Diario di bordo

Reginald Catchpole reclined in a bath full of bubbles in his lavish flat above his antique shop. The walls were covered in red-flock wallpaper not unlike that which you would find in any tacky restaurant. The only light in the room was from a candle chandelier hanging over his head. He held a pink hippo-shaped nailbrush in his right hand while his left hand drifted in the air, conducting the soft music that gently flowed from the horn of his wind-up gramophone which stood on an occasional table just behind him. He wore nothing but a plastic shower cap and, covered in white bubbles, he looked as if nothing short of a herd of elephants in the bathroom with him (he chuckled at the very thought) could disturb his ecstasy. Suddenly, climbing the stairs at great speed, as if riding a thundering herd of elephants wearing hobnailed boots, Sid burst his way into the bathroom. Reginald hurled his hippo-shaped nailbrush five feet into the air, where it landed on the chandelier between two lit candles.
“How many times must I tell you, man? Not when I am taking my ablutions”.
Sid stood there, yellow duster in hand, shaking like a leaf, a droplet of sweat trickling down his cheek.
“But, Mr Catchpole,” he burbled, spitting as he spoke in his strong cockney accent and hardly remembering to take a breath between sentences, “something’s happening downstairs. Something amazing!” he said with a note of urgency in his voice.
‘Urgent’ was not generally a word that best described Sid Slug, a man who had been knocked down three times in the last year for not getting out of the way of a speeding granny on her mobility scooter. The fact that the same granny had managed to knock him down each time, all in the same month but on very separate occasions, was suspicious in itself. However, Reginald knew better than to ask deep questions of Sid unless he wanted a long, drawn-out tale that would not necessarily come with a start, middle or an end, let alone an interesting point.
“Don’t tell me you got that blasted woman’s pillbox unlocked.”
“Yes Mr Catchpole, this was inside,” Sid held up a rectangular crystal, “but it wasn’t alone.”
Sid was ordered out of the bathroom to allow Reginald to get out of the bath and cover his pride. Sid ran off back down the stairs, closely followed by Reginald, now with a towel wrapped round his bird-like body. The shower cap was still on his head and bubbles floated off him as he ran. They both stopped short of the door at the bottom of the staircase. Bright lights of every colour shone through the keyhole and through the gap around the door that had been left ajar.

From the novel The Heart of Sitnatia, by Adam Biggs – Il Moscardino

The Heart of Sitnatia di Adam Biggs viene inserito nella vetrina di ShowBooks.

On closer inspection, Reginald could see that it was not a cloud at all but a bicycle-type contraption with little seats. There was no floor beneath them, but rather three sets of pedals which were attached by long chains to two paddles that moved up and down the same way ducks’ feet work under the water. On the back, just behind Reggie’s seat, was an old rattling motor that blew out dry ice which encircled the Thumblator to give it the illusion of being a cloud, but how it floated was, on first glimpse, not evident.

“Quick, pass me the jar,” said Seamus with an element of urgency in his voice. Reginald grabbed the small jar from the inside of his jacket pocket and passed it forward. With Sid’s head still lolloping about on his shoulder, out cold, Seamus opened a hatch on the front of the control panel of the Thumblator and, taking the cork out of the jar, grabbed the wuddlepup and squeezed it tightly with both hands, twisting it to get out all of its pink juice. Reggie leant over the side of the Thumblator, heaving at the sight of such a barbaric act. Totally unmoved by his own actions, Seamus began messing around with the controls as they lifted up into the air. “Pedal like a banshee,” he cried, and, as they sped off at knee height up the ramp and dodged the burning struts with no sign of Rookinda, and out through the opening of the lair, the purple slug that Reginald had left on the floor of the giant birdhouse exploded, sending a jet of flames out through the opening behind them. (…)

Sid slowly came to. He lifted his head from Reginald’s shoulder and rubbed his eyes. Looking about himself, there seemed to be nothing but a swirling mass of mist. Reginald sat next to him, wiping down his shoulder with a white hanky.

“Thank you for dribbling all over my tweed,” groaned Reggie in an affronted manner.

