Sicilian Tragedee

by Cappellani, Ottavio

  “Huh?” says Bobo, looking uneasily at the lace on his shirt and the floppy suede boots.

  “The Merchant of Venice.”

  Bobo’s face is puzzled.

  “You don’t know how much a reason you are, Bobo, for the occasion that tonight we’ve set about to stage. If Art is Art, as Art is, then artists are the slaves of beauty.”

  “Shakespeare?”

  Cagnotto goes no with his head. “No, just Cagnotto in love.” He raises his arm, hides his face in the crook of his elbow, and walks away from the mirror.

  Bobo gives his own reflection another look.

  Mister Turrisi’s Aston Martin arrives with tires squealing at the roundabout, the high-pitched sound wafting all the way down a deserted Corso Italia.

  It happens all the time, Turrisi’s tires always squeal when he gets to the roundabout because his Aston Martin has the steering wheel on the right and he’s unable to stick to the curves, never mind a roundabout.

  That’s why Pietro, even if his hair is plastered against the window by the centripetal force of Turrisi’s driving, looks relatively relaxed.

  Relaxed, however, is not what Turrisi is, he’s holding on tight to the steering wheel to keep from ending up in Pietro’s arms.

  Pietro realizes that something is wrong only when Turrisi parks the car; he doesn’t brake and sidle up slowly to the sidewalk, as he usually does to avoid scratching the rims of the wheels. He parks at high speed, coming to rest with one tire on the sidewalk.

  Turrisi gets out of the car like a demon and slams the door like this was an old Fiat 127.

  Pietro gets out, looking at Turrisi curiously.

  Turrisi’s hair is a mess, the long part that covers the top all stiff with Brylcreem has flopped over and fallen down on one side like a cocker spaniel’s ear (thanks to the roundabout).

  Pietro wants to say something but Turrisi, who now seems calmer, adjusts his double-breasted pin-striped jacket and with a wave of his arm, puts the hair back in place.

  “Mister Turrisi,” says Pietro, walking around the car, “pardon me if I take the liberty of saying so, but you need to calm down.”

  “I’m extremely calm.”

  “Just give me the signal, Mister Turrisi, just give me the signal, and Pirrotta, you can consider him disposed of. Rest assured, I’ve already given it a thought.”

  “You haven’t given it one fuck of a thought,” says Turrisi, walking toward the door.

  “No?” says Pietro, who has joined him at the door and is studying the names on the bell.

  Turrisi fluffs up the carnation in his buttonhole, stretches his neck because the collar of his shirt is a tiny bit tight, and says, “It’s not like I can blow away my father-in-law! Ring, lean on it!”

  “Okay, but we don’t have to go around putting up posters. Who would know who did it? Where do I ring?”

  “Cagnotto,” says Turrisi, who’s still trying to stretch out his neck imprisoned in the collar of a shirt with fine red stripes.

  Pietro squints to try to read the names. He gives up, turns to Turrisi, and says, “I can’t see either.”

  “No, I would never do something like that to Betty. And that’s not even the point. Move.”

  Pietro moves. Turrisi gets close to the intercom.

  “So what is the point?”

  “There it is, Cagnotto.” Turrisi rings the bell. “It’s … um … I have some affairs in Ispica and so that business will have to wait.”

  “Who is it?”

  Turrisi steps back and signals to Pietro to announce their arrival.

  Pietro puts his mouth up to the intercom. “Mister Turrisi.”

  The door opens.

  In the elevator Pietro says to Turrisi, “With all due respect, sir, what the fuck does Ispica have to do with it?”

  Turrisi looks at Pietro with one eye, then looks back at himself in the mirror. He sighs, adjusting the loose knot of his tie. “Pietro, Pietro, everyone knows I’m sitting on the countryside from Ispica to Ragusa, and everyone knows that Pirrotta would like to get his hands on that land too. If Pirrotta disappears, who do you think they’re going to come after?”

  “Oh, I see, so now that Pirrotta’s interested in the Ispica countryside, we have to accept that he can’t disappear?” Pietro is indignant.

  “No, he can’t disappear. I’ve told you this twelve thousand times, we cannot fuck around here. Otherwise they’ll send in the tanks again.”

