And the Aryon, still rocking on the waves, Natale still chatting, tirelessly going on about dolphins, belugas, narwhals, porpoises, all the cetaceans of the Mediterranean, their natural environment, their intelligence which isn’t just a legend, their ability to learn. He explains how to find them, using a word I’ve never come across before: upwelling! It means discovering a bit of the sea which is very deep and has a strong current which, if I understood correctly, pushes the deep water to the surface very quickly, bringing nutrients with it. Even if the currents move all the time, dolphins are clever and know how to spot them. Natale does too! And in particular the most important one, the Liguro-Provencal current which, by a stroke of luck, passes less than ten kilometres off the coast of La Revellata.

Who’d fall for that one?

Not me, at any rate. He’ll find plenty of little girls who will, who’ll think they’re really going to dive into the middle of a crowd of dolphins, girls dressed in Hello Kitty, with Barbie bikinis and Minnie Mouse headphones. But despite the fact that he looks like a pirate, has the body of an adventurer and a shipwrecked smile, he won’t have me. He even tried telling me to change my outfit, so I wouldn’t frighten off his tamed cetaceans. Well, he’s seen that I’m not the kind to alter my uniform. I put on a pair of black jeans, a Jaws T-shirt and a Shark cap. More suited to flirting with sharks than dolphins.

*

We reached the heart of his sanctuary. I felt nothing but a bit more wind on my cheeks, perhaps a little more rocking. Behind us, the Revellata lighthouse looked like a toothpick stuck in an île flottante. Natale turned off the engine of the Aryon and started praying, or as good as.

It was a prayer I knew.

And you float there, in the silence. And you stay there,

And you decide that you’ll die for them

Only then do they start coming out.

They come, and they greet you, and they judge the love you have for them.

I continued the quote. Natale looked impressed.

If it’s sincere

If it’s pure

They’ll be with you …

I let him finish.

And take you away forever.2

It was crazy, really, I don’t know if you can imagine it, reciting the words from The Big Blue in the middle of nowhere with the sea all around.

Natale had lit a cigarette. Without offering me one. Like one more sign that, in his eyes, I was just a kid.

‘We won’t wait for long,’ he said between two puffs. ‘You know the story of the Little Prince? When he tames the fox? Do you remember the most important thing?’

‘Hmm.’