Cavalleria rusticana and Other Stories (22 page)

The villagers went and listened to him, but they could not help thinking about the robberies the celebrant had committed, and they kept being distracted.
And their womenfolk, as they were confessing their sins, were unable to stop themselves whispering in his ear, ‘Father, I have sinned by speaking ill of you, a servant of God, because this winter we were left with no beans and no corn because of you.’

‘Because of me!
Am I the one who brings a fine summer or a poor harvest?
Do I own these lands for you to sow them to your own profit?
Are you without any conscience, any fear of God?
Why bother coming to confession?
All this is the work of the Devil, tempting you to lose the sacrament of penance.
When you spawn all those children, do you never think of how you are going to feed them?
Is it my fault that you run short of bread?
Did I force you to have all those children?
I don’t have any, which is why I became a priest in the first place.’

He gave them absolution, however, as he was obliged to.
But none the less those simple people could not come to terms with the contradiction between the priest who raised his hand to bless them in God’s name, and the master who cooked the books and sent them away from the farm with an empty sack, and a sickle under their arm.

‘There’s nothing to be done!
Nothing!’ the poor wretches muttered, resigned to their lot.
‘You can’t squeeze blood out of a stone, and there’s no way of taking the Reverend to court because he knows what the law says!’

He certainly did know!
When he was in court before the judge, with his lawyer, he would shut everyone up by saying, ‘The law says this,’ or ‘The law says that.’ And what the law said was always on his
side.
In the good old days he could laugh at his enemies and those who were smitten with envy.
They could create as much uproar as they liked, they could appeal to the bishop, they could confront him about his niece, about Massaro Carmenio and his unlawful seizure of his goods, they could stop him saying Mass and hearing confession.
That was all very well, but what good would it do them?
He had no need of the bishop or anyone else.
He was his own man, he was respected as one of the people who controlled the affairs of the village, the baroness made him welcome in her own household, and the more fuss they made about him, the greater the scandal.
Instead of interfering with the big guns, even if you were a bishop, you raised your hat to them for the sake of peace and quiet, to be on the safe side.
But what was the use of all that after the revolution, now that the heretics had come into power?
The villagers were learning to read and write, and to add up better than you could yourself.
Political parties were challenging one another in the town hall, and splitting up the cake among themselves without a care in the world.
Any Tom, Dick or Harry could get legal aid if he took you to court, and make you pay the costs of the hearing out of your own pocket!
A priest counted for nothing any more, either with the judge or the chief of police.
A word in their ear was no longer enough to have people locked up for treating you with disrespect, and all you were fit for was to say Mass and hear confession, like a public servant.
The judge was always worrying about the press, about public opinion, about what Roman law might have said, and was handing out judgements like Solomon!
They had even put a curse and the evil eye on the property he had won with the sweat of his brow, out of pure envy.
The very food he ate at table gave him nightmares, while his brother, who led a hard life and whose diet consisted of bread and onions, had the stomach of an ostrich, knowing that in the years to come, when the Reverend was dead, he would inherit everything and find himself a rich man without lifting a finger.
His poor old mother was a millstone round his neck, lingering on so as to suffer and make other people suffer, so bedridden by paralysis that it was he who now had to look after her.
His own niece, plump, well dressed, with every little thing she wanted, and with nothing to do but go to church, tormented him whenever she took it into her head
that she was living in mortal sin, as though he were one of those excommunicates who had dispossessed the Holy Father, and she had got the bishop to prevent him saying Mass.

‘There’s no such thing as religion any more, no justice, nothing!’ the Reverend would grumble as the years went by.
‘Nowadays everyone wants to have his say.
The people with nothing would like to grab what is yours, saying “Move aside, I want to get in there!” People with nothing better to do come along and pester you in your own home.
They would like to turn priests into sacristans, good only for saying Mass and sweeping out the church.
They won’t obey God’s will any more, that’s the trouble!’

Just at that moment they came to tell him the King wanted a word with him.
It was not exactly the King who wanted a word, because the King never talks to anyone, but one of the people who act as spokesmen for the King when he has something to say.
What the spokesman told him was that His Majesty wanted his litter at dawn next morning to go to Catania, and had no wish to become obliged to the bishop or the lord-lieutenant, preferring to foot the bill out of his own pocket like anyone else.

Cosimo ought to have been happy, because litter-driving was his trade.
He was waiting there for someone to come along and hire his litter, and the King is not the sort of person to haggle over a penny more or a penny less, like so many others.
But Cosimo was so worried about having to drive the King in his litter that he would have preferred to return to Grammichele without a fare.
The very thought of it turned the festivities into poison, and took all the joy out of the illuminations, the band playing in the square, the triumphal chariot touring the streets with the portraits of the King and Queen, and the church of San
Giacomo, all lit up and spitting out flames, where the Holy Saint himself was on display, and the bells were pealing out in the King’s honour.

