The Beach Read Free Page A

which point he got a punch in the face that sent him stumbling to the ground three yards away. He then disappeared as if by magic and we heard him calling out in the silence of the moon: "Thanks, engineer. Ginio's father will hear about this."
    Doro and Ginio had already started up again, and I with them. I couldn't make up my mind what to say. If I had second thoughts, it was only that this dirty bricklayer would shame me in front of Doro in the intensity of their common memories, which they ran through excitedly as they approached the village. They talked at random, and that rough dialect was enough to restore to Doro the true flavor of his life, of the wine, flesh, and joy in which he had been born. I felt cut off, helpless. I took Doro's arm and joined them, grumbling. After all, I had drunk the same wine.
    What we did under those windows was rash. I realized that Biagio must have hid himself in some corner of the little square and said so to Doro, who ignored it. Laughing and grinning like an idiot, Ginio led off by knocking at the worm-eaten door, under the moon. We were talking in stage whispers, amused and half cocked. But nobody answered; the windows stayed shut. Then Doro began to cough; then Ginio collected pebbles and began throwing them up,- then we argued because I said he was going to crack the windows; then Doro finally let himself go with a terrible howl, bestial, like country drunks at the end of a song. All the silences of the moon seemed to shudder. Various distant dogs from who knows what courtyards joined in hideously.
    Doors slammed and shutters creaked. Ginio started singing, something like the earlier song, but Doro's voice soon joined in and blanketed his. Someone was shouting from the other side of the square; a light glimmered at a window. A chorus of curses and threats had just begun when the bricklayer threw himself against the door, raining kicks and thumps with his fists. Doro grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into the belt of shadow from a nearby house.
    "Let's see if they douse him with a washbasin," he whispered hoarsely, laughing. "I want to see him drenched like a goose."
    A dog howled from very close by. I began to feel ashamed. Then we were silent. Even Ginio, who was holding one bare foot in his hands and hopping around on the cobblestones. When we shut up, so did the voices from the windows. The light disappeared. Only the intermittent barking kept on. It was then we heard a shutter up above being carefully creaked open.
    Ginio squatted in the shadow between us. "They've opened," he breathed in my face. I pushed him away, remembering he was dusted with lime. "Go on, introduce yourself," Doro told him dryly. Ginio shouted from the darkness, peering up. I felt his cold, rough neck under my hand. "Let's sing," he said to Doro. Doro ignored him and gave a low whistle as if he were calling a dog. They were chattering among themselves up there.
    "Come on," said Doro, "introduce yourself," and shoved him out into the moonlight.
    Ginio, lurching into the light, kept laughing and raised his arm as if to ward off some missile. All was quiet at the window. His trousers began falling, tangled a foot, and nearly toppled him. He stumbled and sat down.
    "Rosina, O Rosina." He stretched his mouth but choked back his voice. "Do you know who it is?"
    A low laugh came from topside, then suddenly stopped.
    Ginio went back to playing the eel, this time on hard ground. Pushing with his hands, he wriggled back toward the edge of the shadow. Doro was now standing, ready to give him a kick. But Ginio jumped out quickly, shouting meantime: "It's Doro, Doro of the Ca Rosse, come back from Genoa to see you all." He seemed out of his mind.
    There was a movement above and a creak of lighted windows being opened. Then a heavy thump from behind the door, swinging it out, splitting the moonlight that soaked it. Ginio, nailed to the spot in the middle of his dance, was two steps from the doorway. A thickset man in