"Occupants of the Red House," a short story by Salvatore Difalco

 

Baialarda lived with her blind mother Tripilla in a small red house near the village centre. Baialarda was known as a bit of a gossip and fabulist, and also for the occasional exhibition of her breasts in public, about which no one made much of a fuss. She was often seen walking her mother to the fruit stalls or to the bakery, holding her arm, wearing a look of maximum impatience. The old woman, despite being blind, enjoyed hectoring her daughter and verbally abusing anyone they ran across, even though she could not see them. As a result, Baialarda and her mother were tolerated by the villagers but not at all liked.

Things took a negative turn after Baialarda reported seeing white goats in the tree across from her house. Goats are terrific climbers and at first no one made much of this report. More likely Baialarda was telling stories for attention. Maybe she thought white goats in a tree would arouse controversy somehow. But when no reaction seemed forthcoming, Baialarda did two things to further amplify her calls for attention. First she reported a gang of fiddlers had invaded the tree.

“They were clad in green and playing green fiddles,” she claimed.

“Were they elves or faeries?” someone asked.

“They were not elves or faeries,” she responded.

“Did they play good music?” someone else asked.

“They played reasonably well,” she said.

But no one believed her. She was either making up the story from whole cloth or had suffered another hallucination, as likely was the case with the goats.

Perhaps out of general despondency, or because she had really taken a psychological leap into the land of cuckoos, Baialarda stripped naked one night and climbed into the tree where she had claimed to see goats and green fiddlers. She sat in the tree for hours. Her blind mother called her from her bedroom window.

“Where are you, Baialarda?” she cried. “I need my hot water bottle. You forgot to get my hot water bottle ready.”

Unable to resist the appeals of her mother, Baialarda climbed down from the tree and went inside to prepare her hot water bottle. But on the way, she was spotted by a passing fishmonger in his wagon, headed to the next village on his itinerary, who could not help but notice her nudity.

“She was running around plum naked,” the fishmonger, a man named Norberto, later reported to the local sheriff. The sheriff explained there was not much he could do. “She’s not right in the head,” he said. “The other day she claimed she saw green fiddlers in the tree outside her house. And before that she saw white goats. White goats. It would do no good to charge her with public indecency. And besides, she takes care of her blind mother. Who would take of her if we arrested her daughter and God forbid incarcerated her?” The fishmonger thought it ridiculous that this exhibitionist should be granted immunity for some local reason. The people in this village are all a little touched, he thought.

Norberto watered the horses, climbed back on his wagon, and set off again. The preceding encounters troubled him deeply: first the nude woman, then the indifferent sheriff. Driven by some inner compulsion, he deliberately steered the horses back toward the red house where he had seen the naked woman. Upon nearing it he felt his cheeks flush and his throat constrict. The image of the woman—with her dimpled buttocks, plump white back and dirty bare feet—stepping through the doorway of the red house, had seared itself into his memory. He found himself pulling the reins to slow the horses so he could gaze through the front window of the red house, hoping perhaps to catch another glimpse of her. But when he only saw yellowish flickers and vague figures, he cursed under his breath. He glanced at the tree in front of the house, a red maple with rusted leaves, and looked for signs of goats of green fiddlers. Seeing none, he lightly lashed the horses and they picked up the pace.

That evening, after his runs, his fish wagon empty, Norberto returned to his cabin near the river. His wife Benzina greeted him with grey cabbage soup and boiled fish heads, then complained that he stank. He ate in silence while she berated him for any number of things, the usual things. She gave, he took, he took and took. He considered telling her about the naked woman, but knew she would only twist it into something lurid and ask more questions than he could answer. When she asked him why he was so quiet he merely shrugged.

After dinner Norberto washed up and went to bed as he wanted to hit the fish market at the port before dawn. He had trouble falling asleep. He kept thinking about the naked woman. She was no beauty, that was certain, but seeing her naked had aroused him nevertheless. She was a young woman, perhaps that explained it—her skin still soft and pliable, the curves of her plumpness worthy of a nude portrait. He had not seen her breasts or her pubis, and oh how he wished he had. He tried to imagine what her breasts looked like, plump like the rest of her, with generous nipples, her pubis unkempt as a wild beast.

“What is wrong with you?” his wife asked in the middle of the night. “You have not stopped moving for a moment.”

