A Winter's Night (30 page)

The great day arrived. Maria packed her suitcase and Rosina gave her another one for all the clothing she'd bought for her while she was in Florence. Maria put on the prettiest dress she had, and a pair of high heels that perfectly matched her shiny brown bag. Who knows what they would say in town when they saw her! And Fonso, what would he say when he saw her looking like such a lady? Rizzi was so happy to be rid of her that he called a landau to take her to the station. It was a tearful farewell for both sisters; after all, they'd never left each other's sides the whole time Maria had been in Florence, chatting, strolling, confiding in one another. When she was the saddest, Maria had always found comfort and support in her sister, who often seemed to have moments of deep sadness herself, although she never spoke about it.

Everything about Rosina made Maria think that there was no joy in her wedded life. In the whole time she'd been there, Maria had never seen her enjoy a gesture of affection from her husband, a compliment, a courtesy. And Rosina was so pretty and so sweet. Maria had never had to courage to ask her directly about what her marriage was like, but she left with the memory of a shadow in her sister's clear gaze.

“I'll write you,” she promised, “and when I marry I want you to come to my wedding. It will be the best gift I could ever receive.”

“I'll do everything I can, absolutely everything, to come,” replied Rosina. “But if I don't make it, don't take it badly.” Tears were streaming from her eyes as she said this.

Maria hugged her tight. “I love you,
Rusein
,” she said in her ear, using her pet name for her sister.

“Get on the train! The stationmaster has already whistled,” said her sister, breaking away.

Maria went into the carriage and stayed at the window waving her hand for as long as she could see the white handkerchief her sister was agitating in response. Then she sat down and began to watch the countryside. The train soon started up the hillside and then the mountains as it neared the pass. Every stop was another little town, with some who got off and others who got on. It took more than an hour to get to Porretta, and a lot of people got off there. On the station walls, she saw a poster with an image of a beautiful woman in a little hat and a close-fitting corset drinking a glass of water from a fountain and the words underneath said “Porretta Springs, your source of health.” That reminded her that Fonso sometimes went to the salt water spring near Bazzano and drank from the font to purge himself. Sometimes he'd even take two or three flasks home with him.

The train started up again puffing and clattering and began its descent. The light poles were sailing by faster now, a sign that they were going much faster and that they would soon arrive at their destination. But even going downhill, the train had to stop in dozens of stations, so people could get on or off, and it took another good hour, if not more, to get to Casalecchio, where Rosina had instructed Maria to get off the train and catch the bus that would take her to town. Rosina had explained exactly, step by step, what she needed to do, but Maria was soon confused and she thought of asking a passing gentleman for information: “Sir,” she asked him, “could you kindly tell me where I can catch the bus that will take me home?”

“And just where would that be?” he asked back, suspecting that, despite her elegant dress, bag and high-heeled shoes, this was an inexperienced country girl.

She explained it to him and he gave her instructions on how to reach the bus station. There she would find a timetable with all the different destinations. The whole endeavor was getting much more complicated than Maria had imagined and she was tired of asking questions and embarrassing herself. She saw a signpost pointing towards Bazzano and decided to set off on foot in that direction; it couldn't be so far, after all. Once she got to Bazzano she knew she wouldn't have problems because from there it was just a half-hour walk to her town. Maybe just a tiny bit further.

So she started walking, even though what she was wearing was hardly the ideal gear for a journey of that sort on foot, with high heels and two suitcases in tow. But she was so eager to arrive home and see her family and her fiancé again that nothing could stand in her way.

She took the road that skirted the hills, certain that, sooner or later, she'd arrive at her destination. She found herself teetering on her shoes almost instantly, but she tried to take her mind off her physical discomfort by enjoying the view of the surrounding fields and watching the farmers at work. If she turned around, she could see the Madonna di San Luca church on the hillside behind her, and she made the sign of the cross and said three Hail Marys to thank Our Lady for having brought her back home safe and sound.

After five or six kilometers her feet were full of blisters. After another three or four her shoes were damp and blood-stained and her ankles were killing her, but she hadn't taken her shoes off until then because she wanted to be sure that she made it home well dressed and in her high heels, like a real city lady. In the end, however, her pain exceeded her stubbornness: she stopped, took off her shoes, laced them together and tossed them over her shoulder. But it had been so long since she'd walked barefoot through stubble that the calluses under her feet had disappeared and the gravel on the road hurt like anything. She started walking on the edge of the road where it was grassy and that felt a little better, but her suitcases were getting heavier with each step and she was forced to stop more and more often to catch her breath and massage her aching shoulders and arms.

A man passed by driving a cart full of fava beans and, seeing her in such a sorry state, offered her a ride: “Where are you going on foot like that, young lady?”

“I'd be happy to get to Bazzano. From there on I can take care of myself.”

“You're lucky,” replied the carter, coming to a stop. “That's just where I'm going. Would you like to ride with me?”

“I won't say no,” replied Maria. She heaved her suitcases onto the cart and went to sit next to the driver.

“Where are you coming from?”

“From Florence.”

“On foot?”

“No. I took the train to Casalecchio and then I walked. I'm dead tired.”

“I believe you, with those shoes and two suitcases.”

They drove on, chatting, for a while, and Maria asked for news about what had been going on in her absence, just to keep the conversation going. The driver began glancing her way with increasing interest, seeing how pretty she was. At some point, he must have convinced himself that the girl was so exhausted that she would have done anything rather than start walking again with two suitcases and her feet bleeding like that. No sooner said than done, he took off down a little country lane between two rows of poplars that stretched off into the countryside, and stopped alongside a dense cluster of locust trees.

“Why are we stopping here?” asked Maria.

