The House of Scorta

by Laurent Gaudé

“Fifty thousand lire,” she finally murmured when a small, orderly pile of bills stood before her. She took the stack and put it in an envelope, then poured the rest of the box’s contents into the cloth money-bag that she used to carry each day’s receipts.

  Only then did she close the shop, with the swift and nervous movements of a conspirator.

  She did not take the road back home. She turned onto the Via dei Martiri and walked at a brisk pace. It was ten past one in the morning. The streets were empty. When she got to the square in front of the church, she noticed with satisfaction that she was the first to arrive. She chose not to sit on one of the public benches. She barely had the time to take a few steps, when at last a man approached. Carmela felt like a little girl standing in the wind. She greeted him courteously, nodding her head. She was nervous. She didn’t want this meeting to drag on, since she was afraid someone might see them at that odd hour and people would start to gossip. She pulled out the envelope she’d prepared and handed it to the man.

  “There you are, don Cardella. As agreed.”

  The man smiled and slid the envelope into the pocket of his linen trousers.

  “Aren’t you going to count it?” she asked in surprise.

  The man smiled again, as if to say he had no need for such precautions, then took his leave and vanished.

  Carmela stood there, in the square. The whole thing had taken only a few seconds. Now she was alone. It was all over. This rendezvous that had obsessed her for weeks—this deadline that had robbed her of sleep for whole nights at a time—had just taken place without there being anything in the evening breeze or the sounds of the streets to mark this moment in any particular way. Yet she could feel it; her fate had just taken a new turn.

  The Scortas had borrowed a great deal of money to keep the tobacco shop afloat. They hadn’t stopped running up debts since they first embarked on this adventure. It was Carmela who saw to the finances. Without telling her brothers, she had fallen prey to the vicious circle of usury. In those days, creditors in Montepuccio plied their trade rather simply. One came to an agreement as to the sum, the rate of interest, and the date of reimbursement. On the appointed day, one brought the money. There was no paper, no contract. No witnesses, either. Only one’s word and one’s faith in the good will and honesty of the other. Woe to anyone who did not repay his debts. The wars between families were bloody and endless.

  Don Cardella was Carmela’s last creditor. She had turned to him a few months earlier to pay back the money she had borrowed from the owner of the café on the Corso. Don Cardella was her very last resort. He had helped her out of a jam, and in return he got back more than twice the amount he had lent to her. But that was the rule, and Carmela had no complaints.

  She watched the silhouette of her last creditor disappear around the corner, and she smiled. She felt like shouting and dancing. For the first time, the tobacco shop was theirs. For the first time, it belonged to them by rights. The risks of repossession were receding. No more mortgages. From now on, they would be working for themselves. Every lira earned would be a lira for the Scortas. “We have no more debts,” she murmured, and she repeated this sentence until she began to feel dizzy. It was like being free for the first time.

  She thought of her brothers. They had worked hard and generously. Giuseppe and Domenico had taken care of the stonework, remade the floor, whitewashed the interior. Little by little, year after year, the shop had taken shape and come to life. As if that cold space, made of old stones, needed human sweat in order to blossom. The more they worked, the better the tobacco shop looked. People feel these things. Whether it’s a shop, a field, or a boat, there is a dark bond between a man and his tool, and it is made of respect and hatred. You take care of it. You lavish endless attention on it, and you revile it at night. It wears you out. It breaks you in two. It robs you of your Sundays and your family life, but nothing in the world could ever make you part with it. This was how things were between the Scortas and their tobacco shop. They cursed it and worshiped it all at once, the way one worships what puts food on the table and curses what makes one age prematurely.

  Carmela thought of her brothers. They had sacrificed their time and their sleep, and that was one debt she knew she would never be free of. A debt nothing could ever repay.

  She couldn’t even share her present happiness with them, for that would have meant talking about the debts she’d incurred, the risks she’d taken, and she didn’t want to do that. Yet she couldn’t wait to be with them. Tomorrow, on Sunday, she would see them all. Raffaele had sent out a strange invitation a week earlier. He had come by to tell her that he was summoning the whole clan—women, children, everyone—to a place called Sanacore. He did not reveal the reason for the invitation. But tomorrow they would all meet there. She promised herself she would look after her family with greater care than ever, do something for each one of them. She would shower affection on all those whose time she had taken. Her brothers. Her sisters-in-law. All those who, to make the tobacco shop survive, had given a bit of their strength.

