A Winter's Night (3 page)

As times got worse, however, the owner had become more demanding. Just a year before, when old Callisto went into town with the horse and cart to settle the accounts, he had to hear that he'd have to be content with half the wheat and half the corn and from the way things were going, the same could be expected for the year just begun as well. That's why he kept putting off the day when he'd have to go to the city. Clerice asked again and again: “Callisto, when are you going to settle up with the landlord?”

He would answer: “One of these days, Clerice, one of these days.”

But they'd nearly run out of white flour and yellow flour and so the time had come for the head of the family to hitch up the horse, to put on his brown velvet suit and white hemp shirt and to pay a visit to notary Barzini. Clerice waved goodbye from the side of the road with a white handkerchief as if he were leaving for the war.

He returned at dusk in a black mood. He sat at the table and ate with his head in his plate without saying a word, until Gaetano decided to break the silence: “Well then, how did it go with the landlord?”

“Badly,” replied the old man. “He said it was a bad year and that we'll have to eat cornmeal bread.”

“What?” replied Gaetano. “We've worked like dogs, all six of us men, this whole year and he has the courage to make us eat corn as if we were chickens? I'll bet you that he eats white bread and he's never lifted a finger. What kind of accounts did he show you?”

“Accounts with profits and losses. He says we've lost him money.”

“And you didn't say anything?”

“What could I say? He's an educated man and we're ignorant. You know what the proverb says: ‘When all's writ down in black and white, the farmer sleeps tight.'”

“If you'll allow it, I'll go to talk to him tomorrow. I'll get Iofa to take me with his cart and you'll see me coming back with wheat, as God is my witness!”

“Do as you like,” replied the old man. “If you feel up to it, I won't say no. The important thing is to bring home the wheat, but it won't be easy, you'll see.” He spooned up his soup in silence and when he had finished he got up and went to bed.

Gaetano was a strapping young man with shoulders as broad as a barn door and he was determined to make good on his promise. The next morning at dawn he got on his bicycle and went to see Iofa the carter. He found him currying the horse and preparing his fodder.

“I need you for a job,” said Gaetano.

“Not today. I have a load of gravel to take from the river to the provincial road.”

“You'll do it tomorrow. I need you and your cart now.”

“And where do we have to go?”

“To the city, to see the notary.”

“What do you need the cart for? You've got your new suit on, why don't you go on your bicycle?”

“I can't load two thousand kilos of wheat on my bicycle.”

“And who's about to give you two thousand kilos of wheat, your landlord?”

“Yes, I'm going to talk to him. He told my father we're in debt and that we'll have to eat corn all year like the hens. I'll wring his neck like a chicken's if he doesn't give me my wheat. How are we supposed to work ten, twelve hours a day eating cornmeal bread? So then, are you with me? Coming or not?”

Iofa thought it over, added up a few numbers, looked at the big watch he kept in his pocket, shook his head and answered: “You're as stubborn as a mule, but we're friends and I can't say no. Are you ready to go like that?”

“Yessir, I am. Why, don't I look good?”

“Oh, you look very good. Like a fine fellow indeed. Give me the time to hitch him up and we'll be on our way.”

Gaetano helped Iofa attach the horse to the cart shafts and fit his collar as he said: “You're not doing this for nothing, you know. I'll give you two bushels of wheat and you'll be making bread for a long time to come.”

When the cart was ready they climbed onto the seat and Iofa called out to the horse who started off at a good clip. They went down the Fossa Vecchia road and by the time the sun came up they had almost reached the Via Emilia.

They met up with other carts coming and going because it was Tuesday and Tuesday was market day. They even saw an automobile, a black Fiat Tipo 3, all splattered with mud from the puddles, that was honking its horn trying to get around the carts and pack animals.

“Just think,” said Iofa, “that there are people that can afford one of those. Lord knows how much it costs . . . ”

“I'll tell you how much,” replied Gaetano. “It costs twelve thousand liras, almost as much as our land.”

“I can't believe it, swear that it's true!”

