Читать книгу The Secret Price of History - Gayle Ridinger - Страница 6

The day dawned on the smells of Bassignana. It was a pungent foggy morning after several days of intense rain. The iron-damp odor of the flood land along the River Po pervaded the five or six streets of two-storey buildings, whose massive wooden doors stood open at this hour and whose muddy courtyards reeked of barn animals.

Goffredo Morelli was unloading wooden cheese molds from a cart in front of his shop. They were for toma rounds, which most people in town ate for dinner at good times and lamented the lack of when the times were bad. He was hurrying, mindful that it was time for his young cheeses to be removed from their forms and over-night liquid; then put back upside down.

But there was also something else in his cart this morning. There was a small pile of rennet in an open gunny sack, the smell of which always affected him in a peculiar way. This morning he would dry and clean the rennet—the stomachs of some young calves—and then slice it into small pieces and put it to soak in some whey and vinegar. Before going to bed tonight, he'd have to filter it; he needed it to curdle his cheese tomorrow. But for now its smell intruded on his thoughts. The smell of life and death. The smell of the slaughter of the young, which tomorrow would be replaced by the smell of young life—the smell of his cheeses! Once Teresa the wet nurse had told him that she smelled like one of his cheeses when she had two little ones of noblewomen attached to her breast.

Absorbed in his draining and turning, Goffredo heard a rumbling through the open shop door. He thought that it was strange that there was thunder and yet no storm clouds. He left his curds and went out into the street, where Enrico, the blacksmith, was unfolding the wooden shutters of his shop.

"Is that thunder or cannons?"

"Cannons, cannons," Enrico said excitedly. "Two young soldiers from our army came to wake me up last night. They had their officer's horse, which needed reshoeing. There's been a terrible battle at Novara between Piedmont and Austria. They said that King Carl Albert's abdicated the throne. Our army's been crushed, there are wounded and dead everywhere, Austrian prisoners nobody knows what to do with, and roaming bands of soldiers without food."

"What was our King thinking?" Goffredo said. "Our army wasn't ready for war. And then the stupid idea of launching an attack in all this rain, in the cold and mud."

"I hear it was the Austrians who attacked, not us." Enrico broke off to address the two farmers guiding their wagon out of the entranceway of the next building. "Hey! The Austrians have done us in. Carl Albert's abdicated!"

There was no immediate reaction. The farmers, in dirty rough shirts and ropes instead of belts around their waists, impassively thumped at their horses' rumps to make them stop. Only when the wagon stood still did they look at Enrico and Goffredo.

"The King did right to give up the throne," said one shortly. "Can't win against the Austrians."

"And now this new king, Victor Emanuel II," Goffredo muttered. "Only 28 years old."

For the rest of the morning, between one cheese turning or salting and another, Goffredo restlessly mulled around the market in the small square surrounding the modest Baroque church that Bassignana called its cathedral; he was anxious to know something more from the townspeople—as agitated today as their hens and cocks on sale.

No one had much concrete news to offer but the amount of hear-say talk was outstanding. Then, towards noon, a bearded town official with a rolled parchment under one arm arrived in the square, preceded by a boy hoisting the white and red silk banner of the House of Savoy.

"In the name of the Royal House of Savoy, I order all his Majesty's subjects to adhere to the following rules. First, all travel in the direction of Casale Monferrato is forbidden until further notice! Second, no aid or refuge is to be given to deserters from the Royal Army of Piedmont and Sardinia!"

Goffredo, who sold his cheese to the official's family, stepped forward as he was re-rolling his edict. "So it's true—officially?"

The official nodded tersely. "The Austrians have broken through our defense line and have Casale under siege."

"Looks like we're God forsaken, doesn't it?" Goffredo's eyes darted around the square, taking in the everyday happenings of a small town in peace time.

"No one knows yet if an armistice's been signed," the official admitted.

"Which means we surrender."

"Something like that."

Someone inadvertently touched the back of his right elbow and Goffredo realized that other men were standing behind him listening.

"There are not just the Austrians to worry about. Listen!" The official, whose name was Valsesia, spoke loudly now, for the benefit of all. "Many of our retreating soldiers have sacked and plundered nearby towns--including Novara, the site of the battle. Those caught are being put up in front of a firing squad—immediate executions in the street."

