The Brewer of Preston (10 page)

“Y
ou know how I feel about this,” Prefect Bortuzzi said sternly, frowning and leaning against the high back of his armchair. He was displeased with the back-and-forth discussion he had been having for the past half hour with his interlocutor, who, courteously but firmly, hadn't budged a millimeter from his position.

What do you expect from a Piedmontese?
thought Bortuzzi.
Piemontese falso e cortese
, as the saying went.

“And you, likewise, know how
I
feel about it,” brutally replied Colonel Aymone Vidusso, commanding officer of the Royal Forces at Montelusa, looking Bortuzzi straight in the eye, and adding: “I find what is happening utterly senseless.”

“Senseless?”

“Yes indeed, sir.”

“And why is that?”

“We cannot risk provoking a popular uprising simply because you insist on indulging your whim of staging an opera that, to judge by appearances, the people of Vigàta really do not like and will not tolerate.”

“That's not true.”

“What's not true?”

“That the people of Vigàta don't like it. The people of Vigàta don't understand a bloody thing about anything, so you han imagine how much they know about music. The fact is that someone, and I don't yet know who, has told them to behave in this manner.”

“And what would be the reason for this?”

“It's very simple, my dear holonel. To oppose, at all costs, the will of the national government's representative.”

“That may be so, Your Excellency. But by insisting, you risk creating ill will at a moment when it's the last thing we need, as you should know better than I. I needn't remind you that this island is a powder keg, and if it hasn't yet exploded, it is only thanks to the prudence—or, if you prefer, the fears—of Mazzini. I, therefore, will not put the army, will not put my men, in the service of obstinacy and pigheaded behavior.”

“On the part of the Vigatese.”

“Yes, but on your part as well.”

“On
my
part? How dare you!”

Aymone Vidusso miraculously managed to restrain his urge to punch the prefect in the face.

“Excellency, let us try to remain calm and speak reasonably.”

“Oh, I am very reasonable, you know. And I say, huite reasonably, that when there is a danger of unrest against the instituted authority, the state, all the armed forces—all of them, I say, regardless of branch or service—must, by God, be united in the will to put down the uprising, without splitting hairs. These Sicilians smell bad, do you know that or don't you?”

The colonel made no sign of having heard him. He did not answer the question, but merely adjusted his monocle.

“Well, they do,” Bortuzzi persisted. “They smell bad, and the Vigatese even worse than the rest.”

“I'll not enter into the subject of odors,” the colonel said diplomatically. Indeed, to him, it was His Excellency himself, the prefect, who had for some time already begun to smell bad. “But let me reiterate that it has never been, to my knowledge, legitimate to force anyone to enjoy an opera by means of prefectorial decree.”

As soon as he said these words, he froze and fell silent in amazement. Where on earth had he, the unbending Piedmontese, come up with a statement so ironic? Apparently the prefect was getting on his nerves as never before. He collected himself and continued.

“If you wish to do so, of course, you may. But you are not free to do so. And it's quite possible that someone will see your actions as an abuse of power. That is your affair. The Italian army, however, cannot and must not be implicated in so foolish a scheme. And I will, in any case, ask the opinion of the proper authorities. Now, if you'll excuse me.”

He rose, tall and stiff, wedged his monocle more firmly in his eye, brought his hand to his visor, and executed a half bow. Bortuzzi darkened as he watched the maneuver. His eyes would have burnt the colonel if they could.

“Holonel,” he said. “Holonel, I am warning you. I have no choice but to see your actions as an explicit refusal to homply. And thus I shall have to file a report to your immediate superior. That would be General Hasanova, is that not correct?”

“Yes, sir, Avogadro di Casanova. Do as you see fit, Your Excellency.”

He turned on his heel and went out, closing the door behind him.

“Nincompoop of a nincompoop!” His Excellency muttered. “You're going to pay for this! You're going to find yourself in the eye of the storm with a blizzard in your face! I'll fill you full of shot like a snipe!”

Bortuzzi could mutter to himself all he wanted, because Colonel Vidusso had already covered his rear. Four days before his meeting with the prefect, he had felt which way the wind was blowing and, anticipating a request for the army to intervene in the event that things should take a bad turn, he had written a full and detailed report to Lieutenant General Avogadro di Casanova, stationed in Palermo, in which he explained the degree to which the prefect was an incompetent and, worse, a buffoon, capable of the worst sorts of buffooneries. Actually, more than a clown, he was an individual who had let his power go to his head and in his exercise of this power had not hesitated to ally himself with a shady character and known mafioso. The damage the man was capable of doing by stubbornly imposing
The Brewer of Preston
on the Vigatese was incalculable.

He had summoned his trusty courier, a fellow Piedmontese, to deliver the letter.

