Chapter 14
Marta and Dahlia had both taken their water oath already, and Zaneta was eager for her turn, but Mamma said she still had much to learn.
Theirs was not the only family of water women on the island.
At least six other households labored with the byssus, and they often came together for afternoons of singing and weaving.
Zaneta loved these times, where she’d tuck herself into a corner, spinning thread, listening to the chatter of women’s lives as they talked of babies, love, and hardship, laughing and sometimes crying with each other as they shared their lives.
She longed to really be one of them with a seat at the table, not just a young apprentice.
From her mother, Zaneta learned what all weavers know—that the act, like all acts of creation, is sacred.
The myths from their Greek neighbors were amusing: how Clotho, one of the three Greek Fates, spun the lives of mortals; how Athena transformed her master pupil into a spider when Arachne boasted about her weaving; that a weaver’s distaff was a magic wand or divination tool.
Why, Zaneta wondered, did people relegate so-called menial household tasks to women, and then, when women showed a keen ability to transform and create, plaster them with labels—witch, strega, pagan?
Her mother’s tales were different from those of the Greeks, older.
She reached back to the beginning, in Hebrew and Aramaic.
“Our bodies are an altar; to dress yourself can be a sacred act, weaving cloth a prayer. Those in the tribe of Dan were anointed with skill, ability, and knowledge, so they were able to craft with gold and weave sacred vestments and robes for the tribe of Levi. Our sister, Berenice, ensured the craft wouldn’t be lost. This alchemy is our anointing, Zaneta, one we honor with our lives. ”
For the women in the family, the craft wasn’t simply a trade or mastery of a skill.
In fact, it was prohibited to sell the thread, so they made no profit at all from their work, at least not profit in coins in the usual sense.
The profit gained from byssus was something else entirely—a way to bestow blessing and a prosperity of the soul onto others.
The way Allegra told it, it was a secret of the sea, their way of tying past to future, the same way God weaves time, experience, and lineage into a beautiful tapestry of connected threads.
For their family and families like theirs, it was their calling, predestined for their line.
Zaneta learned to mark the years by the tides and the sea’s production.
Each season brought its own delights and duties.
In winter, she enjoyed being in the cozy storehouse, cataloguing and tidying dyes; drying plants; and securing jars of dried insects that would, when crushed, produce the perfect tints and colors.
In spring and summer, when the days grew longer and the Mediterranean sun rose hot and high, she loved being in the sea most of all, where for hours each day she swam and practiced holding her breath.
She memorized the curves and contents of each reef and cove until the currents and creatures were as familiar as the rooms in her own home.
The Renda women were planets orbiting their byssus sun.
Her mother and older sisters were her playmates and teachers, always present and available for conversation and sharing work.
They doted on her, their surprise little sister, delighting in her when she mastered a skill; pushing her to do her best; indulging her sweet tooth and requests for stories, ribbons, and treasures of shells or flowers.
They were enough older that Zaneta looked up to them as examples of what it meant to be a friend and a woman.
For Zaneta, it had always been so, and she couldn’t imagine her life holding anything else besides this rhythm, this joy.
One afternoon in early autumn, when the water women had gathered at their home, Allegra beckoned Zaneta to her side and handed her a few lire.
“Run to the port for me,” whispered her mother. “Ask Antonio for his best tray of baklava. I made some yesterday, but your sneaky brothers must have taken it with them on the boat, and we’ll need something to nibble on later.”
Zaneta nodded and scooted out the door. She was disappointed to miss Signora Franca’s animated story about the wedding she’d attended in Genoa, but the promise of sweet baklava almost made up for it.
When she arrived at the bakery, she couldn’t even see Antonio, the baker, at the counter due to the number of people who crowded the bakery and stretched out the door. She spotted a familiar face.
“Luccio!” A few years older than Zaneta, he was a deckhand on one of the bigger fishing boats. She waved him over. “What’s going on?” Her small nose wrinkled with confusion at the sight of the crowd.
He scooted next to her and, she noticed, turned his body so that his broad shoulders blocked her from being jostled.
