In the Wolf's Mouth Read Free Page A

picked up his gun and bag and whip and scared the sheep into a huddle and drove them past the fallen body of the mule towards the village. Leaving now, not stopping, they could be back by nightfall.
    After the thick, surging colours of sunrise, two little birds joined them, wagtails, hunting the insects that whirred up where the sheep trod. They twitched their yellow tails and emitted their one bright, repetitive note. They kept flying a foot or two in the air and landing again, maintaining a precise distance fromAngilù and the animals. Where they landed was the exact midpoint between their hunger and their fear.
    Cirò Albanese rode to a nearby town to talk to somebody, a large stationary man who sat with a boulder of stomach resting on his thighs. This man, Alvaro Zuffo, modestly dressed and inconspicuous as he was, made a centre wherever he sat. Any chair enthroned him. Cirò found him in the clean-cut rectangle of shade cast by the awning of a particular bar on the square. This man had a surprisingly delicate way of smoking. He puffed, the cigarette held low in an open hand of evenly spread fingers. The man talked elliptically but to the point. Birds. Barking dogs. Stones. Fishermen. He spoke in proverbs. Only when Cirò mentioned the posters around the town did he speak directly, with rage. His anger was so large and powerful it seemed to tire him like an illness. He half closed his eyes. That mule-jawed, cuckolded son of a whore had appointed a Fascist governor to Sicily, as Cirò knew, and now disappearances, torture, order destroyed. So the decision Cirò was making was very wise. Cirò didn’t know he had made a decision. He thought, rather, that he had come for advice. The man told Cirò where to go. There was a coffin maker down in the harbour who arranged things. Cirò shouldn’t say one word to anyone, not even his wife, just slip away there and go.
    Angilù pulled hard at the bell of the landlord’s house. The jangling faded. He rang again. Silence solidified on the other side of the door. He was relieved, forthe moment. He was alone. Nothing was happening. He walked back through the olive trees to the pillared gate. Beyond it he saw a motor car, dark green, its gleaming polish filmed with road dust. Beside it there was a tall man in a brown suit wearing bright shoes of two different colours of leather.
    The tall man saw him. Their eyes met. Angilù wished that hadn’t happened. He should have just hidden. He had no wish to meet any unknown friends of the landlord. He hung his head down between his shoulders, an insignificant peasant, and pushed through the gate.
    The tall man said, in good Italian, ‘He isn’t here?’
    Angilù answered, as he had to, in Sicilian. ‘No one answered.’ He tried to walk away.
    ‘What business do you have with him?’ The tall man bent down towards Angilù. His face was composed of neat triangles, a clipped beard and moustache, a sharp nose and arched eyebrows. He put his hands in the soft checkered fabric of his pockets, leaning forwards.
    ‘I … I have to talk to him, to tell him, about my flock.’
    ‘But as he’s not here, why don’t you tell me?’
    ‘I should go now, sir, and …’
    ‘He’s not here. Tell me instead.’
    ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Angilù scratched his head. ‘I need to speak …’
    ‘What do you do?’ The man kept his eyes on Angilù’s face, stepping with him as he tried to shift away, preventing him.
    ‘I’m a shepherd, here on the estate.’
    ‘I see.’ The man smiled. ‘And do you know who I am?’
    ‘No, sir. I can’t say I do.’
    ‘That’s my fault,’ the man said, producing a gold pocket watch as smooth as a river pebble from his waistcoat pocket. He checked it and flipped shut its thin gold door. ‘But that will change. I’m your Prince, you see. You work for me.’
    ‘I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t … I saw you once as a child, at harvest …’
    ‘My fault, as I say. Spending all my time away in Palermo like every