Difficult Loves by Italo Calvino Read Free Book Online Page A

blue sky was brand new and the sun was young, carefree. They went running down the steep narrow alleys, waving their patched jersey trunks, some already in clogs clattering over the paving stones, most of them without socks, to spare themselves the nuisance, afterward, of putting them back on wet feet. They ran to the pier, jumping over the nets spread out on the ground and lifted by the callused feet of the fishermen, squatting to mend them. Along the rocks of the breakwater, the kids stripped, excited by that sharp smell of old, rotting seaweed and by the flight of the gulls trying to fill the sky, which was too big. Hiding clothes and shoes in the hollows of the rocks, and setting the baby crabs to flight, they began to jump from rock to rock, barefoot and half naked, waiting for one of their number to make up his mind and dive in first.
    The water was calm but not clear, a dense blue with harsh green glints. Gian Maria, known as Mariassa, climbed to the top of a high rock and blew his nose against his thumb, a boxer's gesture he had.
----
    "Come on," he said. He pressed his hands together, held them out in front of himself, and plunged headlong. He surfaced a few yards farther out, spouting water, then playing dead.
    "Cold?" they asked him.
    "Boiling," he yelled and started making furious strokes to keep from freezing.
    "Hey, gang! Follow me!" said Cicin, who considered himself the chief, though nobody ever paid any attention to him.
    They all dived in : Pier Lingera made a somersault, Bombolo took a belly-whopper, then Paulo, Carruba, and, last of all, Menin, who was scared to death of the water and jumped in feet first, pinching his nose with his fingers.
    Once in the water, Pier Lingera, who was the strongest, ducked the others one by one; then they all ganged up and ducked Pier Lingera.
    Gian Maria alias Mariassa suggested, "The ship! Let's go on the ship!"
    A vessel still lay in the harbor, sunk by the Germans during the war to block access. Actually, there were two ships, one above the other; the visible one rested on a second, completely submerged.
    "Yeah, let's!" the others said.
    "Can we climb up on it?" Menin asked. "It's mined."
    "Balls. Mined!" Carruba said. "The Arenella guys climb on it whenever they like, and play war."
    They started swimming toward the ship.
    "Gang! Follow me!" said Cicin, who wanted to be the leader. But the others swam faster and left him behind, except for Menin, who swam frog-style and was always the last.
    They reached the ship, whose flanks rose from the water,
----
    black with old tar, bare, and moldy, the stripped superstructures profiled against the fresh blue sky. A beard of stinking seaweed rose to cover the ship from the keel; the old paint was peeling in great flakes. The boys swam all around it, then paused a while below the poop, to look at the almost erased name: Abukir, Egypt. The anchor chain, stretched obliquely, swayed now and then with the jabs of the tide, its enormous rusted links creaking.
    "Let's stay here," Bombolo said.
    "Come on," Pier Lingera said, already gripping the chain with his hands and feet. He scrambled up like a monkey, and the others followed him.
    Halfway up, Bombolo slipped and hit the water with his belly; Menin couldn't make it, so two of the others had to pull him up.
    On board, they began wandering around that dismantled ship in silence, looking for the wheel of the helm, the siren, the hatches, the lifeboats, all the things there were supposed to be on a ship. But this ship was as barren as a raft, covered only with whitish gull dung. There were five of them, five gulls, perched on a railing; when they heard the barefoot steps of the band, they took flight, one after the other, in a great flapping of wings.
    "Hey!" Paulo cried, and threw after the last gull a rivet he had picked up.
    "Gang! Let's go to the engine room!" Cicin said. It would surely be more fun to play among the machines or in the hold.
    "Can we go down to the other ship,