The Wager (12 page)

And Don Giovanni indulged in that risk partly because he needed one tiny declaration of bravery—only now and then—just to let himself remember, even if poorly, how bold he once was, how bold he planned on being again. He tapped the purse inside his smock.
Three years, three months, three days
.

For the evening meal, man and dog satisfied themselves with a bowl of bean soup and dark bread to dip. They ate this outside the kitchen doors of one of a dozen different homes
where the cook had agreed to the arrangement. One coin fed them both for two nights running.

And, again, the man was on his best behavior. He ate with the same habits he'd use at a banquet table. It was important to maintain the semblance of being civilized whenever possible. Because he was civilized. Don Giovanni was a human being, with a soul.

He recovered from his beating quickly. After all, he'd gotten into good health during his stay in the inn, so he had a solid foundation to build on. He felt lively again.

The more amazing thing was the transformation of Cani. His eyes turned alertly to every sound, every motion. The frightened, frantic dog that had run back and forth beside Don Giovanni that first night he'd come to Randazzo, way back last February, was completely gone. This new version of the dog seemed curious, intelligent, interested in the world. But never interested enough to stray. Oh, no, he stayed at Don Giovanni's heels, even when cats crossed their path. He was a disciplined dog. Don Giovanni admired that in him.

At first Don Giovanni tried to get the two of them on a nocturnal schedule. During the day they slept between meals out in the open in the largest market square. No one would dare attack them with all the traffic going on. At night, they wandered the streets, staying close to the buildings, noticed only by the rats. They keep their eyes peeled, constantly on the lookout for thieves and hoodlums.

But Cani was spooked by the shadows of night. His eyes weren't good in the dark. He barked his worries and people shouted at them and threw things from windows.

Finally, Don Giovanni had to admit that Cani wasn't ever going to adjust. The dog was willing, Heaven knew that. He'd try anything Don Giovanni suggested. But dogs aren't nocturnal. So they had to go back to walking all day, and sleeping under the staircase at night.

It turned out all right, though, because Cani put on flesh quickly. His black coat glistened. He was sleek and robust, and his appearance alone commanded respect, just as Don Giovanni had hoped. No one bothered them as they slept. Only a fool would risk angering that dog.

And Cani wasn't a bad blanket, not bad at all. They made it through Christmas and January and February. The coldest time of the year. It was working.

“Another pact,” said Don Giovanni when he'd scratch the dog behind his ears. “A holy one, this time. We take care of each other.”

But all good things come to an end, as Don Giovanni looked at it these days. So on the mid-March afternoon when the German tavernkeeper pushed Don Giovanni's coin back at him and gestured for him to get out, he wasn't surprised.

Over the past month, there'd been a gradual transition. At first Don Giovanni ate alone at one end of a table, with Cani underneath and other eaters at the far end. Then people got up
and moved to other tables when he sat down, even if it meant crowding. Then the table nearest to his would empty, too.

Without being asked, he'd taken to sitting in the corner spot, to displace the fewest customers possible. It was only a matter of time until the tavernkeeper barred him.

He looked a fright, after all. He could see it in the eyes of children, in the way their mothers pulled them closer and sped up as they passed him. And he stank. He reeked. He was a putrid sack of filth. There was no other way to put it. He hated his own stench. He'd taken to breathing through his mouth, to diminish the nausea he caused himself.

It was one more irony. As Cani had grown more handsome, Don Giovanni's appearance had deteriorated. The dog kept himself clean everywhere with his tongue, but the man allowed that tongue to explore only his face.

The odor from his bottom was the first to become overwhelming, thanks to that beating from the bullies. Then the odor from under his arms ripened and turned rancid. And then his feet developed the most peculiar condition. They grew scaly on the soles, and raw between the toes. They itched constantly and radiated a foul odor.

His back itched, too. And his chest, where little, red, angry-looking pustules had formed. And his ears. He wondered if maybe insects from Cani had migrated into them. In fact, he itched all over. Even his scalp. Especially his scalp.

So he couldn't blame the tavernkeeper. Don Giovanni was
bad for business. And he'd learned from experience that it only made things worse if he offered to pay extra.

He waited outside until the midday meal was over. Then he went in again.

“Out,” said the tavernkeeper, pointing with his whole arm at the door Don Giovanni had just walked through.

“I could eat around back, by the kitchen door,” said Don Giovanni. “No one would see me. I'd pay the same.”

“What's the matter with you?” The tavernkeeper spoke Sicilian as he shook his head in disgust. It surprised Don Giovanni, who hadn't realized the man knew the language. “Clean yourself up, man.”

“I can't.”

“You're a disgrace. I don't want your money the way you are now. Clean yourself. Act like a God-fearing man again, and you can come back. But not till then. Don't hang around here. Go.”

Man and dog walked through the streets. They went to the staircase that sheltered them at night. In the corner under it, behind a small pile of rubble, was the bowl the milk boy had given Don Giovanni. He filled it with coins. Maybe when the boy came looking for them in the morning, he'd find it.

Then they stopped by the doors of all the kitchens that had sold them morning bread or evening soup. It wasn't obvious what would make a good hiding place—one the maidservant or cook was likely to look in but that others wouldn't—so Don Giovanni simply left handfuls of coins hidden under rocks or
rubbish, whatever he figured the maidservant or cook might be asked to sweep away.

As a final good-bye, he handed a coin to every beggar they passed. Just one. There was no point in inviting trouble.

They went down the main street of town and out the gates to the road again.

