my golden eyeglasses, pulled at the little points of my vest, and immediately saw the hunchback standing beneath the rotting arbor with a stone crock in his arms.
Leather coat, leather cap, rubber boots, shoulders as broad as mine, even in the deep green light from the funeral cypresses and with a cluster of dead grapes brushing his high muscular hump, still I could see that he was someone easily frightened. And yet he was staring not at me but at Rosella, seemed to expect not an assault from me but rather some kind of recognition from her. When he spoke as he then did, it became obvious that he was young. He took a breath, his lips moved, he spoke. And out of all that leathern bulk and deformity of a man who looked like a capped and muzzled bear came a voice that suggested only the softness and clarity of a young girl’s voice poured from a shy pitcher.
Croak peonie,
he must have said, or
crespi fagag
. I could not be sure.
“Who is he, Rosella? Your brother? Cousin?”
I was right, of course, because Rosella said a few words not to me but to the deformed intruder who turned, put down his crock, and in the darkness and crushing shriveled grapes beneath his boots, disappeared around the corner of my long low-silhouetted villa. By now everything had succumbed to the light of the somber trees, to the silence, to the purple shadows of the cypresses. And in this silence,this gloom, the crock was white and plainly visible. I took a step. I heard the slapping of the wooden flats, felt Rosella’s shoulder brush my sleeve in passing, saw her little shadowy figure stooping down. And Rosella and the white crock were gone.
Night. Silence. Decayed and dormant stones, tiles, vines. Crude arbor. From my pocket I fished a cigarette, glanced up at the stars, inhaled. Turning to retrieve the pot of snails I paused, inhaled again, thought I detected in the wall of funeral cypresses that narrow but convenient passage through which I used to make my nightly way to Catherine.
No regrets.
In my mouth the smoke was the color of mustard, around my ears the curling hair was both gold and gray, overhead the night was thick with stars. So I had no regrets. I smelled the peppery darkness, retrieved the pot and left it where Rosella could dump the snails down the hole in the flat stone of our crude lavatory in the morning. Then I groped my way toward Rosella and the light of the olive-twig fire, the smell of smoke.
At first glance I thought the crock was packed with fur, because by the uneven light of Rosella’s fire the soft brown substance rising somewhat higher than the square mouth of the crock rippled and gleamed softly, was alight with richness and flashing colors so that it suggested fur. But my fingers told me immediately that the crock was packed not with fur but birds. I could feel their concealed bodies smaller than the bodies of mice, could feel the fiercely contracted wings, the feet like flecks of wire, the little beaks that made me think of the sharp nibs of old-fashionedpens. I seized one by a brittle wing and held it to the light and recognized it immediately as some kind of sparrow. More than three or four dozen sparrows in a stone crock, and obviously Rosella intended to cook them all. And weighing the almost weightless bird in my palm I knew, suddenly, that the crock was a gift and that all the time we were hunting snails Rosella had known it would arrive, was perhaps instrumental in its arrival.
Had she asked that disfigured youth to shoot sparrows among the rocks and in the steep, sparsely wooded hills near the sanctuary? On her demand had he spent all day discharging his untrustworthy weapon at those swift targets? Had Catherine heard those very shots? And was all this for me? All this for the idle middle-aged man from over the mountains? Three or four dozen sparrows, I thought, were a good many.
We cooked them together, ate them together. For the first time I not only ate with Rosella but joined her in that damp
Leather coat, leather cap, rubber boots, shoulders as broad as mine, even in the deep green light from the funeral cypresses and with a cluster of dead grapes brushing his high muscular hump, still I could see that he was someone easily frightened. And yet he was staring not at me but at Rosella, seemed to expect not an assault from me but rather some kind of recognition from her. When he spoke as he then did, it became obvious that he was young. He took a breath, his lips moved, he spoke. And out of all that leathern bulk and deformity of a man who looked like a capped and muzzled bear came a voice that suggested only the softness and clarity of a young girl’s voice poured from a shy pitcher.
Croak peonie,
he must have said, or
crespi fagag
. I could not be sure.
“Who is he, Rosella? Your brother? Cousin?”
I was right, of course, because Rosella said a few words not to me but to the deformed intruder who turned, put down his crock, and in the darkness and crushing shriveled grapes beneath his boots, disappeared around the corner of my long low-silhouetted villa. By now everything had succumbed to the light of the somber trees, to the silence, to the purple shadows of the cypresses. And in this silence,this gloom, the crock was white and plainly visible. I took a step. I heard the slapping of the wooden flats, felt Rosella’s shoulder brush my sleeve in passing, saw her little shadowy figure stooping down. And Rosella and the white crock were gone.
Night. Silence. Decayed and dormant stones, tiles, vines. Crude arbor. From my pocket I fished a cigarette, glanced up at the stars, inhaled. Turning to retrieve the pot of snails I paused, inhaled again, thought I detected in the wall of funeral cypresses that narrow but convenient passage through which I used to make my nightly way to Catherine.
No regrets.
In my mouth the smoke was the color of mustard, around my ears the curling hair was both gold and gray, overhead the night was thick with stars. So I had no regrets. I smelled the peppery darkness, retrieved the pot and left it where Rosella could dump the snails down the hole in the flat stone of our crude lavatory in the morning. Then I groped my way toward Rosella and the light of the olive-twig fire, the smell of smoke.
At first glance I thought the crock was packed with fur, because by the uneven light of Rosella’s fire the soft brown substance rising somewhat higher than the square mouth of the crock rippled and gleamed softly, was alight with richness and flashing colors so that it suggested fur. But my fingers told me immediately that the crock was packed not with fur but birds. I could feel their concealed bodies smaller than the bodies of mice, could feel the fiercely contracted wings, the feet like flecks of wire, the little beaks that made me think of the sharp nibs of old-fashionedpens. I seized one by a brittle wing and held it to the light and recognized it immediately as some kind of sparrow. More than three or four dozen sparrows in a stone crock, and obviously Rosella intended to cook them all. And weighing the almost weightless bird in my palm I knew, suddenly, that the crock was a gift and that all the time we were hunting snails Rosella had known it would arrive, was perhaps instrumental in its arrival.
Had she asked that disfigured youth to shoot sparrows among the rocks and in the steep, sparsely wooded hills near the sanctuary? On her demand had he spent all day discharging his untrustworthy weapon at those swift targets? Had Catherine heard those very shots? And was all this for me? All this for the idle middle-aged man from over the mountains? Three or four dozen sparrows, I thought, were a good many.
We cooked them together, ate them together. For the first time I not only ate with Rosella but joined her in that damp
Similar Books