In fact, the more he saw and heard of the festivities, the more terrified he became about having to drive the King in his own litter.
All the fireworks, the crowds, the illuminations and the bell-ringing turned his stomach over to such an extent that he was unable to sleep a wink, and he spent the night checking the hooves of the bay, currycombing the mules, and stuffing them with barley up to their ears to keep up their strength, as though the King weighed twice as much as anybody else.
The stable was full of cavalrymen, with spurs all over their boots, which they never took off even when they bedded down to sleep on the benches.
There were so many sabres and pistols hanging from the nails on the pillars that poor old Cosimo was convinced they would cut off his head if one of his mules happened to slip on the wet cobbles while he was carrying the King.
The rain had been pouring out of the sky for the past few days; people must have been stark raving mad to come all the way to Caltagirone in such terrible weather.
As far as he was concerned, God’s truth, he would have preferred at that moment to be back in his little cottage where, as he lay in bed, he could hear the mules, tucked up in their stalls, munching away at their barley.
He would gladly have given away the two
onze
he was getting from the King to find himself in his own bed, with the door locked, peeping out over the blankets at his wife as she went round with the lantern, putting everything neatly away for the night.

At dawn, half-asleep, he leapt to his feet at the sound of the soldiers’ trumpet blaring away like a rooster aware of the time of day, which threw the whole of the stables into uproar.
Carters reared their heads from the pack-saddles they had laid down as pillows, dogs started barking, and the hostess peered down sleepily from the hay-loft, scratching her head.
It was still pitch dark, but people were strolling up and down the street as if it were Christmas night, and the nougat-vendors, standing behind their Chinese lanterns beside the fires, were clattering their knives on their benches to drum up business.
What a wonderful time all those people must have been having, buying nougat and dragging themselves wearily through the streets, half-asleep, waiting for the King!
When they saw the litter coming with all the bells and the woolly
pom-poms, they stared at it wide-eyed, envying Cosimo like mad because he was going to face the King eyeball to eyeball, while none of them had so far been able to catch so much as the smallest glimpse of him in the forty-eight hours they had been standing in the streets day and night, with the rain coming down in buckets.
The church of San Giacomo was still spitting out fire and flames, perched at the top of its endless flight of steps waiting to wish the King
bon voyage
, and ringing all its bells to tell him it was time for him to be pushing off.
How much longer could all those lights be kept burning?
And what about that poor sexton?
Were his arms made of iron, that he could keep on ringing those bells day and night without stopping?
The grey light of dawn was at last approaching across the plain, revealing a sea of mist covering the whole valley.
Yet all those people were still swarming about like flies, their coats buttoned up to their noses, and as soon as they saw the litter arriving they practically smothered Cosimo and his mules, thinking the King was inside.

But the King was in no great hurry.
At that moment he was pulling on his trousers perhaps, or wetting his whistle with a drop of brandy, which Cosimo had not even thought of doing that morning as he was unable to swallow a blessed thing.
An hour later the cavalry arrived with sabres drawn, forcing people to stand aside.
In their wake came another wave of people, then the brass band, then a bunch of notables with their ladies, who were wearing pretty hats, their noses glowing red from the cold.
The street-vendors, too, hurried on to the scene, holding their benches high above their heads and setting up stall wherever they might sell a little more of their nougat.
The great square was so tightly packed that there was no room to swing a cat in it, and the mules would not even have been able to swish away the flies if it were not for the cavalry clearing the way ahead.
But then, the cavalry was accompanied by a swarm of horseflies, of the kind that drive litter-mules crazy, and every time Cosimo spotted one of them landing on the belly of one of his beasts he sent up a prayer to God and all the souls in Purgatory.

Finally the bells seemed to go mad and rang out twice as loud, rockets went shooting up for the King, a further torrent of people came rushing in, and the King’s carriage made its appearance, seeming to float on
people’s heads in the middle of the crowd.
Then trumpets sounded a fanfare, drums rolled, another salvo of rockets went up, and Cosimo’s mules, God help him, tried to break free of their harness, kicking out left, right and centre.
The soldiers, who had sheathed their sabres, drew them out again, and the crowd shouted ‘The Queen, the Queen!
That little woman there, beside her husband.
It’s unbelievable how tiny she is!’

The King on the other hand was a fine figure of a man, tall and well built, with red trousers and a sabre dangling from his paunch.
Tagging along behind him came the bishop, the mayor, the lord-lieutenant, and another swarm of bigwigs wearing gloves and white neckerchiefs.
They were dressed in black, and looked as if they were suffering from St Vitus’s dance because of the chill north wind that was dispersing the mists from the plain of San Giacomo.
Before mounting his horse, as his wife was getting into the litter, the King stood there chatting with this person and that as if the whole thing was none of his business.
Then finally he went up to Cosimo, clapped him on the shoulder, and addressed him with these very words in his Neapolitan twang, ‘Just remember you are carrying your Queen!’ Cosimo felt as if his knees were giving way under him, the more so when at that moment the crowd swayed this way and that like a vast cornfield, a cry of despair went up, and a young woman in a nun’s habit, looking pale as death, flung herself at the King’s feet crying, ‘Mercy!’ She was begging for mercy for her father, who had got himself involved in an attempt on the King’s life
²
and been condemned to have his head cut off.
The King had a brief word with someone standing next to him, which was all that was needed to save the girl’s father from losing his head.
She turned away again, feeling so relieved that she fainted with joy and had to be carried off unconscious.

