Floti went the day after Montesi’s beating to the municipal carabiniere headquarters and, as deputy mayor, was immediately received by the commander himself, sergeant Curto, a good man although something less than lionhearted.
“Sir,” Floti began, “the night before last, Graziano Montesi was brutally beaten by a fascist squad from Sogliano, and he is in serious condition. Have you heard about this?”
Curto replied with another question, a sign of his evident embarrassment: “Are you reporting a crime?”
“Yes, if you’re not already in the process of taking action. That’s why I asked you if you knew anything.”
“Of course. The carabiniere chief in Sogliano called me that night to tell me that a squad was heading towards Magazzino. Their target was easily identified.”
“So why didn’t you do anything about it?”
Curto sighed. “My dear Bruni, I find myself in the middle of two violently-inclined factions on the verge of war with each other and all I have at my disposal are five officers and one corporal. You expect me to take action against the fascists who beat Montesi, but have you ever asked yourself why I haven’t taken action against you? How often have you and your friends halted carts of wheat belonging to Ferretti, Borrelli, Carani and I can’t say how many other landowners, seized these vehicles and taken possession of the goods being transported?”
“Since we’re laying our cards on the table, chief, I can tell you that those carts were not seized, but rather relieved of a sack or two of wheat or flour which was given to the families of workers or farmhands who were starving. The drivers were then left free to arrive at their destinations. If you don’t believe me, question the people who were involved.”
“I have done so, and that’s the only reason why the authors of this prank, and you yourself, haven’t been arrested on charges of theft.”
“Don’t tell me you’re comparing these two things. Those were delinquents who took a man who had never done anything wrong and beat him nearly to death. We were trying to help people who were suffering.”
“By committing a crime. The fascist action squads are supported by the government, the government is legitimized by the king. Do you really think that one single carabiniere sergeant, in a small town in Emilia Romagna, could sally forth on his own and take on such powers? There’s simply a tacit agreement: no dead on their end and none on ours.”
“Sounds like connivance to me.”
“Watch your words, Bruni. We’re trying to save what we can and to prevent the worst from happening. We’ve sworn allegiance to the king and cannot fail this oath, unless we want to set off a civil war. Listen to me: give Montesi some sound advice. Tell him to leave, at least for a while, and then we’ll see. He’s propagating ideas that are seen as subversive, especially when connected to the thefts that your men have been responsible for, Bruni. Understand what I’m saying? It’s like a snake that’s biting its own tail.”
“Agreed, sir. We’ll stop requisitioning the wheat, and you’ll do your job with the fascists.”
Curto lit a Tuscan cigar and let out a big cloud of smoke, as if he wanted to hide his embarrassment behind it. “If you cease the requisitions, that will make my job easier,” he replied, “but I can’t promise anything. Do tell Montesi to get out of here, at least until the waters have calmed.”
Floti managed to convince his men to let up in their campaign against the wheat producers, at least for a period of time, but he did not succeed in persuading his friend to go. As soon as Montesi was better, he was meeting up again with laborers and workers and organizing la Resistenza. The fascists didn’t give up either, but changed their tactics. Instead of canes and crowbars, they came armed with more underhanded, but even more devastating, weapons. They tormented and humiliated him without leaving any signs of violence, until he fell into a state of total prostration. He no longer spoke with anyone and locked himself in his room, in the dark, like in a tomb. One morning they found him hanging from a beam at the foot of his bed.
He had decided to go that way instead of running away.
Floti realized that he would be the new target, but no one could have imagined what was to happen next.
One evening at dinner time, as he was eating dinner with the family, there was a knock on the door. It was the carabinieri.
“Raffaele Bruni,” said the corporal commanding them, “I hereby declare you under arrest and order you to come with us.”
“I don’t understand,” replied Floti, alarmed, “what have I done?”
“You’ll be told when the time comes. Follow us.”
Clerice wailed in despair: “Why are you taking him away? He’s done nothing!”
His brothers were in shock as well: the carabinieri never set foot in the home of an honorable family.
Floti tried to calm his mother: “Don’t cry, mamma. There must be some misunderstanding, you’ll see. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Instead, the charges were quite serious.
“Attempted homicide,” said sergeant Curto when he was brought to headquarters.
“What is this, a joke?” asked Floti. “You know full well that that’s not possible.”
“You’ll have to convince the judge, Bruni, and I’m afraid that won’t be easy.”
“Who was it that I’m supposed to have tried to kill?”
Curto, who was chewing on a nearly burnt-out cigar stub, replied: “Renato Marassi. Does that name mean anything to you?”
