The Wager

by Donna Jo Napoli

  She took it back. “Wait here.” Again she went into the house and returned quickly. This time she held shoes in one hand and a cape draped across her arm. The other hand was behind her back.

  The shoes were of some sort of skin. They tied around Don Giovanni’s feet snugly. The cape was coarse wool, dyed deep blue, like the one the goat boy wore. He put it on.

  The woman considered him a moment. She took her other hand from behind her back and held out a large cloth bag.

  Don Giovanni reached for it.

  She pulled back. “Do well and there’ll be more tasks.”

  That’s what he’d hoped. He wanted to work, not beg.

  “Fill this with snow. Bring it back by evening meal.”

  Snow? There was no snow other than on Etna.

  She tapped her foot. “The work’s hard, but it’s all you’ll get. Plenty of others want the easier jobs.” She shook the bag. “And don’t even think of running off with those clothes. Everyone in this part of town knows my master. And if you go into the German Lombard quarter, you’ll get driven out. They hate beggars. And if you brave the Greek quarter, someone will steal that cape. Trousers and smock, too. No, you have no hope except here, in the Latin quarter. So you can’t hide.” She swung the bag. “Besides, my master would take it out on me if you made off with these. A pretty-faced lad like you wouldn’t want to make a lass suffer, right?” Her face was sincere. She was taking a chance on him. A woman of faith.

  He took the bag.

  “Skim off the ashes before you scoop the snow.” She went to the doorway, then turned. “Well, don’t just stand there. You know where the Mountain is. Get moving.”

  So each day for the next month, Don Giovanni filled a bag with snow. The family he worked for supplied the rich of Randazzo with an evening dessert of sugared snow.

  It was a strange town. Black even in full sun. The streets were paved with lava. Lava highlighted arches over doorways. All of Randazzo was a shrine to the volcano.

  Everyone said the ground under Randazzo was blessed. Etna erupted often, destroying whole towns in a matter of hours. Neighboring villages came and went. In contrast, lava never entered Randazzo. Only ashes fell here; everyone swept their steps in the morning. Everyone wore hats and shook them off before entering buildings. They brushed off their cloaks. They stamped their boots. But those ashes were never from burned Randazzo homes. The town was blessed.

  Don Giovanni didn’t enter into talk about blessings. He listened carefully, though, whenever he was privy to talk—which wasn’t often. After all, the lonely trek to find snow filled most of his day. Still, gradually he learned to mimic the tongue of the poorer people in the Latin quarter.

  Soon he dared to open his mouth to ask for work from others. It was only fair; he’d served that one family for a month—so he’d earned those shoes and cape. More than earned them, actually. Don Giovanni had learned that few were willing to ascend the Mountain now because it wasn’t frozen hard enough to offer sure footing anymore. The maidservant had taken advantage of his ignorance.

  He took a perverse pride in knowing he’d braved such danger, and the spectacular view from the upper slopes struck awe into his heart every time. But the cold burned his hands. The sulfur in the air closest to the craters burned his eyes. The isolation burned his spirit.

  As the weather warmed, work got easy to find. He ran errands, transported things around town, mucked out stables—anything in exchange for meals and a place to sleep.

  The ground floors of the buildings were stables. Servants slept with donkeys, horses, goats. One flight up were stores and homes. Don Giovanni lay in a stall at night listening to rich people walk around overhead, living the life he was born to have.

  He worked for anybody—in any quarter. But people could be nasty. They’d pick about the way he stacked the wood or the shape of a hole he’d dug. Anything to say he didn’t deserve as much as they’d promised.

  So soon he stopped that work. He became a champion eel catcher. He hunted at night, so he could watch stars while he waited. The river ran too fast in early spring for nets. So he learned how to make a trap—a tarusi. Eels entered into one chamber, passed to another, and couldn’t turn around to get out again. Crabs were the best bait, and easy to get—they came after anything dead. So Don Giovanni picked rats off the town ratcatcher’s pile.

  Everyone ate eels, especially Catholics during Lent. Even after Easter they ate eels on Friday and Saturday, the no-meat days. Don Giovanni ate them, too.

