‘I even got a little frightened myself,’ the Prefect daintily said.
‘As for me,’ Major Russo’s wife said, ‘I really like this particular opera by Verdi. His Othello and Falstaff ring as pathetically false as an oaf’s attempt at good manners…’
It sounded like the cheerful banter of people who’d just fled a storm’s furies. ‘It’s so rare to be able to hear a little music out here in this colony. My dear Mrs Boratti…’
Mrs Boratti scoffed: ‘But no, what are you saying? It was Mrs…’ all the while smiling gratefully at the Prefect, ‘we just improvised a tune for you, that’s all…’
Yet all were interrupted by the officer’s song: ‘Il balen del suo sorriso…’ (The flash of her smile). The officer’s presence amidst a gathering of ladies was most unusual. Alongside her normal education, Emma had learnt all the conventional replies dictated by conversation. Through the sheer weight of his presence, the officer had run roughshod over that education and its brittle rules – as though a gust of wind had just swept a cobweb away. His melancholic song didn’t seem to want to persuade anyone: in fact it appeared perfectly situated in solitude. Those notes swallowed up that landscape piece by piece, like the night’s approaching shadows. The ladies fell silent again immediately. Mrs Boratti sat on the sofa’s armrest. Emma’s ear was sufficiently trained to notice that the aria was being sung too slowly. The notes had trouble leaving the officer’s throat. Emma felt an unspeakable sadness. She was distracted by the Count’s song that she was no longer keeping an eye on the score: her mother nudged her with her elbow, but Emma failed to even notice it. Her heart had swelled inside her chest. That song was unbearably melancholic.
‘Very good, very good…’ the Prefect murmured. The officer replied with a very slight nod of the head. The other ladies kept quiet and instead headed towards the pile of pastries like an army of ants. Emma felt she’d been privileged to hear that song. Henceforth, she would learn to appreciate tenderness in a man.
When Mrs Macchi launched into the Soldiers’ Chorus on her piano, the ladies, having grown mused, began to sing along: ‘Squilli, echeggi la tromba guerriera,/chiami all’armi, alla pugna, all’assalto;/fia domani la nostra bandiera/di quei merli piantata sull’alto…(Let the warlike trumpet sound and echo,/call to arms, to the fray, the attack;/may our flag be planted tomorrow/on the highest of those towers.)
Captain Mosca’s wife had been the first to intone those words, and the others had followed suit. At which point even the Prefect bravely lent her voice to a few lines: ‘No, giammai non sorrise vittoria…’ (No, victory has never smiled). Even Mrs Boratti, who had been taken by surprise by the unexpected song, lent her confident voice to it. By that point, the ladies were singing their hearts out: Emma observed them and was struck by the sweetness of their warlike grace. As for her, Emma experienced a new, delicate sensation: regret. The ladies’ bellicose chorus functioned like a fan, while the Count’s love song shocked her and filled her soul with fear. As far as Emma was concerned, teatime at Mrs Boratti’s had taken on the specificity of a geography lesson: on one end lay the Prefect’s little realm, while the Count’s gloomy kingdom had swallowed up everything else. Such a smooth relationship, which had been publicly articulated, could only exist within the confines of a court and the cardboard cutout people that populated it. Yet all real relationships are secret and inexplicable – and just like any other form of knowledge – they’re harrowing too.
Mrs Boratti was visibly pleased: that afternoon tea’s success had exceeded all expectations. The Prefect was careful to protect the importance of her presence there, but she consented to keeping track of all the changes that had occurred within her court. As a matter of fact, by cheerfully joining in with the chorus of conversation, she tried to embody those very changes.
While the ladies, having finished their chorus, returned to their seats while exchanging self-congratulatory looks and compliments (the room was still saturated with their tender squeals, after a round of passionate attacks and amorous victories) Mrs Macchi read a few pages while sitting in front of the piano and then launched full-swing into the role she’d been assigned, Azucena’s: ‘Aita! mi lasciate!…’ (Help! Let me go!)
Her yell broke the ladies’ tender hearts, and they suddenly fell silent.
‘S’appressi. A me rispondi, e trema dal mentir!’ (Approach. Answer me, and don’t dare lie to me!) Azucena wasn’t trembling, but the ladies – frightened out of their wits – certainly were. The Count’s voice loosened them from gravity’s grip, leaving them to float like algae swept about by the waves. Mrs Macchi crisply enunciated her words: ‘D’una zingara è costume/mover senza disegno…’ (It’s the gypsy’s custom/to wander without aim).
Her clarity was clearly an attempt to resist the violent, gloomy waves being emitted by the Count. The gypsy’s arioso – ‘Giorni poveri vivea/I lived days of poverty’ – was very well received: the Count’s arrogance and brutality seemed to stop short at the perfect blue sky evoked by the gypsy’s song. The ladies were pleasantly surprised to discover their inner penchant for popular veins.
The lack of an actor able to take on Ferrando’s bass-baritone meant the ladies were denied the chance to hear more of the gypsy’s songs. ‘What’s going to happen now?’ Mimi Russo asked Captain Mosca’s wife. ‘Terrible things!’ the latter gracefully replied. The excitement emanating from the piano certainly presaged what was to come. Their excitement knew no bounds when Azucena quickly launched into her brief chant: ‘Deh! rallentate, o barbari,/le acerbe mie ritorte./Questo crudel martirio/è prolungata morte!…’ (Pray, loosen, barbarians,/the chains that bite me so./This cruel torture/is like a drawn-out death!).
A murmur of pity ran through the assembled crowd.
Emma was paying close attention. Meanwhile, the strain of keeping up with all the accompanying parts, as well as playing the role of Azucena, had clearly taken a toll on her mother. Her arms would spread out and quickly come together again, part of her efforts to keep her fingers attached to her hands despite the score’s demands that they remain impossibly scattered along the keyboard. Her right foot worked the pedal. Her mother’s voice streamed in torrents out of her distorted mouth. Emma experienced a deep emotion, she’d understood that favour had been bestowed upon them: her mother had escaped the cardboard tableau she’d typically been confined to and had sprung to actual life. Emma’s eyes darted back and forth between her mother’s hands and her mother’s face. It was a completely different face, fresh and re-energised: ‘Trema! V’è Dio pei miseri/e Dio ti punirà!’ (Beware! God protects the helpless,/and God will punish you!)
It was ravishing. But the Count’s sudden appearance: ‘Tua prole, o turpe zingara,/Your brood, foul gypsy,’ that tangle of words which Emma couldn’t make any sense of, fell upon that girl with such force that she failed to suppress an upsurge of fear within her. The score she’d been turning was now crumpled in her hand. Her mother could no longer see all the notes she was supposed to hit. Implacable, the Count continued – ‘Potrò col tuo supplizio/ferirlo in mezzo al cor!’ (With your torture then/I can wound his heart!) – seemingly unbothered as to the fact the piano wasn’t sounding all the proper accompanying notes. Those missing notes emphasised the stressed syllables: three or four ladies got up, looking visibly agitated. Without the musical buffer produced by those notes, and with the Count violently invading her mind with his voice, Emma couldn’t take it any longer: she betrayed the Count with a cry and threw herself weeping into her mother’s arms.
As all the lamps had been switched back on, Mrs Boratti’s sitting room shone with light. Behind Emma’s shoulders, Professor Boratti bestowed kindly smiles upon his guests. Another gentleman, Dr Finigara, was chatting to the paunchy man. ‘She got a four in Latin yesterday,’ the mother awkwardly said, ‘and she can’t stop crying about it.’ Dr Finigara, the head physician at the Civic Hospital, listened attentively, as he’d been expressly requested to help put a stop to that crying.
Havin
g grown suddenly irritated, Emma loosened her hand out of the Prefect’s grip. She had indeed gotten a four in Latin, but that had happened a month earlier (she’d stumbled on the third conjugation and the possessive of ium). Her mother had reverted back to her usual lies, having certainly been ashamed by her daughter’s weeping, and for which she would surely be scathingly criticised eventually. In a considerate tone, Mrs Boratti asked: ‘All better now?’ Emma knew she was beside herself with fury: she had spoiled a highly successful afternoon of tea and music. ‘Would you like some orange soda?’ she asked Emma.
‘Answer her!’ her mother ordered her in a loud voice, as though they’d been alone. Emma dried her eyes and stood up. ‘No, thank you, Mrs Boratti.’
‘Tell the Prefect that you’re sorry you got so frightened,’ her mother said.
‘There’s no need for that, no need,’ the Prefect retorted, growing irked.
The incident had to be brushed aside as soon as possible. The ladies were getting bored. The little girl’s cry had been amusing enough a distraction, but now it was time for it to be over. ‘Could the little girl go home on her own?’ Mrs Boratti asked. It was an order. ‘Of course, of course,’ Mrs Macchi replied in haste, ‘say goodbye to the ladies, Emma.’
The officer was completely unperturbed. The tender scene prompted by the girl’s cry had played out in front of his eyes and failed to elicit any interest in him, just like the ritual of bows and introductions before it. Bringing others to tears was simply a singer’s duty (and honour), but as far as consolation was concerned, that was a servile task best left to the chorus. Even the girl wasn’t comforted by it.
Emma attempted to etch his portrait into her memory: the precious raw material for that task had nothing to do with what the ladies most admired about him: his reserved, almost hostile appearance. Instead it was composed of the strength of his hands, the impetus behind his anger, his melancholy feelings.
Violence, melancholy and solitude – the little girl repeated to herself, as though she’d just stumbled upon a talisman – are a prince’s true clothes, his uniform.
Emma said goodbye to the ladies one by one, as well as Professor Boratti and his assistant. But not the officer. She had unknowingly failed to greet him at first, and she wasn’t about to knowingly say goodbye to him now. This too was a secret relationship.
She crossed the room, walking the tightrope of that secret.
THE LIEUTENANT
WITH AGATE EYES
‘And I’m telling you we’re not going to that dance,’ the Commendatore said, irritated: ‘I haven’t slaved for thirty years just to give my daughter away to some dandy.’
‘His father’s a lawyer.’
‘My daughter’s not going to marry a soldier, she’s going to marry a man who works for a living. When I die, her husband will take over my business.’
‘We can’t run roughshod over Emilia’s feelings like that, Giacomo!’
‘Don’t start talking nonsense, and don’t be so melodramatic. My daughter’s feelings are subject to my will, and I only want what’s best for her.’
‘If we don’t go to the club it’ll cause a scandal.’
‘You can only answer scandal with another scandal’ the Commendatore retorted, vexed.
‘You should at least remember that it was General Desiderius Occhipinti himself who invited us. Giacomo – come tomorrow we’ll have the whole army against us!’
‘I’ll take them on.’
‘I promise you – and I promise you on Emilia’s behalf too – that it will all be finished tonight. But… I beg you… let her say goodbye to that man.’
‘That man?’ the Commendatore interjected, losing his patience, ‘he’s just a magazine cutout, he’s not a man! Have you seen his legs?! They look more like wings than legs: They’re great when it comes to dancing a waltz, but they won’t do him any good while standing in a factory.’
‘You don’t mean to suggest we should want to fall in love with our own son-in-law and judge whether his legs are good enough or not?’
‘I can judge a man just by looking at him. And that little lieutenant’s got agate eyes, have you noticed that? They lack any depth, they’re gorgeous to look at, and they’ve cast a spell on Emilia, but they don’t see anything, like gemstones refracting light. When you shake his hand, you can’t feel the nerves, or the muscles of his fingers. I won’t argue that it might well be perfectly shaped, but it lacks any strength whatsoever. His uniform is just like his skin: clean and fresh, like he’d never even put it on, it’s like it was his natural plumage, it bears no sign of any physical strain; and by the end of the night, there’s still not a crease in sight. He can’t even warm up that uniform, or fill it enough to make it look tailored, he’s got the absent-minded grace of a mannequin. That little lieutenant looks good in a shop window, but put him out on the street and he’ll fall down and die.’
‘He doesn’t necessarily have to take over your business, you know.’
‘So who have I been working so hard for?’ the Commendatore exclaimed, ‘so I could see the business taken over by whom exactly?’
His wife looked at him, hesitantly. She could still force a few admissions out of him – ‘Look at that little lieutenant dancing with Emilia’ he’d said the first time he’d laid eyes on him, ‘look at how he moves, he’s so quick on his feet.’ But there was no hope. The ordeal of the office desk – the inexorable requirement for anyone to be granted his daughter’s hand, an enigma which had to be solved in order to marry the heiress of that great factory – would only humiliate that young paper soldier.
The Commendatore stood up. ‘I’m going to inform Emilia that we won’t be going to the club tonight. My daughter won’t ever forgive me for this.’
‘Don’t be dramatic, that’s enough now, don’t be so dramatic. The lieutenant is like a string of pearls, and right now we’re telling her that she can’t have it: she’ll cry a little and then it’ll all be over. It’s just like if you’d missed out on a big business opportunity at the office, you’d feel bad too.’
When the mother stepped inside the girl’s room, she found her sitting next to the window with a book in her hand.
‘Are you reading, my dear?’
Emilia half turned to face her.
‘You know, your father can really be odd at times. This little lieutenant has certainly got him all scared up.’
‘What about the dance?’ Emilia softly asked.
‘The dance? Sure, there’ll be a dance tonight,’ her mother stammered, ‘but we won’t be going.’
Emilia rose and the book slammed shut in her hand.
The mother’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Calm down, my daughter, calm down, I swear I fought for you. But you know how strong-willed he is.’
The daughter entered the sitting room where the father was reading the newspaper.
The father raised his eyes. They looked at one another for a long time.
‘I swear I won’t marry that man, daddy, not if you don’t want me to. But tonight we’re going to the dance.’
‘Why aren’t you a man, Emilia? The strength of your willpower offers some consolation: Whenever you speak I cheer up because I can feel the presence of a proper heir. Now it doesn’t really matter whether we go to the dance or not. We can go, if you like… but only for an hour. Your mother says you need to say goodbye to that officer. Fine. If it’s so important so be it.’
‘Thank you, darling.’ the mother said, with tears in her eyes.
‘I really don’t understand what all these tears are for!’ the Commendatore exclaimed. ‘What time are we going?’
‘Eleven.’
‘Eleven it is.’
Come eleven o’clock they made their entrance into the Officers Club, on Corso Italia. The Commendatore was a solidly built man, with authoritarian features. He never enjoyed himself at parties: but he had gratefully accepted the general’s invitation as though it had been a medal. After the day’s tension, th
e mother got dressed in a hurry, without taking much care.
The general extended Commendatore Curzi a warm welcome. An army corps general still outranked an industrialist, at least in the colonies – even though this particular industrialist was the Chairman of the local chamber of commerce and a trustee of a few charities – but the government had made the region’s industrial development a top priority, for both economic reasons as well as, more importantly, for propagandistic purposes. And that man was a formidable go-getter. The soldier held him in high regard and didn’t leave him waiting in the reception room.
‘Emilia grows more beautiful by the day, Commendatore.’ the general said, joyfully making it known he remembered the girl’s name.
The dance had begun. The orchestra played a tango. On entering the room, Emilia immediately spotted the agate eyes on the other side of the orchestra. She also noticed the Commendatore – while his wife looked around herself – looking very frightened. They sat down at Colonel Lanza’s table. The latter’s wife, a sweet-natured blonde with withered features, complimented Emilia. ‘You’re really very pretty, very pretty.’ Emilia had been sitting there for over a half hour and nobody had paid her any mind. ‘You know, Emilia,’ the colonel’s wife began, keeping her voice down so that the Commendatore and her husband wouldn’t overhear her, ‘springtime and life are brief and go by quickly, just like a waltz. You whirl about and then the music ends, and then life gives you leave to go.’
A captain came to ask Emilia to dance. He was a melancholy man, very courteous, and he even confided in her a little, what seemed like snippets of a conversation he was secretly carrying on with himself.
‘Everybody’s here,’ he said, ‘but the dance feels a little stiff – doesn’t it?’
The Fourth Shore Page 2