The Night Falling (34 page)

Pino leads them down Via Roma, where the town opens out into fields and parched vegetable patches. He turns in beside a squat, handsome villa, glancing at Clare and putting a finger to his lips. Silently, they creep around to the back, to the stable block, and then around to the back of that, to a lean-to with lamplight spilling out beneath its door. While Pino talks to the tiny, elderly man inside, Ettore turns to Clare.

‘This man will take you back on the horse, once he’s finished pretending that your necklace isn’t enough payment. His name is Guido; you can trust him, I’ve known him a long time – he is Pino’s kin.’

‘You’re not coming?’

‘You know I’m not, Clare. I can’t go back there.’ Behind him, the shuttered windows of the villa stare down blindly. The sky has gone black and is brilliant with stars; the night is warm and kind, and it seems like a ruse. Now, at the moment of parting, Clare feels close to panic. It makes her dizzy, full of dread. She grabs at him, at his shirt, his arms, even as he tries to disengage her. ‘Stop. Stop it. You go with Guido. Go back to the
masseria
, and stay there. And try to find a way to leave this place.’

‘Ettore, I can’t.’

‘Do as I say.’ He kisses her face, her forehead, the bridge of her nose. ‘Please do as I say.’ Holding her at arm’s length, Ettore seems to think of something. ‘Wait here a moment,’ he says, and disappears into one of the stables. When he comes back he has something in one hand that he puts into Clare’s, warm and alive. She gasps. ‘For Pip. A better friend for him, perhaps,’ he says, and Clare looks down at the wriggling puppy, as it begins a sleepy examination of her arm – an examination with nose, teeth, tongue. ‘Take it back for Pip. Guido will only drown them all, otherwise.’

‘Say I will see you again. Say it, or I won’t go,’ says Clare, her voice fluttery with nerves. Ettore sighs, stares at her for a heartbeat.

‘Then I will say it. You will see me again.’

‘When?’

‘I’ll send a message,’ he says, and she knows he’s lying.

Guido, silent and unsmiling, saddles a tall bay horse, mounts and then kicks his foot out of the stirrup so that Clare can climb up behind him. Pino helps her, smiling and apparently unperturbed. Her skirt tears up the back seam as she straddles the saddle. The horse makes almost no noise on the dirt of the yard, or on the stones of Via Roma. When Clare looks down she sees that its hooves are wrapped in old sacking to muffle them. The puppy, limp and trusting beneath her arm, has gone back to sleep. Between its two pairs of spindly legs its belly is round, distended with worms; the skin shows pink through a smooth, copper-coloured coat. Clare watches the road behind them until Pino and Ettore are barely distinguishable against the darkness, and then have vanished into it. Still she watches, until her neck cramps and her head aches.

Once they’re out of Gioia Guido clucks his tongue and the horse moves into a jouncing trot. They cover the distance to dell’Arco in a fraction of the time it took Clare to walk and hitch. A baleful moon rises in the western sky, yellowish bright. Clare clings to Guido with one arm, to the puppy with the other, and lets misery smother her, almost corporeal. She feels older; she feels empty and bereft. And she feels sick again, the motion of the horse and the wrench of leaving Ettore are making her stomach judder and roil. She dismounts at the gates onto legs that shake, and Guido turns the horse back without a word, or any acknowledgement of her quiet thanks. Keeping her face as blank as she can make it, Clare ignores the gate guard’s black look and slow, suspicious movements. He keeps the rifle in his right hand, his finger on the trigger. Carlo lets her into the
masseria
with no apparent wonderment, and when she asks him the time she can hardly believe that it’s not yet even midnight. It feels like a year since she sneaked out in search of Ettore. With a grin, Carlo scruffs the puppy’s ears. It wakes up, looks around blearily and yawns – a wet, pink gape edged with needle teeth. Cautiously, Clare looks up at the terrace before she leaves the cover of the archway.

‘All are sleeping,’ says Carlo, in broken Italian, and Clare shoots him a grateful smile as she sets off across the courtyard.

Up the dark stairwell on feet as soft as she can make them, with the nausea making sweat break out along her hairline and prickle down her spine; with her knees spongy and weak, and all the fear and joy and sorrow of the past few hours making her long for darkness, and silence, and oblivion. Clare glances both ways at the top of the stairs then tiptoes along the corridor to the door of her room, reaching into her pocket for the key to unlock it. Then she halts, her stomach plummeting. The key isn’t there. She checks her other pockets, in vain hope. She thinks of the rough, urgent way she and Ettore made love; she thinks of hurrying through the dark to the villa on Via Roma; she thinks of the bouncing trot of the horse, all the way back. The key could be anywhere.

