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“Apparations” was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 69th Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author.
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Ji-Elle, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Apparitions
by Salvatore Difalco
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…..I’m a barber in Queens, New York. I own a little two-chair shop in Elmhurst—complete with a rotating barber’s pole—that I used to run with my cousin Mario, rest his soul, before he passed away last year from a brain aneurysm. I’ve made a decent living over the years, enough to raise my two kids and keep the wife from leaving me, and I like my clients, young and old. Yes, it’s routine. But it’s solid, steady work and if you stay away from the ponies and the vino, you can never get too carried away with yourself when you’re a barber. You tend to stay rooted to what is real and tangible, to what you can feel and squeeze with your fingertips. And that isn’t a bad thing in this life where getting caught up in nonsense is too easy.
…..People always ask, even after two and half decades in the same spot, why I named it Opera Capelli. They figure it has something to do with opera, that I’m an enthusiast, or that maybe I sang some opera in the old country, all kinds of conjectures. I like Italian opera fine, but that’s not it. They also ask about the various marionettes on display throughout my shop—the armored knights, colorful paladins, and flouncy maidens. The answer to both questions is the same.
…..And it’s the same answer when they ask about the beautiful mandolin that hangs above the wash station in the back. I’m a bit cagier when asked about the faded portrait of Saint Rosalia holding a cross stuck to the corner of my work mirror. Yes, she’s the patron saint of Palermo, Sicily. And this is what I usually say. In truth, I have no special devotion to her. I do admit my eyes mist over whenever I dwell on the portrait, but for reasons unrelated to the saint.
…..Before moving to the United States in 1997, I’d lived in Palermo for most of my life. My family and I had moved there from Agrigento when I was a toddler. My father, a cobbler by trade, played clarinet for a local marching band, often donning its signature uniform and cap—black with smart red piping—for a parade, funeral procession or, frankly, any other event requiring the band’s somewhat antiquated services. They played no tune written after World War II. My father, who wasn’t a fool, understood that he and his bandmates were locked in the past, relics of a bygone Sicily, but he didn’t care. He loved to play and his boys loved playing, and enough folks were still around who liked their old-timey sound, so it was all good.
…..In addition to my father being an avid clarinetist, my mother was an accomplished singer, blessed with a beautiful soprano voice that she worked daily with joyful abandon, often singing along with Top 40 tunes on the radio. To my ears, she sounded better than most of the pop singers. So I grew up in a musical household and learned to play piano and guitar at a very young age, steering away from wind instruments because of an aversion to embouchure. I feared my mouth would somehow be deformed by it, and couldn’t help but notice that the shape of my father’s mouth clearly reflected his many years of playing clarinet.
…..Eventually, I studied music at the University of Palermo and specialized in traditional and ancient stringed instruments. I became quite adept at playing everything from the balalaika to the zither. Some classmates tried to get me to join their jazz ensemble as a guitarist, but I didn’t think I had the chops for jazz. I mean, a Sicilian noodling around with jazz just didn’t sit well with me. Even if I could master it technically, I didn’t think I had the improvisational skills, or the inherent internal rhythm necessary to be any good at it. Maybe that’s not true now that I’ve been in America for almost thirty years—not that people play a lot of jazz here in the clubs or on the airwaves—but I could say that in my humble opinion America kind of swings like jazz music, and that jazz music in a sense is America, even though it may not see or hear itself that way.
…..Upon graduating, through a contact I’d made with a drama professor with ties to the puppet theater, I joined an experimental Opera dei Pupi outfit—Teatro Capriccio Marionettistica, funded by a generous government grant advancing Sicilian folkways—as an accompanist. The former accompanist had departed abruptly after some sort of imbroglio to which I was not privy. Opera dei Pupi, with its vividly detailed stringed puppets, medieval trappings and violence, is a uniquely Sicilian art form originating in the early nineteenth century. It dramatizes stories drawn from chivalric literature. My role consisted of playing a traditional mandolin—an instrument easy to learn and difficult to master—along with a drummer and a flautist, to accompany the narrative acted out by the brightly costumed and painted marionettes. The music wasn’t charted, but we were given parameters that kept us from veering too far off the path.
…..The idea of an experimental puppet troupe proposing to preserve folkways might seem at first glance counterintuitive or even absurd, but its visionary founder, the late Maresciallo Puma, wanted to inject new life—and thus cultivate new and younger audiences—into traditional Sicilian stories and approaches by borrowing techniques and modes of presentation from other puppetry traditions, such as those found in Japan, for instance. Thus, chanting and more music—including drums—were added, as well as clearer narrative lines. Violence still predominated, but the music and chanting kept it from descending into cartoonish farce.
