Reticence

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Reticence

THIS MORNING there was a dead cat in the harbor, a black cat that was floating on the surface of the water. It was straight and stiff and was drifting slowly along the side of a boat. From its mouth dangled a decomposed fish head with a piece of broken line about two inches long coming out of it. At the time I had simply imagined that this fish head was what remained of the bait from a discarded fishing line. The cat must have leaned into the water to catch the fish and, as he grabbed it, the hook caught in his mouth and he lost his balance and fell. The water of the harbor was very dark where I was standing, but from time to time I suspected there was a procession of fish, mullets and wrasse, passing silently below my eyes, while on the bottom, among the pebbles and algae, thousands of wriggling fry worked over the gutted remains of a decomposing eel. Before setting off again, I lingered a moment longer on the pier staring at the dead cat still drifting in the harbor in a very slow back and forth movement, first to the left, then to the right, following the imperceptible ebb and flow of the current at the surface of the water.
I had arrived in Sasuelo at the end of October. It was already autumn and the tourist season was coming to an end. A taxi dropped me off one morning, bag and baggage, on the village square. The driver helped me undo my son's stroller from the roof-rack of the car, an old 504 diesel that he left running and that continued to hum slowly in place. Then he pointed in the direction of the only hotel in the area, that I was familiar with since I had already stayed there. I left my bags near a bench and set off in the direction of the hotel with my son who was installed in his stroller in front of me and paying no attention to anything around him, absorbed as he was in the contemplation of a toy seal that he turned over and over in his hands examining all its seams and releasing for the occasion an imperturbable burp as naturally as a prince. At the entrance of the hotel flowers lined a little flight of steps at the top of which opened double French doors, and I took the stroller in my arms to climb the steps.

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