Chapter 81
TEO SWAM OVER TO ME and reached for my hand. It was an intimate gesture, but after he’d placed the mollusk in my palm, I realized he probably just didn’t want me to drop it.
“Is it an oyster?” I asked as I held it close to get a better look. Oysters and clams were all I had known in Charleston.
“Oysters, mussels, scallops, they’re all bivalves. This one is found only in the Mediterranean.”
“What’s it called?”
“Sometimes we call it a fan mussel. Or a pen shell. But most of the time, it’s just a nacchera.”
“Nacchera,” I said, repeating the word to be sure I had the pronunciation right.
“It’s the same word we use for those musical instruments… you know the ones?” He pinched his fingers together and hummed a song that sounded vaguely like flamenco music.
I laughed. “Castanets?”
“They look like them, no?”
I agreed that they did.
“See how the shell gets smaller down here at the bottom?”
I nodded.
“That’s the part that you won’t be able to see when you’re down there looking for them.” He drew an invisible line across the mollusk with his finger. “Usually, about a third of the shell is buried.”
Teo took the specimen from me and swam over to the boat, where Bruno had hung a bucket from the side with a rope. He tossed the nacchera into it, then said something to Bruno, who handed him a knife. I watched him glide back to me.
“Here,” he said, as he passed me the knife, handle first. “They like the soft-bottom areas, which are often overgrown with seagrass. Every now and then, they anchor to a rock. If you get one that’s difficult to remove, the knife might help.”
“How deep is it here?” I asked.
“Right here?” he asked. He seemed to consider. “Maybe three or four meters, but if you try over where Luca and Nina are, it should be a little shallower.”
It had been a long time since I’d had to worry about how long I could hold my breath—since back when Lenny and I used to go swimming off the end of our dock.
We’d disappear beneath the murky water and try to pinch at each other’s heels, pretending we were snapping turtles looking for our next meal.
Or sometimes we’d play dead, hiding under the surface of the water until the other freaked out.
I could still conjure that feeling of utter panic, thinking Lenny had drowned.
I’d start shouting It isn’t funny, Leonard and Come up now, and his shiny head would burst through the surface, and I would feel a rush of relief, knowing I wasn’t alone in the world.
I did as Teo suggested and swam in Luca and Nina’s direction.
Then I took a deep breath and tried to pull my way down to the seafloor.
Of course, I had the knife in my hand, which made my strokes terribly lopsided, but I kicked hard and was eventually staring at these bright orange sea fans and a lazy-looking starfish.
Some sort of grouper darted past, and I tried to trace its path, but by then my chest was burning and I had to return to the surface for a big gulp of air.
“It’s gorgeous down there,” I shouted, and Bruno gave me a thumbs-up.
I returned to the seafloor again and again, and each time I made note of something new.
A tube worm the color of the sun, a sea sponge coated in a thick layer of algae, sea urchins that reminded me of spiky pincushions.
At one point, Teo swam past me, and he pointed out a single nacchera hiding in the seagrass.
It was big—maybe six or seven inches tall—and it stood upright, just as he’d said it would.
I’d have missed it on my own, because it was covered in a thick coat of algae, but once Teo showed it to me, I could see others like it.
He was right—the nacchere were more difficult to remove than I’d have assumed. Sometimes one would come free in my hand, but often I had to use the knife to hack at the substrate. With more of the shell exposed, I could get better purchase.
We spent the next hour happily swimming between the seafloor and Salvario’s boat, and once we’d filled the bucket, we were off to the next collection point.
The sun had warmed the deck, and Teo, Luca, Nina, and I sat around in our wet swimsuits, trying to absorb what heat we could.
Whatever inhibitions I’d felt—about the boys’ tiny trunks or my own body—were gone, and I was left with a deep sense of satisfaction that came not only from having had to rely on my own muscle but from having learned that, in fact, I had strength in reserve.