Limbo by Melania G. Mazzucco

Author:Melania G. Mazzucco
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374709907
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

14

LIVE

Once it crosses the canal, the road heading north runs parallel to the sea. The city peters out gently. Apartment buildings become elegant three-story homes, campgrounds, marinas, camper van storage lots, and finally a fragile strip of ash-colored dunes hemmed in by a wooden fence. Faded signs caution that this is a protected area, a nature preserve, the Torre Flavia wetland. A sandy path runs along the ponds and disappears among the reeds. Just a few steps inside and it already feels like you’re at the end of the world, even though cars whiz by behind the marsh and Piazza della Vittoria is only a few miles away. A sign nailed to the fence informs visitors that it is prohibited to step off the walkways, trample the dunes, let dogs off their leashes, harvest sea lilies, or disturb the wild fauna. Mattia is surprised that such a place has survived the building speculation that devoured the rest of the coast, and wonders how much longer it will last. The pond is as crowded as a piazza, with hundreds, even thousands of birds: the water quivers, the reeds rustle, feathers flap, beaks emit powerful, shrill whistles, but Mattia doesn’t know birds and has no idea what species they are. They all look like ducks and herons to him. He vaguely recalls that in certain seasons they abandon their nests and fly away. Not just birds, actually. Bats, caribou, lemmings, toads, eels, even herrings migrate. Driven by a mysterious yet infallible instinct, they abandon everything, cross mountains, oceans, ice floes, entire continents, merely to reach a certain destination, reproduce, and die. Their lives revolve entirely around this movement.

The migrating birds that dwell undisturbed among the reeds have stopped here on their eventful, exhausting journey in order to rest and regain their strength, protected and secure in this modest nature preserve. No one can riddle them with shot here. But wherever they’ve come from, and wherever they’re going, they’re just passing through. Mattia stops and stares at them lazing about in the brackish water. They’re so close, and so indifferent to Mattia and Manuela’s presence, so free of fears and suspicion, that he could almost touch them. Or throw a rock at them, or beat them with a stick. “That’s a pochard,” Manuela says, pointing to a small duck with red eyes intent on fishing tadpoles in the still waters. “It spends the winter here. And that’s a teal. You can tell by the green mark on its eyes, it looks like it’s blindfolded. That tiny one there is a sandpiper. There should be some dabchicks around, too, but they’re probably hiding, they’re really timid. The stilt plovers won’t get here until spring.” She points out the little white egret. Thin and aristocratic, it shakes its feather crest and advances on its slender black legs into the reed thicket, paying no attention to them. The birds keep preening themselves, and rooting around in the water with their beaks. Not even her voice startles them.

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