Authors: Ottavio Cappellani

Sicilian Tragedee (28 page)

BOOK: Sicilian Tragedee

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Caporeale, his legs bowed, approaches Gnazia and Quattrocchi, thrusting out his chest and his codpiece. Because Quattrocchi is one of his fans, and everybody knows fans have to be cultivated, that you have to be modest with your fans, because fans are, yes, fans, but woe to him who abuses them, because fans abused, shit, they say they are more terrible than a wife.

“Signorina Quattrocchi!”

Signorina Quattrocchi gives him a dirty look.

Can’t you see we’re in mourning?

“My dear Signorina Gnazia!”

Signorina? Gnazia? Is that any way to address a freshly widowed widow?

Gnazia and Quattrocchi stare at Caporeale with contempt.

Caporeale thrusts out his chest and his codpiece.

“It’s the wrong moment, Caporeale,” says Quattrocchi, deep into Gnazia’s sorrow.

“Okay, right, sorry.” Caporeale whips his codpiece around and goes off, thinking that it’s true, they’re right, it’s absolutely the case, that you can’t be successful for more than a minute before the fans go and act superior. And then they’ll say you’re snubbing them, these parvenu fans.

Commissioner Ronsisvalle walks Turrisi respectfully to his seat.

Turrisi sees Paino. He stops.

“Mister Turrisi, please, you know, there’s the sunset, we have to hurry.”

Turrisi looks at Pietro.

Pietro looks at Commissioner Ronsisvalle.

Commissioner Ronsisvalle says, “You ought to see what a sunset we have here at Palazzolo Acreide. It’s really spectacular.”

Turrisi’s not even listening. He’s walking toward Paino with a huge, white smile.

Pirrotta can’t help but see him. “And what the fuck’s he doing here?”

“Huh?” says Wanda, who was thinking about the days when he used to show her how to whip up a cement-mixer.

Pirrotta’s already on the cell phone, punching in a number.

Betty gets up. She smooths her skirt. She fiddles with the nipped-in waistline that allows the plunging neckline over her back to ease slightly and show off the curve of her breasts.

Betty takes the stairs as if she has never done anything else in her life besides walk on high heels out-of-doors.

The spectators who see first Betty, then Carmine, are asking themselves why that beautiful piece of ass should be going out with that guy who looks like a faggot.

But then everybody knows that girls like that marry rich faggots, daddy’s boys.

Carmine notices the looks of contempt.

He returns them.

Pirrotta stops, cell phone in hand.

What the fuck is Betty doing?

“Commissioner, my friend!”

Paino jumps to his feet as the crowd settles down on the stairs. Jumping to your feet in the theater, especially if you’re in one of the front rows and the whole audience is watching, is mandatory. Obviously, if you jump to your feet you have to let it be seen you’re talking to someone. If you jump to your feet and stand there all alone, they’ll think you’re nuts. Paino couldn’t wait to jump to his feet.

“Mister Turrisi!”

Pietro bows in Commissioner Paino’s direction.

Turrisi looks around. The police have not stopped keeping him under surveillance.

“Do you know Commissioner Ronsisvalle?”

Paino looks at Ronsisvalle with a smile that opens up while his
eyes close to a tiny slit. Paino’s very pleased with this expression. He has practiced it at length before the mirror: the affectionate smile, the eyes closed to a slit, it looks a little bit like a snake (although Caporeale says it looks more like a Simeto eel, the ones that were caught a couple of days ago and which nobody in the market wants to get stuck with).

Fuck if he doesn’t know Ronsisvalle, this asshole who’s getting all the benefit from the murder of Falsaperla, with his asshole original Greek theater. “
Dawn Comes at Dusk
,” Zerbino had written in
La Voce della Sicilia
, as if we were talking about that asshole film with the naked vampires. “Certainly I know him!”

Paino and Ronsisvalle shake hands.

Ronsisvalle’s looking around because he’s worried that the sun’s going to go down on him. He had told the mayor they needed to put in lighting. They made beautiful lighting today, like the stuff they use at the stadium when they do the night games or the Champion’s League. Fat chance. The mayor said it clashed. What the fuck was it supposed to clash with? At the Greek theater in Taormina they had put them in, those fucking lights like they use in the stadium. “And in fact, they don’t do classical theater in Taormina,” the mayor had said.

Paino thinks Ronsisvalle is looking around so he won’t have to look him in the eyes and snub him.

“We need to speak,” Turrisi is saying to him.

Paino lets go of that moron Ronsisvalle’s hand. “At your service!”

“Sure, okay, but not now. I’ll call you.”

Paino, without meaning to, practically jumps to attention.

Unexpectedly, Turrisi kisses him on both cheeks. And while Paino is still recovering from the surprise, he gets two kisses from Pietro too.

Turrisi turns around to find his seat and sees Betty, with the heel of her left shoe pivoted in the dirt, revolving her little foot in a circle,
her chin down, her gaze, behind the veil, pointed up, as if she were just waiting for Turrisi to stop talking.

Turrisi, instinctively, looks up the stairs to see if Pirrotta is there.

He doesn’t have time to find him before Betty is saying to him, “Mister Turrisi, I was waiting for you. What’s wrong? You’re not going to say hello?”

Turrisi looks at Pietro.

Pietro doesn’t know what to say.

Turrisi bows.

