The House of Scorta

by Laurent Gaudé

  “Do you realize what you are condemning them to?” asked the priest, who wanted to see this through to the end.

  “Yes,” Rocco answered coldly. “To life. Without rest.”

  Don Giorgio felt the weariness of the vanquished.

  “So be it. I accept your gift. Everything you own. Your whole fortune. So be it. But don’t imagine you’re redeeming yourself by this.”

  “I don’t, Father. I can’t buy eternal rest. There could never be any for me. I want something else in return.”

  “What now?” asked the priest, who was at the end of his tether.

  “I’m bequeathing the largest fortune Montepuccio has ever seen to the church. In exchange, I humbly ask that my family be buried like princes, in spite of the poverty that will be their lot from now on. Nothing more. After me, the Scortas will live in misery, since I am leaving them nothing. But their funerals must be as grand as possible. At the expense of the Church, to whom I am giving everything, so that she may honor her word. Let her bury us, one after the other, in procession. Make no mistake, don Giorgio. It’s not out of pride that I ask you this. It’s for Montepuccio. I am going to found a line of starvelings. They will be scorned. I know the Montepuccians. They respect only money. Reduce them to silence by burying the poorest among them with the pomp accorded great lords. The last shall be the first. Let this be true in Montepuccio at least. Generation after generation. Let the Church remember her vow. And may all of Montepuccio take their hats off when the procession of the Mascalzones passes.”

  Rocco Scorta’s eyes shone with a demented gleam that made one think nobody could resist him. The old priest went to look for a sheet of paper and wrote down the terms of their agreement. When the ink had dried, he handed the paper to Rocco, who signed it and said: “Let it be thus.”

  The sun was already warming the façade of the church, its light flooding the countryside. Rocco Scorta and don Giorgio had spent the whole night talking. They parted without a word, without an embrace, as if they would see each other again that very evening.

  Rocco went home. His family was already up. He didn’t say a word. He ran his hand through his daughter’s hair. Surprised by this unfamiliar gesture of affection, little Carmela looked at him wide-eyed and thoughtful. He then took to his bed and never got up again. He would not let them call a doctor. When the Mute, seeing the end draw near, wanted to go call the priest, he held her back by the arm and said, “Let don Giorgio sleep. He’s had a hard night.” The most he would accept was to let his wife send for two old women to help her keep watch over him. It was they who spread the news. “Rocco Scorta is on his deathbed. Rocco Scorta is dying.” The townsfolk didn’t believe it. Everyone remembered seeing him the day before, receptive, elegant, and strong. How could death have crept into his bones so fast?

  The rumor now ran rampant. The townsfolk, their curiosity piqued, finally climbed the road to the property. They wanted to know the truth. A long column of rubberneckers crowded around the house. After a while, the boldest among them went inside. They were soon followed by everyone else. An inquisitive throng burst into the house, and it was unclear whether they were there to pay homage to the dying man or simply to confirm, to their relief, that he was indeed breathing his last.

  When he saw the mob of townsfolk enter, Rocco sat up in bed. He gathered his remaining strength. His face was white, his body gaunt. He watched the crowd around him. There were sparks of rage in his eyes. Nobody dared make a move. Then the dying man began to speak:

