Mistral

 

IT WAS THE LAST of the Milanese brandy. I drank, and passed the bottle to Don, who lifted the flask until the liquor slanted yellowly in the narrow slot in the leather jacket, and while he held it so the soldier came up the path, his tunic open at the throat, pushing the bicycle. He was a young man, with a bold lean face. He gave us a surly good day and looked at the flask a moment as he passed. We watched him disappear beyond the crest, mounting the bicycle as he went out of sight.

Don took a mouthful, then he poured the rest out. It splattered on the parched earth, pocking it for a fading moment. He shook the flask to the ultimate drop. "Salut," he said, returning the flask. "Thanks, O gods. My Lord, if I thought I'd have to go to bed with any more of that in my stomach."

"It's too bad, the way you have to drink it," I said. "Just have to drink it." I stowed the flask away and we went on, crossing the crest. The path began to descend, still in shadow. The air was vivid, filled with sun which held a quality beyond that of mere light and heat, and a sourceless goat bell somewhere beyond the next turn of the path, distant and unimpeded.

"I hate to see you lugging the stuff along day after day,"

Don said. "That's the reason I do. You couldn't drink it, and you wouldn't throw it away."

"Throw it away? It cost ten lire. What did I buy it for?"

"God knows," Don said. Against the sun-filled valley the trees were like the bars of a grate, the path a gap in the bars, the valley blue and sunny. The goat bell was somewhere ahead. A fainter path turned off at right angles, steeper than the broad one which we were following. "He went that way," Don said.

"Who did?" I said. Don was pointing to the faint mark of bicycle tires where they had turned into the fainter path.

"See."

"This one must not have been steep enough for him," I said.

"He must have been in a hurry."

"He sure was, after he made that turn."

"Maybe there's a haystack at the bottom."

"Or he could run on across the valley and up the other mountain and then run back down that one and up this one again until his momentum gave out."

"Or until he starved to death," Don said.

"That's right," I said. "Did you ever hear of a man starving to death on a bicycle?"

"No," Don said. "Did you?"

"No," I said. We descended. The path turned, and then we came upon the goat bell. It was on a laden mule cropping with delicate tinkling jerks at the pathside near a stone shrine. Beside the shrine sat a man in corduroy and a woman in a bright shawl, a covered basket beside her. They watched us as we approached.

"Good day, signor," Don said. "Is it far?"

"Good day, signori," the woman said. The man looked at us. He had blue eyes with dissolving irises, as if they had been soaked in water for a long time. The woman touched his arm, then she made swift play with her fingers before his face. He said, in a dry metallic voice like a cicada's: "Good day, signori."

"He doesn't hear any more," the woman said. "No, it is not far. From yonder you will see the roofs."

"Good," Don said. "We are fatigued. Might one rest here, signora?"

"Rest, signori," the woman said. We slipped our packs and sat down. The sun slanted upon the shrine, upon the serene, weathered figure in the niche and upon two bunches of dried mountain asters lying there. The woman was making play with her fingers before the man's face. Her other hand in repose upon the basket beside her was gnarled and rough. Motionless, it had that rigid quality of unaccustomed idleness, not restful so much as quite spent, dead. It looked like an artificial hand attached to the edge of the shawl, as if she had donned it with the shawl for conventional complement. The other hand, the one with which she talked to the man, was swift and supple as a prestidigitator's.

The man looked at us. "You walk, signori," he said in his light, cadenceless voice.

"Si," we said. Don took out the cigarettes. The man lifted his hand in a slight, deprecatory gesture. Don insisted. The man bowed formally, sitting, and fumbled at the pack. The woman took the cigarette from the pack and put it into his hand. He bowed again as he accepted a light. "From Milano," Don said. "It is far."

"It is far," the woman said. Her fingers rippled briefly.

"He has been there," she said.

"I was there, signori," the man said. He held the cigarette carefully between thumb and forefinger. "One takes care to escape the carriages."

"Yes." Don said. "Those without horses."

"Without horses," the woman said. "There are many. Even here in the mountains we hear of it."

"Many," Don said. "Always whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh."

"Si," the woman said. "Even here I have seen it." Her hand rippled in the sunlight. The man looked at us quietly, smoking. "It was not like that when he was there, you see," she said.

"I am there long time ago, signori," he said. "It is far."

He spoke in the same tone she had used, the same tone of grave and courteous explanation.

"It is far," Don said. We smoked. The mule cropped with delicate, jerking tinkles of the bell. "But we can rest yonder," Don said, extending his hand toward the valley swimming blue and sunny beyond the precipice where the path turned. "A bowl of soup, wine, a bed?"

