The rooves are collapsed, the floors stacked one upon another, some of the stone walls of the dwellings still resist gravity. In the ghost town of Erto, high in the Dolomites, there is a curious wall, imbedded with some dozen of hooks. It is where the 3000 former citizens used to kill and hang their fat hogs, cattle, goats.
And dogs. No, they didn't slaughter dogs. But if one died by misadventure, they hung it, for the skin.
Dog skin, it seems, makes a drum twice as loud as goat skin. News to me.
Vittorin was the town skinner. Coincidentally, he led the 80-member troop of drummers in the Good Friday procession. His drum, not surprisingly, could be heard above all the rest.
Vittorin was small of stature. He was a shrimp. Not surprisingly, he married an amazon. Not too surprisingly, she beat him daily. Not her fault, she suffered from indigestion brought on by overeating, so naturally she had to vent. Not her fault at all, never is.
The beatings went on for many years. Every Ertano knew about it. Every Ertano looked down on Vittorin. Literally and otherwise.
Finally, Vittorin's luck changed. His big giant female ran off with another man. Peace at last!
At first, some catty neighbours surmised that Vittorin had pushed the behemoth into a fast moving stream, during flood time. But that dog wouldn't hunt. For if Vittorin was famous for anything, except his skinning and his drumming, it was for his pusillanimity.
30 years passed, 30 Good Fridays.
Vittorin, age seventy, felt Death Most Holy approach. He called for the priest and a couple of his best friends.
Confession. Sort of.
"I want y'all to do something for me. There under the cattle trough, you will find . . . ."
Well. He had, in fact, ucciderated his big giant wife. Pressed a hay fork through her goozle while she was napping. Skinned her. Cured it in the attic. Did you know what with a round of her dried skin, burnt the rest. Tucked her flesh and bones under the cattle trough.
"You all knew how she beat me. None of you lifted a finger to stop it. Not even you, Reverend Father." Then Vittorin croaked. "Then," in story time, in fact he dragged on for days and weeks. But bimeby, yes, he did croak.
The friends and priest disbelieved, like the Apostles. But sure as the world, there she was, much of her, under the cattle trough. Obedient to Vittorin's last wishes, they took her bones, and Vittorin's prized drum, and buried the lot next to Vittorin.
The moral, of course, is Waste not, Want not. Or Recycle. Or something, bound to be a moral.
This story, so much more richly told, and hundreds of others as juicy or juicier, are to be found in Mauro Corona's I Fantasmi di Pietra.--Giac.
