The House of Scorta Read online

  The House of Scorta

  Laurent Gaudé

  Translated from the French by

  Stephen Sartarelli and Sophie Hawkes

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-59692-827-5

  for more great titles visit:

  www.mppublishing.co.uk

  M P Publishing Limited

  12 Strathallan Crescent

  Douglas

  Isle of Man

  IM2 4NR

  British Isles

  Telephone: +44 (0)1624 618672

  email: [email protected]

  Originally published by:

  MacAdam Cage

  155 Sansome Street, Suite 550

  San Francisco, CA 94104

  www.MacAdamCage.com

  Copyright © 2002 by Laurent Gaudé ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  Gaudé, Laurent. [Soleil des Scorta. English] The House of Scorta / by Laurent Gaudé;

  translated from the French by Stephen Sartarelli and Sophie Hawkes.

  57 'chapters' 10 parts

  ISBN1-59692-159-5(hardcover:alk.paper) I.Sartarelli, Stephen,1954-II. Hawkes, Sophie. III. Title.

  Book design by Dorothy Carico Smith

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  MACADAM CAGE

  For Elio

  A bit of the sun of these lands

  flows in your veins.

  May it light up your eyes.

  Author’s Note

  When I finished this book, my thoughts went out to all those people who, by opening the doors to these lands for me, made it possible for me to write it. My parents, who passed on to me their love of Italy. Alexandra, who led me to discover the South of the peninsula and afforded me the pleasure and honor of seeing it through her loving, sunlit eyes. Renato, Franca, Nonna Miuccia, Zia Sina, Zia Graziella, Domenico, Carmela, Lino, Mariella, Antonio, Federica, Emilia, Antonio, and Angelo, for their hospitality and warmth; the stories they told me; the dishes they allowed me to savor; the hours spent in their company on fragrant summer days; and for what they conveyed to me, without even realizing, about a way of belonging to life that I find only in these lands and which always overwhelms me. I hope they will all recognize a bit of themselves in these pages. It would only be right, since they were there with me during all those hours as I struggled alone with each page. These lines were written for them. My only wish is that my words express how precious those moments under the Apulian sun were to me.

  Winner of France’s most prestigious literary award, Laurent Gaudé’s The House of Scorta spans five generations in a small village in southern Italy.

  Beginning in 1870 with Rocco Scorta Mascalzone, a notorious brigand who leaves his children penniless, the saga of the Scortas is one of infamous crimes, forsaken loves, and lifelong secrets. Years of struggle produce only a small family-owned tobacco shop, but the family’s real wealth lies in a storehouse of memories and a stubborn pride in its own power.

  Presented in a stunning, stark style, this epic tells the story of a family slowly rising from ruin.

  Camminiamo una sera sul fianco di un colle,

  In silenzio. Nell’ombra del tardo crepuscolo

  Mio cugino è un gigante vestito di bianco

  Che si muove pacato, abbronzato nel volto,

  Taciturno. Tacere è la nostra virtù.

  Qualche nostro antenato dev’essere ben solo —

  un grand’uomo tra idioti o un povero folle—

  per insegnare ai suoi tanto silenzio.

  We’re walking one evening on the flank of a hill

  in silence. In the shadows of dusk

  my cousin’s a giant dressed all in white,

  moving serenely, face bronzed by the sun,

  not speaking. We have a talent for silence.

  Some ancestor of ours must have been quite a loner —

  a great man among fools or a crazy old bum —

  to have taught his descendants such silence.

  —CESARE PAVESE, from “I mari del Sud” (“South Seas”), in Lavorare stanca;

  English translation by Geoffrey Brock (Copper Canyon Press).

  The House of Scorta

  A novel by Laurent Gaudé

  Contents

  Part 1 The Hot Stones of Destiny

  Part 2 Rocco’s Curse

  Part 3 The Paupers’ Return

  Part 4 The Silent Ones’ Tobacco Shop

  Part 5 The Banquet

  Part 6 The Sun-Eaters

  Part 7 The Sinking Sun

  Part 8 Tarantella

  Part 9 Earthquake

  Part 10 The Procession of Sant’Elia

  PART I

  THE HOT STONES OF DESTINY

  The heat of the sun seemed to split the earth open. Not a breath of wind rustled the olive trees. Nothing moved. The scent of the hills had vanished. The rocks crackled with heat. August weighed down on the Gargano massif

  1 with the self-assurance of an overlord. It was impossible to believe that rain had ever fallen on these lands, that water had once irrigated the fields and quenched the olive groves. Impossible to believe that any animal or plant could have ever found sustenance under this arid sky. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and the earth was condemned to burn.

