Soul of the Border

by Matteo Righetto

  Gradually, their voices grew fainter until they disappeared down the mountainside. Jole watched them until they were just tiny dots. Then they disappeared completely.

  She heaved a sigh of relief and went back to Samson.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”

  She continued for a few more hours. The rocky mountains, which were the same colour as her eyes, grew larger as she advanced towards their slopes.

  She came to a deep blue lake set in a wild basin, its shores populated with choughs and wagtails. Buzzards circled endlessly in the sky, repeatedly emitting their hunting cries.

  She advanced some more until she came to another stream that plunged into a raging waterfall. She stopped and listened with eyes closed to the wonderful roar of its waves, and a fine dusting of icy water rose from the current and washed her wind- and sun-reddened face, offering her welcome relief from the heat.

  Some fifty paces from her, on the same bank, she saw a large hare. Now was the right time and place to fire, she thought. With the clamour of the waterfall, nobody would be able to hear the shot.

  She took the rifle, aimed at the hare and with one shot blew it away. She dismounted to collect it and smiled when she saw how big it was. She tied it proudly to one of the laces hanging from Samson’s harness and went on her way.

  Just before sunset, hungry and exhausted, she came to a place that her father had called Val Storta: an Alpine basin which descended rapidly from a cleft in the rocks to a meadow flanked by two high cliffs that sheltered it from the biting winds. There Jole came across a cowherd with his Burlina cows: she counted twenty-seven in his herd.

  The sky was bright blue, and the only two clouds that stood out were suffused with the yellow and pink and gold of sunset. The air had quickly turned light, brisk and prickly.

  She rode slowly through the cows towards the cowherd, who watched her coming impassively, his eyes full of yearning, the way all cowherds look when they return from the summer pasture after being isolated from the world for months on end.

  She remembered what was said in Nevada about the cowherds, which was that they were always staring into space because during those weeks of solitude the witches and anguine—the spirits of the woods—had stolen their memories and sometimes even their souls.

  Remaining on her horse, she drew level with him and greeted him.

  In response, he raised one arm.

  Jole looked around, pushed her hat back on her brow and introduced herself. “My name is Vich,” she said, lying about her surname. “Jole Vich.”

  “Toni Zonch. How do you do?”

  His face was dirty and burnt by the sky, his hands seemed like the tangled branches of a locust tree and his clothes stank of wind and rain and urine.

  She dismounted and they spoke a little. Toni was only sixteen, although he looked twenty years older. He lived near Arsiè and in a few days’ time would be returning to his village after pasturing his cows on the Vette Feltrine.

  “There’s a cowshed up there, half an hour’s walk from here,” he said, “and that’s where I lived in the summer. After a season at altitude, going back home seems the easiest thing, but actually it’s the hardest, because that’s when wolves and bears attack the herd.”

  “Does that happen?”

  “Two days ago I lost two young calves near here, torn to pieces by wolves.”

  “Don’t you have a rifle?”

  “Yes, I do, but in some cases it’s not much use.”

  “It’s not much use if you don’t know how to use it,” she said. “Shall we share our dinner?” she added, seizing the hare by the ears and showing it to him.

  They camped out, she with her rifle loaded and he with his three mangy dogs, who seemed even more distracted than their master. They lit a fire behind a crag so as not to be seen, skinned the hare and roasted it on a spit, then Jole took out some old bread and Toni offered her Burlina cow’s milk and smoked roebuck meat. They spent the rest of the time in silence more than in speech, watching the tongues of fire as it crackled at the foot of the crag, the sparks rising into the dark sky.

  She thought again about her journey and the effort it had involved.

  Her legs were hard and painful, her back felt as if it was broken and her arse bruised and numb from bouncing on Samson’s withers.

  “Why aren’t you going back to the cowshed tonight?” she asked.

  “Because it would be more risky going back up there than staying here. I’m behind, because I lost a cow and spent hours searching for it. By the time I stopped, the sun was already starting to set. I wouldn’t have had time to get back to the shed. It’s better to stay here tonight.”

  “I can see that.”

  “But you’re a smuggler, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  He smiled. “I’ve told you what I do, where I come from and where I’m going, and you haven’t told me a damned thing.”

  She said nothing.

  “Have it your way, it makes no difference. You can trust me anyway. I wouldn’t gain anything by denouncing you to the police. That lot are bigger criminals than the criminals.”

  Jole burst out laughing, then stood up and went over to Samson. When she came back to the fire, she offered the cowherd a small handful of shag and a dry birch leaf.

  He rolled the curls of tobacco in the leaf, licked it and finally lit it. His eyes closed, he voluptuously breathed in the dense, strong-smelling blue smoke.

  “You’ve given me a wonderful gift,” he said after two deep drags.

  “For your hospitality.”

  “For that you must thank the stars.”

  “I already have.”

  “So, you’re carrying tobacco. I knew it. I’ve never seen a woman smuggler before.”

  “Here I am!”

  “Who are you thinking of giving the tobacco to around here? The chamois and the mouflons?”

