The Enchanted Glade and the Babbling Brook

Bucchione strolled out of casa vecchia, the old family home, closely followed by Iose the Flour-Eater, his unmarried sister Gemma, little Morena and little Paolo, his mother Teresa and his father Paolino, who kept muttering, ‘Tutti i popoli! Tutti i popoli! All the peoples! All the peoples!’ They carried only a few items of clothing rolled up in two bundles, and some food: bread and cheese, half a prosciutto, a flask of wine, two flasks of water and three light but cumbersome sacks filled with corn husks to serve as mattresses.

Morena held old Paolino firmly by the hand. She was making sure he wasn’t left behind, which had happened once before when they had all fled to the bomb shelter under Villora. It was Morena who ran back into the house to get her sweet old grandfather and found him by the fire, sounding demented. ‘Tutti i popoli! Tutti i popoli!’ he was crying.

As they marched out, the rest of the village was waiting, each family queued in a line behind its half-opened front door – father, mother, children. Thirty metres along, and the whole of Beàno was behind them. At Il Sasso, another thirty villagers joined in. Those who lived at the Houses Above, and in the Mattei Courtyard, Canaponi and the Winds, waited by the side of the road and, as the procession passed, took their turn at stepping into the line. By the time they reached Monkey’s Field, where Ugo and Gino’s boat was moored, all one hundred and twenty had fallen in behind Bucchione, who was striding ahead, cigar firmly stuck inside his left cheek, straw-strewn greasy sweat-stained hat askew, not quite Moses but almost, arms swinging, humming ‘The Internationale’ quietly to himself. He didn’t want the others to hear, especially the Catholics, who were good people but misguided. If they heard the communist anthem they might cause a ruckus, and that would not be good.

Bucchione had decided they would go to Ponte alle Corti in Compito, a village one long day’s walk away, deep in a valley between heavily forested mountains that offered protection on all sides – a place unlikely to be caught in the crossfire between batteries launching bombs at each other.

He described the place to those who came up and walked alongside him for a while. The scene he depicted caused his companions to be overcome by a frenzied kind of joy. Beo, who was highly strung and excitable anyway, ran into the bushes on the side of the road to relieve himself.

What awaited them, Bucchione said, was an Enchanted Glade (‘Of course, glades are always enchanted,’ they said as they nodded and clapped) hidden under ancient plane trees, whose highest branches formed a protective canopy where at night the flickering fireflies of autumn glided among the bushes. They would set up camp inside the ancient mill, beside which flowed a babbling brook (‘Of course, brooks are always babbling,’ they cheered). Bucchione, having noticed their agitation, decided there and then to stop describing their destination lest they become nervous wrecks. He sighed loudly to show them he had finished and chewed harder on his cigar.

The line of marchers skirted the newly flooded swamp along the edge of the San Ginese hill. It was a cool, cloudless autumn morning, with a suggestion of the final warmth of summer to return later that day. There was in the air a stillness that crept up and made you scan the horizon and turn around suddenly to look behind you.

Since the start of the war San Ginese had become a very quiet place, apart from the explosions, and fear made people hold their breath as they listened for approaching bombs. They all walked around as quiet as mice, as the saying goes, heads bowed, looking at their feet, whispering. At Il Porto they strode past Folaino’s house and everyone turned to look, although of course he was long gone, dead and buried. Then they looked at Tommaso, who had fired four American bullets into Folaino’s chest from a Smith & Wesson Model 10 double-action revolver, bought in Manhattan, killing him immediately. Tommaso the Killer stared straight ahead and shuffled along, head swaying from side to side.

…

One more kilometre down the road and they were in Centoni, the ancestral home of Bucchione’s wife, Iose the Flour-Eater, and here they stopped to rest in the large courtyard behind the house of her father and mother, Giuseppe Dal Porto and Carolina Luporini, who lived there with Iose’s sad brother Derì and mysterious sister Fulvia. Iose the Flour-Eater ran to embrace her mother, Carolina.

The group slowly disintegrated as people staggered and stopped, stooped, milled around, and then fell flat on their backs as if shot, stretched out on the ground, or sat on the low stone wall that separated the house from a vineyard. The men scratched themselves here and there, as did the less elegant women. The children chased one another behind the outhouses and among the vines, shrieking and laughing and tumbling around on the grass.

Vitale, like many men, only washed himself when the water ran freely in the irrigation ditches, after the sluice gate had been opened by some local official at certain times of the growing season. Usually he washed himself like a cat would. When the irrigation water was released, though, he would jump in, bare-chested and trouser-less, and throw water on his important bits, meaning his armpits, chest, neck, face and head, and scrub everything between his legs, the front and the back. It was quite a scene when suddenly all the men in the fields were standing in water up to their waists, removing clothes, splashing, rubbing various body parts frantically, gasping at the cold and shouting at one another like playful children. This cleansing went on for at least three minutes, after which they considered themselves clean enough to last until the next time.

But there hadn’t been any water in the ditches for several months and Vitale, who had worn the same clothes for a long time, stank. He unrolled a trouser cuff and three pieces of shrapnel tumbled onto the ground. Normally a quiet, unassuming man, he became animated when he showed the jagged bits of metal proudly to anyone who revealed the slightest interest, putting them back and pulling them out repeatedly and making sure you knew how close he had come to having his leg blown off and even being killed. Everyone marvelled at how fortunate he was. Beo, who was jealous of the attention, said Vitale had put the bits of metal in there himself so he would have something to talk about and appear more interesting than he was. He waved his hand dismissively and looked away while rolling his eyes and saying, ‘Bah!’

At Centoni urns of water and flasks of light red wine did the rounds, wheels of pecorino and caprino cheese were cut up, prosciutto was sliced, dried grapes and figs were distributed, loaves of bread were torn apart and devoured. It soon became a feast – not the wedding at Cana or the miracle of the loaves and fishes, but almost. There was no work to do that day, no prospect of any for at least a week. They had their families with them and they were being fed by friendly neighbours. What more could they want? And it was then that the ever-present thought in the back of every peasant’s mind started to recede, until a few days later, in the depths of the Babbling Glade, or by the Enchanted Brook, it would disappear altogether.

…

They drank wine, Zena (who was Bulletta’s brother) plucked a note or two on his mandolin, someone started singing and everyone joined in. The favourable movement of the air and the conformation of the landscape carried the song as far as the church on the hill.