  Pietro bursts out laughing, thinking of the time Italy sent the army to Catania to fight the Mafia. There were tanks and soldiers on street corners behind bulletproof glass shields, and there were kids on motorbikes who, to fool around, were throwing firecrackers at them.

  “Anyway I’ll think of something,” says Turrisi, smiling to himself.

  The elevator stops at Cagnotto’s floor.

  The door opens.

  “Mister Turrisi!” exclaims Cagnotto, dressed up as … dressed up as the driver of a Sicilian painted cart?

  Pirronello’s flash goes off: Mister Turrisi in front of the elevator door, Cagnotto smiling and approaching for a cheek-to-cheek at the center of the frame, behind them a guy with a late-model Elvis forelock and teardrop Ray·Bans shoves a hand in front of the camera.

  Pirrotta’s driver slows to a halt in double file in front of Cagnotto’s building. He gets out of the car buttoning his jacket, opens the door for Turi Pirrotta first and then goes around to open for Wanda.

  Turi Pirrotta looks disgustedly at Turrisi’s Aston Martin listing off the sidewalk.

  Wanda stares at him, worried.

  In the elevator, Pirrotta rests one hand on the wall, his head down.

  “Turi, you’ve had something on your mind since this morning.”

  Pirrotta lifts his eyes. “It’s for me to know, what’s on my mind.”

  Wanda bites her lip and tries to pat his head.

  Pirrotta jumps back. “Are you nuts?”

  Wanda retracts her hand nervously.

  “Don’t touch me or you’ll get burned,” yells Pirrotta.

  The elevator arrives at Cagnotto’s floor.

  Pirrotta leaps out.

  Wanda yells after him, “Don’t do anything stu—”

  Pirronello’s flash goes off: Turi Pirrotta coming out of the elevator like a demon, his hands messing with his hair. Behind him his wife, Wanda, her face contracted in a worried frown, tries to contain him.

  Falsaperla has told his wife he has a political meeting to discuss Paino, who wants his job, Cagnotto, who’s in cahoots, and Pirrotta, who might be able to intervene. “Oh, Lord, my nerves!”

  “And is Gnazia going to be there?” his wife had asked him.

  “Who? Have you got anything for a headache? Mother of God, what a headache. It must be the stress.”

  This Cagnotto is turning out to be a genuine ball-buster. He even had the nerve to call him in the office to invite him to his Shakespeare dinner.

  It was like he was doing it on purpose, twisting the knife in the wound.

  Fuck, these faggots could be vindictive!

  And then, a true Machiavelli, he had invited Gnazia, taking advantage of the fact that she answered the office phone. “Commissioner,” that big old faggot Cagnotto had said, “I’m holding a Shakespeare dinner. Tonight! You’ll come, no? I’ve also invited Gnazia! So nice, Gnazia! What a splendid person. Lord, what a nice person!”

  Gnazia, nice? A piece maybe, but not nice.

  Tonight she hasn’t said a word to him, to the commissioner, who is feeling a bit of a fish out of water. All by himself, he circles the marzipan table watching Gnazia, who won’t even concede him a glance.

  What a bitch! Gnazia wants all of Catania to see me chasing her from party to party. Hey, I’m the commissioner, you’re the secretary. You’re the one who’s supposed to hover over me, bringing me an aperitivo.

  Fat chance!

  She’s there gabbing away with her distinguished friend the salumiera Quattrocchi.

&nb
sp; Falsaperla runs his finger along the edge of the table.

  “Commissioner!”

  Falsaperla raises his eyes and sees a flowing blond mane tossed by the pounding wind of a desert sunset. “Signora Lambertini!”

  Lambertini joins her hands under her chin, a mortified expression on her face. “You see what I’m reduced to, Commissioner, working with Paino at San Giovanni la Punta?”

  Falsaperla takes a rapid glance at Gnazia, who’s already on alert, turns around and takes Lambertini by the arm. (There, you talk to Quattrocchi!)

  Lambertini slams into Falsaperla with her cleavage at nose level.

  Gnazia lifts her chin slightly, to make it clear she hasn’t noticed anything.

  “Tonight I want you to stop busting my balls and enjoy yourself. There will be lots of gay guys like you.” Betty is looking at herself in a tiny mirror.

