The Vendetta Defense (19 page)

Tony had to hurry. He brushed the newspaper off the pony’s back but the sweat held the last page in place.
Madonna!
He scrambled onto the pony’s back anyway and started kicking him to trot, the newspaper saddle flapping around his legs. The pony didn’t budge, hanging his large head low as if in slumber.
“Andiamo!”
Tony called to the pony, who had no name, and a child on the street laughed at the ridiculous spectacle. Tony’s face reddened. He had hoped to be unobtrusive, to blend into the city. He should have known.
Stupido!

Coluzzi’s car drove off down the street, heading toward the river, negotiating the heavy traffic. Tony kicked wildly. The pony took root. The car was getting away, down the street. Tony clucked and snapped the rope halter, but the pony stood still. Coluzzi’s car turned the corner, onto the Via Maggiore. It was getting away!

Tony had to go. He slid off the pony and left it by the roadside, where it fell immediately asleep, and Tony ran off after the car, holding on to his hat. The businesspeople dismissed him as a country bumpkin, and he picked up his pace and kept his head down. The car was long gone. The corner where it had turned lay straight ahead. Tony sprinted for it, and when he reached it, stopped and clung panting to a building. Unfortunately it wasn’t as busy as the main street, and the car was making smooth progress. Tony hurried on, his droopy leather boots soft on the sidewalk. Where was Coluzzi going? Was he going to see Silvana? He had to, didn’t he? Sooner or later?

The car turned another corner, and Tony ran after it, keeping his stride even on the crowded sidewalk. It drove down the street, speeding up when it reached its end and turning again, right this time. Tony lost track of the streets but still ran after it. He was getting lost. His feet began to hurt and the sun beat down on him. He whipped off his hat, too far from the car to worry about being recognized. The automobiles clogging the streets made the city hot, and the smoke they spit from their tailpipes filled Tony’s lungs. Still he kept running.

The car came to an abrupt stop in front of an older building with a painted sign out front. Tony slowed his pace to catch his breath as he saw Angelo Coluzzi and three other Blackshirts spring from the car and run inside. Tony didn’t understand. What could be so urgent inside? Did Silvana work there? Maybe her father owned it? In a minute Tony got his answer.

The Blackshirts burst from the storefront holding a little chemist between them. His white coat was splattered with blood and his head hung low. A woman on the street fled the scene just as Angelo Coluzzi ran from the shop and began punching the unconscious chemist in the face. The chemist’s head popped back with each blow and his spectacles flew to the pavement.

Tony couldn’t believe his eyes and without a second thought ran down the block to help the man. Four against one wasn’t a fair fight; any man could see that. The chemist crumpled to the pavement, and Coluzzi started kicking him in the ribs with his black boots.

“Stop!” Tony shouted, running, but Coluzzi was too far to hear. The fourth Blackshirt ran out of the shop, grabbed Coluzzi, and all of them leaped into the car, which took off.

“Hoodlums!” Tony screamed after them but the car sped down the street. He reached the man’s side and cradled him on the sidewalk. One eye was already swollen shut, fresh blood bubbled from his broken nose, and his cheeks were a pulp that repulsed even Tony, who had birthed breeched calves.

“Sir, wait here while I get you a doctor!” Tony looked frantically around the street, bewildered. A pole for a barbershop. A store with Borsalinos in the window. Offices with signs he couldn’t read. He didn’t even know where he was. How could he find a doctor? “We need a doctor!” he cried out, but the crowd was dispersing.

“No, no, go away,” the chemist said weakly.

Tony assumed the man was delirious. “But surely, you need medical help!”

“No, forget it, go away, bumpkin! It’s none of your business!” The chemist struggled from a stunned Tony’s arms and managed to pull himself onto all fours on the pavement, crawling off like a beaten cur. “Leave me alone, boy!”

“Sir, you need help!” Tony shouted as the chemist labored to his feet and staggered inside his shop, slamming the shattered front door closed behind him. Leaving Tony on the street alone, his hands covered in blood, thinking but a single thought:
Dove parlano tamburi, tacciono le leggi
. Where drums beat, laws are silent.

