Marcus of Umbria by Justine van der Leun

Author:Justine van der Leun [Justine van der Leun]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781605299600
Publisher: Rodale
Published: 2010-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

9

GIUSTINA, WE DON’T EAT FOR HUNGER!

—FABIO CRUCIANI

IN COLLELUNGO, EVERYTHING WAS FERTILE, and all animals and humans seemed to be perpetually reproducing. The townspeople procreated profusely, or maybe it was just that there were so few of them that it seemed that someone was always pregnant. The idea of having a child was practically sacred, so inherent was it to happiness.

“I should get Marcus sterilized,” I once remarked absently at the dinner table.

“Sterilized?” asked Ettore. “She’s a beautiful dog. We must mate her.”

“We could make a lot of money,” Emanuele said. “You could sell pointer puppies to all the hunters around.”

“You cannot sterilize a dog,” Fabio said, his eyes pained. “She will become hysterical.”

Marcus lay in her favorite sun spot in the front garden. Her front paws were crossed, giving her the look of a proper lady.

“Hysterical?” I asked.

“Hysterical pregnancy,” Fabio said. “She will so desire babies that she will imagine that she has had them. She will spend all day searching for these imagined babies until she goes insane.”

“Dio mio,” I said. “Are you sure?”

Fabio nodded with conviction.

“She’ll produce milk, too,” Ettore said.

“You are making this up,” I said.

“More important,” said Fabio, “your dog must make love to have a full life.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “You people were about to let this dog die.”

“If she has a poopy, she will be happy,” Emanuele said to me in stilted English, as if to better explain.

“It’s important that you pronounce it puppy,” I said.

“Eh, beh,” Fabio said. “We used to have a dog who would run off whenever she was in heat, run to a dog down the road, and we wouldn’t see her for days. One day, my father found her in a field of flowers, making love with another dog for hours, a smile on her face. Un cane deve fare l’amore.”

“Un cane deve fare l’amore,” the others echoed.

“How can you deny her the chance to make love?” said Fabio.

“Every creature deserves the pleasure,” Serenella said.

“A female dog must be allowed to have babies,” Alessandra said.

“What did you do with all the puppies?” I asked.

“We gave them away, mostly,” Ettore said. “But once in a while, if we couldn’t find them a place, I just suffocated them in the woods as they were born.”

“It was a shame,” Fabio said, looking sincerely depressed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.