  Carmine stares at her with disdain. “And what are these clothes you’re wearing?”

  Betty doesn’t reply.

  “You want to drive him crazy, that guy?”

  “What guy?”

  “What do you mean, what? Turrisi.”

  “Oh, him.”

  “Shit, look how many people,” says Cosentino, elbowing Caporeale.

  “Let’s hope they get here fast, because I already have an appetite.”

  The elevator is unloading barons, baronesses, baby baronesses, countesses, baby countesses, cavalieri, commendatori, Knights of Malta, white mantle and black, Red Cross officers, Rotary, Rotaract and Lions Club officials, volunteer society members, priests, military officers, and other professionals.

  “Shit, look at all those people.” Cosentino is excited.

  Caporeale adjusts his blue jacket with a quick movement of his shoulders. “Word got out that I am going to touch my prick onstage and people have come to see this great wonder of nature.”

  Cagnotto, gnawing on his thumb, is looking around for the Contessa. He sees her: she’s at the center of a huddle of lady aristocrats who are hanging on her every word. You can tell they’re aristocrats because they would like to dress like tarts but they haven’t succeeded. Too many midiskirts, too many little blouses, too many pleats.

  Cagnotto breaks in. “Contessa!”

  The Contessa stares at him, annoyed at the interruption. Never interrupt a countess in mid-discourse.

  “Some Human Kindness?” says Cagnotto pointing at the buffet where they are already serving the ricotta ravioli with pork sauce.

  The Contessa and the other aristocrats stare at him weakly.

  “Fine, maybe later.”

  “You should have come to see me sooner, signora,” Falsaperla is telling Lambertini in a low voice as he leads her toward an empty corner of the room. (Take that, Gnazia!)

  “But I imagined that you were terribly busy,” Lambertini replies, leaning over a bit more in case he hasn’t had a good look at her tits.

  Falsaperla is hypnotized. “But for you, my office is our office.”

  Falsaperla’s head is spinning. Lambertini’s perfume, it’s coming right out of there, where her tits in a push-up bra make a giant crevice.

  A waiter offers a tray with flutes of champagne to Gnazia and Quattrocchi.

  Gnazia smiles, takes a flute, her little finger extended, and continuing to smile says to Quattrocchi very clearly so that everyone can hear, “Okay, I’m going over there and setting fire to those tits. You wanna make a bet?”

  Pirronello’s flash goes off: Betty Pirrotta in a black silk minidress that runs from her nipples down to her hips, an S of rhinestones over her stomach, strides out of the elevator, her panther gait emphasized by boots that run halfway up her thighs. Behind her Carmine cranes his neck, curious.

  Turrisi, in a foul temper, looks at Cagnotto.

  Paino is saying to him, “Mister Turrisi, this show has to go to London, to London!” Then he turns to Cagnotto. “You know, Cagnotto, that Mister Turrisi has theatrical interests in London.”

  Cagnotto can’t understand why Turrisi is giving him such an ugly look.

  “Sure,” says Turrisi, “in London!” It sounds like a threat.

  Cagnotto looks at Paino, makes a huh? expression with his face.

  Paino is enthusiastic.

  Turrisi catches sight of Betty. He doesn’t know who to be pissed at, so he’s pissed at Cagnotto. And because he doesn’t know what to say, because Cagnotto, poor bugger, hasn’t done anything, he merely gives him a dirty look.

  “Where the fuck has he gone to make out?” Gnazia asks Signorina Quattrocchi.

  “Huh?” Quattrocchi, in a dress with a flower pattern in paillettes, is looking at Caporeale. “Gnazia, look at him, it’s true I can’t stand him but isn’t he handsome?”

  Caporeale looks around, jiggling something metallic in his pocket. Beside him Cosentino is trying to act indifferent.

  Gnazia tugs at her leopard-print miniskirt, unbuttons a button on her blouse. “Tell Caporeale that if he marries you, I’ll get him a job at the province, we’ll get him a pension, and then we’ll make him capocomico.”

  Quattrocchi smooths her dress down over her sides. “Capocomico ? Can I tell him?”

  “Tell him. I’m going to look for the commissioner and when I find him I’m going to make sure he ends up like that.” Gnazia points to the leopard skin stretched out on the floor.

