Hunting Season: A Novel Read online

  At that moment the marchese saw her in the clearing at the edge of the wood: the fine, white-and-brown, Agrigento longhair nanny goat, with big moist, frightened eyes, coiling horns like a unicorn’s, and a sweet, sweet udder the color of baked bread. And through this vision of Carmelina, the marchese understood in a flash what his son was about, and what, as a man, he had lost in losing him. For the first time since the misfortune, a genuine feeling of utter grief rose up inside him and tore him apart.

  That evening, as ’Ntontò and Don Filippo were eating the supper cooked up by the maid Peppinella and her husband Mimì, an ex-highwayman and convict taken into their home by the marchese’s father out of pure compassion, Don Filippo could not take his eyes off his daughter. The black of mourning became her; she looked like a sugar doll, plump as a quail with her generous haunches, long blond hair, rosy cheeks, and blue, somewhat crazed eyes.

  But who does she take after? the marchese wondered, himself being swarthy as a crow, as was Donna Matilde. He quickly dispelled the question, remembering his wife’s enigmatic smile.

  “Has Mamma eaten?” ’Ntontò asked Peppinella.

  “Not much, but she did eat,” replied the maid. Donna Matilde no longer wanted to leave her room for anything in the world.

  Even her voice is beautiful, thought the marchese. Then he addressed her directly:

  “So, tell me, why don’t you want to get married? You’ve certainly had some good offers.”

  “I don’t want to settle down just yet.”

  “And when will you, my dear? Don’t forget, you’re almost twenty-five, and in these parts—”

  “So now you suddenly want to play the patriarch?” ’Ntontò snapped. “After blithely shrugging it off your whole life?”

  The marchese did not react, and they continued their meal in silence.

  “That was a nice necklace you gave Mamma,” ’Ntontò said a few minutes later, to lift the pall that had fallen over them. “But why did you have them mount five pieces of lead in it?”

  “I told her those were the bullets that killed Rico.”

  “But Rico was killed by mushrooms!”

  “I know, but I decided to prove her right in her obsession by telling her a lie.”

  “But why?”

  “Because now, you’ll see, she’ll calm down. She’ll stop screaming, and we’ll be able to sleep again at night.”

  Instead, it was a night of horror. Flung sideways across the double bed, the marchese had been dead to the world for some two hours when something grazed his cheek. Thinking it was a pelacchio, one of those big flying cockroaches that during the hot Sicilian summers fill the air like flocks of swallows, he dealt himself a such a slap that it completely woke him up. Opening his eyes, Don Filippo saw, in the faint light of a small lamp he kept lit during the night, a white shape standing at the foot of the bed. The marchese was a superficial but temperamental man, and thus as prone to acts of heedless bravery as to others of repulsive cowardice. This night it was his chicken-hearted side that went into action. In a twinkling, and for no reason whatsoever, he became convinced that the white figure before him was Rico’s ghost. He became drenched in sweat.

  “What do you want? What have I done to you?” he began imploring, kneeling in bed, hands folded: “Take pity on me!”

  Seeing that the ghost wasn’t answering him, and remembering that these shades from the afterworld abhorred light, the marchese managed, after several attempts thwarted by the tremor in his hands, to light the oil lamp on his bedside table. Instead of disappearing, however, the shape acquired substance in the person of a barefoot Donna Matilde in her nightgown, hair loose, eyes glistening, all made up and looking twenty years younger than her age.

  “I wanted to thank you,” said the marchesa, “for the present you took the trouble to bring me.”

  She fell silent, as Don Filippo looked on, flummoxed at finding her so youthful as to enflame his desire. Then Donna Matilde continued:

  “But it wasn’t only to thank you that I disturbed your sleep.”

  “At your service,” said Don Filippo, and he made room for her beside him in the bed. In so doing, however, his mood darkened. How dare his wife enter the bedroom of someone who was a stranger to her, at night, and with unmistakable intentions to boot? But he was dead wrong as to her intentions.

  “What I wanted to ask you, sir, was this: Do you know the name of the person who shot my son?”

