Chapter 6

Or: today Uri Geller and Fogar go into the water: the Prof and I will act as spectators. All the filmmakers are there. The American of the sharks. How to dress up two inexperienced guys. The expert looses his mask. In my contract there is nothing about five metre long sharks: I prefer bombs. Somebody wants to climb on board together with his oxygen tanks…they are the competent ones. An evening talking about Hemingway and the loneliness of American women.

February 16th
As usual we are not able to leave the mooring before 11 o’clock. This morning the “Koala” is also leaving the harbour, so we have to wait for high tide. It arrives and we leave. They hire another boat too…the whole expedition is on board, including the filmmakers and the director. Uri Geller is also onboard, he will dive down to the wall and try some parapsychic or parascientific or parasomething exercises, he wants to see if he is able to bend spoons by the wall even more quickly. The Prof and I are just spectators on the boat this morning. So we hope to enjoy the spectacle of Uri and Fogar entering the water from the deck of the “Passagemaker”. I am sure the Prof will start fishing with total indifference to what’s going on around him. He can’t make out what Geller is going to do on the wall. An American joins us from Bimini, a certain Mr. Vaston or Vatson, who lives on the island and earns his living as a shark hunter. He is six feet tall, and his shoulders are as wide as an open wardrobe. We hire him for fifty dollars a day to keep the sharks away from the waters where we are doing some underwater shooting for the film. We call him the “The ‘Nembo Kid” (the name of an old Italian cartoon, a sort of Superman).
Anyway, now we head to the wall. The sea is not calm at all. We are being tossed around. I think we are going to have some problems, especially when we have to transfer men and instruments from the boat to the dinghy, and back again. We’ll see. Its noon, and the Captain drops anchor about fifty metres from the wall… today the American is in a very good mood, at last he is no longer alone among all those people talking in a different language.
The ‘Nembo Kid’ is near him, and they talk about what is going to happen. The “Koala” too drops anchor. The dinghy is bringing Fogar and Uri to our boat, where the underwater equipment is ready for them.