  Betty has scoped out the party in a blink of her eyelashes, has calculated the geometry of the sitting room with respect to the position of the guests. Since she doesn’t intend to stay long at this fucking party, because afterward she intends to hurl herself into Catania nightlife, she needs to move fast, and well.

  She decides to stand and admire an abstract painting hung in a strategic position. She lowers a delicate veil of sadness over her suntanned cheeks. Oh, Lord, how hard it is to appreciate the joys of art when the torments of love plague your heart!

  Betty’s gaze manages to harpoon that of Turrisi.

  On her face, the expression of a wife visiting her husband in prison. Separated by destiny, by institutions, by watchful society.

  “Pardon me,” says Turrisi abruptly to Paino and Cagnotto, striding firmly over to Betty.

  Betty’s eyes widen in terror.

  Turrisi looks determined. This situation, somehow or other, must be resolved.

  Betty’s eyes reflect even more terror.

  “Signorina, please, I’d like—”

  “Oh, God, my father!” yells Betty in a loud voice.

  Turrisi whips around.

  There’s no one there.

  He turns again to face Betty.

  But Betty has disappeared.

  “No, but I, I wouldn’t, ah, dream, because, ah, of coming. I mean, to your office,” Lambertini, her eyes cast down, is stammering.

  Falsaperla looks up from her cleavage for a moment, to catch the expression on her face.

  Lambertini, out of the corner of her eye, sees Falsaperla’s questioning look.

  Lambertini nods, as if Falsaperla has understood.

  Falsaperla hasn’t understood.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Lambertini nods furiously, she knows that Falsaperla has understood, and then some.

  No. Falsaperla hasn’t understood.

  “You,” says Lambertini, enunciating the words, “are a married”—pause—“man.”

  Falsaperla, it’s like he’s gotten a slap in the face.

  “Me?”

  Lambertini nods vigorously while she searches for something in her bag. “You!” says Lambertini, a tormented heart.

  Falsaperla gazes once more at her cleavage and begins to sweat.

  “So you’re also a connoisseur of art? Mister Turrisi, what are you doing here all alone?”

  Turrisi turns around to find the Contessa.

  Half a second ago he was talking to Betty and now here he is talking to the Contessa.

  The Contessa is important, she’s an aristocrat, and for the English, aristocrats matter. It matters to
him too, the aristocracy. He simply can’t wait to invite a couple of truckloads of aristocrats to London to show that he too has highly placed friends. This doesn’t make it any better that half a second ago he was talking to Betty and now he’s talking to the Contessa.

  Turrisi looks at the Contessa with the eyes of a man who’s losing his grip. Then he jumps to attention, fumbles out a “Pardon me,” and disappears.

  The Contessa looks at the painting. In her opinion it’s a piece of shit.

  “But you’re perspiring,” says Lambertini as she continues to rummage around in her bag.

  “Me? Married?” Falsaperla is trying to understand what he has already understood perfectly well but which he feels he has not understood sufficiently yet.

  “May I?” murmurs Lambertini.

  “Huh?” Falsaperla raises his eyes.

  Lambertini, ready with a Kleenex, pats his upper lip.

  Falsaperla, taken by surprise, stretches forward to assist in the operation.

  Gnazia screams.

  Falsaperla turns toward Gnazia.

  Gnazia, perturbed, spins around on her heels and says something like, “Lipstick!”

  Falsaperla looks at Lambertini and says, “I’ll be right back.”

  Pirronello’s flash goes off: Gnazia running somewhere, you can see that she’s running because her fists are clenched and her arms are well clear of her sides, behind her a purple-faced Falsaperla stretches out an arm to stop her. Farther back is Lambertini, who’s carefully putting a Kleenex back in her bag.

  “Commissioner!” Pirrotta grabs Falsaperla’s arm on the wing.

  “Signor Pirrotta!” exclaims Falsaperla, glancing around for Gnazia. Shit, don’t let me think about what damage Gnazia could do if I don’t hurry up and explain that there was no lipstick and that Lambertini was only wiping the sweat off my lip. Shit, don’t let me think about what damage she could do if I don’t even try to explain it to her.