My Mother-in-Law Drinks (24 page)

 

I review events and reflect.

There are only the three of us left in here (Matteo the deli counterman just a short while ago obtained permission to leave). Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo has captured his man and exhibited him before the video cameras exactly as he had planned. He's told his tragic story and delivered it into the public realm. He introduced himself with his first and last name, and then he introduced his prey, also with first and last name. He has attracted the attention of the mass media and compelled law enforcement to intervene. He has succeeded in having the building isolated and surrounded. In mobilizing a daunting array of men, vehicles, and infrastructure. Outside, the usual little knot of pro-mob-boss demonstrators are probably getting ready to make themselves heard, just to throw the sense of solidarity among the crowd back into a minor state of crisis. The video footage that has been stored in the supermarket's central computer and broadcast on television up to this moment alone is destined to become the subject of studies, arguments, and especially media jackals for a long, long time from here on. Even if Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo stopped right here, limiting himself to taking this man hostage without going any further, he'd still go down in history. At this point, whether or not he shoots his prisoner is a fairly secondary matter. He's already become an icon of a civil society that has nothing left to lose and is now desperately counterattacking, and he's probably well aware of it (even if this was not his goal). Before long, Mulder has told us, Assistant District Attorney Carlo Alberto Garavaglia will arrive; for years he has been investigating the criminal activities of Gabriele Caldiero (alias Matrix), and he wishes to have a frank and open discussion (that is exactly what Mulder said, verbatim) with Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo, in the hopes of dissuading him from taking this all the way, I presume. With regard to which Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo merely observed: “I have nothing to say to Dottor Garavaglia, except that today I will do the job he failed to do.”

His plan, in other words, putting aside whatever finale may be awaiting us, has worked out perfectly.

And I, now that we're about to get to the (so to speak) good part, have had my fill of the whole thing. Because I'm suddenly filled with an oppressive feeling of self-pity, and I can't stand being here a minute longer.

If you think that self-pity is an inappropriate emotion in this sort of situation, you're quite wrong. I've spent my whole life getting sucked into things that mean nothing to me, spending time in places I want to leave.

How many times have I found myself in similar situations? Sure, without armed engineers, okay, but perfectly identical in essence. Situations in which I could feel someone stitching a role onto me that was not mine, appropriating my life, my desires, and who I thought I wanted to be. I'm all too familiar with that malaise, that wondering, “What on earth am I doing here?” and staying even when all I want to do is go, or, even better, never to have been there in the first place. If I have one regret, it's that I've accepted instead of walking away, that I've said yes to keep from disappointing the expectations of those who have placed their faith in me; and the years have gone by, turning me into that domesticated version of myself that I know I am now.

I see myself, right here and now, not much older than twenty-five, in a courtroom during a hearing in a criminal trial, as a pair of carabinieri escort a sort of CEO of the Camorra into a cage located just a few yards away from the raised podium where the panel of judges presides (a distance that, choreographically as well as visually, has always reminded me of the distance between a baby's crib—which, in fact, has bars—and the big bed where Mamma and Papà sleep), and the guy's attitude is one more of concession than of submission to the legal process, a nonchalance typical of the habitué, as if all that remained to be ascertained in his case was how to conveniently reconcile the various charges and who knows what other debts to society remaining on his account, recalculating a sentence or weighing it and eventually reducing it in light of other sentences; and the only thing I'm thinking about in that moment is that I can't stand wearing a tie, that I've never been able to stand it because it makes me feel stiff and I have a hard time breathing; and yet I've been putting one on every morning for the past six months, and in the past few weeks I've even been successfully tying the knot on the first try, and what's worse is that I'm getting used to seeing myself in the mirror with these clothes on. And then I decide that I absolutely need to find a new café, because the barista at the café I go to get my breakfast at every morning already calls me Counselor, but I'm not a lawyer, I'm tempted to tell him, I only just graduated, I haven't passed the bar, I'm not sure what I want to do, I might not even take the bar exam at all, I don't want your terms of respect, direct your expectations elsewhere and stop filing liens on me, I refuse to sign, I'm not planning to marry your daughter, Signore Barista.

 

“See you around, Engineer,” I say to Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo, catching him off guard.

And I start heading toward the aisle.

All outside sounds die away at that exact moment.

You could hear a pin drop.

The impression I get—crystal clear, as if I were visualizing it—is of a wave withdrawing and pausing for a moment before crashing down on the rocks again.

It takes me a minute to remember that we're broadcasting live.

“What?” says Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo.

He seems so sincere that then and there I think that he really didn't understand me.

“I'm leaving,” I explain, with the same nonchalance that I would have used if he'd asked me what time it was. “I don't intend to stay here.”

A half-smile appears on his lips, like an indulgent father who's been disobeyed.

“I don't recall telling you that you could go.”

“I didn't ask your permission.”

He thinks it over.

“Don't provoke me, Counselor.”

“And if I do, what are you going to do about it? Shoot me?”

We plunge into a silence that lingers in the air.

In the monitor I glimpse the silhouettes of Scully and Mulder as they seem to sharpen. Matrix lifts his head and looks at me; I sense his admiration. Then I feel something like a shiver running through an audience held in suspense, emanating either from the monitors or else from the crowd waiting behind a barricade outside, and directed at me personally. There is no doubt that I'm making quite an impression at this point. And it's even likely that I gave my defiant answer for this exact purpose.

If you want me to tell you, the dimension of live TV is not bad at all. Because everything you do or say automatically benefits from a heightened symbolic potency, which disinhibits you so much that it pushes you to go all the way in anything you've started, even if you're not entirely sure of it (like right now, when I must seem like a very courageous guy, whereas all I really want is to get out of here).

