I’d pick each rose, I decided. I would learn to do both things. Yet memory and forgetfulness constituted one rose, the poem said. The single Rose. How could that be? I envisioned a single blossom with variegated colors, drenched and lovely as a sunset’s. Very nice; but as the rest of the stanza revealed, the situation was complicated. Apparently this single rose wasn’t just a blossom encompassing both recollection and obliviousness; it was something more. It was the Garden / Where all loves end.
I contemplated this.
So the single rose was a garden, and in this garden all loves end. All right, I thought—all right, Eliot. But only if in this poem end meant wind up and not terminate. Or arrive and not stop.
The more I thought about it, the more uncertain those alternative meanings left me. Was it possible that remembering and forgetting were both where love goes to ground? And could this be neither good nor bad, neither positive or negative, simply ineffable?
Indeed it could. Indeed it was.
Conclusion of all that / Is inconclusible: those lines from “Ash Wednesday” baffled me then, but come clear to me now. They conjure my father, spading his mother into her garden.
I sometimes miss Nell fiercely, and am glad that on this day of brisk capricious winds and fast-running clouds, their shapes rippling like the Delaware’s waters, she has visited me here in Castiglione. (In spirit, as she’d have said—a phrase connecting usefully with the verb inspire, from the Latin: to breathe or blow into.)
My grandmother gave me what her daughter-in-law never could, for my mother would deem it a waste of time: permission to make a mess, to get it all wrong, and a lesson in the need to clean up after—or at least make a good-faith effort to do so. I’d like to think that between these two women, my mother and my grandmother, I’ve got my bases more or less covered. But that presupposes I’ll recognize my demons when they knock, and bar the door to them—and who can count on that?
8. Casino
The path opens out onto a granite bluff overlooking the north end of Giglio Porto, the island’s port.
It’s early September, and Antonio and I are on the island of Giglio for a week’s stay. This isn’t our first time here; every summer since 2008, we’ve briefly rented the same small apartment. Located just outside the walls of Giglio Castello, a quiet medieval borgo perched atop one of the island’s highest hills, the apartment is perfect for work and rest. When I stand on its terrace, with one left-to-right, 180-degree glance I can take in Castello up above and then—out in the dazzling waters—the Argentario peninsula off the mainland, the small island of Giannutri nearby, and (on very clear days) far-off Monte Cristo and Elba.
Standing on the bluff, I stare at the strangeness before me. A few hundred yards to the left of the breakwater lies the half-submerged carcass of a boat. Longer than the entire town’s width, it is blue and white and multi-decked and funneled. I cannot help but see it as a child’s bath toy whose proportions somebody got grotesquely wrong. Houses a few hundred feet from the carcass look miniature in comparison to it.
In the water nearby stands a sentinel, a high navy-blue crane. Lights are strung on it and on the carcass, just above the waterline; their reflections shimmer unsteadily on the surface of the sea. Like Lilliputians, men move on the rocks and on the deck of a barge alongside the carcass. I cannot see them from here, but I know what they look like: they wear orange or red jumpsuits, rubber boots, and hard hats. Perhaps a few wet-suited divers are in the water as well. A small boat is moored near the crane; it ferries the Lilliputians back and forth.
From where I stand, I can’t hear anything but the wind. Down by the carcass, the slap-and-shush of the water and the undulating murmur of the trees compete with the all-day, all-night drone of heavy equipment. The mainland is to my left; to the right, westward, the sea appears infinite, the horizon merely an idea—unevenly visible, at times indistinct.
Earlier, I watched a squall travel across the peninsula, an hour’s ferry ride from here. For a few minutes, air and water alike turned an ever-deeper gray, their tones merging; then a rectangle of sky cleared right at the horizon. It was as if a theater director had decided to part the curtains of rain so I could glimpse what lay on some lit-up stage behind the one spread before me. I stood watching, convinced the world was letting me in on a fundamental secret of its drama, its mysterious workings. I was a spectator without a chiave di lettura, the right way to perceive what I was looking at.
