The Wager

by Donna Jo Napoli

  The lawyer Don Cardiddu was a burly, jovial type, who hesitated only a moment at the sight of Don Giovanni, then dutifully produced a contract. When the gentleman, Don Muntifiuri, named his sum, the lawyer blinked in astonishment. His face said it all: The villa wasn’t worth that much. Perhaps no villa was.

  To the ordinary buyer.

  Don Giovanni quickly signed. According to the agreement, the money must be paid eight days from the signing. Then the villa would be his. A home again. Complete with furnishings, stable, horses, servants.

  Don Muntifiuri reached for the plume. His hand was white, a stark contrast to Don Giovanni’s, whose nails were so dirty it seemed like he’d dipped his fingers in pitch. The gentleman’s shirt was white; face, white. His hair glowed white now. The sun seemed to come from behind him, bleaching him to a cloud, a wisp, a memory of a man. While Don Giovanni was a shadow of a man. Neither of them real.

  Don Giovanni rested both his hands on the lawyer’s desk and leaned there for support. He felt energy flow out of him like water through a sieve. He was going to faint. When he came to again, all of this would be gone. The dream, vanished. White and black, annulled. He hated himself for having a dream that would haunt him so badly in the months to come.

  But Don Muntifiuri signed.

  And Don Giovanni didn’t faint.

  “Eight days.” Don Muntifiuri folded each hand under the other armpit. “You come up with all those sacks of gold and the villa is yours.”

  “Mind that it happens just so,” Don Giovanni managed to say, appealing to the lawyer, who looked back at him with what seemed an honest face. And he went outside to lean against a wall and catch his bearings.

  This was his chance.

  What he needed now was a room. A large one. Only an inn could serve. But he couldn’t go to any that had already shunned him.

  He headed for the Jewish section of town. His stomach had announced lunchtime already anyway, and it was sure to be business as usual in the Jewish quarter. Jews observed fasting and feasting days, but different ones from the Catholics. They couldn’t care less about the vigil of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day.

  Don Giovanni and Cani wandered through the entire quarter before they selected the biggest and undoubtedly most expensive inn. Don Giovanni whispered to his purse, “Dear one, give me money. Enough to pay for every guest bed in this inn for a week, three times over.” He clutched the gold coin that fell from the purse into his hand. It had the head of an emperor with a crown of laurel leaves. He used to have so many coins just like this; it must have been minted in Messina. He called out to the innkeeper.

  The man came outside. “What do you want?” He held himself straight, his hands clutched together in front of his chest.

  Don Giovanni stepped back the distance he had learned it took to make people less anxious about him. “How many empty rooms do you have?”

  “That’s no business of yours.”

  “It could be . . . if I took all of them.”

  The man turned to go inside.

  “For a full week.”

  The man stood with one hand on the door handle. “You don’t have the money.”

  “I assure you I do. How much would you want?”

  “Who taught you to speak like a gentleman?”

  “My mother,” said Don Giovanni. “My father. Who taught you?”

  The man shook his head. “Even if you had the money, I couldn’t let you in. My other guests would protest.”

  “How many guests do you have?”

  The man swallowed and his Adam’s apple rose and fell. “Only one. But more are coming next week.”

  “I’d stay one week only and leave on the eighth morning. Your guests wouldn’t even know I’d been here.”

  The man wrinkled his nose. “They might.”

  Don Giovanni was stung, even after all this time. “You could scrub the room down with vinegar after I left.” He shrugged companionably. “That’s easy enough, right? I’ll pay for the entire inn. For one full week.”

  “Every bed? You’d pay for every bed?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Why?”

  “Isn’t it easier for everyone that way?”

  “It’s a danger to my reputation,” said the innkeeper.

  “How much would it take to make that danger worth it?”

  The innkeeper didn’t speak. Maybe he was calculating sums in his head.

  “Think of the price you want.” Don Giovanni came a step closer.

  The innkeeper stepped back.

  Don Giovanni put the gold coin on the ground in front of the innkeeper’s feet. “Exactly right, wouldn’t you say?”

  The inkeeper stared at the coin. He picked it up. “But . . .”

