Contrary to what was written and said in newspapers and social clubs unfavorable to the governing party, the performance of the opera was not disturbed by any significant expressions of dissent. There were exclamations of wonderment at the beauty of the stage décors and the opulence of the costumes, not to mention at the excellence of the music and the skill of the singers. Some uncivilized behavior was demonstrated by a number of spectators seated in the gallery, but this involved above all naïve commentaries made by people who had never set foot in a theatre before and were unaware of the proper etiquette required in such a setting. These undisciplined spectators should have been called back to more civilized behavior by the Superintendent of the Public Order, Police Lieutenant Sebastiano Puglisi. But this is the sore point of the whole unfortunate affair, and I shall attempt to place it in the proper light. Mr. Puglisi was by nature a vulgar man of violent temperament, attributes aggravated by an adulterous affair he was carrying on with a young Vigàta woman whose sister, a widow, met a horrendous death as a result of the theatre fire. Possibly to maintain the unfaithful woman with lavish sums of money, Mr. Puglisi had lent his services to protecting the clandestine numbers circuit, a scourge across Sicily which in those days prospered thanks to the hidden screen provided by the very people who should have prosecuted and halted such illegal activities. The repressive actions promptly taken by the prefect and police commissioner brought to light Puglisi’s involvement in this shady traffic. Still, Puglisi—nobody knows how—escaped by the skin of his teeth. And thanks to an error of judgment on the part of the commissioner, an error owing to his innate generosity of spirit, the lieutenant was able to remain at his post and continue to weave his schemes. Thus during the opera performance, he, as is customary with all wicked spirits, instead of intervening to dissuade, placate, or win people over, let himself fall into a sort of haughty indifference.
It should be said, for the sake of documentation, that two days after the theatre fire, Puglisi died ignominiously. As was later established, he had gone to a meeting between mafiosi, fugitives, and brigands at the house of a certain Diego Garzìa, a young man from a once eminent, now impoverished family, who had gone astray perhaps because of his family’s misfortunes. That the gathering was convened to decide upon further criminal undertakings is beyond the shadow of a doubt. Indeed Puglisi attended the meeting armed with his personal revolver (his regulation firearm was found in the drawer of his office desk in Vigàta). And, in any case, if his presence there was part of an operation aimed at thwarting future actions of the criminal underworld, he would have been obliged first to alert the Commissariat of Police and then the men working under his command. But he informed nobody and went alone, a sign that he didn’t want any witnesses. Some sort of argument must have broken out inside the Garzìa home, probably concerning the distribution of ill-gotten gains, a sort of settling of accounts, as they say, during which Garzìa and Puglisi grabbed their weapons and killed each other. The investigation promptly conducted by the new Detective Superintendent of Vigàta, Lieutenant Catalonotti, resoundingly confirmed this sequence of events.
There was also talk—quite out of place—of the intervention of a company of mounted militiamen during the events that led to the burning of the theatre, a company under the command of Captain Villaroel (who later ended his career as a colonel of the Royal Carabinieri). While it is true that a platoon of militiamen had drawn up in a line outside the theatre to protect the authorities gathered there, this formation was little more than an honor guard. About halfway through the second act, a number of drunken young hooligans began to scream and shout in the piazza in front of the theatre, for no other reason than to create a disturbance. This was why Captain Villaroel decided to inform the spectators that it was not advisable for people to leave the theatre alone or in small groups—specifically so they would not find themselves caught up in any unpleasant altercations. Apparently inexplicable, on the other hand, was the reaction of panic to the unexpected “clinker” (as they say in musical jargon) hit by the otherwise outstanding soprano Maddalena Paolazzi. As we know, a “clinker,” or false note, is the sort of unfortunate accident than can occur in any theatre to even the most exceptional singers; yet never, in human memory, had this sort of mistake triggered, in any theatre in the world, such mad terror, which, indeed, cannot be defined otherwise. Through patient investigation and the help of preeminent scholars of the human mind, I have arrived at a rational explanation for this apparently irrational reaction, which I shall later set forth.