Quietly majestic for a few moments, the scene’s lighting gradually dimmed. Then the curtain dropped, and all returned to a uniform gray.
The Costa Concordia, a Costa Crociere vessel, was launched in 2005 at a cost of roughly $570 million. Designed to accommodate more than four thousand people (a quarter of them crew members), it is slightly over 950 feet long and 116 feet wide. The boat has thirteen public decks on which are approximately 1,500 cabins.
The Concordia has four swimming pools (two with retractable roofs), five Jacuzzis, and a poolside movie theater on the main pool deck. There are five onboard restaurants, thirteen bars, and numerous “entertainment options,” including a three-level theater, a casino, and a disco. A children’s area is equipped with video games. For those who wish, the boat also has a Grand Prix racing simulator. Needless to say, there’s an Internet café.
One could say the Concordia is a floating island for people of leisure. One could also compare it to a quarantine center for individuals with a particular pathology: they want to be distracted, they enjoy encountering thousands of people daily, and they love the notion of a sea voyage but don’t want to be too aware of water. Such is sea-cruising in the early twenty-first century: passengers do on boats all the things they do on land and none of the things they might do at sea.
Shortly before 10:00 p.m. on the evening of January 13, 2012, the Concordia hit a submerged rock off the coast of Giglio, a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea roughly ten miles from the Tuscan coast. The rock was very near Le Scole, a visible cluster marked on navigation charts.
The submerged rock put a long gash in the boat’s side. The Concordia’s lights went out; plates and glasses fell from dining tables. Passengers were told only that power had been lost, not that the boat had struck a rock and was taking on water. The Concordia soon rotated and drifted to shore at the edge of Giglio Porto. Brought to a halt there, the vessel listed heavily, its bow and stern held up by two large ledges of rock. Having thus foundered, the Concordia was left—many say abandoned—by its captain, Francesco Schettino, who went to land while his crew continued loading people onto lifeboats.
Some passengers swam the few hundred feet to the coast, managing to do so because the water was mercifully serene, the moon full, and the wind low. Others were rescued by helicopter. Most were taken ashore either in lifeboats or by Gigliese motorboat owners. The evacuation of the Concordia was a chaotic operation; its crew seemed not to have been prepared for anything remotely like such an event.
Nonetheless, in roughly four hours the boat was evacuated. This meant that more than four times the total of Giglio’s full-time population of nine hundred souls was all at once deposited in its little port.
The evacuees climbed out of lifeboats and small craft in casual and evening dress, in gym clothes and bedclothes. Many were shoeless, and quite a few were scraped and bruised; a few had broken bones and serious cuts, having fallen against and upon one another in precipitous descents from decks to small boats. Most were composed but frightened, confused, and distressed. Some, lacking any idea where they were, wanted to know where the nearest airport was.
Thirty-two people failed to make it to shore alive. Eight months later, two bodies have yet to be recovered.
Before the Concordia’s encounter with the rock, Captain Schettino had ordered the boat to pass by the coast of Giglio at a much closer distance and greater speed—sixteen knots—than are allowed.
His reckless act wasn’t a one-time-only occurrence. Costa Crociere cruise ships were known f
or taking an inchino, or “bow,” while passing Giglio, Procida, Ischia, and other Italian islands in the Mediterranean—drawing close enough that passengers and islanders could see, hear, and wave to one another. Weeks after his boat foundered, the Concordia’s captain said he’d sought to fulfill a promise to his chief of restaurant services, a Gigliese: the boat would pass close by the island so he could greet his family.
Shortly before the impact, Schettino was eating dinner. After the hit he called an onshore crisis coordinator several times, but he did not issue the abandon-ship order until seventy-four minutes after the ship ran into the rock. At some point during the evacuation, he boarded a lifeboat along with his second mate, and went to a rocky part of the shore close to the boat. An audio recording of his cellphone call from there to a supervisor at the coast guard in Livorno soon went viral on the Web. The supervisor was clearly stunned to hear that the Concordia was going down while its captain stood on terra ferma, watching his remaining passengers and crew disembark.
