The Wager

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “The one who brought diphtheria? I can see it. Look at you. Disgusting mess. Get out of here. Leave Trapani. We care about our children.”

  “It wasn’t diphtheria. No one died. It was something else.”

  “Really? How do you know that?”

  “Everyone knows that,” Don Giovanni said as forcefully as a hungry, thirsty man could.

  “Even so, you’re hideous. No one would come to my inn if I gave you a bed.”

  “Please just sell us food then. Set it outside the door. I’ll leave money there.”

  The innkeeper shook his head.

  “I’ll leave double what the meal is worth. And if you’ll fill an amphora with water for us, I’ll pay triple for the food, plus an extra gold coin for the amphora.” It was an exorbitant price.

  The innkeeper closed the shutters. Fifteen minutes later, he opened the door and set a cloth parcel and an amphora outside.

  Man and dog wandered down the long sickle-shaped beach, sat on the cold sand, and ate and drank.

  “We’ll be all right, Cani. We’ve both got fat on us. If we can eat every third day, like we’ve done so far, we’ll be all right. Only sixteen days to go. Then we’ll get ready for the wedding. My bride. Your new mistress. We can do this.”

  A cold wind whipped off the sea with no warning, spraying them, ruining their bread. They ate it anyway.

  They walked south, staying as close to the shoreline as they could. That night they dug a hole high up on a beach and slept while the wind screamed over them.

  In the morning Cani whistled and snorted and threw himself around to get free of the sand.

  Don Giovanni had to wipe sand off his eyelids before he could open them. He picked crusts of sand from his nostrils. He blew sand from his lips. He wondered if he should try to scrape it from his chest and back, but he had nothing to scrape with. The wind blew hard, grinding the sand deeper into his skin, throwing it in his eyes.

  They kept following the shoreline, anyway. It was the shortest route to Marsala, where they arrived on the third morning. Cani whimpered continuously. And every part of Don Giovanni stung except the center of his chest, where he’d clutched the empty amphora tight.

  The flat land was perfect for agriculture. To the north of the city was a river, where Don Giovanni and Cani drank their fill. The water sloshed in Don Giovanni’s stomach as they walked to the first farmhouse and paid the farmer for a hearty meal.

  “I’ve got an old smock,” said the farmer, filling the amphora with the delicious local wine.

  Don Giovanni hadn’t asked for wine. Cani didn’t drink it, after all. But both man and dog had already had their fill of water, so he didn’t object. But the smock . . . ah. “Thank you. But I can’t accept it.”

  “The wind’s unusual this year,” said the farmer. “No one remembers anything like this. The oldest man in town says that when his grandfather was a child gales cut through like a sword. But that old man makes up things all the time.”

  Don Giovanni nodded. “The wind can hurt.”

  “Well, you can sleep with the horses if you want. You won’t find anything better around here. Derelicts like you aren’t tolerated.”

  Derelict. That’s what he looked like, for sure.

  “In the smaller towns south of here they kill people like you.”

  That couldn’t be true. The king’s laws extended all over Sicily.

  “Go on, sleep with the horses. In the morning, you can have bread in goat milk. A traveler needs a hearty start to his day. And maybe you’ll have changed your mind about the smock by then.” The farmer gestured toward the stable. “Go on now.”

  The offer was good. Too good.

  They couldn’t accept.

  This was the final stretch. Don Giovanni had to expect traps everywhere. Thirteen days to go.

  “Thanks. But we can’t stay.”

  The wind followed them down the coast, driving sand into every exposed opening in their bodies. When a wagon would pass on the road up the slope, they’d flatten themselves into the sand. That farmer could have been the devil’s assistant, or he could have simply been a friendly man. But it wasn’t worth the chance. There was still one more large town on the western coast. Don Giovanni and Cani wouldn’t stop till they got there.

  It took four days before they finally arrived in Mazara. They should have made it in three. And they would have, if it hadn’t been for the wine. Being drunk slowed a man down. And made him stupid; Don Giovanni dropped the amphora as they were coming to the edge of town. It broke on a stone beside the road.

