Free To the Wedding by John Berger Page B

them. Like this, the gathering looks like a party. Every day each of them at the big table takes the same place and so everyone knows his neighbour’s sore points and how much or how little wine or water to pour for him. It’s the younger ones who do the pouring. The older ones explain what’s happening in the world.
    Luciano is pummelling an armful of dough like a trainer punches his boxer to tease him. At one moment he leans over the counter covered with flour, away from the ovens, to shout at Jean: In a pizzeria without laughter the ovens cook badly—no doubt you’ve heard that!
    One waitress, Elisa, serves all the men. Jean observes the confidence with which she carries the plates and carafes, and the skill with which she avoids their fondling and grasping hands. She is about the same age as Ninon.
    Who ordered the Siciliana?
    Here Lisetta, it’s for Otello, here.
    Why are you so serious today, Lisetta, didn’t you sleep well?
    Did he keep you awake all night, Lisetta?
    And the Quattro Stagioni, she sings out, who ordered the Quattro Stagioni?
    Elisa’s wrists are thin like Ninon’s, too.
    Lisetta! Give us a smile and some more water!

    I started with a mule, interrupts Federico, today my dump is the largest in Lombardy. Fifteen hectares of scrap. I can’t sleep and I’m thinking about Gino, so I walk around my stacks and they give off a kind of peace. It comes from their stillness. Every precious thing I’ve brought here was once manufactured for movement, for turning, as they say. (Laughter) Now each one is still, so still, surrounded by hundreds and thousands of almost identical ones who are still. It must be below freezing. In some of the stacks the metals are talking. I’m not hard of hearing yet. They zing in the cold, icy air. If I stop walking and listen, they zing out whole sentences. In below-zero temperatures metals sometimes do this. Just as on stifling summer nights the thinner metals chirp with accumulated heat, like cicadas. I’m already explaining to you, Counsel, so you’ll be fully prepared for defending me. I’m explaining to you how I made up my mind. Very calmly, Counsel. The sounds my stacks are making don’t disturb the stillness of the night.
    And their wisdom isn’t violent. This is why I come back to the office at peace with myself and sure, sure of what has to be done tomorrow. She’ll be spared a lot of suffering, she’s condemned anyway. And like this Gino will be saved. When they put me on trial, I’ll lay out, with your help, Counsel, the whole godforsaken situation and every father in the country will support me. The Scrap Man of Asola will be called a national hero. But I’m doing it for their sakes, both of them. Which gun would be best? I’m wondering about my Beretta 921 which I bought off a Sardinianlawyer. Perhaps you even know him, Counsel? Agostino, he was called. He said he bought it to protect himself in Cagliari. Lawyers need guns there, and he sold it to me with a box of ammunition.
    You’re my daily happiness, says one of the men in newspaper hats, to Elisa.
    You want to pay now? Elisa asks Jean Ferrero, who is staring like a deaf man into the open oven from which Luciano has just slid out another pizza.
    I got too close, Gino, I saw the pain in her eyes, so much pain there was no room for more. Then she started to laugh and I couldn’t do it. I drank my coffee and left. I couldn’t do it.
    You want to pay now? Elisa asks Jean Ferrero a second time.
    See that heap of spark plugs there? Big enough to fill a railway truck. In principle, Gino, their porcelain can be recycled.Everything has to be sorted out. Putting the same things together, separating like from unlike. It’s what I’ve done all my life. People mix up everything. They throw everything away in the same place. That’s how they make trash. There’s no such thing as trash. Trash is the confusion we make throwing things out.
    You can’t give her up, you tell me. You want to, but you