THE ISLAND

“Thisss eeezz Poveglia…!” and he let the words hang in the salt-thick sea air. I stared silently at the island as it floated on the mist and myth that surrounded it. It was almost dusk and as the sun set behind the silhouetted island, for a brief moment, the sea and the island’s bell tower seemed to have been set on fire… reminiscent of the tall flames that used to crackle on this island centuries ago… flames, the smoke and the screams… screams that rent sky, until the fire doused the screams…

But I’m running ahead of my story…

We had reached Venice. From Venice’s Marco Polo airport, we hopped into a water taxi that wound its way towards the Venetian lagoon and as the arches and canals of Venice drew closer, I went and stood by boat’s and prow, soaking in the spray and taking in the vistas. As the famed canals and villas of Venice closed in, I glanced to my left and saw a lonely island drifting by. Tall cypresses stood silently, imprisoned by a boundary-wall that surrounded the island. I asked the boatman, a young man in a baseball cap, about the island but he did not respond. I thought he hadn’t heard me over the din of the motor-boat engine but before I could complete the question a second time, he replied “Cemetery! The dead of Venice are here.” Separated from the bright lights of Venezia by a tongue of water, this island, like a bolt of lightning on a dark night, illuminated a terrible legend that was lost in the recesses of my mind - a forgotten tale of another Venetian island where horrible things had happened. It was the dark side of Venice that I’d forgotten about…“Is this… er… the haunted island?” I asked. The boatman turned, looked at me, blinked and said,“ No… it’s the cemetery.” Then he was quiet. A few awkward minutes passed and then as he navigated the boat into a canal that ran into the city, he said “Poveglia! …That’s haunted!”

Can we see it? Is it nearby? But Pierro, our boatman, shook his head. “No one’s allowed there… not us, not tourists…”. We reached the hotel. My friends picked up our bags and got off the boat. As I too was about to get on to the pier, he motioned for me to stop and moved the boat into open waters. We headed south, south-west, alongside the setting sun, glowing like a portal into another world. The boat stopped.

“Can’t go closer…”He pointed towards the horizon… “There’s Poveglia!” I strained at the horizon but couldn’t see a thing. Then as my eyes got used to the light, I noticed the silhouette of an island at the very edge of the horizon. “That’s Poveglia? Can’t we go any closer?”

“No one goes there”, he said. I tried again “If you don’t go, how’d you know if it’s good or bad. Maybe it’s paradise…” He looked up and said, “It’s not paradise.” He kissed a pendent he was wearing around his neck, came closer and took out his phone. “Listen… I was there…”

In the 14th century, neighbouring Genoa attacked Venice and since the island of Poveglia was in the line-of-fire, it was evacuated. Before it could be resettled, the Black Death, struck. On Venice’s congested waterfront, people were coughing and bleeding and dying on the streets, like flies falling dead in the heat. Self-preservation forced families to dump ailing relatives. Most died unattended. Mass graves were dug and bodies buried and burnt.

Health officials instinctively felt that separating the infected from the healthy, could prevent the spread of the disease. So, anyone with the slightest sign, a runny nose, a slight fever, was apprehended and packed off to the abandoned island of Poveglia. Though they didn’t know it then, but it was a masterstroke and Venice had less than half the fatalities per 1000 than the mainland. But there was a price paid. Many healthy individuals were torn from their families and forcibly removed to the island on mere suspicion of the disease. And there they walked amidst the piles of the dead and dying until they too contracted the disease and died.

So great was the fear of the plague that just coughing in public could result in a witch hunt ending in a send off to Poveglia, the Isle of Death. And fear makes us cruel. Many of the living were burnt with the dead by masked officials. “You can still smell them burning in Poveglia” said Piero.

“And if you go now, you’ll hear them scream…from the living graves and from the bell-tower”. In the 1920s, they built a lunatic asylum on the island. It is said that the haunted island drove many inmates to strange deaths and depths of madness, including the doctor who would strap his patients to their beds and open up their brains with a hammer and a nail to check what was wrong ‘inside’. He would perform lobotomies on them as they screamed in excruciating agony till they were overcome by pain or death. At such times, it is said, that screams of agony would erupt from every corner of the island, disembodied voices rising in chorus, reminded of their own agony by the tortured patient’s cries. These voices eventually drove the doctor to his own grisly death as he fell from the bell-tower. Some say he was thrown while others say he jumped.

The island’s been abandoned ever since. “The carbineri (police) won’t let you get any closer…”Piero handed me his phone… a video file… on the screen was a bell tower, shaking, as if the camera was held by unsteady hands…” “Thisss eeezz Poveglia…..!” he whispered into my ears. The picture became hazy. Now I could see feet, running along a path, overgrown with grass and brambles…“I couldn’t stay… I heard the screams,” he said.

