The House of Scorta

by Laurent Gaudé

  “Under my pillow,” replied Elia between sobs.

  Giuseppe went into the boy’s room, slid his hand under the pillow, pulled out the pouch in which the thief had hidden his treasure and, mortified, head hanging and eyes dead, went straight to the church. “The feast of Sant’Elia should still take place, at least,” he said to himself. “Too bad if they tear us apart for spawning such a heathen. But the feast should still take place.”

  Giuseppe hid nothing. He woke don Salvatore and, without giving him time to regain consciousness, handed him the medals, saying, “Don Salvatore, here are the saint’s medals. There’s no point in hiding the criminal’s name from you. God knows already. It’s my nephew, Elia. If he survives the beating I just gave him, all he’ll have left to do is make his peace with the Lord after the Montepuccians get through with him. I’m not asking you for anything. No favors, no leniency. I just wanted to bring you back the medals. The feast should take place tomorrow, as it has every twentieth of July in Montepuccio since the beginning of time.”

  Then, without waiting for an answer from the priest—who sat there, stunned, torn between joy, relief, and anger—he turned around and went home.

  Giuseppe was right to think that his nephew’s life was in danger. Without anyone’s knowing how, the rumor that Elia Manuzio was the faithless thief had begun to spread. Groups of men had already gathered, vowing to deal the blasphemer a beating he would never forget. They looked for him everywhere.

  The first thing Domenico did when his sister showed up in tears was to go get his pistol. He was determined to use it if anyone stood in his way. He went straight to Carmela’s, where he found his nephew halfunconscious. He picked him up and, without even taking a moment to wash his face, put him on the back of one of his mules and took him to a small stone hut in the middle of his olive groves. He threw him down on a straw bed, and let him drink a little. Then he locked him in for the night.

  The next day, the feast of Sant’Elia took place as usual. Nothing of the previous day’s drama was visible on people’s faces. Domenico Scorta took part in the festivities, as was his wont. He carried the statue of San Michele in the procession and told whoever wanted to listen that his degenerate of a nephew was a wretch and that, if he wasn’t afraid to spill his own blood, he would kill him with his bare hands. Nobody suspected for a moment that he was the only person who knew where Elia was hiding.

  The following day, groups of men went out again in search of the criminal. Although the most important things had been salvaged—they’d been able to celebrate Mass and hold the procession—the thief still needed to be punished, and in exemplary fashion, so that this would never happen again. They hunted for Elia for ten whole days. They looked for him all over town. In the middle of the night, Domenico would slip out and secretly bring him provisions. He didn’t talk. Or he spoke very little. He only gave him food and drink. Then he would leave, always taking care to lock him back in. After ten days, the searches ceased and the village calmed down. But for Elia to go back to Montepuccio was unthinkable. Domenico found him a place at the house of an old friend in San Giocondo, a father with four sons who all worked hard in the fields. They arranged for Elia to stay there a year, and only after that year could he return to Montepuccio.

  Once they’d loaded some things on the donkey’s back, Elia turned to his uncle and said, “Thank you, zio,” his eyes full of repentance. At first his uncle said nothing. The sun was rising over the hills. A fine rosy light caressed their ridges. Then he turned to his nephew and spoke words that Elia would never forget. In the beautiful light of the dawning day, he revealed to Elia what he considered his own personal wisdom:

  “You are nothing, Elia. Me neither. All that matters is the family. Without it, you’d be dead, and the world would keep on turning without even noticing you were gone. We’re born, we die, and in the time in between, only one thing matters. You and me alone, we’re nothing. But the Scortas, the Scortas, that’s something. That’s why I helped you out. No other reason. From now on, you have a debt. You’re indebted to the people with the same name as you. One day, say, twenty years from now, you’ll pay off this debt. By helping one of our own. That’s why I saved you, Elia. Because we’re going to need you when you become a better man—the same way we’re going to need every one of our sons. Never forget that. You’re nothing. The Scorta name passes on through you. That is all. Now go, and may God, your mother, and the townsfolk forgive you.”

