by John Berger
The cream was thickening, leaving the side of the bowl. I watched Pasquale talking. There was a sadness in his face. He had stopped his story. Silence.
Do you have a brother or sister? I asked.
Not one. My mother died when I was born.
And your father?
He went to America and we never heard from him. He disappeared into America like a tear into a well, my aunt says.
Again silence—only the noise of my fork in the bowl.
Go on, I said, go on.
I started stripping her from the top and she began to roll from the head. Nothing stops a rolling tree except another tree or a rock. I hesitated because I was worried about the machine. It was a new one we had just bought. If you hesitate, you’re lost. I jumped too late, holding the machine above my head. In the gulley I began to slide, it was as steep as the side of a pyramid. I slid over onto some dry rocks below and they broke a leg.
Could you get up?
The machine wasn’t hurt!
No machine is worth a broken leg.
A machine like that costs half a million.
A long silence.
You couldn’t get up?
They carried me home to the hut and laid me on the bed. Father said: Pasquale, can you wait till tomorrow? At first I didn’t understand. Wait for what? Before we take you to hospital. That’s twenty-four hours, I said. I’ll sit with you, he replied, pain gets worse when you’re alone. No, go back and work, I told him. Next day, Monday, they took me to hospital. I handed him the bowl and he began to eat the cream. His huge hands rested on the table. To eat he lowered his head to the spoon. When he had finished he screwed up his face and smiled.
I’ve never tasted cream as good as that, he said.
Why didn’t they take you to hospital immediately?
Because it was Sunday.
Well?
On Sundays we are not insured. What we do on Sundays is at our own risk. He looked at me very seriously. Like what we do today, he said.
There was another long silence and we did nothing.
If you come next Sunday with your friends, I said, I’ll make a tart to go with the cream.
A few days later Danielle had the idea of passing by the arolle tree to get to the ridge above Nîmes—blueberries abound there—and then climbing down the scree to surprise Marius, whom she had neglected to visit for a week or two. She filled her bucket with berries and her fingers were stained blue as they used to be when she wrote in ink at school.
She approached the edge to look down on Peniel. The sky was cloudless. There was a strongish north wind which would fall when the sun went down. The sun was low in the sky so that the cows had long shadows like camels. Marius was there with his dog beside him. Yet there was something wrong. She sensed it without knowing why. The old man was shouting, his arms outstretched before him towards the crags. Why didn’t the dog move? She couldn’t hear what he was shouting because she was upwind. Then, abruptly, the wind dropped.
Sounds, like distances, are deceptive in the mountains. Sometimes you can recognise a voice, but not the words the voice is saying. Sometimes you hear a cow growl like a dog, and a whole flock of sheep singing like women. What Danielle thought she heard was:
Marius à Sauva! Marius à Sauva!
The sun was so low that it was lighting only one side of each mountain, one side of each forest, one side of each little hillock in the pastures; the other side of everything was in dark shadow, as if the sun had already set or not yet risen.
Perhaps he was telling the dog to go and save one of the cows, she argued to herself, that could sound like à Sauva. Yet why didn’t the dog move?
Marius à Sauva!
She could no longer be sure, the wind had got up again. She picked her way carefully down the scree. Occasionally she dislodged a stone or a pebble which, clattering down, dislodged others, and they in their turn others. Yet despite the noise of her descent, Marius never once glanced up. It was as if at Nîmes, that evening, all sounds were playing tricks.
The dog ran to greet her. She waited for Marius to kiss her on her cheek as he always did. He kissed her and began talking as if they had been stopped in the middle of a conversation.
You see Guste over there—he pointed at a thickset Charolais with curly hair like wool—he’s charming, Guste, the gentlest bull I’ve had, and already he’s too old. I shall sell him for meat this autumn. He’s two and a half. Next year his calves will be too small.
You must have thought I’d disappeared, Danielle said.
He lifted his hat and put it lower on his brow.
No, no, he said, gently. I hear their chain saws all day. And there are six of them, aren’t there? Bring the Comtesse over! Gently, in God’s name! Over!
He stopped in his tracks and leant against the side of a large boulder covered with moss. He was rubbing the back of his hand against the moss. And our summer at Peniel, he said, you’ll remember it, won’t you, Danielle?
The following Sunday the woodcutters came after supper to eat the blueberry tart Danielle had made. With them they brought two bottles of Italian sparkling wine. They were dressed as if they were going to town. Thin pointed shoes instead of boots, white shirts, natty belts. It was only their scarred hands they could do nothing about. Virginio was the most transformed by his change of clothes: tall and with glasses, he almost had the air of a schoolmaster. Father looked older, and Pasquale younger.
The days were drawing in and the end of the summer approaching. The pastures now were not green but lion-coloured, there were no flowers left, every day the buzzards circled lower, and by eight o’clock in the evening it was almost dark.
The men lay on the grass and looked up at the sky, where the first stars were appearing. They could feel the warmth of the earth through their shirts.
Would you like some more tart?
It was so good.
I made two, replied Danielle proudly and went indoors to fetch the second.
Next week the helicopter, said Virginio.
