Pliny's Warning

by Nicholson, Anne Maria

  Pasquale realizes the faces of the mourners look familiar. ‘I think that’s the body of the girl who was shot in the street last week. I recognize her family from the television news. She was only sixteen, out walking with her friends. They were caught between the crossfire when two men shot at each other.’

  ‘Another wasted life,’ Poppaea hisses. ‘When will it end?’

  ‘As long as Il Sistema runs our city, never!’ Satore says angrily.

  Pasquale sighs. He has seen it all before. He watches the men carry the coffin into the cathedral followed by the sad procession of weeping relatives. He’d grown up with death. Everyone from the villages around Caserta did. Violence lurked in every neighbourhood and pervaded all business, and anyone who stood in the way of the powerbrokers knew they were risking everything.

  He remembers when his father was killed, eight years earlier. An accident, they were told. He was crushed beneath one of his own trucks on the building site where he was working, when the truck reversed into him. He and Poppaea heard the rumours—the driver was new and had previously worked for their father’s main rival, one of the big operators from the next town, attached to the growing Dragorra empire. An inquest cleared the driver of any blame and declared the death accidental.

  Less than a month after the funeral, the Mazzone family company was swallowed by its rival. The driver was appointed the new manager. Pasquale and his sister were left with nothing—their father’s lawyer said there was no will and the company debts outweighed any assets. They had packed up the possessions of the apartment their family had rented for three generations and moved to Naples to start new lives.

  ‘C’mon,’ Pasquale says. ‘We’ll be late.’ The ornately decorated lecture theatre on the upper level of the university is nearly full as they squeeze past the knees of those already seated in a row near the front and fall into empty seats in the middle. Pasquale sees his neighbour, Riccardo Cocchia, huddled with a group near the podium. He recognizes many students and lecturers in the room but is drawn by one of the men next to Riccardo. Middle-aged, his muscular build and sun-beaten face mark him as someone who has worked his life outdoors. Pasquale nudges Poppaea. ‘Who does he remind you of?’

  She follows his gaze. ‘Dad?’ she asks.

  ‘You see it too?’

  She nods. The man’s profile reminds him keenly of his father, although the back of his head is quite different. Is it the nose? The shape of his eyes? It’s an odd thing. His father had been dead now for eight years, and they were never close, yet watching the man in the front row with Riccardo, Pasquale feels an unexpected rush of loss.

  ‘Good evening, thank you for coming. I’m Doctor Fabbiana Masina.’ A tall red-haired woman at the microphone interrupts his musing.

  ‘We are here to organize a protest rally against the scandalous state of garbage disposal in Campania. Not only are the streets of Naples and the towns full of rotting garbage, but also the land. I’m an oncologist, and I know first-hand how our cancer rates are soaring, and I strongly believe they’re linked to the illegal dumping of toxic waste, which is polluting our farmlands. It is time to speak out and demand action from our government. The health of our people and our environment is at stake.’

  Speaker after speaker complain of pollution and corruption, with officials taking bribes to turn a blind eye. As the audience applauds, the doctor beckons the man in the front row. ‘And now I want to introduce to you a very courageous man who is prepared to give evidence of criminal activities. He was a farmer but his livelihood has been destroyed by toxic waste.’

  Pasquale can feel the man’s discomfort as he walks to the microphone and nervously clears his throat. ‘I’m sorry,’ he begins, his voice tremulous. ‘I am not used to speaking to so many.’ He pauses and looks down on the sea of faces. Pasquale can sense the power of his raw dignity. Over many centuries, this theatre had rung with the voices of thousands of great orators but now it falls silent to listen to the message of a man who has never spoken publicly in his life.

  ‘My name is Paolo. For all my life I have been a farmer, just outside Caserta. I have worked the land of my father, and his father and his father. Now I have been forced to walk away from it.’

  Paolo goes on to tell them how he was offered a free trial of a new fertilizer by a salesman two years earlier. If he was satisfied with the product, he could buy more, at a cheap rate. Next day, a large truck delivered a load of black mulch, which he spread on his wheat and vegetable crops.

  ‘After the first heavy rain, my ponds went black. Then the fish died. They were floating upside down.’ His voice is now steady. ‘My sheep, they got sick. And the wheat and the corn—they didn’t grow.’

