“I have no idea what Falsaperla has to do with anything,” shouts Turrisi.
“What do you mean, you have no idea?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Timpanaro Is Wearing an Earpiece
Timpanaro is wearing an earpiece so he can pace back and forth more easily in his office on Via Pacini.
Now and then he goes to the window and takes a look at the market in Piazza Carlo Alberto, the so-called ’a fera ’o luni market, that some say means la fiera del lunedì, or the Monday Fair, even though they hold it every day, while according to others (those weird types who hold festivals timed to the solstices, the equinoxes, and other esoteric-type things) means la fiera della luna, or the Moon Fair, in honor of some Egyptian thing that got transferred to Sicily and which has an elephant with an obelisk as a symbol. These people dance at night in the countryside wearing a long white bathrobe that looks like a slip. Looked at from above, ’a fera ’o luni is a vast spread, as far as the eye can see, of colored umbrellas.
Timpanaro likes to look at ’a fera ’o luni because he’s fond of the market. Timpanaro has introduced the commissioners to the concept of market bidding.
After Zerbino’s article, all the culture commissioners in Sicily (and even a couple from Calabria and the Aeolian Islands) will do anything to get Cagnotto’s production for their home city.
Since Falsaperla was taken out, all the culture commissioners want everyone to see (1) they have not forgotten that theater which in Sicily runs from the ancient Greeks through Pirandello, and (2) that they are sensitive to the workforce, the actors, Lambertini, and the new generation of directors who are perpetuating a genuine Sicilian tradition.
Timpanaro has intuition; he knew that, post-Falsaperla, the theater was going to be bigger this summer than some food festival for sausages made with Bronte pistachios.
His cell phone rings while he stands admiring the colored umbrellas of the market with a he who laughs last laughs best smile stamped on his face.
“Timpanaro here, what can I do for you?”
“It’s Commissioner Treuzzi.”
“Commissioner! What’s up at San Vito lo Capo? Are they filming Ocean’s Thirteen?”
“Forget about those Americans, Timpanaro. What we want to do here is to recover our tradition of Greco-Sicilian theater.”
“And Greco-Roman wrestling,” says Timpanaro nastily.
The commissioners have been mocking him for years because he likes to operate in the private sector, while they like to operate in the public sector, which is better for them. But now that he’s got this contract as Cagnotto’s agent in hand …
“Wrestling?”
“No, no, sorry, Commissioner, I was talking to my secretary. Bring me a coffee and please, shake it!”
Silence.
“You see, Commissioner, coffee, I like it shaken, not stirred with a spoon, otherwise it gets too sweet. So I get them to put in a lot of sugar, and then I ask them to shake it.
“Oh, yes, of course, I like it that way myself.”
“You take it shaken? First you shake it and then you drink it?”
“Right, just like you.”
“No, I get my secretary to shake it.”
“Timpanaro, you’re in good form today.”
“Pardon me, Commissioner, I have a call on the other line. I must say goodbye. If I can, I’ll call you back.”
This dickhead Treuzzi had busted his balls for a year about the fact they were making Ocean’s Twelve at San Vito lo Capo, like he was the one who was doing a favor to George Clooney.
Obviously Timpanaro has already made his decision, and obviously he’s not yet talking about it because he likes it when the commissioners call him up and kiss his ass a little.
The setting couldn’t be better: the Greek theater of Palazzolo Acreide, in ancient times Akrai, built in 663 BC by the Corinthians of Syracuse, seventy years after the founding of Syracuse, and bastion of Greek expansionism in Sicilian territory. The Greek theater, a little jewel on the summit of Mt. Akre, 2,500 feet above sea level on the heights above a valley called Scala Ragusa, brought to light in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century by the explorations of Barone Judica, a baron who didn’t have fuck-all to do and who devoted himself to archaeology.
