The Seventh Function of Language

Simon listens to Bianca explaining why he almost got his skull caved in by a huge chunk of marble.

“San Gennaro—Saint January—stopped the lava during an eruption of Vesuvius and he has been Naples’s protector ever since. Every year, the bishop takes a bit of his dried blood in a glass vial and he keeps turning it upside down until the blood becomes liquid. If the blood dissolves, Naples will be spared misfortune. And what happened last year, do you think?”

“The blood didn’t dissolve.”

“And then the Camorra embezzled millions that the European Commission gave the city because they’re in control of the reconstruction contracts. So of course, they didn’t do anything, or they did such shoddy work that it’s just as dangerous as before. There are accidents all the time. Neapolitans are used to them.”

Simon and Bianca are sipping coffee on the terrace of the Gambrinus, a very touristy literary café and pastry shop that Simon chose for this meeting. He nibbles a rum baba.

Bianca explains that the expression “See Naples and die” (vedi Napoli e poi muori; in Latin, videre Neapolim et Mori) is in fact a play on words: Mori is a small town near Naples.

She also tells him the history of the pizza: one day, Queen Margherita, married to the king of Italy, Umberto I, discovered this popular meal and made it famous throughout Italy. In tribute, a pizza was named after her, the one containing the colors of the national flag: green (basil), white (mozzarella), and red (tomato).

Up to now, she has not asked a single question about his hand.

A white Fiat double-parks near them.

Bianca becomes more and more animated. She starts talking politics. She tells Simon again about the hatred she feels for bourgeois people who hoard all the wealth and starve the people. “Can you believe it, Simon? Some of those bourgeois bastards spend hundreds of thousands of lire just to buy a handbag. A handbag, Simon!”

Two young men get out of the white Fiat and sit on the terrace. They are joined by a third, a biker who parks his Triumph on the pavement. Bianca can’t see them because they are behind her back. It is the scarf gang from Bologna.

If Simon is surprised to see them here, he doesn’t show it.

Bianca sobs with rage, thinking about the excesses of the Italian middle classes. She heaps insults on Reagan. She is suspicious of Mitterrand because, on that side of the Alps as on this one, the socialists are always traitors. Bettino Craxi is a piece of shit. They all deserve to die, and she would happily execute them herself given the chance. The world seems infinitely dark to her, thinks Simon, who cannot really claim she is wrong.

The three young men have ordered beers and lit cigarettes when another character arrives, already known to Simon: his Venice opponent, the man who mutilated him, flanked by two bodyguards.

Simon leans over his rum baba, hiding his face. The man shakes hands like a VIP, a local elected official or a high-ranking Camorra member (the distinction is often not very clear, here). He disappears inside the café.

Bianca spits on Forlani and his Pentapartito government. Simon worries that she is having a nervous breakdown. Attempting to calm her, he utters some soothing words—“come on, not everything’s that bad, think about Nicaragua…”—and moves his hand under the table to rest on her knee, but through the fabric of Bianca’s trouser leg he touches something hard that is not flesh.

Bianca, startled, abruptly pulls her leg beneath her chair. She immediately stops sobbing. She stares at Simon, defiant and imploring at the same time. There is rage, anger, and love in her tears.

Simon says nothing. So, that’s how it is: a happy ending. The one-handed man and the one-legged girl. And, as in all good stories, some guilt to drag around with him: if Bianca lost her leg at Bologna Central, it was his fault. If she had never met him, she would have two legs and would still be able to wear skirts.

But then again, they would also not form this touching handicapped couple. Will they marry and make lots of little Leftists?

Except that this is not the final scene that he had in mind.

Yes, while visiting Naples, he wanted to see Bianca, the young woman he fucked on a dissecting table in Bologna, but right now he has other plans.

Simon makes an imperceptible nod to one of the young men in scarves.

The three of them stand up, put their scarves over their mouths, and enter the café.

Simon and Bianca exchange a long look, communicating an infinity of messages, stories, and emotions, of the past, the present, and, already, the conditional past (the worst of all, the tense of regrets).

The sound of two gunshots. Screams and confusion.

The gang emerge, pushing Simon’s opponent forward. One of the three has his P38 wedged in the lower back of the important Camorra member. Another sweeps the terrace with his, threatening the shocked clientele.