The Brewer of Preston (22 page)

They walked along a country trail. It was already getting light. All at once Laurentano, a rube like so many of the people Traquandi had met the past few days, addressed the Roman without even turning his head.

“So you're from Rome?”

“From Rome, yes.”

“And what's Rome like?”

“Beautiful.”

“An' the pope, you ever see 'im?”

Traquandi didn't understand the question.

“What did you say?”

“The pope. You ever see the pope?”

“No. Never seen 'im.”

“
Maria santissima!
” Laurentano marveled. “You're from Rome an' you never seen the pope? If I lived in Rome, I'd be there all day every day, on my knees, in front of the church where the pope lives, just waiting to see him so I could ask his forgiveness for all my sins. But you, are you Christian or not?”

Traquandi didn't answer. And Laurentano didn't open his mouth again for the rest of their long journey.

At nearly the same moment as Girlando said good-bye to his cousin in a flurry of embraces and kisses, Lieutenant Puglisi was in the sitting room of Mazzaglia's house.

“Is Don Pippino in?”

“Yes, but he's in bed. He doesn't feel so good. I'll go and ask if he can see you.”

The maid walked away. And again the same fatigue of the body and heart that went into hiding whenever he was saying or doing something but which always emerged when he was alone, even if only for a moment, came over Puglisi. Realizing he couldn't stand on his own two feet, he leaned on the back of a chair and even thought he saw something dark flutter before his eyes. The maid returned.

“You can come in. Don Pippino's feeling better.”

He followed her into Mazzaglia's bedroom. Don Pippino was sitting up in bed with three pillows behind his back. He was sallow, and his mouth hanging open as if short of breath. With a trembling hand he gestured to the policeman to sit down in an armchair beside the bed.

“I haven't got the breath to speak,” said Don Pippino.

“I can see that. So, if you'll allow me, I'll ask you only one question.”

Mazzaglia nodded yes, he could go ahead.

“Where's the Roman?”

And as Mazzaglia had raised his hand as if to make him stop, Puglisi continued, not allowing him time to catch his breath.

“I know that the Roman isn't here with you, since you would never welcome into your home someone capable of setting fire to a theatre and killing two innocent people without a second thought. You're not that kind of person. That's why I'm here to ask you: Where is this murderer hiding?”

“I don't know,” said Don Pippino in a faint voice.

“But
I
know something: that you fell ill because you had something to do with this scoundrel.”

Don Pippino squeezed his eyes shut and turned even paler.

“Please don't speak; I'll speak for you,” Puglisi continued. “I've been racking my brains over this. So: I know you wouldn't associate with a scumbag like Traquandi, nor would Don Ninì Prestìa, who's an honorable man like yourself. And, I would bet my last lira Bellofiore wanted nothing to do with him, either. So, of all you Mazzinians, that leaves only one name. Decu. Am I wrong?”

Mazzaglia didn't say yes and he didn't say no.

“So it's Decu who's got the Roman in his house?”

The old man didn't budge.

“Thanks,” said Puglisi, standing up. “I'm going to get him.”

Don Pippino's hand shot out and gripped the policeman's arm tightly.

“Be careful. That Roman's a bad one.”

Giagia my dear,

On this day, my beloved, I wish to reveal another of my secrets to you. So many have I entrusted to your heart's possession over the years of this our common path in life, Giagia, that they now hang like rare pearls in a necklace round your ivory neck. And since I see myself entirely reflected in them, it is as though I were forever blissfully close to your tenderest, most desirable flesh.

And now I wish to add a new pearl to the string.

Beloved Giagia, the question everyone is asking in Montelusa and the surrounding towns, particularly Vigàta, is this: What could be the reason why your husband, the Prefect, that is, the Solemn Representative of the State in these most ungracious parts, so obdurately wishes that the new theatre of Vigàta should be inaugurated with
The Brewer of Preston
, the opera by Luigi Ricci?

