In Calabria

The monster crowded gracefully past Bianchi to crane farther under the old tractor’s hood. He brushed the long ash from his cigar tip with a tap of his little finger, and it in turn brushed Bianchi’s hand as it fell into the engine. “Impacciato, goffo!”

The monster crowded gracefully past Bianchi to crane farther under the old tractor’s hood. He brushed the long ash from his cigar tip with a tap of his little finger, and it in turn brushed Bianchi’s hand as it fell into the engine. “Impacciato, goffo!” he berated himself. “My apologies, I am so clumsy. I should not be around machines—things just seem to happen. You know how it is with some people.”
“It is nothing.” Bianchi was consciously taking long, slow breaths as he worked, trying to slow down his racketing pulse.
“On the contrary,” the monster replied. “It is not nothing at all.” He flicked the cigar again, and more ash fell.
Bianchi took a last deep breath and turned to face the monster directly. The monster’s eyes were brown and friendly, with deep space beyond them. Bianchi said, “I will only tell you this once, because you already know what I am going to say. Nothing here is for sale. Not because you are who you are, but because I do not choose to sell my home to anyone, especially a pezzo di merda like you. I like it here.”
“Ah.” The monster seemed to take no offense at all. He nodded again. “Well, if you should ever decide that you like it here a bit less, you might let me know.” And he produced from his vest pocket, tucked neatly behind the Toscanos, an ivory-white card with his name on it in raised letters. “I will not trouble you further. Unless you call the number on that card, you will not be hearing from me again. Buon giorno, Mr. Bianchi.”
A Japanese helicopter was circling overhead as the monster walked away, and he waved to it without turning his head. A jeep with what looked like a harpoon gun mounted on the hood, followed too closely by a television van from a Messina station, started to cut across the monster’s path until the jeep driver—clad in camouflage clothing, like many of the hunters—recognized him and hit the brakes so hard that the jeep went up on its rear wheels, and the van smacked into it, jolting it into a half-spin, and producing a volley of screams, curses, and the distinct sound of buckling metal. The monster walked calmly by.

When he asked hesitantly, “Have you been . . . thinking about this for a long time?” she giggled like a schoolgirl at first; but then she looked down at the table and nodded. He said, “About me?”
“And what is so astonishing about that, Signor Claudio Bianchi? Unicorns come to you all the time—why shouldn’t a woman?” Her eyes were not at all heavy then, but wickedly tender. Bianchi looked away from them.
He said, “I was married once.”
“Yes. Romano has told me. And she left you. So?”
“She was right to leave me. I was not good at being married.”
“Bianchi,” she said. “Claudio. Marriage isn’t like football, like bocce. One isn’t good at it, nobody has a special gift. You stumble along, and if there is enough love—” she smiled at him—“you learn.”
Bianchi got up from the table abruptly enough that Giovanna’s eyes widened. He turned in a circle, like a captive animal—a bear or an elephant—and then he stood leaning with his hands on the back of his chair. “There is no love in me. There is nothing to be learned. She would have stayed if there were, but she knew. I am just telling you now.”
“A unicorn has stayed.”
Bianchi was silent for a moment. “La Signora chose my farm because she felt it would be a safe place to have her baby. Not because of me.”
“You think not?” Giovanna’s expression was a curious mixture of exasperation and affectionate amusement. “You think a unicorn would not know—would not know—who would come out of his house in a storm to help her in her trouble? To perhaps save her child’s life? You think unicorns don’t know such things, Bianchi?”

Bianchi stayed awake all night, inhaling her closeness, listening to the soft sounds her body made, thinking, can you write a poem about someone’s snores? About trying not to sneeze when her hair tickles my nose? About that one tiny, barely audible fart against my leg? What will I write at my kitchen table, now that she has been there, drinking my wine and eating the dinner I made for her? Late to be discovering all this, Bianchi—all this that children know about these days. Very, very late . . .

He completed his evening tasks later than usual, sat in the kitchen for a while with his pipe and the last of the red Ciro, and at last went to bed. Remembering when he was too sleepy to get up again that he had forgotten to call Giovanna. He smiled drowsily, thinking about her . . .
. . . and woke up just as the door crashed in with a splintering squeal of hinges, and he was on the floor, being kicked scientifically and enthusiastically by all the feet in the world. The work was actually being done by only three pairs, but he did not realize this until he had been hauled upright a couple of times, slammed against his bed, and knocked down again, so that the kicking could continue. Somewhere in the process, he struck out in the darkness, felt a nose give, heard a gasping obscenity, and doubled over from a hammer-blow to his stomach. He clung to his assailant with all his strength, clawing for a grip on arms and shoulders he could not see, fearing to go down again. None of them said a word—a message was simply being delivered—and all he could think, as much as he could think, was thank God she isn’t here . . . oh, thank God . . . thank God . . .
. . . and then the motorcycle—Romano, he bought that used muffler from Malatesta—and the beating stopped at the sound . . . and she was there, raging among them through the broken door, swinging a tire iron like a flaming sword and screaming like a maniac. The ’Ndrangheta had no time to prepare for such an attack; in the close quarters the iron got home with every swing, and Giovanna drove them from one wall to the other, round and round, until they blundered outside and fled, lurching and limping, to the car that Bianchi had never heard arrive. She did not pursue, but dropped the tire iron and ran to him, dropping to her knees to catch him as he sagged, cursing steadily and fluently, and crying through it all. In the end, it was Bianchi who had to hold her.