Passeggiata (complete 2016)

"1965. The seventh of July."

"Oh. Twenty one years to the day. You know, the number seven keeps popping up. Weird."

"I did not see that."

"Probably not important. What about your brothers? When did they come along?"

"Paulo in 1967, and Antonio in 1970. Yes, I see what you mean about the number seven. What could this mean?"

"Beat's me. Numerology was never my thing, but I know a lot of people who read a lot into numbers; the ancient Greeks certainly did. Like the year you were born, 1965. Add the numbers up. That's twenty one, or seven times three. So your birthday is seven, seven, and seven times three. Twenty one years after your mother and my father..."

"Can this be coincidence?"

"Two ways of looking at the world, Margherita. Things either happen for a reason -- or they don't. If you believe things happen for a reason, then I guess you believe in God. If nothing has reason or purpose, then I guess you can't believe in something like that. Yet there are the people like me; people who can't make up their mind."

"It would be impossible for me not to believe in God. I cannot imagine death without believing there is something more. If I knew there was nothing more, I think I could not live a sane existence. If there would be a world without -- purpose, as you say it -- then right and wrong, good and evil, all those things our souls struggle with would be without meaning. Do you think this possible?"

"Margherita, I've been a physician for almost thirty years. A scientist. I mean hard core science. And I hate to say it, but in all that time I've never seen one thing that made me think there was a divine plan to any of this. Why does this innocent baby die while that drunken criminal lives a happy, carefree life. Or just look up at the sky. Imagine the incredible distances involved between us and that smudge in Orion's belt. And that smudge is alive with stars being born right this instant! The impossible scale of it all!"

"We are small," she said, yet he could feel the warmth in her voice. "And still we believe that our problems are so big."

He put his arm around her shoulder. "How do you feel about tonight, Margherita? About what happened out there in the water?"

"How do I feel? I don't know the right words, but let me say that I felt it was commanded of us. I know that sounds stupid. But I felt purpose, yes, that is the word. I felt there was a greater purpose in what we did, yet I feel something much more important happened to me. To us."

"And...?"

"I think we, you and I, were brought together. For a purpose, yes, for a reason. But not to join and then fly away on the wind. And..."

"Yes, I know. Your mother, my father; was there a union between them, and what happened to them as a result? Did something else happen, something go wrong? Is that why we were brought together?"

"That would explain much, wouldn't it? Perhaps Ludvico knows."

"Who is he? This Ludvico? Is he a relative?"

"No, but he has loved my mother since she was a little girl. They were in school together. Then the war came. His brothers went off to fight, but he was yet too young and remained to help with the boats and the ristorante. He loved my mother, or so she has told me, and then something happened."

"Yeah. My father happened. He, what did he say, fell from the sky?"

"Si, yes. From the sky. Like an angel."

"If there's one thing my father is not..."

"Tom! Quiet!! Don't move..."

"What is it," Goodwin whispered.

"Look down, there in the water. By your..."

"Oh my..."

The dolphin was there, on his side, and he was quite still now, his black eye looking up at them, the two scars plainly visible in the waning moonlight. Goodwin could hear its breath again, could see lights from the village reflected in its eye -- or did he see stars reflected in his eye?

"What do you want?" Goodwin asked. "What do you want from me!?"

The dolphin continued to look into Goodwin's eyes.

"Do not speak now, Tom. Just let him be."

The dolphin raised his head from the water slightly, then slipped under and was gone.

"I think I just wet my pants," Goodwin said.

"You ain't the only," Malcolm Doncaster said.

"How long have you been standing there!" Goodwin said, his anger welling up.

"I was just coming out to ask the two of you to come back inside when I heard Margherita, telling you to be quiet. I stopped dead in my tracks until I heard you talking to it, then I came forward. When he saw me, by God, I think that's when he slipped away. Could you see his face, Goodwin? The scars or the spots?"

"Two scars, left side. Just like the photo."

"You know what, Tom? I'm getting too old for this kind of thing."

Goodwin laughed. "Alright smart-ass, why don't you tell me exactly what a good age would be for dealing with crap like this!"

"I see your point. Well taken."