  A donkey trudged along a dusty path. Resigned, it followed every curve in the road. Nothing could impede its progress. Not the burning air it breathed, not the jagged stones mangling its hooves. On it went. Its rider was like a shade condemned to an ancient torment. Dazed with heat, the man didn’t move. He left it up to his mount to lead them both to the end of that road. The animal performed its task with a blind force of will. Slowly, step by step, lacking the strength ever to quicken its pace, the donkey ate up the miles. The rider was muttering, his words evaporating in the heat. “Nothing can stop me… The sun can kill all the lizards in these hills, but I’ll hang on. I’ve been waiting too long… The earth can hiss and my hair catch fire, but I’m on my way, and I won’t stop till I’ve reached the end.”

  Thus the hours went by, in a furnace that consumed all color. At last, behind a bend, the sea came into view. “Here we are, at the ends of the earth,” the man thought. “I’ve been dreaming of this moment for fifteen years.”

  The sea lay motionless, like a puddle, as if its only purpose were to reflect the sun’s power. The road had not passed through any villages or intersected any other roads, but only plunged further and further into the land. The sudden appearance of that immobile sea, sparkling with heat, made it clear that the path led nowhere. Yet the donkey went on at the same slow, decisive pace, ready to plunge into the water if his master asked him to. The rider didn’t move. He felt dizzy. Perhaps he had made a mistake. There was only a maze of hills and sea, as far as the eye could see. “I took the wrong road,” he thought. “I should already be able to see the town. Unless it moved away. That must be it. It must have sensed I was coming and moved, into the sea, so that I couldn’t get to it. I’ll dive into the waves if I have to, but I won’t give in. I’ll go on till I’ve reached the end. I want my revenge.”

  The donkey reached the top of what seemed like the last hill on earth. That was when they saw Montepuccio. The man smiled. He could take in the whole town at a glance. A small, white town, with houses huddled together high on a promontory overlooking the deep calm of the sea. This human presence in so barren a landscape must have seemed comical to the donkey, but the animal did not laugh and kept on walking.

  When they’d reached the town’s first houses, th
e man said under his breath, “If a single one of them tries to prevent me from passing, I’ll crush him with my fist.” He carefully studied every street corner, but he was soon reassured. He had made the right decision. At that hour of the afternoon, the village was dead. The streets were deserted, the shutters closed. Even the dogs had vanished. It was siesta time, and were the earth itself to tremble, not a soul would venture outside. There was a legend in town that told of how one day, at this hour, a man returning late from the fields crossed the central square. By the time he’d reached the shade of the houses, the sun had driven him mad. As though its rays had burnt his brain. Everyone in Montepuccio believed this story. The square was small, but to cross it at this time of day was to welcome certain death.

  The donkey and his rider went slowly up what, at the time, in 1875, was still the Via Nuova, but would later become the Corso Garibaldi. The rider clearly knew where he was going. Nobody saw him. He didn’t even come across any of the scrawny cats that usually prowl for rubbish in the gutters. He made no attempt to put his donkey in the shade or to sit himself down on a bench. On he went, obstinate and terrifying. “Nothing has changed here,” he muttered. “Same lousy streets. Same filthy houses.”

  That was when Father Zampanelli saw him. The village priest, whom everyone called don Giorgio, had forgotten his prayer book in the little plot of land next to the church that he used as a kitchen garden. He’d worked there for two hours that morning, and it had just dawned on him that he’d left the book on the wooden chair near the tool shed. He’d gone outside the way one does during a storm, body hunched, eyes squinting, determined to be as quick as possible to avoid exposing his mortal flesh to the heat that drives people mad. That was when he saw the donkey and its rider making their way up the Via Nuova. Don Giorgio paused for a moment and made the sign of the cross. Then he ran back behind the heavy wooden doors of his church to protect himself from the sun. Surprisingly, he didn’t think to raise the alarm or call out to the stranger to find out who he was or what he wanted (travelers were a rare sight, and don Giorgio knew everyone in town by first name). In fact, once back in his cell, he gave it no further thought. He lay down and sank into the dreamless sleep of summer siestas. He had crossed himself at the sight of the rider as if to dispel an apparition. Don Giorgio had not recognized Luciano Mascalzone. How could he? The man looked nothing like before. He was about forty years old, but had the hollow cheeks of an old man.