They sang ‘Lo Spazzacamino’, that well-known song about a wandering chimney sweep who visits a widow, eats well and drinks his fill, and then goes up the hole, the hole in her chimney, which she shows him. She expresses her worry that her chimney is narrow and feels sorry for him that he may not be able to go up. He reassures her that he is an expert and has been at it for many years and knows how to do his duty and will have no trouble going up. The song goes on about the sweep going up the black hole and managing to squeeze in quite easily and being good at it and in fact quite expert, and ends with the expression of the widow’s gratitude for the chimney sweep’s skill. Four months later, of course, there is a large crescent moon, and not just in the sky, and five months after that a beautiful baby boy is born, who all the villagers can see is the spit and image of the chimney sweep.

This song, sung by a choir of one hundred and twenty exiles, echoed around the hills and through the nearby hamlets like some heavenly hallucination for the ears.

When they finished singing, they all fell asleep, and by the time they awoke three hours later they realised they would have to hurry to reach Compito before nightfall. Reluctantly they got to their feet.

Fifty metres down the road, once they had reached the outskirts of Centoni, they left the foothills of San Ginese behind and struck out across a narrow strip of flat land alongside a tobacco field for a few kilometres, passed the disused railway station whose roof had caved in, and headed for the Compito crossroads, to the butcher’s shop on one side and the police station, where Tommaso the Killer had been locked up temporarily, on the other.

At the crossroads they turned right and started to climb, the road winding its way up the sunny eastern side of the Compito hill, through terraced olive groves and vineyards. It was a Sunday so there was no-one about. The locals were asleep in their houses.

In the olden days Compito had the biggest church, presided over by the Head Priest of the district, so naturally it was where criminals were decapitated. A cage, hanging on a rusty chain from a pole that protruded through an arch at the top of the church’s belltower, swung slowly in the wind. The chain creaked as the cage swayed left and right while slowly spinning clockwise, then swayed right and left while spinning back the other way. In the cage they had once put heads that had been removed from their owners’ bodies in the piazza below, a warning to potential miscreants, malefactors and wrongdoers.

The sun was about to set and the exhausted villagers were staggering backwards and forwards and from one side of the road to the other. They felt the burden of the day’s walk, especially after eating and drinking so much at Centoni. Occasionally someone in the column would drop to his knees and bend forwards to rest his forehead on the ground, and would be frozen until someone else delivered him a solid kick in the backside and made him jump up and stumble back into the line.

Bucchione stopped in the middle of the road and waited. He seemed to be getting his bearings. Those immediately behind him walked into one another and toppled over, falling like dominoes, until eventually those at the back caught on and also stopped. The cage dangling high above their heads creaked again ominously. The path turned behind the tower and started to drop away quickly down the hill on the other side, then levelled out and continued running beside the Visona, which, now in full flow, was a torrent of thundering, boiling water, tumbling tree trunks, crashing branches and rolling rocks. They had found the Babbling Brook.

The pause seemed to give them all new vigour, enough at least for one final effort.

Bucchione moved off and they followed him through a natural archway formed by two monstrous plane trees growing a metre apart. In they went, single file, the men of each family group first, to make sure it was safe. It was like a giant’s lair under a canopy of ancient trees. Beo could have sworn one leafy colossus spoke to him in a deep breathy whisper: ‘Welcome, skinny toothless man.’ Leaping out of his skin, he spun around in a circle, surveying the territory. But there was nothing there.

They had found the Enchanted Glade.

Centenarian trees on each side of the torrent had made a roof where their high branches fused, up near the clouds. At first it was dark in the giant’s green house, but soon their eyes became accustomed to the dappled light (yes, light is always dappled in such places). The plane trees would normally be bare by now, but there were just a few leaves scattered about.

The mill-house, its large wheel broken, lay abandoned, dusty and empty, like the villagers themselves, who were tired, grey and hollowed out from their journey. This would be their home for now. Once they had seen it was safe, the men called their families into the Enchanted Glade.

The Sanginesini dispersed inside the derelict stone building, staking out little family plots, smoothing out their sacks of corn husks to lie on and rest aching bones. A few made a mattress out of their husband or father, who lay down on the ground with his wife and children and elderly parents on top of him, so that here and there dotted about the large room were small piles of people, chests and breasts rising and falling, breathing, snoring gently. The Sanginesini had three major aims in life: to work, eat and sleep with the people they loved. Although the work was suspended, their other desires were fulfilled.

The local villagers brought in great cauldrons of bean soup to feed them all and woke them up. But after the feast at Centoni no-one was very hungry.

In the bushes the fireflies glided about.

…

On the first day the sun got up late and so did the cavernicolous villagers, who moped around not knowing what to do with themselves now that they were away from their fields and their stables. Some even felt nostalgic for the exploding bombs; when Beo dared to say this Bucchione almost whacked him with the back of his hand, which he raised but left suspended in midair.

Only Argante, who came from the hamlet of Cecchini, on the rise above the Speranza hill crossroads, fell into his usual routine, which was to sound the alarm. Argante was highly respected among his extended family and gave himself airs, but everyone else thought he was mad. He claimed he could hear American bomber squadrons taking off from the airfield that the Allies had built more than one thousand kilometres away, in Malta.

At six o’clock in the morning he leapt into the centre of the large communal bedroom inside the mill and, his legs wide apart, arms raised, palms open, eyeballs protruding, he cried out: ‘Ragazzi, scappiamo, gli aerei son partiti! Everybody, run – the planes have taken off!’

They all ignored him and someone threw a shoe, telling him to go back to sleep.

The hours passed and they wandered about listlessly or slept and farted in their sleep as the beans from the night before worked their way through their intestines. For the midday meal the Compitesi brought them wooden platters piled high with slices of farinata, a polenta made from a thick soup of white beans, black Tuscan cabbage, carrots, celery and pigs’ trotters. They roasted the slices over open fires to make a crisp crust on the outside, leaving a warm softness inside, sweet with the beans and cabbage. On the roasted slices they sprinkled spicy olive oil.

The Compitese wine was made from the grapes grown in the terraced vineyards they had passed on their way up the hill. It was mellow and friendly, but not too sweet. Even the children drank a splash with their water.

Very soon after the midday meal all the Sanginesini were fast asleep again. They slumbered all afternoon and only stirred as the sun fell behind the mountain and the dappled light lost its dapple and the warmth left the world. They then lit fires and huddled around wrapped in blankets, telling stories about America and the men and women who had gone there and come back, including Tommaso, who on request stood and bowed and recited the famous words: ‘Your Honour, I did my duty. Nothing more, nothing less.’

And naturally everyone roared their approval, laughing and cheering and clapping like excited children.