"Good. I'm glad. That means I'm not the only one going stark-raving mad out here on a dock at half past whatever! And I'm just not drunk enough for this kind of bullshit, you know, Malcolm? It's time to go and get good and pissed!"

"Here, here. I second that."

"Would you two be quiet," Margherita said.

They turned and looked at her; she was staring at something in the little harbor.

"They are both here now," she said. "There, Tom, behind your boat."

"I say, Goodwin, I think she's right."

He looked at the moon-dappled water...it was hard to make anything out...but yes, there, about ten yards aft of Springer, a dark shape moved on the water, then another.

"Alright, Doncaster. Go and tell the others. Watch from the windows, but don't come out. Margherita, will you come with me?" He stood, held out his hand and helped her up. She just nodded, then they walked away from Doncaster and the ristorante, and on towards the Springer. The closer they came to the boats, the more apparent it was there were two of them circling behind his boat.

"I am not so sure I want to do this, Tom."

"Yeah? Well I'm absolutely sure I don't want to do this!"

"So why...?"

"Oh come off it, Margherita. They're here. They've come for us. After what I've heard tonight I'm not sure there's not a goddamn UFO out there somewhere, and these two clowns are here to escort us up to their goddamn mother-ship!"

He heard her giggle and he started to laugh.

"Tom Goodwin! You are a crazy man, but I think I am in love with you!"

Goodwin stopped, looked down at her face, at the moonlight in her eyes, and he kissed her. Gently at first, but soon with a force, a passion that left them both breathless. He could taste wine on her tongue, feel the intensity of her response in his chest.

Suddenly she pulled back from him, but she was smiling and held out her hand.

"Come! Let's go see them!" she said as she pulled him along. He couldn't resist the pull of her smile, so he ran along beside her until they came to Diogenes; he jumped on board then turned to help her across, then helped her cross to Springer. He made his way to the back of the cockpit and stepped down onto the swim platform. Margherita had a little difficulty making it over the rail but he guided her leg over, and soon they were sitting on the platform, their bare feet disappearing into the cool darkness.

She felt it first and jumped, then laughed, and she gripped his arm. "Her skin is so smooth," she whispered.

Goodwin could just make out the cool grey form as it slid by in the darkness, then one of the dolphins burst from the water like a rocket and arced up into the night sky, spinning as it climbed; it came down on it's back, creating a huge splash and a wave that washed up onto Goodwin and Margherita.

The acrobat slipped alongside Goodwin's feet, just lightly rubbed along the soles of his feet, then turned and surfaced next to the platform. Lying silently on his side, two scars still visible in the starlight, and the dolphin continued to stare at Goodwin. The other dolphin surfaced and assumed position just beside the first.

Goodwin lifted himself from the platform with his hands, then pushed-off into the water.

"Tom! What are you doing?"

"I have no goddamn idea!" he said as he shook water from his ears.

"You'll freeze to death! Get out!"

The one with two scars came alongside Goodwin, rolled and presented his dorsal fin, and Goodwin took it.

It was almost like sailing. That was his first thought. Moving silently, swiftly through the water, he held onto the fin as the dolphin slid silently out of the harbor, only once turning to look back at Margherita on the boat.

It was over almost as soon as it had begun. Two Scars and Goodwin were back off the cape and the waters where he and Margherita had joined earlier. He left Goodwin standing in waist-deep water but continued to circle slowly, as if waiting.

It wasn't long before Goodwin understood.

He heard Margherita's laughter, saw her head and shoulders gliding across the water toward the cape.

"What, you didn't have enough of a show earlier?!" Goodwin quipped. Two Scar squirted water from his mouth, the water hit him squarely in his face, then he slid beneath the water; Margherita came alongside and slipped from the other dolphin's back.

"Well, this seems clear enough," she said as she drifted over to Goodwin.

The two dolphins surfaced side by side, began to circle the two humans in the water.

"Yes, clear enough." Goodwin looked into her eyes as she climbed onto him; he managed to push his khakis down, then his skivvies. She had her arms around his neck now, and she lifted herself over him again. She had the barest panties on; he slid these aside and entered her in one slight movement. He felt the warmth of her -- like star birth -- fusing with him in the darkness.