  Toward the middle of April rivers slowed and he caught elvers off the bank with his hands. Slippery, tickly.

  By May the waters warmed with the air and the eels moved faster. They got harder to hold on to as he took them out of the trap. He switched to hunting frogs; the nights were loud with their chorus. He snipped off the heads and feet and peeled off the skin. Then he gutted them. A peasant boy taught him a trick: break the legs and they swell up and look plump, especially if you soak them in water. Don Giovanni had the plumpest frog legs of anyone. He could trade them to a tavern owner for a lamb dinner.

  He caught snails by following the shiny slime on the ground after a rainfall. People loved them in sauces, especially the tiny ones with the transparent shells. He collected mountain fennel; it smelled stronger than the lowland herb—cooks gave him better treats in return.

  The days were hot now, the nights balmy. Don Giovanni took to sleeping outdoors in the scent of mimosa, near goatherds. They told stories about the wilderness and he told stories about the sea. They had never seen the sea. No one they knew had traveled beyond Etna’s slopes. They were agog at stories of squid and octopus, huge tuna and swordfish—and lobsters, they could hardly believe lobsters. Don Giovanni liked impressing them, no matter how easy it was. The bumpkins.

  Most were boys, sun-browned, ragged, unkempt. They wore knee breeches and sleeveless goatskin vests. Some vests still had the long goat hair on them, so from a distance the boys themselves seemed to sprout fur. Don Giovanni took the hair above the boys’ ears and twisted it, till it stood in horns. Satyrs. They romped through the herds like kids to make Don Giovanni laugh.

  The goatherds’ families visited only to seize a goat for slaughter. They hardly talked to the boys. These funny friends of Don Giovanni were valued little more than well-trained dogs. Did they ever forget they were human?

  Don Giovanni didn’t forget he was. He washed in the river. Most people washed only when their skin grew slick with oil and their hair matted. Every two weeks at most. But Don Giovanni liked the smell and feel of being clean.

  He had a second set of clothes now; when one got dirty, he scrubbed it and stored it in a tree hollow while he wore the other. His beard thickened, his hair grew long. But a close look revealed fine features. The peasant girls whose company he was lucky enough to enjoy frequently called him simply by the word beddu—beautiful.

  His was a world of beauty: orchids, narcissus, jasmine, peonies, in colorful succession and lush profusion. In June he collected wild strawberries that had to be eaten within hours because they spoiled fast—a fault that made them that much more delectable.

  In September he left the gathering of the pomegranates to those less able. He eschewed the easy work on the terraced, cultivated lands. He was strong and tough and proud of that. So he went high up Etna’s slopes to pick pears with yellow speckles and white flesh, small and crisp with a bite that stung the tongue. Everyone preferred them. He collected pistachios from the trees on the most precipitous cliffs, one by one, dropping them in a cloth sack hung from his neck. A favorite for use in desserts. He was the most fearless worker ever.

  But then freak weather came in a burst. Sleet! Sleet in late September! Farmers all of a sudden were saying they had known it would be an early, hard winter. After all, the onion skins were thick; the apple skins, tough. Goatherds knew it, too. Squirrel tails were extra bushy; beehives were extra high in the trees; berries and nuts were more plentiful. Even the town merchants claimed t
o have known. One man reported having found a breastbone speckled with red in a roast goose. All signs.

  Farmers raced to harvest the olives before they got ruined. Don Giovanni wrested the immature fruit from the branches. Everyone said it would be all right: bitter olives made sharp-tasting oil. Different from the usual, but good. They cheered one another on.

  Snow came. Then, overnight, there was no more work. The early freeze ruined the orange crop. A whole host of jobs were lost: picking oranges and selling them, drying the peel and selling it. All lost. A man who wasn’t a slave or a servant, who didn’t belong anywhere in particular, had no way to make a living.

  Beggars cluttered the market square. They scattered themselves throughout the town; you could hardly turn a corner without bumping into an outstretched hand.

  Once, when Don Giovanni was resting against a wall, clutching his arms against the unseasonable icy wind, a beggar spat on his feet. “My spot. Get out of here.”