  His voice falters again and a film of perspiration melts on his forehead. He takes a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wipes it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeats, ‘this is difficult for me.’

  When the doctor gives him with a glass of water, he holds it up to the light. ‘I hope this is not poison!’ he laughs nervously. ‘I am an ordinary man who used to trust people. Now…I think twice.’ He drinks the water quickly and hands the glass back. ‘The fertilizer was poison. It killed my land. Everything died and now the authorities have seized it. My family farmed it for more than a hundred years. Now I have nothing.’

  He walks away from the microphone, his neck extended forward in a posture of defeat and Pasquale realizes the man has no physical likeness to his father at all. It’s his expression, the same baked-on look of resignation, exhaustion and disillusion.

  ‘Thank you, Paolo. We appreciate your honesty and courage.’ The doctor is back on the podium. ‘His farm was covered in waste containing heavy metals, including dioxin. Tons of it are trucked here illegally from industries up north. His soil is full of it, the milk from Paolo’s sheep was contaminated and his animals have all been destroyed. The farm will be unusable for decades, maybe longer. And he’s not the only one. There are many more.’

  The doctor closes the meeting and calls for volunteers to organize the protest. Pasquale and the others clamber to offer their help.

  ‘Hey! Good to see you here!’ Riccardo calls him over. ‘Come and meet Paolo.’

  Pasquale shakes the farmer’s hand, which is hard and coarse. ‘Pasquale Mazzone. I’m sorry about your farm, I grew up in the same area.’

  ‘I know your family name,’ Paolo replies.

  ‘Did you know my father, Stefano Mazzone?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘He ran a construction company. He was killed in a truck accident.’

  Paolo’s face flickers as if he is reminded of something. But he looks away. ‘No. I didn’t know him. Sorry, but I have to go now.’

  He collects his bag from his seat and puts on his coat, a puffy green ski jacket in a style that went out of fashion twenty years earlier. As he walks towards the door Pasquale is reminded again of his father, his reticence, which he now surmises may have been suppressed anger stoked by powerlessness in a society where brutality ruled.

  Riccardo taps him on the shoulder. ‘This is my colleague, Marcello Vattani. He works with Frances Nelson as well.’

  ‘I saw her tonight. She didn’t seem to know about the meeting. Did you ask her to come?’

  ‘No,’ Riccardo says. ‘We had a big day working at Campi Flegrei and I thought she might be better staying out of all this local trouble.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Marcello agrees. ‘Frances wouldn’t be able to help herself. She’d want to be part of the protest. She’ll have enough on her hands dealing with all the developments planned around Vesuvius. There’ll be a lot of heat from that.’

  ‘Il Sistema again?’

  ‘Always,’ Riccardo says.

  ‘It’s appalling that money means more to them than the people’s health. Do we have any real hope of taking them on?’ Pasquale asks.

  ‘They have money, power and violence. We just have people, people like Paolo. And never forget, we have the truth.’
<
br />   ‘You forgot faith, Riccardo.’ Marcello grins. ‘As my grandfather says, we have to keep our faith.’

  Poppaea takes Pasquale’s arm. ‘Sorry, gentlemen. We have to leave. It’s time my brother sang for his supper.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Pasquale kisses his sister goodnight on Via Toledo and he and Satore squeeze onto the back of a crowded bus bound for Santa Lucia. They shuffle around people laden with shopping bags to the middle.

  ‘May as well try our luck,’ Satore says. ‘How about “L’Inverno”? I feel like some Vivaldi.’

  ‘Let’s do it!’ Pasquale says. They take out their violins and cue each other with their eyes as they have done hundreds of times before.

  From the first notes in F minor of the ‘Winter Concerto’ from the Four Seasons, they have captured the ears of the late-night commuters. Pasquale never tires of the impact of their music. As they play, he can see expressions around him gradually change. Passengers lost in their own worlds suddenly engage with life on the bus. Smiles appear on lips, lines soften on foreheads and heads move in time with the swelling violins. But both musicians know just the moment to maximize the effect. As Pasquale’s fingers move to the high strings to play lines of silvery staccato notes, Satore fades out of the concerto. There’s only half a minute or so to go. He moves quickly through the bus with a plastic cup he keeps in his coat pocket. Clink, clink, clink. He takes around ten euro before the vehicle lurches to a halt.

