Snow, Dog, Foot by Claudio Morandini

Author:Claudio Morandini
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Peirene Press
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

9

‘Melt, melt,’ Adelmo Farandola implores, standing by the window, because as of yesterday there’s no more food.

‘Melt, melt,’ the dog whines, remembering Adelmo Farandola’s old intention of eating him.

With two mouths to feed instead of one, the food supplies have run out early. In spite of rationing, the bread, cheese and sausages ran out days ago. The potatoes, apples, dried meat, rotten meat, bones and skin are gone too.

‘What do we do now?’ asks the dog anxiously.

‘We wait,’ says Adelmo Farandola, who can see nothing beyond the glass but the usual wall of gloomy azure snow.

The dog decides not to mention the lack of food for now. He doesn’t want to encourage the old man’s imagination.

‘Are you hungry?’ the man asks, trying to make conversation.

‘No, no, not at all!’ the dog says with a yawn, as though this were was just idle chat. But they are both kept awake at night by the groans coming from their empty stomachs, which move and contract as if they wanted to come up out of their mouths to go looking for food themselves.

Two days without eating, then three. There’s no shortage of water, all they have to do is open the door and collect some snow in a saucepan and melt it over the stove. But soon Adelmo Farandola is hunting for crumbs with his nose on the ground.

‘Um, have you lost something?’ asks the dog.

‘Crumbs.’

‘Oh, right. I’m afraid I’ve already mopped them up,’ says the dog. ‘If I’d known I would have left you some.’

They search the corners of the cabin and then the stable, several times. Every tiny fragment of food is intercepted and eaten. Adelmo Farandola licks the inside of the polenta pan, which still holds a trace of the accumulated grease of many years, an aroma – or at least the nostalgia for an aroma.

They are forced to go to bed earlier than before, because in their sleep they can escape their gnawing hunger; but even in their dreams they are haunted by an inhuman craving, eternally delayed meals and the tortures of Tantalus.

Adelmo Farandola gets up several times a day, crosses from the bed to the window, checks the level of the snow and goes back to bed without saying a word. Even the dog has lost the will to speak. He stays curled up and heaves sighs of protest.

‘Stop that!’ the old man bursts out at last.

‘What was I doing?’

‘Complaining.’

‘No, I wasn’t. Although I’d have every reason to. First you invite me to stay, then you find out you don’t have enough food for two. You’re an idiot.’

‘If I catch you, I’m cooking you.’

The dog snorts and doesn’t move. He knows that by now the man is too weak.

A few more days pass. Exhausted, the man and the dog stare at each other from their respective corners. Whoever survives will eat the other one and will have enough to keep going until the thaw. But the thought of ending up as food keeps them both alive. I won’t give you the satisfaction, they both think.

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