  “I’ll take my meals in my room.”

  The innkeeper nodded.

  “In fact, I’ll use only two rooms. One next door to the other. So if you want to rent out the remaining rooms, you’re free to do so.”

  That night Don Giovanni laid his purse right inside the door of the empty room next to his own. He carefully stretched out the drawstrings so they extended past the threshold of the door. “Dear one,” he whispered, “give me money. Fill this room with gold coins.”

  For the next seven days, Don Giovanni wouldn’t leave the inn. He couldn’t take the risk of someone coming upon his purse in action. He knew his three beggar boys would be looking for him. They’d miss the meals his coins paid for. Especially Zizu. He imagined the small boy’s stomach twisted in hunger. Indeed, when he’d first come upon the boy, in September, he was nothing more than skin and bones. He probably wouldn’t have made it through the winter if Don Giovanni’s coins hadn’t put a little flesh on him. But there was nothing to be done about it now. The purse had to be guarded. Everything depended on a white linen purse.

  On the eighth morning, Don Giovanni reached two fingers under the door of the room next to his. He could feel coins. And under them, at the end of the drawstrings, was a bit of cloth. Linen. He pulled it out and tucked the purse inside his smock. Then he ordered Cani to sit outside the door and wait for him.

  He went downstairs.

  The innkeeper rushed to meet him. “It’s the eighth morning.”

  “Don’t fear. I’m leaving.” Don Giovanni went to the door. “But not immediately. I’ll be back within the hour with a couple of gentlemen. In the meantime, please bring Cani his breakfast. He’s waiting outside the door to the room next to mine.”

  Don Giovanni went to the lawyer’s home. To his great relief, Don Muntifiuri was there already.

  Don Muntifiuri laughed. “You showed up. Empty-handed. I knew you didn’t have the money.”

  “But I do,” said Don Giovanni. “You’ll need several carts. Don’t worry, you can call for them later. For now, come with me to count it. And you, lawyer, please accompany us.”

  “Nonsense,” said Don Muntifiuri. But he followed anyway.

  They went to the inn. The innkeeper preceded them up the stairs. When Don Giovanni opened the door to the room next to his, gold coins spilled out into the hall. The room was full, floor to ceiling.

  “Take what you want,” said Don Giovanni. “It’s more than we bargained on.”

  “It was a joke.” Don Muntifiuri looked at the gold dumbly. “I never meant to sell my home.”

  “Buy another,” said Don Giovanni. He willed his voice not to crack. Everyone had to stick by their bargains; he mustn’t show any doubt. “We have a contract.”

  Don Muntifiuri picked up a handful of coins. He stared at it in disbelief.

  “Bite it.” Don Giovanni turned to the lawyer. “See for yourself; it’s real. We have a contract.”

  “He’s right,” said the lawyer. He pocketed a coin without biting it. “Don’t act like a fool, Don Muntifiuri. You can buy any home you want with the money here. Why, the entire room is crammed with gold sovereigns.”

  Don Giovanni took the house key from Don Muntifiuri.

  �
��Come back anytime,” said the innkeeper as Don Giovanni walked past him with Cani, out into the street, toward the coastal road.

  Christmas

  MORE THAN A MONTH LATER, ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, DON Giovanni stretched out on the ground in the center of the courtyard of his villa, surrounded by the porticoed colonnade, and closed his eyes.

  Cani flopped down beside him. The dog had been out running since dawn, so he panted noisily. His breath came in warm bursts over Don Giovanni’s nose. It offered respite from the damp chill of the air.

  Zizu and Giancarlu and Kareem had gone off to Holy Mass in their new clothes. Kareem wasn’t even Catholic, but he enjoyed the spectacle, he said. And they all wanted to show off their new station in life. Exactly what that station amounted to was hard to say. They slept in a room of the villa. On their own beds. They came and went whenever they wanted. They had food and clothing. These three boys had tended to Don Giovanni’s needs for his two months on the streets of Palermo, when no one else would help him. As far as he was concerned, they could live here as long as they liked.

