The Wager

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “Within reason, yes.”

  The man put the money in a bag around the donkey’s neck and left.

  Don Giovanni stood watching them go. They were remarkably slow. Still, he knew donkeys could keep up a trot for long periods. If he rode, he’d not only stay clean, he could travel much faster than walking.

  He looked around for a spot to wait. A large rock sat off to the side. He picked his way carefully through the dry rubble of dead weeds only to find that the rock was covered with a layer of ash.

  He really was sick of Etna. Fire and snow: no worse combination was imaginable.

  He wouldn’t try to venture around the ash pit again. And the next closest stand of trees was a fair distance from the road, uphill all the way. But he had time.

  He climbed to a pine, broke off a low bough, and went back to the rock. He brushed it clean, every nook and cranny. Then he sat down.

  The winds grew sharper, coming from two directions now. Maybe a storm was on the way. He put up his hood again and nestled down inside the cape, cursing its thinness.

  How long had the donkey man been gone? The sooner Don Giovanni got that animal, the sooner he could start his journey. Trot, trot. A donkey trot was fast. He just had to remember that; he had to keep telling himself. A donkey trot was fast.

  But not fast enough.

  All right. When he passed someone on horseback, he’d trade in the donkey for a horse. That would be easy enough. With a horse, he could go all the way to Palermo in a matter of days.

  In fact, it was ridiculous to sit here waiting for the donkey man. He should go back to Randazzo and buy a horse immediately. Who cared about the money he’d already given the donkey man? He had to start thinking differently. The purse made everything different.

  Don Giovanni walked toward Randazzo fast.

  Two men came along the road. They were talking loudly to each other. They hushed when they saw Don Giovanni. They drew closer to each other.

  Don Giovanni nodded greeting.

  “That’s the one, isn’t he?” said one man to the other.

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  The men blocked Don Giovanni’s path.

  “Give us your money,” said one. He was missing so many teeth, the words came out with a whistle.

  Don Giovanni’s heart sank. There was no way he could produce a coin without giving away the secret of the purse. “I don’t have any.”

  “Sure you do,” said the whistle man. “The money for the donkey.”

  Don Giovanni kept a blank face. “What donkey?”

  “We heard him describing you,” said the whistle man. “In the tavern, eating a meal he says you paid for. Singing and drinking. He bought everyone a round. You’re the one, all right.”

  “I don’t have money.”

  The other man pulled a knife from under his cloak. He held it high in his left hand, like a torch.

  Don Giovanni took off his cape. He shook it out in front of their faces. He folded it and set it on the ground. The new wind whipped through his smock, as though it were made of spider gauze. He clenched his teeth and pulled the smock over his head and shook it out so they could see. He folded it and set it on top of the cape. His chest was goosebumps. He took the purse from its spot inside his waistband and opened the drawstrings. He shook it, turned it inside out, then laid it on the pile of clothes. “Nothing. You can see.”

  “Take off those trousers.”

  Don Giovanni didn’t bother to argue. He took off his trousers, shook them, then laid them beside the pile. After all, he didn’t want their soot to dirty the rest of his clothes.

  “And your shoes.”

  He took off the shoes and shook them out.

  He stood there naked, pressing his knees together, hunched against the open cold of the Mountain, which was ten times fiercer than the city cold. “I told you.”

  The other man whispered to the whistle man.

  The whistle man made a humph of agreement. “Where’d you hide it?”

  “I didn’t have anything to hide. I swear.”

  The other man whispered to the whistle man again.

  “You were sitting on that rock over there,” said the whistle man. “Did you hide it there?”

  “I didn’t hide anything. I swear on the memory of my mother.”

  The other man punched Don Giovanni in the stomach.

  The air went out of him. It was a stunning blow. He doubled over. For a moment he couldn’t see anything. Then his eyes found the knife again. Still in the puncher’s left hand. Ready.

  “Where is it?” came the whistle in his ear.

  “I don’t have anything. I swear on the Blessed Virgin.”

  Another blinding punch to the gut. He fell to his knees. A crippling chop on the back of his neck. He was on all fours. His stomach wrenched. Vomit came out his mouth and nose at the same time. A kick in the thigh. He lay flat now, snuffling in the pool of vomit.

  “That’ll teach you to make false promises. We came all the way out here for nothing.” So much whistling in his ear. “Your mother’s a whore. But you’re lucky we respect the Blessed Virgin.”

  Don Giovanni managed to turn his head so his nose and mouth were open to the air again. A high-pitched hum, like the whine of mosquitoes, prickled on his ear and cheek. It spread across his lips and chin, up his temple, across his forehead. It grew loud now, a din. There was nothing to do but listen to it.

  After a long while, the hum faded, and senses returned in the crudest way. His nose told him he had defecated. His hands and feet told him he was dangerously cold. His spine seemed frozen. It was as though a sword of ice had been jammed from his anus to his throat.

  He pushed himself up, leaning on his hands. Once he was sure he was steady, he reached one hand behind to feel his shoulder where he’d received the blow. The hand came away dry. So it hadn’t been the knife, thank the powers that be.

  He looked up the road. How was it that no one had come along in all this time? Randazzo had constant business, yet no traveler had passed to help him. A decent traveler, a God-fearing soul, would have picked up his unconscious body, washed it, treated his injuries. And not a bit of that would have broken the wager rules, for Don Giovanni would not have been responsible.

  Don Giovanni turned in a circle. No matter which way he turned, savage wind was in his face. Wind to keep charitable travelers home. Wind from four directions at once. Unheard of. Like sleet in September.

  “Cheater!” he called out.

  “Were you addressing me, beggar?” A tall man, impeccably dressed, appeared on horseback. His horse pawed the ground spiritedly, but he held the reins steady and looked down at Don Giovanni with a slight tilt of the head. His face was actually regal. And so normal-looking, so human. Don Giovanni wouldn’t have recognized him for sure—after all, he’d only seen him once before and that was in the dark of the night stable—except for his eyes. Those dead eyes.

  “Only the weak cheat!” Don Giovanni walked as close to the horse as he dared. “Is that what you are? A weakling?”

  The man’s jaw twitched.

  “Your winds kept home the wicked, too, not just good folk. No other scoundrel came to do me more harm. Your vicious winds saved my life. So the joke’s on you.”

  The man smiled and there were those glowing teeth again. “Should you die before you break the rules, you’re lost to me.”

  “You broke the rules, cheater!”

  The man leaned past his horse’s neck. “Your pathetic little rules don’t bind me.”

  Don Giovanni shook his fist. “I can take this. Even if you cheat. I’m made of firmer stuff than you think.”

  The devil sat back upright and wrinkled his nose. “It’s only too obvious from your odor what you’re made of. Onward, beggar.” And horse and rider were gone. Vanished.

  Don Giovanni was alive. It didn’t matter that the devil wanted him alive, too. He was a mess—but an alive mess, and that was a good thing.

  His clothes lay w
here he’d left them. Another thing right.

  And the purse was there.

  He needed to put those clothes on fast. The cold undid him. But he wouldn’t let himself dress, filthy like this. He’d soil his clothes. You cannot wash yourself, change your clothes, shave your beard, comb your hair. How could he get clean without washing?

  A technicality. That’s what he needed.

  Washing called for water. Without water, it couldn’t be washing.

  He wiped one hand in the dirt of the road, getting it as clean as possible. Then, with his two cleanest fingers, he carried his clothes, piece by piece, to the rock. There at least they would be out of harm’s way.

  He climbed back up the hill to the pine tree. He crumpled pine needles into scratchy wads and rubbed himself all over. He wanted to rub till he was raw and red. Instead, his skin turned slowly blue.

  The stink of vomit and feces hung over him like a curse, but he had to give up. Whatever still clung to him would have to be endured. He was too cold.

  He went to the rock and dressed. His teeth chattered so hard, he thought they’d break. Then he’d go around whistling, like the bully. His laugh ended in tears.

  The sun was growing weak already. The winds never ceased. He let them push him, as he made his way slowly back toward Randazzo.

  Cani

  HE WOKE WITH A START AND SHOOK HIS HEAD.

  “Yip.” The dog jumped backward.

