A Winter's Night Read online

  Iofa made the sign of the cross, muttering: “It’s nothing to joke about. You should have seen that guy: he would have scared anyone.”

  Floti left and the other brothers behind him. Iofa lingered, as did Gaetano, who still had a few questions to ask Cleto. He’d always suspected that the man was something more than what he seemed: a wandering handyman who turned up every year at the first snowfall and left again at the end of February, sometimes without having mended a single umbrella. Every Saturday without fail Cleto would wash his stockings, drawers and undershirt and put them to dry near the mouth of the oven where the bread had been baked; not your usual beggar. The Brunis took him in year after year, just as they did with anyone who knocked at their door asking for a place to rest for the night and a bowl of soup. In exchange he told stories of distant lands and extraordinary events that farming men in a small village couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  “Tell me the truth, now that there are only the three of us here: do you believe those things that Don Massimino said?” he demanded.

  “I do. And you should believe them as well, Gaetano. Your brother is a bit stubborn at times; he’s convinced that there’s a simple reason behind everything. He’s wrong. Many things have no explanation. There’s a whole world around us that we can’t see or hear, but it exists and it can change our lives from one moment to the next. What’s more, it’s best not to challenge certain . . . forces.”

  “Then why were you trying to convince Floti to go to Pra’ dei Monti with you?”

  “Walking in the dead of night under the falling snow on a country road towards an abandoned place where an ancient legend was born . . . would help your brother to understand that we are surrounded by mystery.”

  Gaetano wasn’t sure he grasped what the umbrella mender was getting at, but he felt a chill run down his spine. Iofa’s eyes were wide and white and full of fear; Gaetano took one look at him and said:

  “Why don’t you sleep here, tonight? Tomorrow you can give me a hand with the milking and then we’ll have breakfast together: eggs and pancetta and a glass of the new wine.”

  “Well I’ll be sincere,” Iofa replied eagerly, “with weather like this out I won’t say no. There’s plenty of hay here, it’s nice and dry, and my cape makes a good blanket. Who could wish for anything more?”

  “Then I’ll say goodnight,” said Gaetano.

  As soon as the stable door was shut, the umbrella man started up again: “Don Massimino was no ordinary man. I met him the first time I ever came here, many and many a year ago. I remember once, at the end of June with the fields full of wheat blond as gold and the cherry trees bent with the weight of ripe red fruit, that a storm came up like nothing we’d ever seen before: clouds black as ink but rimmed in white and thunder grumbling in the distance. We knew that hail was coming, and that it would be big as eggs. A downfall that would ruin a year’s work and leave our families without bread.”

  Iofa could feel the winds of the storm chilling him to the bone.

  “Well, Don Massimino walked out of the front door of the church,” continued Cleto, “and he left it wide open so that Jesus Christ in the tabernacle could feel that icy gale, just like when he was nailed naked on the cross. Then he raised his eyes to that pitch-black sky and he opened his arms as if he could protect the whole town. He was muttering something—I don’t know what it was, prayers or exorcisms—and, despite the cold, he was dripping with sweat. His knees were trembling, as if he were bearing the weight of those ice-laden clouds on his own fragile shoulders.

  “I hid behind the portico columns to watch, and I didn’t lose sight of him for an instant. After almost an hour of that unequal struggle with the elements, Don Massimino won: the sky slowly opened and a strip of blue appeared. The clouds scattered and the thunder vanished in the distance. I saw him collapse to the ground in a faint. When he came to, I was there next to him. He said: ‘If I had failed, it would have been a disaster. A catastrophe!’ And I had no doubt that he was telling the pure truth. So now you know why I believe everything he said. He knew what he was talking about. Even when he spoke of that image of the devil: the golden goat!”

