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Authors: Ottavio Cappellani

BOOK: Sicilian Tragedee
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A Patron, a Piazza, an Amphitheater
“A patron, a piazza, an amphitheater.” Seated in the bar of the Yacht Club, Commissioner Paino is trying to explain to the Contessa what Cagnotto so desperately needs.
Paino hunkers down into the jacket of his blue linen suit worn over a white polo shirt, glancing around with a conspiratorial air.
The members of the Yacht Club are playing cards. Because you need a boat to be a member of the Yacht Club, everybody has one, although no one has ever seen any of them on the water. Most likely the boats are employed in betting, they probably use them like chips. The Contessa, for example, to join the Yacht Club, had bought a motorized rubber speedboat and baptized it
DBMB
for
Divine Bianca Maria Beatrice
, one of the Bourbons who had been queen of something, although many suspected the initials stood for Don’t Bust My Balls.
Cagnotto had called the Contessa asking to see her because he wanted to ask a favor, and when you’re asked a favor, says the Contessa, it’s a good idea to get a second opinion, because the one who’s
asking you the favor isn’t likely to tell you the truth. So she’s asking Paino.
“Falsaperla closed the door in his face,” says Paino. “Cagnotto wants to do something in dialect, Shakespeare or De Sica, I couldn’t understand which, you know how Falsaperla is when he explains things. Falsaperla has sent out a memo in which he invites all commissioners to stick to tradition, to stay away from events that involve ‘contamination,’ and to promote the local color of the region.”
“Falsaperla talks like that?” The Contessa is in pale blue linen complete with hat.
“No, he’s got a press office. They write the memos for him.”
The Contessa makes the usual vague face she always puts on when somebody tells her about the workings of the democratic system. Once upon a time there was a king and everything was simple. Even if he was a cretin, there was only one of him and it was easier to manage.
“To tell the truth, I don’t understand the memo myself. So I called the culture commissioner for Pedara to ask what the hell Falsaperla meant by ‘contamination.’ I was worried that if I wanted to do the Slopes of Etna Wine Festival I would have to include in the application to the department yet another application for a quality control certificate from the food and wine inspectors, and I thought Falsaperla was losing his mind and as far as I’m concerned, as you know, I wouldn’t mind if Falsaperla lost his mind, so I keep an eye on him and his memos. The commissioner for Pedara told me that Falsaperla is still lucid, although I’m not sure how long the light of reason will last because he’s getting it on with Gnazia, and Gnazia is an expert at driving men crazy, you know who I mean, Gnazia?”
The Contessa nods, looking the other way. As if she couldn’t care less about such matters.
“The commissioner for Pedara told me that ‘contamination’ referred to Cagnotto. Cagnotto wants to break into the dialect business,
that is to say he’s looking for culture funds, and as punishment, he’s not getting any work anywhere this summer.”
“So he doesn’t have any money for his show? And he wants money from me?”
Paino smiles. “At this point all he needs is a piazza. A sponsor. Otherwise he can’t put on his performance, even if he coughs up the money himself.”
“And why’s that?”
“What do you mean, why? Where’s he going to put on a show, in summertime? He can only do it in a piazza. And who owns the piazza? Me, I mean we, the commissioners.”
The Contessa puts on an
I love this!
face. “And so, in the summertime, it’s up to you commissioners to decide which performances are put on?”
Paino nods contentedly.
“I see.”
“Then if he wants to do the financial side, that’s his business, but he’s got to take care of the box office, the royalties, and all the rest. It’s up to him. I just put the amphitheater at his disposal.”
“And you’ve got an amphitheater at San Giovanni la Punta?” The Contessa, who in her youth had buzzed around in her Spider looking at archaeological remains (or so she said), had never heard of an amphitheater at San Giovanni la Punta.
“You didn’t know that?”
“Listen, I’ll do you this favor, though in my opinion Falsaperla is already crazy. I’d say he’s positively dangerous. Are you sure you want to make an enemy of him?”
Paino flashes a sardonic smile. “Who? Falsaperla?”
Rosalba Quattrocchi’s
Salumeria
Is Unctuous
Rosalba Quattrocchi’s
salumeria
is unctuous. All
salumerie
are unctuous, and Sicilian
salumerie
, in the summer months, are especially unctuous. But Rosalba Quattrocchi’s
salumeria
beats them all. The fat is not due merely to the hams and cheeses, the mackerel fillets in oil and the wheels of Gruyère perched on little marble columns. The unctuousness of the Quattrocchi
salumeria
is a swish of status, an oozing exhibit of opulence.
Jano Caporeale and Cosimo Cosentino enter the
salumeria
, looking around a little bit bewildered. The Quattrocchi establishment makes them slightly nervous, especially since Caporeale had once refused the advances of “Signorina” Quattrocchi, fatally forgetting that the “young” lady let them both buy on credit.
“Shit,” Cosentino had confided to Caporeale, “I can’t bring myself to call her
Signorina
, have you looked at her?”
“But you’ve been calling her Rosalba for years and you even use the
tu
.”
“Exactly, that’s what I’m getting at, I’d prefer to address her as
Lei
.”
“Well, look who’s here. Our great actors on the dark way!” says Quattrocchi, who has seen them come in and gotten a little bit confused between Dante and his
dark wood
and the Great White Way.
Signorina Quattrocchi is sitting behind the counter reading a gossip magazine, turning the pages, and licking her index finger with great pomp and circumstance.
Caporeale tugs at his jacket in a most dignified way, looks at Cosentino, nods, and says, “Watch it, because you’re speaking with two Shakespearean actors.”
Quattrocchi, not taking her eye off the magazine, twists her mouth up in a little smirk of sarcastic admiration. “In other words, you’ve come to settle your account?” she says, squinting an eye at something, a photo or a caption.