“Where are we?” Sid’s voice had an air of poorly hidden desperation in it.

“Would you mind just popping your feet on those pedals there,” interjected Reggie. “It’s just that I’ve been pedalling for thirty minutes carrying your lump of a body around. I nearly threw you over the side twice, and had your belt taken your weight and not snapped while I was trying to heave you out, I’d have succeeded,” Reginald said as he handed Sid half of a leather belt.

“What? Seamus would never have let you.” Sid looked at the pair agog.

“On the contrary, he helped me,” scoffed Reginald as Seamus turned in his seat and handed Sid the other half of the belt.

“Sorry there about that, but he’s very persuasive don’t ya know,” winked Seamus.

“We’re in my Thumblator, by the way. It’s how we little people have been travelling about for hundreds of years without you giants noticing us. Why do you think we always turn up at the end of a rainbow! We can only travel when there are lots of clouds so as not to be noticed.”

“So we’re in the air? And those?” Sid pointed at the swirling mists around him. “Those are clouds?”

“Oh yes,” nodded Reginald, “you’d have seen them close up if that cheap belt had held together.”

“Right, we’re going down,” screamed Seamus as he pushed a big red button in the centre of the control panel and grabbed the sides of the Thumblator as it took a nose dive down through the clouds. Bursting out through the base and leaving a trail of dry ice like a comet hurtling towards a very unsuspecting earth, Reggie and Sid held each other tight, screaming in panic with their eyes shut firmly.

“We’re gonna die!” screamed Sid.

Seamus just sat at the front, laughing like a schoolboy on a roller coaster. The Thumblator, gaining speed, rocketed towards a ring of cloud circling an island, which was surrounded by a harsh looking sea. As they got closer to the island, the craft did not seem to slow down. Seamus appeared to be steering it towards a hole in the side of a mountain by leaning to the left and then to the right. It looked like the biggest of the mountains, and yet the hole seemed just big enough to take the little craft. Reginald and Sid lifted their feet away from the pedals which were now spinning so fast that they were unable to keep up with them, and the two paddles at the rear of the Thumblator were wagging up and down like the back end of a demented duck.

“Hold this,” shouted Seamus as he passed back his top hat. “Hold it tight!” They did as he said and, as they shot through the opening in the mountain into a huge empty shell of a volcano, the top hat filled with air and trebled in size. The three of them held on to it as it doubled as a crude parachute. The Thumblator, however, continued on its collision course with the opposite side of the interior wall of the volcano, exploding in a burst of red flames and blue lightning.

From the novel The Heart of Sitnatia by Adam Biggs, Il Moscardino 2012

Il Moscardino augura ai suoi scrittori e a tutti i suoi affezionati lettori un sereno Natale e un felicissimo 2013 ricco di belle sorprese…

On December 8th 2012, Moscardino publishes the new and extended eBook version of the novel The Heart of Sitnatia by British author Adam Biggs. A wonderful fantasy adventure: from the depths of the Earth to a mysterious far away island…
Previously published with Lulu.com in 2011, the story begins with the finding of three ancient talismans, each of them linked to a guardian: a wise old man called Vivre…

The morning sunlight that had started breaking through the window suddenly faded and Amelia jumped up as the charred coals behind her burst into life, nearly singeing her pyjamas. Confused, she slowly turned on the spot, looking about the room for signs of any other weird things happening. That is, other than the rain cloud that seemed to appear out of thin air over her head, with sparks of miniature bolts of lightning exploding out of it in all directions. CRACK! A bolt of yellow lightning hit the floor a few metres from Amelia, breaking the floorboards in two and, without warning or invitation, a huge man appeared, surrounded by green sparkly smoke that swirled about him, until it seemed to join the storm cloud hovering above their heads as if to make one huge indoor monsoon.
Amelia stood there, mouth open and face squinting, head tilted on her shoulder like a dog waiting for a treat. “You’re going to have to clean that up,” were the first words she could bring herself to utter, almost oblivious of the fact that there, right there in her father’s bar, stood a seven-foot-tall pale man with white hair and wearing a cream tunic.
He held a staff and had an elongated and wrinkled face.
“I AM VIVRE,” bellowed the stranger.
“Shhh,” Amelia hastily replied, her hands waving furiously in front of her mouth, “my dad is sleeping! He’ll kill us both if he sees this mess!”.
“I am the guardian of the shard,” he said, with a more subdued tone.