The two, helped by Maiorca and Camilli, get into their diving suits. I hear some rumours about Geller having done his Military service in the Israeli navy, as a diver, so I’m ready to admire him, as I respect and trust those people’s methods. As for Fogar, I think he has never worn diving equipment in his life, but I might be wrong, if so, I apologize. Anyway, looking at how skilful they are at putting their stuff on … I can only imagine how good they must be at the rest. At last, after a lot of stretching and twisting, forgetting this and that and putting things on in the wrong order, the two are ready. However, the important thing in my opinion, and I would have thought in theirs too, is not to walk along the side of the boat with their flippers on, especially if they are wearing their oxygen tanks. In my day we had to do some serious training courses in a swimming pool before going underwater. But today! Oh how wonderful technology is, the subaqueous world seems to have turned into a joke, because now you can throw two untrained men into the sea and that’s it; and into this particularly dangerous sea! Luckily, Camilli, Mangiali and the big American are with them. Anyway, a two metre high jump and that’s it! I see them both surface, eventually, but somebody has lost his mask!
But who? I am not saying; if you guess you’ll be right. Paolo Sironi goes down into the rubber boat and starts to follow them.
The wall is quite a distance away and the sea is really rough. The Prof doesn’t want to get involved with this sort of thing, he keeps fishing, he casts the line and reels it in, and every time there is a fish attached to the hook. Incredible! But I don’t think he finds any satisfaction in it. I put on my wetsuit top, flippers and mask, and jump into the water. I love this subaqueous landscape; I can never have enough of it. Then I hear the Prof calling me rather excitedly; Menconi, there’s a shark, get out of there, climb up, and be careful! Because of the rough sea I’m not able to see any fin on the horizon; so I don’t know if the shark is far away or if it is under my feet. Anyway, I believe him and swim as fast as I can towards the dinghy. To be honest, I prefer bombs to sharks; and in these waters there live those five metre long white sharks, or so they say. No my dear, this is not written in the contract! Paolo brings the dinghy up to me and tells me to climb in because he wants me to go with him to wait above the wall for the others to surface. They will certainly need some help, he says. I climb in and of we go. Above the wall we drop the small anchor. Then I go again into water and from the surface I have a look at what is going on down there. Uri is on the wall and he is bending a spoon, surrounded by Fogar and the others, Mangiali is filming the scene. Maiorca and Camilli are not interested in what Uri is doing, they are more interested in something else which I believe to be the wonderful trigonia (a genus of mollusks that first appeared during the Jurassic period, which began about 208 million years ago) But I see a shark passing by at subsonic speed and about thirty metres away from them. They too see it; they drop everything, all their equipment, then turn and swim up to the dinghy. I’m sure somebody’s mask will mist up. Finally they surface, they have enough shots! Fogar and Uri want to climb on board with their tanks on, but Paolo and I manage to take them off before pushing both of them into the dinghy. However, it was hard work for us to achieve this! Even on board Geller keeps his flippers on, he is lying in the middle of the boat. If you don't take your flippers off, my friend, we won't be going anywhere. Do you wear them in bed? Now we look like four octopuses getting in each others way. A rough sea, a small dinghy, four men dressed in wetsuits, two double air tanks, the small anchor that seems to be caught on something and an outboard motor that has to be started. Geller, who needs looking after, moves towards the bow; be careful of the tanks, take that flipper out of my back…damn! One of the cameramen is shooting the scene from the support boat, if he turns it into a documentary we will have something to laugh about. The other divers are able to get back without any help at all. Finally we can go, and the enormous sprays of water keep covering us completely.
Now I anticipate a difficult situation as we have to climb the rope ladder onto the boat. We arrive, and luckily the American is there; holding on with one hand, he takes the twenty kilo double tanks that we manage to pass to him between the waves. Then we even have to pass Geller to him, the poor wet chicken. The dinghy crashes against the boat repeatedly. Eventually we are all out and Sironi takes it to the side of the "Passagemaker", and manages to secure it somehow.
Everybody is safe. The director decides that the shots are good (of course they are, I can't imagine a more natural way of performing), so we can raise the anchor and head back towards the harbour. In this boat everybody gives orders, I think. But gentlemen, when we have to deal with filmmakers everything is difficult; they are perfectionists. No, not like that, that's not good, let's try again, put a hand here, and don’t look at the lens, move those bins, stand against the light, make the instrument work, throw the sensor into the water, take it out, throw it in again, slowly like that, good, now take it out, slowly, slowly, perfect, Enzo, help him. I don't like it. Let's try again, assemble the ladder, now pass the underwater camera to Fogar, you down there, move yourselves quickly, put those tanks somewhere else, put that fishing rod away. Please, those who have nothing to do with it get out of camera shot. Try again, open that, pull this, we cannot get people to read "Bocami", that's publicity, and the television company will cut the scene. Fogar, pretend to read the instrument and then speak to the Prof; Prof, now call Enzo and get him to make a note of something on the instrument. You too Sironi, come near, say something…speak! My God, shut up, turn, look towards the shore, nod, and on and on like that for entire afternoon.
We arrive in Bimini, and the director decides to shoot some scenes around the fisherman’s island, and he also wants to interview the Prof. We go, four or five of us plus the TV crew. We rent a big boat with a flat keel, and head towards the lagoon. The sun is setting, the tide is very low, and the channel in which we can sail is marked by buoys. The sea is turning gold; the sand, made of billions of crushed shellfish, is pure white and the coconuts attached to the palms, greet us from up on high, sheltered by their huge pale green umbrellas.
The boat passes slowly along the coast, and the cameraman is shooting continuously. Here and there some old natives, sitting in groups of three or four and working on the heaps of oysters they have collected. They look like statues of dried wood. Here and there you can see small wooden houses set up on piles. It looks like a primordial show, thank you God for giving me the chance to see it. We go ahead religiously aware of such a wonderful landscape. The pelicans, standing on the sand banks which form small islands in the lagoon, watch us as we approach. We come across a boat stuck on the sand so we use it like a small pier; it enables us to step on land without getting wet, so we all take the opportunity to put our footprints on this pure white sand and stroll around … we look for some nice shells to take home. Now there isn’t enough light to film, it’s a real shame; in a moment it will be dark. We get back onto the boat to go back. We split into two groups to have dinner on the boats, and then, on behalf of Bocami, I decide to treat everyone to some drinks. Let’s go to the night club where we were dancing last night, I say.
The girls are happy. Unlike yesterday evening, Mangiali, Camilli, Sironi, Tirelli, Mossadich and two TV people join us.
We are a nice team, we go in and at the bar we find the American diver who suggests that we should try the local stuff. Most of us say yes. In a huge one litre glass they bring to us a whitish mush with some small coconut cubes and some pieces of bright red something or other floating inside. Nobody knows what it is, even after tasting it. Never mind, the evening is long and we’ll recover. We get up to dance, return to the table; we get up again, and the evening goes on like this. We move on to something else to drink; this time it is Bacardi for everyone. This blond liqueur, served on a mountain of ice cubes, enters your throat and reconciles you with your life. Now I think I understand Hemingway. Every evening, having paid his respects to his Bacardi, he was carried upstairs, drunk, and put to bed. The club is now full of people. Those Americans, who spent all day fishing for swordfish or sailfish in the deep sea, arrive in groups to have a few drinks. American women of a certain age (but where are the young ones?), let’s say about forty, have always reminded me of those sculptured figures from Greek archaeology, they wear lots of make up to make themselves appear younger, in fact just like those women who go to see the Pope. They all look very similar to one another, as if they were made in a factory, and look like the rag dolls you could buy long ago at a Country Fair. With a simple nod, you can have them glued to your side for the evening, those perfect mouths and stereotyped smiles, as if the are advertising Doctor Knapp’s toothpaste; they look at you as if you come from another planet. Squeezing all their stuff into big zippers, they happily agree to dance with you. These American women feel alone because their husbands are already completely drunk. They, the husbands, toss their heads continuously in search of a steady support, they look at you with a stupid smile on their faces, but they cannot remember you as they plunge back into the limbo of drunkenness. All our team is unleashed and we dance to frenzied rhythms which could bring on a stroke if you are not careful. Patrizia, Enzo, the Prof and others don’t miss a dance, the ‘Nembo Kid’ dances too, with a tiny blonde girl half his size, but who knows what she is doing. He must be able to take his pick of all the girls in Bimini. Anyway, there is nothing wrong with that; such a good-looking man cannot “be on a diet”. He did cheat us with the drinks, but he is such a pleasant man! The party ends, the black musicians put away their instruments and abandon the stage in a flash. I don’t know why, but it reminds me of trade unions. Gentlemen, we have drunk and danced, shall we now go to bed too?
Goodnight, the team has broken up. I spent twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents. We walk independently towards the hotel.
In the small street we meet somebody who wants to keep us company, a lovely native woman, but the Prof and I, walk straight by. It’s a small world.