The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese

Author:Cesare Pavese [Pavese, Cesare]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241370551
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2020-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

XVI

It’s easier to get down to the Belbo from Mora than from Gaminella, because the Gaminella road runs above the river with a sheer drop down into thorns and acacia bushes. On the other side instead there’s a sandy bank with willows and low grassy reeds and airy woods stretching as far as Mora’s fields. On some of the hottest, sultriest days, when Cirino sent me off to prune or make up bundles of willow twigs, I’d tell my pals and we’d meet on the river bank – someone would bring a broken basket, someone else a sack and we’d get naked and fish and play. We ran in the sun on the burning sand. I’d boast about my nickname Eel, and that was when Nicoletto got envious and said he’d tell on me and began to call me bastard. Nicoletto was the son of one of the mistress’s aunts, who spent the winter in Alba. We had stone fights, but I had to be careful not to hurt him in case he started showing his bruises around at the farm. Then there were times when the farmer or the women working out in the fields caught sight of us and I had to be quick to hide my bare body somewhere and turn up a little later in the fields pulling up my trousers. No way I’d escape without a punch in the head and a sharp word from the farmer.

But that was nothing compared with the life Cinto was living now. His father was always on his back, watching him from the vineyard, the two women calling him, cursing him, telling him not to hang around at Piola’s place but bring home some grass, some corncobs, some rabbit skins or manure. They never had anything in that house. No bread to eat. No wine that wasn’t half water. Polenta and chickpeas, and not many chickpeas either. I know what it’s like, what it means to turn the earth and spray the vines under a scorching sun when you’re hungry and thirsty. I remember that vineyard hadn’t been enough for us back in my time, and we didn’t have to share it with the landlord.

Valino didn’t talk to anyone. He dug, pruned, tied up the vines, spat, fixed things; he’d kick his bullock right in the head, chew on his polenta, his eyes checking out the farmyard, he gave orders with his eyes. The women jumped to it, Cinto sneaked off. And come evening, when it was time to sleep, Cinto would be dining on whatever he could find to gnaw at out on the hill and Valino would grab him or grab the women, he grabbed anyone around, at the door or on the ladder up to the barn, and give them a good thrashing with his belt.

The little I heard from Nuto, together with the boy’s drawn face and wary looks when we met and talked on the road, was enough to get an idea what Gaminella must be like these days.

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