“You want to drive him crazy, that guy?”
“What guy?”
“What do you mean, what? Turrisi.”
“Oh, him.”
“Shit, look how many people,” says Cosentino, elbowing Caporeale.
“Let’s hope they get here fast, because I already have an appetite.”
The elevator is unloading barons, baronesses, baby baronesses, countesses, baby countesses,
cavalieri
,
commendatori
, Knights of Malta, white mantle and black, Red Cross officers, Rotary, Rotaract and Lions Club officials, volunteer society members, priests, military officers, and other professionals.
“Shit, look at all those people.” Cosentino is excited.
Caporeale adjusts his blue jacket with a quick movement of his shoulders. “Word got out that I am going to touch my prick onstage and people have come to see this great wonder of nature.”
Cagnotto, gnawing on his thumb, is looking around for the Contessa. He sees her: she’s at the center of a huddle of lady aristocrats who are hanging on her every word. You can tell they’re aristocrats because they would like to dress like tarts but they haven’t succeeded. Too many midiskirts, too many little blouses, too many pleats.
Cagnotto breaks in. “Contessa!”
The Contessa stares at him, annoyed at the interruption. Never interrupt a countess in mid-discourse.
“Some Human Kindness?” says Cagnotto pointing at the buffet where they are already serving the ricotta ravioli with pork sauce.
The Contessa and the other aristocrats stare at him weakly.
“Fine, maybe later.”
“You should have come to see me sooner,
signora
,” Falsaperla is telling Lambertini in a low voice as he leads her toward an empty corner of the room. (Take that, Gnazia!)
“But I imagined that you were terribly busy,” Lambertini replies, leaning over a bit more in case he hasn’t had a good look at her tits.
Falsaperla is hypnotized. “But for you, my office is our office.”
Falsaperla’s head is spinning. Lambertini’s perfume, it’s coming
right out of there, where her tits in a push-up bra make a giant crevice.
A waiter offers a tray with flutes of champagne to Gnazia and Quattrocchi.
Gnazia smiles, takes a flute, her little finger extended, and continuing to smile says to Quattrocchi very clearly so that everyone can hear, “Okay, I’m going over there and setting fire to those tits. You wanna make a bet?”
Pirronello’s flash goes off:
Betty Pirrotta in a black silk minidress that runs from her nipples down to her hips, an
S
of rhinestones over her stomach, strides out of the elevator, her panther gait emphasized by boots that run halfway up her thighs. Behind her Carmine cranes his neck, curious.
Turrisi, in a foul temper, looks at Cagnotto.
Paino is saying to him, “Mister Turrisi, this show has to go to London, to London!” Then he turns to Cagnotto. “You know, Cagnotto, that Mister Turrisi has theatrical interests in London.”
Cagnotto can’t understand why Turrisi is giving him such an ugly look.
“Sure,” says Turrisi, “in London!” It sounds like a threat.
Cagnotto looks at Paino, makes a
huh?
expression with his face.
Paino is enthusiastic.
Turrisi catches sight of Betty. He doesn’t know who to be pissed at, so he’s pissed at Cagnotto. And because he doesn’t know what to say, because Cagnotto, poor bugger, hasn’t done anything, he merely gives him a dirty look.
“Where the fuck has he gone to make out?” Gnazia asks Signorina Quattrocchi.
“Huh?” Quattrocchi, in a dress with a flower pattern in paillettes, is looking at Caporeale. “Gnazia, look at him, it’s true I can’t stand him but isn’t he handsome?”
Caporeale looks around, jiggling something metallic in his pocket. Beside him Cosentino is trying to act indifferent.
Gnazia tugs at her leopard-print miniskirt, unbuttons a button on her blouse. “Tell Caporeale that if he marries you, I’ll get him a job at the province, we’ll get him a pension, and then we’ll make him
capocomico
.”
Quattrocchi smooths her dress down over her sides. “
Capocomico
? Can I tell him?”
“Tell him. I’m going to look for the commissioner and when I find him I’m going to make sure he ends up like that.” Gnazia points to the leopard skin stretched out on the floor.
Betty has scoped out the party in a blink of her eyelashes, has calculated the geometry of the sitting room with respect to the position of the guests. Since she doesn’t intend to stay long at this fucking party, because afterward she intends to hurl herself into Catania nightlife, she needs to move fast, and well.
She decides to stand and admire an abstract painting hung in a strategic position. She lowers a delicate veil of sadness over her suntanned cheeks. Oh, Lord, how hard it is to appreciate the joys of art when the torments of love plague your heart!
Betty’s gaze manages to harpoon that of Turrisi.
On her face, the expression of a wife visiting her husband in prison. Separated by destiny, by institutions, by watchful society.
“Pardon me,” says Turrisi abruptly to Paino and Cagnotto, striding firmly over to Betty.
Betty’s eyes widen in terror.
Turrisi looks determined. This situation, somehow or other, must be resolved.
Betty’s eyes reflect even more terror.
“Signorina, please, I’d like—”
“Oh, God, my father!” yells Betty in a loud voice.
Turrisi whips around.
There’s no one there.
He turns again to face Betty.
But Betty has disappeared.
“No, but I, I wouldn’t, ah, dream, because, ah, of coming. I mean, to your office,” Lambertini, her eyes cast down, is stammering.
Falsaperla looks up from her cleavage for a moment, to catch the expression on her face.
Lambertini, out of the corner of her eye, sees Falsaperla’s questioning look.