  Pasquale is almost thrown. He steadies himself and stands aside as people push past to leave and a new group climbs aboard.

  ‘Primavera!’ Satore calls. They start playing together again, this time the ‘Spring Concerto’ in E major. They have managed to abridge the movements to such an extent, they can time their parts almost perfectly to suit the bus route, especially in peak hour when the journey is slow. Two stops later they move into G minor to play the ‘Summer Concerto’. For the last leg of the journey, they slide into F major for the ‘Autumn Concerto’.

  They leap off the bus at the seafront on Via Partenope. ‘Brilliant! Forty euro already!’ Satore laughs. ‘The bus concerto’s a winner.’

  Pasquale finds Satore’s cheerful spirit contagious. He was disturbed by Paolo’s story and the man’s resemblance to his father; too often these days he feels distracted, just when he’s edging closer to achieving his dream.

  The moonlight has brought the promenaders out in droves. A young mother and father stroll behind their two children, who are licking enormous ice creams; an elderly couple cling to each other for support as they walk slowly along the lungomare; and a pair of lovers kiss against a lamppost, their bodies blending. The distant lights of the Isle of Capri twinkle to the east, while Vesuvius is silhouetted by the moon to the west.

  Pasquale doesn’t resist Satore when he links arms with him. The two have been friends since high school where they were both misfits, preferring music to soccer. While their peers were the town’s tough boys, experimenting with drugs, alcohol and sex, they kept their distance from the constant spectrum of violence that overshadowed their generation. Instead, they sought each other’s company, shared their passion for the classics and practised together for hours at a time.

  After Pasquale’s father died, they drifted apart. Satore travelled north to study in Rome. It wasn’t until they reunited in Naples that Satore revealed his sexual feelings for him and Pasquale told him he could never reciprocate. Still, their friendship endured.

  Pasquale had met several of Satore’s lovers, usually other musicians, though he once had a strong crush on a young architect. Pasquale had dated many girls. He liked them all but sooner or later the relationships fizzled. They would tire of each other. He often asked himself what it would feel like to be in love, doubting he had ever been. While it was an emotion he wished for, it wasn’t a craving. Music and friendship was enough, at least for now.

  A line of Mercedes is parked along the roadway by the entry to the Borgo Marinato. Another one pulls up and its chauffeur hurries around to open the door for an expensively dressed couple. They drift arm in arm towards the restaurants.

  ‘I’ll stop here. You play up ahead towards Castello Dell’Ovo,’ Pasquale says to Satore.

  He spreads his violin case on the ground and puts a few coins and notes inside. He discovered when he first started busking that an empty case stays empty. Although clear, the night air is cool and Pasquale puts his beanie on his head.

  He raises his violin and bursts into a lively version of ‘Funiculi, Funicula’. The first coins arrive quickly—it’s a busy night and a constant stream of diners trail past, at least one in three putting their hands in their pockets to find a coin or two.

  Three times through ‘Funiculi, Funicula’ and he’s ready for the next staple. A few tourists dawdle past on their way towards the marina to ogle the yachts. When they hear the first notes of ‘O Sole Mio’ they turn back and listen to the end. They’re Americans and want to chat.

  ‘Every time I hear that I think of Caruso,’ an elderly woman in the group says to him.

  ‘Ah yes,’ Pasquale answers patiently. ‘Enrico Caruso was from Naples.’

  ‘Is that so? I thought he was American. He sang at the Met in New York for years.’

  He’d had this conversation over and over again. But she meant well. ‘That’s right,’ he says. ‘He also sang at La Scala in Milan and Covent Garden in London. But this was home.’

  ‘I was sure he was born in America.’

  ‘No, that was Mario Lanza. He had Italian parents but was born in the States. They both sang “O Sole Mio”.’

  ‘Well, God bless you,’ she says, dropping a dollar note into his case.

  Staple number three, Pasquale says to himself. He raises his bow and starts to play ‘Santa Lucia’. For all his cynicism, the barcarole sweeps him up every time. It is his favourite, especially played here on a magical night like this. He sways his body in time to the six/ eight metre, the same rhythm as a boatman rowing.

