Il pescatore di Camogli

Pietro saw the first lights of Camogli appear on the horizon when there was missing still an hour to dawn. The houses tall and narrow of the village seemed suspended between the darkness of the sea and that of the mountain, and only a few window yellow betrayed who like him was already awake. He turned off the engine and let that the boat would glide on its own towards the harbor, as he did for forty years.

The night had been bad. In the nets there were only two crates of anchovies small, a few mackerel and a octopus lonely that him watched with its eyes ancient. Pietro knew that his wife would not have said anything, as always, but she would counted in silence the days that were left to the end of the month. For some years the sea gave always less, and the old men of the harbor said that it was the fault of the ships big, others of the climate, others still of some saint distracted.

When the boat touched the dock, Pietro saw a small figure sitting on the sacks of salt. It was Matteo, his grandson, with the hood pulled over the head and the hands shoved in the pockets. He had eleven years and for a month he kept to asking to come out to sea with his grandfather. "What are you doing here at this hour?», he asked Pietro, trying to seem strict while he tied the rope to the bollard. " Grandma knows that you are here?»

Matteo shook his head and jumped down from the sacks. "I wanted to see how one unloads the fish» he said with the voice of someone has prepared the sentence for hours. Pietro him looked at for a long time. He was a child thin, with the same eyes dark of his son, the father of Matteo, who had left the sea to become a clerk in Genoa. "You need to go back to home» he said in the end. But his voice did not sound convinced.

They sat together on the edge of the dock. The sky was beginning to become pink behind the promontory of Portofino, and the smell of the coffee arrived from the bar just opened. Pietro thought about his father, who at nine years him had taken for the first time on the boat, and had not to him taught to fish right away. He had taught first to watch the sea, to feel its mood, to recognize the wind right by the color of the waves. The rest, he said, would come on its own.

"Grandpa» asked Matteo at a certain point, "why dad doesn't want anymore to come here?» Pietro did not answer right away. He thought of the arguments with his son, to the day in which to him had announced that he would sell his share of boat. "Because he has had fear» he said in the end. "Fear that the sea would not be enough anymore. And perhaps he was right». Matteo him looked at, serious. "And you, grandpa, are you afraid?» The old man smiled just slightly. "Everyone the days» he answered. "But it is another thing».

When they finished of unloading the few crates, the sun had by now above the roofs. Pietro himself dried his hands on his jacket and turned toward the grandson. "Saturday next» he said, "if Grandma and your mother are in agreement, come here at five. Not to fish. To watch the sea». Matteo nodded firmly, as if he had just received a big task. Then he ran away toward the village, and Pietro remained watching him until he disappeared between the houses colorful.