“Bloody Jesus Christ!” Bonocore cursed and, perhaps to unburden himself of the fright he felt at the sight of Rico, who looked already dead, he dealt the howling Carmelina a powerful kick. But the nanny goat didn’t budge an inch.
For two hours Donna Matilde had been wailing like Mary at the foot of the cross, hopping around next to the bed on which Rico lay dying.
“They killed him! They shot my son!”
In vain ’Ntontò tried to stop her, in vain she told her it had not been a murder, that it had only been a misfortune. To no avail. At most, Donna Matilde would utter a variant, in a voice so shrill that the horses in the stables answered back.
“They cut him down with shotguns!”
The marchese looked glumly on, motionless as a statue, as Dr. Smecca and the pharmacist La Matina, summoned for consultation, busied themselves with the moribund Rico, but at a certain point he sprang to his feet from the little sofa on which he had been sitting beside his friend Uccello, and, in a very calm tone that contrasted with the violence with which he had stood up, called his wife.
“Come here, you silly goose.”
The woman approached, trembling all over.
“Either you pipe down,” he continued, “or I’m going to start kicking you.”
Donna Matilde withdrew to a corner, whimpering softly.
“You have to forgive her, poor woman,” said Barone Uccello, adding, at precisely the wrong moment: “Just think of all she had to put up with to conceive him.”
The marchese looked at him thoughtfully.
“Barone, would you do me a most welcome favor?”
“By all means,” said the other, leaping to his feet.
“Would you please get the hell out of here?”
Now the Baron Uccello was a good, kind man, but he also had a knack for kicking up a row in any circumstance—even such as the present one, in front of a dying man.
“No one has ever told me to get the hell out of anywhere, you know.”
“Well, now you know what it’s like.”
They were interrupted by Fofò La Matina.
“Could I have your attention, please?” He looked over at Dr. Smecca, who was on the other side of the bed, and continued: “The doctor is right. It is a clear case of mushroom poisoning. Don Rico must have mistaken an Amanita virosa, which is lethal and grows in abundance in those parts, with Agaricus silvaticus, which is edible. A tragic mistake.”
Donna Matilde’s cry startled them all, including Rico, who opened his eyes for a moment then closed them again.
“No! My son was a god of mushrooms! He would never have made a mistake! He was shot! With pistols!”
Federico Maria Santo Peluso di Torre Venerina, heir to the title, did not make it to midnight. He breathed his last at 11:59, practically choking on the Viaticum the choleric Father Macaluso had forced into his mouth, leaving Rico no longer able to swallow with the wafer stuck between his palate and throat. But he was going to die one way or another.
The day after the funeral, the marchese disappeared after informing Barone Uccello:
“My good man, I’m in need of some distraction, to cheer myself up. I’m going to go and spend some time on my lands. I don’t enjoy sitting down at table with my family anymore.”
“Have they done something to upset you?”
“Nothing at all. You see, carissimo, when my father jumped into the sea for reasons known only to him—”
“What do you mean, for reasons known only to him? He was ninety years old, had been glued to a chair for ten, depending on others—if I may say so—to clean his bottom . . .”
“So what? My father would have enjoyed life anyway, to the last drop, even with his arms and legs cut off and stuck inside a pot of parsley. Forget about it. No, I’m not going back home, and I’ll tell you why. When my father killed himself, I put on a black tie and a black armband a foot long. Since Rico died, we’re all dressed in black and are in deep mourning. Even the servants wear black. Yesterday evening, at the dinner table, we looked like a flock of crows being served by crows. I need a change of scene for a little while, carissimo.”
The marchese made a first, brief stop at Bonocore’s house.
“I want you to tell me, in minute detail, exactly what happened.”
“Your excellency must know that on that same accursed day I had to go to Sant’Agata to buy seeds. I returned at nightfall, but didn’t know that your son had come here. I only realized it when I saw his horse tied to a tree. And as I was breaking in my she-mule I heard Carmelina—”
“Who is Carmelina?”
“That goat who’s looking at us over there. She was screaming like hell, an’ I thought she got lost in the woods or some animal’d bit her. So I ran out to look for her and found ’er next to your son. It looked like Don Rico’d managed to drag himself out of the woods and crawl towards my house, but ’e didn’t quite make it. ’E was leaning against a tree and ’d thrown up and shat ’is pants, with all due respect. So I picked ’im up an’ put ’im on ’is ’orse and brought ’im into town. I lost some time when the goat kept following after me, acting like she was crazy, and I had to turn back and lock ’er inside the straw hut.”
He paused.
“’Cause your excellency should know that Carmelina . . .”
He stopped.
“. . . that Carmelina and Don Rico were in love.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
Silence fell. The marchese then cut a slice of bread from the loaf he had in his haversack and walked up to Carmelina. The animal stood still, waiting until the marchese was three steps away before preparing to sidestep.
“There’s a good girl,” said Don Filippo, crouching and tossing the bread to the goat. “I only wanted to thank you for bringing a little happiness to my son.”