Clare shuts her eyes, sways on her feet. She has no idea what to do. After a minute or two she creeps further along the corridor to the door, with the vague, desperate idea of trying the handle anyway, of the possibility that she hadn’t actually locked it. The puppy whines a little, and squirms, and she realises she’s holding it too tightly. Her dread is the opposite of panic – her heart seems to have slowed down, almost to nothing; it feels like it’s being crushed. Then she stops again. There’s a figure leaning against the door to her room, hunched and instantly familiar. She has a puppy she can’t explain; she’s locked out of the room she is supposed to be in; she’s filthy dirty, smelling of sex and sweat and Ettore, and Pip is leaning against the door, staring at her through the dark with angry eyes.

Chapter Twelve

Ettore

There’s only
acquasale
for dinner – boiled stale bread with a little salt and dried chilli, not even any mozzarella now that Poete no longer works at the cheese factory. After the month he spent at the
masseria
, Ettore’s stomach contorts and yammers at him, begging for more, for better. The money Marcie gave him, and his wages, have been spent on the settling of Valerio’s debts, on a new blanket for Iacopo, new soles for Ettore’s and Paola’s shoes, their rent arrears and some supplies of dried beans, pasta and olive oil that Paola is hoarding ruthlessly for the coming winter. She eyes him across the tiny table as he guzzles down the thin soup, scraping out every last drop.

‘Remembering what hungry feels like?’ she says unkindly. Valerio, well enough to rise from his shelf, continues to spoon in his soup with tremulous care, and pays no attention to his offspring.

‘I never forgot. Only my belly did,’ says Ettore. Paola grunts.

‘In a man, mind and belly are one. Mind and body are one. Mind and cock are one.’ She curls her lip in disdain and gives the last ladleful of soup to Valerio. Ettore bristles.

‘Is that was this is about? Is that why you’re being such a shrew?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Why should I be angry to learn you’ve been screwing another man’s wife all this time I thought you were working and suffering and in terrible pain? When I thought you were grieving?’

‘I was working! I was in pain! I am grieving.’

‘No, I don’t think you can wear your black band any more, brother. And you were fit enough to fuck her so hard she came all the way into town for more!’

‘Paola,’ he says, and pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration, embarrassment. Valerio has stopped eating and is staring at him now, his face wholly without expression. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘How was it, then? And if her husband finds out? If he doesn’t know yet he soon will – if she keeps coming here like that, bold as brass.’

‘I’ve told her not to come again.’

‘And you really think she’ll do as you say?’

‘I don’t know, Paola! Stop breaking my balls!’ he shouts, and throws his spoon into his empty bowl with a clatter. On the bed, Iacopo wakes and makes a small noise of alarm. He starts to wail and Paola gets up to settle him, shooting a venomous glance at her brother.

‘Idiot,’ she mutters as she passes.

Ettore turns away from his father’s gaze and stares at remnants of the plaster that once covered the walls; centuries old, so flaked and patchy it looks like a rash on the stone’s skin. He tries to picture Chiara there again, in that very room, the room he has lived in since he was a boy. It’s almost impossible, like it was almost impossible that she had been standing there, holding Iacopo. Hard to believe it was real, then and now, which explains the feeling he got – peculiar and shocked and also quite like happiness. The image of her there, that impossible scene, caused that same little softening he’s felt before; that same pleasant sinking, like letting go. And now he has a nagging fear that he doesn’t need; there’s an extra complication, an obligation he doesn’t want, but can’t avoid. He is afraid for Chiara. Gingerly, Valerio gets to his feet and goes back to his alcove, where the blankets are rank with the smell of him and his sickness. By the bed, Paola rocks and sings to her son, as his cries dwindle into sleep.

When Paola comes back to the table she’s calmer, more yielding. For a while the lamp’s steady hiss is the only sound, and its light sculpts itself into the contours of her face. She sighs as she pulls the scarf from her head, undoes her hair and runs her fingers through it. Her hair is long, thick, black, just like their mother’s. With it down around her shoulders, softening her face, Paola is a different creature. Younger, more fragile.

‘You’re beautiful like that,’ says Ettore.

‘Stop trying to butter me up. You do know she’s in love with you? Your pale mozzarella?’

‘No, she is—’

‘Don’t argue. Any woman could see it, plain as day. She is in love with you, and she wants another child.’

‘Not another; she has none. The boy is her husband’s only.’

‘Then it makes even more sense. Do you love her?’

‘No! Only … I don’t know. Not love. Not like Livia.’

‘Like what, then?’

