The House of Scorta

by Laurent Gaudé

  “What do you care, you brute? You were ready to sacrifice him and now you’re concerned? I brought him to the people of San Giocondo, who are better than you are.”

  For a whole month, don Giorgio refused to perform his functions. There was no Mass, Communion, or confession. “I’ll do my duties the day there are Christians in this town,” he said.

  Time passed and don Giorgio’s wrath subsided. The people of Montepuccio, as sheepish as schoolchildren caught red-handed, crowded around the doors of the church every day. The village was waiting, heads hanging. When All Soul’s Day arrived, the priest threw open the doors of the church, and, for the first time in a long while, the bells rang out. “I’m not about to punish the dead just because their descendants are cretins,” grumbled don Giorgio. And Mass was said.

  Rocco grew up and became a man. He had a new name—a combination of his father’s surname and that of the fisherman and his wife who had taken him in—a name that was soon etched in every mind in the Gargano: Rocco Scorta Mascalzone. While his father had been a good-for-nothing scoundrel who lived on petty plunder, Rocco was a genuine brigand. He didn’t return to Montepuccio until he was old enough to sow terror. He attacked the peasants in the fields. Poached livestock. Killed burghers on the roads when they lost their way. He pillaged farms and robbed fishermen and merchants. Several carabinieri were sent after him, but were later found by the roadside, a bullet in the skull, pants down, or flung like dolls over the prickly pears. He was violent and insatiable. It was rumored that he had at least twenty women. When his reputation had been made and he ruled the whole region like a lord over his people, he returned to Montepuccio like a man without shame, his head held high. The town had not changed in twenty years. Everything seemed fated to remain forever the same in Montepuccio. It was the same little cluster of houses huddled together. Long winding staircases led down to the sea. There were a thousand possible paths to take through the maze of narrow streets. Old men came and went from the port, climbing up and down the steep staircases, slow as mules pacing themselves in the sun, while groups of children scampered tirelessly up and down the steps. The village looked out on the sea. The façade of the church faced the waves. Year after year, the wind and sun polished the marble streets smooth.

  Rocco moved to the upper reaches of town. He appropriated a vast, almost inaccessible plot of land, and had a large, handsome farmstead built there. Rocco Scorta Mascalzone had become a rich man. To those who sometimes begged him to leave the townsfolk in peace and go fleece people in the neighboring areas, he always said the same thing: “Shut up, swine! I am your punishment.”

  One winter, he paid a visit to don Giorgio. He was flanked by two men with sinister faces and a young woman with a timid gaze. The men were carrying pistols and rifles. Rocco called for the priest, and when don Giorgio appeared, he asked him to marry him to the girl. Don Giorgio did as he was told. When, in the middle of the ceremony, the priest asked the young woman’s name, Rocco smiled awkwardly and murmured, “I don’t know, Father.” And as the priest stood there open-mouthed, wondering to himself if he might be sanctifying an abduction by this marriage, Rocco added: “She’s a deaf-mute.”

  “No surname?” don Giorgio insisted.

  “It doesn’t matter,” answered Rocco, “soon she’ll be a Scorta Mascalzone.”

  The priest continued the ceremony, disturbed by the idea that he might be committing a grievous sin for which he would have to answer to the Lord. But he blessed the union and ended up emitting a deep “amen,” the way one says “It’s in God’s hands” while throwing the dice onto the gaming table.

  As the little group was about to climb back into their saddles and disappear, don Giorgio summoned his courage and hailed the young bridegroom.

  “Rocco,” he said, “I’d like to speak to you. Stay a bit.” There was a long silence. Rocco gestured to his two witnesses to leave without him and to take his wife with them. By now, don Giorgio had regained a sense of equilibrium. Something about the young man intrigued him, and he sensed that he could speak to him. The brigand who had terrorized the whole region had shown a kind of piety towards him, raw but genuine.

