Turrisi notes that the old folks and the young girls are dressed identically. In London they call it vintage.
“Sicily certainly is full of whores,” says Caporeale, to pass the time while they wait for lunch.
“Huh?”
Caporeale, his hands joined behind his back, points with his chin toward the wooden cart. “Lola, shit, what a slut. She gets cumpare Turiddu killed.” Caporeale nods to himself. “And now that I think of it, his wife is a great big bitch too, spying on cumpare Alfio.”
“Me, I really like the carts where they show the puppet theater, with the plume of colored feathers on the helmet that makes a fashion statement with the plume of feathers that they put on the horse’s head.”
Caporeale looks at him. “What do they do?”
“Make a fashion statement,” says Cosentino, putting a hand up over his forehead like a plume of feathers and reciting, “Sing to me, O Goddess, of Achilles son of Peleus.”
“What the fuck does the goddess have to do with it?”
“It’s a theater lunch, isn’t it? There are always goddesses.”
It’s a commemorative lunch in honor of the 350th anniversary of the birth of Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli. Born in Sicily, founder, in 1686, of the famous Café Procope in Paris, across the street from which the Comédie Française was installed. Obviously no one knew when the fuck Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli was born, and nobody knew where he was born either—some said Palermo, some said Messina, some said Acicastello in the province of Catania. But in order that the commemorative lunch, the pet project of the commissioner for culture of the Sicilian regional government (a regional government proudly autonomous from the rest of Italy), not end in strife, the commissioners for culture of all the Sicilian provinces came to an agreement to mutually forgo any parochial claims to his birthplace, and so on the invitation it was just written Sicilian. The celebration had also had the official blessing of the national minister of culture, thanks to a deputy minister from the nearby town of Avola, who, when he learned that French theater had been invented by an Italian, was emboldened to give national visibility to the event, commenting, “Let the French try to bust our balls with their wine.”
“Apropos of goddesses,” said Caporeale, “that queen of bitches Lambertini, who’s usually the first one to arrive because God knows she doesn’t want to miss any compliments, isn’t even here yet.”
Rosanna Lambertini had put on her Giorgio Armani suit that curved around her ass like a mandolin, and with that mandolin she was playing a serenade to Via Etnea that would have stopped all the traffic if the street weren’t pedestrians only at this hour. She was wearing high heels too, obviously, which on the basalt pavement were keeping up a percussion beat with her ass like a mandolin, while the whistles of the boys completed the music—violas, violins, and contrabassoons, depending on age and style of whistling.
Every so often she would stop and look in the windows of the shops, but the show, the real show, was when she leaned over to check the price tags, and the construction workers up on the scaffolding restoring the Baroque facades of the palazzi would fake passing out and plunging to the pavement.
With her Farrah Fawcett blond hair and those Dolce & Gabbana shades she looked like Paris Hilton’s mother, God bless the whole family.
CHAPTER TWO
The Director Tino Cagnotto Is Descending a Plexiglas and Neon Staircase
The director Tino Cagnotto is descending a Plexiglas and neon staircase. Left, right, left, right, without missing a beat.
In front of him the pop, pop, pop of photographers’ flashes.
He can’t see the crowd, blinded as he is by the lights, but he knows they are there, all there for him.
He feels relaxed and easy: it’s the first time he has worn an evening dress that shows off his legs. He had even argued with his tailor in the dressing room, where instead of his usual tuxedo he had found this sequined number and a pair of very high heels.
“But I didn’t even get a wax job,” Cagnotto had shouted in the dressing room.
“Sure you did, last night,” the tailor had replied.
“Last night?” Cagnotto couldn’t remember.
What had he done last night?
It seems to be true, he has had a body wax, and in fact he feels extremely elegant inside the dress as he descends toward an embrace with his fans.
He spreads his arms to express his genuine amazement, his allembracing love, his infinite thanks, and discovers he is wearing a pair of gloves above the elbows, and on top of the gloves all kinds of rings and bracelets that sparkle under the artificial light.
