“Hey, Carmine, if you’ve got a case of pussy-hysteria without having a pussy and you don’t know what to do about it, there’s no way I can help you.”
Carmine stands immobile.
Nailed to the path.
He looks at Betty’s ass, which continues to twitch back and forth between tripping and twisting.
A waiter, frozen in place, is looking at him with a smile.
Carmine flashes him a look that says, Listen, don’t go playing queer on me now that I’ve got a serious problem on my hands.
Betty, nervous and annoyed that she’s been brought to a party of old people, joins her father to establish that she’s here, but as if to say with all her bored being, Yes, I’m here, but only because you made me.
She settles herself with her hands joined in front of her stomach, agitating her handbag, her legs twined together, and her hip cocked to one side.
Turi Pirrotta looks at her with love.
Crazy, he thinks, once upon a time a babe that stood around like that, they would have sent her to the insane asylum. Now they all come crawling, all nuts with their tongues hanging out, crazy how times change. Shit, those fruit skewers are tasty, where am I going to get myself another one?
The culture commissioner for Montelusa is saying to Lambertini, “You have no idea what a mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”
The culture commissioner for Montelusa is scary to look at, he’s a kind of Mercedes on two feet.
Lambertini smiles serenely.
The culture commissioner for Montelusa looks at his glass, his mouth opens in a smile as if the top’s coming off the Mercedes, and he walks off without saying a word.
The culture commissioners for Avola, Noto, Pachino, and Marzamemi, respectively, hurry over to Lambertini.
Good God, how Lambertini loves it when the commissioners compete for her!
Caporeale and Cosentino are unrecognizable.
They’re both wearing blue suits. The only difference is that Caporeale has on a blue shirt while Cosentino has on a white one. Both shirts are well unbuttoned, showing off chains with crucifixes, baptism, first communion, and confirmation medals, and other trinkets nestling among the white chest hairs. Their entire savings have been invested in these suits, but it’s not like you get an invitation from the Contessa every day. The Contessa had said she would be honored to have as her guests two pillars of the Catania theater. Nobody had ever called Caporeale and Cosentino pillars before.
“Hey, let’s go and grab a drink and sip it on the edge of the pool,” says Cosentino to Caporeale.
Shakespeare, thinks Caporeale, is destroying Cosentino’s brain stem. And he doesn’t even have the responsibility of playing Romeo. He only has to play Mercutio, and above all, he doesn’t … Caporeale raises his eyes to the heavens. Hey, better not to think about it.
Cosentino has all the effervescence of the sidekick, while Caporeale has that momentous responsibility that weighs on his shoulders as he works himself into the character.
“Grab that drink.”
Cosentino walks up to the table where the aperitivi have been poured and gazes happily at the glasses. Meticulously, he selects two, gives one to Caporeale, and moves to the side of the pool.
Caporeale stares at him with an expression that says, Wow, how dumb.
Cosentino, having taken his place at poolside, begins to rotate the glass, making an elegant motion with his wrist.
Caporeale joins him and watches the glass rotate.
Signorina Quattrocchi, who has plastered rhinestones all over herself like caciocavallo cheese sprinkled on tripe, comes over on Gnazia’s arm.
Caporeale sees her and looks at Cosentino in terror.
Cosentino stops rotating his drink.
Quattrocchi and Gnazia are standing in front of them. “Show me what you do when you grab yourself,” says Quattrocchi to Caporeale.
Pirrotta stops licking the fruit skewer halfway down. Oh, shit, Turrisi is here. How come he’s brought Pietro? He was worried they’d try to blow him away in the Contessa’s villa? Where the fuck is Wanda, who knows how to handle these public relations things? Pirrotta, seized with panic, turns toward Betty.
The way Betty looks, you’d think the Contessa’s garden was made of quicksand. She has her big toes crammed together, her legs in an X, her shoulders hunched, her head cocked to one side, a big face. She looks like she’s deflating and needs a little pumping up.
Turrisi appears in front of him.
Pirrotta gives him a social smile. He doesn’t know what to say. He looks at Betty.
Betty’s staring at the pool.