Seamus, a leprechaun…

As the green cyclone slowed, so did the rainbow blasts. Reginald and Sid rubbed their eyes and stared in disbelief at the tornado. Deep in its centre they could make out a shape. There, in the green smoke, was the silhouette of a short, squat little man in a top hat, slowly spinning and ever so gently coming to a halt.
As the little man came to a stop and floated down to the ground, they could see that he was no taller than the edge of the worktable. He had broad shoulders, a little green waistcoat, a top hat, shorts which showed off his hairy legs, little black boots with great big leather tongues and gold buckles, a beard of the finest red hair and a bulbous nose.To tell the truth, he looked, for all the world, like a leprechaun, while the glitter continued to rain down.
The colourful explosions ceased, leaving shiny-coloured debris on the wooden floor.

and a little Chinaman whose name is Ping-Ping…

Arthur picked up a book from the shelf and leisurely swung the satchel onto the table.“Blind, I’m blind,” said a voice from behind him. He spun round only to see, to his amazement, that the satchel was covering the head of what looked like a man in a red and gold Chinese robe. He was holding a parchment in one hand and the Sphere of Ping-Ping in the other. Arthur could just make out a wisp of grey beard poking out of the opening of the satchel. Dropping the book, he grabbed the satchel and the jade ball. “What do you think you are doing in there?”
In a thick oriental accent the man replied, “Ping-Ping, you did not summon me?” He looked about the room suspiciously. “I am to fulfil my duty and grant my master’s wish.”
Arthur watched with astonishment as Ping-Ping crawled about on all fours, under the table and around the chairs, calling for his master. Eventually, Arthur couldn’t take any more of it and, grabbing the little man by the scruff of his tunic, dragged him to his feet and held the jade ball in front of him. The little man was unable to take his eyes off it as Arthur moved it from side to side before him.
“You are my master, you rub the Sphere.” 

These three bizarre guardians accompany four adventurers into another dimension that will bring them to the Island of Sitnatia and its many secrets. The four charachters could not differ more, in the sense that they have, apparently, nothing in common: the generous and kind schoolgirl Amelia, the handsome gentleman cat burglar Arthur Pound, the ruthless Reginald Catchpole and his cockney sidekick Sidney Slug. They all have a most important mission to accomplish in order to get their wishes granted. Let’s take a closer look at them and get to know them a little better…

Here is Amelia, «a very content little girl with ash blonde hair inherited from her mother and her father’s big brown eyes», so young but already struck by tragedy:

Amelia’s mother had died the previous summer, and she had now, ever so quickly, become her father’s right hand girl, filling all her spare time with chores. A proud and very loving man, her father had continued running the bar by himself, but this had placed a strain on him and the late nights meant that, now more than ever, Amelia was expected to grow up all the faster.
Every night before locking up, long after Amelia would have climbed up the wooden stairs to her bedroom, her father would put fifty pence on the top of the jukebox that stood in the corner of the lounge bar so that Amelia could have her choice of song as she cleaned down the bar before school. This was just one of the many jobs she had to get done when she woke, and every morning Amelia had chosen the same tune. «Angels played in the background»
As Robbie Williams sang, Amelia would think of her mum. It was her mother’s favourite song, and, as she polished the tables and knick-knacks, she would tap her feet and rock her head, dreaming dreams that masked her aching heart.

