Ardor (7 page)

N
ext to the Bordino Bakery stood the Happy Pig, the shop that had been in the Castorini family for generations. Above the frontage, suspended on wires, hung an enormous golden pig that had been smiling broadly for longer than anybody could remember.

Beneath the pig, the window displayed all the fleshy goods to be found inside: ropes of pink sausages hung in swags, ranging from tiny ones the size of olives to whoppers a foot long. There were
ciaccatore, cacciatorini, cotechini, luganige, musetti,
and
mortadelle
. Haunches of cured hams were displayed along with molded cooked hams, sparkling silver trays of sliced meats, sweetbreads, cutlets, tripe, brains, bacon, hearts, livers, and tongue and also whole pigs' heads with apples in their mouths. Squeezed in between the pork products there were jars of lard, mustard, pickled vegetables, and bottles of oils and vinegars.

Fernanda Ponderosa went through the door of the butcher's shop leaving the carnival behind. Inside it was cool and quiet.
The white marble surfaces gleamed, and the air was infused with the pale pink perfume of pork.

In the rear a door led to an inner room. This was the cold room where Primo Castorini worked, preparing the enormous range of fresh and cured meats to feed the region. Everything was made according to the age-old traditions, the recipes for which Primo Castorini held only in his head, and about which he was fiercely secretive. When he saw Fernanda Ponderosa, he felt something inside him being unzipped. In the confined space, his seductive aroma overwhelmed her, and his eyes fixed on hers.

She wrestled her eyes away from his, leaving his hungry, and her glance fell to the counter where she saw his hands among the snakes of sausage. His hands were not what she expected. They were smooth and pink, with fairly long fingers. She felt Primo Castorini had the wrong hands. These weren't a butcher's hands at all. They were the hands of an orchestra conductor or a magician or a priest. The hands were making
cotechini:
stuffing the guts of a pig with a mixture of pork rind, lean pork meat, fat, spices, and boiled pigs' ears. Did she imagine it or did they tremble under her scrutiny?

Primo Castorini felt his usually arid palms breaking into a sweat. Excess moisture would make the meat unmanageable and ruin the sausages. He had to subdue himself, regain control. Already he could feel a straining distorting the line of his apron. He must concentrate on his work. Later he could think about her. Later, when he was away from her, and the fever had
cooled, and he could allow himself to luxuriate in every detail of her over and over again. But it wasn't easy. Since that morning, he hadn't been able to get her out of his head. Was it really only that morning, only a couple of hours ago? It couldn't be. In that time she had become his life. His obsession. She was haunting him. She had taken him over. Now she was taking over his business, too. Why hadn't he given her a bigger overall? She was straining out of that one Silvana always wore. He couldn't concentrate with those bosoms peeping in his face. Those dangerous eyes flashing. If he didn't put his heart into the sausages, they would come out bad, and the business, already in jeopardy, would suffer more. There was a chance he could keep it going, but only if he gave it everything. Holy Mother, the smell of her was enough to drive a man out of his wits. With every breath it dealt him a blow to the stomach. He made himself imagine being frozen inside a block of ice. He gritted his teeth. He offered up silent prayers for the stillness of his body.

The air in the room was cool and dry. It was quiet. Almost hermetically sealed. There was no need to say anything. Indeed it would have been unwise to spoil the silence, like breaking open a precious egg. It was a mime or a silent film.

All afternoon they worked together to prepare the secret mixtures, recipes that Primo Castorini knew his rivals at Pucillo's Pork Factory would stop at nothing to obtain. They worked with the precision of surgeons, without speaking, and in truth not needing to speak, for there was almost a syn
chronicity about their movements, an understanding of what was necessary, which is usually only found in people who have worked together closely for a number of years.

Sometimes, while rolling the pink ribbons of pork on the marble counter, their fingers would inadvertently touch. At such times Primo Castorini flinched as if he had been scorched, and when he did this, the edges of Fernanda Ponderosa's mouth curled upward into a gentle curve that she licked away with the tip of her tongue.

At first, Primo Castorini did not have high hopes of Fernanda Ponderosa's abilities. He considered her the variety of woman who was meant for display. But he was surprised and, although he wouldn't admit it, even impressed. Her large fingers were dexterous, she worked carefully and tirelessly, she was almost as good as he was. He began to feel inferior. She manipulated the meat in a way that made him feel weak. The way she formed the sausages with a rolling motion was an act of poetry. He began to feel the blurriness taking him over again. He drank a glass of cool water and wiped the back of his hand slowly across his mouth.