  “You and I both know,” began Father Zampanelli, “how you make your living. The whole land is filled with the tales of your crimes. Men turn pale at the sight of you, and women cross themselves at the mere mention of your name. You sow fear everywhere you go. Why do you terrorize the people of Montepuccio, Rocco?”

  “I’m crazy, Father,” answered the young man. “Crazy?”

  “Yes, a poor, crazy bastard. You know better than anyone. Born of a dead man and an old woman. God has made a mockery me.”

  “God does not mock his creatures, my son.” “He made me all wrong, Father. You don’t say so because you’re a man of the Church, but you think so, like everyone else. I’m crazy, I really am. An animal that should never have been born.”

  “You’re intelligent. You could find other ways to command people’s respect.”

  “I’m rich, Father. Richer than any of the fools in Montepuccio, and they respect me for it. They can’t help themselves. They’re afraid of me, but that’s not really it. Deep down, it’s not fear they feel, but envy and respect. Because I’m rich. That’s all they think about, money. And I have more than all of them put together.”

  “You have all this money because you stole it from them.”

  “You want to ask me to leave your miserable clods of Montepuccio in peace, but you don’t know how to do it, because you can’t think of any good reasons to convince me. And you’re right, Father. There is no reason for me to leave them in peace. They were ready to kill a child. I’m their punishment. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Then I should have let them,” retorted the priest, tormented by the idea. “If you steal from them and kill them today, it’s as if I did it myself. I didn’t save your life for this.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do, Father.”

  “I’m telling you what the Lord wants you to do.”

  “Let Him punish me if my life is an affront to Him. Let Him rid Montepuccio of me.”

  “Rocco—”

  “The scourges, don Giorgio. Remember the scourges and ask the Lord why He ravages the earth with fires and droughts. I am a plague, Father. Nothing more. A cloud of locusts. An earthquake, an epidemic. Everything is topsy turvy. I am crazy. Raving mad. I am malaria. And famine. Ask the Lord. That’s what I am. And I will run my course.”

  Rocco fell silent, mounted his horse and disappeared. That same night, in the privacy of his cell, Father Zampanelli questioned the Lord with all the power of his faith. He wanted to know if he had been right to save the child. He implored Him in his prayers, but was answered only by the silence of the heavens.

  In Montepuccio, the legend of Rocco Scorta Mascalzone continued to grow. People said that he had chosen a deaf-mute for a wife—a deaf-mute who wasn’t even beautiful—to satisfy his animal desires. So she couldn’t cry out when he beat and raped her. And they said that he had chosen this poor creature to make sure that she would hear nothing of his plots, tell nothing of what she knew. Yes, a deaf-mute, to make sure she would never betray him. The man, no question, was the devil himself.

  But they also had to acknowledge that, since the day of his marriage, Rocco hadn’t touched so much as a hair on the Montepuccians’ heads. He had extended his activities deeper into Apulian territory. Montepuccio began to live in peace again, now proud to house such a celebrity. Don Giorgio did not fail to thank God for this return of calm, which he took for the Almighty’s answer to his humble prayers.

  Rocco gave the Mute three children: Domenico, Giuseppe and Carmela. The people of Montepuccio hardly ever saw Rocco anymore. He was always on the road, trying to expand his sphere of operations. Whenever he came home to his farm, it was always at night, and one would see candles lighting up the windows. There would be laughter and the sounds of feasting. This would go on for a few days, then all would fall silent again. R
occo never went into town. On several occasions, news of his death or capture would begin to circulate, then the birth of another child would give the lie to such rumors. Rocco was still very much alive. The proof was that the Mute would come into town to shop, and the children would chase one another through the narrow old streets. Rocco was still there, but like a shadow. Sometimes strangers would pass through the village without saying a word, leading columns of mules bearing crates and merchandise. All this wealth flowed toward the great silent property at the top of the hill and accumulated there. Rocco was still there, to be sure, since he was channeling the convoys of stolen goods up to his domain.

