Badfellas (13 page)

Belle and Warren, on their way to school, tried to picture the scene.

“He’s been shut up on that fucking veranda for three months now, he said. His whole vocabulary must get used up several times a day.”

“Are you saying our father’s illiterate…”

“Our father’s an average American, and you’ve forgotten what that means. It means someone who speaks to be understood, not to make sentences. Someone who doesn’t go in for formalities. Someone who is, who has, who says and who does, and doesn’t need any other verbs. He doesn’t dine out or have lunch – he just eats. The past for him is whatever happened before the present, and the future is what comes after – why complicate things? Have you ever tried to list the range of things your father is able to express just by using the word ‘fuck’?”

“No obscenities please.”

“It means much more than any obscenity. ‘Fuck’, coming from him, can mean ‘God, how did I get into this mess’, or ‘That guy is going to have to pay for this one day’, or even just ‘I love this film’. Why should someone like that ever feel the need to write?”

“Well, I like the fact that Dad’s busy, it does him good, and it means he leaves us alone.”

“Well, I find it painful to contemplate. Try and imagine him, at night, on that veranda, with his fat fingers battling with that crappy pre-war typewriter. And when I say ‘his fat fingers’, it’s probably just one single forefinger doing all the work, click, click, click, with a good ten seconds between each click.”

He was wrong about this. Fred used both his forefingers. The left one did everything up to t, g and b, the right one from y, h and n – a fair distribution, except when it came to annoying words like “regrets”, which he
typed entirely with the left finger. Slight calluses were beginning to form at the ends of the fingers. He was settling into the job.

As his children walked to school, Fred, in his deepest sleep, dreamed that he was driving his garden tractor in the garden of the Newark house. Oddly, he was mowing the lawn just while his daughter was having her first communion; she was waiting for her father to come and cut the cake, a giant cube covered with red roses, with a drawing of a chalice and two candles with golden flames and the words
God Bless Belle
written in red icing. In front of the red-brick
palazzo
, dozens of smartly dressed figures had poured out of haphazardly parked Cadillacs, a well-fed lot, the wives with little veils over their faces, the men with carnations in their buttonholes; all of them were now becoming impatient, waiting for Giovanni to deign to get of that fucking tractor and come and cut his daughter’s cake – was this really the right moment to mow the lawn? Belle and Livia were becoming more and more embarrassed, and making excuses to the company, but Giovanni hadn’t noticed anything and continued to parade up and down on his machine, entertaining himself by spraying newly mown grass on the ladies’ dresses. He was laughing, not noticing the murmuring in the ranks, and that this lack of respect was beginning to worry them. He hadn’t even bothered to dress for the occasion, and was wearing sneakers, brown nylon trousers and a white anorak with a hardware store’s insignia on the back. The guests were gathering together, beginning to react, and threatening figures began to approach the tractor. A telephone rang somewhere, very close by. But where?

Fred groaned as he woke from this nightmare, waving his arms around nervously. The telephone didn’t stop ringing. He groped for the receiver on his bedside table.

“Frederick?”

“?…”

“Whalberg. Hope I didn’t wake you up, it must be about eleven in the morning where you are.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Fred grunted, not sure if this was a continuation of the dream.

“I’m in Washington, this call is safe. Quintiliani isn’t listening.”

“Elijah? Is that really you?”

“Yes, Frederick.”

“Congratulations on your election. I followed it from here. It’s always been a dream for you, the Senate, you used to talk about back in the Butchers’ Union days.”

“That’s all so long ago,” the other replied, embarrassed at being reminded of those times.

“I hear you’re a special adviser to the President.”

“Yeah well, I’ve been invited to the White House from time to time, but just for social gatherings. Tell me about you, Frederick. France, eh?”

“There are some good things about it, but I don’t feel at home. ‘There’s no place like home’, like it says in the
Wizard of Oz
.”

“What do you do all day?”

“Not much.”

“I hear you’re… writing.”

“?…”

“…”

“It’s a way of passing the time.”

“Memoirs were mentioned.”

“That’s a big word.”

“Frederick, I think it’s great. I’m sure you’ll do it very well. How far have you got?”

“A few pages, odd bits and pieces.”

“And are you telling… the whole story?”

“How could I tell it all? If I want to be believed, I’d better steer clear of the truth, otherwise they’ll say I’m just a fantasist.”

“So you want people to read it.”

“Well, I’m not thinking about publication, that would be a bit ambitious. At least, not yet.”

“Frederick… this conversation is worrying me…”

“Don’t worry, Elijah, the only real names I’m using are the dead ones. And I’ve changed some of details about the business with the Pan Am freight and the refrigerated trucks, you can sleep easy on that one.”

“…”

“I don’t want to lose the only friends I’ve got left, Elijah. As long as I’m being pampered by the FBI, and as long as they’re keeping me safe at the taxpayer’s expense, why would I go looking for trouble?”

“I understand.”

“If the vets decide to come over for a millionth commemoration at Omaha Beach, come along with them and we can shoot the breeze.”

“Great idea.”

Fred hung up, feeling rather smug. His reputation as a writer was beginning to reach the Senate, government departments, the White House even. Uncle Sam was going to hear about him.