The woman watched us across that serene and topless rampart of the deaf, the cigarette smoking close between thumb and finger. The woman's hand flickered before his face. "Si," he said; "si. With the priest: why not? The priest will take them in." He said something else, too swift for me. The woman removed the checked cloth which covered the basket, and took out a wineskin. Don and I bowed and drank in turn, the man returning the bows.

"Is it far to the priest's?" Don said.

The woman's hand flickered with unbelievable rapidity.

Her other hand, lying upon the basket, might have belonged to another body. "Let them wait for him there, then," the man said. He looked at us. "There is a funeral today. You will find him at the church. Drink, signori."

We drank in decorous turn, the three of us. The wine was harsh and sharp and potent. The mule cropped, its small bell tinkling, its shadow long in the slanting sun, across the path. "Who is it that's dead, signora?" Don said.

"He was to have married the priest's ward after this harvest," the woman said; "the banns were read and all. A rich man, and not old. But two days ago, he died."

The man watched her lips. "Tchk. He owned land, a house: so do I. It is nothing."

"He was rich," the woman said. "Because he was both young and fortunate, my man is jealous of him."

"But not now," the man said. "Eh, signori?"

"To live is good," Don said. He said, e hello.

"It is good," the man said; he also said, bello.

"He was to have married the priest's niece, you say," Don said.

"She is no kin to him," the woman said. "The priest just raised her. She was six when he took her, without people, kin, of any sort. The mother was workhouse-bred. She lived in a hut on the mountain yonder. It was not known who the father was, although the priest tried for a long while to persuade one of them to marry her for the child's..."

"One of which?" Don said.

"One of those who might have been the father, signor. But it was never known which one it was, until in 1916. He was a young man, a laborer; the next day we learned that the mother had gone too, to the war also, for she was never seen again by those who knew her until one of our boys came home after Caporetto, where the father had been killed, and told how the mother had been seen in a house in Milano that was not a good house. So the priest went and got the child. She was six then, brown and lean as a lizard. She was hidden on the mountain when the priest got there; the house was empty. The priest pursued her among the rocks and captured her like a beast: she was half naked and without shoes and it winter time."

"So the priest kept her," Don said. "Stout fellow."

"She had no people, no roof, no crust to call hers save what the priest gave her. But you would not know it. Always with a red or a green dress for Sundays and feast days, even at fourteen and fifteen, when a girl should be learning modesty and industry, to be a crown to her husband. The priest had told that she would be for the church, and we wondered when he would make her put such away for the greater glory of God. But at fourteen and fifteen she was already the brightest and loudest and most tireless in the dances, and the young men already beginning to look after her, even after it had been arranged between her and him who is dead yonder."

"The priest changed his mind about the church and got her a husband instead," Don said.

"He found for her the best catch in this parish, signor. Young, and rich, with a new suit each year from the Milano tailor. Then the harvest came, and what do you think, signori? she would not marry him."

"I thought you said the wedding was not to be until after this harvest," Don said. "You mean, the wedding had already been put off a year before this harvest?"

"It had been put off for three years. It was made three years ago, to be after that harvest. It was made in the same week that Giulio Farinzale was called to the army. I remember how we were all surprised, because none had thought his number would come up so soon, even though he was a bachelor and without ties save an uncle and aunt."

"Is that so?" Don said. "Governments surprise everybody now and then. How did he get out of it?"

"He did not get out of it."

"Oh. That's why the wedding was put off, was it?"

The woman looked at Don for a minute. "Giulio was not the fiance's name."

"Oh, I see. Who was Giulio?"

The woman did not answer at once. She sat with her head bent a little. The man had been watching their lips when they spoke. "Go on," he said; "tell them. They are men: they can listen to women's tittle-tattle with the ears alone. They cackle, signori; give them a breathing spell, and they cackle like geese. Drink."

"He was the one she used to meet by the river in the evenings; he was younger still: that was why we were surprised that his number should be called so soon. Before we had thought she was old enough for such, she was meeting him. And hiding it from the priest as skillfully as any grown woman could..." For an instant the man's washed eyes glinted at us, quizzical.

"She was meeting this Giulio all the while she was engaged to the other one?" Don said.

"No. The engagement was later. We had not thought her old enough for such yet. When we heard about it, we said how an anonymous child is like a letter in the post office: the envelope might look like any other envelope, but when you open it.. And the holy can be fooled by sin as quickly as you or I, signori. Quicker, because they are holy."

