The House of Scorta Read Free Page B

first time I’ve spoken in such a long time. You’ve been in Montepuccio for twenty years, maybe more, and you’ve always seen me deep in silence. You thought, like all of Montepuccio, that I had slipped into the icy waters of old age and would never return. Then this morning I appeared and asked for a word with you, and you gave a start. It was as if a dog or the front of a house had begun speaking. You didn’t think it was possible. That’s why you agreed to meet with me. You want to know what old Carmela has to say. You want to know why I had you come here, at night. You give me your arm and I lead you down this little earthen path. We have passed the church on our left. As we turn our backs to the village, your curiosity grows. I thank you for your curiosity, don Salvatore. It helps me not to change my mind.
    I’ll tell you why I’ve started speaking again. It’s because yesterday I began to go mad. Don’t laugh. Why are you laughing? You think that someone can’t be lucid enough to know she’s going mad, if she really is going mad? You’re wrong. On his deathbed, my father said, “I’m dying,” and he died. I’m going mad. It began yesterday, and now my days are numbered. Yesterday I thought back on my life, as I often do, and I couldn’t remember the name of a man I once knew rather well. I’ve thought of him almost every day for the past sixty years. Yesterday his name escaped me. For two seconds, my memory became a vast white desert. It didn’t last long. Then the name resurfaced. Korni. That was the man’s name. Korni. I found it again, but if I could forget his name for even a second, it means my mind has cracked and soon everything will slip away. I know it. That’s why I came to you this morning. I must speak before everything is lost. That’s why I brought you this gift. It’s something I want you to keep. I will tell you about it. I will tell you its story. I want you to hang it in the nave of the church, among the ex-votos. It has to do with Korni. It will look good hanging on the wall of your church. I can’t keep it at home. I risk waking up one morning, having forgotten the story behind it and the person I intended it for. I want you to keep it in your church, and when my granddaughter Anna is old enough, you must give it to her. I will be dead. Or senile. You must do this. It will be as if I’m speaking to her across the years. Look. Here it is. It’s a little piece of wood I had cut, sanded and varnished. In the middle I had them put this old ticket for the Naples to New York line and, under the ticket, a copper medallion engraved with the words: “In memory of Korni. Who guided us through the streets of New York.” I’m entrusting it to you. Don’t forget. It’s for Anna.
    I’m going to talk now, don Salvatore, but there’s one last thing I must do. I brought some cigarettes for you. I like the smell of tobacco. Smoke, I beg you. The wind will blow the swirls of smoke to the cemetery. My dear departed love the smell of cigarettes. Smoke, don Salvatore. It will do us both good. Smoke a cigarette for the Scortas.
    I’m afraid to speak. The air is warm and the sky hangs low so it can listen to us. I will tell you everything. The wind will carry my words away. Let me imagine that I’m speaking to the wind, and that you can barely hear me.

 
     
PART II

ROCCO’S CURSE

 
     
    I mmacolata never recovered from the birth. It was as if all her spinster’s strength had been drained by this exertion of the flesh. A birth was too great an event for this hapless soul, whom life had accustomed to the unbroken calm of empty days. Her body succumbed in the days following the delivery. She grew thinner before everyone’s eyes, staying in bed all day, casting fearful glances at the cradle of an infant she didn’t know what to do with. She had only enough time to name the newborn child: Rocco. That was all. The idea of being a good or bad mother did not trouble her in the least.