There was murmuring at this, but before it could grow, the official added, "What matters is that you do as you're told. Nobody is to feed or offer a bed to a runaway soldier."

"The Austrians are worse," broke in the school headmaster. "And it stands to reason that a regiment or two will come through here."

The man who'd touched Goffredo's elbow said into his ear from behind, "And you, cheesemonger? Think the Austrians are going to sack Bassignana?"

Goffredo turned and looked into the other's eyes, big and round and brown—peasant eyes in a round face, like his. He recognized him as kin to the barrel-maker.

"We have everything to lose if they do," he said. "But the King mustn't sign an armistice with Austria. We have to keep fighting, not give up because Novara's lost. Otherwise we'll never gain freedom."

With that, he walked away. Back to the salting…

That night in the room above his shop, Goffredo made himself the sort of supper that took a long time to eat; he purposely wanted to sit in silence at his table and think. He dipped pieces of Jerusalem artichoke and celery into the bagna cauda, the pasty warm sauce of anchovies, garlic, and olive oil, and each piece (so it seemed to him) brought on a new thought. To accompany these reflections, and to buttress their importance, he opened a bottle of Barolo, the red wine that Count Cavour had recently started making, which he'd received as payment for his cheese. Its rich smell told him it was a big wine. Bravo, Cavour. It slipped down his throat, although he knew it was to be drunk slowly.

This excellent wine did its work excellently…

A Piedmontese proverb that his father had liked when he was alive came to mind. Al prim colp l'erbo a casca nen. The first blow doesn't fell the tree.

It'd been his father's way of ending many a political discussion.

How he missed those heated talks. The echo of a sarcastic but nobly intended line or two made Goffredo smile to himself. He might be the illegitimate son of a Turinese noblewoman who'd died in childbirth, but his father, a cheese maker and advocate of republican ideals, had managed to see that he, unlike most of his fellow villagers, had learned to read and write. This was accomplished in spite of constant money problems and his father's participation in numerous hopeless insurrections and consequent months in prison. A desperate life it had been, and soon finished—seven years ago already—from natural causes and not, cruel twist of fate, with the heroic death in battle that he'd so desired.

Goffredo still had a treatise or two on political revolution that had proudly belonged to Antonio Morelli—concealed so well under a shelf of cheese that no military search party had ever found them. The one he loved best was Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right.

He raised his glass in tribute to Papà. "I know," he murmured—would his father hear him—"the first blow doesn't fell the tree….but at last we've made that first blow."

What a time to be alive. He poured himself some more ruby-red wine. There were so many events, hopes and disillusionments! After the death of Napoleon, the emperors, kings, and dukes of the great powers of Europe had sat round a banquet table—they with their wine, too—in Vienna during the winter of 1815 and set back the hands of history to 1789, setting up all the old hierarchies again, as if democracy or national unity or citizens' rights had never existed. Every so often there'd been a revolt of the kind his father'd been brave enough to support, and secret societies had been founded too, but for the most part the ideals of the French Revolution left behind by Napoleon's army lay dormant for more than thirty years. Only last year—last year!—had full-scale revolution come to a head. People in the major cities of Europe had risen up against the authoritarian regimes imposed on them. The year 1848, a great vintage as popular revolts go. And it was gone now.

"To the French Revolution." Goffredo raised his glass.

They had all hoped briefly in the King of Piedmont and Sardinia this year, with his vision of a united Italy under the Savoy flag. Italy for Italians! But when rich and mighty Milan over in nearby Lombardy had managed to overthrow Austrian rule after a five-day revolt by its citizens and Carl Albert of Savoy had launched an assault on the retreating Austrian army, he had suddenly lost his nerve and let them go.

Dear God, why hadn't it lasted?

When did one know if something was hopeless—what decided it? He felt the knife of his love for his father. Had he—and the men he'd bragged of with ardour and affection—made those sacrifices for nothing?

