Constant Tides

by Peter Crawley

  She leans against the iron rail and peers down. “Yes, I see what you mean. Why is that?”

  “Because one hundred years ago, after the great earthquake, they buried what remained of the old city beneath a sea of liquid concrete: the Chiesa dei Catalani stands at the old level, two metres below that of the new.” She pauses, casting her eyes over the church as if it is an old and trusted friend. “Now, we go.”

  Angelica wears a sober black one–piece, knee–length dress with a round neck–line and three quarter length sleeves. Her dark brown hair is tightly curled and heavily lacquered, and her make–up generous. The click and clack of her heels betrays her impatience.

  Caterina follows along like an obedient child.

  They walk up the slope and arrive at a second church, completely alternative in appearance to the one they have just seen: the façade is plain and grand, and four immense rectangular columns topped with bundles of fruit frame two tall wooden doors below a windowed tympanum.

  Thoughtfully, considerately, Caterina says, “Quite a contrast.”

  “Yes, a church rebuilt after the earthquake. So much more like a conventional church than the Chiesa dei Catalani, eh? We’ll go inside.”

  The church is empty but for two men laying bouquets of white orchids, yellow roses and pink peonies along the marble nave. Their footsteps echo above the low murmur of their conversation and they nod respectfully and smile politely.

  “Chiesa Santa Caterina,” Angelica whispers. “Your church. I thought you would like to see it.” At the central nave, she curtsies and crosses herself. Then she turns and motions towards a pew. “Why don’t you sit for a while? I will be across the way in the Ritrovo Narciso; I will order for you. Don’t hurry; take your time; talk with those you miss.”

  *

  The granita al limone proves refreshing, the brioche filling and conversation hard to come by. Caterina stammers and stutters her way through an apology: something about feeling distracted, not concentrating, remembering too much and not all of it good.

  Angelica says, “It is normal,” and pays the bill.

  The broad Viale San Martino rises gradually and a tramcar glides down the central carriageway towards the Piazza Cairoli and the harbour. A side road is arched with fairy–lights and lined with stalls not yet open.

  “Where are you taking me now?” Caterina asks.

  “Oh, now I am going to visit the graves of my family. I try to pay my respects once a month, if not more often. And because this Sunday is special and the weather is fine, not too hot, I thought it would be an opportunity. You remember last Thursday was Antonio’s Onomastico, his name day?”

  Caterina nods.

  “Well, this weekend is the Festival of Saint Antony. You saw the lights in the Via Santa Cecilia? We passed it just now, on the right.”

  She nods again.

  “So, tonight we will have a procession through the city: there are street fairs, folk dancing, live music, fireworks and many people from all around Messina come to celebrate. Last night was what we call our Notte Bianca. We call it our white night because there is no sleep from sunset to sunrise.” She winks and grins, playfully. “Or perhaps until two in the morning; that is close to sunrise, is it not? People hold exhibitions and sporting competitions, there is more music, art and culture and faith meetings. I wanted you to come, but you were not in the right mood. Perhaps it was better you didn’t,” she adds, without any evident ill feeling.

  “I’m sorry, Angelica.”

  “Yes, you were. But for yourself, not me. Tonight, you will have no excuse: you will come to see the procession and Antonio and Enzo will come too.”

  This time Angelica pulls up in a side road by a park, through which they stroll before arriving at the cemetery. Half–open black gates and railings decorated with gold–painted wreaths are flanked by two white angels, and to the right of the gates, a flower stall, from which Angelica buys two bunches of yellow and white chrysanthemums, one of which she hands to Caterina.

  “No,” Angelica says, when she objects, “these are for you to lay.”

  “But I don’t know–”

  “Where you feel it is appropriate. You will not find it difficult to lay flowers in a cemetery. Life,” Angelica adds, as they walk slowly, respectfully, up the lane, “has been challenging for the people of our city; you can tell this by the size of our cemetery, our Gran Camposanto, the second largest cemetery in the whole of Italy.” She scoffs, angrily, “Pah! It was not only fig trees sailors brought from Australia; in the middle of the nineteenth century, others brought cholera from India and that was when the cemetery was begun.”

  Caterina stops to read the plaques on the wall by the crematorium. “Enrichetta Cooper,” she murmurs, “Cooper, such an English name.”

  “Yes, there are many British people buried here. You know, there is a stranger’s quarter here: soldiers, sailors, wives, many young children and many sad stories. Your King George and Queen Mary paid their respects when they visited in 1925. There is a sign by the gate; I will show you, later.”

  “Are all your family interred here, Angelica?”

  “All except those who went abroad and never returned.”

  “Do you and Antonio have brothers or sisters?”

  “No. And this is unusual for a country that can breed children faster than rabbits. Remember, until the fifties, contraception was for prostitutes, not for wives.”

  “So how did your mother and father come to have only the two of you?”

  Angelica pauses to greet other couples in passing: she nods her head, touches an arm, smiles in sympathy: “Good day, not too hot today. How is… well, I hope. Yes, I heard. Such a shame; a nice man…”

  “In her later years, my mother was a quiet woman; although my grandfather once told me she was not so placid in her youth. She married our father late, in her forties, the same year Antonio was born.” She glances; the slightest raise of an eyebrow, a subtle communication tinted with the inference of possibility rather than stained by the reality of fact. “My grandfather told me that my mother was married to a man before the war, but that he died in the service of his country. Of course, in those days for a widow, things were not so easy: they were considered untouchable back then. Why? Because for a widow to remarry was to insult the memory of the husband.”

  “I’ve seen that in men,” Caterina says. “I know the look. They think that because your husband has died you should be consigned to some form of eternal mourning.” She turns away and pretends to be fascinated by a tall, alabaster statue of a lean youth in tails, playing a violin. There is no noticeable date for his birth; however, the date of his death is noted as 28.12.1908.

  Angelica studies her for a moment before realising that Caterina will not turn back until she has turned her attention elsewhere. So she does, and she continues walking slowly along the cypress–lined avenue as though nothing out of the ordinary has been said. “No, in those days it was nothing to do with the attitudes of the men, it was the women. They were in charge, they defined the moral code, they were the ones who were responsible for that tyrant Mussolini enjoying such power.”

  “I thought that was the mafia. Weren’t they in league with the fascists?”

  “Sometimes,” she replies, a little ponderously. “But much of the time they were like the cats who stare at each other from across the street in our village. As far as social conventions were concerned, my mother told me it was the women who used to dictate how one should behave. She would say that before and for some years after the war, it was the hens who ruled the roost, not the cockerel. It is no longer the same now.”

  The lane winds its way up and along between the mausolea, some grand and flamboyant, others plain; some headed by intricately carved busts of cherubic children and others boasting fine images of upstanding, righteous, moustachioed patriarchs or stern–looking matriarchs.
/>   “Your mother sounds like quite a lady. Were you close to her?”

  She shrugs and holds out her free hand and waves it in small lazy circles. “I was very fortunate; my mother was always ready to discuss my affairs of the heart; and not all mothers are so welcoming with this type of talk.” Angelica hesitates, obviously weighing up whether she should tell Caterina some long–held secret. Then, she decides. “There was a young man, the son of another fisherman, I was to marry him, I had agreed. At the time, I thought I loved him. And I did until I met Alberto, which was when I understood that I liked this other young man rather than loved him. My mother found out about Alberto; Beppe warned me; I was petrified. I thought she would lock me up in my room or worse. She didn’t, though. She sat me down and told me a story: a story about how during the war she had fallen in love with a man who, for many reasons, it was not possible for her to marry. She told me she regretted not pursuing this man and that it took her many years to mend her broken heart; this was why she did not marry again until she was older and why she did not have more children. She told me I must follow my heart, and if my heart led me towards Alberto, then I should go to him and never look back. I remember she said to me, “Your past is already written; your future is yours to write.””

  They stroll on through the city of tombs and vaults until they come to a modest, white–stone mausoleum with a pitched roof of ridged terracotta tiles and a padlocked wrought iron gate.

  They pause before it and Angelica raises her right hand to touch her forehead, her stomach and both her shoulders, before kissing her thumb. She then lowers her head and, whispering, asks the Madonna to watch over all those departed.

  Caterina hesitates, uncertain of whether to follow suit. She waits, her hand moves up, it falters: the living body says yes, her mind says no: she trembles in the face of a decision she does not want to make; her hand shakes, the clamour within, the violence, the wounding, the surrender, the ripples of the battle for her soul. She drops her hand.

  Angelica glances at her, reaches out and squeezes it so very gently, a communion of tender compassion fused in the warmth of her eyes and the lines of her expression.

  Letting go Caterina’s hand, she steps forward to unlock the gate. Beyond it, in a room large enough for only the two of them, the back wall is graced with plaques noting the names and dates of the births and deaths of all those interred within.

  “See, here,” Angelica points up. “My grandfather, Enzo, born in 1891 and passed on in 1986, twenty years after I was born.”

  “And his family before him? Didn’t you say the cemetery was set up in the middle of the nineteenth century?”

  Angelica nods. “Yes, that’s right. My grandfather’s family, his parents his brother and sisters, God rest their souls, they were all killed in the great earthquake. He was the only one to survive. And here, as you see, my mother, born in 1915 and passed on in the millennium year.”

  “Mirella,” Caterina reads. “Such a beautiful name, so bright, so positive. From what little you have told me of her, I feel like I know her already.”

  “Yes, I am sure you would have liked her and it is a nice name, Mirella. However, she was not known by her full name, she preferred to be known as Mira. Even to our children she was never Mirella, she was always Nonna Mira.”

  And yet Angelica’s surname is different from the name chiselled into the lintel above the gate, Caterina is certain of it. She steps back outside and reads the name she had not properly read before she’d entered because she had at the time been so occupied by torments of her faith.

  “Yes, of course. Alberto’s surname, your husband’s surname, is Lazzarotto. Your nome da nubile, your maiden name, your family name, it’s Ruggeri.”

  Chapter 11

  “What do I wear?”

  Angelica looks her up and down, shrugs and replies, “Similar. It is warm this evening and there will be many people, so… whatever you are happy to wear.”