  Mazara was smaller than Marsala. Still, it was big enough for the residents to know how to treat strangers—or it should have been. Instead, the people here were immediately suspicious of him. No one was tempted by the offer of huge sums of money for food. No one seemed moved by the plight of the needy, though Don Giovanni was sure the town had plenty of Muslims. The inlaid street pattern gave that away, and the white houses.

  Don Giovanni and Cani wandered hopelessly along a road. Four days was too long to go without water. They’d never make it through a fifth. They’d be dead by night.

  They came to a date palm tree and rested under it. Don Giovanni closed his eyes. He could fall asleep easily.

  Death was such an easy option.

  Smack!

  His eyes popped open. He grabbed his aching upper arm. A half-desiccated orange lay on the ground beside him. The skin was clear yellow with just a touch of red tinge.

  “Get away or I’ll throw more. And take that evil dog with you.” The man was hard to understand. He was dressed in white robes and had only two teeth showing.

  Don Giovanni looked at that yellow fruit, the color of hope. He let his mouth hang open. He made his eyes go vacant.

  “Idiot!” The man threw another orange, thump, at Don Giovanni’s forehead. “Don’t show your dirty face on the holiday. Disrespectful. Disgraced!”

  Cani attempted a growl. It was hardly audible.

  Don Giovanni put a calming hand on the dog’s head. He swung his own head from side to side.

  The man threw a third orange and a fourth. Smack on Don Giovanni’s bare chest; thump on his rag-covered knee. But that was all; the thrower’s sack hung empty.

  Don Giovanni picked up the oranges and held them like a baby to his chest. “We’re going. Come, Cani.” He limped. The dog staggered.

  They went back to the road they’d taken into town. No one was on it. So Don Giovanni sat and tried to peel an orange. The peel was tough, though, because the fruit was past ripe. He got up and walked back to the place where he’d dropped the amphora. The shards still lay by the rock. Don Giovanni summoned every drop of strength he had left and gouged an orange with the point of a shard. He held the dog’s mouth open and squeezed in what juice there was. After all, Don Giovanni had had wine for the past few days, but Cani had had nothing.

  When the juice was gone, he used the shard to cut the orange into pieces and he and Cani devoured the sour flesh. They did the same with the other three. Then they spent the afternoon walking in the country outside the northern part of town, going from orange tree to orange tree. Most had been picked clean, but now and then an old fruit hung from a high branch. And fairly often there were rotting ones on the ground.

  “Nine nights to go,” the man crooned in the dog’s ear. “Then we prepare for Mimi.”

  They went back to the road and crossed through the town, and Don Giovanni burst out laughing. A river came down through the middle of Mazara. If they’d only walked a little more to the south, they’d have found it that morning. They drank, though by now their thirst had been satisfied. They drank because a river should never go unappreciated. Then they walked past one of the most beautiful mosques Don Giovanni had ever seen.

  That night they slept in a hole they dug on a beach south of town.

  Don Giovanni knew of no other towns of any decent size along the coast to the south, but scattered villages were everywhere. He’d have to use h
is judgment and trust people he thought might help.

  They went back to Mazara first, though, and followed the river up, beyond the brackish mouth to where it was fresh and clear. They drank and Cani swam. And a woman washing her laundry gave them a flat bread to share. So charity still existed, just not on a holiday.

  They walked the coastal road until it ended. Donkey paths took its place, winding inland. Don Giovanni followed any path that wasn’t too steep for their flagging energy. The sparse vegetation promised nothing. They ate bitter leaves and hoped they weren’t poisonous.

  At nightfall they came to a terraced bit of hillside. The farmhouse showed no candlelight, no lamplight. Knocking on a door in the middle of the country in the dark was tantamount to asking for a beating, so Don Giovanni went back to the terraces and pushed himself against a dirt wall to sleep.

  Cani watched him, then wandered off.

  Well, that was all right. The dog would be there when he woke. He always was.

