A Winter's Night

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  They would never see him again.

  On Sunday afternoons, on those first days of spring, their boys’ friends would come over to play bocce in the courtyard. Checco would uncork a couple of bottles of Albana and a good time would be had by all. But at five o’clock on the dot, when the priest rang Vespers, Clerice shooed them all out: she didn’t want anyone missing prayers at church because they were playing bocce in the front yard. And when the church bell tolled for the benediction of the Eucharist, she would make the sign of the cross in the middle of the courtyard and everyone would lower their heads in silence.

  As the days got longer and the nights shorter, they had to work longer hours in the fields. The hemp was springing up before their eyes, as was the wheat. At night they began to hear the monotonous croaking of the tree toads and the chirping of crickets. One evening at dinner, Callisto told his children what the umbrella mender had said the morning he’d left, as he walked off towards the osteria. Words that had left a weight on his heart that he needed to share with them.

  “Papà!” protested Floti. “You can’t believe such nonsense! He’s just a bloke who lives on the charity of others and he has to show he’s worth something. This legend of the golden goat has no basis in fact. People see what they want to see.”

  “So then why, in your opinion, would people want to see a goat all made of gold standing on one of the four hills of Pra’ dei Monti under a snowstorm?”

  Floti didn’t answer right away but he thought to himself that there had to be some kind of explanation. What do poor people worry about if not some kind of catastrophe? It was too easy to prophesy misfortune on its way. He had been an altar boy as a child and he remembered the Latin words of a certain invocation well: A peste, fame et bello libera nos, Domine! Deliver us, Oh Lord, from the plague, from hunger and from war! Apart from the plague, which hadn’t been around for centuries, hunger and war had always been rampant.

  He said: “People need to believe in another world, a supernatural one, a world in which miraculous things occur. Different than the usual things that happen, day in and day out, different than a life where they’re doing the same things in the same places, one year after another. That’s what I think!”

  “That may be,” replied Callisto. “All I know is that I’ve always heard tell of this story of the golden goat, since the day I was born.” And he went off to bed without saying another word.

  The summer was hot and dry and, when it was harvest time, the Brunis had to bend their backs for ten hours a day in the suffocating heat, cutting the wheat with hand sickles and tying it up into sheaves. Hundreds of them. The women lowered buckets filled with bottles of watered-down wine into the well to keep them cool, and they’d carry them out to fields, where the men were sweating like animals and needed to drink continuously. And when it came time to thresh the wheat, it was even worse. The sun beat down like a hammer on their heads and shoulders. Yet threshing was a celebration, like always.

  And Floti was always first, standing at the entrance to the courtyard, waiting to escort the huge thresher inside to the threshing floor. He held the white stable oxen, freshly fed and brushed, by their halters, prepared to come to the aid of the old horses who were struggling to pull the steam engine, as black as the coal at its core. In theory, the engine should have managed on its own, powered by the steam it generated, easily making it up the slight upgrade that led to the courtyard and pulling the rest of the convoy behind it, but it was already pretty winded at this point and it would be no small accomplishment if it succeeded in turning the pulley on the thresher when it was stock still. Floti, who had yoked his champions two by two, hauled the engine into the courtyard followed by the thresher and the baler made of wood and iron, painted an orangey red color and flaunting the name of the company that had built it in big letters. Behind them were at least a dozen farmhands who shouted “Ho! Ho!” to encourage the draught animals to keep pulling.

  When the entire train had been hauled into place, the foreman gave a smile of satisfaction at seeing all of the parts perfectly aligned on the threshing floor, then gave orders to mount the transmission belt. The drive pulley had no edges and if the belt was not placed with precision it could fall off. If it fell inwards, towards the wall of the thresher, it was just a question of wasting a bit of time to mount it back in place. If it fell outwards it could kill. Floti had seen an accident of this kind take place once and he would never forget how it ended up. One of the workers was hit full force by the belt and he fell to the ground unconscious. A lesion to his spinal cord left him paralyzed for the rest of his days. That event had greatly impressed Floti, making him aware of the profound injustice that governs the world. He’d long realized that his father’s honesty, the balance and justice of his authority within the family, were values limited to a tiny community and that the weight of such values was entirely insignificant in a society dominated by the abuse of power.

  When the foreman gave the signal, the engine let out a long whistle, sounding like a steamboat. Four men armed with pitchforks climbed on top of a pile of sheaves of wheat under the ceiling rafters of the hayloft and started to toss them into the threshing drum. There, another worker pushed them towards the mouth of the monster that swallowed them up and then vomited the clean kernels from the front and the hay and chaff from the sides straight into the baler. It always took a little while before the grain started to spurt out, and when the blonde cascade of kernels began to fill up the sacks, the porters greeted them with a cry of exultation in celebration of the miracle that had taken place for yet another year. They opened their big calloused hands to let the kernels flow through their hands and to feel their caress.

  They’d have bread, for another year.

