A Simple Plan
June! The hallway into summer. The season for strong happenings, the
season for living. Giorgio's mind was on tip-toe. Looking at his
calendar one morning he thought, in a flash, of the ski slide on Mount
Amiata, saw the skiers toiling up and up for one breathless whoosh into
space. Now he knew how they felt. For months he and Gaudenzia had been
toiling up and up for the wild two minutes of glory that was the Palio.
The days of June neither dragged nor flew. They were as alike as
echoes. Walk Gaudenzia one kilometer, jog her three, gallop her three
and a half. Bandage her hind legs, bandage her forelegs. Grain her, a
handful more each day. Cut down her hay. And always, the inner command
pounding through him: Don't let her reach the peak until July. Climb,
climb, climb. Bring her right up _to_ it.
In the last week of June, the long-awaited message from the
Chief-of-the-Guards reached Giorgio. "Come to Siena! At once!" was all
it said.
By cockcrow on the morning after, boy and mare were on their way,
trotting along gay-spirited, as if the wheatfields spattered with
wild red poppies, and the hills high-rising to the sky, and all the
creatures in it were theirs. Gaudenzia wanted to race every moving
thing--a rabbit skirting the edge of the road, a hound streaking for
a bird--the bird, too. Her friskiness, her eagerness to go filled
him with a pride so strong he had to whistle to let the steam of his
happiness escape. Nine months ago, with a bandage on her heel, she had
slow-footed her way over this same road. Now, like Mercury with wings,
she was returning.
A solitary shepherd, hungry for human company, ran out on the road and
invited Giorgio to share the meal he was preparing over an open fire.
He pointed his crook at Gaudenzia.
"_Magnifico!_" he exclaimed, with a smile so wide it showed the dark
hole where two of his teeth were missing.
"Magnific_a_!" Giorgio laughingly corrected him. "She is a mare!" He
joined the herdsman in a meal of goat cheese and grilled eel. And while
the mare grazed, her eyes ranging with the cloud of sheep, the lonely
herder questioned Giorgio about his plans. Then he poured out his own
heart. He too had a dream. He would teach a young boy to herd, teach
him just where to noon the sheep, and which ones to watch in a storm.
Then he would be free for a little while, and he would walk to Siena,
and there, before he died, he would witness with his own eyes the
manifestation of the Palio!
It was all Giorgio could do to break away from the man and his dream.
With their final handshake the herder for the first time became mute.
Wistfully, he watched Giorgio mount Gaudenzia and rein her out onto the
road. When at last he found his voice, he cupped his hands and called
out after them: "Magnifica!"
In Siena, too, the mare created admiration, but it was thinned with
doubts and forebodings. Entering the city through the Arch of Porta
Romana in the early evening, Giorgio could feel at once the general air
of agitation. The usual flow of promenaders had given way to excited
knots of men choking the traffic. Bruco! Oca! Onda! Tartuca! The names
of the contradas punctuated the talk. And town eyes were staring his
way.
"What a beautiful beast goes there!" a voice said. And the same voice
asked, "Boy, where did you get her? What are you going to do with her?"
Giorgio turned and saw a grizzle-headed old man, the center of a group.
"It's a long story, Signore," he answered. "She used to be Farfalla,
but now she--"
The man did not let him finish. "Eh?" he exclaimed. "Can this be
Farfalla returned from the dead?"
And another said, "A fine parade horse she would make. But for the
race?" The shoulders owning the voice shrugged.
And then Giorgio overheard, "Would you wish to draw her for _your_
contrada?"
A whole chorus answered, "No! No!" It was as if her tortured limping in
last year's Palio was a memory too fresh to be wiped out.
Giorgio himself flinched at the recollection. He touched his heels
to Gaudenzia and hurried her through the crowd. "How they feel about
you, I do not care," he told himself. "It is better so. Popular horses
are nearly killed by too many sweets, too much petting and pulling of
tail-hairs for souvenir. I believe, and the Chief believes!"
He found the Chief striding across Il Campo, heading for his home. They
saw each other at the same moment.
"Giorgio!" the big man shouted, and his arms flung wide apart, as
though he would clasp the boy and the mare both. "How are you? How
is it with our _cavallina_? Tell me all about her! Don't keep me one
minute more in this anxious waiting."
Giorgio suddenly felt shy. He answered with two little words. "All
fine."
"That I can see!" the Chief laughed. "The mare, she is rekindled!" He
stepped now in front of Gaudenzia, pulled off his white gloves, and
with both hands felt of her chest and forearms. "Not even sweating," he
nodded in approval. "Come, let us walk to the stable, and while walking
you will tell me how she goes in her work. Then, after she is bedded
down, you will come to my home where we can engage in serious talk."
The stable was midway of a narrow downhill alley with walls high-rising
on either side. Giorgio's spirits plummeted at its darkness. It did
have a window, but it was covered by a curtain of gunny sacking. There
were two stalls divided by heavy planking. The one nearer the door
was occupied by a bay gelding, and the other, deeply strawed, awaited
Gaudenzia.
"To find stable room is very difficult," the Chief was explaining. "But
Morello here is a good horse and the two will become friends and help
each other to forget the Maremma. He, too, comes from your wilderness."
Across the partition Gaudenzia and Morello began at once to get
acquainted--first in screams, then nips, and at last in low whinnies.
"How quick they make friends!" the Chief grinned. "Now then, the hay is
piled here, the grain is in the sack yonder, and the medicines in the
cabinet. Now you can take over."
Giorgio noted the racks already filled, the water buckets brimming. He
would come back later to grain and groom Gaudenzia and to remove the
gunny-sack curtain.