Norberto grunted something and tried to keep still. At cockcrow, he got out of bed wth burning eyes. He splashed cold water on his face at the basin and hurriedly dressed. He put on his favourite poppy red shirt with the black buttons, something he’d only worn to a county fair and a church hall dance. As he readied to ext the cabin, his wife stood the bedroom door in her pale blue nightgown with her arms crossed and her eyes squinted.

“Where are you going all spruced up like that.”

“I want to get to the fish market early.”

“Are you meeting your sweetie there? You’re looking too good for cod and sardines.”

“No no. I just thought—look, I dress like a slob all of the time. And all my clothes—you know—smell like fish. You said so yourself. So what is wrong with wearing the one shirt I own that doesn’t smell like fish? It’s a nice shirt, isn’t it?”

But Benzina had heard enough and was already back in bed by the time he finished talking. Sniffing with mild pseudo-indignation, he went out to the stable and readied the horses, Pepe and Ugo, for the trip. They were a little fractious on account of the cooler air of late September. But after they ate and drank they down. He hitched them up to the wagon and off they went.

Norberto liked the autumn, the changing leaves and cooler weather, the smell in the air, of ripeness and ferment. He purchased well at the port and went off to make his daily runs. When he reached the village of the naked girl, sometime that afternoon, he guided the horses by her house. Its red matched the red of his shirt, not something he had intended. He smiled. He tried peering into the opaque front window but could discern nothing. He involuntarily looked at the red maple in front of the house. There’s nothing there, he thought. Why would anything be there?

He thought of knocking on the door. But when he could not contrive an excuse for doing so, he decided to visit the sheriff and under pretext of finding out if anything further had been done about the exposure incident—given he was dissatisfied with the sheriff’s inaction—he would endeavor to find out more about this young woman. Perhaps her name, her age, any particulars about her marital status, this sort of thing.

The sheriff was not happy to see him. He would not look him in the eye. When Norberto started to ask about the young woman, the sheriff interrupted him with a raised hand.

“Stop right there before you say something foolish,” he said.

Norberto stood there gaping. What was this? How could this man be so impertinent?

“I think I know what you came here to ask,” the sheriff said. “And I want you to know there is no point. Baialarda, the young woman who exposed herself to you, whom I intimated was mentally unstable, committed suicide during the night.”

Norberto winced as though he had been struck in the face with an open hand. He stood before the sheriff reeling, unable to think of anything to say that was suitable for this scenario. How could the young woman be dead? Her name was, what—Baialarda? A strange name.

“So you might as well get back on your wagon and go sell your fish,” the sheriff said.

“How old was she?”

“What? How old? Why just seventeen. A mere child.”

“Yes, a child.”

“She hung herself in the tree directly across from her house. She leaves a blind mother behind to fend for herself. The world can be doubly cruel sometimes.”

Shaking, Norberto exited the sheriff’s office and walked to his wagon. He gave both Pepe and Ugo a cuddle, which they did not exactly relish, given they had grown cold standing around waiting for him. Yes, Norberto thought, the world can be doubly cruel.

What did he plan to do? Talk to the old woman? Ask her about her daughter? Or offer his condolences for a person he did not know? What would be the point of all that? His thoughts whirled and whirled until he thought he might faint. The old woman, standing there like a ghoulish mannequin, must have heard the snorting and nickering of the horses. She lifted her chin and looked directly at Norberto with her dead and sad but defiant eyes. Norberto felt a wave of shame overcome him so acute he started shaking uncontrollably. He could scarcely hold the reins. Sensing his consternation, the horses turned and looked at him, snorting softly. This was a terrible idea, he thought. The restless horses seemed to agree with him. 

As the wagon pulled away Norberto heard the old woman mutter something but he did not want to know what it was. Communication with her was pointless. Her plight was her own. He burst into tears and wept as he had not wept since his mother died many year ago. He did not complete his deliveries that day. He went home to his cabin and told his wife he was unwell.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, irritated by his unexpected presence. “What do you mean you feel unwell? What about the fish? Will they keep till tomorrow? All your ice will melt.”

Too upset to answer his wife’s question, Norberto went to bed and buried himself under the blankets. He refused supper and remained in bed for the next twenty four hours. Repeated attempts by Benzina to ask about his condition or offer some kind of relief or comfort were met with silence. And when Norberto spent the entire night sobbing and shaking uncontrollably as a child, she thought that perhaps he had not been exaggerating how ill he was.