Tears of Salt

by Pietro Bartolo

  Many girls only tell me of attacks like this because they say they need to rid themselves of a burden they cannot share with anyone else. They often ask for a secret abortion, either because letting people know would only double their shame, or because they are afraid their families will disown them if they find out.

  Countless pregnant women have washed up on Lampedusa over the years. One night, five came ashore in a group of motorboats, one of whom was in her eighth month and in agony. I could not take her to the clinic right away because I had to go on examining the other refugees. I asked my colleague Elena, who is both a doctor and an interpreter, to take her in, and said I would get there when I could. “Do an ultrasound right away,” I said. “She should not be in this much pain.”

  After finishing up my rounds on the pier, I went back to the clinic. There I found Elena. She had been crying and her eyes were red.

  “What’s the matter?” I said.

  “The girl who was in pain . . . I think her child may be dead.”

  I went straight to the ultrasound room and examined her again. Elena was right. The baby’s heart had stopped beating. It had not survived the exhausting journey and its mother’s stress.

  The young woman understood immediately. There was no joy in our faces. We did not invite her to look at the screen that would only have shown her a tiny inert body. When we gave her the bad news, she said nothing. She closed her eyes, tears ran down her face, and she wept silently.

  We decided to transfer her to Palermo. I called the social workers and asked them to keep an eye on her, support her, and make sure she did not feel alone. At the hospital, they operated on her. She had been carrying a baby boy. When they reported this back to me, I felt awful. We had not even checked the baby’s sex during the ultrasounds. We hadn’t had the heart.

  After being discharged from the hospital, the girl was transferred to a refugee shelter for young women. I never found out what became of her.

  The wounds you cannot see

  I grew up in a big family. There were seven of us: five girls and two boys. My brother Mimmo was one and a half years old when he contracted meningitis. Back then, the disease was rarely diagnosed quickly enough to prevent long-term repercussions. Mimmo suffered brain damage so severe that my parents had to send him to a mental asylum. On Lampedusa, no one knew what it meant to have a mental disability. Local families were not in a position to take on such a heavy responsibility.

  Every time my mother came back from seeing Mimmo at the institution in Agrigento she seemed shaken, almost a different person. So one day I insisted on going with her – I wanted to know why she found the visits so painful. She did take me, but when we got there I almost wished she hadn’t. My brother was naked, covered in bruises and scratches, pacing back and forth in what seemed to me an enormous nowhere. His world was in total darkness. There was no color, and above all, no heat. The floor was effectively a hideous latrine. Everything was filthy: the sheets were stained; the mattresses reeked of urine. There was no trace of human dignity in the asylum, and the poor souls who resided there were restlessly drifting in a hell that only worsened their inner torment. I was horrified. I wanted to take my brother away with me, but I knew we could not do that.

  On the way back, I thought long and hard about what I had witnessed. I was having trouble coming to terms with it. Now I understood why my mother always came home with a pained, almost contorted look on her face. It was the crushed expression of someone who knows they can do nothing to help the person they love most in the world: their own child.

  After a lengthy and complicated legal battle, the mental asylum was eventually shut down. We were able to transfer my brother to a care home in Aragona. It was a small relief to my parents and to myself. But for years afterward, the abuse Mimmo had suffered went on eating away at me like woodworm; it was a wrong that could never be righted, and it left me with a constant, niggling sense of unease.

  At the university, I resolved to learn more about this issue. I read all about Franco Basaglia, the Venetian psychiatrist who revolutionized care for mentally ill patients. I realized that we had to provide a place in Lampedusa for children and young people with mental disabilities, where they would no longer feel alone. We have now made some progress toward that end by opening a center where mentally disabled people can receive health and social care and, more importantly, be part of a community: play games, do arts and crafts, cook, and have fun together. Minivans pick them up in the mornings and take them to the center. When I have time, I join them for a few hours. It comforts me to think that something good has grown from my family’s dilemma, and that perhaps my mother’s immeasurable heartache was not in vain.

  Curing bodily wounds and alleviating physical pain is my job. I do my very best with what I have. But it often troubles me that there is no drug I can prescribe, no procedure I can perform to rid the soul of suffering, or treat the wounds you cannot see.

  We hardly ever consider the emotional fragility of the people who come to us for help, or the trauma they have suffered. We treat them unconsciously as beings with a different kind of psyche from our own, one that somehow deserves less attention. In fact, psychiatric care is crucial for people who have escaped famine or war. I can think of many instances in which I have felt powerless to help my patients. It has happened before, and it continues to happen.

  One day a few years ago, a hundred and fifty young people came ashore in a single boat. As always, I examined them on the pier.

  We usually check the hands for scabies. Then we ask the men to lift their sweaters and lower their trousers so we can inspect their bodies, since mites can also burrow into the skin on the back, buttocks, and groin. At one point, I was examining a twenty-six-year-old man from Nigeria. I looked over his hands and had him lift his sweater, but I simply could not persuade him to lower his trousers. I started to explain why it was necessary, but he vigorously shook his head. He looked terrified. His insistence seemed odd, but I let it go and moved on to tend to the other patients.

