Chapter 16
Winter. Zaneta’s mother gathered the best of their weavings, a collection of tools, and small vials of the most difficult dyes.
These she placed in an oleander box lined with goatskins, one Zaneta’s father had carved with his own hands.
She tucked in other things as well: photos and heirlooms that had been handed down through the generations of water women, adding a few lire for good measure.
One afternoon, when the slate-gray sky promised rain and few people bustled about outdoors, Zaneta and her sisters, along with their mother, carried the box to the shore, their hoods pulled close against the damp.
They stood for a long while on the rocks at low tide, letting the cold January wind whip their hair and sting their faces.
Zaneta was glad for the wind. It made her eyes water and her nose run, disguising, she thought, the salty tears that wet her cheeks.
After singing their ritual evening songs, the four of them followed the shoreline farther than usual.
Dahlia and Mamma each gripped a handle of the box, and Marta and Zaneta walked behind, their boots sinking in the sand.
After a half mile or so, they turned inland and headed for a jagged, black-rocked cliff.
Behind the steep rock face visible from the water, the mouth of a sea cave yawned.
At high tide, the cave would be inaccessible, and if you hadn’t known it was there, it would remain invisible when the tide went out.
Wordlessly, the four of them climbed the rocks, balancing the box between them, and entered the maw of the cave.
Pink anemones and orange starfish clung to the lower portion of the wet walls, waiting for the tide’s return, and remnants of seagrass and algae littered the floor where the light still penetrated.
Farther back, as they picked their way along the pitted floor, the plants and sea life diminished with the light.
Zaneta lit a small lantern once they were well inside, and with its light flickering on the cave walls, they continued as far back as they dared, her mother craning her neck to search out a suitable spot.
“Here.” She finally stopped. “Up there in that crag, it should remain dry enough.”
Marta dropped Zaneta’s hand and stepped forward. “Give it to me, Mamma. I’ll lift it with Dahlia.” The two girls heaved the wooden box as high as they could reach, shoving and pushing it into a crag in the wall.
“Zaneta, hold the light high,” said her mother. “It can’t come loose, can it?” She peered upward, her brows furrowed in the shadows.
“No, it’s wedged in,” said Dahlia. “The tide won’t go that high, and unless you know it’s here and can pry it out, it’s stuck.”
“Climb down, then,” beckoned her mother, and she bid them all hold hands in a circle when they stood on solid ground.
“Keeping this here doesn’t mean we’ve given up,” she told them, looking each of them in the eyes.
“Dry your tears. This isn’t the first time we’ve faced hard times, and it won’t be the last. But do you remember?
In the very beginning of creation, when the earth was still without form and empty and darkness covered all, even before light . . .”
“There was water,” said Zaneta. “Above and below.”
“That’s right, my girl. The sea was first, and then it was filled, teeming with life, waiting to be used for further creation and in a service that connects and gives back to the divine. It won’t come to an end because of a silly war between men.”
“But Mamma.” Zaneta started to give voice to her fear and worry, started to ask who would weave the byssus if none of them lived, but her mother placed one hand on her head and held her face with the other.
“Nothing can erase our spirits,” she said. “Nothing can extinguish our love for each other. Let them try. We’re stronger than that—all of us. The byssus remains. If, someday, it’s someone else who comes to find our box, perhaps our line will be grafted in with theirs.”
Zaneta nodded, wiping the tears that had somehow leaked out despite her best efforts. Hand squeezes all around, and the women hugged. “Tomorrow morning, Zaneta, you’ll take the water oath. It’s time.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Tomorrow?” She was barely fifteen. She couldn’t possibly know enough yet. Marta and Dahlia beamed at her and hugged her yet again. They had already known.
“You’ve worked so hard, faster than most, and given the circumstances, I think it best that we make it official.” In case I’m not here later to lead you through it, she knew: words her mother didn’t say.
It was full dark when they made their way home, and they walked without the lantern.
They’d just surrendered their work to a cave, and despite what Mamma had said to lift their spirits, their hearts carried a heavy weight.
They’d heard whispers, reports from Berlin about a final solution to the Jewish problem.
Her father had received a letter from friends in Genoa warning them to flee while they could, but of course, it was too late.
Where could they get papers now? Where would they go, an older man and four women?
The stories of roundups, trains to nowhere, and families that’d been taken in for small infractions and never returned were all true.
They’d certainly never been Orthodox and weren’t even strictly kosher, but they did observe the religious holidays and could clearly trace their lineage to their Jewish roots.
Outward appearances didn’t matter to those who pounded their fists on the tables in Berlin and elsewhere.
A few drops of Jewish blood were enough.
Zaneta’s father no longer sailed the boat from the port.
He fished from the shore only enough for the family’s food, making sure to go out before daylight in out-of-the-way inlets on the island.
This spring—well, who could say?—but Zaneta didn’t think they would be harvesting byssus like they’d done ever since she could remember.
