‘There she goes again! If you don’t keep quiet I won’t go on. Anyway, Costantino was arrested, and now the prosecution is asking for hard labour. They have evidence. Costantino was seen going into his uncle’s house, where the old man lived alone. That part is true, but there’s no proof that Costantino killed him. However, Costantino seemed full of contradictions and remorse. He kept saying, ‘It’s a mortal sin.’ He’s a devout man, you see, and he believed he was being punished because he and Giovanna lived together without being married in church.’
‘Do you have children?’ Paolo asked Giovanna.
‘Yes, one. Mother of God, what would I do if I didn’t have him? If Costantino is found guilty and I hadn’t got the baby, what would I do?’ Half maddened by grief, she seized her hair by the roots and shook her head wildly.
‘A new divorce law is soon going to be passed,’ Paolo said. ‘A woman whose husband is serving a long sentence can become free again.’
As if she had not understood, Giovanna went on shaking her head from side to side.
‘It’s wicked,’ Porredda declared. ‘Only God can dissolve a marriage.’
‘I read about it in the paper.’ Efes Maria spoke scornfully. ‘They have this divorce now on the mainland. Men and women there get married again and again, without priest or mayor. But here—’
‘Here too, here too!’ said Bachisia, who had understood at once.
After supper, Bachisia and Giovanna went to see Costantino’s lawyer.
‘Where are they sleeping?’ Paolo asked his mother. ‘The guest room?’
‘Of course, why?’
‘Because I’d like to sleep there. It’s suffocating down here. What better guest than I?’
‘Be patient until tomorrow, my son. They’re poor people.’
‘Oh God, these barbarous customs,’ he said irritably. ‘When will they end?’
‘I wonder about that too,’ said Efes Maria, who was reading the newspaper.
‘Have you seen the Pope, my son?’ Porredda asked, to change the subject.
‘No.’
‘What! You’ve been in Rome all this time and you haven’t been to see the Pope?’
‘What do you want me to do? The Pope is kept inside a box, and you have to pay quite a bit to see him.’
‘Oh, go on with you!’ she said. ‘You’re an unbeliever.’ Rushing out into the courtyard, where the children were fighting like gamecocks, she plunged between them, and pulled them apart. ‘My goodness, you’re a naughty pair. You’re wicked, the lot of you!’
In the still night, the children’s sobs mingled with the chirping of the crickets.