Hunting Season: A Novel (12 page)

Fifteen days before Trisina gave birth, Don Filippo grew very restless. He could not sit still for a minute, paced about the house lengthwise and widthwise, and didn’t sleep a wink at night. He answered everyone rudely when addressed, and nothing worked the way he thought it should. One morning, as he was looking out the window at his property, he started shouting that the rows of grapevines were all crooked and needed to be set straight; another time he cursed the whole day long because the rooster did not crow at a specific time of the morning, but whenever it suited him. The rooster problem was serious.

“I have to go and talk to that shit of a rooster,” he said to Natale. “He wakes me up when he shouldn’t, and when he should, he doesn’t give a damn.”

“So, go and talk to him, then,” replied Natale, resigned.

The discussion between the marchese and the rooster took place without the others’ knowing about it. They realized, however, that the rooster had not budged from his intention to do things his way, since they found him with his neck broken.

One week before the expected date, the marchese went into town and returned in the carriage with Mimì, followed by a farmhand with a caleche and the midwife, who had been paid her weight in gold. All the newborns of Vigàta who came into the world during her absence would have to make it on their own.

Fofò La Matina solemnly promised that he would come to Le Zubbie in three days. The little house was turned into a sort of campsite. The marchese slept in his own bedroom, the pharmacist in the room built for Natale, Maddalena—brought back just in case—in the shed, Mimì and the farmhand in the stable, Trisina and the midwife in the master bedroom, and Natale in a straw hut in the vineyard within earshot.

When Trisina started yelling that her water had broken, the multitude ran to her bedside. Only Natale and the marchese ran out of the house, sitting down on the stone wall of the well. They were teetering back and forth, like trees buffeted by the wind. And it wasn’t clear whether it was a gesture of affection or precaution when the marchese put his arm around Natale. There was a stampede of people coming and going with pots of boiling water and clean rags as Trisina screamed that she was breaking in two. Then a mysterious silence ensued, so complete that the two embracing men did not take a breath. It lasted an eternity. Pirrotta was staring at an ant climbing the stone wall, Don Filippo at a cricket that was cleaning itself. They were roused from their stupor by the voice of the midwife, who was holding in one hand a sort of slaughtered, upside-down rabbit and shouting for joy:

“Come! It’s a boy! It’s a boy!”

Each supporting the other, the two men, gimpy-legged, stood up.

The day after the birth, the marchese wanted to give Fofò La Matina a lift into town with the caleche. After they had been traveling a while, the pharmacist was the first to break the silence.

“Please forgive me, Marchese, but I feel obliged to tell you something.”

“Fire away,” said Don Filippo, who was in a good mood.

“You’re no longer a young man. And you eat a lot. Your face is too ruddy. You should give it some thought.”

“What should I do?”

“I could apply some leeches, for preventive purposes.”

“Fofò, I prefer to have my blood sucked in other ways.”

“But, sometimes, when you’ve eaten a great deal, don’t you feel a burning in the pit of your stomach?”

“Burning? I feel fire! Some nights Trisina spends hours making me gallons and gallons of water and laurel.”

“Water and laurel is only a palliative. With your permission, I will make you ten or so tablets. If you come by the pharmacy this afternoon, I’ll have them ready for you. You should take one after each meal, if you’ve eaten a lot.”

After dropping off Fofò in Vigàta, the marchese continued on to the provincial capital and appeared at the home of Scimè the notary.

“Have you decided to make a will?” asked the notary, who was an old friend of his.

The marchese touched his balls dramatically.

“You know how it is, Scimè. I’m convinced that if I draw up a will, two days later I’ll be in the graveyard. No, I came because I want to make a bequest straightaway: all of Le Zubbie to a baby boy who was born yesterday. And then I want to adopt him.”

“As far as the bequest is concerned, there’s no problem. Adoption, however, is a complicated matter. I’ll begin the paperwork tomorrow. But tell me something: Who is this baby boy?”

“The son of my field watcher’s wife.”

“All right, but where do you come in?”

“Oh, I come in, Scimè, believe me. I come in the same way the Holy Spirit came in.”

Returning to Vigàta, he went to see ragioniere Papìa, took him to eat at an inn, and talked about business. He did not go home to see ’Ntontò.

At a certain point he dropped in at the pharmacy, picked up a little box of pills, and returned to Le Zubbie.

Pasta al ragù with chunks of sausage, suckling goat with potatoes, and a strange wine that Mimì had brought back and Trisina and Natale had never seen before. When the cork came out it made a
pop
so loud it sounded like a rifle shot. And it was treacherous: it went down as easy as water, but before long one’s head was spinning. Such was the luncheon with which the marchese had wanted to celebrate the baby’s first month of life.

When he had finished eating, Don Filippo said the meal was sitting a bit heavily on his stomach.

“Want me to go get the pills, m’lord?” asked Trisina.

“No, Trisì. I think I’ll go lie down in bed. If I fall asleep, wake me up at four.”

He brought a glass of water with him into his bedroom, took a pill from the little cardboard box he kept on his bedside table, swallowed it, and lay down in bed.

When Trisina went to wake him at four, he was dead.

It was still dark outside when Mimì opened his eyes suddenly, hearing somebody pounding and kicking the great door and calling out wildly. He rolled out of bed, ran to open the door, and found Natale Pirrotta before him, pale and trembling as if he had malaria.

“What’s going on?”

“The marchese . . . yesterday afternoon, after eating . . . he went out for a little walk . . . and we haven’t seen him since . . . I’ve looked everywhere . . . but I can’t find him.”

Mimì made a snap decision. He sent Natale off to inform Inspector Portera while he himself, dressed as he was, went to shake the pharmacist out of bed.

Around midday one of Inspector Portera’s men, who had ventured all the way to Vaso di Failla, a deep, desolate, funnel-shaped gorge strewn with jagged rocks and crumbly, treacherous clay, with a few rare clumps of sorghum here and there, fired a shot in the air to alert the others who had spread out in several directions. The marchese’s body lay at the bottom of the gorge. When he arrived at the spot, Portera made everyone take a few steps back and started reading what the ground had to tell him. Then he called the others.

“The marchese slipped from here. See that streak right at the edge? The ground is naturally slippery there, so you can imagine what it would be like after the three days of rain we’ve had. Poor Don Filippo tried to stop his fall. See how that shrub of sorghum over there is stripped away? But it wasn’t enough, and he kept on slipping. Then he must have gathered speed, probably broke his neck, and at the end of his fall even hit his head on a rock.”

“Why do you think he was already dead when he hit his head?” asked Fofò La Matina.

“Because there’s very little blood on the rock. In any case, we’ll know more after we bring in the body. But my question is: Why did he venture so far from home, and to such a dangerous place?”

“The marchese, poor guy, wasn’t all there in the head anymore,” said Pirrotta.

“Oh, no?”

“It’s true,” interjected the pharmacist. “A few days ago Pirrotta told me the marchese broke a rooster’s neck because the animal didn’t crow at the right time of day.”

Then he turned and addressed Pirrotta directly:

“Did the marchese eat a lot yesterday?”

“I’d told him not to; I’d warned him about eating so much. He must’ve fainted, or felt dizzy, and then he fell.”

“Well, let’s be patient,” Portera concluded, “and take him away from here.”

“May I ask a question?” inquired Fofò.

“Go right ahead.”

“Who should inform the daughter?”

There was silence. Nobody had the courage to volunteer.

“Well, if that’s the way it is, I’ll take care of it myself,” said the pharmacist. “I’ll go at once, so she’ll be prepared when her father comes home dead.”