The Hawthorne Season

by Riccardo Bruni

  Mirna goes inside. She takes off her coat. A fire is burning in the fireplace, but Eugenio isn’t there. She can hear the sound of the shower. It feels good to be home. Mirna loves her cozy living room. She’s back just in time to relax for a while before she makes dinner. She takes off her shoes and sits on the couch. She massages her feet through her stockings.

  On the glass coffee table, in front of the fire, there is a glass and Eugenio’s bottle of scotch. He’d had a drop. He deserves it, he works so hard. Who knows where he thought of taking her this time, what he’s been working on. Maybe South America, where it’s hot now. Or to some little island in the Pacific, the kind where they put a beautiful flower garland on your neck and serve you a fruit cocktail with a straw, where they play music on the beach and you can dance barefoot in the torchlight with the sound of the surf lapping at the shore. Let’s just hope he didn’t book it at too short notice, because Eugenio sometimes doesn’t realize that it takes time to pack if you don’t want to risk forgetting something essential. First, you prepare a nice list of things to bring and then you check them off as you place them in the suitcase. Nothing can ruin a vacation like forgetting something important and finding yourself, for example, without a hair straightener on a Pacific island where you certainly can’t buy another one, which, in any case, could never match your own. She just needed to know where they were going so she could start preparing, and she could even pretend she didn’t know anything yet, but at least she could start on her mental list.

  Mirna relaxes on the sofa and thinks about the Pacific. She’ll have a lot of postcards to send. Do they have postcards in the Pacific? She should probably find out so she can at least pick up a few at the airport, because she can’t very well waltz off to the middle of the Pacific without even sending a postcard. It would be as if she hadn’t gone at all.

  There’s something under the table. A leaflet. Hmm, maybe it’s a brochure. No, it’s a photo.

  The combination of hot water and scotch works wonders. Eugenio lingers in the shower, letting the jet massage his neck. It’s the place where he stores all his tension. He’s had too much on his plate for a while now. Everything on his shoulders, as usual. They would not be able to dig a spider out of a hole without him. But he pays for it, in terms of stress and tension. He’s entitled to a little extra, that’s right. Extra helpings for his extra work. And then he’ll be gone, off to start his new life in the Antilles. Far away from everyone. Away from his bloodsucking daughters and their respective husbands, a pair of bankrupts who pound on the door every Christmas. If it’s not the renovation of their house, it’s a car. And they don’t even have kids yet. Enough, the ATM is closed. He has given so much to others, now it’s time for him to take a little something for himself. And Katerina is all he wants. He could do anything for that body moving over him. For those lips that know how to do things that are downright otherworldly. And look at the effect they have from afar: without even a caress, the flag is up.

  He turns off the water, opens the shower door, and puts on his bathrobe, white and fragrant.

  Katerina the sex goddess. To have her there, beside him, from morning to evening on a wonderful beach. Far away from this cold, dark place. From this dreary life. From Mirna, who is getting old. Of course he’s not, he feels younger. He wants to dance. And he wants to fuck, more than anything else. He looks at himself in the mirror. He’s not so old, in fact. When he gets a tan he can grow a nice white beard and look like Paul Newman in that movie, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, with Ava Gardner, who Mirna resembled when she had been young. And now he plans to stretch out on the sofa in his bathrobe, in front of the fire, with another glass of the good stuff.

  He dries his hair under his cap and goes into the living room.

  Gerri arrives at the hut. He calls it that, but in fact it’s a solid structure, with all due heating, insulation, reprieve, and habitability. Once, it had been a real hunting lodge, but now it’s a magical hideaway that only he can enter. It’s where he keeps his snowmobile. And not only that.

  He is wearing his insulated camouflage. It’s a cold evening.

  Katerina has just left Falconi’s place.

  Gerri turns on the light and looks around. All of his treasures. Including a wooden box containing a magnum of Dom Pérignon that he’s been saving for a worthy occasion. Until recently, he thought he’d pop it open to celebrate some news, like becoming a father. But Katerina had changed her mind about that just after the wedding. And then the bottle stayed there, waiting for another great opportunity. Next to that wooden box there is a case that contains one of his other great treasures.

  A leather case.

  He takes it. A few words are embroidered on the lid. He passes his fingers over it to wipe the dust away. He pauses to read the words, then pulls at the zipper and sits down on the snowmobile to enjoy the spectacle he pulls out.

  A black DymondWood riser. The spine is a light maple, coated on both sides with high-resistance black fiberglass. Handmade white and black fiberglass tips.

  His bow. A masterpiece, with his name engraved at the top.

  He grips the handle. He stands upright. A wonderful feeling returns to him. He imagines the arrow.

  He imagines the shot.

