Valerio Varesi - River of Shadows

A steady downpour descended from the skies. The big lamp over the boatman’s clubhouse, put there as a beacon for the dredgers which navigate by memory, in the dark, could hardly be made out through the raindrops bouncing off the main embankment alongside the river.

“Foul weather,” Vernizzi said.

“And no sign of a let-up,” Torelli said, without raising his head.

The two had been sitting facing each other over a game of briscola which showed no sign of reaching a conclusion.

“How high has it risen?” Vernizzi said.

“Twenty centimetres in three hours,” said the other, keeping his eyes on the cards.

“By morning the waters will have covered the sandbank.”

“And the current will be tugging at the moorings.”

There were games at all four tables, but play was more desultory than usual since the rain and the rising river were distracting the boatmen. At intervals they could hear the groan of the capstan at the nearby jetty as someone laboured to haul the hulls of the boats out of the river. The continuous dripping of the rain, splashing gently, sounding like a man peeing against a wall, was an undertone. It was the fourth day of rain, falling at first with the fury of a summer storm and then with greater persistence. Now a kind of mist was descending and a breeze was gently ruffling the surface of the pools of water outside the clubhouse. Old Barigazzi appeared at the doorway, his hat and oilskin running with water. A draft of cold air swept across the room, and behind the bar Gianna shivered.

“Did you put your stakes in?” Vernizzi asked him.

Barigazzi nodded, hanging up his dripping outer garments.

“It’s up another three centimetres,” he announced as he moved over to the bar where Gianna had already filled a glass for him. “If it carries on at this rate, it’ll be on the first of the floodplains during the night,” he said in the tone of a man thinking aloud. No-one said a word. No-one ever took issue with Barigazzi, who knew the river like the back of his hand.

From outside there came the dull thud of a wooden object crashing into something. Everyone jumped to their feet. It felt as though the river had reached the wall of the clubhouse and carried away the bicycles from the shelter next door. It was then that they noticed the massive outline of Tonna’s barge, square enough to resemble a sluice gate raised up on the surface of the water.

No-one had noticed its arrival, except for Barigazzi. “He’s come from Martignana,” he said. “With a cargo of wheat for the mill.”

Tonna was more than eighty years old, most of them spent working the river. Not long before, against the day when he would have to tie up for good, they had persuaded him to take on his grandson, but the boy soon got bored. Weary of the solitude, he had abandoned his grandfather, leaving him to spend his nights alone on the river.

“Water above and water below,” Torelli said, pointing to the barge.

“He must have blue mould on his jacket. He’s more at home in wet weather than Noah,” Vernizzi said.

“Have they finished pulling up the boats?”

“They’ve winched up four of them,” Barigazzi said, peering through the window, from where he could just make out Tonna’s barge. “They want to keep them close to the houses because they’re sure the water’s going to come right up to the main embankment.”

Barigazzi sat down, collapsing heavily on to a seat, and the others went back to shuffling the cards. It was around eleven o’clock, and in the club there was not a sound to be heard apart from the constant drip from the rafters. From time to time, the light swayed about. The barge was still moored to the jetty, its cables strong enough to withstand the swollen current. Dark objects passed by on the surface of the river. From their tables, the men could see the doorway of the look-out post, where a radio crackled. A volunteer from the club was doing the emergency shift. In such weather, the men would take turns all through the night. Every so often, someone would pick up the microphone to speak to the others on watch along both banks of the river. They exchanged information and forecasts about the flooding.

“Is it rising fast up there? What’s that you said? Already into the poplar wood?”

Barigazzi went back outside to check the stakes: an hour had passed. When he returned, a dark light from the jetty filtered in under the door.

“Is Tonna setting off now?”

“Wouldn’t put it past him,” Vernizzi said. “He knows the river well.”

They all turned to look at the barge. The only light came from the cabin, but there was no way of knowing if there was anyone moving about inside.

“He can’t be going,” Vernizzi broke in. “He’d have put on his navigation lights fore and aft.”

The light went out and Barigazzi closed the door slowly on the incessant rain.

“What’s going on?” Gianna said.

“It’s coming up like coffee percolating, eight centimetres,” the old man said.

There was no reaction at all. Everyone’s thoughts seemed fixed on the light in Tonna’s cabin. The only one who appeared uninterested was Gianna, who continued to move among the tables in her working jacket, her upper body looking as though perched awkwardly on her thighs. “If we went down to take a look, he might well lose his rag,” she warned.

“He’s left the gangway down. Could he be expecting someone?” Torelli said.

“It’s always left down because of his grandson,” Barigazzi said. “He sometimes comes back at the strangest times.”

“Eight centimetres, repeat eight centimetres,” the shift worker shouted into the microphone. “And still rising there? That’s some flood. And it’s still raining. You what?… Have you sent word to the prefettura?… Did you say that we should get in touch with them as well?”

A car was coming along the embankment road and turned towards the clubhouse. For a few seconds, its headlights shone through the window, swinging round the walls one after the other. Moments later the door was opened and at the same time the light in the cabin of the barge came back on. Two men in uniform, evidently soaked to the skin, walked to the bar. They looked around nervously, feeling themselves under observation, until Gianna — with what sounded like an order — said: “Take a seat.”

They did as they were told. They took out a Flood Warning notice with instructions on the procedure to be followed in the event of the water coming up to the main embankment. “You might put this up somewhere,” one of them said.

Old Barigazzi jerked his head back. “You’ve been sent here to teach the fish how to swim?”

The men looked at each other uncomprehendingly: they were numb with cold and ill at ease.

“We’ll put it here, O.K.?” Gianna resolved the problem by sticking the notice to a board where the fishing calendar was normally fixed. She gave the adhesive a firm slap.

“Do you think we don’t know what to do?” Barigazzi said.

The two men sipped their grappa, but no-one in the room paid them any more attention. They were all watching the light in the barge, even though there was no sign of life in the cabin. A faint light was now falling across the prow, where TONNA in large letters could be made out.

The officers got to their feet.

“You do know the water is rising at eight centimetres an hour?”

“The emergency squad will attend to it.”

They seemed to be quite unaccustomed to the appalling weather and gave every impression of wanting to be on their way. Their trousers were drenched at the turn-ups, their light shoes were sodden and their overcoats were dotted with so many raindrops that they looked to be covered in frost.