An hour later it was a dazed Tony who found his way back to his sleeping pony, feeling like an adult, seeing the city around him with grown-up eyes. Life went on as if nobody had been beaten senseless on the street. The sun was low in the sky, the business day winding down, and the traffic clogged the streets. Tony’s world was the farm, and he hadn’t seen what was happening around him, to the land he loved, to his very country. He didn’t understand how Italy had gotten to this point, where thugs ran free. Oddly, even the horrifying scene with the chemist couldn’t chase Silvana from Tony’s thoughts. On the contrary, his attraction to her had grown, for now he was afraid for her safety.

Under his straw hat, Tony kept his eyes trained on the Fascist headquarters. Blackshirts began to leave the office in small groups, walking off to cars and motorcycles, and at the sight of them Tony heard himself growl like a dog. His pony glanced back at the muttering, waking up only briefly. Finally Angelo Coluzzi came out, talking with a fellow Blackshirt, his clothes neatly pressed and his face washed clean of blood. Tony couldn’t hear what they were saying, but his senses told him something had changed. Angelo Coluzzi had the look of a rooster, strutting about. He was a man going to court a woman. Silvana.

Tony’s blood felt hot as Coluzzi walked toward a car that pulled up from the curb and was slapped on the back by his fellow as he went around the front and took the wheel. Tony mounted his pony, who roused. The day’s rest had done him good and Tony wasn’t taking no for an answer, not anymore. He gave a little kick, and the pony trotted on, keeping to the side of the road.

Tony tracked the car with ease, as the traffic was so congested, the horses, carts, and cars making a slow-moving mess. The car threaded its way through the city and to the suburbs, where the cars mixed with farm traffic. Coluzzi honked his car horn, but it was of no interest to the goats, sheep, and chickens that blocked the road. Tony smiled for the first time that afternoon. Even goats had the sense to ignore the Fascists.

The car slowed to a stop, and Tony’s heartbeat quickened. Maybe this was near Silvana’s house, maybe this was her street. The car stopped at a stone house, which was as neat and clean as the others, though humbler. Tony halted the pony, who didn’t need to be told twice. Tony couldn’t read the number in the twilight, but he didn’t have to. If it were Silvana’s house, he would never forget it.

After a minute Coluzzi cut the engine, got out of his car, and rang the doorbell beside an arched door. Neighbors making a
passeggiata
admired the modern automobile and noticed the Blackshirt who emerged from it like a conquering hero. Coluzzi nodded to them as if he knew them, making Tony wonder how long Coluzzi had been coming here. In another minute the front door opened wide.

It was Silvana. Her lovely form appeared in the arch, which made a perfect frame, lighting her from behind. Her waist narrowed above small hips, modestly concealed by the flare of a fancy dress. Her shoulders were narrow, not strong enough for a country girl, but that was a small matter. Silvana wasn’t made to carry water or anything heavy. Tony would do all of that for her, and gladly.

Coluzzi swept off his black hat, bowed slightly from the hip, and made a great show of kissing Silvana’s hand. Tony watched in amazement. How could a man so brutal put on such a fine show? Dog! Cur! Bully! Had Coluzzi deceived her so completely? Could she possibly love him, if she knew? Tony would have to save her from him.

The arched door closed as Silvana took Coluzzi inside. Tony wanted to cry out in protest, but he remained silent. Coluzzi didn’t deserve such a woman, and he could not keep her. Tony wouldn’t let him. He would win Silvana from him, and she would be his, and they would be happy forever after, as in a children’s story. Now was the time for him to begin.

He slid off the pony, which grunted in gratitude, and ignoring the glances of farmers and goats, Tony reached into his pocket to withdraw his prize. It was wrapped in a white handkerchief he had received as a confirmation gift from his parents, and he hoped it wasn’t sacrilegious to put it to such use. He dropped the rope halter, walked quickly across the road, and left the package by the door, so it wouldn’t get stepped on by Coluzzi’s hateful black boot. Then he hurried back to his pony and remounted, imagining Silvana’s surprise when she opened the package the next morning. The image sustained him back through the city and all the way home. And when he arrived home and tried to discuss the Blackshirts with his parents, he was lovingly smacked for worrying them with his disappearance and sent off to bed without any nougat.

The next day, Tony raced to finish all his chores, and then at night, when his parents thought he was asleep, he sneaked out, haltered his pony, and rode out to Mascoli, then through the city and all the way to Silvana’s house beyond. Coluzzi’s car was nowhere in sight, and all the lights were off. Tony, having no handkerchief save the one he had already sacrificed, pulled the new package from his pocket, wrapped this time in a dishtowel he hoped his mother wouldn’t miss. He tiptoed across the road and was about to leave the package when he noticed something.

