Gaudenzia, Pride of the Palio Read online

  The boy’s heart seemed to stop altogether, then hammered wildly against his chest. Speechless, he waited for more.

  “Yes,” the man was saying, “I propose that you ride for me in the little races in the provinces.”

  Giorgio felt suddenly as if he had been dropped into a well. “Wh-wh-where?” he stammered, hoping he had misunderstood.

  “In the nearby small towns—in Asciano, in Montalcino, in Poggibonsi, and others. You can continue to work on your father’s farm, and come away only on festival days. And you will not need to bother with special racing costume.”

  Signor Ramalli came forward, and now he too began ruffling Pippa’s mane. “Does it not please you?” he asked.

  Giorgio blushed, trying to hide his disappointment. In his mind he could hear his father saying, “All in one day Rome was not built! Time it takes to build a city; and time, too, to build a man.”

  Everything was quiet, except for Pippa’s teeth grinding the grain to a mealy mush.

  At last Giorgio nodded soberly and replied in a voice he hardly knew as his own. “Grazie, Signor Ramalli, I will ride for you.”

  Across the donkey’s back man and boy shook hands.

  “In Siena,” Signor Ramalli smiled, “each contrada has ‘protectors.’ Do you know what they are, my boy?” He waited for an answer, but when none came he went on. “A protector is a person who believes in the people of a certain contrada and does all he can to help them; he offers friendship, advice, and money, too. It is a kind of kinship.”

  “I understand.”

  “It is my wish now to be protector to the little runt of Monticello!” He smiled again, and the term from his lips took on a note of affection. “In you,” he said with a final warm handclasp, “I have great faith.”

  That night in bed Giorgio lay awake a long time, thrashing out his disappointment. To race in the little festivals was not what he had hoped for; but perhaps—he tried to comfort himself—perhaps it was a beginning.

  Chapter VII

  BRING OUT THE SATCHEL!

  Giorgio’s disappointment vanished with his first race. In the company of a strong, willing horse how could he be anything but sublimely happy? Compared to the lesser creatures he raced against, the entries he rode for Signor Ramalli were always in top condition, sleek and fit. And so, nearly always he won.

  The entire family basked in Giorgio’s good fortune. He brought home trinkets and treats from hilltown and valley. From Asciano one evening he burst into the kitchen with an armful of surprises for everyone—a singing canary for Teria, three goldfish for Emilio, a brooch for his mother, and a pouch of tobacco for his father; even a mouse toy for Mom-cat and her kittens. For himself he had bought a shiny new flute with extra stops.

  Later that evening, with the younger children in bed and the supper dishes done, the mother turned to Giorgio. “Now then,” she spoke in delighted anticipation, “stop playing your flute, close the light, and come tell to Babbo and me how you won at Asciano. In the dark,” she added, “our mind goes to the place and we live better those moments with you. Besides, it saves the electricity.”

  White moonlight flooded the room. It silhouetted the father, comfortable on the couch, head leaning against the wall, pipe jutting out in sharp profile. Now and then it belched a little shower of sparks.

  “I did not win today,” Giorgio announced.

  If he had flung a stick of dynamite into the room, the effect could not have been greater.

  “No! Oh no!” the mother cried in dismay. “Where then came the money for birds and brooches and fish? Where? Where!”

  The father jerked bolt upright. His mouth fell open, and the pipe clattered to the floor. “How can this be?” he demanded. “Explain yourself, boy!”

  Giorgio deliberately lifted his flute and tootled a string of giddy notes to the faraway mountains. Then he laid it down. “I did not win,” he said simply. “My horse won. I was passenger only.”

  “Bravo! Bravo!” The father laughed in relief. “Of you I am proud. Man should not pump himself up when the victory is not his own.”

  From his first days of racing, Giorgio felt himself a man. He changed from short pants to long. He had his hair cut oftener and kept it slicked back to discourage the waviness. He walked more erect, trying to make himself taller.

  All summer long he was excused from farmwork whenever a race was held nearby. Signor Ramalli himself seldom attended, but when he did, he was accompanied by little Anna. The two of them shouted and cheered so lustily that it seemed to Giorgio his horse sailed in on the sound waves of their voices.

