A Winter's Night

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  “Look, the tram!” exclaimed the carter, pointing at a dark green cable car clattering along on its track.

  “I know,” replied Gaetano without a smile.

  “Well. The notary’s office is just after the tram stop, on the right, where the door with the lion’s head is.”

  They stopped. Gaetano got off, smoothed his jacket and pulled on the doorbell handle. The door swung open and the doorman appeared: “Who you lookin’ for?” he demanded in the local Bolognese dialect.

  “The notary. Mr. Barzini,” replied Gaetano in the same language but with an accent that identified him as an out-of-towner.

  “You have an appointment?”

  “What’s that?”

  The doorman shook his head: “Have you asked the notary if he wants to see you today, at this time?”

  “I live in the country but in my house we’re accustomed to seeing anyone, at any time of the day or night. Tell him I’m Gaetano Bruni, Callisto’s son. We farm his land. He’ll see me.”

  The doorman nodded and went up the stairs, dragging his feet. Some time and much door creaking later, he called out from the stairway: “Come on up, the notary will see you now.”

  Gaetano took a deep breath and went up to the second-floor landing, from where the doorman showed him into the office. He asked with-permission and took off his hat.

  Barzini was a small, chubby fellow, sitting behind a big desk on a big armchair. Gaetano was shocked. He was expecting someone bigger, with a decent-sized handlebar mustache and a haircut like King Umberto’s. Someone who inspired respect and even a bit of fear, someone who you could tell owned fifteen plots of land. It was a real disappointment, from a certain point of view.

  The notary was writing on a sheet of paper and without raising his eyes, said “What do you want?”

  “I want my wheat.”

  Barzini lifted his head and took off his eyeglasses. “What did you say?”

  “That I want my wheat. You told my father we’d have to eat cornmeal bread this year.”

  “That’s right. You’re operating at a loss. I’ve already explained this to your father and I have no intention of explaining it to you.”

  Gaetano crossed his arms and his jacket sleeves bulged around his muscles. “All I know is that we loaded up twenty carts of wheat to be brought to your warehouse here in Bologna and Iofa, I mean Giuseppe, the carter, I mean, counted them one by one. You took all of them. I don’t know anything about losses, I just want enough to make our bread. To work we have to eat. Thirty sacks, not one less or one more.”

  “Walk out of that door now! You’re nothing but a common lout!”

  “Mister landlord, all I’m asking for is what we need to carry on working from sunrise to sunset every day of the year and even Sundays, because the fields won’t wait and our work wants doing.”

  “Leave now or I’ll call the doorman!”

  “You just called me a lout, but if I don’t leave here with what’s fair, with what I’ve asked for politely, you’ll see what a real lout is: as God is my witness, I swear that if the doorman takes one step inside here, I’ll throw him down the stairs and you after him!” he shouted, and pounded his fist so hard that pens, inkwells and a shiny brass lamp that sat heavily on the table all jumped up at once. Barzini paled, took one long look at the colossus in front of him and understood instantly that he was dead serious. He breathed deep, struggling to quell his fear and maintain his aplomb, and said: “I’m doing this for your father, who is a gentleman. Certainly not for you! And out of the pure goodness of my heart, nothing else. Why, I could call in the forces of order and have you thrown into prison for threatening me like this . . . ”

  If the look that Gaetano gave him was not enough to stop his blathering, the glance the young man shot at the heavy paperweight on his desk certainly was.

  “Thirty sacks, you said . . . ”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Barzini scribbled a couple of lines on a sheet of letterhead and signed it. He blotted the ink before handing it to Gaetano.

  “And just how are you going to take home those sacks?”

  “I have a cart here waiting for me.”

  “Ah,” replied Barzini crossly. “Well then, take this to the warehouse in Borgo and they’ll give you the sacks. And don’t ever show your face here again.”

  “Thank you, mister landlord. And if we don’t see each other again, have a good death.”

  Barzini startled, not realizing that those were auspicious words. For people accustomed to expecting nothing but trials and tribulation from life, the idea of looking forward to a good death was at least some consolation. The notary reacted instead by touching his attributes under the desk and mumbling: “Go, get out of here, I’ve got things to do.”

  “Somethin’ happen?” asked the doorman as Gaetano came down the stairs. “That was one hell of a loud noise I heard!”

  “No, we had a little disagreement but all is well now, thank the Lord.”

  When Iofa saw the smile on Gaetano’s face as he came out the door, he couldn’t believe his eyes: “Well then, how did it go?”

  Gaetano waved the consignment order in front of his eyes.

  “You know I don’t know how to read,” said Iofa.

  Gaetano solemnly read out the words: “‘I hereby authorize thirty sacks of wheat to be consigned to the bearer of this letter. They will be collected immediately. Signed Barzini.’”

  “Oh, now you have to tell me the full particulars!” exclaimed Iofa as he climbed into the cart and turned the horse around in the direction of Borgo.

  Gaetano didn’t need encouragement, and started to tell his story: “I found him sitting there on his chair in front of me like the king on his throne . . . you can imagine . . . ”

  “And you?” asked Iofa. “What did you do? And what did he say then?”