  In the hours that followed, I could not help thinking about that young man and his stubborn refusal. I reckoned he was probably just too modest to show us his private parts, but even so, his behavior had seemed peculiar.

  A couple of days later, the doctor at the reception center called me to say that one of their residents urgently needed to come to the clinic. He did not elaborate or indicate what the problem was, but he sounded worried. I told him I would see the patient and started preparing the necessary paperwork, including the Straniero Temporaneamente Presente form that allows migrants to receive free public health services throughout Italy. It is valid for six months and renewable for another six. Many migrants are reluctant to get one because they do not want to be officially identifiable, but I always say that the document is essential, because without it they will not be eligible for treatment in any public hospital. Whenever I take part in a conference or medical seminar, I also try to hammer home its importance to my colleagues.

  I was just filling out the last part of the form when a young man appeared in the doorway. It was the one who would not let me examine his groin. I greeted him and asked him to undress, but he demurred, just as he had done on the pier. This time, I said, he could not refuse: if he had been sent here from the reception center, it must be because he needed medical attention. But he continued to resist. He appeared distressed and embarrassed.

  I did not know what to make of this trepidation. What was he afraid of? What could I possibly do to him? I was just beginning to grow nervous when he suddenly undid his belt, quickly unzipped his trousers, and lowered his briefs.

  My blood froze and I felt sick. I could not look him in the eye because I was sure he could read the horror in mine. I didn’t know what to do. Above all, I did not know what to say.

  The man’s testicles dangled between his legs, but above them there was a hole. His penis had been completely severed. The unfortunate man had been castrated.

  I was aghast
. At twenty-six this man had been robbed of any chance of leading a normal life. Now I understood why he had refused to undress, and why the doctor had not found the words to warn me about his condition. I had never encountered anything like his case before.

  I pulled myself together and looked straight at him. His eyes betrayed a thousand emotions: most visibly, his great shame at having to sit there with his mutilated body laid bare. I asked him what had happened. He was silent for a few minutes, then he found the strength to begin:

  “I was doing well in Nigeria. I had a wonderful fiancée and we were going to be married. We had dreams. We wanted children. We were not well off, but we were not very poor either. I earned enough to support my family, so we could live peacefully. I was happy – we were happy. Then one day, everything I had was destroyed. Years of love and hopes were ruined in an instant.

  “I was out walking with my fiancée when a group of young men started making vulgar comments about her. At first I put up with it. She told me they would go away if I stayed calm. But those good-for-nothings only came closer, and got nastier. I could not stand by any longer, so I confronted them. We got into a fight, but there was only one of me and there were four of them. My fiancée screamed, but no one intervened. That was when she ran back to my house to get help.

  “In the meantime, my attackers went on beating me up. They punched and kicked me until I couldn’t even feel the pain anymore. The blows were landing all over my body: my head, my stomach, my groin. I was on the ground, and my mouth was filling with dirt. Dust from the street had got into my eyes and nose, and I couldn’t see a thing. I thought to myself that they would have to stop sooner or later, and told myself to hang in there.

  “But those lowlifes were not done yet. They dragged me along the road until we reached an abandoned cabin. I was petrified. I had no idea what they wanted to do to me, though I had a feeling they would not kill me.

  “And indeed, they did not kill me. That would have been too boring and ungratifying. What they wanted was to make sure my pain lasted for ever. To destroy my masculinity, my ability to be a husband, a father, a man.

  “The strongest of them took out a machete, while another stripped me naked. It only took a second. I saw the flash of the blade as it cut my penis clean off.

  “They left me bleeding on the floor and ran away, brandishing my organ like a trophy. Before long my friends had arrived, but it was too late.

  “They took me to hospital and the surgeons operated on me. The emergency procedure saved my life, but I would rather have been murdered by those savages or left to die. From that point onward, my life has been meaningless.”

  He paused. I was at a loss for words. He did not notice. He went on:

  “I soon recovered and was discharged, but nothing was or would ever be the way it had been before. So I did the only thing I could have done: I left home. Leaving everything behind, I attempted the journey to Europe. I didn’t have the courage to face the consequences that this kind of mutilation would have in my country. I knew I would never be accepted the way I am. I could not look my fiancée, my friends, or even my mother in the face.”

  Then he looked at me. “Doctor, is there anything you can do for me? Please tell me there is some way of recovering what I’ve lost. Please say I’ll be able to go back to living happily…”

  I was almost not brave enough to tell him the truth. There was not much that could be done, and even an eventual prosthesis would only be for the sake of appearances. There was nothing I could honestly say to comfort or encourage him. In that moment, I felt quite useless.

  As our consultation drew to a close, he thanked me for listening to his story and left, accompanied by one of the workers at the reception center.

  I sat at my desk for hours, stupefied, and unable to do anything.

  The young Nigerian man spent several more days on Lampedusa. He came to see me again once or twice, and said he was grateful to me, even though I had not been able to do anything for him. When his group left for Agrigento, I saw him off at the pier. And that gracious, humiliated man embraced me and said farewell, smiling his melancholy smile at me one last time.

