum or library she could visit. With all there was to see and learn in the world, she felt she could travel forever, and never tire of it. All those months spent locked up in the Dimora, all those years spent trying to conform to life as a Leale – they all seemed squandered on the pointless existence of another person she hardly knew anymore. She smiled up at Max, her green eyes sparkling, her pink cheeks rolled up into little balls of joy.
“Thank you, Max! I’ll never forget this!”
“What? The history lesson?”
“No, silly!” she said. She gathered her flying hair in one hand, and with the other made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the indigo sea, the fishing boats bobbing in the harbor, the late spring sun shining in the cloudless sky, the palm trees lining the seafront, waving their fronds in the breeze. “All this! If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here!”
“And if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be so happy to be here, Capo.” Max spoke in a low voice, as if frightened by the sound of his own words. “The demons don’t mess with me so much when you’re around.” He pulled her close, and kissed away the tears of joy glistening in her eyes.
Iris had known it all along: people could change. All you had to do was believe in them, and love them with all your heart. Just like with dreams.
The sky and the sea were still joined in darkness when the van parked in the unpaved lot in front of the tonnara. The salty morning air was thick with expectancy, laden with the pungent odors of an unfamiliar world. Breathing in shallow sips, Iris identified the smells of manual labor, of physical fatigue, of a perennial dampness that permeated body and soul. A sense of predestined purpose seemed to guide the movements of the muscular men she observed preparing for what promised to be a busy day for the islanders who relied upon the bounty of the sea for their livelihood.
The previous evening, while Iris and Max and the crew were led on a gastronomical tour of tuna-based delicacies under the tutelage of a highly acclaimed restaurateur to be featured in the program, they had all been infected with the excitement reverberating throughout the little island. The tam-tam in town was that the Rais, undisputed chief of the tuna kill, had declared the conditions perfect for a mattanza.
At the museum in Carloforte, Iris had studied a model of the ancient and intricate system of tuna fishing that still survived in San Pietro and precious few other locations in the Mediterranean. For centuries, man had been using the same method devised to catch the bluefin tuna during its migration. Programmed by a genetic code, the fish followed a route that led them from the North Atlantic and through the Strait of Gibraltar, to the warmer waters of the Mediterranean to deposit their eggs. It was said that the fish followed the land with their left eye as they swam, until they reached the waters near Sardinia and Sicily, where they were tricked into following nets which ran perpendicular to the land, mistaking them for the coastline. The nets led the befuddled tunas into a series of other nets, a labyrinth of chambers from which it was impossible for them to find their way out. On the morning of the mattanza, they would be led into the final chamber, la camera della morte, where they would meet their demise.
It was in the more modern, concrete building of the tonnara where the tunas, fresh off the boat, were cleaned and sectioned, so their highly prized meat could be promptly shipped off to the highest bidders, some as far away as Japan. The hearts and egg sacs, traditionally the spoils of the workers who eviscerated the fish, were hung to dry in the cool darkness of another ancient building and later sold to local restaurants and specialty food shops, where they were appreciated as delicacies.
Max and the crew had made previous arrangements to film the mattanza, but had been forewarned that the indoor work premises were strictly off limits to cameras. Max, never keen on restrictions, ran through his well-rehearsed gamut of persuasive tactics to gain access to the inner sanctum while Iris, the only woman in sight, preferred to stay out of the way of the burly men who glared at her as they went about the tasks perf
ormed by generations of men before them. Wandering off on her own, she found her way down to the wharf where the tied-up boats drowsed, rocked gently by the waves, under the soft pink blanket of a breaking dawn. Iris wondered where the unsuspecting tuna might be now; all she could see, off in the distance, were the bright bobbing buoys of the nets.
The early morning hours gently and generously shared revelations with Iris whenever she took the time to listen, and between a thought and a prayer, a regret and a hope, her mind had wandered elsewhere by the time she heard Max calling her name. Everything was set for the departure, and Iris was ordered to board a long, barge-like vessel along with him and the crew. As she hopped aboard, she felt a flutter of the curiosity that had been aroused by everything Max had told her about the tuna fishing tradition, about how exciting and passionate an experience it would be, about how this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to witness the practice firsthand, before it became extinct. As soon as they set off, however, her desire for adventure was eclipsed by a growing cloud of dread, and she began wishing she had remained ashore. She hugged her bare arms, wondering whether she really needed to participate in the mattanza to write about it, and why she had not worn something more suitable than the white gauze pants and flimsy top that did little to protect her from the cool morning air out on the open sea.
“You hang on tight, and stay put right here, Capo,” Max instructed her when the vessel slowed down and maneuvered into position. “I’ll be running back and forth with the other guys. We’ll have to move fast once the action starts.”
Iris nodded; she had no intention of budging from where she was. She looked around at the other smaller boats, the so-called bastarde, which had been towed into place and joined to form a giant square along the perimeter of the underwater death chamber. She admired the agility of the bare-chested men of the ciurma, or crew, as they jumped from boat to boat, but she still did not see any tunas. Maybe there had been a mistake, maybe the nets were empty, maybe they could turn around and head back to shore, maybe … Her thoughts were interrupted by a piercing cry that made her blood freeze. Her gaze turned to the Rais, as all activity came to a standstill, and all men fell silent. The tension in the air was palpable.
The Complete Series Page 123