Despite Primo Castorini's occasional seizures, hot flushes, the palpitations he sought in vain to disguise from Fernanda Ponderosa, they got through an incredible volume of work that silent, smoldering afternoon. Together they made up orders that had been behindhand for weeks. Alone, Primo Castorini could not possibly keep pace with the number of orders that pored in daily from around the world. Yet he would not hire
anybody to help him because he trusted nobody with his recipes and was paranoid about spies. In Fernanda Ponderosa his dreams were answered in more ways than one. As she was family, he felt he could trust her with his recipes. But he knew he couldn't trust her with his heart.

Later they were able to move on to processing the hams. These, too, in spite of Primo Castorini's best efforts had been neglected.

For thirty days, each and every day, the thousand new hams had to be rubbed with salt to cure them before hanging them for a year to mature. It was then necessary to rotate the entire stock of hams in the stores to reflect the stage each had now reached in its development. In showing Fernanda Ponderosa how it was done, Primo Castorini massaged his ham like a lover. It was an act of devotion, and one that made Fernanda Ponderosa want to laugh. She could rub salt into a carcass but she couldn't fall in love with it.

Once, running out of salt, Primo Castorini passed behind her to reach for another sack. While he managed to avoid touching her, for her body pulled him like a magnet, the air between them suddenly became alive. It grew momentarily hot and taut despite the tomblike coolness of the room. His body itched, and he couldn't find the right place to scratch.

Finally their work for the day was done. The hams were all salted and put away. The sausages were wrapped in greaseproof paper packets and packed into cartons. The cold room was washed down and gleaming in the light of the fluorescent
tube. Primo Castorini could think of no other motive to keep her there. Although he didn't want to release her, he knew that if he didn't get away from her soon, something inside him would burst.

She unfastened the tight uniform and shook out her mane of hair. His eyes never left her. They just couldn't keep away. She was leaving the shop by the front door when she heard his voice breaking the silence. It was soft, only just audible.

“Why didn't Silvana tell us she had a sister?”

“A lot of questions,” she replied.

“Only one,” he managed. But she had gone, and the darkness outside swallowed her up.

He picked up the discarded overall and buried his face in it. He had no strength left.

As Fernanda Ponderosa walked past the fairy-tale window of the Bordino Bakery, lit up with out-of-season angels and marzipan animals, she did not notice the evil eye of Susanna Bordino fixed upon her. All afternoon, Susanna's mind had been troubled by the stranger who had come among them. The woman was bad news, Susanna could see. Why couldn't people stay in the place they were born? she wondered. She prided herself that she had been born, lived, and would certainly die within the sound of their own bells. Susanna wouldn't admit the stranger was a beauty; there was too much flesh on her bones in Susanna's view. She knew, however, there were some—and amongst this group she numbered her randy father-in-law, Luigi—who might be ensnared by her. Susanna knew his ways.
But the stranger could think again if she thought she was going to snap up Luigi and snatch the bakery from underneath Susanna's nose. Never. Susanna would die first. Of that Fernanda Ponderosa could be sure.

From an upper window, Luigi, too, was watching, his nose clouding the glass, and from that moment on he never gave my mistress another thought. He hurried down to the ovens he had only just closed up for the night and began to knead some dough. Into that dough he put all the passion he had left to unleash. He had never loved Gloriana. It was obvious to him now. The scales had fallen away from his eyes. The first sixty years of his life had been a sham, a total sham. He was now discovering love for the first time, and his heart sang within his withered chest. Looking down from heaven, Gloriana wept; she had given the best years of her life to that man.

A
rcadio Carnabuci was right: Fernanda Ponderosa had come to regret her hasty actions on the previous evening and wanted to apologize for the soaking she had given him.

Blushing like a furnace, Arcadio Carnabuci opened the door to his bedroom and admitted Fernanda Ponderosa, who looked pale, but determined. They had dispensed with the usual chitchat in the parlor. What use had they for words? She had come to him. Nothing else mattered. He watched Fernanda Ponderosa's eyes scan the room. Thank God he had had the foresight to change the sheets. The magnificent new ones made all the difference. He hoped she was impressed.

