He moved, not with a plan but from desperation.
Jago was in poorer shape than the wolf. Hard to see the beast but it lay on its side on a slab of rock, the wound open to the air. Since it had found the slab, it hadn’t moved.
Only God knew how many hours earlier he had heard the sneeze – too long now to be clear in his mind. He came out of the gap where the two boulders bedded and turned away from the wolf, from the kid who was feeding the dogs from a washing-up bowl, from the old woman, who had brought out Marcantonio’s shirts and hung them from hooks behind the trellis – there was no room for them on the line with the bed linen – and away from Giulietta, who paced and smoked and quartered the front area. It was obvious to Jago that Bernardo’s shirts would be washed, dried and ironed inside, then taken to the cellar or the excavated hole or the cave to which the cable ran.
He went up the hill, with only the memory of the sneeze to guide him. He had known, through the late afternoon and into the early evening, with the light failing, that he must find food. Two choices: he could go down, bang on the door, appear, like a vagabond in the kitchen and ask to be fed or go up the hill, in the direction of the sneeze, and try to locate whoever was there. Jago was close to collapse. Delirium lapped in his mind, threatening to drown him. He had to eat. He didn’t know whom he would find, whether he would be welcomed or attacked. Uppermost in his mind was the certainty that he could not see through another night without food. It was a steep climb.
If he came to the place where a man had sneezed, it would be by an animal’s instinct: he had no other guide.
He reckoned himself close to the end of the road. Last time he’d been there? Maybe when his phone had been taken and Billy had saved him. He should have collected water during the storm and hadn’t. The hunger-strikers in Ireland had used water to prolong their fast. He hadn’t eaten or drunk any water and the weakness ran through him. Each movement seemed to weaken him further. He went on. He tried to be quiet but sometimes a twig cracked beneath his feet and song birds careered away from him. He went on, and his mind rambled . . . dishes his mother cooked, the stuff that came round on the trolley in the City, the health fascists’ favourites in Berlin, a spider’s meal and . . . He was on his knees and his hands. It was aimed at the centre of his forehead.
He saw the darkened recess. He saw two faces and camouflage clothing.
Closest to him was the barrel of the pistol, and the foresight; its paintwork was chipped. The pistol had the look of a world-weary object, but one that was kept in good enough order to work. The hand holding it was steady. Jago had found the man who had sneezed.
He stood. He was confused and it was an effort to get upright, but the elementary truth was that they wouldn’t shoot because of the noise. He saw another hand, which clutched a canister. He remembered, hazily, the dog with impaired eyesight. Jago stood upright. He spoke no Italian and imagined that the men were unlikely to speak English. He had no wish to debate. The pistol barrel followed him. He put his fingers to his mouth and made a chewing motion. Simple enough. Then he gave them a profile, raised his hands and cupped them at his mouth, as if he was about to shout. Clear enough. The final signal: his hands – with two thumbs and eight fingers he seemed to start a countdown. The pistol was loosed and laid in front of them.
Food materialised in small sealed packs and juice sachets. Not much, sufficient. Nothing was said. He was crouched and stumbling, grabbing at the pieces and stuffing them into pockets. A hand that held a phone or transmitter snaked to him, holding a lit screen. It was for him to look at. Jago saw himself. He wore a suit, a decent shirt and a quiet, conservative tie, as the bank required. He smiled, in the picture, self-deprecating, not arrogant, as Wilhelmina would have wished. He didn’t know what to say.
One grinned, then gave him the universal sign, the middle finger, and waved him away. One called after him, with a hint of humour, ‘Vaffanculo, amico.’
Jago was gone. He thought he understood what they had told him, grimaced, and went down.