  When she arrived in front of her house, before pushing in the door and greeting her husband and two sons, she went into the cavelike structure adjacent to it, which they used as a stable. The old donkey was there, in the warm air of the windowless room. The same donkey that had brought them back from Naples. They had never wanted to get rid of him. They used him to transport cigarettes from San Giocondo to Montepuccio. He was a tireless old beast. He’d adapted perfectly to the skies of Apulia and his new life—to the point, indeed, that the Scortas had taught him to smoke. The good animal loved to do it, and the spectacle was a source of delight for the children of Montepuccio and San Giocondo. Whenever they saw him coming, they would run alongside him, yelling “È arrivato l’asino fumatore! L’asino fumatore!”

  15 And the donkey did, in fact, smoke. Not cigarettes from the tobacco shop—that would have been casting pearls before swine and, anyway, the Scortas were tight-fisted with every one of their cigarettes. No, along the road they would pull up long, dry weeds, tie them into a bundle the thickness of a finger, and light it. The donkey would puff on it as he walked, in perfect serenity, blowing the smoke out his nostrils. When the shaft shortened and grew too hot, he would spit out the butt haughtily, which always made them all laugh. For this they named him “Muratti,”

  16 the smoking donkey of Montepuccio.

  Carmela patted the animal’s flanks, whispering in his ear, “Thank you, Muratti. Thanks, caro. You sweated for us, too.” The donkey gently yielded to her caresses as though he understood that the Scortas were celebrating their freedom and that workdays, henceforth, would never again weigh heavy with the backbreaking weight of servitude.

  When When Carmela went into the house, she took one look at her husband and immediately knew he was unusually agitated. For a moment she thought he’d found out that she’d borrowed money from don Cardella without asking for his approval, but that wasn’t it. His eyes glistened with a childish elation, not with the ugly glow of reproach. She gazed at him, smiling, and understood, before he had even opened his mouth, that he must be excited about some new project.

  Her spouse, Antonio Manuzio, was the son of don Manuzio, a lawyer and town councillor. A rich Montepuccio notable, owner of hundreds of hectares of olive trees, don Manuzio was one of those who had repeatedly had to suffer the pillages of Rocco Scorta Mascalzone. Several of his men had even been killed. When he’d learned that his son wanted to marry the criminal’s daughter, he ordered his son to choose between his family and that “whore.” He’d used the word puttana, which on his lips was as shocking as a stain of tomato sauce on a white shirt. Antonio made his choice and married Carmela, cutting himself off from his family and giving up the leisurely bourgeois life that awaited him. He married Carmela, with no property and no money. Only a name.

  “What’s on your mind?” Carmela asked, so that Antonio could have the pleasure of saying what he was dying to tell her.

  Face
lighting up with gratitude, Antonio shouted, “Miuccia, I have an idea, and I’ve been thinking about it all day. Actually, I’ve been thinking about it a long time, but today I’m suddenly sure of it and I’ve made my decision. It came to me when I was thinking about your brothers.”

  Carmela’s face darkened slightly. She didn’t like it when Antonio started talking about her brothers. She would rather he spoke more often about his own sons, Elia and Donato, but he never did.

  “So, what is it?” she asked again, a note of weariness in her voice.

  “We need to branch out,” Antonio replied.

  Carmela said nothing. She knew what her husband was about to say to her. Not in detail, of course, but she sensed that it was going to be one of those ideas she could never go along with, and this made her sad and sullen. She’d married a man with a head full of wind and a glint in his eye, but who strolled through life like a funambulist. The thought dampened her spirits and put her in a bad mood. But Antonio was already off and running, and now she would have to listen to him explain everything.

  “We need to branch out, Miuccia,” he resumed. “Look at your brothers. They’re right. Domenico has his café. Peppe and Faelucc’ have their fishing. We have to start thinking beyond those damned cigarettes.”

