My First Seven Years (Plus a Few More) (12 page)

I took my ‘beast' home with me that very evening. Gog is the name of one of the two monsters of the Apocalypse, Gog and Magog, but my Great Dane puppy had none of the all-devouring ferocity of the biblical myth. On the contrary, he was the most gentle and timorous creature I had ever come across. He cowered under the seat in the train compartment, and to get him off I had to take him in my arms. He weighed more than me.

When I got home, Fulvio and Bianca screamed with delight, and the cat, a she-cat, sniffed at him and from the odour he was emanating, understood at once that she was facing a big, harmless bundle of terror. Mamma instantly took to him and smothered him with caresses.

Gog was continually in the company of my brother, my sister and myself, as well as of the other children in our gang, whether we were in the piazza or in the woods. He came with us when we went on fruit-stealing expeditions, and was the first to skedaddle … all it took was the sound of a dog barking from the haystack. He was literally terrified of Alsatians, or of any kind of mongrel which gave him a menacing growl … you would immediately see him make off, his tail between his legs, scraping along the walls.

That was when he was a puppy … but within a couple of months he had grown under our very eyes. He developed a leopard's chest, paws, buttocks, neck – his whole body was enriched by the muscle structure of a powerful Great Dane, but his expression and demeanour remained the same as Walt Disney's Pluto: puzzled and dazzled. For this reason we had no hesitation in letting him roam freely anywhere he wanted: there was no danger. He wandered around the town and into the villages in the valley. Everyone recognised him and knew that he was as meek as an angel. They called him over, fed him titbits, hugged him. The children jumped on his back as though he were a horse, and Gog put up with it all.

The only drawback was his excessive appetite: he wolfed huge bowls of meaty stew, but by the first belch the meal was already digested. As soon as we sat down to table, he would come up to beg for left-overs, and there was no way of shooing him off. Pa' Fo did not want him ‘slobbering away' between his feet. After a few months, all of a sudden he gave up begging. Had he learned some dignity? Not a bit of it: he had taken to stealing chickens.

Near our house, there were chicken runs in the orchards and farms. For a giant hound like ours it was child's play to leap over wire netting around any compound: one bound, a snatch at a cockerel or chicken, and off he would race … four bites, and flesh, bones and even feathers were gone. I have no idea why, but he did respect the hen run in our garden, but no others. A quarter of an hour later without fail, the owners of the pillaged cages were at our door. We did not even allow them to finish their complaints. ‘Just go into our garden. Go over to the compound and help yourselves to any hen or cockerel you like, and accept our apologies!' By now there was a ban in our house against eating fowl, since we needed them all to recompense the people whose poultry had provided Gog with a snack.

Soon, apart from the chicken, geese and turkeys, even the dogs, including the large hounds, got out of the way when he came along. I once saw a boxer terrier attempt to attack him and end up bleeding at the bottom of a ditch.

Three years passed, I enrolled at the Brera Academy and had to get the train every morning for Milan. Gog came with me to the station and was there punctually each evening to meet me. He did everything by himself, and if he did not see me on the first evening train, he came back to meet me off the later one. He had learned the railway timetable.

A few years later, the three children in the family had to move to Milan to continue our education. Mamma came with us, but Pa' Fo went back to take charge of the station at Pino Tronzano. Gog was briefly pensioned off in a dog home in the open countryside, run by a person we trusted. In that home, the dogs were almost always allowed out in the fresh air and only locked up at night-time, but Gog could not get used to that routine. After a few days, he rebelled against his keeper who, with a large stick, tried to convince him to go back to his place in the cage. The Great Dane pounced on him, exactly like the mythical monster in the Bible. The man only just managed to free himself and open the gates. Gog exited without a sound and made off for the woods.

When we returned to the lake that Sunday, we learned of the dog's escape and learned also that he had attacked lambs in various parts of the valley. Together with my brother, I travelled throughout the countryside asking the peasants for news of the dog. Many of them knew us: ‘They caught sight of him near Muceno. They say he has become the leader of a pack of wild dogs. The peasants in Cerasa, Masnago and Tramezzo are getting together under the direction of the
carabinieri
to hunt him down.'