I’ve never seen a helicopter getting out the wood, said the boy.
Lifts pines like matches.
You look up and you feel as small as a frog, said Alberto the Sicilian.
Do you know how much it costs them to hire a helicopter for an hour?
No idea.
Two hundred thousand. In an hour it uses two hundred litres of petrol.
Here, Pasquale, take your tart, said Danielle. The other men were scarcely visible but she recognised their voices.
Helicopter pilot killed himself near Boege last year.
They were passing round a wine bottle.
Forgot his cables, didn’t look down.
They’re forbidden by law to do more than four hours’ flying a day, said Father. In four hours they can get eighty trees off a mountain.
If one of his cables gets entangled, said Alberto, miming with his hands, it pulls him out of the sky. Plouff!
Next century we’ll do everything in the sky, said the boy.
Nobody’ll work like us, next century.
Pasquale’s packing it in next year, isn’t that right?
I haven’t decided yet, said Pasquale.
You won’t make it. You can’t take on the supermarkets single-handed, said Virginio.
With fruit and vegetables you can, insisted Pasquale.
No, said Father, you can’t compete with their prices or their publicity.
I’m going to make my own publicity!
The other men laughed. A jet airliner crossed the sky, they could see its lights.
I’m going to get a bird, a Blue Rock Thrush.
He’s out of his mind, our Pasquale!
You can teach a Blue Rock Thrush to talk.
So?
Every time a customer comes into the shop the bird’ll talk. Pasquale recited a saleman’s patter which, under the stars, sounded more like a prayer:
Guarda quanto è bella ’sta mela
quanto è bellissim
a e cotta!
Turning to Danielle, he translated the words for her: Look at the lovely apples, ripe and lovely apples!
The boy giggled. A good idea, said Father, but you need to give it a twist, make it unforgettable. Teach your bird to insult your customers. Stronzo! for the husband! Fica for the wife. They’ll adore it, they’ll adore it in Bergamo.
Are you sure?
I’ll train the bird for you, said the Sicilian.
The moon was rising to the right of St. Pair. They watched a pink halo slowly changing into a white mist and then, suddenly, the bone-white incandescence of the first segment of the moon. Danielle sat down on the grass beside Pasquale.
When are you going to pack it in, Father?
Next year, sometime, never, sometime … I’ve no choice, I don’t want to drop dead.
The head of the moon was now free in the sky, enormous and close-up like everything newborn.
Do you know who dropped dead last Tuesday? asked Virginio. Our friend Bergamelli—had his throat cut in prison.
Who did it?
The Brigade Rouge.
Bastards!
Bergamelli? Danielle whispered.
A gangster from Marseille … Virginio knew him when he was in prison, said Pasquale.
In the moonlight which became brighter as the moon grew smaller, Danielle could see Virginio’s face, pillowed on his arms, gazing into the firmament.
He reminded me of my father, Virginio went on, Bergamelli had the same truculence, the same dark look when he was crossed, the same smile when something pleased him … He was killed when I was twelve, fell off a roof, my father.
Virginio took off his glasses and stared at the moon.
He was a mason, your father?
He built chimneys … The day they carried him home, I opened the veins on my wrists … they found me too soon. They carted me off to hospital, him down to the cemetery.
Shit! muttered Alberto.
From that day on I knew something, said Virginio; in this god-forsaken life everyone is abandoned sooner or later. Father did everything with me. He taught me to cook, he showed me how to catch frogs, hundreds a night, he saw to it I knew how to pick locks, he was my music teacher, he told me about women, when he got drunk in the café by the big fountain he stood me on the table and I danced whilst he sang—and then one Wednesday morning, dry weather, sober week, clean shirt, good boots, one godforsaken Wednesday morning—pfft! like that, he fell off a roof. I used to go and look at the mark on the pavement where he landed.
From the stable came the muffled sound of goat bells. Sometimes at night their bells sound oleaginous, like the light on the surface of water in a deep well.
I can see him up there. He can’t see us. If we all shouted together he wouldn’t hear us. The dead are deaf to all the dynamite of the world.
A long silence followed, as if each one of them were thinking about the deafness of the dead.
It’s hard to lose a father, said the Sicilian.
Harder than losing a mother?
When you lose your father you know there’ll be no more miracles.
I never knew any miracles, said Pasquale beside Danielle on the grass. My father disappeared like a stone into a well before I knew him … so I never knew that loss.
The galaxies were visible at Peniel, as they never are on the plain. More than alcohol their silence makes people talk.
Is your father alive, Danielle? asked the boy.
He’s alive … I don’t know him like Virginio knew his father. He doesn’t talk to me much. All he says to me is: You’ll never make a wife, Danielle, like your mother was, you’re not modest enough to make a man happy, my girl.
Perhaps your Papa doesn’t see you as you are, said Pasquale, as if each of his words were a button he was pushing through a buttonhole.
Pasquale should know, declared Virginio, suddenly jubilant, for our Pasquale has eyes only for you!
The men, except Pasquale, laughed and the boy chanted:
Guarda quanto è bella ’sta mela
quanto è bellissima e cotta!