  “Tobacco is the only thing suitable for the Scortas,” Carmela replied laconically.

  Her three brothers had married, and all three, at the moment of their marriages, had embraced new lives. One fine day in June, 1934, Domenico had wedded Maria Faratella, daughter of a well-to-do family of merchants. It was a passionless marriage, but it brought Domenico a comfort he’d never known before. For this he felt a gratitude towards Maria that was something like love. With Maria, he was sheltered from poverty. The Faratellas didn’t exactly live in luxury, but they owned—aside from several olive groves—a café in Corso Garibaldi. By now Domenico divided his time between the tobacco shop and the café, depending on where he was needed most on a given day. As for Raffaele and Giuseppe, they had married fishermen’s daughters, and, ever since, work at sea required the better part of their time and strength. Yes, her brothers had drifted away from the tobacco shop, but such was life. The fact that Antonio used their example to call this change of destiny “branching out” irritated Carmela. It seemed false to her, almost dirty.

  “Tobacco is a cross to bear,” resumed Antonio, as Carmela remained silent. “Or it will become one if we don’t try to change. You did what you had to do, and you did it better than anyone, but now we need to think about evolving. You make money with your cigarettes, but you’ll never have what really matters: power.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I’m going to run for mayor.”

  Carmela couldn’t suppress a laugh.

  “And who will vote for you? You wouldn’t even have your own family’s support. Domenico, Faelucc’, and Peppe. That’s it. Those are the only votes you could count on.”

  “I know,” said Antonio, who felt hurt, like a child, though he knew she was right. “I need to show people what I’m capable of. I’ve already thought of that. These ignorant Montepuccians don’t know a thing about politics and are unable to recognize a man’s worth. I need to win their respect, and that’s why I’m going to go away.”

  “Where?” asked Carmela, surprised by such determination on the part of her boyish husband.

  “To Spain,” he replied. “The Duce needs some good Italians ready to give up their youth to crush the Reds. I’m going to be one of them. And when I return, covered with medals, they’ll see in me the man they need as mayor, believe me.”

  Carmela fell silent. She’d never heard any mention of this war in Spain, nor of any of the Duce’s plans in that part of the world. Something inside her told her that it was no place for the men in her family. Some sort of visceral premonition. The Scortas’ real battle was being fought right here, in Montepuccio, not Spain. On that day in 1936, as on every day of the year, they needed the whole clan to be present. The Duce and his war in Spain could summon other men. She looked at her husband a long time and merely repeated, in a soft voice:

  “Tobacco is the only thing suitable for the Scortas.”

  But Antonio wasn’t listening. He’d made up his mind and his eyes were already twinkling, like a child dreaming of distant lands.

  “For the Scortas, perhaps,” he said. “But I’m a Manuzio. And you are, too, ever since I married you.”

  Antonio Manuzio had made up his mind. He was determined to leave for Spain, to fight alongside the Fascists. He wanted to complete his political education and embrace this new adventure.

  He further explained, late into the night, why this was a brilliant idea and how, upon his return, he would inevitably benefit from the aura of the hero. Carmela wasn’t listening. She fell asleep as her boyish husband went on about Fascist glory.

  The following morning she woke up in a panic. She had a thousand things to do. Change, dress the two children, fix her hair up in a bun, make sure that the white shirt that Antonio had selected was wellpressed, pomade Elia’s and Donato’s hair and douse them with cologne so that they would look as beautiful as shiny new coins. And remember her fan, for it was a hot day and the air would soon become stifling. She was in the sort of nervous state one gets in before the children’s First Communion or one’s own wedding. There were so many things to do. Not forget anything. Try not to be late. She was running from one end of the house to the other, a brush in her hand and a hairpin between her lips, looking for shoes and cursing her dress, which seemed to have shrunk and was hard to button up.

