From where they stood, they could see Anna’s slight shoulders heaving, her head bent; earth, stones and rubbish of all sorts fell on her matted hair. “Look at her, look at her!” they said. “She hasn’t got cragghh craghh guaaah!” They raised the uncomprehending Tonino high on their shoulders and he looked around in terror.
At last Antonio managed to reach the parapet. Now he could see the cage. “Anna, Anna!” he began to shout amid the uproar. “Anna! It’s me!”
He tried three times, but then someone touched his shoulder. It was a pale and depressed-looking man of about fifty, and he was shaking his head. “No, no,” he said and Antonio felt a rush of gratitude on hearing him speak civilly. “No, please don’t!”
Antonio didn’t understand. “Don’t what?” he stammered.
The other shook his head and put a finger on his lips to imply the need for silence. “Now, please don’t . . . you’d better leave . . . it’s hot here . . . very hot . . .”
“Me? Me?” he repeated shakily; suddenly he saw around him half a dozen horrific heads craned forward to listen. He left the parapet.
Sundown was approaching but bringing neither cool nor comfort. The shouts were gradually dying down into a low resentful murmur, but the crowd along the moat railings did not disperse. Nearby the policemen walked in pairs, aimlessly and nervously. Were they just waiting for people to go? Perhaps that was the rule here, to avoid riots.
“Oh, Lord, how awful,” murmured Antonio, trying to regain his position at the edge. He succeeded after a few minutes, but found himself some way from the cage. Once again he tried to call Anna.
Then he felt a sudden blow at the back of his neck. It was the young man with the T-shirt. “You again?” he asked, smiling poisonously. “Aren’t you bst bst sedin gaaaah!” He broke into inarticulate gurgling.
“He’s an accomplice, arrest him! Get guish guish aahh . . . mmm . . . mmm . . . !” they shouted.
“Get him too,” suggested someone. “Him too,” they all replied. Antonio tried to move away, but he was seized and held. They bound his wrists and pushed him over the parapet, so that he hung over the moat suspended by a rope, then they dragged him along the wall until he was above the cage; they slackened their hold. Antonio fell suddenly onto the floor of the cage, crushing one of Anna’s hands as he did so; she didn’t move. A savage roar sounded above them. The light was fading.
Loosening his hands with difficulty, Antonio put his arms around her and felt the slime with which she was covered. Anna kept her head bent and went on murmuring expressionlessly. Then she began to cough, her whole body shaking. The crowds above were still shouting.
But now many people were moving off, satiated, even faintly disgusted. The twilight swifts twittered, darting around the castle. The sound of the last post could be heard from a distant barracks. It was night at last in that dust heap of a town. Suddenly an old woman with a large package appeared, laughing gleefully. “Tonino, Tonino!” pointing to the package as though it contained some delightful surprise. The crowd drew back to let her pass.
When she reached the edge the old woman opened the bundle, revealing a child’s chamber pot; she lowered it so that the crowd could catch a glimpse of its contents. “Tonino, Tonino,” she repeated, pointing to it.
Then she leaned out over the railing, held the pot over the cage and took aim. “Not that you deserve it!” she added.
The contents fell, softly, on Anna’s shoulders. But she didn’t move, or protest. All that could be heard was the straining sound of her cough, deep and dry.
There was a moment of indecision among the crowd. Then, as the old woman sniggered, a laugh spread through it.
In the ensuing silence, from the section of the moat wall by which the cage was hanging, came the tremulous call of a cricket. Its chirp became louder, as though it were coming nearer.
Anna put out a small trembling hand through the bars toward it, as though asking for help.
Oversight
SIGNORA ADA TORMENTI HAD GONE TO THE COUNTRY for a few days as the guest of her cousins the Premoli family. There were a lot of other guests. As it was summer, they would sit in the garden talking until one or two in the morning. One night the conversation touched upon town houses. There was a man there called Imbastaro, intelligent but unpleasant. He said, “Every time I leave my house in Naples, ha ha, I run into some kind of trouble, ha ha” (he was sniggering meanly, apparently pointlessly; or was his aim, perhaps, to make the others feel uneasy?). “I leave the place, and before I’ve gone half a mile, the tap I left on makes the washbasin overflow, the cigarette I left alight sets the library on fire, or rats break in and eat me out of house and home; ha ha, or else the portress, who’s the only person left at this time of year, suddenly dies and is found the next morning ripe for burial, with candles, priest and coffin all organized. That’s life.”
“Not always,” said Signora Tormenti, “luckily.”
“Not always, you’re right. But would you be willing to swear that you’ve left your flat perfectly organized, that you haven’t forgotten anything? Now, think carefully.”
At these words Ada became deathly pale: a fearful thought struck her. In order to come and stay with the