She arched backwards, looked overhead at the water above, felt the two swimming beside her, joining her in this dance, their sounds together joining in new music. She rocked forward, her eyes half closed as the ecstasy she felt spread from her loins through her body; it was as if she was riding a wave, then wave upon wave built and crested as she rocked and arced through the starry night.

She could feel them now, both of them -- swimming furiously around the womb of their night, the sea turning into a milky brine as seeds of a million lost generations mingled, as if inside this primordial moment both purpose and destiny were finally fusing.

She looked at Goodwin, at the look of bewildered intensity on his face, and she was aware that she was swaying now from side to side as the water carried her to and fro like a tattered remnant of seaweed on an ebbing tide.

One of the dolphins lay by her, adrift, dozing on the surface, and she reached out to touch it. She ran her hand along its side, felt deep muscle under smooth skin, and she was amazed by the colors it took from the night. The last of the night's stars fell on the dolphin's skin and glittered like tiny emeralds, and though the first warming rays of the rising sun were still far away, there was an amber-winged warmth casting pale light on far away skin, and the cool grays of her seaborne skin melted into the heart-fires of their creation.

She could feel the muscles of her womb contracting, feel the solid length of Goodwin still ensconced in the milky warmth of this second joining. Then she felt the tender arms of sleep carrying her away, away into the last of the darkness, the last of this -- eternal night.

+++++

0530 hours, 07 July 1943

98th Bomb Wing, United States Army Air Corp, Eighth Air Force

Terria Air Base, south of Benghazi, The Libya

The B-24s were lined-up in formation on hard-packed sand in pre-dawn silence, but already men swarmed around the ungainly beasts -- loading bombs and .50 caliber ammunition and hundreds of gallons of gasoline into each of the twenty one aircraft. Mechanics drifted among the aircraft signing off on repair orders and modifications, checking tire pressures and oil levels for the umpteenth time, while gunners walked just far enough away from the fuel-laden Liberators to smoke one last cigarette -- before following more bombs and bullets up into the belly of their assigned beasts. The sun was still well below the horizon, yet already the day was shaping up to be another hot one, and tired men were beginning to sweat as fear and exhaustion mingled with piss-stained coffee and nervous, bile-laden vomit that disappeared into a barely warming earth.

Pilots walked from their briefing hut, climbed into Jeeps and trucks, rode out to their assigned aircraft while they shuffled briefing notes and call signs in their minds. One Jeep stopped beside a B-24 that had the name "Hell's Belles" painted in red and yellow just under the cockpit windows, the words so framed by the arced bodies of a three lingerie clad women thrusting breasts forward in apparent defiance of anyone or anything in authority, each proudly thrusting their middle fingers at, one assumed, Adolf Hitler. The pilot and co-pilot stepped from the jeep as it rolled to a stop and wordlessly began their pre-flight inspections of the aircraft.

The co-pilot, an infantile lieutenant from Freer, Texas by the name of Hank Needham, was a lanky blond haired fellow with a crude joke and a ready smile always on hand. Needham's reckless smile was almost always graced by a thoroughly chewed-up toothpick dangling from the corner of his mouth; he walked now under the right wing shining a flashlight into exhaust pipes and the landing gear well, spun open tiny fuel valves and checked the color and smell of the fuel in each tank, then he walked over and looked at the chit the crew chief held out for his signature.

The pilot, a captain hailing from a small farm just outside of New London, Connecticut, was a tall, brown haired man whose face was dominated by a mustache the size of California; his name was Paul Thomas Goodwin. He had turned twenty two years old at midnight; Needham and the other members of Hell's Belles' had given Goodwin a box of cigars and promised to get him laid when they returned to England in the fall. Goodwin had the reputation of having bedded very nearly every single woman in southeast England in the four months his group had been posted there, and he had now been without a woman for months. He was, quite understandably they thought, in a very foul mood when he lit up his first cigar of the morning.

Goodwin was now similarly occupied checking the left wing's major orifices, and so satisfied the Liberator was indeed airworthy he vaulted up the entry hatch and hauled his way further up into the cockpit. He stopped off long enough to hand a list of radio frequencies and call signs off to the radio operator, then crawled along to the cockpit and slipped into the left seat. He pulled out the stiff cardboard takeoff checklist and began flipping buttons and setting dials by flashlight, at least until his eyes grew accustomed to the pale red instrument lighting. He heard his co-pilot clambering up from below while he set the fuel tank selector switch to "ALL", the normal position for take-off, then he slipped his flashlight into it's holder.

