Hi all,
In the tradition of 1k crit-postings, here's the opening to my new novel. I would be interested in any readers having a go at guessing when it's set. i'm not keen to put the date in the text as it seems contrived. The actual scene is 2k but this is the first 1.5
It was approaching evening in remote Sussuri, hidden as if behind closed doors in the Valli Di Commachio. The sun splintered through the distant Dolomites and illuminated seasonal mists that magically manifested higher and higher on the water till they spilled over the banks of il Fiume Doloroso.
It was evening before Luca got his first bite of the day. His eel nets had been set in the Doloroso since morning and wouldn’t be visited by his quarry until the cool but clammy dusk fell. In the meantime, he’d decided to see what else was in the river feeding the marshes.
The hit had been more of a run than a bite, and it was big. He suspected a predator but couldn’t imagine a pike interested in his small bread-dough bait — certainly not this time of year; they’d be spent and tired from late winter breeding. But his heavy weight had taken the bait to the riverbed and it might be any manner of fish. He hoped for something better than just a big eel.
He was still fighting the Leviathan as the stars appeared, manifesting with as much reticence as the serpentine mists did, and he was so focused on the fight to land the beast, he didn’t notice the boy approach at first.
‘What is it?’ a piping voice with the northern Emilia-Romagna accent said from behind.
He flicked a quick glance in the direction of the voice. The boy was a dark-skinned country grub; brown eyes, dark hair; a perfectly formed little male, but not even a teenager yet.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is it a shark?’
‘In a river?’ Luca puffed as the rod bent — nearly in a loop. He praised God he’d chosen this rod instead of his cane pole.
‘Is it an eel?’ the child said, and for a moment Luca couldn’t see him against the boskiness of dusk.
‘This size? I doubt it. I get enough eels in my traps, anyway,’ he said, hauling the rod back, trying to take up the few inches of line this won him.
Across the yellow waters of the river, a swirling boil erupted from the lazy slap of a mottled grey and brown tail fin. It was the size of a small principality. The towering marginal grasses wobbled like calligraphy pens scratching the sky then stilled as the water resettled.
The next breach came fifty feet across the river — halfway; the same brown and grey, a long muscular body rolled but there were no fins, and he saw no head.
As the fight progressed, he no longer sensed the boy near. He snatched a look over his right shoulder. The kid had retreated a good few steps.
‘There’s nothing to be scared of,’ he said. The boy didn’t return to his side, so he called out for his name.
‘Lidio,’ the kid said.
Against the sandy backdrop of the distant hills above the floodplain, Lidio looked like even more a dark smudge — almost a shade — rather than a human boy.
He smiled, pleased for the boy’s company. ‘I’m Luca.’
Lidio’s bright eyes flicked between him and the point where the zig-zagging line sliced into the water.
‘Lidio, there’s nothing to be scared of. It’s just a fish.’
‘It didn’t have any flippers. Did you seen any? Or a head?’
The fear in Lidio’s face made him lie. ‘It’s an eel. Eels aren’t like normal fish.’
Lidio wasn’t having it. ‘No, signore, eels have fins.’
‘Yes.’
‘You think I don’t know what an eel is, signore?’
Luca laughed and shook his head. ‘No, son, I don’t. But who was it who thought it might be a shark?’
The rod tip, thumping down to the water’s surface, stole his attention. He gave out line, and lifted the rod.
‘So, you know a lot about eels?’ he said indulgently when the beast had slowed.
‘This is Sussuri, signore.’
He didn’t know if that meant the village was weird or that everyone was an eel expert. He guessed the latter. The ferocious eel trade here was the reason he’d come to Sussuri after the…mishap. Besides, the idea of such an isolated town community being ‘weird’ settled in him an uncharacteristic anxiety.
‘Everything in this town comes from the eels,’ Lidio said.
‘Not the Piadina Romagna, I hope!’
Lidio screwed up his nose and shook his head.’You can’t make bread from eel.’
