The leaflets were of two types and with different titles. There were the mimeographed ones, which the machine kept churning out, smeared with ink, and already arranged in piles lined up on the floor, there were those in typeface, black words on yellow paper. Red title in Bodoni. All caps: UNITED WE WIN. But we liked the mimeographed better.
"Let's take these," Tommaso said.
"And who is he?" said the man turning the mimeograph machine.
"He's the youth secretary," said Eugenio. "The new one."
The mimeograph man let go of the handle and looked at Tommaso. "God, what curls," he said. «But how do you go about styling it?»
Tommaso laughed heartily. "They're planted on a very healthy brain," he said. "And very tidy." Then he turned to me: "Take a thousand."
"One thousand?" said the mimeograph man. Again he looked at Eugenio: "Don't they seem a little too much to you?"
"No," said Eugenio. "One thousand. Like the Garibaldians of the landing".
The man pretended to spit on his hands. "I would have finished here," he said. "But for you I want to make an exception." He bent over the mimeograph machine and turned the crank again.
The room was filled with smoke. Outside, across the market square, the bell tower clock struck six times.
"By the way," said the man, "should we work overtime or not? What do you think about it?"
Eugenio took his watch out of his waistcoat pocket and sighed.
Of the three, I was the only one who had to telephone home to say that I would not be returning that night. I would sleep at Eugenio's, I told my father. A meeting that would go on for a long time, and then an early morning lecture at the university: we were supposed to study together after the meeting. But what we did was go to eat in a restaurant at the end of a dark alley in the medieval city.
The landlady said, "Do you like shredded cabbage?"
We had eaten a good portion of it with sausages when Tommaso joined us.
"It's wonderful," he said. “All these arches, these dark stones. All this history stuck to the walls, with the oil from the fried foods and the smoke. Tastes like carbonaria, conspiracy. Stink". He sat down, drank from my glass and said: 'I guess we're offline, comrades. Mass work should be done in the open, among the people."
“Do you like shredded cabbage?” said Eugene.
"Or?"
«Stockfish with potatoes».
"And cuttlefish with chard," said the landlady from across the counter.
"That's enough," Tommaso said. "I give up".
We finished eating very late. When we got up, the hostess was spreading sawdust between the tables.
"You pay," Tommaso told me. "After that, let's do the math."
I lit a cigarette and took out the money.
We had to wake him up hard, clapping our hands.
He nearly fell off the sofa. “Hey, hey,” he said. "Enough of the applause, I understand."
Eugenio pulled the blanket off him. "Come on, get up."
I went into the kitchen to make coffee. As I fiddled with the machine, I listened to him say, "What time is it?"
"Half past three."
"I'd like to shave, if you don't mind."
«But what beard. Hurry up".
“God, the stockfish. I still have it here, on my stomach.'
"Do you want to hurry?"
They walked in the corridor, from the bedroom to the bathroom.
"Where's the toothpaste?"
"I don't know, look it up."
"The toothbrush. At least give me the toothbrush.'
We drank coffee without saying anything. Then Eugenio went to the window and opened it wide. It was pitch dark: above the roof of the house opposite, cut out between the silhouettes of the chimneys, one could glimpse the sky of a cold, starless spring night.
"Three for Pontedera," Eugenio said to the ticket seller. "Round trip".
The man raised his glasses: "Whose dog is that?"
Eugenio looked around: "Which dog?"
"That dog," said the conductor. "No dogs on the train."
We had it behind us, crouched under the timetable.
"And what are you doing here?" Tommaso said, trying to caress him. "What is your name?"
The dog yelped, lowered his muzzle and sniffed at his shoes.
"Maybe he's hungry," I said.
"I don't know," Tommaso said. "Maybe he wants to piss on me."
We took the bundles of leaflets under our arms and went outside. The dog remained in the hall, next to the bulletin board: he had gotten up and seemed to be peeping at the times, undecided.
"He would like to leave," Tommaso said. "But he doesn't know where to."
We went and sat on a bench.
Opposite was the waiting room, barely lit by neon. The sidewalks along the tracks were deserted and at the end, where the shelter ended, a thick veil of fog covered the view.
"But you look at him," Tommaso said.
Eugenio was coming towards us, tall in his dark suit, his jacket wide open to show a nice red and blue tie and waistcoat with a watch chain.
"If you didn't know him," Tommaso said, "who would you say he was?"
"A college professor," I said. "A baron's assistant."
Tommaso zipped up his jacket and blew on his hands. "Remind me to ask the workers," he said.
Then the Internationale began to whistle.
The train came next, panting and screeching.
He seemed to be in a hurry. He stopped for a minute, just the time it took us and the conductor to climb up, then he gave a yank and set off quickly, whistling. But at the first station, when he braked, Eugenio opened the window and said that he had to be patient: it was a local train, an accelerated one, and he would take it all, even those in the smallest villages, just a few houses around the square, a bell tower and the people's house, perhaps.
Outside, meanwhile, it was already the countryside.
In the fog that enveloped the train we could smell the smells of manure and hay, and with our eyes we tried to guess what was hidden behind the hedges, low walls and fences, whether a well or a fig tree, or a threshing floor with kennel in the middle and the farmhouse at the back, whitewashed by a flash of light. At times it dawned, under the black sky.
"Have you ever seen her?" Thomas said.
"What?"
“The Northern Lights. They say it's an effect of the solar wind. A sort of reflection of the sun's energy, when it gets dark and the earth thinks it can do without it».
At each station someone got on. He would emerge from under the sheds, stealthily, approach the carriage and pull himself up, disappearing.
Cold men. Workers.
One by one the train loaded them and resumed its journey.
