Michael Dibdin: Cosi Fan Tutti

The blue-overalled workmen climb aboard the platform at the rear of the orange truck and wave to the driver, who immediately accelerates away, ignoring the overflowing skip standing outside the modern apartment block from which the man in the overcoat emerged earlier. The vehicle roars down the gently sloping street and disappears around the corner to the left. For a few moments its engine can be heard faintly in the distance, then all is still again.

If there had been anyone about in Via Greco on the morning in question, this is what they would have seen.

And in fact several people were about: an old man shaving by the light from his window to save electricity, a single mother who had been up all night with her colicky baby, a child of ten taking in washing on a flat roof high above the street, a vagrant who slept in one of the parked cars by arrangement with the owner. But oddly enough none of them ever mentioned the extraordinary events they had just witnessed to the police or the newspapers, or even to their families, with the exception of Signora Pacca, the insomniac mother, who told the whole story in a low voice to her father that night over dinner. He smiled and nodded and muttered 'Really?' and 'Amazing!' from time to time. But Signor Pacca was stone deaf, and there was no one else in the room.

For the rest, no one breathed a word about what they had seen, although the affair soon became a matter of national notoriety. As if by unspoken agreement, they all acted as though they were opera-goers who, arriving fashionably late, had missed the overture.

La causa e amore 'NotGesualdo!'

'Sabatino? Never!'

The man leaning against the counter smiled in a distant, almost supercilious way. He did not say anything.

'Mamma put you up to this, didn't she?' demanded the older of the sisters with a knowing look.

The man raised his eyebrows expressively.

'She has naturally mentioned her concern. Repeatedly and on numerous occasions, for that matter. But hers is not mine.'

'Then what is?' the younger sister returned swiftly.

Instead of replying, the man raised his hand to summon the barman.

"I think I could stand another coffee. How about you two? The pastries here are supposed to be the best in town.'

'I really couldn't.'

"I shouldn't, really

The man smiled again.

'Exactly what your lovers will say when a suitable opportunity presents itself, according to your mother.'

He turned to the barman.

'Two sfogliatelle for the ladies, and another coffee for me.'

The older sister fixed him with an intense glare. She was tall for a Neapolitan, but with the characteristic sallow skin, glowing dark eyes and very fine black hair, which she wore short. Her features were sharply delineated, especially the firm, decisive mouth and the long straight nose.

"I don't care whether this was your idea, Dottor Zembla, or mamma's,' she declared. 'In either case, it is a transparent attempt, as vain as it is despicable, to undermine the feelings which Gesualdo and I cherish for one another, feelings such as persons of your generation are no longer capable of and whose strength and purity you cannot therefore be expected to understand. If I wished to be vulgar, I might suggest that it is precisely your inability to feel such emotions yourself which has generated the envy and rancour which lie behind this sordid attempt to discredit our poor lovers.'

Aurelio Zen shook his head.

'You are too ingenious, Signorina Orestina. My interest in this matter is entirely mercenary'

'Pronti, dottore!' cried the barman, setting the coffee and the two scallop-shaped pastries on the marble counter.

'How does money come into it?' asked the younger woman, glancing down at the plate before her. Her appearance was softer and less formidable than her sister's, her hair longer and lighter, her flesh paler and plumper.

'Whose money?' Orestina enquired pointedly.

Zen sipped the scalding coffee, served in a cup preheated by boiling run-off from the espresso machine.

'Your mother's/ he said.

'Aha!'

'Let me explain to you her way of thinking…'

'We know that only too well,' returned the younger woman. 'She thinks that Sabatino and Gesualdo are thugs, criminals, gangsters, drug dealers, and Heaven knows what else!'

'Oh certainly, Signorina Filomena! That goes without saying. But where your mother and I differ is that she doesn't believe that they are really in love with you. Not only have you chosen to bestow your beauty, brains and breeding on these worthless individuals — I paraphrase your mother's rhetoric here — but, even worse, they are only diverting themselves with you, and will move on to new conquests as soon as they have got what they want.'

'That's a horrible thing to say!' cried Filomena, her green eyes watering. 'Sabatino is always very sweet and respectful to me and he really cares about my feelings.

Mamma has no right to say that he doesn't love me. She's just jealous, that's all.'

'Gesualdo's only crime is that his parents were poor and lived in the wrong part of town,' her sister protested.

'It's simply shameful of mamma to condemn him for that.

He's the finest, truest, kindest, straightest man I've ever met, and worth any number of the snobby, snotty, spoilt brats she would like to marry us off to!'

Aurelio Zen drained his coffee and reached towards his pocket, then paused, frowning. He shook his fingers as though to relieve a cramp.

'My analysis of the situation exactly,' he replied.

'Which is why it's doubly unfortunate that you are unwilling to put their fidelity to the test. As it is, your mother and I may have to wait a long time to see which of us has won.'

'Won?' snapped Orestina. 'Won what?'

'Are you saying that you and mamma have made a bet on our future happiness?' demanded her sister. 'How dare you do such a thing? As though our lives were a horse race or a football match!'

Aurelio Zen shrugged.

'All I wanted to do was to prove your mother wrong.

But since you won't cooperate…'

Filomena lunged forward impulsively and grabbed one of the sfogliatelle.

'And why should we cooperate?' she demanded.

'What's in it for us?'

'A trip to London, for a start.'

'London?'

'We'd need to make your sudden departure look natu ral, of course. What more normal than that two literature students in their final year at the university should go off to England to brush up the language?'

'I've always wanted to go to London,' murmured Orestina wistfully.

'Well, here's your chance,' Zen remarked with a broad smile. 'And if you turn it down, ladies, I shall be forced to conclude that, despite your fervent protestations, you're not really as sure of your boyfriends as you claim to be.'

'Sabatino would never be unfaithful to me!' said Filomena.

'I trust Gesualdo like my own self!' declared Orestina.

I've found a very good package deal,' Zen went on.

'Air tickets, nice hotel in the centre, generous discounts at selected shops, clubs and discos. True, it means flying Alitalia, but a colleague of mine knows someone who works for the ground staff at the airport and he can get you upgraded.'

The younger woman brushed the pastry crumbs from her ample bosom.

'When would we be going?'

'Right away. That gives you a couple of weeks over there before you have to be back to sit your exams.'

'Out of the question/ said Orestina.

'I'll need to discuss it with Sabatino/ said Filomena.

Zen clapped his hand to his forehead.

'For God's sake! The whole point is that they're not to know that it's a test.'

'But I always tell Sabatino everything!' wailed the younger sister, starting to weep again.

'Look!' said Zen. 'If Sabatino and Gesualdo are the paragons you claim, what have you got to lose? You not only get the holiday of a lifetime in London, all expenses paid, but a chance to demonstrate once and for all that these young men, despite their other shortcomings, are indeed worthy of your devotion — and of your hand in marriage. In short, you get a chance to prove your mother wrong, and at her expense!'