Since the disaster Schettino has come under harsh attack, but he also has fervent defenders. Getting back on the boat, the latter claim, would’ve been impossible. Schettino himself has stated that despite having left, he managed the evacuation just as he would’ve done if he’d been aboard: by phone. The question of whether he could or should have returned to the boat will be addressed during legal proceedings. Meanwhile, Schettino is under house arrest, his maritime career over.
From our terrace, my view of the boat is such that it takes me a few moments to reckon with its actual proportions. I can grasp how long it is, but not how high. From Giglio Porto, viewers see it from a different angle, one that foreshortens it but makes it look much higher. From Castello, it looks nearly flat.
Antonio and I park our laptops on the kitchen table, where it’s cool during the afternoon heat and light-filled all day. This week will, we’ve heard, bring clouds and a bit of rain, but we don’t mind. Giglio’s not a fancy or costly place to vacation, and for us, it’s a little gem, sparkly and peaceful at once. The apartment’s kitchen is right off the terrace, where we take brief work breaks to stretch our arms and legs.
But now there’s the boat.
Each day I look at the Costa Concordia multiple times: first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and from various vantage points in between. Yet it’s fruitless: I can’t really grasp what I’m looking at. As it happens, the terrace’s height above sea level is almost the same as the length of the Concordia. If the boat were turned head-to-tail so its prow were balanced on the water’s surface, I’d be staring straight at the tip of its stern.
Giglio has a mere seventeen miles of coast. Much of the island is an uninhabited nature reserve, and most of its residents, full-time and visiting, live in three villages: Porto, Castello, and Campese. A few luxurious villas are tucked away in hard-to-reach spots, but there’s no high-end entertainment or shopping on the island. In the summer months, the island’s population swells with the influx of renters, campers, and time-share folk. Yet this isn’t a heavily trafficked place; the number of ferries and cars is limited, and in any case there’s little to do on Giglio other than eat, drink, and relish what nature offers.
I have rambled the island’s paths and hiked steep stony trails, passed languid afternoons on little beaches at Arenella, Canelle, and Campese, strolled the length of Porto’s main dockside street, and clambered up and down the narrow alleys of Castello. Though there’s much I haven’t explored, the island’s vegetation and topography have become familiar to me. What I mainly know of Giglio, however, is its mutability. It is impossible for me to fix in memory anything I experience here—the island’s views or scents, the touch of its air and wind, the soughing of trees, braying of donkeys, flitting of birds’ wings. Each year I arrive expecting I’ll remember precisely how it felt the year before—physical sensations, Giglio’s sensory imprints on my body—and each time, it all feels subtly different. Certain changes are obvious, of course: a new building in Porto, a favorite shop in Giglio Castello now closed. But such things happen anywhere. What’s unusual, even uncanny, is the way this island seems to rebuff my efforts to capture and store it in my mind so when I return, the sensations I’m anticipating will match with what I’ll feel.
This isn’t just an annual challenge; it’s a daily one. Stepping onto the terrace each morning, I’m startled by how unlike yesterday and unpredictive of tomorrow this here-and-now is. Why so, I wonder, on this island, when on the other island I call home—Brooklyn—all seems steadily fixed in reality and memory alike, and this is how things are remains a phrase I can utter unhesitatingly?
Perhaps for those Gigliese who awakened to the sight of the Concordia on that January morning, a similar perplexity arose as the familiar suddenly turned foreign. Worse: how things are had overnight become what should never be. For me, the experience of this island’s unpredictability has always carried a positive charge. But I don’t have to deal with a shipwreck that’s unfolding in slow motion, the full extent of its consequences still to be reckoned with.
* * *
To reach open water from the tiny beach at Arenella, swimmers must either wade out over a bed of small rocks or take a less direct but more comfortable route between two large rock clusters at the southern end of the beach. A path of pale sand threads between the rocks; one must sidle carefully past them and then plunge in.
