The snakes live in the scree heap at the bottom of a gray rock face still shielded from the sword-strokes of the rising sun. A real den of snakes, thinks Daphne, a long shiver running up her spine. Behind her, the wee zoologist hops gaily from one stone to the next. They’re so quiet that two roe deer at the edge of the woods graze unafraid. Not even the shadow of a snake is visible yet, but the tiny explorer isn’t concerned. Plenty of snakes, she whispers, smiling to one side as you might when speaking of a particularly dear friend. And in fact, less than two minutes later she is holding one in her fist. The beanpole has no idea where she found it, because she was looking the other way. The sprite is holding it like a belt, not taking special precautions, but delicately, so as not to damage the horn in the middle of its forehead.
Daphne had spent the whole day previously, Sunday, at the lab, as well as all night. Twenty-three hours straight with only two breaks for three chocolate bignè and a bag of peperoncino-flavored potato chips that she’d found on the shelf of the pimpled chemist who wants to marry her and have ten kids. Oh, and three packets of candied ginger. When she got to the meeting place in front of the Greek herbalist’s and caught sight of the little one’s doe eyes and gum-colored gums, all her fatigue slipped away like a heavy overcoat. In the jeep belonging to the Museum of Science, she let herself be rocked back and forth by the roll of the curving road, and her mood gradually turned better and better, as if she’d just gotten up.
Still clutching the viper-necktie, Aphra, the small one (I’m getting mildly tired of calling her small), kneels on the ground. With her free hand she gets her equipment out of the knapsack and lays it out neatly on a flat stone. A half-smile lingering on her finely drawn lips, she makes an incision with her scalpel in the skin behind the viper’s head, lifts the tiny flap and inserts a small electronic chip. She then carefully disinfects the wound and applies a bandage two fingers wide. The bandage will fall off in a while, it’s done on purpose, she says in that voice as clear as water, putting the viper on the ground. For an instant it is motionless, then slowly slinks off, like a patient who’s been to the doctor and needs a moment to review what was said.
Daphne’s now a little frightened. What if another horned viper—this rock pile seems to be full of them—suddenly appears and bites her on the ankle above her motorcycle boots? Something could go wrong. Perhaps because she sees her brow furrow, Aphra tells her it’s almost impossible to get bitten by a viper; the cows Daphne has to deal with are far more dangerous. The wee one’s calm is contagious and Daphne’s doubts disperse like clouds racing across the sky, and disappear. Human premonitions do have a way of disappearing like that, even the accurate ones.
Leaning against a comfortable branch in a stand of larches by the side of the stone heap, Daphne observes Aphra. Her sensuous cat’s body (only her head is a doe’s) obviously needs to hunt this way, it’s a genuine vocation for her. The horned viper is at risk of extinction and she’s studying it to determine how to help save it. Watching her move, she thinks her friend is right about animal life: you have to take nature as it comes. She, instead, has always been thinking about how to modify nature, how to work out its secrets, put it on a leash, and exploit it. This new idea is slow to advance, a cart with rusty wheels, but she promises herself she’ll think about it. For the moment, she’s fine with this silence, with the sun that’s dusting the crowns of the larch trees. Then she thinks of nothing, because she falls asleep. And sleeps like an angel (angels don’t sleep, but whatever).
As they drive down toward the plain with its blotches of asphalt and concrete, Aphra says she can’t bear working at the Museum of Science anymore. All they want to do is organize idiotic exhibits. Like everything else, the natural sciences are slaves to the dictatorship of the free market and the ignorance of the masses. They’ll use the excuse of the recession not to hire her, they’ll never give her a full-time job; she’s too much of a troublemaker. But fine, she doesn’t want to be complicit with a system that’s driving the human race to the brink of catastrophe. She wants to farm, grow carrots and cabbages with her own hands, raise a goat and some chickens, and if possible a donkey. The time has come to organize a real resistance.
Daphne is taken aback. She’s always lived in the city and can’t imagine settling elsewhere. She’s always believed that even the most modern agriculture is still quite backward, and must be brought up to date with technology. The wee zoologist’s ideas would ordinarily horrify her, ideas so similar to the wishful thinking practiced by her mother’s friend and his buddies, with their gray hair and their weakness for red wine and marijuana. And yet, when she thinks of growing carrots in semifeudal conditions, she nearly bursts into tears. She has no idea why, and she makes sure the other doesn’t see her.
On their way back into town, the short one tells her she’s decided to leave Vittorio. She waited for him to behave better; she’s been patient, but now she’s fed up. She hasn’t told him yet, but she will soon, she says with gay resolve, in that tone of voice you adopt when talking about your vacation plans. Anyway, sex with him was never that great, she says, hammering in the last nail. Daphne says nothing, although she wouldn’t mind talking about her two–zeros and her three–zeros, and the one–zero. Always zero. The lump in her throat has returned, and so she gazes out the side window.