Beautiful Antonio (12 page)

It was towards this well that Signor Alfio immediately, and with pride, raised the ferrule of his stick.

“Look there, friend Agata! That is
my
well! All these local numbskulls,” and he swept an accusing arm which embraced not only the share-cropper but also a number of peasants dotted about the landscape, “day and night repeated we would strike salt water. But I stuck to my guns and said No, the sea belongs in the sea and not under the earth! Dig, and we shall find fresh water!… If I hadn't been so stubborn about it these splendid orchards before your eyes would still have been in the mind of the Almighty… But everything here, dear lady, every single scrap of it, is the fruit of my obstinacy. Every single tree is a death sentence hanging over my head, for I had to use a hundred fearful oaths before getting it heled in. Now come this way: look there!”

Rejuvenated by the very sight of his farm, Signor Alfio set off up the drive at a brisk pace. The share-cropper, preserving his disgruntled look, kept pace with him on one side, Signora Agatina on the other, with a firm grip on her hat, the feathers of which were ferociously tugged at by the wind. In the rear came Barbara, one hand clasped between Antonio's two, her
eyes fixed shining and joyous on the farm that would one day be hers.

“Here we are, here's the orange-grove. Just look what beauties!” exclaimed Signor Alfio, pointing his stick towards a patch of land where the lemon-trees ceased abruptly and densely massed, warmly glowing, began the oranges.

“Hey, my fine sir! Hey, you dolt!” he yelled at the peasant. “I suppose you're going to tell me these aren't oranges!”

The man pulled a face and stared at the ground.

“You can't answer that one, eh.” insisted Signor Alfio. “Have you lost your tongue?”

“
Ma unni 'i vidi, st'aranci?
” grunted the peasant.

“What d'you mean, where do I see them? Here, look, and here, and here, and here. Come with me! Open your eyes man! What do'you think I'm touching with my stick?”

The peasant pursed his lips and continued to look at the ground.

“Speak up, for pity's sake: give it a name!”

The man repeated his performance.

“What is it? A potato?… a tomato?… or a shrivelled up old cucumber like you?”

“
Chistu è 'n'aranciu. E chi vordiri?
” (OK, it's an orange. So what?)

“Eh? So what? So there
are
oranges growing here!”

“
Unittu!
” (Call that a crop?) sneered the peasant, wagging a forefinger. “
E pi' unu!…
” he added after a pause, as if to say, “And you're making all this fuss about one measly orange?”

“But there, there, there again, can't you see others?”

“Picca ci n'è… nenti!
'

“Nothing worth mentioning eh?… You must be blind!”

“
Nun sugnu orbu. A tia, ti fanu I'occhi stasira, Alfiu!
”

“You're not blind? So it's Alfio who's not seeing straight this afternoon, is it? Let me tell you brother, the only time I didn't see straight was when I gave you the right to share-crop this cursed piece of land. Oh, if only an angel had tapped me on the shoulder and told me how bitterly I was going to regret
it! What we need is Communism, by God, and I'll die laughing when I see how you come out of that!”

“
An, macari 'u communìsimu avi a véniri ora? Sintemu st'autra
.” (Ah, now it's Communism is it? That's a good 'un).

“Yes, what we need is Communism!”

Signora Agatina turned in bewilderment to the two young people, hoping for an explanation, but Antonio merely winked at her.

“
E iu chi ci perdu?
” asked the peasant. (What've I got to lose?)

“Being able to do as you please, and to steal – that's what! Because they'll put a chain around your neck like a dog, and make you work until you drop dead!”

Meanwhile they had climbed the hillock and the dogs were giving tongue on all sides, shaking the palings and kennels they were tied to; the hens, wings outspread, fled in the wake of the shrilling cockerels, trampling a tumble of yellow chicks.

“
Ma 'a terra ci 'a perdi tu!
” put in the peasant.

“All right, all right, it'll be me who loses the land! Yes, I'll lose it, and with pleasure, because this cursed property does nothing but fill your belly!”