  Soon the entire courtyard was invaded by a dust as dense and glittery as gold and it became nearly impossible to breathe. The workers knotted handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths and continued their work ceaselessly to the rhythm beat out by the bellowing machine. The ones who had it worst were those working up in the hayloft. When they started there was very little room between the towering stack of sheaves and the sun-scorched ceiling rafters and their sweat soaked through their dust-caked clothing. The bristly awns of the husks crushed by the threshers felt like needles splintering under their skin and created unbearable itching. Then, little by little, as the pile wore down, the air started to circulate a bit better and the distance that separated them from the scorching ceiling began to afford the workers a bit of relief.

  The children were the only ones really having fun. They would pour in from all around, awed by the great collective effort and the rumbling power of the machines, which to their eyes looked like fairy tale monsters. Especially the baler, with its big toothy shears which moved up and down at an incessant rate; they called that one the “ass” because its shape reminded them of a donkey’s head.

  When it was time for the midday break, the foreman slackened the transmission belt and the whole mechanism was shut down, except for the steam engine. The men went to sit somewhere in the shade, under an elm or a fig tree, and pulled out whatever food they had brought with them. The luckier ones were met by their wives, who brought them little pots of pasta. The poorest ones ate bread and onions and that paltry meal would have to suffice for them to continue that exhausting job until dusk, when the foreman would signal the end of the workday.

  But the Brunis were generous folk and old Callisto had had the women cook up three or four cockerels alla cacciatora, swimming in sauce, that made your mouth water just to look at them, along with an ovenful of fresh bread. It was a great satisfaction for him to see the surprise in the eyes of the workers at the sight of all that bounty. As the men ate, the gleaners went to work, each one with a sack in hand, picking up the ears left behind by the thresher or fallen from the wagons carrying the sheaves.

  Clerice always took care that the permission to glean was only given to those who really needed it:
the wives of men who were unemployed, or of drunkards who were only good at getting them pregnant. Clerice would always think of the women and, more than to Almighty God, she’d pray to the Madonna, because Our Lady had worried and suffered and she had lost a son and she knew what it meant. Clerice knew what a hard lot women had in life and—as honest and religious as she was—when she heard talk about this woman or that one on the bottom of some dry canal at the hour of the noontide demon wrapped around some worker or day laborer, she’d say: good for her, at least she’s enjoying something.

  That day, Iofa sent an errand boy to take a message to Floti: he’d be waiting for him that evening at dusk at the Osteria della Bassa. Specifying, strangely enough, that he should come by bicycle.

  Floti got there right at the moment in which the sun was disappearing behind the tops of the cherry trees, his curly hair still full of chaff, and went to sit down with Iofa, who had ordered a quarter liter of white.

  “What’s new?” Floti asked.

  “You haven’t heard what happened?”

  “What should I have heard?”

  “A student has murdered the heir to the throne of Austria.”

  “So? What difference does it make to us?”

  “I say it’s a very bad sign. The kind of thing that sets off wars. It’s always students who make trouble.”

  “You made me come all the way here to tell me this?”

  “Well there’s something more . . . ” Iofa said with a mysterious air as he poured himself a glass of wine.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Did you come on foot or by bicycle?”

  “On my bicycle, since I heard you were in a hurry.”

  “I’ve got mine as well. Want to come with me?”

  “Where?”

  “Pra’ dei Monti.”

  “Ohh, not this stuff again.”

  “Are you coming or aren’t you?”

  “All right, I’ll come, but let’s make it quick because it’s already getting dark.”

  They pedaled one after the other along the creek until they got there. Four little hills in the middle of a meadow that hadn’t been cultivated in decades.

  “If you start talking about this damned goat I’m going back now.”

  “I don’t want to talk about anything. I just have to show you something.”

  He started walking up the first and highest hill and Floti followed him up to its top. The place was completely deserted and even though Floti didn’t believe a word of the stories they told about that place he felt a shiver run down his spine.

  “They say that these hills are made of the bones of the dead from a great battle that happened two thousand years ago on this very spot . . . ” said Iofa softly.

  “So what? If you think you’re scaring me, you are very wrong, my friend. I’m afraid of the living, not of the dead.”

  The crickets were silent and even the frogs kept quiet so the snakes wouldn’t hear them. Iofa stopped at the top of the hill and pointed to something in front of him: a hole at least a couple of meters deep.

  “This one was alive until not too long ago.”

  “This one who?” asked Floti, no longer so sure of himself.

  “Someone who came up here looking for the golden goat and ended up not leaving. The dogs have eaten him half up. I saw him by chance when I was out looking for malva, it grows wild up here.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Look down into the hole.”

  Floti leaned forward and saw that there was something, someone, curled up on the bottom. The two of them looked each other in the eye without managing to talk for a moment.

  “Is it him?” asked Floti finally.

  Iofa nodded. “The umbrella mender,” he confirmed. “See? He tried to find the golden goat and he didn’t get away.”

  “I’m not surprised. Each one of us prepares his own end.”

  “You think?” shot back Iofa. “And where are the tools he used to dig this hole, then?”

  “You’re asking me? How would I know?”

  Iofa fell silent while the shadows of the night began to lengthen over the ground.