  “I’m going across the border.”

  He opened wide his eyes, which for a moment seemed to have come back to life, then said, “Oh, the Krauts. I don’t want to know anything more, but it’s going to be hard, you know that?”

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve done it.”

  Continuing to savour the cigarette, the cowherd lay down on the ground, his eyes turned to the sky.

  In the meantime, the air had grown cold, and around the two of them there was nothing to be seen. In spite of the crackling of the fire, they could clearly hear the howling of wolves.

  “Do you hear them?” the cowherd asked.

  She clutched St Paul to her and said, “They won’t come tonight.”

  She was far from sure of that, of course, but out of personal pride she did not want to appear insecure. Spending the night with someone else was better than spending it alone, but she knew it was good not to trust anyone.

  Out of the blue, she said, “Have you ever met a man named Augusto De Boer?”

  “At pasture you meet lots of wild animals, but no humans.”

  “Not very tall, black moustache.”

  “No. Where would I have met him?”

  “Here or anywhere, in the last two years.”

  “What did this man do to you?”

  She did not reply.

  They were silent for a few minutes more, looking at the fire, then Jole discreetly moved away.

  “Night,” she said to him.

  “Night!”

  They each prepared for sleep, fifty paces from one another.

  Jole lay down next to Samson, covered herself with two coarse woollen blankets and looked up at the sky above her.

  There were a large number of stars, big shiny stars sparkling like multicoloured fountains of life. It seemed to her as if they had a voice and were about to tell her something. They wanted to say benign words to her, she thought, words of good omen. Then she realized the stupidity of that romantic idea. If her father had heard her, he would have made fun of her.

  5

  THOSE THR
EE YEARS without Augusto had been very difficult for the De Boers. Keeping the house, the cowshed and, above all, the masiere going had proved harder than they might have imagined. Growing Nostrano tobacco was a task as delicate as it was laborious, and only the head of the family knew all its secrets, from the planting to the drying. Agnese and Jole had divided up the tasks that had always been Augusto’s, but because of their inexperience things had not always gone well.

  God, if you exist, bring my father home soon, Jole had thought one day in June as she was washing the shoots of tobacco.

  Agnese, a few metres away, had thought the same thing, and as she worked with stooped back, her long hair peeking out from the kerchief, she had moved her lips to pray to that God in whom she had a blind faith, that same God whom Jole had never known in her life.

  6

  THE NEXT DAY she woke late. When she opened her eyes the sun was already high and the air mild. She sat up abruptly and saw that Samson was beside her as if to protect her.

  She realized that she had slept more than she should, which was bound to affect her timetable. She got to her feet and folded the blankets. She looked around and noticed that there was nobody there, neither the Burlina cows nor their young cowherd, who must have gone back to the cowshed to milk them. She checked to see if everything was in its place: her equipment, the food, the tobacco.

  It was all there. She took fifty paces and noticed that a thin thread of smoke was still rising from the fire that she and the cowherd had lit the evening before. That was not to her liking: someone might have been able to see it, even from a distance. She kicked the embers and ashes and extinguished the last remaining lighted coals.

  She quickly washed her face in a little stream that ran beneath one of the two cliffs and then, seeing that the sun had warmed the air a little, decided she would also take off the jerseys she was wearing and wash her neck and breasts. On contact with the cold water she shivered and goose pimples appeared on her skin. She dried herself with a cloth, quickly dressed, filled the canteens and set off again in a northerly direction, towards Mount Pavione, leaving those open, limitless spaces and going back into the forests of broad-leaved trees that would conceal her presence until early afternoon.

  She and her horse advanced between hazels and locust trees, downy oaks, black hornbeams, beeches, maples, ashes and chestnut trees. Jole proceeded without stopping once, cautious and furtive, but also sure that she was quite protected from the customs patrols and convinced that she would make up for the time she had lost. After a while, the mountainside began to grow ever steeper. The climb ahead of her was going to be a hard one.

  After hours of travelling, Samson was tired again, and Jole decided to stop and get a better idea of where she was. She tied the horse to the trunk of an ash and proceeded on foot for a while, climbing back up the ridge to see if there were any gaps in the vegetation that would her help find her bearings.

  At last she came to a small promontory from which the massif of Mount Pavione could clearly be made out, its slopes now less than two hours’ journey away, although all of it uphill.

  She ran down to get Samson, sliding and tumbling a couple of times in the undergrowth, which was covered in dry leaves.

  “Keep going!” she said to the horse, stroking his blond mane. “Another couple of hours and then we’ll stop until tomorrow morning.”

  For a while she continued on foot, holding Samson by the reins to make it easier for him, although it was certainly not his mistress’s weight that bothered him, but rather the wearying length of the journey and the load he was carrying.

  The ascent grew uneven. As they proceeded, the woods around them changed colour and smell. They left behind them the broad-leaved trees and entered a forest of spruces populated with woodpeckers, jays and squirrels.