  “May I have a shower?”

  “Yes, of course. Just make sure there is enough left for Alberto. As I told you this morning, the cockerel likes an excuse to crow, so let’s not give him one, eh?” She winks.

  Alberto gets home early and changes into the clean white uniform of an officer of the port authority. Antonio, dressed down but suitably clean, arrives later but before he’d said he would which, Angelica observes dryly, really means he is not as late as he usually is. The stars, she adds winking aside to Caterina, must be in some form of serendipitous alignment.

  As they drive into the city, the two men sit in the front of Alberto’s clean and tidy Alfa Romeo, and traffic, as Angelica had predicted, is heavy. The driver and his front–seat passenger dispute the best place to park: the driver prefers to park further away from the centre and walk in and out; in the long run, it will take less time. The passenger, conversely, of course conversely, prefers to park nearer so there isn’t as far to walk either in or out, that will surely take less time. And when they have exhausted their options, Angelica decides they will park by the university, because it is not far to walk in from there and it is close to Rosticceria Famulari, where they are meeting Enzo for arancini.

  “What do you think of Enzo’s girlfriend?” Caterina asks Antonio afterwards, as they stroll up the Cesare Battisti.

  “Paola? Oh, she is very nice. He has known her for a long time.” Antonio pauses, considering. “My only concern is that she may find… What is the right word… Ah yes… that she may find her prospects a little limited. She is studying graphic design, whatever that is, so perhaps to live the rest of her life with a man who fishes in the manner of men who have fished for centuries, might make for a marriage of unequal minds. And that is not to mention that Enzo will make only a modest income in the summer and a good deal less in the winter.”

  “Do they have to share equal minds?”

  He considers her question until they reach the broad Cannizzaro and are waiting for the lights to change before they cross. “These days, I don’t know. The young seem to be so much more independent than we were. And I don’t mean simply in their wanting to move out of their parents’ house and set up on their own; I think they are more independent within their own relationship in the way that each accepts the other has different ambition.” Antonio weaves his hands as though he is constructing thoughts. “Again, I say that when we were young,” he turns to glance at her, “I apologise, I should say when I was young, it seemed important for couples to want exactly the same thing and to want the same things together.”

  Antonio takes her arm as they cross the road.

  That she doesn’t recoil at his touch surprises her but, when they have reached the front of the square monolith that is the stark, fascist–designed Tribunale, she makes sure to slip her arm away from his.

  Negotiating their path through the crowds is time consuming; fathers carry children on their shoulders, grandmothers post sentries to protect their view of the road and people meander like zombies, as if controlled by some frequency emitted from their cell phones.

  “What time does the procession start?”

  Antonio checks his watch. “Soon, seven–thirty, from the Santuario Sant’Antonio. It is only two hundred metres further along, so if you find a place to stand, take it and I will go and tell Angelica and Alberto.”

  Every lamppost, phone–box, fence and railing is occupied by anyone old enough to assert their authority over it, and policemen, uniforms newly pressed, toecaps polished to match their mirrored sunglasses, dare anyone to stray from the pavement.

  “Angelica and Alberto are behind us. Here. Stand here,” he says. “Now, they are coming, look.”

  A brass band emerges from the corner, their cornets, horns and clarinets perfectly off–key. Priests in white cassocks and gold sashes precede cardinals in purple, their expressions thoughtful if not solemn. Policemen in traditional dark blue uniforms with white shoulder�
�straps and aiguillettes, and flat–topped bicorns sporting blue and red plumes; naval officers in dress whites and a general, his chest boasting an array of medals, lead city dignitaries, both men and women their faces fixed in grave appreciation of their importance.

  On a float of white and orange orchids, an enormous globe of the world rests and at its base and around its equator young children, some Caucasian and many of south–east Asian descent, all dressed in identical nautical whites, sit and stare back bemused by the mass of devotees. In pride of place on top of the world, Saint Antonio of Padua stands, casting his blessings upon the congregation.

  People applaud and cheer and Caterina is caught up in the rush of emotion that races through the crowd. Before she realises that the fervour has wrested control of her limbs, she too crosses herself and kisses her thumb. She glances quickly, self–consciously, at Antonio, but his attention is taken with the float, the flowers and the young children; and she can’t be sure, because the light of early evening is fading and the glow from the arch of streetlights is beginning to assert its dominance, but his eyes seem to her to have taken on a moist glaze.

  “The children,” she says, raising her voice above the best efforts of the band following the float, “are they all from Messina?”

  Without turning his attention from the procession, he replies, “Some, but not all. Our church maintains a strong connection with the churches of Sant’Antonio in the Philippines. As I am sure you know, Sant’Antonio is the Patron Saint of those who are lost and many of these children are orphans.”

  Soon, they are gone away down the broad avenue towards the centre of the city and many in the crowd pursue and join the procession. Antonio doesn’t, though he does wipe his eyes with his handkerchief, and Catrina is left to bathe in an almost electric frisson of pride, joy and elation, as though an invisible hand has caressed her body with a cool, reinvigorating balm.