  Summer spent itself. The time of harvest came again to the Maremma. And afterward the wind blew cold and the autumn rains sluiced down the mountains, making rivers of the little streams. Giorgio and his father no longer went to the farm, and for now, racing days were over and done with.

  To help out the family, Giorgio went to work for the town cobbler. It was interesting at first to learn to use a lapstone and awl, and it was fun to sew with a pig’s whisker, driving it like a dagger in and out of the leather. As he worked, he made believe that the tap-tap of the cobbler’s hammer was the tattoo of horses’ hoofs.

  In a few days, however, the newness wore off. Then the tiny shop became a prison. It closed in on him, choking off his breath. The tap-tap never varied from trot to gallop to walk. It was deadly monotonous, always the same—tap-tap-tap-tap—until some days his head was fit to burst. As the door and then the single window had to be closed against the increasing cold, the pungent smells of turpentine and benzine and neatsfoot oil were almost more than he could bear. All these, mixed with the perspiration of feet and the garlic of the cobbler’s breath, made a stench that lingered in Giorgio’s nostrils long after he reached home.

  As if this were not torment enough, he often made mistakes at his bench—riling a heel unevenly so the wearer walked quite unbalanced and raised a storm of protest; or hammering nails so they protruded inside the sole and gave no end of discomfort. For these blunders, he sometimes had to forfeit most of his meager pay.

  But at last the winter days dragged to a close, and all at once spring came in with a rush and a flood. Melting snows bubbled and boiled down the mountainsides. Fruit trees exploded in white popcorn buds. Birds gathered up more straws than their beaks could hold.

  Giorgio felt like a bird, too, a bird suddenly released from its cage. Once again he and his father were out in the fields. Each worked with a zest to his own goal, the father to win the land, the boy to harden his muscles, to increase his wind power. They ate with the same spirit and gusto, opening the lunch bag as if it held the secret to more power and strength.

  “We stoke and stoke to make the hotter fire! Not so, Giorgio?” Babbo asked every noon. And they laughed as their hands broke open the crisp loaf of bread and their hard white teeth bit into it and then into a chunk of wild boar sausage. Noisily they chewed them both together so that the deliciousness of one brought out the deliciousness of the other. Some days there was a good thick pea soup as a surprise. Then they sang a rollicking blessing after instead of before their meal.

  “We bellow out so deep from the soul,” the father chuckled, “that God in His heaven can hear without even pushing aside the clouds. Eh, son?” And they both roared in laughter.

  Afterward they lay down on the earth and snored like tired animals.

  Plowing. Harrowing. Seeding. No task too big, none too small. And always in the twilight hours Giorgio’s feet unerringly took him around to the horse barn. Some inner need urged him, drove him, compelled him to gallop into the sunset as regularly as he ate or slept. Was it a need to flaunt his freedom from earth and cobbler’s shop? Or to give the horses a taste of Paradise before they went to the butcher’s block? He did not know. He knew only that at day’s end when he was sweaty, dirt-creased, and limp, he found joy in thundering across the swales as if in the next moment he and his horse could float over the mountain and into the sky.

  The seasons
wore on. The festivals came again, and again Giorgio rode for Signor Ramalli. The Umbrella Man came and went, and with his coming the Palio dream intensified, yet remained always the same—always beautiful, always on the other side of the mountain, always out of reach. Winter closed in and the days in the cobbler’s shop piled up endlessly, one on top of another, and all were alike.

  One day in the following spring, Giorgio felt as if his life had come to a standstill. He seemed to be marking time, doing the same things over and over and over again, working each summer in the fields, riding each fall in little unimportant races, sweating out each winter in the cobbler’s shop. He was like a turnspit dog, running in a treadmill cage, smelling the roast but never tasting it.

  In this mood of despair he arrived home to find the family in a high state of excitement. They met him at the door, all speaking at once.

  “A letter! A letter! A letter!”

  “For you comes a letter!”

  “It says: ‘Sig. Terni Giorgio.’ ”

  “Open it, quick!”

