A Winter's Night by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

Author:Valerio Massimo Manfredi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions
Published: 2012-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

That winter, Fonso was invited to tell his stories at a number of different farms, some of them quite far from the town, but none so far that he couldn’t get there on foot. He was happy to go: first of all, because he liked having an audience who were enchanted by listening to his tales, and then because they always gave him something, especially food, wine and wood for the fire, and in those times that was a lot. Some gave him a salame, others a plucked rooster, and others a big oak or elm log to burn in the fireplace. The most generous offered him his choice; they’d say: “Fonso, any trunk that you can manage to hoist to your shoulders and carry home is yours.” This was said with a sly smile, as if to say let’s see if your shoulders are as good as your tongue. And when Fonso had finished telling his story and everyone said goodnight and went to bed, he went out into the courtyard in the moonlight and picked up the biggest trunk he could carry on his back and away he would go, trudging through the snow for as far as a kilometer. Every so often he’d lean one end on the ground, so he could rest a bit, then he’d ease himself under the trunk again until he had it solidly on his shoulders, straighten up and go on.

But he’d go to the Bruni house for nothing, because there was another, greater reward waiting there. He was crazy in love with Maria. And that year, more people had shown up seeking lodging than ever before. There was one fellow who claimed that he’d been part of the band of Adani and Caprari, the two famous bandits who, in the saddles of their Frera motorcycles like knights errant, robbed the rich to give to the poor. He’d worked with them as a highway robber for four years before his two bosses were brought down in a gunfight with sergeant Capponi’s carabinieri in the plains north of Modena. When he’d had a couple of glasses too many, the Brunis could hear him screeching in the middle of the night:

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