by Davide Longo
Leaving the yard, Leonardo cycled down the pathway as far as the road and once on the asphalt started in the opposite direction to the village. After ten meters or so he braked sharply and, laying the bicycle on the ground, took a few quick steps into the field by the road, opened his fly, and released a powerful jet of urine. It was the effect the massage had on him.
Going back to the bicycle he noticed something among the lights on the plain that was full of life yet at the same time deeply saddening.
A great fire burning under the nearest hills was sending up an enormous column of smoke. It must have involved a whole group of houses or a large factory because the flames were coming from such a wide base.
Seven years earlier, on the same day and at about the same hour, he had been sitting at the desk in his study about to read an essay on The Outsider by Camus written by a student named Clara Carpigli; at that moment all he could have said of her was that she was a young woman with fair skin and raven-black hair who used to sit near the front at his lectures. It was the last piece of work he planned to correct before going into the dining room where Alessandra was waiting with their supper.
At the end of the essay a piece of paper was clipped to the page with three lines on it written in ink between inverted commas.
Starting from that moment, delicate glances, a couple of notes, and a coffee, gradually transformed Clara Carpigli into a face, a way of walking, an increased heartbeat, and an expectation. He knew well that many of his teaching and writing colleagues were in the habit of making the most of their status as maestri with dinners, weekends, and nights with women students or lecturers, but though he never moralized, he had always liked to think of himself as different.
Then a month later he left home for an out-of-town restaurant where a girl twenty years his junior was waiting for him with no legitimate reason for meeting him anywhere other than in the lecture rooms of the university.
Three days later, by midday, the grapes had been harvested.
Elio drove the tractor he had borrowed from his uncle into the yard, loaded with the final baskets, and they went into the house for a bite to eat. Leonardo had avoided the village since the night of the fire and there was nothing left in the larder except pasta and cans, but Gabri had given her husband a pan to heat up containing vegetables, anchovies, and breadcrumbs.
They sat down at the table and began devouring the food in big spoonfuls while Bauschan watched from the corner where he was lying, half closing his eyes from time to time like an employer not quite trusting his workforce.
Elio was wearing shorts and a shirt marked with one or two stains of varnish, while Sebastiano was in a mechanic’s overall that must have belonged to his father. His hands, after three days of work, were white and unmarked. The weather was mild and the sky covered with flat, inconsistent clouds hinting at the blue behind them.
As they ate, Elio told the story of a man from a nearby village where Leonardo had never been. This man, known to all by the name of Nino Prun, lived in an isolated ruin and several years earlier had bought himself a coffin that he kept in his bedroom. Apart from this eccentricity and a somewhat shabby style of dressing, everyone knew him to be mild, celibate, and reserved.
Two weeks earlier Nino Prun had gone down to the priest’s housekeeper to arrange for the curate to call on him the following day. Although the woman knew that the man had never been a churchgoer, she passed on the message and the next day the priest climbed up to the man’s house in hopes of a late repentance. Instead he had found Nino Prun in his coffin, stiff, washed, combed, and dressed for burial. All the priest had to do was administer benediction and order the lid to be nailed down. The man had left his few belongings on the dresser in two supermarket bags, one marked with the name of a prostitute from C., who by then had no longer worked for a number of years, and the other with the name of the Association of Alpine Mountaineers.
They talked of this and other things just as in earlier years when Elio’s shop had been full of customers, and when it was possible to see people in trains and on benches with one of Leonardo’s books in their hands. Sebastiano shifted his eyes from one to the other as he followed the conversation, but it was as if his silence were concealing thoughts unrelated to what was happening around him. A medieval Japanese poet might have described his figure as combining the strength of a centuries-old tree with the ephemeral wonder of a chrysalis.
“We could try Gallo,” Elio said as they put the dirty plates in the sink.
They lay resting on the veranda floor for half an hour and then loaded the filled baskets on the trailer and set off for the village. Elio took the driving seat while Leonardo and Sebastiano made room for themselves among the baskets. The air was tepid as the light faded and the smell of the grapes caused them a slight dizziness. Bauschan watched the passing countryside from his owner’s arms. Leonardo wished he could travel like this forever.
“Guido, if only you and Lapo and I,” he quoted in a murmur, “could be enchanted and put into a ship with the winds carrying us across the sea to your heart’s content and mine, so that neither destiny nor any other bad weather could impede us, but that on the contrary, united by a common desire, we would feel an ever-increasing need to keep together.”
They passed the carabinieri station. The windows were barred, and crocuses and wild spinach were growing from the steps. It was a year now since the men had been either diverted to the National Guard or transferred to a larger base. The nearest of these was at A., but no one was in a position to say whether there were any carabinieri there anymore, since the Land Rover that used to come every two days and park in the village square was no longer showing up.
When the road divided, they took the route that climbed the hill in gentle curves. The vineyard was at the top of the knoll with its entrance marked by a great red iron gate without any surrounding fence; all around it the vines sloped away like waves in a geometrical sea, to far-off churches and towers still lit by the sun. A clock in the village struck five.