  Everyone waited on Giorgio as if he were king. Emilio hung up his lunch bag after fingering inside for the crumbs. Teria brought him a cup of hot coffee.

  The mother handed him one of her long hairpins. “Here, Giorgio, with this you have a fine letter opener.”

  The father entered unnoticed. “Is it no more the habit in this house to greet the father come home from work?”

  Hurriedly the children showered him with hugs, then ran back to Giorgio.

  “Let me open it!” shouted Emilio.

  “No,” Signora Terni said firmly. “It is Giorgio’s.”

  Giorgio stood very still. He took the letter and the hairpin with trembling hands. The blood throbbed in his head. He had once received flute music sent from Rome, but that was in a thin roll with his name printed by machine. This was a real letter, handwritten in black ink.

  “Don’t stab too deep,” the mother warned. “You might cut also the paper inside.”

  Cautiously, as if a Jack-in-the-box might pop out, Giorgio slit the envelope. He unfolded the fine white paper and silently read the few lines. His face paled, then flushed.

  “What is it?” asked the mother in alarm.

  “What does it say?” cried Teria.

  “The news, is it good?” asked Babbo.

  “Is it bad?” shouted Emilio.

  If Mount Amiata had suddenly risen from its base and marched across the valley, Giorgio could not have been more amazed. “It’s from Signor Ramalli! Never before has he written me!”

  “Read it out,” cried Teria.

  Giorgio cleared his throat and read slowly:

  “Siena, 16 March, 1952

  “Dear Giorgio:

  “If your Babbo can spare you from the fields, I desire you to come at once to Siena. I have now four extraordinary horses and would wish you to be their trainer. The Palio of July, as you know, is on the second. We must hurry.

  “Expecting you soon, I am,

  V. Ramalli”

  Grown as he was, Giorgio grasped Emilio by one fat hand and swung him around and around until the pots and pans on the wall went flying. Then he swooped up the letter and held it on high as if it were the Palio banner itself.

  “Mammina!” he cried. “Everybody! Everybody! Bring out the satchel. I go to Siena.”

  Chapter VIII

  OVER THE MOUNTAIN

  Babbo rose to his feet. In the darkening room his eyes gleamed in pride. “I have gooseflesh! I cannot believe it could be! Today a letter is come. Tomorrow our Giorgio goes over the mountain. To please Signor Ramalli,” he declared, “he must arrive in Siena tomorrow.”

  Plans were quickly made. It was decided that in his new importance Giorgio should not walk the long way to Casalino to catch the autobus that would carry him to the train at Sant’ Angelo, and thence to Siena. Instead, the entire family would drive him in the donkey cart directly to Sant’ Angelo, where they could all bid him good-bye at the railway station.

  It happened just so. Even Pippa took part, giving out a steamwhistle bray that nearly drowned the conductor’s cry of “Ready!”

  As the train pulled away, Giorgio leaned far out the window, waving his satchel. Wistfully, he watched Mamma and Babbo, Teria and Emilio climb into the donkey cart, and his eyes held them there together until nothing was left, nothing but a tiny blur against the yellow of the station. Then that, too, was gone.

  Hands still clutching his satchel, he kept right on standing in the aisle, staring out at the fast-moving landscape. And all at once the hollow pain in his stomach left him, and he faced the bigness of his adventure. It was as though the rushing wind and the chugging engine were taking possession of him, lifting him out of himself, over the mountain, and into a new world.

  The cone of Mount Amiata loomed ahead with clouds toppling along its ridges, and streams spilling whitely down its face and into the river below. Still at the open window, he could feel the train laboring on its long climb from the valley of the Orcia to the folded hills. He saw with surprise that it was not just one valley, but a succession of countless hills and vales. Like an earthworm the train wriggled through them, and up through a wilderness of boulders broken only by tufts of broom and brush.

  He saw the kilns of charcoal burners, and a goat girl knitting as she watched her flock, and he saw stunted sheep scrabbling upward toward the mountain pastures. He was glad he was not a sheep, nibbling his slow way to the top. And he was gladder still when the desert of rock gave way to dark forests of chestnut trees, and then to beech, and then to scrub pine. The little hills were ridges now, and as fast as the train could make the turns it pushed on up steeper and steeper ascents until it reached the summit, the bleak bare summit where the sharp wind held a bitterness that made his eyes weep.

