Page 19 - Unlikely Stories 4

Gorgonzola

angle. He avoided banging into the milk cans and found the door. It
opened almost noiselessly and he was inside.
He had taken the precaution of wrapping a handkerchief over the
lens of his flashlight. It provided a soft glow by which he could
examine the interior. He was in a storeroom, its walls shelved with
finished cheeses and various implements and ingredients used in their
production. Elster looked them over carefully, finding nothing out of
the ordinary. But the vats—where were they? They had to lie behind
the large door in the back of the room. He slowly opened it and
smelled the distinctive aroma of mold-ripening cheese. Lanterns
hanging on the walls illuminated the scene.
A woman, back turned to Elster, was peering into one of the vats,
muttering. She was heavily cloaked; in the dim light Elster could only
see that her hair was bound up in a large messy tangle. But before he
could take in the significance of what was going on, he was startled
by a voice at his side. It was the old cheesemaker!
“Amerikanos! You want steal! You want secret cheese? Now you
find secret! Family secret. Old family. All babies blind to keep secret.
Not milk. Not mold. Secret is servant, Stheno; now in Italia, call her
Zola. She turn men to stone, milk to curd. Maybe you hear of sister,
Medusa.”
In the instant before the woman turned to look at him, Elster
recalled in horror the statuary in the cheesemaker’s garden.

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