The week after the festival I was tending the sheep by the cemetery when Fabrizio called out to me from the shadow of the chapel. His father, he told me, had locked him in the house with the goats the night of the fireworks.
‘Pom!’ he said, grinning, making a quick arc through the air with his hand to mimic his father’s blows. But I didn’t want to hear about his beating, wanted only to get back to the quiet of the sheep. When he offered me a cigarette I didn’t take it.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ he said. ‘It’s not your fault, it’s your mother. Because she was screwing in the stable.’
But my head started pounding then and suddenly I couldn’t bear Fabrizio anymore and his stupid grinning. I wanted to make him stop talking, make him disappear, and I picked up a rock beside my foot and flung it squarely at his chest. He deflected the rock with an arm but I threw myself on him, arms flailing, and the two of us fell to the ground, Fabrizio holding out his elbows to ward me off.
‘Oh, scimunit’, have you gone crazy?’
‘It was the snake’s fault, you stupid! You’re just a stupid like your stupid father!’
‘Sí, sí, stop, it was only the snake, you’re right, it was only the snake.’
The first day of school Fabrizio did not show up in class, nor the second or third; I thought he was staying away because of our fight, but then I overheard one of the older boys say that his father was keeping him out of school to work in the fields. I was alone now, without friends, and it quickly became clear what my status was with the other boys. For the first few days I was merely shunned, and could not make out the insults which they whispered to each other in class while they smirked at me from their desks; but by the end of the first week I had had another fight. It was Vincenzo Maiale, Maria’s son, who provoked me, as we were coming out of class on our way home, with some veiled comment about my mother which I didn’t understand; but suddenly we were on the ground, rolling in the dirt in the square in front of the church. I did not have any experience fighting, but somehow my body seemed to know instinctively how to do it, how to fling a fist, what areas to strike to cause the greatest harm; but in the midst of my attack I suddenly felt my rage ebbing, giving way to a vague fear, not simply the fear of being beaten up but a fear of my own violence, of the strange thing which was not me that had just flung itself with such dangerous force on Vincenzo Maiale.
Vincenzo was about two years older than me, and taller and stronger; and in an instant he sensed the sudden lag in my resolution and moved from surprised defense to attack, throwing me off his chest and pinning me to ground, his fist beating my head against the dirt while the other children stood round watching or urging him on. I struggled to free myself but Vincenzo pinned my arms with his knees. Another wave of violence took hold of me like a possession, and I flailed my legs and let out a long stream of curses. But Vincenzo only laughed, to show what an easy victory I had been.
‘Oh, la maestra!’ someone called out, and suddenly everyone scattered, Vincenzo leaping off me to disappear down the church steps with his friends. In a moment la maestra was standing over me, her large breasts quivering. She had heard my cursing, I thought in horror; but she only pursed her lips and shook her head, then reached out a hand to pull me off the ground.
‘Look at you,’ she said. She pulled a handkerchief out of her skirt pocket and wiped at my nose; it came away wet with blood. ‘It’s that woman’s fault, all of this, she thinks she’s as free as a bird, she doesn’t think about other people. Who did this to you?’
But I only stared down at the ground, watching the blood that dripped from my nose splatter against the dirt.
‘Well, you’re probably right not to say, it would only make things worse for you. Go home and let your mother see you now.’ She handed her handkerchief to me. ‘Here, hold this under your nose, and when you get home lie down with your head hanging over the side of your bed and tell your mother to put a bit of garlic in each nostril. Make sure you drink at least three glasses of water before you go to sleep. Look, even your lip is bleeding. In the morning it’ll be as big as a melon.’
It was only when I had begun my descent down the church steps that I allowed myself finally to begin whimpering, the whimper growing into a low drone as I started down the street past the village women knitting or shelling beans on their stoops and the classmates waiting in alleyways to see what had become of me. When I opened the door of our kitchen I broke out at last into full-fledged sobs. My mother was at the kitchen table kneading dough.
‘Per l’amore di Cristo, what happened?’ In an instant she was at my side, wiping at the blood under my nose. ‘Who did this to you?’
She went to the sideboard and poured some water into a basin, coming back to wipe the dried blood from my face and daub my swelling lip with a wet cloth, the water in the pan turning a pale crimson.
