Lucifer's Shadow

33 The eel contest

Piero introduced his visitors to the estate slowly. He showed them the small vineyard and let them taste his homemade wine, which was brash and young, but very drinkable. There were fields of artichokes and broad beans. In a corner of the plot sat a patch of Treviso chicory sown for the winter, solid red hearts growing fat on the rich island soil.

They ate and drank, perhaps a little too well. Then Piero announced the “entertainment” and, bucket in hand, lurched to the small channel that ran inland from the lagoon. They watched him busy himself there, then walk to the cottage. In a few minutes he returned with the bucket, which was now full to the brim with what looked like black water. Beneath the surface, creatures moved, long, sinuous bodies circling, half-hidden.

“Squid ink!” Piero declared. “You see how it blackens the water. I caught them myself! And the eels too!”

Amy gave them all a worried look. “Before we go any further, let me say, here and now, I am not eating that.”

Piero stared into the murky bucket. “No, no, no! This is not about eating. This is the gara del bisato!”

Daniel saw the growing bewilderment on Amy’s face and translated. “The eel contest?”

“Sì! You come back in October, after we harvest the grapes. That’s when we do it proper. But now I show you. Watch!”

Piero walked forward, knelt, took a deep breath, then thrust his head almost completely into the bucket. The black water boiled with frantic bodies squirming around his scalp. Bubbles frothed on the dark, inky surface. Xerxes sat patiently by his master’s side, watching the show as if it were the most natural act on earth.

After an unconscionable period with his face in the water, Piero finally emerged. Gripped tightly between his teeth, wriggling to break free, was a large eel. Piero’s jaws had it firmly by the middle. With a bizarre, fixed grin on his face, he turned his head slowly so that everyone in the party might see. They spoke not a single word. Then he went back to the bucket, opened his mouth, and let the stunned eel fall back below the churning black surface of the water. Piero wiped his mouth with his sleeve, took a long gulp of wine, then beamed at Amy and said, “Now you.”

“Not for a million bucks.”

“Scacchi?”

The old man opened his mouth and pointed at his very yellow, very false, teeth. Piero made a small gesture, accompanied by a sympathetic noise. Paul shook his head. Laura stared at Piero, aghast, but a little intrigued too.

“And you wonder why they call you ‘matti’?” she declared. “I thought this was all a myth, Piero.”

He bristled. “It is a tradition. I guess you city folk aren’t up to it, huh? You just want to bob for apples.”

Laura swore gently, walked over to the bucket, and did her best to tie back her short hair.

“No!” Amy cried. “This is disgusting!”

“Listen. If this bumpkin can do it, so can I.”

“Not easy,” Piero said slyly. “There’s a trick. You want the bumpkin to tell you?”

Laura uttered a curse of such vulgarity Daniel was glad Amy seemed not to understand, then, without another word, pushed her head into the bucket. The surface writhed once more. Her auburn hair turned a darker shade with the ink, making Daniel believe, in an oddly disconnected moment, that this was perhaps its true colour.

She emerged, gasping, choking. There was nothing in her mouth.

“I told you there’s a trick,” Piero said, gloating. “You want me to tell—”

“Shut up!” She plunged back into the inky water again, was there for no more than a few seconds, then emerged. In her lips, struggling maniacally, was a large, powerful eel. Piero leapt into the air, shouting with glee. Scacchi and Paul, who appeared fascinated by this turn of events, applauded heartily. Daniel joined them. Amy simply stared, aghast.

Laura dropped the eel. It missed the bucket and darted off into the dry grass, looking very much like a snake. Then she stood up and waved her arms in the air, yelling nonsense, triumphant. The black water stained her skin and hair. She looked like a fake minstrel whose makeup was running. The applause grew louder. Piero sang, very briefly, an unintelligible dialect chant in which the only recognisable word was bisati, after which Laura sat down, picked up a teacloth, and wiped her mouth.

“What does it taste like?” Daniel wondered.

“Slimy. Don’t take my word for it. Try yourself.”

“No!” Amy almost screamed at him.

Daniel considered the decision. It was, in some way, a question of taking sides. “I’ll do it,” he said firmly.

Scacchi looked at him. “There’s no need. It’s just one of these crazy island things.”

“Please…”

Piero, sensing his determination, put the bucket back on the ground. Daniel walked over, knelt in front of it, and stared at the surface, which moved occasionally with the ripple of the creatures below. It was impossible to see precisely what lay beneath. There could be just a couple of eels or an entire clan.