Spiteful tongues, who are by far the most numerous, having learned of the blood relation linking me to the impresario of said opera, have gauged my intentions by the measure of their own wretched hearts and most ignobly set about speculating on the presumed pecuniary interest I might have in exploiting such a blood tie. Whereas you know best of all how my family, and I myself first and foremost, have wished to sever relations with this person, ever since he showed himself to be not only an inveterate gambler and squanderer of fortunes, but also given to frequenting such women of ill repute as dancers, actresses, and singers.

And so? What was, then, the reason for the distinguished Prefect's obstinate insistence? This is the question being asked in Montelusa and environs.

How hard I struggled, my darling, to have that opera performed in Vigàta! To attain my goal I had to face dark days and heated arguments with a serene spirit and undaunted courage. Yet you knew nothing of these tortured vicissitudes, darling Giagia, for I wished to spare you the lot of it by keeping it all secret from you, that you might suffer not at all if not for my occasional bouts of ill humor, for which I shall never cease to beg your forgiveness.

Yet before revealing the secret reason for my meddling in a decision that should have concerned solely, and freely, those appointed to manage the new Theatre of Vigàta, I must of necessity take a step back.

What sort of life was I leading in Florence in eighteen hundred and forty-seven? I was a young lawyer, from an upstanding, respected family, and yet an unspoken, morose agitation was corroding my soul. I wanted no part of any undertaking, considering them all empty and vain, and saw no other point to life than life's very ending, death, the final terminus. I cared not even for the amusements proper to youth, as I shut myself up in the sullen mutism of impassioned solitude. I belonged, Giagia, to that “vast graveyard of the
drowned” of which Aleardi sang—
Aleardi, the poet over whose pages, in the years that followed, we were to weep so many tears, heave so many sighs. But then came the evening, auspicious, unforgettable, when a fervent friend, the confidant of my discontent—Pepoli, remember?—dragged me from my lethal indolence and brought me to the Teatro della Pergola, where, for the first time in Florence, none other than
The Brewer of Preston
was being performed, a work I had never heard mentioned before. It was with scarce enthusiam, needless to say, that I went with him.

I had neither the heart nor the mind, my darling, to keep feigning a nonexistent and thus all the more evanescent interest in hearing those sounds and seeing those figures moving and singing onstage. Thus I decided that I should head back home at the end of the first act, duly excusing myself to my friend Pepoli. And it was precisely as I was on my way to the exit, stepping wearily through the festive crowd, that I first set eyes on you, my beloved. You were dressed all in blue like the heavens and were celestial indeed, as though your feet touched not the ground. I was as though struck by lightning, and I turned to stone. It lasted an instant, and then your eyes met mine. O God! In that instant my life was changed, turned upside down as by a beneficent earthquake, and what had earlier appeared to me gray and wan miraculously brightened and shone with vivid colors. To say it again with Aleardi, “Love spread the fertile wing” of everything. And you well know, Giagia, that as of that moment, I became eternally bound to you, with new strength and renewed purpose, considering life as . . .

On his very skin, in the hair curling on his arms, Don Memè sensed that there was something suspicious in the way the town of Vigàta was getting ready for the inauguration of the theatre. But there was nothing to be done, for it wasn't anything concrete that gave him this feeling, but merely hints, silences, fleeting glances, brief smirks in the corners of people's mouths. Whereas he had pledged, in his person and on his honor, that all would go smoothly. But if things were to take a bad turn, how would he ever be able to face the prefect? And so he paced up and down the high street of Vigàta, looking askance at anyone who didn't appeal to him and noisily greeting anyone who happened to be in agreement with what he, first, and the prefect, second, wanted.

. . . I retraced my steps not to listen to the opera through to the end, but so as not to subject my eyes to the desperate sorrow of not seeing you again. Heaven in its benevolence had seen to it that my orchestra seat was somewhat towards the back, so that the second-row box in which you sat with your loved ones was situated slightly ahead of me. Perhaps feeling the nape of your neck burning from my ardent gaze, at a certain point you slowly, haughtily turned . . . your eyes met mine . . . and at once I felt transformed—please don't laugh, my darling Giagia—into a soap bubble that began to float ever so lightly in air, flying up and out of the theatre, over the piazza, rising up until it could see the whole city diminished below . . .