The town had been placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List because of its architecture: Palazzo Judica-Cafici, Palazzo Zocco, Palazzo Ferla, Palazzo Cappellani (this last acquired by the region and set aside to house Barone Judica’s archaeological collection), and then the churches, l’Annunziata, San Paolo, San Sebastiano. (“St. Sebastian?” Cagnotto had asked, “I’m a devotee.” “Sure, sure, Cagnotto, but let’s not talk about it yet, let’s allow interest to grow.”)
Palazzolo Acreide was the perfect place in which to perpetuate an ancient tradition that ran from the Greeks through Pirandello to modern times. The tradition of murd—of the theater!
And just think that the commissioner for Palazzolo Acreide, it was Timpanaro himself who had to propose this thing to him. Half of the commissioners of Sicily were having a heart attack to get their hands on it, and the commissioner for Palazzolo Acreide was down on the beach with his wife and kids and hadn’t even read the paper that day.
Timpanaro’s cell phone rings.
“Timpanaro! This is Commissioner Attardi from Buscemi.”
“And I don’t give a shit.”
“Sorry?”
“I was saying: so early in the day!”
“But, um … were you sleeping? It’s two in the afternoon. I called Cagnotto and he told me to get in touch with you.”
“Who’s Cagnotto?”
Mother of God, what a ball Timpanaro is having.
CHAPTER SIX
La Voce della Sicilia Is Making His Brioche Go Down the Wrong Way
La Voce della Sicilia is making his brioche go down the wrong way. Bobo is having a granita and brioche at the foot of the steps of Caltagirone, the famous steps with the majolica risers.
It has to be said that places like Caltagirone are unbearable. Everybody knows everybody else and there’s none of that city air you get in the metropolis.
Don Johnson’s name is Gianni, and this morning he had taken him all around town to show off his new conquest from Catania.
Bobo feels like he’s suffocating.
Cagnotto’s theater?
That’s my theater, I’m Cagnotto’s inspiration, without me Cagnotto would have just continued on doing that experimental stuff and would never have discovered those stage traditions that endure from century to century, renewing themselves thanks to the inspiration gleaned from casual encounters.
“Is it good, the granita?” asks Gianni, leaning over Bobo’s brioche.
Hey, keep your distance, your hair’s going to fall on my plate.
Cagnotto’s theater, my ass.
How’s it supposed to taste, my granita? It’s just a fucking granita like any other granita. You think I’m a tourist, I’m going to fall in love and dance the tarantella because an almond granita tastes of almond?
Gianni’s in a great mood.
And here’s La Voce della Sicilia that practically gives more prominence to Cagnotto than to the dead commissioner.
This morning in Caltagirone, everybody’s talking about Shakespeare.
It’s a disgrace, thinks Bobo, they murder a commissioner and people are talking about Shakespeare. He’s outraged! Sicilians are brutes. Faced with a death, a murder, what are they talking about this morning as they read La Voce della Sicilia?
About Shakespeare.
And about Cagnotto.
The whole town is up in arms because the jobs, the actors, and the tradition could all come to nothing because of a homicide.
No wonder Sicily is in such bad shape, with these ignoramuses who don’t give a fuck about a homicide.
And anyway, Cagnotto’s Shakespeare is his. What’s Cagnotto got to do with it?
That dickhead the culture commissioner for Caltagirone had eve
n walked by, and he had bowed to Gianni like he was getting ready to take it from behind, and then he had asked whether, seeing as how Gianni often went to Catania, whether maybe he had Tino Cagnotto’s phone number because he wanted to show his support and offer him the venue of Caltagirone with its famous steps.
He was asking Gianni for Tino’s phone number?
“Want another?”
Bobo looks at Gianni.
He looks at his granita.
He puts the spoon down on the plate, disgusted.
“No. When are we going to Catania?”
“But we just got here! Summer in Caltagirone is great, Bobo. And I wanted to take you around to meet the craftsmen who make the ceramics.”
“Is there a bus?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cagnotto Has Had to Turn Off His Cell Phone and Unplug His Landline
Cagnotto has had to turn off his cell phone and unplug his landline.
La Voce della Sicilia is insisting, they want an interview.