From the street came the sound of one and then another massive entrance door being pulled shut and bolted. Also, the swinging sound of the shutters on the next house. The people of Bassignana were bracing for the arrival of the Austrians. And what was going on in his own house? From the stairway connecting to the shop below, he heard footsteps taking the creaking floor plank just inside the rear door to the courtyard. Then a cheese form slid on a shelf, wood scraping over wood.

The Austrians? But the footsteps indicated one sole intruder.

One of our deserters, he decided.

He seized the hay fork from its hook at the top of the stairwell. He'd make the traitor pay both for stealing his cheese and losing the battle. Charging down the steps, he found himself barrelling into a crouching figure. A young man's frightened face stared up at him. His cheeks were bulging with cheese. He was wearing the dirty white uniform of an Austrian Army officer.

Goffredo thrust the hay fork under the other's chin, against his chest. The Austrian chewed faster. Goffredo pushed on the fork again. The Austrian chewed and swallowed even more avidly.

The huddled-over stranger-thief had narrow blue eyes with a doggedly friendly look to them, and he was beardless like himself. With his bird's-eye view of the man's crown, Goffredo could tell that if his blond hair were combed back into place, instead of hanging wildly in his face as it did now, it would reveal a high handsome forehead. With a yank of his head, Goffredo indicated that he should stand. It was dawning on him that if the man were really an Austrian deserter he wasn't exactly an enemy.

The prongs of the hay fork accompanied the man's chest—partially bare where the gold buttons had come off—as he rose to his full height. Taller than me, damn it, thought Goffredo. The officer was armed, too—the silver-plated pistol shown in its under-arm holster and there was naturally his sword to contend with.

Was the hay fork going to be enough?

As if he could read his thoughts, the other man unbuckled his holster and sheath and placed them on the floor. Then he spoke.

Goffredo couldn't believe his ears.

"Cheese good," he had said in Italian.

Sandor Kemenj was from a wealthy Hungarian family and spoke four languages well. Italian, however, was not one of these four. He thought it best to introduce himself and tell of his intentions in French or English (certainly not German, the language of Austria), but before he could utter another word, the noise of clomping horses made both men glance towards the shuttered windows.

"You me hide," Kemenj coaxed in more of his broken Italian. "Austria no good." That was an Austrian light-cavalry patrol out in the street. "Tomorrow, go," he added pointing at his own chest.

The reaction of the cheese-maker, whose expression Sandor still couldn't interpret, was impressively swift and nothing less than miraculous: he opened a low trap door under the stairs and threw Sandor's pistol and sword inside.

"Get in there, then."

Sandor dived into a dark closet with ageing cheeses, which smelled so ripe and strong on their shelves that he could hardly breathe. With his instilled self-discipline, one of the few achievements of his five years of outpost assignments in some of the poorest and muddiest parts of the Empire, he concentrated on drawing each next breath without coughing or gagging, so as not to give himself away. He didn't understand or have time to understand the miracle of why the cheese maker was hiding him; he just listened. Now came the banging on the shop shutters. Then the screeching metal hinges as the cheese-maker pulled the shutters open and unlocked the door. Three Austrians, an officer and two foot soldiers, he reckoned from the voices, stomped into the shop, making arrogant and angry comments that the cheese maker couldn't understand.

Goffredo's hands, dangling at his sides, closed repeatedly into fists, when the Austrians started touching and poking at his young cheeses on the table by the whey vat. Abruptly the officer asked in Italian if he'd seen an Austrian deserter in officer dress like his.

"No," Goffredo answered. He couldn't abide the idea of Austrian soldiers galloping through Piedmont as if they owned it. The man he was hiding was running from them. That man was doing the right thing. There was a good reason for not giving them that man—revenge.

"Vino? Vino?" the officer demanded.

Goffredo responded that he didn't have any wine.

The officer looked him in the eye and said something to the effect that he was a liar. Then he pointed at his mouth; the sense was that he could smell the wine on Goffredo's breath. The row of small toma cheeses fell under his gaze, and he indicated to one of his men to snatch them up. On their way out, the officer snarled something else; presumably that they would come back. Goffredo closed and bolted the shutters behind them.

It was dead quiet in the shop. He could almost believe himself to be alone. Time to liberate—what to call him?—his guest? It was very late now. He supposed that his Austrian deserter was probably still hungry…and thirsty.