A small white square sat beside Silvana’s front door, where he had left the gift last night. Tony heard himself gasp. It was his confirmation handkerchief, neatly folded and laundered. He picked up the cloth and held it to his nose. It smelled of soap and water and a hot iron. It was the sweetest thing Tony had ever smelled, sweeter even than basil. He held it to his chest, wanting to cherish it, but thought better of it. If Silvana had left it, she was telling him something. So Tony would tell her something back. Quickly he unwrapped his gift, rewrapped it in the handkerchief, and placed it where he had the night before, in the same spot. Then he hurried back to his pony, climbed on, and they trotted home.

Tony couldn’t sleep the whole night for thinking about it, and the next day he performed all his chores like a man possessed, pleasing his parents, who told him not to bring up the subject of politics again, that a boy could get shot for it, especially when his mind was supposed to be on feeding himself, his animals, and his family. That night Tony traveled to Silvana’s, trotting all the way, and the handkerchief was there, laundered and sweet, as it was the night after that, and the one after that, too. And every night Tony opened the fresh handkerchief and placed inside it the most perfect tomato he had grown that day.

Tony did this for fourteen nights, the same gift every night, until the next shipping of the pigeons, when he loaded his cart for the trip to Mascoli, on the road he knew by now by heart. His brown pony had lost a considerable amount of weight, a condition Tony’s parents mistakenly attributed to worms, and trotted with vigor despite the loaded cart. In fact, the pony had grown so well muscled that Tony climbed up on the cart himself and drove him as gentlemen do. For the trip he wore his finest; a clean white shirt, brown pants with a leather belt, and his best shoes. A fedora had replaced his straw hat, because his father had courted his mother in one, and Tony, being so skinny and little, needed all the help he could get.

Tony and his lively pony trotted up to the clubhouse, but Tony didn’t see Coluzzi’s fine cart and matched horses among the humbler ones that waited outside. Perhaps Tony and his very fit pony had beaten them here. Perhaps Coluzzi and Silvana weren’t coming. Tony felt uneasy as he pulled up and hitched his pony to a rail next to the others. That night all twenty lofts in the combine were at the shipping, and it was the usual state of chaos, the pigeoners being enthusiastic but not well organized. Tony got down from his cart and went inside the tiny clubhouse.

Men and their birds filled the small room of the house, which was owned by one of the members; it had an earthen floor and walls of chipped stucco, and behind was another room with a single bed and a sink. Tony’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, because there was no money in the combine’s treasury for electricity, and he scanned the scene for Coluzzi and Silvana. They were nowhere in sight. One group of men banded flapping birds, another counted lire for entry fees, and a third scribbled the names of the entries on master lists. Where was Coluzzi?

“Tony, we’re ready for you,” the bander shouted over the crowd, and Tony came over.

“Is the D’Amico loft entered?” Tony asked, though he didn’t care. It was a ruse.

The bander skimmed the master lists. A schoolteacher, he wore glasses and was one of the few who could read. “Yes, they are coming.”

Tony nodded. “How about Coluzzi loft?”

“They, too. Now get your birds, boy.”

Tony unloaded his birds, carting his pigeons in cage by cage for banding, barely paying attention. Before a three-hundred-kilometer race he would usually be very nervous, but this time his nerves were for Silvana. It was almost worse knowing she would be here. When would she come? Did she know the tomatoes were for her? And from him? He held the first bird so it didn’t struggle while the man slipped a band on his leg.

They made quick work of banding the others, then Tony loaded them on the big cart to be taken to the release. Outside he kept looking around. All the carts were there, the horses grazing and pawing the earth impatiently, but none were Coluzzi’s. Where were they? If Coluzzi didn’t get here soon he would be disqualified. Almost all the birds were loaded onto the big cart. The drivers were preparing to leave. The sun had almost set. Sundown was the official close of entries, because nobody could see anything in the clubhouse in the dark and the entry fees had a way of getting lost.

Tony stood dismayed as the president of the combine came out of the clubhouse, holding a strongbox with the entry fees. The vice president tucked the master lists under his arm. Now that the hard work was over, the club members laughed and joked, making side bets and having cigarettes and Chianti before the ride back to their homes. Tony felt the weight of disappointment.