“Take this message to the commander. I want you to hand it personally to General Casanova. And I want an answer by this evening. Think you can manage?”

“Of course I can manage!” said the messenger, offended by his superior's question.

And indeed, at around ten o'clock that evening, the young man returned to Vidusso, covered with mud, eyes beaming with contentment. He handed the colonel an envelope. Curiously, there was no letterhead or seal on the envelope, nor on the letter inside, which looked perfectly ordinary. The message consisted of two lines signed with the unmistakeable initials of General Casanova. It was in Piedmontese:

“
Ca y disa al sur Prefet, cun bel deuit y'm racumandu, c'a vada pieslu 'nt cul
.
”

Which, in no uncertain terms, meant:

“You must tell your prefect, tactfully and in accordance with the proper protocol, to go get buggered.”

He wasn't sure how tactfully he had done so, but following the general's orders and his own personal inclination, he had indeed told His Excellency to do precisely this.

From the moment Vidusso walked out, the prefect had been sitting with his head in his hands, sputtering curses that grew more and more elaborate as he invented them. He looked darkly at Emanuele Ferraguto, who was entering the office smiling from ear to ear.

“Things don't look so good, Ferraguto. I missed the mark with Vidusso. He's unwilling.”

“What happened, Your Excellency?” asked Don Memè, concerned.

“I don't know what to do. That twit Vidusso told me in no uncertain terms that the army, if needed, would not intervene.”

“But we don't give a good goddamn, sir.”

“You think so?”

“Of course, Your Excellency. We've got Captain Villaroel and his mounted militia, which is more than enough. How much trouble do you think a small handful of beggars from Vigàta can make? Villaroel will keep them in line.”

“The point is not how much trouble they might make, Ferraguto. We've got to prevent them from mahing any trouble at all! And, anyway, if anything were to happen, the intervention of the army would have loohed a bit a less—how shall I say?—a bit less
private
. Instead, that shit Vidusso thumbed his nose at me!”

“Excellency, you just keep cool as a cucumber. You have the solemn word of Emanuele Ferraguto that, when
The Brewer of Preston
is performed in Vigàta, nothing whatsoever will happen. Captain Villaroel himself and his twenty-four horsemen will have all the leisure to stroke their monkeys—if you'll forgive the expression, Your Excellency—before, during, and after the music. They'll have nothing to do! So forget about it and listen up, 'cause I've brought you something wonderful.”

From his pocket he extracted a large sheet of paper folded in eight, smoothed it out, and set it down on the table in front of the prefect.

“There we are, freshly printed. Be careful not to dirty your hands with the ink.”

It was a copy of
The Guinea Hen
, a satirical weekly printed out of Montelusa and consisting of a single page that was constantly raking the prefect's policies over the coals. Don Memè jabbed his forefinger at a lead article, just under the masthead, that bore the eye-catching title of “Serious Letter to the People of Vigàta.”

Bortuzzi fell to it avidly.

The open letter said in essence that “this time it behooves the people of Vigàta to be courteous” and to heed, for once, the words of a Montelusan periodical. The author of the article, who was the editor in chief himself, Micio Cigna, knew well “how the Vigatese, at every possible opportunity, have always scorned the advice and exhortations so generously offered from their administrative capital of Montelusa towards the laudable goal of civic progress in the subsidiary port of Vigàta.” Concerning the matter in question in the article, however, Micio Cigna begged them please to pay due attention. It was widely known that, for the imminent inauguration of the new theatre of Vigàta, it had been decided by a majority, “after protracted discussion that became quite heated at moments and saw honest and worthy men attacking one another, though always for the common and agreed purpose of offering the citizenry the best that could be had in the always debatable field of art,” to present a musical opera unfortunately not known and appreciated by all:
The Brewer of Preston
, by Luigi Ricci, which “has enjoyed great success in other theatres across Italy.” After the announcement of this choice for the inaugural performance, Micio Cigna continued, “unusual antagonisms, rancorous whisperings, and scarcely repressed incitements to outright rejection were stirred up in order to achieve partisan ends.” The author in no way wished to go into “the reasons for this animosity,” much less provide an analysis of the “lofty merits of the opera itself”; he merely wanted to appeal to the “intelligence and civility” of the Vigatese, that they might judge the “true worth” of the opera only after “said work” had been performed.

Micio Cigna was asking nothing more than this of the people of Vigàta: a judgment that was “just, though it be harsh,” as the Vigatese had had ample opportunity to demonstrate on other, “much weightier” matters.

The open letter concluded as follows:

“Prejudice has always done far greater harm, and led to much harsher misfortune, than wise and well-informed judgment, however negative, would have done in such instances.”

After reading the piece, His Excellency's face brightened a little. Don Memè's smile grew even broader.