  As for the Scorta children, they spent most of their time in town, but were condemned to a sort of polite quarantine. People spoke to them as little as possible. The village children were told not to play with them. Time and again, the mothers of Montepuccio would say to their young, “Don’t play with those children.” And when an innocent child asked why, the reply was always “Because they’re Mascalzones.” Eventually, the three little children tacitly accepted this state of affairs. They had noticed that whenever a village child would approach them wanting to play, a woman would appear out of nowhere, slap him, and pull him away by the arm, screaming, “Miserable wretch, what did I tell you?” And the unhappy child would run off in tears. For this reason they only played amongst themselves.

  The only child who joined their little group was named Raffaele, but everyone called him by his nickname, Faelucc’.

  4 He was the only son of one of the poorest fishing families in Montepuccio. Raffaele had made friends with the Scortas and never left their side, even though his parents forbade it. Every evening when he came home, his father would ask him who he had been with, and every evening the child would repeat, “With my friends.” So every evening the father would give him a thrashing and curse the heavens for having given him such a cretin for a son. When the father wasn’t around, it was the mother who asked him the ritual question, and she would hit him even harder. Raffaele held out for a month, taking his nightly beating. But the boy had a big heart, and it seemed unthinkable to him to spend his days in any other way than with his friends. After a month, his parents got tired of beating him and stopped asking questions. They had written off their son, concluding they could expect nothing from such an offspring. From that moment on, his mother treated him like a good-for-nothing. At mealtime she would say, “Pass the bread, ruffian,” and she would say it without smiling, without mockery, as a simple matter of fact. The child was a lost cause, and it was better to imagine that he wasn’t really her son anymore.

  One day in February, 1928, Rocco showed up at the market. He came accompanied by the Mute and his three children, dressed in their Sunday best. This appearance dumbfounded the village. No one had seen him for such a long time. He was now a man over fifty. Still strong, he wore a handsome, greying beard that hid his hollow cheeks. His gaze hadn’t changed and still betrayed, at moments, something feverish. He was dressed nobly and elegantly. He spent all day in the village, going from one café to the next, accepting the gifts people offered him, listening to the requests people made of him. He was calm, and his scorn for Montepuccio seemed to have vanished. There was Rocco, strolling from one merchant’s stand to the next—and everyone agreed that a man like that would, after all, make a good mayor.

  The day ended quickly. A light, chill rain fell on the cobblestones of the Corso.

  5 The Scorta Mascalzone family went back up to their domain—leaving the townsfolk behind to comment endlessly on this unexpected visit. When night fell, the rain grew heavier. It was cold now, and the sea was rough. The waves could be heard crashing all along the cliffs.

  Don Giorgio had dined on potato soup. He, too, had aged. His back was bowed. The work he loved most—hoeing his patch of earth, fixing things up in his church, all the physical tasks in which he found a sense of peace—were now denied him. He had lost a lot of weight. As if death, before coming to get people, needed to make them lighter. He was an old man, but his parishioners were still devoted to him, body and soul. Not one of them would have taken the news of a replacement for Father Zampanelli without spitting on the ground.

  Somebody knocked on the door of the church. Don Giorgio started. At first he thought he had heard wrong—perhaps it was the sound of the rain—but the rapping grew more insistent. He rushed out of bed, thinking someone needed last rites.

  Before him stood Rocco Scorta, drenched from head to toe. Don Giorgio didn’t move, but only stared at the man, taking stock of how the years had passed and changed his features. He’d recognized him, but he wanted to observe the work of time the way one carefully observes the work of a goldsmith.

  “Father,” Rocco said at last.

  “Come in, come in,” answered Don Giorgio. “What brings you here?”

  Rocco looked into the eyes of the old priest and with a soft but firm voice, answered, “I’ve come to confess.”

  Thus began, in the church of Montepuccio, the faceoff between don Giorgio and Rocco Scorta Mascalzone, fifty years after the former had saved the latter’s life. They had not seen each other since the priest had performed the marriage. The night was not long enough to contain all that these two men had to say to each other.