Even though he’d not long arrived here, the trade of the place was unavoidable. Whether the stench of the things being prepared (what were those hamlets of fluted huts with the chimneys even doing to the fish?), the countless roadside stalls of fruit-crates turned upside down, displaying a bounty of eel skin trinkets, or even the dried ones waggling atop pennons in the arid fields like medieval banners; it was all about the eels in Sussuri. He’d been somewhere between throwing up and hysteria when he’d seen the fake reliquary souvenirs of various Holy men’s circumcised foreskin; how gullible could the villagers be? When he’d seen a table with over twenty reliquaries of the Messiah’s foreskin (all made from eel skin), He’d asked the roadside vendor if Jesus had twenty yards of the stuff when he was born. The man — a slight thing with more hair than flesh — had remained silent, but offered a surly scowl, clearly offended.
That had been his first introduction to the mindset of Sussuri. A warmth that cooled quickly, an instant trust, yet it carried a flavour of suspicion underneath, most unlike what he was used to. Maybe in Rome, but not the hinterlands. He supposed with the constant exodus of the young from here, the absence of work, entertainment — and all the other things the legacy of the last unwanted tourists brought twenty years ago — would make any community closed.
But Lidio didn’t seem as disinterested in him. ‘Maybe you could tell me what I’ve hooked, Lidio,’ he said, smiling even though the child still stood agog.
‘Unh-uh,’ Lidio said. ‘Just know about fabric.’
As he hauled on the rod, he twisted to face the little grub. ‘You know magic?’
Lidio rolled his eyes. ‘Fabrics.’
The monster pulled the rod down as it went off on another run (unseen since its earlier roll). He forgot himself, and stopped pumping the rod to say, ‘You mean like textiles?’ It seemed such an odd word for the boy to say; incongruous. Coming from his little mouth it miswired Luca for a moment. The earlier uncanniness of the place reasserted itself a little.
The monster fish went deep. And stilled.
He shrugged his shoulders and flexed his right forearm which were numb from the fight. Grateful for the reprieve, he relaxed a little, the boy lost in his own thoughts next to him.
Ever since he’d relocated to Sussuri, he’d felt alternately (or more accurately: at the same time), that he was meant to be here, and that he absolutely should not.
But he wasn’t susceptible to the off-hand brand of campagna superstition and values common in the countryside. Even the ones left over from the shameful past. And, the pros far outweighed the cons: the quiet rectitude of Sussuri suited his love of the bucolic. The blue shield of distant mountains, the clear air — so much nicer than the choking piazzas of Roma. With the new popularity in travel and the so-called ‘package holiday’, huckster pizzaioli had appeared on every block, on every corner, every market in Rome. And, there were none of those new wasps zipping around here, either. (His own Vespa had looked more like a much-used agricultural item from the Fifties; as dull and sandy a yellow as the hard-pack ground of Sussuri. He’d been glad to give the Black family that buzzing clockwork bike. They’d moved to Rome to escape the Congo Crisis in the weeks just before he was due to leave.
When the Congolese family had moved into the small Piazza della Madonna di Agonie, Luca had witnessed the warm welcome cool off into superstition and prejudice, but gradually back to warmth. It had seemed to him at the time that he was always apologising for the treatment the Black family had received, as if he were the spokesperson for all of Roma. But, Romans are an adaptable, smart — and diverse — lot, and it didn’t take long for the general populace of the piazza to realise they might be echoing the erstwhile il Duce’s vile ideology. Embarrassment of such recent fascism came quickly to the Roman mind nowadays. But, it was obvious the Old Country had a little way to go, yet.
The rod jerked into life, pulled forward by the reinvigorated beast, and the reel caught in the dull spokes of his push bike — slower but much more his taste than the Vespa.
‘Cazzo,’ he mumbled and then turned to Lidio. ‘You didn’t hear that.’
‘Stronzo!’ The boy screamed at the river and dissolved into the kind of breathless giggles God reserved for eleven year olds.