  “Maybe we should tell the carabinieri,” he said after a while.

  “Maybe not. You never know how these things will end up.”

  “But if someone sees him and recognizes him, they’ll think of you right away, and then you’ll be sorry. Listen, he couldn’t have dug this hole with his fingernails. Let’s take a look around, at the base of the hill, maybe.”

  Floti turned right and Iofa turned left and it was the latter, after a while, who tripped over the handle of a shovel hidden in the tall grass.

  “I found it!” he exclaimed. “I knew it had to be here.”

  Iofa put his back into it and before long he’d covered the remains of the umbrella mender. When he was finished he made the sign of the cross over the hasty grave and threw the shovel into the creek. In less than half an hour they were back at their table at the Osteria della Bassa.

  It was the night of June 30, 1914.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Floti couldn’t get what he’d seen out of his head. Tossing and turning in his bed, he thought of the umbrella mender curled up on the bottom of that hole and asked himself how he’d dug it, and why there, and what had killed him. No one, no matter what, would ever come looking for him, no one even knew who he was, after all. He certainly hadn’t carried any documents that declared his identity. He didn’t have a family, or if he did, they weren’t the kind who would take the trouble of trying to find him.

  Actually, there was a possible explanation, seeing as the umbrella mender did believe in that golden goat: the man had gone out one night, got himself a shovel and started to dig, hoping to find it. Maybe he did find it, who knows, in the end? Floti had always heard that the ancients would bury their treasures when there was an invasion or a war, then whoever had buried it ended up killed in some raid and the treasure got forgotten about. So, Floti reasoned, maybe the umbrella mender wasn’t alone that night, maybe someone saw him as he was trying to pull the thing out and gave him a hit on the head with the handle of the shovel. At that point, the gold statue was this guy’s for the taking and the umbrella man got shoved into the hole.

  But the golden goat didn’t exist. It had never existed. So who would ever have attacked a wretch like the umbrella mender, covered with rags and without a penny to his name? The only possible motive was revenge: the man had spent his life wandering from place to place, from village to village, hiding for months in a stable like his own and then heading out again because, in reality, he was running from someone. He must have committed some crime, molested someone’s daughter or wife, and that someone had finally made him pay up.

  Floti fell asleep thinking that they’d done the right thing in burying him and not leaving his body to the mercy of dogs and wolves. May the poor man rest in peace.

  Before long, the family turned to other tasks. Harvesting hemp was much more laborious than reaping and threshing put together. Once it had been cut, the hemp was gathered into bundles and thrown into the ponds they used for steeping. Each bundle was weighed down with big river stones so it would remain under water until the fermentation process had detached the fibers from the woody part of the plant. At that point the stones were removed one by one and piled up around the edges. They were covered with algae by now and easily slipped from their fingers and it was twice as hard to fish them out again. Then the bundles were removed; saturated with water, they weighed ten times as much as they had at the start. The men worked inside the ponds, with the water up to their waists. The damp and the stench of fermentation permeated the air all around them, stagnant and fetid, in the intolerable midday heat.

  It was like working in a cesspool.

  Once the bundles of hemp had dried completely, they were beaten again
st a wooden board at the hottest hour of the day so the fibers would detach more easily from the woody stem. Only the strongest of men could bear up under such strain; the weaker ones simply dropped. You’d see them swaying, then getting pale and clammy. If the others got to them after they fainted, they were carried under a tree and well water was splashed on their faces and heads. When they came to, they were given water to drink, made tepid by the sun. A little at a time, as much as they could hold, until they felt the need to urinate. There were stories about those who gulped down cold water and ended up kicking the bucket.

  Usually the head of the family, or the foreman if there were outside workers, gave these unfortunates the rest of the day off. The women in town, as in the whole province of Bologna, were only given light tasks, like raking the hay or taking care of the garden patch, unlike the women in nearby Modena. In the Modenese countryside, women were sent out with spades and shovels, even when they were pregnant.

  By the end of July, their work was finished. The hemp fibers had been wound into balls and were ready to be whitened. The dry, lightweight stems had been bundled up and stored in the hayloft. They were worthless as wood: they’d make a big white flame that crackled and sparked and went out right away, but they were handy for starting a fire. All the men had left to do was give one last spray of verdigris to the grapevines and cut back the shoots so that all the nutrients would go straight to the grapes. They readied the crates and the wine presses and soaked the tubs, the vats and the barrels in heated water until they were as watertight as a glass.

  The women picked the leaves from the elm trees used to prop up the vines so they would not overshadow the grapes. They fed the leaves to the cows and oxen, for whom they were a real treat. The elm leaves were tough and scratchy and were hell on a girl’s hands, but they had their tricks. A soaking in the whey they got from the dairyman made their skin soft and smooth as a baby’s again. Never soap. Clerice had always said that the last time she washed her face was the day she was married. Everyone had nagged her about it: “Wash that mug of yours, before you go to the kneeler!” They convinced her in the end and she gave herself a good scrubbing with the soap they used to wash the sheets. And she was still ready to swear that she’d never been the same since.