Cosi Fan Tutti

by Michael Dibdin

  ‘And just when we were on the point of putting together a case which might stand up in court,’ Sabatino continues, ‘you come along and offer yourself as living proof that this was an act of fanatical ideologues who have been thwarted by the brilliant efforts of the Naples police department! If those bastards at the Questura had done their job properly in the first place, there would have been no need to set up the DIA. So as soon as it was set up, the Questore tried to undermine its authority, and, thanks to you, he’s just achieved a major victory. Well, enough is enough. What’s the point in Gesualdo and me risking our lives and losing the women we love, all to no purpose? So we’ve requested to be transferred back to normal duties.’

  He turns to Valeria.

  ‘I also request the hand of your daughter Filomena in marriage. My character is impeccable, I have a secure job and good career prospects. I don’t suppose it matters to you, but we are also madly in love.’

  ‘Alla follia!’ echoes Filomena.

  Valeria Squillace heaves a heavy sigh.

  ‘Clearly I have misjudged the situation. This I regret, although the fault is not mine but that of Signor Zen, or whatever his real name may be, who provided me with information which now turns out to be completely false. Needless to say, I withdraw all my former objections.’

  She raises her glass.

  ‘Here’s to my daughter Filomena and Signor Nino …’

  ‘Rocco, signora.’

  ‘… and to Orestina and, er …’

  She looks enquiringly at Gesualdo, who looks at Orestina.

  ‘I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t.’

  A smile appears and vanishes on Orestina’s lips.

  ‘That’s all right.’

  Valeria Squillace looks from one of them to the other.

  ‘Would someone kindly tell me what’s going on? All I want to know is who he really is.’

  ‘I think he’s only just found out himself,’ her daughter replies with the same fugitive smile.

  Gesualdo walks over to where the two ex-Albanians have been standing, on the fringes of these ceremonies from which they are excluded. He takes Iolanda’s hand.

  ‘You look great. There’s something very sexy about a woman in male clothing.’

  ‘But he is a man!’ exclaims Valeria. ‘I saw his …’

  Orestina covers her face with her hands.

  ‘For the love of God, mamma!’

  ‘Old people are so gross,’ comments her sister, clutching Sabatino protectively.

  ‘Who are you calling old?’ her mother shouts furiously.

  Aurelio Zen holds up his hands.

  ‘Perhaps we should try and concern ourselves less with which body parts those present may or may not possess as with what they choose to do with them.’

  ‘That’s not the point!’ insists Valeria. ‘Whatever those two may do – and one shudders to think – the whole thing is unnatural! It’s just based on sexual thrills. It can’t last …’

  ‘Aurelio!’

  ‘… like real love between men and women coming together for life …’

  ‘Aurelio!’

  ‘… to marry and have children as God intended!’

  ‘Aurelio!’

  The hollow wailing seems to well up from somewhere deep inside the house. Professor Esposito hurriedly crosses himself.

  ‘The Furies!’ he mutters. ‘This, too, I foresaw.’

  When the uninvited guests finally appear, Professor Esposito’s prediction is seemingly borne out. Not only are they three females, but they are quite clearly furious.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing leaving your front door lying open like that?’ screeches the central figure, who is squat and elderly. ‘And in a city full of blacks! You’ll be murdered in your bed!’

  ‘Well, I see you’re doing very nicely for yourself,’ comments her tall companion on the left, taking in the silver salvers of appetizers and the open bottles of bubbly. ‘Still as irresponsible and selfish as ever, eh?’

  ‘Your poor mother’s been half out of mind with worry!’ the third cuts in. ‘The least you could have done was to call home once in a while, but oh, no, you’re far too busy and important to bother with things like that. Just who do you think you are, anyway?’

  ‘His name’s Aurelio Zen,’ a chorus of voices recites helpfully. ‘He’s a policeman.’

  Zen turns to the assembled company with the fixed grin of someone who has just glimpsed madness, and discovered that it has its attractions.

  ‘Allow me to introduce my mother Giustiniana, my ex-wife Luisella, and Tania Biacis, a friend from Rome.’

  ‘You never told me you were married!’ remarks Valeria.

  ‘Signora Valeria Squillace,’ Zen explains automatically to the newcomers. ‘Ferrarese by birth, widow of Manlio Squillace of this city and mother of Filomena, newly betrothed to Signor Nino Rossi, and of her legitimate sister Orestina, recently unbetrothed to Tizio or Sempronio, the latter having taken up with an individual of whom the only thing we know for certain is that he or she is not Albanian.’

  He turns to Gesualdo and Sabatino.

  ‘There’s still one thing I don’t understand …’

  ‘Only one?’ exclaims the chorus. ‘You’re lucky!’

  ‘If these Clean Streets people were just a bunch of local gangsters, why did they try and kill me?’

  ‘You see?’ barks Signora Zen, grabbing a glass of spumante from a passing waiter. ‘I said he’d be murdered in his bed! But does he ever listen to what his mother tells him?’

  ‘It was just the same with me,’ Luisella murmurs sympathetically. ‘He had to be right all the time.’

  ‘The problem is that he’s afraid to discuss his feelings,’ adds Tania. ‘I tried to put him in touch with his inner child, but it was no use.’

  Gesualdo pushes his way through them.

  ‘The answer to your question, dottore,’ he tells Zen, ‘is that they mistook you for someone else, a very powerful figure in the clans named Orlando Pagano who has been in hiding for some time. You look quite alike, and since you have been spending the night at the Squillace house …’

  ‘Mamma!’

  This from Orestina, who looks horrified.

  ‘Don Orlando was a close associate of Manlio Squillace,’ Gesualdo continues with a certain malicious pride. ‘Indeed, the connection dates back even further, according to our research, to Signora Valeria’s father, the founder of the Caselli textile group. Shortly after the war, Pagano put him in touch with a chain of clothing manufacturers here in Naples who …’

  He breaks off as Signora Zen grabs his arm.

  ‘Caselli, did you say?’

  ‘That’s right, signora.’

  ‘In Ferrara?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  The old lady curls up like an autumn leaf and falls to the ground without a word. Everyone rushes around offering advice, first-aid hints and traditional herbal remedies. For the best part of a minute, Signora Zen is relentlessly slapped, pummelled and shaken. Brandy is forced between her clenched lips, while Pasquale presses the miracle-working silver casket into her bosom. Which of these ministrations proves effective is unclear, but eventually her eyes open.

  ‘A priest! I must make confession.’

  The guests look at one other in dismay.

  ‘At this hour?’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  Professor Esposito grabs Pasquale by the arm and pulls him aside. The two confer in low tones for a moment, then disappear inside the house.

  ‘She’s not really going to die, is she?’ Zen cries in a voice of panic. ‘I can’t manage without you, mamma. Please don’t die. I need you, I love you.’

  ‘Typical,’ comments Tania caustically. ‘She should stay alive because you need her. What about her? Don’t you think she might want to live for herself?’

  ‘Men are such bastards,’ agrees Luisella.

  Pasquale rushes in with an air of great importance.

  ‘I’ve summoned
Father … er, Beccavivi! He’ll be here in a moment!’

  Sure enough, a tall, thin figure swathed in black appears in the doorway. He hurries over to the stricken woman and kneels beside her.

  ‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost,’ he intones in a nasal voice. ‘Make your confession, my child.’

  Signora Zen wipes her pallid lips with her tongue.

  ‘I have many sins on my conscience,’ she says, ‘but the one troubling me most concerns Aurelio, my son.’

  ‘Go on, figlia.’

  ‘I had sworn never to reveal the truth, but now I feel the approach of death I feel I must. It all happened one week while my husband Angelo was away. He was an inspector for the railways, and often had to travel for days at a time. On one such occasion, may God forgive me, I went part of the way with him, taking advantage of the cheap ticket to visit my relatives in Verona.’