  Luciano Mascalzone rode down the narrow streets of the old, sleeping village. “It took a while, but I came back. I’m here. None of you know it yet, because you’re sleeping. I’m riding past your houses, under your windows. You suspect nothing. I’m here, and I’ve come to get my due.” He ambled along until his donkey came to a sudden stop—as if the old beast had always known that this was where it was supposed to go, where its struggle against the sun’s fire would end. It stopped right in front of the Biscotti house and didn’t move. The man hopped to the ground with a strange agility and knocked on the door. “Here I am again,” he thought. “Fifteen years, gone just like that.” An infinity seemed to pass. Luciano was about to knock a second time when the door slowly opened. A woman of about forty stood before him. In her dressing gown. She stared at him a long time, saying nothing. Her face bore no expression. No fear, no joy, no surprise. She looked straight into his eyes as if to gauge what was about to happen. Luciano didn’t move. He seemed to be waiting for a sign from the woman, a gesture, a wrinkling of the brow. He waited and waited, his body stiffening. “If she moves to shut the door,” he thought, “if she recoils even a little, I’m going to pounce, kick in the door, and rape her.” He didn’t take his eyes off her. He was looking for the slightest sign to break the silence. “She’s even more beautiful than I’d imagined. I won’t die for nothing today.” He could make out her body under the dressing gown, and this aroused a violent hunger in him. She said nothing. She’d recognized the man standing before her, but his presence here, on her doorstep, was an enigma she didn’t even try to comprehend. She simply let the past resurface in her memory. Luciano Mascalzone. It was certainly him. After fifteen years. She studied him, feeling neither hatred nor love. She already belonged to him. There was no fighting it. She belonged to him. Because, after fifteen years, he’d come back and knocked at her door. It didn’t matter what he asked of her. She would give. She would consent right there on her doorstep. She would consent to anything.

  To break the silence and stillness around them, she took her hand off the doorknob. This simple gesture was enough for Luciano. He could now read in her face that she was not afraid, and he could do with her what he wished. He went inside with a light step, as if not wanting to leave any scent in the air.

  A dusty, dirty man stepped into the Biscotti household, at an hour when lizards dream they are fish, and the stones have nothing to say about it.

  Luciano entered the Biscotti home. It would cost him his life. He knew this. He knew that when he came back out, people would be in the streets again, life would be back in full swing with its laws and its battles, and he would have to pay. He knew they would recognize him. And kill him. Coming back to this village, entering this house, meant death. He’d thought about all this. He’d chosen to come at the crushing hour when the sun blinds even the cats, for he knew that if the streets had not been deserted, he would never have made it as far as the main square. He knew all this, but did not flinch at his certain demise. He entered the house.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the shadows. She had her back to him. He followed her down a corridor that seemed endless. They entered a small room. There wasn’t a sound. The coolness of the walls felt like a caress to him. He took her in his arms. She said nothing as he undressed her. When he saw her naked before him, he could not help but whisper, “Filomena…” A shudder ran through her whole body. He paid no mind. He had all he wanted. He was doing what he had vowed to do. He was living out a scene he’d imagined a thousand times. Fifteen years in prison, thinking only of this. He had always believed that when he finally undressed this woman, he would experience a thrill greater than any physical joy. The thrill of vengeance. But he’d been wrong. There was no vengeance. There were only the two heavy breasts he held in the palms of his hands. There was only the scent of a woman, heady and warm, enveloping him whole. He had so wished for this moment that he now plunged into it headlong, losing himself, forgetting the rest of the world. Forgetting the sun, the revenge, the dark gaze of the village.

  When he took her between the cool sheets of the great bed, she sighed like a virgin, a smile of astonishment and pleasure on her lips, and surrendered herself without a struggle.

  All his life, Luciano Mascalzone had been what the people of the region, spitting on the ground, called “a bandit.” He lived on poaching, plunder, and highway robbery. He may have even killed a few poor souls along the roads of the Gargano, but this was not known for certain. People told many stories that could not be confirmed. One thing, however, was certain: He had embraced la mala vita,

  2 and was a man to keep away from.

