Gaudenzia, Pride of the Palio Page 8

  During the days of the Provas, Giorgio felt as if he had the all-seeing eyes of a horse. Besides watching Turbolento’s every move, he managed to see what was happening to Farfalla, whether she was ahead of him or behind. Her fantino, Ivan-the-Terrible, went around the curves flapping his wings like a bird. Twice he flew off into space. Luckily, Farfalla was not hurt by entangling reins or bumps from other horses. Giorgio remembered later that he had noticed Ivan was unhurt only after he had made sure about Farfalla!

  “Which horse is it you ride?” an elderly man of the Forest whispered to Giorgio after the third Prova. “Is it your Turbolento, or is it our Farfalla?” And he winked and nudged him in the ribs as if he wished the boy could be their fantino.

  Quickly Giorgio’s bodyguards closed in, wondering if the man were making some secret offer. But they might have saved themselves the trouble, for neither Turbolento nor Giorgio was considered strong enough to win—or to help anyone else to win.

  Despite his watchfulness, Giorgio failed to see the crippling accident that happened to Farfalla in the last Prova on the very morning of the Palio. Between the curves of San Martino and the Casato, the horses of the Panther and the Unicorn were having a private race of their own. As Farfalla tried to pass, a hoof lashed out and hit her a sharp blow, almost severing the cartilage of her left hind foot. Ivan-the-Terrible managed to stay on, and let her finish the race limping heavily.

  Moments later Giorgio passed her in a narrow lane as she was being led back to her stable. He turned to look at her bleeding heel. “The devil pursues her!” he said to his guards. Then his eyes blazed with a sudden thought. “They won’t race her; they can’t race her this afternoon in the Palio!” he cried out.

  “But they got to!” the young men answered in chorus, and they turned on him in a torrent of explanation.

  “It is a law from year seventeen hundred,” the Number One guard said. “If an animal is lamed or dies in a Prova, it is not permitted to replace him.”

  Another guard broke in excitedly. “Why, I myself saw one killed in a Prova, and the contrada remained horseless.”

  “I too saw it!” the first one said. “And in the parade before the race the long black tail and the severed hoof of the dead one were carried on a platter of silver.”

  Now thoroughly roused, the guards were irrepressible. “And the flags of that contrada were tightly furled in mourning and even the strongest men wept like small children and cried aloud.”

  Giorgio felt his stomach turn over. Almost pleading, he looked from face to face. “But Farfalla is crippled! There could be a stumble, a fatal . . .”

  “Then it will be her time to die,” the Number One bodyguard said flatly. “She too is only mortal.” There was no coldness in his voice. He was merely repeating words said to him long ago.

  Giorgio tried to shut out thoughts of Farfalla. He made his mind go forward. He began counting. Three hours until the blessing of the horses in the churches of their contradas. Then the long historical parade, and at last, at sundown, the Palio!

  He went with Turbolento into the stable of the Shell and watched the barbaresco go to work, sponging him off, making him comfortable and cool with especial attention to his head, eyes, and nostrils. Giorgio stood by as long as he could. Then from sheer habit he fell to his knees and hand-rubbed Turbolento’s legs. Unconsciously he worked for a long time on the left hind, as if in some remote way he were helping Farfalla.

  Giorgio usually had the mind of a camera. Events registered sharply with him. But that afternoon, during the long parade in which he wore the martial costume of the Middle Ages and rode a heavy warhorse, he felt himself an actor in a play, an actor who did not know his part. He was bewildered by the vast sea of faces in the center of the Piazza, and the kaleidoscope of color in costumes and flags, and the drums beating out a somber rhythm. Through it all he rode woodenly, like a toy soldier.

  But with the explosion of the bomb announcing the race, he became all awareness again. With every fiber he heard the starter call out the horses in order.

  “Number one, Caterpillar!”

  “Number two, Shell!”

  “Number three, Forest!” That was Farfalla. Ignoring her injury, she walked briskly to the starting rope. Giorgio reminded himself that of course the doctors had deadened her pain.

  As the horses moved to their positions, Giorgio felt his breath coming fast. Turbolento and Farfalla were side by side. “Is it some omen,” he asked himself, “that brings us together?”