We went up to Domo and spoke to the parish priest, but when he found out that Gog was our dog, he turned offensive: ‘You scum, bunch of rogues! What do you think you're doing letting a beast like that loose? It's worse than a panther. It's got together with a pack of mongrels: they're slaughtering calves and devouring them on the spot.'

His philippic was interrupted by a series of shots. ‘Can that be the hunters?' asked Fulvio. ‘Certainly, and you can be sure they're not shooting quails or sparrows. It's not the season.' We ran in the direction of the shots. We reached the pathway, and there on a rise in the ground stood the hunters with their rifles. Further on, by the side of a stream, lay a lamb with its intestines hanging out. A little further on, in the shallows, lay two or three large dogs. One of them, lying belly up, was Gog.

CHAPTER 14

The Engineer-Count

Glass-blowers, fishers, mechanics and smugglers were not the only inhabitants of the Valtravaglia; families of wealthy people lived there too and they had villas, gardens and woodland which snuggled close to the mountain, and palaces which lined the coast from Caldè to Magadino.

A nobleman, Count Mangelli, whom everyone in his firm addressed as ‘Engineer', could often be seen around the streets of Porto.

He always moved with elegance, body upright, looking people straight in the face even if he gave the impression of not really seeing them. He responded with a nod of the head to anyone who greeted him but never stopped, not even when people called out to him or asked after his health. He was badly shaven, did not look exactly dirty but wore a shirt of indefinite colour under an old jacket. The melancholy of his expression was deeply affecting.

The tragedy which had reduced him to this state had occurred at the Heremitage Hotel, the most celebrated and luxurious of the whole coastline. Everyone who was anyone in the valley had gathered for one of the customary receptions in honour of someone or other. There were beautiful women there, but none more so than Sveva Rosmini, the Engineer's wife. Everyone in those circles knew about the affair between Signora Sveva and Signor Colussi, a lawyer who was also managing director of FIVEC (International Glass and Crystal Company). In the course of the party, Signora Sveva got up from her table, and, hips swaying like a model, made her way resolutely towards the back of the hall, where her lover was seated.

The young, highly attractive, dark-skinned daughter of Dr Grillo, the local general practitioner, was at the same table, and it was clear to everyone that Colussi was courting her without subtlety or concealment. For the whole evening, young Grillo had demonstrated by a laughter which resembled the clucking of an excited hen her contented delight at the lawyer's repeated fondling of her backside. Signora Sveva had put up with this throughout the whole dinner, from the entrée to the main course, but when the fish was produced, she marched up to the table of the flirtatious twosome, picked up from the platter a large boiled trout garnished with mayonnaise, and swung it in the air before bringing it smartly down on the face of the terrified, still clucking, young lady. The trout itself broke in two but Signora Sveva, brandishing the body of the fish by the tail, rammed it with a masterly flourish into the open mouth of the faithless lawyer. Mayhem ensued. The recently-fondled young lady fainted, face-down, on a delicately cooked perch. The lawyer, after a moment's initial hesitation, gave the Signora a slap. She responded by throwing herself into his arms. A voice rang out,
‘Musica, maestro!'
and in an instant the orchestra struck up a festive polka. The dancefloor filled with dancing couples, and even the lawyer and his mistress took to the floor, but from the movement of their bodies it was clear that their refrain was ‘You, rascal you.' At the termination of a whirl, he seized her by the hem of her dress, ripping it neatly apart. The Signora, resplendent in knickers and suspender belt, let out a scream, to general applause and appreciation for those beguiling thighs and heaving breasts. Signora Sveva
desnuda
jumped onto the lawyer at about the level of his kidneys: ‘Tally ho, stallion, show me what you're made of!' Although no one had noticed, Signora Sveva's husband, the Engineer, had come on the scene a few moments previously. Some of the more giddy diners gave him a slap on the back as a sign of jovial fellow feeling.

