By the time I returned, Di Lucci and Father Nicola hurrying behind me with the rack from the church, my mother had axed the door off its hinges. We had picked up a small crowd en route, and all along the street now the word was going round that lu podestà had been hurt; within minutes half the village had gathered, crowding into the kitchen and around the front doors, craning for a better view. Father Nick, in his black cassock and wide-brimmed cleric’s hat, stood next to my mother and me at the doorway to my grandfather’s room, rubbing his hands against the cold, while inside Di Lucci issued instructions to two of my mother’s cousins, Virginio Catalone and his brother Pastore, who had elbowed their way through the crowd and were struggling now to wedge the rack into the tight space between the bed and my grandfather’s prone form. Virginio and Pastore, identical twins, sullen and thick-set, had kept clear of our house since my mother’s troubles had started; but they had not hesitated to push their way to the front of the crowd when the word had gone out that my grandfather was hurt.
‘Try to slide it under him, like a spoon,’ Di Lucci was saying. But finally the two men, ignoring Di Lucci, tilted the bed up against the wall with a single thrust and laid the rack flat on the floor. My grandfather let out a grunt as they lifted him onto it, his jaw clenched with the pain.
‘Careful,’ my mother said sharply. ‘Can’t you see you’re hurting him?’
‘He’s broken his leg,’ Father Nick said.
‘Grazie, dottore.’
We stood aside as Virginio and Pastore carried the rack through the crowded kitchen and into the street, where a few thick flakes of snow had begun to fall. But now it was suddenly obvious that there would be no way of getting my grandfather into Di Lucci’s cramped Fiat in his present state. Someone suggested that the front and back windshields be smashed away, and the rack slid through them.
‘Don’t be crazy,’ Di Lucci said, paling. ‘And anyway how would I drive, tell me, squashed under that rack like a worm?’
‘Vittorio,’ Father Nick said, standing by with a look of forced calmness, ‘go inside and get a blanket to cover your grandfather.’
When I had come out again with a blanket, my mother was coming down the street trailing Mastronardi’s mule and cart, a lantern swinging from one hand.
‘At this rate you’ll be here all night,’ she said, pulling up in front of the house. ‘Load him into the cart, there’s no other way. Has anyone thought to cover him?’ Then, seeing me standing with the blanket still in my hands, she took it from me and bent to drape it over my grandfather, brushing away the snow that had already begun to collect on his clothes.
‘Ma, Cristina,’ Di Lucci said, ‘it’ll take you half the night to get him to Rocca Secca on that cart. In this weather.’ It had begun to snow in earnest now.
‘Do you have any other ideas?’
‘At least I could drive to Rocca Secca and see if they’ll send out the ambulance.’
‘You know as well as I do that ambulance hasn’t left the garage since the war. And on Christmas night? They wouldn’t come out here for Christ himself. But go on, if you want to, see what you can do. In the meantime I’ll start out on my own. Someone bring some more blankets, per l’amore di Cristo.’
Di Lucci stood by hesitantly for a moment.
‘Dai, Andò, smash out the windows,’ someone suggested again. ‘They’ll freeze to death before they get to the hospital in that thing.’
‘Sí, smash the windows,’ Di Lucci said, already moving to the door of his car. ‘You and your foolish ideas.’ And in a moment he had heaved himself into the driver’s seat, gunned up the engine, and sped off into the snow.
My mother had already motioned Virginio and Pastore to lift my grandfather onto the cart. His eyes were closed now, but he was muttering softly to himself, as if in troubled sleep, his face beaded with droplets that may have been sweat or melted snow. With a single discreet finger Father Nick made a quick sign of the cross over him as the two men slid the rack onto the cart. Several women had come forward now with blankets; my mother covered my grandfather with a thick layer of them, then draped one around her own shoulders and moved up to the head of the cart.
‘Go back to your suppers,’ she said to her cousins, ‘I can manage on my own from here. There’ll be someone at the hospital to help me carry him in.’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Virginio said, moving up to take the reins from her. ‘Pastore and I will take him in.’
‘No. This is my affair.’
‘Let Virginio take him in,’ Mastronardi said, eyeing his cart proprietorially. ‘The woods are full of thieves. And in your condition—’
‘I can take care of myself,’ my mother said quickly. And while Virginio and Pastore still hovered uncertainly near the cart my mother heaved herself onto the bench and gave the reins a quick jerk, the cart lurching suddenly forward as the mule raised up his head and thrust himself against his bridle.
‘Wait, Cristina.’
It was Father Nick. My mother pulled back on the reins.
‘What is it?’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Father Nick said. ‘Thieves won’t harm a priest.’
‘You?’ My mother stared at him hard a moment. ‘All right, then, let’s go,’ she said finally. ‘Put a blanket around yourself, that padding on your belly won’t be enough to keep you warm.’
There were a few muffled laughs, quickly suppressed. Father Nick blushed and hesitated a moment, but finally he took a blanket that was offered to him and draped it over his shoulders. He hiked up his skirts and walked briskly up to the cart, pulling himself onto the bench with surprising nimbleness.
‘I’ll take the reins,’ he said, suddenly stern. ‘You can get back in the cart and keep the snow off your father.’
‘Suit yourself.’
Father Nick jerked the reins and the mule set off with a snort, the cart wheels creaking, flattening the snow beneath them with a soft crunch. The snow was falling heavy and thick now, and shortly the cart had been swallowed into its white hush; but for a long while we could still make out the haloed haze of my mother’s lantern. Finally this too faded into the snow and night, and the villagers still gathered in front of our house brushed the snow off their shoulders and moved quietly back towards their unfinished suppers, and home.