Serenella
Angeli di pietra

November 1966, Venice

The water was already high.

The tide pushed small greenish waves, ruffled by the sirocco wind, beyond the edge of the canal, towards the foundations.

Fabio and I were there, with our backs against the wall of slimy stones, watching the rubbish floating near our feet.

The dampness rose, carried by the sluggish draft of the wind, up to the eaves of the buildings behind us. There was no escape.

Fabio spoke, gesticulating and amplifying his misery, resonating my own: stuck like two idiots with our backs to the wall and the tide rising all around, above us the faded sky and, beyond the wall, ghosts of empty, shapeless buildings.

- And now explain to me how we get out of here? -

- let me think -

- while you think, the tide keeps rising -

- I've got it. It's simple, we take off our shoes and then go -

- right or left? What does your infallible sense of direction suggest? -

- I sense from the ironic tone of your words that you don't trust me. If you didn't agree, why didn't you say so before? -

- damn it, I told you we couldn't get anywhere this way... -

- that's not true, if there's a foundation, it must lead somewhere -

- wrong, I know these places well, I used to come here as a child to visit my grandmother. To your right is the north lagoon, in other words, water; to your left is the south lagoon, more water; behind you is the Arsenal wall and in front the canal, which means even more water, and quite high too -

- so, you who know this place, and are a true Venetian with the mark of origin, what do you propose? -

- drown yourself -

- and then? What will you do when I'm drowned? -

- I'll swim -

- idiot -

- you're even dumber. Definitely -

- if someone sees me here that I know, imagine the embarrassment of being stuck on the Arsenal's foundations like a... -

- If only someone would pass by. This place is really deserted; we haven't encountered anyone since Riva dei Sette Martiri -

- and I believe it. With a day like this, who would be out and about? -

- yet it didn’t take much to convince you to follow me -

- sure, a light like this is hard to find. But if you want to know what I think now, well, I've lost the desire to draw -

- still, if we manage to find a higher spot, this is a magnificent opportunity. Look at the color of the water, and the sky there in the distance seems one with the lagoon. What do you say, do we take our shoes off? -

But how did all this start?

Fabio continuously moves, more than hearing him, I sense his presence behind me. I've decided to do a good job, the light is magnificent, illuminating the back of the Basilica di Torcello and fading onto the golden weeds up to the embankment where I'm seated. The shadow of the tree keeps my eyes shaded, and my hand glides on the paper without second thoughts.

Time passes quickly and it's only the thirst and the heat that distract me, or maybe it was the sudden silence in the strident chorus of cicadas that made me turn my head, Fabio is seated not far away, focused on the canvas where he's marking tense lines. He isn't facing the cathedral; he's drawing something on my side, but here there's only me and the embankment.

- what are you doing? -

- your portrait - he says.

The sun is too high and the light no longer suitable to continue: too strong, making the stone outlines fade, and so brilliant that it makes the gold of the reeds pallid. I rest the tablet on the grass and stretch my muscles.

- break - I say, turning to Fabio. But he continues and gestures for me to return to my previous position.

- no way - I reply, trying to stand despite the numbness in my body.

- just a moment more and I’m done -

But before I have stood up, he's already by my side and gently lets me slide back onto the warm, damp grass.

From the path comes a shout from someone, it's Paolo calling us.

Fabio gestures for me to be quiet and, gripping my wrist, drags me towards the brush of the lagoon; we run like crazy, occasionally stopping to listen to Paolo's calls.

We're heated by the run and the exhilarating rush of the odd game among the tall canal grasses. This side is impassable; beyond the bank, there's only the green, rippled water of the lagoon.

- now we swim - says Fabio, starting to undress.

- you're mad, I'm not jumping in here - yet I imitate him, removing my shirt and trousers. We stay a moment still, staring at the water before us; if I stop to think, I won’t do it for sure, but Fabio gestures at me and takes a leap. The impact with the cold, opaque water is violent, and to stay afloat I start swimming; from the water, things look different.

- we're such idiots - I say, chattering my teeth but glad to have done it. Fabio is nearby, swimming past the shade of the branches towards the warm sunlight. The water tastes of algae and sour plums.

- let's go back - I say, searching for the easiest place to rest my feet and climb up.

Fabio goes ahead, but the bottom is slippery and black sludge clings to the skin, in an instant we're as filthy as crabs. It's the most disgusting adventure of my life. We roll on the grass but it's nearly impossible to rid ourselves of the black mud, which dries into a stinky gray crust. We've saved only our hair from the mud, and from a lock, I pull out a small ball of earth with my fingers, resembling the clay we use for models. Once dressed, we look almost normal. While gathering our things, Fabio starts clowning around, mimicking our friend searching for us among the tall grass. Not a trace of Paolo: he’s vanished, not even at the water bus stop. We wait for him sitting on a wall, smoking a cigarette. When we land at Riva degli Schiavoni, I remember the portrait and ask Fabio to show it to me. That was the first time I saw the painting.