That leaves us to speak of the fire itself. It occurred, as has been established, at least two hours after the performance ended, when people had long returned in peace to their late-evening domestic concerns. The principal question is therefore the following: What caused such a violent fire to break out?
As the flames were still besieging the theatre, it became common belief that the disaster had been unintentionally triggered by a still-lighted cigar butt that had been carelessly dropped near something (like a curtain, armchair, or carpet) that might easily catch fire. And the two intervening hours appeared reasonably to be the perfect amount of time needed to pass between the dropping of the cigar, the slow process of combustion, and the outbreak of flames. Not content with this explanation, dictated by common sense, some wanted at all costs to insinuate another that lent itself better to the purposes of those who wanted to take advantage of the situation to call into question the actions of the established authorities. People spoke, for example, of the presence in town of a dangerous affiliate of the Mazzinian faction, and we must not, moreover, forget that at the time, republican tremors were running through the island, to the point that Mazzini himself was arrested a few months later while attempting a clandestine landing at Palermo. Be that as it may, no trace whatsoever was found of this mysterious revolutionary’s passage through Vigàta, neither at the Royal Police Commissariat of Montelusa nor at the Constabulary of Vigàta. Officer Catalanotti, right-hand man of the notorious Puglisi, asserted for good measure that his superior had never so much as mentioned to him that he was aware of the presence in town of any violent agitator or presumed arsonist.
The book by the Honorable Paolino Fiannaca, titled Sicilian Battles, gives, moreover, generous credit to the republicans of Vigàta, who were nevertheless his political adversaries, and deems them above any suspicion of scurrility. The thesis of arson was, however, put forward (without anyone specific being assigned responsibility for the reprehensible act) by a young employee of the Property Insurers’ Assocation, according to whom the fire had been started when two ceramic piggy banks filled with kerosene and made to explode with lighted fuses were thrown under the stage of the theatre. The utterly fanciful nature of this reconstruction was demonstrated shortly thereafter by Dr. Meli, who had taken over the investigation following the violent death of Lieutenant Pu-glisi, having been assigned the task by Commissioner Colombo. Dr. Meli (who was to conclude his career in brilliant fashion by serving a high function at the Ministry of the Interior in Rome) irrefutably proved that those two piggy banks had belonged to the two young sons of the theatre’s custodian, who, with typically childish mistrust, had hidden them under the stage. Ultimate confirmation was at last established when investigators found, near the shards of the piggy banks, a number of small coins earlier overlooked due to the damages caused by the fire.
Directly and indirectly, this fire caused the painful, excruciating loss of three human lives.
And here I am forced to look ahead to an episode upon which I should rather not have dwelt, both for the gravity of the matter and for the ignoble stench emanating from it. In brief: the flames emitted by the blaze reached a small three-story building standing directly behind the theatre. Two people in it died, a young widow and a man who, at first glance, appeared to have lost his life in a generous attempt to save her. This, at least, was what might be inferred from the positions of the two bodies. In reality, however, the whole thing was a macabr
e, indeed ignoble, scene staged by Lieutenant Puglisi. The young widow had died in her sleep, asphyxiated by smoke, like the man, who was her lover and with whom she had enjoyed illicit sexual congress until a few moments before. Suborned by his mistress, who was the widow’s sister, Puglisi moved and manipulated the bodies in such a way as to make it seem as if the widow was alone in her bed and the man had tried to enter from the balcony to save her. Officer Catalanotti, however, became immediately aware of the obscene charade and, a few hours later, having fully established the facts confirming his correct hypothesis, drafted a memorandum, a report to Dr. Meli that unequivocally reestablished the truth.