  The starter’s voice blared on: “Number four, Tower . . . Number five, Snail . . . Number six, Wave . . . Number seven, Panther . . . Number eight, Goose . . . Number nine, Turtle!”

  Now nine horses in line—pawing, dancing, heads pulling to go. And nine fantinos with faces taut, reins taut, waiting for the number ten horse. Not until he is called to the rope can the race begin.

  “Number ten, Unicorn!” the strident voice of the starter fills the Piazza.

  Head lowered like a bull charging, the number ten horse gallops up, almost touches the rope. The starter springs it. It snakes free. Ten horses, as one, leap over it!

  Giorgio’s fingers tighten hard around the nerbo. If he takes the lead, he will not need it. He arrows Turbolento out in front, sets the pace.

  Forty thousand throats cry “Forza! Forza!” as the bunched leaders pass the Fonte Gaia, pass the Casino of the Nobles, pass the scaffold where the judges sit. Now they are thundering toward the death curve of San Martino.

  Behind him Giorgio hears the nerbos strike hollow against horseflesh and sharp against steel helmets, but he is still in the lead, free of the bludgeoning.

  Out of the tail of his eye he sees the Wave, the Goose, the Panther fighting it out, and behind them Ivan-the-Terrible trying to drive Farfalla through. In the split second of his looking, a fantino catapults into the air like a rag doll shot from a cannon. It must be Ivan! It is Ivan! Farfalla is staggering on by herself. All this Giorgio senses rather than sees. He is at the curve now. Turbolento is leaning at a crazy angle; he seems to be tiring, faltering.

  From every balcony and window, from all over the Piazza, the people of the Shell are shouting to Giorgio: “The nerbo! The nerbo! Use the nerbo on him!”

  Giorgio feels icy terror. Turbolento is trying to wheel, to run the wrong way of the track. His left foreleg crosses his right. It is rooted! The pack is passing him! From both sides nerbos are raining blows on him, on Giorgio, beating them out of the way.

  Giorgio lifts the horse’s head, tries to get the weight on his hocks, but it is too late! Turbolento freezes, then buckles. His scream joins the shrieks of the crowd as he somersaults and slides across the track. Giorgio is pitched into the air, and hits with a thud on his back.

  Hoofs go thundering past while he lies writhing, gasping, the wind knocked out of his body. As in a trance he sees the white-coated veterinarian rush out on the track. He hears the crack of the bullet that ends Turbolento’s life, and sees the limping form of Farfalla come within an arm’s length of the smoking pistol.

  His heart beats thickly. He is suddenly afraid. A soundless prayer escapes his lips.

  “Not her, too! O Holy Mother, not her! Not her!”

  Chapter XV

  THE ODD PIECES AGAIN

  He was still gulping for air, but he had to move before the horses came around again. He felt a pair of strong hands grasping his upper arms, helping to lift him. Feeling less hurt than humiliated, he pulled away. It was not his body that needed help. He made his knees bend one at a time, and he pushed himself up. And he got to his feet under his own power and as the horses whirled past, he went tottering alongside, clinging to the upright mattresses that lined the curve.

  With his sleeve he wiped the sweat and a streak of blood from his face and he sucked air enough to walk head up. But the pain of remembered sounds and sights bore down on him—the sharp crack of the bullet, the instantaneous thud, the dribble of crimson, the crazed scream cut short. Then the whole wor
ld was a spinning blackness. What had happened afterward?

  All about him a solid pack of humanity was streaming onto the track. The race was over! Voices came at him like cross winds, some shouting “Bravo!” and some crying in strange foreign tongues. He was sucked along with the crowd, stumbling, shuffling, pulled into their meshes like a fish into a net. Over and above the shouting came wild, deafening cheers, beating out the syllables:

  “Tar-tu-ca!”

  “Tar-tu-ca!”

  And so he knew that the Contrada of the Turtle had won. And he yelled, too, but he did not know what he yelled. He had to yell to keep from fainting, to keep from crying.

  Two of his bodyguards got through the crowd to him, linked their arms in his, supporting him, buoying him along, questioning in his ear.

  “How do you feel?”

  “You all right?”

