Hunting Season: A Novel Read online

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What do you mean, ‘it doesn’t matter’? The only condition set by Don Filippo and Don Totò was that her fiancé must be noble.”

  “And how the bloody hell do you think they’re going to object? Haven’t you noticed that there isn’t a living soul left around ’Ntontò?”

  “So whom should I ask for her hand?”

  “’Ntontò herself. And today.”

  “But does the marchesa want me?”

  “She wants you, she wants you. Christ, does she want you!”

  “Let’s go upstairs and talk this over calmly.”

  They talked about it for another two hours. Fofò had lost his appetite, but apparently it had been transferred to the priest, who polished off all the food on the table as he was knocking down one after another of the pharmacist’s observations.

  “But when would this marriage take place?” asked Fofò, expressing his last doubt.

  “What do you mean, ‘when’? In a month.”

  “What about the dispensation from mourning?”

  “That’s already been taken care of. The bishop ate up a small fortune to clear the way for Impiduglia.”

  It was pointless to resist. And so, at nightfall, dressed in a clean suit, with Father Macaluso at his side, the pharmacist showed up at the palazzo. ’Ntontò was waiting for him in the sitting room. Saying nothing, she merely gestured to Fofò to sit down beside her on the sofa, and for the priest to sit in an armchair. Then, as though summoned by her eyes, the pharmacist, who had kept his head turned towards a painting, began to turn around. And at last they looked each other in the eye.

  When they returned from their honeymoon—a fortnight in Palermo, at the Hotel des Palmes—Fofò and ’Ntontò were transformed.

  ’Ntontò looked ten years younger; she had become a young girl again, always laughing, showing up in a different dress every Sunday. She had put the years of mourning and tears behind her. Fofò La Matina, on the other hand, became more gloomy and taciturn with each passing day. Sometimes he didn’t respond when greeted, spent all day holed up in the pharmacy, and in the evening, before going home to the palazzo, he would take a long, solitary walk along the water’s edge, watching the crabs as they walked beside him. He had never had any friends, and didn’t make any new ones, either.

  “The compresses you gave me to put on my eyes have done me a world of good,” said Barone Uccello. “Could you prepare some more for me?”

  “Certainly,” said the pharmacist. He went into the back room and returned with a small glass jar full of black powder.

  “This is all I have left,” he said. “But tomorrow’s Sunday, so I’ll go to La Mantellina to gather some more.”

  “You’re going to La Mantellina?”

  “Yes, there’s a rocky spur there that’s full of this plant.”

  “Bring a rifle along.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was told that, just a day or two ago, right around La Mantellina, a peasant was bitten by a rabid dog and died.”

  Fofò decided to take the baron’s advice. When he reached the rocky spur, a desolate site whose sole vegetation consisted of melilot, the grass he was interested in, and stalks of sorghum, he realized—or perhaps it was the rifle strapped to his shoulder that made him realize—that the place was full of hares and rabbits. He killed two hares and one rabbit, then stopped shooting, since he had nowhere to put any more animals.

  This was how he developed a mania for hunting.

  Unsatisfied with the rifles he found in the palazzo, he went to Palermo and bought himself four shotguns that were a pure delight. Three months later, two English bloodhounds arrived, a breed that could smell quarry from a mile away. Little by little, Fofò was seen less and less about town. He had turned the pharmacy over to an assistant about whom nobody had any complaint.

  Promoted to the rank of captain, Lieutenant Baldovino had to leave Vigàta, and the town’s garrison was sent a new commander: Lieutenant Emiliano di Saint Vincent, a Piedmontese nobleman from Asti. At the Circolo, a party was held to say goodbye to the departing Baldovino and to welcome the new arrival; there were many toasts and much emotion, because Baldovino, after all these years, was considered one of the town.

  “But, he’s an angel!” said Signora Clelia, as soon as she saw Lieutenant Emiliano.

