He makes his way around the outside, looking, just in case. The speaker is an old solider himself, but an infantry man, like Ettore was. Like all the peasants were. His voice comes through a loudhailer, with a metallic echo.
‘We asked them, why should we fight for Italy when we may not own even the smallest part of it? Why should we fight for Italy when we have no rights within it? When we are treated worse than the cattle? When we are reviled? Why should we go and die on the orders of men who despise us?’ the speaker shouts. His voice resounds in every corner of the square, and causes a stir of outrage in the listeners. When they are on strike, when they are not working, the men are restless to begin with; now they are hard, wound tight with stress. They are the dry grass into which a match might fall. Ettore can feel it coming, like a loud noise far away but getting closer, and closer. He moves faster, searches harder. ‘But Cadorna still sent us forward at Isonzo, again and again; still he watched us die in misery. Still he lined up entire regiments and shot each tenth man if we dared to disobey. My brother was one of those men – and he was the bravest of his unit. Shot like a dog. Like a dog!’
The crowd mutters in outrage, and the mention of Isonzo halts Ettore. He waits for a wave of horror to subside, as the word crowds his mind with a remembered terror so great it almost drove him mad. Twelve battles were fought at the Isonzo front, against the Austro-Hungarian army. Twelve battles over two hellish winters, that left three-quarters of a million soldiers dead in the frozen mud, and yet the lines did not move an inch. Ettore was drunk almost all the time. To be sober was to be too terrified to breathe, too hungry to live. To be sober was to risk madness; to risk opening a permanent crack in the mind. Drunkenness was the only way to survive those trenches, and Valerio isn’t the only one who’s tried hard to stay drunk ever since. Ettore thinks briefly of Leandro, safe in New York all that time; rich and dirty enough to buy his way out of the draft.
He takes a deep breath and carries on around the square. The speaker’s voice is laden with bitterness and anger. ‘And all the while the gentlemen shirkers stayed here at home, safe and protected on their farms. Why should we fight? We asked them, and they answered. You will have land, they said! You will have the respect and love of your country! You will be able to feed your families, plant your own crops, and work for the future! You will not be hungry any more! You will not be crippled by the winter’s debt, or robbed for the rent on an infested basement room a year in advance! I ask you, my brothers, have we got any of the things they said we would be given? Have we?’ Almost as one, the crowd roars out: No! ‘In Russia, they have taken what they were promised. Brothers, the time has come for us to take what we were promised!’ In the cacophony, Ettore hears his name called.
‘Ettore! Ettore!’ He spins about, searching, and sees Pino pushing towards him through the throng.
‘Pino! My friend, it’s good to see you. Are you well?’ They hug roughly, pounding each other’s backs.
‘Well enough, but how are you? It does me good to see you home, and walking! Are you back? Are you fit?’ Pino eyes the crutch doubtfully.
‘Not fit enough yet, but soon. I’ve come back to see Paola; I have money for her. Have you seen her?’
‘She was here but she went back – she didn’t want to bring the baby, and she didn’t want to leave him for long. Come, I’ll go with you.’
‘How long will the strike last?’
‘I don’t know. It’s been forty-eight hours… the men are hungry, and angry, and nobody dares patrol the farms for blacklegs any more, because of the squads. More squads all the time, Ettore. But if the proprietors want the harvest in and threshed, they must capitulate… and they must be getting frantic. But Capozzi and Santoiemma are still in jail, so…’ he says, with a shrug.
‘This meeting could go bad. Can you feel it?’ says Ettore, and Pino nods.
‘Best you get away before it does, with your leg still weak.’
They go into the small, ancient alleyways that lead to Vico Iovia, and the speaker’s ringing words and the answering roar quieten behind them. A mishmash of houses, built and rebuilt and patched and added on, crowd in on either side, close enough to touch; stairways and downspouts and crooked shutters, and here and there the stone flowers that let air into the rooms within, napped with age. The shadows are deep and there’s filth in the gutters.
‘Pino, I must thank you,’ says Ettore.
‘Must you?’ Pino grins at him.
‘If you hadn’t taken me to Masseria dell’Arco when you did, I might have lost this leg. Or died. Thank you.’
‘I didn’t do it for you, brother,’ says Pino seriously. Ettore glances over at him. ‘It was the smell – Mother of God, the smell! I couldn’t stand it a second longer. I had to get rid of you,’ he says, and Ettore chuckles.
‘Well, thank you, Pino,’ he says, and Pino gives him a slight shove that nearly knocks him off balance.
‘Stop thanking me for something you would do for me, just the same. In fact, just stop thanking me. It makes me nervous. So, how is it there? Is your aunt still living like a queen?’
‘Yes. It’s… incredible. It’s like she can’t see what’s around her. Like she looks out and still sees New York, and so she lives just as she must have done there.’
‘Maybe not quite as she must have done. Perhaps she doesn’t want to see. After all, what can she do to change it?’
‘Nothing. But she could at least acknowledge it… It insults us all, her deliberate obtuseness. I can’t work out if she’s stupid or just…’ He shrugs.
‘What?’
‘Crazy, I guess.’ He pauses, releases the crutch and stretches out his fingers to ease the ache in the heel of his hand. ‘She’s got her jewels out on display, for anyone to see – gold and diamonds. And there’s a strongbox of money in the wardrobe – more money than you or I have ever seen, Pino! She says my uncle doesn’t trust the bank. So it just sits there. She gave me this from it.’ He takes the folded notes from his waistcoat pocket. ‘Handed it over like she was giving me pocket money. Pino, I think she’s crazy.’
‘Jesus!’ Pino swears, his eyes going wide. ‘Still crazy about you, perhaps. Don’t flash that around, for God’s sake. Someone might carve out your liver for that money.’
‘I know.’
‘Maybe she’s not so crazy. She lives in a house with walls fifteen metres high, surrounded by dogs and guards. Why shouldn’t she wear diamonds? What good would it do us if she hid them away?’
‘She could sell them. Then perhaps Leandro could pay better wages, or hire more of us,’ says Ettore bitterly. ‘All through this harvest he’s sung the same tune as the others, Pino. “I am on the edge of ruin, I am making no money from this harvest, it costs me more to hire you than I will make selling the wheat.” ’ He shakes his head. ‘Yet he sits there with enough cash to buy Gioia and everyone in it. And Marcie said he still has money in New York – business interests. I suppose his sons are working for him there.’