The Secret of Santa Vittoria (52 page)

It is a strange song, a slow dance, since wine pressing is hard and heavy work. It seems very ancient and as if it had come from some other part of the world, because we have no other song like it. The trampling of the grapes must be done in a slow rhythm, in a swaying movement that goes back and forth and side to side more than up and down. There is a genius to everything in the world and Lorenzo was this way with the grapes. He knows how to make people use themselves to take from the grapes all that God put in them.

He began the dance as he always did, with his own woman, a Gypsy who looks as if she had spent one life already as a wolf, and when she was tired and he was through with her, he began to point at people in the crowd and they would come up and get into the barrel and begin to dance with Lorenzo. There is no turning away when you are summoned to the press. It would insult the wine and it would insult Lorenzo, neither of whom must be insulted. Anything is allowed to Lorenzo. The women hold up their skirts and show their legs and even their thighs, and Lorenzo holds them by the hands and by the arms and around their waists. If the legs are good, strong and firm and brown and muscled, the men cheer the legs and the women shout suggestive things that any other time of the year would not be allowed.

He doesn't dress the way our men do. He wears very tight pants, like a bullfighter's. They stop at the knee and are very revealing, and it embarrasses the women and even some of the men, and then it is forgotten when the dancing begins. His chest is covered only by a vest that is decorated with silver and gold threads, and his arms and his chest are as hard as bone. But it is his face and his eyes that people watch. As the dance continues, Lorenzo becomes possessed by the motion of it, and finally he is mad and at the same moment under control. He seems to see everything at once and yet nothing at all. He doesn't seem like any of us then; he is superior to us then, and any man will admit it. He is a kind of god then, a god of the country towns, who looks like a faun and a goat and a man all in one. There is no end to his energy, he can dance on and on, because, as they say, he isn't human then, he is an animal and a god.

“You,” he points, and the woman comes and he seizes her by the wrist, the strong brown hands with the stiff hair on the backs closing over the woman's hands, and they begin to move to the music, sometimes face to face or side by side, swaying to the music which is slow but not sad, sinking into the grapes and the juice that flows over their stained feet.

“Watch out for your women or you will lose them to me,” Lorenzo suddenly shouts.

It is meaningless, because all women are lost to Lorenzo the minute the music begins. Every woman knows this and Lorenzo knows it and all of the men in Santa Vittoria know it. He dances with a woman until she yields to him, until she surrenders herself completely and he can move her to the left or right or in any way he wishes her to go, by a flicker of the eye, a breath, the touch of a finger. She belongs to Lorenzo then, and when she does he discards her.

The same goes for the men. It is a challenge with the men, and he never loses. He dances not until the man surrenders, but until the man can go on no longer. Then, when the moment is right, Lorenzo flings the man aside and the people shout and jeer at the victim, and he goes on to the next. He had been dancing for almost an hour, which is a very long time to be in the wine press without resting, when he motioned for Angela Bombolini to come into the press. The men applauded her legs, and it surprised Bombolini. Why should they cheer the legs of a little girl, he thought. Angela is young and strong, she has her mother's arms and back, and it was a good battle. The others dancing at the far side of the barrel even stopped to watch, although it is supposed to be against the rules. Her eyes were very wide and bright, and at first she danced with Lorenzo but not for him. He looked into her eyes and she looked into his, and people could see that her eyes still belonged to her and not to him. But he has a way of reaching for what he wants to touch that cannot be resisted by a woman. It was not a fair contest. Angela's face was innocence at first, but there was the moment—and everyone knew exactly when it took place—when the face of innocence was replaced by something else and Angela began to dance for Lorenzo and the barrier that had been between them and held them apart was broken and down. She could not pull herself away from him or from his eyes or his hands. It is almost embarrassing to say that at that moment he could have done anything he wished with her, in full view of the town, and Angela would have accepted it. Her mouth began to open and he began to smile at her and she to smile at him, and there was no one else in the world then.

“She's no virgin now,” a woman shouted. Bombolini turned to look at her.

“It's no use, Italo. He's making love to her with his eyes,” a man said to the mayor, and he was forced to look away. In the door of the wineshop he could see his wife smiling. They were all alike in the end, he thought, every single one of them. He turned back again. The sweat was running down his daughter's face and it stained the embroidered linen blouse that was a girl's blouse and too small for her, and when he turned away once more because it was too much for a father to see—such things should take place in private—he saw Roberto at the side of the wine press, gripping the wooden staves and staring at Angela in amazement and anger. He knew what Roberto was going to do, and he pushed through the people until he was behind him and he held him back.

“Don't get in there, Roberto,” he whispered in his ear. “You can't get in until you are invited.”

“But he's … he's…”

“I know that,” Bombolini said. “It's what happens here. Do you think it's any easier for the father to watch?”

They both looked down, and as they did there was a shout from the crowd. He had released her, he had taken his fill of Angela, the surrender was total, the victory complete. She stood alone among the grapes as another woman came up into the press, and when the world began to come back to her she shook her head as if she had come back from a long sleep, or a dream even, and still unsteady she began to wade across the grapes to the side of the press.

“Angela,” Roberto said. He cried the name. He held up his arms to help her over the side and out of the barrel, but she didn't see him. He said her name once more, and she didn't hear him say it. Instead, she climbed over the side of the barrel and down onto the cobblestones, her bare feet dripping with the juice of the grapes, and went past his arms and into those of Fabio della Romagna. No one except Roberto and Bombolini saw them, because there was something greater to watch. Captain von Prum had come out of the doorway of Constanzia's house. He had washed himself and changed into a fresh uniform, and he looked like the captain once more. Behind him in the doorway was Caterina Malatesta, and Lorenzo saw her and made a motion with his head.

“Stay where you are,” von Prum said. “I don't want you to go.”