What it boiled down to was that the King could order the head to be cut off anyone he pleased, including Cosimo if one of his mules put a foot wrong and caused his wife, being so tiny, to fall out of the litter.

Poor old Cosimo could think of nothing else as he walked along beside the bay with his hand on the shaft of the litter, biting hard on his scapular
³
coin and sending up a prayer to God as though about to breathe his last.
Meanwhile the whole caravan, with the King, the Queen
and the soldiers, had moved off amid the shouting, the bell-ringing and the firing of rockets.
These could still be heard down in the plain, and by the time they reached the foot of the valley they could look back and see the hillside bathed in sunlight and crawling with black dots, as if the plain of San Giacomo had been hosting a cattle fair.

What did it matter to Cosimo if it was a fine, sunny day?
There was nothing fine or sunny about the way he felt as he walked along, never daring to raise his eyes from the cobbles on which the mules were plonking their hooves.
To Cosimo it was as if they were walking on eggs.
Nor did he register how the crops were progressing, or take any pleasure in seeing the bunches of olives overhanging the hedgerows, or think of all the good the torrential rain had done that week, for his heart pounded away like a hammer every time he thought of how the stream would be swollen, forcing them to cross it by ford!
He didn’t dare to sit astride the shafts, as he normally would when he was not carrying the Queen, so as to let his head droop and snatch forty winks in the warm sun, with a clear road ahead that the mules would follow with their eyes closed.
The mules were not the most sensible of creatures, and had no idea who they were carrying.
They were so happy to be on a dry and level stretch of road that they were merrily swishing their tails and shaking their bells, and almost breaking into a trot.
The mere sight of his mules turning so frisky frightened Cosimo out of his wits, making his heart leap into his mouth.
Those animals of his were without a care in the world, whether for the Queen or for anything else.

Meanwhile the Queen herself was chatting away to another lady they had shoved into the litter to keep her company, in a lingo you couldn’t understand a blessed word of.
She was sitting there admiring the countryside through her flax-blue eyes, resting on the litter-door a hand that was so tiny that it seemed to have been made on purpose to do nothing.
Had it really been worth filling up the mules with barley so as to carry that pathetic little thing, queen or no queen?
But no matter how tiny she was, a single word from her was all that was needed for people to have their throats cut.
And now here were these thoughtless mules being tempted to start leaping and dancing all over the road and lose Cosimo his head.

Cosimo, poor fellow, did nothing but recite Ave Marias and Paternosters
between clenched teeth and commend himself to the souls of his departed ones, whether or not he had known them personally, all the way to Catania, where a great crowd had hurried into town to see the King, and every tavern had its side of skinned pork hanging outside for the festivities.
When he arrived home after delivering the Queen safe and sound, it seemed like some sort of miracle, and he kissed the wall of the manger as he tied up the mules.
Then he went off to bed, touching neither food nor drink, and put the Queen’s money right out of his mind.
And it would have remained in his overcoat-pocket for goodness knows how long, if it were not for his wife who took it and stuffed it into the bottom of the stocking under the mattress.

His friends and neighbours, who were curious to know what sort of people the King and the Queen were, came and asked him all about the journey, under the pretext of finding out whether he had caught malaria.
He refused to say anything, as it made him feverish just to talk about it, and twice a day they had to call the doctor, who took away about half the money he had got for carrying the Queen.

But some years later, when they came and seized his mules in the King’s name because he was in debt, Cosimo couldn’t help thinking these poor beasts were the very mules that had delivered the King’s wife safe and sound, when there were no proper roads to drive on.
The Queen would have broken her neck if it were not for his litter, and people said that the King and Queen had come on purpose to Sicily to make proper roads to drive on, of which there was still no sign whatever, and it was an absolute disgrace.
Litter-drivers could make a decent living in those days, and Cosimo would have been able to pay his debts and would not have had his mules seized, if the King and Queen hadn’t come to make proper roads to drive on.

Later on, when his son Orazio, who was so dark-skinned and powerful that they called him Turk, was taken away to be a gunner, and that poor old woman of a wife of his was crying her eyes out, he remembered the girl who had come and thrown herself at the King’s feet pleading for mercy, and how the King had sent her away happy with a single word.
It never occurred to him that the King was a different one now, and the old one had been toppled from his saddle.
He said that if the King had been there, he would have sent them away happy, himself
and his wife, because he had been clapped on the shoulder by the King, he knew him, he had faced him eyeball to eyeball and seen his red trousers and the sabre dangling from his paunch.
A single word from him was enough for people’s heads to be cut off, and whenever he liked he could come and seize your mules if you were in debt and take away your sons to serve as soldiers.