Bianca, the Blind One
After the Umbrella Man left, there was a sense of urgency in the way Giorgio lived and worked. If he was to become a fantino in the Palio, or a horse trainer, or only a groom, he must grow hard, wiry, quick; and stronger than boys twice his size.
His mother and father could not understand the change in their eldest. Instead of turning over for an extra sleep in the morning, he was up before the sun—feeding the cats in the kitchen, clanking the copper pitchers as he went to fetch the drinking water, graining Pippa, mending harness.
And when the cocks had only begun to crow, he was already at the door with the donkey hitched to the cart. Together he and his father went whistling off into the morning.
It was only nine kilometers to their farm, but the road wound down through stern country. Pippa was trail-wise. Where the footing was good she went trotting along, ears flopping, tail swinging; but through the tangled brake where the wild boar lurked, she kept her head down, watchful, snuffing. Of the few hovels they passed she always remembered the one where the swineherd and his poor donkey had lived; there she slowed her steps and gave out a sad, wheezy bray. Giorgio's whistling stopped, for he remembered, too. Then he looked away, looked at the great dark hulk of Mount Amiata, and knew that on the other side the morning sun was warming the foot-hills and somewhere there in the brightness was the ancient, walled city of Siena. The very name made his hairs stir. It was like a finger beckoning to him, urging him to hurry in his growing.
He always sat up straight then and called out, "Pippa! Get along! We go to work."
Plash! Plash! Pippa's feet plunged through the ditch at the edge of their farm, clambered up the other side, and headed for the barn.
To Giorgio, his whole life seemed wrapped up in the big barn made of bricks and straw. Here were the horses his father bought and sold—sometimes five, sometimes seven—and here were the team of white bullocks, and the milk-cow, and a frisky goat and her twin kids. With a sad sort of smile Babbo each morning encouraged Giorgio to grain the horses well, for the more fat on their bones the better price they would bring.
There was one mare, however, that Giorgio fed meagerly, for he loved her most and wanted no one to buy her. She was steel-gray with lively ears and enormous eyes, but they were blind. He felt guilty in his heart when he grained the others; it was like sending them to their death. But he felt guiltier still when he gave only small measure to Bianca, the blind one. Her ribs showed when he cleaned her off, and when he rode her, his legs could feel each one separately. He took to sitting well forward to ease his conscience. Then he was scarcely any weight at all.
To make up for the scanty meals, he often brought her fistfuls of clover. And in her stall the straw bedding was always the deepest.
One day Giorgio's father, pointing to Bianca, said, "That one is a terrible sorrow to me. It is not enough she is blind and unable to work. But besides, she does not fatten."
"Give her time, Babbo."
"Time! Already dozens of horses come and go, but Bianca, she stays. And only from pity I took her. I say to myself, 'We give her two, three weeks of good eating; then we let her go.'" The father shook his head, frowning. "A blind mare, she is good for nothing."
"Maybe," Giorgio ventured, "she could make a good colt."
"No, no. Her colts, too, could come blind. And she is not good for the riding, either."
"Oh, but she is! She is more sure-footed than...." Giorgio suddenly broke off his praise. If anyone knew how big-going she was and how willing and trustful, she would be sold in a hurry to some traveler, or even as a race horse. Then he would never see her again. Never ride her again. Never feel her lips nuzzling his neck to make sure that he was he! "Yes," he nodded in agreement, "it is too bad about the blind one." And he became very busy, mucking out her stall to hide his blushing.
Giorgio's tasks were endless. With the bullock team he plowed and cultivated the cornfield. By hand he hoed the beans and peas. He milked the cow. He kept the rabbit hutch clean. He staked out the she-goat by day and brought her in at night.
But these seemed mere child's tasks. He liked better to swing the scythe in harvest time. Cutting down the sun-ripened hay was man's work. He could feel his muscles hardening, his lungs swelling. He took a fierce pride in piling the hay around a pole, piling it higher and higher until it was ready for the thatched roof that became the watershed.
If he tired toward the end of the day, he made himself remember the mocking grin of the swineherd and the voice sneering, "You meddling runt, you!" The memory gave him a new burst of strength. He gripped the scythe like one possessed of a demon, and he cut the hay in great wide swaths.
He felt better then, and to reward himself for the extra work he went around to the barn, bridled Bianca, and rode pell-mell into the gathering dusk. It was good to let the wind wash his face, to let the smooth, rocking motion ease his body. He could ride for miles through weeds and grasses without crossing a road, and he exulted in the fearlessness with which Bianca faced the unknown.
Heading back to the stable one night, Giorgio let his bare legs dangle along the mare's sides, and to his surprise he could not feel her ribs.
"Babbo!" he exclaimed when he brought her in. "Bianca is shaping up! But please...."
The father interrupted. "I know, I know, and it is costing dear. Since you grain her night and morning, I grain her extra at noon. A heaping measure I give her, with sugar added."
Giorgio looked up in fear. "Please, Babbo, please don't sell her. I pretend always she is mine. With her, the eyes are not needed. She's got eyes—in her ears, in her feet, in her heart. Babbo, don't sell her."
There was a mark of pain between the father's eyes. "Son," he said, "she goes sure-footed only with you. With the others she stumbles. Her owner before us told me she breaks a man's leg in falling on him. Giorgio, I got nothing to say. Families come first. Emilio and Teria and Mamma got to eat."
Two mornings later the blind mare's stall was empty. Giorgio felt himself too old to cry. He found some of her tail hairs caught in the wood of the manger, and very gently he pulled them out, as if they were still a part of her. He braided them and put them as a keepsake in the back of the big watch his grandfather had left him.
It was not until he arrived in Monticello that evening and his mother said, "Giorgio, maybe somebody today hurt you?" that he wept. The room was empty. Emilio and Teria had gone to their cousins' for supper and the father was unhooking Pippa. Now, alone with his mother, the boy's pent-up feelings burst.
She put her mending aside and with a quiet hand on his shoulder said, "I think I know. It is Bianca who is gone this time. Your father, too, is troubled. All night long he can't sleep."
Giorgio did not ask the fate of the blind mare. He knew. But in his sorrow he clung to a frail thread of comfort. After his voice steadied he asked, "When a creature goes to die, do you believe...." The words came strained, begging for help, trying to find a way to ask it. "That is, do you think a newborn comes to take the place of the other?"
The mother understood the boy's need. Slowly, thoughtfully, she said, "This I have pondered also." Then a look of triumph lighted her face, as if two things suddenly fitted together. "Si!" she said with conviction, "when one leaves this life, another must come into it. Yesterday," she went on, "when I was washing our bed linen at the public washbasins, a farmer from Magliano Toscano galloped by." She drove her needle in and out of a button already sewn fast. "He was followed by a veterinarian on a second beast. They were in a very great hurry. You see," she added with a quick catch of her breath, "the farmer's mare had been bred to the Arabian stallion, Sans Souci, and she was due to foal. Her colt, of course, would be of royal blood!"
"Well, did she?"
The mother's hand made the sign of the cross. Then she looked happily at Giorgio and her voice was full of assurance. "She did! The news today carried all the way to our market-place. Her colt, Giorgio, is a filly. And she has the eyes to see!"