“There is a secr—” Piero began to say, but Daniel didn’t wait. He breathed deeply, then sank his head into the water, eyes closed, mouth open, trying to work out what Piero’s trick might be. The water was icy cold. Soft, slimy shapes brushed against his cheeks. Once, a narrow, powerful body bumped against his lips. He tried to seize it tentatively with his teeth. The eel was free in an instant, and no more came close before the need to breathe forced him to the surface, gasping, shivering.

Amy had turned to one side, refusing to watch. The rest couldn’t take their eyes off him, Scacchi most of all. It was irrational, but in some way the old man seemed worried.

Daniel stared up at Piero and gasped, “Tell me.”

“You have to bite, Daniel,” the big man explained. “Not gently. Not like some aristocrat picking at his food. Eels are the most slippery things in the universe. You have to bite them like you want to eat them; otherwise, they’ll just get straight out again. It’s all or nothing.”

Laura had understood this instinctively, he realised. This was what set him apart from the lagoon people: his sense of distance, his unwillingness to engage himself fully in the sport of existence.

Daniel pushed his head back into the water, mouth open, jaws ready to seize, knowing Piero was correct. The creatures taunted him, touched his cheeks with their sleek, greasy bodies. Then one, a large one, brushed against his upper teeth and he gaped wide, biting, biting, until he sank into its flesh, holding on as tightly as he knew how.

He broke surface, opened his eyes, thrust his arms above his head. The fish struggled in his mouth with an astonishing strength, curling its long body into his hair, around his ears, struggling to be free. Daniel jerked himself upright with it still in his jaws. The city’s outline stood in the distance with the sun starting its downward journey to set behind the mountains. He opened his mouth, let the eel tumble to the ground and disappear. Its aftertaste, of slime and mud and grit, was disgusting. Laura was by his side in a moment with a glass of spritz. Daniel gulped at it and found, between the bittersweet drink and the taste of the eel, some odd resonance.

“Magnificent,” Laura said, and gave him a firm pat on the back. There was, he thought, an edge of sarcasm in her voice. “You and Piero are now blood brothers. Clearly you will make a Sant’ Erasmo matto any time. And a composer too!”

He choked a little, laughing, and found his head swamped by the idea that he might take this peculiar woman in his arms and, still tasting the mixed flavours of live eel and Campari in his throat, kiss her with a sudden, fierce passion. The notion was utterly bizarre, yet enticing too. Perhaps eels were hallucinogenic.

Something turned in his stomach, a dim, deep, bilious rumbling. Daniel belched, then, realising what was happening, raced to the small channel. When he was by the water, he began to vomit with a violent rapidity. He sat down and watched the proceeds float slowly away on the sluggish tide. His head was still spinning from the drink and the bizarre encounter with the eel. Something nudged at his knee. Xerxes’ face, comically concerned, stared up at him. He patted the dog’s damp fur, laughed, and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Laura was there, alone, rifling her bag for mints.

“Do you feel better now, Daniel?”

“Only physically. The rest of me feels as embarrassed as hell.”

“Oh, dear.” She handed him the sweet. He took it gratefully.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Laura asked, astonished.

He looked back at the rest of the party, who were now packing the picnic away, preparing to return to the boat. “For behaving like a fool.”

“Silly boy. You are too conscious of yourself, Daniel. You don’t honestly believe Amy thinks any the worse of you for this, surely?”

The idea had never occurred to him. Something else was on his mind, though he was unwilling to admit it.

“Daniel,” she said, suddenly very serious. “I’ve some advice for you. It is time for you to learn how to hold on to something real. This game you’re playing with Scacchi isn’t enough.” She hesitated. “You need to find out what it’s like to love someone. There. I have said it.”

He felt the heat rise to his cheeks and wondered what he looked like. He gazed at her hand on the ground and considered reaching for it.

“I know,” he said, not moving. “And I—”

“Good,” she interrupted. “This secret life you pursue is unhealthy.

Even Scacchi tires of secrets after a while. Tomorrow, he says, he has one to share with me. I am grateful for that. You three have been cooking something up in my absence, and I should like to know what it is.”

There was only one secret Scacchi could mean, and that was the existence of the elusive fiddle which had now, he assumed, been sold on to some new owner. Daniel could not understand why Scacchi would choose this moment to reveal it.

“And furthermore,” Laura continued, “Amy is so nice. So interested in you, Daniel. You. Not this music you are supposed to have written.”

“But…” His mind whirled.

“Good,” she declared, smiling, and patted his damp head before rising to her feet. “Then it is agreed. Tonight you will take her home to her hotel. Go into the city with her, Daniel. Escape from us for a while.”

“Laura!” he cried. But she was gone, back to the boat, where Xerxes now sat at the tiller, ready to depart.