  Don Giovanni was quick to oblige. He was no beggar.

  He went back to that first house, that first woman. He offered to collect snow again, from Etna’s highest slopes. But snow was plentiful everywhere this year. Just step into the courtyard right after it stopped falling and scoop it up. Besides, she was angry at him, almost as though he’d been an unfaithful lover. Her eyes were bright. Saucy. The way she looked at him . . . why, he’d been a fool not to realize.

  It was late October. Don Giovanni had nowhere to go, nothing to eat. The fat times were over, such as they were. He shivered violently.

  All Saints and All Souls

  “COME HERE, BEGGAR.”

  Don Giovanni didn’t lift his head. He had found a stable door unattended, a rare bit of luck, and slipped in. The dark of a corner allowed him a place to nestle, away from prying eyes, enveloped by this horse’s warm, wet, hay-sweet breath. Sleep had already coated him when the rude words scrabbled at the edge of his consciousness.

  “You won’t regret it, beggar.”

  The man’s voice and language oozed nobility. Don Giovanni was sorely tempted to take the bait. He was hungrier than he’d ever been. He could hear his erratic heartbeat. His skin itched from dryness. The cracks at the corners of his mouth were deceptively small for the pain they gave. He was constipated, irritable, starving.

  He needed work. Absolute need. But there was that hateful word; it never failed to jangle his nerves.

  “That’s a promise . . . beggar.”

  The lingering of the first words and then the tacking on of the last one felt like a purposeful insult, as though the man knew the effect he’d evoke.

  Any true man took taunts seriously. And every Sicilian man was a true man. Don Giovanni looked up.

  The man stood by the horse’s rump. Even in the meager moonlight from the high window, his fine clothing was apparent. He could pay well. Was the humiliation worth it?

  Tomorrow was November 1. Randazzo would celebrate All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day with morning mass and dancing in the streets. Tonight was the vigil. No one in town had eaten or drunk all day. So tomorrow they would feast. There would be food even for Don Giovanni. He might get a meaty bone if he was lucky. Bread. Maybe even a pastry of ricotta. But it wouldn’t last.

  And this job would pay well.

  “Stop debating and get over here, beggar.”

  Was he a witch?

  Don Giovanni got to his feet. Now he could see the outline of the man’s face—unusually handsome. Something stirred in Don Giovanni’s middle. A sense of competition? A month ago he had been devastatingly handsome himself. Put a little food in him and he would be again. Handsomer than this dandy.

  The man brushed off his cape, ran his fingers through his hair, smoothed his beard to a point. “Good-looking beggar, despite the touch of emaciation. I have to hand it to you.”

  “You said I wouldn’t regret it. Yet already you’re breaking that promise. What should I call you, dishonorable sire?”

  The man threw back his head and laughed. “Oooo, what style.” He made a tsk. “Would you like to be rich again?” He didn’t move his hands as he talked. It was as though a statue spoke. “Would you like a life of immeasurable luxury? Beggar.”

  Don Giovanni willed himself to be a statue as well. The moment felt classic. Recognizable. He could almost walk away from this trap. It had to be a trap. Did Pandora feel like this when she accepted the fateful box?

  “Who wouldn’t?” he murmured through unmoving lips. Such logical words, each one belying what his heart knew.

  “See? Now that wasn’t so hard, was it, beggar?”

  The man’s teeth picked up light that wasn’t there. Everything else was in a haze, yet his incisors gleamed. Did he have an internal fire?

  He laughed again. “Easy. Let’s keep this easy.” He reached inside his cloak and took out a purse. A small thing. White as new snow. Rich people would pay Don Giovanni a slab of suckling pig for snow as white as that purse. Or they would have, before nature had stolen his means of survival by dumping snow for free everywhere.

  The man lay it on the ground by his feet.

  It would surely get filthy now.

  “Speak to it.” He smiled dreamily. “In the softest whispers, like to your lovers. Say, ‘Dear one,’ yes, that’s the right word, cara—dear—such a nice double entendre, don’t you think? Say, ‘Dear one, give me money.’ That’s all. Be intimate, caressing. You know how to do it. Name the amount; it will give as much as you ask.”