  His thoughts are interrupted by the loud footsteps of a well-dressed man with reddish hair who strides by without pausing. He continues playing and with the yachts bobbing in the gentle swell of the harbour, silently mouths the words: ‘O dolce Napoli, o suol beato, ove sorridere, volle il Creato, tu sei l’impero, di armonia! Santa Lucia! Santa Lucia!’

  He’s aware that someone has stopped to listen. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a woman standing alone, smoking. Dark haired and wrapped in a red shawl, he senses she’s watching him closely. He tries harder than usual to inject as much emotion as possible into the song.

  ‘Bravo,’ the woman says quietly. He sees her drop a twenty euro note into his case and he nods his thanks. The unexpected generosity and something familiar in her voice, maybe the intonation, makes him turn to watch her hurry away, her stilettos clicking on the ground.

  Diners continue to file past, well-heeled high-flyers, so different to the people he mixes with at the conservatorium. A revving motorbike stops nearby, drowning out his violin. As he rests his violin on the ground and stretches, a tall stocky figure in a leather jacket almost bowls him over. ‘Out of the way!’ he yells in an accent that reminds Pasquale of the bully boys from his home town. Before he has time to reply, the man jumps onto the back of the motorbike and has ridden away.

  Pasquale yawns. His fingers are feeling stiff and he shivers in the cooling air, despite wearing his thickest winter coat. He packs his violin away, pockets a handful of coins and saunters towards Satore. ‘Let’s call it a night. I’m exhausted.’

  Satore stops playing ‘Santa Lucia’.

  ‘Do you get sick of those songs?’ Pasquale asks.

  ‘No, because they are accompanied by the best tune of all—those coins and notes playing doh ray mi in our cases!’

  ‘I worry that I’m relying on Il Sistema for donations. Did you see that lot coming here tonight? Talk about the godfathers!’

  ‘Sure. But you’re a good cause. Let’s count the
loot.’

  Pasquale counts eighty-five euro and three American dollars. Satore has seventy euro.

  ‘Better than usual—thank you, Mr Moon, for helping everyone open their wallets!’ Satore exclaims, glancing up to the dark sky. ‘With the money from the bus that’s nearly two hundred euro. Here, you keep half of mine towards your cello.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘You must.’ He pushes the money into Pasquale’s coat pockets. ‘I’ll just waste it on beer and boyfriends.’

  ‘Oh, in that case, yes, I can,’ he laughs, then breaks into a coughing fit.

  Satore taps him on his back. ‘C’mon. You’d better get out of the cold. That cough is getting worse.’

  ‘It’s just the change in the weather, it always affects me.’

  They walk back to the promenade and Satore runs to catch a bus heading in the direction of his apartment.

  Pasquale waits at the bus stop alone. Thick clouds obscure the moon but there’s light on the seafront. The marble arches of an elaborate baroque fountain illuminated by spotlights steal his eyes. He’s drawn to the sculptured sea creatures cavorting beneath, holding aloft a large carved chalice gushing torrents of water. Flyaway droplets shimmer like shards of diamonds in the blackness of the night.

  The line of expensive cars is starting to leave. He notices the dark-haired woman who had stopped to hear him play, climb into one and depart. There’s no sign of his bus and he can’t stop shivering. He sets out on foot, knowing exactly where he will go.

  Soon he can see the brightly lit Piazza del Plebiscito. He crosses the road and walks towards the enormous square. Save for a few cyclists, it’s almost empty and his feet echo on the cobblestones as he walks past the thick stone walls of the sprawling royal palace. Not far now. At the end of the square, small groups are clustering around the Café Gambrinus. The outdoor tables of the coffee house are empty but he can see people inside through the windows. Turning the corner, he collides with the post-concert crowd, milling in the street, elegant in tuxedos and evening gowns, and he knows why he is being drawn here. A minute later, he stands in front of the Teatro San Carlo as he has done so often before. He walks up the steps to the front doors but they are already locked. He goes back down and looks up towards the roof, seeking solace from the statue of a beautiful woman holding out a crown in her hand. She has given him hope in the past.