“
Pirchí 'a chiami sempri svinturata, sta terra ca ti desi 'u Signuri? nun è di giustu!
”

“Yes, cursed, this land God gave me, because it's had the bad luck to end up in your hands! What do I ever see out of this cursed soil? Not so much as a bite of greenstuff for my salad! I suppose you think that when Communism comes you'll get your hands on my land? You're mad. With that lot in power no one'll have any land. Only place to find it'll be the cemetery! And you'll have to toe the line and sweat blood, because if you don't sweat blood they hang you from a carob tree for the ants to eat. D'you imagine these Communists are anything like Alfio Magnano? My brother, I tell you, that lot bury you alive with your head sticking out and then jump up and down on your eyes!”

“
Iu nun sacciu nenti, Alfiu. Stai parrannu ammàtula. Iu nun vogghiu né comunisimu né autri nòliti: vogghiu sulu travaghiari
.” (I
don't imagine anything, Alfio. I don't want Communism or any other of your innovations. I only want to work).

“Little work and a lot of thieving: that's your motto!”

“
lu non arrobbu, Alfiu
.” (I'm no thief, Alfio).

“You'd gobble up even me.”

“Iu nun mi mangia a nuddu!
” (I'm no cannibal).

“Hold your tongue man, d'you hear? I won't have you speaking to me like that!”

“
Ma ch'avìti, ch'avìti? Sempri ca facìti battarìa, vuatri dui!
” shrieked an old hag from the farmhouse doorway, gesturing with a huge, gnarled hand at the end of an arm totally withered by the years. “Stop that now! Always quarrelling!
Dui fratuzzi di latti, signuri mei, can nun avìssirua vidiri di I'occhi unu pi' I'autru, e taliàti cornu s'accapiddìunu!
” (Two foster brothers, and they only have to get together and they tear each other's eyes out).

“Mamma Tanina,” said Signor Alfio, drawing closer to those ancient orbs which saw everything as shadows, and in which white and iris were mixed like the white and yoke of a shattered egg. “Mamma Tanina, after sucking at the nipple allotted to him, my foster-brother here had the rotten habit of taking over mine. Is that true or isn't it?”

The old girl's face seemed gashed by the blood-red of her gums and the rims of her eyes: she had smiled.

“Come on, Mamma Tanina, don't deny it! That's what he did, the louse!”

“
Veru è, veru è
, quite true, quite true,” conceded the nonagenarian, still smirking that smirk and shaking her fist in the direction of her aging son Nunzio and her aging foster-son Signor Alfio.

“There now! He robbed me then and he robs me now!”

The old girl, tucking her chin on her shoulder like bashful sixteen attempting to conceal a laugh, “
Oh, Alfiu, Alfiu!
” she exclaimed, “you're always the same, you are, when you've a mind to have a joke.”

“On the contrary, Mamma Tanina, what you ought to say is ‘
Oh, Nunziu, Nunziu!
'”…

Since things were now taking a more cheerful turn, and everyone was all smiles, Barbara laid a hand on Antonio's chest and: “Come on, take me as far as the well!” she said.

“To the well?” returned Antonio quaveringly, peering in the direction of that part of the landscape totally immersed in the sparkle of the wind.

“What an idea, Barbara! Did you say
to the well
?” put in Signor Alfio. “That chap doesn't know how to get there!”

“Doesn't know how to
get
there?” repeated Barbara with an incredulous smile.

“It's the truth. He hasn't a notion how to get there. I, with the sweat of my brow, have set up this heaven on earth for him, and he hasn't the faintest idea how to get about, or what path leads where.”

“Not true dad, not true at all,” said Antonio; and having by then worked out the quickest way up to the well he gave Barbara's hand a tug: “Come on, let's go.”

“I'm coming with you!” cried Signor Alfio.

But the two young people were off and away, running up a path along the edge of a terrace wall with a tiny stream trickling beneath it; and they were on the other knoll in no time at all.

Up there the wind was fearsome, buffeting against the lava slabs of the well, which gave back hollow groans.

Barbara, hair breaking free from its pins, bent a regal brow upon the olive-groves, the lemons, the wheat-fields stretching out on every side, all stamped with the name of her Antonio; and in its midst, tiny in the distance and worn out from plodding the damp terrain, they saw the person who had purchased and nurtured them with so much sacrifice.