Pirrotta turns back to Turrisi.
Turrisi, all serious, says, “Good evening.”
Pirrotta gives him a real smile. “My friend!” he says, then stops, not knowing how to continue.
Where the fuck is Wanda?
“Good evening,” says Betty in a feeble voice.
Pirrotta, all smiles, begins, “So you …”
And stops there.
Because Turrisi has turned on his heels and gone.
Pietro’s still standing there. Motionless. Looking at him.
In Pietro’s Ray·Bans you can see Pirrotta, puffed up in the reflection of the lens, turn toward Betty with a questioning look.
Then Pietro too turns on his heels and is gone.
Signora Musumeci’s already got her bathing suit on.
She wants to be the first to jump in the pool so that everyone will ask her whether the water’s cold. She’s wearing a blue suit with a kind of scarf braided into the front that becomes a sash at the level of the navel and winds around behind where it joins up with the tails of the flower blossoming on her shoulders, whose petals fall like a pleated cape over her back.
Signora Musumeci, her bosom thrust out and wobbling on her expensive sandals, passes in front of Carmine.
Carmine raises a hand to his chest, looking around for Betty.
If I don’t have a heart attack tonight, I never will.
Oh, Lord, Betty looks like St. Rita or St. Genevieve or St. Somebody on her way to martyrdom. She’s there by the buffet table with an expression on her face like she’s just been unjustly crucified. There’s her father who’s trying to ask her something.
She’s, like, destroyed.
Carmine walks over, pretending enthusiasm.
The Contessa has used citronella candles and the smell makes him want to throw up.
Turi Pirrotta is saying something to his daughter: “What the fuck is going on? What the fuck happened?”
He sees Carmine.
“Carmine, what the fuck is going on?”
Turrisi, there in the heart of the Catania aristocracy, gazes with the eyes of a man denied justice at the pain-seared orbs of his forbidden love.
He exchanges a glance of complicity with Pietro.
Pietro can’t exchange glances because he’s wearing Ray·Bans, but you can see that at the very least he’s stung by the same thirst for justice as Turrisi.
“Turrisi. Is it true that you can run into Hugh Grant in Notting Hill?”
Pietro smiles, who knows why.
“Huh?” says Betty, coming to. She straightens her legs and uncocks her hip.
Pirrotta looks at her, then at Carmine.
Carmine is an ode to joy. “Signor Pirrotta, did you get a look at that pool? What atmosphere.”
“Carmine, give me a break. What’s happening with Turrisi? Didn’t you go to lunch at San Giovanni li Cuti?”
Carmine nods, looking at Betty.
Betty has a wounded look.
“He came here, then he went there,” says Pirrotta, scandalized, to Carmine.
Carmine nods as if to follow with interest Pirrotta’s reasoning. “He came here, then he went there,” he says.
Right, says Pirrotta with his face.
Carmine, not knowing what to do, stares at Betty.
Betty, in a trembly voice, says, “Maybe … he’s shy,” and bites her lip, whi
ch is also trembling.
“Do you know Cagnotto?”
Paino is euphoric. He wants to introduce Cagnotto to Turrisi, the emerging Catania entrepreneur who seems to own a couple of theaters in London.
“I haven’t had the pleasure yet.”
Cagnotto is about to piss, he’s so excited.
“Signor Turrisi, obviously we’re expecting you at San Giovanni la Punta for the opening of Romeo and Juliet. That is what you’re calling it, no, Cagnotto?”
Cagnotto looks uncertain, though smiling broadly. “Hmm, yes. That’s the working title. You know, Shakespeare.”
“Romeo and Juliet?” asks Turrisi, curious.
Cagnotto nods, gratified. “Let’s say it’s a new interpretation in the light of neorealism.”
“Betty, sorry, they tell me you have to move your car.” Carmine drags Betty away, leaving Turi Pirrotta standing there still trying to figure out what the fuck shy means.
He feels someone touch his arm.
