14 febbraio 2006 – Il giorno di San Valentino
The haunting whir of the emergency sirens over Venice had long ceased, yet their menacing echo seemed to remain trapped in rain-soaked Piazzetta San Marco.
A dinghy made its way solemnly to thefondamenta. The three men on board dropped their heads, too overcome to face the throng of people who had gathered.
Waiting on the bank were doctors andcarabinieri, preparing to carry out their grievous task. Others attempted with little success to disperse the crowd.
The most senior of the officers approached a young girl and her older female companion.
‘Is she the daughter?’ he asked the woman, gesturing to the girl. His nasal Venetian intonation did well to mask the emotions welling at the back of his throat.
The round-set woman nodded between sobs, readjusting her glasses as the deluge continued to beat down upon them.
The officer’s eyes scoured the pavement at his feet as if searching for the right words. In a low voice, he mumbled, ‘I’m so very sorry, signorina.’
With a thud of metal against the lichen-encrusted embankment, the men on board the dinghy unloaded their cargo; two large black bags slick with rain were laid out as respectfully as possible on the pavers.
The girl didn’t move. She didn’t so much as blink. All she did was stand as tall as her eleven-year-old frame would permit.
The woman’s hold on the girl’s tense shoulders tightened. She leaned down to whisper, ‘Are you sure?’
The girl nodded.
Noting this, the officer closed his eyes and steeled himself, offering his hand to lead her to the embankment.
The girl shook her head. ‘I’ll go. Alone.’
Those who had gathered shared a series of concerned looks and murmurs.
Following the child, the officer dutifully removed his hat and leaned down to unzip the bags. There lay the battered and water-logged bodies of the girl’s parents.
She didn’t flinch.
The woman could be heard sobbing a few paces behind, and the girl, without breaking her stare, signalled with her hand for silence.
The crowd of Venetians huddling under their umbrellas immediately fell quiet.
Looking into her mother’s vacant eyes, the girl commanded, ‘Open it all the way.’
Again, looks were exchanged, but the officer reluctantly opened the bag a little further. ‘All of it,’ the girl pressed sternly.
Drawing in a deep breath, the officer complied, and the sides of the bag fanned open.
The girl stepped forward and kneeled between the bags. She leaned over her mother and took hold of her left hand, only to find it jarringly cold. The hand she reached for in times of worry, seeking comfort and guidance, suddenly felt foreign. With a firm tug she managed to remove her mother’s wedding band, slipping the ring into her own coat pocket. Then she turned, looking for a moment at her father. The trademark mischievous glisten to his eyes had been replaced by an empty, hollow stare, which only reflected the rain cloud–studded sky above. It was as if his spirit had been drained away by the lagoon.
‘We’re so sorry,’ offered one of the doctors. ‘Arethey . . .?’
She cast a final look at her parents, then stood and brushed herself down. ‘Sì,’ she said, and turned away.
She fixed her gaze on her feet. Part of her wanted to hold that image – the last impression of her parents’ faces – as long as she could. She wasn’t ready to face the crowd of onlookers swarming along thefondamenta, fearing that doing so would make her parents dissolve from her memory forever.
The world suddenly slowed, and sounds and colours withdrew before her. But there was nothing for it; after a few moments she lifted her head, ready to take her first step into a new life.
There was silence. Deathly silence.
As she made to move, a man jumped from the crowd and squatted in front of her. With aclick– a sound that would haunt her every day to come – he caught the image that would make the front page of every newspaper in Italy, and many across the world. An image that represented one of Italy’s most tragic accidents, a moment caught forever, immortalised, endlessly trapping the girl in a tangled web of public interest and curiosity. This was a photo that would become legendary for all the wrong reasons, and would scar her in ways unknown and unimaginable at the time.
Her young face, pale and drawn, was accented by her most captivating feature: her eyes.