The occasional explosion could be heard in the distance, but the time that elapsed between one bomb and the next grew longer and longer, so that by the end of the day they had almost forgotten there was a war outside the Enchanted Glade.

Late in the day, Bucchione and a few helpers cleared some of the bushes away from the windows of the mill to let in more light. Bucchione was restless.

Then, in the tradition of the veglia, which is a time when people stay awake together by the fire or, if the weather allows, in the courtyard, to talk and keep one another company, Bulletta told the story of Il Sasso, the foundation stone for what became Gino’s house on the bend, near the single lamppost.

The Compitesi, who were less gregarious than the Sanginesini, shyly gathered around, after asking for permission to listen in.

…

‘So, I will tell you about Il Sasso.

‘Beàno is a fragment of Villora, a lane about fifty metres long, which extends from Gino’s house on the corner past half a dozen houses to the courtyard in front of Bucchione’s house. In Beàno now live Lilì and her husband, Il Moro, with their sons Giovanni and Rinaldo, who are two really big boys, and Claudio Andolfi and his mother, Giraldina; his father, Ricciardo; and his brother, Vittorio, who is always scolding Claudio for not doing his schoolwork. Giraldina has large circles around her eyes and a beaklike nose that make her look like a benevolent owl. Two widowed sisters who dress in black live in the first house on the left and ride their cow-drawn cart everywhere. Next to Lilì lives Bucchione and his family, and we all know them. These are all good people.

‘So, this fragment of the village is known as Beàno and no-one can remember why. The village was already called Villora and its houses were not numbered and the one proper street that passed through it was nameless.

‘Anyway, one end of Beàno later became known as Il Sasso. In Beàno, on Gino’s land, along the line of the garden wall, where the single lamppost is now, stood a large truncated pyramid-shaped stone. It was a feature of the village and the locals were proud of it, and possessive of it, in the same way some cities in Italy are proud of the relics of a saint, like the relics of Saint Mark the Evangelist in St Mark’s Basilica in Venice.

‘The stone had earlier been cemented in place so that no-one could move it, because despite its enormous weight it had once been stolen. This is how it happened.

In the old days the rivalry of the scattered hamlets in the village of San Ginese led to fist fights among gangs of young men. They also played pranks of epic proportions on one another.

‘One night, after there had been several physical encounters in the courtyards and streets over some insult one ruffian had uttered about the alleged lost virginity of another’s sister, the Cimaioli, who were from Lecci and Collina, stole the large stone from the Villoresi and dropped it down a dry well near the church at the top of the San Ginese hill. The Cimaioli did not try to hide the fact they had done it but boasted of their superiority and dared the Villoresi to retrieve the monolith.

‘It was again at night a week later that ten young Villoresi trooped off up to the well, carrying ropes and pulleys and long wooden poles. They tied one end of a rope to a tree, and Gino and Palle slid down into the well, landing in shallow mud. They used a broken wagon shaft as a lever to raise the boulder a few centimetres on one side so they could slip a rope loop under it. Then they repeated this with another rope on the other side. For good measure they strapped a third loop horizontally around the lower half, and then they climbed out. With the ropes threaded through large pulleys tied to a strong timber beam, the ten hauled half the night, lifting the boulder in its improvised sling a little at a time until it was freed from its damp prison.

‘They rolled the stone downhill to Villora in fits and starts, using a wooden beam as a brake. This was in late June, and tiny fireflies danced around them, lighting the way, while a large friendly moon smiled down on the party. The young men of Villora had won the contest, and pride had been restored to the village.’

The entire population of the mill exploded, cheering and applauding, even the Compitesi, who had by now practically become naturalised Sanginesini.

‘On the corner where the haystack and the old stables were, that later became Gino’s place, they dug a hole and half buried the stone, pouring concrete around it to hold it in place.

‘There it remained until Gino smashed it to pieces to build the foundations of his house. That part of Villora soon had a new name so that what was once the far end of Beàno became Il Sasso, and that is what it is to this day.’

A loud sigh filled the air, followed by some yawns, then more yawns, then some mumbles and a general hubbub of people talking about the weight of the stone, the size of the ropes, the names of the young men involved. Everyone felt satisfied because Bulletta had told the story well, and they felt renewed pride in their village.

The little children with big round eyes and wide open ears had been hiding between the legs of the grown-ups as they listened to the story. Now their mothers and fathers told them to go to bed. ‘Hey, you! What are you doing there? Go to bed. It’s dark and it’s late.’

The Compitesi said goodnight and went to their houses, through the archway, outside the Enchanted Glade.

So the sun came up and went down again.

…

On the second day they slept until midday again. It now looked as if this would be the new pattern of life. When they were all awake and fed, Bucchione got some men to help him fix the roof of the mill house. This was the first work anyone had done for a while and it gave them satisfaction.

Bucchione felt a desire to sow some vegetables suited to the time of year, so he made a list using the lead pencil and notebook he always carried: spinach, onions, lettuce, beetroot, radish, onions, carrots, cabbage, rocket, leeks, valerian, chicory, radicchio, endive and pink garlic. Alternatively, he could transplant garlic, onions, cauliflower, fennel, lettuce, chives, laurel, oregano, sage, thyme, mint and rosemary.

The Compitesi, he was sure, would either provide the seeds or a few small plants. There was ample water from the Babbling Brook. All he needed to start a vegetable garden in the Enchanted Glade was a slightly sunny spot that provided plenty of protection from the extreme cold. It was still too early to make a decision about this, though. They had walked out of San Ginese thinking they might be absent for a week, but no-one knew what the war would bring. So he would wait.

Beo ran back down the hill to the police station at the crossroads to ask if the two warring armies had passed, but the carabinieri said they hadn’t seen anyone or anything that looked like an army, let alone two. It was too soon to return home. The German artillery post was still entrenched at Castello, near the church, and the Americans were still on the Montanari hill. In fact, there were three explosions that day that came from the direction of San Ginese.

After some initial discomfort, many of the villagers were becoming used to their new life. The men sat and played briscola and scopa, slapping cards down on the table defiantly with exclamations of jubilant victory: ‘Toh!’ And the reply would come: ‘Toh!’ Nara, the woman who was a man, smoked and played cards too. The feminine women chatted and the children played. Occasionally a fist fight would break out among the players over a hand of cards, but otherwise they were content and rested and certainly well-fed by the locals, who seemed to have an unending supply of food and wine. Even Argante had settled down and was no longer hearing aeroplanes in Malta.

