Rosalia started running down the stairs, looking for help. She peered through the sparse windows of the empty houses, crying. Nobody heard her. Nobody was around except for me, but I was paralyzed with fear at the top of the stairs. I wanted to rush back to the crater and get my uncle, but I couldn’t stop staring, afraid something terrible would happen if I moved away, convinced my mere presence might be enough to protect Angelina.
The donkey pulled on Santino’s reins and kicked backward. For an instant she freed herself and I felt my body open up. My foot stomped the ground with the same urgency that was in her trot. Go, run! Fast! The words wouldn’t leave my mouth. Angelina ran down the stairs with wild, uncoordinated movements. I saw her eyes flash sideways like those of a crazy horse—all tenderness gone. Santino leapt down four steps at a time and caught the tail end of the reins. He pulled her back and fell forward, scraping his knee, the reins never leaving his grip.
“Look, stupid donkey! Scemunita! Look! I’m bleeding now!”
He held Angelina’s reins under his foot to keep her still. With both free hands now, he hauled out another boulder from a different part of the staircase and threw it on her back.
“Accà!” Santino hit Angelina with it.
He beat her again on the flanks, on the belly, on her legs. Every time the rock fell off his hands, he picked it up and bashed it against her. She knew she couldn’t win and stood, impassive—no trotting, no kicking. She took it all until she fell to the ground. The groceries for the Germans spilled off her saddle. Tomatoes and bottles of water rolled down the stairs.
Finally my voice came back. I let out a shriek—a loud, desperate cry like that of a gutted chicken. Santino glanced up, squinting. He waved at me, his hands soaked in blood.
“There you are! The animal-rights and wife-rights girl. You think my wife is done showing herself around to the entire island?”
He turned toward the bottom of the staircase, addressing Rosalia, who didn’t answer. She just stood there panting and staring.
“Yes. I’m done,” I said. “Now leave Angelina alone, though, okay?”
Santino grabbed the reins, trying to get Angelina back on her feet again, but she was bleeding too much and could not move.
He picked up the loose groceries that had fallen off the saddle and tried to load them on her back.
“Leave her alone, Santino. I’ll deliver the groceries myself. Just leave her alone,” I screamed.
I began to walk down the stairs as nonthreateningly as I could. Angelina did not move from the ground. Blood gushed out her legs and back. Her eyes stared into space. She panted so heavily I could hear her breath from where I stood.
“Lasciala! Leave her,” Rosalia yelled from the bottom of the stairs, encouraged by my presence.
Santino glanced up at me, then back down at his wife. “Stop! Stop talking to each other, you two!”
He sprawled himself over the donkey, claiming her body like a child claims a toy when he feels the presence of another wanting to take it away.
I made my way down more steps with caution.
“Don’t fence me in!” he screamed.
He pranced up a few steps, and extracted another stone from the now disheveled staircase.
Angelina wasn’t moving.
Santino raised the rock to the sky and crashed it on her head. He lifted it up and came down on the center of her forehead—the space I used to kiss her on. He did it again and again until blood streamed out. It flowed down the stairs, onto the caper plants and dry olive tree roots.
Before dying, Angelina made a sound that was different from her usual bray. It was a kind of “Oooh” or maybe a “Noo.” It was the sound of disappointment.
Santino untied the remaining groceries from her saddle and stacked water bottles on both his shoulders. He started walking up the stairs toward me, swaying from side to side to keep his balance.
“Are you happy now? I’m delivering the water on my own.”
I turned away and ran back up the steps, afraid I might be next.
When I reached my uncle and Alma at the crater, we heard the sound of the islanders rushing up the mountain followed by Rosalia’s wails. Alma and Antonio went to take a look. My brother came close to me and squeezed my hand. We spent the night under the moon. Antonio and Alma didn’t return until hours later. They spoke in whispers and went to sleep on the other side of the stone cabin.
At dawn when I got up, their clothes were in a bundle on the ground, covered in blood. I woke Timoteo and we went back to the staircase. The blood was still there, mixed with donkey mane and a few tomatoes from the lost groceries, but Angelina’s body was gone.
“Maybe she survived,” my brother suggested.
I shook my head.
—
Over dinner I asked Alma who was going to be in charge of reporting Santino to the police.
“There are worse things happening on this island than a donkey dying,” my uncle replied dryly.
“Islanders settle these matters by themselves,” Alma answered simply. “There are different rules here.”
My brother and I looked at each other like everyone was crazy, like they were going to stop talking like that soon, and we would finally have the conversation about what happened the night before, but the conversation never came.
“Nobody can afford to have Santino in trouble. He’s the only handyman we have, the only one who knows how to get furniture up all the stairs.” My uncle picked up his fish leftovers and scattered them off the terrace to the cats.
—
I went to the public pay phone at the travel agency and called the carabinieri on the mainland, convinced I could take matters into my own hands. The police laughed at me.
“You want us to get all the way there on an aliscafo, because on your island, in the middle of nowhere, a donkey died? I’m sorry. Call back in December when we have nothing to do.”