Page 18 - Unlikely Stories 4

Gorgonzola

times, the two men heard a latch creaking within. The door was
opened by an old man, gaunt and wizened.
Lucio launched into a flattering explanation of how this
distinguished American had made the journey to Salvezza Cieca in
order to observe its time-honored methods of cheese making.
The man scowled and waved his arms, speaking in broken Italian
to Lucio and considerably worse English to Elster. “No ingress! Go!
No turistas! No vendita! Go! You get out! Go home! No business!”
Elster realized the cheesemaker was blind.
“Please,” he coaxed. “I will pay you. I love your gorgonzola! I have
money. I want to see how you make your cheese!”
But the old man would not give an inch. Not for love or money.
Elster did not stop his entreaties until the door was closed in his face.
Lucio looked at him and shrugged.
“He is not Italian. His accent is Greek. Some things he said I
would not care to translate for you. Almost like cursing.”
They trudged back to the inn, Lucio asking where he would like to
go next. Elster looked at him and shrugged.
They missed the daily bus that made the rounds of villages in the
region of Pascolo Strano. Lucio did not mind. And it gave Elster time
to think. The dairy was remote, its owner blind and the moon almost
full in a clear sky: a man with a flashlight could sneak in at night and
examine the contents of that workshop at his leisure. Elster was
confident that he knew enough about duplicating Salvezza Cieca to
discover quickly what was different about the process here at its place
of origin.
That night he waited until the inn was silent, except for Lucio
snoring in the next room. Elster crept out quietly into the courtyard
and again waited for a few minutes while his eyes adjusted to partial
darkness. He could clearly see the path to his destination. No one
else was up that late at night: crickets were all he could hear.
Once at the fence around the caseificio he stopped again. Not a
sound. The fence was designed to keep unshod ungulates in, not
bipeds in sneakers out. He scaled it easily, reorienting himself once he
was back on the ground. Yes: there was the workshop, across the
garden. He found a path through it and moved quickly, almost
bumping into an odd life-size carving of a man twisted at an oblique
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