  “I am going down into my grave. The list of my crimes drags over my steps like a long mantle. I am Rocco Scorta Mascalzone, and I smile with pride. You expect remorse from me. You expect me to get down on my knees and pray for redemption. To beseech the Lord for clemency and beg pardon of those I have wronged. I spit on the ground. God’s mercy is easy water for cowards to wash their faces in. I ask for nothing. I know what I’ve done, and I know what you’re thinking. You go to your churches. You look at the frescoes of Hell that are painted there for your credulous minds. The little devils pulling in the tarnished souls by their feet, monsters with horns and cloven goat-feet gleefully tearing apart their tortured bodies. Spanking them, biting them, wringing them like dolls. The damned beg forgiveness. They get down on their knees and implore like women. But the demons with animal eyes know no pity. And you love it, because that is how it’s supposed to be. You love it because you see justice in it. As I go down to my grave, you doom me to this unending medley of torments and cries. ‘Rocco will soon suffer the punishment we see in the frescoes in our churches,’ you tell yourselves. ‘For all eternity.’ But I am not trembling. I’m smiling the same smile that so often chilled you to the bone while I was alive. I am not afraid of your frescoes. Those little devils have never haunted my nights. I have sinned. I have killed and raped. Who ever stayed my hand? Who ever cast me down into nothingness to rid the earth of my presence? Nobody. The clouds continued to pass through the sky. On the days I stained my hands with blood, the weather was beautiful. Beautiful with a light that is like a pact between God and the world. What sort of pact can there be in the world I inhabit? None. The heavens are empty, and I can die smiling. I am a fivefooted monster. I have a hyena’s eyes and a killer’s hands. I have made God withdraw everywhere I went. He has stepped aside to let me pass, just as you have done, in the streets of Montepuccio, holding your children tight. Today it is raining, and I leave the world without looking back. I have drunk. I have known pleasure. I have belched in the silence of churches. I have greedily devoured everything I could get my hands on. Today should be a day of celebration. The heavens should have opened, the angels’ trumpets should have blasted in celebration of the news of my death. But there’s nothing. It’s raining. As if God were sad to see me go. Rubbish. I’ve lived a long time because the world is made in my image. It’s all topsy turvy. I am a man. Rocco Scorta Mascalzone. I have no hope. I eat what I can. And you who despise me, you who condemn me to the most terrible torments, in the end you pronounced my name with admiration. The money I amassed has a lot to do with that. For though you spit on my crimes, you cannot help but feel in your hearts man’s ancient, stinking respect for gold. Yes. And I’ve got a lot of it. More than any among you. I do. And I’m leaving nothing. I shall vanish with my knives, laughing like a thief. I’ve always done what I wanted, throughout my life. I am Rocco Scorta Mascalzone. Rejoice, I am dying.”

  When he’d finished saying his last words, he fell back in his bed. His strength had abandoned him. He died with his eyes open. Amidst the silence of the dumbstruck townsfolk. There was no death-rattle, no groaning. He died looking straight ahead.

  The burial was arranged for the following day. That was when Montepuccio got its biggest surprise. From the heights of the Scorta domain came the piercing music of a funeral procession, and moments later the townsfolk saw a long cortege of black-clad people enter the village, Father Zampanelli at its head, shaking a fine silver censer that filled the streets with a heavy, holy scent. The coffin was borne by six men. The town’s patron saint, Sant’Elia, carried by six others, had been brought out for the occasion. The musicians played the saddest dirges of the land, slowly, in the cadenced tempo of a march. Never before had anyone been buried this way in Montepuccio. The procession went up the Corso, came to a stop in the central square, swept into the narrow streets of the old town, then circled back into the main square, stopped again, marched back down the Corso, and finally entered the church. Then, after a brief ceremony during which the priest announced that Rocco Scorta Mascalzone had bequeathed his entire fortune to the Church—triggering a buzz of astonishment and comment—the procession set off again to the poignant sounds of the brass section. The church bells punctuated the band’s plaintive melodies. The whole village was there. And the same questions arose in everyone’s mind: Was it really his entire fortune? How much was it worth? What would the priest do with it? What would become of the Mute? And the three children? They studied the poor woman’s f
ace, trying to guess if she’d been aware of her husband’s last wishes, but could glean nothing from the widow’s tired features. The whole village was there, and Rocco Scorta smiled in his grave. It had taken his entire lifetime, but he had achieved what he’d wanted all along. To have Montepuccio under his thumb. To hold the whole town in the palm of his hand. By means of money, since money was the only way. And just when these clods thought they understood him, when they actually began to like him, to call him “don Rocco,” when they had started paying homage to his fortune and kissing his hands, he’d thrown it all away in a great burst of laughter. That was what he’d wanted all along. Yes, Rocco smiled in his grave, no longer worrying about what he was leaving behind.