  His brother’s exile made Donato as melancholy as a feral child. He no longer spoke, no longer played. He would stand for hours in the middle of the Corso without moving, and when Carmela would ask him what he was doing, he always answered, “I’m waiting for Elia.”

  The solitude that had suddenly been imposed on his playtime had turned his world upside down. Without Elia around, life became ugly and boring.

  One day, sitting in front of his mug of milk, Donato looked at his mother in wide-eyed seriousness and asked, “Mama?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “If I steal the medals of San Michele, can I go join Elia?”

  Carmela felt horrified by the question. Dumbfounded. She rushed to her brother Giuseppe’s place and recounted the scene to him.

  “Peppe,” she added, “you have to look after Donato, or he’ll end up committing a crime. If he doesn’t die of sadness first. He doesn’t want to eat anymore. He only talks about his brother. Take him away with you somewhere, make him smile. A boy his age shouldn’t have dead eyes. The child has drunk of the world’s sorrows.”

  Giuseppe did as he was told. That very evening, he took his nephew to the harbor and onto his boat. When Donato asked where they were going, Peppe answered that it was high time he understood a thing or two.

  The Scortas dealt in contraband. They always had. They had started during the war. The rations-coupons represented a serious restriction on business. The fact that only a limited number of packs of cigarettes could be sold per inhabitant seemed preposterous to Carmela. She started with the English soldiers, who willingly traded a few cartons for some prosciutto. The trick was to find soldiers who didn’t smoke. Then Giuseppe was put in charge of the traffic with Albania. Boats would come ashore at night, full of cigarettes stolen from government warehouses or other tobacco shops in the area. The clandestine cartons cost less and allowed them to maintain a cash-box that escaped fiscal controls.

  Giuseppe had decided to let Donato take his first journey as a smuggler. To the slow rhythm of the oars, they set out for the Zaiana cove. A little motorboat was waiting for them there. Giuseppe greeted the man, who spoke poor Italian, and they loaded ten cases of cigarettes onto their boat. Then, in the calm night that had settled over the water, they returned to Montepuccio without exchanging a word.

  When they put in at the port, something unusual happened. Little Donato did not want to go ashore. He stayed in the boat, looking determined, arms crossed. “What’s wrong, Donato?” asked his uncle, amused.

  The little boy looked at him long and hard, then asked in a steady voice:

  “Do you do this often, zio?”

  “Yes,” answered Giuseppe.

  “Always at night?”

  “Always at night,” the uncle answered.

  “And that’s how you make money?” asked the child.

  “Yes.”

  The child was silent for a while longer. Then, in a voice that allowed no reply, he declared:

  “That’s what I want to do, too.’

  This nocturnal voyage had filled him with happiness. The sound of the waves, the darkness, the silence: there was something mysterious and sacred about it, and this had overwhelmed him. Traveling by boat, drifting with the current. Always at night. Secrecy as profession. To him this all seemed fabulously free and bold.

  On the way home, impressed with his nephew’s infatuation, Giuseppe took him by the shoulders and said, “You have to get by, Donato. Remember that. You have to get by. Don’t let anybody tell you it’s illegal,
forbidden, or dangerous. The fact is, you have to take care of your own. That’s all there is.”

  The child remained pensive. This was the first time that his uncle had talked to him this way, in such a serious tone. He heard him and, not knowing what to answer to the rule that had just been proclaimed, he remained silent, proud to see that his uncle thought he could talk to him like a man.

  Domenico was the only person who saw Elia during his year of exile. While for everyone else the theft of the medals of San Michele had been a stinging slap in the face, for Domenico it was an opportunity to discover his nephew. There was something about the prank that appealed to him.

