Free Hunting Season: A Novel by Andrea Camilleri Page A

gain weight. In three months’ time, Gulisano and I had both become fashion plates. But the rumor began to spread, and soon everybody started asking Santo for things. Your father didn’t know how to say no, but since he was afraid the garden’s location might be discovered, he would send you into town three times a week to deliver the necessary things to the people who needed them. Do you remember what they used to call you?”
    “Yes. The balcony squirt.”
    “You were always walking around looking up at the little girls on the balconies and crashing into things. One time I found you planted under one of the windows of this house, and there was ’Ntontò, not yet eight years old, and you were looking at her, spellbound. But she was looking at you, too. I gave you such a kick in the pants, you must have flown ten feet. The tomatoes you were carrying in your basket spilled all over the ground, and you started crying. Do you remember?”
    “No. I got kicked so many times in those days, my ass still hurts.”
    Don Filippo heaved a long sigh.
    “I’m getting old, my friend,” he said. “I’m starting to talk about times gone by.”
    And they waited in silence for Donna Matilde to die.

    Two hours after the funeral, Don Filippo, having taken to his heels, was already on his horse, preparing to return to Le Zubbie. Mimì, holding the animal by the reins, led his master out of the stable to the exit, then locked the great door behind him.
    Before applying the spurs, the marchese stopped to look back. On the right half of the double door hung three conspicuous signs of mourning: three black rosettes—the first one discolored by the sun, the second a bit less, the third brand- new. Under the first was a scroll with the words For my dear father ; under the second, the words For my beloved son ; and under the third, only three words: For my wife .
    “At least there was still some space left,” the marchese thought as he rode off.

    In the sixteen months of life that remained to him, Don Filippo spent his days peacefully. There was nothing for him to do at Le Zubbie except to lie with Trisina and take long walks. Thus it happened that, one day, as he was walking through his vineyard, one row at a time, he made a distressing discovery. He waited for Pirrotta to return from one of his ever more far-flung journeys to speak to him about it.
    “Natà, have you seen the vines?”
    “No, since I’m not the one looking after them.”
    “Come with me.”
    Pirrotta’s expert eye immediately recognized the damage.
    “They’ve caught the disease,” he said. “They need a sulphur treatment.”
    “Well, why don’t you give them one?”
    “Because it would take many days of work. And I don’t want to sleep under the same roof as Trisina.”
    Don Filippo eyed him thoughtfully.
    “I think we can find a solution to that.”

    Natale Pirrotta accepted the solution suggested by the marchese, but only because diseased vines made his heart ache. The arrangement thought up by Don Filippo was very simple. If Natale didn’t want to sleep under the same roof as Trisina, they needed only build a room, with its own roof, beside the main house, for Pirrotta. It seemed a reasonable proposition to the field watcher, who with great gusto got down to work on the stones, sand, and lime. The door and window arrived on a horse-drawn cart driven by Mimì. Some twenty days later, Pirrotta was able to sleep in his new annex. And Maddalena, Peppinella’s sister, was sent back to Palazzo Peluso in Vigàta to accompany Signorina ’Ntontò on those rare occasions when she left home to go to church. At Le Zubbie, the rules were always respected: after the evening meal, Pirrotta would go and sleep in his room on the ground floor, Trisina would go upstairs to the master bedroom with twin beds, and the marchese would withdraw to his own. What went on between Don Filippo and Trisina after the lamps were extinguished, only God, Pirrotta, and all of