  For the people of Montepuccio, it was clear. Rocco Scorta had transformed the curse that hung over his line. The Mascalzone were a race of bastards condemned to madness. Rocco had been the first, but the rest, no doubt, would have it worse. By giving away his fortune, Rocco Scorta was hoping to alter this curse. His family, henceforth, would no longer be mad, but poor. And for all of Montepuccio, that seemed respectable. Rocco Scorta had not escaped. It was a high price to pay, but it was just. It gave his children a chance to be good Christians.

  The three children huddled together before their father’s grave. Raffaele was there too, holding Carmela’s hand. They weren’t crying. None of them felt real grief over the death of their father. It wasn’t sorrow that made them clench their jaws; it was hatred. They understood that everything had been taken away from them, and that from now on the only thing they could count on was their own strength. They understood that a savage will had condemned them to poverty, and that this will was their father’s. Domenico, Giuseppe, and Carmela stared at the hole in the ground at their feet and felt as if their whole lives were being buried. How would they get by tomorrow? With what money? And where, since even the farm had been given away? How strong would they have to be to fight the battles that awaited them? They remained huddled together, full of hatred for the days ahead. They understood. They already felt it in the way the others were looking at them: from now on, they were poor. So poor they could die.

  I love coming here. I’ve come here so many times. It’s an old plot of land where only wild grasses grow, swept by the wind. You can still see a few lights in the town, just barely. And the tip of the church steeple, over there. There’s nothing here. Just this old wooden bench, half-sunk into the ground. This is where I wanted to bring you, don Salvatore. This is where I’d like for us to sit. Do you know what this piece of furniture is? It’s the old confessional from the church, the one that was used in the days of don Giorgio. Your predecessor replaced it. The movers took it out of the church and left it here. No one has touched it since. It has deteriorated. The paint is gone, the wood has aged. It has sunk into the earth. I often sit here. It’s from my time.

  I don’t want to confess, don Salvatore, don’t misunderstand me. If I’ve brought you here, if I’ve asked you to sit here beside me on this old wooden bench, it’s not because I want your blessing. The Scortas never confess. My father was the last. Don’t frown, I’m not insulting you. It’s just that I am Rocco’s daughter, and while I’ve hated him for a long time now, that doesn’t change a thing. His blood flows in my veins.

  I remember him on his deathbed. His body glistened with sweat. He was pale. Death was already coursing under his skin. He took a moment to look around him. The whole village was packed inside the tiny room. His eyes glanced over his wife, his children, and the crowd of people he had terrorized, and he said with a dying man’s smile, “Rejoice, I am dying.” Those words stung me as if I had been slapped in the face. “Rejoice, I am dying.” The people of Montepuccio certainly did rejoice, but the three of us standing at his bedside stared at him blankly. What joy would this bring us? Why should we rejoice at his departure? His words were addressed to us all, without distinction. Rocco had always been alone against the rest of the world. I should have despised him. I should have hated him as only offended children can hate. But I couldn’t, don Salvatore. I remembered a gesture he once made. Just before taking to his deathbed, he ran his hand through my hair, without a word. Something he never did. He passed his manly hand over my head, softly, and I never knew if this gesture was yet another curse or a sign of affection. I could never decide. I ended up thinking that it was both things at once. He caressed me the way a father caresses his daughter, and he left grief in my hair as an enemy would have done. By this gesture I became my father’s daughter. He did not do it to my brothers. I am the only one to have been marked. All the weight has been on me. I am my father’s only daughter. Domenico and Giuseppe were born quietly as the years went by. As if no parent had brought them into the world. For me, there was that gesture. He chose me. I am proud of this, and that he might have done it to damn me doesn’t change a thing. Can you understand this? I am Rocco’s daughter, don Salvatore. Don’t expect me to confess. The pact between the church and the Scortas has been broken. I brought you to this open-air confessional because I didn’t want to meet you in church. I didn’t want to speak to you with my head bowed, my voice trembling like a penitent’s. This sort of place is appropriate for the Scortas. The wind is blowing and night surrounds us. No one can hear us, only the stones that echo our voices. The years haven’t been kind to the wood we are sitting on. These shiny boards have heard so many confessions, they’ve been burnished by the sorrows of the world. Thousands of timid voices have whispered their crimes here, admitted their sins, revealed their ugliness. This is where don Giorgio listened to them. This is where he listened to my father until he felt sick to his stomach, the evening he confessed. So many words, don Salvatore, have seeped into these boards. On windy evenings like this, I can hear them resurfacing. Thousands of guilty whispers, accumulated over the years. Stifled sobs, shameful confessions. They all come out, like great mists of sorrow with which the wind scents the hills. That helps me. This is the only place I can speak. On this old bench. Only here. But I’m not confessing. Idon’t expect any blessings from you. I’m not asking to be washed clean of my sins. They are there, inside me. I shall carry them to my grave. But I want things to be said. And then I will disappear. Leaving maybe a scent behind, in the wind on summer evenings. The scent of a life that will blend with the smell of the rocks and wild grasses.

