Page 67 - Litteratteur Redefining World December issue

Litterateur redefining world December 2020

Roberto had singed the hair on the back of his hands in the blaze. He inspected
them now in the morning light. They were almost free of the dark mat that usually
covered them. Pretty hands, he thought, almost like a girls. Then he smiled, A big
girl though.

In the stillness Roberto smelt something, something had been burnt. He held his
fingers to his nose, expecting that the smell came from them, lingering from the
fire the day before. No, nothing. They are clean. Then he sniffed again. He hadn’t
imagined it. Something was burning.

Roberto emerged from his bedroom half-dressed, snatching at clothes in his rush.
The smell intensified as he moved through the house, the morning light coming in
from the windows a shade of amber.

Then he saw it and swore. He didn’t notice what language came through his lips.

The sun was perched low in the morning sky. A plume of smoke ballooned up from
the vineyard. The vines were alight, tongues of flames catching and leaping from
row to row as if they were alive, running along lines on the ground to ignite and
burn everything. The inferno intensified and increased in the nascent summer heat.
Through the smoke and flame he could see the truck, parked far from the
farmhouse, next to the gates. A figure leant against it, arms folded. He could see

him through the smoke, the boy whose throat he had slashed. Then Roberto knew
what he had done, what had happened. While he slept William had moved the
truck, doused the vines in diesel, set them alight as dawn broke. The vines were
gone, there would be no way to extinguish the fire. If he was lucky he might be able
to save the buildings and the farmhouse, but maybe not. The fire was burning clear
lines to the machinery shed, the pressing room. They flames could run and run.

William watched Roberto from the other side of the inferno. The summer light
picked out Roberto’s face through the smoky murk, but it was too far to see the
expression on the man’s face. The white smoke ascended to the heavens. William
climbed up into the truck, started it. It would be difficult to drive down the rutted
road to town with a broken arm, but he thought he could manage it. His hands
stank of the fuel he had used to ignite the fire, but it was a sweet smell, better than
the smoke that funnelled into wide open blue sky, towards the sun.

He began to pick his way back down the hill, slowly and carefully steering around
the dangers he met.

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