  Don Giovanni sat up. It hurt to move. He was battered and bruised. The cold had stiffened his joints. The smell of his own face made him gag. He looked around.

  The dog stood with his front legs splayed and his chest lowered, his eyes fastened on the slow movements of the man. He was ready to dash away at the first threat.

  Don Giovanni put a hand to his cheek, where something had disturbed him. It was wet. He understood instantly. He leaned forward. “Come on, Cani—Dog—come on. You can trust me. We’ve slept here together more than once. You remember the old days.” If only Don Giovanni hadn’t pushed the dog away in those days. He sweetened his voice. “Come on. Do it again.” He practically sang, “Please.”

  The dog came forward slowly. He gave a tentative lick. Then another. Need stilled every muscle in Don Giovanni’s body. Enormous need. This is what prayer was.

  Don Giovanni closed his eyes and pressed his lips together. The wet rasp went over his eyelids, up his nostrils, in his ears. A tongue can be a miracle of strength and yet flexible, one of the Lord’s great inventions.

  The old proverb went through his head: Tutti li gusti sun gusti, rissi lu iattu liccannusi lu culu—“All tastes are tastes, said the cat, licking his anus.” He’d laughed at that disdainfully when he was a boy. Never again. With each movement of that dog’s tongue, gratitude swelled the man’s heart a little more. Keep it up, Cani. Please.

  Now there was tugging at his beard. The dog was trying to get a piece of vomit free from a snarl of hair. It hurt. But he wanted the dog to be successful. And, anyway, this pain was nothing compared to the ache in his stomach and back from the punches the day before. He braced himself so he wouldn’t tumble over at the quick, wrenching moves.

  But then, “Aiii!” Don Giovanni opened his eyes and jumped to his feet. He touched his chin. His hand came away bloody.

  The dog had run to the other side of the alley. It looked at him with worried eyes. A clump of Don Giovanni’s beard hair stuck in his teeth. It made him look rabid, but also slightly comical.

  “It’s all right. Come on back. Come on, Cani.” Don Giovanni held out a hand and bent forward.

  Cani slowly crossed the alley.

  Don Giovanni patted him on the head. “You didn’t mean to do it. I know that.” He went down on one knee with a small groan and gingerly touched the hair hanging from the dog’s mouth. When the dog didn’t growl, he yanked it free and threw it away. “I owe you, Cani. I smell like stinky dog breath now. That’s better than vomit.”

  Cani licked Don Giovanni’s hand. Slowly. Meticulously. Now his wrist. He worked his way up the forearm, the elbow. Cani’s head was under his cape now, licking higher.

  Don Giovanni pulled away, shocked by his own initial passivity. If he didn’t set limits, the dog would lick him in his private places. Then he’d be no better than an animal.

  Every single thing was a potential trap, for what good would winning the wager be if he lost his humanity?

  It was almost morning. He spoke to his purse. He shook a coin from it and leaned against the wall to wait.

  The milk boy came up the alley, leading his four nannies.

  “Here.” Don Giovanni held out a coin.

  The boy blinked. A wary look crossed his face, but he didn’t back up. “What for?”

  “Milk. For me and him.” Don Giovanni motioned with his thumb at the dog, who had retreated to the far side of the alley again when the goats came into sight.

  “Milk doesn’t cost that much,” said the boy.

  An honest boy. Someone who wasn’t greedy. Don Giovanni wanted to kiss his feet. “If you give us our fill of milk every morning, I’ll give you a coin once a week.”

  The boy looked around. “Where’s your jug?”

  “Squirt it into our mouths.”

  The boy took the coin and it disappeared somewhere inside his cape. He put down the bell he carried. “Who should I do first?”

  “Cani.” Don Giovanni called, “Here, Cani, come on.” He slapped his thigh. “Come on.”

  Cani hurried over.

  The boy took a goat teat and squirted Cani in the face.

  Cani shook his head in surprise, but that dog caught on fast. He opened his mouth and licked at the stream of milk as it came through the air.

  Don Giovanni got on his knees. The boy squirted him now.