  Tall, blond, and quite elegant, Emiliano di Saint Vincent, throughout the reception, spoke, saluted, clicked his heels, and bowed, but did it all as if he were somewhere else. He seemed distant, unreachable.

  “When will I ever get my hands on this one?” wondered Signora Clelia, a bit discouraged.

  In fact, Lieutenant Emiliano politely declined the generous solicitations of Signora Clelia, who had wanted him to rent the little flat across the landing from hers, the very same that Nenè Impiduglia had inhabited.

  “I prefer to sleep at the barracks, with my men.”

  “But it’s uncomfortable in a barracks!”

  “We are soldiers, madame; we are used to discomfort.”

  And not only was he quite at home with discomfort; he felt it was his duty to make his men live with it as well. When Amedeo Baldovino was in charge, their quarters had become a sort of little town apart, but one which enjoyed all the liberties of the town itself. Reveille was sounded quite a bit later on cold and rainy days, and the soldiers returned to barracks at whatever hour of the night they pleased. With Emiliano di Saint Vincent, however, hours became regular again, with drills in the courtyard early each morning, and the scourge of long marches through the countryside. The few times he was seen in town, the lieutenant never made small talk with anyone, never once eyed a woman, and was uninterested in joining the Circolo.

  “Bloodhounds!”

  The voice behind him caught Fofò La Matina by surprise as he was stepping out of the great door of the palazzo with his two dogs to go hunting. Turning around, he saw a beautiful young man in uniform. He immediately realized this must be the new garrison commander, whom he had not yet met.

  “I am Emiliano di Saint Vincent, the new—”

  “Yes, I figured as much. My name is Fofò La Matina; I am the town pharmacist.”

  “May I?” the lieutenant asked, and, without waiting for an answer, he crouched down. At once the two dogs started regaling him. The officer patted them, looked inside their mouths, patted them again, then stood back up.

  “My compliments,” he said. “They are two fine specimens, very well taken care of.”

  “Do you know about these things?”

  “I’ve got two myself, at home in Asti. And I’ve also got two foxhounds.”

  “But they’re for fox hunting.”

  “Right. But they’re very fast. And speed is always useful, in any hunting dog.”

  Fofò realized that it had been months since he’d had so long a conversation with another person.

  “Would you like to come hunting with me?”

  He had never invited anyone to keep him company.

  “Thank you. I would be delighted to come. But I haven’t got any of my rifles here.”

  “I’ll lend you one of mine. Follow me.”

  He took him to the flat he had above the pharmacy, which he had turned into an arsenal. It had all of the Pelusos’ rifles as well as the four very modern ones he had bought in Palermo. There was also a large table with boxes of gunpowder, scales, measuring cups, empty cartridges, loaded cartridges, caps, crimpers, measures, fuses, cartridge belts. Emiliano di Saint Vincent felt almost moved.

  “I’ve got a room just like this, at home in Asti.”

  They started talking about gunpowders and rifles. And Fofò was quick to answer. And every so often when they came to a pause, they looked each other in the eye and both smiled.

  8

  The two men got into the habit of going hunting together
two or three times a week, when the lieutenant could free himself from his military duties. In the meantime Emiliano di Saint Vincent had escaped to Palermo to buy two new rifles, since he did not want to take advantage of his friend’s kindness and because, like any good hunter, he wanted his weapons to adapt to his body like a suit that has been well broken in. But these days of hunting were eating away at the pharmacist. For all the attention and concentration he put into his shooting, the lieutenant was always quicker and more accurate. He aimed and squeezed the trigger with elegance; it all looked so effortless, and yet the partridge and quail, rabbits and hares were always cut down in their tracks. Fofò couldn’t keep up with him.

  “You hardly seem to take aim, Lieutenant.”

  “Well, in fact, I don’t aim the same way as you. I point the rifle not at the animal, but at the impression I have of it.”

  One day, as they were resting from a long outing, Emiliano di Saint Vincent said to the pharmacist:

  “You know what? Tomorrow is my birthday.”