Arelio Butera and Cocò Cannizzaro had left Palermo early in the morning, at about four o'clock. Brokers of fava beans and grains, they were supposed to make an extensive business tour of the Montelusa province, going from town to town over the course of three days. While passing the time before they were supposed to meet with a wholesaler from Vigàta, they started walking down the main street of the town. In the course of their walk, they found themselves in front of a printed bill at either side of which stood, as if on guard, a man with a beret and a rifle on his shoulder.

They stopped to read what was written on the bill. Or, more precisely, Cocò started reading aloud, since reading and writing really weren't his friend Arelio's strong suits.

“‘Special announcement,'” Cannizzaro read, “‘for the evening of Wednesday, December twelfth. Gala inauguration of the new Teatro Re d'Italia of Vigàta. Sole performance of the immortal opera
The Brewer of Preston
, by Neapolitan maestro Luigi Ricci. Who has enjoyed many triumphs not only in Italy but also Worldwide. His many operas, from
The Thwarted Supper
to
The Sleepwalker
, have won the applause of Kings and Emperors, as well as that of the broader cultured public. Guaranteeing inevitable success in Vigàta are tenor Liborio Strano and soprano Maddalena Paolazzi, who will interpret the roles of the enamored brewer and his beautiful fiancée, Effy, respectively. Embellished with colorful décors and magnificent costumes, the performance will begin at six o'clock sharp in the evening. With best wishes to the public, all the singers, the orchestra with its fourteen professors of music under the direction of the Distinguished Maestro Eusebio Capezzato, and the Chorus of the Vocal Academy of Naples, await with hearts aflutter the applause of Vigàta's intelligent opera lovers, who shall kindly converge on the new Teatro Re d'Italia on the appointed date.'”

“I din't unnastand a bleedin' thing,” said Arelio. “Whassit mean?”

“It means that tonight the new theatre opens and they're gonna show an opra about somebody that makes beer.”

“You like beer, Cocò?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“'Cause it makes me burp and piss.”

“An' it makes
me
burp and piss and fart.”

They laughed. But their laughter was interrupted by a polite voice.

“May I? Mind letting me in on the joke, so I can laugh, too?”

The two men turned around, surprised. The blue eyes, broad, cordial smile, and sedate attitude of the man made them fall into the trap.

“Iss our business what we's laughin about. If you got somethin to laugh about too, then go ahead 'n' laugh,” Cocò replied, grabbing Arelio's arm to get him to move along.

“Stop,” said one of the two men in berets, taking the rifle off his shoulder. The two bean brokers stopped. With a violent gesture, Don Memè separated the two outsiders from behind and placed himself between them.

“I said I want to laugh, too.”

Instinctively, Arelio raised a hand to strike him. Don Memè grabbed it in midflight and twisted it behind the man's back as he dealt a kick straight to the groin of Cocò, who fell to the ground whimpering and cupping his hands over his balls. Ten or so idlers and passersby stopped to look, keeping a proper distance.

Arelio was quick to recover, however, and took a step back, extracting a jackknife with a foot-long blade from his belt.

“Nah-ah-ah,” said Don Memè in warning, right hand reaching into the rear pocket of his trousers where he kept his revolver. From the abrupt change in the man's face, Arelio realized that it wasn't worth the trouble, that the man wasn't making that gesture just for show. Arelio folded his jackknife and put it back in his belt.

“Sorry, sir,” he said in a low voice.

“We all make mistakes,” said Don Memè. “Have a good day.”

He turned his back to the two men and walked away. He was pleased and felt like singing. Everyone had seen what would happen if they were to make fun of the opera. And indeed the whole town would be informed of this fact in less than an hour.

Arelio, meanwhile, was helping Cocò back on his feet, since he couldn't manage on his own, doubled over and moaning as he was. None of the people looking on made any sign of wanting to help.

“But where the hell did we make a mistake?” Arelio asked himself aloud.

He had no answer; nor did the idlers around him, who resumed idling, nor the passersby, who passed on by.