I wait with them, indifferent, transitioning now. I have no umbrella, and my hair grows lank and untidy in the drizzle. At last the bus arrives and I am pushed on board with everyone else. I clasp the strap above my head and allow myself to be rocked gently against the mass of other damp steaming wool-coated bodies packed in around me. I feel a sense of panic at the closeness, as if I can’t breathe. I expect the intrusive hand at any minute, I think I am going to faint. At the first stop I manage to push my way to the door, shouting permesso, permesso, or it seems to me that I am shouting but all that comes out is a whisper. Surprisingly the human mass parts and I descend on to the street. I find a bench at a bus shelter and sit, feeling lost inside, feeling untouchable, distant, unreal. After a while I get up and walk on, unsettled, and make my way back to the little harbour where the ferries leave for the island.
It is a grey day and drizzling as the aliscafo speeds across the smooth waters of the bay. Everything is depressed; even the waves have no energy, just a slow underwater swell, the surface flat and opaque. Drops of water cling to every surface of the boat. I recognise a few of the faces about me but manage to isolate myself behind my book after a few perfunctory greetings. I go straight to school from the port and by nine o’clock I am in class. It is raining here too, a monotonous drizzle. The seagulls have come ashore and are standing along the harbour wall in a row, all facing the same direction. I tell the children to write a composition. The title is ‘Rain’. I know I will have to mark it later, or perhaps I won’t, but it is better than trying to communicate. I sit at my desk with the register open in front of me, pretending, no, not pretending anything, just sitting.
There are shadows moving in my head and I find it difficult to focus my eyes on the small squares on the pages in front of me. They make no sense; at times they seem intense and dark-coloured, at others they shift far off. I can’t quite see the faces of the children either, or remember their names. They look familiar, like the faces of people I have known in my childhood but can no longer place. But I know they are making too much noise and that the principal might come and reprimand us and tell us to keep quiet.
I hold Ugo back at the end of the lesson and, when the other children have left, tell him I need to go away. He looks at me with big eyes.
– Ma poi torni, vero?
– Yes, but not for a long time.
– Ma devi andare subito?
– Yes, I must leave today.
He hangs his head and rocks from foot to foot.
– Posso venire con te?
I can’t bear it. My heart leaps. I nod. I tell him to come to my apartment after lunch and to be ready. I tell him not to say a word to anyone.
After school I go back home. It feels strange to open the door of my apartment again, to recognise faint smells I did not even know were there but that belong inseparably to these walls and stairs, smells of mould, of ancient sewers, of the bleach that is used to disinfect the stairs.
My apartment is dry and dusty, and a bitter cold seems to rise from the floor and walls. I wonder if I should light the kerosene heater, but it seems pointless to warm the room if I am going out again at once. The air is stale and cold. I throw open the shutters and a grey light enters the room. I touch the sheets on my bed and they are damp and clammy under my fingers. It feels strange to me, this room, like a place I don’t know, even though I have lived between these four walls for the past twenty years. The paintings, the eyes, glare down at me. I go into the bathroom and lift my eyes to the image in the mirror. I do not recognise the face I see there.
I lie down, fully dressed, on my bed. There is not much to do. It is strange that after twenty years I can just walk out and feel no connection to anything. Apart from the paintings. I feel as if I am waiting for something to happen, but nothing does and I can’t work out what it would be anyway, and eventually I fall asleep.
Then Ugo comes and I am woken by his gentle tapping on the door.
– Che facciamo dell’uccellino? Puòvenire anche lui?
– The bird can’t come with us. We will have to set it free.
We go up the hill together, hand in hand, Ugo carrying the cage. When we reach the grove in the botanical gardens near the cemetery, the most protected spot on the whole island, he puts it carefully on to the ground and opens the cage door. The cardellino ignores the open door, perhaps even unaware that another possible world exists outside the bars. Perhaps it has never occurred to the little bird that it could live outside. Perhaps the bars are so much part of its world that it has no concept of sea or sky without the crisscrossing metal lines of the cage that cast shadows across its body, that follow the movements of the sun and moon. I put my hand inside and catch the tiny creature in my fingers. Its body is soft and warm and I can feel its heart beating against my skin. I carefully draw out my hand and bring it to my face, wanting to bless it before it goes, then I pass it to the child. He nuzzles the bird against his cheek for a moment, then, holding my hand tightly, he opens his fingers. It flutters to the ground and sits, bewildered, uncertain what to do. We wait for it to fly away or do something, do anything, but it just crouches there motionless. I bend down and nudge it with my fingers and at last, frightened, it flutters off into the bushes. Ugo sprinkles all the remaining birdseed around on the ground, and then we turn and, still hand in hand, make our way back down the hill to the village.
We go back to my room to prepare for our departure.
We take down all the paintings one by one and make a pile of them on the floor. I put the folders on the top of the pile. Holding Ugo’s hand I pick up the petrol can. I tip it, and we smell the oily thinness fill the air. I trail a thread of petrol over the paintings. I look at Ugo. He looks back at me. I pick up the box of matches. There is fear in his eyes but I sense no hesitation. I extract a match and strike it. A little flame flares up, glows blue and gold in the dark. I toss it on to the carpet, and, holding Ugo by the hand, walk down the stairs and out of the door.