Iose had persuaded one of the local women to give her a saucepan and a small bag of flour and to bring milk every morning. Iose the Flour-Eater sat in a dark corner of the cavernous mill in front of a wood stove stirring the flour into the milk to make a thick white sauce, into which she threw some olives. She rejoined the others only after she had eaten. In this way she tried to hide her eating perversion from the others, but they all knew anyway.

Small groups took to perambulating below the trees and along the torrent, venturing as far as the natural doorway they had crossed a few days before. They were afraid to venture outside, so turned their backs to the exit and marvelled at the beauty of their God-sent refuge and blessed Bucchione for having brought them there.

To pass the time, on the night of the second day Bucchione decided to tell the story of the stolen carts. Everybody had heard it before, but there is nothing as pleasurable as hearing a story you already know, especially if it is well told, and Bucchione was one of the best tellers of tales in San Ginese. Some of the Compitesi, who were boring people and very often bored, again joined the Sanginesini in their encampment and settled down to listen.

…

‘Well, you all know how many years ago the young men of Villora stole the barrocci (the carts, from the Latin birotium, meaning two-wheeled), which were kept in the stables, and hid them. The first time they did this, it took everybody by surprise and no-one knew what was happening.

‘It was on the eve of the May Day workers’ holiday. In the middle of the night twenty giovanotti (young men) visited barns and stables in the village and took away some carts. It took three or four of these delinquents to push a cart all the way up the hill, so overall five carts disappeared. You can imagine how hard it is to push a cart weighing four or five quintals one kilometre up the San Ginese hill.

‘To make it more interesting they took those that belonged to men who were most obviously proud of their carts, people like ’Nibale, Enoè’s son, whose stable is just past Lida’s place on the way down to Sucker’s. ’Nibale keeps his cart beautifully clean. All the metal bits are brightly polished and it has a nicely greased axle and shiny wheel hubs.

‘He also has a whole philosophy of life based on the way a man keeps his cart. A man’s attitude to his cart reveals a lot about him, according to ’Nibale. He says, “Tell me honestly, can you trust a man with a dirty cart? If your daughter wants to marry a man with a dilapidated cart, don’t you think she had better think again? After all, if that’s how he looks after his cart, then who knows what treatment he dishes out to the cows, who will be pulling the cart, and to his women? And you know the old saying – get your cows and your women from your own village only. Well, what about making sure you have a local cart, better still one made by a familiar tradesman, so you know where she’s been and who with? Isn’t that just as important? Did any good ever come of a man whose cart was poorly maintained? Beware a man with a shabby cart! That’s what I say!”

‘’Nibale decorates his cows with red and gold pom poms on their noses. I have heard there are sacred cows in India that look like ’Nibale’s cows! Merigon, that tall skinny type over there, on the other hand, is unlike ’Nibale in every way. His carts are always dirty and poorly maintained. ’Nibale cannot bear to see a cart that is mistreated like that, or to hear its squeaky wheel. When ’Nibale hears the cart with only one squeaky wheel passing his house, he runs out into the street waving his arms about, and stands in front of the cow and implores Merigon to let him lubricate the wheel. Merigon refuses. And while everyone else who has a cow hitched to a cart uses two ropes to guide her along – one rope to pull her to the left and one rope to pull her to the right – Merigon is so thrifty that he uses one rope only to turn her head in one direction and then the other. Consequently, the cow is always confused about which direction she is to turn in and often just walks in circles.

‘Anyway, on the morning of the first of May, when the workers were marching in the cities all over the nation, the peasants of San Ginese got up at sunrise and went to work as usual. There was more than the usual bustle, though, out in the single street that runs straight through the heart of our village. The five contadini whose carts had disappeared, including ’Nibale, wandered around, forlornly leading their cows, halter ropes dangling limply; the men were bereft without their carts, stopping to ask other villagers, querying one another, knocking on doors, looking inside every stable in the village, standing stunned, blocking traffic, unable to comprehend what had happened.

‘Suddenly, who arrives but Nilo, with his pants down around his ankles, struggling to keep them up as he runs through the crowd, breathless for more than one reason. He stops in the middle of the road and starts shouting at everyone to go and collect their carts, to get them out of there, because Father Palagi will be enraged. By the way’ – here Bucchione broke character – ‘why should that lazy vagabond of a priest be enraged about anything, given that he enjoys a blessed existence living off the fat of the land?’

The listeners nodded and he resumed the story.

‘Well, Nilo said to ’Nibale and the other grief-stricken victims who had gathered in front of Gino’s house on the corner, “You had better get your carts out of there because when the reverend wakes up and sees a fleet of wagons in the courtyard at the front of his church, he will censure the lot of you at Mass in front of everyone next Sunday, and might even excommunicate you!”

‘His listeners heard this but it took some time for them to understand the meaning behind what he had said. They looked at Nilo and the pants he was holding up with both hands. Why was he losing his pants? What did the carts and the church have to do with Nilo’s pants? They looked at him and they looked at one another.

‘You see, Nilo had been up, so to speak … up … up … for an all-night vigil! An all-night vigil with the perpetua, the priest’s housekeeper, who is not so old as to be incapable and not so young as to object!’

The listeners roared their approval and several of them slapped Nilo on the back, leaving large bruises. One missed and struck him on the head, knocking him to the ground. He got up quickly and dusted himself down because he didn’t want to miss the rest of the story in which he was a protagonist.

‘There was no need to ask Nilo what he’d been up to. Everyone knew. They were just happy that their carts had turned up because Nilo had been up.’

The assembled audience cheered their approval and then arguments broke out among different factions about the merits or otherwise of ’Nibale’s and Merigon’s contrasting philosophies of the cart and Nilo’s impure acts. The discussion kept them occupied for the rest of the evening. Nilo, Merigon and ’Nibale took it all in good humour. They were secretly delighted to be the protagonists of one of Bucchione’s stories, even though he had decorated it a bit more than necessary.

So the sun came up and went down again.

…

On the third day Zena wondered aloud whether they couldn’t just stay there forever. Then they spent several hours clearing the Babbling Brook of tree trunks and boulders. This improved the water flow, reduced the noise and made the raging torrent more like an actual babbling brook, although it had not been entirely tamed.

When Beo ran down the hill again for more information, the carabinieri told him that the last of the Germans had retreated during the night and the Americans had followed, so the danger was over and they could all go home. This was a shock. It took him an hour of wandering in circles outside the police station to gather his wits. Finally one of the beautifully uniformed officers pointed him back in the direction of Compito and gave him a shove.

When he reported back to the Sanginesini at the old mill, they became silent, stared at the ground, cleared their throats and kicked at the dirt floor until they all disappeared from view in a cloud of dust. This led to more throat-clearing.

