‘A rich man has a different idea of what being poor is than those of us who are really poor.’
‘But this is Uncle Leandro, Pino! He knows!’
‘He knows, but he’s a rich man now, Ettore. It changes a man. Perhaps we would be the same if we became rich.’
‘No. Never. I could never forget, as he has forgotten, where I came from and what I have seen. Or how it feels to eat nothing for four days in a row…’
‘Calm down, Ettore!’ Pino smiles. ‘What should he do, give away all his money and be poor again himself? What would that accomplish?’
‘Perhaps he would get his soul back.’
‘Are you a man of God, now?’ says Pino, and Ettore smiles sheepishly. ‘One step at a time, and don’t walk uphill unless you have to. Today, you have money. Today, those you love will eat. Be pleased about that.’
‘Take this,’ says Ettore, thumbing two notes from the roll and handing them to Pino.
‘No, you keep it. You have more mouths to feed.’
‘I have more than enough. Take it for you and Luna, and don’t argue.’
‘Thank you, Ettore,’ says Pino humbly.
‘Don’t thank me for something you would do for me, just the same,’ says Ettore.
Just then shots are fired, cracking across the sky and along the alleyway to the two men; they crouch down immediately, covering their heads with the instinct of old soldiers, and in the silence afterwards they look back the way they’ve come as if they might see the bullets, or the enemy. Ettore sees his own instinctive fear mirrored in Pino’s eyes. We’re not soldiers, he thinks. We never were. We wanted to be farmers.
‘It’s starting,’ says Pino. Ettore stands up, grabs his crutch and sets off down the alley.
‘It started a long time ago. Come on, move!’ Behind them more shots are fired, in quick succession, like a fistful of gravel thrown hard against glass. There are shouts, a rising roar of voices and pounding feet, coming closer. Ettore and Pino rush further into the tangle of alleys, and then into the dead end of the tiny courtyard where Ettore lives.
‘I should go home. Luna is alone,’ says Pino, breathless.
‘Yes, go! I’ll see you afterwards, before I go back,’ says Ettore. Pino claps him on the shoulder and then jogs away down the alley.
Ettore struggles up the steps to his own door, bursts through it and pulls up short. The tip of a blade hovers a hair’s breadth from his throat; he blinks in the darkness and sees his sister’s eyes boring into his.
‘Paola!’ he says, in a strangled voice, and with the rushed release of a pent-up breath Paola lowers the knife, her shoulders sagging.
‘Madonna! I almost cut your throat, Ettore!’ she says, putting her spare hand over her eyes.
‘I noticed.’
‘I heard the shots – I thought you were a looter! Or one of those blackshirt bastards.’ She hugs him briefly, not letting go of the knife, and Ettore feels the hardness of her bones beneath her clothes. She smells sharp with anxiety and baby sick.
‘Is Iacopo well? Are you?’
‘Yes, he’s fine. He threw up all over me this morning, but then he laughed about it.’ She shrugs, her eyes going automatically to the wooden box where her son sleeps. Ettore looks around his home. After the light and space of the masseria, it’s like a hole in the ground. In the darkness across the room, on his habitual stone shelf, Valerio coughs weakly.
‘And our father?’ says Ettore quietly. Paola shrugs again, her face pinched with worry.
‘Weaker and weaker. He hardly eats, not that there has been much to give him. He has a fever, I think. Just slightly, but for several days now.’
‘You two, stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here,’ Valerio grumbles. Ettore goes to stand over him, and Valerio looks up blearily. There’s grey stubble in the cavernous hollows of his cheeks, brown rings around his eyes.
‘Should I fetch the doctor to see you, Father? I have money – from Uncle Leandro.’
‘Him!’ Valerio’s eyes blaze. ‘He gives us charity now, that arrogant son of a bitch?’ The effort of anger makes him cough again.
‘I worked for it. Well, for some of it,’ says Ettore. ‘So, shall I fetch the doctor?’
‘What’s the point? He’ll do nothing but send you to his brother to buy drugs that don’t work. Leave me in peace, if you want to do something for me. Or better still, go and buy me some wine with that money of his. But I know you won’t do me that kindness, will you?’ Valerio stares listlessly into the shadows. His breathing is a shallow whistle that barely moves his ribs. Ettore grits his teeth.
‘You’ll just give up and die then, will you? When I am away from home, and there’s no one to help your only daughter and your grandson, no one to earn money to feed them? No one to protect them?’ he says. Valerio’s gaze goes to Paola, who stands with the knife still gripped in her fist.
‘My daughter has always done better for herself than I could ever do for her,’ he whispers, and though there’s pride in the words, there’s self-pity too. With a sigh, Valerio shuts his eyes.
Paola flinches a little, and says nothing for a while. She puts the knife down at last, goes to Iacopo and touches his cheek.
‘You have money, you said?’ she says.
‘Yes, plenty. I-’ Ettore breaks off at the sound of a shot close at hand, and running feet. There’s an angry shout, and the wrenching of a door against its hinges.
‘They’re close!’ Paola hisses. She rushes to the door and peers out through a crack in the wood.
‘Should I go? Would you be safer?’ Ettore’s heart thumps hard in his chest, in fear, in anger.
‘Perhaps… perhaps.’ Paola turns to him and her face is the same as his – full of fear and fury. ‘You picked a ripe time to come home, Ettore! If they come in here I will cut their throats, by God I will!’
‘No, Paola! Not unless you have to. Not unless it’s you or them, or they’ll kill you for sure. I’ll go – I’m going.’
‘You mustn’t be out on the streets! Go down to the stable and hide there. Go, go! Be quick. And don’t be tempted to come out and fight. Promise me! They’ll shoot you as soon as look at you.’
‘Who are these men?’ says Ettore, as he reaches for the door.
‘Who they’ve always been, brother, and they want what they’ve always wanted – to trample us, because they hate us. Now go.’
Ettore rushes into their neighbour’s stable, below the room he and Paola live in, and pulls the rickety gates shut behind. The reek of ammonia is almost too much to breathe. The bony nanny goat who lives there eyes him, turning her head this way and that on her stiff neck, weaving anxiously. Her eyes are alien and without sympathy, and she bleats low in her throat, coming towards him in case he has food. Ettore crouches down, looking out through the split planks of the doors. For a few minutes nothing happens. His breathing returns to normal, the goat nibbles at his shirt, and he feels foolish. Then a knot of men, six or seven of them, march into the little courtyard with orderly purpose; led by a man who has twin ammunition belts criss-crossing his chest, a pistol on each hip, and a silver badge in the shape of an axe in a bundle of sticks at the throat of his shirt. There’s something familiar about him, his black curling hair and soft outline, but viewed through a crack and from the side, Ettore can’t place him. Not until he raises his fist to halt the men behind him and turns to go up the stairs, and Ettore sees his handsome face marred by a cleft palate and an expression of ugly excitement. Federico Manzo; Ludo’s son, and Leandro’s servant. Sudden rage grips Ettore; he feels it squeezing him, crushing out the breath and the thought and the reason. His fingers curl around the edge of the door and only at the last instant does he stop himself pulling it open and rushing out to confront the man. He forces himself to remain still; it takes every bit of his will.