One who did, on the other hand, lose his life in a generous attempt to save the young widow was Dr. Salvatore Gammacurta, one of Vigàta’s two medical doctors. Realizing that the flames were threatening the building behind the theatre, the doctor remembered that the widow, a patient of his, lived on the top floor, and tried to save her by climbing up a small mountain of salt that had been deposited almost directly against the rear wall of the dwelling. His attempt was cut short by a heart attack that struck him in the midst of his heroic, altruistic act. The wounds found on his body can be attributed, according to the autopsy conducted by the official physician of the commissariat, to the countless obstacles Gammacurta encountered in his ill-fated journey.
But we shall have ample opportunity to discuss this and other as yet unknown episodes in the chapters that follow.
Author’s Note
The Report on the Social and Economic Conditions of Sicily (1875–1876) (Inchiesta sulle condizioni sociali ed economiche della Sicilia)—not the similar study conducted by Franchetti and Sonnino, but the parliament’s own inquest—was finally published in 1969 by Cappelli publishers in Florence and immediately proved to be a gold mine for me. From the report’s questions, answers, observations, and quotations were born the novel Hunting Season (La stagione della caccia) and the essay The Bull of Reconciliation (La bolla di componenda).
The present novel increases my debt. In a hearing dated December 24, 1875, the researchers conducting the study listened to a journalist named Giovanni Mulè Bertòlo to learn about the attitude of the population of Caltanissetta towards the fledgling national government’s policies. At a certain point, the journalist says that things immediately began to improve upon the departure of the local prefect, a Florentine by the name of Fortuzzi who had become particularly despised by the population. He said: “Fortuzzi wanted to study Sicily through the engravings in books. But if a book had no plates, that didn’t matter . . . He was always shut up within four walls, with only three or four individuals around him, on whom he depended for advice.”
The last straw came the day when Fortuzzi, who was supposed to inaugurate the new theatre of Caltanissetta, insisted that the opera to be performed should be The Brewer of Preston. “He even wanted to impose his music on us, the barbarians of this city! And by paying for it with our money!” Giovanni Mulè Bertòlo exclaimed in indignation. And Fortuzzi succeeded, despite the opposition of local authorities. The best part of all this is that it was never found out why the Florentine prefect was so adamant about the Brewer. Naturally, there were numerous incidents during the inaugural performance. Among other things, a postal employee who had noisily expressed his disapproval was transferred the following day (“He had to quit his job because he had an annual salary of only 700 lire and couldn’t afford to leave Caltanissetta”), and the singers were overwhelmed by a booing, hissing audience.
Something even more serious must have happened, because the journalist says that, at a certain point, “mounted militiamen entered the theatre with armed troops.” But the parliamentary commission chose to gloss over the rest and moved on to another subject.
This story, however scanty in detail in the report, caught my attention, and I began to develop it. The result is this novel, which is entirely invented, aside from the point of departure, of course.
I thank Dirk Karsten van den Berg for having got hold of the libretto and score for Luigi Ricci’s The Brewer of Preston.
I dedicate this story to Alessandra, Arianna, and Francesco, who will read it when they grow up and, hopefully, will hear their grandfather’s voice in it.
A. C. (1995)
P. S.
Having got this far in the book—that is, to the Author’s Note at the end—what readers still remain will certainly have noticed by now that the chapter sequence I have presented here is merely a suggestion. Every reader is invited, if he or she so wishes, to establish his or her own personal order.
Notes
It was a frightful night, downright scary: A variation on the famous opening sentence of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1830 novel, Paul Clifford: “It was a dark and stormy night.” According to Camilleri, however, his reference here is the book-length comic by Charles M. Schulz, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, Snoopy. Schulz first used the quotation in a comic strip in 1965. The reader should note, moreover, that the opening sentence and title of each chapter of the present book either quotes the first line of a famous book or is a variation thereof. Each reference will be duly documented as the story progresses.
an acetylene lamp on some lost paranza: A paranza is a small fishing boat with a lateen sail and jib. The acetylene lamp is used to attract fish at night.
zolfatari: Sulphur miners.
