No Morning Glory
When Giorgio awoke the next morning he felt whole and strong and full
of purpose. He hurried at once to the barn and set to work. He grained
Gaudenzia and gave her fresh water. Then he nailed hardwood boards over
the lower half of the two windows. "In case of kicking," he explained
to an early visitor, "splinters of wood are better than splinters of
glass."
Word quickly flew from house to house that "the little runt of
Monticello" was back home with a race mare. Neighbors, relatives,
friends came from far and near just to look. A few recognized that she
was Farfalla, the cart horse, but they seemed puzzled by her fineness,
awed by the Arabian head. In her shabby harness they had never really
noticed her before. They were not speechless, however. The advice
Giorgio got was enough to fill a book.
"Worm her! It is the worms that make her thin."
"Mix tiny pinches of snuff with her grain."
"Pull her shoes at once, before she kicks you over the moon."
Giorgio listened with only half his mind. He wondered how he was going
to handle the curious visitors and get his work done, too. But the
novelty soon wore off. For everyone, that is, except Giorgio.
Each time he opened the door to her stable he felt the same inward
excitement as on the first day he had seen her. And each time he held
the water bucket for her to drink, or felt her head scratching against
his shoulder, the joy was so deep the whole world seemed different.
It wasn't exactly a fatherly feeling he had; it was stronger, more
fantastic, as though he lived in ancient times and some oracle had
said: "Fate has given her to you. You, Giorgio Terni, are all to
her--master, teacher, god. Now prepare her for the great battle of the
Palio."
Never before had Giorgio paid much attention to calendars; he had
enjoyed the pictures on them and noticed the holidays. But now,
suddenly, the pages of the months flashed and signaled importantly.
Hanging on a nail in Gaudenzia's barn, beside the bunches of drying
anise-seed, were several dusty old calendars. The top two were 1948 and
1949, but they would do. He tore off the first eight months of 1948 and
wrote on the bottom of the page marked _Settembre_, "Rest her."
On _Ottobre_ he wrote, "Walk her four kilometers."
On _Novembre_, "Walk three, jog one."
On _Dicembre_, "Walk two, jog two."
On the 1949 calendar, for _Gennaio_ he wrote, "Walk one, jog three,
gallop one."
On _Febbraio_, "Two-two-two."
On _Marzo_, "Walk one, trot two, gallop three."
Then he put ditto marks on _Aprile_ and _Maggio_, and for _Giugno_
wrote, "Walk one, jog three, gallop three and one-half."
As he lifted the page for _Luglio_ he solemnly circled the second, the
Festival of the Visitation of the Madonna, the day of the Palio. He
turned then to face Gaudenzia and found her blinking at him, yawning in
contentment.
"Our life-threads squinch closer and closer together. No?" he asked of
her. He wanted to say more, to show her he grasped the total wonder of
their fate, but there were things he could not put into words.
With the training program laid out on paper, Giorgio went to work with
a frenzy. He felt that no force on earth could stop him. Each day he
glanced at the calendar on the wall as if it were a generalissimo
barking out orders.
One morning when Gaudenzia stood bridled and ready for exercise, Babbo
burst into the stable with startling news.
"The government!" he announced proudly. "It has jobs--for you and for
me!"
"Jobs?"
"Si, si. Down the slope of Mount Amiata we must plant trees."
"But already there are many!"
"More they need, to hold the soil. You see," he explained, "the rain
washes away the earth, causing great damages. The pay is not much," he
added, "but it helps. We both go."
Giorgio's stomach rose and fell. I will have to tell Babbo "no," he
thought. On the calendar I have already fixed the plans for Gaudenzia.
She is in training for battle; we cannot stop now.
"Babbo," he said, "every morning I take Gaudenzia to the road that
winds round the hills. We walk, and we jog, and then we begin the
gallops and...." He broke off as a sudden thought struck him. Instead
of working Gaudenzia in the morning, he would plant the trees, and take
her out at night. Was not the Palio held at sundown? Why not accustom
her to the late hour?
He smiled. "But from now on I train her by night. Yes, Babbo, I will go
with you. We will plant the trees together."