  At the height of his glory — the peak of his career as a scoundrel — Luciano Mascalzone came often to Montepuccio. He was not a native, but he liked the town and spent the better part of his time there. It was here that he first saw Filomena Biscotti. The girl, from a modest but respectable family, became a veritable obsession, but he knew that his reputation prevented him from entertaining any hope of ever making her his own. So he began desiring her the way scoundrels desire women. To possess her, if only for one night. The idea made his eyes sparkle in the late-afternoon light. Yet fate denied him this brutal pleasure. One ignominious morning, five carabinieri

  3 nabbed him at the inn where he was staying and hauled him away. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Montepuccio forgot him, happy to be rid of this good-for-nothing who ogled their daughters.

  In prison, Luciano Mascalzone had all the time he needed to think about his life. He had d
evoted himself to petty thievery. What had he accomplished? Nothing. What memories of his past exploits were worth reliving in his prison cell? None. A life had gone by, empty, with nothing at stake. He’d aspired to nothing, and also failed at nothing, since he’d undertaken nothing. Little by little, in the vast expanse of boredom that had been his existence, his desire for Filomena Biscotti began to seem like the only island, the only thing that redeemed the rest. When he had followed her in the streets, trembling, he’d felt so alive he could suffocate. It made up for everything else. And so he had vowed that when he got out, he would sate this brutal lust, the only one he’d ever known. Whatever the price. He would possess Filomena Biscotti and die. Nothing else mattered. Nothing.

  Luciano Mascalzone came out of Filomena Biscotti’s house without having exchanged a single word with her. They had fallen asleep side by side, fatigued by lovemaking. He slept better than he had for a long time. An untroubled sleep. A deep slaking of the flesh, a rich man’s siesta, free of care.

  He found his donkey outside the door, still coated with the dust of the journey. At that moment, he knew that the countdown had begun. He was heading to his death without hesitation. The heat had abated. The town had come back to life. Outside the doors of the neighboring houses, little old women dressed in black sat in rickety chairs, chatting in low voices, commenting on the incongruous presence of that donkey, trying to guess who its owner might be. Luciano’s sudden appearance stunned the old women into silence. He smiled to himself. Everything was as he’d imagined it. “These fools of Montepuccio haven’t changed,” he thought. “What do they think? That I’m afraid of them? That I’m going to try and get away from them? I no longer fear anyone. They will kill me today, but that’s not enough to frighten me. I’ve come too far for that. I’m untouchable. Can’t they understand that? I’m far out of reach of the blows they will surely deal me. I have known pleasure. In that woman’s arms. And it’s better that it all end right here, because from now on life will be as dull and sad as an empty bottle.” At this point he thought of a final provocation to defy the prying stares of the neighborhood women and show them he feared nothing. He ostentatiously buttoned his fly in front of the door. Then he remounted his donkey and headed back the way he’d come. Behind him he heard the old women pipe up again, louder than before. Word was out and beginning to spread, from house to house, terrace to balcony, broadcast by those old, toothless mouths. The buzz grew behind him. He passed through the central square of Montepuccio again. The café tables were out. Men here and there were conversing. They all fell silent as he passed. But the voices behind him only grew louder. Who was he? Where’d he come from? Then a few of them recognized him. Luciano Mascalzone. “Yes, that’s me all right,” he thought to himself as he passed before their incredulous faces. “Don’t waste your energy staring at me like that. It’s me, you can be sure of it. Do what you’re burning to do, or let me pass, but don’t keep looking at me like cows. I’m walking among you. I’m not trying to flee. You are flies. Big, ugly flies. I brush you away with the back of my hand.” Luciano rode down the Via Nuova, a silent crowd following behind him. The men of Montepuccio had left their outdoor café tables while the women stationed themselves on their balconies and called down to him, “Luciano Mascalzone! Is that really you? You son of a bitch, you’ve got balls to come back here.” “Luciano! Lift up your head, you swine, so I can see if it’s really you.” He didn’t answer. He stared at the horizon, sullen, without quickening his pace. “The women will shout,” he thought, “and the men will strike. I know all this.” The mob grew more insistent, some twenty men now hard on his heels. And all along the Via Nuova, the women continued to cry out at Luciano, clutching their children between their legs, crossing themselves as he passed. In front of the church, where don Giorgio had spotted him a few hours earlier, a voice louder than the rest rang out: “Today’s the day you die, Mascalzone!” Only then did he turn his head, allowing the whole village to see the horrific smile of defiance on his lips. It chilled them all. That smile told them that he knew, and that he despised them more than anything. That he’d gotten what he’d come for and would take his pleasure to the grave. A few children, frightened by the wayfarer’s grimace, started crying. And all at once, in a single voice, the mothers let fly their pious injunction, “He’s the devil!”