  Drawing lots

  One evening my father came home from the pier, after a hard day’s work repairing fishing nets and keeping the Kennedy seaworthy. After dinner, he gathered us children and scattered seven pieces of folded paper on the table. “There are seven of you,” he said, “and I cannot afford to put you all through school and university.” Then he had Caterina, the youngest of us, draw one piece of paper.

  Lampedusa had its own middle school, but no liceo or high school. Sending your children away to a liceo in Sicily was a luxury few could afford. The drawing of lots, however, was entirely for show. My name was on all seven of those pieces of paper. After all, I was the one who was about to finish middle school, and my grades were excellent. But mainly, I was the only boy in the house, and so if anything ever happened to my father, I would have been responsible for my mother, my sisters, and my brother.

  I cried myself to sleep that night. I was thirteen, and the idea of leaving my family and living far away terrified me. The next morning, I told my mother how I felt: “Mamà, I don’t want to go – I’m scared.” She hugged me tightly, and made the same face she had every time she came home from Agrigento after visiting my brother at the mental asylum. She was heartbroken. She did not want to lose me too.

  I heard her arguing with my father, but he convinced her in no time at all. “Tu voi chi sinni sta ca’ pi fari u piscaturi comu a mmia? Chistu voi pi to figghiu? You want him to stay here and end up fishing for a living like me?” he said. “That’s what you want for your son?”

  My father was adamant that he did not want me to lead the life he himself had led, at the mercy of a fitful sea that could be gentle at one moment and vicious the next. He had higher hopes for me, and this was not unusual for the era. We were at a turning point in Italian history: postwar reconstruction and the economic boom had led ordinary people all over the country – workers, farmers, fishermen – to aspire to a better future for their children. It no longer seemed impossible to them to have a child attend university and become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or teacher, in part because the government was now offering them encouragement and support. We all thought our democracy had finally gained a firm, solid, almost indestructible foundation. My father was convinced that any obstacle could be overcome, if only I was willing to put in the work.

  I left the following autumn, with a suitcase containing the few clothes I possessed and little else. It had been decided that I would be sent to Trapani, because there was a direct flight to there from Lampedusa. I would attend a liceo scientifico, a school that focused on the natural sciences. My father rented a room for me in a house belonging to an old lady. The first few days were terrible. My landlady was cold and gruff, and could not have cared less that I was scarcely more than a child. She never smiled, hugged me, or said a kind word to me. The house was dark and gloomy. It was so damp that the walls were peeling. I would come home from school, throw myself on the bed, and sob. I was disconsolate, and when evening came and I was completely alone with nothing to do, I only grew lonelier. I couldn’t stop thinking of my mother, my father, and all my sisters sitting together around the table.

  What is more, I was incapable of cooking or taking care of myself. In a family with six women, it had been out of the question at home for me to even touch a pot or pan. I ate nothing but bread and canned meat for months. To this day, the sight of Spam in the supermarket turns my stomach. Slowly, I learned to cobble together a few simple ingredients and make a plate of pasta, but I was still very homesick.

  Frankly, I thought it ridiculous that I had to stay there, all alone in that unfamiliar city. Every day was the same monotonous routine, traipsing back and forth between my bedroom and the classroom. When I saw families in the street on Sundays, walking along together and laughing happily, I would feel a lump rise in my throat. All I did was st
udy hard and dream of the day when I could go back to Lampedusa.

  This may seem odd, but although Trapani is a coastal city, I missed “my” sea. Only people who know Lampedusa will understand why it just isn’t the same. I missed the island’s flat landscape and its unbreakable bond with the waves. I missed spending whole days outside with my friends, running around barefoot and amusing ourselves with improvised games. It wasn’t much, but it made me happy.

  After a couple of years, my father found me a room with a family instead. The head of the household, whom I called Uncle or u zu Nanà, was a street hawker. He and his wife treated me much better than the old lady had.

  The entrance to their home was a garage in which u zu Nanà kept his donkey and cart. Early in the morning, he would take his cart to a place called the Senia, a vegetable plot where all kinds of fruit and vegetables were grown. He would fill up his cart and spend his days peddling produce on the streets of Trapani. Since I woke early, I often went with him to help him fill his baskets before school. I did not mind the chore at all – in fact, I was grateful to be given something to do.

  Every now and again, u zu Nanà would take me to the tuna fishery by the harbor in Bonagia, to watch the fishermen kill their catch. In their instinctive search for warmer water, gigantic tuna were lured through an ingenious system of pipes until they unwittingly swam straight into the “death chamber.” There, powerfully built men were standing by with long hooks, rallying each other with age-old “slaughtering songs” known as cialome and guided by the most experienced fisherman, or rais. As the tuna resurfaced they would snare them, and, with immense effort, heave them out of the water.

  That epic battle between man and beast made a strong impression on me. I remembered how the blood stained the water deep red as the fishermen labored to exhaustion. It was formidable and exhilarating to see.