It's the most natural thing in the world, in fact, to feel a surge of pleasure upon seeing reality respond promptly to any input. Because reality doesn't usually let anything shake its foundations so easily. The relationship that reality tends to establish, at least with the human race, is one of delayed cause and effect. I'd even say that, if we really want to tell it like it is, most of the time reality is so lackadaisical that by the time it responds, you're long over it. And so by the time reality is there in front of you, all willing and eager (television perfectly produces this impression of transition-in-process), obviously, you're glad to take advantage of it.

It's a little bit like winning at roulette or craps, actually.

Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo continues to look at me without speaking. In a certain sense, I've got him cornered. The most telling detail is the way he keeps shooting glances at the monitors.

“You know perfectly well that I wouldn't do that.”

I look at his pistol.

“No, in fact, I don't know that at all.”

He stares at me.

In this moment, it seems to me as if I've disarmed him.

So I press on:

“Would you trust me, if I were talking to you with a gun in my hand?”

“You're not the one I'm using it against.”

I reply in a stream of words, following the flow of my own arugmentation:

“The mere fact that you have it changes everything.”

We stop talking and look at each other. I'm so satisfied with what I've said that I think this really would be the perfect moment to turn and leave. If there's one thing that I really like (this is something I haven't mentioned yet) it's walking off-stage.

When there's no crushing retort, of course.

Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo thinks it over, then nods, allowing a hostility that he hasn't shown until now to shine through.

“Do you want to know what you've just made me realize, Counselor Malinconico?”

I say nothing and wait for him to answer his own question.

“If with this performance straight out of an American TV drama you expect to get me to beg you or even force you to stay, you're mistaken. But what's worse is that you haven't understood the way things work. Not just in here, but also outside in the larger world.”

Whereupon I have to exercise great self-control to keep from popping him one in the nose. First of all, to hear him accuse me of televised exhibitionism—him of all people!—is at the very least ridiculous. Second, I can't stand these kinds of attempted thefts of other people's dialectical advantages with the aggravating factor of paternalism. We're arguing, I trip you up, and so now you say that I'm the one who doesn't get it? It's an ugly accusation, telling others they don't get it when it's all perfectly clear. What, did you have an ace up your sleeve that you were refraining from using out of chivalry? Fuck you: if you're so smart, how come you didn't say it earlier? Or else, be my guest, let's see if you know how to shake the foundations.

“Oh, really?” I retort, with a sarcasm that gives me a great deal of pleasure, considering that I usually tend not to know how to reply in this kind of situation. “Well, excuse me if I don't understand much about the world, Engineer. Too bad there's not a damned thing to understand here, aside from the fact that you're forcing us all to witness your misbegotten spectacle, which frankly ranks far below a cheap American TV drama.”

The hyenas burst into an obscene explosion of laughter that can be heard from here.

“I'm not forcing you in the slightest,” Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo rejoins with an irritating show of calm. “Do you want to leave? Go ahead. After all, I'm just trying to do you a favor. If you choose not to take advantage of it, so much the worse for you.”

This last line sounds even crazier than the one before it. For a moment I stare at him, as if I'd missed something and were trying to figure out whether the atrocity that had just escaped his lips had any foundation in fact. That's what happens when people try to foist the reverse of the facts on you.

“Hey, try not to spout any more bullshit. We've heard far too much of it already today.”

And instinctively I turn to look at Mary Stracqua.

Who looks back at me uncomfortably.

More cackling.

And even one who hiccups.

I didn't do it on purpose, I swear.

“Let's get one thing clear, all right?” I continue. “First, I don't need any favors; second, I didn't ask you for any; third, taking someone hostage isn't a favor: ask around.”

“I took a criminal hostage, Counselor, not you. I only offered you a case. And the offer still holds, if you're interested. I really don't understand why you're clinging to this stupid matter of principle. After all, all I asked for was for you to do your job, nothing more. And what's more, until just a short while ago, you were doing very well.”

Now I lose it.

“It's time for you to cut it out with this buffoonery, Engi­neer. I'm not working as a lawyer here. I'm just another one of your hostages being forced into a cameo in a television format of questionable taste.”

“Exactly. How can you fail to see the opportunity that's just fallen into your lap?”

I'm left speechless.

Some wise guy outside laughs.

“Excuse me?”

“You have a counter-historical concept of your profession, Counselor. Don't you know what kind of world you're living in? Do you still believe that trials are held in courthouses?”

I take a deep breath and force myself to think clearly.

“Oookay. You already said that to Captain Mul . . . you've already said it. And it's an interesting and provocative idea, I won't deny that. But if you expect us to take it literally you really are delirious.”

“Then take this literally: who are you? A famous lawyer, by chance?”

My head starts swimming slightly (when people insult me, I generally tend to get dizzy), then I turn red as a prawn and probably start to puff up too.

“You're an asshole.”

No reply.

In fact, just a smile.

Outside, the hyenas seem to be having a party.

I look up at the television monitor and see Scully covering her mouth with her hand.

My jaw quivers.

“If you weren't holding a gun I'd punch you right in the mouth.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“
You're sorry?
Go fuck yourself.”

“What I meant was simply that I doubt you're any less talented than any number of trained pet lawyers who pontificate on television every other day, and on the odd days too.”

That much is true, I think to myself.

“I'm not a TV showgirl, Engineer. I'm a lawyer. I don't need spotlights and I don't need cameras. You can have them.”