“The rocking of the boat by the waves was soothing but unknown. The men on the shore were asleep. Not the twelve-year-old, though. He shifted and lay on his back and decided to look up at the sky.
I was just a boy, I said to my wife. I was just a boy on a boat in the universe.”
― Joseph O’Neill, Netherland
They push against each other, lean against the boat, which tilts a little on its side, as if bowing to the shore. They wait, for the drifting mist to lift, the sun to rise, the sand and lights on land to flicker, glitter, yellows and whites.
“Pozzallo sits on the southern tip of Sicily, Italy. One side lines the Ionian Sea. The other, the Mediterranean. To stand on the promontory is to see both, crystalline, ripple ashore in waves and shades of blue topaz.”
A little seaside town; white beaches dotted with little fishermen’s boats. Green nets, straw baskets. Little houses, little lives. Perhaps a ferry stop for cream and beige, organdie, linen wearing tourists.
“The town has a 15th century watchtower, promenade, city hall, Piazza della Rimembranza lined with palazzos. In the middle of the square, a statue of …”
The ferries come from Malta, every ninety minutes –
or so; this is the Mediterranean, after all. Time in Pozzallo, like the weather, is languid. The people live simply, spaciously, long, well. On fish and Nero d’Avola, stars, the tide, sunsets. They stroll along the Lungomare Raganzino, watch the tourists …
but there are no tourists on this boat.
Since 2015, nearly four million people have come to Europe, fleeing hardship and violence in the Middle East and North Africa. Most on dinghies like this one. They board for days and weeks, knowing they may not reach Italy. Knowing most do not,
and those who do are lucky. Just that. Knowing hunger. Knowing thirst, surrounded by water, water… Glimpsing, finally, suddenly, flickering, glittering, in yellows and whites,
land. Pozzallo. Feeling… who knows. Who dares describe.
Something, limpid. Vast and blue. So vast and blue they cry. At the tip of the lungomare, a statue: Saint John the Baptist. Bronze against the sky, the patron saint of sailors and those – literal translation of the statue’s base – “who go.”
‘There are two journeys
in every odyssey, one on worried water,
the other crouched and motionless, without noise.’
Onshore, the fishermen go to their own boats. They pull them onto the water, set out to greet the migrants. Since the crisis began, Pozzallo has been Italy’s main port of entry for refugees. All have been welcomed.
There should be a statue for those who choose to share fish, Nero d’Avola, stars, the tide, sunsets. For those on little boats, who live on water, like water. Free, rich, simply. Whose sky is boundless, vast and a blue infinitely variegated.
Those who “go” on that other journey, “crouched, motionless, without noise,” crossing the universe to bring those dinghies ashore.