  On the anniversary of the theft of the medals of San Michele, Domenico paid an unannounced visit to the home of the family that was lodging Elia, asked to see him and, when he appeared, took him by the arm and went walking with him in the hills. Uncle and nephew talked together, following the slow cadence of their steps. At the end, Domenico turned to Elia and handed him an envelope, saying:

  “Elia, if all goes well, in a month you should be able to return to the village. I think people will take you back. Nobody talks about your crime anymore. They’ve calmed down. And there’s going to be another feast of Sant’Elia. If you want, you can be back with us in a month. But I came to propose something different to you. Here, take this envelope. There’s money in it, a lot of money, enough to live on for six months. Take it and leave. Go wherever you want. Naples, Rome, Milan. I’ll send you more if what’s in there isn’t enough. I want you to understand me, Elia. I’m not sending you away. But I want you to have a choice. You could be the first Scorta to leave this land. You’re the only one capable of it. Your theft is proof. You’ve got nerve. Your exile has made you grow up. That’s all you need. I haven’t told a soul about this. Your mother doesn’t know a thing. Nor do your uncles. If you decide to go away, I’ll explain everything to them. Now listen, Elia, listen to me: you have one more month. I’m leaving you the envelope. I want you to think it over.”

  Domenico kissed his nephew on the forehead and embraced him. Elia was dumbfounded. So many desires and fears crowded together inside him. The Milan train station. The big cities up north, enveloped in clouds of factory smoke. The lonely life of the emigrant. His mind could not find its way through this jumble of images. His uncle had called him a Scorta. What did he mean by that? Or had he simply forgotten that his last name was Manuzio?

  One month later, at an hour when the morning light was beginning to heat up the rocks, there was a knock on the door of Domenico’s fine old house. Domenico went to open the door. Elia stood before him, smiling. He immediately handed him the envelope with the money for the trip.

  “I’m staying,” he said.

  “I knew you would,” his uncle replied in a soft voice. “How?” asked Elia.

  “The weather is too good right now,” said Domenico.

  Since Elia didn’t understand, he motioned for him to come in, gave him something to drink and explained. “The weather is too good. For the last month the sun has been beating down hard. It was impossible for you to leave. When the sun rules the sky, so hot it splits the rocks, you can’t do anything. We love this land too much. It gives nothing, it’s even poorer than we are, but when the sun heats it up, none of us can leave. We’re born of the sun, Elia. We have its heat inside us. As far back as our bodies can remember, it was there, warming our skins when we were babies. And we never stop eating it, crunching it with our teeth. It’s there in the fruits we eat, the peaches, the olives, the oranges. It’s in the scent. When we drink the oil, it slides down our throats. It’s inside us. We are the sun-eaters. I knew you wouldn’t leave. If it had rained these past few days, maybe. But when it’s like this, not a chance.”

  Elia listened to Domenico’s rather grandiose theory with amusement, as if to show that he only half believed it. His uncle was happy and wanted to talk. It was his way of thanking Elia for having returned. Then the young man began to speak in turn:

  “I came back for you, zio. I don’t want to learn of your death by a long-distance telephone call and to cry, alone, in some room in Milan. I want to be here, by your side. To learn from you.”

  Domenico listened to his nephew with sadness in his eyes. Of course he was thrilled with Elia’s decision. Of course he had prayed for many nights that the young man would choose not to leave. But something inside him considered this return a capitulation. It reminded him of the New York failure. Never, therefore, would a Scorta be able to leave this miserable land. Never would a Scorta escape from the sun of Apulia. Never.

  When Carmela saw her son with Domenico beside him, she crossed herself and thanked heaven. Elia was here. After being away for more than a year. He was walking confidently down the Corso, and no one blocked his path. There wasn’t a whisper. Not one dark look. No groups of men forming behind him. Montepuccio had forgiven him.

  Donato was the first to rush into Elia’s arms, shouting for joy. His big brother had come home. He was eager to tell him about everything that had happened during his absence: the nocturnal sea voyages, the smuggling, the hiding places for the crates of illegal cigarettes. He wanted to tell him everything, but for the moment he was happy just to squeeze him in his arms, in silence.

  Life resumed in Montepuccio. Elia worked with his mother at the tobacco shop. Donato asked his uncle Giuseppe every day if he could come with him, and was so insistent that the good man ended up making a habit of taking him along every time he went out to sea at night.

