Free Sweet Life by Linda Biasotto Page B

him and cross the road, Carlo can feel his chest expand and his hands swell to enormous size. He’s a giant, a colossus. He could fight the entire town with one hand tied behind his back. Let them loose the nearby garrison at him, he’d crush a hundred soldiers – no, two hundred. Stop him? They might as well try roping a locomotive or digging the rock from Mount Cavallo with bare hands. No one will ever stop him.

    ~
    Paola parks her silver Mercedes on the narrow street outside Carlo’s gate. Her stockings whisper as she swings her legs from the red seat and drops the keys into her crocodile handbag. Hidden behind large shades, her eyes pass over the neighbours, who drift from their yards and into the street.
    Carlo’s nearest neighbour leans out her window. “ Buon giorno, Signorina . How are you?”
    “Fine, thank you.” Within one side of the double gate is a door. Locked, of course. And no bell. “Carlo!” How humiliating to stand in the street and be gawked at. A large bead of sweat starts at Paola’s neck, slides down her back into her white sundress.
    From behind, the sound of a motorcycle.
    “Hey!”
    Paola turns and there is a teenager on a black Lambretta. Hair combed in the Elvis style, he wears tight jeans and a short-sleeved, white shirt. He gestures toward the gate. “That guy will eat a pretty woman like you.”
    “And what do you know about pretty women, Signor ...?”
    “Gino Campin.” He sticks out his chest. “I know plenty.”
    A sound at the gate’s door. “Who is it?”
    “Your sister.”
    The lock rattles. “Have you come to return what belongs to me?”
    “Dear Carlo, I’ve come to visit.”
    The door swings open. “ Sì , sì , sì . This way. Such an honour. How long has it been since your expensive shoe stepped on my dirt?”
    “Hey, ugly, step on this.” Gino Campin slaps his bent arm above his elbow, revs his bike and drives off.
    Carlo runs into the road and waves his fist. “I will get you!”
    Inside the yard, Paola halts. Even through her dark glasses, she’s dazzled by the reflections of light striking metal. Sheets and rods and tubes of steel. Iron, tin, copper. An army Jeep; a German motorcycle; tire rims; vehicle and machinery parts; plumbing; reels of wire: all crowding the outbuildings and farmhouse. Carlo’s state of mind must be worse than she remembered; only a very sick person would squash a rose garden and destroy the lushness of the yard they once played in as children.
    “Come inside. I’ll make you coffee.”
    Taking his offer to be a good omen, she ignores the manure smell when he passes and follows him when he ducks under the kitchen doorway. Inside, he waves at a chair. She lifts it to shake straw from its wooden seat, sits without touching the table that’s littered with bread crumbs and cornstalks. A pouch of tobacco, a pipe and an ashtray are arranged next to a bottle of grappa.
    On the counter are a knife, bread rolls and a half round of cheese, which now provides breakfast for flies. The flagstone floor needs sweeping, and in the spaces between furniture, pails and metal basins rise in uneven stacks against the walls. Crates of empty wine bottles take up half a wall from floor to ceiling. Paola suspects the storeroom under the stairs overflows with wine bottles.
    Now Carlo scoops water from a pail and pours it into the bottom of an espresso maker. He grinds the coffee by hand, and then lights the stove with a long wooden match.
    To rid her nose of the room’s stink, Paola reaches into her handbag for her silver cigarette case and gold lighter. When Carlo snaps his fingers, she empties the case onto the table. Perhaps this gift will put him in a good mood. He lights a cigarette with a match he then tosses into the stove flame, drops to a chair with his black hat shadowing his eyes.
    With perfectly manicured fingers, Paola smoothes the hem of her silk dress; her own hat fits like a white halo. “I hope you are well, Carlo.”
    “Why? Did