Commissa’, in truth, my brother—you never actually met him. The person he used to be, the man, the worker he once was. You never met him.
He’s the best young man in the world, or actually, he was. Always cheerful, always thinking about the business, all the work we do he dreamed it up himself. We were poor, we were starving; we had a vegetable garden that didn’t even produce enough for us. And as long as he was with Maria Rosaria, when they were kids, they were satisfied with what they had.
That woman, Commissa’, she robbed my brother of his will. When he had her, he didn’t want anything else.
Then, when that man took her for himself and fathered her child, my brother resigned himself to it and started working, and he changed all our lives.
I don’t know if he was doing it was so that he wouldn’t have to think about her, or because without her he found other motives, like love for his own family: but he became another man. Little by little, with hard work and sweat, we became what we are now. We all work for the company—you saw my one sister, and the other one that you never met, and I take care of the carts and the animals: but the one who decides, who makes the choices, who points the way for everyone else—that’s my brother; without him we’re nothing. Without him we’ll just go back to being the miserable yokels we were before.
I met Ines three years ago, when we weren’t much more than kids. She’s not from where I grew up, she came with her sister who, like I told you, is a schoolteacher. We fell in love immediately, but we have nothing, she lives on that miserable salary and I depend on my family. But then I talked my brother into hiring Ines to help us out, and we started to hope. We set a date; at first we’d live together with the family and later we’d build a house of our own.
Everything was going fine, Commissa’. Everything.
And then, the one time I didn’t make the round of deliveries to our customers, and let my brother go in my place, they happened to see each other again.
Bad luck, Commissa’. The worst luck. Bad luck for my brother, whose peaceful life ended; bad luck for Ines and for me, because we were forced to forget about getting married; and bad luck even for her, for Maria Rosaria, seeing how things went in the end.
He went out of his mind, went right back to where he’d broke off when he lost her. He stopped working, he spent all our money on her, to spend time with her, to buy gifts for her. We saw all our hard work go into the house where Maria Rosaria’s mother lived, which grew, one room after another; while he told me—his own brother—that there was no money for me and Ines to get married, that we’d just have to wait. For a whore, Commissa’. Because that’s all she was: nothing but a whore.
But it wasn’t her fault, it was my brother’s fault. He had become convinced that he couldn’t live without her, that he couldn’t lose her again; he decided to marry her, if you can believe it.
You don’t know what it means to hear those words, one Sunday at lunch: he wanted to marry her. We couldn’t get married anymore, Ines and I; and the company would slide into ruin, and we’d lose everything, because my brother couldn’t see beyond her and wouldn’t have cared about anything else anymore.
That very Sunday, after lunch, Ines and I made our decision. There was only one way to save our future. Only one way.
I could pass undisturbed through the little side door, everyone knew me both because I delivered the fruit and vegetables, and because I often went to call my brother, when he lost all sense of time and forgot about the rest of mankind. It was opening time, when all the girls are busy and no one notices anything. I waited for my brother to leave and I immediately slipped into the room.
I wanted to know what Viper had decided. If she was going to tell my brother no, she’d still be alive now.
But when she saw me, she said: I want to surprise your brother. I’m going to give him my answer on Easter Sunday, in less than a week. I’m going to tell him yes on Easter Sunday. I’ll only make him wait until the holiday, and then we’ll take back the future that was taken from us.
You understand, Commissa’? They were taking back their future, and taking away mine and Ines’s. Love at last, she told me: do you know what love is? She asked me, me of all people. A whore who wants to teach me about the meaning of love.
That’s when I picked up the pillow.
I didn’t realize right away that I’d dropped my horse-grooming brush; when I couldn’t find it anymore I just thought I must have lost it while I was driving the cart, it’s happened to me before.
I loved Maria Rosaria, you know. I’m not a monster. When I was a child, since I went everywhere with Peppe, she treated me like a younger brother, I still remember.
She used to make fun of us, she’d say: ah, here they come now, Peppe ’a Frusta avanti e ’o Frustino appresso. Joey the Whip leading, and the Little Whip trailing behind. That’s what she always used to call me, Commissa’: my little whip.
I loved Maria Rosaria.
But what I did, I’d do again. A hundred times over, I’d do it again.