In the tradition of 1k crit-postings, here's the opening to my new novel. I would be interested in any readers having a go at guessing when it's set. i'm not keen to put the date in the text as it seems contrived. The actual scene is 2k but this is the first 1.5
It was approaching evening in remote Sussuri, hidden as if behind closed doors in the Valli Di Commachio. The sun splintered through the distant Dolomites and illuminated seasonal mists that magically manifested higher and higher on the water till they spilled over the banks of il Fiume Doloroso.
It was evening before Luca got his first bite of the day. His eel nets had been set in the Doloroso since morning and wouldn’t be visited by his quarry until the cool but clammy dusk fell. In the meantime, he’d decided to see what else was in the river feeding the marshes.
The hit had been more of a run than a bite, and it was big. He suspected a predator but couldn’t imagine a pike interested in his small bread-dough bait — certainly not this time of year; they’d be spent and tired from late winter breeding. But his heavy weight had taken the bait to the riverbed and it might be any manner of fish. He hoped for something better than just a big eel.
He was still fighting the Leviathan as the stars appeared, manifesting with as much reticence as the serpentine mists did, and he was so focused on the fight to land the beast, he didn’t notice the boy approach at first.
‘What is it?’ a piping voice with the northern Emilia-Romagna accent said from behind.
He flicked a quick glance in the direction of the voice. The boy was a dark-skinned country grub; brown eyes, dark hair; a perfectly formed little male, but not even a teenager yet.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is it a shark?’
‘In a river?’ Luca puffed as the rod bent — nearly in a loop. He praised God he’d chosen this rod instead of his cane pole.
‘Is it an eel?’ the child said, and for a moment Luca couldn’t see him against the boskiness of dusk.
‘This size? I doubt it. I get enough eels in my traps, anyway,’ he said, hauling the rod back, trying to take up the few inches of line this won him.
Across the yellow waters of the river, a swirling boil erupted from the lazy slap of a mottled grey and brown tail fin. It was the size of a small principality. The towering marginal grasses wobbled like calligraphy pens scratching the sky then stilled as the water resettled.
The next breach came fifty feet across the river — halfway; the same brown and grey, a long muscular body rolled but there were no fins, and he saw no head.
As the fight progressed, he no longer sensed the boy near. He snatched a look over his right shoulder. The kid had retreated a good few steps.
‘There’s nothing to be scared of,’ he said. The boy didn’t return to his side, so he called out for his name.
‘Lidio,’ the kid said.
Against the sandy backdrop of the distant hills above the floodplain, Lidio looked like even more a dark smudge — almost a shade — rather than a human boy.
He smiled, pleased for the boy’s company. ‘I’m Luca.’
Lidio’s bright eyes flicked between him and the point where the zig-zagging line sliced into the water.
‘Lidio, there’s nothing to be scared of. It’s just a fish.’
‘It didn’t have any flippers. Did you seen any? Or a head?’
The fear in Lidio’s face made him lie. ‘It’s an eel. Eels aren’t like normal fish.’
Lidio wasn’t having it. ‘No, signore, eels have fins.’
‘Yes.’
‘You think I don’t know what an eel is, signore?’
Luca laughed and shook his head. ‘No, son, I don’t. But who was it who thought it might be a shark?’
The rod tip, thumping down to the water’s surface, stole his attention. He gave out line, and lifted the rod.
‘So, you know a lot about eels?’ he said indulgently when the beast had slowed.
‘This is Sussuri, signore.’
He didn’t know if that meant the village was weird or that everyone was an eel expert. He guessed the latter. The ferocious eel trade here was the reason he’d come to Sussuri after the…mishap. Besides, the idea of such an isolated town community being ‘weird’ settled in him an uncharacteristic anxiety.
‘Everything in this town comes from the eels,’ Lidio said.
‘Not the Piadina Romagna, I hope!’
Lidio screwed up his nose and shook his head.’You can’t make bread from eel.’
