When the monologue was over, the lead actress made her entrance, an extraordinarily ugly woman of equally remarkable talent. Ricciardi guessed that she must be the lead actor’s sister, given the resemblance between them, and he absentmindedly thought that it must be quite a savings, to have a family-run theater troupe. The audience was delighted: the duet was brilliant, the pace was good and quick, the jokes were dry and salacious; everyone was laughing except for Signor and Signora Serra, the policemen, and Antonietta, dreamily chasing after who knew what visions.
After a while, hard on the heels of the exchange of banter, Romor made his entrance. The main character greeted him with a sarcastic phrase, prompting the audience to break into a thunderous burst of laughter. Ricciardi remembered the actor mentioning how much the man disliked him, and he now saw that he wasn’t overstating the case. In the row in front of him, three young women, showing no regard for their dates, whispered something among themselves and giggled nervously; the man had a following. When silence returned, the actor took a step forward, ready to speak his line; and then something unexpected happened.
Even from backstage, as he was awaiting the moment to make his entrance, Attilio had realized that the front-row box was occupied once again. That box had been empty for many nights now, and he had grown accustomed to the resulting feelings of uncertainty, doubt, and loneliness. Like a lamb to the slaughter, night after night, he had been forced to submit to the damned lead actor’s mockery, without a chance to fight back, without any hope of revenge.
But tonight, the last night of all, Emma had returned. He’d seen her, and she was alone, no longer shielded by a girlfriend. That could only mean one thing: that she had decided to live up to her word, to meet him there so they could run away and start a new life together, in defiance of fears and social conventions. He was radiant as he strode on stage. Let that conceited mountebank take his last sadistic pleasure; he was beyond caring now.
When Attilio made his entrance, Emma practically leaned out over the balustrade of the box. She was looking at the stage, but to an even greater extent, she was looking inside herself. She searched for the echo of the passion that she thought she could feel just fifteen minutes earlier. But she felt nothing. The man she had once loved more than anyone in the world suddenly seemed like a perfect stranger. She clearly understood that he no longer meant a thing to her, and in a flash she realized that their affair was well and truly over. She wondered whether this was what Calise had seen in her tarot cards that last séance; and, just as she was thinking of Calise, she heard the old woman’s voice down in the orchestra seats. Behind her, Ruggero took a step forward, raising his hand to his overcoat pocket.
At first, Ricciardi thought he was having a vision. Not wanting to miss Emma’s reactions or even the slightest movement from Ruggero, he had turned his attention away from the stage and the orchestra seating. In complete silence, the audience was waiting for the next line, while the performers acted out a moment of discomfiture following Romor’s entrance. Suddenly, the stillness was broken by a loud voice that he instantly recognized as the voice of Calise’s ghost. He turned like a shot and a bloodcurdling image met his eyes.
Antonietta had risen to her feet. Hunched over, she’d shrunken in size: her legs were slightly bowed, her head tilted to one side at an almost unnatural angle; her left hand was dangling motionless at her side, while her right hand sketched out an uncertain, flailing gesture, almost as if she were trying to drive someone away or ward something off. Her normally obtuse expression had taken on a melancholy air, so that she seemed in thrall to some terrible memory.
A hoarse sound issued from her throat; even Ricciardi, a man accustomed to horrors of all kinds, would never forget the words that emerged, loud and clear, from the deformed mouth of that girl who had never spoken in her life.
“’O Padreterno nun è mercante ca pava ’o sabbato.”
God Almighty’s not a shopkeeper who pays His debts on Saturday.
All the spectators had turned to look in her direction. There was even a small ripple of applause from people who thought that this was some new element of the play itself. The actors on stage exchanged startled glances.
Romor took a step forward, squinting and shading his eyes with one hand against the glare of the spotlights as he peered into the orchestra seating. He said: “Mamma? Is that you?”
Ricciardi stared, petrified, at the ghost of the old woman, reproduced to perfection by Antonietta. He felt something clamp down on his lungs, expelling the air out through his mouth and leaving him breathless.
There was a violent shout, like the voice of an outraged child. Attilio lunged off the stage and into the audience, eyes bugging out of their sockets, upper lip curled back in a snarl to reveal teeth like those of a ravenous wolf.
“Damn you, you’re not my mother!”
Maione leapt up from his seat with surprising agility and seized the actor’s legs, bringing him down face-first. But in spite of the brigadier’s considerable weight, the man continued to claw his way toward the girl, with his fingers curled like talons and a roar issuing from deep in his chest and out his twisted mouth. Antonietta for her part stared at him, repeating Calise’s last words over and over. It was not until Ardisio and Cesarano had piled on as well that Attilio stopped struggling and burst into tears.
LXII
Don’t try to tell me that’s my mother. Damned witch, filthy whore. Don’t tell me that she’s blood of my blood.
I remember my mother perfectly. She might have been older than the mothers of the other children in the poorhouse; but she was also smarter. She used to tell me, I have to work, you can’t stay with me. But I’ll give you everything, much more than the other children who have just a single outfit, a single pencil, a single notebook. Not me. . My mamma showered me with things. And you know why? Because I’m handsome.
The nuns like me, the schoolteacher likes me. To hell with my classmates, who locked me in the bathroom that one time and covered me with bruises, kicking and punching me on the body but not the face, knowing that otherwise the bruises would show and they’d get in trouble. To hell with them.
The bigger I got and the handsomer I became, the more things my mamma gave me. She used to tell me that I was all she had in the world, that she had to make sure I had everything I wanted. And everything is exactly what I wanted, because a person gets used to having fine things. And if I wanted it, Mamma would get it for me. She told me that I was born by accident; not even she knew exactly how it happened. One day, my father would be a sailor who had left us; another day, if I’d been a good boy, he’d be a nobleman; and on yet another day, if I’d made her mad at me, he’d be a stinking drunk. Now that’s my mamma.
Now I’m grown up and I want to be an actor. Because I’m handsome, did I mention that? Plus I can sing and dance. And if they say I can’t, it’s because they’re jealous, because they’re not as good as I am. Mamma tells me that I can’t let anyone know that I’m her son, otherwise the people won’t pay, and she won’t be able to give me the money. And I go to see her secretly, at night, so she can tell me what it is I need to do. The money-who knows where it comes from? Mamma tells me that the porter woman, the idiot girl’s mamma, is putting her money in the bank for the idiot girl. And she told that lady that they’re equal partners, each one for her own child. But that lady didn’t understand; maybe she’s just as much of an idiot as her idiot daughter. Not me. I’m handsome, Mamma looks at me and smiles. And she tells me what to do, what to say.
So don’t try and tell me that witch is my mamma.