Sweet Life (8 page)

Alek looked away.

Viktor hated his father enough to want him dead. But to actually lift the axe – lift it high and swing it, again and again –
that kind of savagery required the same brute temper that burned in his father’s skull. And as if they both had the same thought, Alek and Viktor looked at Karl.

It took hard shaking before Viktor could wake him, and soon as Karl opened his eyes, he jumped to his feet. “Is he coming?” When he saw Alek standing with the axe, Karl shook his head. “I’m not doing it. Old man said you’re supposed to chop wood today.”

Viktor and Alek moved in closer. Alek lifted the axe. “The old man.”

Karl’s eyes bugged. “You’re going to kill him?”

“Take the road and go around the bush,” Viktor said. “Come up by the river. He’ll never see you.”

“Why me?”

“You’re strongest. The old man wouldn’t stand a chance.” Alek pressed the axe handle against Karl’s palm until his brother took it. “Think about Mama. Doesn’t she stick up for you when he gets mad? Doesn’t she let him clobber her instead
of you? What about that time he chased you with the rake? Next time, it won’t be the rake. It’ll be the rifle.”

Karl looked out the loft door. Squinted. “I told the bugger. I said, ‘You come after me again, I’ll do you.’ I told him.” He turned toward the ladder, started forward then stopped. “And I told the Mounties I had to hit him with the shovel because he came after me with the rake but they locked me up. I’m not no stupid bohunk like they said and I’m never going back to jail.” Karl shoved the axe at Alek.

Viktor crouched next to him. “We’ll get rid of the body where the Mounties can’t find it. No body, no crime. We’ll smear the body with gear oil and cow shit, stick it in a grain sack and spread that with oil, too. Dig a hole in the cream shed and put the separator over top. Tell Mama that the old man had an accident and we had to bury him to keep the Mounties from blaming us.”

Alek knelt next to his brothers. “Karl, you know he’ll go after you again. Think about the rifle hanging by the door. How many times has he said he was going to shoot us? Go along the bushes. Come up from behind.”

Suddenly, Matthew’s voice. “What you guys doing?” He looked around for his boots.

Karl headed for the ladder. “I’m going to do the old man, get him before he gets me.”

“
No
.” Matthew ran after Karl and threw himself at his legs. Karl shook him off.

Viktor ran to the loft doors. Clouds had closed in about the sun, dragging the warmth from the day. Beneath their wide shadows, my grandmother carried the hoe to the garden, a faded babushka tied under her chin.

Matthew started to cry. “No, Karl, don’t hurt Papa.”

It was the only time Viktor shook Matthew. “
Shut up
.”

Karl started down the ladder.

Matthew couldn’t pull himself from Viktor, but he called: “Karl, they’ll come in the big car and take you away, again.”

Karl hesitated. Then he climbed back to the loft, dropped the axe and sat in the straw again. “I’m never going back to jail.”

A noise on the ladder. Viktor looked. Felt the floorboards sway, like they were trying to pry themselves loose and run. He smelled Alek’s pee. Because there was my grandfather’s head, truncated above the ladder hole, his narrowed eyes watching. Then he made it the rest of the way, rocking a little on the balls of his feet, not too drunk yet. A clump of black hair stuck out behind one ear where his cap sat crooked. His gaze passed over each boy, one by one.

At last he looked at Viktor again. “Chores done, already?” When he stepped forward, his toe bumped the axe, and he looked at it as though he’d no idea what it was. He looked at Alek. “What’s this doing here?”

Karl bolted to the ladder. When his feet hit the packed dirt below, the mongrel barked. Viktor stood in front of Matthew.

When my grandfather spoke, again, his voice was low enough that Viktor strained to hear it. “What-is-this-axe-doing-up-here?”

Viktor couldn’t answer, couldn’t look my grandfather in the eye.

Grandfather slowly bent over and took the axe. “I’m glad I found it. Now I can kill me something tasty for supper. A nice lamb.” He smiled at Matthew. “I think Sofie.”

“
No!”

Grandfather’s head snapped back. He and Viktor locked eyes. A year clicked by. Until my grandfather grunted. “Get back to work, you sons-of-bitches.” When he turned to the ladder, he took the axe with him.

None of my three uncles moved until Grandfather and his dog left the barn and passed the sheep pen. Then Alek said, “He figured it out, didn’t he? He knows we were going to kill him with that axe. You could see it in his eyes. We’ll be lucky if he don’t shoot us.”

“He won’t. Who’d do the work? You’d better go change your pants.”

After Alek left, Matthew tugged Viktor’s sleeve. “You mad at me?”

“No. You’re a good boy. Get on your boots and help Mama in the garden.”

After Matthew, too, was gone, Viktor still couldn’t move. It wasn’t until he heard the doves, again, heard them call from the woods:
Who? Who?
that he turned to the loft doors and spread his arms wide. “It’s me. Viktor Banchuk. Wait for me, I’m coming, soon.”

Indistinct Shapes

The
Bells of San Martino

Midnight. The last patron lurches from the Silver Bar.
Passing through Manna’s town square, he looks up when he hears the first bell of San Martino. The damp May warmth seems to hold each ring before allowing the sounds to roll from church spire to pavement. The man (his name doesn’t matter; it could be Romano or Mario or Gusto) is relieved the rain has stopped; glad to have several lira remaining in his pocket; happy to have spent such a pleasant evening drinking with friends. But now he must relieve
himself and the bar door is locked. No matter. He plants his feet in a corner where the church steps rise and unbuttons his fly. The feeling of releasing himself into the night adds to his happiness and he whistles a snappy air, a Neapolitan love song he learned from a record. Soon he’ll be home in his warm bed, snuggled against his wife’s soft hip, not at all concerned that, come morning, she’ll chew his ear for staying out late, again.

The bell ringing follows him as he stumbles up a street, and by the time the twelfth ring echoes against the stone houses, his hand is against the mayor’s fastened shutter. There’s something he should tell the mayor, something important, but
Dio
, what’s that sound? Crazy Catelli’s wagon! The man hurries for home as quickly as his unsteady legs will take him.

~

The mayor sits alone with his cigarettes and a bottle of red wine. He hardly notices the bells, which are as familiar to him as his wife’s breath. And if she knew he was awake and stewing about work, she’d send him back to bed, tell him to let tomorrow take care of tomorrow. Easy for her; she has only the house, the garden, her parents and their six children to worry about, but he has to deal with an entire town.

It took him almost an hour yesterday to calm elderly
Signora
Tosca after the Campin rascal drove by her house on his Lambretta and tossed lit firecrackers through her window. The poor woman thought she was under artillery attack. When she stormed into the mayor’s office, he had the devil’s time reminding her that this was 1965, not 1905, and much as he’d like to, he couldn’t toss the seventeen-year-old delinquent into jail.

But firecrackers are children’s tricks and nothing compared to the trouble Crazy Catelli causes.

When the mayor took the time to visit
Signorina
Catelli, she put him off. He, the mayor!
Sì
, the
Signorina
is a Catelli and her family donates handsomely to the Church of San Martino, has for many decades. But how dare she bat her eyes, treat him as though he was an infatuated schoolboy? He made sure she understood his position.

“Listen,
Signorina
. When your brother walks about, the children run away because they are afraid. Even their fathers cross to the other side of the street. On market days, he
threatens the vendors if they don’t lower their prices enough to suit him, and they’re afraid, too. He’s always showing off his strength. For example, he’ll take a cantaloupe in each hand –
you can be sure he doesn’t pay for them – and squeeze until nothing is left but pulp.

“He keeps an eye out for newcomers, talks them into bad deals. ‘Buy my hens, such fabulous layers, think of the money you’ll make.’ But these birds squeeze out an egg here, an egg there, no profit in it, and when these people complain, your brother threatens them, says: ‘Leave me alone or I will squeeze your neck with both hands until your flesh oozes between my fingers!’ Really,
Signorina,
something must be done.”