"Did he ever find it out?" Don said.

"Yes. It was not long after. She would slip out of the house at dusk; she was seen, and the priest was seen, hidden in the garden to watch the house: a servant of the holy God forced to play watchdog for the world to see. It was not good, signori."

"And then the young man got called suddenly to the army," Don said. "Is that right?"

"It was quite sudden; we were all surprised. Then we thought that it was the hand of God, and that now the priest would send her to the convent. Then in that same week we learned that it was arranged between her and him who is dead yonder, to be after the harvest, and we said it was the hand of God that would confer upon her a husband beyond her deserts in order to protect His servant. For the holy are susceptible to evil, even as you and I, signori; they too are helpless before sin without God's aid."

"Tchk, tchk," the man said. "It was nothing. The priest looked at her, too," he said. "For a man is a man, even under a cassock. Eh, signori?"

"You would say so," the woman said. "You without grace."

"And the priest looked at her, too," Don said.

"It was his trial, his punishment, for having been too lenient with her. And the punishment was not over: the harvest came, and we heard that the wedding was put off for a year: what do you think of that, signori? that a girl, come from what she had come from, to be given the chance which the priest had given her to save her from herself, from her blood... We heard how they quarreled, she and the priest, of how she defied him, slipping out of the house after dark and going to the dances where her fiance might see her or hear of it at any time."

"Was the priest still looking at her?" Don said.

"It was his punishment, his expiation. So the next harvest came, and it was put off again, to be after the next harvest; the banns were not even begun. She defied him to that extent, signori, she, a pauper, and we all saying, 'When will her fiance hear of it, learn that she is no good, when there are daughters of good houses who had learned modesty and seemliness?'"

"You have unmarried daughters, signora?" Don said.

"Si. One. Two have I married, one still in my house. A good girl, signori, if I do say it."

"Tchk, woman," the man said.

"That is readily believed," Don said. "So the young man had gone to the army, and the wedding was put off for another year."

"And another year, signori. And then a third year. Then it was to be after this harvest; within a month it was to have been. The banns were read; the priest read them himself in the church, the third time last Sunday, with him there in his new Milano suit and she beside him in the shawl he had given her: it cost a hundred lire and a golden chain, for he gave her gifts suitable for a queen rather than for one who could not name her own father, and we believed that at last the priest had served his expiation out and that the evil had been lifted from his house at last, since the soldier's time would also be up this fall. And now the fiance is dead."

"Was he very sick?" Don said.

"It was very sudden. A hale man; one you would have said would live a long time. One day he was well, the second day he was quite sick. The third day he was dead. Perhaps you can hear the bell, with listening, since you have young ears."

The opposite mountains were in shadow. Between, the valley lay invisible still. In the sunny silence the mule's bell tinkled in random jerks. "For it is in God's hands," the woman said.

"Who will say that his life is his own?"

"Who will say?" Don said. He did not look at me. He said in English: "Give me a cigarette."

"You've got them."

"No, I haven't."

"Yes, you have. In your pants pocket."

He took out the cigarettes. He continued to speak in English. "And he died suddenly. And he got engaged suddenly. And at the same time, Giulio got drafted suddenly. It would have surprised you. Everything was sudden except somebody's eagerness for the wedding to be. There didn't seem to be any hurry about that, did there?"

"I don't know. I no spika."

"In fact, they seemed to stop being sudden altogether until about time for Giulio to come home again. Then it began to be sudden again. And so I think I'll ask if priests serve on the draft boards in Italy." The old man watched his lips, his washed gaze grave and intent. "And if this path is the main path down the mountain, and that bicycle turned off into that narrow one back there, what do you think of that, signori?"

"I think it was fine. Only a little sharp to the throat. Maybe we can get something down there to take away the taste."

The man was watching our lips; the woman's head was bent again; her stiff hand smoothed the checked cover upon the basket. "You will find him at the church, signori," the man said.

"Yes," Don said. "At the church."

We drank again. The man accepted another cigarette with that formal and unfailing politeness, conferring upon the action something finely ceremonious yet not incongruous.

The woman put the wineskin back into the basket and covered it again. We rose and took up our packs.

"You talk swiftly with the hand, signora," Don said.

"He reads the lips too. The other we made lying in the bed in the dark. The old do not sleep so much. The old lie in bed and talk. It is not like that with you yet."

"It is so. You have made the padrone many children, signora?"

"Si. Seven. But we are old now. We lie in bed and talk."