ITALO CALVINO
533
couldn' t contain their desire to go swimming. "Papa, Papa, we're
going to dive! We're going to swim in the river!"
"Are you crazy? There's a sign: 'All swimming forbidden.'
You'd drown, you 'd sink like stones!" And he explained that,
where the riverbed has been excavated by dredgers, there remain
hollow funnels that suck the stream down in eddies or whirlpools.
"Whirlpools! Show us the whirlpools!" For the children,
the word had a jolly sound.
"You can't see one; it grabs you by the foot, while you're
swimming, and drags you down."
"What about that? Why doesn' t it go down? Is it a fish?"
"No, it's a dead cat, " Marcovaldo explained. " It floats be–
cause its belly is full of water."
"Does the whirlpool catch the cat by its tail?" Michelino
asked.
The slope of the grassy bank, at a certain point, opened out
in a rather flat clearing where a big sifter had been set up. Two
men were sifting a pile of sand, using shovels, and with the same
shovels they then loaded it on a black, shallow barge, a kind of raft,
which floated there, tied
to
a willow. The two bearded men worked
under the fierce sun, wearing hats and jackets but torn and moldy,
and trousers ending in shreds at the knee, leaving legs and feet
bare.
In
that sand, left to dry for days and days, fine, cleansed of
impurities, pale as the sand at the seaside, Marcovaldo recognized
what was needed for him. But he had discovered it too late: they
were already loading it onto that barge, to take it away . ..
No, not yet: the sandmen, having completed their loading,
broke out a flask of wine, and after passing it back and forth a
couple of times drinking in gulps, they lay down in the shade of
the willows while the hour of greatest heat passed.
"As long as they are sleeping, I can lie down in their sand and
have a sand pack!" Marcovaldo thought, and he ordered the chil–
dren, in a low voice: "Quick, help me!"
. He jumped on the barge, took off shirt, trousers, and shoes,
and burrowed into the sand. "Cover me! With the shovel!" He
said
to
the children. "No, not my head; I need that to breathe with.
It
has to stay outside. All the rest!"
For the children it was like building a sand castle. "Shall we
make sand pies? No, a castle with ramparts! No, no, it makes a
nice track for marbles!"