  We’ll figure it out tomorrow. Falconi repeats it like a mantra. But what a pity about the evening, which had begun under such different auspices. He was supposed to see Katerina, but instead . . . first the photos screwed up his plans, then Mirna. As soon as he walked into the living room, he spotted her big gray head over the back of the sofa. She was just sitting there, motionless, staring into the fire. It was a habit of hers—one that would annoy a saint. Silent, with a pissed-off expression on her face, waiting for you to guess why she’s silent with a pissed-off face. Always with an attitude of judgment, condemnation, the belief that she’s always right. The attitude of an old ballbuster who makes everything look older than it is. It makes you wonder what you did wrong, if you finished off her cranberry juice she insists on drinking before she goes to sleep, if you forgot to put out a new roll of toilet paper, if you moved some object because after using it you simply put it down without thinking about its proper place in the world, if you forgot a date or some other circumstance or commitment, or if you’ve been caught with some shortcoming that a normal person wouldn’t even notice. But Mirna notices. She doesn’t always tell you, but she has her ways of letting you know. In that suffocating world where everything has its place—nice Eugenio’s is in a golden doghouse with a good-night boner. But the old Falcon got stubborn and decided to resume flying.

  So Eugenio walked to the other side of the sofa to see what kind of storm was awaiting him. And then he saw the photo. It was resting on Mirna’s lap. A beautiful display. That goddamned photo just had to fall from the stack before he threw the rest into the fire. So the situation proceeded quickly. But there is a solution for everything, Mr. Falconi said to himself. So, in a matter of minutes, he solved the problem. And in those few minutes, Mirna’s squawking tortured his eardrums for the last time.

  And then, after he did what he had to do, he realized that the arrogant bitch hadn’t even made his dinner.

  Falconi goes into the kitchen. He rests the still-warm hunting rifle on the counter, in front of the new electric oven they’d bought with points, a real deal. His white bathrobe is splattered with blood. He’ll have to put everything in the washer—maybe Katerina can do it—and then take another shower. Relax. Not a bad idea. First, however, he needs to eat. Stuff his gullet. It’s impossible to do anything, including think, on an empty stomach.

  He opens the fridge, takes out a packet of prosciutto, a jar of artichokes in oil, a piece of aged cheese, and a nice cold beer. He cuts two slices of homemade bread, pours the beer into a glass, because only boys drink it from the can, filling their bellies with foam. Then he goes back to the living room. In front of his beautiful, lit fireplace.

  He puts another beautiful log on the fire and sits down
on the sofa.

  Next to Mirna.

  His wife hasn’t even changed position. She’s still holding the picture she kept waving at him. If it wasn’t for the fact that she’s missing half her face, this could be like any other night they used to spend there, with dinner in front of the fire, a plate balanced on their legs, thick socks on their feet, which they always propped up on the table. Mirna always preferred a good fire to television during dinner. They always kept the television in the bedroom, where there hasn’t been much else to do over the last thirty years.

  Eugenio places the prosciutto on a slice of bread and takes a bite. He chews slowly, the old Falcon, because it would be a shame to ruin a crown just before he’s about to leave. Who knows what kind of dentists they have in Sosúa Bay. Best not find out.

  The sofa is covered in blood, a real mess. The bathrobe might have to go in the garbage, but who cares. The fact is, she was too caught up in disgracing him, hurling at him years’ worth of threats and insults. She was going to take his name off their bank account. She was going to ruin him. She was sitting there with that photo in her hand, babbling on like a lunatic about lawsuits, attorneys, and carabinieri, with her loud, know-it-all voice rubbing his face in everything. She was out of her mind. And that was that. He implored her to calm down a few times, and then it was “Mirna, my God, you’re going to ruin everything,” and then “Mirna, there’s money in it for you too,” and Mirna, Mirna, Mirna. But Mirna didn’t want to hear it. She just kept saying “You disgust me,” and “I’ll never let you do it,” and then even more things he didn’t really understand, like “That bitch is going to be so happy,” and “That bitch is going to love this,” and “I will not let you embarrass me like this in front of her.”

  The problem, for Mr. Falconi, is tension. When it gets to be too much, then it’s just too much.

  Mirna wouldn’t stop shouting. She was in a real fury. That fucking voice of hers was growing more unbearable by the day. And so he opened his lovely mahogany English display case where he kept his rifle, loaded it with wild boar cartridges, and just as she was screaming, “You overestimated yourself, you old pig,” he shot her in the head. Holy silence. Just what he needed to think through the situation.

  Mirna had to disappear.

  The prosciutto isn’t bad. The prepackaged stuff isn’t as good as the hand-cut, which is another thing entirely, with the drawback that it dries out too quickly, becoming hard and salty, while this, presliced and stored in an airtight packet, is always fresh, soft, and tasty. Now he takes a long sip of beer and a nice oiled artichoke. Too bad there aren’t any chives.

  Eugenio continues to chew slowly to protect his crowns as he sits next to his wife with her skull blown open and her muddy blood still dripping onto the floor. It will take a while to clean it all up, that dark mush that must be her brain, spread over the sofa and splattered on the back wall. But he already has an idea about how to make the body disappear. He should inform the others of this unexpected development, but tonight he needs to relax. Eat his dinner, drink his beer.

  And have a nice sleep.

  THREE

  The unexpected developments regarding Mrs. Falconi required a meeting, but apparently the man who should have convened it was taking his time. First he wanted to clean up everything and put the cushion covers back on the sofa to cover his tracks, even if there was still a huge stain on the wall.