This is Arthur, portrayed as a gentleman and most charming adventurer:

Arthur Pound, the infamous cat burglar (and something of a lady’s man) dangled by a rope tied round his waist. It went up through a skylight in the ceiling and the other end of it was tied to the grill on an air conditioning unit that sat on the roof of the People’s Museum of China. He wore a balaclava, gloves and a pair of black shiny jackboots, and an old brown satchel hung from his shoulder.
The huge eerie chamber contained multiple glass cabinets all crammed with long forgotten relics salvaged from countless civilizations.  Creepy shadows were cast in the room owing to poor lighting, and the silence within the room made Arthur paranoid that each creak of his rope and rustle from his clothing would echo around the room.  Placed carefully were terracota warriors, seemingly so positioned that they appeared to continue their duty to guard the ancient imperial treasures.”

Last but not least, Reginald Catchpole and his assistant –better accomplice– Sidney Slug:

In the back room of a long, dark, dimly lit junk shop in a less fashionable part of London sat two dark figures almost untouched by the light. They reclined in a wayward manner; one of the men sat with a crystal glass filled to the brim with sherry, taking a gentle sip so as not to dip his wax-curled moustache in it. He wore a tweed waistcoat, a beige checked matching jacket, black woollen trousers and a dickey bow that hung loosely, as if it had been put on in the dark by a man with no mirror and no thumbs. His hair was thin and greasy, and a rank smell of paraffin wax filled the air with the stench that you only get with an over-heated oil lamp.
The other man sat hunched over a polishing machine with a silver candlestick grasped in his fat, sausage-like fingers. He was bald, in his early forties, with a wisp of hair combed over from his left temple to his right ear. He had a button nose and beady eyes from having to work in the near-dark for fear that his dubious work would be noticed by a passer-by, or a snoop out to thwart their plans of conning some wealthy old widow out of her fortune with their forgeries and faked antiques.”
These men were renowned con artists Reginald Catchpole and Sid Slug. Reginald was the leader of the duo, as well as a bankrupt aristocrat from a reputedly shamed family.

What are the four of them looking for on an island where nothing is apparently what it seems? The most incredible adventure will take them to the heart of a volcano where they will finally learn the truth and, above all, their innermost self. Life can be full of surprises…
A delightful fantasy novel with plenty of humour, to be read in a sitting.