She was more than a head shorter than he, and her small, light frame was easily brushed aside by the larger men.
“Is there a sale on bread? Everyone must have heard Antonio’s giving it away. ”
Luccio laughed but shook his head. He had a broad smile and a kind face. A shock of dark hair flopped over one eye. It occurred to Zaneta that his eyes were the green of the sea at first light. “No, it’s the radio. They’re making some kind of announcement.”
She pushed and squeezed her way through the door, her thin frame granting her passage through the tightest spots.
No one even seemed to notice, especially not with Luccio playing defense.
Despite the crowd, everyone stayed strangely quiet, without the usual chatter and banter between neighbors.
Sharp squeals and static filled the stuffy room as they all strained to hear the radio.
Something important was being broadcast, but it meant little to Zaneta.
She fingered the lire in her pocket and craned her neck to spot the baklava in the glass case.
It was something about the Italian conflict in Albania and the prime minister’s ongoing efforts against their neighbor, Greece.
She’d heard her father talking, of course, about Italy’s biting off more than it could chew and PM Mussolini getting into bed with that German mouthpiece, Hitler.
People wondered why the Italian king, Victor Emmanuel, let it continue.
Zaneta wondered why everyone couldn’t just mind their own business and let life go on as it always had, fishing and weaving and enjoying a good meal. Didn’t everyone want those same things?
The radio mentioned an Axis that Mussolini was forming with Germany and Japan.
Zaneta had heard this word batted around before but had no idea what it meant.
She guessed it must have something to do with the grim-faced soldiers appearing more often at the port and the garish red flags marked with what she thought of as the black spider.
She glanced around the bakery at the faces of her neighbors.
Signora Olivetti, the wife of a shepherd who had goats and sheep just outside town, stood pressed against the counter, holding her small son’s hand.
He pulled and whined, no doubt flustered by the scene.
When she caught Zaneta’s eye, Signora Olivetti—Ruth was her name, Zaneta remembered—straightened the bright scarf covering her dark hair and pulled the boy away from her, hoisting her son up on her hip.
She whispered in his ear and pointed to a cannolo, earning a wide grin.
A bribe, for being quiet for the broadcast.
Zaneta cast a shy glance up at Luccio to see whether he’d witnessed the boy’s victory, but she found his usual grin had faded to a somber frown, his brows knit together as he met her eyes.
She didn’t know why, but his expression made her want to press closer to him, to have him shield her from some unknown menace.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him.
He shook his head slightly and cast a sideways look at Signora Olivetti. Zaneta glanced at her again and noticed her whispering to another woman, their heads together and both looking in her direction. Were they whispering about her? Had she done something wrong?
When the news announcer finished, the room erupted in voices.
People gestured and shouted. Some seemed angry while others were plainly excited.
She recognized an elderly man from their small synagogue and started to wave to him, but he seemed eager to slip outside unnoticed.
Luccio witnessed the man’s exit, too, and he stood even closer to Zaneta, placing his hand on her shoulder and guiding her to the counter.
Zaneta remembered her task and waved her lire at Antonio.
“Baklava, Signor Listo? Your best tray, Mamma says.”
The baker nodded, his usual broad smile faded to a thin line. He sliced and packaged the tray in brown paper and handed it to her across the counter. He seemed so distracted, he forgot to ask for payment, so Zaneta counted out the money and slid it across to him.
“Signore?”
“Ah, sì, sì. Grazie, Zaneta,” he said, but it was mechanical, and he turned to the next customer in line as if she’d never been there. Zaneta tucked the package of baklava under her arm and edged her way out. Luccio tugged his hat down onto his head and pushed out of the bakery with her.
“What was that all about?” she asked. “People are acting so strangely.” She almost laughed, eager to brush the experience off as a silly mistake, wishing that was all it was.
“People are saying things, Zaneta,” Luccio said, his voice low. “Not very nice things about Jews. With Germany and Italy joining forces, people’s opinions are changing with politics. They forget who they’ve been living next to their whole lives.”