Cavalleria rusticana and Other Stories (6 page)

‘It’s Janu!’ she whispered, like a startled bird, her heart pounding in her breast, and she buried her head in the bedclothes.

When she opened her window next morning, she saw Janu basking in the warm April sun as he leant against the orchard wall in his brand new velveteen suit, doing his best to force into its pockets his big, swart hands, calloused from his labours.
A fine new bright-red silk scarf peeped out invitingly from the inside pocket of his jacket.

‘Ah, Janu!’ she said, feigning total surprise.

‘Hello there!’ called the young man, with a broad grin all over his face.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’ve come back from La Piana.’

The girl smiled back at him, and looked towards the larks still hopping across the grass in the early morning sunlight.

‘You’ve come back with the larks.’

‘The larks are like me.
They know where to find better things to eat.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘They’ve given me the sack.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I caught a fever down there, and could only work three days a week.’

‘Poor Janu!’

‘Damn La Piana!’ cursed Janu, stretching out his arm towards the valley.

‘Did you know that my mother…?’ Nedda began.

‘Yes, Zio Giovanni told me.’

She said no more, and turned to gaze down on the garden beyond the wall.
Steam rose from stones moistened by the morning dew, whose drops glistened on every blade of grass.
Almond trees in full bloom whispered in the gentlest of breezes, their pink and white blossom drifting on to the cottage roof and filling the air with its fragrance.
A petulant sparrow chirped angrily away from the edge of a gutter, issuing its own brand of menace to Janu, whose suspect looks made it seem likely he would raid its nest, of which a few telltale blades of straw protruded from the tiles.
The church bell was summoning the people to Mass.

‘Doesn’t it make you feel good to hear the parish bell!’ Janu exclaimed.

‘I recognized your voice last night,’ said Nedda, blushing as she forked up the soil round the flowers in her window-box with a piece of broken pottery.

He turned the other way and spent some time lighting up his pipe, as any man must.

‘Goodbye, I’m off to Mass now!’ said Nedda abruptly, withdrawing from the window after waiting in vain for him to speak.

‘Here, take this,’ he said, displaying his fine silk scarf, ‘I brought it back for you from the city.’

‘It’s lovely!
But it’s far too good for me!’

‘Why’s that?
It doesn’t cost you anything!’ the young man replied, with the logic of the countryman.

She turned scarlet, as though the huge expense had made her realize the warmth of the young man’s feelings towards her.
Smiling, she cast him a glance both savage and affectionate, and withdrew rapidly into the house.
When she heard the sound of his boots retreating over the stones of the path, she peeped out and kept him in view as he went on his way.

At Holy Mass, all the village girls admired Nedda’s fine new silk scarf, imprinted with roses that were so true to life you could almost smell them, on which the sun poured its brightest rays as it shone through the church windows.
And as she was passing Janu, who was standing alongside the first cypress in the churchyard with his back to the wall smoking that pipe of his that was all so intricately carved, she blushed and felt her heart pounding in her breast, and quickly walked on.
The young man followed her, whistling as he went along, and watching her as she hurried on without looking round, in her fine new heavily pleated velveteen dress, her elegant little shoes, and her flaming red silk scarf.
‘Poor soul,’ he thought to himself.
‘Now that her mother has gone to Heaven and she no longer needs to provide for her, she’s managed to put together an outfit from her earnings.’ Amid all the misery the poor have to suffer, there’s also the solace that comes with the losses that pierce the heart with the greatest sorrow!

Nedda heard the young man’s heavy footsteps behind her, unable to tell whether she felt deeply happy or deeply afraid, and on the pale grey dust of the sun-drenched road ahead of her, her eyes were glued to a second shadow that every so often separated itself from her own.
Suddenly, when she came in sight of her cottage, for no apparent reason she began to run like a frightened deer.
Janu caught up with her, and, leaning against the door, she landed a punch on his back with a cry of ‘Take that!’

He returned the blow with a rather exuberant show of gallantry.

‘How much did you pay for your silk scarf?’ Nedda asked, filled with delight as she took it from her head to hold it out in the sunlight and admire it.

‘Five
lire,
’ Janu replied, with a slight puffing out of his chest.

She looked away from him with a smile, folded up the scarf along its original lines as best she could, and began to sing a song that returned to her lips for the first time in ages.

The cracked pot on the window-sill was teeming with carnations still in bud.

‘What a shame,’ said Nedda, ‘that none of them has come out yet,’ as she picked the one with the biggest bud and gave it to him.

‘What use is that to me if it isn’t in flower?’ he said, uncomprehending, casting it aside.

She turned away from him for a moment, then asked, ‘Where are you going to work now?’