  Don Giovanni slept.

  Cackling woke him. Chicken noises. Then a shout. More shouts.

  Don Giovanni clutched the amphora shard in his hand—it was his only weapon of defense—and ran down the terraces away from the farmhouse. He ran and ran until he couldn’t hear anything anymore. He panted in the pitch black of night.

  Something moved off to his right.

  “Cani? Cani, is that you?” he called softly.

  The dog appeared at his knees. A dead hen dangled from his mouth.

  They ate it together, every edible bit. Only the feathers, beak, and claws remained.

  They walked in a large arc past the farm in a generally southern direction. When he could barely put one foot in front of the other, Don Giovanni dropped in his tracks. “Let’s sleep, Cani.”

  They curled up together.

  “Stealing is wrong,” Don Giovanni said to the dog. “Good dog. Stealing is wrong.”

  The next day they spotted another farmhouse soon after waking. It must have been around noon. Don Giovanni went right up to the door and knocked.

  No one answered.

  If he went in and was caught . . .

  He sat in the shade of a tree. It was a pleasant day. Spring had definitely come to this part of Sicily, though by his reckoning it was only 28 January.

  28 January. One week to go. One week.

  He heard the men before he saw them. They were talking about how Beppe’s chicken coop had been raided.

  Don Giovanni clamped a hand around Cani’s muzzle to keep the dog silent. He peeked around the tree trunk. Three men walked along a path leading a donkey. He hid behind the tree again and waited until they had gone into the farmhouse.

  “Come on, Cani.” They hobble-ran across the vineyard.

  They walked all day long, staying as far from people as they could.

  That night they came to a river. This was a wide one. It ran with the swiftness of first spring. They drank. Then Don Giovanni caught elvers in his hands. Elvers so early. He hadn’t eaten them since his spring on Mount Etna. They were tiny, but plentiful. Don Giovanni and Cani slept with full stomachs.

  They might as well stay here now. There was food and water and no one to chase them away. Besides, Don Giovanni was loath to keep traveling farther and farther from his Mimi. So they hid out there the next day and night.

  By chance, a passing peddler stopped at the river the third day. He told them a group of farmers was hunting chicken thieves. He looked at them knowingly. Then he told them to keep going south, along the coast, and they’d get to the town of Sciacca. It wasn’t far. They’d find good people there. People who would take care of them. The peddler repeated his words several times, as though Don Giovanni must be a half-wit.

  Anything could be a trap. Anyone could lay it.

  But the prospect of people who would take care of them was too alluring to put aside. And if the farmers were really hunting for them, they had to get on the move again. Five more days. Five more nights.

  They walked on inland paths, but always within sight of the sea. They walked all day. They slept off the path, behind a bush.

  The next day they continued. They came to the village of Sciacca in the early evening. Not even a village really. A cluster of homes. They knocked on a door at random.

  The girl who answered was neither pretty nor plain. Her eyes took them in calmly. “How much money do you have?”

  A completely unexpected question. Don Giovanni swayed on his feet. “How much do I need?”

  “A full recovery is expensive.”

  A full recovery? The words dazzled like precious stones. Whatever she meant, he wanted it. “I’ve got it.”

  “Show me.”

  “Bring me a meal, big enough for me and Cani—lots of meat. And I’ll fill your hands with gold.”

  The girl shut the door.

  Don Giovanni looked around. A woman leaned out the window next door and stared at him. Two men stood in a doorway across and down the path, watching him. Eyes probably fixed on him from every home within sight.

  He went back the way he’d come until he couldn’t see the houses anymore. Someone might still be watching, but he didn’t know where from. And it wasn’t yet dark enough to be sure they couldn’t see.

  “Sit, Cani.”

  Cani sat.

  Don Giovanni sat in front of Cani and wrapped his legs around the dog.

  Cani made a low rumble in his throat and turned a quizzical eye on him.