  Could this be a hallucination? A vision that comes before death? Had Don Giovanni reached the end so fast?

  Starve anyone long enough and visions will come. Great pain does that, too—like from lack of sleep, or torture. Ask any saint. Any of the dozens that would be celebrated in the morning. Or was it All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day already? Had he been so groggy that he’d missed the midnight church bell announcing the holy day?

  He couldn’t sense the attention of a host of saints, or even of one saint. But he didn’t need them, anyway. Anyone would say the same: This was foreseeable.

  “There’s a catch, though.” The man grinned.

  The devil. This vision was a nightmare in disguise. Now came the part where Don Giovanni had to trade his soul.

  “No, no, no. You’re at once more dramatic and more ignorant than I anticipated. And after all the books you read under Don Alfinu’s tutelage.” He tsked again. “Not your soul. It would be crude to demand your soul right off. Crude and easy and uninteresting. No, no. Let’s do something to banish the ridiculous boredom of ordinary things. Let’s start with a test trade. Something much more rare than a soul. Your beauty.”

  Vanity. The one small indulgence that remained in Don Giovanni’s miserable life. Surely the devil could find a more valuable test trade.

  “Have you learned nothing? An indulgence held on to so tenaciously—that’s the most obvious of opportunities. The profligate way you behaved after you came of age, well, that seemed nothing but the vulgarity of youth. But then you showed me better. The night of the wave. Remember? The way you looked at the maidservant even as her words exposed your hubris. What a source of glee. I still savor that moment. And then the way you looked at old Betta . . .” He laughed. “That was a surprise even for me. But I still had to be sure.” He waited.

  More bait. Like dead rats for crabs. Don Giovanni should hold his tongue. But in the face of such a fateful decision, explicitness felt necessary. “Sure of what?”

  The devil smiled slightly. “Sure that all that desire, all that love, was of yourself, not others. A man who really loves women, all women freely, is the most innocent of all. Foolish, but innocent. Fortunately, that isn’t you.” He tilted his head. “Who do you think walked into the sea that night? Oooo, the pleasure of seeing you wait for your guests rather than rush into the cold sea to save her. Lust is fun, so long as it doesn’t cost you effort. Whose turn of the ankle caught your eye in the middle of a disaster scene? It took you but a moment to leave behind the b
attered and bleeding to follow your member. Lust is much more fun when it means saving you effort. Exquisite.”

  Don Giovanni had no saliva to swallow. His Adam’s apple rose and fell, dry and painful. He ground the accusations in his teeth—let them become powder, they meant nothing. “Shape-shifter. Stalker.”

  The devil grinned. “And you wondered at sleet in September. You almost seemed stupid. But your resourcefulness these months has been quite enough to show the contrary. There’s no doubt we could have fun. So take the challenge. Prove me wrong. Surrender your beauty.

  “Temporarily, that is. Three years, three months, three days. Not so long for worldly wealth, wouldn’t you say? In that period you must not wash. You cannot wash yourself, change your clothes, shave your beard, comb your hair. Easy, like I said. Simple. A little wager. A game. And at the end, you even get to keep the purse, with all its magic.” He kicked the purse toward Don Giovanni. “But if you break the rules, not only will the charm be broken, but the whole deal is off.”

  “My soul . . . ?”

  “Your soul.”

  Don Giovanni had experienced poverty for nearly nine months. Like a gestation. From it something akin to desperation was born, shattering the air and any chance of peace with its primal screams. How on earth could it be so damnably hard to climb up out of poverty? He worked and worked, and the next day all that faced him was more work. If he was lucky.

  When the weather was good, poverty was, at heart, simply a pointless discomfort. Don Giovanni even enjoyed aspects of it. Waking to the clean spice of perfume from conifers and herbs, the interlacing songs of sparrows, the wavering colors of butter-flies and wildflowers. Eating berries as he picked them, fresher than anything had a right to be. Watching eagles float in winds over the mountain.