The Heron

by Giorgio Bassani

  Meanwhile, it was moving ever further away, arduously dragging its broken wing behind it, and he felt able to read this whole chain of reasoning from the posture of its stubborn little slender neck. But how wrong it was! – he suddenly exclaimed to himself. It was completely deluding itself – fine, as far as reaching the sandbank, but the dog, soon to be off the leash and free to follow her nose, with all that blood it kept on losing, wouldn’t have the slightest difficulty in flushing it out – it was fooling itself to such an extent, it was obvious, the stupid thing, that if the thought of shooting it hadn’t seemed to him the very same in some way as shooting himself, he would have immediately opened fire. So that, if nothing else, it would be all over.

  III

  * * *

  1

  He wanted to return to Codigoro as soon as possible.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Gavino was saying. ‘If you need me again, you can always contact me via the engineer.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘And thanks.’

  ‘For what? It’s me that should be thanking you.’

  He had already backed the car up. Through the windscreen he could see the humped back of the suspension bridge. In a moment, he would be gone.

  He wound up the car window, and only at this moment, after a fairly animated disagreement between them about the distribution of the game – he trying to offload the whole lot on to Gavino and the latter obstinately refusing to accept any of it – he began to examine the man’s face. Dignified, as ever, but on the alert – cracked lips, the gaunt face of one who’s gone hungry, he was smiling weakly, as if asking to be forgiven. Finally, he was confident that, even through the dirty window, he could see Gavino for who he really was. Someone paid a wage of five hundred lire a day. In the end an undistinguished peasant, a poor devil.

  And yet, a minute or so later on the minor road to Pomposa, going over this again in his mind gave him no comfort. A hired labourer – he kept repeating to himself – a wretch who, despite the airs he gave himself of being a gentleman and a Communist Party member, despite his pretence of not accepting any gifts, not even a brace of ducks, and especially not the carcass of a heron fit only to hand over to the taxidermist. On his motorbike and with the dog straining to trot along behind him, who knows how long it would take him to reach Codigoro? It was utterly useless. Without worrying that the car going at full speed might end up in the valley or else in the wide canal which, after Pomposa, flanked the right-hand side of the road, he took the curves so fast that the tyres whistled on the asphalt; it was exactly as if Gavino, the dog, and everything the two of them forced him to remember, were gaining on him, or were even now hot on his heels.

  He sped along with his hands gripping the steering wheel and his eyes fixed on the road; and kept on thinking.

  At Codigoro, he would certainly have been able to get rid of the dead birds with which the car boot was crammed: an embarrassing and revolting freight that at every curve he seemed to sense shifting softly from side to side. At Codigoro, in addition, famished as he was – since the moment he’d turned his back on the Tuffanelli house and Volano, he had again felt such an appetite that he feared nothing would satisfy it – he could eat a proper meal, and not only the ‘fine turbot’ which Bellagamba had spoken of at eight o’clock that morning, but anything and everything else he cared to order. What’s more, the stop at Codigoro, which fitted in perfectly with his plan, would give him an excuse to put off, for at least another three hours, his return to Ferrara, which, with every kilometre, seemed overcast with ever-darker and gloomier hues. All things considered, between having lunch, offloading the game on to somebody and relaxing for a while – and Ulderico? Couldn’t he also pay a visit to the Cavaglieri household? – he wouldn’t have time to hit the road again before six. And if at six, the fog were to come, all well and good. In that case he would arrive when he arrived – with the dinner table already cleared, or maybe, all of them would already have gone to bed by then, the Manzolis downstairs included.

  A little before Codigoro, at the same level as the cemetery, a compact, black wall of mist suddenly appeared in front of the bonnet, obliging him to put his foot down violently on the brake. Fog, no, it didn’t seem to him like fog. Perhaps it was only a low cloud which a breath of wind would be strong enough to disperse. In the meanwhile, however, at hardly a quarter past three in the afternoon it was as if night had already fallen. The clear air that had surrounded him until only a moment ago now seemed in the distant past, so remote as to be unbelievable.

  He entered the town at walking pace, headlights ablaze and windscreen wipers on the go. He could hardly see a thing. The smoky dark, his impatience to sit down before a sumptuously laid table and, most of all, the persistent feeling of being pursued, absurd as of course he knew it was, but no less real for that, made him unable to turn his gaze away from the unbroken yellowish glare that was revealed before him by the headlights. He progressed laboriously, as if through a kind of underground alleyway, ever more anxiously impatient to be in the dining-room of the Bosco Elìceo. The small lobby of the hotel and the floors above it, he more or less knew. But the dining-room, doubtless adjoining the lobby on the other side of the wall opposite the staircase, what was that like? He imagined that, by now, at a quarter past three, it was full of loud, happy folk, of eaters and drinkers used to eating and drinking for hour after hour, slowly and without pause, in a warm, perhaps overheated atmosphere flooded with electric light and impregnated with the smells of food, damp clothes and greasy leather. And he couldn’t but marvel that, for such surroundings, which in normal circumstances he would have faced with reluctance, oppressed in spirit, fearful of unpleasant encounters, he now experienced in himself such a strong and irresistible attraction.

