Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [255]
They left the restaurant, started back up the path, but Lorenza suddenly stopped; she saw some people arriving. Belbo didn’t know them. Friends of Aglie, she said, and she didn’t want them to see her. A humiliating situation: she leaned against the railing of a little bridge over a ravine full of olive trees, a newspaper in front of her face, as if she were consumed by a sudden interest in current events. Belbo stood ten paces away, smoking, as if he were just passing by.
A friend of Aglie walked past. Lorenza said that if they continued along the path, they were bound to run into Aglie himself. To hell with this, Belbo said. So what? Lorenza said he was insensitive. The solution: Get to the car without taking the path, cut across the slopes. A breathless flight over a series of sunbaked terraces, and Belbo lost the heel of a shoe. Lorenza said, You see how much more beautiful it is this way? Of course you’re out of breath; you shouldn’t smoke so much.
They reached the car, and Belbo said they might as well go back to Milan. No, Lorenza said, Aglie might be late, we might meet him on the highway, and he knows your car. It’s such a lovely day, let’s cut through the interior. It must be charming, and we’ll get to the Autostrada del Sole and have supper along the Po somewhere, near Pavia.
Why there, and what do you mean, cut through the interior? There’s only one solution; look at the map. We’d have to climb into the mountains after Uscio, then cross the Apennines, stop at Bobbio, and from there go on to Piacenza. You’re crazy! Worse than Hannibal and the elephants. You have no sense of adventure, she said, and anyway, think of all the charming little restaurants we’ll find in those hills. Before Uscio there’s Manuelina’s, which has at least twelve stars in the Michelin and all the fish you could want.
Manuelina’s was full, with a line of customers eyeing the tables where coffee was being served. Never mind, Lorenza said, a few kilometers higher we’ll find a hundred places better than this. They found a restaurant at two-thirty, in a wretched village that, according to Belbo, even the army maps were ashamed to record, and they ate overcooked pasta with a sauce made of canned meat. Belbo asked Lorenza what was behind all this, because it was no accident that she had made him take her to the very place where Aglie would be: she wanted to provoke someone, either Aglie or him, but he couldn’t figure out which of the two it was. She asked him if he was paranoid.
After Uscio they tried a mountain pass and, as they were going through a village that looked like Sunday afternoon in Sicily during the reign of the Bourbons, a big black dog came to a stop in the middle of the road, as if it had never seen an automobile before. Belbo hit it. The impact did not seem great, but as soon as they got out, they saw that the poor animal’s belly was red with blood, and some strange pink things (intestines?) were sticking out, and the dog was whimpering and drooling. Some villeins gathered, and soon it was like a town meeting. Belbo asked who the dog’s owner was, he would pay. The dog had no owner. The dog represented perhaps ten percent of the population of that Godforsaken place, but they knew it only by sight. Some said they should fetch the carabiniere sergeant, who would fire a shot, and that would be that.
As they were looking for the sergeant, a lady arrived, declaring herself an animal lover. I have six cats, she said. This is a dog, not a cat, Belbo said, and he’s dying, and I’m in a hurry. Cat or dog, you should have a heart, the lady said. No sergeant. Somebody must be brought from the SPCA, or from the hospital in-the