  “Boy!” The voice of an old woman startled him. “Close that window, if you please. My old bones shudder with the cold. Besides, your face grows red and smudged.”

  Giorgio quickly closed the window, wiped his face on his new handkerchief, and found a seat. He placed his satchel between his legs and tirelessly scanned the horizon as the train began to roll down out of the high country. Every frowning castle in the distance, every bold fortress, every hamlet he mistook for the city of his dream. But when at last he caught his first glimpse, he knew it for Siena, yet was unprepared for its splendor. In the clearness of early evening the jewel-like city rose up on the shoulders of three hills, its slender towers jutting into the sky. They were like none he had ever seen. One was shining white with stripings of black, like a zebra; the others were pink and carmine, or was this rosy color a trick of the setting sun?

  His heart raced. He felt her ancientness at once. Here were battlemented walls, and pinnacled domes, and steeples piled high and higher—all jumbled, yet ordered.

  Siena! Siena!

  • • •

  It was the hour of early evening when the train pulled into the station. Giorgio was first to jump out. He hurried through the groups of waiting people, impatient to find Signor Ramalli. Searching faces, hoping to see one he dared ask directions, he threaded the network of narrow streets. The people seemed different to him, like figures in a painting. He wondered if they might even speak a different language!

  Slight-built as he was, he kept clumsily bumping into the passers-by. Each time he tried to work up his courage to ask, but no one took notice of him. It was like walking in sleep until a deep-timbered voice broke into it.

  “Young lad! Come here!” The voice belonged to the Chief-of-the-Town-Guards. He was an enormous man, handsome in a dark blue uniform with gold epaulets. “Young lad, you will find better the walking if you move with, not against, the promenaders. Now,” he asked solicitously, “can I help you?”

  Giorgio felt a surge of relief. They spoke the same language! “Signor Ramalli,” he burst out, “his house I must find. If you please!”

  The Chief-of-the-Guards looked down from his great height. “To find Signor Ramalli’s
house,” he said, “you have only to follow your nose.”

  “My nose?”

  “Yes,” he laughed, “your nose. You go down and down the Via Fontebranda, and when your nose is stinging with the stench of animal hides in brine, then you are there. Almost.” He held on to Giorgio with one white-gloved hand while with the other he stopped an autobus to let by a team of scrawny horses drawing a load of wood.

  “Feed the bony beasts,” he cried to the portly driver, “instead of yourself!”

  Then he turned again to Giorgio. “Now, young man, after the smell from the slaughterhouse you will run into a new smell of lye and bleach from the public laundry. Then turn in at the next doorway, and there you are!”

  Giorgio hesitated. “But my Signor Ramalli must have a stable.”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” the Chief replied in friendly annoyance. “It is as I said. Through the bad smells you must go until you come to the nice fragrance of horses and hay. You see, lad, the house of the Ramallis is at the end of the street, with magnificent vista of the valley beyond.”

  No directions were ever given more clearly. Down, down the Via Fontebranda Giorgio hurried half-running, not to get past the cow hides in brine, but because the descent was almost perpendicular.

  Just as the Chief had said, the last door belonged to the Ramallis. The family of three welcomed him as if he were a son come home. They were in the dining room, and at once the mother and daughter arose to set an extra place.

  Signor Ramalli hooked his thumbs into his calf vest and smiled at Giorgio. “After we eat, we give you choice of two rooms for your sleeping quarters. One is in our home, and the other is the empty storeroom over the stable where you can hear the slightest whinny in the night. That room, though barer, is bigger and . . .”

  “I would rather prefer the storeroom,” Giorgio interrupted, “where I can be closer to my horses.”

  It was, in fact, a tremendous room. It faced the east where the first rays of the sun came slanting in, touching off the strings of purple onions and garlic, and peppers, shiny red. Besides these gay decorations there was a wide and comfortable brass bed, a trestle table and chair, and an ancient sea chest that had been emptied for Giorgio’s clothes.