“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?”
“Sì. Seven. But we are old now. We lie in bed and talk.”
II
Before we reached the village the bell had begun to toll. From the gaunt steeple of the church the measured notes seemed to blow free as from a winter branch, along the wind. The wind began as soon as the sun went down.
We watched the sun touch the mountains, whereupon the sky lost its pale, vivid blueness and took on a faintly greenish cast, like glass, against which the recent crest, where the shrine faded with the dried handful of flowers beneath the fading crucifix, stood black and sharp. Then the wind began: a steady moving wall of air full of invisible particles of something.
Before it the branches leaned without a quiver, as before the pressure of an invisible hand, and in it our blood began to cool at once, even before we had stopped walking where the path became a cobbled street.
The bell still tolled. “Funny hour for a funeral,” I said. “You’d think he would have kept a long time at this altitude. No need to be hurried into the ground like this.”
“He got in with a fast gang,” Don said. The church was invisible from here, shut off by a wall. We stood before a gate, looking into a court enclosed by three walls and roofed by a vine on a raftered trellis. It contained a wooden table and two backless benches. We stood at the gate, looking into the court, when Don said. “So this is Uncle’s house.”
“Uncle?”
“He was without ties save an uncle and aunt,” Don said. “Yonder, by the door.” The door was at the bottom of the court. There was a fire beyond it, and beside the door a bicycle leaned against the wall. “The bicycle, unconscious,” Don said.
“Is that a bicycle?”
“Sure. That’s a bicycle.” It was an old-style machine, with high back-swept handlebars like gazelle horns. We looked at it.
“The other path is the back entrance,” I said. “The family entrance.” We heard the bell, looking into the court.
“Maybe the wind doesn’t blow in there,” Don said. “Besides, there’s no hurry. We couldn’t see him anyway, until it’s over.”
“These places are hotels sometimes.” We entered. Then we saw the soldier. When we approached the table he came to the door and stood against the firelight, looking at us. He wore a white shirt now. But we could tell him by his legs. Then he went back into the house.
“So Malbrouck is home,” Don said.
“Maybe he came back for the funeral.” We listened to the bell. The twilight was thicker inside. Overhead the leaves streamed rigid on the wind, stippled black upon the livid translucent sky. The strokes of the bell sounded as though they too were leaves flattening away upon an inviolable vine in the wind.
“How did he know there was going to be one?” Don said.
“Maybe the priest wrote him a letter.”
“Maybe so,” Don said. The firelight looked good beyond the door. Then a woman stood in it, looking at us. “Good day, padrona,” Don said. “Might one have a mouthful of wine here?” She looked at us, motionless against the firelight. She was tall. She stood tall and motionless against the firelight, not touching the door. The bell tolled. “She used to be a soldier too,” Don said. “She was a sergeant.”
“Maybe she was the colonel who ordered Malbrouck to go home.”
“No. He wasn’t moving fast enough when he passed us up yonder, for it to have been her.” Then the woman spoke:
“It is so, signori. Rest yourselves.” She went back into the house. We slipped our packs and sat down. We looked at the bicycle.
“Cavalry,” Don said. “Wonder why he came the back way.”
“All right,” I said.
“All right what?”
“All right. Wonder.”
“Is that a joke?”
“Sure. That’s a joke. It’s because we are old. We lie in the draft. That’s a joke too.”
“Tell me something that’s not a joke.”
“All right.”
“Did you hear the same thing I think I heard up there?”
“No spika. I love Italy. I love Mussolini.” The woman brought the wine. She set it on the table and was turning away. “Ask her,” I said. “Why don’t you?”
“All right. I will. — You have military in the house, signora?”
The woman looked at him. “It is nothing, signor. It is my nephew returned.”
“Finished, signora?”
“Finished, signor.”
“Accept our felicitations. He has doubtless many friends who will rejoice at his return.” She was thin, not old, with cold eyes, looking down at Don with brusque attention, waiting. “You have a funeral in the village today.” She said nothing at all. She just stood there, waiting for Don to get done talking. “He will be mourned,” Don said.
“Let us hope so,” she said. She made to go on; Don asked her about lodgings. There were none, she answered with immediate finality. Then we realized that the bell had ceased. We could hear the steady whisper of the wind in the leaves overhead.
“We were told that the priest—” Don said.
“Yes? You were told that the priest.”
“That we might perhaps find lodgings there.”
“Then you would do well to see the priest, signor.” She returned to the house. She strode with the long stride of a man into the firelight, and disappeared. When I looked at Don, he looked away and reached for the wine.
“Why didn’t you ask her some more?” I said. “Why did you quit so soon?”
“She was in a hurry. Her nephew is just home from the army, she said. He came in this afternoon. She wants to be with him, since he is without ties.”
“Maybe she’s afraid he’ll be drafted.”
“Is that a joke too?”
“It wouldn’t be to me.” He filled the glasses. “Call her back. Tell her you heard that her nephew is to marry the priest’s ward. Tell her we want to give them a present. A stomach pump. That’s not a joke, either.”
“I know it’s not.” He filled his glass carefully. “Which had you rather do, or stay at the priest’s tonight?”
“Salut,” I said.
“Salut.” We drank. The leaves made a dry, wild, continuous sound. “Wish it was still summer.”
“It would be pretty cold tonight, even in a barn.”
“Yes. Glad we don’t have to sleep in a barn tonight.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad, after we got the hay warm and got to sleep.”
“We don’t have to, though. We can get a good sleep and get an early start in the morning.”
I filled the glasses. “I wonder how far it is to the next village.”
“Too far.” We drank. “I wish it were summer. Don’t you?”
“Yes.” I emptied the bottle into the glasses. “Have some wine.” We raised our glasses. We looked at one another. The particles in the wind seemed to drive through the