They looked into one another's eyes. Arcadio Carnabuci was unsure of what he saw there. Was it love? Desire? Laughter? What, for that matter, did she see in his? He felt naked, although he was yet fully clothed. Without drawing her eyes away from his, Fernanda Ponderosa began to undo the buttons of her blouse. Arcadio Carnabuci's mouth went dry. He hadn't had much practice. In truth he hadn't had any practice. Least
ways not with other people. He had read manuals of course but it wasn't the same thing. He was seized by a feeling of panic that he didn't know what to do. And what was worse, she would know that he didn't know what to do. And she would hate him for it. Should he make for the door, now that his dream was on the verge of being realized? What would she think of him? Was it worse to repel her by his ineptitude or to make her feel rejected? Already he was on the verge of collapse.

Then something incredible happened. Fernanda Ponderosa, without his being aware of it, had climbed out of her clothes, which now lay in a tender heap on the floor around her feet. She came up close. Closer than anyone had ever come to him before, anyone other than his mother that is, and possibly other family members when he was still a baby, his father, perhaps, possibly his grandmother. So close in fact that he couldn't see her in detail anymore—he lost sight of her—she was just one big sun-browned mass. He realized then he didn't have his glasses on. Where were they? He didn't remember taking them off. But that didn't matter now. Nothing mattered except this moment.

He felt lips on his. Whispering against his. Warm, soft, fleshy lips. He felt the tip of a nose brush ever so lightly against his. The lips were moving around, still in contact with his. They sort of sucked up his bottom lip and manipulated it. He had never experienced anything like this. He didn't know whether it was acceptable to breathe. Whether it was possible even. But
then he stopped thinking, and his lips, his whole mouth, responded to the lips of Fernanda Ponderosa. He was kissing. He was actually kissing. And it looked as though he was doing all right.

Without knowing it they had become locked in an embrace. He was standing on tiptoe, trying to stretch himself out as tall as possible. If she was having to stoop, she was hiding it well. Now he was holding her close. Her smell overpowered him. The cascade of her hair rippled over his arms. His bare arms. He was somehow naked. How had that happened? There had been not the least awkwardness or embarrassment. No tangling in the legs of his pants. No shoes that wouldn't come off until their laces had been completely loosened. No smelly socks to be regretted. How had she managed it? How on earth did it matter? He could feel her against him. Around him. Surrounding him with softness. Her arms enclosing him. Her glorious flesh pressing against him. He could feel the gentle pressure of her breasts pushed against him. Her endless legs running up and down the length of his. And all the time their lips working frantically away, trying to make some kind of meaning out of their yearning for one another that was so strong nothing could hold it back. Sucking, plucking, probing. Her hands roved over him. He wished himself bigger so there would be more of him to feel her touching him. Her powerful fingers exerted a pressure on his face, his neck, his chest, his sides, his bottom, his thighs. A smell hung in a cloud around them. It was a smell that was new to him. But it was the most intoxicating smell it
was possible to imagine. It was the smell of their two bodies murmuring to one another.

Arcadio Carnabuci began to yowl like the wolf that lived high above in the mountain peaks. He didn't know how he could bear any more of this pleasure, so intense it was agonizing.

Out in the yard, the dog, Max, took up the cry, fearing that the wolves had come down to the plains to carry off the few chickens his master kept. The wretched dog was so insistent. It's barking was so loud.

“Don't stop, I beg you,” yelled Arcadio Carnabuci over the din, in a voice that was straining with all the naked force of his pent-up passion. The voice of a man in torment. And a much different voice to the one he usually spoke in.

But Fernanda Ponderosa had stopped. Arcadio Carnabuci couldn't understand it. In that cold, empty place between sleeping and waking, he finally realized he had been tricked by a dream. Max was still barking away. The only spurting was that of Arcadio Carnabuci's tears of rage and frustration.

When he found the light and looked at the clock, he couldn't believe it. Then the awful truth dawned upon him. He had been asleep for more than twenty-four hours. He had slept through the night and through the next day, and now here it was night again. It was the aftereffects of the song that had drained him dry, to the very dregs. He suddenly panicked that he had missed the Maddaloni funeral at which he was due to sing. If he had missed that, he could expect to be attending his own
funeral anytime soon. But then he realized the funeral was tomorrow; he hadn't missed it. Thank God. But nevertheless had missed a whole day. He had been robbed of a whole day of being with her. A day he would never recover. What had gone on in that time? He was racked with jealousy. Anything could have happened.

If only he had looked outside and seen me there, waiting for him.