He stood up, returned to Bonocore, took his wallet out of his jacket, extracted some bills, and held them out to the farmhand. Bonocore felt faint; he had never seen so much money.
“Make her a nice house—for Carmelina, that is. One with a roof. And buy the best food you can for her.”
“For the goat?!”
“No, not ‘for the goat,’ as you put it. No. For Carmelina, my son’s beloved.”
Bonocore felt like laughing, but he held himself back when he saw the look in his master’s eyes.
“And if, when I come back, I find you haven’t done what I asked, I’ll give you such a thrashing I’ll leave you for dead in a ravine somewhere.”
Bonocore realized it was no time for joking.
“I swear on my life,” he said, putting his right hand over his heart. “She’ll be treated like a queen.”
The marchese’s second, much longer stop was at the cottage of Natale Pirrotta, the field watcher for Le Zubbie, his twenty- thousand-hectare vineyard. The little house sat atop a hill covered with Saracen olive trees, and from some of its windows one could see the distant line of the sea. It also displayed a recently added room on top, whitewashed on the outside and equipped with a little convenience room. Pirrotta had built it two years earlier for Don Filippo, after they had come to an agreement. The field watcher was a burly man who had long been married to a hardworking woman with a generous heart who had only one great defect: she couldn’t bear children. This problem of hers had won her the sympathy of the marchese, who, at the time, was trying to have a son. When the field watcher’s wife died falling from the roof, where she had climbed to fix a gutter, Natale, after the required period of mourning, decided to find another woman. Dr. Smecca, who was sort of a spiritual father to Pirrotta, advised him to marry Trisina, the beautiful eighteen-year-old daughter of a former maidservant of his. When Pirrotta remarked that there would be an age difference of a good thirty years between husband and wife, the doctor replied that this was exactly what was needed for Natale finally to have a s
on: firm, young flesh, fertile ground for tired seed.
“And what if she won’t have me? What if, I dunno, she thinks I’m too old?”
“Oh, she’ll have you, she’ll have you, don’t you worry about that. I’m going to talk to her mother tomorrow.”
The first night he spent with his new bride in the cottage at Le Zubbie, Pirrotta was able to touch with his hand, so to speak, the fact that Dr. Smecca had already dipped his biscuit in Trisina. But he played dumb, deciding to consider the woman a necessary tool for having a child, the way a bucket is needed to draw water from a well or a hoe is needed to break up the soil. Three years later, however, there were still no children. One evening Pirrotta went upstairs to the room where he slept with Trisina in their double bed, and he separated the frames, planks, and mattresses.
“I don’t need you anymore,” he said to Trisina when showing her the now twin beds. “You can go back to fucking the doctor.”
One day when they were on the trail of a hare, Pirrotta spoke about the matter with his master.
“But do you really not care if Smecca fucks her?” asked the marchese.
“Him or someone else, iss all the same to me.”
“What if it was me?”
“I’d be honored,” said the field watcher.
They made an agreement, and Pirrotta built the extra room so that Don Filippo, when he came to see Trisina, could stay at his convenience.
Worn out from the ride from Citronella to Le Zubbie, the marchese had just finished washing, and had not yet changed clothes, when he heard the field watcher call to him. He went to the window. Pirrotta was standing beside his saddled she-mule in the little clearing by the well.
“I’m going to the livestock fair at Mascalucia. I’ll be away for three days and three nights. If you need anything, ask Trisina. With your blessing, sir.”
He mounted his mule and left. Pirrotta was keen to save face even when they were alone. After a short while the marchese saw Trisina go to the well, remove her bodice, and begin washing herself. He lay down on the bed, closed his eyes for a spell, then reopened them when he heard some noise. Trisina, completely naked, tits pointing proudly at him, was standing in the doorway, smiling.
When Don Filippo Peluso arrived at the front door of his palazzo after being away for eight days (having sent Pirrotta on a few other errands), the first thing he heard was the shrill voice of Donna Matilde piercing the window blinds, which were closed for mourning.
“They shot him!”
In the courtyard, Mimì the manservant informed him that nobody in the household had been able to get any sleep because of the signora marchesa’s constant screaming. Without batting an eye, the marchese got back on his horse, according himself another seven days of special leave with Trisina, which would continue the process of turning field watcher Natale Pirrotta into some sort of snakebitten traveler. And it was his own fault, really, for wanting to keep up appearances, even in front of the crickets—like the time when, returning home earlier than planned, he had found his wife and his master together in bed, stark naked. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, Natale reported what he had to report, and then asked:
“Do you know where my wife Trisina might happen to be, sir?”
“I think she’s gone into the garden,” the marchese replied, playing by the rules.
“I’ll go and see if I can find her,” Pirrotta said, and went out.
“Well, since for that fool I’m in the garden, let me pick this nice big cucumber here,” Trisina said, laughing and grabbing him firmly under the sheets.
A sudden, violent cuff to the head from the marchese sent her flying out of the bed.
“You must never make fun of your husband. You must show him the respect he deserves.”