  “His name? I’m afraid not. It must have been someone who didn’t like him.”

  “No one could ever dislike Rico.”

  The marchese reflected that, if he gave her a name, any name at all, she would go quietly back to bed, and he could go back to sleep.

  “All right. His name is Abdul. He’s an Arab who lives out Trapani way.”

  “And why did he kill Rico?”

  “He belongs to a sect of fanatics who kill twenty-two-year-old young men by the name of Federico who eat mushrooms.”

  “Thank you. You’re very kind. Will you be staying with us?”

  “Just a little while longer.”

  “Then I’ll say goodbye, because I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “And where are you going, Marchesa?”

  “Out Trapani way. And the minute I see him, I’m going to shoot that Arab. With this.”

  All the while she had been keeping her right arm behind her back. Now that arm reached out towards the marchese. In her right hand Donna Matilde was gripping a large pistol tightly and aiming straight at him. At this point that other aspect of Don Filippo’s character, his temerity, came to the fore. Emitting a yell that would have frightened a wolf, the marchese leapt at his wife and seized the wrist of the hand holding the gun. They rolled about on the floor. A first shot was fired, shattering the lamp, spilling the oil onto the bed and setting the sheets ablaze. The two continued grappling, squawking and yelping as they struggled. The second shot went towards the door through which Mimì was entering at that exact moment. Recovering his former highwayman’s instincts, the manservant, judging from the report alone, was able to calculate the angle and distance, and stepped aside just enough to dodge the bullet. ’Ntontò and Peppinella also came running, and the two antagonists were finally separated.

  “This man jumped on me, wanting to do lewd things to me, and pointed a gun at me,” said Donna Matilda, perfectly calm, and all in one breath.

  “Me?! It was you who pointed the gun at me, you liar!”

  “How dare you speak to me that way! I don’t even know you!”

  ’Ntontò and Peppinella led the marchesa away and locked her in her room, then rushed back to help Don Filippo and Mimì put out the spreading fire. It kept them busy until morning.

  “Everything all right at home?” asked Barone Uccello.

  “Yes, why do you ask?” shot back the marchese, who was losing his third game of the morning.

  “Well, it’s just that people in town are chattering.”

  “Saying what?”

  “That late at night they heard two gunshots inside your house and saw flames through the slats of the shutters.”

  “Why don’t people in this town sleep at night and peddle their own fish?”

  “Dunno. They say there were two shots from a rifle . . . or maybe a pistol.”

  “That was me, carissimo. I’d bought two firecrackers to set off on San Calorio’s day, but then I couldn’t do it because we were in mourning. So I tried them at home.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “Why, is there a specific time of day or night for setting off firecrackers at home?”

  It was no use. The marchese sat at his desk, with ragioniere Gegè Papìa, administrator of the estate, beside him, putting papers in front of him to sign. And before writing each signature, Don Filippo sniffed his fingers. It was no use. He had washed his hands repeatedly, but the
smell of Donna Matilde’s skin remained stuck to his hands, arms, all over. They had clung to each other too long during their struggle. Don Filippo signed the last document. The Pelusos were, in a sense, traitors to their class and wealth: they knew how to read and write, whereas the majority of other Sicilian nobles customarily signed with an X. “He won’t sign because he’s noble,” they would say. Reading and writing were for miserable paper pushers and clerks. Papìa bowed and went out, leaving Don Filippo to sniff himself undisturbed.

  After lightly knocking, ’Ntontò came in.

  “Did you tell Papìa to pay for nonno’s and Rico’s funerals?” she asked. “Father Macaluso reminded me again this morning. Papìa never wants to give a cent to priests, not even at knifepoint.”

  “Yes, I told him. The church will be paid this very day. But while you’re here, ’Ntontò, tell me something: Does Mamma still have the curse?”

  ’Ntontò immediately took offense.

  “How can you make light of these things at a time like this? She’s in distress, not cursed!”

  “You misunderstood me. I meant, does Mamma still have her periods?”