Even though he’d not long arrived here, the trade of the place was unavoidable. Whether the stench of the things being prepared (what were those hamlets of fluted huts with the chimneys even doing to the fish?), the countless roadside stalls of fruit-crates turned upside down, displaying a bounty of eel skin trinkets, or even the dried ones waggling atop pennons in the arid fields like medieval banners; it was all about the eels in Sussuri. He’d been somewhere between throwing up and hysteria when he’d seen the fake reliquary souvenirs of various Holy men’s circumcised foreskin; how gullible could the villagers be? When he’d seen a table with over twenty reliquaries of the Messiah’s foreskin (all made from eel skin), He’d asked the roadside vendor if Jesus had twenty yards of the stuff when he was born. The man — a slight thing with more hair than flesh — had remained silent, but offered a surly scowl, clearly offended.
That had been his first introduction to the mindset of Sussuri. A warmth that cooled quickly, an instant trust, yet it carried a flavour of suspicion underneath, most unlike what he was used to. Maybe in Rome, but not the hinterlands. He supposed with the constant exodus of the young from here, the absence of work, entertainment — and all the other things the legacy of the last unwanted tourists brought twenty years ago — would make any community closed.
But Lidio didn’t seem as disinterested in him. ‘Maybe you could tell me what I’ve hooked, Lidio,’ he said, smiling even though the child still stood agog.
‘Unh-uh,’ Lidio said. ‘Just know about fabric.’
As he hauled on the rod, he twisted to face the little grub. ‘You know magic?’
Lidio rolled his eyes. ‘Fabrics.’
The monster pulled the rod down as it went off on another run (unseen since its earlier roll). He forgot himself, and stopped pumping the rod to say, ‘You mean like textiles?’ It seemed such an odd word for the boy to say; incongruous. Coming from his little mouth it miswired Luca for a moment. The earlier uncanniness of the place reasserted itself a little.
The monster fish went deep. And stilled.
He shrugged his shoulders and flexed his right forearm which were numb from the fight. Grateful for the reprieve, he relaxed a little, the boy lost in his own thoughts next to him.
Ever since he’d relocated to Sussuri, he’d felt alternately (or more accurately: at the same time), that he was meant to be here, and that he absolutely should not.
But he wasn’t susceptible to the off-hand brand of campagna superstition and values common in the countryside. Even the ones left over from the shameful past. And, the pros far outweighed the cons: the quiet rectitude of Sussuri suited his love of the bucolic. The blue shield of distant mountains, the clear air — so much nicer than the choking piazzas of Roma. With the new popularity in travel and the so-called ‘package holiday’, huckster pizzaioli had appeared on every block, on every corner, every market in Rome. And, there were none of those new wasps zipping around here, either. (His own Vespa had looked more like a much-used agricultural item from the Fifties; as dull and sandy a yellow as the hard-pack ground of Sussuri. He’d been glad to give the Black family that buzzing clockwork bike. They’d moved to Rome to escape the Congo Crisis in the weeks just before he was due to leave.
When the Congolese family had moved into the small Piazza della Madonna di Agonie, Luca had witnessed the warm welcome cool off into superstition and prejudice, but gradually back to warmth. It had seemed to him at the time that he was always apologising for the treatment the Black family had received, as if he were the spokesperson for all of Roma. But, Romans are an adaptable, smart — and diverse — lot, and it didn’t take long for the general populace of the piazza to realise they might be echoing the erstwhile il Duce’s vile ideology. Embarrassment of such recent fascism came quickly to the Roman mind nowadays. But, it was obvious the Old Country had a little way to go, yet.
The rod jerked into life, pulled forward by the reinvigorated beast, and the reel caught in the dull spokes of his push bike — slower but much more his taste than the Vespa.
‘Cazzo,’ he mumbled and then turned to Lidio. ‘You didn’t hear that.’
‘Stronzo!’ The boy screamed at the river and dissolved into the kind of breathless giggles God reserved for eleven year olds.
)