Caporeale tries to get Cosentino’s eye.
Cosentino is staring at a basket of salami.
“Given that I appreciate the fact you didn’t call me at home to remind me, I’m here to say that the dark way is with us no more. We got a call from Cagnotto, who wants us for his new piece.”
“Who?”
“Cagnotto. The theater director, experimental theater. Don’t you read the papers?” Caporeale looks to Cosentino for approval. Cosentino is turning over a tin of tripe with great curiosity.
Quattrocchi, by way of reply, lifts the magazine so they can see.
Caporeale frowns with contempt. “Cagnotto is a director who’s famous all over Italy. If he keeps it up you’ll be coming to see us downtown at the City Theater.”
Another smirk of sarcastic admiration. “I’ve got a season ticket at the City, including a seat for the opening night. And if they put
you
on down there, I’m canceling. And just for your information, I didn’t call you at home because I knew that sooner or later you’d be stopping in here.”
“Shit, and I’m telling you that I’m doing Shakespeare with Cagnotto.”
“Yeah, and what does that mean? That you’ll pay your bill?”
Caporeale is silent.
Quattrocchi smiles. “Okay, you can stuff your sandwich with the script. Any more cultural discourses to deliver, you and your
cumpare
?”
Caporeale and Cosentino are plowing down Via Ventimiglia with their heads bowed. They’re in the upper Civita quarter, between the Archi della Marina and Corso Sicilia. The whole block, not long ago, was the domain of prostitutes. The people of Catania like to say with pride that theirs is the only Italian city to have a red-light district. But then, right on Corso Sicilia a couple of years back, they had held the World Conference on the Exploitation of Women. The mayor really had to scramble to get everything cleaned up. Now the only professionals here are the transvestites, who because they own the apartments can’t be sent away. Poor things. They had put in a lifetime of hard labor, managed to save up and buy their apartments, either directly or as fronts for unnamed others, they had rented the apartments to Afro-Sicilians, the black hookers had displaced the white hookers, then the mayor had cleaned up the block under threat of force majeure (and luckily he had an excuse, otherwise who knows what would have happened), and the transvestites had had to get back into their fishnet stockings and earn a living. It wasn’t a very pretty picture. Transvestites grow old too.
The vacant apartments are used by the Afro-Sicilians as warehouses for their high-tech trade. They’re there at the street corners and zebra crossings, in their running suits and their sunglasses, controlling the territory. Who knows why these Afro-Sicilians like controlling the territory so much? They’re so intent on controlling that they even give the evil eye to Caporeale and Cosentino. Along the sidewalk, half-wrecked automobiles are parked, blankets thrown over the seats, with plasma-screen TVs and home entertainment
units inside. Down at the end of Via Ventimiglia you can catch a glimpse of the sea.
“But are you sure?” Caporeale begins. “I mean, we know Cagnotto, could this just be more of his bullshit?”
Cosentino is lost in thought. “Huh?”
“The money. Are we sure he has the money? I already told those guys in the bar we’re doing Shakespeare. And if we don’t?”
“No, no, Cagnotto is in tight with the commissioners,” says Cosentino, still a bit dreamy. “I had a word with Pippo Rattalina the
capocomico
, the boss of the dialect stage.”
“Nice
guy
, he’s forgotten all about us old veterans.”
“Hey, we’re not
that
old.”
“So why don’t we get any work anymore?”
“What do we care about dialect theater? All they need is four punks and two cockteases, the ones who know the right people, and they can put on a show in the piazza. He says we shouldn’t work with Cagnotto.”
“And what the fuck difference does it make to Rattalina? And why the fuck did you call him?”
“I didn’t call him. I ran into him at the bar and I wanted to make him jealous.”
“Make who jealous, Rattalina?”
Cosentino nods.
Caporeale makes a
fuck, what an idiot you are
face. “And what did he say to you?”
“He said there are already too many impresarios around and that Cagnotto’s going to get into trouble.”
Caporeale makes a face like,
That was something that had occurred to me too.
“But I reassured him. I told him we were not going to be doing dialect theater. I told him we were doing something from Shakespeare.”
“So you started out trying to make him jealous and you ended up trying to reassure him?”
Cosentino makes a face that suggests he hadn’t looked at things in that light. “I also told him we weren’t going to be performing in a piazza, we were going to be performing in a loft.”
“Where are we going to be performing?”
“In a loft. Everyone knows that Cagnotto works in lofts.”
“Not in the summer, because you fry.”
Cosentino hadn’t thought of that.
“And so?”
“And so what?”
“What did Rattalina say?”
Cosentino stares at Caporeale, then averts his eyes.
Caporeale grabs him by the arm and makes him stop walking. “What did he say?”
Cosentino makes a face like,
Do I really have to tell you?
Yep, you really have to tell me, and fast.
“He said, ‘It’s up to you.’”
“What did he say?”
“It’s … up … to … you.”
Caporeale thrusts his hands into his hair. “So that means we’ll never work for Rattalina again. Shit, let’s hope that Cagnotto really has the money. Fuck, I even told my sister I was going to do Shakespeare. And already she’s on my case that at my age I should settle down and get married.”
“At sixty?”
“My sister, when she has something on the brain—”
“So why don’t you marry Quattrocchi?”
“You’re the one she likes, not me.”
“Who, me? No, sir. You saw how sour she was. The one she’s in love with is you. Nothing so furious as a woman scorned.”
“Who, Quattrocchi?” says Caporeale, stunned.
Cosentino nods. “You look at her from the outside and you see Quattrocchi. But never forget, inside Quattrocchi, even if you can’t see it, is a woman.”

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