“Of course. He’s a bastard, one of the worst fascist squad . . . ”
“Careful of what you say! Marassi has accused you of shooting him.”
“That son of a bitch! How can he say such a thing?”
“He does have a wound in his thigh, and he says you’re the one who caused it, with a pistol. And that if you were a better shot, you would have killed him.”
Floti flew into a rage, but there was nothing he could do about the charges. Curto advised him to find himself a good lawyer if he could, surmising that this was a trap the fascists had cooked up to keep Bruni out of circulation.
The next day he was transferred to the jail in Reggio Emilia and the judge, who had in the meantime read a police report that described him as a subversive, was intent on keeping him there at length.
Clerice went to visit every two weeks. She had Checco take her in the cart to the station at Castelfranco and she and Maria took the train to Reggio Emilia. They would bring bread, a salame, a few chunks of parmigiano, half a pancetta, a couple of bottles of wine, clothes that she had mended, washed and ironed, and they’d stay as long as possible to hear how things were going, whether there would be a trial and what the lawyer had said.
Floti was locked up with other “political” prisoners coming from a number of towns in the region, including some who spoke with the same accent as poor Pelloni. Floti shared with them everything his family had brought him.
The whole ordeal was a nightmare for Clerice. She had no doubts about her son’s innocence, but she was deeply saddened by a situation that had shaken her life and that of the entire family. Being involved judges, policemen, carabinieri and lawyers was the worst thing that could happen to you, and all this because Floti had refused to listen to her advice. She thought that youngsters always think they know more than old folk, even though the older you are, the more things you’ve experienced. But they never believe you until they’ve smashed their own heads. And when they finally do realize what’s best for them, the damage is already done.
In addition to their troubles with the law, there were also problems at home: no one was capable of replacing Floti in running the family affairs and things were going very poorly. His misadventure had managed to give the whole family a bad reputation, and their relationship with the community was no longer the same. The other brothers, in Floti’s absence, tended to argue more often and it was up to Clerice to try to keep the family together and defend her missing son: “Remember,” she’d tell them, “he always looked after the interests of the family before his own; when he came back from the market he always had a gift for your wives and he never treated them any differently than his own sisters. The fascists and the landowners have managed to put him in prison, but if you gang up on him as well, well, that’s truly scandalous.”
The complaining around the dinner table stopped only to pick up again in the fields where their mother could not hear them. The only one who abstained from criticizing Floti was Checco and, from a certain point of view, Armando as well. He wasn’t even around much; skinny as he was, he wasn’t usually much help on the farm, but he also didn’t have what could be called a very strong work ethic. Sometimes he would disappear early in the day and not show up again until nightfall, especially when it was time to beat the hemp at mid-day under the scorching sun. On the other hand, he was the only one of them who still enjoyed good relations with the town’s people. His stories were famously entertaining and his jokes were memorable. He was unmatchable at creating and spreading good cheer, and in such miserable times, his innocent, silly banter was a relief for the people around him, sometimes even a blessing. Folks loved to be in his company because he was so amusing, but he didn’t command their respect because he was so weak: the strong and the arrogant had him under their thumb, and anyone who offered him a drink had him in their pocket.
Otherwise, just about no one in town continued to keep company with the Brunis. Iofa, the carter, would show up now and then for a question of work or to get some information. Despite his failing health, his hobbling walk and his bizarre looks, he wasn’t afraid of anybody, nor was anybody afraid of him.
The summer that year was even hotter and more suffocating than usual, making work in the fields tougher and more tiring. The water in the steeping ponds rotted and let off a nauseating stench which spread on the thin mist that hovered above the surface when it got dark and the air cooled down. The only things that could survive in that turbid sewer water were the catfish who hunkered down on the muddy bottom without ever moving.
When, towards the end of the autumn, the heat finally let up, they started the harvest. Golden, ultra sweet grapes that produced an extraordinary wine. The Brunis still sang as they picked, in part to forget their worries, in part because the colors, the fragrance and the light still seemed a blessing from God.
The swallows left the third week of October. By Saint Martin’s day the wine was already in the barrels and the wind scattered the red and yellow leaves among the grapevines, making them swirl like butterflies. Now Armando too had decided to marry and Clerice was quite surprised indeed. What woman would agree to marry this peculiar son of hers?
“Lucia, mamma, Lucia Monti,” explained Armando. “Do you know her?”
Clerice regarded him with a perplexed expression: “Lucia Monti? Where’s she from? Not those Montis who live at the Botteghetto?”