“It's all right,” Don Giovanni said to Cani. “The meat meals in that tavern were over anyway. It would have been fish stew all through Lent till Easter. And you're not much of a fish eater.” He scratched behind Cani's ears. Then he scratched behind his own. Then he laughed. What was the point in not laughing? It was spring. “It was time for a change anyway, my friend.”

IN SPRING THE INTERIOR OF SICILY FROM ETNA TO PALERMO
rivaled the Garden of Eden. Sweet sage perfumed the world. Heavenly.

So long as people were avoided, that is.

People had their charms, it was true. They had so many different customs, just from one village to the next. Don Giovanni liked watching them from a distance. The women, of course. He would never stop admiring the beauties of women, how they fluttered so decorously. The devil was wrong—his love of women wasn't narcissistic. Indeed, he had no delusions about being attractive anymore. So his persistent appreciation of women despite the absence of any chance of carnality disproved the devil's claim.

Three years, three months, three days
. The first thing he'd do
when the time was up was scrub himself new. The second and third and fourth and . . .

But he also liked watching the men. Here were hats that sat like an overturned bowl on the head, there were ones that hung down at the rear like the sack of an octopus body, and over there were ones that poofed out high above the head like a church bell. Each little isolated mountain town was a world unto itself. Don Giovanni had no sense of what the differing habits of clothing meant. He would have liked to ask someone, but on the increasingly rare occasions on which he'd speak, people shied away from him, if they didn't outright run.

People meant other good things, as well. Music. All Don Giovanni's life he'd enjoyed street musicians as much as the refined musicians who performed chamber music at the banquets in his castle. Randazzo had offered him plenty of the former. The towns in central Sicily that he wandered through after leaving Randazzo offered him more of the same. A simple little tune plucked on a Jew's harp could bring a wide smile to his lips. In the towns with Muslim residents, the cane flutes held notes that wavered in the air like calls to prayer. He loved the bagpipes and the triangle and the drums and the tambourine. He would step back into the shadows and watch dancing for as long as it went on. Or as long as no one chased him away.

People meant cooked meals, prepared sometimes exquisitely, letting off aromas that made his mouth water. Sheep cheese flavored with saffron to a deep yellow—ah, he had that
in the mountain town of Enna outside the door of a Muslim home. He made Cani wait across the road before he knocked. He had learned that Muslims hated dogs. They used them for hunting and guarding, but never as pets. And they especially despised black ones like Cani. But he saved the last bite of the cheese for the dog. That was their rule—share.

He had egg drop soup in Enna, too. Scrumptious. Even a simple round loaf of bread came to seem inordinately delicious.

People meant gardens whose walls Don Giovanni peeked over to admire beds of roses, and delicately fragrant sweet peas. Musky trefoils, ranunculi, fan palms, and Judas trees with their flaming canopies, all arranged to please the eye. Once he watched a troop of slaves pass an entire day trimming graceful curves in hedges.

People meant an occasional innkeeper, typically needy for business, who let him spend the night in the stable, if not in a room.

People meant gaily painted carts. Children playing stick games in the alley. Pottery that seemed to caress whatever it held. Fountains carved with nymphs and sea horses. Butchers and farmers who called out their goods. Oh yes, those merchants' calls.

And that was it: Most of all, people meant language. This island of Sicily was rich in tongues. Some of what Don Giovanni heard, he couldn't understand. Some he understood, but only in the vaguest way. Understanding it himself hardly mattered anymore, though. Hearing people talk to each other,
seeing them respond with joy or sorrow, that was the marvel he witnessed, nearly awestruck every time.

That was the most painful loss: without language it was hard to remember he was human.

But contact with people had to be avoided, for people also meant senseless brutality. Not just toward others they looked down on: slaves and beggars—the misfortunate who were blamed for their own misfortune—but also animals, creatures who couldn't possibly bear blame.

Don Giovanni watched a horse-drawn cart near Enna one day in mid-spring. The old mare had undoubtedly served as her master's reliable mount until the years caught up to her and landed her here, in this very different type of work. A white lather of sweat swathed her neck and withers. One leg bled profusely from high up, near the rump. Her muzzle was red, her nostrils dilated, her eyes despairing. The man leading her slapped her hard with a cane to speed her up. She would die in her tracks one day. Simply drop there. For her sake, Don Giovanni hoped it would be soon.

People kicked dogs and threw hot oil at cats. People beat donkeys and prodded goats with pokers.

In his old life, that fantasy life in the castle, Don Giovanni had rarely given a thought to animals beyond considering their usefulness to him. Now how someone treated an animal was the first thing he noticed. He wouldn't take a chance that someone might hurt Cani.

The dog impressed Don Giovanni with his intelligence, goodwill, and loyalty. Probably no one had recognized that in him before Don Giovanni came along, or Cani never would have been left to fend for himself.

Don Giovanni figured his newfound appreciation of animals also came from the fact that an outsider sees things an insider is blind to. Or, rather, he notices what he sees; he gives attention to different details. Observing those details lent a quiet dignity to the role of outcast. Don Giovanni spent his days watching the world. Counting the days until the wager was over made the pain seem longer. But gathering details, reveling in them—that filled his brain so that sometimes he truly lost track of time.

The wild horses that lived in the Nebrodi Mountains, for example. They were worth study. Many times Don Giovanni wasn't certain which direction to go in the wilderness. Some directions led to impassable precipices. Some became slopes that were too steep or had rocks so loose they slid out from underfoot. Some went nowhere near water. He quickly learned to look for hoofprints. Horses invariably made paths through the most easily passable terrain. And horses always led to water eventually. Downright clever.