A few days later I climbed up to the pass with the idea of paying Marius a visit. I looked down and saw his herd grazing by the stream. Then I heard his voice.
Marius à Sauva!
This time there was no doubt. Each syllable was distinct and each syllable could be heard twice as it echoed off the Tête de Duet. I crouched down on the ground and protected my head with my arms as you do when lightning is near. Let no more words be said, I prayed. Let him be quiet.
Marius à Sauva!
I crept forward on my stomach. He was standing by the first boulder below. His arms were outstretched.
For your slope I have legs! he shouted.
The words still sounded like an order. What did he expect to happen? What did he hope to see change among the crags?
For your slope I have my old legs!
The first time he had said nothing about his age. Now he was shouting about being old.
For your peak I have eyes!
He covered his eyes with his hands as if weeping.
The echo of each word made the silence which followed more terrible.
For your trees I have arms!
It would have been like a reply if something had moved. Everything remained motionless. Even I was holding my breath.
For your trees, my faithful arms!
Johnny was standing a little distance away from Marius, his tail between his legs.
For your load I have a back!
Not even the shape of a cloud changed. The old man was on his knees, looking up at the rockface.
For braking your sledge I have heels!
He was banging his feet on the earth and leaning his weight backwards as if bringing a charged sledge down a slope.
For braking your sledge I have heels and buttocks!
The cows were grazing peacefully behind him.
He climbed up on a boulder and stood on top of it, a good two metres above the ground. The sight of his tiny figure on the boulder dwarfed by the vast slopes of Peniel made me understand something. Marius was speaking of his achievement. Marius set no great store on the opinion of others. What Marius had done all his life he had done for its own sake. His achievement wasn’t only his herd of thirty cows. It was also his will. Every day now, old and alone, he found an answer to the question Why go on? Nobody ever replied for him. Every day of the summer he had found the answer himself. And now, alone, he was boasting of it. That is what I told myself.
He thrust his hands into his trousers.
For your grot I have balls! For your grot my balls!
In the grass were autumn crocuses, their yellow and violet petals open like the beaks of baby birds. I smashed them with my fist. I smashed every one I could see.
When the woodcutters came to wash that evening, Danielle took Pasquale aside and said: I must talk to you.
Next Sunday, he said.
No! she insisted. Now! I can’t stay another day if I don’t talk to someone.
Pasquale went over to the trough and conferred with Father. She heard them speaking in Italian. Within five minutes Father was chivying the others to get a move on. The ritual of combing their hair one by one before the broken bit of mirror was renounced. They picked up their sacks, said good-bye, and with the slow list of their habitual fatigue, made their way to the car. Alberto the Sicilian got into the driver’s seat.
Pasquale stayed behind and started shaving in front of the broken mirror.
You can’t see a thing, Danielle said. Why do you have to shave now?
It’s the first time you’ve asked me to supper.
Supper, it’s only soup!
She began to sob silently. At first, peering into the mirror in which he could see nothing, Pasquale did not notice. It was her immobility which finally made him look up in her direction. He saw her shoulders trembling.
Shhh, he said, ssshhh. He walked her towards the chalet. A goose followed them. T
he door was open. Inside he stopped because it was pitch-dark and he could see nothing. She led him by the hand to a chair pulled up by the table, then she sat down herself on the chair opposite. She thought neither of lighting the lamp nor of heating the soup.
Something happened this afternoon, she said.
What?
In the pitch darkness, her hands placed on the table, she told him, quietly and slowly. She even told him about the crocuses. When she had finished there was silence. They heard a cow pissing in the stable, separated from the kitchen by a wall of pine boards.
Why should an old man talk to the mountains like that? she whispered.
Danielle, said Pasquale, speaking very slowly and weighing each word, it was not to the mountains the old man was shouting, it was not to the mountains he was offering himself part by part, it was to you and you know that, you know that, don’t you?
She began to sob again and the sobs became howls. She stood up to take in breath and to howl louder. Pasquale felt his way round the table and took her in his arms. She pressed her face as hard as she could against his chest. She bit his shirt which tasted of resin and sweat. She bit a hole in it.
On his wrist Pasquale had a watch with an alarm. It woke him at four-thirty. He did not want the others to pass by the chalet to fetch him, for he knew she would not yet understand their laughter. He kissed her repeatedly, he felt for his boots and clothes on the floor, and he slipped out to dress on the grass where they always left the Mercedes.
If today you pass through Bergamo and take the road north towards Zogno, you will find at the edge of the town where the sidewalk is no longer paved and the telegraph poles border the road, opposite an AGIP garage, next to a yard where men repair tyres, a shop with a sign that says VERDURA E ALIMENTARI. If it’s winter you will find Pasquale inside serving. He weighs the vegetables on the scales with the scrupulousness and precision of Saint Peter. He looks preoccupied and proud.
Danielle’s baby was a girl whom they christened Barbara. In the waste-land behind the shop, Pasquale has fixed a swing on a plane tree and Barbara sometimes plays there with her friends. The men in the tyre yard call Barbara their Uccellina, their tiny bird.
