Accabadora (5 page)

“Wait, I'm looking at something.”

She stopped at the exact spot the sound seemed to be coming from and stared at the low wall in silence. The sun had already tired of the vines and was sinking rapidly, throwing giant distorted shadows across the ground. Andría's ungainly shadow appeared beside her own.

“What are you doing? The others have nearly finished.”

She put her finger to her lips to keep him quiet and pointed at the wall.

“Listen.”

The wailing was unmistakable, lighter now and struggling somewhat, but distinct enough to create astonishment on the boy's childish face. A minute or two later the Listru sisters and the whole Bastíu family were listening at the wall, forgetting that the whole vineyard must be stripped before sunset. Bonacatta held back a little, shuddering at each wail from the black stones, while Regina and Giulia looked on in silence, with anxious glances at Salvatore Bastíu and his wife, who were arguing in confusion as they stared at the wall.

“A penitent soul,” said Giannina Bastíu, piously crossing herself. “
Requiemeternamdonaeisdomine . . .
”

In response a loud sob came from the wall. Salvatore shook his head, unconvinced.

“No, this is no Christian. It has to be a devil! We must call Don Frantziscu to bless the vineyard first thing tomorrow, or a whole year's vintage will have to be thrown away.”

Nicola Bastíu seemed little interested in his parents' teleological debate. Rooting about like a wild boar, he examined the base of the dry wall, and explored the cracks between the stone blocks with dirty fingers and knitted brow. Then he climbed over the boundary to look at it from Manuele Porresu's land on the other side. After a minute or two he stood up with an air of abrupt finality and gave his father a strange look.

“They've moved the boundary.”

Salvatore Bastíu held his son's eyes just long enough to believe him, before the wall groaned again and there was no need for anything more to be said.

“The damn sons of bitches, so that's what the wailing was!”

Husband and wife and Nicola, all seized by the same fear, began tearing away stones from the top of the low wall, sending them tumbling between their feet on both sides of the boundary. They seemed in the grip of some furious anxiety which infected the others, who also started demolishing the wall.

They found the small jute sack in the middle, carefully placed between two concave stones that had been crudely hollowed out with the obvious purpose of making room for it. Nicola pulled out his pocket-knife under the tense gaze of his parents. The blade made a dry sound as it sliced through the dirty cloth, to reveal something feebly struggling inside the little bag.

It was a puppy.

When they saw what had been buried in the bag they all made the sign of the cross. Even Nicola.

Salvatore Bastíu had never believed night was a time for serious thought. Night was night and that was all there was to it. Any sensible person knew you must look for good advice during your waking hours, because every new dawn is an ambush from which you must protect yourself in any way you can. To be on the safe side, he never left home without first sharpening his pocket-knife and had brought up his children to keep their eyes and ears open. Nicola had needed to learn about life more hurriedly than Andría, because he was not a boy who had come into the world to stand still. This was why his father did not wait until dark to take him along to the house of Bonaria Urrai together with everything they had found in the wall, including the dog.

Sitting at the Urrai kitchen table, father and son watched in silence as Tzia Bonaria's thin fingers conducted an examination, while Maria sat by the fire with the puppy asleep on her knees.

“This was meant to be nasty,” Tzia Bonaria said, carefully fingering the strange collection of objects found in the sack with the little animal.

Salvatore Bastíu was getting impatient.

“Yes, of course it's not good news. But how does this affect the boundary?”

Tzia Bonaria lifted up a little cord thick with knots, its ends interwoven like a necklace round a piece of sun-reddened basalt the size of a nut.

“It ties it in place, keeps it fixed.”

“But they've moved it by at least a metre! And how the hell can they have managed to do that . . . it can't be more than three days since I was last on the farm.”

“Three days can be more than enough if there are others to help. Anyway, the intention was to move the boundary once and for all. And that no-one should even notice.”

“Well, but I noticed . . .” Nicola said with a half-smile.

Bonaria had a soft spot for the eldest Bastíu boy, but that did not prevent her from giving him a sharp look.

“Don't try to be smarter than you are, Coleddu. You only noticed because the dog survived. If he had died, you can be sure the old boundary line would have died with him.”

The old woman went on fingering the tightly tied nut of basalt while her eyes moved from the objects to her visitors. It was as if she were waiting for something. Salvatore Bastíu suddenly came to a decision:

“Porresu will pay for this.”

“You can't be sure it was him that was responsible.”

“What clearer proof can you want?” Salvatore said angrily, pointing at the objects but being careful not to touch them. “This is what they've done, they've cast a spell on me to steal themselves a metre of land!”

Bonaria Urrai shook her head gently and said nothing more, but her thin fingers went on playing with the stone.

Forgotten beside the fire until that moment, Maria said:

“I'll call the dog Mosè!”

Nicola, Salvatore and Bonaria turned to her in surprise.

“It's not his fault, I want to keep him.”

Seeing the eager light in the girl's face, the old woman smiled despite herself.

“So you can, as long as you look after him yourself.”

Maria nodded, accepting a permission she had never actually asked for. A dog intended to die as a curse needed no excuse me or thank you. She continued to sit by the fire nursing the puppy, while the Bastíus were ushered to the door in a silence heavy with plans. When Bonaria returned and the two were alone, she went to sit with Maria by the fire. Silently moving her lips as if chewing, she threw the round stone, the cord and the bag one by one into the flames. What could burn, did, and the rest was lost in the ashes, its significance fading.