  When Gaetano had crossed the courtyard and reached the door of the house, he turned back to look at the stable. He saw the dim red glow of the lamplight go out, all at once.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The next day, some time before dawn, the snow began to fall more lightly, and then as fine as powder. It stopped completely as day was breaking. The men got up early, took their shovels and began to clear a walkway towards the road. Iofa helped Gaetano milk the cows and then sat down at the table to have breakfast: eggs and pancetta and a piece of bread warmed on the embers. The man who’d appeared at the Osteria della Bassa the night before was nowhere to be seen in town, and those who had been there playing briscola began to doubt whether they had really met him, or heard his words.

  The town’s children couldn’t leave for school until the buzzard had passed, towed by three pairs of oxen, to clear the roads. They called it that because it had two big wooden boards spread wide to push the snow to the edges of the road, just like the wings of a buzzard. The poorest children had had nothing to eat for breakfast and went from house to house asking for alms. They wore wooden clogs made with cowhide that got soaked instantly and then shrunk to squeeze their freezing feet. The lucky ones got a chunk of bread, others a scolding or a kick in the rear. They were happy to go to school because there was a nice clay Becchi stove that radiated warmth and the fragrance of oakwood kindling.

  Those were wretched years: the late frosts in the spring and hailstorms in the summer had decimated the harvests, and Don Massimino was no longer around to fight off gales bare-handed. He was at rest in the old cemetery, in the shade of an oak tree that had sprung up by chance from an acorn. In town, there was a story to be told for every event, and this one was no exception.

  Don Massimino had been a poor man his whole life and even in the parish, where he could have enjoyed the generous revenues coming in from its five prebendal properties, he never used a whit more than what he needed, dividing the rest between the diocese and the poor. He’d asked to be buried in a simple shroud, without a coffin, because that amount of money could be used to buy enough wheat to feed a family for a whole week. But the devil, who he had defeated so many times in his life, made sure to give him payback in his final place of rest. Nettles and weeds grew on his grave and a big snake black as ink had burrowed in to stay, so that no one dared to get close enough to clean it up a bit or lay down a bunch of meadow flowers.

  Until one day, when a white and black magpie hid an acorn that soon took root. An oak tree grew quickly and spread a dome of green leaves over the grave. The weeds and nettles died, and emerald green grass as fine as cat’s fur grew in their place. A hawk nabbed the snake as it left its den and devoured it. And every springtime since then, the humble grave of Don Massimino was covered with daisies.

  The people took heart at stories like this one and many others, invented to lead them to believe that there was someone who was thinking of them in their moments of pain, hunger and despair. The poorest families faced the winter as a scourge sent by God, living in hovels where their piss froze in the urinals at night and all the rosaries the women said did not suffice to protect them from malnutrition and disease. Babies were born small and didn’t thrive, as their mothers had no milk. Thin, almost transparent, they struggled on until a fever took them away. The women had no tears left. They would open a window so that the little one’s soul could fly up to the sky, and whisper: “Saints in heaven!”

  At least the child had stopped suffering, whereas they had not. There would be another pregnancy and more trouble and tribulation and more children who cried with hunger until they lost their voices, because men would never give that thing up, and it didn’t count to close your eyes and say the rosary to stop from getting pregnant. There was never an easy day in th
e homes of the day laborers, who went into debt in the wintertime for as long as the shops would give them credit, hoping to pay it off in the springtime, when they could earn a day’s pay.

  The Brunis had lived in the same house and worked the same land for one hundred years, or maybe even more: no one had ever kept records, after all, and no one remembered where the family came from. They had no money but they had never gone hungry: they could always count on enough milk, cheese, eggs, bread, prosciutto and salame, because the landowner lived in Bologna, the steward showed up once in a blue moon and the Brunis took what they needed to stay strong.

  As times got worse, however, the owner had become more demanding. Just a year before, when old Callisto went into town with the horse and cart to settle the accounts, he had to hear that he’d have to be content with half the wheat and half the corn and from the way things were going, the same could be expected for the year just begun as well. That’s why he kept putting off the day when he’d have to go to the city. Clerice asked again and again: “Callisto, when are you going to settle up with the landlord?”