  The mistress of the maidservants who had worked for Don Muntifiuri quit immediately after the sale of the villa. All the maidservants under her left, as well. No other maiden, young or old, could be found to take their places. But a young man had finally agreed to be cook. Ribi. He was a quiet sort, who entered rooms only after Don Giovanni had left them. If Don Giovanni needed something from him, Zizu carried the message. Ribi was competent in a number of ways. Not only was his food delicious, he’d managed to rid Don Giovanni of worms with a week’s regimen of garlic and hot peppers. And he never mentioned it. Don Giovanni appreciated that discretion.

  Right now Ribi was in the kitchen preparing the holiday feast for Don Giovanni, the three beggar boys, and Cani. Once it was on the table, he was free to go home, to pass the rest of the day with his family, about whom Don Giovanni knew nothing.

  The menservants from Don Muntifiuri’s days had stayed on, since Don Giovanni doubled their salaries. They kept the stables and falconry in order; Don Muntifiuri had been quite a hunter. They watched over the terraces of olive trees and repaired the supporting rubble walls, for the property had a large and prosperous olive oil mill. They would tend the small field in spring. And they maintained the villa and answered the door.

  In the first weeks, answering the door was a task. Guests came to welcome the new baron to the area. Some of them were genuinely friendly. Some nosy. Some were opportunists. It turned out that both Don Muntifiuri and the lawyer, Don Cardiddu, had engaged in gossip: everyone had heard of the inn room overflowing with gold sovereigns.

  The rush of activity surprised Don Giovanni. The announcement of each new visitor made his cheeks hot with hope. The potential for friendship, no matter how unlikely, was at its maximum, given all these new people.

  And when an invitation came for a feast in Palermo on December 8, Don Giovanni felt dizzy. Someone had somehow discovered his birthday! His twenty-first birthday. Indeed, it was only proper that it be a grand event.

  But it was just the Feast of the Conception of Saint Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for Mary, being the mother of God, had been conceived without original sin. It had nothing to do with Don Giovanni’s birthday. He should have known. Four years before, Emperor Manuel I Comnenus of Constantinople had declared this new holiday for the eastern branch of the church. The Greek population of Messina celebrated it, but not the Roman Catholics. In Palermo, though, everyone celebrated it, because the Norman royalty had taken a fancy to it.

  Don Giovanni hadn’t gone to the feast. Not because of his disappointment in its purpose, but because the man who issued the invitation quickly withdrew it upon meeting him face to face. Once people actually saw Don Giovanni, their reaction varied only in the degree of their rudeness. Some called him vile. Others gasped and covered their mouths before brutal words could burst out. None stayed to chat.

  News spread rapidly, and only curiosity seekers came after that. Fewer all the time. No one at all had come this past week. Just as well: Don Giovanni didn’t relish being a spectacle. The villa was quiet.

  Today, Christmas, was particularly quiet. Don Giovanni had let his servants go home for the festivities. Right now the only other person in the villa was Ribi.

  Having a home meant safety. Warmth. Having a cook meant regular meals of whatever he wanted.

  What it didn’t mean, though, was companionship. No one wanted to talk with Don Giovanni. No one came close. He wasn’t even welcome in church in his present state.

  But for Cani, he’d be entirely alone. The beggar boys didn’t count; they didn’t act like friends. How could they? You couldn’t know someone you never talked with.

  The courtyard air was frigid. Inside a fire played in the hearth. He could be in there. So why was he out here?

  Storm clouds came. Even with his eyes closed, Don Giovanni could sense the darkening. He wasn’t surprised. The sky had been dismal when he woke this morning. Yet he’d come out to the courtyard, anyway. Or maybe precisely because?

  Rain.

  It started as slow, heavy thumps. It drummed on his hands and through his thin rags of clothes. But on his head the beat was dulled by hair. He pushed his hair back until the rain met his bare forehead. He pressed on his facial hair until the rain laced his bare lips.

  All summer long he had prayed for rain. Not in a conscious way. He never let himself actually think about warm water washing him from a benevolent sky. He knew that would make the act of being in the rain a violation of the wager terms. So he had cleared his mind and randomly chased the few storm clouds he saw, only to find, twice, that the brief rainfall had ceased by the time he got there.