  Cutting across the dark, fluctuating lake of mist which submerged the square, he took the narrow road towards the Bosco Elìceo, and in a few moments was in front of the hotel. Parked along the curb on the other side of the street opposite the hotel was a row of cars. But there was no shortage of parking space right there in front of a lateral strip of neon, already lit. As he was manoeuvring into the space, Bellagamba came into his mind again. Perhaps he would be willing to take the game off his hands? In which case, parking the Aprilia there would be very convenient. Unburdening the boot of the dead birds and carrying them inside would be a cinch, and the neon light would further facilitate the whole operation.

  He got out of the car. As the guns were in the boot as well, he didn’t bother to lock the door. He crossed to the other side of the street. He pushed open the hotel’s glass door and entered, taking off his cap in the warmth and the smell.

  No one was in the small office with the desk, not even the old guy with the salt-and-pepper thatch with whom he’d exchanged a few words that morning. But the confused noise of voices and crockery that issued from behind the swing doors to the right of him immediately set his heart racing. So he wasn’t mistaken! In no time, when he arrived in the dining-room, he would surely find, if not a plate of food ready for him to devour immediately, then everything else he desired: calm, safety, a better mood, a precise and balanced sense of things. But then, during the brief wait for some real food to get his teeth into, couldn’t he just begin with half a loaf of bread and with a glass of house wine? Drinking had never really been his thing. Yet today, perhaps because of the dank cold he’d endured in the hide, he felt a real desire for wine. Almost more than for food.

  As soon as he’d entered the dining-room, he saw it was a huge crowded space, noisy and smoky, just as he’d imagined it, true, but much darker, and so with something sad and squalid about it. Bellagamba rushed to welcome him with open arms. When he’d first come in, the man was standing gesticulating by a table of ten or so customers, far away, the one furthest from the door, beneath a window on the back wall. He was laughing and making the others laugh – telling them who knows what. Until he spotted him. Then he immediately abandoned the company.

  ‘I was convinced you’d
gone straight back to the city,’ he said in dialect, raising his voice above the noise. ‘So how did it go?’

  He shook his hand between both of his own while studying him solicitously with his gaze. With no jacket on, he was still wearing that rust-grey pullover with a kind of cyclist’s high collar and which extended over his riding breeches.

  He winked.

  ‘Have you already had lunch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What an appetite you must have by now then.’

  ‘Not too bad, but I’d like to eat.’

  He’d expressed himself drily, much more so than he would have liked. The fact was that he found this long preamble exasperating.

  ‘Right away. Right away,’ the other stammered, intimidated, stepping aside.

  He was looking round.

  ‘Would you like to sit over there?’ he finally proposed, pointing to a table in the corner, to the left of the entrance.

  From a distance, he noticed the tablecloth covered with crumbs, used toothpicks and wine stains, and once more felt a shiver of disgust. But there was no other choice.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  He walked on, reached the table and sat down.

  He took a deep breath.

  ‘What can you offer me?’

  ‘Whatever you’d like,’ Bellagamba replied.

  He was facing him from the other side of the table, a little bent forwards, resting his hands on the back of a chair. Behind him, the waiters – four or five stout country lads with dirty white jackets like hospital stretcher-bearers, continually in demand, laden with plates, red in the face, their necks dripping with sweat and constantly rushing between the kitchen and dining-room – went by without giving them a look.

  ‘I still have that fine turbot,’ he added, winking again. ‘I’ve kept it aside specially for you.’

  ‘Good. Will it take long to cook?’

  ‘Depends. Depends on whether you’d like it boiled or grilled. Boiled would be only twenty minutes.’

  He’d have to be patient. He lowered his eyelids.

  ‘And grilled?’

  ‘Longer. At least half an hour.’

  He opened his eyes and looked at his watch. Three thirty.

  ‘I’ll have it boiled then,’ he said. ‘But in the meantime, have you something already prepared? To have now.’

  Bellagamba revealed his small, compact teeth in a nervous smile. The veins in his forehead were strangely swollen. What was wrong with him? From the depths of their sockets, his blue eyes were staring at him bewildered, or so he thought: with the anxiety, for whatever reason, of an animal that senses danger.

  ‘Would you like a fish starter?’ he murmured. ‘Prawns, baby octopus, mantis shrimps, marinaded eel … there’s a bit of everything.’

  He felt his mouth fill with a gush of saliva.

  He swallowed.

  ‘Go on, bring them,’ he replied.

  And while the other man was already walking away towards the door that opened on to the kitchen, he added:

  ‘Don’t forget the bread. And the wine.’

  Soon he felt suffocated by the heat.

  He stood up, took off his heavy jacket and one of the two pullovers he was wearing and threw them down in a heap with his fur cap on the seat opposite. Despite this, as soon as he sat down again he realized that wouldn’t do. The skin on his forehead, his nose, his cheeks, enflamed by long exposure to the sun and the wind, had begun to feel swelteringly hot. With his elbows leaning on the table and his face in his hands, he reflected that, naturally, the only thing to do would be to have a wash in some cold water straightaway. And he was about to get up to look for the ground-floor toilets, when, seeing Bellagamba rushing towards him between the tables, laden with plates of antipasto and bread, and also with a bottle of wine clasped tightly under his left armpit, and with a clean tablecloth folded in four, he changed his mind. For now, he might as well fill up with a bit of food. And later, if he still wanted to, he could go and freshen up.