  He would answer: “One of these days, Clerice, one of these days.”

  But they’d nearly run out of white flour and yellow flour and so the time had come for the head of the family to hitch up the horse, to put on his brown velvet suit and white hemp shirt and to pay a visit to notary Barzini. Clerice waved goodbye from the side of the road with a white handkerchief as if he were leaving for the war.

  He returned at dusk in a black mood. He sat at the table and ate with his head in his plate without saying a word, until Gaetano decided to break the silence: “Well then, how did it go with the landlord?”

  “Badly,” replied the old man. “He said it was a bad year and that we’ll have to eat cornmeal bread.”

  “What?” replied Gaetano. “We’ve worked like dogs, all six of us men, this whole year and he has the courage to make us eat corn as if we were chickens? I’ll bet you that he eats white bread and he’s never lifted a finger. What kind of accounts did he show you?”

  “Accounts with profits and losses. He says we’ve lost him money.”

  “And you didn’t say anything?”

  “What could I say? He’s an educated man and we’re ignorant. You know what the proverb says: ‘When all’s writ down in black and white, the farmer sleeps tight.’”

  “If you’ll allow it, I’ll go to talk to him tomorrow. I’ll get Iofa to take me with his cart and you’ll see me coming back with wheat, as God is my witness!”

  “Do as you like,” replied the old man. “If you feel up to it, I won’t say no. The important thing is to bring home the wheat, but it won’t be easy, you’ll see.” He spooned up his soup in silence and when he had finished he got up and went to bed.

  Gaetano was a strapping young man with shoulders as broad as a barn door and he was determined to make good on his promise. The next morning at dawn he got on his bicycle and went to see Iofa the carter. He found him currying the horse and preparing his fodder.

  “I need you for a job,” said Gaetano.

  “Not today. I have a load of gravel to take from the river to the provincial road.”

  “You’ll do it tomorrow. I need you and your cart now.”

  “And where do we have to go?”

  “To the city, to see the notary.”

  “What do you need the cart for? You’ve got your new suit on, why don’t you go on your bicycle?”

  “I can’t load two thousand kilos of wheat on my bicycle.”

  “And who’s about to give you two thousand kilos of wheat, your landlord?”

  “Yes, I’m going to talk to him. He told my father we’re in debt and that we’ll have to eat corn all year like the hens. I’ll wring his neck like a chicken’s if he doesn’t give me my wheat. How are we supposed to work ten, twelve hours a day eating cornmeal bread? So then, are you with me? Coming or not?”

  Iofa thought it over, added up a few numbers, looked at the big watch he kept in his pocket, shook his head and answered: “You’re as stubborn as a mule, but we’re friends and I can’t say no. Are you ready to go like that?”

  “Yessir, I am. Why, don’t I look good?”

  “Oh, you look very good. Like a fine fellow indeed. Give me the time to hitch him up and we’ll be on our way.”

  Gaetano helped Iofa attach the horse to the cart shafts and fit his collar as he said: “You’re not doing this for nothing, you know. I’ll give you two bushels of wheat and you’ll be making bread for a long time to come.”

  When the cart was ready they climbed onto the seat and Iofa called out to the horse who started off at a good clip. They went down the Fossa Vecchia road and by the time the sun came up they had almost reached the Via Emilia.

  They met up with other carts coming and going because it was Tuesday and Tuesday was market day. They even saw an automobile, a black Fiat Tipo 3, all splattered with mud from the puddles, that was honking its horn trying to get around the carts and pack animals.

  “Just think,” said Iofa, “that there are people that can afford one of those. Lord knows how much it costs . . . ”

  “I’ll tell you how much,” replied Gaetano. “It costs twelve thousand liras, almost as much as our land.”

  “I can’t believe it, swear that it’s true!”