“It's gorgeous!” Barbara burst out, turning to Antonio. “It's an absolute gem!”

And since the rest of the party were still far off, she threw her arms round his neck, and for the first time it was she who put her mouth up to his and gave him a long, long kiss.

“Darling,” she murmured. “Darling, darling…”

The dazzle in Antonio's eyes as Barbara kissed him with a vigour now cool, now fiery, now as if she had ceased to breathe, now gasping as if in unbearable ecstasy, became one in his memory with happiness itself; a happiness that held him in thrall throughout the time that elapsed before the wedding, happiness that yet vouchsafed him, in its rich and generous dominion, room for some spells of anguish and unrest; short-lived albeit, and always bound up with
her
, as precious stones are to the gold wherein they are set.

This happiness suffered a serious setback during the wedding ceremony. There he was kneeling on the velveteen hassock, hearing at his back the bizz-buzz of the most influential men and the loveliest belles in Catania. It suddenly appeared to him that the church walls soared out of eyeshot, that quilted curtains, black and heavy, had unfurled before the doors, pinning themselves to the floor with every appearance of permanence, and that the very notes of the organ, cascading from the oak-panelled organ-loft together with the crash of anthems, had cut him off for ever from the streets, the piazzas, the trains, the sea, like the thunder of a waterfall in spate that rends and pulverizes any vessel that may happen beneath it.

Then it was that, over his shoulder, he cast the look of a hunted beast at bay, and the faces there, rather than reassuring him, threw him into a still greater funk. Especially those of the lovely belles, which seemed to harbour a malicious inquisitiveness, a derisive challenge, almost an air of smugness. Towering above them all, black-clad, bent forward in his agitation, stood out the figure of his father, Signor Alfio, a tear in his eye…

It was but a passing moment. At the rustle of Barbara's dress as with the aid of a hand on her right knee she rose to her feet the familiar thrill mastered him again, and his throat tightened with joy.

It was July the 5th of 1935. That day, the sheer beauty of
Antonio touched even the priests (even the one who had denied absolution to the Archbishop's niece because she had too often committed the sin of attempting to draw the outlines of Antonio's body on a baluster). One poor lame half-wit, who had managed to worm his way in amongst the elegant throng cramming the nave, cleared himself a path ahead of Antonio, dancing in jubilation and uttering inarticulate cries, so greatly did the bridegroom remind him of processions and banners, fireworks and the town band – all that for him smacked of festival and splendour.

Many were the young women who kissed Barbara, all the while casting languid glances athwart her nose at Antonio and keeping up a stream of resounding smackers on her cheeks and mouth, those places where her husband's kisses would shortly rain.

Meanwhile, our spinster Elena Ardizzone stood aloof beside a pillar, a revolver in her crocodile handbag, savouring the bitter gall of witnessing the minute-by-minute survival, at the side of a rival, of that beauteous youth whom she could have felled with a touch on the trigger. Big tears rolled down her porous cheeks and she let herself dwell on how good she was, how generous, and noble, and superior, not to use the weapon she had in her bag – which in any case had never been loaded.

The men, to distract themselves from the jealousy that brought bile to the mouth whenever they looked at their women and found them flushed and flustered as if every one of them had wedded Antonio and was entering with trepidation upon a day that would lead to its evening, and thence to the mysteries of the night, well, the men talked politics, not without having glanced furtively around to see if they might mention the Head of Government – not abusively, of course, but with somewhat tempered respect and without the cant phrases. The stand-in mayor maintained that in the autumn there was to be a large-scale military expedition against Abyssinia, as stated in a sonnet he had composed the previous day.
This sonnet, which he recited without further ado, sent Notary Puglisi into a fit of rage.

“No mention of war, for goodness' sake!” he burst out. “Today of all days, no mention of war! No point in asking for trouble! We'd do better to leave church… follow our newly-weds out.”

This exhortation was promptly acted on.

Outside the church a platinum sky dazzled a street crowded with people shading their eyes and pointing out the bride and bridegroom, come to a halt on the bottom step.

Antonio, blinded by the glare, screwed up his eyes, causing the delicately blue-tinged skin of his chin to pucker, and producing, perhaps involuntarily, an expression as of someone caressing a beloved face.