Before taking refuge again in Pirrotta’s cottage and Trisina’s lush garden, the marchese went into town, to the shop of Salamone e Vinci, fine jewelers. Without responding to the two business partners’ hand-wringing condolences, he sat himself down in front of Salomone’s counter. (He wanted nothing to do with Vinci—not because he wasn’t as accomplished as his associate, but because for no apparent reason the man got on his nerves.) He then extracted five exploded bullets from his pocket and laid them down on the table.
“Have no fear,” he said, noticing the look on the jeweler’s face, “I fired them myself at a tree on my way here, and then dug them out with a knife.”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“Allow me to explain.”
Seeing him enter her room, confidently pull up an armchair, and sit down before her as she sat sunken in another armchair, Donna Matilde got flustered. Then she decided to talk to the stranger.
“Are you aware that my son was murdered?”
Don Filippo was not surprised. ’Ntontò had told him that for the past month the poor woman no longer recognized anybody and used the formal mode of address with everyone.
“And how do you deal with it?” he had asked his daughter.
“I answer her in kind,” ’Ntontò had said, giving a wan hint of a smile, “and follow the rules of etiquette to a T.”
“And you know what takes the cake?” the marchesa continued, speaking to the stranger. “Nobody believes it. They say he died eating poison mushrooms. My son, who knew everything there was to know about every mushroom in creation. Are you from these parts?”
“Who?” asked the marchese, taken by surprise.
“You. Are you from these parts?”
“No. Just passing through.”
And he really did feel as if he was only passing through, since the moment he set foot back in his house he had come to the decision to grant himself another three months at Le Zubbie.
“I’m a friend of your husband, the marchese,” he added.
“The cuckolded bastard,” Donna Matilde said under her breath.
The marchese gave a start and grimaced.
“Do you mean that in a manner of speaking, or is it true?”
“Why are you making that face? His own brother wouldn’t have such a reaction!”
“Marchesa, do not change the subject. You absolutely must answer my question.”
“I meant it in a manner of speaking. Happy now?” And she smiled a distant smile, as if, in the devastated landscape of her memory, a tiny, happy island had suddenly appeared. Troubled, but afraid to take things any further, the marchese decided to come to the point.
“Your husband the marchese had an autopsy performed on Rico.”
“What does that word you said mean?”
“It means they had a look inside him. And they found these.”
He extracted a large jewel case and opened it. A gold necklace sparkled inside, studded with gemstones and lead.
“See these? They’re the five bullets that were found in Rico’s body. Your husband had them mounted. You were right all along, Marchesa. He was shot.”
“How beautiful,” said Donna Matilde, picking up the necklace, drawn to the glitter like a magpie and forgetting her victory—that is, the confirmation that her son died in the manner she had always maintained.
“My respects, Marchesa.”
Having taken a proper bow, Don Filippo was about to withdraw when he was stopped by his wife’s voice.
“Is that gentleman with you?”
“What gentleman?” said the marchese, looking around and seeing no one.
“Why, that one there,” the marchesa replied with irritation, pointing at the cat, Mustafà, who was asleep at the foot of the bed.
“No, that gentleman came in on his own.”
In the corridor, as he was heading towards his room, Don Filippo stopped short, seized by a sudden idea.
If my wife can no longer distinguish between a cat and a man, why would she be able to distinguish between a goat and a woman? I think,
one of these days, I will bring Carmelina home with me and introduce her to Matilde. I’ll tell her she was Rico’s secret fiancée, and she should treat her like a daughter.
“That makes three games in a row you’ve lost, Marchese. You seem a bit distracted. What’s on your mind?”
“A goat.”
“A goat goat?”
“That’s right.”
Barone Uccello felt sorry for his friend. Apparently the marchese was having trouble getting over the loss of his son. They played another game, also won by the baron.
“I think it’s not my day,” said Don Filippo, and he added, “I wanted to ask you something, carissimo. It’s a private matter, and you must feel absolutely free not to answer.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Are you fond of your two daughters-in-law?”
“I don’t know why you’re asking me this, and I don’t want to know. But I will answer. You see, when Sarina, my elder son’s wife, comes to see me, I fall into a trance just looking at her and I cannot keep myself from sighing from time to time. If she ever happens to want anything, I am ready to oblige her. And when she thanks me in that sweet little voice of hers, I melt. With Luisina, my younger son’s wife, it’s something else entirely, by God!”
“Are you not fond of her?”
The baron had a look around, grabbed his chair, moved it, and sat down beside Don Filippo so he could speak softly.
“I’m going to tell you something in confidence that I’m embarrassed to admit, and so I don’t want you looking at me when I say it. A few nights ago I had a dream about Luisina, and we had just finished doing what a man and a woman do together, if you know what I mean. The moonlight was filtering through the shutter as I lay there contemplating her naked, white body. This, old boy, just to give you an idea.”
He paused.
“You, unfortunately, will never know this, but a father always falls in love with his son’s beloved.”
Hunting Season: A Novel Page 4