  “I swear. Our property costs about fifteen thousand liras, but it’s more than five hundred furlongs and it feeds a lot of people. If I had the money I’d buy up our land, not an automobile. Then we wouldn’t have a landlord to tell us what we can and can’t do. My father told us that when we were little and the steward showed up, he’d hide us in the pigpen because the guy was always complaining: ‘Too many mouths to feed and too few arms at work,’ and he’d threaten to go tell the owner.”

  “Who knows, maybe one day you will have the money to buy the land for yourself, or maybe something even bigger.”

  “I don’t see how. Ten lives wouldn’t be enough to put aside fifteen thousand liras. Only people who have money can make more money. People who don’t have anything, they’re lucky if they can get enough to eat themselves, and feed their families. Anyway, even if I could, I wouldn’t want a bigger plot of land; I’d buy our own because I know it so well. I know what grows well on one part or on another. I know when the wheat is ripe and when the fruit’s ready for picking, depending on the year and how much sun it’s got. I know how much manure to use and how much water is right for each kind of plant. If you know your land well enough, it will never betray you. If you have land you know you’ll never go hungry, that you’ll have meat and milk and cheese and eggs, wood to keep warm in the winter and cool water for the summer, wine and bread and wool to spin and hemp to weave. I love my land, Iofa, can you understand that?”

  “I do understand that, even if I’m a carter, like my father was and my grandfather before him. I love my cart, and I take care of it and keep it covered so it doesn’t get rained and snowed on and, more than anything, I love my horse, right, Bigio?” he said, tapping the animal’s rump with his reins.

  Chatting to pass the time, at a bit of a trot and a bit of a walk, they were at Borgo Panigale in a couple of hours. Gaetano had only been to Bologna three times his whole life, with his father, but Iofa knew the route well because he’d worked for years transporting the harvest to the notary’s warehouses, not only from the Brunis’ land but from many other plots that he owned in town. A good fifteen or so, between Via Bastarda, Madonna della Provvidenza and Fossa Vecchia. Iofa stopped at the long bridge on the Reno River so that his travelling companion could admire it. Gaetano was amazed at the series of huge arches stretching over the river and carrying the Via Emilia on their backs, with her load of carts, horses and even automobiles. But what he liked best were the two stone mermaids on the entry columns, with a woman’s body and a fish’s tail. They were naked from the waist up and had a pair of t
its you couldn’t help but gape at.

  “Don’t look for so long!” said Iofa, “or you’ll have to go to the priest and make a confession.”

  “Ah, well,” said Gaetano, “what do you think, even priests like to look at tits that beautiful. My father says that even Don Massimino, who was a saint, when a nice ass or a couple of tits like those passed in front of him, his eyes stopped there even if he didn’t want them to. And when a pretty lady went to confess her sins he didn’t stop at hearing what the sin was, he wanted details before he gave his absolution, like where did he put it and where did you touch it and so on and so on.”

  Iofa started to laugh and said: “Have you ever been to the city square?”

  “No, I never have.”

  “Well, in the square there’s a fountain with a giant: a man almost three meters tall, with a pitchfork in his hand, and he’s buck naked and you can see everything, and I mean everything.”

  “I’ve heard about that.”

  “I think it’s a scandal: a naked man in the middle of the square and all the little kids, even the little girls, can see him. And then there are mermaids like these that squirt water from their tits.”

  “Sounds interesting. But we can’t go today; we have other business. It’s Mr. Barzini the notary we’re going to see today.”

  Iofa called out to the horse and they started up again, crossed the bridge and went on towards the city gate. There were gardens and houses scattered on both sides of the road and, from behind, the Borgo church tower seemed to keep an eye on them from afar.

  As they get closer to their destination Gaetano became more nervous and at times seemed to regret having decided to take on the landlord.

  “Let’s just hope he’s there when we get there,” said Iofa, “otherwise we’ve come all this way for nothing.”

  “We’ll find him, all right,” replied Gaetano. “He won’t get away from me. If he’s not there, I’ll sit down in front of his front door and I’ll wait until he gets back.”