The ferry is about to depart. We take our seats in silence and sit, hands crossed, as the engine starts up and the boat pulls out of the harbour. A thin pall of smoke rises from the village, and we turn our heads away and look across the sea to the mainland.
2
Book of Memory
When you are bereft, naked, spiritually or physically, memory can cover you, clothe you, keep you whole. It stops you from shattering, from fragmenting into a million pieces.
Inspired by the words of Ali Bourequat in the film directed by Ingela Romare, ‘On the Dignity of the Human Soul’
Session 1
He stands to greet her, gestures her towards the chair and sits down across from her. He puts the large, old-fashioned tape recorder on to the table between them and adjusts his position, making himself comfortable. Then he lights a cigarette. She sees the tip glow in the late-afternoon dusk and light up the contours of his nose and mouth, the ancient acne scars on his cheeks. He presses the record button. A thrush chucks in the courtyard outside and rustles in the undergrowth. He looks at her carefully for a moment, then begins:
– Signorina, Lei sa dov’è, non è vero? You know where you are, don’t you? You know why you are here?
He pauses for effect.
– The accusations are serious. Le accuse sono grave. We need to know what happened.
He opens his hands, inviting her to speak.
She doesn’t react. She feels nothing. She can see him talking, hear his words, but it is as if he is miles away, in a foreign country, and there is no need for her to respond. She drops her eyes to her lap, watches her finger worrying a loose thread on her jeans. It moves backwards and forwards by itself, flattening the thread one way and then the other, on and on. The room is silent but for the gentle ticking of the clock on the table, the distant roar of traffic.
He waits, watching her carefully.
– Lo sa perchè è qui, vero? You know why you are here?
She turns her head and looks out of the window. Her
eyes follow the long distorted shadows cast by the setting sun through the foliage, tracing the shadows’ outlines, seeking a pattern. She doesn’t move. She has made herself impermeable.
– You must talk to me. Why don’t you just tell me everything? It would be much easier. I can’t help you unless you tell me.
He opens his hands again. She shrugs and gazes up at the darkening sky. She suddenly feels very tired. There’s all this big mess of memories. Just a huge jumble. So many things that have happened. She’s not even sure whether they happened to her at all. Maybe they happened to someone else, or she saw them in a dream.
– Deve cercare di parlare. You must try to talk. You must tell me what happened. Tell me whatever seems important to you, whatever you remember. Comincia con quello che si ricorda.
She feels herself slipping back into her mind, the room about her fading into shadow. A picture forms of the park where they used to play as children, the scent of summer and growth, full of big trees and secret places and a pond covered with lotus flowers. But swirling beneath the surface the pond was treacherous, deep with unknown currents.
Her mother warns her: ‘Don’t go near the water, you might slip and the current will pull you down!’
She wonders what a current is. And suddenly she knows. It is a giant octopus with long tentacles that will grab her and pull her down, down, into the deep darkness. No air, no breath, no life, just a cold watery grave, with her hair and eyes and mouth and throat and stomach all awash.
She hears him sigh, and sees him raise his hand to his face. He inhales and then the tip of his cigarette fragments into glowing sparks as he stubs it out in the ashtray on the table and clears his throat. She looks at him for a moment, hesitating, then her thoughts run on.
There was another pond.
The bed, warm and big and comforting. Her father inviting her in to snuggle and chat on a Sunday morning. Everyone else at Sunday school. Just the two of them there on a sleepy, drowsy morning. Her father never wears pyjamas. He always walks around with the grey hair on his chest bristling and what he calls his ‘thing’ dangling below his belly. And now cuddled in bed with him, with the morning sun shining through the curtains, dappling light on to the surface of the bed. A strong smell of beer and naked male flesh.
He takes her hand and runs it through the grizzled hair on his chest as he tells her about the war, behind the lines in Libya. She wonders what the lines are. Washing lines? Hopscotch lines? He tells her about the heat in the desert, when his testicles stuck to his leg. Testicles? Tentacles?
And he takes her hand down, so that she can feel where they got stuck. There! And there!
Then he puts her hand on his tentacle and moves it up and down. Is this a current? It feels like a tentacle but he calls it his thing.
– Do you like this, sweetheart?
She feels frozen, unable to say a word.
He answers for her.
– I know you love it. You do, don’t you? Answer me!
– Yes, Daddy.
How can she say no? She wants to run away to a safe distance where she can just watch for the ripples and maybe tell her mom if she sees it again.
His hand strays into her pyjamas.
– Why don’t you take them off? It’s much nicer without them.
She takes them off.
His hand slides down between her thighs. Touching her in those funny places. Pressing, fluttering, smoothing. And his hands pushing and pulling her down under the blankets, into the dark, and then the tentacle catches her and is pulling her down, and she can’t breathe and she feels as if she is drowning, all awash, her mouth, her stomach, her hair.