  “Come and we’ll celebrate it at my house,” Fofò replied cheerfully.

  Happy to see a new face, ’Ntontò had Peppinella prepare a dinner to remember. And the lieutenant did justice to each course, without ever once holding back. It was clear that ’Ntontò and the lieutenant had taken a liking to each other; they talked and laughed so much between them that at a certain point Fofò felt it might be better if he got up and went to bed. There was, moreover, a curious resemblance between the two; they looked like brother and sister, both tall and blond and blue-eyed. And they also seemed as if they had known each other for a long time. Thus lulled by their intense conversation, Fofò began to feel sleepy and finally succumbed in front of a glass of wine. He woke up again as Saint Vincent was saying goodbye.

  “Are we going hunting tomorrow?” he asked the lieutenant.

  “No, tomorrow I can’t. But the day after tomorrow, with pleasure.”

  They made an appointment.

  To repay in some way the exquisite hospitality of the marchesa and the pharmacist, the Piedmontese officer decided to uphold a tradition of his people and show his courtesy by missing an easy shot. This allowed Fofò, who was hot on the trail of a partridge, to catch up to him at last. And clearly the contentment he felt from this parity, which he had never before achieved on any other of their hunting parties, guided his hand and eye from that moment on; indeed, over the next few hours he gained such an advantage that there was no way the lieutenant would ever surpass him.

  They became so dogged in their pursuit of prey that they kept on shooting straight through lunchtime; not until around five o’clock in the afternoon, when they were so tired they could barely stand up, did they decide to take a break. With his back against a tree trunk, a flask of wine between his legs, his dogs lying at his side, his friend sitting beside him, and the fresh smell of grass all around, Fofò La Matina began to enjoy a sensation he had never experienced before in his life. He felt weightless, so much so that he was afraid a slightly stronger gust of wind might lift him to the treetops and higher still, losing him amid the clouds. His chest opened up, and with each breath he felt as if he was taking in two wineskins-full of air. He lost himself staring at an ant that was walking on his hand, watching the effort it made in moving from one hair to another.

  “. . . and so we find ourselves in the face of an unusual geometrical progression,” the lieutenant concluded.

  Fofò roused himself. He had not heard anything his friend had said. He looked at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t hear what you said.”

  The lieutenant looked him in the eye and grew worried.

  “What’s wrong? Are you unwell?” he asked, putting an arm around Fofò’s shoulders. He didn’t know that those drawn features, that grimacing mouth were, for Fofò, an expression of happiness.

  “No, I feel perfectly fine. What were you saying?”

  “I was saying that when the signora marchesa, your wife, told me about the mournful events of her life, apparently she hadn’t noticed. And neither had you, I imagine.”

  “But what should I have noticed?”

  “The geometric progression. For example: Let us call X the date of the signora marchesa’s grandfather’s death or suicide. Four months later, her brother dies, poisoned by mushrooms. Eight months later, her mother dies of a broken heart. Sixteen months later her father, the marchese, meets his maker. Thirty-two months later, her uncle, aunt, and their maid and secretary expire. On nearly the same day as her betrothed. The progression is thus two, four, eight, sixteeen, thirty-two. But it is acephalous.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It has no beginning. And to find this beginning, we must solve the problem of X minus two. I thought about this all day yesterday, you know. When I was at the barracks. In other words: What happened on the first of January—that is, two months before the elder marchese killed himself?”

  “Ah, well, if that’s the problem, it’s easily solved,” said Fofò La Matina. “That’s the day I arrived in Vigàta, after having been away for many years.”

  “But what have you got to do with any of this?” said the lieutenant, bewildered. “I don’t see the connection.”

