He grasped the Browning by its strap, lifted it up and began trying it out for balance.
He treated it with the skill and cool negligence of someone who’d had a great deal of experience with guns, but at the same time with a kind of diffidence, a veiled displeasure. What was he thinking? Perhaps of how much it would have cost. That must be it.
‘Fine rifle,’ he said after a while, making a wry face. ‘You’ll have bought it in Ferrara, I guess?’
‘No. In Bologna.’
‘Oh.’
For some moments he was rapt, examining the various parts: the barrel, the magazine, the trigger, and mainly the trigger guard below, which was of a special quality of steel – opaque and white, like silver.
‘It’s new. Have you tried it out yet?’
‘I got it last November, and it still hasn’t been fired once.’
‘And what’s the other one? A Krupp?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It’s an old Three Rings rifle from before the war. Made in ’28 or ’30.’
‘I could use that if you’d prefer.’
‘No, no,’ he quickly replied. ‘You start with the Browning for now. And we could swap later if you want.’
He bent down to rummage on the floor of the hide, and brought forth the leather case containing the choke and a box of cartridges.
‘Here they are,’ he added, holding out both.
He seemed more interested in the cartridges than the choke.
‘G.P.,’ he read from the box in a muffled voice.
But he looked worried, pensive. Having leant the rifle on his shoulder in his usual phlegmatic manner, he flicked open the lid of the box and drew out a couple of cartridges, then after weighing them distractedly on the palm of his hand, he slipped them into his trouser pocket. Finally, as he leaned down to place the half-opened box in the boat, he frowned slightly.
Why should he do that? Was there something else wrong?
‘They’re meant to be better than Rottweils and M.B.s. More velocity,’ he said.
The other didn’t reply. He had already turned to stand up. With his body three-quarters twisted round, he was looking up to the right.
He too began to scan the sky in that direction and almost immediately spotted an isolated bird which, about a hundred metres up, was flying towards them.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘It must be a heron,’ Gavino said.
It was quite a sizeable bird – with two large, very large, wings, out of proportion with its body, which was thin and small. It advanced with some apparent effort, ploddingly. Its long S-shaped neck, drawn in to its shoulders; its huge brown wings, that seemed made of heavy fabric, opened to waft the biggest possible volume of air under its belly – it looked as though it couldn’t manage to fly against the wind and looked at any moment on the verge of being overturned, of being blown away like a rag.
What a comical creature! he thought.
He watched it slowly fly over the stretch of the lagoon which separated the sandbank from the hide and then hover perpendicularly above their heads: keeping practically motionless and slowly gaining a little height. It must surely have been the decoys that attracted the bird here. But before that? Just a little while earlier? What a comical creature! It was a fair question as to what had induced it to fly so far and so laboriously against or almost against the wind, what it had come in search of so very far from the shores, into the middle of the valley.
‘I don’t think it would be very edible,’ he said
‘You’re right there’ Gavino agreed. ‘It tastes of fish, or more precisely seagull. But it looks good stuffed.’
The heron once again flew lower. Then one could clearly spot its talons, thin as sticks and tensely drawn back, its large pointed beak, its little reptilian head. Suddenly, though, as if exhausted by its efforts or as if it sensed some danger, it switched directions and, regaining height, within a few seconds disappeared in the direction of the Pomposa church tower.
‘It must be written on high,’ Gavino said, with a laugh. ‘Here it’s wise to give a wide berth.’
It was amusing, he realized, but he didn’t have any desire to laugh.
He too gestured towards the opposite shore.
‘What’s to stop it getting itself shot over that way?’ he grumbled.
‘No,’ Gavino replied, with one foot already in the boat. ‘Give it some time, and see if it doesn’t fly all the way back here.’
He said nothing more, but pushed the boat out into the water and then, sitting in the stern and shoving off with the oar, he began to row away.
He watched him, covering his eyes against the sun with his hand. He saw him arrive at his destination, step on to dry land, let the dog off its leash, bend down to pick up the box of G.P. cartridges from the bottom of the boat and, finally, having climbed to the top of the islet, quickly search out cover beneath a thicket of marsh reeds. Before firing at almost everything – he must have found something to sit on as only a bit of his cap appeared out of the mass of reeds – he had raised an arm as if to declare ‘I’m here’. Mechanically, he himself had responded with the same gesture.