He shrugged his shoulders.
‘What about you?
Where are you going tomorrow?’

‘To Bongiardo.’

‘I’ll find a job, as long as I don’t have to catch any more fevers.’

‘You have to stop staying out at night to sing in people’s doorways!’ she said, blushing all over and moving from side to side against the doorpost in a coquettish sort of way.

‘I won’t, if you don’t want me to.’

She gave him a push and ran inside the house.

‘Hey there!
Janu!’ the voice of Zio Giovanni came bellowing from the road.

‘I’m coming!’ Janu shouted, then to Nedda, ‘I’ll come with you to Bongiardo, if they want me.’

‘Listen to me, young man,’ Zio Giovanni said to Janu when he joined him on the road, ‘Nedda is on her own now, and you’re a good fellow, but it isn’t right for the two of you to be together.
You understand?’

‘I understand, Zio Giovanni.
But God willing, we shall be all right together after the harvest, when I’ve put aside the bit of money we need.’

Even though no one could see her, Nedda blushed as she overheard what they were saying from behind the wall.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘I’m coming to Bongiardo with you to look for a job.’

The sound of their voices so early in the morning awoke the fledgling sparrows, which began to chirrup in the nest.
Janu hooked Nedda’s bundle on to his stick alongside his own, and they set off at a brisk pace while the first glimmers of day tinged the sky on the horizon, and the air turned chill in the morning breeze.

The supervisor noticed that Janu, as they filled up their wicker baskets with rocks, kept leaving the lighter one for Nedda, and when he threatened to send him packing, the poor devil had to rest content with a cut of ten
soldi
in his day’s wage.

The trouble was that the smallholdings, being relatively uncultivated, lacked any sort of farmhouse.
At night the men and the women had to sleep higgledy-piggledy in a hut without a door, and the nights were decidedly cold.
Janu pretended he was always feeling hot, and gave Nedda his corduroy cloak to keep herself well covered.
And on Sunday all the labourers went their separate ways.

Janu and Nedda had taken shortcuts, and as they walked through the chestnut copse they laughed and chatted and sang together, jingling the big money in their pockets.
The sun was as hot as it is in June, the distant meadows were beginning to turn brown, the shadows cast by the trees had a festive air about them, and the grass beneath their feet was still green and flecked with dew.

Towards midday they sat in the shade to eat their black bread and their white onions.
Janu also had some of that special Mascali wine, and he never stopped handing it over to Nedda, so that the poor girl, who was not used to drinking so much, was getting a thick head and a furry tongue to go with it.
From time to time their eyes met and they burst out laughing for no apparent reason.

‘If we were husband and wife we could eat bread and drink wine together every day,’ Janu said, with his mouth full, and Nedda lowered her eyes because of the way he was looking at her.
The deep silence of noon enveloped them all around, the tiniest leaves of the trees were motionless, shadows were rare; the air was filled with a stillness, a warmth, a sensuous murmuring of insects that made the eyelids droop.
The loftiest tops of the chestnuts suddenly started to sigh in a fresh breeze coming off the sea.

‘It’s going to be a good year for the poor as well as the rich,’ said Janu, ‘and at harvest time, God willing, I shall put aside a bit of money… and then, if you love me…!’ He handed her the flask.

‘No, I won’t drink any more,’ she said, blushing all over her face.

‘Why do you turn so red?’ he said, laughing.

‘I won’t tell you.’

‘Is it because of the wine?’

‘No!’

She struck him on the shoulder and started laughing.

In the distance they heard the braying of a donkey that had caught a whiff of fresh grass.

‘Do you know why the donkeys are braying?’ Janu asked.

‘You tell me, since you know the reason.’

‘Of course I know.
They’re braying because they’re in love,’ he said, staring at her with a meaningful smile on his lips.
She lowered her eyes as though they were dazzled by flames of fire, and she felt as if all the wine she had drunk had gone to her head, and all the warmth of that golden sky was rushing through her veins.

‘Let’s go now!’ she exclaimed, tormentedly shaking her head, still heavy with the wine.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I don’t know, but let’s go, quickly!’

‘Do you love me?’

She nodded her head.

‘Will you marry me?’

She looked him calmly in the eyes and gripped his rough hand tightly between her own dark hands, at the same time raising herself unsteadily on to her knees in order to get away.
Distraught, he held on to her by her dress, murmuring unintelligible words, as though no longer in control of his actions.

When they heard the crowing of a cock from the nearby farm, Nedda suddenly sprang to her feet and looked anxiously all around.

‘Let’s go!
Come on, let’s go!’ She was all flushed, and the words came out from her lips in a rapid stream.