"...So in moments of solitude, when regret becomes a habit, a way of living together, the absent lips of all the beautiful passers-by that we have not been able to hold back weep."
He accompanied himself with the guitar sitting on one of the two mooring bollards, keeping his left leg crossed over the other. He lifted it and put it on his right thigh, leaning comfortably on it.
The keep, traditionally reserved for officers, was occupied only by the stern lookouts. The sun would soon fall. The light, of a pale red, in the unusually calm waters of the Gulf of Lion, was reflected on the clear paiolate, decreeing the destiny of a changing and indefinable color, in the maritime wedding with the grains of saltiness and the still vivid drops of foam.
The officer on the platoon made sure the marker was ready for the flag-bearer. The cadet on duty, reviewed the sailor's prayer. He would have paid with too much discipline a mistake too marked and, considering the legends of the crew on the benevolence of the girls of the next port, would have preferred to be hung by the feet of the tree rather than remain delivered on board once arrived at their destination .
He stood up to attention at the order.
"… Lord, bless our distant homes, dear people. Bless the rest of the people in the falling night. Bless us who, for it, watch over the sea in arms."
The sailing flag slipped slowly, at the whistle of the helmsman and he returned proudly to the peak, no longer visible but present, like our distant affections.
Joseph remained to enjoy the passing of the sun on the horizon, the salty breeze in the nostrils and the joy of the explosion of a wonderful starry universe.
The calm wave across the starboard cradled the ship that, almost against nature, proceeded to motor in spite of its square kilometers of sails. Everything, in short, conspired for melancholy.
Only a few days before the departure of the ship for the summer cruise had met with old classmates in high school and the thought went to the first day of school and the years when the idea of ​​dressing the double-breasted blue did not even touch him. He remembered the bus, in blue livery, which approached the wide open space along the Via Aurelia, interrupting a horrible Palazzinara reconstruction of the year 60.
Lessons began at half past eight, but the bus took about forty minutes to travel the 15 kilometers. The early risers at half past seven already animated the pitch. Giuseppe ... Beppe (because only his mother called him by his first name) had spent the sleepless night, as always happened to him on the eve of important things, although he did not have much to worry about, for a normal first day of school. On the contrary, the two older brothers were already attending the same high school, so that it can be said that, even if they had never entered, that institution did not represent a novelty for him.
Here, the brothers ... While Beppe at the antelope sound of the alarm clock had done the morning practices in a flash, the two, more scafati, had certainly diluted the time, reserving for the return to the labors of classical studies a more moderate approach.
On the other hand they were high school students, and they could afford some smudging. Paola, then, at the penultimate year, was already a decidedly gracious creature who did not fail to exalt with the right coquetry the beauty of her years from the red skin, despite the pulp, still unripe.
Result, the "bis race", as the bus reserved for the students was called, was already well past when the two ended breakfast and realized that only a divine intervention or, alternatively, the father's car, could allow 'arrival at school in an acceptable time.
Dad, who put the study above everything, did not hold back. Luckily it was a warm autumn morning. He smoked like a Turk and used to open a small crack in the window. Thanks to the weather we all had permission to drop the windows to zero. Which saved, more than ours, the nostrils of classmates, for Beppe still unknown.
There was not much traffic, the first of October of the '77 and the trip was fast enough to recover a bit' of time lost, but not enough to choose a good bank to keep all year. The problem, in truth, concerned only Beppe. The brothers, in fact,
they could have claimed seniority acquired or had previously agreed on adequate accommodation.
Angelo, who had had the same teacher in the two-year period of gymnasium that was now passed on to Beppe, pointed to the door of the class and greeted him.
There were only two seats left: one at the back of the courtroom and one in the front row, right next to the door. Beppe, agitated by the anxiety to fix the things that always devoured him, put down his floppy bag, full of only the diary, brand new, on the front row bench.
Given immediately a glance at his future companion, he made the gesture to take away the bag ... but it seemed ugly and, anyway, was anticipated by the hand of the youth who occupied the bench next to it.
"Hi, my name is Chicco"He said in the meantime, with a rather nasal voice and, so to speak, sbrodolosa. Beppe held out his hand.
He noticed that in addition to a kind of bust, which supported his neck, as if to correct an invincible gravity, and that had given him the initial impulse to head to the bottom, Chicco had a kind of bowl that came out of his nose.
"Now I'm settled! - thought Beppe - I'll even have to take him to pee ...".
It was, in fact, simply a temporary bust, a useful precaution to remedy a slight crush due to the last dive of the season and, as regards the nostril, of an octopus, annoying more for him than for others and, Fortunately, annoying as harmless. The worst damage, probably, was due to the assets spent in paper towels, something that in Liguria deserves always a minimum of attention ...
To recall the attention elsewhere, however, the professor thought, a hairless with the improbable sideburns reported by the hair, as required by fashion in the 70 years.
"Aicardi ... present", Bandini ... present ..."
The morning call resounded in his ear and he saw again the faces of his companions, left many years ago, until the on-board speaker recalled him to the present.
"Uphill guard prepare to detect".