Erri De Luca: Me, You

“Ianchéa,” Nicola said of his catch, it’s all white.

“Ianchéa,” Uncle said of his own.

Daniele, however, pulled up a furious red scorpion fish, its spines rigid, especially the second one, the poisonous dorsal spine that required great care when grabbing the fish to remove the hook. Daniele was quick, he had not forgotten how to do it. He had learned from Nicola, better than I. Nicola. The name of the island’s patron saint, one in every family, a name given to boats and churches, and even to the mountain that pokes through the grove of chestnut trees. Nicola. He went back to the line he had entrusted to me. I told him quietly that I had pulled it up a few arm’s lengths and he nodded in approval.

It was a good catch. The wooden basin was packed with fish. Caia had fun counting how much each of us had caught. As was bound to happen, she got her line all tangled. She had pulled it on board in a hurry, letting it drop at her feet. When she tried to lower it again, it had turned into a bird’s nest of nylon. I set myself to untangling it, sitting at her feet on the plank floor. “You look as if you’re sewing,” she said about the way I raised my arm high to unravel the ball, giving it enough slack to loosen itself. It took me a quarter of an hour, pretty good for that kind of mess. Uncle explained to her that she should let the line fall between her feet without stepping on it. He was no longer annoyed about being crowded. The day was serene, there were no other boats around. The coast of the island drifted away behind the mist.

We were far out, no land in sight, no shade on the boat. It must have been noon. The current alone kept the bow aligned with the anchor and slapped at the stern, placing it slightly southeast. There was barely a breath of the maestrale , the north wind.

Uncle dived into the water, followed by Caia and Daniele. Nicola and I held the lines. I splashed some water on my head but did not go in for a swim. Nicola said not a word to Caia. Women fishing? He wouldn’t dream of taking them; it wasn’t done. Not that they were in the way, but he felt intimidated. “Makes me uncomfortable,” he would say.

On the return trip Daniele took the rudder, Uncle lowered a trolling line from the stern, Nicola set to work cleaning the fish. I went forward and Caia joined me.

“If a big wave comes, protect my head.”

I would have given blood for some rough water, but we were moving with the current, the waves pushing us ahead, and Daniele was good at taking advantage of the right angle for sliding down the crest of the waves as though going downhill. There was no chance for me to cushion her neck. Caia fell asleep. I would have liked to wet her hair so that her head didn’t get too hot, but I was afraid to wake her. I managed to place myself so that at least I shaded her head with my body. She slept with her lips parted. I would have liked to put my ear near her breath and listen to it. There was more than breath in that sleep; there must have been words as well, perhaps in a language I wouldn’t have understood. I would have liked to put my nose into that breath and sniff it as it came up from the depth of her chest, becoming perfumed in her throat, its fragrance mingling with the incense of her saliva. I would have smelled the red gills of her river fish, the mist of Swiss forests. I would not have wanted to put my mouth on her breath. My mouth would have understood nothing she exhaled, my mouth would only have sucked recklessly, brazenly stealing the air of her breathing. My body, cramped from the way I was sitting, shaded her, fulfilling its function of guardian.

There is no return, I thought, this trip lacks symmetry, it only goes one way.

If Caia had been involved with both Uncle and Daniele, on that day’s fishing trip she managed to find a mid-point between the two of them, but only when she was in the bow. On awaking she laughed at the fishy smell on her hands. Only later did I learn that her insistence on my coming along that morning was the counterbalance of another trip when she had been prevented from taking with her someone who remained behind.

Our summers on the island lasted for months. We were there long enough to want to stay forever. Leaving the island felt like going into exile. One year there was an outbreak of polio in the city and so we remained on the island until November. Without the summer the island was an empty shell: unheated rooms, silent cicadas in the pine groves. I was a child then and I thought of the island as a shield. Evil came from the land and had to surrender in the face of the sea.

Daniele composed songs, some of them quite nice, certainly nicer than the ones on records. That summer I had a guitar. He would borrow it for the evening, but even in our room he would play something. He thought up music for the prayers of Our Father and Holy Mary. The melodies turned out very well; he sang them to me softly without the words. I didn’t know how to pray; I didn’t even know how to ask people for help.

It’s a good thing that stories in books are soundless, otherwise I would try to sing those songs right here, within these pages. They moved you deep down, without being solemn, or needing an organ, at most a violin. That’s how he was, but he could also be hard, even aloof at times. It’s that mixture which can produce a natural leader, the kind that speaks up in a crowd and makes everybody follow him. He never did anything like that, but I later knew such men and often realized how much more exceptional and appealing they would have had to be in order to be a Daniele.

The other boys copied his gags, his grimaces, even his walk. I didn’t have that gift of mimicry. I willingly obeyed him, learned his songs and his chords, but I couldn’t have repeated any of his jokes. They were his; from any other mouth it was ridiculous. Like a mother beaming at her little boy, Caia listened to him sing, smiling encouragingly. One could only rejoice in their affinity.

There was no other occasion to be close to Caia. I kept remembering the things she said in the boat, about my reminding her of someone, without telling me who, nor would I ever ask. I had the nest egg of a confidence that came to me by chance, but I was no closer to her secret. I was still on the surface, waiting for some word to come from her. I was too young to force it out of her and my ineffectiveness made me miserable. There was not a soul I could talk to without betraying myself.

I spent my days fishing in the morning, then back to the beach, a visit with Nicola if he was in front of his house, and in the late afternoon I looked for Daniele’s crowd. Days without change. Evenings, I watched the sun go down too fast. With Daniele I never spoke unless he spoke first. He liked Caia, but there were others. She was attractive but not important to him. Had I talked to him about Caia, he would have made fun of me.

One afternoon I asked Nicola if he remembered the girl who had come fishing with us. He nodded his head. To induce him to say something, I invented the story that she was going out with Daniele. Nicola said nothing and continued to arrange the lines of the multi-hook rig. He gave a little sigh and shook his head. Was there something he didn’t like about her?

“It’s none of my business, but it’s better to go with girls of your own kind.”

Did he have something against Rumanians? Nicola wasn’t concerned about that, that’s not what he was talking about. Caia was Rumanian, did he know that? No, he didn’t know where Rumania was. He remained silent for a while, his hands falling idle, which made me think I was bothering him. I was about to apologize when he said with effort, “The girl is not one of those people you’re talking about.”