  The story became embellished with fanciful details as Gaetano’s tale spun out. He stopped short of painting too black a picture of the landlord himself, since Iofa knew him well and so did many other people in town, where he’d been seen on more than one occasion.

  No one at the warehouse objected to carrying out the notary’s signed orders, but Gaetano had to haul all thirty of the sacks on his own back because Iofa was too skinny and what’s more, he had a bad leg. The warehouse porters all knew better than to offer him a hand. It was every man for himself. But it was worth it. When he had finished, Gaetano told Iofa to stop at the Osteria del Lavino, where he bought his coachman a plate of polenta with pork ribs because he deserved it, both of them did, and then they headed home so they could get back before dark.

  They were greeted in triumph. Almost all the men in the house came out to escort the cart to the loft and they had it unloaded in less than half an hour. Iofa, naturally, was invited for dinner.

  When the food had been served, Clerice said prayers and Callisto reminded them to take some soup and a glass of wine out to the stable to the umbrella mender, who still had shown no sign or intention of recommencing his wanderings.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Before the end of January it snowed two more times, although little more than a dusting each time. When people grumbled, old Callisto would say: “Don’t complain! If it snows there’s a reason for it, and under the snow is your bread.” He was referring to the grains of wheat sown in the fall that were swelling and swelling, and would soon sprout and push a little plant out of the ground, bright green against the brown earth.

  Although it was usually mid-February before the first blade of grass would appear, hope hastened the course of the seasons and on the Feast of Our Lady, the second of the month, the women brought a candle to church and lit it in front of the image of the Virgin. They would say “On Candelmas Day / We wish the winter away.”

  But everyone knew February was not to be trusted because, as the sayings went, “sho
rt but wretched” and “the wolf hasn’t eaten up the winter” and “it can always show up again when you least expect it.”

  And sure enough it started to snow on Candelmas Day. Clerice went up to the bedroom of the two girls, Rosina and Maria, one seventeen and the other fifteen, to make sure they bundled up well and then, all three wrapped up in woolen shawls, they headed off to church. Rosina, who was the quickest, walked ahead of them, and Clerice could see that she’d put together a fine backside and high, wide hips and once spring came around with its light cotton dresses, there wasn’t a man in town who wouldn’t be turning his head as she passed.

  It was every mother’s terror: that a daughter might get pregnant. Men were quick at professing endless love to get what they wanted and then, once they’d got a girl in the family way, they’d vanish into thin air or say things like, “If she gave it to me, lord only knows who else she gave it to” and marriage was out of the question. But if the landlord found out, he could give the whole family notice and that was the end of that. They’d have until Saint Martin’s Day in November, and then the farmer, his wife and all their children would have to pack up whatever household goods they had on a cart and good riddance.

  It wasn’t rare to see that cruel scene actually happen. Entire families, men scowling and women weeping, would have to leave a house they’d lived in for many years and wander the country roads in the rain, searching for a vacant plot of land, working under any conditions in order to survive. That’s why the mothers never tired of repeating this lesson to their daughters and explaining exactly how and when it could happen: if you let him put it inside of you, nine months from now you’ll bring a bastard with no name into this world. Even if he just touches your thing with his, it can happen, understand? The mothers did their best but, although it seemed impossible, there was always some young girl who swallowed the bait.

  At the footbridge over the Samoggia, there was an old house that seemed abandoned. It was covered with wild creepers and no God-loving person would ever let himself be seen there during the day. The old woman who lived there was called Malerba, and she would use her knitting needle on girls who needed an abortion. Clerice would point out that house to her daughters from a distance when they were gathering wild chicory on the banks of the river.

  “They say that back there, where you see that oak, is where the girls who bleed to death end up,” she told them solemnly. “She buries them in secret, then and there, in deconsecrated ground. That’s why that oak is so big, because it thrives on the corpses of those poor girls.”

  Not that she believed these stories herself, but if they helped to scare her daughters to death and keep them out of trouble, they had served their purpose. Or at least that’s what she hoped.

  “If a man really loves you he’ll have the patience to wait,” was another of her lines.

  “And you, mamma? Did you manage to wait until you married daddy?”

  “Certainly,” she would reply. “And I did the right thing. We’ve always cared for each other, comforted each other and helped each other through hard times. That tiny sacrifice was nothing compared to the whole lifetime we’ve spent together.”

  She was lying, because she had always known that the heart knows no reason and that when you’re in love, waiting is out of the question. But she’d known that her Callisto was a good person from the moment she’d met him; a fine young man who would never get her into a fix: the kind who, if anything happened, would be happy to marry her right away. And she remembered when she was first married, when she would wake up at night and light a candle just to look at him, like Psyche and Eros. He was so handsome she felt it couldn’t be true. The priest had explained that her husband’s name meant “beautiful” and that’s just the way it was. But this was a story that she kept for herself because you can never be careful enough and she didn’t want her girls running any risks.