  Good milk coated his innards as it went down, taking away the pain. “Enough.” Don Giovanni closed his eyes and stayed like that. Within seconds Cani was licking the milk that had squirted onto Don Giovanni’s face and beard. And licking the bloody wound, too.

  “I’ll bring you a bowl tomorrow.”

  Don Giovanni opened his eyes wide at the unexpected words of kindness. “Thank you.”

  But the boy had already gone ahead to the house door. He clanged his iron wedge.

  Don Giovanni limped quickly to the corner and turned down the next alley before the door opened. He looked behind. Cani was at his heels.

  This was a good start. Something he could build on.

  They got into a routine, Don Giovanni and Cani. The milk boy filled their bowl twice in the morning—one bowlful each—for a coin a week. The maidservant who swept out the kitchen at a house on the next street over gave them a loaf of bread every dawn for a coin a week. They split it, half and half.

  Their midday meal was in a tavern in the German Lombard section of town. The owner was a vintner of considerable reputation and the more prosperous people went there to drink, gamble, sing, visit prostitutes. Don Giovanni had never entered the establishment during his beggar period, so no one knew him. Anonymity felt safer.

  He couldn’t understand most of what the German tavern-keeper said, but it didn’t matter. He put his coin on the table and the tavernkeeper put in its place a plate of hot food. Usually stew of mutton or goat, but sometimes chicken or boar or venison. And always lots of greens.

  The whole thing was spiced with cinnamon or ginger or pepper. Lightly. Delicately, in fact. The cook knew his trade. And the wine was a pleasure, made from the huge grapes that grew on Etna. People said they were the largest in the world.

  Don Giovanni responded appropriately with his most polite habits. He cut the meat off the bone into small pieces and delivered them to his mouth either on the point of his knife or in the spoon. He never rushed. He took his time chewing, savoring the cook’s mastery, sipping the wine, letting it roll slowly across his tongue.

  Cani stayed under the table busy with the gristle and knuckle and bones. But when there was venison, well, that was different. Cani lov
ed venison. Don Giovanni would buy a second plate and put it on the floor for the dog, even though he knew that producing two coins was risky. A single coin, well, a beggar might luck upon that by catching the eye of a particularly generous person or finding some small job. Even on a daily basis. But two, that raised suspicions.

  Don Giovanni indulged himself in that risk partly because it gave him satisfaction to see Cani so overjoyed. The dog gave evidence of a miserable life before he’d joined up with the man, clear evidence: he’d come to expect nothing. Every time Don Giovanni slipped him a bit of nerve or sinew under the table, the dog was as excited and grateful as the first time it had happened.

  And Don Giovanni indulged in that risk partly because he needed one tiny declaration of bravery—only now and then—just to let himself remember, even if poorly, how bold he once was, how bold he planned on being again. He tapped the purse inside his smock. Three years, three months, three days.

  For the evening meal, man and dog satisfied themselves with a bowl of bean soup and dark bread to dip. They ate this outside the kitchen doors of one of a dozen different homes where the cook had agreed to the arrangement. One coin fed them both for two nights running.

  And, again, the man was on his best behavior. He ate with the same habits he’d use at a banquet table. It was important to maintain the semblance of being civilized whenever possible. Because he was civilized. Don Giovanni was a human being, with a soul.

  He recovered from his beating quickly. After all, he’d gotten into good health during his stay in the inn, so he had a solid foundation to build on. He felt lively again.

  The more amazing thing was the transformation of Cani. His eyes turned alertly to every sound, every motion. The frightened, frantic dog that had run back and forth beside Don Giovanni that first night he’d come to Randazzo, way back last February, was completely gone. This new version of the dog seemed curious, intelligent, interested in the world. But never interested enough to stray. Oh, no, he stayed at Don Giovanni’s heels, even when cats crossed their path. He was a disciplined dog. Don Giovanni admired that in him.

  At first Don Giovanni tried to get the two of them on a nocturnal schedule. During the day they slept between meals out in the open in the largest market square. No one would dare attack them with all the traffic going on. At night, they wandered the streets, staying close to the buildings, noticed only by the rats. They keep their eyes peeled, constantly on the lookout for thieves and hoodlums.