The Brewer of Preston_A Novel Read online

  When they got to the Piano della Lanterna, below which lay the town of Vigàta, the engineer and his men realized, to their consternation, that the fire was no joking matter. There were at least two large buildings in flames. As they stood there watching, and the engineer contemplated which side of the hill they should descend with their machine in order to attack the flames most quickly, they saw, by the dancing light of the blaze, a man walking as if lost in thought, though swaying from time to time. His clothes were burnt and his hair stood straight up, either from fear or by choice of style, it wasn’t clear which. He was holding his hands over his head, as if in surrender. They stopped him, having had to call to him twice, as the man seemed not to have heard them.

  “Vat is happenink?” asked the engineer.

  “Where?” the man asked back in a polite voice.

  “Vat you mean, vere? In Figata, vat is happenink?”

  “In Vigàta?”

  “Yes,” they all said in a sort of chorus.

  “There seems to be a fire,” said the man, looking down at the town as if to confirm.

  “But how come it happent? You know?”

  The man lowered his arms, put them behind his back, and looked down at his shoes.

  “You don’t know?” he asked.

  “No, ve don’t know.”

  “I see. Apparently the soprano, at a certain point, hit a wrong note.”

  Having said this, the man resumed walking, putting his hands again over his head.

  “What the hell is the soprano?” asked Tano Alletto, the coachman.

  “She’s a voman who sinks,” Hoffer explained, rousing himself from his astonishment.

  A spectre is haunting the musicians of Europe

  “A spectre is haunting the musicians of Europe!” Cavaliere Mistretta declared in a loud voice, slamming his hand down hard on the table. It was clear to all present that by “musicians” he meant musical composers. The cavaliere dealt in fava beans and was not very fond of reading, but occasionally, when speaking, he liked to indulge in apocalyptic imagery.

  The yell and the crash made the members of the Family and Progress Social Club of Vigàta, already nervous after more than three hours of intense discussion, jump in their seats.

  Giosuè Zito, the veteran agronomist, had a very different reaction. Having dozed off some fifteen minutes earlier because he’d been up all night with a terrible toothache, he woke with a start after hearing, in his half sleep, only the word “spectre,” then eased himself nimbly out of his chair, knelt on the ground, made the sign of the cross, and started reciting the Credo. Everyone in town knew that three years earlier, when asleep in his country house, the agronomist had been scared out of his wits by a ghost, a spectre that had chased him from room to room amidst a great racket of chains and harrowing laments straight out of hell. After finishing his prayer, Giosuè Zito stood up, still pale as a corpse, turned towards the cavaliere, and said in a trembling voice:

  “Don’t you ever dare make any mention, Godless man that you are, of spectres or ghosts in my presence! Is that clear, you Calabrian mule? I know how terrifying a ghost can be!”

  “You, my friend, don’t know a bloody thing.”

  “How dare you say that?”

  “I say it because I can,” said Cavaliere Mistretta, annoyed.

  “Explain yourself.”

  “Every last person in town knows that on that famous night, which you’ve been endlessly telling and retelling us about, boring everyone to death, on that night, I say, you were attacked not by a ghost, but by your scallywag of a brother Giacomino, who dressed himself up in a sheet because he wanted to drive you mad and cheat you out of your share of your father’s inheritance.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean? I mean there was no ghost. It was your brother Giacomino monkeying around!”

  “But I got scared just the same. It had the very same effect on me as a real, flesh-and-blood ghost! I got a fever of a hundred and four! My skin broke out in hives! Therefore, you, out of respect, should use a different word!”

  “And how might I do that?”

  “How the hell should I know? Use your own words when you speak, not mine.”

  “Look, I cannot and I will not use a different word. Because I thought of that word all by myself! And I can’t think of another, at this precise moment!”

  “Begging the pardon of all present,” intervened the Marchese Manfredi Coniglio della Favara, with a mincing manner and raised-pinky regard for decorum, “but would the good cavaliere kindly explain what spectre he is talking about?”