"All set, Queer?" His co-pilot had acquired this inglorious nickname quite naturally: Queer rhymed with Freer, as in Freer, Texas. His full handle was 'Hangin' Hal, the Queer from Freer," and it was said reverentially in some corners that the moniker allegedly had something to do with the Queer's rather sizeable implement, which was rumored to hang down somewhere south of his kneecaps. Women all over East Anglia were said to be in total awe of The Queer's equipment, and the boy settled into the right seat, apparently taking great care not to mangle his equipment.

"You betchca, Cap," Queer said. "Good as gold." Needham finished his part of the pre-flight checklist then told Goodwin he was done. "How 'bout you."

"Calm down, willya? You're as nervous as a fart in a frying pan this morning!"

The radioman came over intercom and advised: "Captain, all set back here."

"Roger. Get everything stowed and ready to roll, Perkins."

Goodwin saluted a ground crewman below and started his number two engine, the engine furthest from him out on the left wing. Needham monitored pressure gauges and temperatures while Goodwin started the remaining three engines, then they sat, waiting, waiting -- always waiting -- until the Unit Commander signaled and the lead B-24 moved off toward the runway.

After months of practicing extreme low level flying in both England and North Africa, as part of their ongoing preparations for Operation Tidal Wave, today's mission was straight forward, dull, yet anything but routine. The big mission was still a month or more off, maybe longer. At least everyone hoped it would be longer. Today was still considered a warm up for the main event.

Today a wave of diversionary B-25s was going to make a run at a railway yard west of Milan; Goodwin's group was going after another much larger railway complex near the center of Milan. It was hoped any German or Italian fighters would be drawn off to chase the B-25s out over the Med and leave the much slower, much heavier loaded Liberator's unmolested for their long run-in to the target. The fact that the last one hundred miles of their bomb run would be made at tree-top level was a new wrinkle, and it was hoped this new dimension would catch the defenders completely off-guard.

As section leader, Goodwin's Liberator was number three in line this morning; takeoff and climb-out went as scheduled and the formation took bearings and rumbled off toward the east coast of Italy some ten minutes after six in the morning. They climbed slowly to twenty four thousand feet then, and, as they burned off more fuel, the formation edged higher, closer to thirty thousand feet. The plan they had been briefed-in on called for the group to turn west just south of Venice at high altitude, then dive for the deck about a hundred and fifty miles out and make a straight in run to the target at maximum speed. The departure plan was simply to make for Genoa, then Sicily, where the Allies invasion beachhead was already well established; if all went well the group would make it back to Libya in time for a quick game of baseball. Total mission time was slated for a little over eight hours.

At least if all went well.

It was a 'bluebirds' day -- not a cloud in the sky -- and even as the group headed north they could see, now off to the west, huge billowing clouds of burning munitions and fuel that Allied bombers had hit during the night -- somewhere on the north coast of Sicily. The sun was not yet high enough to obscure the yellow-orange glow of the myriad fires rampaging through supplies so critical to the German defense of the island.

Goodwin smiled at the sight: someone had done a pretty goddamn good job last night.

The rising sun lit off cloud tops like soft yellow candles as the formation droned north across the Mediterranean, towards Taranto. The men on Hell's Belles passed around cool sandwiches and drank stale coffee from pale thermoses as first Bari, then Ancona slid by in a fat grey haze far off the left side of the formation. As they grew nearer to Ravenna and the Adriatic coastline, crews grew increasingly nervous as the droning group passed over the shoreline far below, even as navigators took quick fixes on distant landmarks and refined their positions. Ferrara next formed out of the mists ahead, and while the possibility of real airborne opposition now loomed menacingly, no one saw any aircraft -- friend of foe -- in the sky ahead of or around the group. Soon, with Verona ahead just visible under coppery layers of late morning haze, the formation turned hard left and dropped like a stone toward the Po River, pilots opened throttles to the stops as their aircraft settled in just a few meters above the treetops and the bombers thundered towards their Initial Point -- and the beginning of the final run-in to the target.