Eternal Death

An excerpt from Trinàcria

You alone on earth are eternal, Death. All things return to you. You cradle our naked being. In you, we rest secure—not happy, no, but safe from ancient sorrow. But why should that concern you happy children of this modern age? That warning at the gate does not apply to you. So you think. Much has changed since those words were carved, but one thing never changes: We all die, but still the mind clings to illusion until it rots. That is why we tell stories. To pretend otherwise, to rock ourselves to sleep and turn oblivion into a lullaby. Is it any wonder God never listens? Is it any wonder time unweaves every word?

 Ha, ha, ha, ha!

You hear? The dead mock you. And the more you chatter, the more we laugh. Our one consolation. Every joke is an epitaph for a feeling. It numbs regret and kills tedium. La noia, we call it. The cosmic boredom that is our common fate. And so we pass time listening to gossip. The Three-Twenty-Seven bus has become so bumpy. The pastries at Gulì’s are so over-priced. The public works commissioner should be jailed. Divertimenti for an eternal salon.

Ha, ha, ha, ha!

The Capuchin catacombs are as cool and damp as those underground chambers in Bagheria, where once we escaped the sirocco. Now we find refuge from life’s heat. Muffled by stone, the traffic above us purls like a stream in a grotto. I would love to see these new machines, for father’s sake. Made in Turin, I understand. More Piedmontese presumption. What do these Northerners know about carriages? They never parked at the Marina, in a car of ebony and gold, making love and eating jasmine-petal ices till two in the morning. They never defied Lord Bentinck’s edict and drove through the Quattro Canti in a coach and six, the coins for the fine sown in the horses’ plumed headbands and picked by the carabinieri. Ciccio, Regina’s husband, did better work. But I cannot afford to be a snob. My great-grandson sells horseless carriages in America, and his money pays the rent and keeps me in style. The least he can do, considering he killed me.

Ha, ha, ha, ha!

Legally, I should not be here. Mummification was banned the year before I died, but the Villabatesi conspired on my behalf and confected ghost stories for the abbot. I prowled the fields at night in the shape of a she-wolf, they claimed. Dissolving into mist, I mingled with the oranges and lemons, turned into a poisonous cloud, and choked the field hands at dawn. I beat my former groom in his sleep. The old man could show his reverence the bruise from my crop. Somehow, they said, I must be appeased. My spirit would not rest, until I joined my ancestors. The abbot refused. The next morning, he awoke and found the saints knocked off their pedestals in the main chapel. He hastily obtained a dispensation and personally embalmed me.

Such stories shock the American tourists, but Sicily pampers and exalts her dead. On the Feast of All Souls, relatives come to offer us gifts and to change our clothes. Sometimes they reinforce our rotting limbs with wire hangers. A necessity, I’m afraid. Although we try to remain presentable, time and gravity can be cruel. Most of us miss a jaw, a hand, or a foot. Every time I see my reflection, I sigh. Did this scarecrow seduce at one ball the Princes of Salina, Assaro, Trabia, and Camastra? Penance for my sins. When I was young and glib, I angered Archbishop Pignatelli by calling the mummies baccalá, dried cod.

Now look at me . . .