  2

  Bellagamba wished him ‘buon appetito’, and before the man had turned on his heels he had already started in on the antipasto. He was famished – what an appetite! It felt like he’d never had such an appetite in his whole life.

  He filled his mouth with the sweet and sour pulp of crustaceans and swallowed, then washed it down with gulps of wine and stuffed himself with bread. Very quickly, however, he felt disgusted – with the food and with himself. What good was it all? he wondered. With his head lowered, in his corner, in that heat, in that stink, in that greasy and promiscuous half-darkness, to be chewing away, swallowing, sucking, swilling. As his stomach swelled his sense of disgust increased.

  Worse than ever – that, unfortunately, was how things were.

  Once again, there was nothing that didn’t grate and jostle and hurt him. Between one mouthful and the next, he had only to lift his head, to let his eyes rove around the dining-room, and, each time he did so, whether his gaze fell on that long table entirely composed of hunters that when he’d entered he’d spotted Bellagamba attending to – he’d gone back to them and had immediately begun talking, arguing, bawling confusedly, laughing – or else if he exchanged glances with another customer, it didn’t matter which, but especially with a woman of about thirty, dark-haired, pale, stout, heavily made-up, who was sitting at a table not far from his own, without doubt a prostitute: her mouth declared it to him, the way she smoked, her nails, her dark, unduly respectable trouser suit, her fur coat arranged with care, as if on a coat-hanger over the back of the chair beside her, the large handbag placed in plain view beside the ashtray crammed full of butts, and her eyes, mainly her eyes, black, opaque, a bit like an animal’s, which roved untiringly in search of clients to take upstairs (of course with the connivance of the owner, of Signor Gino) to one of the hotel rooms – each time, he was overwhelmed by a sense of envy very like that which had tormented him all morning in the hide, when he hadn’t managed to find the strength to fire off a single shot, despite the double-barrelled shotgun he’d been toting in his hands. How careless and happy they were, all these others! he kept repeating to himself, lowering his head to his plate once more. How clever they were to be able to enjoy life! His food, it was clear, was of a different kind, irremediably different from that of normal people who, once they’ve eaten and drunk, think of nothing else but digesting it all. Throwing himself at the food and drink would do him little good. When, after the antipasto, he had guzzled the rest of it as well, the turbot, the gorgonzola, the orange, the coffee, he would slump back into his glum ruminations about the usual things, both old and new. He felt them waiting in ambush for him, ready to leap on him, as before and as always, and all of them together.

  Wherever he was, Bellagamba didn’t lose sight of him for a second, that he was sure of. The birds, he thought. Why hadn’t he immediately asked Bellagamba to take them? Perhaps the disquiet that continued to torment him was down to that and only that.

  He raised his hand and signalled.

  Passing swiftly between the tables, the other man came towards him.

  ‘Is everything fine?’ he asked with a worried air, nodding at the plate.

  He swallowed and dried his lips with the napkin.

  ‘Perfect,’ he replied.

  He didn’t know where to begin.

  ‘Listen,’ he finally said. ‘My car boot is full of game. Would you like to have it?’

  He saw that Bellagamba was smiling. It was obvious. The man thought he was proposing a deal, a business arrangement. Or perhaps a kind of small exchange in kind: some game for a lunch, and later, a bed.

  ‘It’s a gift,’ he added. ‘Let’s be clear about that.’

  He downed the whole glass of wine in one swig and again wiped his mouth.

  ‘With all the ducks and coots,’ he went on, ‘I think there might be more than forty birds. Among them all there should even be … even be a heron.’

  ‘Heavens!’ exclaimed Bellagamba. ‘A heron. How
did you manage to shoot that? It’ll be one of the white ones, I’m guessing.’

  ‘No. A red one.’

  He said this. And suddenly, in the dusky light, after the shots had been fired, as if the large, earthy and confused face that was leaning down in front of him from the other side of the table had been whisked away, he once again saw the dog with the heron in her mouth. Utterly bled dry – the dog had reached it among the tobacco-coloured plants of the shoreline to his right when it was already dead – how much could it have weighed? Little more than its feathers did, so hardly anything at all …

  He blinked.

  ‘What a shame!’ Bellagamba said, his lips twisted in a grimace of disappointment. ‘The white ones are bigger, more beautiful, and look far better when they’re stuffed … But the red ones are lovely big birds as well. Would you like me to organize that, to have it all sorted for your next visit? Here in the square –’ and saying this he lifted his arm to point to the square outside, shrouded in shadow and fog – ‘here in the square we have a shop where they do these things very well,’ adding, in dialect, ‘a sight better than you’d find in the city, if you ask me. If you’d like we can go over there later and take a look. Today, it’s a holiday, but they keep the window lit up, even on Sundays.’