And what did the
Signorina
have to say? She’d think about it.

The mayor shakes his head, lifts the wine bottle to pour another glass. Then he remembers the new bakery opens in the morning and he must look good for the photographs. He rises and turns off the light.

~

Paola Catelli has not slept a wink, and it is all the fault of
Signor
Big Shot Mayor. Such a comic with his uneven teeth and cheap suit, daring to speak as though they were equals. Yet his insistence, his habit of looking her square in the eye like a man who knows what he wants – well. She was sufficiently interested to shift herself, give him a better view of her crossed legs.

Now she paces between her bedroom and dressing room, back and forth, chain-smoking American cigarettes. She was not careful this evening when she applied the cold crème, and has soiled the collar of her Japanese robe, a gift from her last lover.

He was a generous man, but not wealthy. Virile and good for a laugh, but definitely not husband material. And Paola’s current boyfriend? Perfect for a romp, but what a poseur. Imagine hinting she use her connections to find him better employment, as though what he wanted mattered.

Paola needs something to calm her nerves, needs it now. She goes to the hallway. “Maria! Maria,
caffè
!”

~

Maria gropes for the switch cord hanging by the headboard. Moving into a guest room has meant being woken by shouts instead of by the bell. True, this room with its high ceilings and arched windows is elegant, unlike the plain downstairs room she occupied for four decades. The
Signorina
insisted Maria move because it was taking her too long to climb the stairs. Nonsense. At sixty-two, Maria is as quick as ever. The problem isn’t her legs; the problem is the
Signorina’
s worsening temper.

Maria ties a robe about her waist, pulls on her slippers and takes the staircase. When she flips on lights as she goes, reflections from the chandeliers glimmer along the black-and-white terrazzo floor. She was employed in this
piccolo palazzo –
little
palace – when
Signora
Catelli brought her babies home: first Carlo, and then, two years later, Paola. And Maria has been more than loyal, tucking the family secrets against the roof of her mouth instead of blabbing to other servants. She told no one about the late master and his son, how they whisked their mistresses inside the back door as soon as
Signora
Catelli stepped out the front. Let chauffeurs and cooks talk about their employers’ indiscretions; Maria is above such betrayals.

And will she pass on what she has heard about the
Signorina
’s latest beau,
Signor
Barbaro? If the rumour is true, let the
Signorina
find out for herself. Now the woman has another Romeo who visits the
palazzo
on Maria’s night off, and the man is certainly not grey-haired
Signor
Barbaro, who lives far away in Milan. This other fellow leaves black hair all over the bathroom.

Each time the
Signorina
takes up with someone, she slips extra cash into Maria’s pay envelope. Call it a bonus or call it a bribe, Maria saves every lira for her Rico and Roberto, who must be provided with better chances than their father, Enzo, ever had. What an awful job he has, slaughtering pigs six days a week; returning home stinking of blood.

Returning home to a silent saint, who saves her voice for prayers and secludes herself in the apartment unless she is dragging herself to Mass.
Sì
, Lidia’s accident was a terrible misfortune, but what good is it to be religious? Despite her holy airs, despite praying the rosary more times than the Pope, nothing has changed. Religion is a waste of time, nothing but false hope. And false hope drags the weak to their knees when they should be on their feet solving their problems. Light a candle and believe in miracles? Maria’s own faith died long ago when hope boarded a train without a single word of farewell.

Now the aroma of pumping espresso makes her stomach growl. She takes four biscuits from a packet and drops them into her pocket. After pouring the coffee into a cup, she adds a generous amount of grappa before setting the cup onto a saucer, and that onto a tray. She hurries upstairs, switching off lights, until she knocks once at the
Signorina’
s door and enters. She leaves the tray on a small table next to a gold brocade armchair. The
Signorina
, examining her eyelids, doesn’t notice.