A Winter's Night by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, Christine Feddersen-Manfredi Read Free Book Online

power of the machines, which to their eyes looked like fairy tale monsters. Especially the baler, with its big toothy shears which moved up and down at an incessant rate; they called that one the “ass” because its shape reminded them of a donkey’s head.
    When it was time for the midday break, the foreman slackened the transmission belt and the whole mechanism was shut down, except for the steam engine. The men went to sit somewhere in the shade, under an elm or a fig tree, and pulled out whatever food they had brought with them. The luckier ones were met by their wives, who brought them little pots of pasta. The poorest ones ate bread and onions and that paltry meal would have to suffice for them to continue that exhausting job until dusk, when the foreman would signal the end of the workday.
    But the Brunis were generous folk and old Callisto had had the women cook up three or four cockerels
alla cacciatora
, swimming in sauce, that made your mouth water just to look at them, along with an ovenful of fresh bread. It was a great satisfaction for him to see the surprise in the eyes of the workers at the sight of all that bounty. As the men ate, the gleaners went to work, each one with a sack in hand, picking up the ears left behind by the thresher or fallen from the wagons carrying the sheaves.
    Clerice always took care that the permission to glean was only given to those who really needed it: the wives of men who were unemployed, or of drunkards who were only good at getting them pregnant. Clerice would always think of the women and, more than to Almighty God, she’d pray to the Madonna, because Our Lady had worried and suffered and she had lost a son and she knew what it meant. Clerice knew what a hard lot women had in life and—as honest and religious as she was—when she heard talk about this woman or that one on the bottom of some dry canal at the hour of the noontide demon wrapped around some worker or day laborer, she’d say: good for her, at least she’s enjoying something.
    That day, Iofa sent an errand boy to take a message to Floti: he’d be waiting for him that evening at dusk at the Osteria della Bassa. Specifying, strangely enough, that he should come by bicycle.
    Floti got there right at the moment in which the sun was disappearing behind the tops of the cherry trees, his curly hair still full of chaff, and went to sit down with Iofa, who had ordered a quarter liter of white.
    â€œWhat’s new?” Floti asked.
    â€œYou haven’t heard what happened?”
    â€œWhat should I have heard?”
    â€œA student has murdered the heir to the throne of Austria.”
    â€œSo? What difference does it make to us?”
    â€œI say it’s a very bad sign. The kind of thing that sets off wars. It’s always students who make trouble.”
    â€œYou made me come all the way here to tell me this?”
    â€œWell there’s something more . . . ” Iofa said with a mysterious air as he poured himself a glass of wine.
    â€œI’m listening.”
    â€œDid you come on foot or by bicycle?”
    â€œOn my bicycle, since I heard you were in a hurry.”
    â€œI’ve got mine as well. Want to come with me?”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œPra’ dei Monti.”
    â€œOhh, not this stuff again.”
    â€œAre you coming or aren’t you?”
    â€œAll right, I’ll come, but let’s make it quick because it’s already getting dark.”
    They pedaled one after the other along the creek until they got there. Four little hills in the middle of a meadow that hadn’t been cultivated in decades.
    â€œIf you start talking about this damned goat I’m going back now.”
    â€œI don’t want to talk about anything. I just have to show you something.”
    He started walking up the first and highest hill and Floti followed him up to its top. The place was completely deserted and even though Floti didn’t believe