51

 51

LEA KNEW THE TEACHER lived near the school. “See how it all connects?” he said, and from the door of the café he’d pointed to his small balcony on the fourth floor where his bicycle was wedged diagonally, handlebars leaning over the blue-painted railing. He used it, he told her, to go for long rides in the afternoon, sometimes on the mountain’s hairpin bends, occasionally toward the rice fields, now dry. With Stefano away in Turin and Martino absorbed by his new friend, she’d have Saturday free to spend checking her urge to go to town.

As a distraction she took out a hammer and screwdriver and threw herself into destroying a potter wasp’s nest that had been built between an internal shutter and the wall at the end of August. Together she and Martino had observed the wasp’s comings and goings but from a distance, since they weren’t sure if it stung or might be dangerous, like a hornet.

Martino sat on a bench beside the front door—somewhere he never sat—homework on his knees, sulking. Patches of light briefly filtered through the clouds as if signaling to him, babbling in an unknown code.

Around the corner came Maria, the one they called Big Mouth, with her thumping step and a plastic bag knocking against her flowered dress. Her sharp eyes, small mouth, and nose were all set close together in the middle of a wide, square face framed by the fat beneath her chin. She wrung the necks of the village chickens and geese and was famed for her skills. As she approached, Martino peered at her hands and nails but they were clean. There were white feathers sticking out of her sack and she confirmed without his having to ask, “A young bird. They gave me one for my work. But you’re from the city—as far as you’re concerned chickens grow in shops, already plucked.”

For the fun of it—and to disgust him—Maria improvised a lesson on how to dispatch poultry. Her bag, abandoned on the tarmac, relaxed and grew larger, shaping itself over the hen whose long, stiff flight feathers poked against the plastic.

“You hold the chicken by the feet with your bad hand—mine’s my left—while you squeeze its neck and plant your thumb in the hollow behind its head. Then you have to give it a sharp yank with both arms.” And she mimicked the gesture, a sudden and brutal movement that made Martino jump. “So the vertebra snaps and that’s it, the chicken is gone. Never twist the neck: the beast can escape with its head dangling and it won’t die. So: the worst is over. After that you snip its throat with some big scissors and hang it up to drain the blood.”

“But how come they always call you?”

“Because the beasts don’t suffer as much with me. You mustn’t feel sorry for the animal or it’ll have a bad death. Even fear makes it suffer, so you have to be decisive, understand? And quick, so it doesn’t even notice.”

Martino looked up at her with reverence as an angel of death. She was wearing perforated white leather clogs, a summer pinafore dress, and a woolen cable jumper.

“The hard work comes later. Plucking, or skinning a rabbit,” she added, relishing the effect of every word before starting the march toward home again.

Martino’s mother called him from inside. “Martino, come here! Come and see!” She’d scooped the broken wasp’s nest into the dustpan and insisted on showing him something.

“That’s enough dead animals for now!” he burst out.

“Why? What other dead animals have you seen?”

“Maria’s hen—but I didn’t really see it.”

“Okay, never mind.” Lea wanted to bend over and kiss his head, but Martino had already turned his back and moved away, and he didn’t notice.

Later, when he’d finished his homework and felt a little better, Martino asked his mother, “What was it you wanted to show me?”

“Oh, it was nothing. Something actually kind of grim.”

“What?”

“I think the larvae ate the wasp.”

“That’s revolting! Are you sure?”

“I thought I saw a piece of the wasp in there. The things mothers will do!”

It was ironic, but he wanted to check no matter what, as if to restore the honor of the offspring.

The nest was still in the metal dustpan, broken into large regular cylindrical cells surrounded by little pieces. He saw organic fragments, an abdomen, maybe, and lots of tiny, crushed feet which under the magnifying glass proved to be spiders’ legs. Exultant, he ran to report: the wasp had not let herself be eaten after all but had caught prey for her babies and then gone off to do her own thing.