  She gives a rattling gasp and signals for water, which is brought.

  ‘On the way back, I was all alone. The journey seemed to take hours, and I fell to chatting with someone else in my compartment. He was a businessman, from Ferrara. I’d never met anyone like him before. Angelo was a good man, but he never took much interest in me.’

  ‘I know the feeling,’ comments Tania.

  ‘Men are all the same,’ adds Luisella.

  ‘Not Lorenzo!’ insists the penitent. ‘He was different. He made me feel special and beautiful and exciting. I’m not trying to excuse myself, but …’

  ‘Did you have carnal relations with this man, my child?’ the priestly figure enquires.

  Signora Zen smiles gently.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘More than once, figlia mia?’

  ‘Many, many times!’

  The smile fades gradually.

  ‘When my son was born, I tried to pretend it was Angelo’s. He never gave me any reason to suppose that he didn’t believe me. To tell you the truth, he never seemed particularly interested.’

  Tania and Luisella exchange a significant glance.

  ‘And when Angelo went off to war and never came back, it was too late to tell anyone. How could I break it to my boy that his father was not a heroic victim who had fallen fighting for his country, but the owner of a textile mill who abandoned me as soon as I got pregnant even though he went on to make a fortune through a contract to supply uniforms to the local Blackshirts in return for a kickback to the local Fascist chief …’

  ‘Those charges were never proved!’ Valeria breaks in. ‘Certainly Papa made a lot of money quite quickly, but life was a struggle for everyone back then, and …’

  Signora Zen tugs at the black sleeve.

  ‘Father …’

  ‘Do you wish me to administer extreme unction, my child?’

  The penitent shakes her head.

  ‘Is there …’ she breathes faintly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is there any more of that brandy?’

  At this point a mosquito lands on Orestina’s left ear, which has already been pierced twice to accommodate the silver rings which form part of the new image to which Signora Squillace took exception. Subliminally sensing this additional puncture, she swats at the aggressor. A rhinestone ring she is sporting on her marriage finger becomes entangled with the twin loops of silver, tearing the delicate flesh of the lobe and causing Orestina to utter various terms of which her mother had fondly believed her to be ignorant.

  Assuming that this attractive young woman, who has so courageously asserted her independence in the face of patriarchal tyranny and gender stereotyping, has been the victim of harassment by one of the rogue males present, Tania Biacis springs to her defence, colliding with the elderly waiter who is bringing Signora Zen the beverage she requested. The bottle goes flying, and in his attempt to save it Gesualdo pushes over Immacolata Higgins, who in turn stumbles into Valeria, who tries to keep her balance by grabbing at her neighbour, Luisella Catallani in Zen. The resulting disturbance ripples through the gathering like a breeze through long grass, affecting each of the guests in turn, until Filomena accidentally jogs Pasquale’s funny-bone, causing him to jerk his arm convulsively and thereby knock off Father Beccavivi’s large, black (although on closer inspection not strictly clerical) hat, revealing the bald dome and impressive eyebrows of Professor Esposito.

  Aurelio Zen clears his throat with the air of someone about to give a speech.

  ‘A famous philosopher once remarked that everything happens twice. A later philosopher – even more famous in my youth, but now almost forgotten – commented that his predecessor should have added, “the first time as tragedy, the second as farce”. I am no philosopher, and cannot say whether this is true of events in general, but my recent experiences have convinced me that it holds good for my own life. And, if I may be permitted to add my own modest footnote on the subject, better like that than the other way round.’

  He looks about him at the circle of family, friends and lovers, their equilibrium now completely restored.

  ‘But as I say, this applies only to my own life. Yours, I hope, will be free from tragedy and farce alike. Filomena and Sabatino will make a faithful and happy couple, and their children will be numerous, beautiful and charming. Gesualdo and Iolanda will be equally happy in their different but no less admirable way, while Luisella and Tania will continue to be comfortably miserable in theirs. Orestina will go back to London and Libera to the streets, each with a mingled sense of relief and excitement. Pasquale, the professor and Signora Higgins will continue to provide the range of unique and priceless services for which they are justly famous.

  ‘My mother will make a full recovery, and never fail to give me the kindly illusion that she will be there for ever, although only when I need her. Finally there is Valeria, with whom a watchful providence appears in retrospect to have spared me from committing the only sin from which I had always believed myself to be immune. For this I am truly grateful, since it enables me to say without any fear of misunderstanding that I will always love her as the sister I never knew I had.

  ‘Which brings me to myself, and my vision of the future I see very clearly unfolding before me. It will be …’

  But his voice, which has been increasingly difficult to make out for some time now, is finally lost beneath the ambient harmony of car horns and birdsong, televisions and yapping dogs, children yelling and motorbikes revving, laughter and raised voices, sea-gulls and sirens, as though the whole city were joining in a final chorus expressing the conventional banalities: always look on the bright side, let reason be your guide, every cloud has a silver lining, laughter is the best medicine …

  Only for some reason – the intoxicated dusk, the musky air, the good company, the wine – they don’t seem at all banal, but resound like eternal verities, a profound reverberation of all the horrors and miseries which have taken place here, and which might yet teach us, if we cared to learn, how to live.

  Author’s Note

  All chapter headings are taken from Da Ponte’s libretto for the opera he referred to as ‘The School for Lovers’. The more familiar title is never translated, a sufficient indication of the difficulty of doing so. The same holds true for many of the phrases used to name the chapters in this book. The attempt made in the Contents listing is offered only as a rough equivalent of the sense intended here, which is not always identical to that of the original. Finally, it may be worth noting that while the title of the opera is gender-specific, the masculine form tutti spares no one.

  I would like to take this opportunity to thank various friends in Naples, particularly Michael Burgoyne and Gerardo Kaiser, for their help and hospitality.

  The Zen Series from Michael Dibdin

  Ratking

  Zen is unexpectedly transferred to Perugia to take over an explosive kidnapping case involving one of Italy’s most powerful families.

  Vendetta

  An impossible murder in a top-security Sardinian fortress leads Zen to a menacing and violent worl
d where his own life is soon at risk.

  Cabal

  When a man falls to his death in a chapel in St Peter’s, Zen must crack the secret of the Vatican to solve the crime.

  Dead Lagoon

  Zen returns to his native Venice to investigate the disappearance of a rich American resident, while confronting disturbing revelations about his own life.

  Così Fan Tutti

  Zen finds himself in Naples, a city trying to clean up its act – perhaps too literally, as politicians, businessmen and mafiosi begin to disappear off the streets.

  A Long Finish

  Back in Rome, Zen is given an unorthodox assignment: to release the jailed scion of an important winegrowing family who is accused of a brutal murder.

  Blood Rain

  The gruesome discovery of an unidentified corpse in a railway carriage in Sicily marks the beginning of Zen’s most difficult and dangerous case.

  And Then You Die

  After months in hospital recovering from a bomb attack on his car, Zen is trying to lie low at a beach resort on the Tuscan coast, but an alarming number of people are dropping dead around him.

  Medusa

  When human remains are found in abandoned military tunnels, the case leads Zen back into the murky history of post-war Italy.

  Back to Bologna

  Zen is called to Bologna to investigate the murder of the shady industrialist who owns the local football team.

  End Games

  After a brutal murder in the heart of a tight-knit traditional community in Calabria, Zen is determined to find a way to penetrate the code of silence and uncover the truth.

  About the Author

  Michael John Dibdin was born in Wolverhampton in 1947. His mother was a nurse and his father a Cambridge-educated physicist with a passionate enthusiasm for folk music. The family travelled extensively around Britain until Michael turned seven, when they settled in Northern Ireland.