Guesswork

by Martha Cooley

  All the actors in this drama have their own perspectives and needs, fears and fantasies. And everyone has a story to tell about it, though not everyone is willing or eager to do so. On the website of Carnival (Crociere’s parent company), the keywords “Costa Concordia” produce nothing: it’s as if the vessel never existed, was never associated with Carnival. On Costa Crociere’s news blog, in contrast, the story line is tightly controlled: We are now launching a salvage operation with characteristics and technical complexities never faced before. An accompanying video shows a massive white cruise ship sunning itself on its side, propped up by a splendid Mediterranean island and looking like some magnificent bauble in paradise.

  As the story of the disaster keeps unfolding, there will be alliances and negotiations, winners and losers. In Italian, the somewhat vulgar slang for a big fat mess is casino. The Italian word doesn’t refer to gambling; a casino is a whorehouse. When I combine the word’s meanings in both languages—brothel and betting-place—I find a useful (if partial) chiave di lettura. From start to finish, the Concordia has been a casino.

  Yesterday afternoon, to get a closer view, we descended by car from Castello to the turnoff to Arenella, and parked on the narrow road’s even narrower shoulder.

  A little gap had opened in the guardrail. We slipped through on foot and started downward over rocks till we could go no further—too steep, too dangerous. We were smack in front of the Concordia, a few hundred feet as the crow flies. I sat down and scanned the length of the boat with my binoculars, trying to memorize what I was seeing.

  A tangle of deck chairs above the largest of the swimming pools. Nearby, many more chairs (each tan with a silver rim) neatly stacked in rows; elegant, made to last. At one end of each pool, a pair of large planters in which, heads bowed, are palm trees whose fronds are brown. A bright-yellow swath around the perimeter of the top deck, its two ends disappearing into water: the jogging track. Staircases: several, each steep. (So many decks underwater! Less than half the boat is now above the surface.)

  Countless windows, nothing inside visible. A tennis court. The retractable glass roofs of atrium-style restaurants or lounges.

  Putting down the binoculars, I adjusted my seat on a rock, digging in with my sneakers so as not to slip downward. My vision unassisted, I found that my sense of proportion was once again boggled by what lay before me. The vast cruise ship; a floating barge with a crane and other equipment; a second floating platform with stacks of storage containers; a tugboat; a powerboat. I studied the powerboat, minuscule in comparison with the Concordia. On it were a half-dozen or so figures resembling dolls. I raised the binoculars so I could watch them. They were dressed in white, whereas the men on the platforms were in red or orange jumpsuits. Then I gazed at the tugboat, where I could see laundry drying and more men moving about.

  If any of those workers were to look up, I thought, they’d see the Concordia’s decks towering over them at a radical slant. Like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. They’d be staring upward as they pictured themselves on the boat’s uppermost deck—up there, way way up, then starting to slide down, down down down . . .

  It’s throwing off our sense of proportion, said Mattia Carfagna when we called him a few days after the event. We’re having trouble getting used to it, he added. We round a corner and there’s the boat, and nothing seems the proper size.

  Mattia runs a ristorantino in Castello that serves fish dishes. We met him last year, and were charmed by his humor and impressed by his talent. He knows Giglio and its people intimately; knows, too, the pleasure of time passing at its own pace on this island where nobody rushes, yet things get done.

  Shortly before eleven on the night of January 13, Mattia went down to Porto and, along with dozens of fellow Gigliese, did what needed doing—bringing evacuees up to Castello in search of friends or relatives, and carting equipment and food from his restaurant down to Porto in order to make meals and hot drinks. It was cold, he recounted, there were so many people, wet, hungry . . . We didn’t stop till two o’clock the next day. We were pretty much in a daze the whole time, even though we were well organized. It all felt . . . distorted.

  When we saw Mattia for the first time after the disaster, Giglio’s weather had turned cool—unusual for early September, though nothing like that January night. Mattia invited us to sit at the counter at the back of his restaurant; he was prepping food for that evening.

  Here, he said, pulling out some culatello and Parmigiano. Eat this, warm up, have some wine while I work.