They decided it was too soon for the fighting to be over, that the Germans couldn’t possibly have left. The carabinieri clearly had it wrong. Maybe it was a few Germans from somewhere else and a small American patrol that had driven past. They decided it would be safer to wait.

As the sun began to set, Bucchione disappeared for a few hours. Morena and Paolo were hiding in a tree, his mother, Teresa, was busy tending to his demented father, his wife sat in her usual stultified fashion, staring into space, dreaming of béchamel sauce, and his sister Gemma was making sure everyone was happy. No one noticed he had gone.

The widow Pasquina’s house was outside the glade and further down the hill, hidden in a copse of willows. All you had to do was stand outside her door and she would come out before you knocked and immediately ask you in, offering you a bowl of wine, which you gratefully accepted. You would drink several bowls and she would have a sip or two to keep you company. You told her whatever it was that was troubling you, as if she were a priest and this was a kind of confessional. Then she would strip you naked and take you to her bed.

Afterwards she filled a tub from a cauldron of water that was hanging from a chain above the fire and washed you, feeding you grapes, walnuts and goat’s cheese as she poured hot water over your head and shoulders, easing from your limbs the painful weariness of your life. She was a rich widow and did not take payment for her services.

…

As the night of the third day approached, to relieve some of the boredom the children asked Beo to tell them the story of the linchetto, which they’d heard a thousand times before but of which they never tired. They asked Beo and not anyone else to tell the story because there was a suspicion that he was in fact a giant linchetto himself, skinny, jittery and skittish, with a pointed head. Beo enjoyed this small moment of fame and did nothing to persuade them he was not what their imaginations said he was.

This time, even the men and women gathered around the glow of thirty-two campfires, huddling with their children under blankets, prepared to hear once again a tale they always marvelled at. Once Beo had calmed down the crowd of noisy, wriggling children by threatening to call the babào to eat them, he began.

‘Ragazzi, everyone knows that Genesius had a son who was called Tista. What is Tista short for?’

‘Giovan Battista!’ came the united cry, which they went on to repeat until it became a chant. ‘Tista! Tista! Tista! Tista!’

‘Shhh,’ Beo hissed.

‘Well, while Tista was in America, his wife Ancilla worked like a man and raised the children on her own – that is Vitale, who is over there, and his two sisters, who are hiding somewhere. She could work a field like her husband, hitching the same cow to the same plough and turning over hectares and hectares of soil. On long summer nights she would attach the cow to the barroccio and go to Verciano with little Vitale and his two little sisters to visit relatives. They allowed her to fill a large wooden vat carried on the cart with brown liquid perugino from their cesspit. In Verciano, Ancilla filled the vat on the cart using a getto, a bucket with a long wooden handle, which she lowered into the cesspit to collect the brown liquid. By four o’clock in the morning she was back in the fields below Villora spreading the rich fertiliser, as her children slept under the driver’s seat.’

At Beo’s mention of sleep, some of the children yawned.

‘One night on the way home in the dark, under a big August moon, they were wearily making their way along the bottom of the long, low hill at the end of which Villora sits, both a little perched upon, and a little submerged in, ancient moss and soft burial soil.’ Beo said the words ‘ancient moss and soft burial soil’ in such a way that the children shrieked in surprise and fear.

‘… As I was saying … as they were going along sottomonte, which is the side of the San Ginese hill, Ancilla and the three children saw a green light dancing around, left and right and up and down, in the middle of the road. From a distance, except for the colour, it was a tongue of fire much like in the paintings of the Holy Spirit in the sacristy up at the church. As they came nearer they saw a little man, about thirty centimetres tall, who did not flinch but glared at them and suddenly charged at the cow in what seemed an attempt to frighten it. The cow took little notice, being used to these linchetti, who often pestered her and her companions in stables all over the Tuscan countryside. As you know, throughout the night peasants everywhere hear their animals complaining with moos and squawks and grunts …’

‘Moo moo!’ shouted the children. A ripple like a soft wind on water ran through the crowd at the physical excitement of the children and the sighing of the happy watching parents.

‘As we Tuscans know, the linchetti, those little pests, dart in and out of the straw and from behind wood stacks and piles of hay. The contadini, the farmers, know what is going on and aren’t concerned, unless the noise from their stock becomes excessive. Then the farmer whose cow is heavy with calf or who has been poorly and down on her food will run to the stable for fear the animal will miscarry or get a fright and die.’

‘Oooooh!’ came the sound from the audience, halfway between a sigh and a moan.

‘Having failed to excite the cow, the tiny goblin shot straight up in the air. Ancilla said it reminded her of the squirt of water at the village fountain whenever a mischievous boy stuck his index finger in the spout. The linchetto just as quickly descended, braked and landed softly on her head, where he sat with his legs crossed, ruffling her beautiful long black hair with his thin gnarled fingers. Vitale and his sisters cried and hid under a sack.’

Everyone looked for Vitale in the crowd and laughed, pointing their fingers at him, and if they were close enough they slapped him on the back and elbowed him in the ribs.

‘Then, with one hand Ancilla held the cow’s rope and, cursing her absent husband, with the other she took a swipe at the linchetto with her fist, which seemed to pass right through him. However, having achieved his purpose, which was to make a nuisance of himself, the green thing zigzagged away up the hillside, zoomed into the sky, paused, flipped over onto his head and dived into the earth, vanishing in the soft soil and leaving behind a puff of dust in the moonlight. His disappearance brought a magical stillness to the moonlit swamp and the familiar hills of San Ginese.’

‘Aaaaahhh …’ The children let out all the air they had been holding in their lungs.

‘Later that day, after she had spread the perugino over the corn field and given the children their breakfast of sweet barley coffee and milk with bread, Ancilla told her husband Tista’s parents, Genesius and Teresina, about the incident. Good Tuscan peasants that they were, they scarcely raised an eyebrow, and the rest of the village also took it in its stride, as word quickly spread among its one hundred and twenty inhabitants that while Tista was in America and Ancilla was having to do the work of a man, she and her three children had met a linchetto at the foot of the San Ginese hill on the way back from Verciano in the middle of the night, under a big August moon.’

Beo took a deep breath. The children yelped their approval, clapping and cheering, as did the mothers and fathers and everyone else, and pretty soon they were chanting, ‘Ancora, ancora, ancora!’

Beo took a bow.

Bucchione quietly read his list of vegetables to himself.

So the sun came up and went down again.

…

On the fourth day Bulletta, who was a storyteller, as you know, wondered aloud whether they couldn’t just stay there forever.

‘Mah!’ he said.