A spectre is haunting the musicians of Europe: A play on the opening line of The Communist Manifesto (1848), by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: “A specter is haunting Europe: the specter of Communism.”
“the swan of Busseto’s”: A reference to Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), who was raised in the north Italian town of Busseto.
“Abietta zingara . . . Tacea la notte placida . . . Chi del gitano . . . Stride la vampa . . . Il balen del tuo sorriso . . . Di quella pira . . . Miserere”: The titles and first lines of famous arias from Verdi’s Il Trovatore (1853).
Una furtiva lacrima: Aria from Gaetano Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore (1832).
Una voce poco fa: Aria from Gioacchino Rossini’s Barber of Seville (1816).
“Ah, non credea mirarti”: Aria from act II, scene 2, of La Sonnambula (1831), by Vincenzo Bellini: Ah!, non credea mirarti / si presto estinto o fior; / passasti al par d’amore, / che un giorno sol durò / . . . / Potria novel vigore / il pianto mio recarti, / ma ravvivar l’amore / il pianto mio, ah no, no non può.
“Qui la voce sua soave”: Aria from act II of I Puritani (1835), by Vincenzo Bellini: Qui la voce sua soave / Mi chiamava e poi sparì. / Qui giurava esser fedele . . .
“Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni”: Aria from act I of La Sonnambula, by Vincenzo Bellini: Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni, / in cui lieti, in cui sereni / sì tranquillo i dì passai della prima della prima gioventù . . .
“Suoni la tromba e intrepido”: Aria from act II of I Puritani, by Vincenzo Bellini: Suoni la tromba e intrepido / io pugnerò da forte: / bello è affrontar la morte / gridando libertà . . .
Would he try to raise the mosquito net?: A slight variation on the opening line of Man’s Fate (La condition humaine) by André Malraux (first published in 1933): “Should he try to raise the mosquito-netting?” (translation by Haakon M. Chevalier).
pappataci: Phlebotomus papatasi, an Old-World species of sand fly.
he brought the fingers of his right hand together, a cacocciola, artichoke-like, and shook them up and down repeatedly: This phrase describes the typically Italian hand gesture that is meant to ask a question. It can variously mean: Why? What? Where? How? and so on, or, more specifically, What do you mean? or What’s wrong with you? or What are you doing? The gesture is used all around the Mediterrenean, by Spaniards, Arabs, Greeks, etc., but is most often associated with Italians, especially southern Italians. Cacocciola is Sicilian for “artichoke.”
Get me Emanuele: An oblique reference to the opening to Melville’s Moby-Dick: “Call me Ishmael.�
�� The reference is more recognizable in the original Italian text, since “get me” and “call me” both translate as “chiamami.” Thus “Chiamami Ismaele,” the start of the Italian translation of Moby-Dick, becomes “Chiamami Emanuele.”
Cavalier Dottor Eugenio Bortuzzi: In Italy, the title of “doctor” or dottore is conferred upon anyone with a university degree. “Cavaliere” is an honorific title (“Knight”) conferred on the bearer by the government.
ragioniere Ilio Ginnanneschi: Ragioniere is a title given those who complete a course of study (usually two years) in ragioneria, a sort of low-level accounting degree.
“Ah, how splendid our unified Italy is!”: In the wake of the unification of Italy in 1870, government posts in the South were often filled by people from the Italian mainland: “. . . postmaster Ugo Bordin, from the Veneto, the dottor Carlo Alberto Pautasso, Esq., of Asti, director of the tax office, and the ragioniere Ilio Ginnanneschi, of Prato, an employee at the land registry.” By having these same Northern Italians provide Don Memè with his alibi, Camilleri is wryly pointing to the national effort at corruption in the fledgling Italian state, for which Southerners alone are often scapegoated.
The Brewer of Preston_A Novel Page 20