  At last the family was ready to leave. Antonio asked yet again where they were supposed to gather, and Carmela repeated, “Sanacore.” “Where is he taking us?” Antonio asked, worried. “I don’t know,” she replied. “It’s a surprise.” And so they left, leaving behind the heights of Montepuccio and taking the coastal route to the place of that name. There they turned onto a narrow smuggler’s trail that led them to a sort of embankment overlooking the sea. They stayed there awhile, undecided, no longer knowing which way to go, when they spotted a wooden sign on which were painted the words Trabucco Scorta, and which pointed to a staircase. At the bottom of an interminable descent, they came to a vast wooden platform, hanging from the cliff-face and suspended over the waves. It was one of the many trabucchi that still dot the Apulian coastline, fishing platforms that look like great wooden skeletons, clusters of time-whitened planks that hang from the rock and look as if they would never survive a storm. Yet, there they are and there they’ve always been. Hoisting their tall masts over the water. Resisting the wind and the rage of the waves. They were formerly used to catch fish without going out to sea. But they’ve since been abandoned and are now nothing more than strange lookout posts that give onto the water as they creak in the wind. One would think they’d been constructed haphazardly, yet these unsteady towers of wooden planks can stand up to anything. On the platform itself one finds a jumble of ropes, cranks, and pulleys. When the men put it to work, the whole thing creaks and strains. The trabucco raises its nets slowly, majestically, like a tall, thin man plunging his hands in the water, then pulling them slowly back up as though they held the treasures of the sea.

  This trabucco belonged to the family of Raffaele’s wife. The Scortas knew this. Until now, however, it had always been an abandoned structure that nobody used anymore. A heap of boards and worm-eaten poles. Several months earlier, Raffaele had begun restoring the trabucco. He would work on it in the evening after a day of fishing, or on days when the weather was bad. But always in secret. He worked on it furiously, and to help him through those moments when he felt discouraged by the immensity of his task, he would think of what a surprise it would be for Domenico, Giuseppe, and Carmela to discover this utterly new, accessible place.

  The Scortas couldn’t get over it. Not only was there a strange sense of solidity about that heap of old wood, but it had all been decorated with taste and charm. They were even mor
e surprised when they went further inside and discovered, at the center of the platform, amidst the ropes and nets, a great, majestic dining table covered with a fine white tablecloth embroidered by hand. From one corner of the trabucco came the scent of grilled fish and bay laurel. Raffaele stuck his head out of a recess in which he’d installed a wood-fired oven and grill, and with a broad smile across his face, he yelled: “Sit yourselves down! Welcome to the trabucco! Sit down!” In response to every question people asked as they embraced him, he gave a conspiratorial laugh. “When did you build that oven?” “Where did you find this table?” “You should have told us to bring something.” Raffaele would smile and say only, “Sit down, don’t worry about anything. Make yourselves at home.”

  Carmela and her family were the first to arrive, but no sooner had they sat down than they heard some loud shouting from the staircase. It was Domenico with his wife and two daughters, followed by Giuseppe, his wife, and little Vittorio, their son. They were all there. They kissed and embraced. The women complimented each other on the elegance of their outfits. The men traded cigarettes and tossed their nieces and nephews in the air, the little ones screaming with delight in the grips of these giants. Carmela sat apart from the rest for a moment, just long enough to contemplate the reunion of their small community. Everyone she loved was there, radiant in a Sunday light in which the color of the women’s dresses caressed the whiteness of the men’s shirts. The sea was soft and pleasant. She smiled a rare sort of smile, the kind that shows confidence in life. Her eyes drifted over each one of them. Over Giuseppe and his wife Mattea, the daughter of a fisherman who, in his personal vocabulary, had replaced the word “woman” with the word “whore,” so that it was not uncommon to hear him greet a female friend in the street with a resounding “Ciao puttana!” to the laughter of the passersby. Carmela’s gaze came softly to rest on the children: Lucrezia and Nicoletta, Domenico’s two daughters, in their beautiful white dresses; Vittorio— Giuseppe and Mattea’s boy—whose mother would give him her breast, murmuring: “Drink, little fool, drink, it’s all yours”; and Michele, the most recent member of the clan, wailing in his diapers as the women passed him around. She gazed at them all and told herself that they could all be happy one day. Simply happy.