He followed the Chief to his home, which perched on a ledge of rock
like an eagle's nest. The view was miniature compared to the world of
the Maremma. Below was a tiny dim valley, and climbing the opposite
hillside were busy little farm plots. But the same deep sky was
overhead and the same stars beginning to punch holes in the blue.
The Chief's wife and daughter greeted Giorgio with politeness and
relief. "The supper is ready," the Signora said with a hot-stove smile.
"I would not want the chicken to cook a moment longer."
The meal was a feast such as Giorgio had not tasted since his days
at the Ramallis'. First there was a piping hot broth of chicken with
tiny pearls of dough swimming along the bottom. Then came a beautiful
plate of antipasto--black olives, and mushrooms in oil, and little
white onions, and small green peppers, and anchovies curved into tight
nests, with a caper on each. Giorgio was encouraged to take something
of everything. And still he had room for a drumstick and breast of
chicken, and a baked tomato stuffed with ground beef.
All of this he sluiced down with a red Chianti wine which he thriftily
diluted with water as though he were at home.
The Chief helped himself to the food sparingly, and in silence. He
seemed preoccupied, brooding. But Giorgio ate heartily. The Signora
beamed at him. "For a small man, as you are," she said, appreciatively,
"you have _un bel appetito_."
Giorgio felt his face flush and his ears redden at the half-and-half
compliment.
With the dessert of fruit and cheeses on the table, the wife and
daughter disappeared into the kitchen. The silence grew heavy. The
Chief pushed back his plate without touching the food. At last the
moment for talk had arrived.
But the words did not come. He ran his finger around the inside of his
collar and cleared his throat. He got up and stood at the open door,
looking out upon the night. He came back and sat down again. Then,
gripping the edge of the table, he blurted out, "My boy, the Palio is
not going to be as we dreamed it."
Giorgio swallowed whole the apricot in his mouth. It was as though an
icy hand had gripped his throat.
"You see, the _people_ want beautiful horses such as Gaudenzia, but the
judges, no!"
Giorgio's voice sank back so deep inside him it was scarcely audible.
"But why?"
The Chief took a breath. For the boy's sake he wanted to sound
matter-of-fact, to ease him gently into disappointment. "The news of
Gaudenzia's win at Casole d'Elsa has spread to Siena. All at once
she is known as the get of Sans Souci, a full-blood Arab. And the
full-bloods are not wanted."
"But, Signore, she is only half-bred. Her dam was a farm horse."
"I know, I know," the Chief answered in irritation. "But because she is
now too beautiful, too well-trained, the rejection may come."
Giorgio waited in numbness.
"High-mettled Arabians have caprices, the judges say. Besides, the
turns of the course are too perilous and the layer of earth over the
cobblestones too thin for a full-blood with the delicate toothpick
legs."
There was a momentary pause as the Chief's daughter brought in two
small cups of coffee.
"You see, Giorgio, we Sienese are like moles burrowing, always digging
into our past. I have heard the judges say, as if only yesterday it
happened, how in the year 1500 Cesare Borgio's big stallion reared on
his hind legs and in coming back to earth hit the starting rope so hard
he could not run in the Palio. And in 1885, the purebred La Gorgona
cracked up in the last Prova, her legs brittle like eggshell. And you,
Giorgio, you must remember Habana? You remember when she flew into the
fence, and broke the boards to splinters!"
"But Signore! It happens with the mixed blood, too. Have they forgot
Turbolento?"
"_He_ fell, Giorgio. But the others? One might say they destroyed
themselves."
Anger lit Giorgio's eyes. "Signore! This you should have told me
before! Why did you send for Gaudenzia and me? Why did you let me
nourish all the hopes to win?"
The Chief wiped his face tiredly. "I do not know, truly. Perhaps the
hope is in me, too. Perhaps the hope is stronger than the reality. I
fear, Giorgio," he said again, "the Palio is not going to be as we
dreamed it."
"Signore! Shake yourself!" Giorgio's anger turned to wild appeal. His
words tumbled out bravely, recklessly. "Something we can do! Something
we _must_ do! Think!" He took hold of the man's sleeve, actually
shaking him in his eagerness.
The Chief closed his eyes thoughtfully. "What comes to mind," he said
at last, "is a very simple plan. Maybe too simple."
"Tell me! Tell me!"
Something of the old vigor crept into the Chief's voice. "Listen well,
my boy. In the trials when the horses are selected, you must make
Gaudenzia appear mature, sensible; an average beast."
Giorgio nodded, listening with every fiber.
"And in her workouts she must appear tranquil."
"That is easy! Easy! What else?"
"Wherever you make talk, you must say how her dam was a poor old farm
horse and how she herself was a cart horse for many years, and her
colts were nothing at all, good only for the slaughterhouse."
"I will!"
"Margherita," the Chief called to his daughter, "our coffees are now
cold." He turned back to Giorgio. "Only one thing is in our favor. You
see...."
There was a pause as the coffees came and he liberally spooned
sugar into both cups. "Because all the contradas think her nervous,
unpredictable, none will ask for agreement from you to help another
horse to win."
Giorgio sighed in deep relief. "Of that I am glad. When I am on
Gaudenzia I am _simpatico_ only to her. But why is it no one has ever
come to me to make the secret agreement?"
The Chief could not help chuckling. "'The runt of Monticello', they
say, 'is young and green like new spear of wheat. We do not make
agreements with a boy so little he has to have double lining in his
helmet to keep it on.'"
The man suddenly went silent. What if Giorgio were not asked to ride
Gaudenzia in the Palio? He held his tongue. The boy had had enough
worries for one night.