‘I don’t know! Anyway, soon she’ll go home and that will be the end of it. Don’t ask me when, because I don’t know.’

‘Jesus, Ettore – do you know how much like a child you sound? How much like a sulky little boy? What did she say to you about Girardi? I heard her say something about Girardi.’

‘No.’ Ettore’s jaw goes tense. He’s too afraid to tell her the truth. ‘You heard wrong.’ Paola eyes him suspiciously.

‘Luna said she gave you her gold necklace as if it meant nothing.’

‘It did mean nothing to her, her husband gave it to her. She doesn’t love him.’ Ettore can’t help that this pleases him; he hopes Paola won’t hear it. ‘What else did Luna say?’ Paola hesitates, looking up at him through the hoods of her lashes. It’s what she does when she’s holding back, and it makes Ettore uneasy. ‘Well?’

‘She says you told Pino they have money there. Cash, a lot of it. And jewels …’

‘No.’ Ettore splays his hands on the table and leans back, arms straight, adamant.

‘We could buy weapons! We could feed ourselves – all those who would fight! We could buy animals, tools …’

‘No, Paola. Are we brigands now? Nothing better than thieves? If we raid, we raid so we don’t starve; we raid to punish those who’ve hired and armed squads to set against us; those who have attacked us first. That’s how it’s always been. Do you see yourself leading a famous gang of brigands, like Sergente Romano? Is that how this looks in your head? This grand plan?’

‘Don’t patronise me, Ettore! At least Romano
did
something! At least he stood up, and showed courage!’

‘Courage or no courage, he was shot to pieces by the
carabinieri
. Who will care for Iacopo when that happens to you? And you would steal from our own family?’

‘Spoils of war,’ she says curtly, but he see his words unsettle her. ‘We mean to
take over
, Ettore! Not simply punish, or find our next meal. No more tit for tat. We mean to take back control! And you said yourself Leandro is not our family any more. He’s just one more fat proprietor, and a landowner to boot. One more rich man who feeds and shelters his horses and oxen and mules all through the winter while he lays off the men to starve and die!’

‘I was angry when I said that about Leandro, and I am angry with him … but he is still our uncle. He is still our mother’s brother, and he treats the workers better than some. Better pay, better food. This plan of yours will end in blood.’

‘
Their
blood!’

‘And ours! Rivers of it,’ he says. Paola’s face twists in frustration.

‘When did you get so afraid, brother? “He treats the workers better than some”? Can you hear yourself, Ettore? You’re talking about a man who employs not only Ludo Manzo but his fucking fascist son as well!’

‘I know who I’m talking about!’

‘Then why do you suddenly refuse to fight for the rights that are denied to us by all men like him? Is it the mozzarella? You don’t want her to get hurt, is that it?’ She glares at him across the table, until Ettore is forced to look away.

‘You think that if we fight the good fight, they’ll have to fall? And the
latifundia
with them? Are you really so naive, Paola?’ he says.

‘You sound like Gianni and Bianca, and all those others who’ve given up and are ready to just … cower down.’ She waves a hand in anger. ‘We need a
revolution
, like in Russia. If we stood up all at once we would be unstoppable.’

‘Would we? No,’ says Ettore, raising his hand to forestall an angry retort. ‘I have not given up, Paola, but Gioia del Colle is not all of Italy. It’s not even all of Puglia … Troops will be sent. More squads will be hired. This is not the way, Paola!’

‘It’s the only way left, brother.’

‘Before this summer is out I will lay my hands on Ludo Manzo again, and his son. I swear it. But a raid on dell’Arco would be
suicide
! Leandro is no fool. The roof is covered in armed guards. The gates are iron, the walls are three metres thick. The dogs in the
aia
would kill anyone they got hold of. It would be madness to try it.’

‘Not if we had guns. That’s the idea – that’s why we strike at Masseria Molino first. The new tenant there is so nervous he’s spent all his money on rifles and ammunition and now he can only afford to keep two permanent guards to use them. And he’s recruiting for the squads all the time, and arming them, if that makes you feel better. The moron is sitting there on a huge, barely protected arsenal. When we have guns, we can shoot the dogs at dell’Arco, and the guards.’

There’s that dangerous conviction in Paola’s expression again, that righteous fire, like a hunger eating her away. Inside, Ettore is cold. ‘We do this, or we surrender, and nothing will change. We do it, or we starve this winter. You, me, him.’ She hooks her thumb at Valerio. ‘My Iacopo. Pino. All of us. Those are the choices.’ For a long time Ettore doesn’t answer. He knows what Paola says is true. But it’s a bitter truth.

‘It’s hard to shoot a guard on a roof. They would pick us off through the slits as we stood banging on the doors,’ he says softly.