Elio drove the tractor straight into the courtyard. The two-story house, neat as a biscuit, had its laboratory and cellar in an annex. The balconies on the upper floor were luxuriant with geraniums, and apart from some fifty or so cardboard boxes piled in the yard, everything seemed in perfect order.
Elio switched off the motor and headed with Leonardo for the portico, where Cesare Gallo was sitting on a white leather sofa; Sebastiano and the dog stayed in the trailer. Gallo was wearing leather boots and over his shirt collar was one of those leather ties that a hundred years earlier herdsmen on the other side of the world used to put on in honor of the Sunday sermon. Everyone in the district knew that in his basement dining room he kept one of those mechanical bulls that used to be found at fairs.
“Do you want me to laugh?” he said, even before the two men reached the steps. “We only picked our own because the thought of the harvest rotting away broke my heart.”
Elio and Leonardo looked at the yellowing boxes in the middle of the yard: five years earlier they would have been full of bottles that would have been quite inadequate to satisfy constant orders from Russia and the East. A swarm of swifts was circling the yard even though it was not the right season for them.
“Do you know anyone who might want the grapes?” Elio said.
Cesare picked up his glass from the ground and drank. What Leonardo had taken for a cardigan flung on the sofa moved and he realized that it was a gray shorthaired cat.
“If you want a friendly word of advice,” Cesare said, “go to the river and chuck the lot in, then go back home and get drunk like me.”
There was a short silence while each stared at the shoes of the other; then a boy with a large birthmark on his cheek and hair that looked as if it had been cut by someone who had become bored halfway through the job emerged from the shed.
“Allow me to present the last employee of the house of Gallo,” Cesare said.
Leonardo and Elio acknowledged the boy, who r
esponded briefly.
“I’ve turned on the fans,” he told his boss. “Will you take care of turning them off again?”
Cesare nodded. The boy stuck his hands in his pockets and headed for the gate. The green of his overalls seemed to become darker before he vanished among the hedges lining the drive out of the estate. To Leonardo, it was like reading the last page of a South American family saga. A light breeze stirred a couple of lemon trees under the portico. Then Cesare got up and gestured to them to follow him.
The terrace around back was piled with a haphazard collection of furniture, children’s toys, and other objects. It looked as though several rooms had been emptied according to some criterion connected with the size of their contents. Below this, beyond the parapet, the plain extended in regular geometrical shapes defined by the fields and roads that linked the villages. It was a magnificent view. Far off the foothills of the mountains were hidden by a layer of mist that left their summits free.
“Look at the main road to C.,” Cesare said, offering them a small pair of binoculars from his pocket. “That’s how it’s been since this morning.”
Elio looked first, then passed the binoculars to Leonardo who took several seconds to find the road. Both lanes were jammed with a continuous line of motionless vehicles.
“My family left at seven,” Cesare said, “and at midday I could still see them. They’d gone five kilometers, more or less.”
“Are you the only one staying behind?” Elio asked.
Cesare nodded.
“After what happened at C., Rita couldn’t be persuaded. So we loaded the truck last night. They’re headed to our house in Nice.”
“What was it that happened?” Leonardo asked.
“Haven’t you heard? They committed every kind of obscenity and set fire to the village before leaving. This morning Stefano Pellissero ran to see if his sister was all right. He said all you can do is tear your hair out. It’s like war’s passed through.”
“Were they outsiders?” Elio asked.
“It seems so, but people say some of them spoke Italian.”
Going back to the front of the house they found the tractor abandoned. Neither Sebastiano nor the dog were to be seen. The setting sun had transformed the courtyard into a uniform gray lake on which the tractor and its trailer seemed to be floating.
“Did you know he was unfrocked because of a woman?” Cesare said.
Leonardo did know but said nothing.
After seminary, Sebastiano had taught in the college of theology, but after several years asked for, and was given, a parish in upcountry Liguria. There he had gotten to know a woman whose man was often away at sea. The relationship continued in secret for nearly a year, then Sebastiano abandoned his work as a priest to be with her. But at this point the woman decided to stay with her boyfriend. Everyone said the disappointment had deprived Sebastiano of his senses and speech.
“You have to know how to control women,” Cesare said. “I’ve known Rita for thirty-six years and there’s nothing about her I could possibly complain of, but if one day she stuck a knife between my ribs I wouldn’t look at her with astonishment as I died. It’s not a question of malice or bad faith. Women can just wake up one day with a new idea in their heads. It’s their nature. If you can’t accept this possibility, it’s better not to get involved at all. Let alone risk losing your speech!”
They heard the door behind them open. They turned to see Sebastiano on the threshold: he was holding the dog in his arms and had draped a cowhide around his shoulders, fastening it at the throat with a curtain cord.
“Hey!” Cesare said. “That’s my bedroom carpet!”
Sebastiano passed between them and went toward the trailer. His cloak smacked against his heels like a whip. It was a dappled cowhide but in some places so threadbare that the animal’s skin was visible.
“Can you let him have it?” Leonardo asked.
Cesare shrugged, picked his glass up from the floor and took a swig.