There had been a loud rapping on the front door, which had caused them to look at one another in surprise. Only strangers used the front door rather than the one at the side of the house and they usually rang the bell, not assaulted the wood with their knuckles.
“The bell must be broken again,” Frances had said. “Probably it’s Jehovah Witnesses.” She went to investigate.
Julia had crossed to the kitchen window and watched as her father dead-headed a rose bush. He looked up, saw her, smiled and raised his left hand to his mouth a couple of times, indicating that he could do with a cup of tea. She filled the kettle and switched it on, before going to find out who on earth it could be who had called and been shown, ceremoniously, into the front-room. She could hear a man’s voice, loud and confident, assuring Frances that she was as pretty as ever. The visitor was sitting in an armchair with his back to the sunlight, which was flooding in through the bay window. He stood as Julia entered, laughing boisterously at her lack of recognition.
“Don’t you remember me either, Julia?” and, immediately, she did.
“Bruce Burns,” she said faintly in disbelief and without pleasure.
“The one and only,” he asserted shaking her hand vigorously. He looked from her to Frances and laughed again, delighted with their air of bemused amazement.
“Do let’s sit down,” Frances said. She was going to enjoy this. Julia subsided into the nearest chair as if gravity had suddenly become too great to resist. Bruce Burns dropped back into the shabby armchair with total disregard for its ageing springs and Frances perched herself daintily on the edge of the sofa, looking eager.
“You look well,” Julia said because she had to say something, it was only polite.
“Fit as a fiddle,” he declared with relish. “I make a point of walking as much as possible and visit the gym at least once a week.” This last boast proved to be untrue. He was tall and heavily built, much as they remembered him at school, but there was a suspicion that beneath the light grey suit, which seemed to Julia to be too formal for the occasion, he was fleshy rather than muscular. “Still living at home, then?” he remarked, glancing round the faded room, which Julia considered comfortable, but her sister, with a grand home of her own, would describe as badly in need of a make-over. “What do your husbands do?”
So they were to be defined by their husbands’ jobs. How typical of him, he had always been a male chauvinist. Julia raised her eyebrows and chin in haughty defiance, aware that Frances was waiting with interest for her reply. “Frances’s husband has his own electronics business and she works part-time in his office. I’m a teacher. I never married.”
“Really?”
Julia could tell that he knew. In fact his smug air of interest gave her the impression that he knew all about them, that he had made it his business to find out. When he had made the remark about living at home, he had been looking at her, not Frances.
“What about you, Bruce?” Frances asked, much to his gratification.
“Divorced, I’m afraid. A year ago. One son, Malcolm, sixteen, divides his time between his mother and me. I’ve decided to come back to Dorset to live, been away far too long. I’m opening a restaurant here, my third. The other two are in Brighton.”
That was his prepared potted history and they could glean no more, or rather, Frances was able to glean no more, it was beneath Julia’s dignity to try. Except for the fact that he was well-off, he actually admitted, with a complacent smile, that he was “doing very nicely, thank you”.
Julia and Frances were just as cagey. Neither of them talked about their children, because to mention Amelia could be embarrassing and to mention Max without mentioning Amelia was unthinkable. Frances did recall a couple of their school contemporaries, of whom she had fairly recent news, but he showed little interest and dismissed them swiftly and cruelly, remarking that one had been a bit of a snob and the other fat and lazy. Julia and Frances with two years between them had not had the same friends and neither of them had shared their friends with Bruce Burns. In fact, thinking back, Julia could not remember any friends he had been able to call his own. He had existed on the edge of various groups, but had not really belonged to any of them, yet he had not been disliked; tolerated, but not disliked, except by her, because he had pestered her to go out with him.
The conversation had been jumpy and uneasy, with their unexpected visitor providing all the heartiness. Julia could not bring herself to be as attractive as he insisted that she used to be and Frances, having given up trying to get any more information out of him and becoming aware that it was Julia he had called to see, found herself obliged to compensate for her sister’s stubborn silences by constantly making remarks about the weather, the sorry state of the gardens due to lack of rain, the traffic congestion in the town due to hosts of day-trippers, while they both willed him to get up and go so that they could discuss him and his possible motive for coming. Then Julia suddenly remembered with relief that her father, working away in the garden, had asked for tea ages ago and she went to make it, leaving Frances to continue practicing her considerable social charms on him. She brought them in a cup each and a plate of biscuits and, no sooner had he drunk his, than Bruce Burns decided to take his leave. They went to the door with him, mentally pushing his large frame through it and on to the garden path. “I’m looking around for somewhere to live down here,” had been his parting remark as he headed towards the gate. “I fancy a view of the sea.” They watched as he drove away in his expensive car.
“There’s no poetry in that man’s soul,” Frances said with a sigh, as she shut the door.
Julia turned towards her, the polite smile of goodbye changing to a more familiar look of exasperation. “For heaven’s sake, Frances, what do you know about his soul? What do you know about him at all, for that matter?”
“More than you do, I should think. He was in my year at school, not yours.”
“That was ages ago. No doubt he’s changed as much as we have.”
“He sounded the same,” was the truculent response, as Frances followed her into the kitchen. “Loud, full of his own importance. Older and heavier, of course, but aren’t we all?” He had remained impervious to her pretty smiles when Julia was out of the room and she remained as baffled as she had always been by his preference for her plainer, rather too serious, younger sister, who had always treated him, as far as Frances knew, with cool disdain.
“We aren’t heavier,” Julia protested. “Well, not much, anyway.”
“We’re no longer size ten”, Frances reminded her as she tipped the few biscuits left on the plate back into the tin, bashing the lid shut with the palm of her hand as if defying them to leap out and tempt her. “I never liked him,” she added for good measure.
“Well, neither did I, that’s why I never went out with him. He asked me often enough, even though I used to be quite rude to him. He never got the message.” Julia used to think it was because he was thick-skinned, now she wondered charitably if perhaps she had wronged him and that it was because he had been so besotted with her that even her heartless rebuffs had been better than total loss of hope. She wondered how she could ever have been so unfeeling; having suffered so much herself from unrequited love, she could at least sympathise.
“How cruel we were in those days,” Frances said, as if reading her thoughts and they smiled at each other mischievously, recalling the power of their youthful charms, when they could pick and choose amongst their many suitors and not lose a wink of sleep over the tender feelings they had bruised. Frances sighed nostalgically with memories of her popularity and wondered again how Bruce Burns had managed to remain outside the orbit of her vivacity.