‘No, they won’t,’ says Paola. Calmly, she gathers up her hair and begins to braid it for bed. ‘Not if your mozzarella opens the doors for us.’

In the night Paola sleeps soundly. Her breathing is steady and even and sure, as if to prove a point to her brother, who is restless and chased around by his dreams. He dreams of the bottomless pit near Castellana, seeping out mists and bats and spectres. But in the dream the fields as far as Gioia start to break and crack open, into jagged fissures through which Ettore can see that the abyss is vast, and right beneath their feet. There is emptiness where there should be rock and roots and earth. Dusty soil dribbles into the cracks and sifts away into nothingness. Fear turns Ettore’s bowels watery, scatters his thoughts like blown smoke and brings him to his knees, scrabbling his fingers into the mud in an effort to cling on. He wakes up dried-mouthed and ashamed, and variations of this dream of insecurity mock him until sunrise.

Ettore takes Valerio’s hat, a worn-out brown felt fedora, shiny around the band with sweat and grease, and wears it low over his forehead to throw his distinctive eyes into shadow. He wears his father’s jacket as well, which is too long in the arm for him; anything that might help him go unrecognised in the opalescent early dawn. His limp is harder to conceal, but many men limp. The piazza is as crowded as ever, and the mood is blacker than the long shadows lurking in the east end of the square. Fear and anger and confusion, violence and uncertainty; the group of men is like one body – one hungry, belligerent, frightened creature keeping its head down when it wants to fight; keeping quiet when it wants to roar. They are on a knife edge, with capitulation on one side and savagery on the other, and it’s a sickening choice because death waits in both directions. Ettore wishes he felt as certain about it all as he did before Livia, before Chiara. He wishes he knew which way was best, he wishes he knew which way the others would jump, but most of all he wishes he was far, far away. He wishes for things he doesn’t really believe in – justice and peace and fair treatment. Fantasies every bit as alluring as that of a fair-haired women waiting for him at home, and loving him.

Ettore walks right up to Pino to check his anonymity, and it seems to work quite well. He gets close enough to smell spilt machine oil on his friend’s sleeve, and a trace of wine on his breath, and Pino takes a second to notice him when Ettore bumps his arm.

‘What’s with the hat?’

‘It’s Valerio’s. To give me a chance of being hired.’

‘Good idea.’

‘Do you tell your wife
everything
, Pino?’ he says pointedly. He can tell from Pino’s guilty look that his friend knows exactly what he’s talking about.

‘Sorry, Ettore. I kind of do tell her everything. I forgot that women also tell each other everything.’

‘Paola can’t get the idea of Leandro’s money, or Marcie’s jewellery, out of her head. The way she goes on you’d think there was a cave full of treasure over at dell’Arco, which will somehow solve all our problems.’

‘Well, it could solve some of them.’ Pino shrugs.

‘And it’s every bit as well guarded as you’d expect. She wants me to … to make Chiara open the door for us.’ Ettore rubs his index finger across his brow, an unconscious anxious tic. Pino says nothing. ‘Leandro would shoot her without hesitation, if he knew, if he saw her. I know that much. Strip off the suits and the American accent and he’s the same ruthless bastard he ever was, and his temper’s no better.’

‘She means something to you then, this woman?’ Pino smiles at him; he has always been in love with love. Ettore is about to deny it, on reflex, but then he nods.

‘She does.’

‘So, don’t ask her.’

‘And when my sister joins the raid regardless, and gets herself killed?’

‘So, ask her.’

‘You’re no bloody help, Pino.’

‘If I could help, I would.’

‘Can you get yourself hired to dell’Arco? Pass a message to her – give it to that young guard with the snub nose, you know the one I mean? His name’s Carlo; he’s
simpatico
. He would pass her a message, if you said it was from me.’ At this Pino looks nervous. He has a ground-in fear of stepping out of line when Ludo Manzo is anywhere near.

‘I don’t know, Ettore.’

‘Just a slip of paper. I’ll write it out. I want to tell her to go. To get out and leave.’

‘I don’t know. Can’t you just tell your uncle?’

‘Warn my uncle that my sister and my friends are going to attack his farm?’

‘Well, no. Perhaps not.’

In the end only ten men are hired to continue the threshing at dell’Arco that day, and Pino isn’t one of them. Ettore joins a work gang headed west from Gioia, to a farm only three kilometres away. The overseer refuses to say what hours they will work; he refuses to say what pay is being offered. They are told that there is work; they are told to step forward if they want it. They are told they will be paid at the end of the day, and they must take that on trust. There is to be no negotiation.