“I swear. Our property costs about fifteen thousand liras, but it's more than five hundred furlongs and it feeds a lot of people. If I had the money I'd buy up our land, not an automobile. Then we wouldn't have a landlord to tell us what we can and can't do. My father told us that when we were little and the steward showed up, he'd hide us in the pigpen because the guy was always complaining: ‘Too many mouths to feed and too few arms at work,' and he'd threaten to go tell the owner.”

“Who knows, maybe one day you will have the money to buy the land for yourself, or maybe something even bigger.”

“I don't see how. Ten lives wouldn't be enough to put aside fifteen thousand liras. Only people who have money can make more money. People who don't have anything, they're lucky if they can get enough to eat themselves, and feed their families. Anyway, even if I could, I wouldn't want a bigger plot of land; I'd buy our own because I know it so well. I know what grows well on one part or on another. I know when the wheat is ripe and when the fruit's ready for picking, depending on the year and how much sun it's got. I know how much manure to use and how much water is right for each kind of plant. If you know your land well enough, it will never betray you. If you have land you know you'll never go hungry, that you'll have meat and milk and cheese and eggs, wood to keep warm in the winter and cool water for the summer, wine and bread and wool to spin and hemp to weave. I love my land, Iofa, can you understand that?”

“I do understand that, even if I'm a carter, like my father was and my grandfather before him. I love my cart, and I take care of it and keep it covered so it doesn't get rained and snowed on and, more than anything, I love my horse, right, Bigio?” he said, tapping the animal's rump with his reins.

Chatting to pass the time, at a bit of a trot and a bit of a walk, they were at Borgo Panigale in a couple of hours. Gaetano had only been to Bologna three times his whole life, with his father, but Iofa knew the route well because he'd worked for years transporting the harvest to the notary's warehouses, not only from the Brunis' land but from many other plots that he owned in town. A good fifteen or so, between Via Bastarda, Madonna della Provvidenza and Fossa Vecchia. Iofa stopped at the long bridge on the Reno River so that his travelling companion could admire it. Gaetano was amazed at the series of huge arches stretching over the river and carrying the Via Emilia on their backs, with her load of carts, horses and even automobiles. But what he liked best were the two stone mermaids on the entry columns, with a woman's body and a fish's tail. They were naked from the waist up and had a pair of tits you couldn't help but gape at.

“Don't look for so long!” said Iofa, “or you'll have to go to the priest and make a confession.”

“Ah, well,” said Gaetano, “what do you think, even priests like to look at tits that beautiful. My father says that even Don Massimino, who was a saint, when a nice ass or a couple of tits like those passed in front of him, his eyes stopped there even if he didn't want them to. And when a pretty lady went to confess her sins he didn't stop at hearing what the sin was, he wanted details before he gave his absolution, like where did he put it and where did you touch it and so on and so on.”

Iofa started to laugh and said: “Have you ever been to the city square?”

“No, I never have.”

“Well, in the square there's a fountain with a giant: a man almost three meters tall, with a pitchfork in his hand, and he's buck naked and you can see everything, and I mean everything.”

“I've heard about that.”

“I think it's a scandal: a naked man in the middle of the square and all the little kids, even the little girls, can see him. And then there are mermaids like these that squirt water from their tits.”

“Sounds interesting. But we can't go today; we have other business. It's Mr. Barzini the notary we're going to see today.”

Iofa called out to the horse and they started up again, crossed the bridge and went on towards the city gate. There were gardens and houses scattered on both sides of the road and, from behind, the Borgo church tower seemed to keep an eye on them from afar.

As they get closer to their destination Gaetano became more nervous and at times seemed to regret having decided to take on the landlord.

“Let's just hope he's there when we get there,” said Iofa, “otherwise we've come all this way for nothing.”

“We'll find him, all right,” replied Gaetano. “He won't get away from me. If he's not there, I'll sit down in front of his front door and I'll wait until he gets back.”

“Look, the tram!” exclaimed the carter, pointing at a dark green cable car clattering along on its track.