  “Let me show you. Actually, I had never noticed this business of the numbers. But first I want to tell you the story of a little boy not yet ten years old, the son of a viddano—I’m sorry, a peasant—who, though he knew how to gather herbs and roots that could cure every ill, still remained a peasant. This little boy, every time he came into town to deliver things for his father, would walk from street to street with his head tilted back to look up at the little girls on their balconies. One day he looks up at a balcony where he sees a little girl of about six, who happens to belong to the noblest, richest family in town. Their eyes meet and fuse; the boy stands paralyzed in the middle of the street, the girl remains motionless, frozen in the act of adjusting a braid. And in the minute that follows, the two grow up and are able to talk to one another with their eyes, like two adults. They keep staring at each other for another two minutes, and in this short span of time they get to know each other, decide they are made for each other, get married, and grow old together. They make an agreement. And when each breaks free of the other’s gaze, it becomes a solemn promise. Then the little girl’s father arrives, kicks the little boy in the pants, making him drop all the things he was carrying. Would you like to hear a love story that begins this way?”

  “Yes. It’s a beautiful story,” said the lieutenant, who was a distant relative of Vittorio Alfieri and had a natural bent for such things.

  Fofò La Matina leaned more comfortably against his friend’s arm, took the lieutenant’s hand, which had been resting on his shoulder, into his own, and, borne up by a wave of happiness that very nearly made him sing, he began his tale.

  When he finished talking, it was already getting dark. During the telling, Emiliano di Saint Vincent had grown more and more restless and pale. Now, in the darkness, his face shone white. As Fofò uttered his last word, the lieutenant heaved a deep sigh.

  “Jesus Christ!” he said, and drank down the last of the wine.

  Then he shot out:

  “But why did you want to tell me this story? Nobody suspected anything, nobody had connected you in any way with those deaths! Why did you confess to me?”

  “Because today I realized I was fed up. For so many years, I obstinately wanted something, and when I finally got it, I realized that it wasn’t worth all the trouble.”

  “But what are you saying?!”

  “Exactly what I said: It wasn’t worth the trouble. Not for ’Ntontò, nor for any other girl in the world. I realized this the morning after our wedding night. As she was sleeping there beside me, I looked at her and asked myself: Was it worth it?”

  He paused and extracted a last drop of wine from the flask.

  “And
you want to know something?” he continued.

  “Well, at this point . . .” said the lieutenant, resigned.

  “A woman is a poor substitute for a good wanking.”

  So saying, Fofò didn’t realize he was expressing a thought that would occur, many years later, in the same form, to an Austrian named Karl Kraus.

  “I don’t agree,” said Emiliano di Saint Vincent, attempting to stand up but falling back two or three times to a seating position, his legs as wobbly as those of a puppet without strings. He made a gesture of despair and said: “Do you realize that I must do my duty now?”

  “Then do it. You’ll be acting as a friend, as I have done by telling you the truth.”

  And since the other still couldn’t manage to stand up, Fofò gave him a hand.

  During questioning, he answered: “The name of Santo Alfonso de’ Liguori I chose as a precaution. Returning to Vigàta almost twenty years after my father was murdered, I didn’t know if those who had slit his throat and come looking for me were still around. Then Signor Bastiano Taormina explained to me that the people who killed him were monks from elsewhere who thought my father had made a pact with the devil. In Palermo I used to live in the house of an uncle of mine who was a priest and devotee of Santo Alfonso de’ Liguori.

  “No, I returned to Vigàta only because I wanted to see ’Ntontò again, to see how she had grown up, what she had become. I had no intention to harm anyone. And I was well aware that there was no way I could ever marry her. The Pelusos would never have let me have her; they would never have given their daughter to a peasant’s son. It was only when I was sailing on the Franceschiello that the thought of killing all the Pelusos occurred to me; but I never imagined I would be capable of carrying it out.

  “I never threatened the old marchese. It was he himself, and I don’t know how, who realized I had this idea inside me. It was buried deep down, but it was there. And so he threw himself into the sea to avoid being killed by me. But it was this very event that reinforced my idea that if all the Pelusos disappeared, there would be nobody left to oppose our marriage.