  Maglio was the first to arrive. He had been in the woods for a shift with a couple of coworkers, but when he saw the caller ID on his phone, he knew it was something big and took his lunch break an hour early. The second to arrive was Adele. When she got Maglio’s call, she’d been in the kitchen wondering what to prepare for lunch—a nice minestrone or a chicken breast with fennel in the microwave. And five minutes later, after her usual imaginary conversation with her husband, she was already at the wheel of her olive-green Panda four by four. The last one to arrive was Katerina. She left a note for Gerri, who was still in bed, telling him she was going to buy something bubbly to drink. It took her a while to get there.

  “You told me to stay with Gerri, remember?” Katerina says, turning to Maglio, who commented on her delay. “It’s not like I could just run out. I have no idea what he’s doing right now. Maybe I shouldn’t have come at all.”

  “You could have at least left your car in the woods,” says Maglio. “Anyone who walks around the house could notice it out back where you left it.”

  Falconi tries to calm the waters. “Why would someone walk around the house?”

  “This hussy doesn’t give two shits,” Adele says, pointing to Katerina with as much index finger as she can muster. “She shouldn’t have been a part of this at all, that’s the problem.”

  Katerina crosses her arms. “If this one starts, I’m leaving.”

  “Don’t start, Adele,” says Falconi.

  “Where did you put Mirna?” asks Maglio, trying to get straight to the problem.

  “Downstairs in the freezer.”

  “Why the freezer?”

  “Because when I moved her, a bunch of blood poured out, so I froze her. At least then it’ll be easier to cut her up if we have to.”

  “Are you hearing this?” Adele says. “You’re talking about Mirna, for the love of God. Your wife, Eugenio. Your wife!”

  “I told you to let it go, Adele,” Falconi says again.

  “I will not let it go. You’d better believe I’m not letting this go. When this whole thing started, I accepted because you said it would make Mirna happy, my friend Mirna. And now you’ve changed everything around, that hussy’s in the picture, and I wasn’t even able to tell Mirna, my dear friend Mirna, what we were doing. Don’t you understand what this means for me?”

  “Poor woman . . . ,” says Katerina, contorting her lips into a childlike grimace.

  “Shut up, whore,” Adele says.

  “You insult her one more time,” Eugenio says, “and I’m sending you off with your dear friend Mirna forever.”

  “Do you hear him?” Adele stretches out her arms, as if talking to an imaginary audience. “Don’t you realize it’s all his fault that we’re in this mess? An old pig who—”

  “Don’t exaggerate, Adele,” says Maglio. “Don’t forget that we did everything ourselves. You just agreed to sell a piece of land that fell into your husband’s hands. We did the rest. So just think about the money you’re getting and hush.”

  “Exactly. And if she didn’t need to get involved,” says Katerina, “she could have stayed home.”

  “And you could have stayed at home too,” Adele replied. “It would have been better for everyone if Gerri had left you where he found you.”

  “Adele!” Falconi’s eyes are bulging. “She’s with me, and it’s none of your business.”

  “But you shot her! Do you realize?” she continues. “You shot Mirna! The woman who cared for you when you were sick is sitting in a freezer so you can cut her up into little pieces! The woman who shared all the joy and pain of your life! The woman whom you swore to God for! The mother of your two daughters who—”

  “Two needy brats!” Falconi screams. “And now that they’re married, I have four needy brats. They sucked away all the money I had. Was I supposed to just stand by and watch while they sucked my blood? Was I supposed to sit here and give my life to this circle of spoiled brats until the day I died? Everyone makes their own choices, Adele, remember?”

  “Good choice you made, congratulations. At sixty-five, you’re with a hussy who the first chance she gets will—”

  “What? What will I do?” Katerina interrupts her. “Come on, tell me what I’ll do, say it! Do you know what your problem is? You’re just jealous there’s someone else your age who still likes to fuck, that’s what!”

  “You take that back!” cries Adele.

  “Enough!” Maglio raises his voice and stands still, his arms open, his breath quickening, in an attempt to calm himself down. “Stop it, we have a real problem to solve.”<
br />
  “Yeah, a big one,” says Adele. “Because I’m out, do you understand? Mirna was supposed to be in her place. And in any case, you told me there’d be something for Mirna, but that we weren’t going to bring her in until the end so we didn’t have issues with the bank. ‘Problems with signatures,’ that’s what you said. And I thought she might be able to join me later, my dear friend Mirna. And now you tell me she can’t join me anymore, and I’m not exactly okay with what you’ve done here, do you understand? I’m not okay with it at all! And I don’t know what to do now, I don’t know. I have to think about it, because I don’t like what you’ve done to my friend, and I don’t think this bitch should have her share. I don’t want this whore—because she is a whore—to have Mirna’s share. I don’t want her to. And if she ends up with Mirna’s money, I swear—”

  The shot hits her right in the gut, opens a hole you can almost see through. Adele’s eyes are open in a look of surprise, and they stay that way as her legs surrender and her body collapses onto the glass table, shattering it. A large splinter slices into her neck. The blood spills out, forming a puddle on the carpet.