  He put meat, cheese, bread, and wine before us, and we did as he instructed—ate and drank—and didn’t ask about the boat. It was clear from his grimace, when I mentioned it in passing, that he didn’t want to talk about what’d happened. Yet in the end he did, if only briefly. How not? The Concordia refuses to be silenced, though the boat doesn’t speak.

  I just want it, said Mattia, to go away. All of it.

  From our terrace I can’t see the Lilliputians at work. Can see only the sweep of the sea, the silvered tips of shrubs, pale lichen on crags below me. Can see, if I position myself right—turned, that is, away from the boat—only what I wish to see: Giglio’s vertiginous hills, its high broad sky and mutating clouds. The island’s serrated edges, where rock cuts into sea.

  This place is one big rock, I remind myself. It can’t drift off, crash, or get split open like a coconut because somebody’s not paying attention. It’s not a vessel. It won’t sink.

  Staring out across the Mediterranean, I travel mentally to the cemetery down the hill from Castiglione, with its little colony of graves and a mangy cat for a caretaker. From there, my mind leapfrogs to my parents’ residence outside Philadelphia. Closing my eyes, inhaling deeply, I see my mother sitting next to me on the terrace—not the one in the borgo, not the one where she lives, but this terrace here on this island . . . No, that’s not right, it can’t be, for my mother ranges where no one can see—isn’t that her bobbing out there in the Mediterranean, right now?—my mother, who must’ve felt split open like a coconut when told she’d soon cease seeing her husband, children, and everything else?

  I open my eyes. The sea is placid; on its surface nothing moves but two ferries, one bound for Giglio and the other for the mainland. Where my mother ranges is a mystery. Swimming for decades in darkness, making her own light within herself because she alone can know what the experience was and still is—after all that, I bet Mom’s truly tired, not waving but drowning . . . And has there really been nothing else I could’ve done about it, to help her—nothing other than love her? What’s more, in recent years haven’t I failed her by not doing what matters to me—my work—every day, trusting myself as she trusts me to weave words daily, sending that shuttle back and forth even if I can’t see how it’ll turn out, or if it’ll be any good? Haven’t I disappointed her? I’ve no kids and no new book, either, since quite a few years . . .

  Anguish rams my heart.

  Stop it, I order myself. You’ll come back here in a few years, and when you return, you’ll pretend the nightmare of the boat never happened. By then the boat will be gone. You’ll sit at the table in the apartment and do your work, just as you sit at your desk in Castiglione or in Brooklyn and do it there. And you’ll pretend Mom’s still alive, even if she’s not. If she’s dead, then each afternoon you’ll take a break from your work and go down to Arenella and swim out past the rock, out to where the boat used to be, and you’ll stop and float, closing your eyes as tightly as they’re closed right now, and with that absence of light you’ll see what you need to see: the wispy curls of Mom’s white hair, the perfect ovals of her fingernails, the soft lobes of her ears. In the waves’ rise and fall you’ll hear the upturn of her voice, that lilt when she teases you. Lapped by the water as you float, you’ll feel Mom’s fingers scanning your face, reading what you look like now. And all this will buoy you.

  Oh yes, answers my heart. You’ll swim out there, of course. And you’ll remember. But d
on’t forget what Eliot said about it, the ragged rock in the restless waters—how that rock is useful for steering a course, how fog hides it, waves slosh over it; how on calm days it’s just a harmless monument to torments past, gone, over. But when the weather changes, in the sombre season or the sudden fury, that rock turns real, is what it always was. Memories that buoy will gash, too. Don’t try guessing when or where.

  * * *

  How will Mattia and all the other Gigliese feel when the boat’s gone, one way or another? Will they miss its presence, perverse though that possibility might sound to them now?

  Perhaps they will wonder why they can’t seem to summon the Concordia clearly to mind. Do things sink in memory? Under what circumstances does memory salvage disasters, or bury them? Will the islanders seek a chiave di lettura for their experience, or will they consign the naufragio to legend—like the Saracens’ attacks four hundred years ago, which their predecessors bravely repelled, though who thinks about any of that today?

