The House of Scorta Read Free

the blow made him reel. He fell into the dust, feet tangling in the stirrup. Blood poured into his eyes. He heard shouting. The men were heating up, each one picking up a stone. They all wanted to strike him. A dense hail of rocks pummeled his body. He felt the hot stones of the countryside bruise his flesh, each blow burning with sun and spreading the dry smell of the hills. His shirt was soaked with warm, thick blood. “I’m down. I won’t resist. Go on, strike me. You won’t kill anything inside me that isn’t already dead. Strike me. I have no strength left. The blood is flowing out of me. Who will throw the last stone?” Strangely, the last stone never came. He thought for a moment that the men, in their cruelty, wanted to prolong his agony. But he was wrong. The village priest had come running and now stood between the men and their prey. He called them monsters and commanded them to desist. Luciano then felt him kneeling at his side. The man’s breath blew in his ear. “Here I am, my son, here I am. Hang on. Don Giorgio will look after you.” The stoning did not resume. Luciano Mascalzone wanted to push the priest away so the Montepuccians could finish what they’d started, but he hadn’t the strength. Didn’t the priest know intervention was useless? That it only dragged out his dying moments? Let them stone him with rage and savagery. Let them trample him and be done with him. This is what he wanted to say to don Giorgio, but no sound came out of his throat.
    Had the priest of Montepuccio not come between the mob and their victim, Luciano Mascalzone would have died a happy man. With a smile on his lips. Like a conqueror flush with victory, cut down in combat. But he lived a little too long — his life bled out of him too slowly, giving him time to hear what he should never have heard.
    The villagers had gathered round his body and, unable to complete their slaughter, began insulting him. Luciano could still hear their voices; they sounded like the last cries of the world. “I guess you won’t be wanting to come round here anymore.” “We told you, Luciano, today’s the day you die.” Then came the final injunction: “Immacolata is the last woman you’ll ever rape, you son of a whore.” The earth shook under Luciano’s depleted body. His mind reeled behind his closed eyelids. Immacolata? Why did they say Immacolata? Who was she? The woman he made love to was Filomena. Immacolata. Filomena. Images from a time long gone merged with the predatory laughter of the mob surrounding him. He saw it all again, and he understood. As the men around him continued jeering, he thought:
    “I almost died a happy man… If not for a few seconds, at most. A few seconds too many… I felt the hot stones strike my body, and it felt good… It was how I thought it would be. Blood flowing. Life escaping. And me smiling to the very end, taunting them… It almost happened, but now I’ll never know that satisfaction. Life tripped me up one last time… I can hear them laughing all around me. The men of Montepuccio are laughing. The earth drinking up my blood is laughing. The donkey and the dogs are laughing. ‘Look at Luciano Mascalzone. He thought he was taking Filomena and deflowered her sister instead. Look at Luciano Mascalzone, who thought he would die in triumph. Look at him lying there in the dust, grimacing like a clown…’ Fate has made a fool of me. The sun is laughing at my mistake… My life is a failure. My death is a failure… I am Luciano Mascalzone and I spit on fate, which makes a mockery of men.”
    The woman Luciano had made love to was indeed Immacolata. Filomena Biscotti had died of a pulmonary embolism not long after Mascalzone’s arrest. She was survived by her younger sister, Immacolata, who moved into the family home, the only remaining bearer of the Biscotti name. Time passed, fifteen years of imprisonment. Little by little, Immacolata began to resemble her sister. She had the face that