He trudged and puffed, as if each time he wanted to shake off the fog that faded the view of the fields and farmhouses.
I was the last to fall asleep.
Earlier we had talked about what we would do once we arrived. Few things, but good. Anticipate the workers in front of the gates, wait for them and hand each of them a leaflet. It wasn't difficult, and there was no need for explanation, even with those we knew.
"HI. Well, look who's here. How is it going? And how do you want it to go, haven't you read the newspaper?»
The older ones would fold the flyer in four, without saying anything.
The younger ones would have joked: «What is it? Is it going on strike?».
But they would all be of few words by now.
Then, after entering the first shift, we would go to the bar across the street. Someone, for sure, would have offered us coffee: «How do you want the correction? With rum? Come on, throw it down, it's good for you».
Dressed as he was, they would have mistaken Eugenio for a party leader: «There are still many big sheep. Too many".
“Who are you sending to the assembly tomorrow?”
And also, the less shrewd, with mimeograph in hand: «Eat the master's apples. Or what does he mean?"
I thought I heard Eugenio's voice explaining it to him when I too was dozing off, without realizing it.
Instead, all of a sudden, I heard Tommaso's voice: "Here we are!"
It seemed to me too: on the other side of the platform a group of men was about to hole up in the underpass.
We got off quickly, while the train was already rattling.
"The package!" Eugene shouted.
I went back up and ran into the compartment, grabbed my package and jumped onto the sidewalk. My heart was in my throat and my legs were shaking.
"What if we were on the cruiser Aurora?" then Thomas said. “What were we supposed to do? Postpone the revolution?”
The station ticket office was empty and so was the corridor that led out into a clearing darkened by fog. We saw a shadow on a bicycle, along the road that flanked an embankment, as high as an embankment. On the other side, in the background, the raised bars of a level crossing could be seen.
Eugenio looked around, uncertain.
"Shall we take from here?" Thomas said.
"Where 'over here'?"
"The road," Tommaso said. "Can't you see the road?"
"Yes, but I can't see the tunnel."
"How do you mean?"
"Do you see it?"
Fog drifted around us.
"There should be a tunnel," said Eugenio. "I remember it well." He turned to me: "Do you see it?"
"No".
"Maybe we were wrong," he said. "We should have come out the other side of the underpass."
"Sure," Tommaso said. "Come on, let's go back."
Then, above the entrance door to the station, we glimpsed the name of the town, embossed in black, time-worn letters, like the names of the dead on the headstones of the older graves in the cemetery.
"I can not believe it".
"Me niether".
Then they started arguing.
"It was you, I was asleep."
"Oh yes? but when you came down you had opened your eyes».
"And you, first? Did you dream? Please, shut up."
Immediately afterwards they took it out on me: «You were awake, damn it! Yes. Like Sleeping Beauty.'
We had the wrong station and there was nothing we could do about it. But Tommaso insisted: «What time is it?».
"A quarter to five."
"Are you sure it's okay?"
"Yup".
Tommaso watched Eugenio tinker with the watch: "I don't trust it."
"I do not care".
They resumed arguing: "Next time I'll come alone."
"Yes, but by car."
"I come by bicycle."
"Yes good".
"Do you think I'm not capable of that?"
"Of course? One man in charge."
Meanwhile they had sat down on the sidewalk. Now the fog was beginning to clear up and we could see the houses across the square and behind the roofs, higher up, the loggia of a bell tower.
The first person we met was the priest. We were walking briskly when, after the first turn, we saw him: a black cassock in the small churchyard, with a broom in his hand, held upright by the handle.
He looked like a sentry.
"Are you talking to us?"
“To tell him what? Were we in the wrong station?”
They were still angry.
"I'm not talking to him."
"Me niether".
"You are the secretary."
"And you are in charge of propaganda."
At that point the priest noticed us: «Good morning».
Then he leaned the broom against a door jamb and said, "Are you here for the funeral?"
He looked at us from under his glasses. He was an elderly man, with gray hair and red cheeks.
"I didn't expect you so soon," he said.
Thomas approached.
'Oh yes,' said the priest, 'you must be the nephew. It's impressive how much she looks like him.'
At that moment a woman with a shawl on her head looked out of the rectory window. She looked scared.
"Oh my goodness," he said, "and who are these?"
"Of figs? Are you sure it's figs?"
“Taste this. It's raspberry."
"But no," said the priest. "It's from blackberries. We collect them, with the catechism students, in the autumn».
Tommaso thrust the spoon into the jar.
"Put some here on the bread."
The rectory kitchen was warm and well lit.
Eugenio, who had taken off his jacket, was at the head of the table, with all the others around. The woman was standing in front of the stove.
"Here it is, it's about to boil!"
I got up to hand her the cups.
As we ate, the priest said: 'I have to go. But you also take your time. I like having people in the rectory while I say mass».
Then he took a flyer from the package we had previously unwrapped, to show him what it contained.
"I read everything," he said. “I like it. It makes me feel less ignorant."
Tommaso dipped the bread in the milk and smiled.
The author
Athos Bigongials, Pisano, made his debut in 1989 with the novel A proletarian city (Sellerio), from which the theatrical show and the musical work Il paradiso degli esuli were taken. Again with Sellerio, he published: Warnings against land sickness, Irish vigil e Letter to Dr. Hyde di R.L. Stevenson; with Joints: Che's ashes, Ballad for a hot summer, The clown and various tales; with Pacini: Pisa once; with Felici: Although we are women e Steve's last escape McQueen. He has written for Rai Radio3, Mondadori and the Espresso group. His latest work is Johnny of the Angels. A Hollywood delirium, for MdS Editore.