  PART III

  THE PAUPERS’ RETURN

  “Wait!” cried Giuseppe, “wait!” Domenico and Carmela stopped, turned round, and beheld their brother hopping on one foot a few yards behind them.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Domenico.

  “I’ve got a pebble in my shoe.”

  He sat down at the side of the road and began untying his shoelaces.

  “It’s been torturing me for at least two hours,” he added.

  “Two hours?” asked Domenico.

  “Yes,” confirmed Giuseppe.

  “And you can’t put up with it a little longer? We’re almost there.”

  “Do you want me to be limping when I make my reentry into town?”

  In a peremptory tone, Domenico let fly a resounding “Ma vaffanculo!”

  6 Their sister burst out laughing. They took a break at the side of the road. Deep down they were happy to have a chance to catch their breath and contemplate the distance still left to travel.

  They blessed the little pebble tormenting Giuseppe; it was the excuse they’d been waiting for. Giuseppe removed his shoe slowly, to savor the moment. Montepuccio now lay at their feet. They gazed down at their native village with a kind of hunger in their eyes, and the apprehension that emigrants feel at the moment of their return—the old, irrepressible fear that during their absence, everything had disappeared. That the streets would no longer look the same, and the people they’d known were gone or, worse yet, would greet them with frowns of disgust and sidelong glances, as if to say, “Oh, you again?” There by the side of the road, they all shared this fear, and the pebble in Giuseppe’s shoe was the tool of Providence. T
hey wanted time to take in the town at a glance, catch their breath, and make the sign of the Cross before beginning their descent.

  Scarcely a year had passed since their departure, but they had aged. Their faces had hardened. Their eyes had acquired a harsh strength. A whole life had gone by: a life of anguish, scrapping, and unexpected joy.

  Domenico—whom everyone called “ Mimì vaffanculo” because every statement that came out of his mouth ended with that injunction, which he uttered in a drawling manner as though it was not an insult but a new form of punctuation—Domenico had become a man. He looked ten years older than his age. He had a thick, unhandsome face and a piercing gaze that seemed made for gauging the worth of the person he was talking to. He was strong, with broad hands, but all his energy went into sizing up, as quickly as possible, the person in front of him. “Can I trust this man?”“Is there any money to be made here?” Such questions no longer formed in his mind; they had, as it were, entered his blood. Giuseppe, for his part, had retained his childish features. Two years Domenico’s junior, he still had a round, chubby face despite the months that had passed. Within their little group, he instinctively concentrated his whole being on defusing conflicts. He was often cheerful and had so much confidence in his brother and sister that he rarely lost hope in tomorrow. His nickname was “Peppe pancia piena,”

  7 because having a full belly was the state he loved most in life. To eat his fill, and beyond, was his obsession. A day was considered good when one had eaten a meal worthy of the name. And if there were two decent meals, the day was exceptional and put Giuseppe in a good mood that might last several days. How many times, on the road that took them from Naples to Montepuccio, had he smiled when remembering a plate of gnocchi or pasta he’d devoured the previous day? He would start talking to himself, in the dust of the journey, smiling blissfully, as though he no longer felt tired but had found some inner, joyous strength that would make him suddenly cry out: “Madonna, che pasta!…”