II
Fremantle
1928As he stood on the ship’s deck watching the aurora australis, Gino Minozzi thought he saw a distant light flashing. But he said nothing. It had been a strange night, with waves of murmuring and exclamations as the passengers scurried agitatedly to and fro, expecting their first glimpse of the Australian continent.
Dawn broke, and Gino was still not certain he had actually seen the lighthouse at Fremantle. Besides, no one had definitely sighted land, and daylight quickly revealed that they were still on the open sea. The horizon line hazed over and merged into a glimmer of ochre reverberating into a perfectly transparent sky. Venus shone with a brightness he thought he had never seen before – not even high in the mountains at home.
He looked at the back of his hand wher