“That’s her!” exclaimed Armando, satisfied.
Clerice scowled.
“She’s beautiful, mother.”
“She is beautiful, but you do know, don’t you, why no one else has chosen her yet?”
Armando dropped his head and said only: “I like her. I don’t care about anything else.”
‘The Montis are a tainted breed, my son. That woman may be beautiful but she’ll bring you trouble. Leave her be, let someone else have her.’
“Mamma, I know her very well. It’s true, she’s a bit strange at times, but nothing more. As long as you don’t get her angry.”
“You’re a grown man, son, and you don’t need someone to tell you what to do or what not to do. Remember, though, that I’m warning you: forget about her now, while you’re still in time. She’s not the only one with a nice bum and bosom! And anyway, you’ll see, in five or six year’s time the spell will be broken and you’ll have a creature on your hands that you won’t know what to do with.”
Armando would not listen to reason and he married Lucia Monti at the end of November, on a cold, gray day. He was afraid that she would change her mind and he didn’t want to risk losing her by waiting for the spring, the season in which just about everyone got married. He knew that he’d never again find another girl so beautiful.
He was given the bedroom that had been Gaetano and Silvana’s, because no one else had wanted to sleep there even though space in the house had been running out and they’d had to convert part of the hayloft into a bedroom. The wedding lunch was plain and unpretentious because with Floti gone, there wasn’t much hope for anything finer. Floti’s absence weighed heavily on the festivities, but there was occasion for merriment nonetheless. To make sure of this, Armando took it upon himself to tell a number of spicy stories having married life as their common theme.
“Have you heard the one about Lazzari, the hunchback?” he began. He was talking about a blacksmith who lived in town. “Well, old Lazzari gets into a fight with his neighbor, who did something to annoy him, and now he’s bent on giving him tit for tat. He knows that every morning, when this neighbor gets up to go to work, it is still dark out. So Lazzari waits until he leaves, sneaks into the house behind him and, quiet as a mouse, slips into the wife’s bed, with her still sleeping! While it is still dark, he does what a wife could expect from a husband in bed and then, with her all relaxed and just about to fall back asleep, Lazzari the hunchback sticks her backside with a fork and runs off in the dark before she can see who he is.
“When her husband gets back that night, dead tired, she’s waiting for him behind the door with her rolling pin and she clobbers him so hard he can’t go to work for three days!”
Roaring laughter and the guests, tipsy by now, added their own stories until the cake and coffee were ready to be served. The bride laughed as well, but in a coarse, unbecoming way that embarrassed the others and put a frown on her mother-in-law’s face. By dusk the party was breaking up.
Clerice served some of the leftovers for dinner and then everyone retired, the men first of all, while she and Maria and a couple of the daughters-in-law cleared the table and began to wash the dishes. No sooner had they begun than they heard a scream of terror coming from the floor above them, as if someone were being murdered.
“Mercy!” exclaimed Clerice, dropping the soap into the sink. “What’s happening up there?” She took off her apron and rushed up the stairs, stopping in front of the door to the newlyweds’ room.
“Armando, what’s happening?”
Armando came to open the door dressed in his nightshirt and looking all disheveled. Clerice could see the bride standing in a corner on the other side of the room, half-undressed, eyes wide, shivering with cold and fear.
“Out,” she said to Armando, “but what on earth did you do to her?”
“Nothing, mamma, I swear it, I just got close to her, to . . . ”
“I understand, I understand. Just go now, this one here is out of her mind.” She entered the room, muttering, “What did I tell him?”
Armando went into his mother’s room because he was cold and he lay there under the covers waiting wide awake to be able to go back to his rightful place, but time passed and not a thing was heard. Finally Clerice appeared with a candle in hand: “Where are you?” she asked, raising the candle and looking around the room for him.
“I’m here, mamma. I just got into bed because I was cold.”
“Listen to me, are you sure you didn’t do anything strange to her?”
“No, are you serious? I just got close and well, you know, I was ready . . . ” Armando tried to explain, embarrassed.
“I understand, I understand. You can go back to your bed now. I’ve told her that you won’t do anything to her and you’ll both sleep and that’s all. Then you’ll have to see, a little at a time . . . you have to treat her like a child, understand? Not jump on her like a goat.”
“Mamma, I didn’t do that, I . . . ” Armando tried to justify himself, but Clerice stopped him.
“I’m afraid the problems are starting even sooner than I expected.” She refrained from adding ‘I told you so,’ because it seemed completely useless.
The next day it snowed.