And Zena replied, ‘What does that mean, mah?’

Bulletta: ‘When you are tired of living, you say mah!’

Zena: ‘But only if you are very old and have seen so much that you have reached a point where you are confused, because your head is full to overflowing with all you have seen and you are unable to put it into any kind of order.’

Bulletta: ‘Mah means that you don’t know anything anymore. That everything is as good or as bad as anything else. I am saying, we might as well stay here.’

Zena: ‘But some people also say ormai. Which means, “What is the point? At this stage nothing matters anymore, it’s too late.”’

Bulletta: ‘Exactly! Which is not so different from mah! In fact they are so close in meaning that for emphasis some people prefer to say, Mah! Ormai! That’s what they would say if they were determined to stay here and never go back to San Ginese.’

A group was formed to discuss how this might be possible, but the conference encountered several major philosophical hurdles, and they decided to postpone the debate until further notice.

Everyone else woke up, ate and went back to sleep. Bucchione carefully studied the plans for his proposed vegetable garden.

So the sun came up and went down again.

…

On the fifth day Bulletta and Zena and a few of the other men went hunting for migratory birds flying south from Russia. The birds were looking for Africa, where the winter was not as harsh, but found the Sanginesini waiting with their double-barrelled shotguns instead. When migratory birds encountered fog or other bad weather on the Italian peninsula, they would veer right and approach Africa through Spain. Unfortunately there was no fog or other bad weather. The Italian autumn and winter that year were mild, so the birds flew straight over the hills of Compito, and the hunting group brought back eighteen thrushes, seven fieldfare (a type of thrush), eleven chaffinches, nine crows and twenty-four blackbirds, which were plucked, cleaned, hung up to mature, and roasted and eaten with polenta in a rich tomato condiment the next day.

If you study the taxonomy of birds, you realise how beautiful the Italian names of birds are. Here are just a few examples: tordo (a migratory bird, weighing less than 100 grams, light in colour), merlo (black, also weighs less than 100 grams), cesena (grey, weighs about 120 grams), fringuello (a colourful 20-gram combination of red and yellow), cornacchia (a 500-gram nasty pest of a bird).

As they were cleaning the birds, they teased one another.

‘Sodo here, he’s so economical he comes to Nedo’s bar and sits and waits, doesn’t order anything. Nedo goes over to him, wipes his table and asks him if he wants something to drink, and Sodo shakes his head. He’s always waiting for someone to offer to buy him a coffee.’

Sodo threw a half-plucked crow at the speaker. ‘What about you, Dolfo? Remember the potato seeds you brought back from America? You told us, “I sowed them in the terrace above and they sprouted in the terrace below.” As if that is possible! You must have been drunk that day!’

Dolfo, who was from Cecchini, was sensitive to criticism of any kind. He was particularly thin-skinned about his marriage and the behaviour of his wife. She never helped him with any of the work in the fields. When he went out to load hay onto his cart, he would take a ladder with him. Other men had wives who would stand on top of the load and arrange the hay as the husband threw it up with a pitchfork. Dolfo would toss a few forkfuls of hay onto the cart and climb up the ladder to arrange the load. Then he would climb down, throw some hay up, climb the ladder again, and so on.

Next the group turned its attention to Treccia, who was described as a trasandone, which means he was a very untidy person. His wife, Giorgia, despaired. They laughed at him because he loved lying in bed and would go to bed wearing his stable clothes. He said whoever had invented the bed should be given a national award. The rest of the time he would squat in the dirt at the front of his house picking up pebbles and small sticks that he would roll around in his hands. He had very strong knees, which made him an excellent squatter, even in old age.

After this they worked quietly around the fire to finish preparing the dead birds for the next day’s meal.

Other Sanginesini sat together talking. In a corner two brothers whose mother had died recently were arguing. One was always talking about her while the other wanted him to stop because it revived his grief every time her name was mentioned. The former believed he had existed because he was in his mother’s thoughts, and now that she was dead he had to find another way to exist. Thus mothers gave life to their children and kept them alive by thinking of them.

Nearby, three women who had been to France to work as wet nurses exchanged tales about the men of the house, who had often participated in their offspring’s feeding sessions, demanding a share themselves and attaching themselves to the breast. Having a wet nurse in the house meant the men could continue to bed their wives, who would not sleep with them if they were breastfeeding because they believed that congress curdled the milk. The breastmilk of young Italian women was considered the best, better than the French and the German. The breastmilk of young Italian women was wholesome and had a sunny disposition. The women were laughing and seemed quite pleased with their experiences.

It was dark outside now. When it is dark, when it is night, you should stay inside. Only robbers and whores go about at night, the saying goes.

The night can also be a lonely time, lonelier than the day. As was usual in those days, even back in the village, in the evening the Sanginesini would sit, talk and keep one another company late into the night, for fear of the loneliness that is the lot of all human beings. This has already been mentioned, but it is good to repeat it to prevent it ever being forgotten.

Bucchione showed his list of vegetables to Beo, who was astonished.

So the sun came up and went down again.

…

After their midday meal on the sixth day, Beo said, ‘We could stay here forever, what do you think? These Compitesi sure know how to eat and drink, eh? They’re not sick of having us here either, and with any luck they won’t be anytime soon!’

Then Sodo, in an unusually philosophical frame of mind, responded with, ‘Più boschi giri, più lupi trovi,’ suggesting the world was full of wolves, and the more forests you visited the more wolves you encountered. He was shouted down and told to be quiet. It was his way of saying they might as well go home because every place in the world was the same and every place had its dangers. But clearly no-one wanted to hear about it. Even Sodo regretted it as soon as he said it because he didn’t really believe the old mill was just another forest and that it was full of wolves. He was very happy to be there.

Nedo, who was only good at making coffee and serving liqueurs and glasses of wine, and was considered a mezza mestola – half a bricklayer’s trowel, not renowned for his erudition – said, ‘Fortunato chi ha il cappotto caldo! Fortunate is he who has a warm coat!’

He meant it was important to be warm and comfortable and to count your blessings. Nothing else mattered. This really had nothing to do with whether they should go home or not.

To try to move the discussion along, Beo thought he would try again with, ‘Vecchi si diventa se non si muore prima. We will all grow old if we do not die first.’

It was possible he meant that they should stay where they were because their fate would be the same anyway. They would grow old and die regardless of what they did.

Then ’Nibale butted in with his usual gloomy outlook:

Tutto passa e tutto muore

Mamma, casa e primo amore.

All things must pass, all things must die

Mother, home and youth’s first love.

