Hunting Season: A Novel (2 page)

“Beautiful building, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It wasn’t here before.”

“Before when?” the surveyor quickly replied, hoping to broaden that opening.

“Before,” the stranger repeated. And he walked away.

The moment he arrived in the central square on his way back to the boardinghouse, the stranger felt the same uneasiness as the first time he had passed through. This time, however, he knew the reason and had no need to look for it. And indeed the old man had him in his sights again. So the stranger, too, stared back at him, straight in the eye, and began to draw near, with the measured step of someone approaching something dangerous. When he was in front of the old man, whose name he didn’t know, he touched his cap with two fingers and said: “Here I am.”

He was the first to be surprised. Why had those words come out of his mouth? What on earth was he saying or doing? And why?

The old man looked down and, as he had done that afternoon, muttered:

“
Madonna biniditta!
”

“May I, sir?”

For the stranger—who was as taut as a violin string—the sound of another voice right beside him had the same effect as a pistol shot. He took three quick steps back, ready to start running. The man who had spoken was tall and husky, dressed in black, completely bald, and looked to be about sixty. In his hand he held a blanket, which he then delicately wrapped around the old man’s body. When he had finished, he turned and eyed the stranger.

“Need anything?”

“Goodbye,” was the stranger’s reply.

An hour later, he couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. At last, no longer able to stand the torment, the stranger turned to Signora Adamo, who was serving him a dish of fried calamaretti and shrimp.

“Excuse me, signora, but do you know who that man in front of the Circolo dei Nobili is?”

“There are so many idlers around there.”

“No, I was referring to a very old man who sits in a wicker chair.”

“Well, Signor Liquori—”

“Liguori.”

“—That’s the Marchese Peluso, Don Federico Maria
u vecchiu
, as they call him in town—‘the elder,’ so as not to confuse him with his grandson, who has the same name.”

“So he would be the father of the Marchese Don Filippo?”

“That’s right.”

“But doesn’t the old man have anyone to help him?”

“What do you mean? His manservant, Mimì, a tall man dressed in black without a hair on his head, carries him four times a day, in his chair, from his house to the Circolo and back. He looks after him, brings him blankets if it’s cold, removes his jacket when it’s hot. And he’s always keeping an eye on him from a window in Palazzo Peluso.”

“By ‘helping him’ I meant, I dunno, changing his clothes, washing him . . . He looked utterly filthy to me.”

“The marchese’s filth is his own business. It’s nobody’s fault. When Mimì tries to wash him down a little, the old man starts screaming so loud you’d think a pig was being slaughtered. One time, when he could still walk, he came here to eat with a friend and got some sauce on his hands.

“‘Would you like to wash your hands, sir?’ I asked him.

“‘My dear,’ he replied, ‘for me, even rinsing my hands is a calamity.’”

That same evening, at the Circolo dei Nobili, there was a general meeting to appoint the new members. The only person missing was Signor Fede.

“He must still be out hunting for strangers,” quipped Barone Uccello.

The Marchese Peluso requested permission to speak.

“Before we begin considering names,” he said, “I have a serious proposal to make. And that is, that the Circolo dei Nobili should no longer be called that.”

“Why not?” asked Lieutenant Amedeo Baldovino.

“Because there are only two nobles left here, myself and Barone Uccello. Everyone else—and far be it from me to offend anyone—hasn’t got the slightest connection to the nobility. Perhaps we should call our club the ‘Circle of Two Nobles and Their Relatives.’ The whole thing makes me laugh.”

“The marchese is right!” enthusiastically replied the ex-Garibaldino Aguglia, the commendatore who was convinced that all men were almost equal. “Let’s call it the Circolo Garibaldi.”

They began, in silence, to contemplate the proposal. Then Dr. Smecca asked to speak.

“I don’t agree with Marchese Peluso,” he said. “Everyone should know that I speak only for myself, of course. I am not noble but, personally, I rather like being a member of the Circolo dei Nobili, whereas I couldn’t care less about belonging to some common Circolo Garibaldi.”

As all present were applauding Dr. Smecca, Fede the surveyor came in. The hall suddenly grew silent again.

“Nothing.”