He had a call from the reporter reminding him that she was the author of the article that had so grandly illustrated his work. She had also said, “Do give my very best regards to Bobo, he’s so wonderful.”
Timpanaro had been categorical: no interviews, no public appearances. It was an image question, they had to create an aura—the artist victim of Sicily’s dramatic daily crime blotter, rereading Shakespeare in the pensive silence of his little room, he had said, pointing at Cagnotto’s expansive apartment.
“But what are people supposed to think about what I do in the pensive silence of my little room?”
“Cagnotto, you know nothing about people: people imagine, people surmise, people think.”
“They think?”
“Really.” Timpanaro had looked disgusted.
Then Paino had called begging him to grant an interview to La Voce della Sicilia.
“Cagnotto, the editor called me, they begged me to intercede with you to get an interview. Cagnotto, they went so far as to blackmail me, they’ll only do an article about San Giovanni la Punta if I get you to give them an interview. Cagnotto, you owe it to me.”
Timpanaro had told him he didn’t owe anybody anything, and that now, if they wanted Cagnotto’s Shakespeare, they would have to pay, and then some.
“Look, Paino, you only gave me the piazza, the rest I had to pay myself.”
“Listen Cagnotto, I wouldn’t use that tone of voice, because I, you know, don’t talk to me like that because now that Falsaperla is no longer with us, now I become … Cagnotto? … Cagnotto?
Cagnotto has hung up.
“You filthy cocksucking bastard of a director. You owe me everything, you half-wit, and I’m going to make you pay.”
Cagnotto is off to wash his hair.
The Contessa has been on the phone all morning. Following Zerbino’s article, the Contessa was very keen to see the whole of Cagnotto’s play, to see how things worked out.
Baronessa Ferla has spent the whole morning on the phone telling her friends that the Contessa likes it when they kill people, she had learned this from Farina, who had learned it from Cosenza.
Gnazia has spent the whole morning making and receiving phone calls in relation to her new status as a widow. She complained that Falsaperla’s wife hadn’t called her, “after everything I’ve done for her.” Then she had asked Quattrocchi how she should behave at the funeral—what to wear, where to sit. “You know about these things, you always read the society magazines. And finally, when they come to pay their condolences, where should I be?”
“You’re the mistress, not the wife; it’s the wife who gets condolences.”
“What’s the wife got to do with it? Doesn’t she already get the inheritance?”
The managing editor of La Voce della Sicilia is going seriously crazy. He has dedicated twelve pages to the Falsaperla homicide and he can’t begin to slot all the advertising that’s pouring in. The commissioners all want it to be known that they would be delighted to host Cagnotto’s Romeo and Juliet in their hometowns, and are keen to make a declaration, give an interview, leave a quote, or post a statement on the state of the theater in Sicily, in Europe, and in the world. The managing editor is playing hard to get: the paper is full of news and it’s full of ads. The commissioners know how to get around the problem. They call the advertising department and order page upon page of specials, backgrounders, and advertorials: a ricotta festival and a caciotta festival, a couscous contest, a seafood happy hour, a Latin American dance congress. Then they call the managing editor back, and this time, he’s more obliging.
Commendatore Fragalà, arms merchant and opera singer, has bought four ad pages showing summer specials, from treadmills and exercycles to Smith & Wesson .357 Magnums and precision compressed air rifles, earning himself an editorial column on page sixteen in which he can express his opinions on the Sicilian theater, bel canto, and the latest-model precision weapons for big game.
It’s amazing what a kick Falsaperla has given to the market, getting blown away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dawn Comes at Dusk
DAWN COMES AT DUSK
is the headline of the page-one comment in La Voce della Sicilia, under the byline of Giuseppe Zerbino. “In the glorious setting of the Greek theater of Palazzolo Acreide, two hours before sunset as tradition would have it, the celebrated and tormented Romeo and Juliet of the young Tino Cagnotto will return to the stage. Our compliments to Commissioner Ronsisvalle, who with courage and drive has revived the work of the celebrated director, over which a pall of gloom was cast, as we know, by events we shall not dwell on here. With no fear of contradiction, we can say that today at nightfall we will applaud not merely an historic interpretation of the Bard’s immortal verses, but, above all, the dawn of a new era for theater in Sicily, the latest in a long legitimate line of ancient Greek theater, that theater which has shaped our world.”
