《天使之歌》

曾经的卡利波利斯——希腊语中“美丽的城市”——加利波利是一片混乱的白色住宅，在炽热的太阳下堆积如山。三千年前的渔村和现在的渔村——经历了海盗和奴隶统治、兴衰之后——它仍然是一个渔村。它最古老的地区是爱奥尼亚群岛上一个古雅的小岛，与一座桥相连。我们就是在那里第一次见到罗萨莉亚的。那是在鱼市场。在下午晚些时候的市场上，当天的第二批渔获——可能是上午剩下的渔获，价格较低。她钦佩她的自信，在市场地板上被海水冲刷过的光滑的石头上漫步，默默地、准确无误地观察着采集的东西，只用眼睛和鱼贩们交易价格。当她相信某件事的时候，她就从一个像项链一样挂在身上的小袋子里拿出硬币和钞票，然后把这些包裹放在头顶上的篮子里，让她优雅的小手自由地放在臀部，在同意或不同意或感叹时移动。我们大胆地问她更有异国情调的礼物的名字，在她温和的回答的鼓励下，我们开始谈论著名的加利波利鱼汤。她笑着告诉我们，汤的诱惑似乎让她感到困惑。 It was, after all, a potful of humble fish. Nearly everyone cooked it, in one form or another, every day. “We cook what the sea gives up to us. It’s our garden,” she said. She told us she had cooked the soup for as long as she could remember, and that the perfumes of it being cooked by her mother and grandmother were older yet in her sensual memory. She volunteered news of her evening’s program and said we might join her if we wished. She was to prepare a supper for three old friends, widows all, and molto simpatiche—most pleasant. She said we might meet her at 7:45 in front of Sant’ Agata. Timid, pleased, we sealed our agreement. By then, the weak February sun was readying itself to slide into the sea, rosying the clouds in its path, bedazzling them in washes of gold. We watched her climb the curling road farther up into the old town until her narrow, top-lofty form melted into sweet lilac dusk. We looked at the last of the sunset from the terrace of a little bar, adding jackets and sweaters and scarves against the winds, sipping at red wine, imagining what would be our evening with her. We found her in front of the cathedral and, following her the few meters to her door, were welcomed into her apartment in whose parlor we sat whilst she collected, arranged the soup’s elements. Only then did she invite us into the kitchen. First, though, the ceremony of gli aperitivi—cold, pink wine poured into small, rounded crystal cups. Then was Rosaria ready to dance. She set about by whacking the filleted fish—sea bass and red hogfish—into great chunks; she warmed oil in an old coccio, adding garlic, onion, and crushed salt anchovies. In the scented oil, she deftly browned the fish—removing it to await the second act—adding fat prawns, heads removed, tails intact, and rolled them about, flourishing her wooden spatula with a sort of spare drama and sending forth great sea-scented mists. She made the sauce by adding peeled, seeded, chopped tomatoes and white wine. After ten minutes or so, she reunited fish to sauce, rubbing peperoncini—I saw three for certain, but there might have been four— between her fingers into the pot and leaving the soup to gently simmer while she fried trenchers of rough bread in sizzling oil. I flashed a moment upon the contortions I’d suffered to build a bouillabaisse, one whose directions filled more pages than a play by Pirandello. I thought, too, to the flushed, moist faces of cooks—spent, brokenwinded&mdash...