THE THIRD PARAMOUR THANKED THE GUARD WHO OPENED the door to him. The butt that was still emitting a plume of smoke from the tip of his cigarette holder entered the room just a hair ahead of the tip of his shoe. A few short steps took him to the table where he placed his panama hat. He raised his eyebrows to focus on us. First he sought to lock eyes with me, then with Grandpa, and finally deigned to exchange a glance even with Renato, who was looking back at him, up from under, from where he lay stretched out on his pallet, his thumb pushing tobacco into his pipe.
For a while he talked about this and that, my grandma and my aunt, the damp weather, the dog days just around the corner, until our silence forced him to come to the point: ‘There was talk of helping you to escape, but that no longer appears possible.’ He dropped his gaze and picked up his panama hat, and from the grimace on his face you’d think the thing weighed twenty pounds: ‘It’s scheduled for tomorrow.’
Grandpa slammed both fists down onto the table: ‘And you’re the one they send?’
‘The baron wanted to spare the ladies…and he wanted it to be a friendly voice, a voice speaking Italian…Donna Nancy and Donna Maria were able to arrange…for you to be spared the noose…it will be a firing squad.’ He was speaking in a low voice, both eyes fixed on the floor, his fingertips nervously glued to the brim of his hat.
Renato went over to the window; there was a patch of vivid blue amidst the treetops. Not even a trailing shred of cloud in the sky. ‘Nothing remains to be done but one simple thing… Tell the ladies that they will not be disappointed.’ Renato was looking at that small patch of sky: ‘We’ll show these animals who the Italians are.’
Grandpa adjusted the rickety stool under his butt: ‘Yes,’ he said, with a glance at me. ‘I’ll be standing firm on both legs when they shoot me.’
Pagnini’s eyes remained glued to the floor: ‘Well…I’ve said what I came to say. I can only add that I’m truly sorry…That’s it.’
Grandpa stood up and went over to him, they looked each other in the eye.
‘Your wife is a courageous woman…She’s not afraid of anything.’
‘I know,’ said Grandpa.
The Third Paramour’s hands threatened to crumple the panama hat: ‘A miracle…can always happen.’
‘Dear Sir,’ said Grandpa, staring at him, ‘I’ve been here on this planet a few years longer than you, these two eyes of mine have seen plenty of things, good things and bad, so many things, but no miracles, I’ve never seen miracles, and I’ve never given any credence to the jabberings of priests.’
I thrust my hands into my pockets, and without a word I joined Renato at the window. My head was empty, and there was a brick where my stomach ought to have been.
The bolt squealed open. Don Lorenzo’s silhouette filled the door. Thunderbolts surrounded his bald head.
‘It’s time for me to go, let me leave you to the parish priest,’ said the Third Paramour, scuttling off with his panama hat jammed down over his forehead, practically crushed to a pulp. His feet really were too big, it was hard to think of him as smart.
Don Lorenzo grabbed a stool and sat down with his back to the wall. Then I noticed that he had a wine bottle in one hand. He pulled four small wine glasses out of his tunic pocket. ‘I have this fine bottle, all that’s left to me.’
We all sat down. It was a dark red wine and in the dusty light filtering in through the window it turned ruby. As he poured, the parish priest glanced sidelong at our faces. ‘Terrible things all happen together,’ he said in a grave voice, pushing one glass after another to the centre of the table.
‘What else has happened?’ asked Grandpa, and this time his voice quavered slightly.
‘That girl, that foolish girl, God forgive her…has gone and hanged herself. And her mother, Teresa, the poor woman, hasn’t stopped screaming since this morning. Like a wounded wolf. In the stables…with a soldier’s belt…she hanged herself from a rafter.’ He looked up and stared us in the eye, one by one. ‘I don’t know what’s happened,’ and he ran both hands over his cranium. ‘She’d been with him, he confessed that, but he said that he had nothing to do with her death…The belt was his, that’s true, it was the young soldier’s belt, but he had nothing to do with it…She didn’t kill herself over the young soldier, and I believe him, as does the baron…Loretta had come to see me, she’d said confession, and that’s why I believe her…I wouldn’t tell you if you didn’t know it already…but she was the one, it was Loretta who told the Austrians to come…’
‘Poor Teresa, poor thing,’ said Grandpa, downing his wine in a single gulp. He slammed the empty glass down on the table. ‘Poor…poor Teresa.’
The priest’s glass, and mine, and Renato’s all slammed down on the table, too.
‘Perhaps someone wants to confess their sins.’ Don Lorenzo looked at the major, who said nothing, just stared at a spot in the middle of the wall and said nothing. ‘There’s always time for… God’s eyes are large and He can forgive anything.’ He fell silent for a moment, ran two fingers inside his sweat-yellowed collar. ‘Now I have to leave you, I’ll come back this evening, for the sacraments.’ He stood up and went to the door, rapping sharply on the wood – the sound reverberated. I heard the bolt squeal.
‘Poor Teresa, poor thing,’ said Grandpa, bowing his head and shaking it from side to side. He refilled his glass and drank, this time sipping, his eyes lowered, staring at the tabletop, the fingers of his left hand lingering around a knot in the wood. ‘She deserved a better daughter.’
Renato, who was again standing at the window and had resumed staring at the little patch of blue high above the treetops, murmured: ‘You’re right…she really did deserve a better daughter.’
Grandpa’s fingers spread open like a duck’s foot on the table. He cleared his throat and, raising his voice slightly, spat out one of his maxims: ‘Stupidity and bad luck play snap even in the homes of the wealthy.’