Snapping around, he finds Commissioner Falsaperla. Falsaperla had been elected by him. Or so he seems to remember. It isn’t like he can keep track of all those politicians he has helped to get elected. And what was Falsaperla? Oh, yes, commissioner for culture. Pirrotta wondered why the party had to bust his balls to get him to help elect a guy who was going to become commissioner for culture. Why the fuck should Pirrotta give a fuck about culture?
“Yes?”
“Pardon me, have you got a moment?”
Are we insane here? Once upon a time commissioners for the budget, for planning, for housing, or for health came to see him, and now here comes a commissioner for culture and he touches him on the arm.
Pirrotta glares at him. “What’s up?”
“Paino is dangerous.”
“Who?”
“Paino.”
“And who the fuck is that?”
Falsaperla points with his chin at Paino.
Paino is laughing cheerfully with Turrisi.
Pirrotta’s wearing the face of a pit bull.
He writes me the pizzino, the message, he busts my balls at home, I let him go out with Betty, he doesn’t say a word to me, and instead he is yukking it up with Paino?
Falsaperla nods. “You know who Cagnotto is?”
“Who?”
“If you have a moment I’ll explain.”
Pirrotta looks once again at Turrisi.
Then he turns abruptly toward Falsaperla and says, “Okay, explain.”
“Betty, what are you up to? Betty, Betty, Bettee-ee-ee!”
Betty smiles. She has this thing, that when other people get neurotic, she’s happy. And the more she’s happy, the more the others get neurotic.
Meanwhile, the ladies are all undressed, or so it seems to Carmine, they’re hobbling, waddling, and lurching toward the water in an explosion of sequins and straps, pink roses and stalks of wheat, cameos, tiaras, and rhinestones, one-pieces and bikinis, push-ups, C-cups and D-cups.
Maybe it’s the light of the candles that flicker and enhance, maybe it’s the citronella that’s poisoning him, but to Carmine it looks like a zombie movie.
Wanda is doing yoga.
The Contessa has set up a yoga corner for those who want to do transcendental meditation by the light of the moon. The yoga instructor is pressing on Wanda’s abdomen, trying to explain to her how to get in touch with her vital center. Wanda’s got a very deep expression on her face.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Next Day Turi Pirrotta Is Knotting His Necktie with Care
The next day Turi Pirrotta is knotting his necktie with care.
He’s wearing the darkest one he has.
He combs his hair back carefully, buttons his double-breasted jacket, checks his cuff links, and sprays cologne abundantly around his head.
When he’s all suited up like this he looks exactly like Ernest Borgnine.
He even has the gap between his incisors, and he had his dentures made so you couldn’t tell they were dentures.
He walks downstairs purposefully.
His wife is lying on the sofa with a slice of eggplant draped over her brow.
Wanda opens one eye.
She sees her husband.
She picks up the slice of eggplant carefully, puts it on a tray with various other vegetables, rises calmly, sits up, and says to her husband, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Pirrotta nods.
He lifts his trousers to preserve the impeccable crease and sits down in an armchair.
“I’m going to destroy him.”
Wanda doesn’t know what to say. She had been so nice and relaxed at the Contessa’s party. “You can’t expect him to ask Betty’s hand in marriage already, they’ve only seen each other twice.”
Pirrotta nods as if he found what Wanda was saying rather convincing. “I’m going to destroy him.”
“I told you not to do anything stupid. Be patient and let me take care of this, it’s a woman’s thing.”
“No, sir, this is a man’s thing. My daughter went out with that guy twice”—Pirrotta shows Wanda the number two with his index and middle finger—“and in a public place. I’m not going to put up with disrespect like that, not to my daughter.”
“Shit, Turi, before Turrisi came along do you know what kind of a line there was?” stretching out her arm in a gesture that might mean get stuffed or it might mean a line from here to Acireale.
Pirrotta nods again firmly, he’s completely in agreement with what his wife is saying. “Right, but it’s not like the others came to the house or sent me a pizzino of good intentions.”
Wanda lifts her eyebrows and turns her head to one side as if to say, This too is true.
“And not to mention the fact that Betty, poor baby, went out with that shithead to please us.”
This too is true.
