Hunting Season: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

nose, and watermelon-seed eyes, still belonged to the plant kingdom.
    As he grew up, Federico Maria Santo, for simplicity’s sake, came to be called Rico by the rest of the family, but the kids he played with quickly renamed him Ricò. The accent on the last syllable was not a form of endearment, but rather a judgment of his character. Since ricò meant none other than ricotta cheese — “ A ricò! Cu a voli a ricò! ” the street vendor would cry out in the early morning with his cart full of cheese baskets—that accent implied that the matter inside Federico Maria’s skull, as well as the boy’s bearing, appeared to consist of fresh, quivering ricotta. Rico was thus a bit sweet in the head, his thoughts never coming out seasoned with the salt that would seem to be a feature of human brain function, and this was perhaps why he enjoyed a perpetually serene temperament and never took offense at anything. Unable to string more than two words together in a sentence, he often burst into a laughter that had nothing human about it, but sounded exactly like the bleating of a goat.

    On the evening of June 30, 1880, as they were all supping, Rico announced to the family that he didn’t want there to be any celebrations for the following day, his twenty-second birthday. He was going to get up very early in the morning, take a horse, and go meet the farmhand Bonocore at the edge of the Citronella wood, which he said was a sort of inexhaustible mine of mushrooms. Rico was, in fact, a glutton for raw mushrooms. He had even had some leather bags expressly made with several pouches in which he kept special knives, a little rake, a sickle, a hook, a small box of salt, and a bottle of vinegar. Whenever he found mushrooms, he would eat them on the spot. He never brought them home; he claimed they lost their flavor that way.
    “You’re all worked up over the mushrooms in the Citronella,” said Don Filippo, “when there are far more in the Zàgara woods.”
    “Yes, but less tasty.”
    He left the next morning at dawn, rifle on his shoulder. The double-barrel was just for show; Rico would never have been able to use it against another living being. The sight of a sparrow with a grain of wheat in its beak, a rabbit scampering into the underbrush, an ant dragging a piece of straw filled him with a strange happiness, and a kind of music began to play inside him, growing louder and louder until he burst out in a colossal bleat.
    When, after three hours on horseback, he arrived at the clearing in front of Bonocore’s house, Carmelina came running up to him, breathless. She was his secret. It wasn’t at all true that the mushrooms in the Citronella woods were more flavorful than the others. But at the farmhand’s little house lived Carmelina, the only creature, he was sure, who could understand him deep down inside. Their love had begun a year earlier and still endured, while growing in intensity. For a year now, Rico had been wondering what had first attracted Carmelina to him, what was the origin of the miracle he was living. He had been speaking—he confusedly remembered as he embraced Carmelina and kissed her—with the farmhand, who had told him something that made him laugh; and, upon hearing his laugh, Carmelina, who was at the edge of the clearing, had suddenly turned around and started walking slowly towards him without taking her eyes off him. Yes, that was how it had all begun: with his laughing.
    He kissed Carmelina again and, feeling he could not hold out much longer, he called out the farmer’s name, to see if he was around. There was no reply; the coast was clear. And so, almost by force, he dragged her into the straw hut, took off his clothes, and lay down on the ground, naked. With patience and devotion, Carmelina began to lick his body. A few moments later, realizing he was about to explode like a wild cucumber and scatter his seed all around, Carmelina turned her back to him and waited to feel the weight of her man