In Venice, everyone knows at least one good man who owns a good boat. In a city
where useful acquaintance is key, people and objects ultimately get nowhere
without the help of il mio amico con la barca. As a rule, boat-friends
are usually very young or very old. No one but the young and the old so
willingly give their services for free. My family’s boat-friend is Mario Memo
and he happens to be of the very old’ variety.
Transporting
fruit to the market used to be his profession; transporting people is now his
identity. He is especially in demand when the fog lifts and the good’ season arrives.
Mario carries the island’s Cub Scouts to the train station before a week of
mountain camp. Come summer, he lets adolescents fight over who he’ll drive to
the Lido for a night
of fireworks. The fireworks have been going on since the Virgin Mary saved Venice from the plague,
and Mario Memo’s boat has hosted various generations. It can hold three set
tables and up to 18 teens who don’t mind if their shoulders touch while they
eat. On alternate Sundays, Mario takes seniors to the Vignole islands for
spare-ribs and polenta and often transports sheetrock for couples who need to
restore their kitchens before September weddings. He is also the person to call
if you are a single woman moving to a new flat on Saturday morning in June.
I’ve known Mario Memo since childhood and have always thought his name
worth its weight in gumdrops. If you were six, addicted to singsong and had a
liking for lagoon outings, there was nothing better than taking a boat trip
with Mario Memo. He always let you enjoy the beauty of his name and never
really learned yours. He knew where the clean water was and understood your
need to adopt hermit crabs. An animal that can carry its house on its back is
certainly worth taking home to mamma.
But speaking of carrying homes, there we were last weekend, my muscular
cousin Filippo, Mario Memo and me, with my bookcase lying on the helm of his
boat and what was left of my previous house stacked in boxes that would surely
topple during the trip. There were more of them than I remembered, and each box
was filled with more fragile things than I had cared to see thrown from truck
to boat belly.
But for those who are wondering, motoring across a murky lagoon, sitting
cross-legged on a ruby-red hide-a-bed sofa is just about as bello as bello can be. So
was the pleased look on Mario’s face as he watched me sitting there. It almost
made me forget that the first big wave would send all my worldly possessions
splashing into the sea as if they were tea and we were the Boston Tea Party.
For Mario Memo, this was an enjoyable mission. I was a child at the circus and
he had paid my fare for five minutes on the elephant.
>Bea ea eaguna, vero, Vecia?’ he yelled over the sound of the
motor. Mario speaks Venetian because in his world, only people on television
are too snobby to use dialect. Vecia means old lady’, and around here,
the word is an ancient form of affection. In response to his question, I nodded
and grinned. The lagoon was indeed, very beautiful.
But the week’s real fatto bello? Easy. I am
36 years old and when I sit in his boat, Mario Memo’s name still makes me want
to swing my legs back and forth to the rhythm of singsong. To that man, I’m
simply a grown-up six-year-old who likes to be called granny’. In other words,
the two of us are proof: people and their many things seldom fit into
well-packed, well-defined boxes.
Oh and by the way-we never did hit a wave. Mario pulled into the canal,
the sea spray lessened and tourists took pictures, more excited than I that my
bookcase had arrived safely. Perhaps, they, too, saw the beauty of moving day.
Or maybe, they learned with each click of their camera, that boat-friends
aren’t born every day. When you see one pass by, it’s best to stop, watch and
immortalize.