But how did all this start?

Now I wonder: how is it possible to retrace the things lived? They've always been somewhere in your mind, and when you think you're past it and you've escaped, here's something that brings them back, maybe transformed, beautified, or just faded and enveloped by a romantic aura of oblivion.

Like that portrait. It’s the only thing I have left of Fabio and the years spent together, yet seeing it again, it felt foreign, different from how I remembered it: over the years, it had become something else.

Back then, as I lived those things, I didn't think that way. There was no time for memories, my life seemed more like a three-dimensional stereophonic screening of an endless series of real, daily trash.

When I thought - but how did this mess start? - I felt like someone who never knows the right answers, those you need to give to show you're listening, that you're present, like at school. Of those years, I remember the perplexity of someone always against the wall without knowing how they got there: I never found the answers, and all the while the questions increased.

I preferred to write my incomplete thoughts on fragments of paper, which would invariably yellow or crumple, abandoned among the pages of a book. It was always Fabio who brought me back to a substantial point: you've read, you've done, you've slept, you've eaten...

When he spoke, his tone was neither questioning nor commanding, Fabio pronounced words so calmly and sweetly that often in the frenzy of words or swirling thoughts, I had to pause and ask:

- what did you say? -

He would say: - did you read... - and that was enough. To his words, I had to find a follow-up; our thoughts were supported by such shivers of anxiety that to each fragment another had to be added, and so forth until the time to part ways. We didn't live on answers, or whatever, on facts, on concrete things, on planned actions; we were rather always on the brink of the absolute, the supreme, madness even searching in the consequence of a fact the reason for a process, a superior logic. As if there were logic in life, as if in facts and actions there could be, like a black mark on paper, a reason explaining what happened.

Our life was made of fragments so too real that the pain of hands numbed by frost, or the cold rising from wet shoes became crazed shards in the sensory chaos. Damn-cold was much more than an expression of rage, it was like saying, damn-what-a-shitty-life, and with this everything was included, mixing, like in a rotten and nauseating cream, impotence and strength, courage and fear. Now I know, it was the craving for something else that gnawed at us both. Even our words, though essential and concise, served to evoke long circular phrases, too tortuous paths to retrace their outline. What-a-mess was a sweet way, already in its sound, to give readable meaning to a vain and inscrutable torment of ‘living life’. But when saying damn-what-bad-luck it cut sharply with meanings and illusions: man was marked, so was his destiny. The Betrothed was a ‘mess,' Romeo and Juliet were ‘damn-what-bad-luck,’ in the specific case, we always preferred the latter, it was closer to our way of understanding life: in dark hues.

Now I know for certain, all our torments were not only a mark of age but of an era.

The romantic traces, sedimented on the pages of schoolbooks, were the torment of our teachers, clinging to stories of a provincial Italy devoid of real shocks and changes but full of passionate tribulations.

The country of tears and sentimental messing around, trash, but stuff that marks your life.

At that moment, we couldn't know who was who or what, time crushed us anyway.

- But how did all this start? -

- I wonder more about when this filthy tide will stop rising -

- okay, shall we go? -

- how the hell... wait, you're completely nuts -

- Venetian my ass, watch the Bellunese way - And he laughed, and I laughed too, what else could I do now with my legs in the water up to my knees?

The peata, a massive transport barge, had broken its moorings, all night the rope had resisted the push of the first tide, but the water hadn't drained.

With the arrival of the second tide, the sirocco wind had blocked the outflow of water at the harbor mouths, and on top of the first tide, came the new one, and the water rose even more. No one had the time to check the peata's moorings, the water had invaded all the ground floors of houses and continued to rise.

It wasn't the ropes that gave in; soaked and tight they had resisted well against the large barge's stresses, but the heavy iron rings had simply slipped from the Arsenal's rotten wall, and the peata moved along the canal.

We didn't see it coming, it advanced silently behind us, and for all I know, Fabio and I were making so much noise that it covered even that rustle.

It was the surprise more than the blow on the back that made me scream, Fabio turned and took it full on. He slid under the prow with an expression of total astonishment.

The wood had grazed me, and that’s how, leaning against the wall, I could push it away from me towards the canal. I was shouting for Fabio but no one answered; when the enormous peata had reached us from behind, he was right at the edge of the canal.

Even today I struggle to remember, I know I dove several times, and the water was murky and icy, and I couldn’t see anything.

It was November 5, 1966: that morning the city - my beloved city - folded over us, crushing us in its fetid embrace.