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Chapter Four
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46 EarthquakE I.D. Chapter Four “Water buffalo?” Dora said. “Like in Africa?” “This isn’t Africa,” Sylvia said, forcing a laugh. “This is Italy. Don’t try to tell us they’ve got water buffalo.” JJ went on pointing out the Humvee window. “Guys, hey. Even I wouldn’t try to confuse you about what continent we’re on.” “Girls, look, what do you think those things are?” Chris was pointing too. “Moose? The mozzarella, like, the cheese? That’s where it comes from.” Around them the landscape seesawed, here a scabbed, balsitic ridge and there the grass velvet of a creek plain. Across the more level areas sauntered the buffalo, hefty-shouldered and brick-brown, their horns like question marks. The NATO caravan had first taken the family through the Phlegrean Fields, north of the city—a low-rising outbreak of the same magma that underlay Vesuvius to the south. In the Fields the ground turned to dust around smoking fumaroles, mounds of pale flinders, like smoking dumps of extracted teeth. Two thousand, three thousand years ago, these badlands were said to house a gateway to the Underworld, the poisoned spring where Ulysses spoke with the dead. Yet soon enough the gravel and chalk gave way to actual fields, rippling with mid-June vitality. Low hillsides sprouted mixed greens in mouthwatering layers, while others flowered lavender, crimson, milk-white. Vest-pocket orchards and grape arbors cut rows and terraces across the flatter spaces, squeezing every workable inch of the nutrient-rich soil. Farther inland still, between the vine-rows and fruit trees, there began to appear the small herds of buffalo. “Mozzarella?” Dora was asking. “Best mozzarella in the world,” Silky Kahlberg said. “Da bufalo, know what I mean? Vera da bufalo.” 47 John Domini “Sure,” said JJ. “The truth comes from buffalos. Old Neapolitan saying.” The NATO man chuckled, paternal, or the movie version. “Yeah well,” Chris said, “JJ, if the choice was between asking you and asking a water buffalo. . . .” Kahlberg chuckled again, and Barbara allowed herself a laugh as well. She was going to have to learn to relax around the Lieutenant-Major. Certainly she enjoyed the benefits that came with having him somehow on call. She liked his van’s state-of-theart air conditioning, for starters, a terrific relief on a morning when she’d woken up itching. Last night Jay had put something extra into his thrusts; he’d wanted to kindle a special glow for today’s visit. Then too, the mother was glad they didn’t have to share the ride with a machine gun. Instead Kahlberg had arranged for a pair of soldiers in a second vehicle. This escort looked serious, bulked up in powderblue helmets and vests, with a semi-automatic and a pistol each. But Barbara and the kids rode weapon-free. So it appeared, anyway; the mother couldn’t help wondering about what the liaison man wore under his jacket. A white jacket, this time, and before the abbreviated caravan set off, as he’d huddled with the soldiers, he’d kept touching his lapel. His lapel or whatever he carried under it. “Actually,” the man was saying now, “out in your father’s camp you’ll find some folks believe that kind of thing. These people, they’ll fall for every kind of superstition you could name.” These people? Barbara looked to Paul, but he’d cupped his eyes against the tinted window. Her Lakota child, following the buffalo. “For this population,” Kahlberg continued, “a lot of them anyway, the quake set off, mn, millennial fever. You understand?” Chris turned from the window. “They thought it was like, The Rapture?” “You got it, son. Some of these old boys, they figured it was the end of the world. That quake, it did leave them at the end of their ropes, anyhow.” Was that a reference to Jay’s near-kidnap? A desperate stunt at the end of someone’s rope, the day before yesterday? Barb and Kahlberg had been circling the subject since she’d first gotten in touch to set up the visit. This morning too, though the mother had taken care not to sound nervous in front of the children, she’d fished for a guarantee that she wasn’t exposing them to real [3.235.139.122] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 10:24 GMT) 48 EarthquakE I.D. danger. Give the liaison credit, he’d said all the right things. He...