“I wanted to burn those things too, Tzia. Fire purifies everything.”

Maria spoke softly, stroking the dog as she watched. The old woman raised her eyes to look at her, then stood up with an air of firm finality.

“Come on, it's late: Christians inside and animals outside. Put him out, then go to bed, because tomorrow it's school for you.”

Bonaria shook out her apron while Mosè distrustfully watched Maria open the door to the yard. Soon the little girl was asleep, but the old woman went on sitting before the fire in thought, her eyes fixed on the gradually dying embers. The round stone lay like a still heart in the midst of the ashes, its porous surface blackened by the fire, but far from purified.

THE ONLY THING THAT BONACATTA, ANNA TERESA
Listru's eldest daughter, had in common with her sister Maria was her black eyes. Strong as an ox, she had worked for eight years as a servant in the house of Giuanni Asteri to save up for her trousseau, and now, even though she was wearing the most fashionable skirt in her wardrobe, she was sitting in the living room with no more grace than a ruined
nuraghe
.

Members of both the engaged couple's families were sitting on the edges of their chairs and raising their voices, as they tentatively sipped malmsey wine and laughed loudly at things that in normal circumstances they would hardly dignify with a smile. Skirts rustled along the invisible boundary between the two families; the sisters and cousins of the bride-to-be were serving
amaretti
and fortified wine with the falsely timid smiles and lowered gazes of well-brought-up folk. Only Maria's curiosity kept her eyes level with her tray as she could not
resist weighing up her future in-laws. They were not rich, no, because no seriously rich man would ever marry the daughter of a widow with no property. But neither were they poor, judging by the ritual gifts they had brought for the bride-to-be: a medal of Our Lady of the Assumption on a gold chain, an antique ring and a large ugly pin for the headscarves that Bonacatta never wore, drawn as she was to the new fashion from the continent. Maria was sure that not even all this gold worn together would ever be enough to make Bonacatta beautiful, but in the end that was not the point. The gifts were a sort of votive offering to the supine figure of the Madonna of the Assumption, not so much ornaments as items for barter: coral in exchange for favours, gold to balance against devotion. If Bonacatta had ever reflected on the matter, she would have realized that in reality there was no devotion whatever behind all this display-cabinet ostentation, but reflection had never been a strong point with Sisinnio Listru's eldest daughter.

Her betrothed, Antonio Luigi Cau, was sitting in obvious discomfort beside his mother, as motionless as a stuffed animal. He seemed tall even when sitting down and so far had said nothing at all, leaving his parents to do the talking, partly because that was the custom and partly because there was little he could say that had not already been said.

“Is this girl another of your daughters, Anna? I thought you only had three.” The bridegroom's mother's eyes examined Maria's slender figure, while her fat fingers removed two
amaretti
from her tray.

“My youngest, our Mariedda. I gave her away as a
fill'e anima
seven years ago, but when we need help she's happy to come and give a hand.”

Anna Teresa Listru spoke in a self-satisfied voice, elaborating the truth to her own advantage as was her habit. This unexpected loquacity gave her daughter's future mother-in-law a chance to address Maria directly.

“And whose soul-child are you, my dear?”

For a moment the hubbub of conversation dropped to a whisper as Maria answered, unaware of the flash of alarm in her mother's eyes.

“I was taken by Tzia Bonaria Urrai, the seamstress, who had no children of her own.”

The silence that greeted this statement lasted long enough to reveal embarrassment, before the fiancé's mother gave a short smile and removed another
amaretto
from the tray.

“An excellent person, Bonaria, we know her. I believe she even made a suit for Vincenzo when he was president of the committee – you remember, Bissè?” She winked at her husband who was listening with interest. “Her hands are worth their weight in gold, though of course she doesn't really need the work. She will certainly treat you well,” she said to Maria, with a sideways glance at Anna Teresa Listru.

“She treats me as her own daughter, I lack for nothing.” Maria's response was as automatic as it was polite, a perfect answer already used a thousand times. “Do please take another
amaretto
, Bonacatta made them.”

Maria proffered her tray like a beggar anxious for alms, with a curious hint of a bow that served for a moment to conceal her expression from those round her. Everyone else seemed struck dumb as if by witchcraft, so much so that her eldest sister took the opportunity to break the silence with a trivial remark.

“Maria's lucky, what a great privilege to have two families. And
from now on I'll have two as well, won't I? Because you two will be another mother and father to me as though I was your own daughter.”

Miraculously, her smile made the bride-to-be even uglier, as it disclosed an extensive array of powerful teeth. But her comment did succeed in damping down the embarrassment and bringing out a few forced smiles.

“It won't do you much good, Bonacatta, because I was never one to mollycoddle my children! Ask Antonio Luigi if I was ever a loving father, just ask him!” Vincenzo Cau gave a hoarse laugh, stiff in his starched, cream-coloured formal suit that had probably fitted him nicely five years before.

His comment reminded everyone sharply of the purpose of the meeting, but while everyone else laughed with relief, his wife confined herself to an ambiguous smile and darted one more sharp glance at the little girl still fearlessly circulating with her tray. Antonio Luigi reached out a calloused hand for the
amaretti
, while Maria raised her eyes to meet the gaze of the man who was to marry her sister.