This was even more bleak than Beo’s contribution, but it was to be expected from ’Nibale.

Clearly no-one was interested in addressing the question of leaving the Enchanted Glade, leaving Ponte alle Corti or saying goodbye to the Compitesi, to the food and to the abundance of birdlife, so they talked about cows for a while, noting that, apart from anything else, cows were useful for their body heat – so much so that children were often washed in the stable in a tub filled with water heated over the fireplace, the stable warmed by the breath and bodies of the animals. And yet cows were not always appreciated. A popular saying was, ‘Ignorante come una vacca! As stupid as a cow!’

Bulletta reminded them that Sirio had been caught fornicating with a heifer before he was blown up by the American bomb that fell from the sky, so it was obvious cows had other uses too. This cast a dark cloud over the group and they all wished he hadn’t mentioned it. They agreed that Cosetta, his betrothed, should never be told.

Beo made one last attempt at a wise saying, but again it was not relevant to the question at hand:

Quando il capello dà al bianchino

Lascia la topa e datti al vino.

When your hair is grey and fine

Abandon the fanny and take up the wine.

This time they told him to shut up and turned to look at Bucchione, who until now had been quiet.

Bucchione, who was sucking his cigar and not listening, suddenly realised they were waiting for his contribution. He didn’t know what to say. In the end he said, ‘Il tempo passa per chi lo puole aspettare. Time passes for those who can wait.’ Meaning, just be still and just be quiet and we’ll see what happens. Whether they understood it or not will never be known. Nevertheless, this pronouncement calmed them down and settled the discussion, which was about nothing much and was entering uncharted waters when Bucchione put an end to it.

…

There was a drawn-out musical squawk from God the Father’s accordion. This was followed by the plucking of a mandolin string, in turn accompanied by strumming, at which the accordion returned, and pretty soon they were in Arizona, and a few of them were singing snatches of a song about American dreams, illusions and yearning – for a better life, for riches, for dark-skinned Hispanic women and the gentle, sweet happiness that awaited those who emigrated from San Ginese to the Americas.

Zena, whose head and nose were twice as big as his brother Bulletta’s, played a virtuoso mandolin. There were also two piano accordionists in the camp: Giorgione the Ancient, who looked much older than his years, and God the Father, who was called that because he had such a high opinion of himself. With a virtuoso mandolin and two accordions, they made enough noise to wake the German dead in Berlin.

So on the evening of the sixth day, Bucchione spoke to Zena (this was in the days before their legendary falling out, after which the two brightest men in the village, the greatest of friends, did not speak to each other for forty years). Zena conferred with Giorgione and God the Father. The three musicians set up three chairs on an old table. From this rickety podium they could see the dancers, and over the dancers’ heads to the wall on the other side. They asked Cosetta to sing. She was a small thing, which is precisely the meaning of her name, but her big chest hid a magnificent voice, mellow and filled with longing, and as dramatic as her flashing brown eyes. Meanwhile Bucchione sent Morena and Paolo running round to tell everyone there would be a dance after the evening meal. The Compitesi were invited too, so it was quite a large party.

After the sun had gone down, Cosetta, her long black hair unleashed around her shoulders and swirling down to her waist, sang as the trio played.

Away in Arizona

Homeland of dreams and grand illusions

A lonely guitar player

Excites a thousand skylarks singing.

And so they tangoed, stamping and gliding and gliding and stamping. You would hardly have thought they were peasants if you’d seen the way they danced so elegantly. They heard the words of the song and you can imagine what happened next.

It’s midnight when it starts

The round of ample pleasure

And in the darkest place

All seek to find their treasure.

As the music penetrated their organisms, meaning their arms, legs, chests, heads and hearts, and other parts, at midnight the round of ample pleasure started. In the darkness everyone was looking for something. Husbands and wives eyed each other like they had when they were sixteen years old. Beo gently stroked Bruna’s left buttock for the thousandth time and was left wide-eyed and open-mouthed when she pushed back onto his hand so that he couldn’t get it out from beneath her. She rubbed her thigh against his.

A weary bandit leader

Descends the misty sierra mountain

On his pure ivory charger.

A blazing rose of love unbroken.

By the time Cosetta had finished singing to an enthusiastic crowd of dancers and the musical trio were spicing up the evening with a Viennese waltz, half of the available women, and some unavailable ones, had chosen partners and had discreetly slipped away with them into dark corners, behind the bushes and under the trees.

Norato walked over to Cosetta – she who was almost his brother’s widow; who wasn’t really a widow because she had never been married to Sirio, only betrothed, but nevertheless was expected to behave like a widow and had in fact done that until now. He stood and looked at her, opening his mouth and shutting it like a fool. She opened her mouth and left it open, resting the tip of her tongue against her top teeth, gently nudging her top lip. Norato’s blood was warming up, and after her song hers was boiling. They were both experiencing a distant ache flowing from their hearts to their groins that they felt a need to soothe. This is considered normal in young people, and you only hope they can manage their feelings until they are in a position to start a family and look after their children and each other.

Her passion is so strong

Her love is without limit

All while they sing their song

A thousand skylarks singing.

It was the first time he’d kissed a woman on the mouth. To tell the truth, it was Cosetta who kissed Norato. Flashing-eyed Cosetta, who was an expert kisser, and who had kissed his brother Sirio quite a lot before he was blown to pieces, dragged him out of the mill to the riverbank, took the back of his head between both hands and pulled him onto her, slipped her tongue between his lips, rolled it around his mouth and gave him such a thrill that he felt an explosion in his chest and saw a flash of light. She took his left hand and placed it on her right breast, inside her blouse, and it was almost all over for him there and then.

‘Bless your hands,’ he gasped as she took hold of his member.

When she guided it down to her and let him put it in, the place was warm and inviting, as it should be, and she held him tight with both her hands behind his back and just gave him enough room to wriggle in and out a little. By the time he had gone in all the way the second time he had decided to marry her so that he could do this with her every night for the rest of his life. Norato’s member was painfully erect for two hours that night and Cosetta was severely chafed and sore, but despite this, or maybe because of it, they conceived their first daughter, Manola. Unless she had already been conceived when Sirio was still alive. In any case, the Spanish name Manola was in honour of the Hispanic atmosphere generated by the song about Arizona. He would marry her, he said, as soon as they had all finished mourning his brother. And before it became too obvious that Manola was on the way, thought Cosetta.

It was the sixth day, after all, when God had told humanity to be fruitful and multiply.

God the Father called Cosetta back for another few songs and the night grew older, noisier and happier, with all the Sanginesini frolicking about in dark corners, dancing and drinking Compitese wine.