Later that day the father proudly told the townfolk, "That Giorgio of
mine, he makes of Gaudenzia no morning glory! Horses has time-clocks in
their heads. The morning bloomers wilt by noon. Oh, that boy, he thinks
like the four-footed!"
As the days grew shorter, the workouts grew longer, more intense. Long
walks with little jogs gave way to long jogs with little walks. By
starlight, by moonlight, the white mare rounded the curves of Mount
Amiata like some floating phantom of the night. She was never extended,
never pushed. Without anyone's telling him how or why, Giorgio knew he
had to build up her confidence in herself. Always he stopped short of
what she could do. There was plenty of time to reach the peak. The real
mountain, he knew, was not Amiata.
October, November, and December were torn off the calendar. In January
there were many days of mist and drizzle when Giorgio still had to
work, planting trees. Then no one passed the stable for hours at a
time, and Gaudenzia's nervous twitching came on again and she took to
crib-biting. One dismal evening when he came to bridle her, she stood
grunting as she clamped her teeth on her manger, sucking air into her
stomach. Giorgio tried fastening his belt around her neck, loose enough
so that she could munch grain, but tight enough to prevent her opening
her jaws for swallowing air. It worked! After this, on rainy days,
he made her wear the belt, and all went well. And so, regardless of
weather, they left the stable each evening at the same hour, clattering
down the stony lanes of Monticello, and out upon the lonely road cleft
in the hill.
Nothing was too good for Gaudenzia. He gave her rub-downs, first with
straw, then with burlap bags. He borrowed the flour sifter from home,
and each measure of grain he sifted free of bugs and dust, saving the
dead beetles for the kittens. He begged old sheeting from his mother
and spent precious lire buying cotton and alcohol with which to bandage
her forelegs.
"You cannot even imagine," he told Gaudenzia, "how firm we make your
legs." Sometimes she threatened to bite him as he worked, but she never
did. More often she lipped the back of his sweater, in the way a dam
gently nibbles along the neck of her colt.
Giorgio lived all day--digging and planting--for the night. He might
have been sticking faggots in the earth for all he knew. His mind was
everywhere else: on the calendar in the stable, taking the curves of
the mountain, putting on his helmet for the race. Trumpets and drums
beat like blood in his ears. Unconsciously he began whistling the
"March of the Palio." It made Babbo and all the other men work better,
happier.
The months of winter passed, not in days and weeks, but in developing
Gaudenzia's wind and stamina. When Giorgio came home each night,
mud-spattered and hungry, his mother reheated the soup and stood by as
he drank it. One night when his hair was wet with snow, and his jacket
sagging and sopping, she cried, "Giorgio, Giorgio, Giorgio, why can't
you let up?"
The boy stopped eating. "Mamma, I can't!" he said firmly. "Have you
forgot the Palio? Three times around Il Campo is four and a half
kilometers. She must go the whole way and still be strong at the
finish!"
By March she was galloping three kilometers.
On the fifteenth of May, Giorgio walked her to nearby Casole d'Elsa
and entered her in a race on a straightaway course. She flew ahead at
the start, and with no sign of difficulty, led all the way. It was a
stunning triumph for the mare and her young trainer.
The whole family took a long time deciding where to hang the little
red-and-white flag she won. Teria chose the spot. "Here," she said,
"beside the cupboard. On this wall the sun comes just before setting."
Often, when no one was looking, Giorgio ran his fingertips over the
painting of the white mare on the red silk. Was this the work of a
soothsayer? He read the artist's name in the turf beneath her flying
hoofs. How did the man know that a white mare would win, and so picture
her instead of a black, or a bay? And under the date of the race was
painted a golden crown bright with jewels. Had the oracle spoken to
the artist, too? Or had he seen a boy flying in the night on a white
phantom?
Once when Babbo caught Giorgio fingering the little humps of oil paint
that made the jewels of the crown, he pulled the boy aside. "Jesters,"
he said, not wanting him to be hurt, "sometimes wear the crown like
king and queen. Maybe that artist fellow, he dangles the carrot before
Gaudenzia only to tease."