Betty holds out her hand. “I very much appreciated what you did for me.”

Turrisi, his lips near her hand, looks puzzled, then in a flash, all is clear to him.

He looks around for Pietro, terrorized.

Pietro is smiling romantically.

Pirrotta is watching the scene with his mouth open.

With her mouth open, Wanda too is watching.

Pirrotta turns slowly toward his wife Wanda, his open mouth transmuting into a smile.

His wife Wanda doesn’t understand.

“I got to say, he’s smart, that dickhead Turrisi,” says Pirrotta.

Wanda still has her mouth open. She doesn’t understand.

Pirrotta makes a strange move with his head, he inclines it to the left and points a few times with his chin to the right, as if he were congratulating himself. “Did you see how it’s good with him that they killed Falsaperla?”

His wife Wanda, it’s like she’s being carried off by Turks, as they say. “But wasn’t Falsaperla your man?”

“Woman! Shut up, and your husband, if you behave and don’t bust his balls, will maybe explain everything to you later.”

Holy Mary! Was there a cement-mixer at Palazzolo Acreide? One
they could rent and then make the road home a parking lot, and so forth and so on?

“Woman, behave like a female and even if you don’t understand, obey your husband and be polite to that dickhead Turrisi.”

Sure she’ll obey. As if she wouldn’t.

“Mister Turrisi, pardon, the play must begin.”

Turrisi looks at Ronsisvalle with surprise mixed with pique.

Pietro takes Ronsisvalle by the arm and walks off with him.

“But—” Ronsisvalle begins.

“Commissioner, come with me because I want to tell you something,” says Pietro.

“But … the sunset …”

“That’s what we must talk about, Commissioner, about the sunset. Come with me, come with me.”

“Signorina,” says Turrisi, who doesn’t know what the fuck to say.

“You don’t mind if I sit next to you, do you?” Betty asks.

Turrisi looks at Pietro, who’s walking off with the commissioner.

“No, not at all, it’s Pietro’s seat, but—”

“Oh, no, if it’s a problem, never mind.”

“No!” shouts Turrisi. “It’s not a problem, it’s only that Pietro … Pietro!”

Pietro doesn’t hear him. He’s walking toward the stage with the commissioner.

Turrisi looks at Betty.

“Yes or no?” says Betty.

“Yes, of course.”

Pietro is pushing the commissioner onto the stage.

Ronsisvalle looks at Pietro. Pietro nods.

Ronsisvalle approaches the microphone.

He’s still looking at Pietro.

Pietro nods again.

Ronsisvalle pulls out his glasses and a sheet of paper.

“The show’s beginning,” says Betty, who’s getting impatient.

“Be my guest,” says Turrisi, showing the way with his hand and pointing at the seats in the front row.

Turrisi notices that Betty, from behind, is practically naked.

“My fellow citizens,” says Ronsisvalle at the microphone.

A sudden silence falls on the Greek theater of Palazzolo Acreide.

Then there’s an equally sudden burst of applause.

Turrisi is waiting impatiently for Betty to sit down. He sits down next to her, and, trying not to let it be seen he is nervous, struggles to extract his cell phone from his pin-striped jacket. These fucking English tailors don’t seem to know that people might have to sit down, they make a suit like a straitjacket.

While the applause in the Greek theater dies down, Turrisi feels Betty’s hand run swiftly up the inside of his thigh. Then she takes his arm, putting on an interested face, while her dress gaps right to the hip.

Turrisi freezes.

With his cell phone in hand.

The echo of an ancient, distant call can be heard.

“I am Lambertini-i-i-i.”

The audience looks around.

Ronsisvalle clears his throat and continues. “Welcome to this splendid setting.”

Applause.

Lambertini has a hoe in hand and is whacking the camper that Timpanaro has provided for a dressing room.

Caporeale, Cosentino, Cagnotto, and the codpiece walk by without a glance in her direction.

“If it’s all right with you, I have a thought about how I might update my interpretation tonight,” Caporeale is saying to Cagnotto.

“Rosanna …” says Cagnotto.

Lambertini stops, hoe in hand.

Cagnotto points to his watch. “It’s late, the reporters are already sitting down, you should have thought about this before. You still aren’t changed?”

Lambertini looks contemptuously at the three men and climbs into the camper, slamming the door.

“No, go right ahead, Caporeale, I have complete faith in you, you know.”

Two police officers approach, hands on their holsters.

“What was that? Who was yelling?”

“Oh, nothing,” says Cosentino, “it was Lambertini, who couldn’t get the door of the camper open and thought it was locked. You know, it’s late, and she still hadn’t changed.”

The police officers look at the camper suspiciously.

Enter Chorus.

Turrisi is trying to phone Pietro.

Do you know who I am
Have you any idea who I am
Yes it’s been quite a while
And it’s so good to see you again

Fucking Pietro with his fucking voice-mail message with the Elvis songs!

“Darling, what’s wrong?” Betty whispers in his ear, stroking his thigh once again.

The first act is all like that, with Betty running her hand up his thigh and that shithead Elvis Presley singing on Pietro’s cell phone.

You will know who I am
When the time comes you’ll know who I am

This is precisely Turrisi’s problem: he got his calculations wrong and now he really doesn’t want that time to come.

JULIET
My only love, sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown,

BOOK: Sicilian Tragedee

3.68Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub