Giacomina didn’t come to until she was already in the cage. She lifted her head instinctively and pecked at the iron mesh.
“What brio!” Nives said from under the covers, tapping the seed feeder twice: flick flick. And suddenly the hen didn’t care two hoots that she was no longer surrounded by the walls of the coop where she’d been born. She tucked into the tube without hesitation.
The first thing Nives thought when she woke up was, “I slept like a grouse in goose down.” It made her laugh. With Giacomina by her side, her sleep was as undisturbed as a saint’s.
The hen was there in her place, standing to attention, her silhouette outlined against the lamp. As usual, she had the air of a half-crazed evacuee; at the same time, she was a bit of a battle-ax. Nives could see the tip of an egg of miserly proportions popping out from her derriere. It was a little too blueish, almost like a pigeon’s. “It’s the change,” her mistress said, stretching in her bed for ten more minutes.
From one day to the next, she started jeering at the telephone relentlessly, “You can look at me as long as you want, but you’ll still be stuck there barking at the moon.” Her words came out with enough force to give giants the shivers. She took care of the vegetable garden and the animals in short order, then did the same inside the house, even taking on the windows. Such a deep clean hadn’t been seen since ’71, when a twenty-year-old Nives had still been trying to impress a husband who disappeared into the fields at first light.
In short, she was reborn. Bustling about here and there, she took Giacomina with her, as safely preserved in her little cage as a delicate flower in an urn is protected from the elements. “If I’d thrown myself at the mercy of the stupid doctor, he’d have stuffed me with pills and strong drops,” she said, looking at her friend, who was always rather removed from her surroundings. “Instead, you were everything I needed.”
That evening, Laura found her mother reborn; her spirit that of a young girl. Once, to shake off her doubts, she had to ask her, “Mom, have you been drinking?” Nives burst into a hearty laugh. She looked at Giacomina scampering around the living room, where she would let her out to stretch her legs a little. “Worse,” she replied playfully. She enjoyed alarming her daughter.
Nives even took the hen into the bathroom. Whenever her mistress settled down to watch TV, Giacomina perched on the armchair, which still held the shape of Anteo. It was fun to watch her there, her half-crazed eye cocked at the quiz shows or the bluster of politicians ripping one another to shreds to the sound of “the statistics say that . . .” Nives commented on the outrages of these over-paid wordmongers out loud. “What a world we live in, my friend.” There was sometimes a cluck in return. The woman nodded back, “I agree.”
Grooming the bird was no more disgusting than when she’d had to struggle with her late husband’s thick toe nails, especially in recent times. He would present her with claws that could easily have bored holes into his shoes, the dirt encrusted in the folds of his toes since Easter. Nives liked polishing her friend’s feathers; she used a damp cloth that she also rubbed her beak with. She soon grew used to the particular smell that began to mark the house.
When she was in the vegetable patch, she’d find snails in the earth and set them aside in a bowl. Once she was done gardening, she rinsed them out well in the outdoor sink and gave Giacomina a plate of freshly -made spaghetti for dinner. The hen repaid her by laying beautiful eggs that Nives drank fresh or scrambled—the way she liked them best. A perfect give and take.
There were few critical moments. Foremost was when she surprised herself with this realization: she had replaced Anteo with a crippled old hen. What made that weird was the following: with Giacomina by her side, there was nothing about her husband that she missed. She was assailed by a sense of despondency that she didn’t know what to do with, telling herself, “I gave my life to a man I’ve been able to replace with a chicken.” It made her feel dirty. But also wasted. She tested herself by looking back to things that at one time would make her feel weak with longing, but they didn’t stir her blood as they used to. Anteo bringing her the first bunch of poppies. Anteo holding her in the crook of his arm at the fall fair. Anteo looking at the explosion of sunflowers and saying, “They make less light than you.” Nothing. The kind of serviceable smile you would give little dogs begging for food from your plate, that was all. She didn’t give an inch even when she leafed through the family album. She recited out loud, “This is when we won the dance contest in ’79 . . . This is our thirtieth anniversary dinner . . .” Giacomina, perfectly composed, squatted next to her on the velvet cushion—the nice overstuffed one her husband had always claimed for himself. The hen poked her beak at one picture in particular. “That’s Domenico, in name and in fact. A cousin, on Mom’s side. They used to call him Dromedary, just to give you an idea how keen he was to waste so much as an hour at work. Then he moved to Venezuela to become a taxi driver, and I never saw him again.”
The first time Bandini returned with the week’s supplies, he found the hen underfoot while he sipped his vermouth. “Nives, one of your animals has gotten into the house,” he said, about to shoo the bird away with a good kick. Nives swooped over to his side, “Stop!” She plucked Giacomina up and held her to her breast. Graziano watched the scene, his heart shrinking to the size of a grape. Not knowing what to say, he emptied his glass in one gulp and left.