  Every now and again, the shrill, repeated call of a crow would announce their presence to all the animals of the forest.

  Every now and again, Samson would drink at a puddle or a trickle of water emerging from the undergrowth.

  Every now and again, Jole would wonder if she was ever going to make it.

  After a while they came to a clearing, and from there Jole was able to make out the Croce d’Aune pass, a long way below them.

  She drank from the canteen, feeling cheered because it seemed to her that she had passed this way with her father. Without lingering, she went back into the woods and continued on foot beneath the Vette Feltrine, towards the great Mount Pavione, which rose majestically ahead of her.

  After half an hour, exhausted, she stopped for a moment to get a better look at it.

  There was something totemic, almost sacred about it.

  That’s it, that’s the mountain! That’s the border!

  Just beyond its ridge was the border with Austria, with the Tyrol, and on the side opposite that wall were the Noana Valley and the Primiero Valley, where she was headed.

  It was four in the afternoon when she got back on Samson, and for another half hour she rode on, constantly climbing.

  When the sun again slipped behind the mountains, Jole decided that the moment had come to stop, but she wanted to make sure of finding the ideal spot, a safe place. A few minutes later, she heard strange noises coming from her left and froze like a statue. She took the rifle, slowly dismounted and slipped between the branches of the spruce trees and their highly intricate roots coming up from the ground.

  She was curious to find out what it was.

  She saw that the forest opened onto a small area of beaten earth. It was from there that the noises were coming: what seemed like the sounds of breaking branches and sharp blows. She leant forward a little more and clearly saw a man in the process of building a large woodpile.

  He had only just started, but had already planted three wooden poles in the ground, held together by two rings formed from branches. The man stopped for a moment, took a bottle from a large bag and drank greedily. At that moment, Jole accidentally trod on a dry branch and snapped it.

  The noise alerted the man, who turned towards the woods where Jole was hiding.

  “Who goes there?” he cried, brandishing a shovel.

  Now that she had been discovered, it was pointless to hide: the man would come and look for her. She decided to come out into the open.

  She put her rifle over her shoulder to show that she was not a threat, took two steps and emerged from the woods.

  “It’s me!” she cried as she did so.

  “And who might you be?”

  “I’m just passing through. I heard noises and wanted to see what it was.”

  “Haven’t you ever seen a charcoal burner at work?” he said, raising the bottle to his lips again.

  Jole took a few steps forward and looked at him more closely. He had a huge stomach, a swollen, ruddy face and large, good-natured eyes. “No.”

  They shook hands.

  “Jole!”

  “Guglielmo.”

  She noticed that he stank of grappa.

  “And where are you from, Jole?”

  “The Brenta Valley, more or less.”

  “Tobacco?”

  “No.”

  He laughed. “Then what’s that rifle for, girl? You haven’t come here to kill me, by any chance?”

  “Maybe, who knows?”

  They both laughed. Then he drank some more grappa. “Well, sorry if I’m not the best of company,” he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, “but as you can see I’m busy. I’m stopping here for a few days before I go back to Santa Monica with a bit of charcoal. That’s what I do for a living. Santa Monica is the village where I live, down there, beyond the Val Storta. You can do whatever you like. If you want to camp around here for the night, go ahead. And now, excuse me, but I have to carry on working, these sunny days are a real blessing. It’s been years since there was an Indian summer like this.”

  Jole smiled. “Are there customs men around here?” she asked.

  The charcoal burner looked at her for a moment
questioningly, then again wiped his lips with the back of his hand, looked around and said, “There’s nobody, not even anyone’s dog.”

  They both smiled.

  “I’ll fetch my horse and camp out here in the meadow for the night, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Do whatever you like, girl, I have to work!”

  And without looking at her, he took up his shovel again and started beating a few pieces of wood, then tied them to the branches that were holding together the three large poles stuck in the ground.

  There was an all-pervading and very pleasant smell of resin and fresh timber.

  She moved away from the clearing and went back into the woods to fetch Samson, who was quivering and swishing his tail constantly to swat away the multitude of insects that were molesting him, attracted by his sweat.

  Then she led him back to the clearing and set up camp some distance away, beneath the stars and a crescent moon obscured by a layer of high, thin clouds that also crowned the peak of Mount Pavione. She lay down on the ground and arranged her blankets over her.

  She remembered her mother, brother and sister. At the thought of them, she was moved. They felt so close and yet so far. She took out the little wooden horse she had in her pocket and clutched it to her chest.

  “My darlings,” she said, addressing the stars, “give me the strength to keep going and do what I have to do. I feel quite alone, but if I think of you I find the necessary strength in myself. Think of me, too. Mother, pray for me, you know how to do it.”

  Her moment of weakness passed. It could not be otherwise: she could not afford to give in.

  Just before going to sleep, she nibbled some hardened salami and mature Bastardo and watched from a distance as the man worked ceaselessly, even after sunset, between one swig of grappa and another.

  7

  IT TAKES STRENGTH, guile, skill and experience to make a good charcoal pile. In a word: craft.