  His head nodded “yes” but all of him felt numbed, disgraced. And his legs trembled as if at any moment they might splay and split apart. Through the shouting and joyful singing, he could hear remembered voices mocking:

  “Hey, you runt of Monticello!”

  “You, with the slough of the Maremma all over you!”

  “Girl’s hands . . . girl’s hands . . . girl’s hands . . .”

  The words jumbled in his dizziness, and he staggered along, feeling himself littler and weaker than ever, like some fragile moth battering its wings against the walls of the centuries. He knew now what the Umbrella Man meant. The Palio was indestructible. Men could beat their fists against it. Horses and fantinos could die for it, but it would remain forever the supreme challenge.

  He wanted to be alone in his agony. His guards understood, and let him go. As he went zigzagging through the crowd, he pressed his palms hard against his ears, trying to shut out the singing, and the drums beating, and the inner voices accusing. At last he stood panting before the door of Turbolento’s stable.

  He rang the bell, summoning the barbaresco. He knocked. No one came.

  A couple walked by, arm in arm, unmindful of him. He might have been a cat scratching to be let in. He tried the latch. The door was open! He lurched into the dark emptiness. The barbaresco was not there. No one was on guard. No one was needed. He closed the door behind him, and his shaking hands locked it. The light from a street candle came in the high barred window, threw a splash of yellow on the strawed bed of Turbolento. It was freshly made, awaiting a possible victor.

  Alone in the stable, with only the faraway sounds of rejoicing, Giorgio fell face down in the straw. “Mammina! Mammina!” he sobbed, and the tears so long inheld were unloosed. As he cried himself out, the sea of taunting faces melted away, and in their stead his mother’s face appeared, trying to soothe him, to comfort him. “Giorgio, Giorgio, Giorgio,” she called.

  • • •

  The next day millions of people were reading newspaper accounts of the Palio. Sports writers from Rome, from Florence, from Milan called it “The Race of the Broken Heart.” They referred not to the death of Turbolento. That was gallant. For a horse to be killed on the field, like a soldier in battle, was beautiful. But the injury to Farfalla’s leg, they said, was not only painful to her and perilous to all, but to watch her hobbling three times around the course to the very end was heartbreaking. Better she, too, had been killed.

  Thus, in a few paragraphs, the race passed into history. For weeks, however, the fate of Farfalla was tossed about like a frail boat in a storm. One doctor gave her an even chance of going sound again. Another spoke frankly to her owner as father to son.

  “Celli,” he said, “you are a man most benevolent, but that poor mare is suffering, and time will not lessen her pain.” He shook his head in sympathy. “I suggest you put her down, and the sooner it is done, the better.”

  Unwilling to be convinced, Doctor Celli called in a third veterinarian, a gnomelike creature with a short clipped mustache and a short clipped way of speaking. After examining Farfalla, who was biting at her manger, he made his pronouncement: “This Palio will be her last. I would at once put an end to her sufferings. What pleasure in this life does she have?”

  For hours after the veterinarian had gone, Doctor Celli paced to and fro in the room where he kept his guns and hunting trophies. It was difficult to listen to one’s heart and mind at the same time. As a banker he was a careful man, reasoning always with his pocketbook. A sick horse was a luxury he could ill afford. If the best doctors were ready to sign her death warrant, who was he to say, “No, this I will not do!” Yet he could not help wavering.

  Perhaps, he mused, someone else would have more time to give her, more time to look in on her during the day instead of only at sunup and sundown. Would Signor Busisi know of someone? A talk with the old and wise man might be of help.

  Feeling somewhat lifted in his heart, Doctor Celli went to his garage, backed out his car, and sped toward Siena. He would lay the facts in the palm of his friend and ask for a plain answer.

  Within the half hour the door to the house of Busisi was opening wide and the sad, kindly face of the Signore was smiling in welcome.

  “Buona sera, Celli. Come in! Come in!” The old man led the way to the dining table and pulled out a chair. “Enjoy with me the simple pleasure of food and drink. I am alone. My wife has gone to the church. Let us eat first. Then we talk of Farfalla.”

  There was a bottle of good red wine on the table and a nice assortment of cheeses. Signor Busisi fixed a plate of them for his guest. Without any heart for it, Doctor Celli took a small bite of the gorgonzola.