When the closet door opened, Sandor emerged from the cheeses with Goffredo's inherited copy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right in hand and a grin on his face.

"Rousseau!" he exclaimed, adding something enthusiastic in French, then in German, then interrupting himself and apologizing ("Excusez-moi!") for that tactless choice, finishing in yet another language Goffredo couldn't fathom in the least, but he was very glad that he liked Rousseau so much. He just wondered why he had deserted the Austrian army, or for that matter, joined it in the first place.

"You come with me," he said, imitating the act of eating. He led the way up the stairs.

Sandor sat at the table in the chair the cheesemaker wanted him to use. It was a chair with arms and padding; it was the best chair in the small room.

"Austrians win," he said.

"And you deserted after having won?" Goffredo set another opened bottle of red wine on the table.

"Me Hungary. Forced to Austria Army." Sandor bit into another piece of cheese; he wanted to express much more but couldn't. He had loved Rousseau and his grand notion of a General Will, and yet as an Austrian officer he had had to put down revolts by starving peasants fighting not for political rights but for a crust of bread. Up to now, his only consolation for such a humiliating fate had been that when the Hungarian national hero, Lajos Kossuth, would finally be in a position to call for an army to fight for Hungarian freedom from Austria, he would be ready to make an immediate contribution to the cause.

"Hungry, eh?" said Goffredo, watching him chew. He pushed the bottle closer to the other's elbow. "Try this."

Sandor drank a long sip of wine. Then he gazed at Goffredo thoughtfully. "Warm." He drew circles in the air with both arms, to signify well-being.

"Where do you want to go?" Goffredo asked.

"Rome." His narrow blue eyes smouldered with intensity.

Goffredo gave a guffaw. "Why?"

"All hope dead. Only Rome and Venice have government liberty."

"You Austrians are the ones that took that freedom away."

"No, me Hungary! Me Budapest! Grand river there, like here. Same river, but different people."

"What's the name of your river?"

"Dunai."

"Our river's the Po."

"Rome also, river."

"And so?"

"I go Rome," said Sandor.

"But how can the Romans hope to defend the city? Besides, there's the Pope."

"No. New Pope escape Rome after revolt. Liberty at Rome now. At Rome is Garibaldi."

"Garibaldi's in Rome?"

"Also Mazzini. They want volunteers."

"Mazzini wants volunteers! I've read things that he's written about founding a republic…" Goffredo's voice trailed off.

Sandor waited with a light-hearted patience that he hadn't felt in a long time. He liked this Italian. He liked being here. He had been given a chance to hang his old life up in the wardrobe and choose a new one. Yesterday, a bored commissioned officer in God-forsaken places, today a deserter from the Austrian Army, and tomorrow? In the past he'd managed to accept the contradictions of his condition, but now he felt motivated, and GLAD, GLAD, GLAD.

His cheesemaker was mumbling something:

"A s'sa duv'a a s'nas ma a s'sa pa 'nduv a s'meuir."

"Comment?" he asked, puzzled, in French.

"It means 'you know where you were born but not where you'll die'."

"My name Sandor." He paused for effect. "I born Budapest. I die Rome?"

"My name Goffredo. I born Bassignana. I die Rome with you?"

Their eyes locked. Then they broke into laughter and toasted with wine.

Before they went to bed for the night, Goffredo gave Sandor a set of peasant clothes and burned his officer's uniform in the fireplace. In the morning after breakfast, he brought out his father's shoes. Fortunately they fit, because the Austrian-issue boots would have been a sure give-away. Then he went down into his cellar and returned with strange hay-encrusted balls about the size of large stones.

"Kill Austrians?" asked Sandor in high-spirits.

"No, it's cheese you eat, sarass del fen!" Goffredo knew the Hungarian wouldn't understand that in standard Italian this meant 'ricotta under hay' so he didn't even try to explain. "Cheese!" he repeated merrily. "Soldiers who come to look and steal don't find it." A sarass del fen looked like a wad of hay, not something to eat.

"Here, catch!" he added, throwing one to Sandor and, freed of more than one weight, feeling in the best of spirits himself.

This was food that kept for a long time. This was food for long journeys.

Like theirs to Rome.