Dawn broke the next morning, and Zaneta woke to rumbles of thunder that turned out not to be thunder at all but, they discovered later, air attacks in Cagliari and Alghero.
Over the past months, fighting on Malta, their island neighbor south of Sicily, had been constant, and more recently, they’d heard Sicily had become a stronghold for the so-called Axis.
Any spot of land that lay between the front in Africa and the coast of Europe was fair game.
Apparently, that now included Sardegna. Mamma told her sisters to stay with Papà while they went to complete the water oath.
Zaneta readied herself with shaking hands, dressing in a loose golden robe of byssus and wrapping herself in a warm coat to wear on the way.
She stuffed her regular shawl and dress with its pullover sweater into a small bag so that she could change back into it afterward.
She wasn’t sure if her tremors were from nervousness at the impending oath or the air raids that were so close they rattled their windows.
She could tell her father didn’t relish the thought of them venturing out, but Mamma couldn’t wait.
“Come, Zaneta, be quick now,” she ordered.
Dahlia and Marta gave her a kiss and smiles that told her how proud they were.
Her mother squeezed her father’s hands and told him they’d be there and back.
All the plans they’d tried to make to send the girls abroad for safety had fallen through.
They were on their own, their sole advantage being their location on the far side of a tiny island they hoped would escape the notice of the roving red eye of the German machine.
The oath was usually performed in the late spring or summer, when the sea was at its finest, warm and inviting and turned a crystal aquamarine by the ripe sun.
Now, after they’d completed the recitations and the oath, after her mother had given her a slim gold ring and declared her not only a daughter but a sister in the line of women, the water was too frigid to swim in, the sun too low to make it sparkle like a jewel.
The water was a deep violet, so dark it looked almost black.
She was denied the ritual dive with her mother.
Their hurry and anxiety prevented her from savoring the pride and gratitude she’d always imagined would come with such a moment.
Zaneta exchanged her byssus robe for her warmer clothes, folding it carefully into the bag she carried.
They made their way back along the beachfront and had almost rounded the bend to reach the path to their house when Zaneta heard shouts.
Her mother gripped her arm and drew her backward against the black rocks flanking the shore.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s happening?”
“Here.” Her mother pulled a canvas bag from beneath her cloak and thrust it at her.
Until that moment, Zaneta hadn’t realized she’d been carrying anything.
It was the packed bag that had sat by the back door all these weeks.
Every time they ventured out, her mother hung it across her body.
“Take this and go inland. Go as fast as you can and keep to the rocks and trees. Go to the nuragic ruins up on the plains and wait there. People not from here don’t know about such places, and no one will be there this time of year anyway.
I thought we’d have time to make a place up there for all of us.
” Tears spilled over onto her mother’s cheeks.
Now, Zaneta could see soldiers leaving their house, the ugly black spider insignia on their armbands.
Outside, they shoved terrified, weeping people into the back of a canvas-covered truck.
Zaneta recognized members of all the other six families of weavers, not just the men.
They must have come from the north and traveled the whole coastline, stopping at even the homes tucked up among the rocks before reaching their cottage.
Frantic, she searched for Marta and Dahlia.
Where were they? Her father? A gasp from her mother’s lips told her she’d seen them.
There. Marta and Dahlia appeared from the back of the truck, their hands reaching out for a man the soldiers pushed forward.
She recognized her father’s frame and cried out, but her mother took her face in both hands and forced her to look her in the eyes.
“Now, Zaneta. Do it now.”
“I’m not leaving you, Mamma.” Zaneta’s eyes were wild, her throat so dry she could barely rasp out the words.
“Hush! Do as I say and go to the ruins. It’s the only hope you’ll be safe.
” Her mother shoved her roughly with both hands, and fear settled into Zaneta’s gut.
She’d never known her mother’s hands to be anything but gentle.
Almost as an afterthought, her mother pulled her back into a suffocating embrace, holding her so tight she couldn’t draw breath.
Zaneta was too frightened to cry. In a panic, her unreasonable thought was to memorize everything immediately—her mother’s hair, face, eyes, the way she smelled, and the feel of that strangling embrace.
She feared, even then, those flashes of memory would be all that remained to hold on to.
“Go, and remember who you are, figlia. My hope is with you.” With that, her mother rounded the bend and ran toward the house, yelling and waving her arms. What was she thinking?
Her father’s head swiveled toward his wife’s voice.
His face was stricken, and he shook his head no.
No! But it was too late. Already the soldiers approached her, shouting commands with their hands on their guns.
A dog barked as the truck’s engine revved.
Every nerve in Zaneta’s body screamed run, but her heart wanted only to be with her sisters and parents.
“What happens to one of us happens to all of us,” she remembered Marta saying before her brothers left.
When her mother climbed into the truck, her sisters’ hands clutching her close, she turned her head briefly toward where she’d left Zaneta and nodded sharply, her hands pressed against her mouth.
Zaneta lifted the bag’s strap over her head and committed the sin she would wrestle with the rest of her life. She ran.