…..It was an intense experience, believe it or not. For five years I toured with the company all over Italy and Europe—by train, plane and pullman—to big cities and small, towns, villages and hamlets, and wherever puppet theater was welcome. Of course it wasn’t welcome everywhere. We ran into problems in Hungary when a local Budapest despot took umbrage with our portrayal of Saracens for reasons only known to him and had our show closed down after only three performances. A crew of hard-faced Rendőrség officers in black Mercedes SUVs escorted our three rented pullmans to the city limits and essentially told us to scram. But this was an exception. On the whole, we were well-received.
…..I did enjoy an unforgettable two-week stint in Japan—where they truly respect the puppet arts. In Osaka I saw a moving performance of The Love Suicides at Sonezaki, a puppet show in the bunraku tradition. While there, I learned the rudiments of the shamisen, the traditional three-stringed lute used to accompany the jōruri, the chanted narrative acted out by the dolls in the bunraku performances. At the urging of a Japanese host, I used the shamisen instead of the mandolin for one of our performances, and it didn’t sound bad, but it didn’t sound right either. I was quickly directed to drop the shamisen.
…..Of course, as with any touring company of performers, stories emerged, situations, personality clashes, conflicts, betrayals, ego wars, vendettas, you name it. Puppet theater may not seem a breeding ground for intrigue and human silliness, but as with all human endeavors, it is not immune to predictable and unpredictable complications and ugliness. I myself got caught up in one situation, which crushed my heart and blunted my love of Opera dei Pupi, and may have led to my eventual move to America, where no one really knows or cares about Sicilian puppetry, and where, unable to make a living with music—I had a wife and child by then—I took up barbering. I did it at the urging of my cousin Mario, who had been unhappily styling hair at a trendy salon for several years and wanted a change. Pooling our resources, we opened a barber shop in Elmhurst—that he kindly let me name Opera Capelli—and never looked back.
…..We were in our warehouse rehearsal space on the outskirts of Palermo on a late autumn evening, reviewing one of the tragic tales of Charlemagne—likely from Chansons de Geste, if memory serves correctly, a classic confrontation between paladins and Saracens. I had been with the company for about four years and had mostly stayed out of trouble, and somehow dodged all the crossfire and shrapnel cracking off around me. Two of the pupari or puppeteers—Ruggerio and Mancuso—got into a savage fistfight during one rehearsal, after accusations of infidelity. I never figured out who had been unfaithful to whom or with whom. Other pupari broke up the fight, but only after Ruggerio lost a front tooth. Surprisingly, they didn’t get fired for this incident, and eventually though uneasily reconciled. But I always had the feeling that the curtain had not yet gone down on their story.
…..As for me, I had fallen in love with one of the chanters. I mean, it was love at first sight, and this coming from a man who never for a second believed in such a phenomenon. But boom, at first glance, I was hers, absolutely and eternally. Her name was Rosalia, a green-eyed beauty of twenty from Catania with a sweet voice that made my heart ache. She had joined the company several months prior and had been kept busy learning her parts and getting used to the uneven dynamics of the company. She seemed shy, and perhaps a little lost, but she soldiered on and learned well enough to be considered ready for our next tour stop in Florence, during the Christmas holidays. As mentioned, she was shy, always looking at her feet, and I rarely heard her speak. I tried to catch her eye too many times to count. But she wouldn’t even look at me.
…..Anyway, on this evening of rehearsal in late autumn, in the echoey confines of the unfinished warehouse space, the pupari called me out for playing too loudly. “If we wanted Frank Zappa, we would have called him,” chortled one of them. “How many strings did you break today?” jibed another. Giuseppe Falcone, the director, a dark and imposing man from Lampedusa, said I deserved to be flogged. “Always trying to show off,” he lamented. “But I am in love,” I wanted to say. “I am innamorato.” Knowing that such an admission would only invite ridicule—particularly from the evil pupari, always ready for a slight or dig—I said nothing, lowered my head and continued playing quietly, as directed.
…..At the end of rehearsal, Giuseppe wanted a word. I went into the boxy office he kept adjacent to the rehearsal space, littered with majolica figurines and knickknacks which I presumed he collected. “If you cannot control yourself,” he said without looking at me, “we’ll find another accompanist. I’m sure that in today’s economy that won’t be difficult.”
…..“But, direttore, I was doing nothing more than my usual.”
…..“Nonsense. You’re showing off. Ding a ding a ding. Why you’re showing off remains to be seen. But I want a stop to it. I’ll not tell you again. Do we understand each other?”
…..Again, Giuseppe averted my gaze as he spoke, and an impulse to strike his arrogant face almost overcame me. I glanced at his silly majolica figurines and envisaged swatting them with great crackling and crashing off their shelves. But my spirits tanked when I spotted above Giuseppe’s desk an autographed black-and-white photo of him smiling up a storm with the actor Giancarlo Giannini, one of my personal favorites. I left his office with my shoulders in my pockets.
