My Mother-in-Law Drinks

by Diego De Silva

  “Why not?” I object.

  Laughter.

  “Because you have a very different style, caro mio,” he replies.

  Hey, I think. He’s right.

  “Does that mean you’d like to have him as a character in one of your novels?” Bignardi cuts in, quick on the uptake.

  “Sure,” says De Cataldo.

  “As long as we can work out an agreement on the royalties,” I retort promptly.

  Applause. Not sure if it’s for me or for him.

  “In any case, coming back to your question,” De Cataldo resumes, speaking once again to the moderator, “I suspect that it is precisely the division between judicial hardliners and civil rights advocates that constitutes the aberration that has ensured the spread of a generalized mistrust toward the administration of justice in this country. For that we should be grateful to our Counselor Malinconico, because he has reiterated a statement of values that we should all be able to agree on: trials should be held in courtrooms. With all their shortcomings and all their flaws, there is no better place for them.”

  “You think?” Corona breaks in, ready for a fight.

  “Why, yes. I most certainly do,” De Cataldo confirms.

  “Bah,” he retorts, shooting another sour glare at the camera. (“What on earth did those cameras do to you?” I think).

  He doesn’t seem to want to say anything else; but the next thing you know he’s back on the subject, challenging the judge/novelist and actually pointing a finger in his face.

  “Go tell that to someone who’s been taken hostage by an absurd trial for a crime he was eventually acquitted of.”

  “Well, Corona,” De Cataldo replies, unruffled, “the fact that a person was acquitted shows that criminal trials aren’t a form of persecution but rather a system subject to an effective oversight process, don’t you agree?”

  “Vittorio,” Bignardi cuts in, calling on Sgarbi even before Corona has a chance to reply, “is De Cataldo right? Do we live in a country split between judicial hardliners and civil rights advocates? And how would you explain the massive groundswell of support for Counselor Malinconico?”

  “Hm,” the critic begins his reply, squirming uncomfortably in his chair, “I think that what happened in the supermarket is an episode that can be analyzed without having to bring in pro-justice topics that I don’t think our viewers are any too interested in hearing about.”

  “Ah, I see,” says Daria.

  As if to say: “Thanks for informing us that up until now nobody’s said anything interesting.”

  “The engineer and would-be judge, jury, and executioner had, in fact, an iconoclastic plan,” Sgarbi harangues. “That hostage taking and intended execution, offered up to the eyes of an audience practically forced to watch and wonder what it all meant, almost resembled an art installation.”

  And at this point he accompanied the statement with his hands, sketching out two imaginary half-moons in the air, as if he were giving form to the concept.

  Whereupon everyone (with one exception) nods.

  The critic comfortably pockets our attention, and continues.

  “By kidnapping the alleged murderer, claiming to put him on trial on a live broadcast, without any legal due process, that desperate father leveled a radical critique at the justice system. Malinconico, on the other hand, by dismantling his artwork, behaved like an authentic intellectual: by defending the supremacy of the jury trial in a court of law, in a certain sense, he prevented the collapse of the hall of justice itself.”

  We all sit in hopeful silence, looking at each other as if to convey the impression that we understood what we were hearing.

  “Malinconico?” Bignardi finally calls on me.

  “Eh,” I reply.

  As if to say: “The question being?”

  “What do you think?”

  “What do I think of what?”

  “Of Sgarbi’s analysis.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I understood it all, but I liked it.”

  Laughter/applause.

  “That’s always a good sign,” Sgarbi comments.

  “This may strike you as a provocative question,” the moderator says, suddenly turning more serious, “but how about you, Malinconico—whose side were you on?”

  “You know, I’m glad you asked me that, because the truth is that I don’t know.”

  She smiles at me, at the same time intrigued and satisfied that I appreciated her question.

  “To put it briefly,” I add, “when you find yourself dealing with a man in that state, it’s difficult not to feel a certain degree of solidarity.”

  At this point I get an applause without laughter.

  “So tell us, are they going to make a movie out of this?” Ambra unexpectedly asks me.

  “Oh, please,” I reply.

  “Well, why not? There are plenty of TV dramas being made in Italy all the time based on actual events taken from the news: why shouldn’t they make a movie, or at least a TV movie, based on this story?”

  “Because it would never stand up to the original, which we all already watched live,” Corona tosses out.

  “An impeccable observation,” says Sgarbi. “Bravo.”

  “Thanks,” Corona replies.

  “You’re right, Fabrizio,” says Bignardi. “But let’s say a producer decided to go ahead anyway and offered you the part of Malinconico, would you take it?”

  “Why not,” he says (but it’s obvious that he doesn’t mean it). “I have something to offer.”

  It’s not clear what that has to do with anything, but whatevs.

  “Oh come on,” Sgarbi breaks in, “Corona is too tall, too muscular, too scandalous, too macho. He wouldn’t be believable as Malinconico.”

  “He says that because he’s never seen me in a Speedo,” I say.

  Laughter.

  “But have you watched many Italian TV dramas, Vittorio?” Ambra interjects. “Do you really think that they worry about that kind of thing when they cast actors?”