  At dusk, the boat’s an amusement-park ride gone topsy-turvy.

  Midday, a tipped-over toy in brilliant sunshine.

  At sunset, a blue-and-yellow hallucination.

  Middle of the night, a huge dark blotch of sorrow.

  First thing in the morning, a reminder: this will alter, will not be recalled as it is.

  9. The Trunk

  We’ve left Castiglione del Terziere for a fortnight—our second departure since moving there in late spring. It’s autumn now; the island of Giglio and its boat are far away. Time and place seem out of whack, though of course the problem isn’t time and place but my perception of them, distorted by travel.

  And, too, by strong feeling.

  We’re in the States: we’ve come to visit my parents. On this mild fall morning, we’ve taken a train from New York to Philly, and have hopped a taxi outside 30th Street Station. In twenty minutes we’ll arrive . . .

  Six full days in an assisted-living community—what was I imagining when I made this plan? Me at the tender age of fifty-seven, and Antonio a mere sixty-five?

  * * *

  The place is kind of nice, actually.

  Its residents call it a campus, as if it were a school. From the main building several hallways, all wheelchair-accessible, radiate into corridors of apartments on two levels. In spring, forsythia and azaleas blaze gold and pink; each autumn, old-growth trees litter the ground with burnt-orange leaves. A walking path encircles the grounds, wending through a patch of woods. The entire ensemble is tranquil; the only sounds one hears are those of lawnmowers and leaf-blowers. Birds feast at well-stocked feeders.

  Settling into the cab, I picture the facility’s main dining room, where we’ll soon eat lunch with my parents. It’s got a vaulted ceiling and a ski-chalet-style fireplace. Along the main corridor leading to the dining room is an exhibit space for residents’ artwork: drawings, oils, watercolors, photographs.

  After her heart attack, my mother was moved from Dad’s apartment to the facility’s nursing wing, called the Lodge. Dad walks over there several times daily to spend time with her. Along the way, he chats people up. Though I can’t imagine not getting irritated by my father’s repeated jokes—a by-product of his dementia—the maintenance men he greets each day always chuckle when he delivers one of his punch lines as if for the first time.

  As a radio operator during World War II, Dad was stationed in China. He still talks incessantly about his wartime experiences, and loves trotting out the few Chinese words he can remember. He’s even taught a couple of the staff to repeat ding hao and bu hao (very good and not good) when he barks out those phrases. It’s touching to see how obliging the staff are: they play the game without impatience.

  And yet, I remind myself as our taxi speeds along the Schuylkill Expressway, none of them have to worry about what’s likely to come: that moment when my father can’t recall who he’s talking to, or know what he’s trying to say.

  This worry belongs mainly to my siblings and me. In fact, Dad has already started to fumble his words, mixing up phrases and parts of speech. When syntactical patterns escape or fail him, he tries others to see if they’ll fit. Observing this, I’m reminded of my own end runs when speaking Italian—moments when I can’t find what I need to complete a thought, and must scramble for rearrangements.

  Look, says Antonio, pointing. Just like the ones on the Po River!

  We’re passing Boathouse Row. My husband cranes his neck to track a half-dozen racing shells slicing the water. I know what he’s doing: focusing on something—anything—that’ll take his mind off our destination.

  Only a week, I repeat like a mantra as our taxi pulls up to the main entrance of the facility. Just a week. Then Antonio and I will fly back to our borgo.

  We go to my mother first, wheeling our luggage over to the Lodge and down several hallways smelling more than faintly of poop and vomit. A few of the residents here are able to push walkers; most are in wheelchairs or propped up in bed, televisions on high volume.

  My mother’s room is near a terrace at the end of a hall, hence quieter and brighter than most. Its sunshine is helpful not to her but to my father, who can’t abide gray or cold weather and is happiest in overheated spaces. He wears several layers even in summer; the slightest breeze provokes his complaints about the cold. Entering Mom’s room, we slip off our jackets and park our luggage along one wall.