  She was a wise person, Clerice was, anyone in town could tell you that. When a woman went into labor they’d always call her to give a hand. Both because she’d had so many children herself and because she was a real expert in bolstering the courage of the first-timers, especially. Clerice was known to have uncommon skills, skills that not even doctors had. She could treat stomach ailments with a glass and a candle, cure falling sickness and shingles and even cast out worms. So many children became infected by playing on the ground and then putting their fingers in their mouths. The worms multiplied in their intestines until their stomachs became as stiff and taut as the skin of a drum and their fevers went so high it would send them into convulsions. Sometimes they died. But Clerice knew what to do. Once she’d put her hands on the child and whispered prayers under her breath, the worms were expelled, the fever went down and the convulsions stopped.

  She would often have to leave the house after dark, wrapped in her shawl, murmuring invocations to ward off the spirits of the night.

  Sometimes, after she’d helped a woman give birth and was walking back home down the lonely streets fingering her rosary beads, she thought of when she’d brought her own children into the world. She’d remember how she felt when they put the baby in her arms after washing and dressing it. She would look at that innocent creature and think, each time, what will become of him? What will he have to face or to bear in his life? And often, the contrary happened; she’d see a filthy, scabby raggedy beggar walking down the road and she’d think: he had a mother who brought him into the world with great hopes, who had wanted all the best for him and look here at the results of that woman’s dreams and her hopes! And she’d carry on praying.

  She remembered that each one of her boys, when they were born, gave clues that she would try to interpret. Dante, her firstborn, was an easy, quiet baby, more interested in food than in play, but he would carefully observe any little thing that got into his hands. He would be a sage administrator of himself and his family. Before Raffaele was a week old, he was already grabbing and touching everything around him. He was the first to walk, and to talk as well. His place was certainly at the helm of the family, keeping his brothers together. He was just two when they started calling him by his nickname, Floti. Gaetano was the one who weighed most at birth, and he stayed big and voracious. You could tell from the start what he would be like: strong and fearsome, afraid of nothing. Armando was the first to laugh but then he’d cry for nothing. He would become the funniest, the one who would amuse them all with his stories and jokes, but also the most fragile. And Francesco—who everyone called Checco, because no one in town got away without a nickname—had barely cried when he was born, and when he could, he’d smile instead of laugh. He’d be a good observer of other people’s weaknesses and contradictions and never let on his own. And that’s the way it was with each one of them; they had their fate carved out for them. In a few years’ time, even the two younger ones, first Fredo and then even Savino, would turn twenty and they’d be old enough to be called up as soldiers. The girls in town were already stealing looks at them because, as the proverb says: “He who’s good to serve the king is good for the queen as well.”

  Cleto, the umbrella mender, left one day after mid-March when he saw the first swallow enter the stable to tidy up the nest she’d abandoned in October. He slung his knapsack over his shoulder and said his goodbyes to Callisto and Clerice, the arzdour and arzdoura, patriarch and matriarch. Terms of archaic majesty that hinted at the Roman origins of their local dialect. The rule of the father and the rule of the mother.

  Clerice put a freshly-baked loaf of bread in his sack and filled his flask with wine, pronouncing words with a nearly sacred sound: “Remember us, umbrella mender, when you eat this bread and drink this wine, and much good may it do you!”

  “I thank you with all my heart,” he replied, “because you give without asking me for anything in return. I’m a man without a trade, a traveler with no destination. I carry heavy memories on my shoulders and I pay with my penury for the errors I have comm
itted and have never dared to confess.”

  “Why say such a thing, umbrella mender?” asked Clerice with concern. “You have given us so many stories, beautiful ones that make us dream and you know, dreams have no price. Our door is always open for you. And if there’s something you have to confess, you know that God Almighty forgives all.”

  Cleto seemed to hesitate, then said: “You have seven sons and I can feel the shadow of the tempest approaching . . . ”

  “Explain yourself,” Callisto broke in uneasily. “What do you mean by that?”

  “A catastrophe is on its way, a bloodbath the likes of which no one has ever seen. Annihilation. No one will be spared. There will be signs, warnings . . . Try not to let them fall unawares. God warned Noah about the flood and he saved himself and his family because he was an upright man. If there’s a good man on this earth, it’s you, Callisto, and your wife is your worthy companion. She will pray for your family to be spared and I hope that God will listen . . . ”

  The pearly sky of dawn was getting lighter. From the stable came the lowing of the cows and bulls and finally the rising sun touched the snow-covered flank of Mount Cimone, which blushed like the cheek of a virgin. The scent of violets permeated the clean morning air.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” continued Cleto, “I already have my mission. Whether you believe me or not, I know that the apparition of the golden goat brings misfortune, and that wayfarer with the long beard who stopped to eat at the Osteria della Bassa said he’d seen it . . . There’s only one way to forestall such a dreadful prediction: find the demonic creature and destroy it or . . . ” his voice became deep and ragged, “or offer a victim in expiation.”

  Callisto and Clerice couldn’t understand much of their guest’s difficult language, but his dark and gloomy mood didn’t escape them. They lowered their heads and made the sign of the cross and the umbrella mender walked out of the courtyard. Their eyes followed him as he took off down Via Celeste and then turned left towards the osteria. What could he have meant by those words?