Michael Dibdin: Cosi Fan Tutti

'… like real love between men and women coming together for life.. / 'Aurelio!' '… to marry and have children as God intended!'

'Aurelio!'

The hollow wailing seems to well up from somewhere deep inside the house. Professor Esposito hurriedly crosses himself.

'The Furies!' he mutters. 'This, too, I foresaw/ When the uninvited guests finally appear, Professor Esposito's prediction is seemingly borne out. Not only are they three females, but they are quite clearly furious.

'What do you think you're doing leaving your front door lying open like that?' screeches the central figure, who is squat and elderly. 'And in a city full of blacks! You'll be murdered in your bed!'

'Well, I see you're doing very nicely for yourself,' comments her tall companion on the left, taking in the silver salvers of appetizers and the open bottles of bubbly. 'Still as irresponsible and selfish as ever, eh?'

'Your poor mother's been half out of mind with worry!' the third cuts in. 'The least you could have done was to call home once in a while, but oh, no, you're far too busy and important to bother with things like that. Just who do you think you are, anyway?'

'His name's Aurelio Zen,' a chorus of voices recites helpfully. 'He's a policeman/ Zen turns to the assembled company with the fixed grin of someone who has just glimpsed madness, and discovered that it has its attractions.

'Allow me to introduce my mother Giustiniana, my ex wife Luisella, and Tania Biacis, a friend from Rome/ 'You never told me you were married!' remarks Valeria.

'Signora Valeria Squillace/ Zen explains automatically to the newcomers. 'Ferrarese by birth, widow of Manlio Squillace of this city and mother of Filomena, newly betrothed to Signor Nino Rossi, and of her legitimate sister Orestina, recently unbetrothed to lizio or Sempronio, the latter having taken up with an individual of whom the only thing we know for certain is that he or she is not Albanian.'

He turns to Gesualdo and Sabatino.

'There's still one thing I don't understand…'

'Only one?' exclaims the chorus. 'You're lucky!'

'If these Clean Streets people were just a bunch of local gangsters, why did they try and kill me?'

'You see?' barks Signora Zen, grabbing a glass of spurn ante from a passing waiter. "I said he'd be murdered in his bed! But does he ever listen to what his mother tells him?'

'It was just the same with me,' Luisella murmurs sympathetically.

'He had to be right all the time.'

'The problem is that he's afraid to discuss his feelings,' adds Tania. "I tried to put him in touch with his inner child, but it was no use.'

Gesualdo pushes his way through them.

'The answer to your question, dottore,' he tells Zen, 'is that they mistook you for someone else, a very powerful figure in the clans named Orlando Pagano who has been in hiding for some time. You look quite alike, and since you have been spending the night at the Squillace house.. / 'Mamma!'

This from Orestina, who looks horrified.

'Don Orlando was a close associate of Manlio Squillace,'

Gesualdo continues with a certain malicious pride.

'Indeed, the connection dates back even further, according to our research, to Signora Valeria's father, the founder of the Caselli textile group. Shortly after the war, Pagano put him in touch with a chain of clothing manufacturers here in Naples who…'

He breaks off as Signora Zen grabs his arm.

'Caselli, did you say?'

'That's right, signora.' 'In Ferrara?'

'Exactly." The old lady curls up like an autumn leaf and falls to the ground without a word. Everyone rushes around offering advice, first-aid hints and traditional herbal remedies. For the best part of a minute, Signora Zen is relentlessly slapped, pummelled and shaken. Brandy is forced between her clenched lips, while Pasquale presses the miracle-working silver casket into her bosom. Which of these ministrations proves effective is unclear, but eventually her eyes open.

'A priest! I must make confession."

The guests look at one other in dismay.

'At this hour?'

'Not a chance/ Professor Esposito grabs Pasquale by the arm and pulls him aside. The two confer in low tones for a moment, then disappear inside the house.

'She's not really going to die, is she?' Zen cries in a voice of panic. "I can't manage without you, mamma.

Please don't die. I need you, I love you.'

'Typical,' comments Tania caustically. 'She should stay alive because you need her. What about her? Don't you think she might want to live for herself?' "Men are such bastards/ agrees Luisella.

Pasquale rushes in with an air of great importance.

'I've summoned Father… er, Beccavivi! He'll be here in a moment!'

Sure enough, a tall, thin figure swathed in black appears in the doorway. He hurries over to the stricken woman and kneels beside her.

'In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost,' he intones in a nasal voice. 'Make your confession, my child/ Signora Zen wipes her pallid lips with her tongue.

"I have many sins on my conscience/ she says, 'but the one troubling me most concerns Aurelio, my son.'

'Go on, figlia.' "I had sworn never to reveal the truth, but now I feel the approach of death I feel I must. It all happened one week while my husband Angelo was away. He was an inspector for the railways, and often had to travel for days at a time. On one such occasion, may God forgive me, I went part of the way with him, taking advantage of the cheap ticket to visit my relatives in Verona.'

She gives a rattling gasp and signals for water, which is brought.

'On the way back, I was all alone. The journey seemed to take hours, and I fell to chatting with someone else in my compartment. He was a businessman, from Ferrara.

I'd never met anyone like him before. Angelo was a good man, but he never took much interest in me.'

'I know the feeling/ comments Tania.

"Men are all the same,' adds Luisella.

'Not Lorenzo!' insists the penitent. 'He was different.

He made me feel special and beautiful and exciting. I'm not trying to excuse myself, but 'Did you have carnal relations with this man, my child?' the priestly figure enquires.

Signora Zen smiles gently.

'Oh, yes.'

'More than once, figlia mia?'

'Many, many times!'

The smile fades gradually.

'When my son was born, I tried to pretend it was Angelo's. He never gave me any reason to suppose that he didn't believe me. To tell you the truth, he never seemed particularly interested.'

Tania and Luisella exchange a significant glance.

'And when Angelo went off to war and never came back, it was too late to tell anyone. How could I break it to my boy that his father was not a heroic victim who had fallen fighting for his country, but the owner of a textile mill who abandoned me as soon as I got pregnant even though he went on to make a fortune through a contract to supply uniforms to the local Blackshirts in return for a kickback to the local Fascist chief…'

'Those charges were never proved!' Valeria breaks in.

'Certainly Papa made a lot of money quite quickly, but life was a struggle for everyone back then, and.. / Signora Zen tugs at the black sleeve.

'Father.. "

'Do you wish me to administer extreme unction, my child?'

The penitent shakes her head.

'Is there…' she breathes faintly.

'Yes?'

'Is there any more of that brandy?'

At this point a mosquito lands on Orestina's left ear, which has already been pierced twice to accommodate the silver rings which form part of the new image to which Signora Squillace took exception. Subliminally sensing this additional puncture, she swats at the aggressor.

A rhinestone ring she is sporting on her marriage finger becomes entangled with the twin loops of silver, tearing the delicate flesh of the lobe and causing Orestina to utter various terms of which her mother had fondly believed her to be ignorant.