Cagnotto is unable to continue reading. He has tears in his eyes, Zerbino had called him “young.”
“Did you see that, Cagnotto?”
Timpanaro looks less emaciated somehow, his shoulders broader, his skin tanned.
Cagnotto nods, moved.
“Take it easy, Cagnotto, take it easy. You deserve it! And, you put yourself in good hands.” Timpanaro gives Cagnotto a pat on his left shoulder.
Cagnotto sighs happily, showing his gratitude with a languid look.
“Right, Cagnotto, to work, your actors are waiting.”
The actors couldn’t give a shit about Cagnotto.
They’re in the necropolis next to the Greek theater of Palazzolo Acreide, having their photos taken. There are even a couple of reporters from the national newspapers. Caporeale is walking around the site with his codpiece prominently on display, being interviewed. For the photos, consummate actor that he is, he even tilts his pelvis forward a little bit. “Let’s do one in profile,” he says to La Repubblica ’s photographer, standing sideways in front of the door to one of the tombs.
Cosentino, somewhat envious of Caporeale’s codpiece and the photographer from La Repubblica—a national newspaper, not a local one like the one whose journalist he is talking to—rushes over, saying, “Yes, yes, in profile.”
Cosentino gets in front of Caporeale and bends down in Mercutio’s famous bow.
Caporeale and Cosentino both turn their heads to smile at the camera.
The photographer lowers his camera and looks at them, puzzled.
Cosentino and Caporeale freeze like that, smiles stamped on their faces, one with his codpiece thrust forward, the other bent over at a right angle, not understanding why the photographer doesn’t proceed.
The photographer doesn’t want to say anything, because they’re in a Greek theater and these two are not only old—no, senior citizens—but also actors working on the stage in a Greek theater.
Caporeale and Cosentino still don’t understand what’s wrong with the photographer, who instead of snapping is staring at the
m.
Cosentino twists his head around looking for Caporeale to ask him with his eyes what the fuck is going on.
Caporeale too looks toward Cosentino and sees, for the first time, his rear end, and then his face, peering behind it.
He notices with horror that between the codpiece and Cosentino’s rear end, there is at most three to four inches.
Caporeale makes an instant pirouette, turning the other way, while Cosentino leaps upright.
Click: Cosentino and Caporeale, two pillars of Catania dialect theater, upright and proud in Shakespearean costume, shoulder to shoulder with the ruins of ancient Akrai in the background.
Half of Catania, half of Messina, and of course half of Siracusa are arriving in Palazzolo Acreide. The ladies are in evening dress although it’s afternoon, but it’s as if this were evening because in ancient Greece the evening took place in the late afternoon. The only concession to afternoon are the hats, as with the races at Ascot.
Betty is wearing a simple veil.
Black.
It’s held in front of her face with a diamond tiara.
Her hair is swept up with a coral comb.
Her black linen dress rises high in the neck.
Behind, the neckline plunges to her hips, on which are dancing a string of pearls hanging like a plumb line that follows the sinuous action of her spine.
Carmine’s eyes are popping out, if he weren’t a gay guy he would screw her himself.
“Where is he?” asks Betty, looking straight ahead.
“Who?” asks Carmine, who, although not reneging on his gay status, cannot help but follow that ass and the hypnotic effect of those pearls on the tanned back.
“Th-isi,” says Betty without opening her mouth.
“Huh?”
Betty stops cold on the path leading to the theater. She looks at Carmine. She looks around at her back as if to say, Why are you looking at my ass, have you turned into a moron?
“Okay, I’ll look for him myself. You continue to meditate.”
Sicilian Tragedee Page 21