  ’Ntontò turned bright red.

  “What kind of filth have you got in your head? Mamma stopped being a woman two years ago!”

  She burst into tears and ran out of the room.

  Don Filippo went back to smelling his hands.

  It was a second straight night of hell. His wife’s scent had grown even stronger on his naked body, bringing back memories of nights twenty years earlier, when he and Donna Matilde had grappled together for more pleasant reasons. And the burnt smell lingering on the walls, moreover, made him cough, but he didn’t feel like getting up and going into another bedroom. He blamed his agitation on the intense heat that still prevailed, though it was late September. When, at last, he heard the church bells calling for morning Mass, he got dressed and slipped out with a light step, closing the great front door behind him without a sound.

  Standing at the back of the church, he waited for Mass to end and for four old women and two peasants hunched from working the land to go out, whereupon he raced into the sacristy. Father Macaluso, who was removing his vestments with the help of the sacristan, must certainly have been surprised to see him, but pretended to pay no notice. Surly and hot-tempered as he was by nature, he was waiting for the marchese to greet him first, while Don Filippo, for his part, was not about to open the proceedings by addressing a priest who was the son of clay-footed peasants. So in the end neither greeted the other. And just to spite the nobleman, Father Macaluso folded and refolded his vestments five times more than was necessary.

  Stew in your own juices, fool.

  After showing the sacristan out, the priest finally looked at the marchese.

  “What is it?”

  “I’d like to speak to you.”

  “Ah, thank goodness. I thought you were here to give me a shave.”

  The marchese didn’t react.

  “And I would also like what I’m about to tell you to remain a secret.”

  “Look, I don’t usually discuss things people tell me. But if you want to feel more certain, entrust yourself to the secrecy of the confessional. What do you have to say to me?”

  “I would like to speak to man to man.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “I want a son.”

  “Good God, that again?”

  “What do you mean, ‘That again’?”

  “Look, I was made priest of this parish, replacing the late Father Carnazza, bless his soul, at the very moment when you got it in your head that you had to have a son. And the marchesa would come to confess to me every Saturday. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Like hell.”

  “No, what’s like Hell is the torment you put that poor woman through every night the Lord sent your way!”

  “But isn’t that what marriage is for?”

  “Yes, indeed, for that, among other things. But not for satisfying your egotism and vanity. You wanted a son who could inherit your name and estate. But what is a name, in your opinion? What are earthly possessions? They are shit, that’s what they are.”

  “Excuse me, but if I enjoy dancing in shit, what’s it to you?”

  “Let’s drop it. What do you want from me?”

  “Listen, before continuing, I’ll tell you something I’m under no obligation to tell you. You’re wrong about my wanting an heir. For Rico, yes, that was true. But this next son I want the same way any man without a cent in his pocket would.”

  “That is to your credit. But I don’t think Donna Matilde is capable any longer.”

  “Who ever mentioned my wife?”

  The priest blinked his eyes.

  “Did I hear correctly?”

  “Perfectly.”

  Father Macaluso turned into a pepper, half red, half green.

  “Jesus bloody Christ, you come here, into the house of the Lord, to tell me you want to commit adultery?”

  “Come now, adultery! Let’s not exaggerate. I will have a son with another woman, since with my own wife, by your own admission, I cannot. Then I’ll adopt the kid and that’s the last you’ll ever hear of it.”

  “It would still be adultery, so long as Donna Matilde is alive! When the poor lady ascends at last into heaven, only then, after a proper period of mourning, could you marry the woman with whom you wish to sire a son, and then all would be in order.”

  “The fact is that the woman I want to bear my son is already married.”

  “Then, by hook or by crook, you are hell-bent on committing adultery! You are obsessed, an adulterous maniac! Don’t you know it is a more grievous sin than murder?”

  “Are you joking?”

  “I am not, you jackass!” yelled Father Macaluso, choking on his rage. And, picking up a very heavy chair, he did not spare the marchese a parting shot:

  “Leave this house of God at once, you piece of shit!”