Bucchione arrived at a decision about the vegetables.

So the sun came up and went down again.

…

So the sun came up.

It was the morning of the seventh day and they were recovering from the festivities of the night before, lying in small family clusters inside the dark, disused mill, rolling around a little in discomfort if they had consumed too much wine, moaning and resting. They had worked hard every day at eating, drinking, playing cards, hunting, cooking, sleeping, storytelling, debating, dancing, fornicating.

Since arriving they had removed debris from the river, repaired the mill roof and cleared wild agagi bushes and blackberry vines from the windows. They had gone hunting and brought back many birds and cleaned them for roasting and eating. This was the beginning of a normal life.

Bucchione and a delegation invited the Compitesi into the Enchanted Glade to discuss a permanent migration to Ponte alle Corti in Compito. The Sanginesini proposed occupying hillside fields and empty houses that had been abandoned by Compitesi who had gone to America. They had left the misery of San Ginese in autumn, and winter was coming. If the war were ever to turn back towards them, in Compito they would enjoy the safety of the hills and the succour of the sun rising and setting on each side of their new home. The neighbours were friendly. The Sanginesini would bring youth and strength to a village in decline. The discussion lasted all morning as both groups weighed the advantages and disadvantages, but the hearts of the Sanginesini were turning and their cardiac organs were empty vessels. Faced with the obligation to decide, they did what many of their countrymen had done in the past when choosing whether to go or whether to stay. The meeting closed without a decision being reached and the council of war dispersed. It would not be easy.

During the night the leaves had started falling. This reminded them that it was well and truly autumn, the precursor to winter that harboured the memory of summer.

The faint creaking sound of the cage, anchored to the chain on the nearby belltower, drifted into their giant shelter.

When they had arrived at the abandoned mill in Compito, they were relieved to be away from the war. In their hearts they yearned for peace, so quickly started to forget the fear and anxiety of their other lives. But now they were finished, and it is a good thing that the Italian word finiti can mean exhausted, worn out, spent and done, because they were also all of these things.

The knowledge that had always been there, just below the anxiety in their anxious hearts, started to surface as soon as the cascade of leaves started. The mill house was empty now, but after the war, when people had money to pay for flour and olive oil again, it would be restored. If the people of Compito wanted their mill back, the homeless Sanginesini would have to move out of the Enchanted Glade and into the village.

They needed Bucchione to say something.

Bucchione wondered what would become of them all, although there was really no point wondering – there never is, because it will happen anyway. Within ten years his daughter, Morena, who would remember the Enchanted Glade, would be married. Within eleven years she would give birth to her first son. Within twelve years her husband, Ugo, who would remember the Enchanted Glade, would leave for Australia. But of course, Bucchione didn’t know any of this as he addressed the sfollati, the displaced.

They just needed Bucchione to say something, and he did, although he could feel the satin wing of the Angel of Sadness brush against his leg.

Bucchione’s story wasn’t in verse, like the stories told in the village square at nearby Colle by the travelling carnival troupe’s hunchback, but he did decide to tell it in the first-person plural. Zena strummed and picked at his mandolin, accompanying his friend for the last time before their grand disagreement.

Bucchione didn’t clear his throat or call for their attention. They were already looking at him.

‘People … people. It is a well-known fact that the world is a naturally untidy, disordered, chaotic place, where weeds invade fields, and paths become overgrown with tangled blackberry bushes, where tiles shift on roofs, crack and leak, where water seeps in and rots or corrodes everything it touches. We Sanginesini are in the frontline of the war against nature and time, spreading manure, digging and sowing and planting and watering and harvesting, weeding and trimming, cutting and ordering and cleaning and tidying up. Insects and mice, worms and disease attack our crops and animals. Where once there was scrub or arid land, we have brought mown fields and lush crops. The moment we turn one way we are attacked from the other direction. While we rest on a Sunday, the enemy advances. If we are slothful, the enemy charges. As we grow older and our physical and mental strength fades, our children must take over. For this reason we breed. There is no choice. The alternative is to be overwhelmed by the weeds and the pests. The alternative is to drown in shit. And then to die.

‘We could of course remain here in Compito, where we have been welcomed, where the soil is fertile and the climate good, where life is sweet. I am ready to sow and plant vegetables right now. I have already prepared a list.’ He took his notebook out of his shirt pocket and waved it at them.

The other possibility for them, of course, was to leave San Ginese and go to America (no longer as welcoming as she had been to their fathers, and Australia had not yet opened her doors), but he didn’t say that. Nor did he say he had heard rumours that in America and Australia families did not live together and children abandoned their widowed mothers.

Bucchione stopped and looked around, scanning their faces, every single one of them. He said nothing more. They all looked at one another for the first time since the night before they had left the village. Someone coughed.

He waited in silence and they all gasped together at the enormity of what they had done. They had abandoned their cows and pigs and rabbits and chickens, their stables and their fields and their irrigation ditches, Nedo’s bar, the communal laundry and bread ovens. The warring armies had gone, but the Sanginesini had not returned to San Ginese, the home of their ancestors, their grandmothers and grandfathers, to the houses where they were born, so old they could crumble at any moment, houses built on the bones of the ancient cemetery, the New Cemetery already overflowing with newer bones, to the stones impregnated with the shit of a thousand summers.

In the shadow of the morning the flames on the candles flickered, and the wicks burned and spluttered gently in their olive oil–filled lids. A strange breeze blew through their skeletons. They were well and truly displaced now. The land, the entire world, had laid a trap for them, had set out to betray them and succeeded, and was even now smothering their fields with weeds, sending maggots and pestilence. The armies of the war, of men and machines, had been replaced by the ancient threats. Who knew what horrors awaited them back in San Ginese were they to return!

As for the fireflies, later that day, after they were gone, well, they just floated and flitted about, jumping from one bush to another, as fireflies do nonchalantly.

They heard the creaking chain.

…

They packed their belongings, said goodbye to the Compitesi and stepped into a line behind Bucchione at the natural doorway to the Enchanted Glade and the Babbling Brook, which were bathed in dappled light still, as leaves now began to pour down like soft giant splashes of rain. They stood and waited for the downpour to finish. The falling leaves made a sound like a gentle wind. Soon they were buried up to their knees in brown leaves. Soon they could hear that the rush of falling leaves was easing. And pretty soon it had stopped. And then the silence smothered them. It was over.

And when it was over, it was over. There was nothing more.

Those at the front turned to look at those at the back, and the ones at the back looked at the ones at the front. The Sanginesini took a deep breath.

And then they went home.