  There’s a moment of awkward silence, but no one seizes the opportunity.

  Emanuele Filiberto looks around, bewildered. Hostage takings, judicial hardliners and civil rights advocates, casting for TV dramas based on televised trials . . . This is a ship of fools and madmen, he seems to be saying to himself. What on earth am I doing here?

  “Excuse me, Daria,” he volunteers. “But what do I have to do with the subjects of this conversation?”

  “What kind of question is that?” says Corona, visibly disgusted.

  The prince looks at him, nonplussed, and Corona, in response, does nothing but shake his head as if he were having trouble believing what he has just heard.

  “In any case, I’d like to thank the audience for giving me such a warm round of applause earlier,” says the prince.

  “So would I,” says Ambra, probably sarcastically.

  “Hey, people,” De Cataldo pipes up, “why don’t we try to to restore some civility here, okay? We’re deteriorating to the level of farce.”

  “Malinconico,” Bignardi suddenly asks me point-blank, practically giving me a heart attack, “did you end up making that phone call before coming on the show?”

  It must be a joke, I think. I didn’t hear her right.

  “Excuse me?” I reply, or rather, I ask.

  “What do you mean,” she says sarcastically; and she shoots a couple of glances at her staff, who flank the set like so many vultures, “are you trying to tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about?”

  “No, I have no idea,” I reply, turning beet red at the very same instant that the cameraman aims his lens at my face, taking an obscene closeup.

  Audience and guests all chuckle.

  “Was there someone you should have alerted to the fact that you’d be appearing on
this program, by chance?”

  I’m left speechless. I stare at her, in horrified confusion, still doubting my own ears.

  “Come on, Vince’, it’s all right, you gave it a shot,” De Cataldo says to me affectionately.

  I look at him. Then at Ambra. Then Bignardi. Then Sgarbi. Then the prince. Then Corona.

  All of them dead serious.

  What is this, a conspiracy?

  I get to my feet, swiveling my head back and forth, as if I were searching for the nearest emergency exit.

  “I want to see the Candid Camera banner. Come on, let’s see it.”

  “Sit down, Vince’,” Giancarlo advises me, taking me by the arm.

  I do as he says, dazed.

  “We have a little surprise for you,” says Bignardi. “Something you weren’t expecting; part L’Isola dei Famosi and part Carràmba!, if you see what I mean.”

  And she looks up with a coy smile, as if inviting us to notice something in the air itself.

  When the voice of Alessandra Persiano echoes through the studio, I’m stunned into disbelief.

  “You’re an idiot, Vincenzo.”

  There ensues a moment of silence, after which the audience doesn’t just start laughing: they’re rolling in the aisles. A couple of really stupid women in particular howl in a disgustingly vulgar manner, attracting everyone’s attention and encouraging copycats.

  “But how . . .” I ask, in a state of panic.

  “Of all the pathetic machinations you could have come up with to get my attention, this is the most childish by far. What did you think, that if I saw you on television I’d come crawling back to you?”

  “Heyyy!” I shout, leaping to my feet once again, to a another burst of laughter from the audience. “What the hell is going on here??”

  “And another thing,” Alessandra Persiano resumes, her voice turning even grimmer, “submitting to the advances of a young girl who happens to like older men does you no honor, just so you know.”

  “Whaaat?!?”

  “What, now you act all surprised?” she drills in. “Next you’re going to try to tell me that you believed her story about being the son’s girlfriend, aren’t you? You may be an idiot but you weren’t born yesterday. Come on, you knew it all along.”

  “Eh, that’s pretty serious, Vince’,” De Cataldo says to me, with the tone of an expert.

  I’m about to implement the decision I’ve just reached, to rip off the microphone and the transmitter that the sound technicians clipped to my jacket before this miserable program got started and take to my heels toward the exit when, thank Heavens, I wake up. Drenched with sweat, by the way.

  With a twinge of horror I realize that I’m already on my feet, which makes my return to reality all the more laborious. I eagerly reach around for the light switch and flip it on, blinding myself. I cover my eyes with both hands and sit down on the bed, waiting for the cardiac tempest to die down.

  I’ve always had a gift for nightmares, but this one blows them all out of the water. I remember that as I was falling asleep I tried to imagine how Bignardi’s program might go (I think I did the casting while still wide awake), but I never would have believed I could drag it down with me and script it in such detail during full-on REM sleep.

  When, after a short while (but a short while that seems to last a long time), I start breathing more or less regularly again, I put on my slippers and I shuffle into the kitchen. I get a mineral water out of the fridge, I drink right from the bottle, and then I carry it with me around the apartment, chugging on it like a bottle of vodka, thinking over and over again about the bloodcurdling perfection of my nightmare and finally concluding, though with a cold sweat, that things can’t get much worse if even my subconscious has decided to start mocking me.

  ÉGOÏSTE!

  When the intercom buzzer sounds I look at my watch and pray that it’s not who I think it is. Then and there I consider pretending not to be home, but he must have read my mind from down on the street because he leans on the doorbell.