I looked at the horizon. Far away, I could still make out the shadow of an island in the darkening gloom...I was far away, and hell, even I could hear the screams…

YET ANOTHER CHRISTMAS CAROL

This tale is not mine to tell but one I stumbled upon … last day in Antwerp and while my friends emptied out souvenir and designer stores, I wandered about the city square till I saw two tall towers, peering above the rest of the city, glinting in the fading light of a spent sun. It was the city cathedral. Inside the cathedral, stood proud old walls adorned with masterpieces by the Flemish master Sir Paul Peter Reubens. I started taking pictures of the cathedral’s tall spires. As I backed away to try and squeeze the length of the tower inside the frame, I stumbled and fell bum-first onto a low platform that rose less than three feet from the cobbled street. It was a stone plaque with a pen-and-ink picture of a big dog and a little boy with an inscription that said, “Nello and his dog Patrasche… symbols of eternal friendship, loyalty and devotion.”

Intrigued, I asked Pierre, our Belgian host if he happened to know what this was about. Pierre nodded “Ah… eetz a nice story!”

The path that led away from the cathedral was lined with taverns where people sat around little wooden tables, swigging away pints of golden froth. Pierre looked at them longingly, then walked towards one of the tables. I followed dutifully… he sat down and ordered one of their Belgian brews… and then having wet his whistle began his story…

The dog of Flanders (the Dutch speaking region of Belgium, French-speaking Wallonia being the other) they call it, and it’s a tale that stems from the quill of a lady of letters named Maria Louise Rame, a.k.a Ouida. She lived in England and loved animals and children, I was told. She’d travelled to Antwerp in the late 1800s. In those days, life was hard and the winters cold but in the early mornings on winding paths that led to the city; you could always count on the sight of a big hairy dog pulling a small milk cart with a cherubic little boy in a hat and a scarf skipping along to cheer you up. Ouida too must’ve come across these little milkmen of Flanders during her trip and one of them must’ve inspired her story…

On the cobbled road out of town once walked an old bent man called Jehan Dass and his little grandson, an orphan called Nello. Jehan would push along a milk cart to sell to people in town and together they eked out a living on crusts of dry bread and a bowl or two of soup. One day while walking along this road, they came across a big hairy heap lying by the side of the road… it was a large dog, the one they call the Bouvier des Flanders, or the cow herder of Flanders. Hungry and tired it lay, its flanks heaving with laboured breath. Nello knelt down and took the big heavy head in his lap and the animal’s feeble tongue gave him a tired lick. His fur was matted around the neck and chest suggesting a milk man’s harness with open wounds where the harness had dug in. These dogs are strong and brave but this one was weak and had been given up for dead by his master. Jehan and Nello dragged the dog onto their little cart and took him back home. There, under Jehan’s care and Nello’s love, the dog started back on the path to good health.

One day Nello and Patrasche (for that’s what they called the dog) were chasing sunbeams on daisies, while old Jehan was struggling with the cart but as he tried to push the cart along, Patrasche jumped ahead of the cart and wouldn’t let the old man go until he relented and placed the cart’s harness around the big dog’s thick neck. Thus started a partnership between the little boy and the big dog that would melt hearts on their way to the market.

Some years went by and little Nello’s heart would race ahead of him every time his eyes met the flashing blue eyes of Aloise, his rich neighbour’s daughter. They were both the same age but of course, Aloise’s father would never approve of poor little Nello, the milkman’s grandson. But little Nello had a plan. He loved to paint and he dreamed that one day he would become a rich and famous artist, just like Reubens whose paintings he knew hung on the walls of the cathedral. And as luck would have it, the city announced a painting competition. The prize money was sure to set up the winner’s career as an artist. Nello, the youngest of all, painted with such passion and vision that all who saw him believed that it was he who’d win the prize. But alas it wasn’t to be… the judges chose the work of a boy whose father was a respected town council member, and though a better artist than the winner, poor Nello went back a much poorer boy.

When home, the news was no better. There by the fireplace lay old Jehan. Patrasche licked and Nello cried but it was too late… old Jehan lay crumpled cold and dead.

Nello’s tears were yet to dry when a fire engulfed town. All fingers pointed at little Nello, and with no one to defend him, he just had to leave…

But Nello wasn’t alone that night. Patrasche, his loyal friend ran into the snow to be with his young master as he walked away. With no place to go, what did little Nello do? It was Christmas Eve and he was going to the cathedral… to speak to God and to see a Reubens. He had no money to give though and so he wasn’t allowed to see the paintings. But as the night wore on, Nello finds an open door… He enters with Patrasche at his heels and finds the paintings and there he kneels… in devotion and faith, in agony and out of breath… Patrasche knows his master is weak… he puts his big head on Nello’s shoulder and tries to comfort him from the weather and fate. Nello hugs the big dog and cries himself to sleep… Patrasche understands… he is tired and cold… oh so cold…

Next morning it is Christmas day…the doors open, people pray and the organs play…but suddenly it all goes quiet, for someone sees the boy and the dog…in that corner they lay… alone but for each other…in a lonely corner that’ll forever be theirs…frozen in time in the dead of night… lay dreams and hopes, love and pain, and two friends dead and gone…