  Whenever he could, Elia would go visit Domenico on his lands. The oldest Scorta was aging slowly as the summers passed. This hard, closed man had turned into a gentle soul with blue eyes and a certain noble beauty about him. He had developed a passion for olive trees and succeeded in realizing his dream of owning several hectares of them. What he loved most was to contemplate the hundred-year-old trees when the heat subsided and the sea breeze rustled their leaves. All he cared about anymore was his olive trees. He always said that olive oil would save the South. When he watched the liquid flow slowly out of the bottles, he could not help smiling in contentment.

  When Elia visited him, he would always invite the boy to sit on the big terrace. He would send for a few slices of white bread and a bottle of his own olive oil, and they would partake of that nectar reverentially.

  “It’s pure gold,” the uncle would say. “People who say we’re poor have never eaten a crust of bread soaked in oil at our house. It’s like biting into these hills. It tastes like the rocks and the sun. It glistens. It’s beautiful, thick, smooth. Olive oil is the blood of our land. And people who treat us like peasants have only to look at the blood that flows in our veins. It is sweet and generous. Because that’s what we are: purebred peasants. Poor wretches with sun-wrinkled faces and calloused hands, but who look you straight in the eye. Look at all the parched land around us, and savor the richness of this oil. Between the two, there’s human labor, and you can taste that in our oil, too. Yes, you can taste the sweat of our people, the calloused hands of our women who picked the olives. And it’s noble. That’s why it’s good. We might be poor and uncouth, but we’ve made oil out of rocks, we’ve made so much from so little, and for this we shall be saved. God will recognize our effort. Our olive oil will answer for us.”

  Elia remained silent. This terrace overlooking the hills, this terrace where his uncle loved to sit, was the only place he felt alive. He could breathe here.

  Domenico went into town less and less. He preferred to sit in a chair in the middle of a grove and stay there, in the shade of an olive tree, watching the sky change color. But there was one appointment he would not miss for anything in the world. Every summer evening, at seven o’clock, he would meet his two brothers, Giuseppe and Raffaele, on the Corso. They would go to a café, always the same one, Da Pizzone, where their table awaited them outside. Peppino, the owner of the café, would join them, and they’d play cards from seven o’clock to nine o’clock. These meetings were sacred. They
would drink San Bitter or artichoke liqueur, slamming their cards down on the wooden table, laughing and shouting. They would raise their voices, calling each other all kinds of names, cursing the heavens when they lost a round, thanking Sant’Elia or the Madonna when they were on a winning streak. They would tease each other gently, taunt the unlucky one, slap one another on the back. They basked in their happiness. Yes, in those moments they lacked nothing. Peppino would bring out more drinks when the glasses were empty and recount a bit of local gossip. Giuseppe would call out to the neighborhood kids, who all called him zio because he always gave them coins to go buy grilled almonds. They played cards as if time no longer existed. They would sit there at their outdoor table, in the wondrous sweetness of those summer evenings, perfectly at home. Nothing else mattered.

  One day in June, Domenico didn’t show up at Da Pizzone at seven o’clock. Raffaele and Giuseppe waited a while. In vain. They sensed that something serious had happened. They rushed to the tobacco shop to see if Elia had seen his uncle. Nothing. So they ran to his property, knowing, deep down, that the worst was yet to come. They found their brother seated in a chair, in the middle of the olive grove, arms dangling, head slumped onto his chest, hat on the ground. He had died. Calmly. A warm breeze softly tossed a few locks of his hair. The olive trees around him protected him from the sun and surrounded him with a soft rustling of leaves.

  “Ever since Mimì died, I can’t stop thinking about something.”

  Giuseppe had spoken softly, without raising his head. Raffaele looked at him, waiting to see if the rest of the sentence would follow, then, noting that Giuseppe was not forthcoming, he asked gently:

  “About what?”

  Giuseppe hesitated a moment, then got it off his chest. “When have we been happy?”

  Raffaele looked at his brother with a sort of compassion. Domenico’s death had left Giuseppe unexpectedly shaken. After the funeral he had suddenly aged, losing the lifelong plumpness that had made him look like a young man, even in his later years. Domenico’s death had sounded the knell, and from that moment on, Giuseppe kept himself ready, knowing instinctively that he would be next. Raffaele asked his brother: