Cosi Fan Tutti

by Michael Dibdin

  ‘Impossible,’ replies Zen in the confident tone he has been using for his explanatory discourse.

  ‘They’re right outside the house!’ Sabatino shouts, unable to modulate his emotions any longer. ‘They’ll be here at any moment!’

  ‘What is it?’ demands Valeria.

  Zen turns to her.

  ‘It seems that your daughters have returned.’

  ‘Nonsense! I spoke to them on the telephone just before I left to come here.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ wails Sabatino. ‘They’ll be here any moment! If they find those Albanians here…’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Valeria comments in a tone of unctuous malice. ‘I’m sure they’ll be very understanding. Women always are about these matters.’

  ‘What women?’ demands Libera, joining the group.

  Zen grasps her by the arm.

  ‘Get your companion, go down to my bedroom, close the door and don’t come out until I tell you. First, though, give me one of your shoes.’

  Libera frowns.

  ‘My shoe? Why?’

  ‘Because that’s what I’m paying you to do, carina,’ Zen replies sweetly.

  Libera slips off one of her shoes and hands it to him.

  ‘Fetishist.’

  She turns to Iolanda and gives a piercing whistle.

  ‘Pay-off time!’ she trills mockingly.

  Her companion is clearly none too happy about having her rapturously fraught unspoken dialogue with Gesualdo interrupted, but after a few barked phrases in dialect from Sabatino he relinquishes her to Libera, who hustles her back into the house.

  ‘What are you playing at?’ Valeria hisses to Zen. ‘I want my girls to catch them together!’

  ‘Catch them doing what? Attending the same party? What does that prove? The whole idea was to arrange for them to be caught in flagrante, but since your daughters have shown up without any warning, we’ll have to improvise.’

  ‘I still don’t believe they’re really here. That young delinquent must be imagining things. He’s probably on drugs. There’s no way my girls would come back to Naples without letting me know.’

  Here they are, nevertheless, stepping out on to the terrace and looking uncertainly around.

  ‘Stap me!’ exclaims Immacolata Higgins. ‘If it isn’t my two young ladies of last night. Well, well, it’s a small world, to be sure.’

  Valeria Squillace inspects the pierced and tattooed apparition in black leather.

  ‘Is that you, Orestina?’ she demands in a tone of mingled anxiety and menace.

  ‘We were robbed, mamma!’ cries Filomena, rushing forward with outstretched arms. ‘They threatened us with a knife and took our money, credit cards, everything. It was horrible, just horrible!’

  ‘I thought it was a fascinating piece of street theatre,’ Orestina comments dismissively. ‘And they were very polite about it. The knife was just a prop. They left us our passports and return tickets, and one of the guys tipped me off to this great tattoo parlour by Camden Lock.’

  She slips the jacket and blouse off her shoulder, revealing the full extent of the tattoo, together with a considerable amount of the surrounding flesh.

  ‘It’s disgusting!’ her mother pronounces. ‘Wash it off immediately. And stop exhibiting yourself like that! Have you no shame?’

  ‘It doesn’t wash off, mamma,’ Orestina replies, adjusting her dress. ‘That’s the whole point. It’s a way of reclaiming your body, personalizing it …’

  Valeria’s silence is more intimidating than any reply.

  ‘But, mamma, I’m still the same person inside!’ her daughter protests with just a hint of panic.

  ‘You don’t seem to understand, Orestina,’ Valeria retorts icily. ‘To me, and everyone else of my generation, you are now scum.’

  ‘I told her not to do it!’ cries Filomena, whose panic is overt and urgent. ‘I begged her not to! But she never listens to me. She never did and she never will.’

  ‘Of course I listen to your mewling,’ her sister replies contemptuously. ‘Why do you think we’re here? Because after those guys robbed us you did your usual neurotic prima donna routine, sobbing and screaming about how you couldn’t sleep again until you were safely back home tucked in with your teddy.’

  Filomena bursts into tears and hugs her mother.

  ‘But how on earth did you get here so quickly?’ Valeria asks her. ‘Why, it was only an hour ago that I spoke to you in London!’

  ‘We were already here, mamma,’ Orestina replies as though to a child. ‘We flew in last night.’

  ‘Last night?’

  ‘That’s right, signora,’ Immacolata Higgins chips in. ‘I picked them up personally and escorted them to the Sole Mio. Do you know it? Lovely place, very homely, spotlessly clean, never a hint of trouble.’

  ‘Not to mention a fat finder’s fee for Immacolata which turns up on the bill as “City Residence Tax”,’ Pasquale murmurs to no one in particular.

  ‘Why didn’t you come home?’ Valeria asks Orestina. ‘Not that I particularly want to be seen associating with a person looking like that, but when all’s said and done you’re still my daughter and I can’t turn you away.’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to do!’ Filomena wails. ‘I just wanted to go home, but she wouldn’t let me!’

  All eyes turn to Orestina, who in turn looks at Gesualdo and Sabatino.

  ‘The whole idea was to test our lovers’ faithfulness, right?’ she says. ‘What better way to do it than by turning up completely unexpectedly?’

  She smiles coolly.

  ‘They don’t seem very happy to see us, do they?’

  Filomena confronts Sabatino with a pout.

  ‘Why don’t you say anything?’ she demands. ‘And why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘I expect it’s just the shock,’ Zen suggests in a tone of fake bonhomie. ‘And of course your mother being here makes it all a bit awkward.’

  He bends down and picks up a red patent leather shoe with a long spiked heel.

  ‘I wonder who this belongs to.’

  ‘It’s Libera’s,’ Dario De Spino replies. ‘Genuine Gucci, marked down as factory flawed but you’d never spot the difference. Eighty to a hundred thousand, depending on the model. Also a full range of men’s sizes available.’

  There is a brief silence.

  ‘And who might Libera be?’ asks Orestina.

  ‘A friend,’ Zen replies with a fatuous smile.

  ‘Whose friend?’

  ‘Everybody’s! Libera by name and libera by nature.’

  Orestina’s smile hardens perceptibly.

  ‘And may one meet this fascinating person?’

  ‘Certainly!’ Valeria replies with an air of triumph. ‘She’s in the bedroom downstairs. The one where Gesualdo and Sabatino have been spending their nights since you left town.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ shouts Filomena, backing away from her mother.

  Aurelio Zen shakes his head as though in embarrassment.

  ‘It’s only too true, I’m afraid. But you don’t need to take my word for it. Why don’t you go in and see for yourselves?’

  Gesualdo steps forward, as if to intervene, but Sabatino holds him back. With a long lingering look at them, Orestina turns and marches inside the house. Filomena follows at her heels.

  ‘That’s that, then,’ sighs Sabatino.

  Gesualdo shakes his head vigorously.

  ‘It won’t make any difference. She knows how much I love her.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Sabatino replies sarcastically. ‘Don’t let that punk make-over fool you, Gesuà. Like she told her mother, she’s still the same person inside. Face it, we’re finished.’

  Gesualdo looks at him in amazement.

  ‘I wasn’t talking about Orestina!’

  They both turn to the doorway as the two girls reappear. Judging by their expressions, they are absolutely furious.

  ‘How could you?’ demands Orestina
.

  ‘What a cruel, nasty trick!’ adds her sister.

  ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.’

  ‘I could just have died of embarrassment! Walking in on two complete strangers in the middle of a passionate kiss!’

  Zen looks at Valeria, then back at the girls.

  ‘Eh?’ he says.

  Before he has a chance to express himself more coherently, two more figures appear from inside the house. One is Libera, limping in a rather fetching way because of the missing shoe. Her companion is a man of about the same age, smooth-shaven and with short dark hair, looking svelte and handsome in an old-fashioned suit cut stylishly large.

  ‘How pleasant to know that one has been missed!’ he says in a low, insinuating voice. ‘Libera and I felt the need to be alone for a moment, and it never occurred to us that our absence would be remarked upon. But lo and behold, emissaries were sent to track us down and drag us back to the party of which we had presumably been the life and soul. Most gratifying!’

  Valeria marches up to him.

  ‘You’re not a man!’ she shouts. ‘You’re that other bitch dressed up! You just changed into some of Alfonso’s clothes. You can’t fool me! I’ll expose you!’

  The person thus addressed smiles languidly.

  ‘That sounds rather fun. But since there are ladies present, we should perhaps be discreet. If you care to step inside with me, signora, I shall be pleased to offer you irrefutable proof – even tangible proof, if you so desire – that I am indeed what I appear to be.’

  For just a moment Valeria hesitates. Then she squares her shoulders.

  ‘Very well!’

  The moment Signora Squillace is out of sight, Sabatino rushes up to Filomena and starts kissing and hugging her with an abandon which causes Libera to toss her head sulkily and mutter something incomprehensible. Orestina seems to be waiting for Gesualdo to do the same, but there is no response. Indeed, he hardly appears to be aware of her, or of anything else. He just stands staring at the doorway through which Valeria Squillace and the subject of the examination disappeared. Orestina starts towards him, then stops, gazing at him as though across a distance even greater than before.

  When Valeria returns, all her anger and determination have dissipated. She looks old, tired and bewildered.

  ‘He is,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘He really is.’

  The object of this endorsement now emerges in turn, doing up his belt. But although he has proved his point, it has evidently been at some cost. His whole bearing is lumpen and lifeless, his features are drained of all expression, his air of urbane swagger has quite evaporated. His eyes dart here and there, fixing on nothing, until at length they meet those of Gesualdo. The two men stare at each other as though across a space unpeopled and silent.

  In reality the place is in an uproar.

  ‘Ma so’ femmenielli, duttò!’ exclaims Pasquale. ‘You mean to say you didn’t know?’

  Zen gives an embarrassed shrug.

  ‘They were out there on the street with the other whores …’

  ‘And why didn’t you choose those others?’ Pasquale interrupts. ‘Because they weren’t pretty, right? They were puttane vere, the genuine feminine article all right, but hardly the women of your dreams. Otherwise they wouldn’t be on the street. The good-looking ones are all chicks with dicks, everybody knows that!’

  ‘I suppose I’m a bit out of touch with these things.’

  Pasquale laughs.

  ‘You’re as innocent as a babe in arms, duttò! You should have consulted me instead of trying to do this on your own.’

  ‘It makes no difference!’ Valeria declares in a determined voice. ‘If those two … whatever they may be … fooled us, they also fooled that pair of hoodlums who have the nerve to think that I’ll let them marry my daughters. Now we know them for what they are! The fact that these other creatures are not what they seem doesn’t change a thing.’

  The vehemence of her tone shakes Gesualdo out of his reverie. He produces a laminated card which he hands to Valeria Squillace.

  ‘They’re not the only ones who aren’t quite what they seem, signora,’ he retorts with a cutting edge.

  Valeria squints at the card. It is hard for her to read without her glasses these days, and even harder to admit the fact.

  ‘What’s all this?’ she says, handing the card to Zen. ‘Some sort of official document, it looks like …’

  Zen stares at it for some time. Then he nods slowly.

  ‘I see,’ he says.

  ‘Well, I don’t!’ said Valeria. ‘What’s going on? Who are these people?’

  ‘This card identifies your younger daughter’s suitor as Inspector Nino Rocco of the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia.’

  Gesualdo takes a second card from his wallet.

  ‘And this one,’ he continues in the same edgy tone, ‘identifies your tenant as Dottor Aurelio Zen of the Polizia Statale.’

  ‘Then who’s Alfonso Zembla?’ exclaims Valeria, completely bewildered.

  Pasquale grabs Zen’s identity card from Gesualdo’s fingers.

  ‘A cheap fake!’ he exclaims. ‘I’m surprised you were taken in for a moment.’

  He palms the card and simultaneously produces another, at first sight identical, which he holds up like a priest displaying the consecrated host.

  ‘Here is the genuine article which the duttò was unlucky enough to have stolen from him yesterday, and which I was able to trace thanks to my extensive network of contacts. As you see, it identifies him beyond any doubt as Dottor Alfonso Zembla.’

  Valeria jerks her thumb at Gesualdo and Sabatino.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me that these two are actually policemen?’ she demands.

  ‘We were,’ Sabatino replies laconically.

  Dario De Spino finally understands the reason for the premonitions of disaster which have been plaguing him recently. Fortunately everyone’s attention is directed to his former associates, the two engaging young men he befriended and trusted and boasted to, and who now probably have enough material to send him away to Poggioreale until well into the next century. Grabbing a fistful of sandwiches and pastries for the road, Dario sidles over to the door and leaves without ceremony.

  ‘But you told me that they have a record of associating with known criminals!’ Valeria protests to Aurelio Zen. ‘You said they were linked to some of the worst elements in the Camorra …’

  ‘They wouldn’t be much use as anti-mafia undercover agents if they didn’t.’

  He turns to the two young men.

  ‘What I still don’t understand is why you have chosen to reveal the truth now. For months you refused to tell anyone, even your sweethearts, yet now you have broken cover in front of people you don’t know and have no reason to trust.’

  ‘It’s all thanks to you, dottore,’ Gesualdo returns, with a bow of mock formality.

  ‘To me? How?’

  ‘You didn’t hear what I said a moment ago,’ Sabatino replies. ‘We were with the DIA. We no longer are.’

  ‘We resigned today, with immediate effect.’

  Zen stares at them.

  ‘But what has that got to do with me?’

  Gesualdo smiles.

  ‘Tell me, dottore, why do you think you’re still alive, instead of having being crushed by the ram of that garbage truck?’

  Zen shrugs.

  ‘I don’t really understand the details, but apparently the whole thing was part of a long-term sting operation designed to trap the terrorists. The Questore said that his men had been following me …’

  ‘We know what the Questore said,’ Sabatino says bitterly. ‘We saw the show on TV. You gave a very good performance.’

  Zen looks from one to the other.

  ‘Are you saying it’s not true?’

  ‘You know perfectly well it isn’t true!’ retorts Gesualdo. ‘All that stuff about you being brought down specially from Rome to infiltrate Strade Pulite …’

  �
�That was just window-dressing to make the Questore look good,’ Zen protests. ‘The fact remains, if the police didn’t save me last night, who did?’

  ‘We did.’

  ‘You? But …’

  ‘We had our own reasons for being interested in you, Dottor Zen,’ says Gesualdo. ‘First we hear that someone of that name has tried to do a record search on our undercover aliases. Then we turn up a police identity card bearing that name but the photograph of someone we know as Alfonso Zembla, who has recently taken a personal interest in our activities. So we had a tap put on your phone, and were able to listen in to that intriguing call you received last night. As a result, we were in time to save your life.’

  ‘Thank you,’ mutters Zen.

  Sabatino smiles sarcastically.

  ‘Our real thanks has been the destruction of everything we’ve worked toward for months, laying our lives on the line every day, knowing that one slip or piece of bad luck and we’d end up like that poor bastard Marotta whom they tortured to death, not that he didn’t have it coming.’

  ‘I told you he was in hell!’ Professor Esposito puts in. ‘I was sure of it. The reception was faint, but quite clear.’

  ‘For almost a year now, we at the DIA had been compiling a detailed study of the various factions and alliances within the Camorra clans,’ Gesualdo explains in a flat tone. ‘We were particularly interested in the internal fissures resulting from the massive quantities of money generated by the drug trade, and also the external pressures exerted by the political transition to the so-called New Italy.’

  ‘But what has all this to do with those terrorists?’ demands Zen.

  ‘The terrorists never existed. The group calling itself Strade Pulite was simply one element in a classic power struggle between opposing wings of the Vallifuoco clan, cleverly disguised as a political movement. The young guard wanted to purge the old leadership, as well as various of their associates and clients who knew too much and could prove an embarrassment in the new judicial climate.’