“Are these Barbera grapes?” he asked, indicating the trailer.
“Yes,” Leonardo said.
Cesare scratched his chin; he had not shaved that morning.
“I let Rita take all the cash,” he said, “but if you like, we could do a deal.”
In half an hour they had unloaded the grapes and replaced them on the trailer with a crate of potatoes and another containing cauliflowers, carrots, chicory, and a large pumpkin.
On the way back Leonardo hugged himself: a cold wind was blowing from the mountains and moving the tops of the trees. A few gloomy black clouds were floating around the moon and the countryside seemed full of unknown things. Once home, they unloaded the cases and Elio went back to the village. Left on their own, Leonardo and Sebastiano looked at the river: the water was shining like a strip of pewter against a black cloth. Bauschan sniffed the cowhide. Sebastiano bent down to stroke him.
“Nothing that goes from outside into a man can defile him,” he said.
Leonardo looked at him; his voice had passed through his body without leaving any trace as if through an empty pipe, but the silence around them had been completely transformed.
“Does that mean we should prepare ourselves?” he asked, but got no answer.
When Sebastiano had gone, Leonardo went into his book room and looked in St. Mark’s gospel. He read: “Nothing that goes from outside into a man can defile him. It is what comes out of a man that defiles him. For from inside, out of a man’s heart, come evil thoughts, acts of fornication, of theft, murder, adultery, ruthless greed, and malice; fraud, indecency, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly; these evil things all come from inside, and they defile the man.”
He tore out the page, folded it, and put it in his wallet. It was the first time he had heard Sebastiano speak. He was sure he would never hear him speak again.
Throughout the whole of October the line of cars continued to move slowly through the valley toward France, without thinning out. It was not easy to find out what was happening: the national radio had not been broadcasting for weeks and the only stations you could pick up were independent ones broadcasting music programs. Both landline telephones and cell phones were silent, and the Internet had been the first thing to crash. The only remaining source of information was television, which for several days now had been transmitting classical music concerts. A journalist made an appearance late one evening to read a government communication that claimed the situation was stable and urged citizens to be vigilant. Practical advice was also available about food and water, garbage collection, and the precautions to be taken by anyone planning to travel.
Halfway through the month a delegation went to the valley to interview the lined-up travelers. The picture they brought back was schizophrenic. Many maintained that the northeast of the country was in the hands of plundering gangs who took everything they could lay hands on and that although the National Guard controlled a few cities and major routes of communication, otherwise all law and order had broken down. Others, however, reported that things were near normal. They complained of a shortage of gasoline and other necessities but insisted they had seen or heard nothing of assaults or other violence. One man from T. said that in the city the market was crowded, the shops open as usual, and the streets well protected by the military. When asked in that case why he was taking his family to France, he answered, “To be on the safe side.”
The consequence, in any case, was that the country began emptying. The first to leave were those who had relatives or friends beyond the frontier, also families with children. Those who stayed behind were the old, people who were waiting for somebody, and those like Cesare Gallo, who would have stayed even if bombs had been falling.
Leonardo spent the month reading on the veranda or in the book room. Elio had closed his shop and passed by most days for a chat, updating him on who had left and on the general state of affairs. When the weather was fine, they would walk as far as the hill of Sant’Eugidio. There was a small Romanes
que church on top of it, surrounded by an English-style churchyard, in which the most recent grave was a century old. Bauschan loved this walk for the river, the stretch of woodland, and the bushes from which he could make the thrushes rise.
When he ran out of provisions, Leonardo was forced to go into the village, which he had avoided since the night of the fire. Only Norina’s grocery, the bar, the baker’s, the pharmacy, and the butcher’s were still open. All the other shops had drawn their shutters with no notices to say why they were closed or for how long. Apart from a knot of old people leaning on the balustrade of the belvedere and commenting on the length of the line of cars down in the valley, the square was deserted. The narrow streets were full of the stench of the grapes rotting in the vineyards.
Waiting his turn at the grocer’s, Leonardo noticed the only subjects of conversation among those who were left were medications, gasoline, and cigarettes since no one knew if or when any of these would arrive. When he bought a loaf of bread, he told the three women who ran the shop that he would be going down to A. on business and would find out all he could about the availability of these goods; they looked at him as though he were a young blond volunteer sticking his head out of the window of a train heading for the front.
The next day he settled Bauschan on the rear seat, started the car, and drove through the village under the skeptical eyes of the old men on the belvedere. During the eighteen kilometers to A. he only passed two cars and one small truck going in the opposite direction. Many of the houses along the route had their windows barred and the fields looked neglected, but apart from this the hills had a gentle autumnal air while the Dolcetto vines were already a vivid yellow, the Barberas turning wine-red, and the Nebbiolos still green.
Things gradually changed the closer he got to the town. It seemed as if everything had suddenly grown old: shop signs, warehouses, supermarkets, even the road signs: everything seemed faded and cold. The gas pumps looked like archaeological relics, and the trucks and car transporters cluttering up the open spaces were like tanks from some ancient war waiting to be overgrown with ivy and rust away.