  The old man remonstrated. “Celli, can you only nibble like the mouse? Eat with gusto!”

  “If I eat now, Signore, the food sits heavy in my stomach. I want only to talk.” He pushed his plate aside. “Already I have summoned three veterinarians for Farfalla.”

  “And their verdict?”

  “Two advise putting her down. At once.”

  “You have decided?”

  “No. My thoughts seesaw—first one way, then the other. You observed her in the Palio, Signore. What would you say if she were now fretting in your stable instead of in mine?”

  Signor Busisi’s face was grave, deeply concerned. He made a steeple of his fingertips and looked under them as if he hunted there for the answer. “Mortals are quick to destroy,” he said at last. Already he was ill of a heart condition, and being on the edge of death himself seemed to give him a wisdom beyond the common man. “It takes eleven months and five days for a horse to be born into this world,” he said with a faraway look. “Why do we not give the mare the same number of months and days before we sentence her to die? Perhaps in that time she will prove her destiny.”

  There was a long silence between them. The old man got up, paced the room thoughtfully, then stood before the window. A blood-red sun was sinking behind the city wall. With his back to Doctor Celli he said, “You are not the first to come to me today concerning the fate of Farfalla.”

  “So? Who else?”

  “The Chief-of-the-Town-Guards. You know him?”

  “Si, si. The Chief is a man most compassionate. I once saw him on a cold, bitter day restore the fallen blanket to an old bony horse.”

  “But the Chief came only as agent.”

  “Agent?”

  Signor Busisi nodded.

  “Agent for whom?”

  “For two tradesmen from Seggiano.”

  “But what could they want with Farfalla?”

  “In their hands she would certainly come to a pitiful end. But . . .” Signor Busisi came back to the table; he seemed quite out of breath.

  “But what?”

  “I detected something in the face of the Chief,” the Signore went on. “At first it was only a flicker, then it burst into flame, bright as the morning sun. You see, he had been charged to buy Farfalla, but suddenly the truth struck him. He did not want to forward the mare to Seggiano. He wanted to keep her for himself.”

  Doctor Celli sat on the very edge of his chair. “What di
d you tell him?”

  “I told him what I once told you.”

  “You mean about life being a puzzle with odd-shaped pieces?”

  The old man threw back his head and laughed. “My boy, you have a remarkable memory. And I told him also what sweet frenzy it would be for him in next year’s Palio to watch two horses—his own and that of his contrada.”

  Doctor Celli smiled. In the hands of the Chief, Farfalla would be treated well. She might live to race again. She might even . . .

  Signor Busisi broke into his reverie. “I must tell you,” he said, “the Chief’s money at present is low, but he is soon expecting payment on an old transaction, and my advice, Celli, is for you to wait until he comes to you, ready to buy. Remember this, my friend, a gift horse seldom is prized.”

  “I will wait! Gladly! Farfalla meanwhile can rest at my country place, and my tenant farmer will see to her needs.” With a deep sigh of relief he stood up and raised his glass in a toast. “May the pieces fit again!”

  Already the heaviness was lifted from his heart.

  Chapter XVI

  THE RABBIT’S FOOT AND THE HORN

  The second Palio of 1953 was bloodless, but again it fell short of Giorgio’s dreams. Not until the last moment did any contrada ask him to ride. Then on a cold-blooded horse he raced for the Panthers. A flashy bay won for the Forest, but of course Farfalla was not there. Things might have been different, he thought, if he had had the right mount. He wondered what had become of her, if she would ever race again.

  On a morning soon afterward, Giorgio set out quite early for the weekly market held in the Piazza del Campo. He was leaving for Monticello that selfsame day, but first he had a purchase to make. He planned to walk all the way home to save for his mother the few lire he had left from his year in Siena. And since it was the season of the rains, he would need either a raincoat or an umbrella. A raincoat would make him look more like a successful fantino, but it would cost 5,000 lire, and for that sum he could buy four umbrellas! Besides, he had ruined his only satchel with blistering liniments and blue gentian for his horses, and he would need a carryall for his clothes. By rolling them into small, bread-size bundles he could pack them between the ribs of an umbrella. And so, for one price, he would have a traveling bag and a canopy against the rain.