My First Seven Years (Plus a Few More)

CHAPTER 15. Spawning Time

At the beginning of spring, the boys and girls along the lakeside were in a state of ferment. The risciada, that is, the mythical leaping of the fish from the water for their spawning festivities, was about to explode on us. For anyone unfamiliar with the reproductive conduct of ichthyological fauna, let me explain that ‘spawning’ indicates the moment when fish get horny. To lay their eggs, the female fish allow themselves to be carried by the waves close to the shore at the point where the waters lap the risciada, the rocky coast. Shortly afterwards, the male fish, after a ritual which sees them shoot out of the water and perform an infinite variety of pirouettes and dives, arrive to fertilise the eggs.

All of us children used to gather together on the quayside and there we would decide which groups to divide into and where to go. Some would choose to go northwards along the coast, and others to go down towards Laveno. Everybody brought along one or two buckets, and the more organised among us would even have fish nets or proper fishing tackle. Those in my group had chosen the beach near Luino. We agreed to meet up at dawn: it was important to be on the spot where the spawning took place before the sun rose over the mountains. We were all excited, especially the girls. As well as buckets, we brought with us long poles to chase away the snakes which would quite definitely be there, like us, on the shoreline.

The old story-tellers recounted that going along to see the fish leaping was an ancient rite dating back to the first matriarchal communities in the Verbano. Professor Civolla, acknowledged as the most prestigious historian of local traditions, insisted that as recently as one hundred years before, only girls past the age of puberty were allowed to take part in the great spawning event.

I was not even ten years old, and it was the first time I had had the chance to attend this extraordinary phenomenon. Perhaps, apart from two female classmates, I was the youngest in the gang. When we got to the shore, we started leaping about on the small gravel stones. ‘Watch out! There’s a grass snake!’ At that, all of us turned on the poor reptile, who took to his heels, so to speak. ‘There’s another one … quick, get it!’

‘But what are all these snakes after?’ I asked. ‘You never usually see them.’

‘They’re here for the same reason as us, to grab a couple of fish as soon as the spawning begins,’ was the reply.

‘But when does it start?’

‘Hold on a minute and you’ll see.’

In fact scarcely a minute later we see a ray of light fan out over the coastline under the Verzoni mountain range. The sun rises and peeps out over the highest mountain in the range, covering the whole shoreline in a golden sheen. ‘Look, the bleaks are first.’

We see two or three tiny fish jump up in the air, out of water scarcely ruffled by a breath of wind, then further out, in a flash, hundreds all at once. Up, up, then splash!.. they fall back into the water. These are males and females that spring up lightly touching each other, aquatic acrobats that lovingly brush one against the other as they somersault.

‘Look, we’re nearly at the mass spawn!’

The low sun, its rays piercing the air, adds glitter to the sparkle of bright scales from the thousands of excited fish. Bleaks and gudgeons by the handful begin falling on the gravel. We, jumping barefoot on the pebbles which hurt our feet, race over to the fish as they writhe about on the gravelly beach. We gather bucketfuls!

A little later, one of the older boys removed his jumper and trousers and went with his net into the water, where he was literally assaulted by acrobatic fish which flew at him and leapt into his net of their own accord. ‘Quick, pass me the bucket!’ Baldy, a smaller boy with a shaven head, took off all his clothes and dived into the lake in the nude, to the scandalised screams of the girls present. Soon afterwards, all the others followed his lead, wading into the middle of the foaming spray of fish now rising improbably high in the air. Then the climax: a girl stripped down to her knickers, holding her arms over her little breasts, and jumped in with the others.

‘Chubs!’ screamed one of her friends, as she too plunged in half-naked. ‘The chubs and the whitefish are jumping as well!’ And it was true: now the bigger fish were darting about, leaping in the air, twisting and turning with the agility of dolphins. The girls were now all in the water, and I too went in. I held on to my underpants to cover my embarrassment because, as I was taking them off, I had burst the elastic. In the event, no one paid any heed.

Now children and fish were leaping together in the water.

‘Oh God, I’m ready for a spawning session myself,’ shouted out one young lad as he dived off a rock, executing a pirouette with jack-knife entry. ‘Yes, we’re all up for it!’ And on and on went the leaping and jumping!

By now all the buckets were filled to the brim.

‘Oh help, I’ve got a fish in my pants!’ shouted one.

‘Hold on to it,’ one of his friends teased him. ‘It’s bound to be bigger and firmer than your own tackle.’ Raucous laughter all around. The girls joined in too … and it seemed that even the trout and pike were giggling.

‘Where do we empty the buckets?’ asked the curly-haired girl with the little breasts. Nearby there was a boat which had been completely sunk underwater to make the wood swell. Four or five of them hauled it off the bottom, lifted it keel-up to let the water run out, floated it upright, and then pushed and manhandled it over the bed of the lake to where we were. ‘In here, jump in here, all you fishies large and small.’ As though obeying orders, bleaks, chubs, ruds and trout threw themselves into the hull of the boat.

A dark-haired girl with milk-white skin, the only one endowed with regulation-size tits, cried out in anguish. ‘Goodness, it’s ripped my knickers!’

‘Who? How? Where? When?’ we all asked at the same time.

‘A trout, I think. I had stuck it in there because there was no room left in my bucket.’

‘Don’t worry. You can have mine,’ said the boy called Rosso, to reassure her.

The sun was already high in the sky when we returned, exhausted, to the quay, pushing our big boat and hanging on to its sides. Our clothes were piled up on the prow. By this time, such an atmosphere of euphoria and complicity had been created among us that each of us had long since jettisoned every residue of embarrassment. We ourselves must have resembled a merry party of spawning fish!