The news soon spread to France. That evening Laura asked her straight out, “Mom, is it true there’s a hen living with you in the house?” Nives mentally threw a poison dart at that busybody, Bandini, but she knew at heart that he’d only told her daughter out of sincere affection and concern. “Well, what about you, sleeping with a snail-eater who never says a word?” Her daughter didn’t react to the provocation. “It’s not normal.” Nives felt the jab deep down. “Little Miss, let this be clear: I can keep whatever company I like. Focus on funneling in all the rents from the fields; something you are remarkably good at. Meanwhile, I can invite an ass into my living room if I feel like it,” she said, and hung up.
Roosting on the armchair, Giacomina watched the Tide commercial. On screen, the spin cycle was visible through the washing machine’s porthole. She gaped at it, transfixed. That was how Nives came upon her. The hen’s eyes had gone blank.
At times like these, she’d usually let things take their own course. She was scared she’d traumatize the bird if she shook her, like with sleepwalkers. After five minutes, she cleared her throat a few times to no effect. The TV program had changed. Nives got up and gently touched Giacomina’s wing. “Has someone thrown a spell on you?” she murmured. Not even a twitch. In the end, she went for the clincher: she grabbed the zapper and switched the TV off.
Giacomina looked wooden. “Come on, pet,” her mistress pleaded, clucking like a mother. If this went on any longer, the hen’s eyes would turn to glass. She didn’t think she’d blinked since the phone call. The bird was perched there, wearing her usual demented expression, her beak hanging slightly open, as if she had taken a turn. Nives bent over her, prodding her more insistently, “What, are you the waking dead?”
Most people would burst out laughing seeing an animal pretending to be a statue. But Nives felt her heart race. She picked the hen up carefully. It was like handling a crystal ornament. She tried shaking her. A funny sound came out of Giacomina’s throat, like the thrumming of a string drum: ga. But the hen was still a statue. Nives shook her again, as if she were rocking a newborn baby: ga, ga, ga. She stuck her back in the armchair and went into the kitchen to fetch an iron pot and a ladle. “I’ll soon wake you up,” she muttered, banging the pot—not too hard to begin with. No reaction. She came one step closer. Another bang, with more force. Giacomina squatted there, frozen. Her mistress even thought of going to bother St. Francis and shooting off a round, right there, a yard away. But she stuck with the pot, banging so hard that it rang inside her, right down to her marrow. Not a feather
was ruffled.
Where would she ever find another egg-laying friend with a disposition like hers? Nives had already realized that Giacomina’s charm was unique; she needed her as a bridge between Anteo’s death and the shape of her now, redrawn in her solitude, and it wasn’t something she could teach any old bird at the drop of a hat. She was scared she’d be plunged back into those twilight sleeps that used to drain her. Or worse, that France would win, which, in short, meant spending the rest of her days on Mars, where she wouldn’t even be able to order a coffee for herself.
She strode over to the telephone table and picked up the copybook they’d always jotted their phone numbers in. She found what she was looking for under the B’s: Bottai. He was the vet who’d always come to check up on the animals. Nives looked at the time: it was just past eight. Loriano was a good doctor, but he had a drinking problem; everybody knew. He started first thing in the morning and carried on poisoning his liver until dinner time—after a day with his hands up goats’ and heifers’ asses and inside their gums, he put himself out of his misery with a last glass before collapsing into bed as soon as the theme tune from the evening news was over. The news on Channel 4; the one the oldies prefer.
His wife answered the phone, “Hello?”
“Donatella, sorry to ambush you like this. It’s Nives here.”
The woman on the other end of the line took a moment to connect the voice to the name. “My dear, what a surprise!” She was suddenly reminded of everything that had happened, Anteo’s death and all the rest. She gathered her thoughts and acted more pleased than usual to be in touch with her friend. “Imagine, I was thinking of you today! I was just saying to myself, ‘Maybe one of these afternoons . . . ?’”
Nives wasn’t in the mood for any sweet-talking. She was a little sorry to interrupt the serenade just as it was gearing up, but this was an emergency. “Is Loriano home?”
Donatella cleared her throat. “He’s in there,” she muttered, already changing her tone. “I was in the bedroom a few minutes ago. He’s as stiff as a mummy.”
“Can you call him for me?”
There was an indecipherable mumbling, provoked by her embarrassment at having to own up to the evidence: her husband was sloshed. Donatella gave it a shot, hoping to avoid having to make excuses. “You could try tomorrow morning, maybe? You know he goes to bed with the chickens.”
“That’s what I’m calling about.”
“Have they caught an infection?”
“There’s an emergency.”
Rebuffing a new widow was a sin that might make the rounds of the entire neighborhood on the tongues of tittle-tattlers. Donatella wondered whether to pass the call to the bedroom phone but immediately thought better of it. Loriano should get up and regain a modicum of consciousness. Her teeth clenched, she said, “One moment.”
Nives could hear noises from the other side of the receiver: the clacking of heels on floor tiles, creaking, curses. An important saint’s name being taken in vain. Nives looked over at Giacomina on the armchair. She looked artificial.
There was a commotion as things crashed to the floor, followed by Donatella’s voice yelling as if to the moon, “Imbecile!” Until, finally, a hand must have reached out and roughly grabbed the receiver. Bottai’s voice was mangy with sleep and phlegm, “Hello Nives . . . my condolences.”