From the novel Cross Currents by Barbara Masterton, Il Moscardino 2012

Il 24 settembre 2012 le tre novelle umoristiche di Marina Joffreau L’ultimo concerto del cornista, Eccessi canori e Il saggio di pianoforte vengono inserite nella vetrina di ShowBooks.

Il numero di Agosto 2012 della rivista letteraria Corrente Alternata, una pubblicazione dell’Associazione Culturale Due Fiumi, dedica l’intera pagina 22 al Moscardino, presentando Cross Currents di Barbara Masterton ed Eccessi Canori di Marina Joffreau.
Il Moscardino ringrazia la simpatica rivista torinese.

Fiorisce un Cenacolo, rivista di Lettere e Arti dell’Accademia di Paestum, presenta Eccessi Canori di Marina Joffreau nel numero di Gennaio – Marzo 2012, dedicato alla vita e all’opera del Professor Carmine Manzi recentemente scomparso: insegnante, scrittore, giornalista e poeta, direttore della rivista da lui creata nel 1940, e fondatore dell’Accademia.
Il Moscardino sentitamente ringrazia ed esprime il suo cordoglio.

A mio padre

Ti dicevo
che era caduta la neve,
tanta,
e mi ascoltavi
fragile e indifeso
come un bambino
al quale si racconta una fiaba.

Passarono i giorni,
il vento trafiggeva i pini
lungo il viale
nell’angosciante percorso.

Una barriera ti isolava dal mondo
dissolvendo i colori
della primavera incipiente
nel candore asettico
dei camici bianchi.

Ti parlavo
degli alberi in fiore,
delle viole nascoste
fra l’erba novella.

E tu, celando il dolore
mi tenevi la mano
e… sorridevi.

Anna Manzi

Il 21 luglio 2012 il Moscardino pubblica in versione eBook la novella umoristica di Marina Joffreau Il Saggio di Pianoforte, che chiude la trilogia “a sfondo musicale” iniziata con L’ultimo concerto del cornista.
In quest’ultima novella imperversano un marito e una moglie narcisisti che nutrono l’ambizione di avere un figlio pianista da esibire nei salotti della Torino bene. Inevitabilmente si scontreranno con la cruda realtà che spezzerà il già fragile equilibrio famigliare fondato sull’ipocrisia e sulla smania di apparire, ben evidenti, per non dire imbarazzanti, sin dalle prime righe della novella:

“La sala da pranzo della famiglia Masoero era tutta una profusione di gingilli da quattro soldi. Bomboniere di pessimo gusto ancora complete dei loro confetti stravecchi, dipinte di smalto madreperlato e tutte infiocchettate nel tulle, ricoprivano tavolini, ripiani e mobiletti; riempivano la cristalliera in finto rococò e facevano da cresta pure al televisore a colori da venticinque pollici, di cui Marcello stava ancora pagando le rate.
La moglie Ausilia, perfettamente truccata e senza un capello fuori posto, stava apparecchiando per la cena…”

Ausilia Masoero, nata Martorano, è infatti una frustrata casalinga sposata con un odontotecnico, come lei di umili origini. Non ancora soddisfatta della posizione raggiunta col lavoro del marito, spinge il poveretto a prendere delle decisioni al limite della legalità:

«Mica ti sto chiedendo di diventare un criminale! Solo di lavorare bene, come hai fatto fino a ora, ma rasentando un po’ la legge, rimanendo pur tuttavia nella quasi legalità, nella normalità comunemente accettata, ecco! Sai quanti evadono il fisco: stimati liberi professionisti, onesti imprenditori che danno lavoro e sfamano centinaia di famiglie… e poi, lo riconoscono pure i politici, che quando la pressione fiscale si fa troppo pesante, evadere diventa un dovere del cittadino, ecco!»
Marcello assunse un’aria pensosa, quasi sognante. Forse, faceva ancora in tempo a rimediare al fallimento che era stata la sua vita. Forse avrebbe ancora potuto guadagnarsi la stima di Ausilia. Forse, non le avrebbe più fatto tanto ribrezzo, lui, che era nato bifolco! Avrebbe fatto il salto di qualità, bastava osare! E Ausilia lo avrebbe premiato aumentandogli i gradi. Volle assecondarla.

Allo stesso tempo perseguita con continue minacce e ricatti il loro unico figlio “sopravvissuto” – un complessato ragazzino che a tredici anni bagna ancora il letto – per costringerlo a diventare pianista. Il ragazzo patisce questa situazione invivibile, che lo schiaccia privandolo degli spazi vitali necessari alla sua libera espressione. Il padre Marcello non è da meno nello scagliarsi contro l’infelice adolescente, per dare manforte alla moglie manipolatrice, avida e prepotente, nel disperato e inutile tentativo di guadagnarsene la stima:

“Tutti e due posarono lo sguardo su Felicino che stava suonando, come se fino a quel momento, presi dai loro avidi discorsi, non si fossero manco accorti che il figlio si trovasse con loro nella stessa stanza. Suonava bene, da vero concertista, ma giunto al punto critico, immancabilmente, cadde.
«Accidenti a quel bemolle! Sempre lì t’impappini! Non imparerai mai, sei proprio un crapone!» lo rimproverò la madre risentita, prendendo l’errore come un’offesa personale.
«E dire che spendiamo fior di quattrini per mandarti a lezione da Fratello Gustavo… ecco dove vanno a finire i miei dindi!» le dette manforte il marito per non essere da meno.
«La settimana prossima ci sarà il saggio. Prova solo a farci fare brutta figura e vedrai! Abbiamo invitato anche il dentista, i Martinelli e la Burdisso.» lo minacciò ancora la megera.
Oramai era una gara a chi lo terrorizzava di più, quanto ci godevano! In un attimo si erano rifatti di tutte le sconfitte e le umiliazioni che la vita ingrata aveva prodigato loro in quell’ultima settimana.
«A scaricar casse ai mercati generali, ti metto… quello è il posto per te!» tuonò il padre, padrone solo per gentile concessione della moglie.”

Le mire narcisistiche della madre ossessiva, che sfrutta il figlio per realizzare quelle aspirazioni che le potrebbero permettere di elevarsi nella scala sociale, lo spingeranno invece a commettere atti di autolesionismo che porranno fine alla sua carriera di concertista ma segneranno l’inizio di una nuova era:

“Il pavimento del salottino dei Masoero era cosparso di teste d’insalata, pomodori di varia grandezza, cetrioli, carote e peperoni, mele rosse provenienti dall’Argentina e cocomeri ben maturi. Sembrava una bancarella del mercato ortofrutticolo. Al centro del salotto dominava una casa da bambole che era in realtà abitata dal nuovo porcellino d’India di Felicino.

La bestiolina passeggiava indisturbata in mezzo a tutto quel ben di Dio che le era stato messo a disposizione; il ragazzo, inginocchiato, stava ricoprendo con del foglio d’alluminio da cucina le gambe del tavolo e delle sedie. Il padre, in canottiera e calzoni con le bretelle, si guardava intorno soddisfatto per quella libertà quasi insperata. La casa era tutta sottosopra, un meraviglioso caos regnava ovunque!”

È forse superfluo precisare che il nome di quel simpatico e placido animaletto, protagonista della vivace illustrazione di copertina realizzata da Carla Lastoria, è proprio Libertà? Là, dove prima con Ausilia vigeva il regime del terrore, ora regnerà quella serena quiete così duramente conquistata da Marcello e da Felicino.
Una novella dall’umorismo al vetriolo, che diverte e nel contempo spinge il lettore a scomode riflessioni.