…..As I walked over the unvarnished floor of the darkened rehearsal space, I thought I detected someone in the corner. I squinted and tried to make out who it was, but I could only discern a shadowy shape. “Hello,” I said. Certain I heard a slight gasp or exhalation, I leaned forward to get a better look. “Hello?” I said. Nothing.
…..As I closed the distance, I could sense the person shrinking. I paused and waited for my eyes to adjust to the uneven shadows. To my utter surprise, I saw that it was Rosalia. She looked startled and startlingly beautiful, her green eyes glinting in the gloom. I could smell her scent, a lightly floral eau d’cologne with a hint of sweat, and something else, something indefinite that made my nostrils flare. I was at a loss for words, my legs shaking. For a moment I thought I might pass out. She said nothing on her part, but simply stared at me without blinking, her chest slowly rising and falling. She had on a frilly yellow top with a plunging neckline that she wasn’t wearing during the rehearsal. I could see the faint line of her cleavage. I swallowed and was about to introduce myself when she darted off toward the washrooms. I stood there a moment before heading for the exit, flushed and somewhat bewlidered.
…..On the way home I questioned a number of things. What was Rosalia doing there lurking in the shadows? I thought of Giuseppe and his rude manner toward me. He was known as a bit of a womanizer. There were stories. There are always stories with men in power. I had no reason not to believe them. A brute is a brute. Then, as I neared my house, I began to wonder if I had seen Rosalia at all, if my obsession with her had escalated into hallucinations or a type of projected wish-fulfillment. It would have been lovely and romantic to run into Rosalia in the shadows of the rehearsal space. In another universe, another life, she could have been there waiting for me to express her interest, nay, to tell me that she had been as stricken at first sight as I had been. But such was not the case. She was real and present in this world, but I did not exist in it for her.
…..That night, I slept in fits and starts. I wanted nothing more than to be with Rosalia, but it seemed an impossibility. I couldn’t even talk to her. And she had no interest in talking to me. On what basis did I pine for her? At breakfast, I barely touched my latte. My mother expressed concern.
…..“What’s wrong?” she asked.
…..“I am in love with an apparition, Ma.”
…..She sighed and nodded. “Your father was an apparition, you know,” she said, to my chagrin.
…..Of course I had no memory of my father, who presumably died before I was born.
…..“What do you mean apparition?”
…..“That’s right,” she said. “He never really existed. Perhaps you suffer the same affliction as I do. We are drawn to apparitions.”
…..I puzzled over my mother’s words, wondering if she was being sarcastic or metaphorical or if she actually believed in apparitions. In any event, I understood exactly what she meant. That we had a tendency to be attracted to people beyond our reach. But was Rosalia beyond my reach? She was just a chanter in an insignificant opera dei Pupi company. Not to downplay her status, but it surely was no higher than mine. On the other hand, Rosalia possessed one thing that I did not and that was perhaps truly beyond my reach: beauty. The great equalizer and elevator of status. Beauty trumps most things in this life. And I say that with no bitterness.
…..That evening at rehearsal, I made no attempt to look at Rosalia, as difficult as it was. If she was an apparition, I had to avoid her. In a rare move, Giuseppe complimented me on the dulcet tones of my accompaniment. “Ah, that’s more like it,” he said.
…..Apropos of nothing, I blurted out, “My father was an apparition!”
…..At first Giuseppe’s brows knitted in puzzlement. Then after a moment, he nodded and said, “My father was also an apparition. And you’ll find that is true of many of our troupe, that their fathers were apparitions.”
…..I had one question for him before we continued with the rehearsal: “Is Rosalia an apparition?”
…..A long silence ensued.
…..“Well, yes and no,” Giuseppe finally said, not looking at me.
…..I waited for his followup.
…..“She’s not an apparition per se.”
…..He leaned in close to me and squared his face to mine. I could feel the heat of his breath.
…..“That is to say,” he continued, “she has a distinct and solid physical form—a comely one at that heh heh—and clearly a lovely voice with which to chant, but as far as you’re concerned, she might as well be an apparition.”
…..He paused. The pause felt immense and menacing.
…..He looked at me with his flat black eyes. “Do we understand each other?”
…..I nodded.
…..“Very well, then,” he said, turning to the troupe. “Let’s take it from the top, people.”
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Poet and storyteller Salvatore Difalco lives in Toronto, Canada. He is the author of five books including Black Rabbit & Other Stories (Anvil Press). Recent journal appearances include Cafe Irreal, Fictive Dream, and E-ratio.
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“My Vertical Landscape,” Felicia A. Rivers’ winning story in the 69th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
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