And suddenly it is over, and everyone is home and the Sunday falls back into its usual pattern of Sunday roast with roast potatoes and bullet peas to balance on the back of your fork, and pudding with custard, and then a long ramble in the bush with Mom and the boys. She holds her mother’s hand all the way, walking just one step behind her. They call her Mummy’s Little Shadow.
The tape recorder stops suddenly. He moves in his seat, then leans forward and switches on a small table lamp; light floods into the dark room. She closes her eyes to adjust, then opens them and looks at him to see what he is thinking. But he seems focused on what he is doing.
Un momento, he says. Devo cambiare il nastro.
She waits, glad of the interruption, while he removes the tape from the recorder and replaces it with a new one. She wonders if he is aware that he is recording only himself.
At last he is ready. He raises his eyes and gives her a long searching look, then suddenly notices the time. He gets up.
– Vedo che è ora. Continueremo domani. We’ll continue tomorrow.
He opens the door and she leaves the room.
Session 2
She enters, takes her seat without looking at him, and closes her eyes. From outside the windows she can hear the sound of traffic and the uneven dripping of rain. A depressed, empty sound.
He clears his throat.
– Come sta? I hope you will be able to talk to me today. I am going to put the tape recorder on again. Just in case.
He smiles, a thin-lipped smile that is not reflected in his eyes.
Her mind hears his words but she feels no need to respond. She can’t stop her ears from hearing, but she can block her reactions to the words.
– Vede, Signorina, posso chiamarti Anna, vero? Vedi Anna, you are in a lot of trouble. You need to help us to help you. Devi parlare.
She opens her eyes but doesn’t look at him. She is aware of his eyes constantly on her, following her breathing, watching her every reaction, trying to get inside, to penetrate beneath the skin.
– I’ve been looking at your folder. La cartella clinica. Very interesting. I’m interested in your childhood. Your parents, for instance. Your father.
For a moment she stops breathing.
He has noticed her reaction.
Memory floods through her. She is ten. She has come home from school thinking the house will be empty as usual and that she will have to make herself some lunch and then do her homework. She doesn’t notice her father’s car parked outside under the tree. He has decided on an impulse to take them to the beach.
Why he has decided this she never knows; he hasn’t been to the beach with them since she was very small. But this day he is determined. She and her brothers are reluctant to go anywhere with him. He senses this and grows angry.
– Will you bloody kids get into that bloody car at once?
How do you say no? They eventually drag themselves outside to where he stands waiting. What he had wanted to be a happy, fun-filled outing is already turning sour.
As usual his huge black vintage car won’t start. He turns the key in the ignition time after time, pressing the starter, but the car just keeps balking at his efforts, refusing to catch. Secretly they begin to hope there will be a reprieve.
– Get out and push!
So they all get out and push the car down the hill with him trying all the time to start it. Suddenly, about a mile down the road, where the road has already turned to a gravel track rough under their bare feet, with proteas high on each side and the smell of buchu strong in their nostrils, the car shudders into life with a roar. He puts his foot on the accelerator to warm up the motor, blasting the wilderness with black smoke and fumes. They all jump in, he turns the car on the track with difficulty, and then roars back into the village and on over the hills covered with young green wheat and then down through the rough coastal scrub to the beach.
It is late afternoon by the time they arrive. A few fishermen stand on the long white beach casting their lines out into the surf. Even though it is the middle of winter and their shadows are tall, the sun is warm on their bare legs and arms. The boys dive into the icy water and swim briskly for a few minutes, then come out puffing and covered in goosebumps. The light catches the drops of water in their hair and lights up their faces like haloes. They run up and down the beach to ge
t dry. They start quarrelling as usual, their aggression and frustration more easily unleashed on each other.
He stays near the car, taking slugs from a plain medicine bottle filled with a transparent liquid. After a while he sets off, rather unsteadily now, towards the water’s edge, where he has noticed some fishermen pulling in a catch.
– What did you get? he asks them, slurring slightly.
– Dis ’n haai. They point at the rough grey shark still struggling on the sand.
– Hey, kids, come here. Come and look at this.
Their hearts drop but they go and look. They know it is best not to defy him in public.
– Wouldn’t it be bloody funny to have a shark in our fish pond, hey? Let’s take it home. Can you imagine what the cat will do when it tries to drink and sees a fin coming towards it in the water? It’ll be bloody funny.
They are embarrassed, humiliated at being part of him, of his absurd ideas, of his slurred speech. His shame is their shame. They wish they could disappear.
She opens her eyes and sees him watching her carefully. He looks frustrated, bored. She closes her eyes and lets her thoughts slip back to the past.
Her father negotiates a price and they lug the still squirming creature back to the car. By this time he is staggering slightly.
– Who wants to drive? He points at her fourteen-year-old brother. – You drive.
David is small for his age and can barely see over the dashboard or reach the pedals with his feet. From where she stands outside the car, it looks as if no one is driving.
The Story of Anna P, as Told by Herself Page 11