  “Out of the question,” replied don Giorgio. “Father. . .”

  “No.”

  “Father,” Rocco repeated with determination, “after

  you and I have spoken, I shall go back home, lie down, and die. Believe me. I know what I’m saying. Don’t ask me why. That’s the way it is. My time has come. I feel it. As I stand here before you, I want you to listen to me. You will hear me out because you are a servant of God and cannot take the place of God.”

  Don Giorgio was astounded by the wilfulness and calm emanating from the man before him. He had no choice but to comply. Rocco knelt in the darkness of the church and recited an Our Father. He then raised his head and began to speak. He told him everything. Every one of his crimes. Every one of his misdeeds. Sparing no detail. He had killed. He had pillaged. He had taken another man’s wife. He had lived by terror and the gun. His life had known nothing else. Only theft and and violence. In the darkness don Giorgio could not see the man’s features but let his voice fill his ears, absorbing the long litany of sins and crimes flowing forth from Rocco’s mouth. He had to hear it all. Rocco Scorta Mascalzone ran down the list of his crimes for hours on end. When he had finished, the priest felt dizzy. Silence had returned. Don Giorgio didn’t know what to say. What could he do, after everything he had heard? His hands trembled.

  “I have heard you out, my son,” he finally murmured. “I never thought that I would live to hear tell of such a nightmare. You came to me. I gave you my attention. It is not within my power to refuse it to any of God’s creatures. But I cannot absolve you. You shall present yourself to God, my son, and submit to His wrath.”

  “I am a man,” replied Rocco. Don Giorgio never knew if by this he meant to show that he feared nothing or, on the contrary, to excuse his sins. The old priest was tired. He stood up. He felt nauseated by everything he had heard, and wanted to be alone. But Rocco’s voice rang out again.

  “That’s not all, Father.”

  “What else is there?” asked don Giorgio.

  “I would like to make a gift to the Church.” “What kind of gift?”

  “Everything, Father. Everything I own. All the riches accumulated over the years. Everything that makes me the richest man in Montepuccio today.”

  “I won’t accept a thing from you. Your money is drenched with blood. How dare you even suggest such a thing, after everything you’ve just told me? Give it back to the people you stole it from, if remorse keeps you up at night.”

  “You know as well as I do that that’s impossible. Most of the people I robbed are dead. And how could I ever find the others?”

  “You need only distribute the money to the people of Montepuccio. To the poor. To the fishermen and their fa
milies.”

  “That’s what I’d be doing by giving it to you. You are the Church, and the people of Montepuccio are your children. It’s up to you to distribute it. If I did it myself, while still alive, I’d be giving these people tainted money and making them accomplices in crime. It’s different if you do it. In your hands the money will be blessed.”

  What kind of man was this? Don Giorgio was dumbfounded by the way Rocco expressed himself. Such intelligence, such clarity for a brigand with no education. He began to imagine what Rocco Scorta might have been. A fine man, charismatic, with a glint in his eye that made one want to follow him to the ends of the earth.

  “And what about your children?” asked the priest. “Will you add robbing your children to your list of crimes?”

  Rocco smiled and answered softly.

  “It’s no gift to let them profit from ill-gotten gains. It would be encouraging them in sin.”

  The argument was good, too good. Don Giorgio had the feeling that it was all rhetoric. Rocco had smiled as he spoke; he didn’t believe a word he was saying.

  “What’s the real reason?” asked the priest in a loud voice tinged with anger.

  Rocco Scorta began to laugh. But he laughed too hard, and it made the priest turn pale. Rocco laughed like a demon.

  “Don Giorgio,” he said between peals of laughter, “let me die with a secret or two.”

  Father Zampanelli would think about this laughter for a long time to come. That laugh said it all. It bespoke a great desire for revenge that nothing could assuage. Rocco would have destroyed his family if he could have. Everything he owned must perish with him. His laughter was demented, like that of a man cutting off his fingers. It was the laughter of crime, turned against oneself.