“I know,” replied Gaetano without a smile.

“Well. The notary's office is just after the tram stop, on the right, where the door with the lion's head is.”

They stopped. Gaetano got off, smoothed his jacket and pulled on the doorbell handle. The door swung open and the doorman appeared: “Who you lookin' for?” he demanded in the local Bolognese dialect.

“The notary. Mr. Barzini,” replied Gaetano in the same language but with an accent that identified him as an out-of-towner.

“You have an appointment?”

“What's that?”

The doorman shook his head: “Have you asked the notary if he wants to see you today, at this time?”

“I live in the country but in my house we're accustomed to seeing anyone, at any time of the day or night. Tell him I'm Gaetano Bruni, Callisto's son. We farm his land. He'll see me.”

The doorman nodded and went up the stairs, dragging his feet. Some time and much door creaking later, he called out from the stairway: “Come on up, the notary will see you now.”

Gaetano took a deep breath and went up to the second-floor landing, from where the doorman showed him into the office. He asked with-permission and took off his hat.

Barzini was a small, chubby fellow, sitting behind a big desk on a big armchair. Gaetano was shocked. He was expecting someone bigger, with a decent-sized handlebar mustache and a haircut like King Umberto's. Someone who inspired respect and even a bit of fear, someone who you could tell owned fifteen plots of land. It was a real disappointment, from a certain point of view.

The notary was writing on a sheet of paper and without raising his eyes, said “What do you want?”

“I want my wheat.”

Barzini lifted his head and took off his eyeglasses. “What did you say?”

“That I want my wheat. You told my father we'd have to eat cornmeal bread this year.”

“That's right. You're operating at a loss. I've already explained this to your father and I have no intention of explaining it to you.”

Gaetano crossed his arms and his jacket sleeves bulged around his muscles. “All I know is that we loaded up twenty carts of wheat to be brought to your warehouse here in Bologna and Iofa, I mean Giuseppe, the carter, I mean, counted them one by one. You took all of them. I don't know anything about losses, I just want enough to make our bread. To work we have to eat. Thirty sacks, not one less or one more.”

“Walk out of that door now! You're nothing but a common lout!”

“Mister landlord, all I'm asking for is what we need to carry on working from sunrise to sunset every day of the year and even Sundays, because the fields won't wait and our work wants doing.”

“Leave now or I'll call the doorman!”

“You just called me a lout, but if I don't leave here with what's fair, with what I've asked for politely, you'll see what a real lout is: as God is my witness, I swear that if the doorman takes one step inside here, I'll throw him down the stairs and you after him!” he shouted, and pounded his fist so hard that pens, inkwells and a shiny brass lamp that sat heavily on the table all jumped up at once. Barzini paled, took one long look at the colossus in front of him and understood instantly that he was dead serious. He breathed deep, struggling to quell his fear and maintain his aplomb, and said: “I'm doing this for your father, who is a gentleman. Certainly not for you! And out of the pure goodness of my heart, nothing else. Why, I could call in the forces of order and have you thrown into prison for threatening me like this . . . ”

If the look that Gaetano gave him was not enough to stop his blathering, the glance the young man shot at the heavy paperweight on his desk certainly was.

“Thirty sacks, you said . . . ”

“Yes, sir.”

Barzini scribbled a couple of lines on a sheet of letterhead and signed it. He blotted the ink before handing it to Gaetano.

“And just how are you going to take home those sacks?”

“I have a cart here waiting for me.”

“Ah,” replied Barzini crossly. “Well then, take this to the warehouse in Borgo and they'll give you the sacks. And don't ever show your face here again.”

“Thank you, mister landlord. And if we don't see each other again, have a good death.”

Barzini startled, not realizing that those were auspicious words. For people accustomed to expecting nothing but trials and tribulation from life, the idea of looking forward to a good death was at least some consolation. The notary reacted instead by touching his attributes under the desk and mumbling: “Go, get out of here, I've got things to do.”