  “Cut it out,” is my opening line.

  “Are you alone?”

  “If that’s a joke it isn’t funny.”

  “Open up.”

  “For God’s sake, Espe, you’re an hour and forty minutes early.”

  “Open up, I need to take a shower.”

  “A shower?”

  “Holy shit, Vince’, what do I have to do, kick down your front entrance?”

  “Okay, okay, fuck you, I’m buzzing you in.”

  When Espe walks into my apartment, brushing past me as he enters through the front door, I come dangerously close to suffocating.

  “Ahh,” I moan as I rub my eyes, which are already burning.

  “Don’t say a word, okay?” he raps out impatiently, infesting my entryway with the overpowering stench of cologne. “Just get me a fucking clean bathrobe, if you have one.”

  “Have you gone stupid?” I shout at him, coughing. “How much of that stuff did you put on, a whole case?”

  “Okay, I might have overdone it a little.”

  “‘Might have overdone it a little?’” I retort, chasing after him into the bathroom, where he has gone without asking me. “Holy Christ, you’re a bacteriological weapon!”

  “I didn’t notice it before I left home, what am I supposed to do about it.”

  He pulls open the towel cabinet. He pulls out a couple, choosing the longest ones and rumpling all the others.

  “Ah, really?” I say, my voice muffled by the hand I’m using to cover mouth and nose. “And when did you notice it, when you emptied that bus of passengers?”

  “Something like that. Are you going to give me a bathrobe or am I going to have to make do with these?”

  I yank them out of his hands and clutch them to my chest, though I have no idea why.

  “But couldn’t you have just gone home, damn you?”

  “Are you nuts? I was already halfway here.”

  He unties his shoes.

  “But it’s almost two hours till we’re supposed to be there, Madonna mia!”

  “Exactly,” he replies, unbuttoning his trousers, “so we have plenty of time, no?”

  At that exact moment I realize that my cell phone is ringing, though I couldn’t say in what room.

  Terrified at the thought that I might miss another call from Alessandra Persiano, I throw the towels into the surprised face of a by-now seminude Espe and run at full speed into the bedroom, which is where I think the Boccherini minuet that I’ve chosen as a ringtone is coming from.

  I’m practically sure that I’m going to be picking up on the last ring when I finally manage to get my hands on the phone. The position that I find myself in as I raise it to my ear isn’t even worth describing, it’s so ridiculous. Moreover I’ve inhaled so much poison from that idiot’s musk fumes that my voice has become a pathetic croak.

  “Hetho, who ith thith . . .?”

  “Vincenzo?” Alessandra Persiano says my name hesitantly.

  “A . . . the.”

  “Hey. What’s the matter with you, are you okay?”

  “No, it’th jutht that I wath . . .”

  “Who else is there with you? I can hear someone singing.”

  In fact, Espe is belting out “Con te partirò.”

  “Es . . . hh . . . pedito,” I reply, doing my best to recover a minimum level of understandable pronunciation. “And you’ll never guess where he is, at this very moment. If I tell you you won’t believe me.”

  “Why, where is he?”

  “In the shower.”

  “In the shower? At our apartment?”

  “That’s right,” I reply, comforted by the thought that she still considers this “our” apartment. “Apparently his water heater suddenly broke down,” I invent freely.

  “O
h.”

  An “Oh” that could just as easily mean “I understand” as “that’s odd.”

  A substantial pause ensues.

  “Ale.”

  “Yes,” she says dully, betraying an absolute lack of interest in following me down the conversational path I’m about to start on.

  “If I hadn’t been fast enough to answer this time you would have turned off your phone again, wouldn’t you?”

  “I . . . No.”

  “Yes, you would. That’s what you did yesterday.”

  “I was . . . in a meeting.”

  “At nine o’clock at night?”

  “Let’s not talk about this right now, Vincenzo, please. I need to focus on the trial.”

  This cunning answer, such a patent postponement of the issue, makes me simply furious.

  “Would you be terribly offended if I tell you that I don’t give a flying crap about your trial? And that this attempt of yours to put me off until some later date so that you don’t have to waste an ounce of focus strikes me as truly oafish?”

  She sighs.

  “Vincenzo, I asked you nicely.”

  “Okay,” I tell myself. “I tried to keep my cool.”

  “Asked nicely my ass, Ale! Ever since you left you’ve erected this ambiguous partition between us. If you think that you can cleanse your conscience with your texts about the weather forecast and the occasional pro forma two-minute phone call, you’re dead wrong. We’re talking about the two of us, and there’s no need to hold a conference on the topic, the question is perfectly simple: are we still a couple, or not?”

  “Don’t shout.”

  Oh my God. Why did she say it? Why?

  What is it you’re supposed to do in this kind of situation? Count to ten? I try, but I don’t even make it to five.

  “Who do you think you’re talking to, a misbehaving schoolchild? Go fuck yourself, you and your fucked-up affectations! Better yet, since it costs you so much just to answer me, why don’t I just do your thinking for you: no, we’re no longer a couple! There, did you hear me? I even shouted it, just think.”