Sicilian Tragedee (34 page)

Authors: Ottavio Cappellani

BOOK: Sicilian Tragedee

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He pulls two
santini
out of the wallet. Two little pictures of Jesus’ Sacred Heart. “It’s only a little something. I hope I don’t offend you, but you know how it is, it’s all that I can do with the taxes, the internal revenue.”

Pirrotta and Turrisi join hands.

“One for the Pirrotta family, one for the Turrisi family.”

Pirrotta unhooks the band of his Rolex and cuts a finger with the buckle.

“Shit, I cut myself,” says Pirrotta.

“Let me see,” says Turrisi, “Ow, I cut myself too.”

“Do take care,” says Maretta.

Pirrotta gets to his feet and walks over to the brazier. What’s that, the smell of lemon?

Maretta, pretending not to watch, smiles.

Pirrotta leans over to smell and tosses the
santini
into the brazier.

Maretta gets up. “So what else do I have to say to you? Peace and prosperity.”

Pirrotta and Turrisi exit the tent.

“I’m going to see what the bride has to say,” says Pirrotta.

“Will you look at that codpiece?” says Quattrocchi to Gnazia, elbowing her.

Gnazia nods, making a face of congratulations.

“If I get that bouquet …”—Quattrocchi joins the fingertips of her right hand and brings the hand to her mouth—“I’m going to gobble it all up.”

Wanda, a hand on her breast, runs out in the garden to spread the word. “She’s decided, she’s decided, hurry, take your places before she reconsiders, hurry.”

Pirrotta looks at himself in the mirror.

Fuck, he’s getting old.

That white, white hair, the dentures, and this daughter of his who’s getting married.

Pirrotta grabs the bottle of cologne and sprays it all around, around, to keep himself from being overcome with emotion.

Then he goes to his daughter’s room.

He knocks on the door.

Betty opens, her eyes downcast.

Six little pageboys are twisted up in a six-yard-long veil of genuine nineteenth century lace, snatched up at a bargain price from the Contessa.

Betty adjusts her dress, bustier in ecru-colored Sicilian tulle, embroidered with Sciacca coral.

“Let’s go, Pietro,” says Turrisi. And then, on a lighter note, “Take it easy, this is the only time I’ll ever want you to be a witness to anything!”

Carmine races to sit beside Cagnotto.

He elbows him.

He smiles.

“Hey, you did it!” says Cagnotto.

Carmine crosses his legs, puts an elbow on his knee, his chin in hand, raises an eyebrow, and gives Cagnotto a look that, hey, we really can’t tell you what he was thinking.

“Yes,” says Carmine. “Yes.”

EPILOGUE

Enter Chorus.

CHORUS
Isn’t there always something strange about the interval between the acts, whether it’s at a play or an opera, isn’t there always a distance, a gap, between what’s happening on the stage and in the foyer? Can it be that these people are really improved by going to the theater? What’s the problem?
Is
there a problem?

In any case, the actors bow and pay their respects, they have put blood and sweat into it, and fiction and falsehoods and tricks and codpieces, to represent life and make it sound true.

Or false, as only life can be.

The curtain falls.

In the distance, music.

CHORUS
The chorus doesn’t care about what’s center stage, but what surpasses. Isn’t there always a distance, a gap between
what’s happening on the stage and in the foyer? We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and not one hair was plucked from those you heard scream, from those you saw shipwrecked.

Do you think for that, the story we have told is any less true?

As tradition would have it, you are invited to the last ball, it’s up to you to decide whether, limping like us, you want to take part, or head for the foyer. Here we are paid to dance, the dead and the living together, as once they did in the days of Elizabeth.
God save the Queen.

One moment, please.

ROMEO
Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.

MERCUTIO
That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.

ROMEO
(
Bending over at the waist
) Meaning, to curtsy.

MERCUTIO
(
Looking at
ROMEO
’s backside
) Thou hast most kindly hit it.

ROMEO
(
Arching his kidneys
) A most courteous exposition.

MERCUTIO
Nay, I am the very
pink
of courtesy.

ROMEO
Pink for flower.

MERCUTIO
(
Miming with his hands something that swells
) Right.

Pause.

Caporeale and Cosentino look at the audience.

They turn toward the bride and groom.

Both bend in a courteous bow, as if to dedicate the line.

Then they resume their places.

Caporeale bounces on his knees, rocking the codpiece back and forth.

He waves his elbows as if he wants to take off.

He jumps up.

He lands, flapping the codpiece with both hands.

ROMEO
Why, then is my pump well-flower’d!

Pause.

Lambertini is listening.

It’s silent in the garden.

The priest coughs.

Caporeale looks at Cosentino.

Cosentino goes
no
with his head.

Caporeale goes
yes, yes
with his head.

Cagnotto clasps his hands.

He looks at Carmine.

He smiles, content.

Cosentino makes a face that says
, Oh, all right.

Cosentino turns around.

He bends over at the waist.

Caporeale comes forward with the codpiece and smiles at the audience.

MERCUTIO
(
Bent over at the waist
) Sure wit, follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy pump!

The audience applauds.

Carmine smiles.

Cagnotto, putting his clasped hands under his chin, makes a face as if to say,
Isn’t this great?

Carmine lays an arm around his shoulder, puts his mouth up close to his ear, and whispers, “Bravo. Bravo.”

And then?

Well, then the speakers begin to blast out a crescendo of techno with “Push the Button,” and, to the dance beat of the Chemical Brothers, we see Falsaperla begin to do the tarantella with Gnazia and his wife, a bopping Paino bring the Contessa onto the floor, Intelisano throwing off his plaster as Commedatore Calì looks on smiling, Lambertini getting down with Vaccalluzzo and Rattalina, Caporeale throwing himself into a belly dance around a preening Quattrocchi, Bobo at work with the Baronessa, and yes, Betty, a tender look on her face, patting the head of one of her pages.

CHORUS
Do you think for that, the story we have told is any less true?

THE END

Farrar,
Straus
and Giroux

NEW YORK

ALSO BY OTTAVIO CAPPELLANI

Who Is Lou Sciortino?

Notes

“I Saw a Skull,” Sicilian folk song.

Aiola
, a Mediterranean fish.
Bresaola
, cured beef, a popular dish from Northern Italy.

FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

Originally published in 2007 by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Italy, as
Sicilian tragedi

Published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

www.fsgbooks.com

eISBN 9781429996150

First eBook Edition : April 2011

First American edition, 2008

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint lines from “Do You Know Who I Am” by Robert Russell, copyright © 1969 Universal-PolyGram Int. Publ., Inc. (ASCAP). Copyright renewed. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cappellani, Ottavio, 1969–

[Sicilian tragedi. English]

Sicilian tragedee : a novel / Ottavio Cappellani ; translated from the Italian by Frederika Randall.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-374-53104-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-374-53104-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. Sicily (Italy)—Fiction. I. Randall, Frederika. II. Title.

PQ4903.A55S53513 2008

853’.92—dc22

2008009124