Where had he gotten the jewelry?
When had he put it on?
His thoughts grow confused; he begins to feel agitated. Was it really a good idea to let himself be convinced to dress up like this? What if somebody is fucking him around? He hears a laugh. Is that joyous laughter or is it contempt? Doubt makes him wobble. Right left right right …
The bodice is beginning to bother him; he looks down at his cleavage and sees that his chest hairs are tangled up in the sequins, so that every step is agony. Chest hairs? He has never been very hairy. Just the necessary …
Gasping for breath, he realizes only now that the dress is too tight.
A terrible thought assails him.
He lowers his eyes again, aiming below the neckline, below the gut. Oh, God.
His stomach is huge.
Then finally he gets his eye on it. Oh, horrible. It’s there, monstrously in evidence. No way you could not notice what is politely called his member, glistening with spangles.
The bull’s-eye toward which all the lights and flashbulbs are aiming.
The more he moves, the more the dress seems to shrink. It seems to be climbing up his legs. Cagnotto can’t remember what kind of stockings he has on, body hose or a garter belt?
The dress is riding up his thighs, the sequins are scratching his skin. He feels something around his head, pressing on his brow. Oh, God, is he also wearing a wig?
Left right left … Cagnotto falls.
He shrieks.
Drenched in sweat, he wakes up in his bed, the black silk sheet twisted around his arms and legs, his head pressed under a sweaty pillow, the chain with the huge pendant on it, which obviously he had not taken off last night, clawing into his chest.
Still gasping, Cagnotto nevertheless feels better.
It was only a dream, a horrible nightmare. Rita Hayworth isn’t his ideal of elegance. That tailor, who was that? And those disgusting gloves. He’s an avant-garde director, he would never dress like that on Oscar night. And anyway, what do the Oscars have to do with it? He’s a theater director.
Shaking off the sheet, he stretches out noisily. His body is beginning to hum, his mind is taking charge of his limbs, he feels a pleasurable frisson that makes him think of waking up on a Sunday morning, when there’s no school. He ought to take a nice bath, a nice, relaxing, and invigorating bath. Okay. This new-generation antidepressant is starting to take effect—and what an effect. Damn, these new-generation antidepressants are magnificent.
With a beatific smile on his face he turns to look at the alarm clock. Noon. It’s great to wake up at noon after a full night of deep sleep, nightmares apart. Damn that satin sheet. Silk in bed can be hazardous to your health. Certainly, he thinks, smiling, all that alcohol he’d drunk last night didn’t hurt. The doctor had said not to mix alcohol and antidepressants. He wouldn’t do it again. With this antidepressant he wouldn’t need alcohol. And he’d lose weight too. That’s what he would do today, sign up at the gym, at the pool. Get moving …
Cagnotto stretches once again, full of new energy.
Then it seems to him that something doesn’t quite square in the perfect architecture of the new day that is beginning. It must be the antidepressant that hasn’t yet taken hold. What had the doctor said? Three weeks before it kicks in, and there were still a few days to go. Some anxiety on waking was normal. And n
o alcohol, no alcohol, as we said … He could use a coffee, a magnificent coffee.
A smile creeps over Cagnotto’s face.
He remembers that he has just—thanks to a TV sales pitch—bought the ultimate in automatic machines for espresso, cappuccino, and all that. Cagnotto buys a lot of stuff from TV salesmen. The doctor said it was due to the depression; he was a compulsive shopper. Cagnotto still buys stuff from TV salesmen and now the doctor says it could be an effect of the antidepressant. Cagnotto asked him what the difference was. The doctor said that now he was only buying things he really needed.
It’s true!
The espresso machine is shining on the countertop of the kitchen that is his pride and joy. He thinks of the coffeepots you used once upon a time, the ones you had to screw together. Certainly technological progress is amazing. Art … shouldn’t we also treat technology as an art? The creation of a machine to make coffee, wasn’t that also art? He might write something about coffee … about coffee …
Now Cagnotto remembers the lunch to celebrate Café Procope.
He looks at the clock.
It would be foolish to scream, although that is what he wants to do. He limits himself to shaking and moaning.
As reality dawns on him he goes for the closet like a fury, hoping there will be something clean and pressed.
Sad, solitary, and abandoned, a blue suit hangs, depressed, from a hanger. Cagnotto stares at it with pity, for himself and for the suit. The only reason that the suit has been spared his busy social life is that Cagnotto bought it last year, when he was firmly determined to lose weight. In the past year, however, he has done nothing but eat. Loneliness was to blame, that and the absence of love, the only true incentive for the artist and the theater.
The suit makes him look grossly fat, even if it is by Ferré. But for an occasion like the Café Procope lunch you need to look as if you already have money if you want to ask for more. It’s better to wear an expensive suit that makes you look overweight than another expensive suit that’s wrinkled, has no creases in the trousers, probably has spots in inexplicable places—and can only signify that you don’t have a large wardrobe.
He looks at the clock again and sees that there is no time even to take a shower.
Sniffing his armpits, he lunges toward the bureau, where there’s a huge bottle of 4711 cologne. He pours it on liberally, smells his armpits again, looks at himself in the mirror, satisfied, smiles … frowns, and now, yes, begins to scream.
CHAPTER THREE
Like the Ballroom Scene in The Leopard, but More Now
“Like the ballroom scene in The Leopard, but more now.” The commissioner for culture of the Sicilian regional assembly, Murabito, had been categorical. The celebrations for Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli must be memorable. These continual accusations that the Sicilian region didn’t promote culture were intolerable. The region promoted culture, absolutely.
The ancestors on the walls are watching the guests arrive but there is none of that distance, that difference, that distinguished the Prince from plebeian Don Calogero Sedàra in The Leopard. Here the ancestors look like the guests, and vice versa.
“There you go, I knew they would come dressed like hacks,” hisses Murabito to his little tribe of assistants as he glares at Caporeale and Cosentino without acknowledging their presence. “I told you we should have specified ‘black tie,’ I told you.”
“But Commissioner, we couldn’t write ‘black tie’ on a brunch invitation,” says an assistant who is following him around.
“Well, we should have written ‘tie,’ then …”
“Um …”
“How do you do, Principessa?” Commissioner Murabito bends to kiss the hand of the Principessa Cerasuolo while he watches the door out of the corner of his eye.
“Do forgive me, please come in. Thank you for honoring us with your presence.” Murabito grabs his assistant by the arm, drags him into a corner under the portrait of the wife of a prince, a baron, or whatever, and shouts at him, “What the hell is ‘brunch’ supposed to imply? You invited them to come at dawn? You had people arriving here at sunrise when the palazzo was all shut up?”
“No, Commissioner, ‘brunch’ means lunch.”
The commissioner stares, irritated, at the portrait of the noblewoman, frowning with disgust. The prince or the baron or whoever he was had definitely married a certifiably ugly woman.
“Oh, really, and what the hell does ‘lunch’ mean, afternoon tea?”
“No, Commissioner, on the invitation we specified ‘buffet at twelve-thirty’ so it would be clear to everyone.”
The commissioner glares at his assistant. “Peasant,” he says. He glances at the portrait of the aristocrat who was married to the hag and discovers he was even more hideous than his wife.
The crowds that are filling the reception rooms take the edge off the commissioner’s anxiety, for there are ladies in long dresses, ladies who take care of themselves, you can see they’ve been to the hairdresser this morning. More than just “see,” Caporeale is studying, with great interest, the arrival of some big shots.
“What’s so fascinating?” Cosentino asks him.
“Look at that. One year hair is long, the next year it’s short. And this year it’s big.”
Big hair is what Tino Cagnotto has, whatever hair he has left is sticking straight up as he sits immobile in traffic at the wheel of his BMW X5 SUV. It seems he has remembered everything except to comb his hair.