  Rain.

  Sicily had plenty of it, but only in the winter. Summer rain was a phenomenon. That’s why his mother used to celebrate it with a dance. Never had he understood her better. A bare-breasted dance.

  Rain. Cold rain.

  Now it turned icy. It came faster, pelting him.

  Did he dare strip?

  No, no. That would be too obvious.

  Could he pull up his trousers and sleeves, at least?

  He lay still, immobilized with fear and longing.

  Had he known it would rain? Even though he’d kept his mind from thinking about it, had some inner part of him known? Was he giving up? Losing the wager?

  Cani whined.

  Don Giovanni opened his eyes and pushed himself to a squat.

  From every side sleet slashed like the thinnest knife blades.

  Cani ran around and around Don Giovanni. He cried. He barked. Frantic eyes. Violent shivers. Poor dog. And it was Don Giovanni’s fault.

  “Sire. Sire, are you all right?” Ribi stood under the portico, wringing his hands. What an effort it must have been for the shy young man to address Don Giovanni directly. Everyone was suffering for him.

  The sleet came so fast, it was hard to see now. Don Giovanni’s rags stuck to his skin. The soaked mat of his hair weighed on his shoulders. The pounding outside his body was met by the pounding inside his head. He stretched his hands out and watched a small spot of clean skin appear on the back of one. An impossibility. A stranger born there. A miracle. The spot grew. Another appeared on the back of the other hand. Don Giovanni was there, under that dirt. He was there. He was the stranger. He still existed as a physical being in this world.

  Cani ran under the portico and howled at him from that shelter. The dog shook so hard, his legs flew out from under him.

  “Come out of the rain, sire,” pleaded Ribi. “You’ll catch your death of cold.”

  Was that what he was doing? Greeting death? Dying into damnation?

  Don Giovanni got to his feet. He leaned forward and let the rain beat on his back and his buttocks. His rags stuck like a second skin now, particularly to the open sores. The dirt turned to mud under his feet. A puddle covered his toes. He pulled his hair up off his neck so the water ran in circles around and down his front. L
et all the fetid rot go. Let it go, go, go. If this was the end of life, so be it. Off, damn dirt, damn filth. Off, off. Black passed before his eyes. He pressed his hands to his knees to steady himself, but the rain was too strong to stand up against. It buffetted him. It whipped him. In the end it beat him senseless.

  He knew he was falling. He couldn’t stop. He would die. He would lose.

  The first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was Ribi, sitting against the wall, staring at him. The man’s eyes registered terror. He was wet. Mud smeared across the front of his usually spotless smock and trousers.

  “Did you carry me in from the courtyard on your own?” Don Giovanni’s voice came out as a croak. “You’re small. Did you drag me?”

  “You’re coherent again,” Ribi said softly. “Good.” His voice soothed. “Would you like me to help you out of those wet clothes?” His nostrils flared.

  “You don’t have to make an offer that disgusts you.”

  “I should have done it already.” Ribi crawled forward. “You’re shivering, despite the fire.”

  “No, no. You did right. Don’t come closer. I can’t take my clothes off. Never.”

  “Is that delirium speaking again?” Ribi perched back on his heels. “I should feel your head.”

  “Was I delirious before?” Don Giovanni sat up. “What did I say?”

  “Things about the devil.”

  “What things?”

  “Nonsense. Just nonsense. Are you feverish?”

  “I don’t think so.” Don Giovanni had talked about the devil. But the devil wasn’t here. Only Ribi was here. Maybe the devil had missed Don Giovanni’s little attempt at cleanliness. Pathetic flirtation, given that he was now caked with mud. The devil’s fire was narrowly avoided. Again. But this couldn’t keep happening; the next time he would fall into the abyss. So there couldn’t be a next time. “No, I’m not hot at all. I’m cold, Ribi. Rip down that tapestry and drape it over my back, would you?”

  Ribi stood up and looked doubtfully at the wall. “That wall-hanging?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s expensive.”

  “I hate it,” said Don Giovanni. “Rip it down.”