  Don Giovanni stealthily pulled his purse out of his waistband and laid it on the small patch of ground between his crotch and Cani’s. “Dear one,” he whispered. “Give me money. Enough for the full recovery.”

  The purse filled and overflowed. Gold spilled from it.

  Don Giovanni tucked the purse back in place. He rolled his trouser cuffs to form little pouches that he filled with gold. Then he and Cani went back to the girl’s house.

  This time a woman answered. “Have you got the money?”

  “Have you got the meal?”

  The woman went back inside and came out with a large bowl full of stew.

  Don Giovanni reached for it.

  “No.” The woman put it on the ground. “Here.”

  Cani stared at the bowl and whined.

  Don Giovanni picked up the bowl. The pungent smell made his head swirl. He nodded toward his legs. “Reach into my cuffs for the money.”

  The woman’s lip curled. “I won’t touch those pants. They have to be burned.”

  Don Giovanni shook each leg until the coins fell onto the ground. “We’ll be back in the morning for another meal.”

  “All right.”

  “And this money pays for the recovery, too,” said Don Giovanni, acting as though he knew what he was talking about.

  “Of course.”

  Did he dare push his luck? “The full recovery.”

  “Of course. We can start it tonight.”

  “No. Give me four more nights. Then we’ll start it. From now till then, I’ll come by morning and night for a meal.”

  “The sooner we start, the better.”

  “Good night.”

  Don Giovanni walked back along the path, then off into the shrubbery. He set down the bowl. Dog and man ate side by side. They slept unmoving, heavy as trees.

  The next day, Don Giovanni carried the bowl back to the house. The girl answered this time. She poured warm goat milk into the bowl and put a stale loaf of bread on the ground beside it. Don Giovanni carried the food to the shrubs where they’d slept the night before. He broke the bread into bits and dropped them into the milk. He and Cani ate side by side again. They slept on and off all day. In the early evening they brought the bowl back for more stew.

  That night it rained. In the morning, Don Giovanni and Cani lay in mud. The sun hardened it on their backs. It cracked off as they walked to the house.

  The girl opened the door. She came outside with a large sack slung over her shoulder. “Follow me.”

  “What a
bout food?” Don Giovanni held the empty bowl.

  “Put it down,” she said in annoyance. “Follow me.” The girl led them along a path and soon they came into a real town. How foolish Don Giovanni had been, to think those first few houses were the whole of it. Sciacca had not only a mosque, but a Christian church. And lots of homes.

  The market square teemed with vendors calling out their wares and produce, and shoppers haggling over prices. A man fried large pieces of dough in sizzling oil over an open fire. Don Giovanni stopped at a wall and secretively pulled out his purse. When he had a coin in his hand, he slipped the purse away again and bought two pieces of the dough. He and Cani ate in large sloppy bites.

  Now he realized the girl was gone. She’d disappeared into the crowd. “Find her, Cani,” he said in the dog’s ear. “We want the full recovery. We need it.”

  Cani wove through the tables of cheeses and meats and cloths and yarns, with Don Giovanni close behind. There she was, waiting.

  “Hurry,” she said.

  They walked through town fast. Don Giovanni struggled to keep up. He couldn’t risk losing sight of her again. Her and that heavy bag. A full recovery. They went up into the foothills of a mountain.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Monte Cronio, of course.”

  “What’s there?”

  “The cure.” The girl frowned. “That’s what you came for, after all.”

  “But not yet. Two more nights. Just two more nights.”

  “Two days from now I have to travel to Agrigento. My cousin’s getting married the day after—the seventh of February. I can’t wait. If you want my help, you have to start today.”

  “No.” Don Giovanni stopped. “If three days from now is the seventh of February, today is the fourth of February. But that’s wrong.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Today is the second of February.”

  “You’ve lost track of time,” said the girl. “It’s easy to do, in your condition. I’ve seen illnesses like yours play tricks on people’s minds all the time.”

  Don Giovanni had been careful. He’d counted off the days. He couldn’t be wrong. “I’m not ill.”

  “Yes, you are. You came for the cure.”