He had already given them profusely on the day of the funeral. She felt as desperate as someone watching her train pulling out of the station.
“Loriano, listen.”
“Tell me.”
“I have a hen.”
“A hen.”
“She’s taken a funny turn.”
“Who?”
“The hen, I mean.”
“The hen has taken a funny turn?”
“Yes. How do I wake her up?”
“How do you wake her up?”
“I’m asking you.”
On the other end of the line there was a moment’s pause. Nives imagined the empty gaze of that vet who thought of nothing but demijohns of wine. Finally, Bottai came back to himself.
“Is this a riddle?”
“Loriano, can you listen to me?”
“I’m listening.”
“I have a hen who’s gotten stuck in a Tide commercial.”
“Tide.”
“Exactly.”
“The one with the pods?”
“Yes, that one.”
“Can you pour me an inch?”
“What?”
“I was talking to Donatella.”
“I drummed on the pot, but it was no use.”
“You drummed on the pot.”
“It was no use.”
“Listen, I’m not feeling too well right now and—”
“Loriano, it’s important. Can you tell me what to do? I’ll pay you for the disturbance if you come over.”
Hearing there may be some cash in the offing, Bottai tried to regain the high ground. A few coins are better than nothing, after all. But he was really at a loss.
“Nives, I don’t understand what you’re saying. You were talking about dishwasher detergent.”
“Laundry detergent! Tide.”
“Tide.”
“That commercial that’s running right now, with the spin cycle at full speed.”
“I think I’ve seen it.”
“Giacomina’s seen it, too.”
“Eh?”
“I don’t know. She just sits there, as still as a photograph. She doesn’t even blink.”
Bottai took a deep breath, as if he’d been running, and tried to process the alcohol he’d drunk over the day in order to grasp onto some semblance of himself.
“Nives, do I know this Giacomina?”
“She’s the hen I was talking about at the beginning.”
“Ah, a hen.”
“She watched the Tide commercial and turned to stone.”
“Look, you know if I wake up after falling asleep, I get palpitations! Bring me an inch and I’ll be fine.”
“What?”
“I was talking to Donatella.”
“I was telling you about my little pet.”
“The hen.”
“Yes.”
“She took a funny turn watching the Tide.”
“Exactly.”
“And what am I supposed to do about it?”
“You’re the doctor, aren’t you? If it goes on any longer, she’ll rot in my living room.”
“You keep the hen in your living room?”
“I can keep her wherever I like. The point is, we need to wake her up.”
“What if she brings lice into the house?”
“She brings calm into the house.”
“These animals rake around all day in their own shit.”
“I know lots of people who do worse.”
“You’re telling me . . . Listen, we’ve done all the vaccinations, right?”
“Yes.”
“What about sleep, how is she doing on that count?”
“She’s a regular chicken. At midday she feasts on beetles from the vegetable garden. I take care of her better than if she were the Pope.”
Bottai was sucking on his drink, you could hear it over the phone. Light was beginning to filter through to his brain, penetrating his befuddlement. He had been right: one glass of wine had done the trick, though he was still slurring his words.
“What about her feathers?”
“You should see her. She looks like porcelain.”
“She must be hypnotized.”
“Who?”
“Giancarlina, or whatever her name is.”
“Giacomina.”
“Yes, her.”
“Giacomina is hypnotized?”
“They’re s
tupid creatures. It can happen.”
Nives couldn’t contain herself: “Speak for yourself.”
Loriano cleared his throat. “No, no, I just mean—”
“Is it dangerous?”
“I’ve never heard of a hen dying of it. If anything, somebody might think she’s dead and stick her in the oven with potatoes. She wouldn’t even notice.”
“Holy smokes!” Nives imagined Giacomina on the spit and, for a second, her knees gave way. And yet, she had picked many a chicken bone clean in her day. Not that she wanted to boast, but her chicken stew was pretty good. “That makes me feel sick.”
“It’ll pass. It’s a condition.”
“And if she doesn’t wake up?”
Bottai gave a deep sigh. He was growing tired of the woman’s nonsense. “Try shaking her.”
“I have. I drummed the pot, too.”
“Ah, yes. The pot—”
“I also picked her up. It was no good. She’s bewitched.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Nives, what do you want me to say?”
“What about smelling salts?”
“Good idea! Try them.”
“Anyway, will you come and see her tomorrow?”
“Yes, I’m coming now.”
“Now?”
“I was talking to Donatella. She’s gone to bed, and that’s bad news for me.”
“Donatella can’t go to bed?”
“She snores. Once she starts, it’s over for me: I can never get to sleep again.”
“Is that my fault?”
“It’s Alfredina’s fault, or whatever her name is.”
“Giacomina.”
“Yes, her.”
“For me, she’s manna from heaven. Thanks to her, I haven’t had to pack my bags and move to the Languedoc. Or to the loony bin, or somewhere even worse. As for sleep: I couldn’t get any sleep at all before. After a week without sleep, I felt like I was walking in the clouds. With her on my bedside table, I sleep right through the night. It’s sad, isn’t it? As sad as everything else.”
Nives Page 2