“Yesterday she was there, with that tragic look on her face … no, don’t let me get started!” Pirrotta gives the arm of the chair a smack. “And that dickhead was playing the cocktease with the baronesses, with the countesses, with the commissioners, and even with the faggot director. Why the fuck write me the pizzino if when you get to the Contessa’s house you don’t even deign to look at my daughter? He did it on purpose. He did it on purpose to show disrespect in front of the whole fucking city.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing. I told you, Wanda, don’t get me agitated, because I’m already stressed. He came, he said, ‘Good evening,’ and he went. Pietro was there, he looked at me, and then he walked off too.”
“And what did he say to Betty?”
“He didn’t say a fucking thing, nothing, it was as if the poor baby didn’t exist.”
“And what did Betty say?” Wanda’s trying to keep him talking because sometimes when he talks Pirrotta calms down.
“Don’t make me think about it, or I can’t be responsible for my actions. You know what she said? She said that maybe he was shy. Shy, right! You should have seen how he was whoring around with the countesses and the baronesses and with Paino.”
“Well, maybe he’s shy with Betty because he loves her.”
“Right, my ass. There was Betty, poor baby, who was just about to cry in front of me. Carmine had to drag her off with the excuse she had parked the car badly.”
“But doesn’t Betty have a driver?”
Pirrotta flashes a sardonic smile and the wounded-victorious look of a man who’s thinking, Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you. He starts yelling again. “She doesn’t know, poor baby, that men are scumbags and pieces of shit.”
“Turi, take it easy, because you’re getting me worried.”
“The one who should be worried here is neither you nor me. I’ll tell you who should be scared shitless. I’m going to talk to Falsaperla and then we’ll see.”
“Falsaperla? What’s Falsaperla got to do with it?”
Pirrotta jumps up.
Wanda looks at her vegetables.
CHAPTER SIX
&
nbsp; Apart from Caporeale, Everyone’s Tired and Happy This Morning
Apart from Caporeale, everyone’s tired and happy this morning. You think Cagnotto was going to give them a day off rehearsals and pass up the chance to review the party? They all look pallid under their tans from sleeplessness, but happy.
The happier they are, the more Caporeale feels pissed off. Today, even though he’s got his arms prominently crossed to show he’s indignant and offended, nobody seems to notice. Theater people are real scumbags, give them a taste of success and they behave like bastards.
Cagnotto and Cosentino look like they’ve been sharing a bed for a lifetime, they’re so affectionate with each other. And then there’s Lambertini, radiant and mussed, as only a great blabbermouth knows how to be radiant and mussed.
Caporeale gives them a dirty look.
No one notices.
Caporeale can’t stop thinking about his meeting by the poolside with Rattalina.
That bastard Cosentino had left him alone and gone off with Gnazia, a woman whom everyone in Civita had known for a lifetime (need I say more?) and who, since she had gotten that job at the province, had become intolerable. First she got a new wardrobe, or so they said in the neighborhood, politely, because who knows, one day you might need a favor from the province. To Caporeale it seemed that Gnazia was wearing the same clothes as always. Just that before they used to say that Gnazia dressed like a slut, and now she wore designer. Anyway, Gnazia had taken Cosentino by the arm (Holy Mary, what a minidress Gnazia had on!) and then all three, Gnazia, Quattrocchi, and Cosentino, had gone off without asking him along. Some friend.
And that was when Rattalina appeared.
Caporeale was uneasy in Rattalina’s presence on account of that meeting Cosentino had told him about. It’s up to you, Rattalina had told Cosentino, making it clear that Rattalina was finished with the two of them, and who knew what else. Who knew what else? Rattalina had control of the dialect theater halfway across Sicily, he plagiarized musicals, he plagiarized dramas, he even plagiarized TV shows, and sometimes, to raise the tone of his company, he got a singer from the Sanremo Song Festival, one of the losing ones, to come down to Sicily. Rattalina was a Neapolitan. He had started out as a surveyor at the land office, and Caporeale is always a little nervous about people who come from nowhere and make a career. It’s not like this is America, where they have the Merican dream.
Sicilian Tragedee Page 12