  3

  It took the marchese only a few days to arrange things. He granted power of attorney to ragioniere Papìa, had four trunks loaded onto two mules, and headed off to Le Zubbie. When Natale Pirrotta saw him arrive and take heavy clothing out of the trunks, woolen sweaters and overcoats, he darkened.

  “You’ll have to excuse me, sir, but if your intention is to spend the winter here, what am I supposed to do? Go round and round Sicily like a spinning top?”

  “No need to worry, Natà. Tomorrow Peppinella’s elder sister Maddalena will be arriving, who’s seventy years old. She’ll sleep with Trisina, to keep the tongues from wagging.”

  “And where am I supposed to go?”

  “You’re going to go and lend a hand to Sasà Ragona, the field watcher of Pian dei Cavalli. He’s sick with malaria and can’t work like before. And you can come back here to see Trisina whenever you want.”

  The marchese didn’t turn up again at his own home until Christmas Eve. The first thing he noticed was that there was no crèche in the family chapel.

  “Have you forgotten?” said ’Ntontò. “It was Rico who used to make the crèche. I don’t know how to, and neither does Mimì.”

  Don Filippo thought back on Rico’s Nativity scenes. Yes, they had little mountains made of lavic slag, palm trees, a rivulet, a cave, the ox and the donkey, but everything was drowned in a thick carpet of mushrooms. And the Baby Jesus was himself a mushroom, between the mushrooms of Joseph and Mary.

  “Is Mamma awake?”

  At ’Ntontò’s affirmative nod, he opened the door, but was forced to take a step back by the smell.

  “Jesus, can’t you open a window?”

  “She doesn’t want me to.”

  Overcoming his nausea, he went in and sat down in front of his wife.

  She had become an old woman in the space of three months, her hair now complete
ly white. It was difficult to see in her room. With the flame of the oil lamp kept low, Donna Matilde squinted as she tried to make out the features of her visitor’s face. To help her out, Don Filippo went over to the chest of drawers, turned up the flame, and sat back down. Then the marchesa recognized him.

  “Help!” she began to shout. “Help! For heaven’s sake, somebody please help!”

  ’Ntontò, Peppinella, and Mimì came running and the usual pandemonium broke out. With the strength of her desperation, Donna Matilde managed to stand up halfway from the easy chair, gripping the arms.

  “It’s him! The man who wanted to shoot me! Who wanted to do lewd things to me!”

  Before leaving the room, Don Filippo turned around to look at his wife. And it looked to him—but surely it wasn’t possible, it must have been an effect of the dancing light of the oil lamp—like she was laughing.

  “We’re going to put Mamma to bed, and then we’re going out,” said ’Ntontò. “We’re going to midnight Mass: me, Peppinella, and Mimì.”

  “Mimì, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sure he’ll have to attend quite a few Masses before he atones for all his sins.”

  “What are you going to do, Papà? Go to the Circolo?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  He remained seated a long time at the now cleared table, taking sips of wine every so often. Then, when he was certain that everyone was gone, he headed for Rico’s room. It was years since he had last set foot in it, and it immediately looked much smaller than he remembered. He set the lamp down on a table and looked around. It all gave him a strange feeling he couldn’t explain, and the more he looked at things, the stronger the impression became. Suddenly he understood. This was the bedroom of a grown man; one could see it in the size of the bed, the clothes, the shoes, and the rifle propped in a corner, which Bonocore had apparently recovered in the woods. Yet at the same time it was also the bedroom of a little boy, an impression that came from the drawings stuck to the wall, which Rico had recently made and which portrayed, in infantile fashion, Papà, Mamma, and My sister ’Ntontò, going by the words written under each picture. Don Filippo opened the desk drawer and found a stack of paper, every sheet covered likewise with drawings of the same subject: a goat. Looking at them one by one, the marchese could see just how diligently Rico had begun to make progress; in fact, the last sheet was a genuine portrait of Carmelina. Rico had colored it and even got the shadings right. In a sudden fit of anger of which he was hardly aware, he tossed the sheet into the air and went out.