“I have to go. He's seen me. It would insult the wine and insult the festival.”

“I don't want you to go,” the German said; but there was no way to stop her and he knew it. She started across the piazza and it grew quiet. The music played, but the others in the barrel stopped dancing and then they began to get out of the barrel. It would be a battle, because everyone could see at once what it was, the hawk against the goat, the hawk against the faun, the two of them alike, and unlike anyone else here, born a thousand years before any of us, these pagans, as alone and distant as the animals they reminded us of.

There is no way to describe the dancing of Lorenzo and the Malatesta. Her legs are long and very strong and her feet are narrow and long, and this is good for the grapes. There were times when she seemed to dance on top of them, to be free of them, and it was a help to her. He had clapped his hand around her wrist with a force that could be heard all over the piazza, and it was understood that he would never let the wrist go until he had won. And he did win, and we learned why.

The hawk is cold and aloof and dangerous, but there is something about a goat that must win, because the goat is better than the hawk and worse than the hawk, the goat will try anything; he will climb to the top of any mountain to get what he is after, and he will grovel in the manure pile, he will be bold and weak, stupid and wise, beautiful and ugly, mean and gentle, and in the end the goat will win because the goat always wants something more than a hawk wants it. Lorenzo wanted her more than the Malatesta wished to deny him.

“You are good,” the Malatesta said. “You win.”

“I am truly great,” Lorenzo said.

He helped her to the side of the press and lifted her over it. It was the greatest honor he ever gave to anyone in Santa Vittoria. He was tired after that, because it had not been easy for him. There are years Lorenzo dances without a rest, but in some he has stopped and allowed the Gypsy to dance in his place. He wanted to rest then, but the German was in the wine press.

“Try me,” von Prum said. “Dance with me.”

“I'm tired now,” Lorenzo said. “It wasn't easy.”

“Try me,” he ordered. Lorenzo shrugged his shoulders and went back across the barrel toward the captain.

“Take off your boots,” he said. “You bruise the grapes.”

He took off his boots and his woolen socks, and the women near the press said “Aaah” at the narrow whiteness of his feet.

“Take off your shirt. You're going to need to,” Lorenzo said. They made the sound again when they saw the smooth whiteness of his arms and chest. He was not a weak man, but against Lorenzo's hard darkness he seemed like a child pitted against a man.

“You needn't hold my wrist,” von Prum said.

“I need to,” the goat said. “You won't know how to move in the grapes.” His fingers closed on the German's wrist and he was locked to him.

They began to dance.

She didn't wish to see it, to watch him be humiliated in front of the people. There is something that is not amusing about the humiliation of a German. But it was something else, also, as if she knew that Tufa would be waiting for her in Constanzia's house when she went back to it. He was behind the door, in the darkness of the room, when she entered it. Even in the darkness she could see the wildness of his eyes. They were as wild as those of Lorenzo, but these were wild with loss and so were more dangerous.

“If you're going to do something to me I want you to do it at once, without talking,” Caterina said to him. She could see that he held a knife in his hand.

“And so you gave yourself to him, too,” Tufa said. “In front of the entire city.”

“All women give themselves to Lorenzo. I'm no different.”

“If he had asked you would have taken off your dress and lain with him in the grapes.”

She said nothing.

“Admit it,” he said. “Admit that.”

“Yes, of course,” Caterina said. “You know how I am.”

He crossed the room and stood at the entrance to the small bedroom.

“And this is where you sleep with him,” Tufa said. His voice held anger and disgust.

“What do you want to do with me?” Caterina asked. “What do you need from me?”

There was laughter coming from the piazza, and she knew they were laughing at the captain. Tufa had gone into the room and he was prodding the bed with the toe of his shoe.

“So this is where you curl up with the German? What do you say to him.” He came back toward her. “Maybe sometimes you forget and call him Carlo, eh? Do you ever do that?”

She had turned away. She realized that she was bored, not by him, but by the necessity of going through with whatever it was Tufa would have to go through.

“Don't go away from me,” Tufa said. He had meant it as an order, but it had come from his mouth as a plea.

“Do what you have to do, Carlo. If you have to use the knife, use the knife, but in the name of God, do it.”

It angered him.

“You're so Goddamn brave. You're so above us,” Tufa said. “Do you know what they do here when a woman dishonors her man? Do you know what they do with their knives?”

She turned back toward Tufa. “They cut them here,” she said. “So they can't dishonor again.”

“Yes, there,” Tufa said. “It's very ugly and very effective.”

She decided to try.

“I didn't dishonor you,” Caterina said. “I came here because I honor your life.”

It angered him. “You stole my honor from me,” he shouted at her. “Who do you think you are, to take what is
mine?
”

She was bored with him at last, with the enraged eyes and the hurt voice and the words of honor. It is said that the most dangerous bulls are the bored bulls because they force the bullfighter to do something unwise and even dangerous. Tufa had come to cut her, but now he wished to kill her.

She told him, because she was bored and because she didn't care what became of herself any longer, that he was the same as the German, that they were the same man, that he didn't have the dignity of the fat mayor or the courage of the young boy Fabio.

“When all of this was over I wouldn't have come back,” Caterina said.

“You would have come back,” Tufa said. He was nodding his head, over and over again, and she knew he was dangerous, and although she didn't care she also experienced fear. “But I wouldn't have had you. I would have done this,” Tufa shouted. The shout would have been heard in the piazza but for the music, which was loud and fast then, and the laughter of the people watching the German being dishonored in the wine press. The knife entered her stomach. The pain was not as bad as she had thought it would be, and the feeling she felt above all others was relief that it was over. She knew also that she would live.

All of Tufa's anger was gone. He pointed to the wound.

“Every man you give yourself to will know why that was done,” Tufa said. “They'll hate you for it.”