Lambertini nods, as if Falsaperla has understood.
Falsaperla hasn’t understood.
“I don’t understand.”
Lambertini nods furiously, she knows that Falsaperla has understood, and then some.
No. Falsaperla hasn’t understood.
“You,” says Lambertini, enunciating the words, “are a married”—pause—“man.”
Falsaperla, it’s like he’s gotten a slap in the face.
“Me?”
Lambertini nods vigorously while she searches for something in her bag. “You!” says Lambertini, a tormented heart.
Falsaperla gazes once more at her cleavage and begins to sweat.
“So you’re also a connoisseur of art? Mister Turrisi, what are you doing here all alone?”
Turrisi turns around to find the Contessa.
Half a second ago he was talking to Betty and now here he is talking to the Contessa.
The Contessa is important, she’s an aristocrat, and for the English, aristocrats
matter.
It matters to him too, the aristocracy. He simply can’t wait to invite a couple of truckloads of aristocrats to London to show that he too has highly placed friends. This doesn’t make it any better that half a second ago he was talking to Betty and now he’s talking to the Contessa.
Turrisi looks at the Contessa with the eyes of a man who’s losing his grip. Then he jumps to attention, fumbles out a “Pardon me,” and disappears.
The Contessa looks at the painting. In her opinion it’s a piece of shit.
“But you’re perspiring,” says Lambertini as she continues to rummage around in her bag.
“Me? Married?” Falsaperla is trying to understand what he has already understood perfectly well but which he feels he has not understood sufficiently yet.
“May I?” murmurs Lambertini.
“Huh?” Falsaperla raises his eyes.
Lambertini, ready with a Kleenex, pats his upper lip.
Falsaperla, taken by surprise, stretches forward to assist in the operation.
Gnazia screams.
Falsaperla turns toward Gnazia.
Gnazia, perturbed, spins around on her heels and says something like, “Lipstick!”
Falsaperla looks at Lambertini and says, “I’ll be right back.”
Pirronello’s flash goes off:
Gnazia running somewhere, you can see that she’s running because her fists are clenched and her arms are
well clear of her sides, behind her a purple-faced Falsaperla stretches out an arm to stop her. Farther back is Lambertini, who’s carefully putting a Kleenex back in her bag.
“Commissioner!” Pirrotta grabs Falsaperla’s arm on the wing.
“Signor Pirrotta!” exclaims Falsaperla, glancing around for Gnazia. Shit, don’t let me think about what damage Gnazia could do if I don’t hurry up and explain that there was no lipstick and that Lambertini was only wiping the sweat off my lip. Shit, don’t let me think about what damage she could do if I don’t even try to explain it to her.
“I came especially to see you!” Pirrotta announces.
Falsaperla, in a state of panic, smiles.
Pirrotta pulls his head back a little. “Are you in a hurry? Changed your
mind
?”
“Changed my mind?”
Pirrotta brings his head closer, winks, and says in a low voice, “Changed your mind about that idea of yours? Come, come with me.” Pirrotta drags him over to a more crowded corner of the party.
“I was about to tell him, that thing about the
capocomico
,” says Quattrocchi to Gnazia.
“
Capocomico
?” says Caporeale.
Quattrocchi hasn’t yet told him this thing about the
capocomico
.
Gnazia looks at both of them as if she’s never seen them before.
“Problems?” Gnazia asks him.
Quattrocchi smiles, she looks around.
Caporeale looks at Quattrocchi.
Quattrocchi doesn’t understand.
If Quattrocchi, who is Gnazia’s friend, doesn’t understand, how is Caporeale supposed to get it?
Caporeale turns toward Cosentino.
Cosentino is staring into space.
“You were saying?” says Quattrocchi, her head tilted slightly to one side, her gaze frantic, a wide, tight smile.
“Come on, come on, Commissioner! How about a nice photo?” Pirrotta is dragging Falsaperla around the party. (Where the fuck has Gnazia gone?)
“You, take our picture.”
Pirronello’s flash goes off:
Pirrotta, straight-backed, cheerful, and contented, has Falsaperla tightly by the arm. A purple-faced Falsaperla looks the other way, terrorized.
“Again, another one!”
Pirronello’s flash goes off:
Pirrotta, straight-backed, cheerful, and contented, has Falsaperla tightly by the arm. A purple-faced Falsaperla still looks terrorized but this time stares at the camera with the expression of someone who’s forgotten to smile. Next to them, at the edge of the photo, there’s Turrisi in half profile.
Pirrotta sees Turrisi and, in reaction, squeezes Falsaperla’s arm even more tightly.
Turrisi doesn’t know what to say, he’d like to say something that would convey, at the same time, discord, loathing, offense, regret, contempt, arrogance, dignity, superiority (but not too much, you need a touch of obsequiousness in case Pirrotta decides to feel guilty one of these days), and then injured love, desire for revenge, disenchantment, the last flicker of sentiment in a soul ravaged by cynicism, and what else? Oh, yes, indifference. Turrisi concentrates all his energy on honing his tone of voice and says to Pirrotta, “Good evening.”
Pirrotta pauses a moment. Then he also says, “Good evening.”
“Good evening,” says Falsaperla, who hasn’t understood fuck-all.
Turrisi says again, “Good evening,” turns on his heels, and is gone.
Pirronello’s flash goes off:
A purple-faced Falsaperla finally grins as he stares at the camera but this time Pirrotta isn’t smiling. He’s looking with loathing at the back of Turrisi’s neck, which is disappearing.