  My mother sits in her easy chair, her back to the picture window. She’s holding her audio player on her lap. An old, boxy plastic device she’s had for years, the machine plays audiobooks, called Talking Books, which are loaned by the Library for the Blind to visually impaired patrons. Mom’s audio player is always either on her lap or at her feet. Several of the Library’s bright green cassette containers rest by her hip: she’s probably about to finish one title and start another.

  Her expression is pensive; she’s engrossed. The voice reading the book (quite loudly, so she can hear) is male, with a slight British accent. A room of some sort is being described, there’s a detail about wallpaper . . . As she listens, my mother’s eyeballs stray back and forth, as they’ve done for years.

  Shifting my gaze from her face to her body, I see one of her hands travel to the waistband of her sweater, giving it a little tug and twist.

  Each morning, a nurse dresses Mom. Today she’s wearing an incongruous mix: a pink mohair pullover, heavy brown sweatpants, and green-and-black floral-print socks with sneakers. Around her neck is a long, thin gold necklace, its three strands twisted together. The necklace is, I’m sure, the sole thing my mother herself chose to wear today. I helped her buy it in Boston, many years ago. Seeing it twinkle now in the sunlight, I flash onto a memory of that summer afternoon: Mom in a jewelry shop, fingering various lengths of gold, asking me to describe each one precisely before settling on the necklace she’d buy—among the least expensive, yet lovely.

  In her sense of style, my mother has always managed an effortless polish. Frugal by nature, she used to sew her own skirts and dresses when she was young, using Vogue patterns. As she lost her sight, her tactile sense strengthened; over the decades, she’s put her hands to work in all kinds of ways—playing piano, knitting and weaving, gardening, making ceramics. Her fingers feel and judge the qualities of fabric, leather, and clay. A visit from me rarely passes without her asking me to take off my shoes so she can feel them.

  No doubt the peculiar outfit she’s wearing today would make her moan in embarrassment, if she could see it.

  Antonio and I glance at one another. There’s no point announcing our presence to Mom; her Talking Book is too loud for her to hear us.

  I move toward her. When I place my hand on her forearm, she starts a little—I’ve broken the spell. Then she lays a hand on mine, running her fingers over my knuckles, reading texture and shape: Is this person a nurse? A social worker? I keep my hand still. She takes note of my rings, an interlocked pair with an amethyst and a moonstone. Smoothing each sto
ne with a fingertip, she breaks into a grin of recognition.

  Ah, she says, turning off her tape recorder. It’s you! You’re here! Good!

  Yes, I say, it’s me—and Antonio, too . . .

  I lean over and wrap my arms around her. She smells of institutional soap; the scent isn’t unpleasant, but it’s not hers. As I embrace her, she puts her hands on my head and tousles my hair.

  Shorter than usual? she asks brightly. Her fingers trot across my shoulders and down my sides, then return to my head, reinvestigating my haircut.

  My wife’s hair is beautiful, Antonio intervenes. Really!

  Molto bello? asks Mom, showing off her minimal Italian.

  Sí, molto! I love it short!

  That’s what counts, she says, smiling at Antonio’s gallantry.

  Hey, I inject in mock offense, shaking her shoulder lightly. What about me?

  Oh, she says, I do care what you think about your hair . . . but your husband’s opinion is more interesting.

  She doesn’t mean this literally; it’s a classic Mom statement, snarky but not. It’s affection in disguise. Antonio laughs. I’ve never had to do any translating for them: they know how to read one another.

  Dad enters the room. His oh! of happy surprise—he’s clearly forgotten we’d be arriving today—drowns out whatever Mom’s saying. Taking her hand, I squeeze it lightly. I can feel how she’s aged. It’s harder to track deterioration when visits with her are only four weeks apart. But I’ve been away for over four months, and the changes show. Her body is slack, a little more stoop-shouldered than it was.

  Dad moves to embrace me. Under my palms his back feels bony; he’s lost some weight. Hi, darlin’, he says. Oh, we’re so glad you’re here!