Warren lay stretched out on a bench, one which nobody ever challenged him for, jotting down passing thoughts in a notebook. It was 3rd June, and a wind of freedom was blowing through the school; the younger children hung about the playground, the older ones were at home revising; some sprawled on the grass playing doctors and nurses, others took over the sporting facilities for wild games of football or tennis. But according to time-honoured tradition, the most motivated amongst them devoted all their energies to the end-of-year show.

The town of Cholong-sur-Avre had, since time began, observed the feast of Saint John; in addition to the purely local festivities, a big funfair was always set up on the Place de la Libération over the weekend closest to 21st June. The school administration used the occasion to invite parents along to a big end-of-term show produced by their offspring, and everybody always made a special effort to turn up for the event. The great spectacle began with a choral concert, which was followed by a sketch put on by the members of the theatre workshop, and ended, or had done for the last two or three years, with the showing of a video film made by the sixth-form pupils. Any good idea was welcomed, all talents put to use, and those who wanted to express themselves without having to go on stage helped edit the now famous
Jules Vallès Gazette
, the school magazine. Here you could find the essays which had received the top marks that year, articles written by volunteers, games, puzzles, riddles invented by the children, and two pages of strip cartoons that had been polished up by the art teacher. People who had hitherto felt shy or inhibited found that they could express themselves
here, and each year, a few new talents emerged from the ranks. And this was where they were hoping to catch Warren.

“Write something for us in English. Just a few funny lines that everyone can understand, or a simple play on words – whatever you feel like.”

A play on words… As if any of these Cholong brats, let alone their English teachers, even with all those diplomas, had the faintest idea about what constituted New Jersey humour! That combination of cynicism and mockery honed by fist fights and punches in the jaw, against a background of urban misery. Nothing like life in Cholong! That kind of American humour was the only thing those outcasts really possessed, their only source of pride and dignity. In Newark a good comeback could save you from a knife in the ribs, or at least soften the pain of the knife. That kind of humour didn’t come from reading the classics – it had itself been the inspiration for the classics. A good dose of irony, a dash of euphemism, a splash of nonsense, a little understatement, and the joke was complete, but to make that particular joke you had to have been hungry and afraid, to have trailed in the gutters and taken some knocks. And, like a bullet that misses its target, a badly timed comeback would turn out, more often than not, to be fatal.

Feeling short of inspiration, Warren lay on his bench and searched his memory. His mind wandered back to Newark, to an uncle or aunt’s house, a house full of people, which somehow didn’t feel entirely welcoming, despite all the smiles.

It’s probably a wedding, or some other happy celebration. There are cousins in little suits and little dresses. Warren doesn’t mingle with them – he prefers
the company of the adults, especially those who are friends of the father he so worships. He’s a million miles from suspecting their activities, but already he admires their stature, the way they hold up their heads, their gigantic corpulence. They all hang out together, laughing and mocking each other, like the overgrown schoolboys that they are. Warren already feels that he’s one of them. He creeps towards them without showing himself, so as to listen to their conversation, and perhaps overhear some secrets. He lets himself be forgotten, sliding between the furniture. He doesn’t go too near the centre, where a strange man is holding court, much older and thinner than the others, with white hair and a little hat on his head. If it wasn’t for the little hat, he might be quite frightening. Judging from the way his father is addressing the old man, lowering his voice, Warren realizes that this is someone important. So that’s him, the great Don Mimino, who is spoken of in respectful tones by even the biggest bosses. Warren is torn between fear and admiration, and he listens – they’re talking about opera. His father, like the others, sometimes listens to opera. Some evenings it even brings a tear to his eyes. It must be the Italian language that does it. Don Mimino is asking what’s on at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. They reply:

“You wouldn’t like it, Don Mimino, they’re showing
Boris Godunov
; it’s by a Russian.”

And Don Mimino, sharp as a razor, retorts:

“Boris Godunov?
If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me.”

And all the men burst out laughing.

There was a sudden brainstorm in the mind of the five-year-old boy. Godunov – good enough. The words
had been changed and a new meaning had been invented, and all with the speed of light. Warren had experienced an almost physical sensation before the perfection of this brilliant interlocking of thought and words, along with a sudden beautiful and violent realization of his own intelligence. He had caught and understood the joke and it had been a sort of coming of age for him, this fusion of word and irony burning into his brain, causing an intense feeling of pleasure. There was no need to hide behind the sofa any more; Warren emerged to take his place with the men. His view of the little thin man with the white hair had changed in a single moment: Don Mimino had, with just that one phrase, shut everybody up, and once more proved his enduring sharpness of mind, once again reconfirming his position as boss of bosses. There was no doubt about it, once you had such a weapon you were more or less invincible. For Warren nothing was ever the same again: he could no longer ignore the power words had to conquer and ensnare. He fully intended to learn for himself this art of summing the world up in two or three short sentences, giving it a meaning so as, in the end, to put it all in perspective.

Years later, this perspective had enabled him to overcome the traumatic events surrounding his exile, by sheltering him behind a rampart of irony – this was his way of remaining a true New Yorker.

Now, with his notebook in hand, slumped on his bench, this “good enough” joke seemed a little laborious, but just good enough to fob off on that stupid magazine. The teachers would congratulate him on a tour de force, and he would probably claim authorship. After all, who would dare to challenge that?