All of sudden, everyone froze. The horsewoman stopped in her tracks for one moment, then: ‘What are you doing there, my dear? Don't look so aghast! Get a filly and do a lap yourself.' So saying, she dug her knees into her lover's kidneys and off she galloped, shrieking like a horserider from the Maremma. Other excited ladies jumped onto the backs of their own cavaliers. At that moment, the daughter, still under the weather, came in, leaning on her father. The Engineer remained stock-still, as though he were somewhere else.

Only when the great gallop was over did people notice that the Count had exited. For two days there was no trace of him. ‘He'll have gone to Milan, or to his brother's in Switzerland,' was the relaxed comment of his wife. But no one had seen him get on a train or buy a ticket. ‘He's not touched the car,' observed their daughter, ‘it's still there in the garage.' Each one had his own conjectures: ‘He couldn't have thrown himself into the lake, maybe from one of the high rocks?' ‘The water in these parts is too cold for his tastes. Anyway, he's got no head for heights.'

In fact, there was someone who knew in detail what was going on, but he said nothing. In any case, it never crossed anyone's mind to ask him: he was Menghissu, a tramp with a constantly smiling expression. He had fought in the African war, and for more than a year had been a prisoner of the Abyssinians. He knew exactly the place where the Engineer had taken refuge, for the simple reason that he was a guest in one of his properties, a little construction with a door and one window, half-excavated in the rocks under the kilns. Unquestionably the Engineer, always perfectly mannered, would have asked Menghissu, the owner of that hovel for years even if he had never actually lived in it, for permission to take up residence.

That Sunday the people of the Valtravaglia were gathered in church to hear mass, the well-heeled and better-off in their family pews, the others in any place they could find. It was nearly midday when the choir door was flung open and the Engineer entered gingerly; he took his place in a corner of the apse behind the group of choristers, of which I was a member. He was done up in a somewhat unconventional style: on his head he had a red fez from which a golden charm was suspended. He was wearing a kind of embroidered waistcoat, but from the shoulders down he was wrapped in a large, white-woollen cloak with dangling pendants. Beneath the cloak, the observer could make out a pair of short, Turkish-style, riding breeches … all that was lacking was the camel. He removed his fez and bowed ever so slightly. At first a deadly silence fell on the place, followed by subdued murmuring. Everyone was staring at that face with its solemn, absent expression on top of the clownish outfit, while at the same time peeping out of the corner of one eye for the reaction of Signora Sveva, her daughter and the lawyer. At the
De profundis,
the three bent over and, trying hard not to make themselves unduly noticed, made for the exit. The chorus fell silent for one moment. The Signora tripped and uttered a somewhat rude imprecation. The chorus started up again with a crescendo of great solemnity. The Engineer-caliph slipped out by the door which leads to the sacristy.

‘Gloriam Patris laudamus,'
the choir ended.

When mass was over, I returned to the sacristy with the other choristers. Each one of us busied himself, removing his white surplice and red soutane and hanging them up in the wardrobe. My peg was in the corridor which led to the bell-tower. The sacristan accosted me and asked me: ‘Dario, would you mind going up there a moment and finding out what has been going on? I think the bell ropes must have got twisted … the bells won't ring any more!'

No sooner said than done. I climb up the staircase: three flights of stairs, three landings, and there I am at the turrets. As I emerge in between the clockwork, I stop in terror: there, stretched out on the bell's crosspiece, is the Engineer wrapped in his caliph-bedouin cloak. ‘Is he dead?' I wonder aloud. ‘No, not yet, thank you very much,' he replies in a gentlemanly way, raising his hat. Then he recognises me and adds: ‘You're the station-master's son, aren't you? I heard you sing, you've got a fine contralto timbre to your voice … the same part I used to have when I was a choirboy.' I stutter out, awkwardly: ‘I'm glad to hear it. I was sent up because the bells won't ring any more.'

‘I do apologise. It was me that got the ropes tangled up. I needed some sleep and with the racket these four bells make … you understand … but relax, I'll get out of the way. I'll untangle the bells and go down.' So saying, he smiled at me and patted me on the head. It was the first time I had found in him an attitude of such cordiality.

From that day on, I often had occasion to see him. I would run into him by the lakeside, leaning over the railing at the quay or sitting on the harbour wall. Often I would catch sight of him on the Romanesque belfry of the main church in the town.