The plunge can’t be too deep, however, as the water’s still fairly shallow at that point. And once launched, swimmers must be attentive: there’s another rock, flat and broad, just below the surface about ten yards from the beach. I’ve skinned my hands and knees on it more than once; it always seems to creep up on me, rather than the other way around.
This year—the year of the boat, as people say—I find that rock more compelling than nervous-making. I swim near it, circling it, trying to gauge its full dimensions. It sometimes seems like a sea creature, perhaps a huge turtle with a smooth hard back. I wonder what it’d do to one of the paddleboats that kids like to rent for an hour’s spin. If such a boat’s Plexiglas hull was to scrape against it, could the rock gash it open? Or could a paddleboat get hung up on the rock, stuck there, broiling in the sun? And could I myself climb upon the rock, since at its highest point it lies only six inches or so below the water’s surface?
Just around an outcropping to the right of the beach at Arenella lies the carcass. One can’t see the Concordia from the beach or cove, only the crane that towers above it. The outcropping blocks the view. Swimming out a few hundred feet, I lie on my back in the water and catch glimpses of the crane as I drift. In my mind I envision Gulliver, beached and inert, swarmed by rope-dancing Lilliputians.
There’s a plan for the boat’s salvage, a complex scheme that involves much pumping of air and water. The operation is fraught with difficulty and risks, both to the workers and to the environment. The Lilliputians’ lights glow day and night as generators and heavy equipment run nonstop, making a relentless noise that can be heard intermittently even in Castello.
I find it hard not to admire such efforts. Still, as everyone on Giglio knows, with the right combination of unpredictable factors—winds and the water’s action—the Concordia could drop out of sight altogether, leaving behind millions of dollars in equipment and five hundred workers.
It’s really tricky work, say specialists on Concordia-related websites. No, it’s a mucca, the woman who owns our apartment said to me during a conversation yesterday. (She lives in the house directly below ours, sharing our view.) The Concordia’s nothing but a cash cow for the salvage companies—and meanwhile, each morning I get up and step onto my terrace and look and . . .
Her voice trailed off. She made a stabbing motion at her heart.
My thoughts go to the two victims whose bodies have yet to be found: an Indian musician and a Sicilian woman.
Did they try to leave but fail for reasons no one, including themselves, could ever know? Or did the whole thing—
the impact, the drift toward shore, the increasing list of each deck—catch them totally unawares, unable to react fast enough? Were they napping when it all began? Listening to music with headphones? Or did they attempt to get off the boat in the company of others who, fleeing, weren’t capable of helping them, or figured they were following right behind, or believed someone else was with them, making sure they’d be all right?
Then I think about the survivors. More than 4,200 people who, a few hours before the encounter with the rock, had dined in one of the Concordia’s restaurants, or played a game of tennis, or indulged in a Jacuzzi session, or had their hair or nails done, or seen a film, or listened to live music as they were conveyed toward the coast of a little island off Tuscany that they’d never heard of—all these passengers who, post-encounter, wandered in a daze through a town with two main streets, a church, a few hotels, a dozen or so places to eat and drink, some shops selling trinkets and sweatshirts and local wine, a couple of touring agencies and real estate offices, a butcher, several ice cream shops, and a small exhibit room of a man who makes wonderfully detailed models of boats . . .
What did those survivors take away from their few hours in Giglio Porto—what sensations? Will their memories blur or cancel what happened between the moment of impact and their return to safe ground? What does the human body retain and recall of such phenomena as a cruise ship bowing to a coastline, bumping into a rock, tipping over, then glub-glubbing to one side while thousands of people scramble to get off it?
In Porto, shopkeepers and merchants have had a virtual double season of work since mid-January. The port has been housing and feeding journalists, salvage workers, and thousands more day-trippers than would normally arrive, particularly during the late-winter and spring months. Touring boats of all kinds have come from as far as Elba and Corsica. Full-time Gigliese admit to feeling exhausted by the voyeurism of tourists who don’t bother to visit Castello or explore the island’s natural beauty.
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