Free Hunting Season: A Novel by Andrea Camilleri Page B

Vigàta knew.
    One evening, as they were smoking pipes and watching the moon after Trisina had gone to bed, the marchese decided to reveal his intentions to Natale.
    “Natà,” he said, “I want to have a son.”
    “With Trisina?”
    “No, with you.”
    They laughed.
    “So where do I come in?” Pirrotta asked, after a pause.
    “You’re going to play the father. You’ll take this son into your home and give him your name. Then I, who in the eyes of the world have no male heir, shall adopt the boy, with your consent. Does that sound reasonable to you?”
    “As for sounding reasonable, it sounds reasonable. But have you talked to Trisina about it?”
    “Who the hell cares what Trisina thinks? She’ll do what the two of us tell her to do, if we’re in agreement.”
    Pirrotta remained silent a long time, pondering the matter. The marchese misinterpreted his field watcher’s silence.
    “We both stand to gain from this, Natà. I’ll have my son, and you can pocket as much as you want for allowing me to adopt him. As much as you want.”
    Pirrotta removed the pipe slowly from his mouth.
    “Sir, I have always respected you. And you, sir, have always respected me. Why do you want to start offending me now?”
    “Please forgive me, Natà,” said the marchese, realizing the mistake he had made.
    “Let me think it over tonight, and tomorrow I’ll tell you what I’ve decided.”
    The following morning, an exchange of glances, without any words, was all that needed. The marchese understood that he had Pirrotta’s permission.

4
    T he only clamor and commotion that Le Zubbie ever saw came with the September grape harvest. Throngs of noisy women would arrive at daybreak, having been picked up at the gates of Vigàta by twenty or so carts, and get straight down to work. Each woman would take a row of vines and, squatting with knife in hand, would cut the clusters and then drop them into a sorghum basket. When the basket was full, she would go and empty it in a reed hamper, which she then hoisted onto her shoulders and upended into a cart with high side panels. Once full, the cart would head down the road to the hamlet of Durrueli, where the marchese had his cellars, vats, presses, and barrels; after delivering its load, it quickly retraced its path. In the spacious kitchen, Trisina and Maddalena—who had been summoned back for the occasion—prepared the calatina , that is, the food for the vine workers to eat with their bread: one day it was macco , a thick purée of fava beans, another day it was caponatina , which was made of capers, celery, onions, and olives stewed in a bit of tomato sauce flavored with a dash of vinegar. At twelve noon on the dot, Natale would blow the whistle, and the women would drop everything and scramble towards the great cauldron in the middle of the clearing. Maddelena would hand a hot bowl to each woman as she filed past. They ate, sang, spoke, and gossiped, scolded each other for rudeness, and then, half an hour later, they all raced back to the vineyard to work until just before sunset. Pirrotta would then give another toot of the whistle, and the women would hop onto the carts, dripping with grape juice, and return to Vigàta.
    The marchese had a ball, walking back and forth between the rows of vines, listening to the shouts the women exchanged with one another. He loved hearing the chatter, the profanities, the insinuations whose meaning was clearer than if stated outright. At one point he took a glancing knife-slash on his hand when he intervened in a scuffle between two women with weapons drawn. Trisina sucked the blood from the wound, then wrapped his hand in a piece of her nightgown, dispelling the marchese’s anger over the incident and putting him in a jovial mood for the rest of the day.
    On the last day of the harvest there was a tradition that had to be respected. One hundred baskets full of grapes were brought to a small shelter behind the house, which had a storage shed