“Weren’t you able to talk to him?” asked Baldovino, who, after just two years in town, had become more Vigatese than the Vigatese.

“Oh, I talked to him, all right. And he’s polite, of course, but prickly and standoffish.”

“Yes, he certainly is standoffish,” the lieutenant seconded him. “During the entire journey here, neither Signor Colajanni nor Signora Clelia could extract a single tidbit of information from him.”

“Why,” said Colajanni, slightly piqued, “didn’t you try to extract anything yourself?”

“I certainly did,” said Baldovino, smiling.

“But I did find out one thing,” the surveyor cut in, pausing slyly after making this statement. “His name.”

“What is it?” they all asked in chorus.

“His name is Santo Alfonso de’ Liguori.”

Father Macaluso, who according to his custom was sitting off to the side, sulking and reading the newspaper, suddenly lit up like a match.

“What the hell are you saying?”

“The owner of the boardinghouse told me that was his name.”

“The owner of the boardinghouse was pulling your leg. That’s the name of a saint!”

“Isn’t that what I said? His name’s Santo!”

“You nitwit! Alfonso de’ Liguori is a saint, not someone who’s first name is Santo!”

“I beg your pardon, Father Macaluso,” Barone Uccello calmly intervened, “but is it somehow forbidden that someone should have Santo as his first name, Alfonso as his middle name, and de’ Liguori as his surname?”

“It’s not forbidden, but it sounds like humbug to me.”

“And did you find out how long he’ll be staying in Vigàta?” Colajanni, the postmaster, asked.

“A fortnight. Which means I’ll have all the time I need to find out how many hairs he’s got on his ass.”

In the end, however, he proved unable to count these hairs—to continue the metaphor—for it was the stranger himself who decided at a certain point to let everyone know who he was and what he had come to do in Vigàta.

Having rented a cabriolet and horse, the stranger began going back and forth to Montelusa, where the administrative offices were. Here he was seen entering the Royal Prefecture, the Royal Commissariat of Police, the Royal Tax Office, and many other no less royal venues. But the purpose of this grand tour remained nevertheless unknown. One evening Santo Alfonso was seen walking around the port and speaking in a low voice with Bastiano Taormina, a man with whom it was considered unwise to break bread and whom it was better not to meet at night.

Fede the surveyor, who had witnessed that meeting from a distance, was unable to sleep for the rest of the night, so keenly was his curiosity eating him alive. Very early the next morning, quivering inside like gelatin, he paid a visit to the fruit and vegetables shop of Bastiano Taormina.

“And a very good morning to you, Don Bastiano!” he greeted the greengrocer, leaning on the doorjamb in a pose that looked nonchalant but was in fact dictated by the need to lean against something. Taormina, who was unloading a crate of peas, didn’t even respond.

“May I come in?”

“Go ahead.”

Now that he had to say something, the surveyor felt his mouth go all dry.

“I have a question, just one, and then I’ll leave you to your work. Who is Santo Alfonso de’ Liguori?”

The other stared back at him with bovine eyes.

“A saint. My mother prays to him.”

“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t make myself clear. Who is the new stranger in town?”

“A man,” said Taormina, his eyes darkening.

Fede did not insist, realizing that one question more might prove fatal.

But the surveyor did manage nevertheless to gain satisfaction.

“I know the whole story!” he cried triumphantly two days later to his friends and the Circolo. “Signor de’ Liguori has bought the house that used to belong to Taormina’s brother, Jano, who died at sea. It’s right on the Corso, near my place, and has a store downstairs and an apartment above. The masons and carpenters start work tomorrow.”

“Why has he come to Vigàta?”

“I know that too,” said the surveyor, puffing up with pride like a peacock. “He’s going to open a pharmacy.”

Thus nobody was curious when, the next few times the
Franceschiello
called at port, Sasà Mangione unloaded some huge trunks stuffed so full they risked giving him a hernia with every step he took; and nobody was curious when a crate full of glass tubes and bottles and flasks in theretofore unseen forms arrived at the post office; and nobody was curious when pharmacist de’ Liguori spent the morning combing the countryside looking for and gathering certain kinds of grasses and flowers. These things were all part of his profession.