Once in Europa by John Berger

Author:John Berger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

When the woodcutters came to wash that evening, Danielle took Pasquale aside and said: I must talk to you.

Next Sunday, he said.

No! she insisted. Now! I can’t stay another day if I don’t talk to someone.

Pasquale went over to the trough and conferred with Father. She heard them speaking in Italian. Within five minutes Father was chivying the others to get a move on. The ritual of combing their hair one by one before the broken bit of mirror was renounced. They picked up their sacks, said good-bye, and with the slow list of their habitual fatigue, made their way to the car. Alberto the Sicilian got into the driver’s seat.

Pasquale stayed behind and started shaving in front of the broken mirror.

You can’t see a thing, Danielle said. Why do you have to shave now?

It’s the first time you’ve asked me to supper.

Supper, it’s only soup!

She began to sob silently. At first, peering into the mirror in which he could see nothing, Pasquale did not notice. It was her immobility which finally made him look up in her direction. He saw her shoulders trembling.

Shhh, he said, ssshhh. He walked her towards the chalet. A goose followed them. The door was open. Inside he stopped because it was pitch-dark and he could see nothing. She led him by the hand to a chair pulled up by the table, then she sat down herself on the chair opposite. She thought neither of lighting the lamp nor of heating the soup.

Something happened this afternoon, she said.

What?

In the pitch darkness, her hands placed on the table, she told him, quietly and slowly. She even told him about the crocuses. When she had finished there was silence. They heard a cow pissing in the stable, separated from the kitchen by a wall of pine boards.

Why should an old man talk to the mountains like that? she whispered.

Danielle, said Pasquale, speaking very slowly and weighing each word, it was not to the mountains the old man was shouting, it was not to the mountains he was offering himself part by part, it was to you and you know that, you know that, don’t you?

She began to sob again and the sobs became howls. She stood up to take in breath and to howl louder. Pasquale felt his way round the table and took her in his arms. She pressed her face as hard as she could against his chest. She bit his shirt which tasted of resin and sweat. She bit a hole in it.

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