‘Who did this to you, Vittorio, tell me! Dio mio, che figura!’
‘It was Vincenzo,’ I blurted out finally.
‘Vincenzo? Maria’s son?’
‘Sí.’
‘Quella cagna! Quella strega! She’s the one who put him up to this!’ My nose had stopped dripping now. My mother passed her cloth over my scraped elbows, then brushed at the dirt on my clothes with her hand and tucked my shirt back into my pants. She stood back from me a moment to survey me, then suddenly crouched forward to take me in her arms, rocking me gently back and forth.
‘I’ll make her pay for this, Vittorio, you’ll see, by the blood of Christ I’ll make her pay.’ Then, wiping at some tears in her own eyes, she took me suddenly by the hand and marched me out the door into the street. We walked up via San Giuseppe at a quick pace, some of my classmates still lurking in the shadows and a line of women still on their stoops, staring after us as we marched. Finally we reached Maria Maiale’s door, just before the square, my mother letting go of my hand to pound on the door with both fists.
‘Open the door, Maria, or I swear I’ll break it down!’
Behind us, at a distance, some of the women had come off their stoops to watch us from the centre of the street, a few children dodging behind their skirts.
‘Open this door!’
At last the door opened, Maria’s large form looming for a moment in the doorway; but she had time for only a surprised ‘Cristina!’ before my mother lunged at her with arms outstretched. Maria stumbled backwards openmouthed and fell with a cry to the stone floor of her kitchen, and in a moment my mother had straddled her mountainous hips, Maria struggling wildly to keep my mother’s hands from closing around her throat, writhing on the floor like a great beached fish.
‘Gesù bambino!’ someone behind me said. A small circle of women had moved up close to the door now for a better view. ‘She’s going to kill her!’
And someone else whispered: ‘Remember what she did to her father-in-law, everyone says it was her that killed him, for what he said.’
Maria had kicked up her legs now, trying to get them up around my mother’s head, her skirt hiked up high over her thighs so that her underwear showed.
‘Vincenzo, help me!’ she screamed, and only now I noticed Vincenzo and his small brother and sister cowering in a corner of the kitchen. ‘Cristina, what’s got into you? Have you gone mad?’
My mother had worked her knees onto Maria’s elbows, leaving Maria’s forearms to claw helplessly at the air, and finally her hands closed around Maria’s throat. Maria grunted and gasped, her face reddening, but then with a last desperate burst of energy she pulled an arm free and lightning quick grabbed a clump of my mother’s hair and yanked sharply. My mother cried out and released her hold on Maria’s throat to free herself; but Maria, suddenly agile, pulled her other arm free and shot both fists into my mother’s stomach, sending her rolling doubled up onto the floor. In a flash Maria had scrambled up, heaving but quick, and lurched through a nearby doorway. She slammed the door shut just as my mother was lunging towards her again.
‘Get out of my house!’ Maria shouted, ramming a bolt into place. ‘You’ve got some devil in you! You and your proud talk, you see what it’s come to? God help us, she wants to kill me!’
My mother glanced wildly about the room. Finally she threw open a cupboard and flung a bowl from it against the door Maria had barricaded herself behind, bits of pottery scattering across the room like spray.
‘You tell your Vincenzo,’ she said, flinging another bowl, ‘that if he lays another finger on my son I’ll tear out your eyes and feed them to the dogs! To the dogs!’
My mother turned to the corner where Vincenzo still stood cowering with his brother and sister.
‘Do you hear that, Vincenzo? I swear I’ll kill her, even if I have to rot in hell for it!’
More than a dozen women had gathered outside Maria’s door now, standing in a hushed semi-circle, a few of my classmates lurking among them; but they parted now like a sea as my mother stepped through the door.
‘And you can tell all your children the same thing,’ she said, looking around at the women. ‘If you have anything to say you can say it to my face.’
But the women only stared on silently; and I realized with a shock that they were frightened, as if they believed my mother was as good as her threat, or that she could cast some curse against them if they crossed her. My mother held her ground but none of the women would look her squarely in the eye. Finally, under my mother’s hard stare, they began awkwardly to disperse, one by one returning like wraiths towards the safety of their kitchens.