Moving just his eyes, he looks to the left, to the right, and down.
With his left hand he drums his fingers on the wheel, while with his right it’s unclear what he’s up to.
He moves his eyes again—right, left—and when it’s clear no one is looking he grabs a greasepaint stick and with lightning speed swipes it over his face, his neck, and his chest.
Under his good blue suit he’s wearing a bright-colored shirt unbuttoned partway down his chest.
Tilting the rearview mirror, he takes a quick look and sees he has forgotten about the hair.
The horror of it makes him jump back while the BMW X5 leaps forward and smashes into a Peugeot full of Afro-Sicilians.
At this very moment Rosanna Lambertini and her mandolin are making their triumphant approach to Palazzo Biscari, her gaze taking in the large entrance hall decorated, for no apparent reason, with a grand piano. The mandolin sways enthusiastically in appreciation of the eighteenth century murals depicting the Biscari estate with its several industries, including wine and silkworms. Yes, this is a stage worthy of an artist, an intellectual! From the entrance hall she moves into the picture gallery with its polychrome majolica tile floors laid in 1711 by craftsmen from Vietri, then into the Rose Room, with its portraits of the Biscari family, and on into the ballroom, a rococo delirium of plaster and painting on three levels, right up to the dome of the music gallery, with Vulcan presiding over the Council of the Gods, to which the musicians could ascend via a staircase shaped like a cloud.
Anyone who doesn’t know her might think that Lambertini is feeling dizzy, but actually this is her interpretation of a “poor but clever young woman who, after having spent her youth cooped up in a humble but spotless chamber, meets by chance a prince who marries her and takes her home to his castle.”
Caporeale and Cosentino, who on the other hand have known her since she took her first steps onstage, exchange a meaningful glance, and you can bet that they are thinking, veteran dialect actors that they are, that Lambertini is in high gear as “poor but clever young woman who, after having spent her youth cooped up in a humble but spotless chamber, meets by chance a prince who marries her and takes her home to his castle.”
Lambertini in turn takes from her bag a pair of tiny glasses, puts them on, looks at a picture with a superior air, takes off the glasses, puts them back in the bag, and sends Caporeale and Cosentino a look that says, I appreciate.
“She understands,” says Caporeale.
“Yes, sir, she’s a co
nnoisseur,” says Cosentino.
“It’s obvious that she’s seen a few.”
“A real collector.”
“The reputation of a polite but inflexible art expert which was to accompany her quite unwarrantably throughout her long life,” adds Caporeale, hitching up his trousers.
“Huh?”
“I quote from The Leopard.”
“Shit, you read that stuff?”
Caporeale makes his sure, who the fuck did you think I was? face.
The palazzo’s reception rooms resound with the clack of heels as two provincial culture commissioners, Giarre and Militello, hustle over toward Lambertini exchanging glances of competitive dislike.
“Here come the rats escorting the flaming rose.”
“The Leopard again?” asks Cosentino.
“Certainly. Angelica, she was another real bitch. But if we start counting the rats trailing Lambertini we’ll have to call Iancelo the exterminator.”
Cagnotto is desperate.
He stares straight ahead without moving a muscle.
The Afro-Sicilians have gotten out of the car and are circling around the BMW X5, studying it with curiosity. They’re jiving to the beat of “Vitti ’na crozza”1 in a rap-dance-remix version that is swelling out onto the street from the subwoofers installed in the front doors of the Peugeot, flung open for the no-fault accident report.
One of the Afro-Sicilians sticks his face right up against the window of the driver’s side.
Cagnotto can’t pretend not to see him.
He whips around.
He sees those two black, burning eyes, and his soul paints an expression on his face.
The black, burning eyes see the expression that Cagnotto’s soul has painted on his face.
It frightens the Afro-Sicilian.
He says something to his friends and they jump back into the car.
Cagnotto gives the wheel a jerk. He looks at his watch, the watchband speckled with glittering colored stones.
Sicilian Tragedee Page 2