  Here a slight digression is in order. The proper place for the Marchese Coniglio della Favara, in terms of class and means, was, and had always been, among the members of the Circolo dei Nobili, or “Nobles’ Circle,” of Montelusa. However, on an unfortunate day the previous year, the statue of Saint Joseph happened to be passing under the great windows of the Circle, as it was the saint’s feast day. The marchese went to one of the windows to watch the procession. As luck would have it, standing beside him was the Baron Leoluca Filò di Terassini, a rabid papist and tertiary of the Franciscan order. At that moment, for the first time in his life—having never before given the matter any thought—the marchese noticed how old Saint Joseph looked. After reflecting upon the age difference between Joseph and Mary, he came to a conclusion he had the poor judgment to express aloud:

  “If you ask me, it was a marriage of convenience.”

  Now, by a twist of what we customarily call fate, the exact same thought had occurred to Baron Leoluca, plunging him promptly into a state of unfathomable anguish over the blasphemous idea that had just crossed his mind. Drenched in sweat, he grasped at once the point of the marchese’s statement.

  “Say that again, if you have the courage.”

  He issued his challenge with dark eyes smoldering like hot coals, twirling his right mustache with his index finger.

  “Gladly.”

  “Wait. I should warn you: what you say may have consequences.”

  “I don’t give a damn about any consequences. You see, to me Saint Joseph looks decidedly too old to do it with Mary.”

  He was unable to elaborate any further, so swiftly had the baron’s slap arrived, every bit as swiftly as the kick that the marchese quite unchivalrously dealt the baron’s ballocks, dropping him to the floor writhing and out of breath. The two men then challenged each other to a duel, which they fought with swords. The baron managed to inflict a superficial wound on the marchese, who meanwhile had resigned from Nobles’ Circle of Montelusa.

  “You can’t reason with those people,” he said.

  And so he had requested admission to the Vigàta Civic Club and been enthusiastically welcomed, since, with all its members being tradesmen, schoolteachers, clerks, or doctors, no one had ever seen hide or hair of any aristocrats within those walls. His presence added lustre to the place.

  At the marchese’s polite query, the cavaliere puffed his chest.

  “I’m talking about Wogner! And his divine music! And the spectre of his music, which scares all the other composers to death! And upon which all of them, sooner or later, will burn their fingers!”

  “I’ve never heard of this Wogner,” said Giosuè Zito, genuinely astonished.

  “Because you are an ignoramus! You’ve got less culture than a mullet! I, for my part, have heard this music, which the Signora Gudrun Hoffer played for me on the piano. And it lifted me up to heaven! How the devil can anyone not know Wogner? Haven’t you ever heard of his drama of the ghost ship, The Flying Dutchman?”

  Giosuè Zito, having barely recovered from the previous slight, staggered, grabbing on to a small table to keep from falling.

  “Ah, so you really do want to get on my nerves! Why the hell do you keep talking about ghosts?”

  “Because that’s what
it’s about, and it’s a very great opera! What the hell do I care if it makes you shit your pants? The music is innovative, revolutionary! Like Tristano!”

  “Ho ho ho!” said the Canon Bonmartino, a scholar of patristics, who was, as usual, cheating at a game of solitaire.

  “And what do you mean by ho ho ho?”

  “Oh, nothing,” said the canon with a face so seraphic one could almost see two cherubs fluttering around his head. “It only means that Tristano, in Italian, means ‘sad anus,’ ano triste. And with a title like that, I can only imagine how beautiful the opera must be.”

  “Then you don’t understand a blasted thing about Wogner.”

  “In any case the name is Wagner, W-A-G-N-E-R, and you pronounce the W like a V: vahg-ner. He’s German, my friend, not English or ’Mercan. And, with all due respect to Signor Zito’s mental health, he really is a ghost, this Wagner of yours. In fact, he died before he was even born. He’s an abortion. His music is first-class shit, melodic diarrhea, all farts and caca. Stuff for the latrine. People who make serious music can’t even manage to play it, believe me.”

  “Could I get a word in?” asked Antonio Cozzo, a secondary-school headmaster, from an armchair where he’d been reading the newspaper without a peep.

  “By all means,” said Bonmartino.

  “Not to you,” said Cozzo, “but to Cavaliere Mistretta.”

  “I’m all ears,” said Mistretta, shooting him a fighting glance.

  “I’d merely like to say something about Il Trovatore, the swan of Busseto’s masterpiece. You know what I’m referring to?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So, Cavaliere, listen closely. First I’m going to take Abietta zingara and stick it in your right ear, then Tacea la notte placida and fit it snugly into your left, so you can no longer even hear your beloved Wogner, as you call him. Then I’m going to grab Chi del gitano and shove it deep into your left nostril, then Stride la vampa and put it into the right hole, so you can’t even breathe. Finally, I’ll make a fine bundle of Il balen del tuo sorriso, Di quella pira, and the Miserere, and shove the whole lot straight up your asshole, which, I am told, is fairly spacious.”

  Time, at the club, stood still. Then the chair next to the one in which Cavaliere Mistretta was sitting took flight and soared across the room towards the head of Headmaster Cozzo, who, expecting this sort of reaction, promptly stood up and sidestepped it as his right hand reached behind to the back pocket of his trousers where he kept his weapon, a Smith & Wesson five-shooter. But nobody present got alarmed. They all knew that Cozzo’s gesture was a habit, a tic he repeated as many as three times a day in moments of heated discussion or rows. And it was likewise certain that never in a million years would Cozzo pull out his revolver to shoot at any living creature, human or animal.

  “Come now, gentlemen!” said Commendator Restuccia, a man of influence and few words, whom it was dangerous to contradict. “Shall we stop this foolishness?”

  “It was he who provoked me!” said the cavaliere, trying to excuse himself as if he were still in grade school.

  The commendatore, however, clearly annoyed, looked severely at the contending parties and said, in an unwavering voice:

  “I said ‘enough,’ and that means ‘enough.’”

  The two men promptly pulled themselves together. Headmaster Cozzo picked up the chair that had grazed him, and Cavaliere Mistretta smoothed out his jacket.

  “I want you to shake hands,” the commendatore ordered them, and it would surely have been deadly not to obey. So they did, without looking each other in the eye, just as Tano, the waiter, was entering the room with a tray full of coffee, sesame seed biscuits, cannoli, lemon ices, jasmine sherbet, and almond-and-anise-flavored drinks. Tano began to distribute the refreshments according to the orders. Thus there was a moment of silence, and everyone present was able to hear Don Totò Prestia sing, just under his breath, Una furtiva lacrima.

  In the silence, as they all ate and drank, they fell under the spell of Don Totò’s voice, which had them blubbering like young calves with their throats slit. At the end, after the applause, Don Cosimo Montalbano, as if to return Totò the favor, replied in his own melodious voice by singing Una voce poco fa.

  “Well, there certainly is some beautiful music around!” the Wogner supporter conceded to his adversaries, sighing.

  “What are you trying to do, convert us?” Canon Bonmartino asked. “Just know that I won’t give you my blessing. To me you will always remain a heretic, and you will go to hell when you die.”

  “Care to tell me just what sort of bloody priest you are?” Cavaliere Mistretta asked testily.

  “Easy, gentlemen, easy,” said the commendatore, and in the silence one didn’t hear even the flies.

  “On the other hand, Cavaliere, you’re right,” the canon continued. “There is plenty of beautiful music around. And yet we get the music of this Luigi Ricci, whom we know nothing about, shoved down our throats willy-nilly, simply because the authorities say so! It’s sheer madness! We’re supposed to let our ears suffer simply because the prefect orders it!”

  The patristics scholar was so indignant that he threw down the cards of a game of solitaire that, by dint of cheating, he was actually about to win.

  “You know what, gentlemen?” intervened Dr. Gammacurta, the physician. “Apparently this Ricci who wrote The Brewer of Preston has composed an opera that is a patent rehash of a work by Mozart.”

  At the sound of that name they all recoiled in horror. Merely mentioning the name of Mozart, inexplicably despised by Sicilians, was like uttering a curse or a blasphemy. In Vigàta, the only person to defend his music—which in everyone’s opinion tasted neither of fish nor fowl—was Don Ciccio Adornato, the carpenter, but apparently he did so for personal reasons of his own which he was loath to discuss.

  “Mozart?!” they all said at once.

  But although they all spoke at the same time, they were not a chorus. Some said the name with disdain, some with pain, some in shock, some in astonishment, some in resignation.

  “Yes, indeed, Mozart. I was told by someone who knows a thing or two. Apparently, about thirty-five years ago, at La Scala in Milan, this blockhead Luigi Ricci staged an opera called The Marriage of Figaro, which was an exact replica of a work by Mozart of the same title. And when it was over, the Milanese shat all over him. So this Ricci started crying and in tears went to seek consolation in the arms of Rossini, who, God knows why, was his friend. Rossini did what he was supposed to do and cheered him up, but he also let it be known to one and all that Ricci got what he had coming to him.”

  “And we’re supposed to inaugurate our new Vigàta theatre with an opera by this mediocrity just because our distinguished prefect is besotted with him?” asked Headmaster Cozzo, menacingly touching the back pocket in which he kept his revolver.

  “Oh Jesus, blessed Jesus,” said the canon. “Mozart alone is a funeral, so we can well imagine what a bad copy of a bad original is like! What on earth was the prefect thinking?”

  Since no one could answer this question, a thoughtful silence ensued. The first to break it was Giosuè Zito, who began to sing, very softly, so he wouldn’t be heard in the street below:

  “Ah, non credea mirarti . . .”

  The Marchese Coniglio della Favara then followed:

  “Qui la voce sua soave . . .”

  And Commendator Restuccia, in a basso profondo, cut in:

  “Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni . . .”

  At this point Canon Bonmartino got up from his chair, ran over to the windows, and drew the curtains to make the room dark, while Headmaster Cozzo lit a lamp. The men then gathered in a semicircle around the light. And Dr. Gammacurta, in a baritone voice, intoned:

  “Suoni la tromba e intrepido . . .”

  The first to join him, as if written into the score, was the commendatore. One b
y one, all the others followed. Standing round, hands linked as in a chain, looking one another in the eye, they instinctively lowered the volume of their song.

  They were conspirators. They had become so at that very moment, in the name of Vincenzo Bellini.

  The Brewer of Preston, the opera by Luigi Ricci imposed on them by the prefect of Montelusa, would never play.

  Would he try to raise the mosquito net?

  Would he try to raise the mosquito net? the widow Concetta Lo Russo, née Riguccio, asked herself with trepidation, hidden behind the gauzy tarlantana, which in summer was spread around and over the bed to protect her from gnats, mosquitoes, pappataci, and horseflies.

  At that moment the netting, with its light, veil-like mass, looked like a ghost hanging from a nail. The widow’s generous bust was in the throes of a force-ten storm, with the portside tit drifting leeward to north-northwest, while the starboard one strayed in a south-southeasterly direction. The wife of a sailor who had drowned in the waters off Gibraltar, she was unable to think in any other terms than the nautical ones her husband had taught her after she married him at age fifteen only to don the widow’s weeds at age twenty.

  Good Lord, what pandemonium! What a night! What rough seas! Because of what had been arranged and was about to happen, her blood was already in motion, now receding and turning her pale, now rising up and spilling over the deck, turning her not so much red as purple. And, to top it all off, earlier that night she had listened in terror to loud cries coming from the new theatre that had been built opposite her building, then heard the blast of a trumpet, followed by a mad rush of people and horses, and a few gunshots to boot.