“I'll tell you right away,” replied the carter resolutely in his Bazzanese dialect. “Either you let me have some pussy or you get out and walk home.” As he turned towards her, Maria was quick enough to let him have it across the face with her bag, making his nose swell up instantly, as big and red as a pepper. While he was cursing and shouting she got out, took her suitcases and stalked off down the road.

“Where do you think you're going? You're as crazy as they get!” he shouted after her.

“I'll go wherever I please, thank you very much, you disgusting pig!”

And so she started her journey again under a sun that was getting hotter and hotter. She had only gone a couple of hundred meters when she heard the sound of a cart coming up behind her and the shuffling of a horse. When it was almost at her side, certain that it was the nasty carter she'd just escaped from, she shouted out without even turning around: “Steer clear of me, you ugly pig.”

“Maria, what are you saying? It's me, Iofa!” Finally, a friendly voice! “I can't believe it's you. How did you get into such a state? What are you doing on foot with two suitcases?”

“I'm just getting back from Florence,” replied Maria. “Which way are you going?”

Iofa was heading to town, thank God. He helped her up and that was the finishing stroke to her city-girl finesse: after the elegant shoes which had been worn out by her long march and tossed over her shoulder, now it was the turn of the new dress bought for her in Florence. Already soaked with sweat, it stuck nicely to the flour that coated the sacks in the cart, but she couldn't care less. At that moment she had a person she knew, nearly one of the family, beside her and she was sitting on something soft and even rather comfortable instead of walking on her wounded and aching feet. That gave her so much satisfaction that nothing else mattered.

Iofa stopped to unload the sacks of flour at La Compagnia, the farm where he'd picked up the wheat that morning to bring it to the mill. They started off again and, of his own initiative, he took Maria all the way to the Brunis' courtyard. Maria hopped down and thanked him. She wanted to invite him in for a glass of wine, but the unexpected sight of the burnt-down stable stunned her, leaving her confused and dismayed. She shook the flour off her dress, smoothed it down with her hands as best she could and walked almost hesitantly into the courtyard: the pillars still raised their blackened bricks towards the sky and the straw was piled up in a rick because there was no longer any shed where it could be kept dry. She burst into tears. The stable was almost more important than the house itself, in her eyes. It was there that she had learned, on those long winter nights, to spin hemp on a wheel, it was there that she'd chattered about boyfriends and husbands with the other women.

There was no one around; everyone was in the fields. She went into the house, where she found Ersilia, one of her sisters-in-law, preparing lunch.

“The stable burnt down!” she said. “How did it happen?”

“The fascists did it,” replied Ersilia. “It was all Floti's fault, for getting into politics.”

Maria dropped her head in silence, not knowing what to say, then asked, “Where's mother?”

“She's sleeping in her room,” replied Ersilia sternly, “because she stays up all night keeping watch over your brother.”

Spring came late that year and they didn't see the first swallows until the first half of April. They had taken to flying low over the ruins of the stable, twittering constantly like lost souls because their nests had been burnt along with the barn. They continued to soar around the ruin for hours, as if they couldn't resign themselves to this disaster then, at dusk, they finally scattered.

Fonso arrived in the Bruni courtyard two days after Maria had returned. He found her feeding the chickens. She was so shaken at seeing him after so long that she let go of the corner of her apron and let the corn scatter all over the ground. Then she ran towards him and threw her arms around his neck. Fonso was embarrassed, knowing well what her brother thought about him, and whispered into her ear: “Maria, if Floti sees us . . . ”

“Floti won't say anything. He knows what I've been through because he sent me away. This time I decide: you can come see me on even days, that's in keeping with tradition, right? Until we get married. If you still want me, that is.”

“Of course I still want you. You've read my letters, haven't you?”

“Many times. And did you get mine?”

“Yes, of course I did. That was the only time I was happy, all these long months. But where is Floti?”

“Somewhere,” said Maria, and she said nothing else because it didn't matter anymore.

When May came, Clerice—who hadn't been seen in town for ages—couldn't miss her appointment with the rosary ladies at the intersection of Via Bastarda and Via Celeste. After the last Hail Mary, the neighborhood women gathered around her to ask if she'd had news of Floti, since no one had seen him around for so long. She replied that he'd gone away and that she rarely heard from him.

Young Montesi, the son of ill-fated Graziano, was Clerice's informer. He told her continuously that they were still looking for Floti and that he had to stay out of their way if he cared about staying alive. Nello had also let her know that it didn't look good for him in town and that he shouldn't do anything rash. And so, now that the weather was so mild, Floti never spent the night in the house anymore, in the windowless room by the cellar. He stayed out in the fields, sometimes in the toolshed but most often out in the middle of the corn, sleeping with his head in his mother's lap after she brought him his dinner in the mess tin he'd used as a soldier.

He could never fall asleep right away; he would lie there at length with his eyes wide open and staring, and every now and then he exchanged a few words with her. They were moments of intense heartache which embarrassed them both, and so their silences were even more moving than their words. When Floti finally abandoned himself to sleep in the warmth of his mother's lap, Clerice, her head high and back straight, watched over him, alone, sitting erect against the night sky like a dark
mater dolorosa
. She turned to that sky with a fervent, anxious prayer that lasted until the Angelus bell chimed at dawn, when they separated and Floti began wandering around the countryside again, along the drainage ditches and the rows of maples and grapevines, hiding from the eyes of those who wished him ill. A good number of farmers knew who that solitary figure was crossing their fields with his slow steps, but they would never have betrayed him for all the gold in the world, so secretly satisfied were they at being able to protect a rebel, a man of honor and courage. Nothing could match that.

Trying to go on this way would be impossible, and Clerice herself told Floti that he would have to go where no one could find him. “You're still young, you'll make a life for yourself. I'm getting older every day. I'm not the woman I used to be.”